Google Maps - Huge Thanks

Until I got to Bangalore, I'd hardly used GPS. Once here, I found myself hooked...In fact I was fully dependent on it. I needed it to get from anywhere to anywhere, starting from day one when we drove into Bangalore and had to find our own house. Day two when I needed to find my office, and then just on and on..... until even yesterday when I went to 'Raintree' with Vijji aunty.

It's amazing how much I've used it. So many places I'd drive off to at all times of day or night, just on the assurance of the GPS. Coming to think of it, it's been the same phone, same GPS, all of three years. If I'm dealing with a lot of closures here, guess this is yet another.

And what I love about Google Maps is that it's so sweet and patient...never critical...... you take a wrong turn, and it won't tell....... it'll gently reset itself to still get you to your destination in the best possible way.

It tells you your options, tells you when traffic is bad, tells you how much longer.......it always gives you the choice.

Sure there have been times it has let me down. I remember this one time, it was late at night, I'd dropped a friend off at some distant place and for some weird reason my GPS went nuts. It actually took me in circles, big enough circles for me to not even have realized it until the third time, by which time I was close to tears....... looking at it from here it seems funny, but at that point it was anything but.

It might have done that a few times, but then am I going to be looking at that occasional time when it went wrong, or all those times it did right. Lesson there :)

Once back in Hyd I don't see myself using it at all........ but for having used it so extensively during my stay in Bangalore, I'm right now so full gratitude and thanks.

Crossing the awareness threshold

From Seth

Crossing the awareness threshold

The blockchain, game theory, float tanks, turmeric, Justin Trudeau, Joi Ito, dal fry, thermite, the Corbomite Maneuver... these are all notions (people, ideas, technologies, foods) that you may or may not be aware of or have engaged with.

There's a path: 

Unaware
Aware
Categorized
Have an opinion
Experienced
Have a new opinion
Have shared that opinion and are thus locked in

It's pretty clear that most the world is unaware of you and your work.

Once someone becomes aware of it, they'll probably leave it at that. "Oh." Because we're busy. And afraid of the new, because it often causes us to change our minds, which is frightening and difficult.

But sometimes, the culture or our work gives us no choice but to engage. We begin by putting this new thing into a category, so we know what to do with it, how to store the concept. Often, that's immediately followed by forming an opinion.

It's a huge leap, then, to go from, "Yuck, they make protein bars out of crickets," to, "I am going to try one."

After an experience, it's possible for a new opinion to be formed. But we like to be right, so that first opinion often sticks around.

And finally, seven steps in, it's possible that the word will spread, that awareness will be shared, that we'll tell someone else. And so the awareness barrier is crossed again, and the idea spreads, and opinions are truly locked in.

Some of these stages happen in clumps. Sometimes they take months or years to occur. How much time passed between the day you became aware that hockey was a spectator sport and the first time you went to a game?

We benefit when we're aware of how our idea will work its way through all seven stages, and cognizant that the process is different depending on the category, the culture and the people we're engaging with. Do it on purpose.

The Sculptor

This is a little story I came across the other day:

A gentleman saw a sculptor busy sculpting an idol of a deity, near a temple under construction.  And he notices a similar idol nearby. Close by he sees one pedestal on which the deity would sit. He curiously asked.."Why are you making two idols, I see only one pedestal" 

The sculptor said "I need only one, but the first one got damaged when I was just completing it" 

The gentleman went around the finished idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol," said the sculptor, still busy with his work.

"Are you going to install the idol on that twenty foot high pedestal?" inquired the tourist. "Yes" said the sculptor. "What, at such a height, who would ever know there is a scratch" exclaimed the gentleman.

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the tourist, smiled and said "I will"

A moral that's nice to hear ......'excellence' is a drive from the inside, not the outside.

Angana, at Raintree

This was another Vijji kind of outing. A group of her friends were having a Chettinad saree sale. 

The story behind the sale is what really caught my attention. These ladies, as a group are funding the education of fifteen underprivileged girls, through their higher education, with a couple of students who are even studying medicine. The money for the purpose is raised through a sale of Chettinad sarees once a year. All these ladies are from Chettinad you see.

Another factor that had me piqued was that this group had gotten to know each other as followers of Nityananda. They were like his core group years back when he'd just started, and I've heard of some brilliant stories from then. And while there have been disruptions there, they still swear by him and say that he is their guru. That can be a whole different conversation I guess. Prabha, reserving time with you for this next time.

That's them, and not to miss all of them draped in such pretty chettinad sarees. We of course bought too :)

A picture of the room, it was nicely done but I couldn't get a better picture

The address itself was a story. The sale was being held at Raintree, and vijji aunty made it sound like anybody in Bangalore would know the what and where of Raintree. We get till Sankey Road and then find that no one there has heard of Raintree. 

So we get on GPS, and I'm following directions, and at one point it says you are at your destination. I saw nothing. I had Windsor Manor on my right and a big tall wall on my left. And I couldn't believe my gps could do this. A couple calls later we realize that this is a house opposite Windsor Manor that actually uses that private bridge across the road. It was a wow experience even driving across it. Not because it's Windsor Manor, but because that bridge for some reason is etched in memory from a silent movie from long ago 'pushpaka vimanam'. Strange associations.

I was concerned about parking space, and this was the ground of the house

The house itself was stunning... a relic of old Bangalore... simply beautiful 

The Angana group....as I said that day, there's a great energy in that room....in essence, in your group. Good luck and keep the wonderful work going !!!

Inshallah, I'll be back next year, even to be that miniscule part of your initiative...and ofcourse for more chettinad sarees :)

Walking in Kasturi Nagar

My option for a walk was to either walk within the apartment complex, which is also nice and wide, or to move out and explore the colony.

I thought I'd try the colony ( spoilt by lalbagh I guess.....can't imagine myself going round and round a building :)

I realized out has it's issues too.....noise, smoke, traffic....but as I did it a few days, I started to find ways to work around those issues and have started to quite like it. Works well for my one month jaunt for sure.

The experience in pictures:

That's Dilip, my second day discovery. Ten days in and I now know he's from Jolarpet, his brother and he do it together, he plans to have a website, and that he has learnt the recipes from an ayurvedic guru in his village. He has three kinds of combinations each day. The ones I know...amla and curry leaves, chicory leaves, mixed sprout juice or beetroot and honey. Very interesting, I'm now hooked to ending my walk with a beetroot and honey juice.

That's misty...a beautiful golden retriever. She's so friendly and so mellow, she doesn't even need a leash.....and I really like how comfortable she is with the street dogs too

That's Misty's owner...misty doesn't like walking at all, and as you can see, she'll just sit wherever, and then he has to coax her into walking again

That's for my bougainvillea fondness

A lot of Bangalore's parks now have this work out equipment, with free access to public, and it's really popular.

A sight that caught our attention ( Amit has started walking with me when he can, and he's a restaurateur and a hard core foodie to boot :) . It's food being cooked in an empty plot, for free distribution at the masjid, it's apparently done each Friday

That's another doggy on the way, Bruno....as you can see, very handsome, but more curious and ferocious

That's one of my chosen walking streets...wide and green

That's Tommy, the erneelu (coconut water) seller's dog...very friendly....I love how he plays with the kids as they get ready for school

These are over the last ten days I've been here....enough to make a walk interesting, right!

Bengaluru Santhe

The Bengaluru Santhe is this lovely initiative by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation. An innovative use of the space beneath the metro line to provide market space for rural artisans and craftsmen. And occasionally there are other similar traditional exhibitions too, and one such that we went to was a women's entrepreneurship weekend.

They have two such locations in the city. One at MG Road and one at Old Madras Road.

Totally alongside the metro line. That's vijji aunty who very sweetly posed for me

That's her with Usha, and that's Usha's stall... Divya Angara. She's the reason we even went, she rented a stall there and she has some exclusive hand picked traditional sarees. Yes, I ended up buying too...hard to resist the ethnic ones :)

Congratulations on the stall Usha..and I really hope you continue to keep it. 

A small quadrangle in between

That's Manasa, she was so cute, and so full of life...and had pretty bandini sarees too.  She'd come all the way from kutch for this event, and by herself too. Quite gutsy I thought..... I was totally impressed. To the question of how it all adds up, as we didn't see much of a crowd and she'd come all the way just for these two days, she said she'd started on her own just an year back, and she's still figuring her way around. Wishing her luck...and I very generously invited her to Hyderabad for Shilparamam :)

Loved the old domed masjid in the backdrop

Ended the evening with some nice coffee and (not so nice) artikai bhajjis. It was a nice evening out...thanks Usha and Vijji :)

Musings .....What's a Stop Gap

What's a stop gap? By common parlance, guess it's spaces in between, a temporary arrangement kinds.

Why the thought?

It's because I'm currently in what can conventionally be called 'stop gap'. I've moved from Bangalore back to Hyd....yet, I'm currently back in Bangalore, for a month to complete my course. And considering my home's shifted (for logistical reasons), I'm in alternate accommodation for the month.

    A tree outside my present balcony

   A closer look....how pretty is that thingy, be it the fruit or the seed

The first two days here felt very like stop gap. I found myself wondering...I'm out of my home....neither in Hyd, what on earth am I doing here.... in fact the word 'limbo' came to mind. And I actually found myself slipping into low space. (and this inspite of having my uncle, aunt and cousins in the same building, making the space so like home, and so comfortable and easy for me)  

That lasted about two days. And then I started to see things differently.....it was a choice, and a choice that had fit so well too.

And then the more abstract realization. This is the present. A present that's forever. How can that be stop gap.

The feeling I was experiencing was like being back in college days...in hostel. No house to run, no children needing looking after, no garden to be tended, no formal work, no grocery shopping, no managing people, no bills to be paid, no timings.........it was all about course work and then the best part.....I could do just what I wanted to.

It was just so liberating.

The perspective shifted. It went onto...I'll likely never have this kind of fully befikar space again....and from one end of the spectrum I went to the other. And it's been so much fun since.

Life's a lot about the lens you're viewing it from :)