And then there were words…

When Swapan sms’d me to ask if I would review his book, I readily agreed. And then, I procrastinated for reasons too complicated to explain.

Swapan is now a neighbour but has been a friend, colleague and competitor for almost two and a half decades; so, I have known him in more ways than one. And yet, I was surprised to learn that he had failed once in school.

Now, several weeks after carrying the little book around (it’s size, and much more besides, reminds me of The Little Prince that I was gifted in college) I sat myself down to review it. Actually, you can’t read This is all I have to say…you race through it and, before you realise it, you’ve reached the end. Which, I guess, is how it’s meant to be. So, you return to it to nibble on its maxims and, if they seem familiar, it’s only because they’re all (well, almost all) so very apt.

Swapan Seth's Book Debut

Swapan Seth’s style has always been pithy. And this book is very Twitterish: it’s alliterative from the start (“An assortment of angsts. A cauldron of concerns.”) aphoristic, crisp and often clichéd. But, as we’ve always been told in advertising, clichés invariably work. Advertising runs not just in Swapan’s veins but also through his pen (or iPad or whatever digital device he used while writing this 95-pager) and its impact shows in everything about the book. It’s been written to a brief; with a sharply defined core target audience (his two sons) and a larger – yet niche – set of folks in mind; its positioning is unique (which may also be a bit of an issue because conventional booksellers won’t know which shelf to stock it in) and it’s exquisitely designed by Bonita Vaz-Shimray whose use of a wonderfully-named font, MrsEaves, adds to the crunchiness of the words…. like almonds in muesli. I do feel, however, that towards the second half of the book, the designer got carried away and readability does become an issue. But packaging is essential for any creative person who secretly worries that his ideas may not otherwise be expressed as well as they were originally envisaged.

There are gems tucked away in this book: “Parenting is a relay race.” And almost the entire chapter on love: “One day you will find love. Or rather love will find you” are among my favourite lines. If, in any book or film, you can find even one line that you relate to instantly, consider yourself as having received more than what you paid for the book (Rs 195 in this case). I found some sections reminding me of others that I had read (the chapter on Friends brought back memories of Desiderata, for instance) but even if Swapan has been inspired by all that he has read (and his appetite for words is XXL) there is nothing wrong. James Webb Young, an early 20th century practitioner of advertising said that ideas are nothing but an original combination of old elements. And Ms Rowling is known to have written that words allow us to create magic like nothing else can… this book comes close to it.

There are, however, some things I would have done differently.

The title, for instance, seems to eliminate the possibility of another book – and that would be a shame. If this is really all Swapan has to say, I’d be surprised. I find the front and back covers trying too hard to impress the reader that some well-known folks have endorsed the book: not really required, my friend. I have a knack for finding typos and would like to meet the editor in Roli Books who let several slip through her pencil. Most of all, I would have liked to see the names of people who played a role in Swapan’s life instead of their being relegated to pronouns: a teacher and his first client as an entrepreneur are the only ones named.

The book is dedicated to his sons with a line “May love be the ampersand between the two of you” and perhaps that’s why I love the book: the ampersand is a delightful but undervalued character that connects almost everything epigrammatically. And I tend to overuse the word “and”… often violating the most fundamental tenet of Wren & Martin.

But, for now, this is all I have to say and you should go find the book. You don’t have to be a lover, a husband, a copywriter or even a parent to enjoy snacking on Swapan’s words… bon appetit!

Tags: Advertising, Calcutta, Gen Y, Happiness, Humour, People, Twitter, Words, Youth

Forgetting to Remember

There is something weird happening to the way we remember things. And the way we forget them.

In a digitally-driven world, almost everything we upload/share/email/blog post…whatever, is cached somewhere without any expiry date and floats around in ghostly cyber-space waiting to be touched again by a human being. Unlike the history of earlier times – captured through folklore, twisted by kings and triumphant tribes or exiled forever when a storyteller died – it’s almost as though we’re all in a mad hurry to record every stupidly trivial detail of our lives via 140 characters or silly status updates.

And then we live in fear, having forgotten what we said, where and when. But knowing full well that Google knows it all and will make your spur-of-the-moment slur available on demand for a potential employer or, worse, a suitor. Which is where a tool (drop.io) allowed you to put an expiry date on everything you shared in the cloud. It would have had immense value except that its owners went in for valuation and sold out to Facebook. Mover over Google, Facebook doesn’t want you to remember and retract.

But that’s not the weirdness I alluded to, above.

My worry is that we are now a generation of people (digital migrants and natives alike) who simply cannot remember many things that some of us did in the pre-mobile, pre-Google era… like birthdays and phone numbers. Wasn’t there a time when you could recall every phone number you frequently dialled straight off the top of your mind? How many can you remember today? Two, three, four perhaps and they’ll probably be of people you love. There may be the odd phone number or postal address from a decade ago that’s indelibly etched; but not too many, I’ll wager. Is it because we no longer actually dial (or punch in) a number? Or is it because we’ve handed over the responsibility of remembering to ever-growing memory chips that sit inside our mobile and computer hardware? Will we need an app soon to tell us who we’re fond of?

I have a crazy time remembering things I’d like to forget about. It’s worse if you forget the things you should remember.

Update (March 10): Even NYT agrees with me in a funny way

Tags: Age, Facebook, Gen Y, Internet, People, Twitter, Web 2.0, Youth

Nothing

There are times when you need someone to do nothing with.

Someone to just be there. Not to speak with or listen to. Not to touch or be caressed by. No whiff, no whisper, no kiss, no comforting… Just nothing.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But it isn’t easy to do nothing. Programmed as we are to continuously engage in social activity, we look for films to watch, books to read, links to share, friends to hang out with, calories to burn, beer to guzzle, tweets to type and statuses to update…try nothing for a change.

Nothing is a noun, not a verb – so inaction is inbuilt. ‘Do nothing’ is a paradox.

That’s it for now. Nothing else.

Tags: Facebook, Gen Y, Happiness, Kiss, Movies, People, Twitter, Youth

The Future of History

There was a time when Egypt conjured up three stereotypical images: the Pyramids, the Great Sphinx and Mummies. But that was before the country jumped out of textbooks and was thrust on to news (and new) media that have succeeded in pushing back those enduring images and replacing them with those of angry young men confronting a strangely silent army on the streets of Cairo. Strong, soundless monuments have given way to volatile, vocal and violent mobs. And to vulture-like vicarious newsmen who wait for that defining moment of either a fall or a photo-opp that will turn a lensman into a legend. Suddenly, there is no sign of ancient Egypt: almost as though history has been shrouded by present-day flags and banners of protestors.

Clearly, a country known for its history stands at the threshold of a new, albeit uncertain, future. The problem with “a million mutinies” (as Sanjay quipped on Facebook) is that it has no single, unifying leader. So, while there is unanimity in demanding President Mubarak’s resignation and exile, there appears to be no one who is popular – or capable enough – to take charge of a country of 80 million people. It may be good to rebel and have a goal in mind but once that is achieved, what next? After the fall, a country needs someone to rise and take charge before anarchy takes over. The longest-serving president of Egypt brought, if nothing else, stability.

The dissent against him, however, is not new. It’s just that the manner and speed at which it has exploded that defies all logic at one level. In October last year, on a vacation, Egypt came across as a placid but simmering nation. People were, by and large, unhurried and our local tour operator, Mahmood, attributed it to the heat. Though with the kind of crowds one saw in Cairo and with petrol being cheaper than bottled water, there is no way that a car can hurry on its streets any way. Besides, the ubiquitous sheesha with its intoxicating agents, added to the languidness of the locals. I have tried calling Mahmood to check if he, his young wife and two children are well but his phone goes unanswered: I can only hope that he is busy (though there are no tourists around) and not part of the madness that seems to have swept Cairo. It was Mahmood who first let on that Mubarak had allowed things to slip (by that, he alluded to inflation) and that the forthcoming elections were sure to be a sham. He even joked about the President being a modern-day Pharoah, though far less benevolent. The Pharoahs were actually extremely forward thinking and had created a Nilometer that measured the level of water in the river that is Egypt’s lifeline (even today) before determining the rate of taxation on their people. Very high or very low levels of water indicated floods or famines and led to lower taxes that year – incredibly simple, incredibly people-friendly and way ahead of its time like so much else the ancient Egyptians did.

And so, Egypt was all about long, lazy, liquidy cruises on the Nile; treks around and into the Pyramids, crawling into empty tombs in the Valley of Kings, coffee at Khan-el-Khalili and the Mediterranean allure of Alexandria. In the course of covering geographical milestones, history was being experienced just as it should be on any voyage. A long time ago, in another avatar, working on a documentary film script for the Indian tea industry (with the ever-suave Kabir Bedi as the protagonist) I had written “Khazana toh khoj mein hai” i.e. in the journey lies the treasure. Egypt was just that.

Except for one niggling feeling that persisted: as a tourist, you never experienced the same sense of awe and pride from the locals in their historical treasures as we would perhaps do with our Taj Mahal and Red Fort and Gateway of India (Pinku-loves-Tinku graffiti, spitting and public urination being ignored for the moment). The locals who depended on tourism for a living were out to take you for a ride (there is no standard pricing for anything that one buys – including water or juice or colas) and were there to literally cash in on tourists. (Yes, yes, I can hear friends like RP Kumar and Vikas Mehta who have lived in Cairo exclaim “Just as we do in India!”) Even the museum in Tahrir Square, now the epicentre of dissent, was unkempt and disorderly and, having seen Nefertiti’s bust in Berlin and many Mummies in the museums of Paris and London, one didn’t want to pay extra for the Mummy Room here. Every ancient temple you visit will have a horde of shops and street-hawkers at the exit so that you are assaulted with cheap, unlikely-to-last souvenirs that kill the grandeur of long-standing edifices.

Why is it that the temptation of the transient takes precedence over more permanent things? Why is there such a hullaballoo about the banning of the Internet in Cairo when we should be worrying about where Egyptians are getting their food? Why gloat about the role of Twitter when schools and offices are shut and the entire country has ground to a halt? Have real priorities given way to the virtual? Is the medium taking over the message itself?

Perhaps this is the way it is meant to be. Perhaps Egypt has stood still for far too long and is now trying to rush ahead to meet an uncertain future. The dust – and there is plenty of it blowing in from the Sahara – will take time to settle and its chronicles will probably be written, and rewritten, several times in the next few weeks. But as long as its people realise that their tomorrow lies not in looking back and merely cheering about today’s face-off with an army that refuses to fight back (strange yet sane)…

History, as the cliché goes, will never be the same. Nor will Egypt.

Perhaps a leader will emerge from the marching millions and the Pyramids and Sphinx will come back on to your television screens soon.

Perhaps history will find its future again.

Tags: Berlin, Egypt, Facebook, Internet, People, Politicians, Travel, Twitter, Web 2.0, Youth

First Law of Mubarak

Mohitoz’ Law #267

Courtesy Ron Mukherjee

When people feel gypped, it is pointless cutting out their ‘e’.

Tags: Egypt, Google, Humour, Internet, Murphy's Law, People, Politicians, Twitter, Web 2.0

First Law of Rajnikant

Mohitoz’ Law #266

Rajnikant will henceforth be known as Rajnican.

Tags: Humour, India, Movies, Murphy's Law, People, Rajnikant, Youth

First Law of Hospitals

Mohitoz’ Law #265

Patients will come for the surgery, but stay for the complications.

Tags: Experts, Humour, Murphy's Law, People

Second Law of Breakfast

Mohitoz’ Law #264

(Inspired by Kishi Arora)

The softer the bread, the harder the butter.

Tags: Humour, Murphy's Law

Fourth Law of Gurgaon

Mohitoz’ Law #263

Commuters will have to battle it out on Gurgaon’s roads because the city is named after Guru Dronacharya of Mahabharat fame.

Tags: Delhi, Humour, India, Murphy's Law, People

Of Startups and Soccer

No one would dare call the Dutch football team a minnow. But nor did anyone expect five-time champions, Brazil, to get booted out in the quarters of this year’s FIFA World Cup.

To borrow an epithet from the more fashionable sport that seems to have caught most of India by the b*lls, such are the glorious uncertainties of football.

Did the Dutch play better? Did Brazil lose it when they had to send one of theirs off the field and play with a depleted team? Or was it just the foot of God yesterday which decreed that one South American team would go through to the semis while another wouldn’t?

It matters not, I say. What does strike me is that 11 well-oiled people – like the avenging Germans in their match versus England – will triumph if they play as though they have nothing to lose and everything to win in 90-odd minutes. Almost as a young startup would.

Startup? And soccer? Mohitoz is finally off his head, you say… a self-goal, you twitter.

But humour me and consider a startup as a team of footballers.

People who have come together with nothing but passion to bind them, a hunger to win and a goal in clear focus. Coached by VC-like gurus who celebrate and critique from the sidelines, pushed by established competitors who have ruled the field, egged on by a roaring crowd of prospective investors, every football team has the genes of a startup. Or so it should be vice-versa.

And like most startups, the leader can be either aggressively upfront – a centre-forward – or a goalkeeper who defends and determines the course of play from a vantage point. In the former’s case, the startup CEO is the face of the company; the marketing and sales spearhead, so to say. He’s the one who leads by example, the strategist and the tactician, rolled into one dynamic ball of energy. And, in the latter – the goalie as CEO – he’s the man who prefers to stay out of the limelight but controls the quality of the product or service, looks for niches that can drive wedges into the competitor’s gameplan and relays it up the line to the men in front. And, when attacked, he’s the one who takes the pressure head on because there will be moments when startups stare at near failure as a wounded competitor strikes back: that’s when the goalkeeper keeps his eyes only on the ball and has a split second to separate debacle from defense, shame from pride.

Football, unlike cricket, calls for men of fervor, stamina and courage. It demands that you set aside long-term pleasures for quick wins born of agility. Every move up the field towards the other goal is akin to a battle in the sales arena, but a battle from which there is no rest. Regardless of whether you score or not, the team that wins will be the one who experiments and attacks unendingly. Startups, too, need endless reservoirs of adrenalin to keep them going because investors’ funds, like minutes on the referee’s watch, are limited.

Go watch a match before you decide to take the plunge to start something on your own. Do you have it in you to chart a course and yet be flexible to swerve and tackle and fall and get up and charge again towards the goal you swore to meet?

Eleven Dutchmen did it and sent half the world into mourning yesterday. Sure, they had Lady Luck as their 12th player as well but doesn’t every successful startup have her too?

Go kick a ball or two. Even if you don’t actually start up, you won’t end up any poorer either.

Tags: Experts, FIFA, Internet, People, Soccer, Sports, Startups, Youth

Law of Price Hikes

Mohitoz’ Law #262

A fuel price hike will happen on the day your tank is running low.

Tags: Humour, India, Murphy's Law, Youth

Fourth Law of Mamata Banerjee

Mohitoz’ Law #261

TMC now stands for Trounced Marxist Comrades.

(Earlier Laws of Mamata Banerjee are here)

Tags: Calcutta, Congress, Humour, India, Politicians

The Squirrel and the Pussycat

The jogging track encircling the park is a misnomer: it’s more of a walking path for pot-bellied middle-aged men in scruffy pyjamas or salwar-kameez clad women with sneakers. Some older folk, of course, turn out in their kanjeevarams (I kid thee not) because the recently-relocated son has warned his parents against stepping out of the house in anything that will make him look “low” before his high-rise neigbours. Incidentally, have you noticed that the first to hit the park are also the oldest in the community? Of course there are the yoga regulars, the young man jogging furiously, the tiny but powerfully-built dynamo of a young lady who stretches her sinewy self even as she sways to a beat on her iPod (or is it a music-enabled phone tucked away in her tracks?)… these are regular sights that greet you every morning in the condo at Gurgaon.

Today’s going to different though.

The placid rhythm of the surprisingly cool morning is suddenly broken by a dark flash that streaks by and barely catches the eye: it is Pepper, the tabby cat so named by the kids in the building because of his grey striped coat, tiger-like gait and angry gaze. Pepper is chasing a squirrel (no rats thanks to pest control, I guess) who is running like the blazes and scurries up the nearest tree. Pepper jumps in an incredible leap that would make Jonty Rhodes proud and reaches halfway up the trunk, barely inches below Alvin (the squirrel who should no go unnamed). Alvin streaks up and Pepper hisses. A crow and two meandering mynahs have swooped down on the tree-tops, voyeuristic and vulture-like waiting to see if the cat will win and whether they can get any of the mangled entrails of little Alvin. But Alvin isn’t one to give up: nimbler and faster than Pepper, he rushes even higher and miraculously finds a branch that allows him to jump onto another tree. And then he’s gone!

Pepper, and his bird-mates, will have to wait for breakfast today.

The excitement’s over and the two other fellow-joggers smile at this five-second thriller and move on. But I can’t help thinking that the fear of death is the ultimate adrenalin and, were it not for the squirrel’s desperate need to survive, he would have succumbed to the cat. So is it too with the rest of the world; especially when competitors gun for each other’s market share. The hunted has to feel it’s threatened with oblivion to pull out every last reserve of fighting spirit even if investors and stockmarket speculators hover around. David proved it against Goliath and so did Alvin today. May he live happily ever after.

Tags: Nature

First Law of Suhel Seth

Mohitoz’ Law #260

Inspired by The Seth

“Just because I’m everywhere, it doesn’t mean I’m God. Not yet, anyway.”

Tags: Humour, India, Murphy's Law, People

Supermarketnomics

There is an unwritten law that says that the time taken to get your purchases billed at a supermarket will be inversely proportional to the time taken to actually buy them. And so, I tend to avoid large-format stores like Spencer, Reliance etc. Someday, they’ll get their act – and billing processes – together but until then I’m content to steer clear.

The only problem with this attitude is that one tends to miss out on what’s new. So, off I went to Spencer’s in Gurgaon yesterday.

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And learned three things.

First, don’t leave your car in a ‘no-parking’ zone. In a stupid attempt to save forty rupees and to exit faster, you’ll end up at the local police station where it’ll cost you 300 rupees plus a 50-rupee rickshaw ride in temperatures approaching 50° Celsius. No greasing of sweaty palms though – just pay, sign the form, get scolded by the policeman in the tow truck (who’ll also shake your hand) and you’re on your wiser way again.

The second thing you’ll learn is that commodities tend to move up the consumer value chain and start becoming brands in a funny sort of way. I refer to the humble imli-goli made popular by Jet Airways (in the bad old days of full-fare flights). This little tamarind ball of spicy sweetness became so popular that even the erstwhile Indian Airlines had to introduce it and frequent flyers were cajoled into bringing back as many as they could glean away from possessive air-hostesses for friends on terra firma. This, despite the fact, that it was available for years at the local churan-walla or grocery store…“but not hygienic, you know!” as the aunty-jis of Defence Colony would dismiss with a manicured wave. Today, several local brands have mushroomed – or goli’d their way up – and the imli-goli is now available in sundry brand names. The one that caught my eye, though, was simply called Aero Goli and was sold loose out of a tin container within Spencer’s. Ironical that something as traditional has had to resort to the airline industry to gain acceptance. But that’s the way it is with most traditional commodities that are being branded I guess. Or is it that kids – and many adults – continue to see a flight as something aspirational?

Lesson #3: with plastic – as well as Sodexho Passes – becoming omnipresent (it’s not yet God though) and cash rarely being used at supermarkets, there is an interesting lesson in the use of coins. For some time now, we’ve been used to getting candies in lieu of small change but the sight of red-wrapped shiny Nestlé Eclairs sitting in the cash-box at every counter in Spencer’s set off a bell: officially, the 50-paise coin is no longer acceptable (nor is the 25-paise one and anything below that) which is why stores will give you a Nestlé or Cadbury Eclair if they owe you 50 paise. But while you chew away, you may be oblivious to the fact that you’ve been made a bit of a sucker in the process: the candy that’s sold to you at 50p costs the retailer a bit less, so he’s making money on the loose change he owes you as well. Sweet market economics at play.

So, if you’re off to the supermarket this weekend and do spot something interesting, drop by here and update us.

P.S.: the Safal stores in Gurgaon are selling the sweetest, juiciest, fattest green grapes I’ve ever seen. For some reason, they’re branded Bollywood and the pack states they were packaged for Germany. Don’t be surprised if you spot them at Alexanderplatz the next time you’re in Berlin.

Tags: Advertising, Economics, Humour, India, People

Law of Biscuits

Mohitoz’ Law #259

(Inspired by Diya)

A crisp chocolate bourbon biscuit, dipped into hot coffee or tea, will break and fall in a gooey mess before you can bite into it.

Tags: Humour, Murphy's Law

Second Law of Loos

Mohitoz’ Law #258

(Contributed by Venu)

The mobile phone in your pocket will ring six seconds after you’ve unzipped.

Tags: Gender, Humour, Murphy's Law

Law of Bovinity

Mohitoz’ Law #257

(Contributed by Maitreyee [Moon] Mukherjee)

People who have a problem with cattle class should not hobnob with cash cows.

Shashi Tharoor: from cattle-class to cowed down by Lalit Modi (image courtesy: The Hindu)

Tags: Congress, Humour, India, Murphy's Law, People, Politicians, Sports

Law of Eyjafjallajökull

Mohitoz’ Law #256

(Contributed by Ranajit Mukherjee)

It takes just one volcano in Iceland to freeze the world’s airline industry.

Fiery volcano in Iceland freezes global aviation industry (Photo courtesy: Boston.com)

Tags: Humour, Murphy's Law, Nature

Law of L Modi

Mohitoz’ Law #255

(Contributed by Ranajit Mukherjee)

Apna luck zyada mat Pushkar.

Tags: Humour, Murphy's Law, People, Politicians, Sports