The Lollypop Race

This is one of my earliest memories. Racing with a lollypop. A delicious chocolate éclair flavoured one I took, hard on the outside and when you bit it, it would release a soft melting chocolate that will squirt onto your tongue…mmmm…yummy…. Ok, ok no distractions.

Let me take you down memory lane. I must have been in nursery or kindergarten when this happened.

I and my classmates stood in a huge field with scores of people all around us seated on benches; parents we guess. So, what is the occasion we are animatedly discussing.

The coach hushes us and shows us a poster with infinite number of lollypops stuck on it. A million different flavours done in a multitude of colourful wrappings. Whoa, as a three-and-a-half-year-old that is a view which passes for pure unadulterated ecstasy.

“Keep your hands behind your back and using only your teeth free the lollypop from the board,” says the coach.

What I fail to hear while romancing the notion of having a lollypop so near to my lips is that after you free the lollypop you must run to the finish line. It is a race. And we are celebrating our annual Sport’s Day.

“Ok, now. Start!”

Aha, I had already had laid eyes on my beauty– a sweet chocolate lollypop. And there I went ahead furiously biting the white stick that held it up.

“Free at last dear one,” I said to myself. It has taken me barely 10 seconds to free the lollypop. And now I glance upon my classmates. They are still at it. Gnawing at its end yet unable to free the glued confectionary.

“Ok, so now what? Can I just start eating? Or will that seem rude…perhaps I should just wait for the rest to grab theirs as well,” I start contemplating.

“Yes!” exclaims one gleeful friend of mine freeing his orange lollypop.

And there he goes running, whizzing past me. Another classmate has also by this time bitten of a lollypop and is now readying to break into a sprint.

“Oh, so you have to run, eh,” I figure.

Zoooooooooom.

That is me running happily, skipping with joy…. And then I spot my parents and sprint even faster to greet them and show off my loot. As my parents hug me, I see a teacher coming towards me.

“Here, come with me Akansha,” she announces cheerily as she offers her hand.

And I find out I have just won the race! Silver medal, but why nitpick :-) :-)

“You may have your lollypop now,” says my teacher.

“Now, is this not an absolutely superb day? I get to eat my favourite chocolate treat, win a race and get to pose for the cameras,” the very visibly excited little me has concluded.

Years later today I can safely say that childhood is bliss. A treat in itself undeniably the best God has on offer:-)

Billions vanishing without a trace

It happened in the 1880's first, and now it is happening again. Worker bees go out and then never return. No bodies have been found, no trace of any infection or ailment... it is like an alien force is beaming them away somewhere. This is certainly more serious a problem than it sounds....



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The future of the world 3.0 is in my hands...

“The future of the world is in my hands...And I'm modest about it,” I recently stated. And I can tell you I am not wrong. Look outside the window, how many of those people who walked just by do you know or recognize? One, two…none? Think now again of the people spread all over the world. Do you know them? Do you know what makes them laugh, what pulls at their heart strings? Do you know that one of them was an aspiring soccer player turned accountant? Do you know that one of them became the CEO of his own company at the age of 19, but donated all his money to become a regular kid again? Do you know?

Really WHAT do you know?

But you have a chance to learn and answer; and this chance is this one lifetime. People around me feel very technology handicapped so much so that they would not want to hear the T word. But the only choice you have to make the most of this life is through accepting technology. At the moment your newest friend could be a thousand miles away or in the next dormitory room, but our culture has made us too cold to get up and say hi to the stranger next door. In fact if a stranger would come up to you I am sure you will squint and indeed be perturbed by the free-willed action. The same guy pops into your chat window or leaves you a message in your MySpace/Orkut/Ryze/ guest book and see yourself happily responding.

Accept the world has changed and so has our socio-cultural dynamics. And it is going to change even further. Social networks have already taken us by storm and so has avatar technology. We have created false or more politically correct – virtual selves on the Internet. I am not talking about just the fakes in chat rooms, but the reality of having a second lease of life in virtual worlds created by Second Life and the sorts. You can earn money, have sex and even have drugs on the Internet! “Users of virtual drugs have reported the effects of these virtual drugs to be surprisingly realistic and lifelike,” is what Brian Shuster, chief Utherverse feels. Even virtual sex sells. Second Life confessed pervert and businessman ‘Stroker Serpentine’ a.ka. Kevin Alderman sold his ‘amorous’ technology for $50,000!

Clearly, our perception of reality has been altered.

And that now brings us to the topic of the semantic web or WEB 3.0. Our computers are still too dumb inspite of these sweeping changes that we are still grappling with. We are now building newer ways to understand the world – and that is WEB 3.0. We still rely on human intelligence to sift through Google search results, but what if you are hurried and all you want to say is: I need a flat for my family of me, my husband, mum and 3-year-old twins. But my budget cannot exceed Rs. 35,00,000 and it must not be more than 10 kilometers away from my office in Santa Cruz West, Mumbai. Google this and you’ll be lost in tones of data or perhaps lack of it. The semantic web will understand you and your needs and then answer you. It will intelligently understand that when you ask your operating system to “open files on my investments” it needs to open up data on mutual funds, stock ops, fixed deposits etc and not have you look up each.

Apart from the intelligent semantic web we desperately need and will have open architecture in the future where the programming power is in the hand of the user – as I said in the beginning the future in our two hands. . So we surely need:

• A universal operating system – that means one common Windows/Mac/Linux platform. And not sold in CDs, but just pure downloads off the web;

• Web conferencing facilities that are automatically updated and scale up with need – this means businesses not only close deals in real time over the globe but also nuture new ideas, recruit talent and talk to shareholders inside their homes and bounce off ideas with them;

• An avatar system that can travel within many virtual worlds enabling users to interact – and not just within closed games, but replacing email ids with virtual 3D representations.

This is not your future world. This OUR world today − thinking tomorrow A.K.A WEB 3.0.

And NOW you know!

Beauty Immunity?

It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ."

The word doesn't come easily.

". . . ignoring me."

Bell is laughing. It's at himself.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

These profound thoughts are from a piece I read on The Washington Post: Pearls Before Breakfast. One of the world’s most brilliant violent virtuoso was playing classic masterpieces on a very busy working morning. He appeared like a street side musician; only he was THE musician – Joshua Bell! But did any of the thousands notice? No prizes for guessing.

The little experiment showed our very intrinsic nature:-

We appreciate beauty only with a price tag.

Pay a thousand dollars and you will never criticize him. In fact if you had put a street musician on the stage and tagged him with the same amount of money; voila you would have found a winner.

Makes me think – do we even understand beauty? Or is this pre-assumption incorrect. My brother loves hard rock and dark rap music. He swears by it; mum calls it noise. So who is the illiterate?

Beauty is personal. Deeply personal....

Smile Cheeeeese; CLICK!!!

Have you ever faced that torturous passport-sized photo clicking session?

“Say cheese, smile a bit, relax…don’t bite your lips, tilt your head bit to the side.”

CLICK!

“Hmmm, no one more…. Bend your head down a bit.”

By this time I am looking at my mum just wishing the stupid photographer would disappear.

CLICK!

“Fine”


Why do I feel as if I have finally been freed from the gladiator’s arena? Am I now a photo-phobic? When I was young my father clicked infinite photos of me, and you bet I posed like a little doll for each. I have seen one of mine sitting on a stool with some cute looking doll…hmm, I don’t know how that came about; all I have ever loved as a kid has been fast toy cars, puzzles and stuffed toys. Anyway, I have another of me when I crawled into a red VIP suitcase when Papa was going off on some tour. He grabbed the camera and immortalized by dimpled smile.

Nowadays, I run from the camera. I just do not like it. Click, click, click… I am hardly ever satisfied with the photograph. Look at the number of cameras around you, almost every one of us has a camera phone. Every single little thing is now an occasion to shoot. Grrr, almost on cue…while typing this away my dear colleague and friend Ashutosh has just clicked one of me. See, you just cannot escape.

You know I have nothing against the art; I have done a six month photography course under Mr. O P Sharma – an acclaimed international level photographer. It is from him that I developed a love for black and white photography. It is funny how the seemingly simple play of shadows comes out so poignantly in the black and white colour scheme. As far as portraits go, would you not agree that somehow the best are of little innocent kids and the wrinkled faces of the old timers. They are both selfless and carefree.

As a young adult you are perhaps more conscious of your outer beauty, and the correct ‘image’. We have an incredible amount of pressure on what the correct smile, skin colour and body type should be. Babies are lucky; the cute bald little sugar cubes look sweet any way! And toothless grannies have never had it better ;-)

Anyway, guess for now I will have to grin and bear it… Go ahead and say it –
CHEEEEESE. CLICK!

Yeah, so they kissed...

Guess what has got people’s panties in a twist now? Lip action by Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere. Blame it on the hormones, but the amazingly handsome and Hollywood megastar planted more than a couple of pecks on Bollywood and Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty. He gave a kiss on the hand, a hug, then the cheek and the la Hollywood style…at an AIDS awareness camp for Indian truck drivers.

Hmmm, so the country is shocked and agitated. But seriously what the heck? Who cares? So Rakhi Sawant’s declared close friend is not acting like the former and slapping away the apparent offender. But why should she? Come on, these are showbiz guys this is part of their lives and such coupling is something you should not even bat an eyelid about.

I was forced to blog this, because many around seem concerned! And what concerns you, concerns me…

Now go vote:

Do you care about the Shilpa and Richard Gere's kissing exchange?
	Na, it is cool. Look at the saucy movies she's been on..I don't think she was new to that!
	Yuck! Disgusting! I am so soooo bugged. How could this happen?
pollcode.com free polls

Vegetable Chocolates… No more fat!

Praise the lord, declare an international holiday. The US FDA is allowing changing the definition of chocolates allowing “chocolate products which would permit the use of cheaper vegetable fats instead of the traditional cocoa butter”.

Do you know what that means – in the future some time we would have vegetables that will be chocolate flavoured. I mean really we have chocolate flavoured ice-creams, easter bunnies…even ants for Christ sake. Why not healthy chocolate brinjals, or soft melting chocolate flavoured spinach? Scientists are heavily into genetically modified food, so why not insert a coca gene in bitter gourds?

BTW there is news that soy extract based Easter eggs have become a rage in Brazil.

Seriously, this could be an election campaign issue. Chocoholics rule!!!

Can your name be a copyright violation?

Just think about it – your parents have named you Microsoft. Now you grow up and you are signing this on your credit card, receipts, bills… your home address, salary accounts reads this. Can Microsoft – the IT mammoth – sue you for infringing upon their name?

Or what about baby Reebok? Will the sports company sue you?

You know why I got thinking on this seemingly crazy idea? Well, it started with my pet Alsatian. His name is Diesel – I had given the folks an option of Diesel and Antonio, they went with the former. Anyway, his mum’s name was Pepsi I have found out much later. So, I am thinking can the Pepsi guys say hey that the liquid beverage named bitch (pardon me, but that is what a female dog is called) is their property?

Are you actually aware that there are many names that have become public property like say Benetton, McDonald or Sothebys – surnames that command respect and bags of green…the currency kind.

What if your name becomes as famous as Calvin Klein or Giorgio Armani, eh? Will you go around like a second fiddle to the famous, or would you opt to change it? What if you already have a blog, Second Life avatar and an email address by that name? Can the patent lawyers hunt you down and make you relinquish your identity?

If that made you paranoid, go out relax and order a nice cheesy pizza at Dominoes…or is that your name… hahahahaaaa (devilish)

What the... Horse!!!

I could not go without telling you about this... Zoo is a movie by Robinson Devor, it is about horses and humans.. Horse Whisperer you say? No! It is about..hold your breath...about a community of people who enjoy making love - god I did not say that - to horses! YUCK!!!

It is based on a real life guy from Seattle whose sick personal video surfaced online. This fella supposedly injured himself during the whacko video he was making and died in the horsey intercourse. And Devor thought, hey that is a bright idea!

Well, I don't know what he was thinking, but it seems to create a sense of sickening curiosity and disgust at the very same time. We have films exploring male bonding like Brokeback, and I get it....but ummm horses... well I got to give it to you, it is eye-popping...but pretty pretttty bad taste choice for a storyline!

Do we not have any better ideas? Puhleeeasse spare us Zoo man!

Comic Stripping ;-) ;-)

Been roaming around the net.... found Comeeko - a personal comic strip builder... Cool idea. But what i want to share is this from Blaugh.com... laugh and be merry