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  • The Perfect Vacation – Maldives

    What is an ideal vacation? The dictionary meaning of the word is – “an extended period of recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling”. Recreation, adventure, learning – it all boils down to one thing. Experience.

    Vacation is our way to create experiences. Our trip to Maldives last January was one such memorable experience we had. A short 3 day trip, worth memories for a lifetime.

    We started our journey from Chennai, boarding the International flights on Sri Lankan Airlines to Maldives via Colombo . Our first destination, the capital city – Male. The small island city is the most populous in Maldives, and one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

    The airport itself is on a small strip of an island, and is one of the most scenic landings I have ever seen. With the sea on both the sides and the straight runway too ending into the sea, it makes for a thrilling experience. After we completed the immigration (VISA on arrival for Indians. yay!) and checked out of the airport, we took a short ferry ride (10 Maldivian Rupees) to Male.

    We stayed in Male in a small boutique hotel and the primary objective of our brief stay here in Male, before heading to the resort island, was to get the local flavour and understanding of the local way of life. Male is just like Mumbai, just a lot lot smaller. Busy roads, narrow lanes, fish markets – all by the sea. We took a walk around the coastline of the island, and were back at our start point in two hours! This is Male – small and full of life.

    A quick snippet about Maldives – the island nation is an archipelago of thousands of small islands, what else? Some of these islands have been converted to resorts and beautiful expansive, luxurious hotels have sprung up here. The other islands are inhabited by the locals, and about a decade back were kept out of bounds for foreigners, but is a great place to visit, also if you’re planning on going on vacations, here are 5‌ ‌Fun‌ ‌Outdoor‌ ‌Activities‌ ‌To‌ ‌Try‌ ‌On‌ ‌Your‌ ‌Future‌ ‌Vacation‌ in the islands.

    The liberal government, with an objective of sprucing up the local economy opened up the inhabited islands for the general tourists and this is where one can now get to see the local life and the beautiful virgin raw beaches!

    Shot on iPhone 4s. At the Beach

    We decided to stay in a inhabited island and chose Rasdhoo for our two day holiday in the islands. Proximity to Male (onward journey was a 3 hour ride by a public ferry and the return was by a relatively expensive one hour speed boat ride to Male) and the beautiful pictures helped decide on rasdhoo.

    The beautiful small Rasdhoo island was the perfect getaway for the holiday. The untouched, sun kissed beach was exactly what we were looking for. And yes, the island was inhabited! The official page says a population of 867, we could not see more than a 100! Max. This is like the number of residents in a single tower of a society, or a single wing of a chawl in Mumbai!

    The island itself was amazing with an old world charm attached to it. The whole island was so tiny that a walk around the island, by the sea would be a short 20 minute walk. Bang! You are back to the start point. From the centre of the island the beach is less than 250mts, in any direction!

    Hanging in there. Shot on iPhone 4s

    We had a beautiful large room, in a newly built retreat run by a local resident. The local cuisine and the small coffee shop near the beach gave us the opportunity to get to know the locals better. Black coffee sure is a big thing here! The island experience was like having a private island all to yourself.

    After a good two days in the island, we returned to Male by the speed boat. We then took the short 10 minute ferry ride to the airport island for our return flight back to Chennai, via Colombo!

    Back home to Delhi in a Indigo Web Check In, with a lighter wallet but a loadful of beautiful memories and a whole 2GB worth of pristine photographs!

    The perfect vacation!

  • Pandeymonium – Book Review

    What name comes to the mind when someone mentions Indian Advertising? Piyush Pandey. The award winning head of Ogilvy and Mather and now the recipient of the PadmaShri, Piyushhas proven again and again that he is the go-to person for ideas and fresh thinking.

    The book begins with a song, in a typical piyush style, and starts right from his early school days in a hilly northern indian place to his rise in the advertising world. The book talks about his roots, how these roots helped him develop the wings and his eventual rise.

    The book is written by Anant Rangaswami and in the very beginning it is mentioned how after a lot of convincing and a couple of weeks of solitude in Goa, the book turned into reality.

    The narration of the book is simple and makes the reader feel like he himself is there in the scene as a mute spectator. The events come out live and being from the same industry, most of the situations elaborated here are pretty everyday scenario’s.

    One quality of Piyush that stands out throughout the book is his candid confession again and again that most of his ideas are directly lifted from the happenings around him. Be it his wife Nita, or his father for the fevicol ad. Makes one think that every small incident that has ever occurred in our lives probably comes back in some way given that we retrieve it from our memory at the right time.

    Though touched in a short chapter, the section on the importance of research in creating advertising excited me the most. Piyush hits the cat’s bell when he says, “If you ask stupid questions, you would get stupid answers” pertaining to consumer research. At the same time, without brandishing research at all, he reiterates its importance but stresses on the need to evolve the methods. I am sure many readers would wish there was more on this here.

    Also, Piyush has been known in the industry for this, and the book only proves it again – give credit where due. Right through the book there are references to countless people for each of the campaign that shows the right team spirit expected from a leader.

    There are places in the book where it feels like a PR machine for O&M, the agency that Piyush has been associated with forever. Also, somewhere the entire book feels like an acknowledgement section or a literal version of an awards acceptance speech. I guess with multiple decades of work being described in a book, such pitfalls tend to become unavoidable.

    Overall, the book is like a face to face interaction with the man himself and is a must read for anyone with the faintest interest in advertising in India.

  • Home Vacation

    Early morning at 5AM. The morning run by the bay of the beach cancelled due to the rain. Sitting here in my balcony with a cup of coffee in my hand overlooking the vast mighty sea. Perfect bliss.

    I am in my Home Town, my place of Birth – Visakhapatnam, on a week long holiday. Holidays are always a good time to reflect. To ponder. To recharge the internal body and the mind to be ready for the ensuing grind.

    When i first declared that i am off for a week to go home on my holiday, the immediate reaction from a colleague was of shock. “Home! That is not a vacation. You are visiting family”.

    “Yes! Even better. It would be like a family vacation!”, i snapped back. The colleague was still not impressed.

    I realised, family visits are not perceived as a vacation. This appeared quite strange to me.

    Let us assume the same colleague is on a holiday to Vizag with his wife. He has no family here, and thus takes up a hotel/guest house opposite to the beach. Spends most of his time in and around the sea like any tourist would do and eat some good sea food everyday, again like a picture perfect tourist. That would classify as a perfect vacation by the beach.

    But well, i think i am doing exactly the same. I am staying opposite to the sea and by extension spend most of my time in and around the water. I get to eat good food, with an added bonus of it being home cooked. and i am chilling all day and evening doing absolutely nothing of importance or productive.

    The present day unicorns like AirBnB and the countless others offering Home Stays are selling exactly the same experience. Vacations at a home like setting.

    So, my trip to Vizag is as good as a holiday right? With an even better setting as all of this is in the midst of family and friends with whom i have spent all my childhood.

    This is like an annual holiday i get to take with all my family and friends. Could not get better.

    To top the overall experience i get to spend sweet nothing time writing such random ramblings sipping on a cup of good home made coffee overlooking the beach.

    This has to be the perfect vacation.

  • A matter of Rats – Book Review

    Amitava Kumar. The name demands respect. and book with his name on the blurb commands immediate attention and possibly a call to action. To read it immediately.

    As soon as i had discovered this book, at an airport book store i guess, i knew i had to read it. It was written by Amitava Kumar, and about such a personal narrative. his own town. Patna. And with my connection with Bihar i just knew i would be interested.

    On my recent March trip to Bihar, i got to see live what it is like, in the hinterlands. My travels there allowed me to travel across the villages in Taxi’s and general trains. A life full of hope is all that i could see. Aspiration builds in right from childhood. A hard internal desire to get out of the place i guess. And Education gets unparalleled attention by far. Post the trip, i read through the book just to realise that there is much more to Bihar.

    The rather obscure title of the book – “A matter of Rats” gives you the sense that it is going to be interesting. I had long back read about this interesting downtrodden community in Bihar called the Musahari’s, or Rat Eaters. This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCAoBjfaEbE gives you a better picture. (Do not watch if you get disgusted easily).

    Amitava here talks about rats in a myriad ways as part of lives of people in Bihar. The chapter skilfully manages to evoke the chaos, filth and the stark reality in the lives of people there. The other chapters talk about life in Rural Bihar and Patna and their vagaries.

    The small short book is a easy read and in all the chaos and the myriad ways of life, this book stands out to bring the stark world of Bihar – a state of colossal failure and chaos. It is not only the past of Bihar that is in ruins.

    The book is narrated from three perspectives – one, people like you and me, who are city bred and after completing studies have moved out of the state. Second, is of people who due to lack of proper education have not been able to do very well, but have still managed a decent life by escaping out of the state, and third is of people who are still there out of compulsion and disdain and continue with their own way of life.

    Overall, this book does not stand out as one of the best from Amitava and looks more like a string of essays put together with a common theme of Bihar. It could be a newspaper series.

    But yes, it stands out as one of the finest narratives in English language on Bihar. (Probably because there is so little written about the state in English litereature)

  • The Seeker – Book Review

    I remember reading Karan Bajaj’s books many years back. Sometime in 2009 i think. Keep off the Grass was a fresh campus story, unlike the wave of the other semi-autobiographical love stories in campus books that did the rounds back then. I also read his second book after the first one, and was mildly disappointed. Whoom! Karan vanished since then. He was not on the blogosphere, and no book released for long.

    And then, sometime last spring, i saw a Facebook ad with Karan, and immediately got reading. Coming up to his life, and his new blog made it feel like meeting a long lost friend. Then i got to know about the new book, and immediately knew i had to read it. More so with the subject of the book being in my realm of interests – spirituality and finding self.

    The seeker (published as “The Yoga of Max’s discontent”), like the title of the book is the story of Max. A hot shot investment banker who is confused in life and his quest for the inner self takes him on a tour of a lifetime.

    After a devastating event in new York, Max is inspired to travel to India to seek the inner truth of life and sets off on a journey. The Himalayas are the obvious suspect and Max lands up at the foothills. Without a plan, nor practise, Max endures a near fatal trip to the hills and then realises that the way to ultimate truth is not so straight forward.

    The story now takes him to Mumbai, the underbelly of the country for a plot which seems force fit to fill in a force fit physical intimacy scene. A quick chapter in Mumbai and then the hero moves on to a non descriptor location somewhere in Tamil Nadu in Southern India. This is where the plot thickens up. The daily struggles in the ashram, ripping off the basic beliefs and shaking up the core necessities we all take for granted is a revelation.

    Here, with the fear of being a spoiler, i need to mention the part where Max has an argument with his Guru regarding the food sharing part and then has a bigger realisation of how the same food can be used for a larger purpose. The entire plot in the ashram makes one feel as if you are physically present there while this was happening. It manages to transport the reader to a different world altogether.

    The climax is where the book takes a peak and ends on a high with the basic simplicities of life explained. This was the KungFu Panda moment, where the reader realises the truth lies within ourselves. Would not dwell any deeper to avoid spoiling the experience of reading it.

    Karan’s writing is lucid, and following his blog makes one feel how sorted the person is. The fact that this book was written on a sabbatical makes it all the more inspiring.

    Overall, a must read for anyone even faintly interested in the funny thing we call, Life.