MindSpace

I confess, its embarrassing to rant about a vacation I took 2.5 yrs back ! Ok, the experiences were enough to last me a lifetime.. but, c'mon its good to add to experiences, not be stuck with it.

So, I started my quest to travel again.. now plain traveling truly sucks. So, I started last year planning for..err.. simbly Goa, aborted for reasons known to most common man! Quest turned North East of India - to Nagaland, wanted to do home stays there, get a taste of local culture & food.. alas! I figured I need a pass 2 travel from the army & a localite advised that I better not be seen with the army( I was planning to tap a contact there).. and so, I saved my life by deciding against it.

Next city on agenda was MP(actually this has been one since last 18 odd years), save some official tours, I haven't done the jabalpur marble rocks, kanhas or of the khajuraos of world, no matter the degree of my lust for the place, I was almost adamant about having a romantic getaway here.. well, romance has eluded me so far.. but hope still soars high, hence, ahem.. I will one day make it for sure!!

I turned my attention to a lazy week in Paris, mostly out of convenience since I've a close pal staying there who has knowingly agreed to invite trouble.. and thats when I realized my passport has expired (another post will follow on the tyranny involved!)..

In the same breath, I did think about Morocco - well I want to go there to sample food & buy some cooking utensils - Okay, that seriously doesn't warrant a loud thump like that.. people want to buy utensils - I wanna buy authentic ones!.. this time, not just an expired passport, but an expired romantic life proved to be detrimental. I need a man to travel with me to Morocco. Reasons known to all.

I didn't give up, I turned my attention to Malaysia (for the reefs), got reminded of my passport & depleting bank balance & quickly thought of getting similar experience from India's southern most island: the Andamans - and then I heard of a possible tsunami warning at Chennai & saved my life again.
Meanwhile, I did a day's trip to kolkata, had awesome phuchka, ugly chinese & slurrpy delicious conti food at Bengal club... Can't call this vacation you know!!

Am still contemplating.. have identified 2 spots, with or without romance, without passport but definitely.. local food, culture & home stay is on my agenda!!

Mind of a confused Corporate!

Seeing my pa at this age, download and store music on his cell phone at an unbeatable pace, forced me to accept reality of convergence & its wide spread usability.

Researchers & psychologist claim, humans need to communicate in various ways, one such is symbolic communication, signaling self identity. Personalizing a device & broadcasting it to the world denotes an identity, expresses our mood. That, my Pa still has the hots for actress Mumtaz is evident from the melody selections stored in his handset!! Convergence is the game changer.

But, imagine what such widespread trigger toward identity assertion can mean to Samsung? or, LG for that matter!.. Surprise! The Good news ofcourse: of audience available to peddle their new (not-so) durable wares & grow revenues..
but the confusing news: Now grapple , competing with the baap of convergence: Google. Hell, where did Google come from? ..in the durable space.. whats happening? Whats this about classic categories blurring.. as if there wasn't enough chaos in the world, now conventional knowledge is being challenged & toppled without giving corporates a chance to come with a Plan B, oh! Hell, atleast give enough R&D time to develop a handset with OS mash-up, or give time enough to develop another ovi/android.. gosh! hardly anytime to come to terms with touchscreens, and the Silicon Valley goes step ahead to develop 'nod based', 'breath based' & next what? a 'posture based' !!.. oh! stop this influx of R&Ds! Let the old school come to terms with who they are competing with!
As if, the R&D is not mind numbing, these Google's & Apple's of the world dont spend a penny on advertising!!.. huh! Look at the impressive group media buys Samsung or LG has in store for them.. some of that will have to get palmed off to the new product category: damn it, if your new age competitor does it by getting people like me to blog about their products, showing immutable excitement over pieces of Press, sending market caps to dizzying heights after hearing about a so called 'tablet'! Bitter Pill, I say for the old school.

One last doubt: How can mobile internet & texting be rolled under VAS by the telecom providers?? Consumers consume VAS differently. As far as my Pa is concerned, he still refuses to text people, calling it a complex technology! Now, thats my Bitter Pill !!

Mumbai takes to Left

What is this fetish we have? Anyone driving through lanes of Mumbai (I wouldn’t call them roads), would notice this. We Mumbaikars can not & do not wait. We dont let the vehicle in front go past.. its a race, to beat the traffic, pollution, time, others and mostly ourselves.

Seems like vehicles who have perched themselves on the right lanes are morons.. coz you always have that devious left lane to get into and go past the rest.. and once in the left lane, you move, faster than the rest. The triumph experienced is that of finding yourself anew.. try this out!! Suddenly you feel you are moving at a jet speed.. but hold! the sustained results are not always the same, most often than not, a few feet down the road, you’d find your right lane vehicle partners queuing up or rather cozying up with you.. howzzat?? Truly, you feel disdained for all the maneuvering skills you showed perching your vehicle on the leftest lane..

Yet, day after day I notice scores of vehicle mates jostling for that little left lane space through which they want to jet speed into their day. I follow these left laners

Electronics destination

Just to fight the fright of driving through the wrecked Andheri Kurla Road, all the way to West line coast is what the writer underwent, for the longest period of time: this could have won me the longest procrastinator award !

Getting out of the complex parking lot (dunno how others reverse!), was actually smooth & but the drive as expected took whistles out of me. Really. Not kidding.
The simple thought that there would be kind souls on the street giving me way.. was wayward! and the look from fellow drivers.. obnoxious! Thats the same feeling I get ALWAYS! I've to decipher why!

But all goes well that ends well. In this case, nothing went well so how could it end so? The second bit of tussle began at the shop front.. yeah! you guessed it right. Parking! Any one puhleeease! and not a single kind soul on the street this very festive cheerful season. Self help here is devastating!! It was.

The worse is yet to hit!
The Brand I went to buy was there, but not the models I had so painstakingly researched over the net!! Well, the site said its available - guess it never matched with their real time inventory. Now, thats an observation I can post in detail - this always happens to me.
My Murphy. My lopsided World!!

I could live with the disappointment of my futile visit.. but what about the driving fright?