Parrots Meet Carrot: A Success Story

All creative people are in a soup. Some are in plain simple Tomato Soup while others are in the more interesting sounding Jade Sweet Corn Soup. But they are in a soup none the less. It is not necessary that they like soups therefore they are there. They like the occupation; the soup is the occupational hazard. Some can swim circles along the circumference of the soup bowl while others just drown in the whirlpool created at the centre.

But why are they in a soup? You ask. They are in a soup because of the unconventional nature of their produce. Unlike all other items on sale that have a definite process of production, the produce of a creative process has no definite process behind its existence. Therefore its monetary value is a victim of subjectivity.

Subjectivity is never easy to interpret, because unlike objectivity its not black and white, it is a mixture of both. Unlike toothbrushes a creative piece is not aimed at the mass market, but anyone using a toothbrush will comment on it. In such a situation the creator loses two things, one the feedback from the niche he was aiming at and two, his cool.

Sooner or later in their career every creative person wants their work to make the maximum impact. This can only happen by influencing a larger section of the society. To influence a larger section of the society it is important to collect and interpret their feedback. Subjective feedback is not easy to interpret and subject feedback on a piece of art is difficult to process and subjective feedback on a piece of art from a large number of sources is even more difficult to analyse and implement.

Even if all the above were to be done the biggest stumbling block is the creator. Since creative processes do not follow any established patterns the data becomes redundant. In such cases a whole-istic approach is necessary. A system that will help you be on the road.

Such a system was suggested by a wise man. All those who are in the business of generating something out of nothing will already be in the know of it. For those who are in the business but are foolish enough to ignore it, now is the time to start applying it in at lease small doses until you are convinced it works. For those in the dark about its existence, consider yourselves enlightened.

Use the following benchmark to gauge your success or the success of your work. For the success of your work will reflect your success.

Be open to feedback on your creation.
Of the positive feedback you receive, make a note
Of the negative feedback you receive, make a serious note
If you receive no feedback at all then panic!

Interpretation of the above

The positive feedback you receive is good. It tells you what is good about your creation, how people saw it and what they understood of it. The negative feedback you receive is of greater importance because it invariably points out what your creation lacks and what people were looking for in it and did not see. This is feedback in the true sense. Its always easy for a person to say ‘its good’ because on hearing ‘its good’ one does not ask for a reason. Rarely does anyone ask ‘why is it good?’ A person saying ‘its good’ does not necessarily have to know what he is talking about. But a person who says ‘its not good’ (or anything similar) knows what he is talking about, he is (at least) subconsciously prepared to answer ‘why is it not good?’ This person has given more thought to the creative produce then the one giving positive feedback.

More over, the negative feedback we receive is directly responsible for our improvement. The answer to ‘why is it not good’ will make us realise our limitations in skill or ability. As we realise out limitations we strive to overcome them. As we overcome our limitations we improve. Isn’t that what all creative people want to do – improve.

Positive and negative feedback, both are good because they have caused a reaction. Someone has seen or experienced your work and has shared what he/she experienced. It forms a closed loop of communication – you communicated something through your creative produce and someone influenced by that product has communicated back to you in the form of feedback.
Getting no feedback at all means your work has fail to creative an impact. Your communication has failed to reach its target. This does not mean the world is deaf, dumb and blind. It invariable means you have made a mistake in communicating. Your creative produce is a failure; which means that your creative processes are not in tune with the message you want to convey. It basically means that you are going to the wrong city on the wrong road.

So you can well imagine my happiness when I realised I was on the right road going to the right city! I mean howmany blogs are there which have inspired a post on another blog. Only a few. And amongst them, too, there are some which feel insecure when others comment on their posts. Amateurs I tell you! Chaiwalah is glad to be famous and is basking in the sunshine of fame.

I am gratified that a post on my blog has caused a reaction and another blogger has written her side of the story on her blog. To read her story click here.

Not only that, it also proves a few points I made in my previous post (‘Parrots Meet Carrot’). Let me repeat them here with a few adaptations to the context.

The involvement of Bhais is a boon to the blogging industry in more than one ways:

1. A free-flow of thoughts means more post can be made by bloggers
2. More posts means more use of talent and an opportunity to master your talent
3. Better the talent, better the blogging industry
4. Bloggers are forced to post certain posts which they would not have posted under ordinary circumstances. This increases their scope and breaks them free of (the copy-past old letters) stereotypes they are cast into.
5. The industry gets an external stimulus; and
6. Unlimited inspiration for years to come

Honest Confessions: Add Masala to Chai

…Chaiwalah, a sinister underworld don had been dominating our conversations for quite a while…
…one of us revealed to him the existence of our blog…
…We no longer felt safe…
…We felt our tea was drugged…
…we were lulled into a sense of security by his convincing act of innocence…
…and one of us started discussing everything with him…

…but no matter where we went, he would know…

…We decided to corner him…
…We donned ordinary clothes, not the sleek black suits…
…Our cronies, in unmarked vehicles, kept a close watch on us…
…ready to move in, should we need armed assistance…

…Lunch was not good…
…we had paid the channels a lot of money to keep out the news of raids…
…chain of tapris that He lorded over…

…We had him fooled with our act…
…We took him shopping…
…It was a cruel way...
…we had to be ruthless.
…he had the upper hand...
…One of us pretended to pull a muscle and had him distracted…

…Ours was laced with our own secret supply of tea…
…We just came back from an all-night chai-party…
…New tapris will soon come up…

These are just the highlights, the action-words. A complete version of these confessions can be found by clicking here.

Parrots Meet Carrot

In the early 1990s Bollywood (Indian Hollywood) started to show the world that it was fast becoming a promising industry. Movie making started to become a booming business. And with the Bollywood becoming an organised industry, it was only natural that organised crime creep in, too. Links started to get established, established links began to strengthen and strong links were being put to use. As ordinary people were made stars on screen, Bhais became the stars off screen. Bhai - a household Hindi word meaning brother now meant Don.

With organised crime entered unorganised finances; at that time (and still) a much needed facility in the film industry. Along with money came control. Bhais financing films automatically had more control over them, their cast and their creed. If Director D wanted Actor A to act in his film but the actor did not show any interest, D would call Bhai, Bhai would call A and A would act in the film. If Music Company M wanted the music rights to the film but was not getting them, they would call Bhai, Bhai would call Producer P and the work was done. If P wanted Lyricist L who was unwilling, the route was the same - Bhai. Almost all international distribution rights were sold through Bhais contacts. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Everything was controlled by Bhais and all this happened over the phone. The simple Bhai philosophy was ‘heed call or eat bullet’. If you were successful there was a Bhai behind you, either to support you or to slay you. ‘Bhai ka phone aaya’ became the new catch phrase.

But the involvement of Bhais was a boon for the industry in more than one ways:

1. A free-flow of money meant more films could be made.
2. More films meant more use of talent and an opportunity to master your talent.
3. Better the talent means better the industry gets.
4. Talent was forced to do a certain role/film they would not have done under ordinary circumstances. This increased their scope and broke them free of stereotypes they were cast into.
5. They acted as arbitrators between troubled parties and helped reach a solution which may not have happened otherwise.
6. The industry got an external stimulus; and
7. Unlimited inspiration for years to come; we still see Bhai-based movies.

Two days ago I got a call too. They did not reveal much on the phone but in a very business like fashion did mention it was about this blog. I was perplexed. Just three posts down and I am already getting goony calls…? That’s interesting. What could the reason be? Anyway, they fixed up an appointment for ransom talk and hung up.

We met today. They were easy to spot. Like Men in Black they were the Girls in Green! Just like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Will Smith is the over smart, head shaking, face making one and Tommy Lee is the reserved, picking words carefully more dignified sort. Will is wearing a scrubbed-too-clean popat green and Tommy is wearing a seen-a-soap-ten-years-ago popat green. They wanted to fake the Men in Black look but forgot about it when crossing the street! They then put on the Girls in Green look and forgot what they met me for! Field day!

After the customary pai-lagoos (greeting given to elders) we ordered lunch. They - in sheer hope of pinning me to the wall. Me – sheer lucky a painting was already hanging there! They started to interrogate me, one by one (first mistake; had they attacked together they could have made mince meat of me), trying to corner me so that I raise my hands and scream give up and pay the penalty and withdraw the blog and do all they say and leave the city and never use the internet again and disappear by delegating my online identity and soon after they will delete my offline identity too!

Nothing of that happened! When they got together they spent more time discussing what to ask me than actually asking me (reminded me of Fardeen Khan and Aftab Shivdasani in the Hindi film Love ke Liya Kuch Bhi Karega). Sad and ignored I felt. I was so happy to get the goony call. All excited I was. And then these amateurs turn up!

Lunch came and all was forgotten (second mistake; while eating I am totally off guard, I could not have defended myself). Ransom talk soon turned into random talk and never looked back.

Then just to make themselves feel good they took me shopping, i.e. while they shop I had to give them my expert comments (very hard work, when dealing with two goons you have never been shopping with).

By the time shopping was done, it was Tea-Time (how time flies). So Chaiwalah took them on a wild goose chase finding a Tapri for chai. Found none [actually found one but it was not interesting enough, so it does not count].

So the Kettles had to settle for coffee!
Tapris out of business!

They left like James Bond; Die Another Day
So if ever this blog disappears or if i stop posting all of a sudden, without any explaination, then you know who is to blame!

Until then, The Chaiwalah tips the Tapri of its taps!


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NOTE:
This story was published first.
In defence another counter story was published on another blog.
You can read that here.

Crash, Boom, Bang...

“Yesterday I fought with my wife,” I would say. She told her friend, “He fought with me.” Of course not! Both do not mean the same thing. They refer to the same incident but are far from each other in meaning.

When a man says, “I fought with my wife” there is a lot more to it than just the mere statement of fact. The two key words are the smallest two in the sentence ‘I’ and ‘my’. The I in the above brings the focus on Him, yes. But not in the usual me first way. Here the emphasis of I is more than just that. The I is a way of accepting ‘yes, I fought with you’ it says, ‘yes it’s my fault (that we fought)’ it implies, ‘yes, I could have avoided it if I would have tried’ and above all and most importantly it says, ‘yes, it’s my mistake’.

The second key word my is equally, if not more, important. It maintains and holds on to the fact you are my wife. It keeps it personal by saying you belong to me. The phrase my wife immediately creates a mushy-mushy feeling in a man’s heart. And the use of it here, in this sentence, means that he still loves her. If he still loves her he regrets fighting with her. And if he regrets fighting with her the fight is over.

When she tells her friend, “He fought with me” she does two things. One, blames it all on him. Even though we all know that A cannot fight with B without B fighting back with A. Since she has started off with blaming it all on him it leaves a sour taste in the mouth and she can now only see the ‘bad-things’ about him: he is like this, he is like that, he always does this, he never understands, he fought with me.

Second, she will hang on to with me, since it come at the end of the sentence, they will hang on to it. And from there on its all about her. The he has disappeared in some corner of the light grey matter and the we was never given a thought to.

Because of their habit of hanging on to the words said last, women tend to misinterpret the my wife phrase. When men try to say, ‘You belong to me’ women hear, ‘I own you’. Earths apart! Women, to stuff more words in a sentence will replace the bigger belong with the smaller own. Not all words are always replaceable. Not all words having the same meaning can be interchanged.



We use belong when something means more to us than a mere object. Remember the first book you got when you were a kid? It had a printed label on the first page which said "This book belongs to _________". It could also have been written as "This book is owned by _________". But at that age we were being taught to treat the book as something more than a stack of papers tied together. We were taught to cherish the book. To keep it safely, treat it with care, love and remember it always. Therefore the label said belong. Therefore belong and own are not interchangeable.

A fight usually ends in a cold war. Some small, some big. Some just cold, some freezing. If it is a serious fight, going off into the next room might not help ease off the pressure. At times the words exchanged are so harsh that one wants to leave the room or even the house, for one hears those words reverberate within the four walls. Usually the man has just come home and the woman has been at home for some time or at least has been mulling over the impending verbal war for a better part of the day. It is usually she who in one swift move will grab her purse, the handle of which will entangle in something breakable, crashing it to the floor, boom across the hallway (invariably where he is seated) on her way out shutting the door behind her with a bang loud enough to advertise her anger. Leaving him worried sick, wondering where his pretty baby has now gone...

...With a Crash, boom, bang...
You arrive, only outdoors.

The History

The History

Two girls start a blog.
Two girls start a blog
They pass on the link to me.

As I read it, it is excellent,
As it is excellent, I am tempted
As I am tempted, I start my own.

The rest is History.

They title it Tea-Time Therapy,
They link it taprichai.blogspot.com
They pass on the link to me.

I expect a post or two,
I get loads in return
As if it’s always been there.

The rest, they think, is History.

Until, The Chaiwalah came by...

The Basics

At first: The Basics.
An impartial statement of the origin and meaning of words and phrases used in the title.

Tea-Time

The year is 2737 B.C. Shen Nung, emperor of China, is boiling water to drink. (Boiling is the oldest known method of water purification.) And then...a happy accident. Into the kettle fall a few leaves of Camellia sinensis. Shen Nung drinks, and finds that the leaf-infused liquid imparts "vigor of body, contentment of mind, and determination of purpose." Tea time is born!


Therapy [ther·a·py n., pl. -pies.]

Is defined as

1. Treatment of illness or disability.
2. Psychotherapy.
3. Healing power or quality: the therapy of fresh air and sun.

Could also be defined as Healing treatment; and

Therapy (in Greek: θεραπεία) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis.

Foreword

And in the start there was Time. But that was not the starting. There was a Time before the start of Time and a Time before the start of that Time. So which ever start you chose there is a Time preceding that. There is a start preceding every Time also, but that start too, like all other starts, is preceded by a Time. So Time is eternal and a start is an illusion.

In the same way, this is not the start of this narrative. It has always been there – in one form or the other it has always existed; like Time. Some times its existence has been conscious, but for the better part of history it has had to stick to the subconscious. A privilege shared by a few. Its start is an illusion many will battle with. Like all those who battle with illusions, they too will fail.

On failing they will try to win over Time. Here too they will fail. For time is eternal and belongs to no one person, or two for that matter. Time belongs to no one and no one masters over it. For it is its own master.

But we are not here to talk about Time and starts. We are here to talk about more important matters. Matters of no importance what-so-ever. But important none the less.

We will discuss what others discuss. And also discuss why they discuss what they discuss.

It will be a third person’s narrative on what the first person says to the second person.

It will be enjoyable. It will be cut-throat. It will be fierce. But most of all it will expose the obvious in ways never know or seen before. Here you will see your subconscious become the conscious. Here you will encounter solid proof that your subconscious is hand in hand with your conscious and it will give you away at ever opportunity. Beware.