PicSquare - Upload, Share, Print.

Now that digital photography is attracting many more yuppies than the old film photography, storing & sharing of digital images has turned into an important aspect of it. Not that there is any dearth of online webspaces to store the pictures - Sony's ImageStation, Yahoo's Flickr and many more. Most of them provide the facility to get the printed copies on your doorstep by mail. But, sadly, that's limited to just US & Europe. While the demand of such a service in India has raisen considerably in recent times, we are yet to see any such service take off.

PicSquare is one such service introduced very recently in India. The brainchild of two young entreprenuers, it is still taking baby steps, but promises a lot more. The two masterminds behind this venture - Manish & Kartik - are undergraduates from IIT Bombay. Manish graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2002 and went on to pursue his MS from Purdue University. After completion, he worked for a while and later on gave it up to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. Kartik completed his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering in the year 2004. He was working for about 1.5 years before joining Manish in this venture.

I have used PicSquare to get some of my photos printed. I guess it doesn't make much sense for me as a person living in India, ordering prints to be delivered locally, but if you think about Indians living abroad & wishing to share their memories with people back home, this service does make a lot of sense. E-Mail the pictures, you'd say, but then the internet penetration in India is still as low as a meagre 5%. Even for someone like me, living in a different city from my parents, it makes sense to get the printed photos delivered directly to my parents in Jaipur (They don't access the net, of course). Its also quite hassle-free for both the parties. One point I'd like to make it here is, the service as such is expansive if we compare to the local GK Vale printing (It costed me ~ Rs.90 for 11 4x6 prints, including delivery).

The print quality is very satisfactory. I guess they process the images a bit before printing them. Hence the richer colors & sharp images. No complaints here.

Their website is rather simplistic. I personally like to-the-point websites, without all flashy mumbo-jumbo & the cluster of buttons & links. The navigation is also quite intutive. They have implemented the functionality to upload multiple images in one go, which is utmost important for such a site. You can edit attributes for multiple images together, which is again an important desirable. They have borrowed the idea of tags from Flickr, which is another nice-to-have feature. They claim to provide unlimited image storing space, but my experience with them doesn't give me any chance to support or deny that. I can't say how gracefully their system will handle it once the bulk uploads start to happen.

You can select photos from the uploaded ones and put them in the shopping cart and order prints; quite standard process as far as online shopping websites go. Presently, they are charging Rs 4.50 ($0.10) per 4x6 photo, Rs 13.50 ($0.30) per 5x7 & Rs 67.50 ($1.50) per 8x10 photos (On a local printing shop, they charge about Rs 3.50-Rs 4.00 for one 4x6 print). One problem I found in their payment module is that it refused to work with my Visa card. Manish & Kartik later acknowledged the problem and hopefully they'll iron out such issues soon.

For the future, they have quite a lot planned. Personalized greeting cards, photo-printed T-shirts, customized coffee mugs, photo frames, calendars, etc. If we go by the testimonials on their site, they have already made many patrons. Hopefully, they'd make many more in coming times.

Keep up the good work, fellas!

Raat se samvaad.

रात से संवाद

ये जो ठहरा-ठहरा चाँद है, चाँदनी सोई-सोई,
रात की जो राख है, दूर तलक बिखरी हुई,
कुछ तो है ये कह रही, या शायद कुछ भी नहीं,
अलसाई सी एक फुसफुसाहट, गले ही में दबी-दबी,
मुझे है ये बुला रही, नाम मेरा पुकारती,
"अबे मेरे बाप, तुझे नींद क्यों ना आ रही!"

Its hindi unicode font, doesn't work well with FireFox. If you see just garbled characters, you can see the text in this image.

V For Vendetta

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

This Guy Fawkes rhyme plays a part of central importance in this superb film.

Wachowski brothers are back and back with a bang. "V For Vendetta" is their first film after the Matrix trilogy & the movie justifies the wait totally. The idea is borrowed from the 80's Alan Moore comic book. This would make it my all time best comic book adaptations, long with the Spiderman series.

Not really unlike the Matrix trilogy, the film is set in another time-line, in a dystopian future United Kingdom, ruled by a facist government. The government maintains control of the country through food shortages, government-controlled media, secret police, a planned economy, and concentration camps for racial, political, and sexual minorities. The protagonist of the movie, "V", is the result of one such concentration camp. V is a self-proclaimed freedom-fighter, a terrorist for some. Incomparably charismatic and ferociously skilled in the art of combat and deception, V urges his fellow citizens to rise up against tyranny and oppression. Just like Guy Fawkes' failed plan, he blows up the parliament building in the end, a symbol of the facist government.

The storyline is fairly complex and subtle. Thankfully, they haven't tried to dilute it for the audience. The dialogues are more delightful! V is portrayed as a man of fine tastes & immaculate language. Some memorables quotes -

Evey Hammond: Who--who are you?
V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what... and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey Hammond: I can see that.
V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation, I'm merely remarking on the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

---

V: Would you like to dance?
Evey Hammond: It's the eve of your revolution and you want to dance?
V: A revolution without dancing, is a revolution not worth having!

---

V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

Album Review: Kailasã (Kailash Kher)

Confession time: I tried & tried again to write a review for the album, but I'm simply pathetic at this. Thanks to Google, I found one thoroughly professional review of this delightful album. I don't have much to add to that, so read the review & get the songs! You can enjoy the songs online, here.

My favorite song from the album (mind you, all the songs are very good) -

Kaise Main Kahoon: A young girl’s in love for the first time, and is caught up in a storm of elation and confusion! Elated because she’s in love, and confused coz she just doesn’t know how to express herself, how to yell out to the world she’s in love. How on earth would you have thought an earthy, rasping voiced singer like Kher with his co music composers Paresh and Naresh have created a song to embody all this and more? But that’s just what Kher’s simple lyrics, his singing and the excellent composition does, with Kaise Main Kahoon Ki Mujhe Ishq Hua Hai. This one’s a lilting, frisky peppy song that rides on the soft tabla-dholak beats of Yusuf Mohammad and excellent violin and viola work by Jitendra Thakur, this very lovely song with a folksy, Rajsthani-Punjabi feel is definitely listenable.

Quota Raj Cometh

Excerpts from today's Economic Times front page report: Quota Raj: Half of IIT,IIM seats may be reserved -

Competition to secure admission to the IITs and IIMs is set to hot up, as reservation in these institutions is likely to increase from the current level of 22.5% to a maximum of 49.5%. These institutions already provide reservations for Scheduled Castes (15%) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5%), as mandated by the Constitution.

I could never understand the logic these politicians give behind reservation. In my eyes its all simply vote bank politics. To start with, reservations based on castes & tribes don't make any sense! If the motive is to help the socially backward people to come up, reservations should be given to the economically backward population. After 59 years of independence & reservations, what relevance does the tag "socially backward" hold? I know, in the rural hinterlands, they still discriminate on the basis of caste & tribes. But almost all of such exploited victims would come under the economically backward cover. In addition, it would also cover the poor people who are born in the higher castes.

Its again a failure of implementation. There exists a notion of a "creamy layer" crowd in the SC/ST junta. If the family income exceeds a certain limit, they can no longer enjoy the benefits of reservations. But this is another one of highly misused rules. But if the reservations are made for the economically backwards, atleast some more deserving people can avail the benefits.

The entrance exams for IITs & IIMs are extremely tough and thus it can be taken that IITs/IIMs want only the best to come there. Now if almost half of the students are going to come from a backdoor entry, how's that going to help, both the students & the institutes. The demand for IIT/IIM education has raisen considerably since the economy opened up & brought along a whole new set of high-tech jobs. The pressure on the aspirants is already enormous. Now if the seats for general category will further be reduced, aren't we defeating the purpose of opening more IITs/IIMs?

Its not tough to see why government is increasing the quota in higher educational institutes like IITs & IIMs. Its the same reason why they were pushing for reservation in private sector. Now since the private sector is booming & demand for IIT/IIM seats has gone through the roof, reservation will attract that much more votes. If the government really had the good of poor & socially backward at their heart, it would've worked towards making quality primary education accessible to all. If we comb through the IIT/IIM crowd today, very rarly we would come across someone with a rural background. Simply because the primary & secondary education system in the rural India has totally collapsed and hence the rural students can't compete with their urban counterparts. Reservations & all in the tertiary education is not going to help if the primary & secondary levels are so wretched.

Sometimes I wonder why class divisions in India (rich-poor) is weaker than religion & caste based division. The political parties find it more rewarding to call religious minorities, socially backward people and all, but no one campaigns with pro-poor policies and all. IIRC, Indira Gandhi had "Garibi Hatao" on her agenda, but hardly anything happened. Education, and thus better-informed voters, can cure it all, but then this responsibility also lies with the neta-log.

"Hope and Honor" at Desicritics

Slightly modified version of "Hope and Honor" is up at Desicritics. Do check out.

Nice Quotes

"More Tears Are Shed Over Answered Prayers Than Unanswered Ones."

– Truman Capote

So reads the epigraph of Truman Capote's last (unfinished) work. I watched the film, Capote, last night. The film ends with this quote. This quote will stay with me, for quite some time.

"Do you know what happens when you hurt people? When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

– Ammu

I'm reading The God of Small Things.

Meter Down: Living as an Auto-Wallah.

(Norah or Ned?)

Couple of days back I watched a program on TV about the author of the book "Self-Made Man", Norah Vincent. The book chronicles the 18 months Norah spent posing as a man, Ned. In her own words, Norah wanted to know "what it means to be a man". With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut-wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all-male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. After living as Ned for 18 months, Vincent's overall finding was that being a man is no better or easier than being a woman. Men, she tells us, have problems, fears, and societal pressures, too. Vincent decrees that the only emotion that society allows men is anger.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it? While it's the first study of its kind introduced to me, quite a few such studies have resulted in similar books. For example, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin - he spent some time as a black in New Orleans to study racial discrimination closely; Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich - a study about millions of Americans working for poverty-level wages, working as one. I haven't read any of these book, but would love to.

I don't know what they call this kind of journalism; its not a sting operation, its not a routine interview-story. Whatever it is, I would love to see something similar in India. I had a thought some days back about the auto-rickshaw wallahs & how their lives turn out to be. It would be very interesting to spend some time as an auto-wallah & then share those experiences. Auto-wallahs do live an interesting life. They work mostly at odd & tiring hours; they interact with tens of different people daily. Its interesting, but definitely not an easy life. I'm sure they have their share of anxieties & problems. And one have to literally be in their shoes to know them. So far, Bangalore's auto-wallahs haven't left a very good impression on me. Most of them would haggle endlessly for money (outside the metered charges), they drive like manics & their autos are perhaps the biggest contributors towards the pollution in the city. I hope they have some kind of explaination for such a coarse behaviour, otherwise after spending some time as a autowallah, all that would come out would be - "Oh! They just love to be jerks".

May be the driving seat of an auto isn't very comfortable, thus causing the maniacal driving. Or perhaps they all suffer from some kind of mental disorder, so they consider themselves the kings of the roads (Long Live the King, rest get insured). Perhaps its all just some kind of inferiority complex - "haha! Earn as much as you want, we'll still haggle with you for chutta paisa". They could have some sort of Auto Wallahs' Book of World Records - "Manjunath drove from MG Road to Airport in record 12.37 minutes, killing just two pedastrains in the process" Or "Anees Abbas bumped into record 212 cars in the first week of buying his Auto". They might have some kind of gangsters, who'd torture the good natured auto-wallahs, who behave nicely with passengers & take the exact amount. "Chutta chahiye to pehle us aadmi se chutta le ke aao, jis ne mere haath pe ye likh diya - Mera Baap Imaandar Auto Wallah Hai Tha" or "Shyamlal, bahut imaandar banta hai na, ye dekh - teri biwi aur teri beti ko humne juke box se latka diya hai. Ya to tu passenger ko chutta de de ya jukebox mein chutta daal ke inko bacha le".

Whatever it is, I want to know it. Perhaps, I will spend sometime as an auto-wallah some day :-)

Book Review: We Weren't Lovers Like That

Q. What's worse than a depressing book?
A. A depressing book you can't put down.

I'm afraid We weren't Lovers like that is one such book. It's depressing to start with, dejecting in the middle and it ends with a possibility, but without the promise, of something better. But at the same time, it's a treat to read with its almost poetry-like fluent language and strong emotional undercurrents. It doesn't put its characters in absolutely abject situations and induce pity. Its depressing quality comes from the mundane failures of the day-to-day life; from the realizations about the missed chances and what-ifs and from the familiarity of the plot to our lives.

Navtej Sarna tells the story from a first person perspective. This has definitely allowed him to depict the emotional state and the thoughts of the central character with more authority. I particularly liked his way of following the trains of thought and not hesitating to digress from the flow to capture some poignant moments from the various corners of the memory of the protagonist.

The theme of the book is a winner - Aftab's wife Mina walks out of their weary marriage for another man, Rajiv. Aftab, humiliated but not hurt, gives up his insipid job, pissed off by petty office politics, and takes the Shatabdi Express to Dehradun, following a frail hope of reunion with his long lost love, Rohini. The books covers his journey from Delhi to Dehradun; his journey from his conformist and timid past to the promise of a content future.

The book reminded me of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I wonder if Sarna took some inspiration from Ishiguro. Sarna's work shares its reflexive and introspective qualities with Ishiguro's work. Both the books tell their stories using the flashbacks and trail of thoughts. I personally found Ishiguro's work more complex and sophisticated. The reader has to interpret the thoughts of the Butler as the layers of information are made visible to him/her. It makes you want to read the book all over again, just after you finish it once.

In the end, Navtej Sarna must be congratulated for his marvelous book. What makes this feat more commendable is the fact that this is his first novel. I have read that his collection of short stories is set to come out next. Waiting for that one eagerly!

P.S.: Navtej Sarna, as you might know, is the spokesman for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He isn't the only diplomat to write a book; Vivek, an undertraining IFS officer & my cousin, is writing one too!
(Recently I was invited to join Desicritics.org. This review is also cross-posted here.)

Gasolina - Daddy Yankee

dame mas gasolina!

Pump up the volume and enjoy!

P.S. - Lyrics & the English translation.