lost in translation

its ironical how with the teeming millions which makes up our craggy India...with every nook and corner over stuffed with people one can still feel lonely, what with cellphones,the internet,social networking sites, friends accumulated from school through college to work, what with all distractions to keep us busy books,music,movies,coffee shops,shopping malls,video games,travelling... reality stares down our face but we get lost in translation...

food for thought 1-a work of art!!

how does one rate paintings??
I have not done a course on critiquing; nor have friends who understood modern art i have'nt googled how paintings are rated ( yet!)...i was looking for an interesting topic to blog on and presto !! this question has befuddled me for quite a while...with the old classics the artist would paint forms which were objective...smting you had seen in real life or could relate too- lady maddona with a child..landscape,boat by the sea,lord krishna on a swing...forms which could be compared to real life visuals...you probably could appreciate the brush stroke...the colours used..the emotions on the face of portraits...then came the renoir's and bunch who made it slightly difficult to interpret there work but all in all you could understand they were painting a house;fruit bowl or portrait...with the surreal movement and others since( i know not much about) all i see of modern art is arbit pieces of work...life forms with mixed limbs;a few brush strokes on a white sheet which could be interpreted as and how u see it??
i personally feel that what appeals to your sense of aesthetics should be accepted as a good piece of art...but then how would you price somthing like that??? on whos basis do we evaluate one artists work as genius and the others as a farce??
people mostly follow the herd mentality waiting for one artists claim to fame from an accomplished critique and shower praise; appreciate beauty of the work on foundations of the critiques acceptance of the same!!

On Time

My bunch of friends & I have supposedly come of age- parents/elders have made it clear –“you are of marriageable age find yourself a suitable wife or we will GLADLY do the needful!!”

In India we being a developing nation do “the play it safe card”…if a boy turns 25 or 26 he should get married…Why ?well off course- we calculate everything in economic terms –you would have started earning at around 23 [ bank balance adequate by 26 hence marriage]…parents would be around 50 to 60 either retired or about to retire when you are 27 [ hence marriage]…by 28 make babies [ hence marry at 26 to 27] so that child gets married when you are around 55 to 60 retirement …all equations prescribe safe play!!

What about giving the poor soul who has dragged himself thru school college & now days a must do post grad a chance - shattering his dreams of self paid holidays in Goa …splurging on booze friends girl friends!!

Life is always trying to cope with the eternal struggle of earning enough to live a 2 Car;3 bhk apartment; platinum carded; n series gprs activated life!! Welcome to Indian middle class!!

I have managed to successfully convince my parents otherwise - all the best to others sitting on 26!!

India Shining

I am not very well read when it comes to events and current affairs in India...however I see a very disturbing pattern which is gradually spreading across our country...partisan politics...Mamta and her manifesto-let West Bengal bleed an economic death I want the farmer Vote...Narendra Modi and his muslim killer pose-good local administration spiked with killing a thousand muslims[ just to make sure of getting hindu vote bank]....BJP power flare with its infancy in Ayodhya riots...Graham Staines and now christian missionaries in Orissa being burnt...Raj Thakre following footsteps of Bal Thakrey with Biharis to Bachans being harassed...
No one seems to have an agenda of improving India...life of Indians..vision of seeing a peaceful prosperous nation...Religion ;reservation;caste politics;state autonomy pave the future for Indian politics...

Indian born confused desi - IBCD

the modern indian youth suffers from the "IBCD syndrome"....globalisation has caught up rapidly with the younger generation ....not only impacting trade and commerce but also sensitizing the youth with the culture and lifestyle of foreigners..... a large part of our personality is nurture and not nature ....reading watching and listening to too many western ideas has an impact on our being.... we become a misfit in our own nation...the change in our behavior is gradually becoming noticeable..."live in relationship; rock music; pop idol- britney; nihilism; western philosophy( camus; kafka; freud); beer substituting lemonade; one night stands; kissing in public; divorce; adultery ;shrinks;fashion tv; atheism ;late marriage; homosexuality....the list is never ending.....people have been practising some of what i stated above since long but giving it " metropolitan acceptability" ( note i havnt said indian acceptability) is new..... the problem we face is stranger than what an american born confused desi would have..why? simply because though the parent child generation gap is evident in them atleast the society around them is westernised...with us we have the parent child gap and we stay in a society which is also expressive of the same gap.... some would call this an evolving society i think otherwise since the change is stronger in small pockets and not in the nation as mass resulting in social oddities.... the reason i probably wrote on this subject is because i see my friends as a case in point.....with excessive influence of foreign media ( russian; british american et all) they/ we end up unknowingly behaving a little like them which is obviously seen as strange/showy/weird/quirky/flashy...depending on which part of india you currently residing( in Patna u will be branded as a flashy showoff half male ; in Mumbai u mite be considered normal).... I myself am still not sure how much water this theory holds so i would like to end this post by asking readers to help me find the answer..

Originality --credit mutations not inheritance !!

India the land of the maharjas; the land of spiritualism; the land of a 1000 gods; the land of vedas ;the land of gandhi...( with passage of time) ....the land of software engineers; (BPO's--> well on its way).....the land of plagiarism!! it depresses me immensely every time i listen to a new song released or a new movie screened by bollywood...a new serial ...a new hindi writer.......Indian art is dying.... originality is esoteric!! the few who look at the ARTS as a commercial enterprise make pots of money by resorting to the aping mantra ( pick a successful song, movie, novel from the west and form a hindi remix) ....
the purest and the strongest form of human expression --THE ARTS are whored and raped.....the biggest cause of worry is that we indians have become so use to this complete defilement that some amongst us patronise it.....we not only accept but encourage such gross defilement of the arts
although we churn out the largest number of graduates every year...the intellectual capital of the country taken on head count is increasing in geometric progression....the depressing part is that the originality quotient is on the decline.... the students are very strong with there facts ...the best in quizzes and following the book by the letter...give them a module of a large software to debugg they will be the quickest to apply predefined rules to find the flaws but give them a page and ask them to write two lines of poetry and they will clueless
I might have overstated the problem here but the truth is that no one gets stirred unless shaken roughly...there are certain directors writers singers and artist who are extremely talented and don’t deserve the calumny above....but with a billion plus population if only a handful turn out to be dexterous i would credit that to mutations and not to cultural inheritance

on rereading this post i realise i have made it a habit to deride Indians in my posts....the reason is simple...the only junta i have interacted with indepth are Indians....had I been born in Europe I would have been cynical to European idiosyncrasies.....as on today its India which unwantingly bears my pessimisim.....

WAKE UP ITS MONDAY EVRYDAY

What follows is a typical day in SCMHRD narrated as it happens…

rrrrnnnnnnngggg….
I got up at an ungodly6oclock sneezed, groaned, stretched, wore my sweatshirt brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face and took off for the meditation hall [for the uninitiated we do yoga every morning as a part of our curriculum]…At about 7 after going through an introspective hour of silence, a whirl of turbulent thoughts (the next FCQ, MR assignment deadline, the Social project errand) and a whiff of sleep I gathered my wits and promised to make the day a success.

What follows is the daily routine:
From 7.30 to 8.55- Read the newspaper, eat breakfast.. ..blare loud music and run for the first lecture ( hoping to make it on time)
I personally feel that the best learning one gets from his/her MBA is to cope with the maddening schedule…finishing an assignment in the last nano second ( incidentally its called AIT following the JIT concept propounded by Toyota AIT-“Almost in Time”) ..Sitting for a surprise test … being asked to give a presentation on a topic you conveniently forgot to make note off …nothing surprises you anymore
The Houdini trick played on us daily is how the day turns to evening at a blink of an eye...time flies…before we realize its 6 in the evening…. 5 lectures breeze by without a groan or squeal from us (umm from most of us – I am being politically correct) but if this gives the reader the impression that life’s all hunky dory after 6
PAUSE
6 to 9 is assignment time- groups of students flock in the library or access the internet in the computer lab ...the breath of life that reassures us of the sanity in life comes about 9 in the evening ( I hope the reader takes notice of the fact that its 9 in the evening not night)
The 10 to 12 slot gets booked on badgering and animated discussions on a wide array of topics- the whole gamut from Britney Spears latest album to Led Zepplins No Quarter ; from PLC cycle, BCG Matrix in Kotler to dissection of Metamorphosis by KAFKA. The athletic amongst us invest this time of their day in playing Basket ball ; TT; volleyball amongst other sports.

12 to 1 is my retreat.. i crawl into my cocoon and enjoy Pink Floyd with a unfinished book or finish a single CD of the latest movie( single CD viewing with day long intervals between the 2 CDs of the same movie is another offering of MBA education).

The End…what follows is a tired inert lump of carbonaceous bi pedal life form hibernating his laptop and himself...charging the two for the rigors of tomorrow…

Yes life is difficult.. yes I have lost a few kilos ,missed many meals… yes family socializing is what the Soviet saw of the Hippie culture in 1960s; in short zilch…and YES because of this and not in spite of this LIFE’S A WHOLE LOT OF FUN!!