The curious story of Florence and Golding: An introduction

No no I'm not going to begin by telling you if its a story about two people or a girls adventure in a forging land or two beings connected between parallel universes or an unique friendship between a Nightingale and a historic monument.

Have I given you enough to think about already? Maybe you should expect it in the story I tell you next. Maybe I'm going to depict all of these metaphorically.

Ah, the beauty is I don't know what I'm going to write here next, yet I know just like your inkling right now that its going to be exciting.

I'm a master of imaginative story telling, typically wandering into a million directions at the same time in my head or maybe yet its just a psychologically condition I chose to knowingly manipulate to tell this story. My story. Your story. A great story.

Brace yourself.

Short story: You live a lie

You hide your true identity.
Your friends think they know you, but they don't. 
Your parents think that there isn't more to know about you, but they don't know. 
You kid thinks you're an entire universe in yourself, but you live a a parallel reality on the side.

Your colleges think you're unexposed, plain, self obsessed, cocooned.

But what they don't know is - you aren't.  

You beat women on the side.
You lie to your wife and while you wear her name around your ring finger,

You have the courage to cress someone else with that very same hand.
The same lips you use to kiss you young one, you use for purposes much beyond dirty words.

 

When you take off your clothes at night, you don't take off the pretense.

Never exposing your scars and ugly skin to your own life. 

Never at easy, fearing prying eyes. 

You only take that off in private.
But privet is never really on your own,
Never in the confinement of small rooms that suffocate your soul,  

Always in the presence of another being you delude and call your one true love.

Little do you have the guts to even look at yourself in the mirror 

To acknowledge that there's not been one but a series of such strangers.

Who you put down I in private.
Who you torture behind closed doors.
Who you hurt with all your strength, both physical and emotionally.

 
You've created monsters with void pasts. 

Their own reality and history diluted by your words.
Who are cruel to themselves and who ache to pain at your hands. 
On the outside no one will ever be able to see this person.
On the outside no one will ever know those strangers.

Those few quiet woman, fragile flowers silently writhing at your hands.  

You hide your true identity... 
Your friends think they know you, but they don't..
But i do. 

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.  -  Charles Dickens 

"No regrets" generation.

You date so much that then it doesn't matter. The concept of being someone's first or being someone's last has become diminishingly insignificant over the decades. How we look or they looked, what they did, how we acted, all seems fine to us. In that moment when we were happy we were ok so we don't look back to ever say "oh god! Look at who I was or who I was with!" Ever.

That, simply because we regret less, we're wiser, we learn from our mistakes (or maybe not) but we defiantly seem to want to make a lot of them for our own 'good'. But we're happier with ourselves, we judge less and don't care about others opinions as much as our own. We carve out our own personal identity and have no fear or hesitation in putting it out there for the world.

We believe in fate and destiny even if our view is very broken or skewed. But who says the meaning shouldn't have changed over years? Hence sometimes they go unnoticed or unappreciated by the previous generation but we do know better. And let me refocus, 'we're happier'.

We actively engage in discussions about and give more time to understanding the difference between then and now in context to ourselves yesterday and today and then between out generation and the previous. Which is a good thing, cause while we recollect, we don't nestle. We're ok with outcomes and just fine with where we end up. Hopeful for better, but just fine. We don't think much of the future like our previous counterparts. We know it'll be different but as far as personal human dynamics go, we have stopped making assumptions. We know we're moving at a much higher speed than someone in our shoes even just a decade ago and hence were ok with comparison with the past, with what has already existed than assume about the future. 

As shallow or empty the words "No regrets" may sound, it makes perfect sense to us. To us it means giving everything sufficient chances and enough heart that when we look back to it from the future we never wish we could have done anything better or left out any scope of effort we didn't put in to think maybe we lacked somewhere.

We're far more dynamic and adjusting and calmer and open about our wants, desires and the way we intend to bond with people and places we wont wait for the rest of our lives to see, time we can put aside or even the amount of risk we can readily take for all kinds of things important to us.

Live, Love, Drink, but don't forget to rethink.

Lets put the notions and trivialities of our daily lives aside.

You job, my friends, your car, my phone, our hobbies, our families, our friends, our enemies, who we have now become or who we pretend to be. 

What does it leave us with?

A bundle of emotions, memories, opinions, conclusions, resolutions and feelings. 

Now lets take away the facade of ego, pride, revenge, jealousy, ill feeling, pre-convinced notions, political and cultural alignments and competitiveness. 

What does it leave us with now?

Reason, honor, honesty, practicality, our core personalities, all clinging the hand or rather the little finger of the grown up us. 

In short, it leaves us venerable. Child like, confused, sensitive, lost, hesitant, emotional. 

now take a deep breath. 

Try sustaining this frame of mind.

Let the overwhelming feeling of putting up notes and masks of self defense settle, till you begin to breath easy, till your pulse rate normalizes again. 

Now think of me. Picture my face. the touch of my skin, the curls of my brown hair, looking into my brown eyes... enough thats enough. 

Now in all honesty ask your self. 

Do you really hate me? Or want nothing to do with me? Or treat me like a stranger?

When i put a smile on your face, when i awkwardly conveyed my feelings, when i hurt you with dead honesty, when we just spoke about life and the future, did it want to make you change? 

To leave me alone, to see me as a habbit, an addition that needed to be put an end to?

Didn't we put ourselves out there, agreeing to risk the pain and hurt when we began to be friends at all?

On our best days, happy days, did you for even for a moment feel that it was probably going to be the happiest you'd ever be?

I did. And even if you decide to lie now and say you didnt, i know you did. 

But now coming back to reality, i am glad we've both grown. 

I suppose there were more realities and lessons and evolutions our personal character had to take till we made that one last final commitment. 

I feel more confident, driven, i have lesser mood swings, i dont feel the need to be subtle about how i feel or what i need to convey. I am unafraid to shine, i am proud be me myself more than ever. 

I am not guilty, and i have stopped being harsh on myself. I can have anything in the world, or resist anything in the world if i willed myslef to. And for once, i know what love feels like. 

You do too dont you?

You have seen the difference between feeling extreme affection, love and lust for another person haven't you? You do indrestand the difference when you try your best to convert one into another out of pure excitement or conveniance or inconvenience or a story to tell in your tomorrow? 

But in all human nature and false anger and prideful conviction we don't agree or want to agree they are all different, it just stages. 

We want to belive that the both of us, it was just another time. 

That better is yet to come.

We have better right now or it could be. 

Even when we know it can naturally exist or already exists elsewhere.

I have come to realize how broadening of our individual perspectives or rediscovering who we are or what we want to be do doesn't necessarily have to do with traveling far and wide to look for it. 

That sometimes, it merely is a realizations that comes to us after committing the same mistakes over and over again sometimes. 

When we find time to go over our entire lives, sometimes realizations don't come from new experiences, merely acknowledging old ones. 

And in that exact moment sometimes you realize, that the answer might as well lie in the newness of a fragile relationship, but it sometimes already did exist in the past and in the present and we feared taming it. 

Taming the essence, because it would take long sessions of reconciliation, baring our souls to the known, being known, without opportunity of pretense bending and bowing both backwards and forwards. But for what?

Only for that one thing that really matters. 

Love. 

So how afraid are you really? Of taking a good look at your own life and the life that has been and that could have been and making something of it thats real, permanent and not in passing. 

They say draw the line at the sacred number 30. 

Life, love, womanize, but if you cant find it in you to stop then you never will, and the best things would have long past you. 

Hopefully now, coming back to reality of as you exist, you need to find the time to look back at what matters, what didn't and where the truth lies and go on to pursue it in time. 

Or i hope you do. 

Or for lords sake have peers with enough sense to help knock realizations back into you. In time. 

Zombie, Vampire and other things that scare me

Wondering if I've every been vocal or verbalized being zombie apocalypse paranoid..

Well not that I can remember. But yup...in my mind, I zombie proof every place I go, look for escape routs, check door strengths and blocking methods for SOS purposes.

Hey. Its a legit fear ok?.. The rising up from the sink after splashing your face to find one standing behind you!

After all, zombies unlike other mythical creatures are a byproduct of medical testing and 'things going wrong' in deep dark parts of big chemical plans or medicine research or army weapon development centers in some part of the world. Maybe our part of the world where human number in population strength is anyhow too high and a missing few can easily go unnoticed.

Well its not I don't have my own theories for vampires about being deficient in nutrients and further more the genes that breakdown and absorb sunlight and hence have to remain nocturnal and come out only in the dead of the night (or moonlight).

Yes, I think the most realistic things after zombies are vampires. But I'll come go that later.

What I do believe before zombies is in cannibalism. And it sure as hell freaks the shit out of me. Someone out there is currently reading this while chewing on a finger of a person half frozen in their fridges right now. Think about that. ... Or don't.

But what is one thing that ties zombies, vampires and cannibils together? They are dependent on human flesh and blood (involuntarily or by choice)

While a zombies body is disintegrating continuously and its own organs have become useless, probably due to organ failure or shock they undergo at time of inception or infection or contamination, a vampire I feel might not be able to similarity reproduce blood by itself and hence needs a dilation or blood transfusion and their body's over time have adapted to environmental conditions in such a way that it can perform blood transfusion through their front teeth itself. A fresh flow of blood..every week may also explains very good skin. Hmmm.. (No wonder beauty treatments around the work are moving towards it)

Fir cannabils it might be a lifestyle choice but it links back to zombies that maybe just maybe human flesh really is so tasty at the end of the day that ones you start consuming it, you cannot stop.

And since a zombies brain is dead due to lack of circulation of blood that also is a factor for disintegration of their own bodies, it's probably their natural evolution to graduate to human flesh over other animal flesh.

Yup, these are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head when ever I think of either, or, and of the three.

Though while vampires and cannabis can be reasoned with at some levels, I feel I most fear zombies because of their lack of though and direction and utter lack of pattern and un-predicatbality really.

Some inspiration: Part 1

Be Kind

Written by: Charles Bukowski

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused
to see. not their
fault? whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted life
among so many deliberately
wasted
lives
is.

Similarity between - Product Management and the Jetsons cartoon

So at one end there was the Flintstones. And the other the Jetsons. One based way back into the dinosaur era and other way ahead into the future.

If you ever saw both the cartoons as a child, you'd see or even feel that its our current era that holds on to too much clutter.

This I can animatedly conclude from the fact, that if we take the following in perspective and consider it our actual past and future - The Flintstones era didn't have quite as many inventions as we do and the Jetsons era was always depicted as or anticipated as clean, compressed and as being minimalists.

When we look at the symbiotic relationship of global news industry and the internet. We quite see the same in transition.

We started with news dissemination via papers. Now we have papers, TV, radio and a growing majority that uses internet for the purpose of finding and reading news. Too much clutter. or we can say, the current ear is in transition. It is the only era where everything can coexist. We haven't really short listed the one medium we will become dependent in the future on.

The Jetsons did use TV and Radio as prime means of communication. Or we can attribute that to the fact that maybe the emergence of the internet was not nearly well portrayed or was secluded to keep the cartoon series focused and simple?

What ever the case, if we draw 2 curves one for innovation and another for adoption and improvement, they probably meet at the point between the flint stones and Jetsons where our current rate or innovation in technology is being driven my minimalism.

Hence the arrival of the product managers to businesses. And the growing relevance to cutting the clutter.

The jetsons might have chosen Tivo or Radio. But when we make our clean minimalist future, rite now as we evolve from the flintstones era and evolve steadily - we might short list on mediums of technology and mediums of dissemination as key areas for reduction.

Want for the words "less is more" evolving from fashion to technology making a steady rise.

Product Idea 2: What next for Allen Solly? (Fashion Apparele-Commercebrands)

 Well boys, admit it. 

You all need help with shopping. 

Especially picking out things by occasion.

Sure you can't always have fashion stylists available (or can't afford one) but what you can is use your phone!

If Allen Solly were to take their current campaign one step further they could probably head in this direction! 

Once you you've picked your preferred custom colours from the vast colour pallet they should then Suggest clothes by occasion, time of day, weather etc they you intent to buy those clothes for. 

Well, come to think of it, any ecomm in their right mind should make this tool. After all men need it! Who says us woman are most likely to pick out clothes online and be impulsive purchasers? Intent can be initiated in anyone really. 

Plus if such a thing existed imagine it's social reach and the return traffic for repurchase it could drive?

This with the exact plan for very creative and very low marketing spends which also I've deviced should kick it off  for any existing online player really. 

Ps: This is a hypothetical case study. This idea is my own. It has nothing to do with Allen Solly. If anyone was to use this idea they are most welcome to try. I'm open to accepting a creative consultation charge of INR 30k plus taxes so pass it. 

Busines Idea 1: Traveller cafe and not just namesake!

This concept is Delhi, IN centirc. 

1. For whom: Travel company / independent hospitality industry person looking for a new venture / cafe concept. 

1.1 Will need three key people - a travel partner, a cafe partern, a marketing / digital partner. 

2. Catering to whom: anyone keen on traveling to India / various parts of india 

2.1 Primary audience - foreigners 

2.2 Secondary audience - local travel / photography / food junkies. 

3. Name: Traveller's Cafe 

3.1 Ironically this name is vacant, at least in Delhi NCR scenario!? Checked Zomato / googled 

4. Business model: to create an secondary opportunity/market to organize and cater to forgein clients and travelers for a travel company but thought a more legitimate approach while simultaneously also earning revenue from a cafe business. 

5. Cafe positioning: Location! location! location!: Pahardganj

5.1 To catch the market where they feel most comfortable.  

5.2 Also giving them a feeling of being self initiated rather than being duped by being dragged directly from airports and railway stations by traver agency 'cutters'.

6. Why: most travelers coming to Delhi read the lonely planet guide which specifically tells them about the places to stay (Pahardganj) and what to expect for cheap travel (cost) and how to bargain etc. 

6.1 Hence opportunity of creating a non hostile environment for capturing travel leads as the positioning is of a cafe. 

6.2 Agent can take them there rather than bring them to the travel shop from airports / railway stations to 'freshen-up'.

6.3 Also travelers who go stay there are otherwise smart / difficult to cater to or capture. 

6.4 As large traveling groups the over all cost of the trip also goes down which can again be shown as a 'USP' of the cafe.

7. Cafe concept: to cater to:

7.1 basic finger food from all over india i.e.: chats and snacks - conversation starters. 

7.2 Secondary menu to be world cuisine based (pricing according to Paharganj market pricing). 

7.3 Cheap alcohol. 

8. Back up model: even if the cafe fails as a travel company, it is an independent business model which can sustain itself to the catered market in that area.

9. Marketing model: For testimonial based reinforcement - that others have done this and come back alive!

9.1 Interiors to have walls on contributions from group travels of visitors + comments.

9.2 Polaroid photo shots for all paying customers with comments on how their visit to India has been so far. 

9.3 To hold small relics from all the visits with dates of visit / journey. 

10. Social page: Can work on 'powered by' model. 

10.1 Front end to be called: Traveller's Cafe on Facebook, Tumbler, Pinterest, Blogger and Zomato. 

10.2 In details / about section of the pages the same can be called 'powered by _ _ _ _ travel company. 

10.3 All articles and photos to be back linked to the travel partner site pages. Help with site traffic flow / building. 

11. Trip models: 

11.1 To host group travels for locals as well as forging groups. 

11.2 To make customized journey's - crowd sources destinations. 

11.3 Invite photo walk groups, adventure sports enthusiasts and related audiance for monthly, quarterly, half yearly trips.

12. Major marketing spend: 

12.1 Online: Zomato / bookmyshow / FB ads / google ad words / seo / mailer's /social media intern / depending on chosen rout/partners. Can use step by step or in phases expansion model. 

12.2 On ground: newspaper brochures and mats with updated upcoming travel plans to be put under class of the table or as mats. (to act as news letter's.)

13. Business model suited for: Travel company, someone enthusiastic about food and beverage industry.

14. Challenges :

14.1 Finding rent-able real estate in Pahardganj on long term lease. 

14.2 Ways of not letting other travel agents and brokers enter the cafe or breaking away client. 

14.3 Licensing - would it need only food and beverage or also travel company permits? 

14.4 Cracking MyBar concept for cheap booze and liquor!?  

14.5 Other unforeseen challenge from investors point of view. 

(i.e.: - will he be comfortable disclosing it as his own business to partners? (If any) 

- Will new partners be chosen for this venture? 

- Tie ups for further business to near by hotels and guest houses will he earn or travel company?) 

I guess i'm just a enthusiastic traveler? This should work! Comments / Suggestions anyone? :) 

'Do you believe in magic?' The story of my initiation.

I happen to be one of those Indian people who misses god but only when there's a need. Need based prayers when I'm scared or too angry and mostly when I've misplaced something. (which happens a lot) No wait, I also happen to think of god when things begin to go too much my way. I suppose then I miss or think of god out of fear. And force myself into a silent prayer. 

I pity myself sometimes for being such a tangle of emotions and schools of thought, especially since I don't entirely follow anyone of them. 

Like sometimes I don't believe God exists at all. Yup, the watchmaker analogy of intelligent design made for a purpose as proposed by William Paley accordingly to which - when simply put - means, if there exists a watch with its complex design and functioning, there must surely exist a watchmaker. i.e.: a more superior being that held the capability to design such a thing to begin with. And thus far, I haven't met anyone who knows our creator leave alone knows where he lives. 

That being said, I still enjoy belonging to my Hindu cult and follow religious practices as advised by our guru / master, such as always being kind, not harming or killing other beings how ever big or small they might appear, not eating meat and eggs. Depending on only plans and dairy for survival since they are both replenished and if required add the least amount of negative elements to our karma cycle (plant killing - 1 element in opposition of human killing - 5 or animal killing which is 4, bird being - 3 and insects being 2 if you get the drift) why I do this? Because man is a social animal and we start to realise and acknowledge the importance of staying or being part of a community only once we become more aware of who we are, what independence is and develop basic survival instincts. After all, as kids we aren't really entitled or aware of the concept of co-dependency or religion or community, norms, rules,security  etc and we just do as we are taught or as we are taken care of. 

I believe the best magic is elaborately created illusion and visual story telling and nothing more. Nothing less. I appreciate the art. 

I think all those baba's who can make crippled kids walk or the blind see again is all staged. Or in a way - i also appreciate how they manage to use their act as a way to derive the courage in people to do what they themselves thought impossible on their own. 

I know that sometimes - people just know things. Be it about themselves, or sometimes about others. Like i very accurately and sure shortly told my sister the instant i found out she was pregnant that they were going to have a baby girl. Nine months later they did and she still asks me why i was so sure. I cant say why, but i knew. Just like sometimes in movies they quote - 'he knew he exactly how he would die or when he would die and then he did, exactly like he used to say it. Sometimes, some people just know things. There no sure logic to it. But they just know.  

Which brings me to my faith in partially believing in fortune telling being related to expression reading and horoscope apps being build on algorithm that uses probability while randomly throwing pre-fed database of predictions thought their interfaces which can either be a hit or miss but mostly accepted by us people as we want to believe in or usually end up building co-relation between our life and the said prediction about the day, month or year ahead. (Usually also occasionally swaying decisions and life choices because of what we believe to already know based on them) Cruel trick i tell you.. Especially why i dislike 8balls, however fun or addictive they might be when you're looking for answers in the unknown. 

At the same time i also believe that god, the so called higher manifestation who we hold so superior in our eyes and minds, give multiple shapes, name and meanings to is actually a projection of our own strength  and hope from whom we draw higher energy and hope from. 'In knowing we are secure, when er don't believe in ourselves, but surely someone else does', even when we haven't really verified its/his existence ever. And in the end - when something happens in our favor we thank the all mighty, or start and coincidental good luck and when it doesn't we blame it on past bad karma or bad luck. 

No no. don't call me naive. I'd like to believe in magic, in something out there that's greater than us, a more evolved and much more advance and intelligent life force. (yup, i liked the theory and concept as explained in Prometheus) So this next para is about my initiation of faith or lets say magic and my take on it. 

Before i begin, let me also state a few words of wisdom; "When you whole heatedly want something, the entire universe conspires with you to make it possible, for you to have it."  

So. What different are the Indian concept of Kundali reading and matching? That's one are that recently baffled me. My brother-in-law recently downloaded this kundli reading app. Which tells one about their life in general, human traits, personal characteristics, lucky days, numbers, colors apart from generating health predictions, monetary predictions, relationship or love life predictions and work/education life predictions apart from being able to match traits with another person based on ones name, date of birth, time of birth and place of birth. 

ironically, while he sent me mine, knowing my practicality and frame of mind he happen to say - well, we have been practicing this for hundred of years, so it might not be fully accurate, but there must be something right or correct in it? I accepted the logic with open arms and tired to read through what came next with an open mind. 

Usually I'd say when some app or fortune teller or card reader reads out my personality traits or tells me about my self i feel its just a whole lot of words and ways of saying the same common things that can be used to describe anyone. i.e.: common stuff that everyone can be classified with. But this time, shit got real. I was expecting much more trivial stuff but instead it was actually quite accurate. Especially about my health, my nature, my physical built etc. OK, so that's like the pre-build up for the story to follow this app wants me to be believe was my first thought? But i ignored it, for once. 

What got to me was the kundali matching bit. And since i had an entire past to verify the details against   i can safely say, 'maybe' i got it all wrong. Maybe there are somethings that defy logic. At least my understanding of it. 

Like the bit about matching the 36 leafs in both humans involved in kundali reading. They say the more number of leafs that match - the better the outcome of compatibility and marriage. My brother in-law's and sisters case - only 14 leafs matched yet they are one of the happier or happiest of couples post marriage that i know. (my sister didn't want to marry him at all - but that's a story for another time)

Now, like i mentioned earlier - sometimes the universe conspires with you. To give you or send across a message you most need at a particular time in your life. It has its way of reaching out to you at the exact time of your need. I suppose you just need to be open minded about accepting these signs and signals. 

He sent me the kundali match of my beloved ex and me. He said since we didn't know his time of birth he tried almost all permutations and combinations and yet (giving it margin of error even - since it is an electronics app) it threw an extraordinarily good result! In worst case it threw 28/36 and best case 30/36. Which for normal people and things is unimaginably high! And despite which in the end conclusion, it advised we don't get married! Since i was kind of struggling with this one boy, i suppose it was the universe's message to me to finally let go after a long 10 months of holding on. (which had been unrealistically long for me, even by my own standards and logic's of time to get over instead of rebounding phases) 

It also very clearly explained that despite being the perfect fit for each other in every accept - be it mental stimulation, physical attraction, consistency in mutual love, respect and loyalty for each other, emotional dependency, bringing each other happiness, smoothness in living together or satisfaction in bed, we both lacked or rather scored a zero in this one department, which is called 'Nadi'. Now since i have a 4 year long experience of knowing my ex. both as friends and a partner i related to it. What it said was - the closer we grew - the more bad luck and misfortune we would cause or bring upon each other. Which has been the case i suppose all along. And i mean quite severely. Unimaginable amount of pain and misfortune to be stating it lightly! 

This helped me in two ways. Being at peace with myself for the past, the falling apart and letting go bit of our relationship. And giving me hope for the future. As much as i love the boy and always will, i also believe in the concept of there being up to 7 soul mates in any given point in time in life that one can stumble upon in a single life time. I guess what ever i do now, I'll never let him get that close again.I wouldn't want to deliberately cause harm to anyone as my guru advises or even for my own personal gain as a fellow human being? And since it also said a thing or two about my future i believe there are other soul mates yet to be found. 

My next objective so is to explore this concept of Kundali and also Naadi astrology. (not to be confused with Nadi as mentioned above) which is an art of ancient lead reading based on ones thumb impressions. After all, there's no logic is believing in something without sufficient proof, data or logic to support it. And we were made intelligent to be able to question everything with a why rather than blindly following it to ones convenience. (even though it is what i did, for now! because i suppose i needed to hear something like it.)