Mind Frame

For those of you who read the headline and returned to read the article after discounting it for its earthly Indian reference I do not blame you. A small anecdote here might explain why. Only three months ago I asked a close friend about the sensibility in purchasing a phone that would be android enabled. He laughed and said looking at the speed at which 3G is taking over the country your investment might show results during only the 15th five year plan. Return to present day India where multiple cellular labels are already readying their turf for the android phone market and several thousand women celebrated Karva Chauth a week ago. The application would have never found its way into the Indian domain in a manner so basic and surreal. At work and unable to know if the moon was out and my mother had broken her fast, the usual responsibility of finding out the direction and location where the moon would make its presence was a little easier this time around. The application installed on...

A few days earlier while returning home via the Deccan Queen’s meandering journey cutting across the Western Ghats, a civil argument punctuated the silence of my compartment. A Parsi woman in her mid-forties engaged in a verbal duel with the ticket collector who did not give his consent to a ticket that was being shown to him on a fellow travelers laptop. A few words and a fine later the matter was settled and the TC proved right from the rules displayed across the ticket of another traveler. What struck me was how long it would be that the Indian Railways would come to recognize the power of the digital. With geo-targeted social media and 23 million smart phones across India waiting to ride the android bandwagon, the Railways must listen up. The solution to the problem lies in the digitalizing of tickets. With Android enabled smart phones hosting multiple code recognition software’s this would make life one step ahead with the only cost borne by arming the ticket checkers with scanner...

It is something I have never written about here. But when an old friend mentioned that I must arrange for a snake to be brought home for a shoot I could not help but oblige. Its been nearly 11 years from Nagpur with my first encounter with a snake that left me speechless due to fear. Reading about them their species made me only grow more fonder of this misunderstood species. It was soon that I go into releasing them from the unsafe confines of my house each time one made its way inside (earlier they ended up getting killed. We rescued scores of snakes in that small tenure in Nagpur and on coming to Pune the entire activity stopped. Only once we relocated to Viman nagar I soon began chancing upon these gorgeous creatures. So these are a few shots we took on his release while he swayed and stood in all gratitude.

These are the few of those who have made an impact in the last 2 years to my world around me. Its funny that time spent will be memory now although the relations will run deeper.  Be it dinner at Shri or just a walk post class that is destressing, the coffee at the tuck or the wild gaping at the time tables...the angst against the system, exchanging travel plans, the meat at Kareeems... Its been a wild ride and its just begun. Thank you- Renu, Venky, Chintan,Mehul, DB, PC

The lady with the eyes. Eyes that talk, eyes that kill, eyes that convey myriad emotions. Her antics and talk keep the mood afloat. The kiddo, the supervisor, the instructor.... Loved by all..... Aarit! The wizard with the tongs! Neha I love you!  Your hands can stir up magic and sever meat - humans and animals alike!

Dedicated below these few lines are for the unrelenting spirit of a few of my colleagues: You have been blooded, said the old man to his son, It’s now that you are fit to fight, I know you are now wounded; it’s only now your minds in flight. The sound of a moist pen on the arid folds of paper, Its crease on the wilted white, Proved more firm than words on stone, For you knew your spirit was right. Write on, pledge every drop of blood to the color in your pen, For I know this was not once, such battles will happen again. Go on Bangkwang!