Window Shopping Online

Window shopping is one common colorful thread that ties human being across the cultures. The internet has made this pleasurable experience even more fun.

What is that one odd stuff that you looked up recently at the eBay or another online shopping portal? Something that you searched for, with absolutely no intention to make a purchase.

I request you to share your experience via a blogpost and let the fun flow though the blogosphere! If you decide to make the post then please link your post to this one.

The queerest thing that I had searched at the eBay store happens to my spookiest one too. I looked for a “haunted mirror”, not for buying though but to verify if such items were offered for sale.

One variety available are “black glass mirrors” that witches use for ritualistic spell or scrying. With the correct incantation these mirror would be the medium to connect with the dead or the Satan himself....at-least, so they claim!

I was looking for another variety of haunted mirrors which unfortunately nobody was selling on that particular day. Those are the mirrors that has association with spirits, mostly evil. We have heard of many peculiar experiences that people had while looking at the mirror.

A woman once gazed at one such mirror and saw her corpse. 
There was another mirror that freaked out a woman who stood in front. 
Believe it or not, her reflection would move despite her standing still. 
Many people has seen eyes in the mirror and those eyes didn’t belong to them. Sometimes the eyes look directly at the soul and sometimes it appears they cannot see. 
I once read of a woman who saw the face of an ugly old man staring back at her and was haunted for more than a year.

One theory is that something awful happened in front of the mirrors and the negative energy got absorbed in those mirrors. Some researchers think that the spirits try to torment people as causing distress releases emotional energies from us and they feed on this.

I am not sure, I would be willing to hang one of those in our bedroom!

Newspapers – When going gets tough

During our school days internet did not exist in the form that we know it today. Newspapers and Radio was the only two source of news and views in addition to Chinese whispers. While the radio was predominantly the governments’ mouthpiece, newspapers were free to side either with the party in power or the opposition. Most of us kept a tab on both the perspectives. A breath of fresh air was however the programs aired by BBC and VOA.

Newspapers had the freedom of opinions, although it wasn’t free of costs for the readers. For the price paid the papers were a great source of inspiration for the English language proficiency, writing style and trove of new words.

As we approached the new millennium, the internet gained in popularity forcing the newspapers to go online. The digital version was an additional feature while to the printed version was their mainstay. It was a welcome move as they had their eye fixated on a slice of the online advertising pie while the printed ones remained unchanged. Unfortunately for them, the good times did not last as sales of printed version dwindled.

We then inadvertently ushered in an era of instant news as readers took over the responsibilities for breaking as well as distributing all types of news over the social media. The consumers got lost in the labyrinth of fake news, breaking news and news that are utterly stupid.

Majority of the erstwhile readers went on to devour the analysis that came via WhatsApp and based on those formed their opinions on issues ranging from current affairs to world history. The editorials and feature articles that we grew up reading lost its importance to a great extent.

The newspapers that were not state sponsored propaganda outlet or a tabloid feared extinction. One major newspaper dared to challenge the status quo in 2002 by instituting a paywall. By doing that the Financial Times made a reversal of fortune.

The FT had faith in their high-quality work and made the audacious decision to charge the consumer who valued quality of contents and recently crossed a million paying subscribers. The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and many more followed suit.

Now my question to you is should newspapers charge for content online?

A poll in the US indicated that 86% of the participants are against it. Paying for news might be a new concept for the population growing up in the era of free internet, but for us who has subscribed to printed newspapers ever since it’s a different view point.

The Legend Never Dies

The world, today is a different place. An era without IM Pei, the internationally recognized and one of the most celebrated architect of our times has begun. He died on Thursday May 16th at the age of 102.

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in Canton (now Guangzhou) on April 26, 1917 to Tsuyee Pei, one of China’s leading bankers and moved to Hong Kong when he was an infant. He recalled that as child of 9, he was fascinated by the construction and knew he wanted to build. At the age of 17, Pei moved to the US of America and in 1940, he was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from MIT.

Tributes have been pouring in from all over the world, remembering him for a lifetime of designing iconic structures worldwide. In his career stretching more than 70 years, he have amassed an impressive portfolio and the iconic glass pyramid of the louvre in Paris is the poster boy of his legacy.

My favorite masterpiece of this great Master is the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar which was completed in 2008. At the ripe age of 91, he came back from his retirement and delved in to history of Islamic Architecture to create one of his most famous cultural landmarks.

A masterpiece positioned on a man-made island and covering a vast area of 45,000 m2. We have been fortunate to spend hours in this vastness and experience the simplicity in the grandeur of the Museum of Islamic Arts. A realization of the magic that simple forms could create when stacked together in the right proportion. The interior spaces and the landscape compliments the Architecture to leave behind his legacy that will continue to inspire generations.

There are plenty of photos of the museum available throughout the internet, I leave a few of my own as well. I also share a video of MIA Park that my daughter had made a few years back.

Let’s Save Our Kids - together

A picture is worth a thousand words and hence I let them do the talking. I trust these two visuals will  highlight the human face of a global crisis created by today's Social (read evil) Medias.

"Instagram extended its sympathies to the teenager’s family, and said the company had a responsibility to make its users feel safe and supported."

Remind yourself that you were not “self-born”! You have been brought into this world with lots of love. You do not have to seek others’ approval to boost your self-esteem, seek inner peace instead. 

Go surround yourself with the best people you can find live life to the fullest. A few points to ponder..........

• Will the Social Media corporations do anything?
• Are our children & youth safe?
• Who shall coach the vulnerable?

Rethink your Weekend

You only live twice they say, once before the dream vacation and once afterwards! Who wouldn’t love to take one, but it remains unfulfilled for most and the culprit are the obvious ones - some times its lack of time or money, while most of the times its both. What they endure is continuation instead of a vacation let alone the dream one. 

With a different thinking and right approach, we might succeed in circumventing both the obstacles and reap all the benefits that comes from a vacation. 

• Improve mental power by healing
• Improve productivity & focus
• Rejuvenate body & mind
• Improve physical health
• Improve relationship with people & work
• Improve sleep quality
• Strike the right work-life balance

Research has shown that vacation is an antidote to chronic stress that builds within us slowly and destroys our body’s ability to protect itself. There are no reasons why we shouldn’t reap the rewards that a successful holiday has to offer utilising the opportunities available at hand.

We can gain the advantages of a vacation through invocation of the “placebo effect”! the remarkable phenomenon that harnesses the power of human brain to cure our body. It may be a form of deceit but that’s how powerful human brain is.

The beneficial effect comes from the expectations concerning the vacation rather than the vacation itself.

Another tool that can be used complementary or independently to achieve the effect is “self-talk”. We can self-talk to our brain and program it to align with the above but the obvious perquisite for success being our willingness to self-listen. Self-listening is also known as self-awareness.

The concept I am advocating is to use these two tools to make our minds rethink weekends as mini vacation. Not every weekend but the one we would simulate to be a vacation.

We shall plan weeks in advance, book a hotel for stay-cation and gradually built up the tempo. Once the vacation start there will be no limit to the indulgence as we will be waking up late, spend time at the pool, have late morning brunch, visit a local attraction we have been postponing, go for shopping and the whole nine yards.

After the weekend we shall return home, having enjoyed a well-deserved vacation albeit mini, fully rejuvenated nevertheless with plenty of photos in our camera and memories in our minds!

Everyone need a vacation once in a while and everyone can settle for one!

And some adjusted their sails – episode three

Western Union

This story starts in the year 1851 with the formation of a financial and Communication Company by a group of businessmen, notable among them Hiram Siley named “The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company”.

During the first five years of existence, the company went aggressively acquiring other competitors. On 8 April 1856, the name of the company was changed to “The Western Union Telegraph Company” to signify the union of “Western” telegraph lines under one system.

During the American civil war Hiram Siley took the challenge to connect the 2000 miles of telegraph lines to the far west. He succeeded in accomplishing a task that president Abraham Lincoln termed as “next to impossible”. By 1884, they had monopoly across the nation.

As other methods of telecommunications gained popularity over telegraphy, Western Union diversified its operation. It managed to retain the position of market leader during the 1960s and ‘70s with the Telex and TWX systems.

Later in the century, the advent of high-speed digital data transmission and modern fax machines supplanted some of the company’s most important services, notably telegrams, TWX, and Telex. In the face of these rapid technological changes, Western Union Telegraph Co. was reorganized as “Western Union Corp” in 1988 to handle money transfer and related services.

As the telegrams sent dropped to 20,000 a year, the telegraph services for Western Union ended in February 2006 after 155 years of continuous service. iTelegram, bought this business and continues to provide telegram, mail-gram and telex service to 49 countries (as of March 2019).

Western Union Corporation continue to be in the list of Fortune 500 companies with around 11,500 employees.  With more than 515,000 agent location in 200 countries, their revenue is over $4 billion. Western Union allow anyone with sufficient identification to send money around the world almost instantaneously.

Is this not a spectacular story of continuous innovating and evolving?

Go reclaim your readers says Ruski

Wikipedia

Ruskin Bond said in an interview, “India could soon be facing a predicament of having more writers than readers”.

The use of “Predicament” tells us the Padma Bhushan awardee foresees a difficult, unpleasant or embarrassing situation for the publishing industry which may impact the book sales. Watching him talk would have provided the opportunity to factor in his tonality along with the non-verbal cues to make a comprehensive sense of what the iconic writer meant when he said what he said.

This post is not so much about agreeing or disagreeing with his statement, as it is about my interpretation of the “Why” and “What” of the entire interview. Being the grand old man of Indian literature, he is at a vantage point to review the Indian literary scenario and hence not many will share the same perspective.

As hinted, I will not consider this comment in isolation but review it in conjunction with others from the same interview. He also stated "Publishing has come of age and more and more writers are making a good living out of it... But, I think with so many people writing now, there is a danger of having more writers than readers."

It is a legitimate concern directed towards the publishing houses with a clear advice that if they do not take the responsibility for quality of books they publish, they are at the danger of losing out on the readers. Do not just let anyone be a writer just because publishing is easy, do it based on the literary merits of the writers. 

Go reclaim your readers is the message!

I am not implying that Indian writers should not get the opportunity to publish their works but promote only those who meets the criteria.

There is a phenomenon in Bollywood where a super-duper hit movie is turned into a multi-million dollar franchise business. Every now and then, a complete nonsensical movie makes it big at the box office and we see them churning out even more nonsensical versions of the same. I wouldn’t care much if movie lovers knowingly sacrifice their valuable time watching those or a few young directors try to replicate such successes. All who think they can fly their cars or jump over a few blocks of buildings - Good luck to them!

However, the implications are radically different when writers with poor literary skills churn out one lousy novel after the other. This has negative impact on the society from every perspective. If someone get inspired by works, they have selected the wrong example and if they try to emulate their success… it is a bigger disaster!

It is Lose-Lose Situation for everyone.

I am not the only lone who resents this, there many more who share the feeling. I suggest that you follow this link to “Quora”, to review their reaction to the question “Why are novels by bestselling Indian authors so horrible?”

You will be amazed!

I am quite certain the same question arose in the mind of Mr. Bond many a times which lead to his advice, "Confidence in the language is a must. You should have something to say and be able to research on it well. Clarity is key."

The publishing house should take the responsibility to uphold the quality and look beyond earnings. If this is not checked now, we will be mere spectators as the reading habits of younger generations spiral southwards to oblivion.

…….and then there will be no readers!