"Let's plan creative endings..."

At times when life seems too tough to handle and we feel it's better to end it, why can we not just treat the next moment as a fresh beginning?

When we learn to write as kids, an eraser is as much part of the learning -process as a pencil is. Write, consider, and if you make a mistake, erase it and write again! No harm done. How simple life would be if we were to treat it in a similar manner. When you make a mistake, stop, make amends and start all over again!

Sadly, life's not always that easy as we grow up. As we make mistakes, we leave behind deeper marks than any eraser can remove. And making amends entails a lot more effort than just blowing away the rubbery stuff left behind by an eraser on the notebook! Quietly erasing a pencil mark is far easier than making up to people you may have upset or hurt with uncaring actions or thoughtless words.

And yet that is what distinguishes a winner from a loser. A worthwhile human -being is one who insists on making good any harm he may have caused, whether to himself or others, and then starts all over again. As another New Year slips in, why can we not erase the mistakes, the negatives and the terrors of the ones that went by, choosing to keep with us just the happy, fulfilling and nourishing memories?

How welcome it would be if youngsters with failed dreams or marks less than what they desired realised that all it requires is just another try again! Nothing is worth ending your life over! Just wait, consider where you went wrong, think through and try again. So what if the one you loved to distraction walked out of your life? Why end your life while he enjoys his? Give another a chance to walk into the vacant space. You will realise that life has a way of sorting itself out if you just decide to stay around long enough to give it a chance to do so. At times when life seems too tough to handle and we feel it's better to end it, why can we not just treat the next moment as a fresh beginning within this life rather than seeking to walk! out of it? The problem is that most of us get so mired in the moment and so attached to what surrounds us that a larger perspective becomes a problem. What is needed at that moment is a step away from the problem so that we can view it in the proper perspective. If a student depressed with his result, could just visualise his entire life and see himself years later in a successful career with a happy family and well cared-for parents, would the marks he has got at this moment matter at all?

If a man who has made a huge loss in business were able to step away from himself and the moment, wouldn't he think again? In fact, one should look at these moments as opportunities to start life all over again. Successful businesses all over the world indulge again and again in what they call creative destruction in order to keep the momentum going and keep reinventing in order to stay ahead of competition. Once a business reaches an optimum level and has reached its full potential, astute business leaders diversify it or even may decide to shut it to start another. This helps them stay ahead of the pack.

As individuals, why can we not do the same? Recently, a single friend decided to shift overseas with her child. Having decided this would be a good career move, she focused on the shift and quietly and efficiently managed everything such as admission for the child, a house for them and her new job all by herself. She even took the decision to give up all furniture and possessions in her home here and travel light. In one fell swoop, she gave up everything she had to step into unknown territory.

Her bold step not only amazed but impressed me immensely. I couldn't help but admire her spirit in being able to give up a wonderful job, her child's prestigious school and loads of stuff she must have held dear at some time or the other. All this, to follow her passion. And now, everything would be new and untried. A scary thought and yet an exciting one! Not many of us would be able to do the same.

And yet ! as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained And where one dot symbolises end of a sentence, two more mean continuity. Each ending gives us the opportunity for a new beginning. You just need to be strong enough to take it on! Let's plan creative endings in order to welcome new beginnings.

How Binayak Sen became a cause celebre

At the risk of appearing to be callous or, indeed, flippant, it may be suggested that the elevation of Binayak Sen from a relatively unknown activist to a cause clbre is partly due to a dramatic image makeover. When Sen was arrested in May 2007 by the Chhattisgarh police on charges of aiding and abetting the Maoist insurgency, the photograph of him in circulation was that of a thickly bearded stereotype of the Bengali intellectual espousing unattainable radical causes over endless cups of tea and unfiltered cigarettes.

The Sen that appeared before the public in May 2009, after the Supreme Court granted him bail on grounds of ill health, presented a striking departure. The lush beard had gone and, instead , there was the benign face of a man who had withstood two years of incarceration in inhospitable jails with fortitude. If the captions hadnt indicated this was Sen, he could have been easily mistaken for either a kindly primary school teacher or a jholawala with an NGO.

The earnestness, however, was intact. But if the pre-2007 portrait of a Bengali Che Guevara prone to reckless excitability was quaintly disturbing , the post-2009 image was distinctly nonthreatening . Like the distracted Kobad Ghandy, Doon Schools contribution to the Indian revolution , the Sen that smiled and posed for photographs after being sentenced to life imprisonment seemed incapable of either malevolence or subversion. He just didnt fit the mental picture of a dangerous man.

The striking mismatch between what TV images suggested and what the sessions court judge in Raipur pronounced may help understand why the recent discourse on Sen has been so woefully one-sided . To the young and the impressionable, to cause-hungry intellectuals and to NRI grandees on their winter vacation, Chhattisgarh is Indias Heart of Darkness. In this imagined state, governed by the political first cousins of those who administer Gujarat, heavy-handed policing, law of the jungle, capitalist iniquity and the brutal suppression of triba! l rights exist in equal measure.

For the past several years, Sen is quoted by a PUCL pamphlet as declaiming shortly before his initial arrest, we are seeing all over Indiaand , as part of that, in Chhattisgarh as wella concerted programme to expropriate from the poorest people in the Indian nation their access to essentials, common property resources and to natural resources , including land and water.

It is not that Sens perception of a concerted programme of expropriation is widely shared, even by those horrified by the harshness of the sentence. If Amartya Sen in his scholarly avatar is any guide, democracy is the great corrective and India is about as rumbustious a democracy as you can get. In that case, is Chhattisgarh the rotten apple?

The prevailing discourse has presented the issue as a simple war between the forces of enlightenment and darkness. Sen was the barefoot doctor who attended to the sick and needy, articulated their hopes and fears, and raised his voice against state oppression. For that he was targeted, framed and sentenced. If the high court has its thinking straight and unbiased, declared the Nobel Prize winner Sen, it will overturn the decision. Anything else, he argued, would imply that as happened in Gujaratjustice is difficult to get in the state, which is under the control of a political regime that is keen on justifying its policies, some of which are very deeply problematic, rather than bringing justice to people living in Chhattisgarh.

Such an assertion is astonishing in its arrogance . Disagreement with a judicial verdict is part of the democratic debate. But to assume that any alternative perspective implies a bent and biased system is rash. It has as much validity as Ilina Sens outburst that state intolerance could compel dissidents to seek political asylum overseas.

Sen may or may not be an overground functionary of the Maoist underground that specializes in murder and extortion. At present , we can only go by the sessions court judgment. Yet, by l! everagin g the publicity surrounding his arrest and conviction, his supporters have given the Maoist insurgency unintended legitimacy. It is one thing to claim that the evidence against Sen has been planted by a vengeful police. Thats a technical issue of evidence and one that the higher courts will review. But human rights activists have used their anger at the judgment to turn every TV studio into not merely an appellate court but a political forum to cast aspersions on the credentials of both the criminal justice system and Indian democracy.

The right to campaign peacefully for Sen is a feature of Indias open society. However, the campaigns successful creation of a paranoid discourse suggests interesting possibilities for those who have no time for the India we value and cherish.

The curious case of Windows Phone 7 in India

This piece was supposed to be a review. But then we stumbled across the-launch-that-wasnt.

HTC, the Taiwan-based cellphone manufacturer, introduced two phones HD7 and Mozart last fortnight in India. Nothing earth shattering. Only that the phones are powered by Windows Phone 7 (WP7), the mobile operating system with which Microsoft hopes to regain its honour in smartphone market after being kicked in the teeth by iPhone and Android.

This made HD7 and Mozart first WP7 devices in India. Even as we rejoiced at the prospects of getting a taste of what engineers inside Redmond had cooked up after several years of hard work, we were told that WP7 is yet to be officially launched in India by Microsoft. Mozart and HD7 are real and available, but in absence of Marketplace, or in other words Microsofts app store, and Xbox Live, the gaming hub inside WP7, they more resemble the expensive phones of yesteryear than smartphones in Circa 2011.

Its a paradox. There is a launch and yet it is not. When contacted, Microsoft and HTC defended their positions. Microsoft claims services like Xbox Live and Marketplace are not ready for India. HTCs country head Ajay Sharma, meanwhile, says the company has always been the pioneer in ushering in the latest and the best technologies for Indian mobile phone users. And it seems it would not like to give up this position just because of some niggling delay on the software side.

Both have valid points. And that presents a dilemma for us. In the absence of full functionality, we cant review any WP7 device. But what we can bring to you is Indias first preview of Windows Phone 7 and Mozart because, after all said and done, the phone is out there on the shelves and you ought to know about it.

The good

All WP7 phones are supposed to carry at least! a 1Ghz processor, 256MB RAM, 5 megapixel camera, capacitive screen with minimum 800x480 resolution and several dedicated buttons. Mozart is no different.

Powered by a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, the phone packs 576MB RAM, an 8 megapixel camera and 8GB flash storage in its shell. But its not the hardware that catches the eye. Its the design which stands out. Built in the typical HTC fashion same company that made Legend and showed even Android phones can look good Mozart is elegance redefined. Its unibody shell has been beautifully carved out of a single block of aluminum, giving it a sleek yet sturdy look. Though HTC has used rubber over a portion of battery and camera, in no place does the phone feel plasticky or cheap.

A screen is the most important component in a smartphone and its good to see that Mozart doesnt skimp here. The 3.7 screen is as good as it gets with SLCD. Colours are vibrant and touch response is fantastic.

We have heard a lot about Metro user interface of WP7 and after seeing it in action, we can say all the hype is justified. Windows moniker notwithstanding, WP7 was built from the scratch for smartphones and the hard work shows. Unlike the UI used by Android or iOS on iPhone, WP7 uses tiles and hubs to get the job done. Its a minimalist, no nonsense user interface that is intuitive and fast enough to match iOS and in many cases even surpass it.

Layers have been used for great 2D effects and the tiles many of them dynamic on the home screen look as if they are floating on liquid. All animations and transition effects are rendered by GPU and there is no lag whatsoever.

One of the best apps to give a glimpse into the idea of Metro UI is Mail. The whole app is just black and grey text over white background but it not only looks good but also provides stellar functionality. Across the OS, all apps nearly! functio n in the same way. There are no tabs or buttons to click, though a lot of functions require long-press over a text or a portion of the screen. Mostly, you navigate across the features with a swipe to the right and irrespective of their functionality (or the lack of it), all apps look neat and modern.

The bad

When it comes to Mozart, the placement of volume rocker is downright awful. Instead of being in the middle of the left side, its too close to the back. The result before your finger gets used to it, you will find yourself groping to reach the volume rocker. Battery life, too, is nothing to boast about. On full charge and medium use, the phone lasts around eight hours.

When it comes to WP7, despite a great UI, there are many misses in terms of functionality. The foremost is lack of status bar. Its not missing but most of the time its hidden. Even battery and connectivity status is hidden unless you press the top of the screen. While minimalist UI works, a status bar that plays hide-and-seek is not really something you like. In fact, there are other similar customizations made across the OS in the name minimalist UI.

Bing maps too leave much to be desired. GPS lock is quite accurate and fast but not in the league of what offered by phones like N8, iPhone or Milestone. Similarly, navigation or finding route through Bing maps is not as accurate as we would have liked. Maybe, it is because WP7 is yet to be launched in India. But compared to Androids excellent navigation and map features, Bing apps dont make the cut. At least, not for now.

Virtual keyboard is mostly good but the space between keys is too little for our liking. Unfortunately, Microsoft takes a cue from Apple here and unlike on Android, doesnt allow users to change the keyboard. Internet Explorer is a similar story. The browsing experience is quite stellar with scrolling and pinch-to-zoom being smooth but in our use it had trouble while do! wnloadin g media files from the web. The browser also takes inputs in address bar only in portrait mode and its frustrating to flip the phone every time you want to open a new website.

The ugly

Once again we will start with Mozart. Despite flaunting 8 megapixel camera coupled with a Xenon flash, Mozart is a serious let down when it comes to capture pictures and videos. Flash is good for nothing while pictures are not detailed or sharp enough. In our tests, Galaxy S, which has a 5 megapixel camera, produced better pictures. And same goes for the video where we had serious problems with focus while using Mozart.

On the WP7 side, the problems are more fundamental and will remain until Microsoft decides to address them. To begin with, there is no multitasking. In fact, WP7 is pretty harsh on how third-party apps function. Even if you leave phone idle for a few minutes while going through your timeline in Twitter app, you will be kicked out of the app. Once you go back, the app will download whole data again. Same is true if you click any link on the timeline and go to browser. Once you come back, you will find Twitter app reloading.

On connectivity side, WP7 is seriously crippled. It was known for quite long that there wont be any support for Bluetooth file transfer in WP7. But now that the devices are here, many will miss this feature. Especially in India, where availability of Wi-Fi is not too good. Similarly, there is no USB transfer mode. All WP7 phones are going to use Zune software to connect to PCs. But Zune only supports pictures, videos, music and podcasts. If you want to transfer, say a PDF file or a document, to your WP7 phone you are out of luck. The only way to bring other files to WP7 is by emailing them to self and then downloading the attachments.

WP7 phones are pretty much locked-down devices. Among apps or settings, not much customization or control is available to users. On Software side, it may n! ot matte r given how good Metro UI is. But on devices like Mozart that have just 8GB or less flash storage, users are going to miss ability to add memory cards.

And, finally, there is the curious case of product not launched yet available. Mozart, in its current avatar, is a crippled device. Apps make or break a smartphone. But here you cant even install an app, let alone sample their quality.

Despite its flaws, the phone can have some merit but not unless Windows Phone 7 launches officially in India. For now, unless you believe seeing Metro UI in action is worth Rs 26,490, keep that wallet safely tucked inside.

Follow Javed Anwer on Twitter

Vivekananda: My teen icon wore saffron

Long, long ago, I, too unlikely as it may seem with the graying hair today was once a teenaged rebel. Defiant, stubborn, questioning, a risk-taker, even reckless. Some of those traits I have, hopefully, retained. But the instigator of my transition from a seemingly inconspicuous docile schoolboy to this combative version was neither my college gang nor a rapper with an exotic name. It was a man long dead, having lived all of 39 years, speaking to me through fiery words that did not diminish in intensity with the passage of time.

I picked up Vivekanandas thoughts one day in class XIIth, and have not quite been able to put them down yet. Having the capability to live only a little of what he practiced, I cannot lay claim to being Eklavya to his Dronacharya status. Yet, when I was beginning to decipher the questions of right and wrong, moral and immoral, he summed it up for me the complexity of it all: Fear is the greatest sin my religion teaches. Since then, Ive tried to ensure that I did not commit the cardinal sin, whatever other errors I make.

In childhood, I learnt, as we all do, that convention and what everyone else thought mattered. Then I unlearnt it. I will die a thousand deaths rather than lead a jelly-fish existence and yield to every requirement of this foolish world, the monk thundered though the years into my mindspace, and is it any wonder that I was often more of a nonconformist than anyone with a dozen tattoos, eyebrow piercings and purple hair colour could have been?

When I was at my most despondent, wondering whom to turn to for help, unsure of receiving it from anywhere, I recalled the man who wrote Human help I spurn with my foot. He who has been with me through hills and dales, through deserts and forests, will be with me, I hope; if not, some heroic soul would arise some time or other, far abler than myself, and carry it out. I learnt to not despair for human help and reconcile to the fact that either He would chart out my survival or decl! are and end to my tenure here.

When I started out an inconsequential career in the back of beyond, I sometimes wondered what I was doing, whether it was all that I was worth. Vivekanda told me Do not be afraid of small beginnings, great things come afterwards. Be courageous. I learnt not to despair at small beginnings and have the courage of great things to follow them.

When I faced flak, I remembered the monk writing to his boys: Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven but stand up and work! He almost read my mind and explained in his fiery fashion: the names of those who will wish to injure us will be legion. But is not that the surest sign of our having the truth? The more I have been opposed, the more my energy has always found expression. And I stood up and worked, irrespective of the disapproval of puppies and the heavens alike. And learnt to no longer cringe at those wishing to injure. And lived to tell the tale so far!

When I faced slander and innuendo, my first reactions were hypersensitive. I itched to get even. Then I went back to the monk who was not spared when in the US by critics questioning his way of life there. And his response: Tell my friends that a uniform silence is all my answer to my detractors. If I give them tit for tat, it would bring me down to a level with them. Tell them that truth will take care of itself I learnt to not respond and to believe that facts would take care of themselves.

When I wistfully looked at the twenties go by in 12-hour work days and struggle and little else, when I looked around and wondered why I had neither money nor fame and whether my nonconformity was worth anything, Vivekananda told me to wait. Wait, he said, wait, money does not pay, nor name; fame does not pay, nor learning. It is love that pays; it is character that cleaves its way through adamantine walls of difficulties. I looked back ! at the w orst points of my life, saw for myself whether I lasted through them because I kept the backbone straight or because I had clout or cash, got my answer, and told myself not to forget it thence.

When the instinct to do earth-shattering things egged me on, only to be killed with one look at my dismal bank balance, I asked him for answers, and he told me: Was it ever in the history of the world that any great work was done by the rich? It is the heart and the brain that do it ever and not the purse. I stopped assuming that I was incapable of great work if my purse was empty.

It has now been many years of long hours and busy schedules, and sometimes one wants to simply be quiet and put thoughts into words, but time is scarce in the pursuit of the daily bread. But then one recalls the monk, even in his situation in life, writing to Sister Nivedita: I was born for the life of a scholar retired, quiet, poring over my books. But the mother dispenses otherwise yet that tendency is there. And for a moment my master and me are kindred spirits, joined in a thought across a century.

And as I chart the journey of what years I have lived, and what years who knows how many are left, every single time I face something that makes me falter, ponder, slow down, I go back to my gurumantra, words of Vivekananda that are etched in my mind from that day when I first read them as a 17-year old: This I have seen in life he who is over-cautious about himself falls into dangers at every step; he who is afraid of losing honour and respect, gets only disgrace; he who is always afraid of loss, always loses

When Vivekananda taught that to a 17-year-old, he gave him freedom from fear, he made him the ultimate teenaged rebel. Except that, unlike the tattoos, the piercings or the punk cuts, you never outgrow this rebel instinct.

You gifted me the ability to stay in my mind forever 17. Happy birthday, Naren!

------

[This is the unabridged version of a piece t! hat appe ars in print in this Sundays Speaking Tree; my inadequate tribute to Vivekananda, whose birth anniversary comes later this week]

The Triumph of Tyeb Mehta - Vadehras Delhi

Vadehras will mount a historic showing of canvasses, drawings and 2 sculptures by the late Tyeb Mehta, Indias finest contemporary artist on January 15th,2011 at Defence Colony. While the space at Defence Colony is somewhat small and cozy for such a mega showing, curated by Yashodhara Dalmia, there are two small works years apart that will call for great scrutiny. The first work is The Trussed Bull a cubist oil which defines the idea of fragmented dimensions in the hands of the metaphor driven Tyeb Mehta. Done as far back as 1956, this is a heady oil which places Tyeb as the artist whose quest was a sensibility that was shorn of artifice, but deeply grained in the fount of human experience. Tyebalso played with the idea of illusory space and painting in such a way to imply that something is there but in actuality we are just assuming that it is.

The Trussed Bull

Tyeb Mehta's work underwent several epiphanies following a year-long stay in New York on a Rockefeller Grant in 1968. His harshly textured impressionistic brushstrokes were transformed into a new painting mode with structured expanses of color and a conscious two-dimensionality focused more on line than contour.

"My encounter with minimalist art was a revelation. I had seen minimalist reproductions previously but I hadn't seen the works in the original. Had I not seen the original, I might have dismissed many of them as gimmicks just another tricky idea. But when I saw my first original [Barnett Newman] for example, I had such an incredible emotional response to it. The canvas had no image but the way the paint had been applied, the way the scale had been worked out the whole area proportioned. There was something about it which is inexpressible. Let's say there must have been a point of saturation in my work before I went to New York, ! which my confrontation with the contemporary art scene brought to the surface. I was open to new ideas. About the same time, I became interested in using pure color. Normally brush marks suggest areas of directions. I wanted to avoid all this to bring elements down to such a minimal level that the image alone would be sufficient to speak for itself.

The Dancing Figure

The Dancing Figure of 1997, is a brilliant work for its tonal segmentation of the canvas, it slowly begins to become less obtrusive as his style matures into a signature sampling of divisional frames. This particular painting is an important work for the artist who has himself mentioned that it pre-figures his obsession with themes of the Goddess. As he was grappling with depicting its formal and psychological elements, the work serves as a turning point in Mehta's oeuvre by illustrating a growing complexity in composition and facility of line which makes Mehta's works masterpieces of Indian Modernism. The buttercup yellow of the figure is rare and resonant. These two works apart in four decades, reflect the genius of Indias finest modernist, who created for himself. One of his first and most avid collectors was Times of Indias late Nandita Judge, nee Jain. And Times of India's Celebration (now owned by Masanari Fukuoka) will also be part of the show.

Desi Bollywood