My sister sent a lovely story as a forward and then it made me think about the Seventh Mass Media. This made me think a good way to help people visualize evolution of media is using a family tree analogy. Let me know how you like it. My family tree is different than what the story entails but I hope this make sense.

Grand Pa (Cinema – 1900) married Grand Ma (Radio – 1910) outcame daughter (TV – 1950) with strain of Richness+Mass
Grand Pa (Print – 1400) married Grand Ma (Recording – 1800) outcame son (Internet – 1980) with Curiosity+Interactivity
Pa (Internet – 1980) married Ma (TV – 1950) outcame (Mobile – 2000)!

I would say its a bit too soon to deciding its gender and its characteristics. Lets just wait and watch

The story my sister sent The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger…he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.
If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home… Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular
Basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished.
He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked… And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?…. .. .

We just call him ‘TV.’

(Note: This should be required reading for every household in America !)

He has a wife now….We call her ‘Computer.’

Their first child is “Cell Phone“.

The Seven Mass Media

1. Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc) from the late 1400s
2. Recordings (records, tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CDs, DVDs) from the late 1800s
3. Cinema from about 1900
4. Radio from about 1910
5. Television from about 1950
6. Internet from about 1990
7. Mobile phones from about 2000

I have been in the number mood this week. I guess primarily because of the operations jaunt I am having at office. As they say devil is in the details – I think once you break the barrier numbers are cool to swim at. So, today I decided to de-stress from excessive work by looking at my flickr numbers

Another reason I thought it would be good to blog and reflect at the numbers today is because Feb 27th i.e. today happens to be the last day for the gifted pro account by the Flickr Staffer on Nov 26th 2008 when he saw me telling not much bandwidth to upload snaps on the stream! Also, the before I hit another milestone – I have now uploaded my 12,000th snap on flickr. Its a self potrait taken when I was in a reflective mood at Panchgani couple of weekends back de-stressing!

As it stands currently I have uploaded 12,151 photos and my profile i.e http://flickr.com/people/vinu/ has been viewed 1,184,075 times! Total view count of all snaps stands at an amazing 3.3 million+!!

If you examine the breakup the facts are even more amazing – only some 1500 are public.  Rest are private. I pressed the privacy button a year back when my camera became defunct a year back as I was very upset. Then changed certain snaps into public. The fact comes out when you see than 11,000+ snaps have been viewed atleast once Out of everything – one fact I really value a lot – close to 2,000 snaps have been commented at!

In terms of the top 10 of views – the 26/11 snaps are up there. Infact the first 70+ snaps are from this only! I am sure close the 2.5 million views are from the Mumbai terror attacks incident!

In terms of referrers – 82% of all traffic is from flickr itself! the 80-20 rule playing itself! news.yahoo.com – from the mumbai terror attacks incident seems to have contributed 12%!!

Anyway, wrapping it up – it would been nice (more statisfying) to have genuinely got sooo much views i.e. attention for have good quality visual snaps rather than because of news material. Somehow I feel more satisfied and thence happy from genuine appreciation, snaps that convey beauty & feeling. Pictures that are ‘Fluid Frames‘ rather than just news material. But hey, who would not want a supernova moment I was there and I did that! and the Indian Express has called me the real cool dude (newspaper cutting)! he he and I ain’t complaining

Penned this last night

Pointless being the point
Boredom the only challenge
Greener than grass

Lookin’ within
Look in without
Through the glass

Chaos Cleansing
Butterfly fluterring!
Creative Silence

Just thought must share the lyrics of the song Girl from Across the Universe (I just love the movie+soundtrack):

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She’s the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry;
Still, you don’t regret a single day.
Ah girl! Girl! Girl…

Got this forward this week from a good friend. Sharing this. Wishing all of you a very warm, safe, happy and Prosperous Happy New Year 2009!

1. Endeavor to change the way you look at things. Always look at the bright side. The mind may drag you to think about negativity and difficulties. Don’t let it. Look at the good and positive side of every situation.
2. Think of solutions, not problems.
3. Listen to relaxing, uplifting music.
4. Watch funny comedies that make you laugh.
5. Each day, devote some time to reading a few pages of an inspiring book or article.
6. Watch your thoughts. Whenever you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, start thinking of pleasant things.
7. Always look at what you have done and not at what you haven’t.
8. Look at what you have done, not at what you have not been able to do. You may have accomplished a lot during the day, and yet you let yourself become frustrated, because of some small things that you did not accomplish. You have spent all day successfully carrying out many plans, and instead of feeling happy and satisfied, you look at what was not accomplished and feel unhappy. It is unfair toward yourself.
9. Each day do something good for yourself. It can be something small, such buying a book, eating something you love, watching you favorite program on TV, going to a movie, or just having a stroll on the beach.
10. Each day do at least one act to make others happy.When you make someone happy, you become happy, and then people try to make you happy.
11. Always expect happiness.
12. Do not envy people who are happy. On the contrary, be happy for their happiness.
13. Associate with happy people, and try to learn from them to be happy. Remember, happiness is contagious.
14. Do your best to stay detached, when things do not proceed as intended and desired. Detachment will help you stay calm and control your moods and reactions. Detachment is not indifference. It is the acceptance of the good and the bad and staying balanced. Detachment has much to do with inner peace, and inner peace is conductive to happiness.
15. Smile more often!

Just read ‘Death of a salesman and other elite ironies: Tarun Tejpal‘ – a pure logical thought provoking writing. One of the few ‘mass’ writing by the ‘mass media’ that is intellectually stimulation and emotionally moving. The link unfortunately has ‘ads moving’ all over the page His writing strikes a true chord with my dis-illusioned state I find myself after 3 years of moving back to india + various experiences (rich, vivid and exhausting!).

What strikes me the most is what he says in the end : India’s elite should start getting its hands dirty so they can get a clean country. My thoughts on that: True, very true. But guess what most of the elites feel they have worked ‘hard’ to be elites and feel its time to take back from the country (non-diplomatically translated as exploit and show-off!) Then we come to ‘true’ elites – they are trying in their own way. We need a system thats brings it together i.e. collective action. Not downplaying the whole thing – we need ways to structure in the ‘whole’ thing to see impact!

Have some of the writing in quotes for my personal archive.

What the Indian elite is discovering today on the debris of fancy eateries is an acidic truth large numbers of ordinary Indians are forced to swallow every day.

The system does not work, the system is cruel, the system is unjust, the system exists to only serve those who run it. Crucially, what we, the elite, need to understand is that most of us are complicit in the system. In fact, the chances are the more we have — of privilege and money — the more invested we are in the shoring up of an unfair state.

For too many decades now, the elite of India has washed its hands off the country’s politics. Entire generations have grown up viewing it as a distasteful activity. In an astonishing perversion, the finest imaginative act of the last thousand years on the subcontinent, the creation and flowering of the idea of modern India through mass politics, has for the last 40 years been rendered infra dig, déclassé, uncool. Let us blame our parents, and let our children blame us, for not bequeathing onwards the sheer beauty of a collective vision, collective will, and collective action. In a word, politics: which, at its best, created the wonder of a liberal and democratic idea, and at its worst threatens to tear it down.

We stand faulted then in two ways. For turning our back on the collective endeavour; and for our passive embrace of the status quo. This is in equal parts due to selfish instinct and to shallow thinking. Since shining India is basically only about us getting an even greater share of the pie, we have been happy to buy its half-truths, and look away from the rest of the sordid story. Like all elites, historically, that have presided over the decline of their societies, we focus too much of our energy on acquiring and consuming, and too little on thinking and decoding.

Let’s track one causal chain. The Congress creates Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to neutralise the Akalis; Bhindranwale creates terrorism; Indira Gandhi moves against terrorism; terrorism assassinates Indira Gandhi; blameless Sikhs are slaughtered in Delhi; in the course of a decade, numberlessinnocents, militants, and securitymen die. Let’s track another. The BJP takes out an inflammatory rath yatra; inflamed kar sewaks pull down the Babri Masjid; riots ensue; vengeful Muslims trigger Mumbai blasts; 10 years later a bogey of kar sewaks is burnt in Gujarat; in the next week 2,000 Muslims are slaughtered; six years later retaliatory violence continues. Let’s track one more. In the early 1940s, in the midst of the freedom movement, patrician Muslims demand a separate homeland; Mahatma Gandhi opposes it; the British support it; Partition ensues; a million people are slaughtered; four wars follow; two countries drain each other through rhetoric and poison; nuclear arsenals are built; hotels in Mumbai are attacked.

In each of these rough causal chains, there is one thing in common. Their origin in the decisions of the elite. Interlaced with numberless lines of potential divisiveness, the India framework is highly delicate and complicated. It is critical for the elite to understand the framework, and its role in it. The elite has its hands on the levers of capital, influence and privilege. It can fix the framework. It has much to give, and it must give generously. The mass, with nothing in its hands, nothing to give, can out of frustration and anger, only pull it all down. And when the volcano blows, rich and poor burn alike.

And so what should we be doing? Well, screaming at politicians is certainly not political engagement. And airy socialites demanding the carpet-bombing of Pakistan and the boycott of taxes are plain absurd, just another neon sign advertising shallow thought. It’s the kind of dumb public theatre the media ought to deftly side-step rather than showcase. The world is already over-shrill with animus: we need to tone it down, not add to it.

The first thing we need to do is to square up to the truth. Acknowledge the fact that we have made a fair shambles of the project of nation-building. Fifty million Indians doing well does not for a great India make, given that 500 million are grovelling to survive. Sixty years after independence, it can safely be said that India’s political leadership — and the nation’s elite — have badly let down the country’s dispossessed and wretched. If you care to look, India today is heartbreak hotel, where infants die like flies, and equal opportunity is a cruel mirage.

Let’s be clear we are not in a crisis because the Taj hotel was gutted. We are in a crisis because six years after 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat there is still no sign of justice. This is the second thing the elite need to understand — after the obscenity of gross inequality. The plinth of every society — since the beginning of Man — has been set on the notion of justice. You cannot light candles for just those of your class and creed. You have to strike a blow for every wronged citizen.

And let no one tell us we need more laws. We need men to implement those that we have. Today all our institutions and processes are failing us. We have compromised each of them on their values, their robustness, their vision and their sense of fairplay.

Look around. How many constables, head constables, sub-inspectors would risk their lives for the dishonest, weak men they serve, who in turn serve even more compromised masters?

I wish Rohinton had survived the lottery of death in Mumbai last week. In an instant, he would have understood what we always went on about. India’s crying need is not economic tinkering or social engineering. It is a political overhaul, a political cleansing. As it once did to create a free nation, India’s elite should start getting its hands dirty so they can get a clean country.

The above image (pic of a bus stand opposite to this picture) made be smile … taken close to 60 hrs after the event started and an hour after National Security Gaurds declared everything is over (albeit temporarily). The entire collection of the pictures I took during the event can be seen on flickr. The statement in the advertisement ripped from the shards of grenades says

peace of mind. Gauranteed. sms PEACE to 5888*

I wonder what * means! I am sure, people like me around the place felt extra alive for those 60 odd hours which started with two loud bangs and gunfire. Easily close to 10,000+ people will have double thoughts on MEETING LIFE. in other words METLIFE.

Over the last 12 to 15 months, I have really begun to appreciate, realize and bounce my thoughts about life with people whom I am close to. I have realized that I somehow tend to create adaptive models on life continuously. Given my engineering educational background science and math play a critical role apart from my bipolarity while creating these models

27-28 years of existence and just a bit more than half a decade of bipolar disorder, I have come to conclude the following

The whole universe is built around Nothingness or impermanence. Actually a massive silence. The absolute truth is nothingness or silence!

My bipolar disorder has pushed me to realize this very quickly. The whole perspective in which you view the world changes when you accept it. In 2003, I faced this nirvana moment . Only around 2005 did I realize that I have to somehow really work on solving this issue. I didn’t have any skill sets to deal with this realization nor did I want to believe that all the activity happening all around us mounts to nothingness.

Over the last couple of years I have internally come up with a model that works for me and I see a similar model in different variants across various cultures and philosophies.

In order to find joy and growth in the space of nothingness, we need to surround ourselves with three pivotal things:

1. Love
2. Curiosity
3. Strength

I feel the need to ensure that all the above mentioned items are equally balanced. A great amount of imbalance in any one of them leads to difficulty. From experience and inner reflection whenever I have landed up with depression or mania, I think its been either due to lack of one the above three things.

Another way of looking at this, look at yourself or any country or civilization. Whenever you think you or a community of people have flourished or prospered – you would really see all these three dimensions of life in balance.

The beautiful thing about this is the realization that you don’t need to attach you feelings or thoughts on bunch of specific things. Work towards having adequate of love, curiosity and strength around you & thou shall experience bliss!

Its obviously not as easy as it sounds! You start of managing all three of them and somehow one’s mind, ego or heart gives way. Then your your luck runs out (its been my health in my case) and you fall flat and have to re-build again!

Note: I visualize almost everything in my life. Try the following exercise if it works for you in case you are experiencing a crisis! Take a piece of paper and draw a ‘big’ triangle and write Love, Curiosity and Strength at the end points. In the middle of triangle write, Truth = Nothingness (Silence) Then write things that you associate with each one of them i.e Love, Curiosity and Strength. And start thinking on how you can go about balancing all three of them. (increase or decrease!)

Catch me sometime over a cup of hot chocolate and can give you more gyan and hopefully learn from you also!

Next few posts are going on Anger and something I call the Silence Economy.

Pope Benedict XVI’s comment

Those who think that “concrete things we can touch are the surest reality” are deceiving themselves

Made me wonder the profundity of virtual (online) stuff especially Second Life! I somehow feel The Pope is setting double standards. Thoughts like

those who seek “success, career or money are building on sand”

need to be taken with a pinch of salt or perspective shall we say?

I sat down sometime early last week and listed various activities / skill sets I love and I feel I am in the flow or zone. The things I like to do and don’t feel that I am putting an effort. No stress and life seems to be a blissful existence and I contributing back to the society.

I simply LIKE being i.e nothing else matters. I would like to have them ideally in any job I am doing. I feel everyone should do this for themselves and try to juggle these activities to get maximum out in their life. Here is my list

• Learning
• Observing
• Playing
• Creating
• Connecting with People
• Problem Solving
• Imagining

As of you can see, these are the core attributes I simply love. Lots of things I like are direct manifestations of them. Diving, Photography, Design, Research, Solving people’s problems. Looking forward to hearing your in the flow activities.