TIME Person of the Year

TIME's introduction to Person of the Year says 'For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century, the Protestor is TIME's 2011 Person of the Year.' 


And adds 'History often emerges only in retrospect. Events become significant only when looked back on.' About the protests, it says 'The protests marked the rise of a new generation. Technology mattered, but it was not a technological revolution. Social networks did not cause these movements, but they kept them alive and connected. This was not a wired revolution; it was a human one, of hearts and minds, the oldest technology of all.' 


Not all of TIME's choices in the past have been deserving, and many were outright wrong, and several of them biased toward America (a fact acknowledged by TIME in the past). TIME's definition of who should be Person of the Year is one who has made the maximum impact during the year. Julian Assange impacted more than Mark Zuckerberg last year. American Presidents who have won, at times twice, like George Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, have been stupid choices, couldn't they find anyone else?; Osama bin Laden should've been, when Rudy Guiliani was. And why was Kate Middleton in the list this year? 


This year has been fair. Many had expected Steve Jobs to make the list, but he did not make any impact this year. TIME has chosen a common noun, as it has done in the past, like The Computer, The Middle Class, Young People, GI Joe etc. (YOU was a terrible choice). The Protestor has made the news this year, without doubt. And shall continue to have impact going forward. 

127 hours

I saw '127 hours' for the first time, last evening. I recommend it for its moving representation of a one paragraph story, context-relevant music, including silence at times and distant sounds at other times, and camera work, how many angles can you come up with in a crevice of a place, though there are lots of errors pointed out in popular blogs. The belief and spirit of Aron Ralston comes through very well. James Franco's effort is praiseworthy. And the screenplay tells the story in an engaging fashion. 


Apparently the helicopter pilot who rescues Aron in the movie, is the pilot who rescued Aron in reality. And Aron himself appears toward the end of the movie, much like 'Pursuit Of Happyness', where the real Chris Gartner walks across the road in the last scene. 



Aron's forms a relationship with the rock, which comes out in the following quote:  

'This rock has been waiting for me my entire life, 

since its been a meteorite, 

millions of years ago. 

I've been moving toward it my entire life, 

the minute I was born, 

every breath I've taken, 

every action 

has been leading me to this crack.' 

Alibaug

I'd been to Alibaug over the weekend with our office group. We stayed at a farmhouse owned by one Mr. Sane. It was a good in terms of space - he had a large enough estate - but was wanting in terms of facilities. 

And the beach was very dirty, probably because it was a rocky beach and not many frequented it. I wonder if places less frequented should be cleaner because they are less frequented or should be dirty because they are less frequented! 

We took the Saturday afternoon launch from Gateway of India. We got delayed because of the Presidential Fleet Review and cancellation of scheduled launches. But we had a glimpse of the many naval ships and submarines anchored there, among them the INS Shivalik and INS Viraat. 

We also saw some seagulls that followed us on the way to and from Mandwa. We also enjoyed a trip on the tum-tum from Mandwa to where we stayed. Some pictures of the sea, sunset, gulls and the ships.... 

Poems, Prayers, Promises

And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care

How long it’s been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share

In search of a middle ground

In personal relationships, there are different perspectives involved. While there certainly are some actions that are clearly wrong, most are wrong only from a certain perspective. Each person's basic nature, upbringing, idea of life, frame of mind, are responsible for his or her unique view. 

Since most actions have to be be given the label of being misunderstood from a certain perspective, it becomes difficult to label a certain wrong action as wrong. So while, as an independent, impartial and rational judge of a situation, its possible for a judge to label an action as 'wrong', he can't do it, as he'd appear judgemental; one of the two parties involved will find his judgement unacceptable. 

While the judge may not fear telling the truth, his image of being impartial is unnecessarily tarnished, at least from one point of view. And it doesn't help reconcile differences and find common ground. So he shall have to appear impartial, while being partial.  

The only way such an issue is resolved is for the person on a higher moral pedestal to come down. That is, if we want the relationship intact. And relationships require to remain intact under various circumstances - marital relations, organisational compulsions.  

So in search of a middle ground, the one on a high pedestal has to compromise, an impartial judge has to behave partially, while the one in wrong benefits. 

The meek shall inherit the world!   

I Hope You Dance

I heard this wonderful song last evening... such inspiring words... credit to Lee Ann Womack, covered by Ronan Keating later...

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,

May you never take one single breath for granted,
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed,

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,

Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.


I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance

Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',

Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,

Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.

Bombay!

I spent the day in true Bombay ishtyle, waiting at the station for an hour for trains that didn't come, and then in an antique Premier Padmini taxi, with worn out wipers, through water-logged streets, and hitherto unexplored routes (a result of the ingenuity of our taxi driver), that can be called, not roads, but a colony of potholes, seeing the real city that is sought to be hidden under a facade of reflective glass, and more time on the way and back from office, than in office.

And at the end of the day, I'm unsure whether to be proud that Bombay and its people have survived yet again, or in shame that we are incapable of standing up for our basic right to live a decent life.

The cricket world is an elaborate farce!

I'm convinced, more than even before, that the world of cricket is completely stage-managed. This ICC World Cup of 2011 has been a revelation!

Did you see the match between India and England which ended in a tie despite each team scoring 330 odd runs? Both teams could manage so many runs but fell short by one! And the match between England and Ireland, which also had about the same number of runs, and Ireland chased despite England being the Ashes-winning team they are! 

Both these matches were characterised by sudden and surprising turns, with bursts of high scoring, followed by fall of wickets, all resulting in uncertainty, all the time. This helps in making the game more interesting, resulting in more viewership, more kicks for the same money for the sponsors!

The India-England match, I understand, had the highest ever viewership as per statistics. And I presume that the tie would be because some influential quarters demanded a tie! 

The recent expose of Pakistani players being involved in spot fixing, earlier scams involving Indian players, the Cronje episode were only specific instances that had to be revealed, probably since the evidence was so out in the open and could not be concealed. And some could claim that they've acted on cleaning the game up. And result in more inclusion! I'm saying there is a more elaborate stage management at work here.

Why did Ireland win against England now? And why did Bangladesh shock India in the last World Cup? That is because we have to have more inclusion in the game, more teams have to emerge, more audiences have to be tapped; we have to plan for the future!

I have a theory that the World Cup has to have India in the finals to make economic sense. Else, who will buy the tickets and who will watch the ads during the breaks? And Sachin has to help India win a World Cup before he retires! So it helps if we can facilitate all of this.

I'm not asking for the game to be shut down, and the guilty to be punished. Thats been the traditional approach! Why should we be worried that there is no game left in cricket. We're disturbed only if we view this as a degradation of the game, a loss of purity. But this is no longer a game, but an enterprise.

And if so many are benefitted because of this enterprise, generating employment and work, why shut it down? As long as someone, somewhere is earning something, it's good. We are a free nation!

The only worry is that the common people should not waste their time on this, and while away their lives, earning nothing but excitement. But this is true for so many other such things, like reality shows and entertainment programs. Audiences have to go through this farce and emerge more mature. They have to recognise what they are investing in terms of mind and time in such pursuits, and see if it's all worth it!  

Whose business is it anyway!

Atlas Shrugged, the movie

I'm delighted to hear that Atlas Shrugged is being made into a movie. I would like to find out how they adapt such an intense story and elaborate description into a movie. I just hope they get the idea of the story well. The description will, though, continue to be something to read. A trilogy is planned and the first part is releasing on April 15, 2011. I plan to read up Atlas Shrugged before that once again.

Meanwhile, this is John Galt quoted from the novel 

'The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains. Such is the nature of the competition between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.'

You're on camera!

CCTV cameras are all around. They've installed about 12 of them in and around my office. And the security guard and the administration manager can watch what's happening around the office and in some select areas in the office. I must say our office is a reasonably closed space with not much scope for break-ins. And above all, there seems to be no real motive to break-in. I've always thought that the CCTV cameras are a waste of money and time. What can you detect or find on such camera output?

The total amount of data or footage generated by all the cameras put together cannot be fathomed by all the security guards, assuming that's the only thing they do. They simply don't have the capacity or bandwidth to review all of it. And to tell you the truth, its pretty boring and uninteresting to watch the footage beyond the first few minutes, leave alone a whole day. Most of the time, nothing happens. But it is the job of the security guards to review it, all the time; well, at least most of the time. And it has to be real-time!

BriefCam, an Israeli company, has come up with this brand new idea in CCTV cameras. It works by separating the times when there is movement and times when there is no movement at all. And it senses those times when there is no movement, and excludes such footage. It uses motion detection algorithm and separates the static background, creates a fixed database and focusses only on the moving images. These moving images are summarised and bunched together for the security and surveillance staff to review as and when convenient.

The process still requires the surveillance staff to go throught the footage manually. But it gives them the option of making better use of the time by editing out the non-moving boring footage. Now that's something! Its amazing how people come up with such small improvements to ease life.

Phase out the senior journalists

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, interacted with senior journalists of the media a couple of days back. He handled the media well, considering the amount of pressure he was in. He could not convince his critics, but he stood his ground and managed unscathed, largely, and his performance was especially laudable, considering he is an accidental politician.

In this media interaction, it was interesting to watch the media, rather than the PM. Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami were at their stupid best. Prannoy Roy went on talking for 5 minutes, without coming to the point. He spoke about how the first year post elections is a honeymoon period, and how you generally could pass policy decisions without much difficulty, how for Singh this was difficult, and that he would face elections in 3 years, and he forgot his question. He ended with a tame question, that was would he be the candidate in the next elections. How incisive was that?

Singh replied saying it was too premature to comment. Another senior media journalist asked whether Singh would like to see India lift the cricket world cup. What did she expect Singh to say - no? OK, they were bad! But what's the point I'm making.

When journalists reach a certain saturation point, they must be phased out. Just as everything in the world goes through a life-cycle, so does the journalist. And considering that the journalist is a much-watched and followed personality, the saturation is reached even earlier and is much more stark. 

Because, once they reach a certain level of exposure, they stop being dispassionate about and distant from the issue, and they start taking a position. When they meet someone who doesn't agree with that position, they react in a belligerent manner. They hide this media blunder by saying that they provide us opinion and not just the news.

I can surely say that the Indian people are knowledgeable and intelligent enough to form their own opinion. They need only the news, experts' views and not the media analysis, most certainly not of these jaded journalists. So most senior journalists need to take vanvaas, and allow for some dispassionate and unbiased journalism.

How can we shake up this system? Or can't we?

The Day The Music Died!

On February 3, 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed three American rock and roll musicians: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. The day was later called The Day the Music Died by Don McLean, in his song "American Pie".

When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean replied, "It means I never have to work again." Later, he more seriously stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me... sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence." How profound!

Australian Open serves it up hot!

The Australian Open has been very interesting and eventful this year. The men's final is about to start. The men's tournament has been characterised by stun defeats, with a large margin. Look at the way Federer defeated his friend, Djokovich defeated Federer, Ferrer defeated Nadal, and Murray defeated Nadal, all in a very convincing manner. That makes the margin of defeat cumulatively very large. The winner would actually, theoritically, be way ahead of the others.

There is an emergence of a new breed of good players, so we're able to move away from the Federer-Nadal fixation. Federer and Nadal have both had their best chance this time in the Australian Open. Nadal could've won the fantastic four and Federer could've added to his tally. I don't think both of them would have a chance later. I think their time is about over.

Meanwhile in the women's segment, the final was the highlight. Kim Clijsters prevailed over Li Na, but only after a real contest. The match was more about who would hold on to their serve, rather than who would break the other's serve. It made me think whether, for women especially, the serve is actually a disadvantage. Their return of serve was much better than the serve itself.

There are two reasons for this, as I see it. The serve cannot be done with two hands, whereas the backhand return, why even the forehand return, Nadal would confirm, can be done with two hands. Thats more power and precision at your disposal. The second reason is that the serve is done from high above, and with lesser power of the women, actually goes slower than other shots.

A thought. If the rules permit, why can't the women serve like they play shots. Have to read up the rules of tennis to find out if that is feasible.

The Genius in the gene

As I return back home from office, I listen to Tamil songs on my Sony mp3 player. Its been a while I've listened to my selected list of songs, accumulated over a period of time. There are many songs of AR Rahman and Harris Jeyaraj, and this thought crosses my mind. Harris Jeyaraj, at times, is better than Rahman, especially in the clarity of the lyrics in his songs. Listen to Nenjukkul Peidhidum, Kumari, Andangkaakka and you'll know what I'm saying. And he is good with the instruments and the arrangement. What else can you ask for?

Compared to that, Rahman doesn't focus too much on how clear the lyrics are in the song. He's too busy with experimenting with the music that he ignores the lyrics. After all the music is what is important. And I was reminded of the movie 'Music and Lyrics' in which Drew Barrymore says that the music is important at the start, but for the song to be truly good, the lyrics are also important. I agree with that. And with the lean patch that Rahman is going through, I almost conclude that Rahman is no longer what he used to be.

But then I listen to his songs on the playlist and find that Rahman is not just a good music director. He is a genius who believes in experimenting. Listen to Newyork Nagaram and you'll know the amount of gamakkam he has brought into the song. And not the traditional sort.

I paused to find the meaning of the word genius. And where else to find it except Wikipedia. Genius is ability, creativity and originality that is associated with achievement of unprecented insight. And I realise that only Rahman fits the bill completely.

And I remember the biography presentation I had prepared a few months back about Rahman. I had said then that whatever the state of my mind were, my mood was, I could find a song here and there in Rahman's discography that could put me further into it or pull me right out of it. In some ways, without really defining in words, Rahman's music was like therapy for me. Genius, for me, is being able to touch someone ordinary in a profound manner.

I'm not saying Harris Jeyaraj is bad. I remember how I answered a question during my presentation when someone made a comment that Ilayaraja was better. I said 'A lion is a lion and a tiger is a tiger'. There is no comparison. Having said that let me reiterate 'Rahman is a genius'

Pricing for stags and couples

I was wondering how party entry tickets are priced for stags and couples, and what should drive them. For the new year party we went to, couples were charged Rs. 6500 and stags were charged Rs. 5500. I was thinking why. The most apparent reason is not driven by any logic or formula, but from the fact that more stags are out to get into a party than couples. So why not price it high for them, and thus earn more. But is that the only reason. I'm thinking.

Is it associated with the requirement of bouncers to oversee the party if more stags are around? Thats based on the presumption that stags come to a party to be noticed and looked at by the girls in the couple. So they would require supervision and thus the increased charge to cover costs. But do parties really increase the security and bouncers when there are more stags. No they don't. Their setup remains just the same.

Is it to encourage couples to come, even the stags to find someone to come along with, thus maintaining the sex ratio. That way the club looks good, and we're promoting balance. But can that not be achieved by only saying that stags are not allowed. That will force the stags to find someone to tag along. I don't think club owners have so much to think about.

I didn't need to think too much on this though. I thought why I had asked the owner whether there would be too many stags in the party. It was because I would feel more comfortable with other couples around. Because the males in the couples will be more comfortable without the competition. Thats the reason. The club will not attract too many couples if stags are in the majority.

Many a time, the answers are right in front of you. You just have to see.

Get on with life

I ended 2010 by doing what I hate the most, something I’d give my life not to do! And I began 2011 by doing exactly the same thing. We were at a disco and I was dancing away amid the lights and the sound. And I lost myself in the crowd, not really bothered what the world thinks of me, not conscious of whether they’d think I was being crazy. It all changed less than a couple of months ago, when I got drunk at a friend’s birthday party, and danced away, realising that I did it better than most others who don’t hesitate doing it. And I did it again today, and it was to become a habit.

My leadership guide always tells me to do something that you wouldn’t normally do; that helps in stoking your creativity, she says. I once said I’m not good at picking up languages and that I didn’t have a flair for languages, and she insisted I learn French. I still haven’t tried it, nor have I succeeded in anything like this, but that’s not the point, she says. It only matters how your attempt changes you. And the last thing you should be bothered about is how the world views you. It doesn’t matter, not to anybody of consequence. So here I go... to live the moment... and get on with life.