Musings ....

Silk Board cross-section bus-stop arrives. It tells you to take a short nap now. The twenty kilometers up-till Infosys office will take more than 60 minutes. It is a hot day. So take out your handkerchiefs. You might want to cry when you lose your patience. Electronic city was built as a satellite town at the southern periphery of Bangalore. The British city of retired sarkari babus discovered new wiry roots. The first world found cheap labor in the third world sleepy town. The eager and industrious Indians found an opportunity. Today when you step into Bangalore it is clouded with towering glass building and the dusty road. Sending an ambitious message of ‘who’ you can become irrespective ‘whose’ you are. Big engineering colleges, Thai and Chinese snack kiosks, along the unpaved walkways of the city make space for those who are not of merit yet, but show virtuosity to trudge and work hard favored by their luck. The Indian Silicon Valley ensconces the unworthy simply with a spirit ...

How do I identify the problem ?  Many of us spend a lifetime in pursuit of this question. I learnt it through an unconventional way. Recently I was on the Google meet with my team. We are working first time on a project from five different locations. A colleague external to the team was present there. She was scheduled to help us all navigate some tough waters. To push aside a few conflicts and set the narrative right, she was wearing the hat of a moderator.  The meeting went on for sixty minutes. Each team member got to speak. The moderator could be seen writing notes on a paper. By the end of the meeting a few project related conflicts were converted into clarity with her support. These roadblocks had persisted over some time. The team had veered into some setbacks. When I pressed the red button to close Google meet session that day, I saw them vanish like ice on a hot summer day.  Lessons  How to solve some team issues ? Write the individual narratives on a paper ...

Everyone is a victim to believe that their heroes are a projection of their self. Cricket and Film-making is a business.  You are the consumer.  It is a service and a transaction.  The individuals behind the screen is playing a role. Probably getting paid to do so over many decades. To think they are the reflection of the consumer's mindsets especially by a consumer.  Who is naive ?

  On second thought : A tweet from Musk shot up stock prices and changed fortunes. A tweet against Supreme Court in India shot up tempers and changed destinies. The effect of social media is temporal in real lives. When we favor one side that helps society then what stops us from adopting the other side of it ? We are not having a conversation on this currently. As a society we have failed to draw boundaries on the good and the bad, rather what side of each we can accomplish together for a balance

What is Design? This is the first question that can be asked of a design student. Some would say, it gives me pleasure, the beauty that she feels. Others chime in, the sensory input that brings a spectrum of colors to her existence is how design spoke to her. Yes, but that is an outcome of design, good or bad, what is design, really? Design, is the product of human imagination, animals and plants can’t see and imagine, human ingenuity in art is to identify what ails our civilization. Design writing helps understand the logic prescient in that modelling of facts that were, yet unknown to us in the output. Design writing can sound frivolous to the mainstream. Why go into nuance of something that was, use it and do your thing. Each pin or cell phone holds a design, therefore generation of imagination. More complexity brings more mysteries. The fact itself is the problem, often. An engineer can fix nuts and bolts, a politician will fund the industry, and the designer will build the world...

  Analytical Response To Constance Kreizer author of The Loss of (Dark) Inside Space By Arpit G, Anant Fellow   What is Art ? A professor would chew his student's ear on that question, his belief being, that the pursuit of human genius, is where we begin with human imagination, the one variable that sets animals and humans apart. We are a hungry species, toddlers are taught to enter the gate, sit on the chair, meekly, in order by your honor, and then not to grab those cashew nuts to satiate the urge for food, says Devdutt Pattanaik. 'Un-culture of control' and public perception of the family, your honor tells us, not the nature. Why shouldn’t a child be a child, the parent imagines confounded, while looking up the poster walls, listening to Carol Dweck, and learning behavior psychology in hardbound books on their pristine walls? The curiosity and thirst are a quest to quench hunger, of the stomach, of the soul, of the brain, they are to say we are human, and unquenc...

  2021 December Shit hit the fan and I was left to clean it up. I failed in writing my response papers at my fellowship. I failed to respect the idea of novelty in the subject. I failed to create the make sense of the time that was given to me. I narrated the story that I had come with. That I knew what I wanted, that what I wanted was exactly same as what I needed. It is the novelty of the newness. Most thing get ignored when only some needs to be focused. Please get out of my head, the irritation persisted. I am not in a frame of mind, I would say, like I would say to my mother, who would barge into my room to ask something. The thought that I had not failed loomed constantly, I would reassure myself again and again, that I was okay. Nothing was.   15 people in my family had passed through covid-19. More than 6 were in hospital during the festival of Diwali. I had visited none, not even once did I visit them to ask. That was not the worst part. I couldn’t accept, I...

Tring ! Tring ! After 2 seconds ... Tring ! Tring ! Tring ! The phone rang loudly but nobody picked it up. It had been lying like it had been last night. Alone, cold on the floor above the mattresses spread for a man to sleep. The man was the father. A father of two people both in adulthood, with a son and a daughter. The children and their mother and father all lived in a two bed room apartment. The apartment also has a kitchen, two balconies a staircase to lead any visitor up on to the terrace and down towards the ground floor. The phone in its standby mode lay peacefully in bliss on the third and top most floor of an establishment which is over 20 years old. It was bought after a lot of hard work and planning by the father to give a home to his two adolescents and more space to grow up. This home was not just a home. Although it was small but it saw a lot of developments in peoples lives. With people living in it and outside and using it to their fullest extent with cre...

Our brain has wonderful way by which it constantly evolves along the way devising ways to leave us astray. At times it tries teaching something to us. We all usually busy in our world, decide against its meaningful advices and encroach upon 'decisions' we deem fit. What we never discover is the source of errors in judgement. Subconscious knows all and decides to inform at appropriate timing what we seek to accomplish. But gut and intuition (which at time prove to be wrong) come in between claiming everything. If we win, we call it glory, if not,  it is termed as a mistake. But  fellows. It is not our decisions over which we so easily lay claim upon that make us win. On the other hand it is the subconscious. While executing pre -ecided actions we choose to listen (best thing to do!)  all that our subconscious has clammed up in the past. That usually makes us execute our plans with a promise of success or at least save as from a nasty debacle. Everyday while we are b...

Let's do that one wants Let's do that thing with a magic wand Let's create that rhyming poem Let's create tall big great thing Let's paint a picture palette Let's twist some rhyme with mallet Let the mind free, should it wander Let it walk and roam yonder Let's walk past art of nature Let's feed hungry shoal of creature Let's save penny, a dime or two Let's spend what ain't mine too For good and bad that exists together for best friends they have sweared to be they flourish when cared, apart they die let's have a piece of both, be free No salvation in honest death No salvation for devilish deeds What we do, a balanced beam supports each side, makes equal thee Let's commit a sin or two Then guilt then drink then lie in din Let's then help soul that needs help one screams in street, shouts and yelps Blessed is who points pin of beam to sky it points, supports sin and good don't brood commit a sin o...

The name, usually, is the most thought out word given to a new born, usually, by its mother and father or is a dominated choice of either one of them. The problem or a minor conflict stems from the point –when a random party, who in a habit of playing the part of dominatrix or a domineer, ignores all possible outcomes of all the individuals that matter in the family. Their age and suggested names are proportional to archaic nomenclature that shows in the final derivation of the names blurted. Such names, in the name of lord, are cussed and resented by the name bearers each day. Their school turns out to be a reeking nightmare, with children constantly picking on them and calling twisted name calls. Their form filling exercise is a ruddy rotting sweet tart that leaves, each time, a sour taste on their tongue. Sometimes the boxes desirous of filing names are in dearth, while at others, spelling mistake of name of self, creates blunder. It is a sonorous theme of every ho...

Each idea that sprouts It runs and jumps about don't let it go easy an idea sprouting isn't easy Find a base beneath rational about it a logic to defend it build a wall around it Save and think each day don't let it go astray don't hush or throw away let it grow and pray Conjure a way if needed water its need, breed it the seed if potent will grow an idea comes rare, don't throw Slow germination process takes breaks energy and thought boggles the mind and grinds but fruit may finally be sought Each thought precious that arrives enclose, encourage feed it it calls, hear and listen it says, " I'm an idea", heed it.

The house at the end of road, by the wide lake is the most beautiful home I have ever seen. The red limestone rooftop with blue grainy walls and porch in front give an excellent feast for eyes to feed on and one can never tire gazing at it. The adjacent glade, with pine trees and laburnum tops, with daffodils and Gulmohar flowers beam a red and yellow light that grazes through the branches from the sun. A house of single story, with an attic on the top that has a small window. One might guess it had no more than 4 rooms, but he would be surprised on seeing it up close. The sheer structure is built in an intelligible way, that a hut from outside transforms into a palace on the inside. It wasn't a surprise when the man who lived in it was keen on inviting guest more often, as he had no family. The house would be bustling with cheers and merriment of guests that could be heard from afar with constant blaring of horns of cars jostling for car space to park.The amounts o...

I love her, she does too i know, i don't have proof her tears were real, i felt emotions filled each drop She stood silent, hands at sides alone in the dust i wasn't with her, i couldn't be weren't meant to be together then my sister, she sits there myself alone here i message her, dilemma what to say i switch phone off, and finally pray evening Aazan of the mosque reminds me her presence when we used to speak and talk laugh and cook and eat, Oh god! her essence she forgot, to take along with her aura the house is silent, a mortified den, it seems it turned without her scent Now when I sit on her chair it stands like a spare I dare not sit on it as only she is meant to sit on it Her aura makes my heart heavy a drop sheds now and then a boy of 10, i am not still i cry like them What would it take to console me a pat or a hug, i think i cried my heart out when i hugged my mom it didn't suffice the inner storm

She awoke, startled by the sound of parakeet perched on a parapet of the balcony. "Late!? oh shit", subconsciously scared, she jumped, leaving the warmth of bed behind onto her feet and ran towards the bathroom. She wasn't late. It was her first day there, and like any new resident in a new setting, wasn't accustomed to the schedule of the day. Her roomies, both of them, still slept at 7 in the morning, while their new companion harried through her closet searching for a brush and the tube of paste so just she could arrive in time before the ferry bus honked near the hostel gate. The building stood, not on the 'outskirts' of the Bangalore city; if one must say a solemn measurement of the distance could subtly be described as that between the fringe of a miniskirt and the knees. "It would be a blinder to miss it, and a disaster when she'll reach late at the lab, her workplace for next 2 months. Her new kurti-pajami, a bag on the shou...

"Lonely?get lost!, i wouldn't feel any such thing, whatsoever" , she had said at home when her brother teased her, on how she would feel after her parents would leave her in hostel. However, now, as she sat in the room, on the bed, her eyes were droopy and her body exhausted she remembered that chat and felt the sentiment. She plugged in her computer laptop, in order to distract her thoughts, she viewed an episode of friends and silently dissolved the time, passing time slowly, swiftly.

She relaxed, as she settled in her room after her parents went away. Three beds, all occupied and one of them hers, would be her abode till two months. "It was all I had imagined, even bigger, in sorts, and pleases me too", she thought and said to herself. A table, a lamp with a perfectly snuggled suitcase in her wardrobe formed her hostel room.

What would a person do to have a mango? Step out of the house, go to a store like a mother dairy or a sabzi Mandi and buy a kilo or two.  He was a boy who sneaked onto a farm, climbed up on a tree and plucked the fruit. He climbed, well enough for a boy of 9 and always scolded by his mom about his need to feel the rush. "Why do you climb and pluck the fruit beta when I bring perfectly good ones from a market", she would ask concerned that he may fall one day and hurt himself. "I'll bring a mango mommy, taste it, the answer will come from you itself", he laughed and said.

" Daddy, I'm back", overjoyed girl screamed on arrival at home. Her father standing across the verandah, with his back towards her, turned and faced towards her, confused. She had carried the cumbersome suitcase along, with a bag on her shoulder and laptop in her hand, now waiting him to reply, rather jump towards her. She had been living away since months, and now craved for the hug from each person of her family; her mother, brother and especially her father especially being closest to him emotionally.  Her father twisted and turned, looked down at her feet and slowly sized her up till her head as if trying to remember, who the human she was.  " Dad I'm home!", she said, again waiting for a joyous expression or anything that would impress a sense of affirmed happiness from him, but he stood still perplexed, staring at her face. " Dad, you OK ?", she said defensively, a little worried. "huh?", I'm sorry beta, do I kn...

She never wondered she would land in a place, so beautiful, so serene and filled with surprises. The blossoming flowers, the mango trees and the wide field in front seemed to speak to her and invite, to settle and stay in its abode forever. The towering building with a bulwark in front connecting to the field, an epitome of modern architecture, seemed ideal place for her to work her way through the summer job. She wasn't a guest!, yes, she was invited, honorably with all the expense paid to the premier research facility in the country in a city known for its computer and scientific history. Bangalore, a city with opportunities galore had embraced her debut trip in its bosom, emanating all the warmth she needed and comforting her solitude in the new surroundings and place. Though she wasn't a hotshot, but was headed and astonishingly aimed ambitiously to achieve the point where one day people would call her an expert. She would seldom ask,"why should I be an expert and if ...