Apple ...

iDesire

I am not usually sentimental or get emotional about people I don’t know…but something seems different when it comes to Steve Jobs. I of course have no personal contact or connection to him, yet his products make him close to us.

I remember seeing the first Apple computer in 1985 at a shop in Harvard Square. Not being very computer savvy then, I knew nothing of features or options that one should look for in computers. I knew nothing of processors or OS’s. All that I responded to then was the design of the computer – it was undoubtedly love at first sight and what registered was that it was twice as expensive. The life long love affair had started. The impact of the computer was large enough for even preschoolers to know of it. In 1986 when I was making my dissertation film as student of Broadcasting in Boston, I was doing a science a film. In one of the segments we were shooting a sequence with kids where I showed them a picture of apple – I was surprised as one 5 year old connected it with computers!!!

In 1999, we bought or rather my husband bought a mac – strictly for his editing work, pre installed with FCP.  We felt we had crossed a milestone, we owned a mac!!! Soon after we bought a mac for the department again for video editing. It remained off limits for daily word processing and other needs. It was a ‘special’ computer.

Steve Jobs meant nothing – it was not a name I knew or registered. That happened only in the mid 2000’s when media and internet had made access to news and information easy. We saw the launch of the ipod and then ipad. While all other laptops, mobile phones are crowing about color and art work on thie covers, Apple has stuck to its sleek and sauve silver black and white colors for most of their products . the only exception being the iPods.  The brilliance of design – minimalist, sleek and smart in all apple products.

I started to lust after them, spending much time online admiring and gazing at my ‘objects of desire’. In 2000 when I visited US and Canada, I would stroll into apple shops and just lovingly look and feel the products – they remained ‘objects of desire’ – their prices being the main deterrent to purchase. The wallet determined purchases rather than the heart, but I would always tell myself that ‘next time I buy a computer it will be a Mac’. Now that we have apple istores in Pune, I am unable to pass one without going in and looking at the products, be it Macbooks, desktops, ipods and now ipads.  They still mesmerize me like no other product does.

Then all of a sudden I became proud owner of Macbook, courtesy my sister Priti. She had a macbook which she had got when her laptop conked off. But she could never get used to the mac and wanted to go back to her comfort zone of using IBM. So she offered her Macbook to me – it remains my most precious hand me down. She called me one day and asked ‘if I wanted a Macbook?’ Now what kind of question was that? Who doesn’t WANT a Macbook, I asked her’. Not only don’t I want but I desire one, more than any other laptop. I did not even tell her then that I had just acquired a 17” Dell Studio, in fear that she would think I was being greedy and withdraw her offer and give it away to someone else!!!

Last year with huge fanfare we saw the launch of iPad, many snide remarks and jokes were all over the social networking sites with regard to the name. But what’s in a name?  The iPad changed the world once again. An instant hit with children and adults and for me – one more Apple product to lust after. When I went to US in July this year, I was determined to buy a iPad 2, thought the $500.00 tag seemed a bit excess. Even as my sister Anju, was driving back home from the airport, I asked if she had a iPad and confessed to her I was thinking of buying one and if she would recommend it at $500.00 as a worthwhile buy.  Once we got home, I was shown the iPad by my 11 year nephew in whose custody the iPad is (mainly because others have their own Mac books) and with it came my introduction to not only the iPad but angry birds as well. As we strolled into malls I looked at iPad and put it down – I would buy it in Boston if desire overtook sense, I told myself.  Then on the evening before I was to leave – Kishore hands me a ‘apple’ shopping bag – in it a spanking new iPad with a red leather cover!!! I have never been so emotional before.  Imagine a 50 year old getting emotional over iPad – but I felt like a five year old. I could not stop smiling for next few days.  

For past few months my ‘apple’ of desire hasd been the iPhone 4 and keep going to ebay and other online sites to check prices (I have  perfectly good expensive nokia mobile). My family is unable to understand my obsession with iPhone (my daughter Vaidehi keeps assuring me that I will get a iPhone for my birthday).... but how can one explain these things.. I want what I want – there is no logic to it, there is no reason, ther is no need – it is pure and simple desire.

Now of course I am drooling over iPhone 5!!

Thank you Steve Jobs for keeping the child in me curious and engaged.

Reading List 2

INVISIBLE LINES

I am often tempted to pick up women authors writing their first books, more so if they are from the Indian Sub continent and neighborhoods. It was this that led me to pick up “invisible Lines’ by Ruby Zaman , a lawyer by training, an activist and surprisingly language teacher too!! The book cover with mango being peeled was an added incentive. Who say’s cover pages are unimportant!! The mango on the cover had nothing to do with the story inside, but it did tempt me.

I have not read anything from Bangladesh and this story beginning with the formation of Bangladesh tells story of young girl caught up in politics of a country and family.  Bangladesh's Liberation War was a changed the dynamics of relations between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It also in many ways divided the world into two bitter halves—Pakistan on one side  supported diplomatically and militarily by the US and China, and on the other were the people of Bangladesh, and its allies India and the USSR. Most important in the paradigm, however, is the role of ordinary Bengalis, who took up arms to change the course of history. Some of them were peasants; some were students, day labourers and women who otherwise would have remained content in the footnote of history. 

In this book too it is the characters that give this extra ordinary book it’s edge. As we follow Zeb through her first teenage ‘love affair’ to her accidental encounters with Shaifque, her leaving Bangladesh for good and trying to forget it…it catching up on her 13 years down the line!!! It a story that jumps from Chittagong to London, from Zeb to Didi to Shafique. It is an enduring story of love, hate, faith, treachery and most importantly of human beings caught up in a time, in a ‘period’ of history. It is one of few stories that we have on the sub continent about people caught up in war and liberation.

A memorable first book. Can we hope for more from begum Ruby Zaman?

New IDEA in an old bottle!

Watch me Escape !!

Google Honours ‘Uncle’ Anant Pai With A Doodle On His 82nd Birthday

Google Honours ‘Uncle’ Anant Pai With A Doodle On His 82nd Birthday

Reading List : The Millennium Trilogy

In March sometime I picked up this book with an intriguing title "Girl with Dragon Tattoo". The book had been all over the bookshops for several months and finally I succumbed into buying the book. It was by an author I had never heard of or read...and I find myself increasingly picking up authors I have read and liked. This, largely because in the past few years there has been such a proliferation of new authors who have written unreadable books (will talk about them some time later). But this new author from a distant land (in a country where English is not native to it's writers) aroused enough curiosity to make that investment of Rs 499/-. But once I started I could not keep the book down...I read it as soon as I got home from college, I read till 3.00am!!! It's a FAT book (554 pages in tiny print). The book by Steig Larsson blew me away. Even after reading it stayed with me. The characters intrigued me and I could not wait to know them better. The book is a translation from Swedish, but more than the language it is the characters that caught my imagination. They are well etched out, full some and with loads of "character". It is a rare book today that catches both the character and plot effectively.

After that the next two books of the Millennium trilogy as this series is called, the Girl who played with fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest' followed and both these books too continued to have the same magic as the first one. His development of his two main characters Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist is absolutely brilliant. They are both non conventional, smart and very "today" kind of characters.

It was with deep sense of loss that I discovered that Steig Larsson had in fact died soon after he had given the trilogy to his publisher. He never saw the phenomena that his books have become. And as a reader I feel sad that I will not be able to anything else by him. It's truly to all of us his ardent admirers and followers. But he will continue to live through his characters Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

Next I will tell a bit more of another astonishing book I picked up from a first time author, this time from our neighborhood - Bangla Desh.

Cheers...keep reading, keep healthy, keep enthused!!!

New Start

It's been a long time and I think I will try and make a more concerted effort at writing. There are so many things that I am thinking about and want a dialogue - so one of the best ways to do it on this blog.