2017. True story of the most famous sexologist in Poland in the World War times and her book 'The Art of Loving' which became a bestseller and most importantly changed the sex lives of the Polish forever. Bold, unapologetic, experimental, she was different.
January 15, 2011, was the day Golconda High School released. It was a big part of my life and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of seeing 'The Men Within' taking shape as a movie. I completely forgot about it and was surprised to get a cal from Mohana Krishna Indraganti, the director of the film. Mohan was as enthusiastic as ever, congratulating me on the movie's tenth anniversary. He told me that Sumanth tweeted about it and I checked and saw this sweet tweet from Sumanth.
It was a lovely journey where I met so many interesting, creative people - Mohan, Senthil, Ravinder, Kalyani Malik, Sumanth, Swati, Srini, Sagar and a whole bunch of others. For now, I'll share a screenshot of Sumanth's tweet.
While talking about Google maps with Anjali the other day, this story came up. Apparently, the Google maps team in India saw it as a product that might not work because in India the common culture was to ask for directions and everyone got from A to B thanks to help being available everywhere, right or wrong. But they launched it and discovered that Google maps released this huge untapped potential of drivers who did not know routes by heart, women drivers who sometimes find it difficult to ask for directions or to remember routes. With Google maps on their phone, 50% of the population was released from the problem of not knowing or asking directions. This empowerment led to so many women drivers, so many first time drivers like the Uber drivers, to only learn how to drive, and not worry about directions.
This also reminded me of the story from Philip Kotler's 'Marketing Management' where an American shoe manufacturer sends a representative to Africa to explore the market - story which I related to Anjali. He comes back and says there is no potential - no one wears shoes in Africa and everyone is comfortable walking around without shoes so we cannot sell stuff. The company management accepts his conclusion and after sometime sends another representative to check out the potential. He comes back full of excitement and says there's tremendous potential - no one is wearing shoes and we can sell shoes to all of them!
The lesson from these two stories is to realise that the 10x solution is not what you see or assume, but what is hidden or has never been part of your focus. The 10x comes from the part that has not been explored, has been dormant.
Brings to mind another classic marketing story, probably from Kotler's book - when a soft drink was launched in India, its market was not considered to be merely people who consumed soft drinks. It was expanded to cover all those who drank stuff like chai, water etc. When contextualised like that, the market potential looks huge, and our thinking changes. 10x suddenly appears possible.
It was a good conversation to have with Anjali.
2018. Lots of French people on it. It has some other words on the title but this one about a maid and boss falling in love, is interesting, though it does not appear to me that they are hopelessly in love, but in some convenience type of a thing to fit their current issues in life, but its ok, because they seem to be decent people. An unlikely story but fairly well made.
2017 Hong Kong Chinese movie about two chefs - one Michelin starred one and a traditional one competing to be the God of Cookery. Ful of Bollywood type twists it ends on a happy note. But its amazing how Bollywoodish it looks and feels.
So Malay, award-winning architect, springer of surprises, one of the most thoughtful and compassionate people I ever met, invited me over last weekend to his place with the promise of an evening over drinks, dinner and an off-road drive in his new 4x4 acquisition the next morning. It sounded like a lot of fun, but knowing Malay, I knew it would be way more than we could ever expect from his two-line proposition. So an evening with Malay and Sarah, full of fun discussions bout his award-winning design and other stuff, and then an early morning wake up to the India-Australia match and we were all set for the trip. By now Lewis and Maxine were up and about and playing with Anjali.
By 830 or so we wound our way down to the Pajero which looks in superb condition, loaded it with some stuff Malay had already got and then loaded ourselves - Malay at the wheel, Sarah, Shobhs, Anjali, Lewis and young Maxine - and off we went - past Kondhwa and then into this ghat that heads Saswad-ward. It is so steep that buses and trucks are not allowed on it anymore but a whole bunch of picnickers infested the road, stopping at critical points to take selfies in rather suicidal poses. The Pajero climbed surely and easily and then we turned off near a temple, the Bopdeo temple with steep steps leading up to it, and found Kalpak waiting in his Duster, with Shraddha and Gauri, not to forget Milou (Snowy's original name in Herge's Tintin).
And then began the off-road experience.
We hit a trail that leads to Katraj ghat, no road, but a path that is used by a few bikes, perhaps carts. Not an easy one with ups and downs, rocks and slush, but it led us into farmland on one side and the ridge of a hill on the other, and very few trees. The experience was fun, a first and we all enjoyed the thrill of being off-road, out of comfort. I always felt our lives are dictated by roads, by civilisation, by order, and we should get off the roads a lot more to know ourselves better. (Finally, we did it.) Kalpak followed us in his Duster until we reached the destination - a solitary tree that offered some shade.
Malay had planned breakfast too and though my mind was not fully on it I was surprised to see (as always) what he pulled out - complete with a folding table, some superb food - croissants, quiche, cinnamon rolls, ham and cheese and juice, very colonial. The top of the hill was short walk and promised a view of the city so I could not resist lugging myself up and Milou decided to give me some company for reasons best known to her. Perhaps she thought I needed some assistance and she led me up the hill, panting away happily. At the highest point, it offered beautiful views of the landscape around, the city to one side, the farmlands to another. It was wonderful.
Kalpak, Anjali, Gauri and Lewis joined me up there. Lewis kept running off at supersonic speeds with total disregard to the heights and slopes (and to our fragile emotional condition), and we somehow managed to convince him to descend in a rather sedate fashion (which included holding on to my hand and taking off in a big leap using my hand like Tarzan uses the vines). We headed back to the food and plied ourselves with some of the delicious stuff that was laid out, before lying down on the brown grass that so clads the western ghats and looked at the blue sky and wondered at life. A chat with Malay and Kalpak about receiving, holding and flow, summed up the essence of abundance, and we rounded it off by heading homeward by noon.
For a moment it seemed rather surreal, this colonial setting, a picnic like in the sixties movies, which itself was a fast forward from the British times perhaps, and we were so glad we were part of this and to Malay for organising this experience. This spot in itself is brilliant and needs more exploration, apparently giving its best for walkers and trekkers in rainy seasons. Thanks Malay for a wonderful weekend and like always, you managed to surprise me way more than I expected, which is how I like my surprises. Looking forward to more meetings, surprises and chats about this and that.
So Parth, Maria and Neha offered to take us to a trek on Vetal Tekdi, the hill that goes on from Paud Road to Chaturshringi and one that we can see all the way along the Law College Road. Apparently its the highest point within the Pune city limits and so named because of the Vetala temple up on the hills. It's a beautiful place to walk and I had been there once before a decade ago chatting with Prakash and this would be the second time. I was game.
 |
| Misty morning at 7 am |
 |
| Into the woods |
Fresh from the Simhagad experience, Anjali was all keen too. The only villain seemed to be a spot of rain that began the day before and kept at it, but we decided to go anyway if it wasn't raining at the appointed time. So Saturday morning 7 am sharp, Anjali and I showed up at the appointed place near Vikhe Patil school near Patrakar Nagar, past Mai maushi's famous house, and the adventurous trio were waiting for us already.
 |
| Deeper |
 |
| Us four, Maria behind the lens |
It was a lovely morning, foggy or misty, or whatever it was and we walked up the hill. It leads to a central part where people congregate for their many activities - gym, stretching, photography, dogs etc - around some structures built for those purposes, seating spaces and such kind. Parth led us away from that spot into a trail less travelled.
 |
| A sip of water |
 |
| Out of a Maniratnam movie |
 |
| Get rid of the mud off the shoes |
There were dogs running about wildly and we figured out later that they were with a young lady who seemed to be their friend. Up and down in every changing scenarios until we turned back and headed towards the quarry. On the way we saw an old building with a high wall, clearly stuff that would interest the Famous Five.
 |
| Descending |
 |
| Tight-wall walk! |
 |
| The quarry behind |
 |
| Down the quarry |
 |
| Heading back! |
We came to the quarry which is quite a dramatic sight. We spotted a few birds, one Bharadwaj, which Maria later told me was a Crow Pheasant. There were young kids on bicycles, a young couple sitting dramatically close to the edge of the quarry like a Fear Factor challenge (there is also a path that goes right next to the quarry for the surefooted and stout hearted), all kinds of people young and old walking, jogging, cycling, etc. I saw a laughing club types which was chanting slokas loudly and so on.
 |
| A selfie! |
It took a good two hours but it was well worth it. Anjali and I celebrated with dosas at Pruthvi on the way back home.
