Generation Flux

Read a very interesting article on the pace of accelerating change in the economy and business. And the importance of accepting chaos as a normal course of what is going to define the future for sometime to come.Very interesting perspectives:

"Uncertainty is when you've defined the variable but don't know its value. Like when you roll a die and you don't know if it will be a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. But ambiguity is when you're not even sure what the variables are. You don't know how many dice are even being rolled or how many sides they have or which dice actually count for anything."

"If ambiguity is high and adaptability is required, then you simply can't afford to be sentimental about the past. Future-focus is a signature trait of Generation Flux. It is also an imperative for businesses: trying to replicate what worked yesterday only leaves you vulnerable."

And my favorite, a quote from Charles Darwin:
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives; nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."

Read it. Chaos is here to stay. Are you a Genfluxer?

A revisit and a year end thought

I was travelling to Hampi again. This time with M. My last visit to the place was almost 2 years back , with two close friends from Mumbai who also got me my Canon 40D from Pune. It was a second time for M too , who had equally exercised her traveling options during her Bangalore stint. So why did we choose to go again? Hmm. No, not the irresistible charm of the bizarrely splendid Hampi architecture and ruins. M and I are no connoisseurs of architecture , the charm of Mango Tree would be more closer to the truth.Lack of adequate time for travel planning ? Yes. M does her classic vanishing act like always. I usually pride myself on my last minute planning,but a week before Christmas weekend and work to juggle with was difficult to beat. Also,the nonchalance towards the choice of the destination when you are looking forward to holiday with an old friend and catching up with each other's lives away from the busy schedules. Happens when you have been friends since kindergarten.

We board the Hampi express from the Bangalore city junction on Wednesday night. A peaceful overnight train journey reaching Hampi early morning the next day. Co passenger gentleman visibly impressed with M's D school pedigree strikes a conversation “ Do you know Swaminathan?”. “Swaminathan , who?”. M's brain is not known to respond well before breakfast. Especially when Swaminathans abound in plenty south of the Vindhyas. I shield myself against M,strategically positioning myself to vent my fits of laughter. Not polite , you see. An offer to be dropped to the bus stand is on stake.

“ You bongs are very intellectual , no? Also you travel a lot”." You also like music"
“ Who was that lady who won the Magsaysay award?”
M is fighting a lonely battle.If only looks could kill.Fortunately, the train halts at the Hospet station and we get a drop till the bus stand. A Paramvir Chakra for the woman.

Our first day is a quick tour of Hampi. A repeat for both of us. We spend more time at some of the places, especially Vitthala , the iconic Hampi temple, before sunset. Hampi ruins are spellbinding , even for a repeat visit. We head off for Badami the next day. Built somewhere around 550 A.D, the rock cut cave temples built by the Chalukyas are carved out of sandstone on the precipice of a hill. There are four cave temples dedicated to Shiva ,Vishnu and Mahavira-each with a huge verandah and vertical columns leading to an inner sanctum where the main sculpture is housed. Exquisitely carved murals.The fact that the temples were built somewhere in the first century and still survive almost unscathed is quite amazing.I wonder if I have seen anything older than these first century temples.Yes. Giza. 2500 B.C. After Badami,we head off for Aihole and Pattadakal , again Chalukyan temples dating back to the sixth/seventh centuries.

We check out of our resort the next day but are pretty much unoccupied before our train back to Bangalore in the evening. Our driver for the Badami trip enthusiastically suggests watching Don 2 at Hospet.We choose to settle instead with cups of coffee at a shack in Hampi Bazaar and spending time by the banks of the Tungabhadra over King Khan .The river looks serene, quite contrasting to the gushing torrent I remember last time when flash floods had the Tungabhadra overflowing it's banks. A friend from Hyderabad is also visiting Hampi , but luck plays spoilsport and we miss meeting him by a whisker.

We also  notice a lot of school children in Hampi and the nearby places,visiting as part of excursions, before their Christmas holidays. A school excursion group possibly from Bangalore, was booked in the same KSTDC resort that we were staying at. In striking contrast we notice, school children from the excursion groups coming from the nearby areas, did not have their basic school uniforms, a lot of of them barefooted. One of them also tried selling us his Hampi guide. Glaring disparities in school education in India? A parting thought as we packed our bags back to Bangalore.

*A travelogue on the first Hampi visit here

The making of a Goddess

The making of a Goddess a set on Flickr.

Images , some holy , some macabre.. from a carefully crafted process of idol making to celebrate the victory of Goddess Durga over the evil demon Mahisasura

Aaschey Bochor Abar hobey!

“You girls should finish the sari shopping in the next two days, shops will close down for Pujo”- my mom suggested as we settled down after dinner. My heart skipped a beat. My dear friend from Delhi who had come down to Kolkata for Pujo was gearing up with plans of shopping for exquisite saris.As the hostess, I (obviously) was entreated with the responsibility of escorting her. Coupled with my generic ignorance on matters related to the divine six yards of cloth (although I do maintain that nothing can do justice to a woman's elegance the way a sari can), my infamously short attention span when it comes to shopping and my friend's reputation of being a very..ahem..discerning shopper, the plan was ambitious to say the least. Not to mention the prospect of pre Pujo evening traffic.What followed in the next two days was a whirlwind treasure hunt- South to North Kolkata, discourses on saris from the most expert of salesmen (and women) (my respects to all of you),networking with sari merchants in Central Avenue (huge bargaining notwithstanding, we were also served coke..heh!), moments of complete misery (“Dude, just buy one!") and rare,unbelievable glory (“I think I will take this” (mental somersault)). Perks of the shopping marathon included a trip to College street, a quick tour of Mohammed Ali park and College square Pujo, taking her around the college campus and sitting in the crowded Paramount shop introducing her to Kolkata's famous sherbet and our favourite watering hole during Presidency days.

My first Pujo in Kolkata was splendid to say the least - a warm homecoming and time with family and closest of friends. Catching up with friends over breakfast at Flurys' where our unstoppable giggles invited glares from all over and clocking hours of adda at a Park street coffee shop. Gorging over fish and meals at the apartment Pujo celebrations. Catching the latest Bengali movie in town ; only to be nudged by my mom sitting beside me - “Bujhte parchish? (can you understand?)". A half day tour of the Ganges – crossing below the Howrah bridge and some of the oldest ghats in the city to Belur and back . A tour I would want to do again , after sunset. A vacation which just left me asking for more. Maybe just like the devotees bidding the Goddess goodbye as they immerse her in the Ganges -“Aschey bochor abar hobe (It'll happen again next year!)". And a strange melancholy as I packed my bags back to Bangalore. Like the lilting tune of a Tagore song I had heard as we crossed the Belur Math:

In god we trust , everyone else please bring data!

The office bay post 10 p.m is a crucible of random conversations. Or to 'ideate' as they say. Like when you are finishing up some last minute number crunching for the final presentation, and the joke doing the rounds is “ So what is your favourite proc?”. “Proc delete”. Guffaws. Do analytics folks have a skewed sense of humour? Probable topic of academic research in social psychology.

Or like Sid walking up to discuss “Hey, so we should have a victory flag when we climb upto 6000m+ in Ladakh this time”.  “Sounds cool , like what?” “Umm..a math geek with oversized glasses climbing up, and the flag says–In god we trust, everyone else please bring data." I am speechless. These are the 'engineer' kinds. And trust me not to initiate conversations on the 'engineering jokes from school' , they can destroy sanity.

Speaking of data , a new report from the Mckinsey Global Institute discusses how the scale and scope of companies' access to data is changing the way they do business. Interesting read for anyone in the analytics space. The report covers five domains in detail - health care,retailing,the public sector, manufacturing and personal-location data. Surprisingly not financial services, given the scale and complexity of information management and analytics in financial services.

The camera-phone-elation in office is a sentiment-high right now. Launch the people survey now I say!! (teehehe). Interestingly, none of the folks I spoke to about getting the new smartphone are thinking about the blackberry. On a seperate note, RIM has warned of Blackberry blues, slicing it's earnings outlook for the year and said it would start laying off employees as rivals like Apple eat away it's once dominant smartphone market share.

The office photography club went for an early morning photo walk at the Bangalore K.R Market, after a long hiatus. Hiatus, especially true for the master (respect \m/) who came along. I, for myself, managed to wake up at 5 a.m , drove all the way to K.R Market , then to Church Street for breakfast and back home without so much as a scratch (somersault!). Abuzz with activity even in the early morning hours, the market is a melting pot offering everything from still life to people photography. Managed to get some decent shots.

We landed up in Koshy's for breakfast after the shoot. My first breakfast in Koshy's. Disappointing (in capital letters). Bangaloreans, beat me up, but I would not go to Koshy's either for the food or the ambience. If it is the classic english breakfast,Bangalore has better places to offer for sure. And if I am looking for old world charm , I would pay for my south Indian breakfast and filter coffee at MTR. Thank you.

Bangalore-ed!

My resolution to be more dilligent with blogging doesn't seem to be working well. Ditto for weekend travels and photo shoots for atleast the first half of the year. Except for a late night shoot on Bangalore roads from 11 p.m after a half day team outing where super enthusiastic office folks insisted on playing a knock out cricket tournament. Times like this I wonder if I were a sadist.

Work on weekdays more than compensates for the lack of significant activity over the weekends though. Of all the quirky emoticons on Sametime messenger, I particularly fell for this one:

What I did manage to do,however,is to plan my trip of the year. I am off to Ladakh again in August, this time for a trek to Chamser Kangri situated near Tso Moriri coupled with plans to do a Leh Manali roadtrip. Didn't imagine I would be going back to Ladakh again this soon!

Also, gradually realizing I am pretty hooked to Bangalore.Love the superb weather, the prospective eating out options (several of them still remain unexplored) and the general enthusiastic junta up for travel or photography. Great options to catch up with theater at Rangashankara. I did manage to catch a play -The interview; well executed with brilliant comic timing.

Traffic is bad, but so is the story for every other Indian city. Staying close to office helps.I am generally flummoxed with a lot of Bangalore traffic signals at crossings though, or maybe it is just the naivette of a novice driver speaking.I also managed to lose my way driving back from Forum to home (eeks! horrid sense of direction). Absolutely hate the night curfew, what with pubs and restaurants closing down at 11 p.m. Also, the perils of going through the breathalyzer test if you are driving back at night forced me to settle for a single pina colada when I caught up with a friend at a nice pub over the weekend .Reasons why I prefer my house serving up as the team party place on occasional weekends:-)!

The good life

“Wine is bottled poetry” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. The Bangalore International Wine festival seemed like it chose to differ. A couple of us dropped by at the wine festival on an unusually hot Sunday afternoon hoping to catch some interesting photo ops. The “eclectic” event was a mish mash of food stalls (the ubiquitous CCD kinds),wine sampling events (where some sloshed visitors looked like they would leave no stone unturned in extracting the last penny of their visitor passes) and a.. err.. rock music show. Now I love rock, but a wine festival and rock music? Or maybe that was eclectic.

The British government added sparkling wine to it’s Consumer Price Index market basket of goods this month. “Sparkling wines are also being added due to their increased consumption” – added an official note. A case of a luxury good becoming a normal good? Flummoxed…eh? Rare occasions when I would want to gloat about the economist in me but shall spare you in peace. A luxury good, non technically speaking is what the poor cannot have and only the elite can. The funny thing about a luxury good is however, once it gets increasingly democratised, it ceases being one. Technology is a very good example. Even before you know it, that hottest gadget you got for yourself becomes a normal good. So much for social signalling!

So what does it take to know how hard it is to be immensely rich these days? Check out the Forbes' "Cost of Living Extremely Well Index". Its components include: Gucci loafers, one year at Harvard University, a night at a one-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons in New York, 1oz of Joy (a perfume by Jean Patou), Davidoff cigars, a Hermès calfskin bag and much more. Also, what matters is not just the good itself but under what brand it is being sold.

Recent research also suggests that luxury brands act like marketing placebos and could improve human performance! Think your photography ain’t good enough…maybe you should get the Canon EOS 5D Mark II!! (macro man fits the bill , Alleppey fellow travellers would agree:-0)). For those not so inflicted by such fallacies of human thought, there is always the inhouse photography expert..or better..a pirated version of photoshop:D. Okay photographers,we will debate on the “moralities” of photo editing next time!

Photo credits:Shireen