Digging for Meaning

I feel that the system is rewarding me well with my career.  Primarily because my career is in advertising industry and as it turn out, advertising is one of the most important soldiers in service of globalisation . So, while seemingly inconsequential, my role is an integral (though small) cog among the many million small cogs that keep this system running. The system needs people who are capable of doing what is required of them. And I am capable enough . Enough - The system only requires a very narrow skill set of mine. That is a small part of the arsenal of skill sets that a typical human requires to progress and thrive in life. I suck at breathing for example. I have terrible hand-eye co-ordination. I have hundred other deficiencies that I would much rather not share with my possible future employer. It astounds me that for all my short comings and a few strengths, I earn way too much in comparison to people who are better humans that me. I am lucky to have just the right...

Matrix Cellular is quite possibly inflating your bills when you use their cards while traveling abroad. I traveled to Germany last September. During this time I used Matrix's O2 card. I was keenly aware of my usage, penny pincher that I am. So I was very surprised to see an inflated bill when I returned home, my credit card being charged already. I requested a bill. I was puzzled with the fact that the sums added up to the amount being charged. However, I had kept a tab on my usage and had an estimate in mind of my bill. On closer inspection, it turned out, that the anomaly is not in summation or in call rates. Instead, MATRIX HAD SYSTEMATICALLY INFLATED THE DURATION OF CALLS . Here's a snapshot of my bill. The number in red boxes is the duration of call as per my phone records. Matrix has agreed to my claims and now reduced the bill to account for inflated charges. (I had shared with them snapshots of my cell phone with call record.)  (its another 3 month...

Levi's has come with another commercial from their 'Go forth' campaign. Here's an embedded video of the same. It instigated me to write what I felt about such advertisements, in the form of a poem. It follows the video, please scroll down. An empty shell of decaf coffee and air conditioned adventures. Running in the city streets stamping out mindlessly images of its own. All the running flattening the world into a 2D image-nerium from a living breathing 3D world of yesterday. 'You are a kid' & 'you are the next living leader of the world' and all that lies in between is a piece of cloth that drapes beautifully and consequentially. The 21st century gods in jeans and T-shirts and shades smile their blessings on you - you whose image is now as big as those very god's. And smiling sideways, the gods bestow powers on the soles of your designer shoes and the threads of the Made-in-Bangladesh shirts. The global dreams ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vKDOWAf5M8&feature=player_embedded Sorry, can't seem to embed it here...  See this new commercial by coca-cola. Coca-cola: the glorious fizz drink maker who are making this world better by spreading happiness apparently (through making us drink pesticide laced poison and depleting our water table and spreading violence against labor union & wreaking local communities in  Guatemala and many other places) This wonderful ad comes at a wonderful time in the history of the world. The planning team did an impeccable job, I must say. The world is in deep shit. People need consolation. People want to hear that the world will be better again. They can go gorge on ridiculous amounts of cheese, steaks and Mchumanity without any consequence. And lo and behold... the ad delivers exactly that. However i have this urge to rip apart this charade of idiotic optimism which is nothing short of criminal. its perpetuating exactly the same mindset ...

I have 3 shoes. One formal, One sport shoe and another a mix of the two. The last one is particularly awesome, cause of its uniqueness. It looks like a formal shoe, but is as comfortable and flexible as a sport shoe. I bought it for my first job in Mumbai. I was newly rich and was expected to behave like one. I found this gem of pure black leather in a Colaba Causeway showroom. Quite a find. But its been almost two years now and the shoe shows its age. For all its awesomeness, its quite a weak shoe, to give out so early. I have stitched it, got new laces, and strengthened its sole. It doesn't look shiny anymore cause the leather has suffered from a few hostile trespasses. I think, like a man, things too should be allowed to carry their scars. Shiny scar-less men are just so... irrelevant.  Since childhood, I have been used to using things for long times. Clothes, equipments, shoes etc. I can't just throw things away cause they don't look as good anymore or they don't ...

I am against hyper efficiencies sought in these days in everything. These hyper efficiencies are being sought without an understanding of the implications thereof. Take the case of energy systems. May it be the invention of the nuclear weapons, which has made extinction of human race a possibility in immediate future. Or see how this need for efficiency is fueling our irrational want for everything. There is a chasm of understanding between how things get made and how they get consumed. The hyper efficiencies are created by specialization of work. Vocations are getting more and more specialized. As such, human is getting distanced from the understanding of mechanisms of production of things that one consumes. This is harmful, because one then doesn’t understand the cost that natural resources, human life and flora and fauna is paying in producing something that may be totally superfluous. This drives irrational wants and creates a maddening consumerist race towards annihilation of wo...