No Directions Home

2011-08-12T04:55:00.001-07:00

Phones are now shoes

There is a clear corrolary between shoes and phones

Micromax: reebook,liberty foreign knockoffs

calling phones:Nokia: bata brogues

Samsung: Sketchers, Reebok

Apple/HTC: Nike s

Barkha Meets the Bloggers

2008-01-14T02:20:00.000-08:00

Managed to see a “Face the People” on Indian bloggers. Barkha did us version of the false empathy-Indian Oprah act. The rest of the programme was on expected lines:

Lots of talk about people blogging about sex. (Gasp!): I guess the people at NDTV have not read Mastram. Or are people just out of girls convent schools and have not seen the latest item number in Hindi films. But I guess it gets the ratings up so that “Dr Roy” can shore up his dwindling net worth and compete against the richer TV/Network/Whatever 18 guys. So pretty much in order. And anyway I don’t see what’s wrong in writing about sex anyway. I mean Lolita is about sex, and it is the one of the greatest works of fiction …

Blogs are scurrilous /rumor spreading: True. But there are a lot of bloggers doing some path breaking work in the last year. The Khairlanji massacre was first broken by a blog (atrocitynews.wordpress.com) before the TOI (surprisingly) picked it up. NDTV did its bleeding heart act much later. And Indiatogether and Shivam Vij have consistently done some great work about stuff which the Mainstream Media chooses to ignore.

In my view most of the mainstream media still follows the old information economics model where a bunch of self appointment wise mean , like the aforementioned Dr Roy tell us what is good for us. The truth is that TV news channels are in the entertainment business, not the news business. The channels which have realized this like India TV are doing great guns. While Dr Roy at NDTV is just doing financial engineering to ready himself for a sellout to an international broadcasting company.

Tata Nono

2008-01-14T01:05:00.000-08:00

Ratan Tata has pulled off a major PR coup with the Tata Nano. I suspect that apart from copying the name, he also copied the launch strategy from Steve Jobs. The secrecy, the media leaks and the final unveiling had all the hallmarks of an inspired Apple launch.

However the product itself was a little underwhelming. Sure the car looks cute, but this does not mean anything. Even the Reva looks cute. However the engine specs left me cold. A 33 bhp engine is very slow. With an AC on, I expect it to be marginally slower then a auto rickshaw. But the major flaw is the claimed mileage of only 20 kmpl. This makes the running cost of a Tata Nano only 20% more than a Maruti 800. Ratan Tata’s wish to convert 2 wheeler owners to cars seems farfetched with this product. The diesel launch will be more economical, I expect.

I am seriously thinking of buying 3-4 Nanos and putting them up as Taxis……

Bike Accident

2007-11-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have been driving a bike for around 10 years, and so far I have been largely unscathed by the barbaric Delhi drivers. However my luck ran out 10 days ago. i was driving a reconditioned Enfield Bullet of an old friend . Suddenly there was some gravel and I got thrown off. I crashed and me and my face dragged along the rocky ground. Nothing too serious , I managed to escape with a very bruised ego and eight stitches on my head.

Recently I feel it may be time to hit the road again. I was also daydreaming about which bike I would like to purchase if money wasn’t an issue at the moment. The 1959 BSA Goldstar dbd34 would look perfect on my imaginary backyard.

Big Cats in Kipling Country

2007-11-09T23:42:00.000-08:00

We took a car and along with a couple of cousins from Raipur and after a uneventful four hour ride were into Kanha. In tourist terminology, this is part of Kipling country in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh: these are the hills where The Jungle Book was set.

Kanha has a major advantage over some of its better known rivals. This is of course, is the abundance of tigers. Along with Badhavgarh, Kanha has the largest concentration of the big cat. An Indian government survey had reported that, with 90 tigers, it is one of only two reserves in India that still has a sustainable population. Such a large tiger population, of course, requires an abundant supply of food, and the hills teem with different species of prey: chital, sambhar, barking deer, nilgai, the very rare barasingha, or swamp deer, which Kanha saved from extinction

We had booked to stay in one of the quaint colonial era guest houses, complete with high ceilings and uniformed help, with food cooked over a wood fire. A welcome change over the synthetic tourist resorts that one gets used to.

We reached there at 5pm, got a guide, jumped in the jeep and hit the pothole-ridden track leading into the jungle.. We were soon into deep in the sal and bamboo forests of Kanha Before long we were lying in wait for the tigress and watching the sun slide beneath the tree line. Several jeeps bounced past bearing cramped passengers. 'Perhaps she waits for the last jeep of the day,' suggested one of my companions. However there was no sign of tigers, or any other kind of a any big animal. The first drive, as far as tigers are concerned, draws a blank. There were numerous different types of deer and birds, too many deer as a matter of fact. And some monkeys. That’s it. It was feeling like a jaunt to the neighborhood Deer Park in Delhi, rather than a visit to a wildlife resort.

That seemed to mark the end of the mission. We swung by the rangers' lodge to share more bidis and yarns. One of the gamekeepers explained that the distant din we could hear was one of his cohorts crashing through the trees on an elephant, searching for poachers. 'She gets a bit frisky and charges the jeep, but hey, we'll have a few beers, it'll be fun.' We could have been any bunch of guys in the world, just drinking and chewing the fat, except our topic of conversation rarely deviated from the subject of tigers. As we drained the last of the Royal Stag, the naturalist said, 'This behavior might seem bizarre to you, but I spend most of my life doing things other people find strange.'

The next morning expectations were low: fog hung heavy on the park, even the peacocks seemed dismally grey in the dawn mist. But no more than half a mile into the reserve the jeep turns a corner and there sitting nonchalantly on the track in front is a Bison. The bison ambles off casually just like a cow would do in a city street. Soon we were able to see why Kanha was so highly recommended. There was a she-leopard with a cub, numerous different types of deer and birds, a jackal and a four-horned antelope.

Soon we hit the lottery. There was a considerable commotion with several jeeps running in a particular direction, our guide informed us that there was going to be a tiger spotting, Soon we saw a the magnificent animal walking out of a clump of a grass, It was a bit of circus like atmosphere with several jeeps jockeying around for a vantage position, so it was not an ideal experience. However it was a memorable experience to see the king walk like he owned the world

Kanha: The journey

2007-10-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

I have had a really overscheduled life since the past 6 months. Even worse was the fact that there were other people who were dictating my schedule. A client would call up at 6 and expect to deliver stuff by 9 in the morning. That would entail a very late night trying to get stuff done.
I am convinced that I am not made for clear cut well de-lineated schedule. I am made to live like a university professor, with downtime to meditate. With that though in mind I too a really slow train, in a second class compartment from the journey to Raipur, on route to Kanha. To go from Delhi to Raipur, I picked the Samta Kranti Express, which takes a leisurely 24 hours to reach Raipur. I am enjoying this time not shared by people who are squeezed for time; people around me are farmers, traders, people working in government who have taken LTA and are going back to their "native place". People, who do not have important “assignments”, hence are not afraid to “waste time”. People who in Marketing jargon would be SEC B.

Farmers seem to have moved ahead in life while I have been slaving away or stuck in traffic jams. The farmer in question had a Sony Handicam , a high end mobile phone and was coming from Delhi after dropping his son to study medicine in Moscow. The journey was quite uneventful, with the farmer telling me his impressions of Delhi( very nice roads, very rude people), sharing food with my fellow travelers and reading a Robert Jordan book trying to make sense of The Wheel of Time.

Newspapers and people

2007-10-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

Here’s a mail that’s been doing the rounds…from Shivam;s Blog

The Times of India is read by the people who run the country.

The Statesman is read by the people who think they run the country.

The Hindu is read by the people who think they ought to run the country.

The Indian Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country.

The Telegraph is read by the people who do not know who runs the country but are sure they are doing it wrong.

Mid-Day is read by the wives of the people who run the country.

The Economic Times is read by the people who own the country.

The Tribune is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run.

The Hindustan Times is read by the people who still think it is their country.

The Asian Age is read by the people who would rather be in another country.

Allen Stewart Königsberg and Me

2007-09-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

Something which explains my life right now
The important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

Crash in Gurgaon

2007-09-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

After two encounters with buses and cars in two weeks on the Delhi Gurgoan highway.....something from a movie

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In Gurgaon, nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something

Musical Memories

2007-08-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

I have collected a hugh number of cassettes over the last dozen years. Since my acquisition of an iPod, these have been gathering dust, and blocking up space. The plastic and paper liner notes have faded and frayed. But I still hesitated to throw them out.

Finally after much prevaricating, I decided to pack them up and gift them to a friend who has acquired a high end fancy antique music system, you know the ones which have speakers the size of a small child, a cassette player the size of a small briefcase and lots of wires and blinking lights.

Music to me has always associated with the certain phases in time; some of my key musical moments associated with select tapes are…

Grammy Hits 1984

This was indelibly associated with my first introduction to Delhi. In Nagpur I had been in the thrall of pop-star wannabes. I saw MIthuda channel Travolta in Disco Dancer half a dozen times. But here was the real stuff-everybody in school was talking of Jackson and Lionel Richie and that weird guy called Prince. This tape got worn out with repeated periods of time- I can still remember all the eight songs on this tape.

Rattle and Hum: U2 (1992)
This is forever associated with tumult-burning buses during the Mandal agitation, burning students, burning tires and the first disastrous attempt at trying to fit into a hip South Delhi college.

BAD-LL Cool J(1993)

My introduction to Hip Hop. This was a pirated tape which was bought for 16 Rupees and was played on a walkman repeatedly before the walkman broke down completely.

Annie’s Song: John Denver (1999)

The theme song for my stay at IIM Bangalore-ok I know that the song was released in the 70s but I became very familiar with this in 1999. My neighbor was a senior who had a habit of having night long encounters with rum and marijuana. After getting suitably high, he used to play this song at full volume between 2 to 6 AM, disregarding my sleep and any quizzes/exams the next day. The very same person is now the Vice-President of a Very Big Company and gives a sheepish grin when reminded of this song

Fight Club

2007-07-31T05:06:00.000-07:00

Something I have been thinking of these days....

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Advertising Careers and Drug Dealing

2007-06-04T01:36:00.000-07:00

Every article on the state of advertising today bemoans the fact that “we don’t attract bright people like we used to”. The truth is that advertising pays poorly, demands long working hours and often involve nothing more than grunt work. Advertising could get “bright people” in the good old days when career opportunities were limited, but with the economy growing at 9%, good jobs are not very scarce. However advertising still surprisingly attracts people who will throw themselves into grunt jobs with an unstinting devotion.

A rather clever analysis of this phenomenon has been made in Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. The authors see drug dealing and advertising careers as akin to participate in a tournament. In advertising you must start at the bottom to have a shot at the top. You must be willing to work long hours at substandard wages. And in order to advance to the top you must, you must prove yourself as not merely above average , but spectacular. All this for the extremely small chance of winning the big prize, the chance to be a Prasun Pandey or a Mike Khanna. However many people are now convinced that it is not worth playing the game and quitting advertising to play tournaments where the chances of winning are not so slim.

And advertising has to take a long hard look at itself and how it treats people, or we will keep hearing this lament time and again

The last underclass action hero

2006-01-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

Multiplexes generally ignore his movies. Critics dismiss his films with a single star rating. And, statutory warning, taking a city-slick, sold-on-Saif girlfriend to one of his starrers could be injurious to the relationship. But in the boondocks of central and eastern India, Mithun Chakraborty rules.

The hinterland’s Hero No 1 is not the same actor who once earned acclaim and award in Mrinal Sen’s Mrigaya back in 1976. Or, the pelvis-thrusting, crotch-crutching floorscorcher who even wowed Russia as a Disco Dancer (1982). It’s a C-grade action hero they root for. Someone who since the mid-Nineties started making movies with titles that sound more like abuse: Chandaal, Gunda, Yamraaj and worse.

So why is the mofussil sold on Mithun ? Unlike Sunny Deol, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgun, or even Govinda, Mithun is the only star who has not tried to remodel himself for the cash-rich multiplex audience. With every other star being co-opted, he is the last action hero the underclass can relate to. A class which prefers Ma Kasam to Main Hoon Naa and Billa No 786 to Black.

Mithun caters to crowd who wants stories with corrupt policemen and crooked politician; characters they see in daily life and can identify with. And, they want it in their own high-pitched, no-apologies style. A Mithun film gives them all that.

And, so they ask for his movies. Again and again. And watch them in the comforts of their home in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Chhatisgarh, Bengal and, hold it!, Meghalaya. Long live Mithun da.

Delhi Rocks

2005-12-22T05:17:00.000-08:00

This appeared in City Limits, with some changes

You would be forgiven for thinking of Delhi as a virtual desert for rock music. However a surprisingly large number of oases of rock have bloomed in Delhi in the last five years. 2005 is one of the best times to be a rock musician and a rock fan in Delhi. A clutch of bands have sprung up who are playing an amazingly diverse sound ranging from punk rock to metal. There are now fans in Delhi who are actually appreciating original Indian rock music. The live gig scene is flourishing. The recent explosion in Delhi nightlife has provided Delhi bands places which they can rock in. When the sun goes down, Delhi’s rock and roll generation comes out to play!

So which are the places where a Delhi fan can hear live rock? Well, the first introduction to live rock music for many fans is the college rock festival. Many of these college shows are big events which often attract an audience of up to 5000 fans. One of the best Indian college shows is the IIT Delhi rock show which attracts bands from all over the country. Some of the other well known college rock shows are the ones held during the SRCC and the AIIMS college festivals. There is also an active non-college rock circuit happening in Delhi, spearheaded by The Great Indian Rock, a festival which attracts bands across India. Campus Rock Idols, an all India intercollegiate contest, and the Late Night at the British Council are some of the other rock shows which happen on a regular basis. The most popular venue for these shows is the Hamsadhwani Open Air Theater, at Pragati Maidan. One interesting new trend is that of the out-of-town weekend concert, the first of which was held recently in Dhanualti in the Uttaranchal hills,

The pub circuit is also alive and kicking. Turquoise Cottage continues to rule as the best place to catch live music in Delhi. Some other pubs which rock are Café Morrison, The Chinese and Thai Café and DV8 .Some clubs attached to big hotels also have rock shows, the more well known being Dublin at the Maura Sheraton and The Decibel at the Samrat. There is also a pub rock-festival called the Rocktoberfest (held what else, in October!) which has shows by Delhi bands at a variety of pubs and clubs across Delhi.

While the live scene is rocking, finding recorded music remains a hugh problem. In the absence of any support by record companies, most bands have to resort to putting out their originals on their own independent labels, which they sell during their live shows. You still can’t walk into any music shop and find your favorite Orange Street or a Messiah CD. The internet is the probably the easiest way to get hold of original Indian rock. Most bands have their own websites which feature free downloads. Bharat Music House, a music instrument store, also stocks Indian rock albums, though on an irregular basis. The first organized initiative to retail Indian rock music has been started by Furtados, a Mumbai based music instrument store which has a section dedicated to Indian rock music. They have promised to add an online delivery feature as well. The rock magazine, Rock Street Journal, has been bringing out Indian rock music on a regular basis, and their website (http://www.rsjonline.com/) has a wide selection of Indian rock available for online purchase.

So who are bands who are rocking Delhi? Well here are some of the leaders of the Delhi rock scene:

Indian Ocean:
Though they are more of a fusion band rather than a rock band, their format (drums, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, tabla, vocals) is quite close to rock, while their improvisations give hints of a jazz band. The most exciting thing about them is that they take traditional Indian chants and poetry and give them a completely new treatment (like in the album Kandisa). They have released two more albums Jhini and the film soundtrack for the film Black Friday (which included the hugh hit “Bandeh”).

Parikrama:
The big daddies of the Indian rock scene, these guys seem to have been around forever. Though primarily known for their incredible concerts and cover versions, they did release “But It Rained” which is one of the most well known Indian rock songs. They have headlined nearly every major rock show in the last few years in all parts of the country.

Orange Street:
Orange Street is possibly one of the most intriguing rock bands around. They merge a myriad of influences from rock, rap and Indian classical to bring out a unique sound. “Morey Piya” is a song that simply stands out from their latest album
“Dharma”. They’ve toured Europe and Scandinavia in the summer of 2004 where they performed alongside top international acts like Motorhead and Hanoi Rocks.

Them Clones:
These guys got together in 2000 and have been going places since then. They started out doing covers of ‘Aerosmith’ and ‘Rage Against The Machine’. But now they are able to go out on a stage and have people screaming for their originals as well. They have just released their EP and are soon coming out an album very soon.

Prestorika:
They were the winners of the All India Campus Rock Idols 2004 and went on to open for the Finnish band “The Rasmus” when they recently performed in Mumbai. They are primarily a metal band and with their incredible stage presence are making a lot of new fans. They’ve recorded a brilliant EP and are working on a full length album. They also play great covers of bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Iron Maiden.

Messiah:
They’re the new kids on the block. This trio has not been around too long but already have the music circles talking about them. Their debut album “The Antidote” is being praised by critics all over, as are their performances. They are a punk-alternative-new wave band, and their renditions of covers are also being appreciated a lot.

menwhopause
One of the few bands who have built up a following in Delhi by sticking to playing original music and avoiding covers. menwhopause have been around since 2001. Though their music is hard to put into a slot, they can be defined a retro blues oriented band with psychedelic hints. They have recorded some excellent singles, like Sweet Despair, and are on the verge of releasing their first album.