G - Loud !!!

Pic Courtesy : Chess.com

Chess, as a game, is as much royal as its pervasiveness across countries. From being invented in India to being the National game of one big country, chess is played in most parts of the world, often having some of the strongest historical legacies. The Middle East, the Soviet Union, even the USA including the Oriental world were the biggest hubs and practitioners of chess. Each of these regions has produced a world champion during one time or the other. Bobby Fischer is one name that comes to my chess mind as one of the greatest chess grand-masters. I have matured as a chess player studying a lot of his ‘immortal’ games. So does Gary Kasparov. In this modern day, my chess imagination is captured more by the prodigious Magnus Carlsen of Norway. He is possibly the youngest and the sharpest, the world is now seeing. Anand has been my nostalgic favourite always.
I have loved playing chess ever since I was a child. I am fortunate to not only play but win numerous accolades throughout my ten year long chess career – prominent among them are playing with the present world champion Vishy Anand; representing my State – Gujarat, my school my college in various National tournaments and being a State chess champion.
But, the leader in me always finds it difficult to market chess at least in the Indian subcontinent. In spite of the fact we have the present world chess champion from our country, there is very specialized and streamlined pervasiveness of chess in the country as compared to say countries like Russia. I have had a hard time taking the game amongst the youth spontaneously; perhaps owing to the perceptive passiveness of the game. Chess does not offer cheerleaders like an IPL match. And an average Indian’s span of focus stretches very little to sit through a classical chess match. And sadly so, this is the first time in history that India will be hosting a world chess championship in November 2013. Simply the culture of chess has been missing in our country so to say.
I think, chess as a game goes much beyond the permutations and combinations on the board. A typical chess championship match requires players to study their opponent right from the opponent’s childhood, in an effort to analyse and gauge his cognitive power, tactics and style of play. Every player plays differently in different positions and stages of one’s chess game. Some like it positional, some tactical, some a combination of the two, some like end-games and thus clearing pieces off board pretty early, and some are too good in their openings. So, chess is about studying psychologies of opponents as much as it is about studying positions.
When I read and see the world champions and the world renowned grandmasters; I simply get awed by the tremendous memory each one possesses. Magnus Carlsen has played against 10 international masters blindfolded. Anand and Kasparov plays with 200 players in one time simultaneously and defeats 95 % of them. That means the chess-grandmasters have to store and analyse a mammoth 200 positions and all their complexities in their mind at one time. And not to forget the fact that the differently-abled blind players also play chess stupendously. I have learnt that these players tend to concentrate better blindfoldedly – something that’s natural to them as a compensatory cognitive blessing. Ian McDownald’s seminal work on blind chess players was inspiring to say the least to me. (http://www.algorithmsthedocumentary.com/about-the-film/).
My dream is to meet the chess grandmasters of the world in their respective countries, including the world champions – Carlsen(Norway), Kramnik(Russia), Topalov(Bulgaria), Gelfand(Israel), Aronian(Armenia), Anand(India); learn about the chess culture in there and implement innovative and encouraging models in India to promote this game amongst the people, in particularly amongst the youth and children. I believe manifestation of this will lead to increased output in terms of research; strategic and analytical thinking right from the grass-root levels in India. All this is possible if a low-cost, affordable, easily accessible and visually stimulating model can be created across the country even penetrating to rural villages of the country. I want to create such an indigenous model, after getting cues from chess culture in different countries and meeting the world renowned chess grandmasters.

With the bansuri

At IIM K @July'13

IIM Kozhikode PGP 17

God's own Kampus

Results declared on 11th May,2013.

Capturing the 'Camera'

Diclaimer :- This is a satirical piece, but excludes those bona-fide photographers who have truly re-defined this art with their un-ending passion, love and dedication. In fact, the piece is an indirect mark of respect for these connoisseurs.
In today’s fast paced world the role of a camera has become indispensable. In a world where time flies past so swiftly, camera is a tool to permanent this fastness, to record the transient and the volatile and immortalize those into pages of history.

The camera can rightly claim to bear the distinction of bringing back lots of nostalgia at any given point of time. It rewinds memories, freshness, time and engenders a river of emotions, primarily happiness. Often it becomes a mode of bamboozlement – as an example, you suddenly discover your oblivious childhood through it, thinking how time has changed and ripened you ever since.

More often than not, the camera is used as a modern medium of advertisements. The competitive nature of survival has given birth to the need of an array of advertisements. If one has to succeed, he has to sell himself/herself. And to sell, he/she has to advertise incessantly. By merely being good or versatile at one subject does no good until the goodness is being advertised. And therefore the ‘incessant’ business of advertisements becomes even more important, in fact a necessity.

Advertisements often turn out to be a signature of authenticity. For example, a person galvanised in a western business outfit with a phone on the ear signifies his/her accomplished campus-placement. So will a face laden with pun-cakes can claim to be the most ravishing given the ever-growing sales and profits of the pan-cake industry and its inexorably tied users.

In fact the modern world has on its menu a lot of forums to be served as advertising fields. For social-networking sites like Facebook, advertisments become its oxygen of operation. It is the variety of flavors of advertisements, often of the same brand, that supports its survival away from a monotonous and mundane world. Here the camera too plays the role of linking the wannabe advertisers with its advertising-forum.

Having said all these, I am still to discuss the most important aspect for a camera. I wish the camera was an artificially intelligent device – which knew to identify the hot-sellable cakes. Alas, it still doesn't. Therefore, today, the camera-person becomes even more important than the camera itself. After all this person decides the subjects, the domain, the art-form, the nuances, the mood, the story and the background through his camera. The paparazzi thus acquires an un-questionable licence to invade every territory through the omnipotence action of his camera. For the camera, in its final advertisement, reserves the power to make or break you, glow or dim you, idolize or hate you, create or destroy you, focus or ignore you, venerate or vanquish you. But remember, the camera-person (paparazzi) is always a default hero!

At the end of it, if you ever wished to capture the nature of nature, to shoot to the default-instant heroism, to become invincible agents of ‘dream’ advertisements, or to get an un-questionable ticket to every event – be it a pompous and high-profile ‘Cynosure’ or a devotional and tranquil ‘Saraswati Puja’; you got to take to one camera - yes just one camera. Don’t be too perturbed about photography; merely owning a camera, which flashes a 21st century brand name with a reasonable professional look, is enough !

A sigh of relief !

It was indeed a relief - more relief than happiness infact to be picked up by Capillary Technologies from my campus early in this placement season.

Thus on July 14,2012 I am kicked out officially from all placement activities after being greeted with the result of being selected into Capillary.

Besides the package, in fact the kind of work being done at the firm also intrigued me. Let me not elucidate details out here, but you may visit CAPILLARY for more stuffs.

Relieved but nonetheless happy.

Raag Desh

A very beautiful and different bandish of Raag Desh on flute by Pandit Ronu Majumdar. I can't stop listening to it over and over again. :)

Click here to watch the video.

Me with my flute

Finally accomplished a 3rd prize at the instrumental event of Rhapsody during DA-IICT's Synapse-2012 by dint of my guru, my practice and last but not the least my love for the instrument.

I got to play a beautiful bandish on raaga Jaijaiwanti. I need to confess that though very less went into practicing with my tabla-mate, but whenever Malhar could take out time, it was sheer fun practising together. I think these two great tabla players of DA-IICT - Malhar and Rutvij give me a lot of confidence in classical playing. They deserve a lot of thanks.

Made out of only a single piece of wood, bansuri is one of the most divine as well as tough instruments to play. If you ever wish to play it, just drop by anytime.