Musings...

Wow what a fabulous run it was!! Amazing people be it the organisation (RFL) (click on www.thefuller life .com to know more), its team, volunteers, doctors and their team, the partners and of course the runners. Everything was great. As mentioned, I got into RFL office where there was a buzz of activity; all of them busy collecting things for the trip to Hesserghatta (outskirts of bangalore - takes about 2 hours to reach) and in the midst of that handing over (with lots of patience ) to the runners; explaining the runners about the route, helping them collect correct T shirt (lovely T shirt - designed by Farah one of the runners - she runs very fast). They took down all things needed for the run and we left in a tempo (about 16 of us) -a bit crowded but who cares? The group consisted of a couple from chennai, one guy from mumbai, another from hyderabad and other runners from Bangalore - siva, bhaskar, partha, hari, etc. We chatted about running and other runners and where all we ran ...

I went to my sister's (Didi) house that is close to JP Nagar; I had left from lalbaug gardens by rickshaw and it was literally an expedition to reach her house. Once we reached the nearest landmark i think it was Dayasagar institute, the road to her place was more of muddy type with lots of up and downs. I must have rung her up upteen times but she and attimber (brother in law) took it in good spirit. We lost our way and luckily found some people who were returning in bikes; these gentlemen showed us the way to reach the road leading to her house. We retraced and i saw my sister who got into the rickshaw and led me to her home. The rickshaw guy was nice and took the agreed amount even though he had to go to electronic city which was quite far from this place. (Didi's). We then went to her home and both she and attimber were very hospitable even though it was 11.30 pm and past their usual bedtime. She made hot milk for me and then i went upstairs to sleep. She had this huge r...

I read about this globalisation on this blog http://churumuri.wordpress.com/ - he quotes an article by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark in The Hindu : * i havent read the full article but what is quoted initially had struck me some time back about another creeping syndrome that we all have got affected by. Earlier we had a physical conquerors like the british, french, spanish persons. Now we are getting conquered (and dont even realise) by american organisations (mainly USA), the british, japanese etc. When we want to eat we think of mcdonalds, the KFC, etc. for perfume, it is the french ones- similar with other stuff such as mutual funds (mostly americans and japanese), lingo use of words such as last mile, inc - we normally use kilometres and ltd company (not Inc which is used by americans), our food of course has changed in many ways to dry food - pizzas, sandwich, burger, hot dogs, etc. - lunch ordered during meetings are invariably dry food- i mean we cannot have work...

Today I though i would do a bit of walk (about 40 minutes) after the long run of yesterday - I participated in Ultra marathon (which i will mention some other time). For a change the walk was without any intention except having to reach home in about 40 minutes and even that wasnt strictly sacrosanct. So i took this road from home to lokhandwala jogging track by the short cut ( the longer one is by the main road which has high traffic- not a good idea to walk). So I walk on this road peacefully.. no, one guy has to walk by and hit me (and forgetting about apologising, he didnt realise he hit me) and walked to his destination. I think we have become completely inured (indifferent is equally true but inured is better as it is linked to violence) to people, things, etc. that we don't realise that we a violating the world, the people and things in it or even ourself. The good part immediately followed unexpectedly; a BEST gently stopped behind me without even a single horn; amazing :...

Recently I went to Bangalore and the three days were really wonderful- I sort of lived in a dream world - when i came back to Bombay the dream continued for some more days..:) Left for Bangalore this Friday (14th December, 07) by Indian airlines - the trip to airport was by rickshaw as usual - I was disturbed (was I?) by the sight of a man at the roadside - he was asleep (or dead?) and no one including me (consoling myself i was getting late) did anything to help- is this how city life is like - completely focussed on oneself to the exclusion of everyone except perhaps one's love one? Went to the bookshop and bought a book by RM Lala (amazing guy who wrote about JRD Tata) the airline left in time (incidentally i was the last passenger) and landed Bangalore in time - no delay as is frequent these days . I went to the office and finished my work; the guys in the office were very helpful and took me for lunch and also helped in direction to where i was to go; i also had a nice cup of ...

Marie Curie is reported to have said, "Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas." Just the way I think too; a bit of clarification or the way i feel about this idea. It is so fascinating to be curious about ideas as that gives us a lot of learning and yes, one can be curious about how people behave, what motivates them- of course what people do matters but more in a way of matching what they say and what they do!

Today after a long time I used public transport and boy was it fun! I had to go to Churchgate and since I was to reach by 5 pm and was getting late, I ventured to use the public transport. Initially to station, I used a rickshaw and on reaching Andheri station, I stood in a queue (not very long), got my ticket and hopped into a fast train. I was almost feeling like this is something new (like someone using train for first time almost:)) and wonder of wonders got a seat at Bandra - of course today being Saturday and the reverse direction, i could comfortably sit down. The crowd seemed the usual set of some Gujjus playing cards, a father daughter sitting together wanting to get down at Dadar; the only major difference was the ubiquitous mobile handset with many people; of course unlike the hoity toity, these people didnt pretend to get calls! As is usual, there are these usual hawkers in the train; what was unusual this time was this time there was a reasonably sophisticated gentlemen wh...

I recently went to Hyderabad on office work (conference) - most of the time I was in the Hotel since it was a conference. Interesting time - (the organisors arranged for ghazal nite! more of that later); Left by Jet lite (formerly Sahara) - managed to upgrade myself to business class - simply went and sat there when i saw some others sitting there and some seats were empty - in any case, the boarding card mentioned free seating :) The sad part is jet & kingfisher seem to have too many customers - when i enquired at bombay airport at the jet counter, he reacted as if i had come from some small village. Both the airlines seem to have stopped issuing customer feedback form- kingfisher went to the extent of saying that magazines are meant only for business class and they can't provide me magazine; Anyhow waited as usual at the airport - these days one spends more time at the airport as compared to the flight time - great business opportunity for enterprising people - have some en...