DesiReflections

Before arrival of Steve Jobs,in the computer world no body had thought that a PC can be attractive, different and working on it could be a kind of experience. Thanks to Steve gradually this thought further percolated and spread across the products. An ordinary listening device like head phone comes in hundred shapes, designs and colors. If you look around, designing a product to give it aesthetic look, a different experience is not much thought about by Indian manufacturers. But of late, many IT companies in India are suddenly woken up and seriously started little step in the right direction, if hiring is an indication, yes action has been started.In December 2013, Samsung R&D recruited designing students from National Institute of Design, Ahemedabad at Rs18 Lac per annum. Here Cognizant recruited 20 students TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Adobe were not far behind. Same was situation at National Institute of Design Banglore where this year the recruiters offered an average...

During the early eighties, I stayed in Pithoragarh for almost three years, far remote Himalayan  district in Kumon touching Nepal and China. Every Year, during Jan. Feb and March, jungles having clusters of  Rhododendron arboreum  trees (     buransh in the local lingo) suddenly become dark red as if    jungle is on fire. By the way, Rhododendron is also abundantly found in Bhutan, Nepal as well as Srilanka. It is national flower of Nepal. This flower has unique property. if you chew it, it is juicy tasting sweet as well as lemony. I remember the daily routine of ladies in Pithoragarh area they  go to forest to collect small wood pieces to fire their chullah and sigri, so normally they used to go in a group each one carrying their lunch but during blooming season of Buransh, they do not carry their lunch just pluck the flowers and chew it to get complete healthy  diet. There are so many other uses of Buransh flower. Vi...

Happy Valentine Day  आज वेलेंटाइन  डे    है  जिन लोगों ने जीवन में  मुझे प्यार किया दुलार किया पथ दर्शक बने  चाहे वे महिला हों या पुरुष  सभी को इस दिन पे ढेर सारा प्यार और  पुरखलूस मुबारकबाद  जिसे मैं दिल से चाहता हूँ  सोचा उसके लिए  अगर कोई कीमती गिफ्ट या फिर केंडल  लाइट डिनर  न सही  एक गुलाब ही खरीद लूं और गुलाब को  अपने दिल की तरह पेश कर दूं  पड़ोस  के   फ्लोरिस्ट के पास गया  उसने गुलाब के फूलों पर गोल्ड और सिल्वर स्प्रे भी किया था  फूल ख़ासे  दिलकश लग रहे थे   पूछा ' भाई एक फूल कितने का है ?' बोला ' पचास का' मैं कहा ' भाई डंडी में कुछ पत्ते भी है उनके कितने एक्स्ट्रा  पैसे लगेंगे?' ' क्या बात करते हैं  फ्री हैं' मेरे मासूम सवाल को सुन कर वहाँ खड़ी तन्वी बालाओं ने  जो अपने वेलेन्टाइन के लिए मेरी ही तरह गुलाब लेने आयीं थीं  मेरी तरफ देखा और स्मित मुसकरा...

Arshi Khan will Play Empress Rabia in  Bollywood Historical   Director V Ganesh Kumar is working on India's first mainline Bollywood 4D film.He is pitching for  Salman Khan or Hrithik Roshan to play the lead roles in the film, Afghanistan-born, Bhopal girl Arshi Khan is fine tuning her Urdu-speaking skills. The production house Ganesh Saraswati Films has announced that Arshi Khan will play the role of Aurangazeb's first wife - Rabia-ud-Daurani. This proposed historical film will have budget around Rs 120 crore. Historically speaking Rabia-ud-Daurani (1622 – 1657) was the Empress of the Mughal Empire as the first wife and chief consort of Emperor Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughal Emperors. She is also known by her birth name Dilras Banu Begum. The Bibi Ka Maqbara at Aurangabad was commissioned by her husband as her final resting place. Dilras Banu Begum was born a princess of the prominent, Safavid dynasty, the ruling dynas...

Let me confess first. I am a great lover of Cocktails. It is almost 30 years when my journey to this unusual path was started. It was my encounter with a fancy counter at a five star hotel in South Bombay, where a smart young man was standing at a counter surrounded with fancy bottles of different shapes and size filled with liquid color ranging from gold, black, pink, red blue, green. That was the time the gentlemen serving drinks used to be called bar tender , now he is known Mixologist.  When bartender asked me which drink, I requested him for a cocktail he liked most. He served me Sex On The Beach . I sipped, loved its whole creation and asked him to share its ingredient. In fact, he felt more than happy that somebody liked his drink and proudly shared the ingredient that was my first lesson in cocktail making. I purchased couple of books on this art, but soon realised that there is lot of scope for innovation. Mixologists : funfilled avatar of bartender ...

Gurbir Singh, Secretary of The Mumbai Press Club should be commended for this thursday's dialogue initiated at the Club about the present state of affairs of media. The issues which used to be discussed in the canteens of publications have suddenly burst out in open. The owners and management do not allow publication as an independent fourth estate, as they have their own vested interest. It will also be wrong to say that it has never happened in the past but now it is so naked that even an average reader or viewer can also sense it. Few recent examples : Open magazine owned by Rahejas sacked it's political editor for a series of writeups done by him and were not appreciated by the politicians he criticised. The Hindu lost it's first professional editor and CEO as they fell victim to owners' manoeuvres. Loksabha elections around the corner, suddenly channels started showing long public speeches of certain politician, newspapers giving extraordinary ...

Kala Ghoda Festival means celebration of street art, fun, frolic and fulto entertainment. Over the period of time it as evolved and attracts artists, performers from  the length and breadth of country. It is hap to be a part of the festival from  youth to intellectuals, frankly speaking age is no bar to enjoy the festival.    Main sponsors of the festival from last so many years Times of India have backed out, Out Times of India, enter Hindustan Times a great milage to an outsider news paper, a very smart move by HT Media. I captured few moments in my IPhone.  

You might have also noticed jubilation all across the Bollywood on Dhoom3 crossing 500 Crore Rupee mark world wide. It is really time to celebrate that an Indian movie grossed this much in a weeks time. The credit to this feast goes to tremendous marketing buzz , sleek quality of production and matching international standard. Another factor which contributed to this collection, number of screens where the film was simultaneously released, 4500 screens all across the length and breadth of country as well as 1000 screens abroad. Success of Dhoom3 has also proved that old order is getting changed, to make a film box office hit you need not to wait for Golden/ Silver Jublee 100 days run. The new rule of game is hit the jackpot in the first week itself or till the next big ticket releases. This has created a big problem for the Small Budget film producers. The top notch distributers and big production houses want to grab maximum number of screens, with as many as 60 shows in a s...

I saw an interesting piece of writing in today's Mid Day by Vinita Kohli Khandekar, who has posed a question : are we losing the ability to read. The assertion is that digital media is making dumb dependence of all us. Many scribes challenge that no reporter can search with out Google. In this connection, I recollect that in 2008, Nicholas Carr posed similar question in Atlantic Monthly, ' is Google making us dumb?'. He reckoned that more than 15 years of Internet had changed the way we read. The ability to dive deep into a book or an article is almost impossible even in the most dedicated readers. He said, ' we consume information in bits and pieces, skin through, speed read or power browse. But frankly speaking I can only partly agree with Vinita and Carr. In fact, people want to read, but we have to create a kind of environment. There are two perspectives to it. The first one, world over there is a serious shift in the way people read. But it will be wrong...

Members of Lokhandwala Residents Association should be commended for todays' Mini Marathon Race. When people are enjoying late morning siesta at home or taking deep sleep  after a long night chill out, these enlightened soul were busy in fine tuning last minutes logistics for race.They are doing such an event without big sponsors. Skyz and Restless are two small brands just supporting the cause. Though in technical terms, the race is not even Mini Marathon, but it is very significant in creating health awareness in the people of area. From last 10 years one witness huge footfalls, health conscious people right from 10 years to 80 years are a part of this yatra. stars of the day Lokhandwala is a complex of more than 100 cooperative housing societies, in a periphery of one and half kilometer area population equivalent to Maldives lives. This  area is high concentrated with top names in film and TV industry. Each society has number of big shots of show busi...