Jas Personal Blog
Archive for August, 2007
Serendipity ‘Acquired’
Aug 29th
How many times has it happened that you are reading about something rare or you just heard about it and suddenly you see it happening in front of your own eyes? It may not be a Déjà Vu for all you can guess, but maybe…
Well something like this happened to me this Friday. Was reading a post about Serendipity from my friend’s blog on Friday morning and just then a call came from my roomie who told me that he had got his tickets booked for Bangalore for weekend and zooop! it was BOTH of us who were going now. Only prob being there was no ticket available in train!
I decided to take the bus way, anyway am not really a train guy having traveled in Indian railways for just four times now. We reached the place to buy bus tickets but was shocked to hear that no ticket was available, not a single ticket! So what to do? Plead to TT? abandon the plan or what?
As I staggered along the pathway a 26yr old guy came to me and told that he had an extra ticket, only for one person as his friend had to change at last moment. Also he had a return ticket too and these tickets were booked normally and hence were a lot cheaper than the bus fare! But the serendipity dint end here, i got to meet some good friends just coz i went with these guys; managed to be back in time and not to mention the goodies and the time we shared !
Ah… Wonder if I should thank Pooja for her blog entry on Serendipity that i read in the morning!
Movie Reviews
Aug 22nd
Life post MBA has high affinity to the cinema, and I was no exception. The love since scintillated is still riding high on my exploring self. I had fumbled upon a Japanese movie ‘Spirited Away’ (2003) by chance once, and could not help being struck by its simplicity and continuity. So last week when my room mate brought another of such Japanese animated movie, “Grave of the Fireflies” (2002), I could guess my weekend schedule.
Grave of the Fireflies: *****
What I did not know was that this animated movie was much more an art piece than just any other mainstream movie. You can easily find that it’s not the animation that is the life of this movie, it’s the direction. Strange it was for me, to think of directing being of such a strong influencer in an animated movie. Why would you make an animation? To jump over the boundaries of a movie enacted by blood and flesh humans; say a fiction with magic, powers, stunts etc. But not this movie, there is none of these in here, just that it adds a minuteness in details every here and there.The story is set in Japan when it was bearing the burn of Allies airpower in World War II. It’s casted on two thespians, a brother in teenage and his sister of age six to seven. The movie beautifully captures the nuances of a child’s behavior; so much so that when the little girl gets irritatingly childish, still she doesn’t invoke the emotions of irritation! The bond between the two and the world spun around them that has been shown requires a mature direction and a high understanding of the emotions of humans when they are set in a trauma wherein they have no option but to take it all. Not even a single word of cribbing has been voiced by the brother who faces the life hard way. Along the movie you can easily see the change in his personality and the mockery that the war casts upon their life and life of people around them. When others run away from their homes to a safer place during bombings the guy runs towards home as he can find the food for him and his sister left by these people. He is the one who has to bear all the emotions inside his own self when he founds the unrecognizable cadaver of his mother.
In the end you can’t help but acknowledge this satirical mockery. No I wont give the ending, for then the taste of movie will be lost in case you plan to see it after the review.
I always thought that the movie was ought to be the league of Night Rider or Street Hawk (this one was my childhood most favorite serial!). This made me always think that I can manage not watching it. Based in early 50s, at best it could have been a mix of stunt and adrenaline showcased with the newly found use of technology in movies; it would have been a blockbuster at that time but in today’s date? Why would I watch it when there are movies like Matrix, XXX (Vin Diesel) etc!! But then I was wrong, the movie is on totally different theme and showcases why it has always been considered as a milestone in movie acting. No doubt it won three Oscars in acting alone!I managed to get my hands on the Original Director’s Version, which has in addition to other scenes, the show of sexual tension between Blanche (very nicely played by Vivien Leigh) and Stanley (Marlon Brando). What struck me the most was the acting of Vivien, the lady has beautifully portrayed the role of a female with impulses, whims, mood swings and high emotions which would turn the frustration on in a man. In first half I couldn’t help but despise her character for she stood for something that really gets in my nerves. But the second half takes you through her inner self, the part that has made her what she is now. The blasts of internal conflicts that she has to go through are aptly demonstrated in expressions without uttering a single word. That, my friend is what I call acting!
Chronicles of Chennai
Aug 22nd
The day we went to a ‘Punjabi dhaba’
Finding an authentic north Indian cuisine in Chennai is not very easy task. You may find many dhabas, which have cropped up in city in last two years due to many north Indians coming here for professional reasons. But the preparation still will have a chettinad flavor. Reason is very simple, just take a peek inside the kitchen, there won’t be a north Indian cook! The remaining story will be clear to the southies who have eaten a dosa/uttapam etc in Punjab or who have had a parantha or butter chicken in south! What you get is a fusion experiment; the dish part is duly gone.
Nevertheless last weekend we decided to try out a dhaba, plan was to goto a famous one – Dhaba Xpress; but then for the autodriver we picked, a dhaba was a dhaba was a ‘dhaba’; so here we land in some exotic and the chronicle saga started!
The owner must have been some marketing maniac; you could see his picture everywhere in all different poses welcoming us to his wonderland! Alice as we were, we fell. When menu came we saw this very similar face by now on the menu too. Er… wasn’t it getting too much?! When the waiter came to wait upon us, the conversation flowed as post viewing menu:
We: We will order a dal fry and…
Waiter: Sir you want it to be fried? In that case you should order Dal Double Fry
We: What is the difference?
Waiter: Sir the dal fry is not fried but the Double Dal Fry is fried
We: (!!) Then why is its name Dal Fry?
Waiter: It’s just the name sir
We: Ok!! Then make one dal fry (now looking more curiously at the menu…) and what is this ‘Punjab di beer’; if it’s the fruit beer (apple juice with soda) we will have it.
Waiter: It’s mathha (buttermilk) sir
We: But there is a Mathha also available in your menu!
Waiter: Yes sir, that is served in glass, in ‘Punjab di beer’ we serve it in bottle. Do you want it sir?
We: (!!) No, no… It’s okay. We will have xyz and Rajmah Punjabi, make sure its properly cooked and is less on masala (we dare not try anything with masala in name itself!)
Waiter: Sir in that case you should order Rajmah Masala
We: But we don’t want any masala in our Rajmah!
Waiter: Sir Rajmah masala is not spicy, but Rajmah Punjabi is
We: (!!) What kind of menu is this? Jo hai who nahi hai, jo nahi hai wo hai? (Reminding us of Govinda’s movie, “Jo chacha hai na shaab, wohi bhateeja hai; jo bhateeja hai wohi chacha hai shaab”)
Anyhow we kept our date with the food there and somehow held the ground; then in the end the waiter comes
Waiter: Sir lassi? Beer Punjab di? Mathha? Kuch lenge (would you order something)?
(we deny with forced smiles)
Waiter: Sir, kuch to Punjabi lijiye! (have something that is Punjabi)
Waiter: Sir you want it to be fried? In that case you should order Dal Double Fry
We: What is the difference?
Waiter: Sir the dal fry is not fried but the Double Dal Fry is fried
We: (!!) Then why is its name Dal Fry?
Waiter: It’s just the name sir
We: Ok!! Then make one dal fry (now looking more curiously at the menu…) and what is this ‘Punjab di beer’; if it’s the fruit beer (apple juice with soda) we will have it.
Waiter: It’s mathha (buttermilk) sir
We: But there is a Mathha also available in your menu!
Waiter: Yes sir, that is served in glass, in ‘Punjab di beer’ we serve it in bottle. Do you want it sir?
We: (!!) No, no… It’s okay. We will have xyz and Rajmah Punjabi, make sure its properly cooked and is less on masala (we dare not try anything with masala in name itself!)
Waiter: Sir in that case you should order Rajmah Masala
We: But we don’t want any masala in our Rajmah!
Waiter: Sir Rajmah masala is not spicy, but Rajmah Punjabi is
We: (!!) What kind of menu is this? Jo hai who nahi hai, jo nahi hai wo hai? (Reminding us of Govinda’s movie, “Jo chacha hai na shaab, wohi bhateeja hai; jo bhateeja hai wohi chacha hai shaab”)
Anyhow we kept our date with the food there and somehow held the ground; then in the end the waiter comes
Waiter: Sir lassi? Beer Punjab di? Mathha? Kuch lenge (would you order something)?
(we deny with forced smiles)
Waiter: Sir, kuch to Punjabi lijiye! (have something that is Punjabi)
And we couldn’t help laughing that he himself testified by saying this that we haven’t had a Punjabi meal at all!
And thus ended a great lunch of Punjab, should we expect another Manchurian invention*?
* – Manchurian was developed as a fusion of Chinese and Kolkata cuisine, by Chinese who had settled in Kolkata, India.
Pyaas – Philosphy of Jugad !
Aug 22nd
I am reminded from time to time about a joke that my dad used to love cracking whenever he would get a mature government service audience. It was his pet joke. The joke goes like this -
Once some foreign delegation is coming to India to discuss some avenues of collaboration and growth, with state governors. While coming, their car breaks down on the way. There is a roadside mechanic there, so they approach him and ask if he can fix it up. The guy has a good look at the car and says that the tire has lost a nut and bolt and that although he doesn’t have the same but he still can do a ‘jugad’. Perplexed the foreigners asked what a jugad was! He tells them not to bother and does it, telling that they can now drive farther till the next 15kms where they will find a bigger shop.
Once some foreign delegation is coming to India to discuss some avenues of collaboration and growth, with state governors. While coming, their car breaks down on the way. There is a roadside mechanic there, so they approach him and ask if he can fix it up. The guy has a good look at the car and says that the tire has lost a nut and bolt and that although he doesn’t have the same but he still can do a ‘jugad’. Perplexed the foreigners asked what a jugad was! He tells them not to bother and does it, telling that they can now drive farther till the next 15kms where they will find a bigger shop.
Wondering the crew leaves and reaches the shop. The shop owner says that he needs a nut fastener and that is not available with him, but there is a tools shop after 25kms and he can arrange for a ‘jugad’ so that they reach there. Foreigners are amazed and want to understand what the hell ‘jugad’ is, but the shop owner smiles back silently and does the work.
After finding the tools shop the foreigners ask him for the fastener, but he says he is out of it. He suggests that they go to a nearby welding shop for a ‘pakka jugad’. One of the foreigners by now akin to such talk asks if he can do a jugad so that they can reach this new guy, to which the shop owner agrees leaving the full delegation in awe!
As they reach the welding guy, they pester him to tell about the ‘jugad’, but to no avail. he just fixes the car and tells he has done a ‘pakka jugad’
When the delegation reaches to governors meet, they give just one proposal – Give us the ‘jugad’ that you use to make everything work so miraculously in return for 3 trillion USD. To this a governor replies, “How can we give that to you? This whole country is running on jugad itself only sir!!!”But so so true it is, we Asians infact have mastered this art of jugad and we tend to find ways out from any situation, we are street smart as they say. If a scooter wont start, bend at 30degree and start; don’t have buckets large enough and state is giving condoms for free? use condoms to fetch water or use to fine select silk while making sarees; the motherboard is off the case? use chewing gum to stick it at place till repair (was done in IBM); want to get better price for your old cow? dye them black using hair dye (UP gave Godrej a shock by this resulting in abnormal sales)… the list is infinitely long. Whole point is whatever is wrong; it can be most probably fixed, though temporarily.
But lets look at the problem in this, take a normal algebraic equation y=f(x). y here is an output or symptom or effect and x is an input or cause of the problem. Jugad is an excellent way of changing your output value to adjust it to desired state. Hence effectively the function f is redefined. But the problem was in or as x, which leave alone touching, is not even realized. So what do we get? a system which is other than desired, but still serving the same desired result, although unpredictably. Any time the system may crash.
Look at our efforts, in ITES also we are so good at maintenance and rebuilding; but where are all the Asian nations when it comes to developing? We don’t have that troubleshooting approach, how many times do we sit and think what the problem is instead of just giving the solutions.
After talking with many of my MBA friends, I have realized that most of them started giving solutions in first week itself. Where was the patience or mindset to spend a month understanding problem? If you haven’t defined the problem, how can you give a solution?! (Think about the DMAIC – Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control)
The reason that I can find is that all these Asian geographies were highly fertile and hence had higher densities of population, leading to resource crunch. This has led to very different philosophy and lifestyle. Capital with a person is low and fight is higher in life, no doubt ‘jugads’ rule the life!
Note (edited) : There has been an article on Jugad-ism in HT too few days back, although this article was written entirely in absence of knowledge of this HT article, still the link has been added here to allay any Plagiarism attempt fears! A look a the article though will tell you how much different the articles are but then some people had the doubts…
