Bringing it in

Hey :)

Happy Diwali, Happy No Gaddafi and Happy IndiabeatEngland5-0andsendthemhome week! Interestingly enough, you'll find that today's post revolves on all of these things but in a not-so-happy way. Enough said, lets take a look at the white, black and yellow.

It's Diwali week which means all of us have been exposed to a lot of light, a lot of sound and that picture of India as seen from space on Diwali that's become quite a sensation. Diwali's always been one of India's favourite festivals and hence it's no surprise that the 'Happy Diwali' broadcast / forward has been filling our screens so much that we want to explode (seewhatididthere), but there's something that I've noticed that's  pretty interesting about this particular year. I was on my way back home close to midnight on the 25th of this month after a particularly interesting and fun day involving PlayDoh and as the little digital clock on my phone struck twelve, the Diwali messages began coming in. That whole little pleasant and patriotic feeling had taken over for just about a minute before it was replaced by a very unfamiliar feeling. Since when are Diwali wishes sent at midnight? Surely, midnight wishes were reserved for birthdays only, right? And then my mind strayed to a Bollywood scene of a young, pretty actress sweetly talking into a phone, minutes before her birthday and my mind flashed a 'this scene does not exist' sign. Bringing something in has never been a part of Indian popular culture, ever. The only time the whole 'wishing someone at midnight' scene has appeared in a Hindi movie is after a gaudy New Year party. That occurrence has always been a part of tradition, but it's fascinating and pretty unnerving to see how that tradition, predominantly Western, has become a part of Indian customs and cultures. When exactly did this happen anyway? Hmm.

Diwali signifies the victory of good over evil and how light can pretty much kick darkness's ass and this is embodied in India's victory over England. Psych, just kidding, I come to that part later. Libya and Gaddafi is what we come to next, and for once, I choose not to take sides here. I've obviously heard the United States's side of the story as to why Gaddafi was bad and hence deserved to die; this is pretty much India's stance as well, which comes as no surprise. I've also read the message which 'warns' us of America's ambition and true gain in the scheme of things. Again, not surprisingly, it includes power and oil, which as we know are two things Americans cannot seem to get enough of. Call me diplomatic, but if the people of Libya are happy, so am I. It's their country and I would be the last person to endorse dictatorship anyway, so good on them for being able to revolt, and best of luck on forming a new, independent (in more senses than one) Government. However, what I do have a problem with is the non stop footage of a bloody corpse being mutilated playing on my TV screen, with messages that flash 'Victory for Humanity'. Hey news channels, I don't know what kind of freaky stuff you're into, but as a human and hence 'part of humanity', I do not consider this a personal victory by any stretch of imagination. Also, 'humanity' means kindness and empathy and this is certainly not that for sure. Try again next time.

So, India beat England. Yeah, 5 - 0. Yeah. *shouts loudly and runs around with hands in the air*. I'm going to be completely objective here because this is another point that I'm trying to make. And yes, there is a completely objective point to be made here. It's very amusing to see the English Press reports on the whole series. I was under the impression that only the Indian media went absolutely insane when the National cricket team lost a series. Well done, England, you make a close second. Seems like we can beat you without Gandhi's help after all. Okay, maybe I can't be all that objective.

Before looking at the white, black and yellow from the past few days, special credit to the lovely girl known as spaz for the new design of the blog. Thank you. :)
We now look at the white, black and yellow:
White: The happy, pleasant vibe that festivals seem to impart to the entire nation. According to me, that's the real reason festivals are still around. Also the fact that Diwali this year has been more light, less sound. Also, this little video called 'Who's your daddy, SIRI?' that stands for whatever was written about Steve Jobs in my blog last week. Check it out.
Black: The number of dead Gadaffi pictures I have seen over the past week. I get that you're happy for Libya, but this seems to be overdoing it a little.
Yellow: Literally, the diyas and lamps that this time of year is associated with. On a not so literal note, the media's coverage of Team Hazare's decline and fall from grace. Much reading to be done on that note.

A very happy Diwali and that's all for this week. Stay tuned. :)

An Apple A Lifetime

No point wasting any time here; R I P, Steve Jobs. The most cliched line I can add here is 'You will be missed', but if it's true for anyone, it's true for you. Having said that, it's the biggest understatement of all time. The number of flowers being left outside Jobs's house in Palo Alto keeps increasing, as do the innumerable tributes at Apple stores and all over the internet. I woke up on the morning of the sixth of October to a message that said 'You have something to blog about. Steve Jobs is dead.' and I remember thinking that I had blogged about him just a month back on his retirement and saying 'I'm not gonna be able to do this' but at this point, it's become impossible to ignore what is being mourned as a loss to mankind. A tribute here, and then we look at the white black and yellow of this past week. :)

I've never owned an Apple product and personally never believed in the hype that surrounds all Apple products. The iPod didn't do much to change this because I looked at it as a much more expensive version of a mp3 player and said that there were much better deals out there with better sound, which would have been the most important aspect of a mp3 player back in 2001 when the first iPod came out. Still, by 2007, everyone had one and I was starting to see an ability in Steve Jobs that many had talked about - his amazing foresight. The mp3 player had become obsolete even though it was now much more compact than the iPod (that had been the initial USP of the iPod) because who wanted an mp3 player when all your music was stored on possibly the most futuristic looking device that was capable of playing music. By the time the iPhone came out, Apple had cemented a reputation of being way ahead of it's time because it ran on insanity, an aspect that Jobs himself talked about. A scene in 'The Pirates of Silicon Valley' shows Jobs's character on the floor, high on Acid hallucinating about being in a wheat field and controlling the wind and conducting classical music with his hands and perhaps 1999 was too early for the public to understand the correlation between that vision and the technology that Apple wanted to create. The first thing that will come to your mind if you watch that movie today, assuming that you know even a little about Apple products, is the multi finger touch sensor on a Macbook's trackpad which allows you to pretty much feel like a wizard.

In due time, of course, as is the natural course of these things, people criticized Apple and Jobs of being too capitalistic; and dubbed Apple users 'fanboys' who did not have any mind of their own. The lack of Flash support and compatibility issues were made fun of by a generation who thought 'Microsoft' when they thought 'computers' and granted, lack of Flash support and compatibility issues are a definite problem of Macbooks. This is only because for now, (and I stress on the 'for now' part), Microsoft remains the dominant computer retailer. Be it because of price or user friendliness, Microsoft has continued to dominate the market, something I personally see changing with the Windows 7 which is complicated and full of bugs. But it's not hard to imagine a world where Apple takes over this majority and 'compatibility' will no longer be a problem. My only concern is that technology is becoming more about style and graphics than user friendliness, but this is overshadowed by the fact that people who really want to use technology will learn and adapt. Making people smarter by compulsion is a strategy that will never fail to amuse me. Coming back to my tribute. What I'm trying to say is that technology is fast paced, and Steve Jobs has prided himself and his company of thinking ahead of the times, something which not everyone understands. A lot of Apple products have been criticized as being useless and hard to use, but what really intrigues me is Jobs's ability to look into the future and know beyond a shadow of doubt that one day, people will open up to his products and be so amazed not just at the products but at the fact that they did not understand those products not so long ago. Jobs gives the impression of being a genius way ahead of his times, and if a thousand tribute Tweets a minute come his way now, I can't imagine the amount of praises he will receive in the near future. Unbelievably, even though he has now passed on, the best is yet to come for him. Respect, Steve. Stay hungry, Stay foolish.

This post has been totally dominated by tech, and I realise now that there's not a lot of politics to talk about right now. So I'm just gonna summarize this in this week's white, black and yellow:
White: A lot of people's faces, after hearing the news. Also, some of the pictures that are being uploaded as tributes to Jobs. Touching, really.
Black: Internet humour on Jobs's death. Also, surprisingly, Anna Hazare for his 'Don't vote for the Congress, but vote for anybody else' campaign. Seriously a disappointment.
Yellow: Bigg Boss coverage, but that's pretty much expected and should remain constant for the next 50 days. Nothing like reality TV.

That's all for this week. Stay tuned. :)

Bad Ad Making and Keeping Mum

Hey guys. :)

This post in long overdue because I've been pretty busy / lazy (whichever you believe) but I guess the good thing would be that I have more stuff to talk about, right? Wrong-o. These past few days have been a blitz, and right now, nothing sticks in my head as newsworthy apart from the deepening rift in the UPA. Let's look at the black, white and yellow from the past few days.

Aaaaand we're back to the 2G scam with Pranab Mukherjee and Chidambaram at each other's throats. They've always had issues, but this seems like an all out slug fest. Chidambaram, who has so far seemed like the UPA's white knight looks all set to resign, and it will be interesting to see if he takes his Government down with him. The threat of a Government dissolution and by elections seems increasingly imminent, and the UPA will have to take damage control to a whole new level if they want to salvage this. Earlier this year, we had seen a series of earthquakes rock the UPA Government - The 2G scam, Adarsh, The CWG, The CVC issue and the Anna Hazare debacle and now it seems like the aftershocks are presenting themselves one by one. Not an anarchist, but it's definitely fun to watch. What makes it interesting for me is that it has become about the lesser of two evils at this point, politically. The UPA for another term or Narendra Modi, who would you vote for, honestly? It's become clear now that the UPA MUST play the youth card and pull out not so youthful Rahul Gandhi out from his mother's shadow and show all the mettle that the Congress swears he has. The Times of India has already begun to tear Modi's campaign apart, seen from a collage of 8 pictures showing Modi wearing assorted headgear before proclaiming that he refused to respect the Islam skullcap in public. Religion is a strong force in Indian politics and the TOI knows that. Seems wrong to interfere in matters such as these, so minus points for that. Seems unlikely that we'd ever have a rational election in this country, but then again I guess politicians aren't rational themselves.

Moving away to a different form of media, I've seen so many bad ads this week that it's kinda making me feel sad. Realized that Indian TV commercials do go through ups and downs like any other industry, but this is just sad because it isn't expected from top companies. 'It's not just a car. It's a caaar!' proclaims Nissan and you can see why it hasn't had the most successful launch in India. I personally feel insulted by this ad and believe me, it's still a car. The Apple commercials that state 'If you don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone' still manage to squeeze a smile from me, but advertising a brand new car, sorry, caaar by saying something so mindnumbingly stupid just annoys me. A second TV commercial explains a new technological breakthrough in the form of a 'Basmati meter', a device that shows how pure a grain of Basmati rice is. Soha Ali Khan then says that a famous rice company (just a nice way of saying I don't recall the name) obviously chooses grains of rice that are high on the Basmati meter and says (in a tone very close to a teleshopping ad voice) 'Aakhir ek beti bhi maa ka kaam kar sakti hain' to her very proud mother, who should consider censoring that ad for being outrageously mindless. All this within a few weeks of the new Airtel ad that's semi viral right now and also the new Vodafone Blue commercial which I have to give kudos to.

Speaking of Soha Ali Khan's mother reminds me of my own (no, she's neither head of the censor board nor as old as India itself). All this because I realise that I could never imagine my mother measuring grains of rice on the Basmati meter which leads to a greater realization - about how lucky I was to have her, growing up. This isn't so much a sentimental breakdown as much as a systematic reference to the fact that fewer and fewer kids now actually get to spend 'quality time' with their mothers. Guess major cause for this would be the whole 'working mother' trend but and here I pay homage to all the mothers who can juggle a full time career with housekeeping, which is another full time career except with no pay or promotions. It's interesting how house keeping has stuck right from ancient ages as a societal role for women, and even more interesting to see how many women opt to perform that role themselves in addition to working. It makes it seem like much lesser of a burden when they voluntarily agree to it unlike before when it was pretty much implied right from the time you were born. Stubborn Indian society was very reluctant to change and allow women to work only out of fear that they wouldn't be staying home anymore; but it's pretty damn awesome that they just said 'Screw this, I can do both'. At this point I feel that I'm making a great discovery whereas all the women who read this really don't think it's a big deal so I'll stop now. Just a little awestruck. :P

Yes, It's also come to mind that I've been pretty horrible to my mum as a kid (remember this essay where I said 'I saw something that made my heart stop. Not a dog. Not a bull. My mother. - Just for emphasis, I swear) and I probably can't make up for that ever, (not buying you diamonds, mum) but she definitely deserves to be mentioned here. Would have grown up very differently (in a bad way) if it wasn't for her. Thanks mum, I love you. :)

Also, everyone who's basically pampered me and treated me like their son - told me to cut my hair, given me dinner, asked me to stay over, etc. Don't know how many of them will read this, but here goes - Seema aunty for basically calling me 'son' since the ninth grade (I know you're reading this, Vaz, you know she loves me more), Pratibha aunty for calling me ratatouille (also for letting Raunak do hotel management) and Niloufer aunty who gives me too much food. Too much. No, seriously. (also for always siding with me and not her daughter). Haha too much emotion; let's look at the white, black and yellow for the past few days:

White: Literally, Paris Hilton in town. Also, twitter these past few weeks has been particularly entertaining. The coverage of Pranab Mukherjee vs Chidambaram, particularly in the Hindu and HT has been pretty good.
Black: The fact that politics is now officially about the lesser of two evils. Still siding with Rahul Gandhi but I hope he can talk the walk and NOW.
Yellow: Fact that Times of India, Midday and Mumbai Mirror (naming all the papers I saw today) all have first pages dedicated to Bigg Boss. I know it's big with two 'g's but jeez, guys. Haha, got you. ;)

That's all for this week. Stay tuned. :)