Bulbul 1, Bulbul 2, Bulbul 3 - had a baby

Bulbul 1, Bulbul 2, Bulbul 3
had a baby
teaching it to fly high up
finding it to crashing down
chirps go shrill, its a matter of prey now
as it jumps on the ground
dad put it in a plastic bowl, on the branches, in the tree
it moves out to perch on tip of the branch
.....flutters bravely

Bulbul 1, Bulbul 2, Bulbul 3
had a baby

Next morning
chirps go shrill again
Rufous makes a dive
in Bulbul's Ashoka tree
the three Bulbuls
chase Rufous away - or try to
Maina joins them too
while Robin remains watchful

And then I see - the baby
sitting on the ground
ducking inside under open sky
And I see Rufous spotted it too
I leaped towards it, and Rufous dived
A few leaps here, a big sweep there
the baby is gone
some feathers in the air
some noise
Robin flies away
Maina gone too
Bulbuls are nowhere to be seen
........quietude

Bulbul 1, Bulbul 2, Bulbul 3
had a baby
.





(Dedicated to nature's commotion: to the Bulbuls, to the Ashoka tree where they live, to the baby - that lived, to Maina who joined other birds in fighting the predator, to black and white Oriental Magpie Robin who whistles beautifully, to rightfully merciless Rufous Treepie who produces so many kinds of sounds, to noise and to absence of it, and to birth and to death.)

will they get water next?

with my shades on
from the comfort of my AC car
that I am driving from my AC office
to my AC home
and as I observe that its scorching hot outside
I wait on this traffic light
and I see these doves
doing what they do the best
dove tailing each other
lovingly, playfully and beautifully
comes the thought  - do they know where will they get water next?

do they care about some
that I left in the balcony for them
actually lot less than I flush in one go
do they have the Maps to get there
would the doves who have seen it, Tweet it
do they know the Weather tomorrow - its going to be hot
It seems they don't care
I sure know that we don't care
- after all they aren't Angry Birds, they look happy

but still, flies by the thought - will they get water next?

Ambala City - can it have a character too?

Had a chance to visit Ambala for a day in Apr'14, and my expectations to find anything interesting in the city were as low as they can be. But was pleasantly surprised during my hour long walk in the market. The market held a character in the buildings that held the market.

Most buildings were pretty old, worn down, still showcasing a vibrant market.

Benarsi Daas has been faded into background by new age Bata.

Somehow shopkeepers there would know in a moment that you are not local and they had a watchful eye on my observer walk. Can't even imagine walking there with a camera. Now I do appreciate mobile photography :)

The point that city makes - old goes down and new comes up.

It took me some time to understand why I did not feel very welcome there. Feeling was just like this building below, where 'Friends' was sitting under this partition.

Later, a group of three elderly got friendly, explained me that this place was primarily Muslims occupied, who left during partition, and was later occupied by Hindus who traveled from Pakistan to India. Of course, having been part of most unfortunate part of Indian history, there would be multiple scars keeping a sharp subconscious on - making outsiders like me clearly stand out.

The elderly group showed me this building which was their only means to know time in childhood - the clock is stolen now.

The building below holds a factory. Its square in size with peace all around - difficult to find any thing like this now.

This temple had something written in Urdu/Arabic. Am yet to have it translated:

People don't remove Peepal trees coming out from walls and windows. There are ample houses with Peepal on the wall.

Below house has been well preserved by owners. I just loved these windows.

And the old doors were there all around. Most were locked adding to the character of the place:

This massive place holds a Kinder Garten now:

And the final one, the tea centre under this run down building. Where would you go if you step out of these doors. And what would you find, if you step in these doors!

Cheers,

Manish, May-2014

When the music froze....

The whole stage was in rhythm with the music beautifully flowing in from Bose speakers sitting mighty at the top of the auditorium.

Kids were full of energy, and a demanding high paced Rajasthani folk dance was getting brilliantly executed.

We, and another 100 odd couples were engrossed in this performance by school students, aged 10-12, organized during our orientation as our wards had just got admission there.

Suddenly, the thundering music froze mid-way and…and so did the kids. Till now they were majestically running around the stage and had just formed a pose at the centre with both hands in air, head moving to a side, body slightly tilted; and now they were just there - in that difficult pose, no movement.

So now the group was in problem, music had stopped and they were supposed to be dancing to it. Clock was ticking 10..20...30....40.....50 seconds...quite a lot

But the kids, during these few but seemingly very long seconds presented a typical example of problem-handling which applies equally well to any team in an office:

- they all maintained the smiles, poise and grace (so come what may, maintain the positive outlook)

- no one stepped out of the formation (learning: maintain mutual respect and trust)

- they demonstrated complete faith in the background team workers; the music player here (learning: team is generally wider than what we end up believing in)

- they remembered what the coach must have told him every day for this moment (learning: have mentors and coaches, listen to them, and respect them)

- nothing beats the practice (learning: practice, practice, practice)

- (learning: keep looking forward) here they kept looking forward to music resuming which was evident….

as when the music resumed after 65 seconds, they just continued with the dance full of enthusiasm as if nothing had happened.

I was thoroughly humbled.

How not to have a queuing system?

In short: been to bank this afternoon, got a token from queuing machine, waited for 15 minutes, another guy waiting for 45 minutes and here walks in a customer - goes directly to one of the counters and voila, gets served. Got me irritated, walked upto that counter and representative told me that there are no pending tokens; so now they look at the screen and ignore customers sitting in holding area just next to them. Got to the branch manager: told by her that sir you must have missed your number! And the other guy as well missed it! It took my some time to figure out what's wrong, and a lot of stuff was wrong. But here are the solutions:

1) The tokens were not plain sequential. They are like GYC012, MWR048, RTV039. So a waiting customer would never come to know if she has missed her number by looking at the screen flashing the number which may be RWR120. So strip off all info from token number that is not relevant to customer. KEEP IT SIMPLE

2) It took me two minutes to figure out where the display was, simply because it wasn't visible from my corner of holding area. Numbers must be announced when the turn comes, not just flashed. There are people with not a great eye-sight, and with none as well at times. HAVE RESPECT.

3) If you have a token based queuing system, never entertain a customer without a token. There are people sitting and waiting with tokens. BE FAIR.

4) Physical bodies are far more important and easy to see than small slips of paper. Do visit the holding area every 5 minutes or so. Don't leave managing visitors just to a machine. VALUE YOUR CUSTOMER.

Why not to name the bank? Because that's not the point :)

A kid is kid...

Couple of days back I was in a mall with some colleagues of mine, had lunch, were walking down to ground floor to grab some ice cream. Something caught our attention mid way..there was this three year old baby crying and running behind her mother trying to catch hold of her...well..usual stuff...but the mother was just marching on ...something was out of order in her march...the ruthlessness! Soon she was about to get on to the escalator on her way down..kid was just about to approach her...and whoa..she left him behind crying..and on the escalator she was..and lost her balance too but managed with the railing.

Now here is the three year old kid..standing in front of moving escalator unsure of stepping forward..watching his mom drifting away.....for some moments it made my heart sad at the emotions that were in the cries of the baby... emotion of  fear, terror, loss, non belongingness...

It was left to the writer to grab the kid, and get him safely down the escalator; handed him over to his mother, and bit unwillingly had to part ways there. Soon the march started again..jerking the kid flat on the ground...

I just had to move on. Some mins later my colleague pointed them out to me sitting next to each other.. probably trying to make up.

Am sure they love each other..and that mother is as special a mother as is any mother... just angry at some act of the kid ..but hey..he is just a kid and a kid and a kid and a kid. That's it. What max can he do to generate and face such a behavior? Lets all just learn to love humanity..right from the point and especially at the point when its nascent. That's one sure step we can take to not promote terrorism in long run.

Sania ki shaadi...

Its their personal affair, I quipped back when Dad said its not fair to Sania.No but Sania doesn't know the truth about Sohaib..he persisted. How do you know - I exclaimed!.. she just tweeted that she was aware - suddenly realising that I too was into this personal matter. My brother, quite till now but in deep thoughts, came out with the opinion that she is not doing right by leaving us Indians out and marrying a Pakistani. Its her personal matter - I exclaimed again! Its not! - my brother got back even more strongly...why is this happening in so much of publicity..they have not left it personal any more..I am involved..he stressed..and serious he was.

While on "Involvement" I recollected one Thackeray objecting to it, and another  Thackeray approving it ...as if she cared!

Fun..anyways...the whole discussion was..but even I couldn't figure out how personal a thing is for a public figure..and how personal they want it to be....

Bi-Cycle

Two of my friends purchased bicycles over last week. Both of them are 30+, working and definitely quite different from college or school going young guys who would normally fit in the frame of our imagination of someone sitting on a bi-cycle.

I told them that its recession that prompted them to go ahead and buy a bi-cycle; of course both of them defended it out like any thing, and they were right that they did not purchase it to save money. They both come to the office in their own cars and would continue to...

In fact I never reasoned that its to save money, but the promoting reason was recession. Here is why: recession forced our minds to go back into our simpler less expensive times refreshing the life style we had when money was scarce. It brought out those happinesses that were less expensive and more happier. It recreated some less cluttered images of life in our brain. And from there, sub-conscientiously came out the BI-CYCLE a simple easy to acquire machine that takes you places, that was and always is a pleasure to drive, that reflected freedom...fun.. , that is one of the last pleasant activities we did around 10-15 years back when we used to just bicycle and have fun of it.

Of course none of them agreed to my this loosely founded theory, but no one agreed with Copernicus too...on something I don't recall...probably something I don't agree to ;)

TOP 3....hey what about 4th!!

Since the time I recollect..have always been told about 1st, 2nd, 3rd ranks...be it my 1st Class, 10th, 12th, Graduation..or be it about a marathon held in Delhi, or Olympics in Beijing (hey they call them Gold, Silver, Bronze), or about winners of a lottery, or ..or..or..about ...pick top 3 of whatever comes to your mind..
...have started wondering now why its Top 3 not - Top 4 or Top 2... Rule is simple, 1st one bettered 2nd, 2nd one bettered 3rd, so did 4th to 5th. Had we lived in Top 4 instead of Top 3 we would certainly have had more winners all along (well 33%).. So what limited it to Top 3, probably the answer is in two parts..
one - we, the followers, have always seen Top 3 so we continue with that
two -the guy who termed 'Top 3' was either 3rd in the list of some competition at the advent of documented competitions in human age (blah...), or father of a prince who stood 3rd in some competition

...you guys can answer and choose Top 3 to be probable answers but one thing that still confuses me is why do I set my car stereo volume to 15 not 17 or 14 when my ears can't see ..and why do we have 5 rs coin..not 6 or 7... and hey why do we celebrate 100 runs and not 137 when latter is clear 37 more..probably Table of 5 was the easiest to remember in school..thats why!

MJ

new mobile in recession time !!

so all of us changed our mobiles every six to nine months...yes yes ..we had reasons for that..new ones are jazzy..have new features...music..camera ..small..sleek..fresh..and that too everytime!

thats something most of us are missing while facing the heat of recession.

But I got a solution for this...few days back my wife was playing around with my mobile and she changed the display theme..oh man it looked very fresh again..almost new...now I know what to do some months down the line..right! change the theme again..

..and then this colleague of mine who had to change the cover of her mobile to replace that junky cover..and it was as good as a new mobile....Hmmm...

realised that combined 'theme and cover' change would be the killer combination..;)

you know what to do now..bye..go and have fun with your new mobile theme :)

lateral growth

This was in Kochi, (Kerala, India). It was different..difficult..how could the tree be growing laterally not vertically..and surviving. The image beautifully.. comprised of earth ..air..water..life..hope..struggle..beauty.

Ahum...