Shades of Journey

I find every journey (leisure trips not included) that I take bothersome, particularly to new destinations. The unease of leaving the current state of life, change in daily routine, disappearance of familiar faces, appearance of unknown faces, insertion of new surroundings put you a state of transition from a steady state (pardon me for the use of technical words).

So the anxiety of transition state makes me uncomfortable. Somehow I feel that I find a steady state inside this transition state. So the ever changing surroundings, faces, are all put together steady. It’s like inertia, if you are in state of transition you want to be in the same state. We attach ourselves to the objects in your personal space.

So if I have got a seat in a train, or bus, I want to sit in my seat. If I find someone occupying my seat I will ask him to vacate the seat for me. If the bus stops at a mid-way, you get down and have some snacks but when you come back you are again happy and relax once you are seated in your seat. You find the same window, same front seat (actually the back of the front seat) and the same side seat and the same faces. You find the same view of the bus from your seat and thus familiar surroundings. You will feel uncomfortable if after every stoppage your seat gets changed.

Let’s come to the hotel where you have done your booking. Day before today, you are not at all concerned about the room that are going to stay, but once you are in that room, the surroundings, ceilings, window, furniture, curtains find a place in your ‘comfort space’ (just coined this term, not sure if this exists). After having done a sizeable field visits to rural markets when I come back to my hotel room, I get some respite. You will not find that kind of relief anywhere else in that new city but your hotel room. Once again it’s the same surroundings, ceiling, window, curtains, furniture etc.

At once I thought that it is not the ‘comfort space’ but the privacy that you find in your hotel room. But thinking deeper you realise that it is not the privacy at all. Let take a train seat for example, you have other people in the compartment but you are confined in your seat and you do not complain, you are happy that the seat meant for you is all yours. Let say that you do not occupy the whole seat and someone comes and sit on the remaining part of the seat, suddenly you say ‘hey that’s my seat’; why? There is no privacy but the steady state in the transition state that I talked about is broken. Forget someone coming and seating, just imagine that someone put his/her bag there, still you do not feel the same. You want it to be removed immediately. This is the reason I call it a ‘comfort space’ which is little different from privacy.

And once again when you start your return journey, you again deal with the same experience. The changing definition of ‘comfort space’ and external space again keeps you guessing about the next station or the next steady state of your journey. And as I write this blog waiting for my return flight to Mumbai from lucknow, I am in my ‘comfort space’ of waiting lounge. Well this blog is going too long, and I do not like reading long blogs, so let me just stop here.

Innovative Premier League

I was surprised when I first noticed that Google is making money by selling English words. In Google Adwords one can buy a set of words/phrase and then whenever anyone searched for the term the buyer’s link will appear in the sponsored category.

IPL has gone the same path this summer in order to generate more revenues. I agree they are incurring more costs as they have shifted to South Africa but then the traditional means of getting the sponsorship has been given a new face.

One had never heard before a DLF maxima or Citi Moment of Success and you will never hear it’s a SIX or a WICKET. So in the already innovated version of the game has become more innovative.

This coupled with strategic break where you get ample time to advertise in between the match apart from the break between the overs. The thinktank behind all this has done a commendable job.

Another challenge while moving to South Africa was how do you get the local crowd to see the matches and I mean 59 matches. They have linked the IPL with a social cause by donating 100,000 Rand to a local school. At the same time you have Miss Bollywood South Africa contest going on.The TRP have improved a bit but still a long way to meet the expectations. I wonder if there are other things on store to excite the viewer.

Awareness campaigns gone wrong?

The first phase was very successful with round 60% turnout in many of the cities but comes the second phase and it’s all the same again. A meagre 45% turnout in Mumbai. Mumbai people are considered to be among the most concerned ones as it has business class at one end and emerging middle class on the other end. Still we failed.

The people who conceptualized the campaigns, who participated the campaigns and who endorsed the campaigns are popular Mumbai people but nothing worked. You discuss it with people and they say that it should not have been on the long weekend. It happens in 5 years and we value a long weekend like we get a long weekend once in 5 years. What is it that prevented the intellects to come out for voting. Are we elite enough not to vote for ourselves and intelligent enough to blame the elected representatives for non competence. I think we have lost the conscience of our duties towards our society, we are becoming more individualistic. The people who will surely benefit by our insensitivity towards these important rights are the ones who play around with the sentiments of masses by repeating trivial issues like Ayodhya, telangana, marathwara etc. No surprise why the vote bank of Lalu still remains the poor and why it is in his personal interest that they remain poor. Why the situation in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh hasn’t changed for the past 20 years. Why the issues 20 years back are still the issues today and they will be the same 20 years hence.

A recent news article said that the maximum increase in net worth of MLAs are observed for BSP MLAs, but this info do not ring bell in the ears of their vote bank, we pity them to have continuously vote for the same guy year after year on the same issue eradicating the poverty.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Lucknow/BSP-tops-list-in-fielding-candidates-with-criminal-background/articleshow/4315363.cms

Why do we always find happiness in pointing out what others are doing wrong and think that our duty as a learned class has ended by pointing out others’ mistakes. Why do we never change ourselves and just STOP. Why not just change ourselves and be happy about it.
Or am I completely wrong. People may have not voted because they wanted to protest the lack of proper governance for the past 5 years. I have read few stories in Mumbai mirror about a couple of people who wanted to cast a protest vote but they were not allowed to do so.

Would having an AC waiting room for the voters instead of long queue in the sun have helped in pulling the “learned class” out of their comfort zones?

While I was writing this one of my friend showed me this link -
http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/may/05/loksabhapoll-joke-ten-reasons-why-south-mumbai-did-not-vote.htm