Eyes

My dervish twin
blithely harlequin
soul is drowned
in the dazzling deluge
it sees. Deaf

It never hears
the clamorous whirl
of other things.

But only, only, only
the refrain
of a silence
a peace of being

Beautiful and growing.

Lessons from Uttarkhand -- II / Living with less

If I remember right, I have probably talked about consumerism, et al on this blog, and as is my wont, I am sure I have probably even repeated myself. That I, an "advertising waalah" and "marketing professional" write like this has to be plain sacrilegious, considering that advertising is all said and done the "hustling" of brands and marketing -- the process of demand creation, or rather the "touting" prior to the hustle; but then we all have consciences don't we?

(Then again, we all have to whore for a living as well, come to think of it.)

I at least think I am in a relatively better position to speak about the ills of consumerism (than all those who have been sharing links that talk about "Living with less" on FB) because of my relatively spartan way of living and because though I have worked at various places in various roles, I have never sold my soul to lucre or Mammon.

Then again, my biggest calling has always been that of "getting close to the unpaved earth", and I will gladly be called a primitivist rather than extol the virtues of so called "development".

And you know, even if I am back in IT (in a way), my soul is still mine and I don't get paid an obscene salary either.

Oh, how I digress!

~~~~~~~~~~~

I am off FB when I write this (you see I can live with less!) and I am sure all the worthies who frothed at the mouth and expressed so much outrage have already forgotten what happened in Uttarkhand. But I do remember some of that outrage. Various people -- various theories.

The first theory is that the blame lies squarely with the pilgrims (the old and infirm) who perished there, because they were foolish enough to venture there. There are echoes of this sick thinking in certain quotes in certain accounts I have read online too. Natural when you consider that most people will blame the old for being old (or the deaf for being deaf, for that matter). In this case, the blame is totally not on the pilgrims (immaterial of their age or degree of firmness, pilgrims are opportunists -- in fact most children are too), it should have been the temple administrations, the priests ( -- I am Brahmin by birth -- who can get worse than the worst tout+hustler+bania) and all the tour operators, who should have learned to live with less long, long back. But then Uttarkhand is no Kashmir, Kedarnath is no Amarnath, naturally a lot of the "tour operators" were old uncles from the South with a smattering of Hindi and a belief in Shiva. If you forget (and forgive) the uncles from the South, wasn't it expected of the others involved in the "tourism promotion activity" to read the portents?    

The second theory is that this happened because of rampant "honeymooning" in the hills. Well, to a certain extent that is where the biggest blame lies. Because it is the youngest lot who are the most consumerist. And I can simply not think of a bigger "market" than this lot -- when it comes to comfortable lodgings, mineral water bottles, "nice" roads and all that jazz. And hey, this isn't about what the "honeymooners" do, its more about what they are willing to pay for -- that's how a "different" and very consumerist economy starts, does it not?

The third theory is, nothing happened. Yes. You read that right. This is the theory that all "pralay" believers ("scientific" people who can DIY everything to do with their Smart Phones, laptops, et al but cannot for a moment think of themselves as a blade of grass, a tree, a bird, a bloodsucker; people who can never understand things from the perspective of a "natural" living) would like to subscribe to. While there are any number of other qualifications to be part of this grand club of blind (and brainless) men and women, the most important (at the media level) are that they be from the Congress (or its long drawn out legacy) or from the other "verticals" in which marketing means selling not only your soul but that of your forefathers as well.

May the same God who received the souls of all who perished in Uttarkhand forgive the idiots and the idiotic theories. After all, that is what the mountain does, always, it doesn't quake.

Om Namaha Shivaya.                 

                  .             

I Long To Hold Some Lady

I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.

There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady's bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:

As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.

Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.

But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.

-- Leonard Cohen (from "The Spice Box of Earth")

Waiting for Marianne

I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it


I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost asleep

Did you take the telephone
knowing I'd sniff it immoderately
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath

and if you won't come back
how will you phone to say
you won't come back
so that I could at least argue

-- Leonard Cohen (from "Flowers for Hitler")

The Genius

For you
I will be a ghetto jew
and dance
and put white stockings
on my twisted limbs
and poison wells
across the town


For you
I will be an apostate jew
and tell the Spanish priest
of the blood vow
in the Talmud
and where the bones
of the child are hid


For you
I will be a banker jew
and bring to ruin
a proud old hunting king
and end his line


For you
I will be a Broadway jew
and cry in theatres
for my mother
and sell bargain goods
beneath the counter


For you
I will be a doctor jew
and search
in all the garbage cans for foreskins
to sew back again


For you
I will be a Dachau jew
and lie down in lime
with twisted limbs
and bloated pain
no mind can understand

-- Leonard Cohen (from "The Spice-Box of Earth")

Other people, other jobs

"Had I really understood something of war, I wouldn’t have gotten sidetracked trying to write about rebels and loyalists, Sunnis and Shia. Because really the only story to tell in war is how to live without fear. It all could be over in an instant. If I knew that, then I wouldn’t have been so afraid to love, to dare, in my life; instead of being here, now, hugging myself in this dark, rancid corner, desperately regretting all I didn’t do, all I didn’t say. You who tomorrow are still alive, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you love enough? You who have everything, why you are so afraid?"

Read it all, here

Google, gadgets and other going ons...

Its a fascinating thing -- when you think of it -- that time isn't exactly linear and inanimate; I mean have you ever wondered why a microwave (oven) minute takes so long when you want it to be over fast and so short when your attention is elsewhere?

Okay, my observation (or analogy rather) is largely contextual because I have been boiling eggs in my microwave oven.  But the point still holds, no -- hard-boiling eggs in a microwave may be an art and all that, but its something as plebeian as cooking rice in a pressure cooker, and yet (probably because the former is far more hi-tech) the "minute" seems to become a lot more flighty and animate, almost as if it has a mind of its own, no?

Okay, before you think I have finally lost it, try cooking some eggs in your microwave. And TRY cooking them in a way that they are perfectly hard-boiled.

 ~~~~~~~

We (at the homestead) have recently gone wireless.  After having to spend almost half the time I used to be online fighting an iffy / dodgy / half-assed Internet connection (or begging brother for his data card), THIS is something else. Not that I am an "always online or always connected" person (the green light glowing on my GTalk "mostly" all the time, notwithstanding), especially in the "so many birds, so little time" context; yet its a relief to have such connectivity, to sit some 26 feel above the router and still get such stunning speeds...

Maybe I should look at opening a cyber cafe for the birds, butterflies and Bozo, in order to share this bandwidth with them all.

~~~~~~~~

The little man has grown up perceptibly in the last 6-8 months (and lost all his milk teeth). Naturally then (for a civilized, city-bred brat) he is nowadays totally into "video" games. This used to be "sweet" in the beginning when he would straight away ask for my mobile phone (the Nokia I lost in B'lore) immediately after he came home. I am not saying its not "sweet" any more, now that he has discovered that its far more fun to play games on the computer (it started with the venerable "home" Desktop  that still hasn't conked off -- after almost 8 years of use, went on to a "games" exploration of my "birding / writing" laptop -- without any encouragement from me -- and has now also extended to a fine tooth combing of my office laptop -- with my grudging approval) but somehow, its a bit of a pain to see that his interests are more into what's available and happening on the computer rather than outside, in the wide, wide world.

But then (though he still bounces a ball and even asks Amma to play it with him and makes the occasional drawing) he is growing up and at the end of the day he is a civilized, city-bred brat.I do wish, he woke up one fine day and decided that chasing a butterfly is more fun, or go back to wanting to throw stones into the water (I "discovered" most of the quarries around my place for him in the days when riding on the tank of the Bullet used to be his biggest joy).

Wishes can be horses, children should be children.

~~~~~~~~~

Some more ramblings on the little man and the other fascinating character in my life -- my father.

Not so surprisingly both of them know zilch about technology. Its my father's pride and joy to learn how to operate the PC and send e-mails (and since his son is Hard of Hearing, he's pretty good -- if  a bit absent-minded -- at sending SMSes as well) but his bugbear is that he cannot remember where he has saved what.

In case of the Little Man, in the days when he wasn't that "interested" in the computer, it used to be fun to make him sit on my lap and see his little (almost little enough to be a common kingfisher's foot, if I am allowed to take poetic license) hand driving the mouse and trying to click an icon, or to see him try to write something that I would be voicing for him.

I can bet that the Little Man doesn't know any more about how the computer works or how to save files (he is a MS-Paint artist, among other things) than my father. But then, he has a sharper brain and is far more bloody-minded as well.

And oh yes, not so surprisingly, they both use the same term to indicate that they want to get online -- "Google".

~~~~~~~~~~~

As I have already chronicled on this blog, I lost a Nokia in B'lore and I managed to put a Samsung out of commission (it survived a hit-and-run) in Delhi. And though I had contemplated a lot to stay phoneless, even someone of my far from social nature needs to stay connected, hence I read up a lot on "Smart" phones, and almost bought various snazzy smart phones, at various points in time. But, I don't listen to music on phones, I wouldn't play games on it either, and ummm....using the phone for taking photographs would be like riding a Luna with a garage full of vintage British bikes (thanks to the costly and weighty DSLRs that I own).

So.

So.

So.

I am back to my Micromax Q3, the very first QWERTY phone that I ever bought.

Not only does it work commendably (which in my case means, it sends the 3-4 SMSes that I need to send pretty well and is capable of even letting me jot in the odd poem / note) and lately I have also relearned (thanks to the help from an old friend who was a hotshot phone sales entrepreneur in the days of  JT Mobile) how to lock it up safely (after sending garbled SMSes and making "bum" calls to people whom I have never been in touch with -- for more than 3 years).

And hey, the MMX Q3 is a smart phone as well. Now tell me, what does that make me?      



          


        

    

Collected Poems in English -- Arun Kolatkar

Okay, here's the first notable thing about this book.

Its a Bloodaxe.

I know that may not ring a bell in a lot of heads (and not necessarily in the heads of those who don't read poetry -- considering that a lot of people who read poetry, just read it online), so let me clarify.

Bloodaxe is probably the world's most premier publisher of poetry books and if they publish someone's poetry, that someone could consider that he / she has arrived.

I don't know if I am being irreverent here, or if I am being mock irreverent -- in a way what I said above is a fact.

Then again, Bloodaxe probably commissioned this book around the time that they came to know that Arun Kolatkar is leaving (as opposed to having arrived) when he was diagnosed with cancer and counting his days.

Then again, I am not blaming Bloodaxe for this either, Arun being Arun and legendarily famous for not signing contracts, wanting total control on his books, wanting to design them, choose the paper, etc, etc.

All of which is neither here nor there, all of us are mortal and poets are more so -- since they die a thousand deaths even when they live -- what matters is that this book is probably the only such collection of Arun Kolatkar's oeuvre and yes, it has Jejuri in it (try buying it), it has Kala Ghoda Poems in it (try buying it), it has Sarpa Satra in it (TRY buying it) and it has many a poem that you never heard of (even if you are a dyed in wool Arun Kolatkar acolyte) like the poems presented under "Translations" and those presented under "Words for Music", poems that seem totally alien to Arun Kolatkar's laconic and very pithy voice.

But then, this is a collection of all his life's writings and while many a poet struggles to find one voice, someone like Arun could probably manage a lot more :-)

All of which is neither here nor there; I am not reviewing this book here, nor am I asking you to buy it. Or whatever.

As people say on FB, "Arun Kolatkar in the house".

And to think that I have been denying myself this pleasure for more than three years -- years during which I have gifted his books to some "special" others and also introduced some close friends and all and sundry to him.

Yes, to think that I was indulging in social service all this while, instead of enjoying his poetry again and again.

But then, I had promises to keep.

And bring out my own three books of poetry.

Somehow I have the feeling that up there, asking for another Chhai and Bun Maska in the cafe where dead poets sit and while away their time, Arun Kolatkar would chuckle to know that I have his life's work with me. And that I am nonplussed -- unable to decide if a book that weighs half a kg is all that someone as prolific as him leaves behind, unable to decide if that is less or more, for a poet that is.

All of which is neither here nor there... 

Lessons from Uttarkhand -- I

What exactly happened in Uttarkhand (and why) is something that we will never know. The blame game has already run its course (and lost its way in the spin generated by the Congress and the BJP), the indignation and the outrage on FB and Twitter has already died down, the TV channels have already found something equally vicarious to feast on -- courtesy a Terror attack on the Bodh Gaya Temple.

Offline, most armchair experts mouth the word "cloudburst". A word that has gained notoriety since the Mumbai floods and thereafter attained apocalytic weight, after what happened in Ladakh.

And yes, this word is uttered with a gravitas bordering the funereal, its a word that brooks no argument.

To extend this logic further other armchair experts (what else are our ministers and bureaucrats, if not that -- ruling as they do from the comfort of their AC offices or cars/ SUVs) tried to pass it all off as a Himalayan Tsunami. Something against which, there could have been no safeguard, something akin to Shiva's Tandav (conveniently enough -- considering our current Government's secular credentials, its easy to blame it on Shiva, considering that the Char Dham yatra is to places like Kedarnath and Badrinath) against which mere mortals can do squat.

But what God kills his own?

So what happened?

There was a cloudburst and there was a lakeburst as well (a glacial lake on a slope above the Kedarnath temple broke through its moraine barrier) and there were a lot of landslides / mudslides from all the peaks around as well, converging onto the "town".

But was this all God's doing?

No; because that "town" had no business being that big and just the presence of so many people (along with their attendant needs for Tea, Coffee, etc, etc) must have itself been like a burr in the glacier's side.





No; because by all accounts, almost 70% of the "facilities" were illegal / unauthorized and had no right to be there in the first place, even it if was for just the duration of the yatra.

No; because the footfalls of the pilgrims have never been regulated, because the old and infirm have never been "discouraged" from this yatra.

In other words this was a tragedy waiting to happen, its just that "freakish" rainfall added to the magnitude of the toll. This was a tragedy waiting to happen because the pilgrims were golden ducks for everyone involved in the "logistics" side of the yatra -- the tour operators, the palanquin bearers, the mule drivers, the hotel owners, the temple administration board and so on...

Its expected that the Kedarnath Yatra will be closed for two years. Meanwhile, this tragedy will be forgotten, and no lessons will be learned.

Roads

Again
the light wakes me
with a question

That my eyes hear
I smile
seeing new roads, say

I will ride again
for all a man can do
is try.

A Waiting

I have seen
the grasses grow tall
supple, tree straight,

Seen them greenly nod
their purple and russet heads
as the rains thinned

Into dew, wintering
the light turned golden.
my eyes sage

Wells of thirst,
I am full with a sapience
of knowing.

The sickle stab of light
in a tapestry of grass,
is that you, O Time...

I am a waiting
for the coming of words
grey of tongue, to storytell

All that's hard to hear.  

The challenge of building a software products brand

If you follow this blog on any kind of a continuous basis, you would be aware by now that I certainly don't follow any kind of chronology or time frame in the frequency in which I post here, nor that I have any kind of yardstick to decide what to post and what not to post here.

(That philosophy -- or lack of it -- also sums up my approach to writing poetry, so to say).

So here it is -- I am back at work and again at the forefront of dealing with the challenge of building brands (corporate and product). For a company with whom I have had an earlier (rewarding and enlightening) stint.

Yes, an earlier (chuckle) stint (chuckle).


 I was here before Moving On happened. Back then (as at most small "Indie" software product development companies) there was a lot to do here -- and a constant need to innovate and improvise. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) there is a lot to do here now as well.

But then, that is the story of building a brand, any brand -- its always a work in progress.

Its good to be back in a familiar milieu -- of products and solutions that I understand pretty well (if anything, they have become better in the intervening four or so years) and be in a mind space where the excellence paradigms and road-maps are also equally familiar ( I am a MBA and advertising and brand communications was the earliest of my "callings").

Its good to be back at work and good to be productive. And since it is the season of deluges, I know the poetry will keep coming too. 

*********

I mostly get along two ink pens to work.

Sometimes they get dry.

Poetry, on such days is bumming ink from someone who has let me bum many a cigarette.

And yes, neither of us now smokes.