Return to Innocence

Wonderful wonderful video. Easily amongst the best that I have ever seen. And a wonderful song to boot. The lyrics...

That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Don't care what people say
Follow just your own way Follow just your own way
Don't give up, don't give up
To return, to return to innocence.
If you want then laugh
If you must then cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.

I mean, I know it is just a song, but the lyrics are so wonderful. So thoughtful, and ultimately, so true.

The Philadelphia Story

Superb star cast - Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart & Cary Grant.

Fantastic story about human prejudices and frailties and ultimately about that ultimate human tendency - the ability to forgive and accept.

But these two are never enough to make a good movie. What you need is fantastic writing - the script for this movie is sizzling. The dialog is sensational. And that superb cast mentioned above - well, it seems the lived and breathed the roles when the movie was made. Such sincere and earnest are their portrayals.

The superb dialog - "I am standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy!". "What's this room? I've forgotten my compass. I'd say south-by-southwest parlor-by-living room"
"You'll never be a first class human being or a first class woman until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty."

Ah! Such exquisite timing in comedy and such flowery prose in drama.

What else to say except, go, watch it. On cable on Turner Classic Movies. Or from Netflix or Blockbuster. Or if you are lucky, your local library.

"Sir, would you please say something"

I've heard it said in the US that focus on careers for kids about to head to college are driven by the prevailing theme of the prime-time dramas on TV - how the current slew of crime-dramas are driving people to consider careers as detectives, crime sleuths, and all such related careers that are the part of programs like NUMB3RS, Law & Order, Miami Vice, CSI and its spinoffs.

Apparently, in just fourteen years since the cable revolution in India, the country's thriving and not-so-thriving networks and their inane focus on "news" has spawned such a mini revolution in career focus for the country's young'uns. From traditional careers like doctors and engineers to the not-so-occasional lawyers, to the omni-present "software developers", the focus has now shifted to "TV News". Or atleast, wannabe TV journalists.

The BBC's South Asia bureau chief Paul Danahar writes an interesting critique of the new phenomenon, that threatens to over-run the TV news sector with substandard and often pathetic reporters who often show up because these are jobs with "No Experience Required". No wonder there are journalistic pieces like "Sir, would you please say something?", and "Who are you?" get thrown at no-less than a person like the Home Minister of India. Paul notes the interesting phenomenon of dumbing down of TV news, that is directly, and indirectly a result of the strangling bureaucratic mess thrown up the Indian government, under the pretext of security requirements. While Paul does suck up to NDTV, calling them thoughtful and serious journalists (apparently he didn't note/care for their coverage of the Vadodara incidents earlier this summer), one cannot fault with any other segment of his thoughtful piece, including his indulgent dig at the "old or ugly" journalists that the BBC hires :)

An Inconvenient Truth

Here we go again...another attempt at trying to educate the masses on the effects of climate change, and how we are bringing purported disaster on ourselves.

You want to have an opinion of this movie? Watch it yourself, and THEN evaluate the FACTS for what they are, PRIOR to jumping to a conclusion on whether or not this is a propaganda movie, irrespective of your political dispensation.

Sweating It Out!!!

Old Spice tells us in a breathless press-release this past week that Phoenix has held on to its title of the sweatiest city in America. Surprise, surprise...considering that Phoenix IS the hottest city in the nation...Surprise, surprise #2...Phoenix was named the sweatiest city only three times in the five years that this survey has run...

But having visited my native Chennai this past May, and being faced with gallons of sweat running right down my face and down my shirts, I CAN attest to Phoenix atleast being a lot more comfortable because of the drier conditions. Dangerous yes...but nothing that lugging a gallon of water with you can't fix.

Boy, can't wait for sizzling July...especially with parents in town :) Its going to be fun for them.

Economic Spiral

Interesting perspective on the flattened globalized world. Are we headed...
Toward perpetual prosperity or totally out of control?

The coconut temple courier

BBC NEWS | South Asia | The coconut temple courier service

15,000 coconuts on regular days, 100,000 on festival days. Batons in an infinite relay race - until the coconuts reach the Maa Tarini Temple in Ghatgaon of Orissa state in eastern India.

Religiousity to an extreme? Probably. But, what matters the most is that people are happy doing it. And there are ancillary industries - candy and coconut oil that have sprung up around the area. More power to the people.

Its NOT the game, stupid

Disclaimer: Like ESPN takes pain to point out, the poll is unscientific, and hence unreliable to draw "scientific" conclusions. I am not a court of law, and I don't split hairs in establishing what is the truth and what is right. So this poll is a good enough trend indicator for me!

The Best Part of Super Bowl sunday? To over half the people in this country, its the sideshows that accompany the game itself, and not the game. I am sure everyone must have heard of the story of not killing the goose that laid the golden egg, but then I cannot be so sure.

But one interesting trend showed up - about one in four loved their Superbowl parties and if people want to use this Sunday as a pretext to get-together with friends and family, so be it. Another interesting trend that showed up in the poll was the fact that other than in the states of Washington (home of one of the teams playing the game) (and in the Pacific NW states of Oregon and Idaho) and Pennsylvania (home of the other team), and regional states of West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, no where else, as of the time of this post, did the game register atleast a 50%. By a simple majority, the hype and hoopla around the game is whats preferred by the people over the game itself. Chalk up a big win for the NFL Hype/Marketing Machine. Vince Lombardi must be fuming in his grave.

National Anthems

Fantastic Resource

Lists past anthems for many countries. A trivia-fans' dream-come-true.

Perhaps the kicker...downloadable MIDI tunes, lyrics (with English translations where applicable, and sheet music for a few...

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Tourists' harming India's health

'Tourists' harming India's health

Again, the question is...is anybody listening?

"It is time for the government to pay more attention to improving the health of Indians rather than to enticing foreigners from affluent countries with offers of low cost operations and convalescent visits to the Taj Mahal"

Ouch.

Predicting the future..the science of self-fulfilling prophecies..

Quite a few of us have, at various times, been tempted to know what is in store in our futures. Maybe we will not care to admit it, but we are sorely tempted to know what is coming.

And we are not alone..people are so desparate to know what is in store for them in their futures, it has spawned a thriving industry in the so-called science of fortune-telling. Also known as divination, and astrology, it is becoming increasingly popular than ever before, what with the break-neck speed at which the world seems to be moving these days.

Now, this begs the all important question..are these so-called predictions really true? Are the celebrated examples of divination and predictions just flashes in the vast pan of astrological predictions? We are treated to this example of a wonderful temple in Tamil Nadu, where supposedly the history of your life and your future is written in "olai chuvadu" (engraved palm leaves). We are shown spiritual gurus who, supposedly, just by looking at your face, and by holding your hands near your wrist, can tell you what has happened in your life and what is coming. Sometimes it just goes beyond the realms of normal understanding for a human mind. I mean, come on, there is only so much logic you can attribute to the fact that an absolute stranger has just recited your family history.

But, with all these examples, there is the cynical mind in me that still asks the question..arent most astrological/divinations just the beginning of what must be called a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Let us take an example of an oft-heard prediction..you are bound to have success when you are &* years old. Now, it is ingrained in your mind that you are bound to be successful when you reach that age. And boy, Lady Luck and Senorita Success do smile on you at that time, and you end up believing that it is the prophecy that rang true. Or is it? Isnt it just as likely that you heard that prophecy, and you believed it to be true. And hence it found a place in your subconscious mind, where it kept driving you toward this "goal". Yes, I am saying that your hearing this prophecy actually caused you to set that as your goal. And your every day actions and reactions that followed it, were just your actions gearing you toward achieving that goal.

Like that street-smart song in Rangeela "Yaaron sun lo zara.." which chides people for believing in the fate as predicted by lines of the hand (palmistry) as opposed to their own hard work, I just wish people would quit trying to "see" what is coming, and instead, plot their own strategies and plans for the future.

The future is what we make of it, and not what is purportedly written in the fate. Afterall, fate is what we make of our lives and the lives of people around us. So instead of indulging in the inexact science of fortune-telling and then trying to gear our lives toward what some stranger predicted, let us, for a change, try to re-gear our lives to achieve what we are truly capable of.

Like Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in the epic poem Mahabharath, we are not here to question our existence and to worry about consequences of our actions. We are here to do a duty, and to do our duties to the best of our abilities. Let us not get our capabilities muddied in the predictions based on the lines drawn up in our hands and on our heads. And then, the future will be what we want it to be..

Seconds from Disaster...

National Geographic Channel has some wonderful lineups of programming through out the week, and one such outstanding program is the ominously named "Seconds from Disaster" which deconstructs the terrifying sequence of events that led to unimaginable tragedy.

Not to sound voyeurisitic or sadistic, but it does astonish the mathematical and methodical intellect as to how investigators are able to piece together seemingly unconnected and oftentimes absurdly random chain of events that colluded and conspired to cause that disaster.

The domino effect, Chain Reaction, Snowball effect, whatever you might want to call the entire sequence of events. But, essentially it boils down to this. Events and actions, occurring continents away and across a time frame of years, have colluded to cause disasters, which, with the perfect vision of 20/20 hindsight, was avoidable in the first place.

You could almost hear Mr. Murphy shout in the background his now infamous law - if something can go wrong, it will go wrong....

The high-speed train crash of the ICE in Eschede, Germany in 1998 - according to the report presented in the program, the groundwork for this accident was laid during the early to mid-90s when, the train operators, with a view to increasing the rider comfort, opted for a different kind of wheels, where the flange in contact with the rail was not part of the solid wheel base, but rather fitted onto it.

During that fateful day, this two-part wheel would be the primary culprit in that staggering chain of events that ultimately led to the disaster. Essentially, the first straw set the ball rolling on a series of events that would not have resulted in the magnitude of disaster to the train had the location been different - the train was at the exact wrong spot at the exact wrong time and the exact thing that should not have gone wrong went wrong.

Same with the Concorde flight AF 4590 that crashed just after take-off from the CDG in Paris.

Sometimes it makes you think of the odds of occurence of that random yet interconnected-in-disaster sequence of events, and you are left thinking and wondering..rather pondering...

Are all of our little every day actions, seemingly random, seemingly harmless, seemingly run of the mill,and yet so interconnected and jumbled up? Are we, in our supposedly mundane lives, setting in motion various things and events that, while inconsequential now, could lead to profound events later in our lives?

In short, I think the littlest answer is Yes.

Yes, for both the good and bad.

Can we do much to change it? Not really, for, if we were able to predict this far in advance what would/could be the potential outcomes of each and every one of our daily actions, we probably would be God.

Or worse, we would be so damn terrified of our actions that we would even forget to live our daily lives.

About the only thing that we can really control, is the effort...to paraphrase the Bhagavad Gita...
You are here for a reason, to discharge a duty...so...just do your duty, and while at it, do your duty to the best of your abilities.

Swiss.....Cheese.....Holes

You walk to your local Subway restaurant....you pick out a foot-long veggie max on Honey Oat Bread, and you are asked...would you like some cheese on it? You say yes...Swiss please...and out comes sliced swiss cheese with the trademark holes....

So what do you think caused the holes? Did someone sit there and poke holes into the blocks of cheese prior to shipping? You wish! Well actually it turns out, someone did sit and poke holes in it..well, not exactly holes, but air bubbles which became the source of the holes in swiss cheese.

Yes, the very same bacteria that contribute to the fermentation of milk to cheese, are the culprits behind these holes. Turns out, three types of bacteria are added to the fermentation process. Lactic acid, an interim by-product of the fermentation process, is consumed by one of the bacteria - a certain Propionibacter Shermani, or P. Shermani for short (awfully close to P.Sherman of the P.Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way Sydney (Finding Nemo) fame aint it?). Result of the consumption of lactic acid? Carbon di-oxide, which gets trapped inside the fermenting milk and ends up as air bubbles that contribute to the holes.

To put it crudely, the eyes (as the Swiss call it) are a result of certain bacteria passing gas!

Bon apetit....

The harder the route..

Ever so often, we are out to achieve a goal, fulfill an ambition, flat out want to realize our potential. And just as certain as the sun will rise from the east tomorrow morning, we encounter difficulties enroute. Fate throws a curveball at you, or you swing and miss badly on a fastball in the strike zone, or you just simply make it tough on yourself, or it simply is hard just because life can be like that.

So, do you give up because you stumbled into these road-blocks? Do you accept defeat and say that you are not capable of doing the things that you set out to achieve? Or do you plod on and say to yourself, the harder the route is, the sweeter the success at the end of the journey will be. The tougher the route, the more pleasant the conclusion of the journey will be.

The wonderful world of advertising..

The wonderful world of advertising...reaching into people's minds and hearts...do whatever it takes to not just establish a brand identity, but also to gain remembrance in peoples minds through notoriety or excellence. This brings us to the new series of advertisements by Haagen Dazs..the ice-cream maker.

It begins with the words.."there is a school of thought that says.....less is more...that elegance is simplicity...." I am not going to bother with rehashing the details of the ad because simply said, you HAVE to watch that advertisement. If there was a statement made in advertising, this was one. 60 seconds of pure and clear and simple message being delivered at its very best. Touch of class that unfortunately hasn't been the hallmark of advertising lately. You have an issue with this statement?

Ok...go take a look at the new McDonalds commercial for its chicken whatever food. Go defend your chicken? What the heck is that supposed to be? Who ever came up with that idea? But then hey...if its fastfood, anything goes right? Drop the chicken and step away from the deliciousness I say. what are you? some kind of nutbar?

Equally lame are the commercials on local television channels. I am being easy on them...lame is praise for the quality of those commercials.

Then there are these crass idiots who advertise their products not on the strength of their products, but by putting the competitors product down. Gripe, snipe, snip, cut, grumble, crib...do whatever it takes to compare their product with their competitor. Talk about them asses not trusting their own product. If you need proof, think back to all those lame Pepsi taste-test ads, those equally lame Pepsi ads showing some idiot music star who chose Pepsi over Coke and found fame (ha..if only life was so easy). Visa insists on taking the cake though with its advertising blitz where it has to always compare with American Express. I mean give me a frikkin' break..if you are so damned exclusive, go shove yourselves up the orifices of rich uppity Republicans and leave me alone.

This gripe brings me back to the first commercial that I really appreciated in my time here in the US..the MasterCard commercial that started airing during the 2001 baseball regular season in the form of two friends making a road-trip to pay homage to all 30 major-league ballparks.

60 seconds to watch one of the classiest commercials of all time....$ 0

6 hours arguing with friends over why baseball is still a better sport over football...$ 0

appreciating the game of baseball being played without the constraints of time and enjoying the excellent commercials and their related memories...priceless

of course, just like my friend pointed it out the other day, I am obviously biased toward the Mastercard commercial because some of my happiest sport memories are associated with the 2001 baseball season when my beloved Diamondbacks cut Mariano "Mr. Automatic" Rivera and them damned-Yanks to size with a sizzling bottom of the 9th inning rally. but say hay kid...what the heck...three years later the adapted version of the Mastercard commercial now featuring Homer Simpson is still adorable

Then there is that extreme of creativity Honda Accord ad featuring many parts of an Accord made to work on a work-shop floor in a domino-trigger effect. That 2-min long commercial...apparently was on the verge of being given up on when all the gazillion parts that were supposed to be part of the domino chain would screw up..sometimes with about 10 or 15 seconds remaining to complete. After 600-odd exhausting takes..it finally worked...and guess what the voice-over says at the end of the commercial? "Isn't it nice when something just works" :)

Without much ado..the following commercials that have left a mark in my memory...

1. MasterCard
2. Haagen Dazs
3. Coca-Cola (the Life taste's good commercials that often times featured Penelop Cruz in a bar just slugging down a Coke, or a little girl offering a bride-to-be a Coke, and the new ads featuring a woman happily singing and handing out Coke bottles to people on the street)
4. Budweiser Zebra commercials from Superbowl Sunday

May the creative juices of ad-execs flow at its convincing best so we can all appreciate excellent commercials for their excellence.

Good night America!

The buy-in..

So finally I decided...what the heck...and took the plunge...into the worm-hole that is blogging. Inspired by two rather politically-active friends of mine...

If you are on the right side of the political divide...I guess we will be arguing from here to eternity!

Have a wonderful day..