Everyone takes criticism so personally. Even on the professional front. If you tell someone that there's still some scope for improvement (and that's sometimes putting it very mildly), all hell breaks loose...people react in their specific ways...sulking, angry retaliations, defensive answers, etc. Goddammit, it's just your work I'm talking about yaar. Not making some value judgements.

People sometimes forget that there's always a specific clue in criticism as well.

Brain is like an engine, we can either keep it on or keep it off. Most of the time, most of us choose to keep it off...

The Blue Umbrella

I'm eagerly awaiting for 'The Blue Umbrella' by Vishal Bharadwaj. The promos appeared ages ago. Hope this one is not in cans.

Pankaj Kapoor utters a line jo hamare dil ko chhu gayi...He says, "Dil ki baaton me nafa nuksan nahi dekha jaata...bas kuchh pichhle janam ka rishta lagta hai"...

I want to go to a polling booth in the next elections, and write 'None of you deserve to be the one who takes important decisions for me". In CAPS. In RED. In short, I wanna vote but to no party in particular. And I want them to KNOW that!!!

This is for you, AT and AB...

Memories...they are tricky. Some are pleasant, some are awful...some make you gloomy, some make you happy, some make you nostalgic...about someone special, about some particular place, particular words, particular gestures...memories are very vivid.

No that's wrong actually. There are some, which are there, lying dormant and resting. You have long forgotten about their existence. You didn't attach much importance to the moment when it happened, and hence, you don't even know that they exist.

And suddenly the memory comes...on a gentle waft of air. First as a gentle scent, then slightly more heady fragrance, then takes you over with the perfume it carries, and finally drenches you completely...

I was going to write a totally different post. But then Sonu Nigam started crooning 'Ab Mujhe Raat Din' from Deewana...it coincided with messages from two of my best friends. They popped up immediately, one after the other...bas, utna hi kaafi tha yaaron tum dono ki yaad aane ke liye...

This is what happened 7-8 years ago. I am in 11th...These 2 friends and I, we are stranded in rain. There's nothing much to do. We head for our favourite destination...a card store...called Card Magic...with that dim yellow light, and very faint background music of the latest hindi film songs or the Backstreet Boys, it is the only such place in Wardha. It has ambience, it is totally different from anything we know then, and the place had a character...a very dreamy and quixotic one...also the place to catch all the chick medico babes...

We reach and it pours...we huddle in a corner of the store shade, but it's still not enough. We gotta go inside. We do...we shuffle through the cards randomly...someone asks me what's a fiance...I get a little embarrassed before the chick crowd...everyone looks so beautiful and gorgeous in that dim light...I stare at someone...time flies by...it's still raining...I just peek outside...it's unbelievable. It's wet, cold and no traffic on the road...this is just too much to remain indoors. I try to drag these friends outside but they don't want to get wet...BAAH! I come out and stand in the shades again...water flowing through the open gutters doesn't look horrendous anymore, it's just blended with the rain...and people there on the streets, they have just melted in the smoldering water drops...

Just as I am in this memory…

Memories are tricky...

Hello Mr. Goldfinch!

Perched on a dandelion is a striking bird…Bright yellow plumage, plumb black stripes on either wings, hinged by horizontal white ones crossing them in between, carroty reddish-orange beak with abstract streaks of light crimson, a black circling tiara glory, with a white rump and a yellow-breast…An American Goldfinch…my favourite bird!

There was no apparent reason for us to cross each other ever. The seven seas, I in B’lore, and the bird in the States separate us. However, a great wonder that the modern technology is, we did come across each other, at 2 AM a week back. And I immediately fell in love with this particular one.

The only good thing about going back to hostel at late night hours is that you own the TV room. No dismal cricket matches, no disintegrating, mouldy chat shows, and thankfully no lengthy, feeble movies that they show on countless movie channels these days.

I watched this charming programme about the passerine birds (sparrows, wrens, etc.) of Washington State. The programme was so painstaking, so goddamn detailed and exhaustive…their numerous habitats, their ecology, their behaviour, and finally their conservation status and the efforts taken to save the various species.

This bird though belonging to the same order as sparrows is actually not in grave danger of extinction. However, by habitat destruction, most of these birds, which earlier occupied different niches, are now competing with each other. The mean rate of decline for this beautiful bird is 4 % per year. What a shame! Thankfully there are quite a few conservation trusts that are working towards conservation of Passerines and restoration of their habitats. I would like to work in one such trust some day…

Coming back to the bird, thanks to that wonderful programme on Nat Geo, we gotta know each other, Mr. Goldfinch! There’s a bond between us now, sir! Take very good care of yourself…adios!

A teacher's success is as much dependent on his teaching prowess as it's on the dialogue across the table, between him and the students. A teacher should be able to guide the student through the crests of knowledge and wisdom and the troughs of desperation, through the illuminating highways and through the dark alleys, but for a teacher to be able to do so, s/he should know where exactly the student stands. Not just that, sometimes it's very important to just give a clue and then allow the student to grope in the uncertainties, to finally emerge triumphant. There are two reasons for this. First, independence, which will lead to a habit of finding one's own answers whatever may come. And second, something completely unimaginable getting unravelled in the process...