Hello! This is bad for us!

youtube.com/watch?v=IdmnxcClEMc

Raid De Himalaya 2007

The Raid is back this year in it's 8th run.

-Looks like we are going to Srinagar
-Reliability is now called Adventure Trail
-Registratiom is on, Early Birds get to pay only 25,000 if register before 30th may
-This year will definitely see stronger participation
-Adventure trail gets 6/10 for diffilculty, Xtreme get a 9!

Itenerary looks like this
6th October 2007

Leg 1 Shimla – Manali

7th October 2007

Leg 2 Manali – Kaza - Tabo

8th October 2007

Leg 3 Tabo - Darcha - Pang

9th October 2007

Leg 4 Pang - Leh

10th October 2007

Leg 5 Leh - Keylong

11th October 2007

Leg 6 Keylong - Patni Top

12th October 2007

Leg 7 Patni Top - Srinagar

13th October 2007

Prize Distribution after the final Scrutineering and the conclusion of the Raid.

So Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, Cuz Kansas is goin bye bye!

Calm Under the Waves

Not that this blog enjoys much readership , but I realized I sent some 79 new and 27 returning Visitors back disappointed since I posted last.

I have just been traveling, and had some other things on my mind, so didn't find the time to post. And then I read this article on a website that said that most blogs today are dying(ghost blogs)and I have decided not to join that list.

The mid twenties seem to be the toughest age for youngsters in India as the support system that existed back in College/Home runs out and the move into a so called next stage is finally taking shape. This can be a life changing event for this when the word responsible finally starts making sense, and the wait for life to begin is revealed as a hoax! All I can say is that its a crazy experience and can be humbling at times, yet fun throughout. Although this blog tends to stay away from being autobiographical, we do see the entire world through our own eyes and to call everything completely fiction or descriptive is again subjective.

Coming back to the main reason why I wanted to post this ramble, I wanted to share a few things I read some time back:

From Zorba the Greek:

Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my dreams and my travels.
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Henry James:
Be someone on whom nothing is lost.

These three have left a deep impression on me. I think on order to find your Nirvana ( or your own Nirvana) or whatever we seek as a manifestation of N: Money, Power, travel, Respect, love, blaah.. The answer to finding them lies in among other things, traveling. I think in order to get comfortable you need to get uncomfortable.
And also what I always preached and now seek to practice, the action is the Juice!


Ramblings on a Friday after a slightly scarce week, work wise that is.

So this marks the beginning of a hopefully enriching journey, which as much as possible will actively live through and hopefully blog about!

Reproduced from ET

Mobility has an aspirational swing in India : Partha Sinha

AT THE early stage of my working career I used to work with a foreign bank that had a very pronounced recruitment hierarchy. Fresh MBAs were clearly divided between a brahminical and non-brahminical order based on which management institutes they came from. But the most fascinating aspect of that caste system was that these two categories were popularly known inside the bank as the 'mobile' and the 'non-mobile' category. Needless to say the mobile people were from the brahminical institutes. Mobility in India had traditionally been bestowed with a coveted status and was intrinsically linked to material well-being. Contrary to popular belief that Indians are a 'rooted' lot; higher esteem has always been accorded to mobility. From the recurring Bollywood theme of the village boy moving to big town and changing his life almost as a rule, to the entire phenomenon called 'brain-drain' or the obsessions of certain communities to migrate to the UK or Canada the potent power of mobility can be witnessed in many aspects of the Indian life. If we try to understand the codes of mobility in more details, we will find that it's intrinsically linked to the social structure of India. Our society is marked by a linear hierarchy and that invariably produces a desire to move up the hierarchy ladder. This desire is the driving force of mobility. In India, there's nothing called spatial mobility our mobility is fundamentally social mobility. Nobody wants to move from North Delhi to South Delhi for geographical reasons. The dream movement of most starry-eyed management trainees from Malad to Malabar Hill in Mumbai is not rooted in travelling conven ience. One may argue that geographies have represented social strata in almost all societies across the globe, but in India the act of mobility itself ends up determining social order. One of the primary examples of the triumph of social mobility over physical mobility is the way cars are seen in India. Cars are definitely not a mode of travelling between two points. In most cases, in urban India, walking will possibly be a faster and better method to reach a destination than a car. Cars in India represent social destinations. Even if it is difficult to drive a larger vehicle in the congested roads of Mumbai, Bangalore or Delhi everyone invariably wants a bigger car. It's almost a sacrilege for the junior to have a bigger car than his boss. Even if car marketers try to segment the market accord ing to different need types it invariably falls into this social laddering. 4X4 off-roaders and sedans may appeal to different needs and mindsets, according to car marketing convention, but here they are compared and clubbed to form different strata of social destinations. Another interesting phenomenon around mobility is the ever-growing popularity of mobile phones and it's impact on the society. Like most modern societies, Indians are also forced to lead lives characterised by discrepancies between spatial and social distances. On one hand they have to tolerate spatial proximity with people very distant from them thanks to living in crowded cities, moving in crowded areas or using public transport. On the other hand, they have to accept spatial distance from the people who they feel close to. The significance of mobile phone lies in empowering them to engage in communication that frees them from the constraint of physical proximity and spatial mobility at the same time. When an anglicised executive starts using a mobile phone to connect with his buddies while waiting at a doctor's chamber, he is not only moving closer to the people he relates to, but most importantly moving away from the 'non-corporate types' who are waiting along with him in the same chamber. Mobile phones in India have helped create social proximity and distances. Another glaring example of that is the way mobile phones are being embraced by a class that has never heard a dial tone before. The mobile phone is giving them the freedom to get included. A plumber today doesn't need to give the address of his hutment. He uses his mobile number as his address. This allows him to transcend the psychological barriers that would have come with his address. Mobility itself allows the plumber to deny social exclusion. A stable dwelling place was the pre-requisite for creating social organizations. And that's why people had an emotional attachment to their 'own' house. It created the anchor point that started defining who they are. But in the life of the urban nomads today, this stability comes from social standings rather than the stability of the dwelling places. They buy a house today with the definitive plan to move out of it in a few years. The center of social organisation today is a moving point and thus mobility is a coveted virtue. But is this mobility akin to running fast to stay at the same place? Maybe true, may be not but one thing is true for sure: The nation is on the move.