A younger smarter me

I was going through my old posts in the blog today.

It is  already six years since when I have not published a post here. It's six year since I read the post of this blog.

I see a few potential grammatical mistakes in old posts. I also see that I could have rewritten few sentences to make it clearer.

But,  the most striking part is that I think I was better than what I am now. I have not learned anything, I have not improved. It's not that I was good, but now I am not that good also.

I have to start writing. Hopefully, if I keep writing for half an hour a day, I will be able to match six-year younger me in six months.

Snake during day, human at night

It is almost after two years that I read Veenu Sandal today. I guess she was not writing for these many years. I was a regular reader of her columns. And, I beleive that she would be, if she is willing to do it, the best horror movie script writer in India. Ram Gopal Verma must contact her to get a script.

Anyway these things are of no importance here. The life of Veenu Sandal is itself potentially a good horror movie- at least a part of it. Google her to know more. But for convenience I am putting here few lines from a website.

Veenu Sandal, an Indian journalist who writes on waning traditions and lifestyles and has stayed many years in Bastar and other tribal areas, also writes astrology columns for The Asian Age. She was introduced to Tarot card reading by the gypsies on whom she was doing a story in 1986. They predicted that she would be reading cards one day, a prophecy that she promptly dismissed. But the stars thought otherwise. She picked up a book on Tarot from a pavement stall, found it interesting, tried reading a friend's fortune and, in a sense, found her own destiny.

Now to read the article she has written on The Asian Age after I believe almost 2 years click on the link.

By the way I would like to meet her sometime, so I am looking for her email id.

God works in mysterious ways. So does Lalu.

Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar on why we all must have dozens of kids. An economist's perspective:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2021569,curpg-1.cms

Now if you have gone through the article, either you would have hell-bent on having a dozen or you would have found it specious. Yes, this might be an economic sophism as well. Recalling the fantastic essay by Frideric Bastiat, What is seen and what is not seen, we can question the deduction. Though, the analysis is for long duration(three phases), and cites the data of Latin America, it can always be argued that there might be something we are not seeing here. It is only an economic perspective (what about social and political aftereffects), moreover it follows only one line of argument.

By the way could there be any way we can eradicate phase 3 completely? With development in healthcare facilities, the non-earning old population is bound to increase. And, they will be burden to society (in cold,and brutal, and inhumane economist lingo). They are somebody who will only receive from society, and in return society will get nothing. So, this issue has to be addressed as well. May be we will increase the retirement age, or we will provide some reservation for old population in jobs that require less of physical, and mental labour (repeatative mental work). The work will keep them busy, hence happy, hence healthy!

My Hobby

Today I was reading an interview of two artists in The Hindu. Both of them were foreigner. Both of them were a trained professional artist. One was from France, and the second one was from France,too, but he-Alexandre Letellier-- spent the major part of his life travelling and learning music and instruments all over the world.

The French woman--Helene Marionneau-- is a trained ballet dancer, and she is here to learn Bharatnatya from Lalitha Srinivasan. It's three years since she is here. It's three years for Alexandre also since he is here in Bangalore learning Mridanga.

Helen says that she is bored of contemporary dance, as it is about body expression not about facial expression. And Abhinaya,facial expression is what that brought her here.

I have always beleived that mastery in facial expression is what that makes an artist/actor great. It is believed that almost 80 percent of communication happens through body, and the rest through 'words'.And as much as this game of putting things in precentage goes, my hunch is that out of those 80, 70 happens through facial expression. To appreciate this, replay in your mind the scene from movie American Beauty where Angela(friend of Jane) asks Lester Burner, And How are you doing. Lester repeats, 'How am I doing' and then he looks around, searching for the answer, and then he answers confidantly, Yes, I am doing great. I am doing great. Here we see how trivial and useless are the words, it is just the facial expression that convey the message.

This much is about acting. In real life too, nothing speaks about a person as much as his/her facial expression. Because this is what that we don't learn, at least consciouly. A person might be very articulate, expressive with words depending on the education he/she has got. But facial expression is what that tells us about his ability to understand shades of thought and ideas.

Expressions depend a lot on the culture and the sex. Japanese show almost no facial expression. Guys(men) don't possess the variety women seem to have. Particulary what it seems to me that indian woman are the one who are queen of facial expressions. All of them are highly--might be more than required-- expressive. Sometimes we need to conceal our thoughts as well.

Personally I have always enjoyed watching, observing faces of girls. Yes it has to be done stealthily, otherwise you might be misunderstood. Moreover it will make her cautious of your presence, and it will bring that heinous artificiality. So many times I have been asked of my hobby, and my answer has been varied from 'nothing','i have no idea', 'writing', 'a blank expression' to 'it changes too often'. But there were times when--like the aspiration of Holden Caulfield who wanted to become a catcher in the rye--I wanted to say that it's observing a girl's face.

What would have Ogilvy said?

Ogilvy maintained that an advertisement is way to showcase the product not the creative potential of an advertiser. He advised that an advertiser must try to advertise the product not his talent.

Ogilvy came to my mind last saturday when I saw, heard, and felt a rock 'n' roll advertisement of a product-- I wasn't able to notice--in front of Forum. This was in FabMall side of Forum. I entered from M'cdonald side. Nothing was unusual there. Like a usual saturday evening melodious music was in the air. Like a usual Saturday evening girls of various colours, of various sizes, and attired on various magnetic colours (clothes) were roaming aimlessly there. I believe guys were also there, but I am not sure because as usual I overlooked them. Everything was usual there, so as expected on a saturday evening I found it hard to find my way from one side to another because of the crowd. But when after that sweet struggle I reached the other side I observed a unusual thing. It's not there no one was there. Hundereds of girls were there as usual. But they were not looking at myriad direction; all of them were looking across the road towards a 3 storeyed building, might be newly constructed also.

There was a celebration going on. The air was drowned in mucis. The rock music that was rocketing from the top floor of the building, with its sheer force was creating a vibration in all the legs that were there. Every now and then we could see a trail of rocket shot from the building that used to metaphorsize into scatterd multi color stars. And then the languid fall of those broken stars. The atmosphere was festive. Across the road, in front of the building, they had put a thread barrier, so that spectators can not flock inside the shop. People flocked around the barrier, some to find out what's happening there, and most of them to find out why these many people have flocked here.

I think this was an inaugration of the shop. I am still not sure what shop that was, since I was not able to see properly. But next time I will go there, I know I would be more than curious to find out what is it that they sell.

While all this happening, I was thinking in two lines.
First, how legal is it to play a song that loud, and make noise of that nature. I believe they must have taken permission. Though I have to admit that more than noise that was an entertainment. But this is also true that because of flocking traffic got slower. Anyway, keeping aside this issue of legality, this was a great way to noticed.
Secondly, I was thinking of Ogilvy, and his advertising wisdom. This might not be a good advertisement in Ogilvy's perspective. Yes, we can not be sure how much cutomer that the shop will got because of this stunt, but to make people know of thier existence, I can not think of a better way.

Reservation

There has been a lot of talk about the reservation in the premier institutes-- IIT's and IIM's and AIIMS.

And, interestingly, it was not just a talk but a series of strikes all around the country that has consumed reels of newsprint, prime time of television and whole lot of our own personal time in argument. It's good and it's bad as well. It's good because it shows that people have started taking participation in the decisions that gives direction to country. And it’s bad because strike does not seem to be a correct and ethical means to put forth one’s opinion in a civilized society. Though, no one had any choice. As a nation we are yet not developed enough!

Coming to reservation, I guess all angles of the story have already been analyzed. But it would not be futile to get into that eternal discussion on efficacy of reservation for upliftment of deprived class once again. I believe that no one with sane mind ever opposes what reservation is supposed to achieve, but they have problem with the means to achieve this equality of opportunity. That is, they have problem with reservation, and rather to be precise they have problem with the implementation of reservation.

Though I know the generalization that most of economically unfortunate people are of backward class can not be flatly denied. But, I don't understand why it is easier to implement caste based reservation than economy based.

Now keeping aside the debatable caste based reservation policy. I have always been of opinion that reservation must be provided but only at lower level. The people who are not fortunate among us must be given opportunity to prove them, or do well in their life but it must not be for the cost of society. By that I mean it must not hinder or slow down the growth of society. Yes, here one can argue that it would be illogical to develop a nation without untapping the hidden talent in 80% (OBC and SC/ST) of its population. But it's also true that it's not more than top 1 percent of a nation that provide direction to a country.
And we must not implement any policy that will lessen the chances of getting the best out of the country in positions that matters to society.
So,
No reservation in IAS and related examination.
No reservation in IIT's, IIM's, AIIMS or top few institutes of any area.
In a century when science and technology are going to decide the future of a country, it won’t be advisable to play with the quality of these institutions. It's different matter that they are not properly serving the purpose they were established for. So there is a need for betterment not otherwise!

James Blunt

For past few days I am in love with a James Blunt Song: ' You are Beautiful'. The lyrics goes like this:

My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.
Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
But it's time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

I like this song because of it's lyrics, or may be becuse of music. Anyway that is irrelevent here. Now, On the basis of the exposure that I have of music, I seriously doubt that if there is any other song with the same theme as this song. There are times when you start thinking that everything has been already explored--when it comes to lyrics writing, poetry writing, or writing. That is you won't find a single experience that has not been captured by somebody or the other. You won't find a single experience that has not been captured from all possible perspectives. But then there are James Blunt, who will make you realize that there are things that you are looking at daliy but yet not looking it.