Guess who...

Want another hint?











I am sure you would have an idea - no he is not back from the dead. He is very much around. He has just decided to do some other things. He has stopped trying to analyze and understand what was going on those many years ago and just trying to enjoy himself now.
Yes, he is Robert Plant who played at the Palais des Sports de Paris in the summer this year with his Band of Joy.












Sure it was not the Madison Avenue, it was a small indoor arena seating ... yes seating around 5000 people but it just helped to make a more personal setting to see the God of Rock perform himself. What was remarkable was that Live he is so much different from all the stories we have heard about him and the Led Zepplin. So much humility, so much affection and so much of an attitude - "am i really that good? you all have come to hear me?" I am sure it had to do lot with age and having seen it all. If I had not read the books or seen the movies I could not visualize him as the hell raiser.











There was no hell raising in this show. He started off with the songs from the new album which all had a folksy and bluesy feel to them. The first note with that inimitable voice just brought back thoughts of what I missed - Led Zepp Live in the 70s. Yes he did perform some of the timeless classics - Tangerine, Gallow's Pole, Houses of the Holy, Rock and Roll, Tall Cool One, Misty Mountain Hop etc. and all of them gave me goosebumps. The songs brought the crowd to life but I could recognize that without Jimmy Page the spark was missing. Maybe it was my wishful thinking or just plain greed - now that I had got to see Plant I wanted to get to see the whole jingbang.One is never satisfied I guess. Plant sang most of the songs mid tempo in a relaxed atmosphere but considering the setting it was appropriate.

They played -

• Down to the sea,
• Angel dance
• House of cards
• Please read the letter
• Misty mountain hop
• Twelve gates to the city/Wade in the water
• Tangerine
• Somewhere trouble don't go
• Satisfied mind
• Move up
• Satan your kingdom must come down
• Central 2-o-9
• Monkey
• Houses of the holy
• You can't buy my love
• Tall cool one
• Gallow's pole

ENCORE

• Harm's swift way
• Rock n roll
• We bid you goodnight.

It was one magical night which I didn't want to end.

The theme was LIVE

Whatever 2010 was or wasn't it was definitely a sporty year for me. LIVE sports that is.
The year's first big event which I was fortunate enough to watch ( sure I did pay a ton for it :-) ) was the French Open final. Roland Garros on a nice summer evening with Rafa and Soderling playing for the title of the clay court season was an experience which I would love to repeat. The thing which stood out for me was the fact that the stadiums / arenas seem so much bigger on TV. I was concerned that I would not be able to see the players or the ball or the shots good enough but we had fabulous seats and I could catch each and every clinical stroke with which Rafa became the undisputed king of clay. Even as I write this I cannot believe that I was at the French Open final this year. Would have loved a 5 setter humdinger of a match but Rafa was just too good that day. Soderling didn't stand a chance. Hopefully next year Roger keeps the date. I am being greedy :-)
The next one which stands out was the F1 at Hockenheimring. WOW! that was an experience. Completely unsustainable sport but the adrenalin rush - one has to experience it to believe it. The first race where Schumacher drove in front of the German fans after his comeback and the double treat - Vettel in awesome form. Yeah in the end Alonso won but frankly I didn't care. To just be there was worth it. And yes I had goose bumps when I saw Force India keep up with the pace. Maybe next year they do win a race - the Delhi one. Icing on the cake, I say.
We did visit Wimbledon too. The hallowed center court, the temple of tennis - I was just in awe to see the court. Again it looked really small real time but the history is big enough. Sadly couldn't get tickets for the championship but it is on the list for 2011.
The second half of the year football took center stage. The World Cup excitement was palpable and with Germany doing well there was a definite buzz here. The fan arenas were throbbing and we were part of the fun all through.
We rounded the year off by watching Hoffenheim play Leverkusen in the Rhien Neckar Arena ( Bundesliga ). A "small" stadium of around 35000 capacity but the one where I experienced a Live football game for the first time. We were on the 1st row and almost could touch the players. It was a 2-2 draw - 4 goals in my 1st game..not bad :-).
However the best was kept for the last. I did manage to accomplish what I had always dreamed of doing. Watching ManU play a game at Old Trafford. And that to against Arsenal. We got the red carpet treatment courtesy the steep ticket price but man! was it worth it? or was it worth it? A stadium steeped in history, 75367 people in attendance and when as one they roared United! United! no team stood a chance. The only thing which could come closer to that was Eden Gardens chanting Sachin! Sachin! ManU won 1-0, the goal was scored right in front of where we were sitting. Just our luck that it was the day that the club officially sent off Ole Gunnar Solskjær. One of the 3-4 players I have really loved. That's a promise, I need to do this again.
One a side note in the middle of all this I did finish my 1st half marathon.
Let us see what 2011 has in store....

Are we insensitive or just plain stupid?

Yesterday I saw this piece on a meeting organized which has participation from various countries which have come together to discuss the future of the Arctic Circle.
Well there is nothing spectacular about that as many such conferences happen however what made me pay attention to this News item was when I heard that the conference was organized to decide the claims of countries to the Arctics.
Claim on the Arctics??
Well then I heard even a more incredulous statement - this issue has become critical as the melting ice caps have made the Arctic more accessible and made it feasible to explore the icy wild for oil and natural gas.
I was aghast!
We ignore the melting ice caps, we actually welcome it, so that we can go and do more damage.
Disgusting!

How to bring an Arena down?

Ever wonder what would it take to bring a big city like Frankfurt to a halt? Ever wonder what could cause a "stau" (traffic jam)on the "autobahn" (freeway)? Ever wonder what could cause even a hospital parking to be used for all the out of the city cars? ... all this is possible ... just bring U2 to town.

Paul David Hewson aka Bono, back all fixed up in Germany, in his terms "Made In Germany" stamped on his ass, with David Evans aka The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen decided to pay Frankfurt a visit on the 10th of August 2010. When U2 come visiting these days they touch down in a spaceship. The spaceship touched down at the Commerzbank Arena and it was one heck of a sight. Pictures cannot do justice to the setup but still here goes -



To be fair, U2 has been on the periphery of the bands which I follow but getting a chance to see them live was something which I was not going to loose at any cost. What is remarkable is that this is one band which sounds so much more better live than on CDs. Maybe it was the acoustic of playing in a football stadium or the huge bank of speakers everywhere on the spaceship or whatever but the atmosphere was simply electric. The first notes of distortion guitar from Edge were just electric and all through the night there was this pulsating energy which came through. Bono, really looked fit and revived after the back surgery



I do need to get back to the spaceship because though the band's music would have been enough alone to blow us all away - they were in such flow that night - it was this piece of massive engineering which was fascinating. As I mentioned it was stacked with speakers plus the cockpit in the middle was a collection of screens which opened up to provide a massive projection medium. Maybe this picture helps you to get a perspective



True to form Bono did have a social message or two which he shared through the night. The 1st was a canned speech by Desmond Tutu propagating One Love which was appropriately played before "One" and then the prayer for Aung San Suu Kyi preceding "You'll never Walk Alone".
S said the other day "I have seen more than I can remember, I can remember more than I have seen" and I could relate to this statement when they played "Where the Streets Have No Name" or "I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For" or "With or Without You". There were these flashes of memories associated with these songs which transported me to some other planes.
The set list for the night was -

1. Return Of The Stingray Guitar
2. Beautiful Day
3. New Year's Day
4. Get On Your Boots
5. Magnificent
6. Mysterious Ways / My Sweet Lord (snippet)
7. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet)
8. Glastonbury
9. Elevation
10. In A Little While
11. Miss Sarajevo
12. Until The End Of The World
13. The Unforgettable Fire
14. City Of Blinding Lights
15. Vertigo / It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (snippet)
16. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet)
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
18. MLK
19. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

encore(s):
20. One
21. Amazing Grace (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
23. With Or Without You
24. Moment of Surrender

which kind of covered the Discography spectrum pretty well. It also allowed each member of the band to have their solo time under the spot light or the strobe light.
The show was so good that we seriously think of going again in a month's time to Munich to watch the concert again. Whether we do it or not is a different question but U2 truly brought the Commerzbank Arena down on the 10th night.

Apathy

The last few days have forced me to wonder about the value of life in our country.
We lost 200 people to an air crash, we lost another 150 people to a train accident and another 50 people to a bus accident. I am not even counting the "normal" deaths which occur on a daily basis without making it to the national TV.
Why do we have such apathy towards the value of human life? The air crash probably could have been avoided, the train accident definitely could have been avoided and probably same is the case for the bus accident. However, why is it that these incidents do happen and happen on a regular basis?
It is amazing to see how an unnatural death in most of the other countries is seen really like that - unnatural while we don't even miss a beat and carry on our daily business as if nothing has happened. We are so used to disasters. I am sure it cannot be because we have too many people. I hope the logic of surplus is not being applied to people because each individual life is an irreparable loss.
Could it be because of our disregard for basic safety norms?
Could it be because of our dilapidated and archaic infrastructure?
Could it be because of our belief in the "chalta hai" attitude?
Could it be because of our disregard for rules?
Could it be because of lack of rules?
Could it be because we don't know how to protest decently in a country where nonviolence was unveiled as a powerful weapon?
What?
How many more need to perish for us to raise these questions and find some answers...

Reflective...

Everyone knows, appreciates and possibly understands the realities of human life - the birth of a life is inevitably followed by the end of the life but once in a while these realities touch each one of us when we least expect them...today was one such day.

My daily dose of emails had an email from a colleague informing me that he is not going to be in office as he had just become the proud father of a "prinz". For good measure he had the pix of the new born attached. :-)

There was another email from another colleague informing me that he is not going to be in office as over the weekend his father passed away. :-(

Since then have been in a reflective mood..

What's in a designation?

Please excuse the play on the Shakespearean adage but had a nice animated discussion with folks a couple of days back on the topic of designations and the importance they play on a person's professional life specially in the IT sector.

The way I look at it - the value of designations is driven a lot by the socio economic environment in which the job / role is located.

Typically, in America it seems to me that it is easier to get fancy titles. People with not that much of experience in the profession do call themselves Directors, there are lot more hierarchies between the Director - President level etc. Maybe that's driven by the fact that there is lot of entrepreneurial focus in States and of course when one is running his / her own business one can decide to call himself / herself what one wants. The other reason could be that everybody prefers a shorter job life i.e. one prefers to retire earlier or get out of a job mode earlier and do what one wants to do.

In Germany, on the other hand I find that the designations have lesser value, hierarchies start much lower, middle management is bloated etc. I believe one of the most important reason for this is the fact that the job life of an individual is longer. People are typically risk averse and when they join an organization they tend to retire from it. Maybe the entrepreneurial spirit is lesser as compared to other places. Also people concentrate a lot on quality of life where they really value their free time and sometimes prefer not higher designations or responsibilities concerned with the fact that it might affect their time for themselves. People do value the work they do and believe a lot more in perfection even if it means that they are doing repetitive tasks.

In India I notice there is extreme importance laid on designations. Here India is more like US but the difference is that the hierarchies are more extensive. Maybe that is got to do with the fact that designations back home are linked to the professional success of an individual. Unless every 2-3 years a person gets a vertical growth he / she is not seen to be good. Maybe it is got to do also with the fact that the work which is done is not that high in the value chain and to retain talent organizations depend on titles. Many things like marriages, house ownership, social standing etc. are all linked to titles too and hence they have critical need for people. Typically job lives are longer in India but people do change many jobs and one of the important criterion for talent acquisition or talent retention is designations. With entrepreneurial opportunities growing there is the trend coming up that designations in previous jobs also influence the ease with which people get funded for their ventures.

Of course some of the things which i wrote are controversial but they are my own observations. Do let me know what you think about it.

its fine for sustainable practices to not be altruistic

Yesterday while watching the televised debate between the UK Prime Ministerial candidate I happened to view a TV spot announcing a new contest known as "World Challenge" which focuses on sustainable practices which are today changing the world.

One of the first contestants to be featured was a vegetable market from Indonesia. Now whoever has been to a typical vegetable, fruit market ( not the supermarkets ) would easily recognize that on a daily basis these markets produce a humongous amount of organic and inorganic waste. Apart from the fact that most of this waste makes its way to open landfills where it rots and releases greenhouse gases like methane, it is also a breeding ground for diseases. The solution which the Indonesian market has come up with is to segregate the organic waste, process it and convert it into fertilizers. This is used locally by the farmers and the crop yield has grown by almost 30%. The produce from the local farms is then sold again in the local markets setting up a cycle of reuse and thus a sustainable business model.

This is one example which goes to show that many times sustainable activities also make sense economically and when ever they do they are adopted faster by people. The example I quoted was from Indonesia but I believe the model could be replicated in many places and probably is being followed in other places in some form or the other.

As a foot note, I found the UK Prime Ministerial debate very dignified. Should something similar be initiated in India for the next general elections? Interesting thought but might be difficult logistically as there are so many parties in our country.

Fly to or into the Everest

China again proved it can do what it wants to do with absolute no disregard to anyone else.
First it was the road to Everest and now read today that an airport has been opened up at Xigaze. Why do we make absolute perfect effort to spoil everything pristine? China wants to make this area a climber's paradise but did anyone ask the climbers whether they want this "luxury" possibly at the cost of environment.

Thank God I am a Woman!

No I didn't get a sex change but it's the catch line at the launch of the Spring/Summer Collection of a woman's clothing brand.
Today while watching news I saw the shocking news of female infanticide still prevailing in Rajasthan. In today's world where we as Indians are talking about the great progress we are making as a nation news like this makes my head hang in shame. Will we blame the government for this? Well yeah if anybody wants to take the supposition in that direction then sure as usual we can blame it for this too by contending that not enough is being done towards education improvement in the hinterlands of the country. However, I believe government cannot do everything in this matter. It is the society and the people which have to make the paradigm shift in thinking and break these chains which are termed as traditions. Its the new generation of Indians which have to break out of these molds in which some of our archaic unreasonable "traditions" try to bracket us in. Keeping our cultural traditions alive is absolutely fine but basic human emotions, human right - the right to live can never be sacrificed in the name of demonic practices camouflaged as "traditions".
We still have popular TV serials like "Is desh mai na aana Ladoo" which make the practice of female infanticide as their punchline. I don't follow the serial and maybe it carries a social message pointing out the evils of this social curse but the couple of episodes I saw I didn't get the message. Probably in matters like this subtlety doesn't work.
Yesterday I was sitting with friends and heard about colleagues at work who are still thinking in terms of "arey yaar meri beti hai. mujhey uskey liye bhi tu sochna hai". When we have city bred, highly educated professionals living abroad talking in these terms one can understand how deeply ingrained the malaise runs in our society.
Will we ever reach a stage where women in India would be able to say "Thank God I am an India woman" and not worry about being termed "manhoos"?

Defining success is difficult

The other day we saw "3 Idiots".

The movie is a great fun to watch and in addition to the fun factor also brings out the problem with the Indian Education system which does not encourage innovation and out of the box thinking but is focused on regimented mugging of lessons in order to achieve maximum marks.

S and I started discussing the ending of the film and we both had the question as to how does one define success. If the ending had shown Amir Khan, one of the main protagonist, as being "just" a school master and considering the admiration from the students and the community he was working in as his "success" it would be too idealistic an ending for a "Tenties" movie. The actual climax where the schoolmaster's measure of success is depicted in the form that he has 400 patents and is being pursued by international conglomerates is the other extreme. The hidden implication is that the protagonist is successful from a material aspect too as he has money flowing in from all these patents and collaborations. The other friends are also successful as one has 5 books published in 4 years, one has a Lamborghini and a huge house in US, one has a very good job and is doing some research etc. which all reflect that in the material aspects they all are well endowed. However is monetary the only measure to define success?

It is an ongoing discussion between the two of us and it is becoming obvious that even in today's times it is as difficult to define success as it always was. Why do not you also join in and let us know your opinion?