One of the reasons, NYC is NYC because the good folks there continue to do crazy (cool) stuff like the Sidewalk Catwalk project.

Created by the Fashion Center Business Improvement District, the project features 32 mannequins dressed by local designers in weather proof material. Loved the the theme by Kenneth Cole (pictured above)

It does add some extra zing to the walk from 34th st to Times Square on 6th Avenue.

More pictures in the slideshow below:

Incase you cannot see the slideshow above, here is the Flickr link.

Its the story of two pen-pals, one a bengali living in rural west bengal and the other living in Japan. Yes, as the title suggests, the girl lives in Japan.

What starts off as a friendship via regular letters takes a strange turn as Miyage offers herself to Snehamoy as his wife. Though they never meet during their lifetime, they are pretty devoted and behave as much like husband-wife as any other couple… Gives, long distance relationships a whole new meaning.

Detailed synopsis here.

The movie moves along almost poetically with a amazing background score and before you realise it, its the end. And it hits hard. Not something that you would expect.

Dont want to spoil the climax for you so go and watch it if you can. If you don’t understand Bengali, try and get a sub titled version as its interlaced with english and bengali (though you will really enjoy the nuances if you understand bengali, especially the bangladeshi accent).

One thing that did strike me at the end though is, we go through life waiting for something, and in the end when we finally get it, its almost always too little too late….Just goes to reinforce the fact that the journey is more important than the destination.

So whatever super urgent/important thing that you may seem to be doing, take some time out to watch this movie. Might help you see your life from a different perspective.

So instead of sitting all night in a bar on a friday night, we (Esther, Roma and I ) decided to do some ‘Night Photography’.

After dinner at Cowgirl (which had amazing pulled pork but horrible BBQ ribs) on Hudson st, we spent the next hour or so walking down Bleeker, 8 th Avenue, and ultimately finishing up at 6th and 14th.

Here are some of the pics below… and yes, I did take a picture of a man peeing into a telephone booth. Unbelievable, but i guess its a ‘new yorkish’ thing to do

Most people don’t bother using them and usually walk off.

Today, the guy on the elliptical finished a few minutes before me and was pottering around as his wife was still on the treadmill. He had ofcourse not bothered to wipe it clean.

After I was done, I wiped up my elliptical and moved to the weights area. The guy had seen me doing it, and i was wondering what he would do next.

Surprise !! He got some wipes and wiped his machine. He obviously was not a regular ‘wiper’ because it was already a good ten minutes since he had finished so I assume he did it because he saw me doing it.

I guess most folks dont do the ‘right’ stuff because either they are too lazy about it or it just doesnt strike them…(another example which is very aptly explained in this awesome ad here.)

So if you want some things to change, lead by example

Its basic thesis is that workers in an organization are promoted to their highest level of competence, after which they become incompetent, thus resulting in work being done by those who are yet to reach their level of incompetence. More about it here

Just realizing how true it is !

The larger a company gets, the more the problem get exacerbated…

How do you motivate such employees ?
How do you ensure they are productive ?
How do you ensure that they dont mess up the people below them ?
Most importantly,how do you find the “Peter’s” in your company ?

While there maybe no simple answers for a company, as an individual, its important to understand and be self aware, to constantly evaluate if you have already turned into ‘Peter’…or are on your way to becoming a ‘Peter’…

Coz if you have, its time to hit the road

Now while B&W photography is considered “classic, timeless, arty, etc etc”, i just love the amount of colour all around us, hence this attempt to capture the ‘colour’

Take a look at some more on Flickr here.

To see a slideshow, click the image below.

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.

The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn’t bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.

Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.
Moral of the story ” One must not engage in duties other than his own”

Now take a new look at the same story…

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey’s extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.
The dog’s life didn’t change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog’s duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed “ME” (Met Expectations) .

Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.

The donkey was rated as ” star performer”. The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards.

Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB …

Source: Internet fwd via Neetu Mishra

And after watching the movie, I did indeed have a different perspective on the food we eat.

Its amazing the changes that have taken place in the food industry…and slightly scary too…The movie covers a wide range of issues, ranging from the need to buy locally grown organic food, the ‘factory model’ of farming and meat production, to the global impact which major food corporations have had on the environment…

Highly recommended for watching.

Here is the official website. And if you want to do more, click here.

Right from cruising at 100 kmph on the NH 8 to waiting for 10 minutes in the ‘tag’ lane at the Gurgaon toll bridge, to battling errant drivers on Delhi’s inner ring road, and smoothly gliding past the tolls at the DND tolls, I had this constant question on my mind, “What’s the rush, people ?”

The answer was quite blatantly on display, pretty much every where.

India is on a roll. India is the next economic super power. Lifestyles are changing (and upwardly so). Women’s empowerment is on a high (as evidenced by higher divorce rates and nasty female drivers on the road – Earlier, it was only the ‘macho men’ who would cut you off ), etc etc

There seems to be an optimism in the air. The Great Recession has taken down America and Europe while India has  remained largely unaffected and is steadily growing and ‘developing’. Just the perfect place to be, don’t you think ?

We still have a long way to go. The roads are in a mess, the air quality in Gurgaon sucks, people are generally rude everywhere and everybody is intent on building their own sheltered cocoon – the rest of the world be damned.

While ruminating on the state of things with a friend, she was of the view that things wont improve unless the government improves things.

Take for example, the toll gate at the entrance of NH 8 in Gurgaon. Its horrible at any point of the day and during peak hours is a downright nightmare. While there are special ‘tagged’ lanes for folks with pre paid smart cards the lanes are usually jammed with ‘cash payers’ defeating the purpose of having a faster lane. While the govt could have put in place a system of checks and fines, ultimately, it is us, the people who dont respect the system and then later cry that it doesnt work.

Something needs to change. A change in the fundamental mindset which includes basic civic sense, respect for your fellow man and a sense of ownership in our country. Most of us are hardened ‘cynics’ and believe that its somebody else’s problem(usually the government) to fix it.

So how do we bring about that change to create an empowered India. The answer  to some extent may very well lie in this movie, ‘Stand and Deliver’.

Its about taking a small group and bringing about incremental change, one day at a time, and preferably with children.

The adults of our country are already in a mess. The only hope left is with our children, and if we dont teach them what is right from wrong, or more importantly, how to figure out what is the right thing to do…well i guess life will go on as usual.

As MG said, be the change you want to see in the world. Or atleast give it a try.