Labyrinth:

The first time I got to know this word was, when I saw Pan’s Labyrinth (movie) and the first time I experienced it was when I read “Kafka on the shore” by Haruki Murakami.

I finished reading “Kafka on the shore” last night and now it has been exactly 8 hours; needless to say I’m still drowned in it and possibly will be for the rest of my life.

There aren’t many pieces of writing on which I have commented, the last one being Shantaram, but Kafka on the shore surely deserves one. I believe the reason I loved it so much is that it explores two words that have always intrigued me. Ironies and Metaphors, the complete novel is an absolute explanation, experience, dissection, and experiment of it. It allows it to form shapes, feeling, emotions, tears, humor, prophecies etc. In here the definition of these two words are not controlled by the definition given in an oxford dictionary, rather how “Everything is a Metaphor” or ‘The Intestines are the metaphor of a Labyrinth’. Sounds weird, but has metaphorical meaning attached to it.

The whole novel is a kind of free experience intervened in fate! You don’t know whether what’s been done is been done out of free will or fate. But in some crude way both stands correct. Free will and fate unifying together.

Also the reference to music, Greek mythology, Japanese poetry and landscape description, dense forest, jungles combine together to give an experience which is absolutely surreal.

I’m probably going to write more about it in the coming days, as I dissect the meaning further……

This is one post that I wanted to write for long and was just postponing it for no reason. The inspiration for the same comes from a very minuscule irritating experience that I had while visiting a popular food joint, called ‘the barbeque nation’, it’s a typical high priced, niche kabab restaurant that serves the high fliers of Mumbai.

While visiting this place for the first, with a few friends on mine I had this urge to wash my hands clean and so decided use the wash room. Everything was perfect, the water, granite, the basin, but the fucking toilet soap dispenser. It looked like a miniature of an alien space vehicle or like an old Kelvinator stabilizer, whatever it was it no push button, no hole. Only thing that I could see was a green gel floating inside it. It was testing my patience, where to push, where to jab, tap to the gel out. I checked it for some time, bent down to see whether it automated, just like some taps, nothing worked and I was getting irritated with wet hand and no soap, therefore again I started tapping it, and this time a bit hard. It broke open and the gel was there on the side of the basin. I took some in my hand and washed it clean. Out!

The point that I’m trying to make is this, innovation that does no value addition to the original subject is nothing but cheap gimmick. Innovation that’s serves no purpose is actually not a step forward but a walk back. It’s irritating, complicated and completely unreasonable.

An innovation or an updation should be such that it solves a problem in a new way or at-least opens a new window of doing things in an interesting way. Cut to your home/office PC, a new windows operating system, richer with more heavy graphics, with at least a dozen performance options and what’s more dead slow. Hey but you know what it’s new. It’s so fucking plastic; just because good old Apple had more graphics shouldn’t be the reason why Window should make its icons jump.

I mean there is no reason why Microsoft should have fucked Windows so badly. Any window user who had been logged in for a decent time will say it without blinking that window 98 was the best of all. After which it was a downhill ride for windows.

Innovation no doubt is the cornerstone of growth, but what’s more important is that we make innovation in the right direction and not just for the Devils purpose. Because any innovation has a price attached to it and many times there is an absolute dichotomy between the real value and the market value.

That I don’t know,

I know thing that most people do and I don’t know things that most people don’t.

But I’m absolutely sure about one thing, that I’ll know more tomorrow. 

I call it the anticipation of the next. Excitement of something that is still undiscovered. An earth shattering insight, a word that could explain nothing, a better way to commute in Mumbai traffic, a solution for fast disintegrating social fabric of my country, a question without an mark and an answer without a stop. 

So I sit back and observe, normal people getting engaged in polite conversations in birthday parties; imagine’ what would happen if one dollar would be equal to one rupee; wonder, what’s mom cooking for dinner; think, about the pending brief and dream, about playing the Spanish guitar.

It’s sure a busy schedule and I have just begun.

People, who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who do!

I just read Hugh Mcloid’s blog, called gaping void, a new age marketer, he is kind of redefining the way products are communicated via web. An interesting person to know, his life has all the ingredients to make it readable. Had a small time job in a mid size agency, where in he worked as a copywriter, it was here that he started drawing cartoon on the back of visiting cards (sounds interesting) and then he started blogging, in this website called www.gapingvoid.com. Some cool stuff to read about marketing trends, insights etc. but he is not the reason I’m writing this post, I’m writing it because I think I have reached the saturation of knowing about “interesting stuff”. It feels like interesting stuff is just copying other interesting stuff, to remain interesting. Therefore, one interesting guy speaks about other interesting guy, and thus becomes more interesting for somebody else to read about.   

So on the particular website mentioned above you will find stuff that was first written by Jyri Engestrom and Mark Earls, added on by some other and finally posted on this site. From here it will go to some other marketing website and so on. And in no way I see a real value addition happening, other than just click here, or may be click here or still better click here & here. This unnecessary fragmentation of the information, this overtly overflow, takes the fun out of inquisitiveness. It makes it feel like chores, drudgery.      

So what does that mean? have I become the oracle or something, know all, done all, will do all or whatever! No, absolutely not! Incidentally I’m more hungry, I’m more inquisitive and that’s why I’m more irritated, because all I’m getting is the same stuff recycled. A different point of view, a new way of looking at things, a third take, a new wave, a better route, a new layer, the next thing, this is the future, no I’m done with it. I’m absolutely bored of people defining things, moments, incidents, experiences and learning. It’s a teen phenomena, that’s a social object, it’s a 24/7 ya ya ya!  

Giving their neutral opinion, “their point of view”. As if a neutral opinion is completely protected against any kind of disagreement or argument. Indeed I’d say, you don’t even feel like arguing with their point of view, it’s too feather touch to be even considered upon. 

Now I’m not saying that the stuff that’s happening is wrong and not called for, indeed its brilliant that so many people have an opportunity to air their views. But what’s killing it is the numbers, replication and recycling. Also with this kind of numbers you never now where to go. It’s like planning to go to Delhi, via Mumbai, Kolkota, Chennai, Bhopal, Rajasthan etc. It’s just complicating the whole thing. Communicating has become so simple that it feels complicated.  

So what’s the juice? Will information over flow become more streamlined in future, will somebody design new search software that would just give us one best option and not zillion pages, will the next level of communication technology help us avoid the not needed cob webs and clutters. I don’t want to answer that question; the last thing I want to give is a neutral opinion!         

Chaos does this amazing thing that order can’t: it engages you.  It gets right in your face and with freakish breath issues a challenge.  It asks stuff of you, order never will.  And it shows you stuff, all the weird shit, that order tries to hide. - Dan Widen  

“Once you are on the road, you stop missing things” and you can only fathom it by doing it. A road trip on bike changes you, it allows you to forget and it allows you to stare! 

A long trail of dust on a highway, Black pair of rubber whistling away loose dust. The sound of smoke thumping out of the silencer, The rhythmic shifting of gears and clutch plates. The gushing wind, sharp turns, Sudden brakes, solitude, Space, sweat, water, air…….the sky! Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.

There’s something special about owing a bike. It doesn’t matter what bike one has, what matters is whether you have one. There’s a sense of pride associated with it and it has been like this for ages. Bell bottom clad 70’s guys sitting tight on their TVS Suzuki’s, the 90’s rebel on his YAMA RX100 and the John Abraham look alike on their 1000cc…you will always have these photographs glued on to a personal album or adoring the centre space of a wall!  Biking is special because it takes you places that only exist in maps. Mountains, valleys, beach and farm lands; far away places, secluded from civilization, enthralling yet exhausting rides that offer nothing more than wind, air and sweat. But then, isn’t escape a luxury reserved for few!        It’s your man Friday, tie down a gas cylinder, travel triple seat or negotiate a dead slow traffic. It is always ready to be pushed, pulled or dragged!  And in the end it’s not the destination, it’s the journey and a bike gives ample of it. So let the bearing be greased and the piston be tuned, because the destination always moves a little further when you drive a bike.       

Two simple oxfordian words that hold the key to what we do and how we do! I think these two words are absolutely not inter-changeable. Though in everyday usage they might convey the same message, with the latter conveying a more aggressive and on your face message. The former is the one I think more powerful.  Knowing as compared to believing in something is more powerful and more complete. Indeed it so sure of its existence that it defies any need of physical or tangible proof. Believing on the other hand can be subject of scrutiny, not by a second or a third opinion, instead by the believer himself.  
To give a simple example, we all know that we breathe, we don’t believe in it. It’s an end, without explanation, argument or substantiation. For the sake of argument someone might term this absolute stupid, because there are 7 billion nostrils sucking up oxygen from the air. But my contention is exactly the same, even if there were just 1 person breathing, he’ll still know it.   

The challenge that comes forth before us is to experience the same feeling of ‘knowing’ whenever we take any task. Such purity and absolute surety that even the idea of doubting is crushed beneath it.