The, i-pad, the newly hailed king of technologies has recently hit the US market, and is slowly making its way eastwards, advertised by Apple as ‘a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price’. At $499, ‘unbelievable’ is the word… although I believe Apple, I think it’s cheap and I think it’s not?!?!

It has the capability to run around 150,000 apps, yes, 150,000. These range, inevitably, from the useful through to the downright lazy and ludicrous. 

On the useful (ish) scale, you can read the Wall Street Journal, play scrabble on your way to work and you can add up the calories you eat in every meal. And on the barking mad crazy scale? You can turn off the lights in your home, you can take an eye test instead of visiting the opticians, and you can race a Lamborghini around Las Vegas. What on earth?

On the plus side, it’s versatile and easy to use, slim line and very light and basically acts as your television, movie theatre, laptop and mobile phone all in one neat little packet. You can be talking to your mother one moment and be creating a PowerPoint presentation the next. But is this compact little object really such a good thing?

Surely this new technology; rather than enhancing the ability to communicate effectively as I’m sure Alexander Graham Bell intended when he invented the telephone, now takes communication technologies one step further towards ending face to face communication forever. We have reached such a far-fetched level of computer madness that we no longer need to walk to the shops to buy groceries or to see the doctor to get a diagnosis. Is this, the i-pad, not one way to start losing contact with people altogether and in effect live in a ‘Terminator-esque’ world alongside the machines?

Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned? 

Contributed by Jenny-Wren Charlton

Yesterday never dies. School. College. Pink Floyd. Dhaba food. Bunking. Boys. Crushes. Battle of the exes. All of these crossed my mind the moment I heard that Chetan Bhagat’s bestselling lad-lit Five Point Someone is being staged in the city. What better way to meet up with nostalgia and savour yesterday?

To top it all, the male-dominated cast is directed by a woman, Nikhila Kesavan. She not only identifies with the characters, but also believes in the story’s premise: Can under-performers, with five-point-something scores (in a 10-point scale) show they are actually five-point-someones?

A fast-paced, rib-tickling play set in an IIT campus, the characters are real and their identity crisis, believable. There’s Alok, who wants to study, only to find a job and support his family. Ryan dismisses the educational system because it doesn’t promote innovation and creativity. Hari wants to be like Ryan. And Prof Veera does a Patch Adams and reminds you of Aamir Khan in Taare Zameen Par. His friendly and unconventional ways make him the trio’s sole guiding light.

Before I forget, there’s Neha, Hari’s love interest. As sparkling as champagne, she brightens the proceedings just when things start to go downhill. Can friendship and love survive in an environment of relative grading? Can fun and creativity co-exist with tests and assignments?

The play has all the answers.

Five Point Someone. Staged by Evam Productions, Chennai, at Ranga Shankara, 36/2, 8th Cross, JP Nagar 2nd phase at 3.30pm and 7.30pm on April 12-13. Tel: 26592777, 26493982. Tickets: Rs 200.

(This piece also appears on Trendy.in)

Esquire has always been my favourite read for over a decade now. I had only one grouse. It was always so expensive that I had to beg and borrow at the only library in the city that stocked the magazine down the years. What made my worrylines even more prominent was that I would always end up with some old issue because the latest would almost always be borrowed by someone else.

The online version didn’t help me there either. In fact, it was no ‘version’. It was merely reproducing the cover page and contents page online, so people would get curious enough to buy the mag off the stands. For years, this story repeated itself. I would go online, but never get to read any story. Only the headline and the sub head. Therefore, I was left with no option but to knock on the doors of my library time and again.

But not anymore.

The Esquire guys have listened and I don’t have to take the long road. All I need is to log online and read all of my favourite magazine. What I find most enjoyable is the chance to re-read all the wonderful stories I enjoyed reading.

Like Tom Junod’s THE FALLING MAN, about the man in a newspaper picture throwing himself down the window of The World Trade Centre when Bin Laden decided to punish America. Or his January 2008 profile, HILLARY CLINTON HAS A SEXY MOUTH.

There is a certain gravitas Esquire writers like Junod bring to the story all too consistently and tirelessly that distill journalistic wisdom collected over the years. But what is even more evident is the way they approach celebrities. They rubbish them and eulogise them in the same breath. And yet, you come away feeling like you’ve gained some earth-shattering wisdom yourself.

All balls.

What the magazine actually does is make you feel good about yourself and the world around you. The writers expose the movers and shakers with an eye towards making you feel that life is not really greener on the other side. And if it is, there are too many obstacles that a mere mortal like you and I can never overcome. If the writers elevate the glitterati and thinkerati to the heavens, they also bring them down with a thud that could imbalance your ear bone. In the end, you are happy. For having survived the read. An enjoyable one at that. That’s Esquire. Profiling ‘man at his best’.

And so it was when I wandered around in cyberspace and found myself on the front end of Esquire’s online edition. Was I surprised? Like an elephant in heat, I pillaged forth and soaked it all in one breath. During the three-hour reading session, one story smacked me in the face with its intellectual sweep. It was a compilation of the best 70 sentences ever published in Esquire’s 70-year history that “sparkle, invoke, provoke, or are just damn enjoyable to read”. Want to know my favourite lines among them? Here they are…

* He is lousy at alone. –Bill Zehme, “The Man Who Loved Women,” 1998

* Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. - Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” 1936

* So deeply imbedded was she in my consciousness that for the first few years of school I believed that each of my teachers was actually my mother in disguise. –Philip Roth, “A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis,” 1967

* They are a curious mixture of Spanish tradition, American imitation and insular limitation. –Helen Lawrenson, “Latins Are Lousy Lovers,” 1936

* Bust, bosom, boobs, babaloos, beanbags, buds, bulbs, balcony, balloons, bangers, bazongas, bazooms, baseballs, beach balls, berthas, bettys, beausom, beauts, begonias, big brown eyes, bits, blubbers, bobbers, BB’s, bonbons, boom-booms, bongos, bings, bounty, the Bobsy twins, bottles, boulders, bikini filler, brassiere food, breastices, bosiasm, bubbles, bubbies, buddies, bozos, bee stings, bullets, bumps, buffers, bumpers, busters, best friends, bug bites, butter-bags, the baby bar–that’s fifty just in the b’s, and we probably missed one or two. –Larry Doyle, Esky, 1999

* Negroes want to be treated like men: a perfectly straightforward statement, containing only seven words. –James Baldwin, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown,” 1960

* When a writer does well, the rest of the country is doing fine. –John Steinbeck, “A Primer on the 30’s,” 1960

* A child is a territory, a landscape, a region, an outpost, a republic and island of worry. –Alec Wilkinson, “Sam and Other Reflections on Being a Father,” 2000

* We decided to spend a few minutes analyzing our motives–something we often do when there’s nothing good on television. –Calvin Trillin, “A Day at the Spaces,” 1977

* She is cute as a button, pretty as a picture, eminently fuckable, totally unavailable. –Mike Sager, “Beautiful,” 1999

Want to pick your own favourites and go through the entire piece in Esquire, then you can go here… ESQUIRE’S 70 GREATEST SENTENCES

Here is a forward from the South Asian Journalists Association. One publishing house is seeking travel writers in India. Here are their specifics. Make the most of it if you fit the bill. Good luck!

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

Avalon Travel Publishing is seeking two professional writers to author the Moon Delhi, Agra, & Rajasthan guidebook and the Moon Mumbai & Goa guidebook. THESE ARE CONTRACT POSITIONS, NOT FULL-TIME OFFICE JOBS.
The writer should live in either Delhi, Agra, or Rajasthan, or Mumbai & Goa, or must have very close ties to the areas and visit often. The writer must be very knowledgeable about the destinations’ attractions, should be able to provide strategic planning advice for travelers, and should have previous experience writing about either Delhi, Agra, & Rajasthan or Mumbai & Goa.
ATP writers are compensated with an advance and royalty. These guidebooks will be in the Moon Handbooks format, and the writers selected to be the guidebook authors will be responsible for updating the book every two to three years.
Interested applicants should send a resume, a cover letter, up to five relevant clips to avalon.acquisitions@perseusbooks.com as attachments. In the cover letter, explain why you are the best person to write either Moon Delhi, Agra, & Rajasthan or Moon Mumbai
& Goa. Please include “Moon Delhi, Agra, & Rajasthan” or “Moon Mumbai & Goa” in the subject line of your message.
Visit HERE for more information about their expectations and the work involved.
No phone calls, please. Qualified applicants will be contacted and invited to submit a proposal for further consideration. (Note: There is no need to submit a full proposal at this point.) They may not be able to respond personally to each applicant.

Just read a few posts of Aamir on his blog (http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm) and came away happy with the feeling that here is a guy who tries to expell everything he holds closer to him and interacts with the others like any normal human being. I think this is important at a time when stardom is as fickle as it can get. What remains is the kinship you’ve bred and nurtured over the years. It could be with your fans, your colleagues, your business associates or childhood sweethearts…

I went to Aamir’s blog for a reason. Being a journalist, I could have easily procured his cell number and spoken or messaged him on what I had to say, but I thought of taking the road less taken by journalists… and what I saw humbled me. Here was a guy who was talking to his fans through blog entries and chat transcripts. Coming from a much admired superstar of recent times, it’s no less a feat.

Coming to why I was on his blog. I simply wanted Aamir to read my friend Christina’s book whose theme coincides with that of his new film, TZP. So, i wanted him to read the book whenever he could, and to help him get a feel of the book, i also posted my review of the book that appeared on Trendy.in.

This is how the review went… Do let me know what you think, dear readers:

Treat Read

Ginger Soda Lemon Pop for the child within

Soft toys and stick ice-creams. School friends and warm cuddles. A little part of you holds on to those single-digit years long after the 21st birthday party. When Aamir Khan, in his new movie, says every child is special, he echoes what your heart already knew.

In her debut book Ginger Soda Lemon Pop, Christina Daniels — an LSE grad and Wipro employee — articulates the EQ further. Through the ups and downs of a five-year-old girl’s second year in kindergarten, she tells a universal story of love, hate and loneliness with a sense of fun and empathy.

The humorous storytelling is punctuated with the little protagonist’s deep life lessons. Self discovery is a journey; not a destination. The thrill of life is always the strongest when it seems like it’s all going to end.

Written in childspeak, yet profound (”my mother told me that my father was good for nothing. I felt nothing”), the book can be finished in one sitting but lingers long afterwards.

Perfect for those times when you need a hug.

Ginger Soda Lemon Pop by Christina Daniels. Dronequill Publishers. Price: Rs 225. Available at leading book stores nationwide.

Read this book to awaken the child within

Hello everyone. I am a five-year-old girl going on six. I have not seen my father since I was born. I think God is love. And she probably looks just like my mummy. In my second year of kindergarten, I have learnt my own little big lessons. I would like to share some of them with you:

1.      Those who go away never really leave us. There is an eternal fragrance that lingers on.

2.      The thrill of life is always the strongest when it seems like it’s all going to end.

3.      We own nothing. We lose nothing. Only life continues.

Now, I am an adult. But when I look back, I remember praying to Mrs God that I would only be a Big Girl and never be grown up. When I related my story to Christina Daniels, she could relate to the child within all of us. And the result is Ginger Soda Lemon Pop. She’s a first-time author who graduated from the London School of Economics and landed up at Wipro to manage their Intranet communications. I am glad my life appealed to her. Do read and let me know what you learnt from the book.

PS: Aamir’s new film says, ‘Every child is special.’ This book couldn’t have been better timed.

Ginger Soda Lemon Pop. Dronequill Publishers. Price: Rs 225. Pages: 133. Available in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

For years, I used to pity people who were into self-help books (which meant most of America). Until Betty Shine happened.

There I was browsing for more than an hour at Sankars Book Stall when my eye picked out her book, Mind Magic. Maybe it was the jacket blurb. Maybe it was my age – I had just turned 30. Maybe it’s a bit of all this, but the fact is it was a fortunate accident.

The next few days stretched my mind. Shine says that we are energy beings first. Without our energy counterpart of the physical body, we would not be here at this moment. But stress causes energy blockages in the physical system causing distress and disease. The underlying reasoning: Don’t underestimate the power of your mind. If it can create an atom bomb, it can also create great art. It makes waves – of love, compassion and understanding – and it heals.

Shine was a medium (she died four years ago). She not only existed in this dimension, she could also interact with ‘dead’ people in the next dimension so that she could pass on their messages to loved ones telling them not to grieve. They came to her to prove they had survived ‘death’ and were happy in their new world.

The healing powers of the mind drew me more than anything else. I wanted to heal and be healed, physically and soulfully. I have tried healing my father’s dislocated knee – though it’s yet to be healed completely, the pain has receded to a large extent. Now he heals himself. The process is simple: Visualise your palm as a magnet that takes away negative energies. You place your palm on the place of pain for a while and move it away, taking with it all the negative energy that was embedded within the body. It’s a process that demands faith.

If it’s about healing people living away from you, you could still work the magic through visualisation. You could send loving thoughts to the person even without that person’s knowledge. And the best way to heal yourself is to go to bed blessing your friends, enemies and strangers.

As Betty Shine puts it, to be happy, one can never afford to lose the child within. A child is innocent and has faith and allows things to happen. We are all born with this talent, and it takes the child within to find and nurture it.

India is shining indeed. After much auctioning, the Tatas took over Corus and became the fifth largest steel maker in the world and only the second in Europe after NRI Lakshmi Mittal’s company. And then, you have Shilpa Shetty’s victory over alleged racism on a TV show that got her Rs 86 crore in endorsement and other deals. Not to mention, Sania Mirza regaining her form and entering the top 50 world ranking.

After IT, these are the most notable ones hitting international headlines of late. A decade ago, India was internationally known for only beauty queens who served little purpose. Today, a majority of scientists at NASA are Indians. Ditto with the intellectual capital in Dubai and other Middle eastern countries.

However, what enthralls me most is how India is helping non-Indians make their millions. Take Gregory David Roberts, the writer of Shantaram, a film that’s soon going to hit the production floors in Hollywood. It’s a real-life story of Roberts himself. Life changed for this armed robber and heroin addict when he escaped from an Australian prison and took refuge in a Mumbai slum. Roberts soon establishes a free health clinic and joins the Mumbai mafia as a money launderer, forger and a street soldier. More than the story, it’s the sights and sounds of India that give the book a gritty authentic flavour. Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions. Roberts was captured in Germany in 1990 and eventually extradited to Australia. One completing his prison term, he set up a small multimedia company and is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne. That’s the story of an armed robber who becomes a well-known writer, courtesy India.

Yann Martel is yet another writer who made profound use of India to launch himself into the international market. His book Life of Pi won him the Man Booker Prize 2002. Though born in Spain, he grew up in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Alaska and Canada. But as an adult, he spent time in Iran, Turkey and India. It’s the last destination that germinated this book. More than anything, it’s the Panchatantra-like quality of the book that captivates you. It’s this essence that Martel imbibes from his visit to India and makes maximum use of it to weave a tale filled with ‘astonishment, delight and gratitude.’

Which brings me to Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup. After serving in Turkey, the US, Ethiopia and the UK, when he sits down to write a story, it’s set in India. His book Q&A is a straight take on Kaun Banega Crorepati bordering on how a show like that can also be rigged. But what is again the highlight is neither the show nor the rigging but the rich and diverse culture that we live in. And that is what engages the reader and takes you on a roller-coaster ride: from the mafia underworld to glue-sniffers, arrogant whites, oppressive servants and families who prostitute a daughter… essentially all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler. No wonder this book is being made into a film and a stage musical. What’s more, for wider access, the book is being translated into twenty-five languages.

My friends in the publishing industry tell me that India is shining so bright that any book on India is being lapped up, merit be damned. So when are you writing your first book, dear reader? Make the most of now.