IIMB - Independence Day Video

Sometime a couple of months ago, Rakesh came up with the concept of creating a patriotic video for IIMB. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was the last rage, and he felt it was maybe time to try out a new one. So we set out working on ARR's Jana Gana Mana.

The videos were shot in a single day - surprisingly almost everything went off well that day. We had fixed time slots for the shooting for everyone - from the director of the insti, to the housekeeping staff. We simply couldn't afford to get delayed anywhere given the packed schedule. And we also had to tug along the heavy camera, monitor, tripod, blowers et al and run all around the campus. Was a verrrrry hectic day! Luckily had a good cameraman - Mr Rafiq who understood exactly what I wanted. And even more luckily have a very devoted wife who wanted to be the 'squirrel' and ended up being a lot more!

Anyway, here is the final product of my first 'professional' attempt :)

Wedding Photographers in Chennai?

As Nov gets nearer, the home front is getting more and more active. As D-Day (literally!) arrives, my sis D is harder to talk to. If only her phone were any smaller, you would think it was her earring - always by her ears! And ISD isn't a barrier anymore. VoIP to the rescue of the future 'woip' of an America maaple.

To the point: This post is a request to all Chennai-ites - please suggest some good wedding photographer in Chennai. I am looking at online sources and reviews, but nothing like first hand reviews!

So if you folks know someone good in Chennai, do let me know - in the comments or by mail!

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Update: More than 8 months later, I keep getting many hits on this particular post. So some gyan for those who land here from Google:
- I ended up booking Mr Sabari (Priya Vision, Coimbatore) - he is an amazing photographer with a very artistic eye. Drop me a mail for his contact (vishwa (dot) suren at gmail)
- Udhaya from Trichy is another great choice. See Chandy's comment below to get to Udhaya
- Raja Ponsingh is the undisputed leader in the Chennai wedding photography market. If you have landed here from Google, the odds are that you have already seen his webpage. He is expensive, so if your budget does not allow booking him, Udhaya or Sabari can be good alternatives.

(All these three are people who do concept wedding photography. They do not simply shoot pics and put together an album. Their albums are like story books with each page themed to a particular concept. Just see their portfolio to know what am saying)

GMAT @ Tech

This is an impulse post. Just heard from Techian junior Srikkant that he has scored 760 on the GMAT. This is something I wanted to tell him, but posting here as they are derived from some convictions I have in life.

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Awesome da! Congrats and best wishes! The most important thing now for you is to make proper choices.
And live with them.
I often am asked by people if I settled for less despite my GMAT score. I personally don't think so, though I am not sure how many will be able to see the sense my decision makes to me. When I took my GMAT, it was just a backup option for the future in case CAT 2007 didn't work out well. By God's grace, both worked well for me, and I stuck to my priorities I had decided on before the results came out. I am extremely happy with IIMB and am sure I made the best possible decision when I had the choices in my front. So also when I chose Tech over Anna Univ after my class 12. People still curve their eyebrows when they hear of that decision of mine. But again, absolutely no regrets from my side. Totally happy with that choice too. But had I not been so sure of my happiness with these decisions, others could have drilled into and weakened my conviction about these past choices of mine. It did require me to be considerably apathetic to others' opinions and stick to my guns, and that did require some effort.
So, in short, make your choice with good reason, and NEVER EVER regret about it later.
Cheers!
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Well that ends the letter of sorts.

I personally got very excited hearing of this news from him because GMAT had never been so popular an option at good ol' Tech. Placements had always been choice no. 1. GRE and GMAT were not too common until around the time I graduated. GRE was becoming hot at that time and saw loads of Techians seeking US visas. GMAT is still awaiting that sort of patronage from Tech. When I chose to write the exam, there were no seniors to guide me. Found it a bit difficult to accumulate exam gyan from different sources and organize them into a package of sorts (and hence happened my GMAT posts on my other blog). But again, around that time, a few of my mates at Tech took the GMAT too (JP thalai, Rathu thalai, Phalgun, Deepthi etc).
I hope successes like these will lead Tech folks in greater numbers towards the GMAT.

(p.s.: For the uninitiated, 'Tech' is the general word used to refer to PSG Tech in and around Coimbatore.)

A Trip to Elephanta Caves Mumbai

This was one of the trips I went on during my internship at Mumbai. Muru gracefully agreed to come with me and was a real pain in all the wrong places with his constant bickering at my slow pace.

Lesson #1: Never take non-photography-enthusiasts on a photo walk. Or if you do, make them the models. They will shut up for a while (at least, Muru did).
While it was a nice trip overall, and for once it was great to see a well maintained place of interest inside the subcontinent, the dilapidated statues at Elephanta are a sore sight. The more one looks at it, the more painful it is. And mind you, this is not the result of inept maintenance. A few hundred years back, the Portuguese landed at these caves, and used the statues as target practice and defaced them!! As a result, what we have today is a bunch of ex-statues. Really painful to see if you know the story. While one goes expecting 1000 yrs of history, all one gets to see is 400 years of misery.
Anyway, the sob story apart, here's what transpired in that hot Mumbai afternoon of April 2009.

Adra Sakka Adra Sakka!

It's quite a long walk (half a km) from the jetty to the base of the small hillock atop which the caves reside. There's a small train that ferries people along this route.

The principle icon of Elephanta Caves - The Trimurti

That's my model - Muru - posing shamelessly as passersby look on

Practical geometry!

1 kilo mutton paaaarrrrcelllll!

Frankly an awful pic. But liked it for some vague reason!

Trip to Elephanta Caves - pictures

They made us think!

After a fairly active blogging stint when I was in Mumbai, now am back at Bangy-base. Term 4 has proven to be extremely hectic. Enjoying my first couple of hours of free time in weeks now. Thought I should quickly pen down something here.

In the last couple of weeks, 2 great men visited IIMB campus and delivered engrossing lectures. The first one was Mr Nandan Nilekani. He had come just 2 days after he hit the headlines for the unique ID concept. Right timing for IIMB :) He spoke at length about 18 points (from his book). Stuff like 6 challenges, 4 ideas and so on. He then answered a few questions from the first year students (it was their orientation program). A pretty interesting event. But Mr Nandan Nilekani did not want press publicity for that event. Am guessing that was because that was his first public appearance after the news and he maybe wasn't ready enough to face the press. At the end of the lecture, had the privilege of lunching with the man along with the rest of the Student Affairs Council members.

Yesterday, another great achiever made his way to the stone walls of IIMB. You may not have heard of him. But when a person's CV goes upto 127 kB of a clear text file, he ought to be great alright.

Am talking abt Mr B V Doshi - the greatest Architect in India in recent years. A movie documentary made on him was played to us, and he himself was present to field questions at the end of it. The audi was jam packed as the video took us through the life of this person, who at 82, looks decades younger. Born in 1927, this person was awarded the Padmashri in 1976. The documentary was less about architecture, and more about life itself. Amazing person!

Some points that impressed me (paraphrased):

"Indian-ness is about frugality and making multi-purpose things. Look at the dhoti and towel - the standard Indian attire. You can use the towel to shield you from the Sun, to put down somewhere and sit on it, to cover your torso during cold, and so on. Your dhoti can double up as a rope in a small tank to draw water, as a bedsheet and so on. That is Indian-ness. Ingeniously using things very efficiently. That's what I reflect in my designs."

And actually he does that! All the buildings he has designed have been built using inexpensive material that is commonly available in the area. He also uses recycled materials and waste products to bring his designs to life. The video showed how he has designed the sofa/diwan in his living room - It serves as a seating area naturally. If you remove the cushion, there is storage space beneath the wooden planks that are the seat of the diwan. And the wooden planks are all modular - you can remove each one of them and use them as either a plank to sit on the floor on, or turn it top-side down and use it as a tray to get food and snacks!!!

"What is missing today is socially relevant architecture. People are busy in their own lives that when we build something today, we no longer plan for open spaces where people come and meet, sing, dance and celebrate life. We simply don't have the time for all that. Sad state of affairs."

That's true, and is something most people do think about. But one point that struck me real hard was this:

"We do not understand the word 'Heritage'. Heritage to us, is always monuments and relics from the past. Buildings built 1000s of years ago. We never realize that we actually have the responsibility of creating today's heritage that would be celebrated 100 years down the line. We never think of that! And it's not expensive. I always use inexpensive materials in building my designs. Creating heritage is not expensive. We just should have the intent."

How true!! This was the most interesting point that came up during the interaction, in my opinion. A few years down the line, when I build my house I will sure remember this.

One last point. You know what makes this lecture very significant? Mr Doshi is the person who designed our IIMB campus :) He is the man behind these stone walls. In the video he talks of how he designed the looooong and talllllll corridors with neat columns on either side, based on Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple :) His aim, he said, was to make people feel free and non-constrained even when inside the building.

That, he definitely has achieved.

A trip to the land of the blues - III

:)

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Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The next thing I heard was the ringing of the phone. Sleepily navigating myself towards the phone, I managed to pick the call up.

“H….e.ll…ll.l….oo…”

“Good morning Sir. This is the concierge.”

“Yes?”

“I called to inform you that your cab is here Sir”

I flipped my wrist over and looked at my watch. Still had an hour left.

“Ok, we will be there at 8.15 as informed to us”

“Sir, the time now is 8.20”

I sat upright.

“What?! Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Totally awake by now, I mumbled something about my watch saying something else and promising that we will be there soon.

In the next 20 minutes, both of us operated on fast forward as they show in movies and managed to rush out by 8.40.

As we reached the cab, we were greeted by O’Brien – our guide for the day. We avoided his eyes and frantically dumped our carry bags in the car. That was when he made a strategic mistake.

Trying to scare us, he said “It’s very late, Sir. If we start anytime after 9, we would get stuck in traffic jams”.

That made my wife freeze in her tracks.

“After 9?”

“Yes ma’am.”, he said forcefully, not knowing what was coming up.

“Then we’ll have breakfast and come. We still have 20 mins”. Saying so, and not giving him time to recover from this blow, the missus pulled me and ran to the restaurant. Poor guy took a couple of minutes to re-draw his jaws from the ground.

I was not so much for breakfast then. We were already late by a half hour almost. And I absolutely HATE that. So I kept mumbling something as we filled our plates with buns, croissants, omelette etc.

Then the missus told me “You were the one who set your watch wrong. And you wouldn’t set a wake up call also. Don’t blame me for this now.”

But I HAD to have the last word.

I said “Ok”.

(Go Vishy!)

In 10 mins we were back at the car. With slightly heavier carry bags (Wink wink).

O’Brien chose to keep himself quiet as we pulled away from the scenic hotel. And luckily for us, the other couple that was supposed to join us for the day’s trip had cancelled their program. So we were virtually on private transfers, at group tour costs.

(Balls to you, tour operators.. Ha ha!)

Soon my heartbeat was back to normal, and my mind started functioning again. And that was when I realised why so many things had gone the way they did the previous day.

The tour operator lady’s comment on keeping time at Mauritius.. The hotel tour that never happened.. The server looking at us weirdly when we ordered food (cos it was way past closing time).. Ah!!!

Soon we were whizzing past Win-XP-wallpaper after Win-XP-wallpaper on our first day of touring Mauritius.

We had actually suggested that this day's trip could be cancelled and some adventure sport could be scheduled in its place. The tour office lady almost had a concussion when she heard that. Deeply hurt, she claimed that this was “the classic Mauritius tour that no one ever misses”.

My foot.

The first half of the day was filled with places I would not visit even on Google Maps.

First we were taken to a ‘glass factory’ that posters claimed “is to glass, what Madame Tussauds is to wax”. I thought the factory made glass models of celebs, and went in with some excitement.

The hallway was filled with row after row of glass models of celebrities’

Hands.

WTF!

Imagine being in a semi-dark hall. You look all around you. And all you see is model after model of glass bearing some obscure hand print. The only things that visibly differentiated the models were the plaques that called out the name of the celebrity whose lovely hand it was.

As I wondered why they had brought us to such a place, and what was so great about it, we moved on to the next room. Ah! That explained it.

One could take home a glass model of one’s own hand. For a thousand Mauritian Rupees.

Have these guys been smoking dope! Why would ANYONE want to do that! Who the hell (apart from Joey Tribbiani) could identify a hand!

A funny exhibit at the glass factory

We were out in a jiffy and went to the next stop of the day.

The ship factory.

Actually the ship model factory.

Actually one more ploy to try and part our precious money from us.

This ‘factory’ made models of ships (that were 3 full feet in length) and tried to test the IQ of tourists by offering them things for sale. But they met their match in me.

The sales lady kept dropping hints, each less subtle than the previous. Starting with “These ships are made of good quality wood”, moving on to “These are very popular souvenirs that remind tourists of the fun they had here”, and finally to the extent of pleading “Sir, we assure that we can pack this very well to tolerate the pressure of an international flight”, she tried her best. But I betrayed absolutely no emotions of even remotely considering a purchase. I looked at the ship models with the stoic eye of an Engg graduate at a factory in an Industrial Visit. My only thoughts were about the fun stuff that were planned for the rest of the day. This was just a formality that had to be done with. Soon the lady gave up and just let us walk around the showroom.

Pretty soon we were out of that place, and moved on to the first tourist spot of the day: (hold your breath, ladies and gentlemen)

The Volcano!

We were kinda excited about this one. Finally some interesting stuff which we cant get elsewhere!

O’Brien took us to a hillock (at Trou Aux Cerfs), and pointed a large pit in the valley and exclaimed “THIS is what remains of a terrible volcano.”

We peered over. The ‘pit’ was quite large, and the air was heavy with reverence.

I managed to whisper out a quiet “when did it last erupt?”

“Oh don't worry. Millions of years ago"

Plop.

(That was the heaviness vanishing into thin air)

Why again would someone want to see this? It’s been millennia since any activity happened at this place, and these nutty folks were crying over spilt lava?! Why, had this been in India, kids would have been playing cricket all over the place.

Anyway, there were some good 'valley view' points there, and we started clicking pics together.

Can you see the ocean behind?

(Tip to Honeymooners: Buy a tripod for your cam and take it along. We did. Helps a lot, later when telling others that both of you went on the trip, together)

Soon we were back in the vehicle, and went on a scenic route to a place called 'Ganga Talao'.

En route to Ganga Talao

En route to Ganga Talao

There is a huggggeee statue of Lord Shiva on the way to Ganga Talao, towards the end.

Legend has it that Lord Shiva appeared in some saint's dreams and asked him to get water from the Ganges in India, and build a temple in Mauritius. And so he did at this place.

The actual temple near the pond looks like some kind of department store outside, with quite a few statues of different lords erected there.

Soon we were on another scenic route to some gorges and waterfalls.

And the last stop for the day was a place called "seven colored earth". It was a place with mounds of dark mud that was in different hues. Fine, it was interesting to the extent that I wouldn't have minded watching it on NatGeo or Discovery. But coming in person to see this was a huge disappointment. Seeing 'seven colored earth' on different posters and pamphlets, I had expected it to be something spectacular. But those guys hadn't lied. It was just that - seven colored earth. Nothing else. Nothing great.

Boy fishing inside Tortoise's mouth

Soon we were on our way back to the Hotel. One more scenic route.

Overhead irrigation systems are omnipresent at Mauritus

With quite a tiring day behind and ahead of us, we retired for the night after some time at the private beach at the Hotel.