Life Today, Just Mobile

Life today. Just mobile. Even if you are in bed, you are mobile. Your thoughts and ideas dart and so do your fingers. In this day and age, the one thing that translates all this energy into action is the mobile. Life is on your fingertips, allowing you to share your brain and heart through this small and wonderful piece of technological art. It not only allows you to talk, but you can share your life through photographs, through words and song, making cameras, laptops and radios available in one device with which you can move. Tata’s new phone, the One Touch Net Phone offers all this and more to savvy mobile people of today…like me. And services like Yahoo are free. And call rates come to you timed per second, not per minute. Could anyone ask for more?

Yes, of course.  Smart matters, but good looks count.

The phone looks beautiful with its colours of purple and silver, and purple and black. It attracts attention. Then, it is simple and familiar to use, the QWERTY keys ensure that, the one touch ensures that too.

So it is smart, good looking and comfortable. What else? I love to click photos on the go, you say. I am passionate about instant photography, street photography, candid camera, you say.

With this phone and its 2 MP camera, it is easy to click photos - and share it instantly with Bluetooth.

And?

Okay, more and more. Dive in WAP means that you can let your eyes swim while you access everything with a single soft touch. No complicated keys or buttons to remember and press. It has customized keys for several things. Yahoo and rejoice all you want. This is the one touch wonder with all of Yahoo available: mail, surf and sail through conversations. And Yahoo M&M (mail and messenger) comes free!

Sounds good. Expensive in toto?

It’s a TATA product. Less than six grand. With all these features, it’s like a gift.

Wow. I can save my poems on it too?

Of course, that’s understood.

 Today’s world includes constant change, innovation, connectivity, mobility. Instant access and sharing is the order of the day. No time to lose and everything to gain from each second. I need to do so much more, connect with friends who matter, embrace life on the move, listen to music on FM, sport a trendy looking phone as I walk and talk and smile. I make every second count in this age of information, communication and connectivity. I use my mobile for photos, emails, music, and oh yes, for talking!

Seems like the Smart (and Lovely) phone, the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone has all this and more. Life is wonderful and gets better all the time if you are mobile with the right mobile.

I am sure to share my life and give it more meaning with a mobile like the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone. And do more, be more with Tata DOCOMO.

Here is where you can check it out. Go check here:

http://onetouchnet.tatadocomo.com/

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Radio Parul: By The Water Cooler Contest

Radio Parul: By The Water Cooler Contest

By The Water Cooler

I have entered the premises of my new office and sat on my desk. I am feeling a bit out of place, everything is spanking new and unfamiliar. I look across and hope someone walks through the glass door so that I can connect in person. My nervousness stems from re-entering the work force after a gap of many years. We shall not count the decades, since they age me unnecessarily.

I look across to the other side. Through the glass paneled doors I see a pair of feet under a desk and for a moment mistake them to be a reflection of mine. I am used to offices of the olden days, where office doors were made of teak, or polished to look like miserable copies of teak. And tables were of solid wood, not glass and steel contraptions. In other words, in those days, my feet would not have shown on the other side of the table, let alone be reflected on the other side. In these days of transparency, however, everything has to show as much as it can, to ensure that there is nothing hidden.

I move my feet back to tuck them in a bit more so that they are not so visible, but the reflected ones don’t move. I look at those feet. They are brown skinned, the nails buffed and polished to a high gloss in bright red and encased in high heeled black . How the hell did I think they were mine, I only wear very pale pink polish. The only thing in common is the brown skin and the colour of the heels. I cringe a bit and withdraw my feet a bit more. The ones on the other side do a little tap dance.

I open the glass door of my office and step out to explore or find someone. Before I go across to the other side of the passage which houses the general office staff, where the feet which did not belong to me belonged, I glance at the passage.

Standing there, rather nonchalantly, as though he owns the place, is a young man in beige pants, pink button down shirt and tan shoes. My tone is clipped. “Could you get the air-conditioning started in my office?” I point towards the door I have emerged from.

Before he can answer, a plump girl made plumper by her pregnancy and her round face made rounder by the halo of squiggly hair around it rushes out of the office door, the one on the other side, in her white heels (I noticed all this) and almost careens into him. As she steadies herself,  mumbling, ‘Sorry, Rahul..”, I repeat my question, this time addressing it to her. She says, “Yes, of course, I’ll check,’’ and runs back into the office.

The girl rushes out again, this time ensuring that she does not bump into Rahul, and looks at me, “It’s being attended to, sorry, Ma’am , we thought you were coming in tomorrow. Sir will be meeting you in five minutes. I have to rush, please excuse…” I barely nod before she rushes out with Rahul behind her, a bit crushed now, mumbling, “ Ma’am,” but also pushing his thick hair off his forehead in a gesture of defiance.

I hear the hum of the air-conditioner start behind me, open the glass door and walk in. I plonk myself on my chair unceremoniously and try not to look at the feet on the opposite side.

This is going to be very distracting to me. I will have to do something about this. Change the orientation a bit.

Meanwhile, ‘Sir’ arrives to find that he is looking at my back.

“Honey,” he says, “why are you doing this? This is no way to receive anyone.”

On hearing his voice, I swivel around. ‘Dear husbandji,” I say, “I refuse to look through the door at other people’s feet. I’d rather look at the blank wall. Please take a seat.”

He has to walk around to the other side to sit opposite me. He faces the glass door.

“What’s the problem?” he says.

“My office needs real brick and mortar walls, and I need a teak door.”

“Honey, you are joking.”

“No I am not, I refuse to look at feet. “

“Don’t let your gaze wander. Concentrate on your work. That’s the idea.”

So he did know what I was talking about.

“This is bad design,” I said.

“Glass takes less space and is more elegant.”

“Sorry, my table will stay facing this way then.  It is as per Feng Shui.”

I can be obstinate.

The next day, my office was moved to an old part of the building, where the walls were of brick, the doors of wood. It was air-conditioned and sound proof. When I looked up from my table, I saw a teak paneled door with a brass knob. It creaked a bit, but at least I did not have to look at feet or wonder whom they belonged to. I was happy in my little cubicle, comfortable in office spaces as I knew them to be. Thick, solid and dependable. If these attributes were there, transparency and ‘see-thru-isms’ could take a hike.

My husband knows how to keep me happy. Even in his office, I am the boss.

© ABHA IYENGAR, 2010
This post is a shot at something.
Parul Sharma’s latest book ‘By The Water Cooler’ is going to be launched soon, and she is running a mouth watering contest (okay, we will limit this water bit). This post is shooting for the contest. You can do it too.Read the details here, just follow the link to the orange ice candy...

http://orangeicecandy.blogspot.com/2010/10/by-water-cooler-contest.html

Happy writing.

Encounters of a Soft Kind continue...

CW4

Another day of interaction and I was now quite comfortable in the space created through our interactions on the previous days.

This time we concentrated on techniques like POV. I gave example of a story and using it , indicated what POV was and how shifting POV should be avoided.

We also talked of different genres, there are so many of them, and then each genre has its subgenres as well. I just like to stick to the principal genres , and let the subgenres take care of themselves. For example, speculative fiction has so many subgenres, and when one writes, one will know whether the story is horror, fantasy or hard sci-fi and that should be enough. Otherwise, sections like gothic-horror, steampunk, and so on and so forth can blow your mind. It is something like medical specialization. There are bifurcations and bifurcations, so it is better to stick to some basic railroad tracks.

We discussed what   ‘foreshadowing’  means, and how Chekov had stated that if you mention a gun on the wall in your story then the gun has to become a part of your story later on, otherwise it is a useless inclusion. 

How ‘flashback ‘works  as a technique was also discussed, and most of them understood what flashback was, since movies use a lot of this.

We then focused on our written stories.

 This was a reading out and critiquing of the stories with Gangadhar as the main character, or Ganju i.e. the man in the yellow pants. This was the character we had developed in the earlier class and had had a lot of fun in doing so. Someone had also sketched him out, and had done a good job of it.

The class was interested in reading out their stories more than doing exercises and felt it was helping them in figuring out how things work. 

The stories were different and the language and approach was different, some very good and some okay, but the main thing was that each one had attempted to write a story. 

I distributed the feedback forms and the response was excellent. All of them came up to me and thanked me and said they hoped I was holding more classes. 

This has been a very fulfilling experience for me. I too look forward to more workshops.

Encounters of the Soft Kind

CW 3.

It was a cool and rainy day and I was wearing, once again, a crisp cotton sari hoping it would not wilt in the damp weather. It would have wilted in the hot weather, so I consoled myself. Either ways wilt, what? Did not take along my umbrella so kind of prayed that the weather clear, which it did soon enough.

We first had a discussion on a story written by Satyajit Ray, titled, “The Promise” , which was brought to the class by one of the participants as a story he liked. It was supposed to be a practical story writing class and I made them do more in-depth exercises than before, using background, dialogue and imagery. 

It was amazing the kind of stories people developed. There was an image of a young man with a young boy on his shoulders with a background of a boat on a river. The two people became many characters: friends, father and son, brother and younger brother… in one story, the boy asks the young man to come to his school as his father at the parent teacher meeting because he is ashamed of his own father, for his real father is not young and good looking and tall but is short and fat and he wants to show off the young man as his handsome father. Another story was of how a young boy wants to be explained why his sister is all dressed up and sitting next to a man on the boat and holding his hand. Another story is where the boy does not want to be lifted on the shoulders because he feels he will burden his crippled father and is surprised when his father manages to lift him up.  Another wrote that the young boy was not happy for he was being separated from his real sister in an orphan home, so he could not accept a new sister in a new home with a new father, so even if his name was Joy, he could not live up to that name.  Fantastic, on- the -spot tales.

It was a learning process for me too as to which parts of an image people notice and pay attention to and put focus on. In another image, someone talks of the dog, another of the single sprouting plant, another of wet walls, another of the lone bicycle rider…

Also, a story line with the second character and conflict development was constructed to be developed further in the next class.  On the whole it was a very satisfying session. Some of them wanted to purchase autographed copies of my book of poems, a request which I gladly complied with. There were also requests for my book of fiction, alas, that is something I still have to put together and then get published. But the impetus is there.

No wilting here, the class blossomed in front of my eyes. 

***

No Letting Go of the Past

There are some topics that may be debatable, some issues that may be open to discussion. But something like ‘Do all relationships come with a past or the past, well, that’s a given in any language. Soch lo. Soch lo? Nothing to think about here. It is like saying, does breath come with life, soch lo.

If you have a life, then you have a past, and if you have a past, it will come into the relationship. Each individual in that relationship will bring his or her baggage. The past may have been great, rocking, bitter, sweet, gooey, gritty, serious, ridiculous, yucky, mucky, sucky, kinky whatever! Too many ‘ky’ words there, but they hold the key to what happens in the present relationship. 

So this girl, Namita,  may tell off her present heart-throb, “You know, Rahul never behaved like this. He never forgot like you do, Sunil. He always bought flowers for me on my birthday.” Rahul of course is her ex, whom she broke up with, a thing of the past, should have been shattered and shuttered out of her life, but she won’t forget that easy. And she won’t let poor present day hero, no longer the hero, our dear Sunil boy, forget him too. If Sunil’s beaky nose has suddenly reddened to the nth degree, it is because Namita is making him burn.

You may say, this happens in urban metros. What about the innocents of the village? Young Amar of Bilaspur gaon may have left his love for his chammakh-chhalo Sarika at the behest of his powerful grandfather who gets him married off to the moneylender’s daughter, Rupaiya. If he sits and howls at the moon every night even as Rupaiya cooks bajrey ki roti for him and ladles it with the butter of her love for him, it is because of his past. He cannot let go of Sarika that easy.

Mr. and Mrs. Godbole look like any other couple, quiet acceptance a regular feature on both their faces. Mr. Godbole will never reveal to his wife why he does not allow her to bring jasmine flowers into the house or wear them in her hair. But when she sees him turn his face away with sadness every time he passes a jasmine flower-seller, she can guess. Mrs. Godbole will never tell him of how she had wild sex with the neighbourhood boy for one year before he went away. She will not let Mr. Godbole know that she married him on the rebound. But her abandonment in bed will surprise and delight him. And also raise some questions in his mind which he will quell. He will wonder at how this placid woman hides a tigress under it all. And Mrs. Godbole will think of her wild young nights and feel alive only in bed.

Individuals are a sum total of their life experiences, and this becomes all the more evident in intimate relationships. The past is a part of the person and cannot be shed like a snake sheds his skin. We are humans, not snakes. We bear the marks of previous experiences, proudly or with sorrow, but the marks are there. And they affect our present relationships. Just like whatever relationship we are experiencing now, will cast its shadow on any other we may have in the future. Even if we remain in the current relationship, its own past will be present, journeying with us as we move forward with each other.

Read the annals of history and read the stories written over time. Hear the poetry sung by the balladeers and the modern heart-bleeders.  If we pay attention to the tales of loving and living, we will know that from the moment we begin to breathe, from that moment, our past becomes a part of our present. All relationships have the past featuring as a background actor.

Shochein kya ab, yaaron? Janntey hain hum.

***

Soft Encounter: Creativity writing workshop

MORE:

The weather was very hot, it seems all weekends this month are hotter than the rest of the days of the week. I was less apprehensive this time, yet wanted the workshop to go well.

There were two more students today, so I have a class of 17, one a young girl who is an Economics student  at Stephen’s and another is a cardiologist who may be in his forties.  Today, the CD did not work and I was thankful that I had taken my pen drive as a back- up. Always have a back-up. The air conditioning went for a while and the generator came on. The fan above me rotated at a very high speed and that was the only speed at which the fan worked. We could not communicate over the din. I gave up and made them do a writing exercise while we waited for the mains to return.

The retired gentleman was more interactive today and also got up to change the fan regulator cover from one point to the other in the hope that the fan speed could be regulated, he had seen the electrician do that in one of the other lectures.  This did not help. We had to wait for the mains to return and give us back the silent airconditioning . However, I was very happy to see him interacting and contributing and he looked more relaxed and happy.

The process was again pretty smooth. Among the things which came up was whether we had a Pegasus in Indian mythology and one girl said that there was a flying horse that emerged from the ‘samudra manthan’  (sea- churning) that had occurred between the gods and the demons, and she would find out if it had had wings.

One of the participants mentioned how he wrote while a boring lecture was going on as part of his work schedule and managed to make one of the ladies present into one of the characters of his story. We had been talking about how to take out time for writing.

Another young girl talked of how she liked a story because it outlined race and gender differences in a particular country as being different from that in another, and we discussed this. There was also a story we did on how a gentleman lies to a very young girl and we discussed whether the girl was too mature for her age, whether it was okay for the man to put in reference to the chaos theory in the middle of a very personal incident, whether the story worked on the whole or not. We also worked on ‘impermanence’ and how it may be brought into a story.

What I noticed that there was a preponderance of yellow t -shirts and one of the girls wore yellow capris , another carried a yellow flask and someone else had a yellow file. The general colour in prominence was yellow which someone said was a symbol of energy. It was very much present in the room. We had fun, and one character of our emerging story, brought forward to participate from our earlier imaginings, was a gentleman who wore yellow pants! As usual the lecture overshot the scheduled time but no one was cribbing.

The older gentleman came up to me at the end and told me that he had enjoyed the class. Another young girl wanted to get a list of the books which I had given to the organizer for photocopying and she made my day by saying she loved the class and I had such a ‘vibrant’ personality.

I carry that compliment with me for it is very uplifting for my spirits. It energizes me.