There is a calm
and there is melancholy
There is the ease of routine
and the loss of unpredictability.
I am the obelisk,
things go around me in a whirl,
babies are born,
others die.
Acquaintances are made,
old friends drift away,
a yellowed photograph
that passed on it's shine.
I am different,
I am the same
I am the obelisk
that stands over time.
May 22, 2006
Here I Stand
May 19, 2006
History Justifies...
Kunal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kunal (3rd Century B.C) was the son of Emperor Ashoka and Queen Padmavati. Legend has it that Kunal was renowned for his beautiful eyes. Tishyaraksha, Ashoka's youngest wife gained Ashoka's confidence and plotted to have him blinded and killed, but the official executioners spared Kunal and he became a wandering singer accompanied by his favourite wife Kanchanmala.
Kunal (3rd Century B.C) was the son of Emperor Ashoka and Queen Padmavati. Legend has it that Kunal was renowned for his beautiful eyes. Tishyaraksha, Ashoka's youngest wife gained Ashoka's confidence and plotted to have him blinded and killed, but the official executioners spared Kunal and he became a wandering singer accompanied by his favourite wife Kanchanmala.
In Pataliputra, Ashoka hears Kunal's song, and realizes that Kunal's misfortune may have been a punishment for some past sin of the emperor himself and condemns Tishyaraksha to death, restoring Kunal to the court. Kunal was succeded by his son, Samprati.
A semi-fictionalized portrayal of Kunal's life was produced as a motion picture under the title Veer Kunal (1925).
____________________________________________________________________
Does this mean that all misfortune that comes in my way is not because of something I did, but someone else's Karma?
May 18, 2006
Pune
The city is a paradox. In the words of one of the young business icons of the city, Sulajja Firodia Motwani (Kinetic Motors), the city has all the bustling energy of an upcoming hub, and yet it has not lost it's quaint homely feel. When I visited the city for the first few times, with friends or alone for work, I didn't get a chance to explroe the place much, but I did enjoy the weather. And when I got the chance to spend my two years at B-school at this 'Oxford of the East', I was exhilerated at the thought of spending time away from home on campus.
The place was known as the pensioners' paradise earlier, nestled cosily on a plateau in the Deccan range, with a comfortabe hill-stationesque climate. The landscape is a combination or rocky, undulating terrain and green tops. It is a thrill to go outdoors anywhere in and around the city. The curving roads make for a good ride, the drivers' experience ranging from a 50 kph breezy drive to a 100 kph thrill ride around the sloping hillocks. There is always a trip that can be planned, for 4 hours to a stay over an extended weekend. One will always find avenues.
For the metropolitan raised junkies and the likes, the city has an eclectic mix of fine dining restaurants, pubs and specialty food junctions. No place seems prohibitively distant - if you are staying in a convenient locality. The commercial area of Koregaon Park with it's dozens of firangs near the Osho Park, or the old CBD of MG Road with it's Parsee and Muslim eateries, to the college hangout of FC Road, everyone finds a place to cosy up to. And the rains, so very unpredictable. :)
It's a place where I met an amazing bunch of people. People from diverse backgrounds and hailing from just as varied geographies. Symbiosis was true to it's name - a melting pot of people from across the world. No matter how I fare in the corporate world, or how bitter I get as life unfolds, I will always remember the place with a huge smile on my face. The memories of the first few days here are just as distinct as the final tumultuous times. I met someone who I loved at this place and enjoyed a brief period of bliss, taking walks along beautiful treelined streets, sitting at vacant bus-stops or just sipping away a cuppa coffee at the nearest Barista. The work-cum-play group at B-school was party to numerous presentations over which we fought and squabbled like chicken, last minute presentations, staying up for nights (albeit very few) and the lunches at the NCC canteen. Working late nights in the Council room, attending and making phone calls, the regular frustration because of laptops not logging on to the Wi-fi, begging for attendance, late night calls, parties at Kiva Lounge.
Sometimes these memories hurt, for they won't come back. There might not even be the chance. People will have drifted apart, words never exchanged. Unfulfilled dreams will always bite.
But it made me what I am
......or what I could not be.
The place was known as the pensioners' paradise earlier, nestled cosily on a plateau in the Deccan range, with a comfortabe hill-stationesque climate. The landscape is a combination or rocky, undulating terrain and green tops. It is a thrill to go outdoors anywhere in and around the city. The curving roads make for a good ride, the drivers' experience ranging from a 50 kph breezy drive to a 100 kph thrill ride around the sloping hillocks. There is always a trip that can be planned, for 4 hours to a stay over an extended weekend. One will always find avenues.
For the metropolitan raised junkies and the likes, the city has an eclectic mix of fine dining restaurants, pubs and specialty food junctions. No place seems prohibitively distant - if you are staying in a convenient locality. The commercial area of Koregaon Park with it's dozens of firangs near the Osho Park, or the old CBD of MG Road with it's Parsee and Muslim eateries, to the college hangout of FC Road, everyone finds a place to cosy up to. And the rains, so very unpredictable. :)
It's a place where I met an amazing bunch of people. People from diverse backgrounds and hailing from just as varied geographies. Symbiosis was true to it's name - a melting pot of people from across the world. No matter how I fare in the corporate world, or how bitter I get as life unfolds, I will always remember the place with a huge smile on my face. The memories of the first few days here are just as distinct as the final tumultuous times. I met someone who I loved at this place and enjoyed a brief period of bliss, taking walks along beautiful treelined streets, sitting at vacant bus-stops or just sipping away a cuppa coffee at the nearest Barista. The work-cum-play group at B-school was party to numerous presentations over which we fought and squabbled like chicken, last minute presentations, staying up for nights (albeit very few) and the lunches at the NCC canteen. Working late nights in the Council room, attending and making phone calls, the regular frustration because of laptops not logging on to the Wi-fi, begging for attendance, late night calls, parties at Kiva Lounge.
Sometimes these memories hurt, for they won't come back. There might not even be the chance. People will have drifted apart, words never exchanged. Unfulfilled dreams will always bite.
But it made me what I am
......or what I could not be.
May 12, 2006
And then they said..Gurgaon is hep
It is a very strange place. Gurgaon. The first thing that strikes you in the place is the abundance of shopping malls..and office complexes that look like shopping malls. In this urban location of Haryana, where temperatures vary from 5 degrees cold to 45 degrees hot, the architectural style is distinctly 'Manhattenesque' - glass and steel. And in a place where the average electricity shortfall touches 600 MW during peak hours, you really keep wondering about the word 'energy efficiency'. The Delhi authorities-in a bid to tackle the energy crisis decides to close schools early. Really doesn't matter, does it?
A few days in this place and I kind of started imagining how this place came up. Delhi is getting congested and so there is a need for an SBD (suburban business district) and therefore the Haryana government releases huge plots of land in Gurgaon, which is near the Airport, for commercial development, offers tax sops, promises infrastructure and bingo! You've got Gudgaawan. Once you've got companies setting up their business centers here, people need houses to stay and so the residential enclaves come up. For these residents, you need basic amenities like stores where they can buy their groceries and so you have a few stores coming up near these enclaves. Then you need entertainment for this captive audience and you build shopping malls, multiplexes and watering holes. And because you wanted development to occur in a planned and organized manner, you divided the land into sectors which are auctioned off, a few early birds developed their plots while the rest decided to wait and watch. So you have vast tracts of empty lands and chunks of development in between.
And so, people need to commute. There is no public transport system to speak of. Not enough people to run buses or metros, the auto rickshaws too give the area a pass. So you have cycle rickshaws, bought by people who live in mud houses or on the pavements and haggle with the well off citizens over the fare. On average, it takes about 4 times the time it usually takes to commute the same distance, when compared with a motorised vehicle. In a few years time, when there are enough people, the government thinks it is lucrative enough to build a swanky new MRTS, like the Delhi metro, these cycle pullers are now made redundant. And the very same people, who pulled the overweight citizens over bad roads in the summer and thereby played a part in the development of the city into a business hub, are now deemed to be trespassers and their hutments are encroachments on public land. Enter the frame, bulldozers, razing their abodes into dust.
The clan moves on...in search of some other 'developing' area. Some, merely take up alternative-but just as meagre-means of livelihood. And some economist once argued the case of the trickle down effect of the economy.
'Bhaiyya, thoda jaldi chalao, office ke liye der ho rahi hai...'
A few days in this place and I kind of started imagining how this place came up. Delhi is getting congested and so there is a need for an SBD (suburban business district) and therefore the Haryana government releases huge plots of land in Gurgaon, which is near the Airport, for commercial development, offers tax sops, promises infrastructure and bingo! You've got Gudgaawan. Once you've got companies setting up their business centers here, people need houses to stay and so the residential enclaves come up. For these residents, you need basic amenities like stores where they can buy their groceries and so you have a few stores coming up near these enclaves. Then you need entertainment for this captive audience and you build shopping malls, multiplexes and watering holes. And because you wanted development to occur in a planned and organized manner, you divided the land into sectors which are auctioned off, a few early birds developed their plots while the rest decided to wait and watch. So you have vast tracts of empty lands and chunks of development in between.
And so, people need to commute. There is no public transport system to speak of. Not enough people to run buses or metros, the auto rickshaws too give the area a pass. So you have cycle rickshaws, bought by people who live in mud houses or on the pavements and haggle with the well off citizens over the fare. On average, it takes about 4 times the time it usually takes to commute the same distance, when compared with a motorised vehicle. In a few years time, when there are enough people, the government thinks it is lucrative enough to build a swanky new MRTS, like the Delhi metro, these cycle pullers are now made redundant. And the very same people, who pulled the overweight citizens over bad roads in the summer and thereby played a part in the development of the city into a business hub, are now deemed to be trespassers and their hutments are encroachments on public land. Enter the frame, bulldozers, razing their abodes into dust.
The clan moves on...in search of some other 'developing' area. Some, merely take up alternative-but just as meagre-means of livelihood. And some economist once argued the case of the trickle down effect of the economy.
'Bhaiyya, thoda jaldi chalao, office ke liye der ho rahi hai...'
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