Shruti and Smriti are two wise sisters. Smriti or Memory comes to you while you are reading things. You remember her wise lines long after she’s gone. Shruti or Listening comes to you anytime, on the road, in a movie, while you travel. She tells you secret things brought from the Wells of the Wise. After you hear them, she smiles and sprinkles the dust of Forgetfulness. So all you remember is that you heard something somewhere which changed something in you. The tale I try to tell you here, is of the latter kind. It was told to me while I was sitting somewhere, with hypnotic drums playing in the backdrop. It was told to me by a stranger. I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t know if this is how it was told to me. But something of it (which I try to retell) stayed with me. Don’t miss the videos in the end of this blogpost.

Sort of facts:

It is a festive night as people start to gather in front of a small temple in Kannur, Kerala. The drums are beating fast and slow. The occasion is a ritualistic dance of Theyyam, or bhuta-in-human form, which comes to the coastal Malabar area of Kerala every year from January to April. There are more than 500 bhutas in the district, all can solve (or bring) a particular type of a problem, disease, dosha. These bhutas have been there since a long, long time. They are mentioned in the Mahabharata. They have lived in these places since times immemorial, since people had problems. We are waiting for the bhuta-of-the-night, Hem Vayanattu, to come and retell his story, like he does every year.

I sit in a makeshift greenroom outside the temple. This is where a man who is about 40 years of age is dressing up in elaborate costumes. He has bright vermillion lips and dramatic eyes drawn with black charcoal. His whole body is green with bright white light-like dots on his slightly protruding stomach. He’s a mere man right now, being dressed up by his father (who is 60ish) and his son (who is in his 20s). In a few moments from now, he will become a host to the Bhuta. When he’s ready, he will become a vehicle for Hem Wayanada. He will become a source through which the spirit can retell its story, reenter the world of the living and talk to the people. He knows it will happen and so readies himself. There’s excitement in the camp. There’s also nervousness. Mere men are never comfortable when a spirit from another world is about to enter their world. He wears the heavy headgear and swathes of colourful clothes in the sweaty balmy night. He’s in the theyyam-becoming business so knows that this is his moment—when he becomes god-like, from the mere man he is. He’s sweating and looks tense. He takes a sip from something that looks like toddy. I am assured it’s a kind of ginger tea.

		Theyyam at Kannur, Kerala VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The story retold:

An hour later, Hem Vayanattu comes. He hunches and sits down next to me. He spits. I turn to him and try to take a photo. He shakes his head. Listen, he whispers. His breath smells of toddy and his eyes glitter dangerously. I become a little wary. I have to be, being a female in today’s time. I smile hesitantly. He grins and begins.

A long, long time ago Hem used to be a mere man. He doesn’t remember when. All he remembers was that he lived in a village next to the Forbidden Forest, where no humans were allowed. Rumour was that the Forbidden Forests was the abode of Lord Shiva himself, who came there in the nights and made merry with his ganas, his hordes of bhuta and preta. Anyone who would go there would die. He never ventured close to the forest.

Then one day a sweet breeze from the Forbidden Forest ruffled his hair. A flame hit his heart. He became restless and angry and frustrated. He would catch himself walking to the end of the village everyday where the Forbidden Forest stood. He stood there for hours at the Edge, trying to peer inside the forests, to see what it was that made it forbidden. One night, as his family slept (did he tell you he had a family? A wife and two children) he stood up and left. He took a deep breath, and entered the Forbidden Forest. There was no trail to show him the way, since no one had entered the forests before. No human that is. He walked on. The forest thrummed with a rhythm. It grew dense and dark. So dark that even black kajal would shine like a lamp in there. He was scared, his heart thumped up and down rhythmically like a drumbeat from his stomach to the middle of his neck. The hair on his back and arms stood on attention, as if they were trying to guard him from evils around him. He knew that he was in danger. In those times, real tigers and poisonous snakes and other things roamed the forests. They weren’t afraid of people. They ruled the forests.  He walked and walked. He doesn’t really remember why.

Then he suddenly came across a clearing. Moonlight blinded his eyes as they became used to the light. He saw Lord Shiva dancing with his ganas. Bhutas, pretas, deformed creatures of the night were laughing, screeching, drinking and merry-making. But he wasn’t afraid. Lord Shiva turned to him, his eyes glittering. “Do you want to join us, Hem?” he asked kindly. Hem nodded, mesmerized. What else could he have said? So he became a Gana, a creature of the night. For a thousand years, he danced, drank and made merry. It was a happy time.

Then Lord Shiva left without saying a good-bye. The Ganas were devastated. Every night, they started to keep 108 pots of fresh toddy in earthen ware to call Lord Shiva back to the Forbidden Forests.

“Do anything but don’t drink from those pots, Hem,” warned a Gana as he was about to reach the pot, “They are a prasad for Lord Shiva.”

One thousand another years passed. Lord Shiva didn’t come. Every day, the ganas would keep those 108 pots of toddy reserved for him. Every night he wouldn’t come and the toddy would go waste. Meanwhile, the forest begin to change. It leaves turned yellow and brown spots appeared on its feet. It begun to die, being rhythmically cut by humans whose population was growing stronger. All the Ganas, except Hem, one by one left the Forests to go deeper into the lands of the Earth. But Hem didn’t leave. He sat in the clearing alone, under the moonlight, looking at the toddy that was going waste every night. He was so thirsty. He wanted a sip.

One night, as he sat alone in the forest, waiting for Lord Shiva, he felt so thirsty that he couldn’t resist. He wanted a drink, so he went and picked up a pot of toddy meant for Lord Shiva. Then he drank. He drank and drank till his sweat became stinky. He drank till his eyes dilated and he fell on the ground. He drank till his bloodstream and piss was full of toddy. That night, Lord Shiva came to the Forbidden Forest. He saw the empty pots and a dead-drunk Hem. He got angry and with a flash of thunder, tore out Hem’s eyes. For he had sinned and taken the toddy that belonged to Lord Shiva.

Blind and bleeding, Hem roared through the Forbidden Forest. He fell and tripped on branches. He was bitten by many insects. He couldn’t see. He was angry! What kind of a Lord is so wrathful that he cannot share a mere drink with his servants? As his anger softened, he felt remorse. He realised that he had done wrong. He prayed to Lord Shiva for forgiveness. He was after all a man, a spirit, not a god. He was prone to mistakes. A thousand years more he prayed and Lord Shiva came. He smiled and said:

“Hem Vayanattu (for that was the name of the Forbidden Forest), I will give you divine sight so you can see. Stay here and see what is Real. See into other men’s hearts and tell them what they want to know. Show them their deepest desires and fears and guide them.”

So Lord Shiva left and Hem Vayanattu was left behind to handhold the people living beyond the Forbidden Forests.

Hem lights up a beedi and smiles with his crooked teeth, “I am not a man or a god. I am just someone who has to do Lord Shiva’s work. I am just someone who crossed a line, twice and lived to tell the tale. And now I come here to guide my people. What do I know about choosing the right path? I just like to come here and drink toddy that is offered to me.”

His eyes are sharp. They hit my heart like daggers. His powdery lips bend like a bow into a frozen smile. He gets up, rubs off the dust and hollers. The audience shivers as the drums start to beat faster and faster. He dances and dances as the night falls darker and darker.

————————————————-

I am willing to bet that I have got this story wrong somehow, but then, I am a storyteller and forget and make up with other things. If Hem Vayanattu Kulavan Theyyam (or someone who knows his story) has a different tale to tell, I would love to listen.

Message across the e-ocean

The nerdiest romantic proposals of all time—any geeks out there who can top these this Valentine’s, do write in

In April, Aayush Jain, 27, an engineer, proposed to Ambika Bumb while dancing in a flash mob to Bhangra tunes at Pier 39, San Francisco, US. Called the “Bollywood-Bhangra Flash Mob Proposal”, the video of his proposal on YouTube had garnered 161,352 hits by Tuesday and has made the couple online stars. A delighted Bumb was surprised by the effort her boyfriend had put into the proposal. “He even involved my brother, sister and friends through a secret Facebook group, which made the whole thing 10 times better,” she said. What surprised the couple was the buzz it created online.

For a generation which lives on the Internet and BBMs on mobile phones, proposals with sunsets in the backdrop are passé. Take the example of Greg Rewis, who was the first one to tweet a marriage proposal to Stephanie Sullivan, in March 2008. All he did was put in four words, “Will you marry me”, as part of a conversation he was already having with Sullivan.. Her reply: “…I’d be happy to spend the rest of my geek life with you…”. Home-made videos, lolcats, iPhone apps, virtual reality games, Google Maps or Foursquare—people are finding tech tweaks to make their proposals stand out. Here are a few of our favourites.

Stream it live

What’s a happy event if none of your family members are there with you? Matt Van Horn, who works for a tech start-up called Path, appreciated the value of family and friends. So in August 2010 he used Qik, a live-streaming mobile service, to propose to his girlfriend, Lauren. He arranged for a friend to take his girlfriend to the top of a hill in San Francisco where he was hiding behind a rock. Yet another friend used his iPhone to live-stream the proposal through Qik. “It took me a week’s planning to do this. I added last-minute touches on the day of the proposal,” said Van Horn via email. Family and friends had been alerted half an hour earlier to keep a lookout on his Qik channel. As soon as he saw Lauren, he checked into the spot via Foursquare, which auto-updated his Qik, Twitter and Facebook accounts. “I knew Lauren received my tweets via text message on her phone,” he wrote on his blog, “so I asked her to turn around as I proposed!” Meanwhile, his girlfriend, who didn’t even know her boyfriend was in town, was delighted and surprised when she saw him pop up from behind the rock with a smaller but very important rock in his palm. They are now happily married. “I am extremely happy with the way it turned out. I love doing things for my wife, so there will be plenty more surprises for her in future,” he said in an email interview.

See it online

iDo

In 2009, Bryan Haggerty, 30, a San Francisco-based designer for Twitter, created an app to propose to his partner Jeannie Choe on her iPhone. “I design mobile apps for a living so I decided to take this way,” said Haggerty in an email interview. “I finally designed the app as a mobile Web app so that she would receive a text message from me with the link to launch it.” The app, called Romantech, displayed a map containing location points throughout San Francisco. Each point had a video in which Haggerty gave clues on where to go next. Eventually the two met at a point where all the location dots on the map connected to form the shape of a heart (<3) symbol which had a lot of sentimental value for the techie couple. “The app was one time only use, tailored specifically to one person,” Haggerty explained over email. For romantics, Choe said yes. The couple is now happily married, with a four-month-old daughter, Euna.

See it online

A new kind of bottle

A staunch believer in the idea of a message in a bottle, KC’s boyfriend John, a Web developer, created an online website to propose to KC in July 2006. The website (www.willyoumarrymekc.com) had an online quiz to check if the person who replied was the real KC. It took KC until June 2009 to reply and say “yes”. Why?

Because she had no idea the website existed. “I wanted to test out whether fate would bring my message to my girlfriend,” said John in an email interview, adding that the website was “a message in a bottle that I tossed into the vast ocean of the Internet”. From start to finish, the whole website, including the design, content and fine-tuning the questionnaire so that only KC could pass it, took two months. In those three years, he got 4,611 responses to his eProsal (as he chose to call it); of them, 1,851 took the quiz meant for KC (and failed). KC received an email in June 2009 which looked more like spam than real. Still, she decided to check it out and got the shock of her life. “Now I want to make a domain for willyoudivorcemekc.com but I don’t think my wife finds the joke funny,” John said over email.

See it online

Standing on the street

In 2008, Google employee Michael Weiss-Malik got an unusual chance to propose to his fiancée Leslie Moreno a second time after a rather humdrum proposal (though she said yes to that one too). “I did what any Silicon Valley geek would do: I decided to upgrade to “Proposal 2.0, a new improved online version,” he writes on his blog. When his company announced that the Google Street View vehicle would be outside his office at Mountain View, US, to record, he knew this was his chance. The Street View extension to Google Maps lets a viewer explore a place through 360-degree street-level imagery. As Googlers lined up along the street to appear in the Street View worldwide, Weiss-Malik was there holding a banner which said: “Proposal 2.0: Marry me Leslie”. The banner was recorded and can still be viewed on Google Maps if you see a Street View of the Mountain View Google office. “It was a fun random thing that’s part of the history of our relationship,” he said. If he had a chance to propose to her differently, he would go non-tech and “buy her a puppy”, he said in an email interview.

See it online

Light writing on the walls

In December 2009, Derick Childress sparkled his love for Emily on the buildings of Raleigh, North Carolina, US, with a light graffiti video of “Emily, will you marry me?” on the streets. The technique, known as Light Writing, moves a spotlight across a space while a DSLR camera is left open with a very, very slow shutter speed. The photograph that is captured shows a continuous streak of light in the final exposure. The shot in itself is not that unusual but was made so by the sheer size of the project. Childress decided to make a video of many such captures put together. To find the point where he could place his camera as well as write with his spotlight, he used Google Earth and approximated the view from high-rise buildings in his city. “Since none of the letters could fall on areas that were inaccessible by foot, the requirements for the vantage point were very specific,” he wrote on his blog.

It took him some days to find the right spot, a hotel which had a top-floor restaurant open to the public. Then he booked a room in the hotel, called up some friends and connected his camera to his MacBook Pro. Along with his friends, he went to the streets to mark spots where the spotlight should be moved so that the words could be captured by the camera. It took them three days in freezing rain to get the short video. He then took Emily out for a movie, took out his MacBookPro and showed her the video. “When the words ‘Emily, will you marry me?’ came up at the end, I was down on one knee with the ring in hand,” he said in an email.

See it online

Pointing with a map

Ari Gilder, a software engineer with Google, decided to set the myth that “women can’t read maps” to rest with his marriage proposal. In February 2011, he created a romantic scavenger hunt for his girl using the Google Maps mobile app. He constructed a personal route on the Google Maps using its MyMaps service. The map touched some destinations in New York City where they had shared experiences. “On the road to ‘The Big Question’, I wanted Faigy to visit places around New York City that were filled with memories of our relationship,” he writes on the official Googleblog where his story was carried first. Then he coordinated with Faigy’s manager to give her a Nexus One which came preloaded with a custom-made app he had built. The app would let her check in to each location and then prompt her for a password for the next location.

He had a friend stationed at each of the six locations marked on the map to give her a rose, take her picture and then give her a question. The answer to that question was the password. “When Faigy entered the password, the app would automatically initiate walking navigation to the next location,” he said in an email.

See it online

When you’re dealing with complex data, visualization tools can help you simplify it and, more importantly, spot key trends and gain new insights

Shweta Taneja

Sales figures, consumer behaviour and market research – the work we do often involves understanding and communicating a lot of complex information. To make good decisions, you need to be able to understand the data, and quickly. Visualization tools can simplify data, and make it easier to understand and spot key trends.

According to Deloitte’s “Tech Trends 2011: The Natural Convergence of Business and IT” report released in March, data-visualization tools were the fastest developing area in software last year.

Data in, graphic out: Visual representations of data are easier to understand.

“Data visualization compresses information quickly,” says S. Anand, 37, chief data scientist, Gramener, a Hyderabad-based data-visualization company. “For example, in a chart, a bar can give you a data set with its height, colour and thickness, so you have already compressed a table with three columns into one graph,” he explains. “A 40-page report can easily be converted into a single page of graphics.” By doing this, a large amount of data becomes easily accessible, and trends and highlights are easy to pick out, compared to a table of numbers.

“Data-visualization tools are typically designed to highlight relevant insights, rather than just present raw data as in a dashboard,” explains Stewart Langille, co-founder, Visual.ly, a new online visualization tool. Another useful aspect of viewing data as visuals is that you can highlight the information that’s really important and even get newer, completely unexpected insights into the data sets.

Like the idea? We list some of the most innovative online data-visualization tools:

Tableau Public

Website:www.tableausoftware.com/public

After you install the software, you enter the data either as a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access) or text file with tab spaces. The software reads the file to identify variables. Once you choose the relevant variables, it creates a visual chart of your data. The software automatically tries to give the right kind of chart, but you can also manually choose from options such as bar charts, histograms, scatter plots, bubble charts, pie charts, bullet graphs, maps and heat matrix, etc. Tableau charts can also be interactive, so viewers can rearrange the data to analyse it from different perspectives. The chart is saved on www.tableausoftware.com

The downside is that visualizations and data are public—anyone can download your work. To keep it private, and for added features such as more filters and representations, you could buy the Personal Edition for $999 (around Rs. 50,300), or the Professional Edition for $1,999.

Cost: Free to use, with paid editions starting at $999.

Many Eyes

Website:www-958.ibm.com

Many Eyes, launched in January 2007, is one of the first data-visualization tools, and was created by IBM Research.

You have to upload your data to the site, and can view it as a scatter plot, matrix chart, network diagram, bar chart, block histogram, bubble chart, graph, pie chart, treemap, and many other visualizations. The upload process is cumbersome, though—you can copy-paste, but only from a properly formatted text file, not a spreadsheet. It accepts a specific style of rows and column data. So even if you have a spreadsheet, you might need to edit it to make sure Many Eyes understands your data.

As with Tableau Public, whatever data you upload becomes public property, but unlike Tableau, there is no paid, private option.

Cost: Free to use

Spotfire Analytics

Website:spotfire.tibco.com

The software creates an interactive dashboard which shows your data and your company’s progress to you at a glance through 3D graphs. You can also use the dashboard to give your clients or investors a clear picture of exactly what they are investing in. All you need to do is drag and drop your Excel or CSV-formatted text files into Spotfire, and then start playing around with your data. The analysis can be shared or embedded on websites, blogs or social networks, and there is no download needed as it runs off the Web. A paid service, Spotfire keeps your data private.

Cost: Starts from $199 per month.

QlikView

Website:www.qlikview.com

QlikView is meant to find new business answers to problems through data analysis. The tool also offers comparative analysis of a product or person. QlikView also has versions for smartphones and tablets, and is well suited to use on touch screens.

Cost: QlikView Personal Edition software is free, but you can only use it to analyse data, not share your results. To share data, you need the enterprise version. Pricing varies, so contact www.qlikview.com

Visual.ly

Website:Visual.ly

A collection of infographics from various professionals in the industry, Visual.ly allows users to easily share charts and infographics. In March, the company plans to launch a free online tool to convert data into visuals—there is a small demo available on the website where you can convert your Twitter feed into an infographic about you.

The input data has to be in known data sets like Excel and CSV files. Users need to create a login for the tool, input their data and select from a choice of templates to customize.

Cost: Free. Paid packages are expected but have not yet been announced.

FusionCharts Suite

Website:www.fusioncharts.com

FusionCharts Suite is an Indian commercial visualization tool which can convert any database or Web script into Flash or HTML5 charts, gauges and maps. Creating the chart takes 15 minutes, and you can choose from over 90 types of charts. The visualization helps in analyses of data by giving trendlines, colour ranges and number scales. You can choose subsets, tips, export charts and do visual editing. Once you are ready, the chart is rendered and can be shared or embedded in a website. You can choose whether the chart is editable by others, and can use the software to create real-time charts that update automatically.

Cost: One-time purchase for commercial use starts at $1,299. For personal use, you can get a licence for $499. Also available as extensions for Flex (starting at $299), Dreamweaver (starting at $69) and VisualBasic 6 (starting at $99).

Crossposted from HT Mint

Internet is a life-savior for me. I cannot imagine not checking out my emails, blogs and videos that have refreshingly non-censored language and sometimes when I have time (and inclination), even porn. So I write to support the Black Out Day today. I write to support the action against a supposed ‘democracy’ trying to stuff of the biggest democracy in the world – the INTERNET! Stand together people, because we have to do this soon in our country as well if Kapil Sibal has his way. Here’s something to keep you smiling in grim times. I am embedding more because soon I might not be able to do it at all.

Protest against what’s happening in USA now by visiting www.internetcensorship.org and signing a petition meant to come from international users.

PS: Is that how activists happen? You are just sitting around doing your things and then something comes along that doesn’t let you do them. So you have no choice but to protest against it, no?

I have been toying with the idea of doing a blog on the phrase ‘Shame, shame Poppy shame’ something that is used quite freely around me, though no one knows where and how it originated. I heard it recently spoken by my mother, who rarely uses English words when in family, use this phrase for my 2-year-old nephew when he was happily running around in the buff. The term is usually used for 2-5 year olds and sung in a nursery rhyme format.

The complete rhyme is: Shame Shame Poppy (or Puppy) shame, all the donkey’s know your name.

I have rarely heard the latter, just the first four words. The phrase is a part of a list of ‘If you Grew up in India is the 90s’ you use this phrase.

According to  samosapedia it is “a light hearted remonstration for some, usually minor, social transgression or faux pas, a taboo flouted, a line of decency crossed…”

I am not completely sure about this definition. It’s more than light-hearted remonstration for one. The rhyme itself seems to have come from the British rule, but the Indians have associated it more with the idea of nakedness.

The phrase is happily used in Pakistan as well as shown by this blog by an American woman married to a Pakistani guy. She mentions how her in-laws say ‘Shame, shame’ everytime they see her child naked. It’s the same as Indian households.

Author Salman Rushdie uses this phrase in Shame based in Pakistan where he talks about the idea of ‘sharam’ which includes an element of society with the English word shame.  It has been interpreted as showcasing an example of an hangover of the idea of shame in post-colonial discourses.

So I have a feeling that the phrase is not as ‘light-hearted’ but rather associated with our culture’s idea of nakedness as being something shameful and which should be hidden. Of course it comes disguised in a sing-song, smiling sort of a way.

Since I am obsessed with graphs in recent weeks, I searched for the word ‘shame’ in Google Trends  which tracks the ‘average traffic of shame from India in all years’. I was surprised!

What’s so shameful about 2007 and 2011 that Indians used or searched for this word so much?? Makes one’s mind wonder. Check out the whole analysis of the word here which will also give you region wise search, etc.

Hiding deep-rooted hang-ups about sexuality and ‘sharam’ behind sing-song phrases reminds me of yet another phrase for today:

Eve teasing

The word which has become popular to casually talk about the pinching, winking, breast-staring that happens in this country, has its own Wikipedia page. Quoting the rather nicely done definition there:

“Considered a problem related to delinquency in youth,^[3] it is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places and catcalls to outright groping.^[4][5][6] Sometimes it is referred to with a coy suggestion of innocent fun, making it appear innocuous with no resulting liability on the part of the perpetrator.^[7] Many feminists and volunteer organizations have suggested that the expression be replaced by a more appropriate term. According to them, considering the semantic roots of the term in Indian English, Eve teasing refers to the temptress nature of Eve, placing responsibility on the woman as a tease.^[8][9]”

Apparently the word is very strong in Bangladesh as well if Google trends (I am obsessed!) has anything to go by.

“Eve teasing is a euphemism used in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan for public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men.” – thedailystar.net

In India-only search, the phrase seems to have gained popularity in middle 2011 when there was a protest against the very idea.

The phrase seems to have its origins in India in the 1960s. I found a very interesting citation of 1960s on the website Double Tongued.

1960 Times (London, England) (Apr. 22) “Protection For Indian Girl Students” (in Delhi, India) p. 9: One aspect of the problem of student indiscipline which is plaguing university authorities in India has been the bullying and harassment of girl students in the few coeducational institutions—a pastime so common that it has been given the name of “Eve-teasing.”…“Eve-teasing” is not, apparently, just the oafish high spirits or ill-will of a handful of male students but is rather a symptom of the strong resentment which many students feel against women in the universities.

1963 Selig S. Harrison Washington Post, Times Herald (D.C.) (Oct. 26) “The Sad State Of India’s Youth” p. A8: Police officials have been discovering that the collegiate enthusiasts who prowl streets in Indian cities are not content to watch the girls go by. Indian newspapers have carried accounts of police roundups in Srinagar, Dehra Dun and other centers for indecent advances at bus stands and traffic intersections.…Happy headline writers have dubbed the new offense “Eve-teasing.”

The quotes above are from international media. I couldn’t find references to the same in 1960s Indian media. It had to be a journalist to coin a catchy, casual phrase. I place my bets on it being a male journalist. The phrase emerges from the authorities/media/patriarchal society talking jokingly about male students jeering at their fellow female students.

Eve and Tease are two words created by a patriarchal society which has been in the habit of leading and objectifying their women. It’s the same society which feels that the woman’s body is impure, full of things they don’t understand and so women are not allowed in temples during periods. Their bodies are objects which when covered should be venerated and when uncovered is a source of shame. 

The phrase manages to have a relaxed attitude about things like rape and at the same time squarely puts the blame for teasing/distracting serious, studious university boys on their fellow female students. It also places the blame squarely on women for having the tempting bodies and temperaments (again patriarchal perspective). The problem which Indian women are facing even today with a Karnataka minister blaming women for being raped because they wear tight jeans.  

It’s interesting to see how new words take on the same old meanings. Only more insidious.

I would like to close this with a link to one of my favourite blogs, http://blog.blanknoise.org/. Read it, if you are any gender, to understand what the other side, the non-patriarchal, the women, feel about the word.

The policeman said, don’t blame us if women get raped if they are dressed provocatively. Karnataka Women and Child Welfare Minister C C Patil said women should know how to dress or presumably face the consequences.

And here’s what the media said. I have used about 20 articles generated in the media (in English press) to see the words we use when faced with such a blatantly provocative statement from those in authority. 

Interesting. I wonder if these words alone express even an iota of the rage I feel inside me.

My toothbrush,

It travels

When no one has their eyes open

Or are listlessly staring

At the slow moving

Ceiling fan.

When all are lost

In their own private

Heavens or sometimes hells.

That is when my toothbrush

Slings its bag

On its bristly shoulder

And sneaks away

Mutedly

Into the dark lanes

Of unknown names.

It never speaks of it

Where it went

Or what it did.

It never lies too,

It just smells.

Of beds slept in by strangers

And roses dipped in honey

Sweat dripping from armpits

Or a nose that is runny.

That is how I know.

That it sometimes goes

For when we touch

And make love

When its bristles tickle my teeth

Sometimes I smell

The dampness of the beach.

© 2011, Shweta Taneja

Pic credit: @Maf1967

Muses are like opportunities. They come knocking on your door at unexpected times. Sometimes you have been waiting impatiently, looking at your cellphone screen’s right hand side corner for that precise moment to strike, tapping your fingers on the side board. At times like those, you open the door without waiting or wondering who it might be in the middle of the night.

Sometimes you go out looking for muses, your hair spread wide, like a cuckoo’s nest (BTW, has anyone wondered why cuckoos keep their nests so haphazard? Maybe it’s avant garde style yet to be recognised as such). You ask stray cats, sleepy dogs and curious ravens if they have seen any muses (or opportunities can also do, please). They all shrug, look back at you like you have lost a bolt or two.

Then there are times when muses fall into your email box. There they lie, along with emails from the banks you don’t have accounts with, enthusiastic group emails of astronomy you don’t remember subscribing to and emails from sellers who are convinced you cannot do without such-and-such baby oil or book. But even when the said muses have been served to you in a platter (or in this case, your inbox), there are chances you might miss them.

You might just delete that email without opening, like you have done to other emails from this website you had subscribed to long back ago, but don’t remember why. You might open it, with cynical curiosity, scanning the email because you don’t want to go back to that synopsis you have to prepare. Even if you open it, you might fail to click the link of a short translated story of a Spanish author whose name you cannot pronounce. After all, writers and writings are out there on the internet paisa a pandrah. Then you might open the link but forget to read it as it lies waiting amongst the other tabs opened for later reads.

So that’s why if you do end up reading that story at all and realise with surprise that it was at all this time a muse, waiting to spring up and surprise you, to fire your rockers into writing,  like a virus hidden in an attachment, it’s nothing short of a miracle. The muse is an unexpected best friend that landed at your doorstep, just when you were standing in the balcony, wondering what it will feel like to jump. 

All this while, all you had to do is click one email link. A simple click which would have saved you from those empty days when you look in the space and no thought welcomes you. Just a simple click. Was it meant to be? Is this how destiny works? Or is it just a web, an intricate spider web of unexpected choices you constantly make every moment of your existence? Is it free will or do you have no choice in the matter? How can you ever be sure of either?

All you can do is bow to it. Smile, thank the skies, or if you believe in chaos, thank chaos. Write a blog, write a poem and scribble down the thoughts that strike you for your novel. After all, you have been granted the gift of a muse today. It doesn’t happen every day.

This post is dedicated to a muse who came unexpectedly and resulted in this blog. Thank you Juan Villoro and Word Without Borders for the unexpected muse called Holding Pattern. 

Finally the day has come. And what can be better than the start of the new year to do something that you have cringed from all of last year? I am going to close Mystery of the Iyer Bungalow (yes, dear readers, it’s still not published. The reason is that it’s still being edited and has not been even shown to a publisher yet). I have begun the process of pitching its manuscript to publishers starting January. I was afraid all of end of last months of 2011. I cringed, stalled, questioned, panicked, and analysed. Basically did everything in the WHAT IFS category and didn’t pitch the book.

Now I am geared myself for rejections, criticisms, rotten tomatoes and jeers. Basically anything and everything that anyone who wants to throw can throw at me.

Maybe it’s the new year. But I am determined. I am determined that I will follow my dream and write and write some more.

MY NEW YEAR NO-RESOLUTIONS

Here are things I am NOT going to do this new year:

• I will not be afraid of reactions to my writing.
• I will not think on writing and not write.
• I will not compare.
• I will not worry about what my life would have been with different choices
• I will not be afraid out trying new things.
• I will not worry about how bad I write
• I will not equate success with the money I could have been earning.
• I will not feel lonely and boring.
• I will not feel envious of books I enjoy reading.
• I will not stick to my comfort zone.

With so many things I had been doing, it’s a wonder I still write. Stubborn I think

A sentimental note for Mystery of the Iyer bungalow: As I put in the finishing touches to the my first manuscript of the Mystery of the Iyer Bungalow, I feel a sense of anti-climax. While editing the book, I realised that it could have become so many other books with the same characters, with the same settings.  I would like to change it a bit, tweak it from here, add things to that side, but I cannot. Not anymore. I know it’s not perfect still, I don’t think it ever will become perfect. Like a mother, I feel I am over-fretting on my child rather than setting it free. So many emotions. When did I become so attached to just words? I hope someone else becomes attached to this imperfect book, reads it and enjoys it. That’s after all, the most important thing.

Looking for headphones? Don’t make do with the free pair you get with your gadgets. Get a pair that suits your needs

Earphones are being used with every gadget today: a tablet, a smartphone, an MP3 player or even a wireless set with the TV if it is in a bedroom. “Most of us don’t hesitate to invest in a good gadget, but forget about the earphones,” says Bangalore-based Sridhar Reddy, 38, an audiophile and independent consultant on custom-made audio systems.

“The earphones that come as a package deal with most gadgets are basic. They don’t fit our ears well and if they do, they don’t do a good job of blocking out external noise,” says Reddy.

These generic earphones also fail to adapt to your lifestyle needs—answering calls on the go or running while listening to music. “A good pair of headphones is necessary to enjoy your gadget to its full capacity. Serious audiophiles, for example, will never go for in-the-ear earphones. They like them big and round so that music can breathe,” explains Reddy. In the same way, if you answer a lot of calls while on the move, the last thing you want is static in your Bluetooth headset. We list headphones to match your every need.

• Music on the move

Want headphones that stay with you and give you good quality music while you run, sweat and work out in the gym? The Sennheiser Sports series has three different designs, PMX 680i, OMX 680i and MX 680i, for medium-to-heavy workouts. They are highly flexible, so you can run faster or work out harder without worrying about dislodging the headphones. All of them come with a powerful stereo sound, an integrated remote, built-in volume control and a microphone to track and take calls in the middle of a workout. The kit includes many accessories and sleeves, to make sure you find the perfect fit for your ears and the earplugs stay firmly in place. The earphones are sweat- and water-resistant.

Money Matters: Rs. 3,990 for PMX 680i and OMX 680i and Rs. 3,290 for MX 680i, available at select stores. Check for discounted prices on www.gadgets.in

TV watching

Don’t want to disturb your partner with your idiot-box viewing? Help is at hand with Sennheiser RS120 Wireless Headphones, which come with a charge station. Though they are older than the more recently launched Sennheiser RS180, they are still our favourites for the amount of listen-time they give in one charge (20 hours, rather than 6 hours in the newer model), so you can use them for longer without having to get up and charge them. These wireless headphones have a range of up to 100m, come with volume control, and give a detailed sound reproduction with strong stereo bass. The reception works through walls and ceilings. They are lightweight and very comfortable to wear.

Money Matters: Rs. 6,190, available on www.letsbuy.com

• Cut off sound

Your work requires you to make transcripts from audio recordings or your office is just too noisy and you need music to help you concentrate. Or perhaps you want to listen to music while on your way to work, but the noise from the road makes it impossible to enjoy yourself. Noise-cancelling headsets help here and the Bose QuietComfort 15 is the best option. Each headphone earcup comes with an inbuilt microphone both inside and outside. The microphone senses and cancels the sounds that are filtering in from outside, keeping your ears noise-free. You can use its microphone for a hands-free phone conversation too, though that works only with an iPhone. An average AAA battery makes the headphones last about 35 hours. The QuietComfort 15 is comfortable, with ear cushions, lightweight and collapsible, and can be packed compactly in case you want to use them while you travel.

Money Matters: Rs. 17,550, available on www.boseindia.com

Also try:Sony MDR-NC200D Digital Noise-Cancelling Headphones, $179.99 (around Rs. 9,750), plus shipping, available on www.ebay.com. Its noise-cancelling technology drains battery faster but the headset is quite good at blocking external noise. It is also lightweight, cushioned, and can be folded compactly.

• Pure audio

If all you want to do is listen to music as if it was being performed right in front of you, opt for Audeze LCD-2, manufactured by the Las Vegas-based niche company Audeze. The headset prioritizes quality over portability or affordability. The technology used is rather different from most headphones—each pair comes with tiny dynamic drivers that are mini versions of the drivers used in box speakers. The Audeze uses thin-film planar magnetic drivers and larger diaphragms that project sounds around your ear rather than straight into it, creating more depth in the notes. The thick lambskin earpads sit softly on your ears and are comfortable to wear for long hours.

Money Matters: On special order for $995, with $115.58 in shipping, available on www.audeze.com

Also try: The Audio Technica ATH-M50 for Rs. 13,913, available onwww.ebay.in, offers performance on a budget. Meant for professional studio monitoring and mixing, its over-the-ear cups create a seal for maximum isolation

• Multitasking

The Jabra Halo2 can make calls with voice clarity on both ends, play music with surround sound effects and do it without wires. They come with Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity and dual inbuilt microphones to eliminate outside noise when you are speaking. There’s a touch sensor on one side to adjust volume with the swipe of a finger and a touch button to answer and end calls, skip tracks and play and pause songs. All this is possible without taking your phone out of the bag. If you want to save battery and like it wired, the set comes with a 3.5mm universal audio jack cable. The earpieces are cushioned and there’s an extension on both sides so that it fits a head of any size. The headphones automatically switch off as soon as you fold them. The battery lasts 8 hours and you get a battery display so that you can recharge it.

Money Matters: Rs. 6,499, available on www.ezeekart.com

Also Try: Rs. 2,889, available on www.letsbuy.com, comes with a single mic and digital signal processing so that you hear clearly in noisy or windy environments.

• Hands-free work

The Plantronics Voyager Pro HD Bluetooth headset is a great option with excellent audio. It is comfortable to wear and you can easily switch between handset and headset by placing the device on your ear. The large design places the mic much closer to your mouth, adding to voice clarity. It also comes with two extra ear tips so that you find a fit you prefer. It tells you available talktime and connection status so that you are never left with a dead Bluetooth in your hands.

Money Matters: Around Rs. 4,999, available at select retail outlets

Also try: If you are a rough user, opt for the relatively cheaper Research in Motion (RIM) hands-free, the BlackBerry HS300 (Rs. 1,999, available on www.flipkart.com). The hands-free works best with BlackBerry handsets, is subtly hidden on the ear and has automatic volume control. A good choice for those corporate calls.

Crossposted from www.livemint.com

From watch cameras to voice changers, wall listening devices and cellphone jammers, these cool gadgets can help you explore the amateur investigator in you

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Technology has changed and so has the way we spy nowadays,” says Sanjeev Deswal, 38, who has been running Delhi-based Aider Detectives Pvt. Ltd for more than a decade. ”Communication gaps have reduced and technology has made it more sophisticated and more accessible. So nowadays sometimes all we really need is a good cellphone to gather all the information we need.”

If you’re just looking to have some phone with fun toys though, so you can feel like Agent Ethan Hunt or James Bond, then you can get your hands on cool gadgets such as a camera hidden in a wristwatch, or an audio recorder which looks like a pen. Most of these are now available online on websites and can be home-delivered for a price. Here are some spy gadgets on our wish list.

USB spy camera

Keeping watch: All kinds of detective gadgets are now available online.

This looks like a normal USB stick but it comes fitted with a microscopic video camera inside. The camera records AVI videos in a 720×480 format —most smartphones can do better, but this gadget isn’t as obvious. It doesn’t blink while taking a video and has a motion-detect mode that starts recording automatically when you move in front of the pen drive. You can leave it lying around inconspicuously. The camera memory can support a maximum of up to 32 GB storage and the battery is rechargeable by simply connecting the USB to your computer, which is also used to transfer the data. It can be used for video, photos and voice recording.

Get it at:www.ebay.com for $72 (around Rs. 3,800), with shipping charges as applicable.

Spy pen camera

A classic camouflaged spy camera, the “pen” has a USB connecter on one side and a small video camera on the other. The camera has only 4 GB space though, and records at a very low resolution of 640×480, at only 10 frames per second (FPS). This means that the image quality is not great and will jump. Cameras with 8 GB and 16 GB

storage can also be found online. The 4 GB camera is relatively cheap, and extremely small. You can transfer video and charge the camera using the USB connecter built into the device.

Get it at:www.ebay.com for $29.99, plus shipping.

Watch-spy camera

This one is a digital camera embedded in a wristwatch. Casually flick your hair with the wrist to record. The video recording format is AVI with a resolution of 1280×960. The gadget also includes a real watch, and an MP3 player other than the video camera. It comes with 2-hour battery backup and 4 GB internal flash memory.

Get it at:www.bestspygadgets.in for Rs. 10,500 for the HD version, with a lower resolution model available for Rs. 5,500. Shipping is Rs. 200 (domestic) andRs. 500 (international).

Motion-activated car-key camera

Start talking or moving and this car-key disguised camera starts recording a video or an audio. The camera can be activated with motion, voice as well as a vibration alert function. The camera can record at 1280×960 at 30 FPS. Its inbuilt storage is 4 GB, and can be extended to 16 GB with a microSD card. It also comes in specific car-key designs.

Get it at:www.bestspygadgets.in for Rs. 5,000, with Rs. 200 (domestic) and Rs.500 (international) shipping charges.

Sunglasses camera

Remember the glasses Tom Cruise wore in the first Mission Impossible movie in 1996? These sunglasses come with a camera that hides in the part of the frame that rests on the bridge of your nose. A hard-to-spot button on the arms of the glasses triggers recording, and framing your shot is super-easy because it’s going to be recording exactly what you’re seeing.

The camera can record at high and low resolutions or take 1.3 megapixel photographs, and the built-in 2 GB memory will record up to 1 hour of video. You can choose to buy more expensive models with greater storage, and the camera-glasses can connect to your computer with a USB cable.

Get it at:www.ebay.in for Rs. 5,499 onwards.

Portable scanner Scanny3

This small hand-held device is available at stationery stores and is a powerful tool for scanning pages. You can scan a black-and-white A4 sheet in 2 seconds, and can take 400 scans on a single charge of the battery. The scanner takes a microSD card (up to 32 GB) and the resulting scans are at 600×600 dpi—high enough to print a poster. You can transfer the files directly to a phone (for mailing) via Bluetooth, or to your computer with a USB cable.

Get it at:www.narulastationery.com for Rs. 6,499.

Spy voice changer

Disguise your voice and talk like someone else with this sneaky device. It works with a cellphone through Bluetooth. The pitch includes two high and two low conversions and options which can make you talk like a robot, child, woman, old person or girl. It works for 30 hours on a single charge.

Get it at:www.spycameradelhiindia.com for Rs. 2,500.

Wall listening device

Walls really can have ears. The device works by amplifying the vibration of audio through solid surfaces. The device works through wooden walls, doors, windows, steel plates or anything that is 6-10 inches in thickness, and all you need to do is hold it up to the wall you need to listen through.

It is super-sensitive, so be careful to raise the audio slowly, otherwise you might shout out yourself at the amount of noise coming through.

Get it at:www.bestspygadgets.in for Rs. 10,000, with Rs. 200 (domestic) and Rs.500 (international) in shipping charges.

Bluetooth spy glasses with earpiece

Want to communicate with someone quietly? These dark glasses come with a Bluetooth connected earpiece that is flesh-coloured to keep it hidden. There’s also a discreet, built-in microphone, so the glasses can act as a hands-free kit for any mobile phone for up to 12 hours.

Get it at:www.gadgets.in for Rs. 16,999.

Spy camera bug detector and lens finder

If sly spy items available on sale freely give you the heebie-jeebies, protect yourself and make sure your walls and tables don’t suddenly grow ears or eyes. As the name suggests, the detector automatically helps track any hidden audio bugs, wired or wireless hidden video cameras or even GPS trackers around you within a few minutes. Once it detects something, it alerts you by vibrating, beeping or flickering its LED light. It detects signals transmitting between 1-6,500 MHz and wired cameras can be detected in the range of 0.1-20m.

Get it at:www.gadgets.in for Rs. 10,599, with free shipping in India (express shipping costs an additional Rs. 150).

Cellphone jammer

Hate the buzz of an omnipresent cellphone in the middle of a no-phone meeting or have a highly sensitive meeting you don’t want leaked? Jam all the phones within a 100m radius with this useful device.

Get it at:www.gadgets.in for Rs. 7,500, with free shipping in India (express shipping costs an additional Rs. 150).

Crossposted from www.livemint.com

Fart, my imaginary dumb friend, and me were drinking beers and sitting at my home surfing on my telly when we saw a movie trailer of the film With Love, Delhi on one of the channels. A low-budget thriller with a rather dark Tom Alter in the role of a villain. The trailer ended with these bylines:

‘When the best brains of the country, meet the Bollywood veterans, you get Wild.’

‘An intelligent thriller by IITians’.

This film has been made by an IITian! In my excitement, I started to jump up and down on the couch. Fart, who is rather slow in catching up, looked at me confused. I told Fart that the IITians are really smart people. If they have made a thriller movie, it would be really, really smart! After all, they have written smart books, smart songs, say really smart things, get married with a huge dowry, get plush jobs reserved for smart people and do other rather very, very smart things.  So Fart, who you can guessed by now is not very smart since he comes from another country (or another planet, it’s not polite to ask) looked at me with his forehead puckered with fifteen wrinkle lines and asked: 

FART (his forehead puckered): Who are these IITians?

ME (with a snicker, forgetting that it’s impolite to ask): You don’t know who IITians are? Which planet do you belong to?

FART (still puckered): Not this one.

ME (continuing my tirade): IIT stands for Indian Institute of Technology. It is one of the more premier institutes in India that teaches engineering courses. IITians are people who graduate from these premier institutes. They are like really, really, really smart, Fart!

FART (empty expression): Oh. So this institute teaches them how to become actors or movie directors?

ME (haughty expression): Of course not!

FART: So it has nothing to do with making movies or writing books whatsoever?

ME (angry at this dumb ass): You think an IITian would have time to learn how to make a movie or write a book? He (or she) is too busy studying for exams! Do you know how many people apply for IITs in India? A few lakh every year and only a few thousand get selected. That’s how smart IITians are. They are the most intelligent people in India. Hell, they are the smartest on the planet!

FART (confused): If they are so smart, why do they learn engineering instead of learning how to make a movie?

ME (haughty expression): You are so silly, Fart! That’s because if they learn how to make a movie, they won’t be respected for their intellectual prowess. But if they become an IITian, they automatically become really smart. Because you see as soon as one clears the entrance exam of IIT, one’s genes are rewired and one gets to know everything that is there to know in this universe. IITians are so smart that they don’t need to learn how to make a movie or write a book. From reading, mugging, working, getting married, having sex, writing a book, earning money, drinking the right wine, dancing, singing, they know everything. 

FART (realisation dawning, glugging a beer): Oh! So they are Indian sadhus right? Those enlightened beings who can fly in the sky or walk on water or stand on thorns or something.

ME (laughing out loud): Fart you are such a tart! They are better than sadhus! They are engineers! You see, in India we value engineers because we have such bad roads and bad internet connections and dicey buildings. These engineers are our saviors. You would understand their value if you know how much dowry an engineer can get in marriage. It’s in crores of rupees. That’s because they get really cool jobs in Amreeka and other countries and come back with oodles of dollars and then can buy plush houses in fancy gated communities with smooth roads. They are the dollar earners of this country.

FART (condescending): So it has nothing to do with making roads or making movies? They are smart because they earn lots of money?

ME (angry): You know, you foreigners are so condescending to us Indians. If we serve you, you are fine. When we become your equals, you think we are all after money. Forget it, you just won’t get it. We are who we are in this world because of IITians. They will save us from all your smirks! They are our superheroes! Every child of this country aims to become an IITian and earn in crores of rupees and marry a virgin with a huge dowry. Every parent wants their child to become an IITian. They are our new gods! You will understand when you meet some of them. They are intellectual and smart. Did I tell you how smart they are? They — 

(The conversation fell through midway due to excessive intoxication.)

Better Internet connections and increased video content are making it easier than ever to order or watch Indian and Hollywood movies online, legally

It was a weekend and instead of going to a mall to watch an expensive movie, Uttara Narayanan, 29, a social activist, decided to rent the latest Bollywood flick and watch it at home. She was surprised to see that she couldn’t find any movie rental shops in her Bangalore neighbourhood. “I didn’t want to buy a pirated cheap DVD or download a pirated version of the movie, so I went online to search for a video rental around my home,” she says. Her search led her to YouTube. “I couldn’t believe that YouTube is streaming some of the latest Bollywood movies which I wanted to see online for free!”

In October, actor Shah Rukh Khan partnered with Google India to promote his film Ra.One on YouTube. The site celebrated a month-long festival of his movies, which included superhits like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Chak De! India, Kal Ho Na Ho, Om Shanti Om and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, through October.

Free and easy: In several cases, there are no charges for movies online.

The model of streaming movies online seems to be working quite well with the Indian audience. Since the launch of YouTube Box Office in June, the website has already garnered over 18 million views and has about 1,500 movie titles.

Yahoo India launched Movieplex, its online free movie streaming platform, in August, but has uploaded only 30 movies. The company is in talks with both film and television studios for large distribution deals though, and is expected to increase that number greatly.

People who would rather not see pirated movies, and don’t want to shell out huge amounts at cinema halls, now have a number of options. Some of the best ones are:

YouTube’s Box Office

YouTube has created a microsite with ad-supported free movies. There are around 1,500 titles on the site as of now, and most of the collection is made up of older movies from the black and white era onwards. There are many regional language films on the site, along with Hindi movies. If you want to watch Hollywood or world cinema, check the complete listing of the movies on www.youtube.com/movies. Depending on the rights YouTube has, some of them might not play in India.

Upside: There are no delivery delays either.

Downside: Buffering happens fairly often. The films are also being streamed at a lower resolution, and don’t look great on full screen.

Cost: Free

Where: Youtube.com/boxoffice for the latest Indian movies. For the complete list of movies on YouTube, go to Youtube.com/movies

Yahoo Movieplex

Launched at the same time as YouTube’s Box Office, Yahoo’s Movieplex is also a free streaming site for legal movies.

The goal is to bring premium, licensed content to viewers, and while there are only 30 titles of Bollywood films as of now, Yahoo says it is working to bring 3,200 films in the near future. It is yet to announce if it will put any other language films online.

Upside: Optimized to work well even on phones.

Downside: Limited number of movies.

Cost: Free

Where:in.movies.yahoo.com/movieplex

BigFlix

An extension of the movie rental business, Reliance’s BigFlix launched in November its premium movies on-demand channel online. The service is a paid one and offers live streaming of DVD-quality movies and television shows on your laptop, computer or tablets. It has around 500 movies in all Indian languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, etc.

Upside: There are no ads and you can watch the movies anywhere on your PC, laptop or tablets. The service also gives you some free movies to watch.

Downside: Since it’s DVD-quality, you also need a really good broadband service. On the current quality of Internet services in India, expect some jerks, if not minute-long buffers in streaming.

Cost: Rs. 249 for 30 days of unlimited views or Rs. 49 for one movie. Some of them are free to view. Check the website and choose a movie. It might cost you nothing.

Where: www.bigflix.com/bigflixplus

Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com

I have just finished the fourth story of The Skull Rosary, a graphic novel which if all goes well, would be out in May 2012 in the market. This particular story was about a blind demon , but ironically it was I who was blind to him. I couldn’t see what he wanted to tell me, what he wanted me to discover, who he really was. For days I wandered alone in deserts (that’s what I name my panicked mind). Nothing came out on the paper. This was a particularly difficult one to exorcise out of me. I hope I have done you some justice, my blind demon. I know I haven’t completely written down what you could have become and what you are, but this was all I could do. I am after all a mortal and have my limits.

Now I have moved on to the fifth and final story of the graphic novel. This is about a mad woman. I think I know her but I don’t know how to write of her. How does madness speak in a logical human language? So I search for answers in various muses I know will tell me which path to start. I read the lines that Neil Gaiman scribed in The Sandman series. I scrounge the delicate, heart wrenching poetry of Kahlil Gibran who wrote The Madman which I downloaded from Gutenberg. And I reread my two favourites which talk about this particular madness: Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Eumenides by Aeschylus. Shakespeare was inspired by Aeschylus’s lines to create his crazy three weird witches. I hope I can recreate the mad witches in some form.

I knew I wanted to read these to remember what I would have liked to write for the final story. Did the muse in me speak or did she show the way? I don’t know.

Some days writing comes to me like my neighbour’s Labrador. It laps it’s salivating tongue and wags its furry tail, desperate to be touched and loved and hugged. That day I write straight for an hour or many hours, without a break. That day I continue to write in my head, even when I am walking, drinking a coffee with my husband or watching the sky. Those are the happy days. The days when the sun shines brightly on me and my smile is for all to see.

Most of the days though, writing is a demon I need to exorcise from my mind and heart. It haunts spaces in my head I didn’t know existed. But I cannot see it or touch it, at least through logic and human language. It shows itself to me in smoky silhouettes, in corners just out of my eye’s view. It plays hide and seek with me but not to make me smile. I don’t know why it plays and why I constantly search for it. I keep looking and looking and looking and never really see it. At the end what I write, is a part of the demon that in me resides.

Not the whole, never the whole.

For the whole is but a myth, much like a rainbow’s end. You can stare at the ocean for millions of years, but at the end, you will but see just the part your eyes can.

Apple’s iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus – which smartphone is smarter?

The two most hyped phones of 2011 are about to enter the Indian market. There’s the iPhone 4S with its magical personal assistant Siri, who listens to you and finds what you are looking for as soon as you ask for it. Then there is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone running Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). While the iPhone 4S is scheduled to be launched on 25 November, the Nexus will be launched early next month. As the Indian smartphone market readies for the launch of these phones, we send them out into the battlefield to find the smartest choice.

The contenders

iPhone 4S

iPhone 4S: It comes with a personal assistant, Siri

An update to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S comes loaded with a powerful A5 processor, iOS 5, Siri and a whopping 8-megapixel camera. When it launched in the US last month, sales within a month broke all records at four million handsets and saw long lines of customers waiting to get their hands on one. The phone is already out for pre-order with a tie-up with Aircel and will launch in India later this month.

Price: 16 GB at Rs. 44,500 and the 32 GB variant at Rs. 50,900. No information available on the 64 GB variant.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Galaxy Nexus: Samsung’s latest Android flagship

The latest Android flagship, the Galaxy Nexus combines Samsung’s ever-improving hardware in a massive high-resolution, 4.65-inch screen with the latest Android 4.0. It hasn’t reached any customer yet, but is raking up a storm of anticipation. The phone is up for pre-order in countries like the US and UK and will be coming to India soon.

Price: The company has not released any information on price, though industry sources claim that it will be in the Rs. 35,000-40,000 price band.

Let the battle begin

Round 1: Display

The Galaxy Nexus comes with a whopping 4.65-inch of Samsung Super AMOLED HD curved display. With such a huge size for a screen, it walks a thin line between a tablet and smartphone and does it well (if you have rather large hands, that is). To pack a punch, it has a tempting 1280×720 resolution, which is the highest ever in a smartphone. It gives a new meaning to clarity and makes Web browsing, movie watching and gaming experience a breeze. It also eats up battery life.

The iPhone 4S, on the other hand, plays it safe with the same design and the same 3.5-inch display which has worked in its earlier models. At 9.3mm, it’s also bulkier than its competitor. The screen has the same display like its predecessors—a multi-touch with the same 960×640 resolution. It does have a higher pixel density at 330 ppi than the Nexus which is at 316 ppi.

Round 2: Internal muscle

Like its competitor, the new Nexus is powered by the latest dual-core processors, a 1.2 GHz dual-core, while the iPhone 4S comes with 1 GHz of power. Samsung has also added a whopping 1 GB RAM to its superphone unlike its contender which only packs half its punch at 512 MB. Storage wise, both of them have options of in-built 16 GB and 32 GB, whereas a high-end option for iPhone 4S also comes with a 64 GB storage capacity. Neither, unfortunately, comes with extendable storage.

Round 3: Operating system

Ice Cream Sandwich brings a lot of change to Android—face recognition and voice recognition are a start, but the update also does away with physical keys. Instead, the phone can now remove the on-screen keys when running apps to make full use of the screen.

The OS also allows you to resize widgets, a big plus, and has tight integration with Google+. At the same time, it remains easy to tinker with the settings, and checking apps for battery and data usage is a boon for power users.

iOS 5 on the other hand brings most of its changes behind the scenes. Most visible in the new changes is the addition of iCloud—a free personal cloud for each user, so your contacts, photos, music and apps are all always available. Another big change is wireless syncing—you no longer need to plug your phone into the computer to update it from iTunes.

Round 4: Accessibility

ICS remains focused on only visual accessibility and comes with an explore-by-touch mode that tells you what widget you might be pressing by audible feedback every time you touch the screen once. iOS 5 comes with the feature for visual accessibility as well as additional ones like Rotor options for people with mobility, hearing, and cognitive disabilities. Hearing Aid Mode makes the phone more compatible with hearing aids. Then there are other useful customizations like specific vibrations for a specific contact, LED flash for alerts and mono audio, making it as comfortable as a touch screen might be for a different ability user.

Round 5: Entertainment

Both phones have updated the camera and made photo taking faster and easier than ever. The Samsung has a 5 MP camera compared to iPhone’s 8 MP camera. The iOS 5 update also adds some much needed functionality to the iPhone camera, adding support for a hardware button for the shutter, anti-shake technology and live photo editing.

The bigger screen of the Nexus is great for playing games and videos and also for looking at content online. The iPhone 4S, however, has a better GPU, and so renders 3D graphics faster. And of course, it has the App Store and a far wider range of apps to draw from than the Galaxy Nexus.

Round 6: Extra tricks

So what’s one thing you get to show off to your friends in either of these phones? The Nexus comes with a rather ho-hum but useful Android Beam, which is a Near Field Communication mode that can make it possible for you to share Web pages, videos, maps, directions and apps across two phones by merely tapping them to each other as well as allow you to make wireless payments to retailers in the future. In iPhone 4S, it’s the cool personal assistant Siri, iPhone’s beta attempt at employing artificial intelligence, that can help you do anything by asking it a question. It’s way better and way advanced than any voice recognition app out there. Siri can make calls, search the Internet, send messages, schedule meetings or set reminders for you. It thinks on how to act even with somewhat indirect orders like, “Tell Vivek that his red shirt looks good”. It will figure out “Vivek” in your contact list and send him an SMS telling him that his shirt looks great.

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