deponti

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1543-bengaluru-photographers-to-shoot-leonid-showers

However, the title I had chosen was...Shooting Stars Shoot Shooting Stars".

You know you've spent too long abroad, when....you sit in Chennai and find yourself trying to calculate what time it is in Bangalore!




I tried out

tree-climbing


...and a couple of days ago, I snapped this:





It struck me forcibly that what was just a pastime for me, and a sport for others, was a livelihood for some people. (You can see that the man in the photograph above is using a sealant on the windows.)

This morning, when I opened

The Hindu

I found

this article by Liffy Thomas

Talk about high living....these people, like Microsoft, make their money from...Windows!

and we have a new proverb...people who live in glass houses, need their windows cleaned.

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/author/31-deepa-mohan

I find that Metblogs has been quietly deleting some of my earlier articles, that were written with a lot of effort. VERY unethical.

I want to meet some designers. The ones who design an itsy-bitsy whimsy of cloth and call it a bikini and sell it for four-figure prices? No. The ones who shape the way stage props are used? The man who printed the words "designer hankies" on a batch of six pieces of cloth and put an obscene price on the carton? Not in the least. I want to meet....the people who design aircraft seats...in cattle class.


I can just picture a team of aircraft economy-class seat designers getting together in whatever hell-hole they congregate in. Greetings and evil-looking grins are exchanged all around as they settle into their large, roomy, luxurious,soft-as-down armchairs to exchange notes.

"I found that I could actually lessen the space between the knees of the passenger and the seat in front by a couple of inches more!" one opens the conversation with glee.

"Well, you won't believe this, but I have made the seat recline a little less, so that by no means will a passenger drop off unless the stewardess physically conks him on the head!" intones another proudly.

"Yes, that's good," agrees the third. "If the passenger drops off to sleep, how will they eat those little plastic meals and keep the airline caterers (all of whom belong to the Borgia family) in business?"

"Don't forget, it's the awake passenger who buys all the junkola stuff that airlines sell on board....generating more revenue," adds yet another designer.

At this point, everyone notices one particular designer made a big fuss of. "What did he do?" asks one in hushed tones. "Oh..you mean, you didn't hear about it?" says his neighbour in surprise. "He's the one who made the center armrest in the aisle group of four seats fixed...so that even if a passenger finds the other three seats free, she cannot stretch out and go to sleep!"

"Oh!" says the first one in awe. "Wow, what genius to think of that! I knew the guy who made the armrests between the two seats...aisle and window....fixed, but to make FOUR seats unusable for comfort...that's really something!"

"Well," simpers the second designer, "I must say that I am the one who designed those dinky little video consoles in which the passenger can mostly see only her face when the cabin lights are on, instead of the movie she wants to watch."

(Here's the reflection of the face overshadowing the movie)





"Aha! But there, on your left, sits the guy who made sure that the touchscreen doesn't work half the time when the passenger wants to run the movie, pause it, or go to another part of the menu!"

"Oh," said the designer, "each of us is sometimes able to refine on what the other has done. But there are some real geniuses at work sometimes! Remember the guy who wrote the cabin announcement about storing carry-on baggage under the seat in front, and then invented the little electrical boxes that actually sit in that space, so that the passenger cannot fit in anything larger than a bag the size of a mouse?"

"Yes!" said his friend reverently. "My personal favourite, of course, is the person who designed the seats just in front of the toilet, which won't lean back at all, and where the passenger has all the delights...he may have ordered Chanel No.5 from the duty-free, but he will actually be smelling Channel No. 1 and 2."

"You must agree, though," said the most experienced designer, that nothing can come close to that all-time invention, the 3-5-3 configuration. Imagine the passenger who has the middle seat in the aisle row....no view out of the window, no access to the aisle...and the passenger in the middle seat in the aisle is TWO seats away from either aisle. Just think! He will have to negotiate all the debris of blankets, magazines, pieces of meal (this is where the word piecemeal comes from), plastic cutlery that has fallen, and other passengers' shoes (often with their legs inside them) to get to a trip to the toilet!" Everyone present bared their heads in silent adoration of the departed Einstein.

"Oh, well, let's get down to business! Does anyone have any good ideas?"

"What about actually putting a couple of seats in the toilet itself?" a new entrant asked eagerly.

There were tolerant, yet pitying smiles all round. Here was an inexperienced hand, everyone felt, who lacked the finesse to draw the fine line between subtle torture and actual ill-treatment. Someone explained, in patient tones, to the young sprig about the importance of never going so far that the passengers might actually revolt and get bigger seats installed.

The young one was praised for his enthusiasm, and told that he could work on how to get even a loosely-tied seatbelt to actually cut into a passenger's abdomen, or design stereo earphones that would either slip off the ears every now and then, or break off in a snap of cheap plastic.

Chastened, but still keen to make a contribution, the youngster brightly remarked, "I have just come back from India, where, in the Railways, they actually introduced 3-tier sleepers in the second-class compartments...*on the side berths*...so that passengers literally inserted themselves into their berths and lay there immobile the whole night, sweating it it out in summer. Say what you will, these ancient cultures can teach us a lot!"

Breaking off from their discussion about neck-rests that did not fit the neck, giving the passengers a painful crick, a few people looked approvingly at the young one. "You have really been doing your homework!" one said encouragingly. "Keep up the good efforts! Soon, you will become an expert AECCD (Aircraft Economy Class Chair Designer)...and who knows, you can even get a chance to write the misleading copy on the company's website, about how comfortable the seats are!" said an elder designer in hearty tones. "Or even design the plastic trays, the inadequate napkins, and the cups that will upset the coffee all over the passenger's laptop!"

With everyone smiling happily, the meeting went on....

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/show_entry/989


For all other Lalbagh posts:

click here .

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/981-bengaluru-heritage-walks

Some Heritage Walk guides are wise, some are otherwise.... :)

I have been, quite intensely, on the phone with someone whom I am interviewing...for the past 45 minutes.

An interview...can be several things...interesting, riveting sometimes..and sometimes, very draining....

There are times (thankfully, much more often) when I am in charge of the interview. I think of what information I want, and lead the conversation...I elicit the information needed for the interview, and quite often, a lot of other details that satisfy my own curiosity about a person's life, views, and work.

Indeed, most often, it is quite difficult to extract information that I want, and I have to work at it with a combination of talk, leading remarks, direct and indirect questions, sometimes flattery, sometimes a barb that will result in a reaction....

But sometimes, like now, I get drowned. Drowned in the flow of words from someone. The words have been flooding over me in a cataract of information and opinion. I keep asking the person to talk about one particular thing, and that person keeps talking about something else, in a wealth of detail that I can neither absorb nor use....It's like trying to keep a kayak afloat in rushing rapids...

Adding to the problem is that this person's English is, to put it mildly, very picturesque, and making sense of the words is sometimes a challenge on its own!


This person apparently does not, also, realize that I have to type out and keep track of all the stuff that is pouring out, and later separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

I am amazed at the extremely high need some artistes have, to talk about themselves!

When this person stops talking (my left ear is warm-bordering-on-hot as I type this, and I am gettig a crick in my neck, typing as I just listen with a "hm" interjected), I am going to heave a sigh of relief and tiredness, and go off and take a ten-minute break!

My goodness, I didn't realize that there are people in the world who talk more than I do!!

An article I wrote some time ago:


http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/nov192006/finearts1942320061118.asp

If any of you can, do book at Bandipur JLR, and ask for the cottages with the murals in them!

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/838-intach-heritage-walk-avenue-road

For more pics, look at




http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?start=120



http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?start=100




and


http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?start=80

One sample:

I generally do not write about current affairs because I always feel that many others say it better than I could. And here, indeed, are two people who have said what I want to say, and have done it so well...


http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Feb82009/sundayherald20090207117139.asp


I am, sometimes, seriously worried about this country of mine...my mother seems to have the canker of hate and hypocrisy rotting her from inside.

....and it doesn't help when even goddesses are caged. What's that, you ask? Well, here they are....at the Balaji Temple on Avenue Road, the temple has the "ashta lakshmi" (eight Lakshmis or Goddesses of Prosperity), four on either wall...and here's how they look:





Made me feel, for a minute, that the Rama Sene were here, too, protecting the goddesses against "western pub culture"!

I feel that the "pink chaddi" (pink panties) campaign (sending pink panties to the Rama Sene people) is, in its own way, as ridiculous as what the Rama Sene people are saying and doing. But perhaps, such a ridiculous protest brings home the folly of the Sene members....

My personal solution? I would crown myself Queen of Hearts, and like she did in "Alice in Wonderland", would shout, "Off with his head!" meaning, every Rama Sene worker, of course.

Here's where I would go before I had my coronation, to get my crown:




So from now, you lot can address me as "Your Majesty"....

I wrote several articles and "middles" regularly for the Deccan Herald before I started writing for Citizen Matters, and after having met Sangeetha Kadur and hijacked her and Madhukar (another expert birder whose work with the digiscope can be found here ) home,I
went and googled for the article about the artists who painted the beautiful murals at Bandipur...it's at


http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/nov192006/finearts1942320061118.asp


Oh, I have referred to it in

this post

Alas, that last mural remains unfinished, and JLR never continued with this great initiative....but Sangeetha continues with her wildlife painting, and is at present working on a book on humming birds! More power to her brush...


Hmm...I thought I had lost all the articles that I wrote, I realize I can hunt for them...these simple things take the Concrete Cauliflower a while to understand!

The Wildscreen Festival proved far more interesting than I budgeted for; the masterclass by Jeremy Bristow was riveting, and the one by Laura Marshall on managing productions, applies to so many situations that demand good scheduling to ensure a successful outcome. More in my writeup for Citizen Matters! :)

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/623-swasti-gallery


To think of a hospital,not as a place of illness,but as a place of healing, and try to add to that, is original thinking indeed!

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/599-namma-raste-trees

Here are some extra pictures....

Here's a concerned KM who cycled to Lalbagh, and then, with other members of the Bangalore Biking Club (yours truly is a member!) cycled to Town Hall, too...



The poster was made by anushsh. It says, roads are not meant only for cars, they are also meant for legs!

( more images here )

And let me end with this unrelated, but witty tee that supports Free and Open Source Software:





*

Amazing lady....

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/543-anasuya-kulkarni

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/529-bengali-pujas

Wait, wait, they didn't use several pictures....

Here they are.....


The traditional way of wearing a Bengali "thaanthEr shaadee" (Bengal cotton saree), with the pallu having a bunch of keys tied to it, with the jewellery and the tray full of items for offering "arati" to the Goddess. The yellow saree is very typical.





A very young man wearing the typical male attire, the "dhuti pAnjAbi"...






( more pujO pics here )

The beautiful, very traditional South Bangalore Pujo idol's face...those lovely elongated eyes....!





On the last day, Bengali women follow a practice called "Sindoor Khela". (I was requested not to take photographs at this time, so I complied). After this, the idol was taken for "Bisarjon" (immersion) You can see a video of both of these practices

here .


And for those of you who want to see the amazing creativity of Pujo in Kolkata, here are the images which a friend brought back from her visit this year...


click here

Let me close with a short Bengali poem:


"Maa..kothAti chhotO...kinthu, jAnO bhai....
eehAr cheyey modhur dAk tribhubhonEy nAi."

("mother"...the word is small...but, you know...
There is no sweeter appellation in all the three worlds.)


Maa...the Mother Goddess..I am NOT a religious person, but I do love Durga Puja!







*

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/446-theatre-city

Inflation taking its toll here, too? :)

Who knows if just talking will help? But it was a useful forum to interact with several people I would never have met otherwise...

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/404-security-terror-evaa-meet

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/393-nandi-hills-clean

Alas, 600 people at the cleanup meant:

Dozens of cars (each judge came in his own car,naturally!);

Inexperienced volunteers tearing apart the plastic packets of gloves...and throwing the plastic on the ground!

Several people who were there for the political and photographic mileage;

Arrangements for the breakfast and lunch proving inadequate,and producing a lot of trash, ironically! Some of the volunteers didn't seem to understand if they threw things on the ground, THAT was littering...!


But...we did need this awareness-raising campaign, and the organizers, and Yahoo, the sponsors, did a great job of getting the local people and the administration involved.

Now, perhaps, the river of plastic trash that runs down the slopes of Nandi Hills will start drying up....

Had sent several photographs to Citizen Matters, will post the unpublished ones tomorrow.

But here's a pic of a flutterby that I got after I had finished documenting the event:




I think that's a Chocolate Pansy, but (of course) I am not sure.