The tale of a Walkman

The recent news of Sony discontinuing the Walkman brand marks the passing away of a fine legend. The other day while loitering through the world wide web, yours' truly came across this news item announcing the news. The brief article written by a nostalgic fan, made me go back in time, to a period when computers were hardly there, when we had physical music collection, when a cassette had 12 songs, nothing more, Apple was almost dead as a company, the list goes on.
It was one time. A fine time. Yours truly was celebrating his 15th birthday. Due to my unruly attitude towards electronics, I just screwed up both my portable radio and cassette player. I got both due to my successful ability to collect merchandise, in this case Nido milk powder tin caps.
The story is like this. I just decided to leave the comforts of Abu Dhabi for the comforts of a boarding school in my native state in India. For my 15th birthday, I requested my dad a Sony Walkman, fully promising that I would take good care of it, to which my requests were granted, fortunately no questions were asked.
I decided to take good care this time of my Walkman. It had a great FM player (at that time FM stations were becoming popular in Abu Dhabi), it played original cassettes lovely, screwing up the duplicate ones, it lasted with me for 6 years before I gave it to my sister.
These 6 years chronicled a great time in my life and that Walkman stood with me throughout. Even these times, mp3 became a standard. I liked the Walkman as well. Simply because. you would listen to song in full; rewind it back hoping you will reach the beginning of a song, not any excerpts from the earlier song; fastforward a song hoping you will reach the end of the song, not wanting to spoil the beginning of the next song; the list goes on. The best thing was, there was no scrollbar, there was no spin wheel, just pure manual operation.
Just as today is good, those days were good too. BASF tapes from Germany were known for their superior sound quality. People knew about Tips. T-Series, HMV cassette companies and so on. You used to get the original Hindi MC for 50Rs, English 150Rs and a fake one for 20RS. The fake ones were marketed well, they lasted for a good one time hearing and I remember how I cleaned the head with WD40 after each time I heard a fake cassette!
Another aspect of the Walkman was that, it stood out. Jogging, walking etc., clipping the walkman to belt buckle ensured that you not only listened to the song, passers-by mistook you for someone special. Owners of zune and ipod would agree, you won't get that feeling now..
Whatever said, these timeless players had their mark on time. They spearheaded the innovation of making music personal to everyone, cassette collection in addition to music collection was a hobby (remember those white, opaque BoneyM cassettes, or the transparent Taal cassettes). Who could forget Made in India or Thriller cassettes ? Can today's iPod, Youtube, iPhone generation beat that following?
Let me conclude. Walkmans were truly legendary. As they say, all good things in life come to an end one day. So did you. RIP.

The true hero!

Welcome back fellow netizens,

Its been a long time since I posted anything on my website apart from tweets. I kind a hit the writers’ block and couldn’t write anything for a long time. Been complacent could be the apt word for the situation. Watched lots of movies, travelled quite a bit, eat a lot like that hibernated into life’s unseen alleys. In search of ? Nothing. I was simply just relaxed.

2010 has been a surprising year. It was quite different, however pleasant. Living in North America along with high speed internet and some good time, made me read a lot of the goings in the world. We had earthquakes, floods, volcano ash, world cup, commonwealth games  etc. The ominous list goes on. One thing remains. Heroes ? Do we have any heroes in today’s world. The recession of last year, expose lot of myths about heroes. Heroes became villains and vice versa. The wheel of time just went on and on. The whore of our times, the media, merely documented the saying with umpteen disdain. They just cycle, sometimes being the cycle themselves.

In 2009 we had a young president for the United States of America-Barack Obama. He came with a lot of promise. Everybody, including yours truly supported him. In my case, it was not out of disdain for the predecessor, but uncertain times call for unknown heroes. Something on the mould of the times of Jesus. Well as its said, time is the greatest teacher, today the fate of Obama and the November elections can be left to the readers’ thought.

I ask this question all the time. Who then is a hero? Religious zealots scream, Jesus;Mohammed;Ram etc. Politicians scream Reagan, Lincoln, King and some Obama. Economists scream Bernanke, Greenspan etc.. However are they heroes ? They all served the needs of their time. Is this the same as the time as we live in ? No.

Well who is a hero? I would say to everyone who reads this piece to go into their rooms, stand in front of their mirrors and see for themselves who the real hero is ? See for themselves a hard working person, a loving son/daughter for their parents, adoring mate for their better half, the cog in the wheel of the hopes of their bosses, hope of many poor and undeserving people around the world who look up to people like them for their redemption...the list goes on.

Accept it my friend. You are the real hero.

Welcome back.

The iRevolution

Recently yours truly had a chance to buy the iPad. The revolutionary new device that seems to have taken the world by storm. Selling 2million units just into two weeks of it's release is not a mean thing, but the ingenuity behind it's very design, the guts to create a market for a device finally the incessant ability to create value from nothing is meant to be appreciated.

At this time, like millions of people who are awed by this device and the magnitude of what it can do, yours truly decided that a blog entry this time should be using this device.

Like many out there of my generation, I myself began my journey years ago riding the bandwagon on a Windows 3.1. How I loved that OS with it's simple layout that included windows laid out in a linearly fashion. Windows 95 was a stunner which was quickly followed by Windows 98, both impeccable pieces of software. Windows I remember in the wake of the Internet revolution was the tsar of creativity. Though the Windows me and 2000 models failed to excite, Windows xp till the coming of Windows 7 remained my favorite os ever.

It was during this time I came across Apple as a company, tired of Windows and it's clones topped with a never ending sense of corporate greed. I had seen the earlier iMacs and it's colorful design but I was least impressed with the software. With my first job however, I decided that I would buy anything other than a Windows laptop, after getting confused with Linux, settled on an Apple and it's Tiger OS.

In software, the biggest risk one can take is to try to be different. At that time when I brought my fiesta MacBook, though it looked like a toy, fancy in design and glossy in it's functioning, compatibility issues raged. Either the softwares were highly priced or it was incompatible. Got lost would be the apt word with it for sometime before resigning to the very fact that Windows is the undisputed ruler of the desktop and laptop market, mainly because of the Goliath productivity suite-MS Office which is best always on a PC.

Apple went a different path. It brought out iPods, iPhones, MacBooks etc. However, they all seem to be focussed on one particular area or the other. Then came the AppStore with the iTunes store and a new developer ecosystem was created.

The power of any device is fully exposed and tested when it's functionalities are fully stretched. All the devices in the market for playing music or calling were closed to outside developers. I am not sure whether Apple is the first one in this area, but to bring value to people for their creativity was first ensured by Apple.

For a long period in my life, I believed in free software, ultimately Linux. As one grows up we realize the potential for creativity to grow when value can be obtained from it. The power of inspiring someone when value can be created from it is amazing. The very reason why the free software evangelists never had their way was exactly because of that. In a commercial world and a global market, if money can be made from a product, why deny it?

iPad is the culmination of the journey for that ever promising ecosystem where money and content both can be made and distributed. Of Android, I would like to echo the words of Steve Balmer, it's a freaking cancer and it will meet it's death and I personally would love to see Google stick on to it's core area of search and other related applications. The failure of Nexus One, Google Wave is a testimony.

Concluding iPad is nothing short of a revolution; it is an amazing web browser, multimedia device, ebook reader and it's out there with real genuine interest to chosen our way of thinking with regards to mobile computing technology.

Sent from my iPad

Growing with Chicken biryani

I am a big fan of chicken biryani. When I say big, I don’t mean Burj Khalifa-big- but, Big bang theory-big would be an understatement. Whatever, I am a true, loyal fan of chicken biryani. To me, from time immemorial, this has been a magical dish. A dish that has always made my soul -complete, stomach-full, heart-glad and any day-memorable; I am proud to feature my views on this amazing dish in my blog.

Of the few things that I am known for apart from writing about poems, current affairs, movies, news, Obama ( I am accused of writing pretty much about him, too) is a new found love for cooking. Prior to coming to Canada, I have never touched a knife to chop onions, a peeler to peel potatoes, or for that matter clean my plates. Though I was appreciative of anything food, I’ve always knew that they arrived on my dining table through a certain act of divine intervention-of which I am mighty proud, too.

In my growing years in a Muslim country, Friday was the markedly blessed day. The day when my mother after days of pestering, gets down to make this dish. In a family of two children, where the older one (me!) had a long standing love affair with this dish and the younger one (my sister!) had a love for chicken fried rice, it required enormous amount of tact and ploy to make sure that the weekend special that emerged from the kitchen-was chicken biryani. Let’s not divulge into the relevant backdoor politics that ensued, chicken biryani was our Friday dish and, as many Indian hotels opened and closed in Abu Dhabi, as I grew like a rocket both physically and mentally; the chicken biryani of mom was the best.

It saddened me to leave Abu Dhabi for my secondary school education to God’s own country that mom (out of her sorrow for letting son go,) and me (ever happy to capitalize on it) made her make back to back dishes both to take back to India .

Studying in St.Thomas Central, was a challenging experience, but the first dish in those funny canteens, was once again chicken biryani and I fell in love with the dish. But in Kerala, I realized how Malayalis had a certain affinity to make it a chicken-less affair. This dish, was a regular with all our family friends, this was Tenny’s favorite and if you needed to be in his good books, this had to be there on the table. I still remember the first visit back to Abu Dhabi after St. Thomas in 11th Standard, when I landed in Dubai minus 15 kilos from leaving the Emirates to the wails of parents; only to have them reassured when I gobbled up 3 straight plates from my cousins’ house.

Then in 12th Standard, came the escape from boarding to a Catholic- run hostel in Trivandrum, where this dish was a regular, in addition to the countless trysts with Hotel Chinnus in Keshavadasapuram, Trivandrum; just to have this dish. I relished this dish like no other and loved it.Then came the TKM days, the Uniarab-oilfield days, I ate, ate and ate. Everyone used to make fun of me and my infatuation to this dish. I dint bother. As long as I got mom’s variant or the Arab, Hyderabadi, Bombay etc etc variant of this dish, I was just might happy.

However things changed, when I came to Canada. There was no one to make biryani. I felt so sad; and however way people made it here, it never tasted good or any better. Nostalgic and depressed, there was no solace, except a South Indian restaurant, where it was so oily that you could fill your automobile engine with it. Then came the astonishing cooking madness phase of my life in 2009; and I made, made and made chicken biriyani. I still fondly remember my first chicken biryani, when I mixed the rice and chicken separately in a pressure cooker and without tightening the lid (I was fortunate here), I put it in the oven to bake, only to be alarmed by the burning of the plastic handle-the biryani was good enough for my roomie to leave me with a warning.

Cooking this dish brought issues like over-cooked rice, flavoring etc etc. Reading Kite Runner gave me the idea of a life time to use turmeric milk as a flavoring agent; with further experiments, judicious use of cilantro, the use of green onions in the chichen masala to the time required for baking, to proper use of nuts, eggs- I perfected making my own chicken biryani and could never appreciate it from anywhere.

Incidentally one of my testimonials in Orkut, introduced me as Biryani King; which till date, my friends use to refer to me.

I believe in this dish. Its magnitude and scope to make any one happy; the aroma to make the salivary glands run crazy with passion, the humbling ability of anyone to make this dish, despite the time consuming task involved, the ability to make people happy eating the one you made; to see it, savor it with a heavenly feeling is-priceless.

Image Courtesy: http://www.whistleblowersgrill.com/recipes/chicken-biryani-recipe/

Media and Accountability

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcom X

Of late,yours truly has been noticing about the frivolous and pretentious nature by which media has been trying to twist and sabotage facts using unreal and scrupulous journalism practices-thereby influence policy-making nationally and internationally. The role of the fourth estate has been a very important one-the proper and judicious dissemination of knowledge and in this context, a synopsis for debate and discussion is presented here.

All over the world, everyday people get up and read about the events that occur in their neighborhood, countryside and worldwide. In the pre-Internet days, nobody bothered about what happened outside their communities or their ‘comfort zones’. Post 9/11, tsunami, Iraq, Afghanistan, Obama, recession and Haiti, anybody with an easy access to a mobile phone or an internet connection, does read and be bothered about what happens outside, in and around the world. This situation gives enormous amount of power and leverage to the media that is responsible for the fair and balanced reporting of the news events, proper and just analysis of current and international affairs. However, it is not the case and it has come to a stage that in certain countries like India, widespread angst and debate have originated about the origin of news, paid for and true ones etc.

From time immemorial, press has been the savior of everyone who had the guts to stand up against the establishment. During the period of Emergency in India, Cold War, Holocaust etc, many world events would have escaped the public eye if it weren’t for the audacity and the attentiveness of the media. Many notable personalities and careers were also created in the process. Those were the days, when the media outlets were less in number, and the news reached from place to place through couriers/telegrams etc using such obsolete technology that would make any person living today, stunned. Despite that free and fair reporting was the norm and media personalities, though liberal in kind, stood out as respectable people, out in the honest and untiring pursuit of the truth.

However, when technology grew, the media outlets grew in number. Media content began to be created in exponential proportions. The advent of the cable in US was greeted with skepticism when Ted Turner began CNN- the mammoth potential of which was realized in the first Gulf War-during the Operation Desert Storm. Ever since that period, the media awareness, 24/7 news cycles, advent of the internet etc. led to exposing of lot of concealed evils and resulted in the emergence of the global village phenomena, where anything and everything that happened elsewhere made sense. This led to the growth of a collective sense of responsibility and concern that reared its humane head when events like tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Haiti began to unravel-the realization that I am my brother’s keeper, sister’s keeper etc. Issues like global warming echoed around the world fostered the understanding that I am responsible for this planet earth and I do have a certain responsibility to this that cannot be ignored.

The election of Obama, where a literally unknown senator, was catapulted into the highest corridor of power in the world, reinforced the ability of media to be the ultimate savior of the underdogs. The recession and Wall Street bonuses, showed everybody the depths that resulted from human greed. Issues like Google in China, Toyota recall, Tiger Woods etc brought into the forefront values like free spirit, integrity and loyalty. In this scenario, the growth of free media bolstered by Twitter, Youtube and Facebook requires mention and commendation.

However, a recent disturbing trend has been the advent of ‘paid news’ particularly during elections and referendum in many countries like India, US etc. The whole health care debate was meant to be bipartisan and an unifier for the people for its remarkable potential to affect and change the lives of millions of Americans-it has ended up confusing everybody-due to the frivolous nature of media that covered the event. The efforts of British media to frown and discern the Vancouver Olympics and the tit for tat reaction by the Canadian media exposed lot of underlying and divisive battle lines. The debates that is going around in India regarding the ‘paid news’ have shamed the media further. Every day, news is emerging how the mainstream media has constantly failed the common public and has ended up being the torch bearers of the establishment and the business entities offering the people of this world anything other than the truth.

It’s a sad situation, where responsible reporting is taking a back seat, where ideals like integrity and honesty are being compromised like ever before, the lack of any long term vision or planning. This trend is alarming at the same time disturbing. We, the people should address this situation and be fully aware of what we read and how we base our opinions on. It’s better to prevent this sickness from taking hold and creating an instability now than ever. Be minded, the vanguards of democracy has become, off the people, buy the people and not for the people. And it’s now or never for us to act.

Image courtesy:

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/30145/ejs/responsible_media_600.jpg

Growth of a Feeling

I have a feeling deep down inside me,

Don’t know what it can be,

Feels so strong, and yes so powerful,

Feels so good, and yes its heart-full,

Something so intense, that I would love to meet,

See of it and ask of it, what it needs?

Is it a feeling of good, or of being good?

A feeling of love, or a feeling so crude

What it can be, I would love to be,

Serene in its scope, myriad in its vivacity,

Like a virgin, it seeks of me,

Grows and becomes a part of me,

Like the eyes that see the sea so vast,

And the ears that hear the waves so sharp,

This feeling in me, or that which is mine,

Reaches out to the fathom so wide,

With truth as its vision and love as its minion,

It seeks my whole self in unison,

Relentlessly I lose myself out,

Neither and fully a whole heart,

My stubbornness fights a losing conflict,

Stung by a failure, slow to heal, by commitment

Cleared the rubble of the past,

Awaken a new future, so blazed,

Filled with the feeling, a feeling so loud

Nothing else to matter now, I live my life with a wow,

The feeling completes me for times to last

To the truth which it reaps from times of past

And in the end, it grew to be,

The best of me and yes the best for me.

Image Courtesy: http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_mar2007/ShowYourFeelings.jpghttp://www.joe-ks.com/archives_mar2007/ShowYourFeelings.jpg

The importance of content

Last August, I decided to temporarily shut down this blog to focus on newer pastures. Life has been quite the box of chocolates so far and without knowing what I get on a daily basis, it looks getting better and better as it goes. It’s been about 3 years since I have been writing this blog and I think it better to revisit and reinvigorate the blog on its 3rd year anniversary and its been quite eventful. I promise that after the well deserved break, that I promise to deliver content that echoes my views in a world that looks promising and interesting in the most challenging and the audacious time in its history.

Enjoy Reading. The value of content in today’s world dominated by iPads, ebook readers is paramount. It’s more than ever that human beings should realize that the most important thing that is necessary in the wake of cloud computing and highest ever penetration of internet that human beings have finally got a chance to come together, express his ideas however contradictory or conciliatory; the ability to give an individual voice to that content in the form of text, photos or videos epitomizing an idea or an event; in the process we need to set free our ideas and ourselves welcoming ourselves to a new order where human beings are no longer divided by color, caste or faith but united in our thinking and in our ability to make sure ideas flow out into this new world creating a new order, an everlasting order where content is king and we are proud of it.

Image courtesy: http://all-sorts.biz/includes/content-is-the-key.png