Posts tagged ‘research’
IPL 2008, Team management, the Royal Treat
Team Management Win’s it all!
Being a true Mumbaite, there are only two things that I greedily crave for. One is Vada Pav and the other is the pulse racing game of Cricket.
About 7 weeks ago, I became a great fan of Mr. Lalit Modi who gifted all of us a fantastic product (though said to be ripped off from the Football leagues – Who cares?), the IPL – Indian Premiere League.
A product wherein you get the best from every nation.
It’s like having a Macintosh design (Beautifully packed) on a IBM machine (Brand sells) with windows OS (Love it or hate it… but you can’t ignore it – Everyone owns it)
The IPL brought in adrenaline rushing pulsating anticipation and anxiety to the young and senior players of Cricket as much as it did for the “dumb / struck” audience watching one of the best marketing practices sold right at their face.
And the best part is… the majority bought it and why wouldn’t we? It was a fantastic product with amazingly surprising ingredients, fresh recipe with a dash of rules being cooked in a cauldron of magical glamour.
It had it all and today at the DY Patil stadium at Navi Mumbai where the Underdogs finally did it and Rajasthan Royals bathed in pure glory.
They did it on the grandest stage of them all and with panache and flair. Raw overdue talent like Yusuf Pathan and Tanvir, fabulous findings like Asnodkar and pure all round skill like Shane Watson with the legend like backing and faith of Shane Warne, the match ended gloriously.
As the Chennai Super Kings skipper and his team gave a fabulous fight till the last ball was bowled, the Rajasthan Royals devoured the final ball for the ultimate prize of Glory and of course around 4.8 Crores Rupees.
But everyone loved it and the way the Royals had played it throughout, even the Chennai skipper wouldn’t have ‘minded it’ this time.
It was a great blow to all those who did not believe and kept saying with utmost faith that the underdogs will remain underdogs as they finally watched the most economical team biting the biggest chunk of them all, the biggest prize of them all the worlds most expensive Trophy – The IPL trophy.
More important than the combination of all sorts of skill levels was the beauty to see Muralidharan happy on Jayasurya’s wicket, Sachin rejoicing at Dhoni’s dismissal, Sourav hugging Shoaib and the Aussie Watson as glad with hitting Symond’s ball like never seen before, was that it brought in a lot of team spirit and a never give up attitude amongst all who played and to many who even just watched.
It was a great lesson from Shane Warne’s team that, it is not as important to have the best in the team as it is to give your best to the team.
I would like to end it with just a simple kudos for the legendary performance by the retired Skipper Shane Warne for his team management and to the whole Rajasthan Royals for the consistent performance by adding so much zest and energy to the spirit of the game.
Three cheers to the fact and power behind ‘Team Management’ and a Huge Hurray to Mr.Modi, Mr. Warne and the Rajasthan Royals.
IPL rocked!!!
Be well
Ananth V
Image Source: http://wikimedia.org
Offical Website: http://www.iplt20.com/index.html
Warli Art India: UK Art Council: A journey, for Art’s sake!
March 11th, 2008
Destination: Bapugoan, Dahanu Village, Maharashtra, India
Purpose: Being part of the Documentation shoot about the Warli art and one of its immense talent: Mr.Ramesh Hengadi.
About the Artist: Mr.Ramesh, will soon be reaching out to the world showcasing his skills and bringing India closer in the art front on the international map. He is from Dahanu, India and is a master craftsmen and artist.
His benign behavior and simplicity will take you off your feet when you see his artworks. He has done his MA and has been into Warli art since a very early age.
The Journey:
I left from home at 5:30 am heading towards Churchgate station where I was to meet Mr. Barney Hare Duke and Mr. Jeremy Theophilus and leave for Dahanu.
I touched the meeting place exactly at 6:50 am and the vehicle arrived with the curious and skilled duo Mr.Barney and Mr. Jeremy. They both are partners of “A FINE LINE” and are project managers at HAT.
This program was being also funded majorly by the Art council UK.
As I learnt more about their work and about their travel around the world, I found something very interesting. They both actually loved art to the core….And instantaneously I knew that the journey would not be long and would be very informative and a great learning experience.
As Mr. Jeremy explained to me about their study on varied cultures, different art forms, distinctly varied media, about the totally unique cultures that each country offered them and the new discoveries about customs, traditions, people that they acquired, made the journey very much interesting for me. Mr. Barney told me about their research plans, documentary shoot about the artists and the art form at Dahanu village.
I then also came to know that I was going to meet the artist Mr.Ramesh in about half an hour, as he had travelled more than half the way so as to direct us to his home.
As my cellular phone rang and Mr.Ramesh enquired about where we had reached, we finalized on one point of meet and then…. I met the talented to the core artist.
As he got into the vehicle and the questions about his village and art work kept barging, his soft spoken ways and smile eased the pace of questions from our side. We were closer to reaching the destination and as we looked around, we saw my country, India with its beautiful crude beauty. The sceneries around were breathtaking and very picturesque.
In a total of 2 ½ hours, we touched his home and were greeted by his mother with ‘Aarti & red Tilak’.
The whole place looked very neat, clean and was stunningly beautiful. The people there were living a very simple life with limited resources and means, but were living happily.
Why wouldn’t they be, one of their artist was being recognized for his work and was being interviewed and documented on, before he left for UK to showcase his talent.
We went inside his home, met his big and hospitable family and within half an hour or so we were out, for exploring his village, their culture, traditions, their way of life etc. We saw his school, as his brothers, friends and other villagers took us around the whole village. We saw how they grinded wheat, rice etc, and the way the kids were taught to greet the elders and anyone who was new to their homeland.
They explained to us of their faith in the god, “Vagobha” meaning ‘The Tiger’ whom they worshiped in idol and symbolic form. They took us to that temple that was built and has been maintained since generations.
We obviously found dust and mud all around us, but yet, the air was amazingly fresh and there was absolutely no pollution. So, in other words, I was having difficulty breathing the fresh air…. Hmmm…. Only pure oxygen to breathe. Being from the polluted side of the world, I had no idea how to take that in… but I managed and survived.
The village was amazingly clean which reminded me of the media coverage and other hoardings begging our city dwellers to keep the city clean. There were dustbins in the village and the garbage was properly disposed.
It reminded me of the ‘ruffles lays’ packet that was thrown out in the middle of the road by one of the Honda city owners kid while we were leaving in the vehicle for Dahanu today morning. So much for a civilized city, Huh!
As I came out of the horrible flashback, back to the clean and fresh village of Dahanu, Ramesh’s brothers and friends showed us few other houses and the art works and the style in which the house had been designed and coloured, amazed all of us. It was clean, neat, colourfull and had motifs and other different wall paintings on the in and outside of the house walls. They had kept God idols etc hanging from the ceiling, painted the invite to the wedding in the houses where marriages had taken place, the lamps and wedding turbans that were hanging on the nails on the wooden pillars of their houses. Even with so much humidity and heat, the inside of the houses were cool because of the cow dung plastered on their walls.
The massive support that the whole village showered on its talented son, Mr.Ramesh H was something that one could feel so much positively in the air with such strong and happy vibes that were hovering across the whole village.
We then feasted our eyes to the amazing Tarpa dance while the Head Tarpa player (who was easily in his seventies) played the amazing looking musical instrument and the other dancers, performers and singers showed us their skills and brought us closer to the village, people and their art forms. They danced, hopped, twisted and turned greeting us and sang songs of THE GAURI (the God and Goddess) and the harvesting of crops which were very important aspects of the village life.
Later on as we looked at the Warli art, it was very clear that the Tarpa dance, the Tarpa, the harvesting process of crops and the gods, idols, temples, their faith, religion and worship played a massively important role in their upbringing and were vividly seen in their Warli art.
We travelled across to majority of the places and areas learning about Warli art and were gifted to watch the young artists and the master of Warli art at work. As the master craftsmen Mr.Ramesh and the 10 year old Ashish with his friends and elder brothers Rajesh, Ramesh took small pieces of cloth dipped in their soil / mud and cow dung, which had dried up now to look like a great canvas place for their art to be etched or created, they slowly began the magic.
As we watched their undivided attention and focus on their art being converted to shapes, forms, figures we could see that they were actually creating the different dances and performances that we had just seen their today, few hours ago. It looked amazingly alive and breathtakingly beautiful. The flow and the rhythm of the art work were exquisite.
Throughout as Mr.Barney and Mr.Jeremy were shooting the whole thing and taking notes, I had a real blast as I could not only learn about the art of warli, but also meet such sweet, skilled and amazingly talented people and learn so much about my own culture of the village life in India.
By the end of the day after taking rounds of the places where the master artist usually works, where he gets his inspiration from, later on we also caught a glimpse at the various artworks created by his wife on cloth, t-shirts, Ramesh’s unique combination of using the gourd vegetable to be used as pots, moulds and create amazingly exquisite showpieces of Warli art on it, we headed back to the vehicle. Mr. Jeremy treated us to a nice lunch and we then headed back home.
The journey back home was very much different than the way it began.
There was so much curiosity and so many queries when we had started at the crack of dawn, but as we headed back home, I was filled with so much awe of the humbleness, simplicity of their lives and pure art that I could feel rushing inside my head. I rested in the comfortable and BIG Chevrolet and went back home with a day, that was fun, had a huge learning experience, meeting brilliant artists, great people, the partners of A FINE LINE who had shown so much respect and love for the art and Indian culture…..
(For pictures of this whole journey, click on the link below: http://ananthvclicks.wordpress.com)
The day had ended with the setting sun and I was grateful to a very good friend of mine, Mrs. Neela Shinde for introducing me to the brilliant researchers from UK, was Thankful to both, Jeremy and Barney for such a wonderful journey and humbled by the loving and talented villagers at Dahanu.
God bless art and artists for spreading so much life, culture, love, passion hope and dreams all around us.
Be well
Ananthanarayanan V
http://techdivine.cgsociety.org
http://www.art.in/artists/ananthanarayanan-v.htm
Even this will “PASS!” – no pun intended!
There was a total blackout. I could hear blaring sounds in my head. Voices, objects and people in scores, thumping and banging around with drums of steel making clanking noises so loud that it seemed my eardrums were to come apart.
Soon enough there was absolute silence as I dwelled into the beautiful home of ‘nidra’ meaning sleep, without a reason and without my own realization of it.
It was only after about another 10 minutes or so, that I regained consciousness. My severe attack of migraine had just passed me with a small objectionable visit that was impactful, but was thankfully not prolonged.
I left my workplace and was heading towards home as one of my workplace employee got me a rickshaw to get back home safely.
The drive was going to be lengthy so I rested in the luxurious and cramped vehicle.
Luxurious because anything and anyplace that let me just slide in now felt so comfortable and cramped as the ‘jhankar beats’ in the rick was in full swing all of a sudden that was clobbering my head.
I asked him to ‘Just shut it’, as he looked back with a not so contented face, he sure did. I was in no mood to explain why to him but damn, I just should have.
As the alacrity of that awesome machine and the not so positive feelings of the driver got together, the vehicle kept swirling across many bewildering lanes and pathways, I felt as if I was being taken for a ‘ride’ and I double checked to look at the roads.
He was heading in the right direction. I guess it was just my head that was still raging with the earlier impact then.
Soon enough the resentment and frustration of not allowing him to play the wild and horrible songs in his vehicle caught up with him and he was showing no signs of slowing down.
Bang….. Bam….. thrash!!!
Our awesome flying saucer was hit by a ‘lorry’ and the little vehicle rolled sideways.
Strangely and by god’s grace nothing happened to me as I came out of the vehicle with not even a scratch, except for my head that was now screaming with the rising agony called migraine.
The rickshaw-valla was hit roughly and I with few others took him out of the vehicle.
He was still able to stand as he looked at himself and then at me as if I was some alien.
I took him to the nearby traffic policeman who escorted him to the doctor as I left for the close to railway station.
I was in Sion station soon enough.
Now the effect of the collision and my now very active and boisterous headache was taking its toll on me. I was getting extremely exhausted and could not even descend the steps to reach to the platform. But it was me, so I eventually did.
I got in the first class compartment and just lied down inside. It was noon and it was quite empty.
I was woken up in a not so subtle fashion by someone who by looking at my face which was too weary by now probably thought I was drunk. It was the TC.
He asked me for my pass and as I reached my hand towards my pocket, I realized I had unknowingly donated my wallet apparently in the road accident. I explained to the TC but in vain as he asked me to get down and go to the place where the ticketless travelling classes of people are given due and generous attention by more than one TC.
All my explanation was futile but I told him of what had happened from the start of the day, he then looked a little bit more convinced. I was not in a position to talk as I sat down on the seat and it was just then that one of the sessions from my management class just hit me hard.
Brand sells.
I searched for my bag and showed him my student id that I had with me of one of the most elite institutions in India and the name just hit him hard. I guess, it is true, Brand does sell.
He mellowed down and asked me where I work and got few other details. He also asked me if I had any money to buy a ticket. I told him, my wallet was gone and had none.
He asked me to get down with him in the next station and believe it or not, he bought me a ticket for second class for my way back home and got me in the train compartment safe and sound.
That was a very positive experience I had that day.
Sure I have heard of gruesome stories about them, but that day, needless to say, I was impressed to see humanity still to be so much in existence. They too have too many cases of not so genuine reasons many a times I guess. Anyway, I was also glad that I was awake when the lecture was taught in the class saying, Brand sells!
As I continued my routine journey in the train from the next day, I met with the same TC by the end of that week again. It was the same TC in the compartment of the first class and I reminded him of the incident.
I gave him my fine that was due from the other day, took the receipt and for a change happily got out off the train.
It was never about the money I guess. It annoys people normally because of the way they treat you many a times.
But I guess, You give something good and you get something good in return.
I don’t know whether every person could deal things this way always like that TC did, the world would be so much a better place then and if they don’t, as the old saying goes….. Even this shall PASS! No pun intended.
Let me know your views and comments on the same as you always do:
Mail me at techdivine@gmail.com
Be well
Ananthanarayanan V
A ‘Desire’ to quote it just right!
A ‘desire’ to quote it, just right!
Last week’s questions and discussions on the current spiritual scenario: On youth, desire and spirituality:
“Desire is the root of all evil. Ancient wisdom says, stay away from desire”
Now this line caught my notice which said, Desire is the root of all evil.
Desire is never evil. What you desire and the approach in which you desire might lead you to evil. The issue was uncomplicated and yet had lot of depth in it as the master’s quote read: “I may always desire more than I accomplish – Michelangelo”
So, now the person, who had laid this query to us, perceptibly did it with an intention to set off something in me. Probably a nerve which was tickling my funny bone or may be a nerve that held my tolerance level high.
In any way, I thought of jotting this down by asking the same question to few others in the last 24 hours in the Q n A session on – current spiritual scenario: On youth, desire and spirituality.
An overall gist of people’s response was like this:
• Desire, if you do not, there is no need to live.
• If you desire more than you can, you will always be unhappy.
• If I do not desire, then nothing in life I deserve.
• Divine and spirituality is for old and retired people.
Ok. So there was a slight repairing or oiling required may be.
This is for all our youth out there today, saying ‘another day, another dime earned.’
First of all, desiring something is the whole basis and idea for survival.
Reason, the person who asked me the question had no job putting this personal question before me. But he desired to do more than his job profile demanded. So he asked.
I desired more, to know what people had to say, even though I am going to jot down at the end and express my views on the same, because I desired the need to bond and get in touch with all of them and get into their minds. And at the end still hold the power to speak and express….. hey, it is my blog!
On a more serious note, I did it to know and feel their pulse on the same.
So when we take a look at a term like desire, we see that desire is nothing but convincing. Convincing others or yourself. But this time, convincing that, there could be more to life. Convincing that this is how it has to be or not to be.
Desire is why a society stays alive. Desire is why we have grown beyond a religious or spiritual round table conference and are able to do this online today. Because someone desired to do more than there was.
Now coming back to the divine part, Desire is never bad.
The holy books have always shown us the technique to get what we yearn for. Being spiritual does not mean giving up on worldly pleasures. It means understanding what the earliest knowledge has left for us to learn and be paramount in whatever we ‘desire’.
I have been born into a very religious family. But luckily I never followed or obeyed the customs nor was I asked to. I chose to follow them by choice. I am not religious, but definitely spiritual. It helps me concentrate better than I can, which is fantastic.
Believe it or not, religious customs and traditions are what gives us more discipline and focus in life. People tend to take it in the wrong way.
A person who reads and is able to understand the books of such immense knowledge, can accomplish whatever he or she wants out of life.
You want to be rich, you want to be a superhero, you want to have a castle, you want to get a Ph.d.?
It’s all in there.
But, you take it and drink it as a whole. Do not try to take the gist of it. You cannot just smell your food and say whether it is perfect. You have to taste it and eat it properly to know.
I feel hilarious when people say, spirituality means giving away worldly desires or when I hear that these things are for those who are old. I feel sorry for both of them. Not because they do not believe in it.
Each of us has a choice to lead a life that we want to live, as we ‘desire’ (no pun intended).
I know that those people are already brilliant and talented enough to such an extent, that these disciplines if they acquire, each of them could have what they desire or seek out of life faster than they would.
And like one of my management lessons quoted: ‘A dime earned today, is more than a dime earned tomorrow’. So let us build our passion with the words of the wise and use it in our foray.
And mind me; it is also not something that is gained over just five to10 years. It’s an on-going process. It’s like having an MBA and applying that to work for 10 years to become the CEO instead of just doing it with a bachelor’s for over 20 years and ending up being a manager at 60.
At the end of it all, it’s each one’s choice and each one’s way of life. But it is always good to know, that there is something out there for us that can help us reach our goal faster than we desire.
So desire with spiritual knowledge or self-realization is great. Is victory. Is success. So let us desire and stay alive, kicking and winning. There are no regrets when you desire and dream.
So let us Desire, Dream and De-stress!
Happy reading.
———-
Ananthanarayanan V
techdivine@gmail.com
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