The Other Side of Life

I still remember the total Solar Eclipse of 1995 vaguely. It was on Diwali that year and it was visible to the naked eye in India. We got those special viewing glasses and made a mini-picnic out of the day.  I can't remember seeing too many eclipse visibly after that. Unsurprisingly, yesterday's lunar eclipse was big on my agenda. Only problem - my laziness did not keep pace with my excitement. So, when I started seeing the red moon and people walked in with their cameras and tripod stands, I was ridden with guilt. I ran upstairs, only to discover my camera was not charged. And that the husband never taught me how to use the tripod. So while I ruminated on this, the earth's shadow came, took bites of the moon, gulped it in all, made it red, and stealthily, left the scene to leave us with a supermoon. And I got none of it on my camera. However. I woke up this morning at 6:30 am and looked out of the balcony, to see the supermoon hanging over the city, looking so gor...

My day has been made. With this news: http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/247390/ A startup called Crow-ded Cities from Netherlands  won the Dutch Accenture Innovation Award this year. Their objective? To train crows to pick up cigarette butts in return for food. This is amazing, at so many levels. That we thought it would be easier to train crows to pick up what we throw, than train people not to throw in the first place, speaks so much about us as a society. I am beginning to think, the cows that sit in the middle of the busiest roads in Bangalore are actually some intelligent startup's highly advanced way of making speeding cars slow down.  Or the monkey that entered someone's house in my society last week and stole a box full of cookies (this is true, not making it up), was  merely helping the residents stick to their diet and not cheat. But, more seriously, when and why did we give up on humans? Is that how hopeless we have become at following rules? ...

Many experts are of the opinion that very soon machines will be taking over our jobs. I am happy to report that as per my calculations, these experts are quite precisely wrong. At least as far as India is concerned. Take the self-driving cars that the tech world is so pumped about. I am willing to bet my car's never used 5th gear on this, that these over-hyped machines will not even survive the 3 km stretch from Silk Board to Koramangala in Bangalore. Here it is, cruising along at a glorious 6 kmph, with all its sensors showing a safe cruise ahead because the traffic light says green, when all of a sudden a hand pops out bang in front of the dashboard. It is, of course, the royal pedestrian (and 17 more people who decide to follow this man, as he leads them to freedom into the other side of the road), whose need to cross the road is so paramount a requirement, that the world must come to a grinding halt and watch the procession, led by "the hand", cross the road int...

There are some benefits to being a Government Officer's daughter, growing up in Delhi. For instance, the fact that for us 26th January is never just another holiday to wake up late. Its the one day when we are in the middle of the action. Oh, the excitement of Republic Day! Waking up early to catch the Prime Minister's tribute at Rajghat. Watching the beautiful black cavalcade move gracefully on my beloved Rajpath through the foggy, cold wintry haze.  The commentator's invariable comment on the weather. "Aaj mausam ne bhi Bharat ko salaam kiya hai. Dekhiye kaise baadalo ke peeche se suraj dikh rahe hai." And the camera pans across the impatient audience. One swift glance of sweaters and woolens of all colors. The camera's standard zoom in, on the kids section and the commentator's - "Dekhiye bacchon ka utsah. Isi drishya ke liye yeh Gantantra Diwas humare liye itna mahatvapoorna hai." Then the sound of hooves as the President arri...