Astrology Series - My 2.1 cents

First, a review of My 2 Cents. It was not too bad afterall. Norway explosion, China's train accident (not unusual in a large country but the controversies and public outcry following this makes it an event of signficance) and then my own fever - all make up for my warnings in the first edition.

This week - it's more of financial astrology. It's now common knowledge that US is struggling to get a debt ceiling passed by the congress and the geo-political aka financial ramifications of any failure to increase the ceiling or come up with a credible spending-cut plan is likely to be a field-event for rating agencies.

What actually is the US chart looking like?  Leaving aside short term transit impacts arising out of fast moving planets like Moon, Mercury, Sun and Venus, the impact of Saturn on the natal chart of Washington DC is probably of concern. Matters concerning finance and external relations are under strain. These transitory impacts could be felt well into the Summer of 2011 and therefore August is not the best of months for US financial markets. Saturn's impact could also be felt  in labour intensive areas like oil and coal fields. Oil prices could continue to remain volatile before crashing out.

Arising out of the above, we could see similar impact in far eastern markets. The new development on the indo-pak relations (elusive thaw!!) could well fade as another false start. The bi-weekly period until August 22 could mark a low in indian financial markets.

Loss at Lords

Very rarely i would let go a cricket test match unseen (either directly or on TV) but on this momentous occasion - when India played its 100th Test against England and when this was also the 2000th test match in the annals of test cricket - i did not even remember to read the print media. It just passed without notice. And in retrospect, i wasn't a loser.

You don't need too many reasons to attribute to an Indian loss - it comes naturally. But with nearly three-fourth of the team ineligible to play (either due to injury or due to form), where was the need to be party to a historic moment. The best commentary on the state of affairs is when Dhoni turned in to bowl.

Yes there is still a long way to go. Three more tests to play.  And before each match the nation can pray and send SMS to TV channels, wishing Sachin luck. But nothing would have been better than a victory at Lords especially if it was having some statistical significance.

Work Out - A new Paradigm

I haven't read this but many say Jay Elliot's book on Steve Jobs, "iLeadership for a New Generation: The Steve Jobs Way" is a must read.  

....the author praises Jobs' approach to leadership through a singular iLeadership style, which encompasses four major principles: product, talent, organisation and marketing.

...Jobs/Apple created a programme called "Work Out" to achieve these goals. Welch said  "Work Out is meant to help people stop wrestling with the boundaries, the absurdities that grow in large organisations. We are all familiar with those absurdities: too many approvals, duplication, and pomposity, waste. The programme turned the company upside down, so that the workers told the bosses what to do. That forever changed the way people at the company behaved."

Reality Check

In "My 2 Cents" i concluded by saying authentically "..heat is on". 

Afterall i am not off mark - i have been running fever ever since..

Right to Information

In response to an RTI application, the Hon'ble President of India declares assets. Strangely the article in the link mentions it as 2.5 Crore (twenty five million indian rupee only).  It is seriously debatable if this is a good augury and should people at high places be subjected to such public declaration (afterall the election process mandates such a declaration at the time of filing nomination).

http://moneylife.in/article/president-pratibha-patil-declares-assets-of-rs-25-crore-on-official-website/18347.html

Whatever, the sum of such declarations under RTI could lead to a different GNP for india...

  

My 2 cents

It's like the talkative man - i must predict something else or the other every now and then. I consider it sacrilegious if i don't predict anything having learnt astrology and living the quack life of a learning astrologer. So from today, i will predict something or the other once every week or four-times every month. Here comes the first of its kind:   
     

Except Sun, most planets are weak in transit. The rapt and close conjunction of Mars-Ketu means accidents due to fire/heat, volcanoes, explosions. And then, it also makes the police/military, athletes vulnerable. Frayed tempers and tantrums will be noticeably impacting life for a week. And on 27th an exalted Moon goes conjunct Ketu. Service industry watch-out. In short, the heat is on.
 

There is Everything in a Name

People say 'What's in a name?'. As children, we have tried writing our names on the beach at some point. But whereas most people's 'sandwriting' is washed away, one super-rich Arab sheikh has ensured that his doodles will last a little longer.

Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, 63, has scrawled his name in sand on an island he owns with letters so big they can be seen from space. A man famous for owning world's most expensive cars has another feat to his name:

Reports says that the name is so massive that it's spread over three kilometers with each letter more than half a kilometer long. It doesn't stop there. The gigantic name is even visible from space. The sheikh - who goes with the first name of Hamad - carved his name in capital letters on his Al Futaisi island - near Abu Dhabi.

The reports don't say when and how the name was inscribed on the land. The project was started some time ago but was halted in between. The completed project picture was uploaded on the billionaire's Facebook site a few hours ago indicating that the project has very recently been completed. The letters, according to reports, don't wash away as they form waterways to absorb the encroaching tide.

The UAE sheikh is a known philanthropist with focus on medical causes and also owns an automobile museum in Abu Dhabi housing over 200 exotic cars. Bloomberg, earlier this month, reported that the he bought custom-made Bugatti L'Or Blanc fitted with a porcelain caviar tray. Hamad also has built the world's largest truck - Dodge Power Wagon - which is 64 times bigger than the original with a whole apartment inside in the middle of the desert.

Well, he has made a name for himself.

I, me and myself

The three of us have been busy lately. We are on a convergence mode - have been thinking alike, doing things alike and most importantly DOING THINGS. As they say, when three people agree on everything, you can be sure only one of them is doing all the thinking.  If ever there is a fight between artifical intelligence and natural stupidity, the latter should win hands down i keep saying to myself. Probably i am reflective.

A new benchmark in Indian Cinema

 

Sholay remains a landmark movie in many ways. It heralded a revival for an industry that was seeking newer ways to sustain and prosper.

Then the kids took over and for many many years we had the same worn out love stories and their attendant cliched craps. But good music and beautiful locales made up for the terrible stuff.  There have been many such trend setting movies and each of them has had its own pirated originality.

Delhi Belly will probably be another landmark movie. A few years from now when we happen to watch a movie full of abusive language and explicitly shown forbidden stuff, we should remember Delhi Belly as the father of decadence in Indian cinema. 

Aamir..what a mighty fall. 

And talking of benchmarks, i also recollect an event that happened sometime ago.

Ilayaraja got the first national award for background score music (in a malayalam movie). Unlike in Hollywood, indian cinema does not recogise BGS as a category for awards. Awards for film music in india are based on how popular the songs in a film are. Thats pathetic. And the decision to seperate the two stream of film music for awards indeed is a welcome change.  I dont know how many remember, the best background score (or re-recording) in my memory is for the film Lagaan. Each character was identified by a music. And it was incidentally the same Aamir...

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

A refreshingly neat movie.

Good films are like poetry. It is not correct to think that a good movie is an end result of a brilliant story. ZNMD is one of the simplest and neatest movies that i remember watching in recent times. There is enough comedy, but not the slapstick kind. There are intense and passionate moments but nothing is in excess. Its technically brilliant too. Editing (watch that fading light on Kalki's face when the bedlamp goes off),  cinematography (i wished there was more use of the base-light technique that PCSriram used to adopt) and BGS are perfect to a fault.  Farhan is a hidden talent. A must watch.

As coincidence would have it, I have been planning an exclusive and elaborate vacation in Spain next summer based on what i have been reading here or there.  And this film now defines how elaborate it should be.

Timepass

Sheer laziness prevented me from thinking anything original and instead forced me to copy-n-paste something interesting.

A brawl is always fun if it involves celebrities.  In the link below, moonlander Aldrin loses his patience and punches the life out of a stalker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUFO8AGMwic&feature=player_embedded

Possibly, the stalker was trying to pry on Aldrin for the story in the following link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XAcXBT-GZCo

And finally, these are times of unearthing hidden treasure. Some latent, some not. See this ATM receipt in the link below:

http://consumerist.com/2011/07/whose-100-million-atm-receipt.html

A case against nationalisation

  
The news of discovery of a large treasure trove within the confines of  Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum is making waves. This discovery must be the third such discovery that i remember in my life so far. Meivazhi Salai near Pudukkottai and Nahargarh Fort in Jaipur were the others that i have read about when i was young. The latter was later denied and buried as a non-event.  Maybe i was too young to even evaluate what was the truth or if at all such a treasure-hunt happened during those times. I tried a Google-search but could not find details. Have they been removed from records? Possible. Also vaguely remember some controversies around these discoveries. So just no idea what happened to those 'catches'.

An incident comes to mind. During childhood, we used to go to our ancestral home. One day we climbed onto the attic in the house where among cobwebs and thick patina and dust lay some large trunks and photos. The photos were actually framed images of all the Goddesses that we commonly worship and these were actually made of pure silver. These were probably bequeathed across generations and there was no one to vouch for their origin. The boxes had unbreakable locks. We therefore left them as they did not have any value to qualify as a plaything in our hands. We  must have seen them for a few more years during our annual vacations. They lay unattended and uncared for. 

In my wicked mood i would imagine some great grandfather being a usurious money lender and for small defaults, must have taken possession of these gold and silvers. Or, conclude that they must be belonging to a grandmother who walked into this household carrying as dowry these treasure items. Another more dominant possibilty was that as we were the patrons of a nearby temple which was a vestige of the chola dynasty, these precious things may have gotten accumulated.  Years later, the house was demolished to give way for flats. No one has any idea about who took possession of these treasures.

The Trivandrum discovery is just a magnified version of the above story. A great patron as a king, a bigger temple, and a longer period of unattended and uncared for trove. Shashi Tharoor was absolutely correct when he said the Maharaja of Travancore should be the one to decide on what to do with the find.

Let us not conclude: "It is safer to stash it in zurich - India is not safe". (...me and my sarcasm!!)

 

Snake Oil

One of my never-ending pursuits has been to find out why on earth is Oil so expensive. I have often wondered  if pricing is always a function of demand and supply (or the mismatch between demand and supply - or worse still, perceptions of future demand and supply), then oil should be trading upwards of 200 dollars to a barrel. Afterall, the supply is decidedly controlled and far less than the projected demand - where 'D=fG'.

To compound matters, the various varieties of the liquid gold and the volatility in their spreads makes it further more intriguing.  While this issue of its variants is not the subject matter here, what is debated in the link below is why at all oil is where it is and not where it should be. Please read on:

http://www.econmatters.com/2011/07/who-really-moves-price-of-oil-saudi.html

Jagjit Singh

 

My knowledge of Ghazals is limited and confined to blissfully enjoying the sheer melody. I have often wondered if Ghazal should belong to the evocative class.  I must have been listening to Ghazals from my school days but could never go beyond considering them as the best soulmate for a disturbed mind.

Jagjit Singh enthralled us last evening. It must be sheer divine grace that he maintains the same voice and uniqueness that i first heard in 1985. He chose Hoton Se Chulo Tum for expansive raag vinyasa and i thought there was a bit of breach into Misr Yaman from Malhar (or i am as always wrong??). But that is not the point - in popular music, there is always a trade-off between orthodoxy and entertainment value. The beauty of Ghazal lies in the singer's dialogues as interlude. And Jagjitji's gifted voice stands out when he speaks. It would be an understatement to call him Ghazal King. He transcends such mundane descriptions when he is on the stage with his harmonium.

At 70, his breath control is amazing. A must-see for all atheists... Long live Sir.

Metaphysics of Stupidity

It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.

No, this is not about Aristotle's school of metaphysics. The Greeks would have loved me for this reverence to one of our best known philosophers (given the financial crisis this small european country is deeply mired in now).. but this is not about 

Man proposes God disposes. Or Blogger proposes and Browser disposes.
Firefox threw me out as i was typing this. As i often do it extempore, i really dont remember how i would have developed the above theme, as it was more about society and some observations..... so off it goes.

Meditation

The sight of a lonely smoker, deeply lost in his or her thoughts, looking aimlessly at skies, drawing down a deep breath like a sublime yogic and letting out that reeking whiff of tobacco partly through the nostrils  and the rest through circled lips is always  a sight to watch.  I would freeze myeslf like a butterfly on a flower in concentration and enjoy this spectacular act.

I saw just that this morning.  The smoker was a heavily built lady but what impressed me most was her extreme confidence in what she was doing. With terrific concentration and an arrogant  statement "i care a damn of what others feel, i am enjoying what i do", she enjoyed this small reprieve from a tough workplace in this simple but most telling fashion.

Will write in detail and differently on mediation sometime soon. But what i saw today is also a form of meditation to me. The process of controlling and focusing mind onto anything with a hundred-percent commitment should also be meditation, ain't it?

I had a great friend in the renowned landscape painter Eswaran. He would paint for a while, walk backwards a few metres and admire critically what he had just done. I havent seen anything better that could merit a meditative approach.