Gyan Time

Hey if you can lay your hands on "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari", then just dont lose the opportunity to read it. It is a book which can turn your life around. According to a Zen saying, "The teacher appears when the student is ready".

Well I am preparing a three page abstractof the book and if you are interested, mail me at krishsriram@gmail.com and I shall send it across to you. I am sure it can definitely make a deep impact in the way you think. "The purpose of life is a life of purpose". Profound , Robin Sharma.

Well i went to Landmark yesterday and picked up the book that I have been longing to read. Rather for 5 long years. When I was in Pune, I first read Marketing Warfare which extensively quoted the greatest master of wars in global history - Sun Tzu. His "Art of War" is still considered a bible in warfare (incuding corporate warfare).

"To win without fighting is the best" is Sun Tzu's greatest dictum of all times. So thats the book in waiting for me but guess Robin Sharma is taking a lot of my time.

The Odd Couple

Its monday and I was not afflcited by the monday morning blues . No guesses for the correct answer - I have taken a day's leave from office and have been chilling out since morning.

Last evening , I had been to Evam's second play of the season - The Odd Couple. Needless to say, the theatre group is growing from strength to strength with every production. It was rip roaring to the extent that one of my school pals Jaideep even remarked during the break that my thunderous laughters were heard intermittently even a few rows away.

The lead characters of Felix and Oscar have been excellently characterised and portrayed with the play's director Karthik as Oscar (the new face who acted as Felix was arguably the better of the two main characters).

With just 6 characters in the entire play, it was much different from their previous production of Death which had a huge cast. But then the cackle of the MCs and their initial Royal Sundaram marketing propoganda took the sheen off initially. Not to forget the slow start. But then the play which took off from that point never grounded after that, I should say, to give full credits to the play.

Two poker friends with contrasting characters & preferences are forced to move in together and the events that unfold in their life in the next three weeks is the crux of the story. The final scene where both the friends have each other's rub off effects was the icing on the laughter cake.
One of the good things about the evening was the cross promotional efforts of Evam informing the theatregoers (or theatrecomers) about Magic Lantern's Moonshine and Skycoffee happening this week at Alliance Francaise in the city. Only such healthy symbiotic relationship can help English theatre grow far and wide in the city. Not to forget, it was a full house despite the Indo Pak match (guess Chenaivasis are finally growing sensible).

Work & Inflation - hitting the roof

Work is taking it toll on "Karma Cola". Had been to Mumbai for three days on official work and the frenetic paced activity preceding and during the event has taken its toll on my blogging activities. Finally, back in Chennai on this Sunday morning . But I am again out almost the whole of next week to New Delhi and Bangalore.

I am finally shedding those flab after a lot of perserverance but the routine gets distorted and food habits become erratic on travel, resulting in a sense of being paranoid about putting back those flab.

Along with work which is hitting the roof, the inflation too seems to be rising qithout any limits. 8.33 % , which is much higher than 3 point something prevalent during the same period last year. Mr PM , where are we heading?

Footnote : The best part of my Mumbai trip was a walk (all alone) on Friday night at around 2.30 am in Juhu in search of a coffee shop to down some hot piping coffee and lay my teeth on some grilled sandwich. After walking for half an hour, realised that there was no nothing open . Hence headed out to some place near Santacruz in a rickshaw and finally did find one.

What is surprising that at no point during the "morning walk", did i ever feel scared of being mugged or mobbed. There was indeed frenetic activity even during that time. Truly, the city never sleps. Cliched, but true.

Class of '84

Class of '84. Thats the name of the Gerson da Cunha (its pronunced as da Cunya..just came to know about it today) play at Music Academy held just a couple of hours back. My awe for English theatre seems to be growing leaps and bounds and this is already my second play review in the past week.

Ok its the story of seven batchmates of St Xaviers College 1984 batch who reunite at a friend's funeral. How they are friends despite being completely different, how distant they become even more with the pass of time, and how finally they bare their hearts out is the crux of the story.

The script was completely water tight and the two hour play was alternating between seriousness and humour in turns. With just one set of props throughout, it was defnitely a commendable play as there was no point in the play when the script was a drag. The dialogues were so natural interspersed with the normal parlance of "gaand masti", "ballocks" among many other terms that cannot be put on the blog. Overall, it was really a commendable production. Though every artiste was at his / her histrionic best, Rajat Kapoor (Vyomkesh Bakshi fame) walked away with the top honours as Rukwinder aka Bobby - a Punjabi television star.

A major takeaway for me was that voice modulation and histrionic abilities definitely improves considerably with theatre and I strongly feel all Tamil film stars need to be subjected to theatre compulsorily...if only wishes were horses....

What also amazed me was the almost full house status even on a Fri evening.If it were held tomorrow, I am sure it would have been a full house definitely. Guess Chennai could be the next Broadway....

Anyways, next on the theatre circuit is Evam's next production sometime in Sep and Magic Lantern's Moonshine & Skycoffee in Oct...wait for the reviews...

Meanwhile I am close to finishing the Alchemist..have not been able to touch the "Bible" for the last two days as I have been working on two PPTs back to back...Mr William Gates, why on earth did u create Powerpoint....?