Read the rest of this piece of analysis below…

Tedx Mumbai

Well, I’ll now get into a short review of what I thought of the talks. Of course, this is my own personal view and is shaped by my own experiences and knowledge and might not accurately reflect on a speaker’s skill or knowledge. (I does take an immense amount of guts to deliver a short five minute talk, hats off to you guys !! I’m sure the shots helped )

1. How to hack your way into an BEST Bus – Asfaq Tapia
   This was the talk I was most looking forward to actually. Maybe I over-hyped it in my mind, or maybe Asfaq just had the bad luck of starting first, this one just didn’t do it for me. Asfaq talked about how you could ensure that you got a seat in a crowded BEST bus, something that every mumbaikar ought to know. True, the talk was imaginative, humorous and very practical – but somehow it ended up being just good and not great.
2. Power of online communities: The wisdom of online communities – Aditya Rao
   This was the second talk, and the first slide had the words Asimov, Star Wars and I thought  – yup looks like this might be interesting. What followed was pretty disappointing. Aditya talked about the wisdom of crowds and how it might shape our futures. It started out well, but ended up parroting the same mundane examples you would find in Wikinomics or the gazillion social media books out there. The glimpse of the future wasn’t bold enough, though the touch on Asimov’s Foundation series was interesting. All told, a big #fail for me.
3. The problem with happiness – Amit Klein
   When Amit told me that he would be talking about happiness, I wasn’t very sure what he would be talking about. What followed was an interesting look at what happiness really means to us, how people have attempted to quantify it and five very practical tips on being happy. One of my favorite talks of the evening. (Amit, though one of your tips did sound a lot like the “All Izz Well” philosophy. Also see this essay by Michael Crichton on Happiness)
4. “Let the waves carry you to another shore” – KN Venkitaraman
   Engineering, Football, Nostalgia and the crucial life lessons learned in the four grueling years that it takes to fashion another mindless engineer is what this talk was about. It was witty in parts, funny, hilarious and taught some really practical life lessons. This was my favorite talk of the evening, possibly because I am engineer myself.
5. Not Another NGO! Building a modern movement in India – Amanda White
   A bit intense in comparison to the light and fun filled talks that preceded it, this talk by Amanda looked at NGO’s in India, her work at a non-profit dedicated to getting fair trade goods to consumers in India and how being just another NGO is not enough. It was a very insightful look at how NGO’s ought to operate in India
6. Interesting observations about Urban India – Harshil Karia
   Another nice talk on our little “Indian quirks”, it nevertheless wasn’t uniformly great. It did have some excellent ideas though, like turning the parliament into a reality TV show and covering walls with mirrors.
7. Words spell Sword – Ralston D’souza
   Well, I somehow really didn’t get this particular one. To me it sounded more like an English Literature class, and reminded me of the days when we first learned about figures of speech. Towards the end, with Benny Hill entering the picture, it became downright weird. I think this was a talk that needed a lot more than five minutes to get its point across.
8. Keeping a couple fight from becoming a break-up fight – Rohan Joseph
   I love the way that this talk started with a very Indexed like Venn diagram. The talk was witty and funny, but since I have never really been a relationship I can’t really comment on the practicality of the advice doled out. It did remind me a lot though, of this piece by Michael Crichton on how to fight.
9. How to explain almost everything – Karan Talwar
   I thought this was an interesting premise until Karan uttered the words economics or something that suggested economics. What followed was more parroting of examples explained in books like “SuperFreakonomics”, “Freakonomics” and “Undercover Economist”. Of course having read these books and having followed the field quite a bit, it seemed so to me. Karan did do a good job delivering the talk, though I felt his material was better handled in a longer format.
10. Mumbai and You – Mansi Trivedi
    Mansi’s talk on the pet quirks on Mumbaikars started off quite well, but lost steam somewhere in the middle and towards the end I just couldn’t care. She did hit a number of points spot on in the first half of her talk, but later on I guess it meandered a bit. Still a good effort.

To sum up – Had a great evening listening to some great ideas. For me, the best three talks were the ones by KN Venkitaraman, Amit Klein and Rohan Joseph (in that order). I do hope to speak at one of these events someday, though will have to brainstorm on the idea that I will present.

PS: A word to the organizers – Cafe Goa was nice, but please choose a place that’s a bit easier to get to next time

Also really sorry that I had to miss out on the after party.I had to get home and get gear etc ready for an early morning birding trip.

The Annual Kala Ghoda Art Festival is something that I eagerly wait for each year (along with the Annual Bird Race), and this year was no different. As usual, the festival didn’t disappoint for the sheer diversity of artwork on display. The artwork varied from the bizarre to the beautiful. A common thread across most of the installations seemed to be threats to our environment – be it garbage, water scarcity or global warming.

As soon as you entered the festival area, you were greeted by a huge statue of a black horse on a pedestal. Around the black horse were life-size (I think) replicas of a menagerie of animals ranging from lions, tigers, cheetahs, elephants to zebras and even a giraffe. The same parking lot area had installations educating children on saving water, and an Eiffel tower that seemed decorated by LED lights. The night time saw the Eiffel tower come alive with lights accompanied by a dazzling display of lights in the vicinity. The rest of the exhibitions were along Rampart row and included a wonderful chalk painting of a horse breaking out of the road, a huge wishing bell and other miscellaneous exhibits. There were also a large number of photographs by various photographers from the city on display.

I went there on both Saturday and Sunday and the first thing that hit me was the crowds. The place was crowded even before the Festival was formally inaugurated. There were people milling around everywhere, crowding around the exhibits, posing for photographs with the exhibits etc. I have been a regular at previous editions of the festival since 2005, and this is the first time I have seen crowds of this magnitude at the festival.

On Saturday, I was supposed to meet up with some pals from college and since I reached a bit early, I decided to head out for one of the Heritage walks. The walk took us into the University Campus and included a visit to the convocation hall and the library. The convocation hall was breathtakingly beautiful, with some really fabulous stained glass panels adorning the windows. The buildings were an excellent example of the Bombay gothic architectural style, and were wonderfully adorned with intricate sculptures and artwork. It was a pity that photography wasn’t allowed in there; otherwise it would have been a great place to shoot in.

After the walk I met up with one of pals and we went towards the amphitheatre. Unlike last year, all photographers weren’t allowed in the enclosure, and the crowds made it impossible to shoot from outside (unless you were early enough), so we decided to give the events a miss. After much hunting around, I finally met up with my friends from college (Gargi, Tarvinder and others) and clicked a few pictures before heading back home.

Sunday was pretty much the same, with the crowds making it difficult to shoot the performances, unless you were early enough. So I was reduced to shooting some of the older buildings in the vicinity and also trying my hand at candid street photography. I did however manage to get a few pictures of the author Chetan Bhagat, at his keynote Kala Ghoda lecture. And among other things a cat  decided I was its new best pal. It almost didn’t leave my side

So far Kala Ghoda has definitely shown a lot of promise, however the crowds and the somewhat photographer unfriendly rules have made it a bit difficult to get the kind of pictures that I wanted. I hope to catch the premiere of Sunshine Boys on Thursday at the festival as well as hope to salvage some more pictures on the last two days. If you plan to drop by then, do give me a shout out on twitter.

I particularly liked the Cello and piano sonata (Brahms). Some of the pieces they played were more of the mellow side of things, and maybe they could have done with an more upbeat selection. Still the icing on the cake was the surprise piece they played at the end.They began by getting all the musicians on stage, and surprisingly two people on the piano. Then the music flowed, and boy how did it flow. Of all the things they could have played, they played hindi flimi music songs like the title track from Dhoom, songs from Murder etc. suitably adapted to violin, viola, cello and piano. This was interspersed with medleys from the more well known classical pieces. All in all, this was an amazing display of fusion at it’s finest. This really made my day.

Hope to attend their next concert soon.

Technorati Tags: Classical, Concert, Arties Festival, Mumbai, NCPA

Went to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) for this fabulous exhibition titled “The Painted Photograph: Painted, Poised and of the Moment”. I have to thank my good pal Arun for telling me about this exhibition, otherwise I might have missed an opportunity to see some great pictures. The ground floor displayed photographs by Cartier-Bresson. This floor had some striking photographs by Cartier-Bresson which were selected by a host of writers. My personal favorites include a picture of women in Kashmir and a shot of Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. In the picture Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie look very depressed, though in reality the two of them are quite happy and successful. Goes to show how appearances can be deceptive I guess. Though the one picture of his that stuck in mind was the very Star Trekish Chinese eunuch from the last days of the Chinese courts. That chap could definitely give Spock a run for his pointy ears.

The top two floors were quite disappointing actually, with pictures of Nony Singh’s children and very narcissistic self portraits by Umrao Singh Sher-gil. But then the first floor more than made up for it.

The first floor featured the work of Pablo Bartholomew , one of India’s famous photo journalists. The exhibit titled “Outside In – A Tale of Three Cities“, features a very voyeuristic view into his life in Mumbai and Delhi in the 70′s and 80′s. The photographs capture the mood and the style of the era very nicely. His subjects range from close friends to mundane objects of daily life. Included are surreal pictures of streets in Delhi , the coastline of Mumbai, taxi’s, college rock shows etc. From smoke laden rooms to guys and gals dancing to 70′s music in bell bottoms, he captures it all in gorgeous and vivid black and white film.

Of course the subject of some his pictures is the hauntingly beautiful Pooh. For some reason, the manner in which he has captured her on film simply increases her allure, makes her something of an enigmatic beauty.

Looking at his pictures, I kind of realized that while fashions and styles might have changed along with our cityscapes, I guess to a large extent we are still quite the same underneath. Sure our topics of discussion, places that we meet up at might be different, but when we take all that away, what remains is the same urge to belong – Man the social animal.

For those of you who want to catch the exhibition, it will be on till the 26th of March from 11:00 am- 6:00 pm (Monday’s closed) at the NGMA (opp. the Museum).

Technorati Tags: Photography, Mumbai, Pablo Batholomew, Cartier-Bresson, NGMA

My team was called Jungle Owlets. We had decided to start at Powai Garden and work our way through to IIT, Powai for the morning. Then we decided to head off to Palm beach road and head back via Airoli to Powai to end our Journey. As some of the other team members had prior commitments, we decided to wrap up our day after that in the afternoon.

We started about 15 minutes late in the morning (I’m largely to blame for that, kind of overslept way past my alarm). Powai garden is surprisingly a nice place for birding. In a short while we spotted some Glossy Ibis, Purple Herons, Common Kingfishers, a golden oriole and a host of other species.

IIT Powai was also a nice place. We added cormorants, babblers, purple moor hens, spot billed ducks, white breasted water hens, Drongos (Ashy and Black), grey headed starlings, bee eaters etc. Our tally had reached a tidy 50 species by the time we left IIT. Besides spotting birds, we were also saw a group of boisterous Langurs jumping from tree top to tree top.

Palm beach road in Vashi is a haven for bird watchers. One can spot several species here all throughout the year. However we couldn’t really make any significant additions to our tally here. Though in spite of this we did see some spectacular birds. Chief among them was an Indian Roller who very graciously came and sat very close to where we were (to our delight). We also spotted a raptor in the sky, which Sunjoy Monga later confirmed to be an Osprey. Other birds we spotted here included a common stonechat and common hoopoe.

On our way back we stopped at the Airoli mud flats and Airoli bridge. We could see the token waders (godwits, sandpipers and stints) and the flamingos.

On the way back we stopped at Powai lake again just to try our luck. Guess what ? We got lucky, spotted both the bronze winged and pheasant tailed jacanas as well as some lesser whistling ducks and a cotton pygmy goose. The icing on the cake for me however was the two large crocodiles that we spotted basking in the sun. Now I know that crocodiles in the lake aren’t just an urban legend.

Our final tally for the day: 69 species. And if you thought that is a big number , hang on. At the closing event at the Maharashtra Nature Park, the winners were announced… and the winning tally was a mind boggling 176 species. To put that in perspective, thats about 13% of India’s bird species spotted in a single day!

It was great event overall with the highs for me being spotting all four species of bulbuls found in Mumbai, both species of jacanas as well as the crocs.

To sum up, had a great time, hope to do this again next year.

Technorati Tags: HSBC, Mumbai Bird Race, Birding

As promised, pictures from the festival here.

Technorati tags: Kala Ghoda Festival, Photography, 2008

I’ve been a regular here since the past few years, and make it a point to catch at least one evening of the festival. Every time I’ve come across some unique thing or the other. This year too there were quite a few surprises.

Just before the entrance, was a huge area largely dedicated to cars and play areas and workshops for kids. There was a stall displaying models of the electric car Reva. One could also take a spin round the block in one of the test drive models. You also had a large Papier-mâché horse, along with huge balloons and ferris wheel made of bicycles. Besides this, there were also specially decorated cars, with spray paint , faux fur etc on display.

When you enter Rampart Row (the street where most of the action takes place), you first come across a huge art installation called “Mosquito” which features a sculpture of a man with wings and one long proboscis like nose. One both sides of the road are art installations and stalls. These range from stalls selling handicrafts to the delicious food from Bombay Blue. The art installations feature topical urban issues. There was even one featuring photographs clicked by blind photographers.

Towards the middle of the road, lies the stage and facing amphitheater. The stage was host to a dance competition as well as exhibition of traditional Indian and Tibetan dances. At the end of the road, just before the Lion Gate entrance to the Naval Dockyard, was a stop where you could get on an electric golf cart like vehicle that would ferry you to the next location – Horniman Circle, where the various music concerts were held.

I sat through a concert by some college band called Chaotic Mess and a very nice Latin Jazz concert by Latin Amigos there. The pond there had the same set of ducks I had seen the last time I went there. I also had a peek at St.Thomas Cathedral, which is almost opposite the garden. The cathedral has some amazing stained glass, and should be a delight to visit some other time.

The festival is definitely worth spending some time at, so if you are in Mumbai and have some time free, head over to Kala Ghoda and have a great time.

P.S. Will post a link to the pictures soon.

Technorati Tags: Kala Ghoda Festival, 2008, Kala Ghoda