The king, the subjects and the old man.

"Bhawrey ki gunjan hai mera dil...
Kab se sambhale, rakhaa hai dil...
Tere liye, tere liye...
luh la la la, hmh hmm hmm hmm.."

sang the old man, jolly, oblivious to everything else and everybody around.

We had just completed a dinner hosted for one of our senior colleagues who was slated for retirement this month end. It was not clear whether he would get an extension, but we had anyway decided to celebrate. It was not clear whether he was happy or sad about throwing in the towel, but we had ordered the rum, all the same.

Earlier that evening, we left from office after work, in pairs or trios as it seemed convenient and met at this really nice, uptown restaurant in this otherwise parched town. One of them had been kind enough to give me a lift and the two of us had gone and purchased a fairly elegant and also large lamp. Let there be light... oh, just hang it.

There were six of us who were still firmly rooted to the job. One on the verge of the final corporate good-bye and this old man, who in his days at work was often referred to as "' loose cannon', by our very own boss.

Speaking of our boss, earlier this year, around this time, he had surprised - no, shocked - our entire team by announcing his resignation. Nobody clearly understood why he did that, although there were many tongues wagging. After his official attendance on April 30, we had tried to arrange dinner with him on several occasions, but it never happened until now. For reasons, best known to the boss himself.

Several things tickled my mind before, during and after this dinner. Because I had initiated this meeting, I was referred to as 'host' several times during this evening. By the end of the first round, the waiters were clear where they'll push the bills.

The team gathered was a strange mix... the only common thread being the boss with whom they had spent lot of good and bad times. Each one was in a different team, but under a common reporting with the new head of department.

Couple of other colleagues invited had not turned up. I guessed, if you can't say your Hellos properly then it's difficult to say your Goodbyes gracefully. These 6, present today, had some respect for the work this person had put in during these years. Another thing that amused me...

The old man, who's contract had expired months ago was a special invitee. He had always liked our man of the moment, probably because he received the needed support and praise (for his singing as well) from this quarter. While the retiree, me and the boss had rum with hot water, others were fairly content with their orange, lime and strawberry juices. There were no women.

As for me, I recalled briefly, the difficult confrontations with each of the other 5 members at different times in the last few years. One of the worst altercations was with the old man himself. And, I remembered the sizzling response sent by our 'best man' of today's occasion which had begun with an 'How Dare You...". Of-course, nothing personal about it.

Probably the absence of the comfort that our team had enjoyed for the last five odd years had forged a silent but certain bond among the six team members who had made the choice to make it to the dinner. The boss, was invited the same morning and for someone who could not get time for 8 months, this time 8 hours seemed enough to say 'count me in.'

So what had changed? in moral science class was one sentence I will never forget... "suffering unites mankind." Sigh, how true... you have to heat the stew to get a good mix. (sic)

Without stating it, I suspect the set of people gathered were re-living those moments and memories of the past. At that time, we had not realized the value and the strength of being united, of working in a single stream to achieve monumental milestones. Once the binding force was removed and once the threat seemed stronger that the individual selves, the need to bond and collaborate, now seemed greater than ever.

Or... maybe I'm over-reading this thing and maybe it was just a simple get-together. I enjoyed the dinner, although I missed catching up on my next plan (cuddling in the name of some late night movie). But these dinners are rare and I will cherish this evening without bothering to dissect it any further.

Our own, cozy Krishna Janmashtami

Devaki Krishna Ravalnath is our family deity.
Naturally, Janmashtami is special for all of us in our family.

Janm = birth (Sanskrit) and Ashtami = 8th day.

Like almost all Hindu festivals, Janmashtami symbolizes the Victory of Good over Evil. The young lord, Balkrishna, the eighth avatara (incarnation) of the supreme Lord Vishnu, was born on the ashtami tithi (lunar day) in the month of Bhaadrapaksha according to the Hindu calendar (which tracks the moon phases). The imprisoned Vasudev, father of Krishna, had to carry the child in pouring rain to escape from the evil uncle Kamsa. (Google Vishnu Dashavatara for more.)

"No matter how dry it has been, it has to rain tonight." my late grandmother would repeat each year. And lo and behold, the rains would lash at midnight for sure, if not before that.

The regularity, intensity and consistency with which my father prepares and conducts this ceremony, year after year, has lent greater sanctity and fondness towards this festival to me, than any other.

I make it a point to return from work on time on this special day. Because that's the evening I am certain to meet my sister, uncles, cousins, in-laws, nephews etc. My two sons and 4 nephews are between age 7 and 15 years. And together they can stir a few tsunamis with very little effort.

Our vegan folks at home observe a fast (abstain from onion, garlic, stale food etc.) and the day culminates with a small pooja (prayer ceremony) at home. The boys wear the 'Pudve' (a red, orange or yellow silk robe worn below the waist) and look festive and show their eagerness to assist my father in the rites.

A statue of the Lord is bathed, decorated and maintained centre stage and as we recite the Shahastra naama (thousand names of the Lord), the children offer the Akshatha (rice grains mixed with vermilion) and the Tulsi dala (basil leaves in pairs).

Following that, is the aarti with ghee soaked wicks is lit to perform the fire rituals. The energy and the enthusiasm of the kids in playing the shankh (conch), taal (cymbals), jaganta and chipali makes the dinner worth the wait. My father then calls us for the argee (tender coconut water and milk mix) to the Lord, distributes the teertha (holy water) and then applies the naam made of sandalwood and vermilion paste on our forehead.

The dinner itself is no less of a ritual. I recall vaguely, my parents waking me and my sister up for dinner on Janmashtami evenings because it would get terribly late some time. These days we do things at the city-speed. Purchasing vast varieties of satvik (non-toxic) vegetables starts the previous day. All the vegetables are cooked into a tasty dish we call 'Gajbaje'. It appears to me that an undhiyo is an more oily and more spicy - but certainly not more tasty - variant of this dish.

When possible, we serve dinner on the banana leaf. When I see the kids now, I recall the days when me and my cousins would fight for the big leaf, the big piece of boiled maize in the gajbaje. We would count the different types of vegetable we encountered in our serving. The pleasure to see our sons doing just that cannot be described in words.

Across Mumbai, Janmashtami is celebrated with the Dahi Handi festival where the human pyramid tries to reach the pot of curd (and cash) tied several hundred feet above the ground. Many krishnas land up with broken bones too.

Also the beauty and grandeur of the Janmashtami celebrations at the ISKCON temple is legendary. Most of the religious festivals in India have got hijacked by vested interests now. The fervour and pomp in many public festivals appears hollow and the celebrations cause more noise and pollution rather than invoke a religious sentiment.


That's why I cherish these special moments of our Janmashtami pooja where my dear ones meet, sit together and eat together, at least once every year. Hail our Lord, Shree Krishna.

Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare!!

CloudCrowCombineCamera!

Clouds & Crows!
Simple, Serene, Steady, Solid.

Black Baadshahs!, Enigmatic Evils!. Ravenous Rascals!, Sultans of the Skies!


Try taming them, or be wiser than that.



Mwaaah
to the murder of crows & my never-say-die Nokia N73.

Project Sansad Makeover

Proposal: Project SANSAD MAKEOVER
Project Manager: TBD (Will be decided based on responses analysed from a web based survey of all educated and tax paying Indians)
Version 1.0, 21/06/2009
Author : ANP
Draft: To be Approved (again, from the web survey results)

BACKGROUND / INTRODUCTION

"Our political system stinks!", "What can we salaried class people do?" As a country, we've encountered multiple roadblocks to cut down the red tape, remove the long bureaucratic waits. We continue to grease palms to get our sarkari work done. Now here's a plan that's hot and cool enough to appeal to most of my card-swiping, ear-plugged, commuting workers as well as my enterpreneur friends. The chances are grim, but some politicians may also actually like it. Like all plans this has begun as a high-level plan. And will gradually get detailed over time and hopefully implemented with some venture funding. ;-) The promise of this scheme is huge and it will work once we decide that we cannot continue to live with stains on the ideals and visions laid down for this sovereign Republic.

AS-IS PROCESS

In the olden days, where we saw our leaders running like possessed puppets in black and white films, we needed representatives of the people to congregate at one place, put forth their perspectives and raise concerns on behalf of the people scattered across the length and breadth of the nation. The constitution, our laws and Acts (with some copy-paste from the Queen's files) got bound between the covers. These worked fine when the motivation was national patriotism and a fresh sense of victory found from bidding good bye to the English rulers. bhopale.blogspot.com Times have changed, situations have changed and of-course technology has rapidly advanced. (Second to rise in the income-tax levels though.) But our decision making capabilities as a nation and our drive to make quick and correct decisions based on updated state-of-the-art information is still far from desirable. Merely broadcasting the house proceedings on television - few uproars, several yawns and frequent walk-outs - is excellent abuse of technology.

BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS

With the smart cards, internets and electronic payments of utility bills etc., there is absolutely no need for full-time paid representatives any longer. Pack them off... to (serve) their respective constituencies. The whole country is now fully conversant with the "phone a friend" concept and a response profile. Million thanks to Star-Plus, Amitabh-ji, Anil Kapoor and also Salman for teaching us how decision making can be 'democratic' without having someone killed. And everybody liked Abhishek doing a "What an Idea, sirji !", right? Our country has abundant passionate, educated people and tax paying people. THEY need to be influencing the decisions if we have to prosper. Not the sons and daughters of rigid brained, fat and bald politicians who claim to fame was acting in regional films before we were born. Politicians who never fade away need to be replaced with techno-savvy dynamic governance taskforces with strategic, tactical and operations mindset and responsibilities. Decision making must be near real-time and must directly involve the tax payer and the literate populace based on their earned miles.

CHANGE... TRANSITION... PARIVARTAN: DESIGN

The plan proposes a one-time cleanup and an operationalization. Like we do for IT systems. The old is simply fired, to make way for the leading edge. The plan also envisages a complete ops team, standard ops procedures, Change management, Key Performance Indicators and Service Level Agreements. That's what it's going to take to breath some pollution free (also corruption free) air in this country. These are some salient features of the approach: Ministries become Operational function areas. There are no ministers, because there are no kings. Only Portfolio Planners, Project Managers, and Operations teams providing measurable service including a "Governance" service. The Parliament does not exist in the format it does now. It consists of a strategic team (thinkers and respected personalities from different streams directly elected by citizens) and no more than say 50 or 60. That's right. No money to pay for fat. This taskforce is supported by an IT team around 30 to 40 persons to facilitate decision making value and to prevent malpractices and attempts to de-stabilize the lean structure. Service Levels, for each function, are drawn for services to be provided by the Government (e.g. electricity, water, education, health care, jobs, network connectivity etc.) The present day Voters List is dropped. No need collecting information, photographs of lachaar (helpless) old men and women who are photographed while they are carried to the polling booth each year. There's a new list of 'People Decision Makers' drawn from various sources including the income tax division. This is a classified list that with people 'weighted' against their EDUCATION and TAX history. People with a career in the National Services get a little more weightage and people with criminal backgrounds are barred from the list. Note that there is no influence of geography, age, religion, caste, gender etc. while defining this list. The more you contribute to the Government or the more you are educated, or both, the more influence you could exert. This list, naturally is revised each year. Line of thought: Unless an individual is in a position to add value to himself, he cannot think right for the country. Every issue is categorised (e.g. 'suburb', 'city', 'district', 'region', 'national', 'global' scope) such that questionnaires can be distributed to relevant subsets of people from among the larger list. e.g. Should non-residents be included in this 'voters' list? If they have paid tax to the Government of India? e.g. Do we need a Public Sector running industries if they cannot make profits? e.g. What do you suggest to weed out corrupt officials? e.g. Do we need 36 MLAs in a small state like xyz ? For each decision required, the problem statement is web-hosted and available to the select decision makers. Their responses directly influences the outcome and the actions. The IT team at the centre prevents any unwanted manipulations that may be attempted. Effectively, the people in the decision makers list are our 'next-gen' leaders. Not the ones 'operating' the system from the parliament. One more difference is that these people have full-time jobs or businesses to attend to and they are not parasites of the system. Schools and colleges (those not owned by our present day politicians) will offer courses on how to respond to these decision challenges posed.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & DEPLOYMENT PLAN

We could go whole hog if we have the balls for it. Of-course, the pain of change will be there. But not for 60 years. Okay! a more reasonable way to do it to build a transition plan which proposes a parallel nuclear team starting with a couple of portfolios to make the transformation more palatable. Probably our first joint questionnaire floated on the web in this manner could try to identify and rank priority of the top 100 problems facing India today? And also rank the ones to be taken up for action. For Work breakdown structure, milestones schedule, critical activities, resources required, risks and costs involved, venture capitalists please respond. Detailed step-by-step deployment guide will be delivered.

EXECUTIVE ABSTRACT (You could skip this if you've read the whole thing above this, but dont.)

Ring out current structure. Seed a LEAN MANAGEMENT TEAM with a performance driven, routinely refreshed Org chart. Invite the 'new' decision makers. The true people to and serve the nation. If they have bothered to make themselves LITERATE and finacially VIABLE, they are capable of doing the same on a large scale. Others can oogle. Bills, decisions, new ideas to be floated on an IT secured site. Responses analysed and actions taken. Maybe this is not the way some other country does it. But what the heck. India is not just another country. Just visualize the endless possibilities, faster decisions, near-zero corruption, no more LS polls, no MP-trading, lots of vacant bungalows in New Delhi, huge cost savings on 500+ MPs and lakhs of MLAs. FRESH AIR and HOPE for INDIA !

REFERENCES

1. Slumdog Millionaire (study what commoners go through and to learn the KBC answering format) 2. Die Hard 4.0 (to understand how IT adds value to governance)

April Gone By: Wishing...

God, it's been Hot!

So we'll find out why I missed the April blog. These are all the lovely people I've known whose birthdays fall in April.

1 - Sailesh, Dr Vinay Kulkarni, Neeta Mehta (hi Sejal)

4 - Ramesh G Reddy

5 - SnehaPrabha Kamath (also of Colin Powell, General Secy of State withGWBush)

6 - MDBindu, Bhakti Banawalkar, Prafulla Bhat

7 - Ratnakar Bhat (also Pt. Ravi Shankar)

12 - Suma Nayak

16 - Pramod Bhat

18 - Glynis D'costa

21 - Ashish Prabhu, Sam Shenoy

22 - J.Thacker

27 - S.J.Bhatawdekar

And these are few more 'April' people we all know :

9 - Jaya Guddi Bachhan

10 - Mandy Moore, Omar Sharif, Joseph Pulitzer

12 - Herbie Hancock, Ann Miller

13 - Gary Kasparov, Thomas Jefferson (3rd US president)

14 - Sarah Buffy Michelle Gellar

15 - Leornardo Da Vinci 1452

16 - Pope Benedict XVI, Charlie Chaplin, Wilbur Wright

17 - Victoria Posh Beckham, Jeniffer Garner

18 - Conan O'Brien

19 - Maria Sharapova, Kate Hudson, Ashley Judd, Paloma Picasso

20 - Carmen Electra, Jessica Tootsie Lange, Adolf Hitler

21 - Queen Elizabeth II (UK), Empress Catherine (Russia)

22 - Jack Nicholson, Yehudi Menuhin

23 - Dev Slumdog Patel, Roy Orbison, William Shakespeare

24 - Barbara Streisand, Shirley Moore

25 - Renee Princess Zellweger, Al Pacino, Ella (3 octaves) Fitzgerald

26 - Jet Li [ yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa thud ]

27 - Sheena Easton, Samuel Morse [ da, di di da ]

28 - Jessica Alba, Penelope Cruz, Jay Leno, Saddam Hussein, Harper Lee,Oscar Schindler

29 - Andre Agassi, Uma Thurman, Michelle Pfieffer, Zubin Mehta

30 - Kristen Dunst [eeeeeek, help me spidey], Queen Juliana (Netherlands)

"And each one there

Has one thing shared:

They've sweated beneath the same sun,

Looked up in wonder at the same moon,

And wept when it was all done

For being done too soon..."

- - Neil Diamond

And while we are here, let the sizzling not stop...

She has nothing to do with April.

Well... almost nothing.

March towards the Sunset

March is a month of closings and openings of sorts. The Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Chetti Chand brings in the New Year. Bankers in India associate March with reconciliation and book closures. NRI CIOs and CEOs in the Silicon Valley consider this a good time for 'restructuring' their IT businesses in India. (Ahem !)



What other opportune time to show off sunsets then?
Nothing close to what one can see in Knysna (West Cape, South Africa) but I consider these good too.

Especially since it applies all the tricks shared by my colleague and friend Michael Kohli.
1. Slower speeds = Better colors.
2. Half-button-press just above the sun and then pan down.
3. Divide landscape into grids and position the objects.
4. 'Wait a few minutes after sunset. That's when the fun begins.' he said.

Indeed !






See two specks here? -->
The big one is a bird and the small one is a plane flying into the sunset.
What one gets out of a 5 MP camera when we pay attention to people.



Each day goes like this... dawn, twilight, sunrise, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, sunset, twilight (again), dusk, night, midnight. TRUE or FALSE?

APRIL SUNSETS: Please bear with my new found obsession. You will agree with me that these colors from the ever-so-simple Nokia N73 are awesome.

Rhythm runs the Universe

"Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm." - Olatunji

Tambourine Lesson 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlBxrpelaUE

Layne Redmond has followed an extremely unusual path specializing in the small hand-held frame drum played primarily by women in the ancient Mediterranean world. She intensively researched the playing styles and history of the frame drum in religious and cultural rituals culminating in her book, "When The Drummers Were Women".

This book details a lost history of a time when women were the primary percussionists in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, Greece and Rome and also explains why they are not today.

With her infectious rythm, she is easily one of today's most exciting performers.

Trees

The variety of greens on trees amazes me; the rays playing tricks with the leaves, the breeze teasing them to sway. Fresh juvenile greens, strong determined greens and wise matured greens.

I am no gardener, not yet, but trees certainly soothe our eyes... energize our systems.

"Sanjeevani!" the monkey warriors cried.
"Aha!" exclaimed the young Isaac Newton under the apple tree.
And so did the not so young Adam eon eons ago.

Aromatic, Herbals, Tea, Coffee, Perfumes, Paper, Pencils... shade on a scorching summer afternoon. What more can we ask?

Trees hold the lives on this planet together. Trees won't fail you! Ever!!

http://inturbulenttimes.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-killing-tree.html

Enough reading. Now...

Come plant a sapling, water a plant.
Park your vehicle and go to the park.
Go hug an oak or simply admire a leaf.