March against media

Its was an event by the YES!+

March 1st 2009 was a historic day for youth of our nation. Where The March was organised

In Delhi, as more than 10,000 youth marched on Parliament street to stand up against corruption and terrorism along with likes of Prahalad Kakkar and Kiran Bedi supporting the cause.

One would imagine that such a news would be covered by all major media, its BIG news for sure. Well all major media like NDTV, CNN-IBN, TOI etc were present, and surprise surprise, none of the big channels and print names reported one word of it.

‘The March’ also happened just before the elections, and reporting such an event would definitely be a slap on the face for the government, which unfortunately got re-elected. A few days back I stumbled upon this interesting forward, which I suspected had some truth in it, especially after having a first and experience working with TOI.

* NOTE: the contents of the below article are of questionable origin, it may not fully true, it is used purely for the purpose of illustrating a point.

Who owns the media in India ?
Let us see the ownership of different media agencies.
NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan . Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist party of India . His wife and Brinda Karat are sisters.
India Today: which used to be the only national weekly which supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.
CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US.. The Church annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
Times group list: Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Stardust, Femina, Vijay Times, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more...
Times Group is owned by Bennett & Coleman. 'World Christian Council¢ does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church Melbourne.
Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collaboration with Times Group.
The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne , Switzerland .. N. Ram's wife is a Swiss national.
Indian Express: Divided into two groups. The Indian Express and new Indian Express (southern edition) ACTS Christian Ministries have major stake in the Indian Express and latter is still with the Indian counterpart.
The Statesman: It is controlled by Communist Party of India.
Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar.

Looks like we have a huge task ahead to reform our media.

Ephemeral Flower

Dear all,

As you can see, my blog has undergone a total makeover, its the same old me, just a new look.

I think all of us need to infuse some newness in life every once in a while, just like nature does, its ancient, but evergreen, ever vibrant and ever fresh. I hope to do the same with my writing, consequently have it trickling down in life as well, with an experience of a new life with every breadth, and in this case, with every word I type and every click.

Yours comments, criticism and feedback mean a lot to me. So keep them coming. Also tell me what you'd like to read and what you'd not.

Lots of love

Ephemeral Flower

Baby Eaglet

I posted this on my blog about two years ago, and its always been one of my favourites. I have always loved animals and birds, and this is one of my rare posts on them.

Black eyes with grey pupils, occasional blinking would reveal silvery eyelids.... it lay there, crouched, helpless, and frightened to death. After all the initial commotion and hushed 'oohs' and 'aahs', it lay forgotten, battered and unattended.
I wondered what all the noise was about as I climbed up the stairs of my hostel, and I saw instantly a sight that was hard to miss .
Because it was the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight. A magnificent eagle, lay at the corner of the balcony, for a moment I, froze and felt as helpless as the eagle.
"Ooh what happened"...Rims was as awestruck as I, we just stood and gasped at the sight. What do we do? What do we do? After a flurry of phone calls, finally Harsha comes from PFA(people for animals). By this time, we were fast friends with the eagle, Rims was playing Radio Mirchi songs to him, and we were in the process of baptising our friend.
"Its so clichéd",...said rims sounding disgusted, and wouldn't let me name him Angel.
Harsha spread his beautiful wings, and I was scared,
" he’s not had water for a couple of days, so has fainted of dehydration, he’s barely 20 days old"
"Ooh a baby eaglet!
"A baby eaglet...there's no such thing as baby eaglet".
We fed him water, and he was up in minutes. "Can he fly"
"sure, in about a month"!
"That long"?
"Yeah, coz it cant hunt yet"
"so its really a baby eaglet"
"i said there aint nothing known as......"
"Where are you going to take him?"
"Animal hospital"
"can we come visit him"
"we have about fifty birds, you wont recognise him"
Harsh then put eaglet in a shoe box...and I made one last desperate attempt ."Can I carry him"
"uh, no thanks".... and he was gone,
We named him Eaglet (and that’s not clichéd?)
Phone rings an hour later saying he's in the ICU and will be fine. Somehow the image of Eaglet in ICU on the ventilator and nurses fussing over him cracks me up. "You can visit Saturday’s and Sundays", which cracks me up further.
I don’t think I’ll visit him, One day when I look up at the sky, I wouldn’t be surprised to see my Angel...er...Eaglet soaring high watching over me. And who says I wont recognise him.

Beyond words

Here's the problem I face. I write for a living, and when this is all you do, day after day, any extra writing, starts feeling like a pain. In circumstances such as these I have realised one thing that makes every piece of writing memorable. The integrity in it. Writing for a newspaper, I pretty much don't have a choice on what to write. And over a period of time, writing starts feeling artificial, as if they are just a lifeless string of words, meant to be forgotten in a nano second. But writing can be alive, it can be vibrant, and it captures in them, the very essence of who you are.

So the best pieces of writing reflect your image like a mirror. By ‘your’ I don't mean the writes’s but every person who reads that it. The words start becoming a part of you, as though it was echoing your own thoughts. And for the writer, its a spiritual experience, like art, it manifests itself out of thin air and acquires a personality of its own. Then you read back your own words and go ‘I cant believe I wrote that!’.

But when you write for a living, these moments are so rare, that you almost fight for it...and then when you let go, it magically reappears. As vibrant, as alive as ever. Waiting to be written. In such times there is really no difference between the writer and the pen or keyboard in this case, as both are mere instruments, that allow higher experiences and knowledge to flow though them. In fact there is really no difference between the writer, the pen, the words and the reader.

Its not a problem anymore, so what if I write for a living, so what if i do this day after day. So what! Its all the same anyway. The writer, the pen, the words and the reader.

And as a writer its not what I write that counts. But the experience in itself. I don't write 'for a living', but I write 'living'.

Saluting the sun

I woke up with bright sunshine hitting my face, The first thing I do, is Surya namaskars. 20 minutes later, I lie down in shavasan, relishing the execise with every pore of my being. I recall how I grew to love these set of asanas, so much so, that I teach it to youth at the Art of living YES!+ workshop.

My first experience of Surya namaskars was when I did the Art of Living course as an 18 year old. Back then yoga sounded like an utterly outlandish concept, where people twisted themselves into weird positions, and then don’t know that to do.

But doing Surya namaskar was fun, as it was more like an exotic choreography. And surprisingly after 15 rounds in 10 minutes I felt amazingly exercised and energised. Its a set of these 12 yogasanas, that give complete exercise to you mind, body and spirit. Not only is it a great way to be in shape, but it gives complete rest to your body. Doing Surya namaskars's fast rounds makes you shed extra flab, and doing it slowly is very meditative and increases your stamina.The best part about it is that you do these asanas in co-ordination with your breadth, which very rejuvenating. It is best done facing the east in the morning and west in the evening, preferably with a light stomach and before the practice of pranayam and meditation.

There is a story that says that before the battle of Mahabharatha, the Pandava army along with Krishna used to practice 108 Surya namaskars before going for battle for courage and stamina.It is also said that Krishna is the 'Padmanabha', means, whose navel is the size of a lotus, in the navel resides the 'Solar plexus', which is a size of a pea in a human body, with regular practice of Surya namaskar, the pea can grow into the size of a lotus. The Solar plexus strengthens the intuition or 'the gut feeling' in a human being.

20 minutes of Yoga, about 30 rounds, at 6:30 am (not being a morning person at all, its the earliest I can manage, earlier than this and I'm sleep walking) when nature is in complete harmony, its a brilliant time to do Surya namaskars. For me its more like getting in tune with the nature, which carries forward for the rest of the day, keeping me calm and centred.
No doubts about it, its my mantra to keep super fit and super cool.

What made news

Have been inhumanly busy past one month, but have been dying to post about so many things. So I have compiled a list of things I loved, I might blog about them in detail sometime, but in the meanwhile, please check out the following on youtube/wiki/google etc. And plz post your comments/feedback on what you like, and maybe on my next post I can feature the best ones.

Summer
Mangoes: That's what I love about summers, like Bawa says, “All fruits are god’s experiments to make mango gone wrong

Sugarcane juice and tender coconut (both happen to be sugar less)

Elections

BJP, Advani, thumbs up, commis, congs, third fronts especially Mayawati thumbs down, huge threat of mass migration abroad looms if Mayawati wins

Theatre
Bikhre Bimb, Doordarshan meets Alfred Hitchcock. Worth a watch.

Places
Bangalore: Is the metro rail project ever gonna end? are we gonna be alive to see the day when its finally built?
Hyderabad: Hot
Chennai: Hot and sweaty (worse!)

Food

Ragoo’s at KR road, the epitome of delicious veg continental food.

Music

Madagascar: “I like to move it, move it” (though its a lil old now)

Documentary
What the bleep do u know, watched it again, made an amazing lot of sense this time.

Geek stuff
Dear Macbook, Why do u have to start peeling off. Is this Apple’s commercial strategy to force people buy the macbook warranty pac costing 300$.
ipod: Is there an easy way to convert stuff into itunes format?

(fine, I admit it, I mentioned ipod only so that I could put this pic!)
Fashion

Naomi Campbell at India Fashion week wearing Saree. It takes a foreigner to tell Indians, “hello people, its fashionable to wear your culture.”

Books
Eragon: Does anyone know when the fourth inheritance book is gonna be out?
Twilight: Yet to read the fourth sequel, like the first two books, Twilight and New Moon, Eclipse was a washout, might as well finish reading the series with Breaking Dawn.

(P S: Movie sucks!)

Ponniyin Selvan: First flood, must read Tamil lit by Kalki (you get English translation too)

Google

SEKEM

Emoto Masaru- Messages from Water

My articles

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/Mar232009/metromon20090322125661.asp

http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Apr212009/metro-tue20090420131356.asp

Thats enough for now, enjoy maadi!

Dreams come true

Alladin and the magic lamp.

I always loved Genies...it began with Alladin. Then came the classic ‘I dream of Jennie’, an English soap opera dubbed in Hindi, where a NASA space scientist stumbles into a blond Genie, and falls in love with her. Then came Christina Aguilera's ‘Genie in a bottle’...which almost qualified as a teen pop anthem in 1999.

But nothing beat ‘Alladin’, and the song ‘A whole new world’. I remember, buying Alladin stickers as a 10 year old and sticking it all over mom’s new almirah, and she spent hours cleaning it later. It was one of my favourite movies till date, and I spoiled the music tape, by playing it a million times, till I could sing all the songs backwards.

At some point or the other we’ve all been Genies to someone, and it occurred to me that Genies always seem to have more fun, even though they have restricted freedom. A Genie never wants anything for himself/herself, and never runs behind treasures, but still serves unconditionally.

And a Genie is crazy, unpredictable, funny apart from being everyone’s dream come true. So more than having a Genie, its pretty awesome to be one. Its not always easy, but worth it. Check out the song and especially the lyrics.

Here are the lyrics of 'A whole new world', do catch its video on Youtube

I can show you the world Shining, shimmering, splendid

Tell me, princess, now when did

You last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes

Take you wonder by wonder

Over, sideways and under

On a magic carpet ride

A whole new world

A new fantastic point of view

No one to tell us no

Or where to go

Or say we're only dreaming

A whole new world

A dazzling place I never knew

But when I'm way up here

It's crystal clear

That now I'm in a whole new world with you

Unbelievable sights

Indescribable feeling

Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling

Through an endless diamond sky

A whole new world

Don't you dare close your eyes

A hundred thousand things to see

Hold your breath - it gets better

I'm like a shooting star

I've come so far

I can't go back to where I used to be

A whole new world

Every turn a surprise

With new horizons to pursue

Every moment red-letter

I'll chase them anywhere

There's time to spare

Let me share this whole new world with you

A whole new world

That's where we'll be

A thrilling chase

A wondrous place

For you and me