Through the Looking Glass

Before my very eyes, a year has passed!

At this time last year, I had just woken up with an overwhelming sense of "melancholy anticipation" as my wife and I prepared to turn the page on what has clearly been the most exhilarating chapter of our lives.

Notwithstanding our kind friends who stopped by to help (one of whom just took the day off impromptu in order to help us!), the tasks for the day ahead were as daunting as they were trivial: daunting in terms of the sheer volume of pending work, and yet seeming so trivial in comparison to the enormous leap of faith we were about to take and the uncertainties - of sorts - that lay ahead.

As I look back, I am bemused at the paradoxes that have defined the year - the very things we cherished so much turned out to be the source of our pain: the very friends with whom we forged the strongest bonds were the very cause of our relocation becoming so difficult! The very values, practices and mindsets that gave us our foundation as children and then as adults turned out to be at loggerheads with what lay ahead, as we grappled with a transition that spanned geographies and professions and a transition that had to bridge generation gaps and lifestyle-whitespaces.

As I lay suspended between yesterday and tomorrow, it is perhaps time to stop being fixated on the reflection in the mirror and focus on what lies ahead. It is perhaps time to look "through the looking glass". 

Nokia: Never Say Die

Nokia 3310 - victim of
its own success

I have been a loyal Nokia user for the last 12 years, ever since I starting using mobile phones - with the Nokia 3310 (the first ever product incidentally, which I have heard of being killed by its own manufacturer because it was cannibalizing the sales of other products).

In the beginning, it was the intuitiveness and standardization - of UI, charger and accessories - that won me over. Even though Nokia clearly missed the bus around 2005-2006 - and probably the whole point too - I continued to be an ardent fan of Nokia primarily because of the ruggedness of their phones. After briefly eloping with Sony and HTC for a couple of years, I returned home to Nokia in 2008 even at the peak of doomsday predictions pouring in from all quarters.

Connecting People:
Your Nokia is always returned!

The upside of the scorn heaped upon me for my open and stubborn loyalty for this then-pronounced-dead brand, came in the form of safety: I could leave my phone and bluetooth headset lying around anywhere in the office and at parties without fear of theft or loss: not only was there no one who cared to "keep a Nokia for themselves", but also, everyone knew it was mine so it was always returned to me!


Over and above all the falls my various Nokia handsets have survived, the most startling experience with Nokia's ruggedness came late in 2011 when I accidentally drove the edge of a tyre of my 4,500-lb SUV over my BH-607 bluetooth headset. The collage below tells you the story of what happened to it - viz., almost nothing! Of course, it isn't really usable, but it still works!

Story of a BH-607 run over by a 4,500-lb SUV - it survived!
(note the red light in the last picture indicating that the unit is charging)

Nokia Lumia 920
as featured on http://www.nokia.com

Perhaps their products are a reflection of the company's attitude - ruggedness, perseverance and a never-say-die attitude. Even if sometimes fuelled by oblivion to what just happened in the real word! :)

While the Lumia series - most recently, the 920 - seems to have raised a flicker of hope, doomsday predictions haven't totally disappeared.

And yet, that does not seem to have deterred the spirit of the company in keeping at its goal.



However, what really bowled me over was my E-71 battery's performance in the last 72 hours - I was travelling and forgot to carry my charger. Unlike in the days gone by, Nokia chargers are hard to find and I had to literally reach out through my network to pull strings to get a Nokia charger. While I did get a charger, the morning I was to travel back, at 7AM, the phone began beeping "Low Battery". Given that the phone and battery are almost 3.5+ years old I knew the battery was already on an extended lease of life.

I had my fingers crossed even as I was frantically communicating over SMS, calls and WhatsApp with friends I had to meet that morning.Despite its incessant protests all morning, it was only at 2PM just as I was boarding my flight, that the battery finally gave up.

Nokia is dead! Long Live Nokia! 

Back to School!

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of accompanying my wife to her alma mater where she was invited as the Chief Guest for her school's Annual Day celebrations.

The Canara Institutions (of which my wife's school is a part), much like Loyola High School in Margao where I studied, is over a century old. They have both defined the lives of multiple generations - often within the same family - and are what I consider, "institutions with a soul". I cannot describe what I mean by that, but those of you who have studied in either - or similar - institutions will know what I mean.

It was at this Annual Day that I suddenly realized that in March of this (academic) year, I complete 20 years since I walked out of "high school" - and with it, walked into a new world, leaving the many pure and simple pleasures of school life behind. It's been 20 years since I attended programs like the Annual Day, Sports Day and so on.

Some of these memories have been coming back through my cousins and of course, my own son as I see and hear them prepare for some of these functions and events. But it is quite something else to be physically present there and transport yourself through a decade or two - or three - and a million memories. All in a matter of minutes, without Picasa, without Facebook, without external hard disks, without an electronic screen.

But it isn't the memories I am writing about.

There was something else that caught my attention - and rekindled my joy and my optimism.

It was the children.

Be it the march-past, martial arts display, nursery kids' program, prize distribution or the MCs, the spark in their eyes was so uniformly present. In fact it got to a point where I engaged in a furtive exercise to find a kid who was merely going through the motions without that spark - I am glad to say it was an exercise in futility. The confidence with which even the nursery kids were strutting their stuff, was amazing. The few kids I got a chance to talk to - albeit briefly - caught my attention because of the confident tone in which they were speaking to a total stranger.

Even at the risk of muting the efforts of their teachers and parents, I had to hand it to the kids.

In the backdrop of all the nonsense that has been demoralising me in the last few months, the spirit I saw in these kids was a morale booster.

It was a reaffirmation of how traditional institutions can adapt to the times to measure up and prepare the next generation. Being a reputed but traditional institution in a semi-urban but fairly conservative setting, I had expected good quality and high standards. But I had also expected an air of resigned contentment even if without any complacency. The spark and enthusiasm I saw in the children - and the measures taken by the school to gear itself up for modernization - took me completely by surprise.

Fortunately, a very pleasant - and encouraging - one.

Like someone rightly said, "We worry about what a child will become tomorrow; yet we forget that (s)he is already someone today"!

After having briefly "gone back to school", the journey coming back home turned out to be a journey back to reality, when the attender on the Rajdhani Express came around asking for tips!

Looks like we have a lot of people we need to send (back) to school!