Last day of the year and I've been going around in circles thinking about an amazing piece of statistic published yesterday by Mumbai police. Out of a total of 12,536 people booked for drunken driving in city streets since June 20, only 3 have been women!
In that, there are two things which primarily amaze me. One the obvious difference between sexes. You read that right, its not 3% (which might have been reasonable, given the % of women drivers in the first place) but THREE! And that given the fact that Mumbai police categorically denied any chances of them being lenient towards the fairer sex. Knowing the typical Mumbai mamu, there was no reason for putting in that explanation in the first place. I cannot imagine any of them letting go female motorists they find at nakas at night- slightly tipsy, or otherwise. But, getting back to my earlier chain of thoughts, it really does settle the debate about the most responsible sex doesn't it?
The second sobering thought was not so obvious. A quick look at Mumbai police's website(http://www.trafficpolicemumbai.org/facts.html) shows something more alarming. The total number of people booked under drunken driving in the whole year of 2006 was a measly 1022! In percentage terms, that is a jump of 1126 % in order bookings for the police within a span of a year. This for me is cause for serious concern because either liqour manufacturers had a very-very successful year in the city, or our police force was asleep to this evil earlier.
While i'm all for police activism in curbing such a social menace that drunken driving is, a look at the list of penalties opens up new possibilities(http://www.trafficpolicemumbai.org/driving.html). Drunken driving is the offense carrying the highest possible pure monetary penalty of Rs. 3000!
Cheers!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Urban Miracle!
Miracles do happen in cities. Here I am not talking about stories in Readers Digest or newspaper clippings about ancestral parsi wealth left behind to unsuspecting domestic helps but much smaller day-to-day incidents which are such a deviation from the usual norm that they can be classified in no other terms than a miracle. Since it happens in a city context, let me classify them as being urban miracles.
Cheers and best wishes for the new year!
As an example, one happened to me today, the 29’th of Dec, 2007. I achieved a feat which very little Mumbaikars have managed to. Traveling between Bandra-Wadala, I was in a completely empty compartment of a local train. What’s more, I’ve photographic evidence of the same which I attach below.
Now for readers outside of Mumbai- let me try and put this in context. Its akin to meeting a polite and courteous DTC conductor in
Cheers and best wishes for the new year!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Run!
Have been jogging for almost 3 months now. When I started in Oct it followed a long held whim that one day i'd be able to complete a marathon. Very uncharacteristically, three months down the line i feel i have done some justice to that initiative. Twice a week i manage to put in 10 kms and my first target of the half marathon by 20'th Jan seem's to be striking distance away. Or well, it at least is not a complete lost cause!
But the reason why I'm writing about running is the the complete feeling of freedom and power a long distance run gives you. The in between emotions also manage to cover quite a spectrum; one starts off with old joint creaks screaming, not again!, and self doubt about the distance one has mentally chalked out raises a cold sweat till euphoria and energy quickly flow in. The initial adrenalin stir makes you feel you're on top of the world and you want to start challenging chronological milestones set. Managing and utilizing this rush, I feel, is make or break for a long distance runner. While pace variations by putting in fartlings (small sprints) are essential to build capability, knowing limits becomes very essential. Nothing can sap your energy faster than a chemical burst induced pace run.
This is followed by a stage where the euphoria slowly starts diminishing and the first steady pulses of pain hit. Where does it hurt? Not at the obvious places surprisingly. For me, weirdly, it begins in my biceps. One reasoning can be because by now i am already half an hour into the jog and the constant arm movement without support is bound to hurt. Next the pain gathers strength and spreads to my back and torso muscles. This is when it starts getting unbearable and the masochism of a runners ego takes hold. You grit your teeth and go on. What works for me particularly well in this stage is the Chariots of Fire theme on my earphones. I can keep listening to it on and on. In fact my play list these days contains nothing but inspirational numbers. Next is the most interesting phase, the phase where the freedom of being a runner comes to the forefront. Ask any long distance runner, and they will tell u this phase is why they run in the first place.
Its difficult to describe the joy, but the basic emotion is that of conquering our physical limitations. Its the complete victory of mind over body. You realize at that moment that your body has no other purpose of existence other than to fulfill your wishes of your will. The nose, mouth, and lungs turn into air pumping machines, your heart is nothing more than an oxygen supplier which makes too much noise for comfort. And your legs, you ask? Well, they melted 15 mins ago and you realize they are still there only if you look down!
Can barely wait for 20'th Jan!
But the reason why I'm writing about running is the the complete feeling of freedom and power a long distance run gives you. The in between emotions also manage to cover quite a spectrum; one starts off with old joint creaks screaming, not again!, and self doubt about the distance one has mentally chalked out raises a cold sweat till euphoria and energy quickly flow in. The initial adrenalin stir makes you feel you're on top of the world and you want to start challenging chronological milestones set. Managing and utilizing this rush, I feel, is make or break for a long distance runner. While pace variations by putting in fartlings (small sprints) are essential to build capability, knowing limits becomes very essential. Nothing can sap your energy faster than a chemical burst induced pace run.
This is followed by a stage where the euphoria slowly starts diminishing and the first steady pulses of pain hit. Where does it hurt? Not at the obvious places surprisingly. For me, weirdly, it begins in my biceps. One reasoning can be because by now i am already half an hour into the jog and the constant arm movement without support is bound to hurt. Next the pain gathers strength and spreads to my back and torso muscles. This is when it starts getting unbearable and the masochism of a runners ego takes hold. You grit your teeth and go on. What works for me particularly well in this stage is the Chariots of Fire theme on my earphones. I can keep listening to it on and on. In fact my play list these days contains nothing but inspirational numbers. Next is the most interesting phase, the phase where the freedom of being a runner comes to the forefront. Ask any long distance runner, and they will tell u this phase is why they run in the first place.
Its difficult to describe the joy, but the basic emotion is that of conquering our physical limitations. Its the complete victory of mind over body. You realize at that moment that your body has no other purpose of existence other than to fulfill your wishes of your will. The nose, mouth, and lungs turn into air pumping machines, your heart is nothing more than an oxygen supplier which makes too much noise for comfort. And your legs, you ask? Well, they melted 15 mins ago and you realize they are still there only if you look down!
Can barely wait for 20'th Jan!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Expectations and Fullfillment
Two things happened in the last couple of days which really made me wonder about the word PERFORMANCE. Simple enough is it? An act of doing, do you say? I dont quite agree, in fact nothing could be more misleading. I believe the word Performance always has that angle of being evaluated attached to it. We'd never say someone has performed unless we've evaluated her actions against some standards. Just to corroborate this with examples, would any of us describe Roger Federer's efforts at Wimbledon as his Performance if he say loses to Mahesh Boppanna one day?Or do we say Shoiab Akhtar delivered a performance if say he returns back to the pavilion with figures of 10-0-0-80? We wont, right?
Having made my buildup, let me come straight to the issue at hand. The two things i was talking about was the Lead India campaign and Aaamir's new movie, Taare Zameen Pe. Both for me started off by promising amazing things. While Taare..was Aaamir's once in a year movie and made doubly special this time because he was also directing it, Lead India promised to evaluate and select a leader to whom not only would we look upto but who would also perhaps inspire a new generation of educated politicians in India.
Unfortunately while Taare Zameen Pe performed, Lead India symbolised all that you could do wrong with such an inherently brilliant a campaign. Let's start with the failure first.
The idea was big. I can almost imagine some editorial meeting in TOI's office where some editor-subeditor would have said, " Let's try and capitalize on this mood of the new Indian who wants to give something back to the country now that he is economically comfortable. What better way can there be but to first identify grassroot leaders across the country and then one stalwart amongst them. This stalwart will inspire other educated new Indian's around to to do what they have been doing for the community, maybe even get into national politics." Nice thoughts, but watching the last two episodes of the national finals, it seems to have got reduced to just one more farcical reality show with an evaluation process as flawed as a midday mass on christmus. Why for sanity's sake would you evaluate a primary school educational activist from the hilly streets Uttaranchal based on his knowledge about Filmfare awards? Or a water conservationist from the jungles of Sunderbans based on his understanding of either Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bacchan being the more popular star. Given the kind of work that he has devoted his life to and the type of people he's chosen to be surrounded with, its commendable that he even knows who Amitabh Bacchan is.
Anyways, the idea should have been to get these people to come together and articulate their opinions about immediate national issues rather than reduce it to a KBC format with janta ke vote et. al. But then what else could you expect from TOI. I just hope some of the participants decide to walk away from this humiliation and blatant SMS money spinner based on false hopes.
Now Taare... was such a standard of performance and excellence that really lives upto expectations of cinema being a powerful medium of mass change. Apart from the moist eyes that one would definitely be left with at the end of those 3 hrs, is the larger impact would be about a small change that all of us would have towards children, both normal and dyslexic. The loss of a child's potential under the crush of parents worldly expectations was put across very blatantly in the movie, but this blatancy is needed and does create an amazing impact with the audience. The music by Shankar, Ehsan, Loy is superlative and some songs such as Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Hai Na Maa are guaranteed to tug guy's heart strings for long. Cinematography, particularly the setting around the sequence where the little kid sees his portrait drawn by his teacher for the first time, is built up really well.
Do watch this performance!
Having made my buildup, let me come straight to the issue at hand. The two things i was talking about was the Lead India campaign and Aaamir's new movie, Taare Zameen Pe. Both for me started off by promising amazing things. While Taare..was Aaamir's once in a year movie and made doubly special this time because he was also directing it, Lead India promised to evaluate and select a leader to whom not only would we look upto but who would also perhaps inspire a new generation of educated politicians in India.
Unfortunately while Taare Zameen Pe performed, Lead India symbolised all that you could do wrong with such an inherently brilliant a campaign. Let's start with the failure first.
The idea was big. I can almost imagine some editorial meeting in TOI's office where some editor-subeditor would have said, " Let's try and capitalize on this mood of the new Indian who wants to give something back to the country now that he is economically comfortable. What better way can there be but to first identify grassroot leaders across the country and then one stalwart amongst them. This stalwart will inspire other educated new Indian's around to to do what they have been doing for the community, maybe even get into national politics." Nice thoughts, but watching the last two episodes of the national finals, it seems to have got reduced to just one more farcical reality show with an evaluation process as flawed as a midday mass on christmus. Why for sanity's sake would you evaluate a primary school educational activist from the hilly streets Uttaranchal based on his knowledge about Filmfare awards? Or a water conservationist from the jungles of Sunderbans based on his understanding of either Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bacchan being the more popular star. Given the kind of work that he has devoted his life to and the type of people he's chosen to be surrounded with, its commendable that he even knows who Amitabh Bacchan is.
Anyways, the idea should have been to get these people to come together and articulate their opinions about immediate national issues rather than reduce it to a KBC format with janta ke vote et. al. But then what else could you expect from TOI. I just hope some of the participants decide to walk away from this humiliation and blatant SMS money spinner based on false hopes.
Now Taare... was such a standard of performance and excellence that really lives upto expectations of cinema being a powerful medium of mass change. Apart from the moist eyes that one would definitely be left with at the end of those 3 hrs, is the larger impact would be about a small change that all of us would have towards children, both normal and dyslexic. The loss of a child's potential under the crush of parents worldly expectations was put across very blatantly in the movie, but this blatancy is needed and does create an amazing impact with the audience. The music by Shankar, Ehsan, Loy is superlative and some songs such as Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Hai Na Maa are guaranteed to tug guy's heart strings for long. Cinematography, particularly the setting around the sequence where the little kid sees his portrait drawn by his teacher for the first time, is built up really well.
Do watch this performance!
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