An evening with the Geiko

Most of us would have read about the Memoirs of the Geisha, enjoyed the film as well. I had the opportunity to interact with two.

We were a group of 26 for whom this was a surprise parting party planned along with a performance. From what I understood, its extremely expensive to see a performance from a Geisha but since this was a sponsored gift we got lucky :)

There were three of them there, an ex Geisha, a Geisha and a Geiko. The ex-Geisha was the one who spoke to us about how it all works. She told us that today the number of girls who like to be Geisha has reduced drastically, the ones who are interested have to join in at a tender age of 12/13, this is when their training starts, after about 3-4 years of training, they become Geikos, that's Geisha in the making and by about 19/20 they are Geishas.

Geishas are trained to be individuals whose company is enjoyed by the rich men in Japan. They can participate in intellectual discussions, entertain with style and serve with the the highest grade of proficiency.

We spent over 2 hours with the Geisha and the Geiko and they spoke to us about a lot of things other than how they are brought up, they told us a little about the games they indulge in, the time they take to dress up, its about 2 hours every evening, the kind of make-up they use, the different symbols on their robes. We asked them what do Geishas do when they are no more Geishas and they told us, they get married, infact the ex-Geisha who was there is married with two kids. They told us, being a Geisha is most often a matter of pride as it shows the level of ones education and stature. They are powerful and command a lot of clout in important circles, though this clout has reduced over time as the society has changed.

Overall it was an experience to remember. I have put a link to the video, hope you enjoy it. The one in the brown robe is a Geiko while the other one is a Geisha.

My Nokia 5140i

Everybody always makes fun of how much time I really take to buy a phone, I started with using a 6110, dropped it in a gutter, used a friend's phone for a while den bought a 6100, used that for a while, lost it some 4 times, in cabs, ricks, in hotels but it always came back, anyway, the point is, I never bought a fancy phone and while I moved up the food chain, I had friends trying to get me to buy a fancy phone, but I never gave in.

This time I could not get away from buying a phone, my 6100 totally gave in, it refused to get charged, so I started looking for a phone, almost bought into the K810i and then saw the K850i, totally fell for the phone, now the problem is that its not available yet, but I had to buy something so started to look for a phone which was not very expensive but yet decent.

Chanced upon the Nokia 5140i and quite liked the really interesting looks, apart from that it has some really cool features, ones that you wouldn't have found in phones but in an expedition kit (compass) or a treadmill (fitness log) or a first aid kit (thermometer) Also the guy who sold it to me said this phone is shock & water resistant and frankly it looks it too. All in all, its a pretty good phone and doesn't cost too much, just over Rs 3500. There are the other regular features as well, camera, stop watch, radio, alarm, organizer etc.

So go ahead and check the phone, its definitely worth it.. And about me, well, I had planned for this as a phone till the K850i is launched but if I have to go by what me friends are saying, I will live with this one for a while.

Manorama | Six Feet Under

Its the story of a middle class PWD employee who wanted to be famous in life, he would want to do anything for that. Moreover there was a latent dream of being a detective, this was combined takes him on a trail that reveals a few dark secrets. Some bad blood, some nasty truths and a few bleeding bodies.

Overall, the movie was slightly slow but worth a watch. Don't spend too much on the movie, go to a a cheaper theatre and don't take your girlfriend / wife, you will get beaten.

One best of the movie: Art directed very beautifully along with the camera work that does due justice to the efforts made by the Art Director.

This was clicked at the Great Wall of China, the steps there are extremely steep and the picture here shows the struggle of this young boy dealing with the steps.

Borne Ultimatum

I saw the movie last Saturday and I have already spoken to at least 10 people about the movie and convinced them to definitely see the movie.

Ideally you should have either seen the earlier movies or read the books, only then would you really understand what is going on and what finally happens, but if you have not done either of the above, don't panic, just get a quick crash course on Jason Borne (Matt Damon) and go for the movie, its a treat.

Brilliant stunts and performances by the actors, it shows they have been preparing for their role.

One Best about the movie: It has the most amazing fist fight I have ever seen.

Expenditure or Employment?

In the last week, we have seen crores being spent on Ganesh Idols, pandals, lights & decorations, band walas, security, truck hire et cetra, et cetra, the question is whether is this expenditure is money well spent or could we make better use of the money?

I had a quick discussion on the above with my friend Narayan and he had a point...

Narayan: Why do we spend so much money on all these things, think about the millions that go without food every night, cant we utilize this money to provide them with a better life?

to that while I completely agree to him, I made the point that...

Parag: Look at this expenditure as provide employment to as many people who are willing to work extra in these few days to make some extra money, so in a way this money spent provides employment to a lot of people, who are either making some extra cash to support a better life or this money will go a long way in feeding their families, wither ways it hard earned. And hence, the money spent, is well spent and is contributing to the lives of people.

Narayan: But this is all temporary, these artisans, decorators, band walas may earn some money for 10 days and then return back to the same life, whats worst is that a few people who look upon this as an additional income don't make the most constructive use of the money, they end up going and spending it on booze, drugs, whoring etc. What if we rather spend all this money on rehabilitating the unemployed, educate the children, train the skilled manpower and make them self sufficient for life.

The above argument just about had to come to an abrupt end here cause of food coming on the table but its something that each of us need to think about, are we doing the right thing? Ganesh Chaturti is just one example, every time we spend on festivities, we need to think back could we have spent this money better? Could we have made a larger difference in the lives of a few had we spent this money any differently?

Even if a few of us, the youth of today, who is far more practical and level headed take a step to change the wya we think, it sure could make a difference.

Mount Fuji from the Bullet Train

I would have loved to go to Mount Fuji, but this was the closest I could get... This was while I was traveling from Osaka to Tokyo.

Bono on Bono

Its all you wanted to know about Bono, Bono from U2, not Edward de Bono :) Well this is a log of Bono's conversation with Michka Assayas about him, his life, people in his life and his inspirations.
A must read for any Bono Fan.

A difficult choice

I have been out to choose a portable hard drive and have looked at the Seagate Freeagent and the Trancend 2.5. Both have their share of pros, without any cons ! ! !

For a non-gadgets person, this is the little I understood as difference between the two. The greatest thing about the Seagate Freeagent is that it is pre-formatted to allow installation of programs in the drive, this helps in a number of ways, you could install any program on your drive and can use that program out of any computer, the other thing is that this practically your own computer's hard drive which could be all you need to carry when you traveling, just hook it and treat that computer as your own by operating on freeagenct.

While the Transcend is a simple but efficient memory storage device. Its greatest pull is the cleek design and the color options. Also its comes for a better price.

Hmmm... Well, I should have decided by tomorrow, will update once the decision is taken...

Make things better ! ! !

I took a job in an Advertising Agency because I just loved the field, though the first, second and maybe most of the initial times when I fell in love with advertising, I was thinking of being part of the Creative team, then after graduating, I realized I'm probably more suited for the Account Management, or Client Servicing as many call it. Work has been fun in the past 4 years in advertising but I still feel we can have it better than this...

One of the many issues that the industry is facing today is lack of talent, today it seems that when a student from one of the top universities graduates, he / she doesn't look upon advertising as the most promising career option. There could be multiple reasons for this, will try and cover the primary.
Monies
This industry can't claim to be one of the better pay masters, there are many reasons for not being able to pay their employees, some say it was the international buyouts, a few others think its just the business that's slack.
Stature
Every person after acquiring fancy degrees wants to be in a position where he has the capacity to take decisions, if not be the final decision maker at least be able to drive a decision (with valid arguments, of course) in the direction that makes sense to him. Advertising professionals if I may say are most often (not always) looked upon as suppliers of ads (note, not strategy, just creative ads)

Then there are other issues that the industry faces like, effectiveness of advertising, emerging mediums taking over traditional mediums and hence keeping pace, demanding clients, competition from smaller players doing the job for lesser and a few more...

I believe there is a solution to all these problems, its just about building focus. We are in the profession of ideas, while we may be popularly termed as a service industry, I feel we are also part of the manufacturing industry, manufacturing of ideas. Even our product has to be effective, functionally viable and has to go through the rigors of some severe tests. So if there are a set of principals that benefit the manufacturing industry, they should work of us as well. Let me take the example of Motorola's Six Sigma, what they did was just list down the processes involved in manufacturing and concentrated on making each process robust. This by making the person performing that process more perfect at what he does. So they figured that if a person performs the same function over and over again, he becomes perfect at it.

We may not be exactly the same as manufacturing but we are close. While manufacturing is extremely objective to judge, ideas are slightly subjective. Whether an ideas is good or bad may depend upon the person judging it, but still there are a few things we can do to make us a true ideas industry.

Execution of ideas is most often the most logical next step to coming up with ideas, we invest a lot of our energies in executing our ideas. While I believe we could very well just out source this particular function, why does the idea thinker have to sit and make sure that the 'ts' are crossed and the 'is' dotted? Leave that to the professionals who are good at doing that, we should concentrate on making our ideas better and more robust. We need to adapt to the model closer to a business consulting firm, these are the people who purely give their recommendation, its upto the client to implement these recommendations and because these consulting firms hire none other than the best, the client buys into every theory.

By separating the function of execution, we will make ourselves more focussed and hence would not need as many people, this will allow us to remunerate better, inturn be able to get better talent, better talent means the clients would respect the advertising person's views.

Now doesn't seem to have solved all the problems we spoke about in the start...

My Favourite Book

Fountain Head
One of the most inspiring books I have read. I read this book about 7 years back and still have the character names clear in my head, it just goes to tell how influencing these characters and the book has been.
After reading you would want to just be the idealist that the protagonist is, its addictive.

Shantaram
It took an Australian to describe Bombay slum life and its connections with the underworld, the little stories that run within and the joys and sorrows of the people staying there. Its unbelievable how well Gregory Roberts has been able to capture details of people's lives.
Again a book that you would not want to let go of.

Picture of the Week

Just a day before I took this picture, there were untimely rains, rains that ruined standing crops worth lacs. This man had 4 acres of standing crops that he lost to these rains.

My Favourite Movie

Jerry Maguire
A movie with so soul. Can watch the movie over and over again, guess the reason I like the movie so much is because its about something I would like to do, start something new and not just follow patterns.
The performances are brilliant, and the sound track is worth a buy.

Godfather
I think this is the movie that could define 'drama'. One of the great things about the movie is that it holds your attention from start to end.
Brilliant casting by the director, Marlyn Brando & Al Pachino uplift the film to the ultimate level.

Imagine...

Have you ever imagined, what would have happened if we would utter only one word and communication would happen through facial expressions and the number ways you can say the same word. The human face would have developed extra muscles to deal with the wacko expressions.

Imagine if one could actually pluck stars off the sky, the world would be so much more of a brighter and hotter place.

Imagine if a human had to fall asleep in the day time and not the night, would it mean he'd have to make darkness when he wants to stay awake and light a bulb when he wants to sleep.

Imagination can go wild, the more one sits and spends time thinking, you'll have things that could be not the way there and this drives you towards questioning why things are the way they are and aren't they great the way they just are. This will help you love and respect everything that you have and make the best of what all you could have. This makes life a more fullfilling experience.