We wondered if seeing one statue was worth an entire afternoon at Venice. We had been standing in a line to the Uffizi gallery since 8 am and it was lunch time. If we joined the line outside the Accademia, we would have to let go of the one pm train and catch the four pm train from Florence to Venice. We decided to stay and I witnessed my greatest reaction to an inanimate creation.
It was nine years ago that I stepped into the Accademia and first saw the statue of David by Michelangelo. It was the first time I actually had a strong physical reaction to a work of art, something that I always thought was an exaggeration. I had read about the creation of David by Michelangelo in Irving Stone’s fictional biography of the artist when I was a teenager but nothing prepared me for the sheer magnitude of its genius. The statue rose in white alabaster marble, towering at a height of seventeen feet at a specially created place in the Accademia. Sunlight streamed onto the limbs of the young man who personified youth, virility, nobility and above all beautiful grace. The body showed strength, the stance had dignity while his eyes held pride and a warning to keep a distance. It appeared that the artist had captured everything perfect in a man in one piece of work.
Nine years later, this summer, I experienced another moment of complete enrapture when I reacted to the same way to the most unlikely partner to Michelangelo’s work. I was at the Neues museum at Berlin at my assigned time of half an hour past noon. We meandered through the labyrinth of rooms amazed at the vast collection when I suddenly stood in front of the bust of Nefertiti. I gasped at the beauty of the work and everything it represented. I wondered why I found it so captivating and majestic. Made in 1345 BC by the court sculptor Thutmose, the bust was of the Royal Queen Nefertiti of the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The queen was obviously in her late thirties or forties when she posed for the piece and her age had only lent a fragility and maturity to her beauty. Her head and chin were captured in an incline that indicated a fine balance between pride and humility for the queen was said to have been the daughter of a person in the Pharaoh’s army. Her chocolate brown skin, fabulous cheekbones, nose line , perfect ears, full lips , long neck and widely set almond eyes – one of which had been damaged irrevocably during excavation signified the ultimate beauty of womankind. The sculptors in ancient Egyptian times used to extend the head gear of female sculptures to give a certain symmetry to the head and extend the neck. The stance of the bust is not completely erect and flamboyant, but more feminine, almost coy. It is said that the queen ruled as Pharaoh after her husband’s death, for a short time, which seems believable by the elegance and quiet confidence the face exudes.
I was privileged to feel this way about two highly disparate objects of art which in my individual subjectivity signifies perfection in man and woman. You may however get Freudian and wonder why I found the perfect woman in a bust while ........
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Air India Express
I first boarded a flight to Dubai in 1997 and have subsequently flown to the destination every year. My travel agent recommended we travel business class since the price differential was only rupees five thousand. We chose not to listen to him and were amazed to see the multitude of people who travelled to the Middle East. Many preferred to squat on the carpet of the airport waiting area. They represented the labour from India that supports to Middle East economy in all their industries. People who supported families in India and made their dreams come true.
The journey wasn’t very comfortable and we listened to the travel agent from the next year. Over the years we watched the business class prices rise and the seats shrink. When Etihad airlines launched its India operations in 2004 at a fraction of the fare offered by the lead players in the sector, it changed the rules of the game. Etihad Airlines is the national airline of Abu Dhabi and they offered a free pick up and drop shuttle service to and from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. A huge chunk of the price sensitive market moved to their counters forcing Air India to re-launch its price sensitive segment to the Air India Express. The consumer profile of the economy passenger changed and we once again constituted the segment.
The recent Air India crash is in this budget sector. It has taken the lives of people who may not appear on the pages of Fortune or Financial papers but comprise the individual on whom many a person in South India depend on for financial support. While everyone blames someone else for the cause of the crash, as someone who has commuted to Mangalore in a Air India flight, who has friends in Mangalore, who knows people who were planning a journey on this flight and who has interacted with people who migrate to distant lands to lead a lonely harsh life only to make the lives of people back home better, this is a tragedy that is heartfelt.
However one doesn’t really think Air India will really learn or do anything after this catastrophe. In a country of one billion people the life of a common man has rarely been of much consequence. It just makes for wonderful TRP ratings in news channels.
The journey wasn’t very comfortable and we listened to the travel agent from the next year. Over the years we watched the business class prices rise and the seats shrink. When Etihad airlines launched its India operations in 2004 at a fraction of the fare offered by the lead players in the sector, it changed the rules of the game. Etihad Airlines is the national airline of Abu Dhabi and they offered a free pick up and drop shuttle service to and from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. A huge chunk of the price sensitive market moved to their counters forcing Air India to re-launch its price sensitive segment to the Air India Express. The consumer profile of the economy passenger changed and we once again constituted the segment.
The recent Air India crash is in this budget sector. It has taken the lives of people who may not appear on the pages of Fortune or Financial papers but comprise the individual on whom many a person in South India depend on for financial support. While everyone blames someone else for the cause of the crash, as someone who has commuted to Mangalore in a Air India flight, who has friends in Mangalore, who knows people who were planning a journey on this flight and who has interacted with people who migrate to distant lands to lead a lonely harsh life only to make the lives of people back home better, this is a tragedy that is heartfelt.
However one doesn’t really think Air India will really learn or do anything after this catastrophe. In a country of one billion people the life of a common man has rarely been of much consequence. It just makes for wonderful TRP ratings in news channels.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Allianz Arena
The tour guide gave us a big smile. He imagined we were two chiquititas from South America whose team was going to face his home team in South Africa. When he later heard we were Indian he looked very perplexed and wondered why we were taking a tour of the Allianz Arena.
I am not a major football fan but when I saw the Allianz Football Arena rising like an egg shaped space shuttle on top of the hill, I was intrigued. I was also spurred on by my daughter who is a fan of nearly every sport on the planet. It was a cold dreary day with a high wind chill factor and stringy rain. Like vain desi women we were hopelessly under clad and shivered as we trudged the kilometre from the metro station. We just made it in time for an English tour of the Arena. Everyone in the tour was around half my age and had twice my fitness level. After a film of fifteen minutes on the making of the stadium which bored everyone but me, we had to climb 181 steps in a minute because the six and half feet giant guide had very long legs. I concentrated on yogic breathing and tried not to wheeze or turn into an embarrassing shade of purple. The guide asked us very seriously if anyone suffered vertigo for we were being ushered into one of the higher seats of the stadium which had a view close to seventy degree of the field to the horizontal. The architects had managed to construct a stadium to seat 66000 people plus 4000 standing seats without a single beam to obstruct the view. To ensure proximity to the field the seats were placed an alarmingly increasing angle to the horizontal.
We moved on to the locker room where the local F C Bayern fans apparently swoon, faint and get delirious. The guide was dismayed at the lack of reaction of English speaking junta. We saw the exercise rooms, massage rooms, pool, VIP enclave, sponsor gallery and Fan club area. We moved to the press conference room and were allowed to pretend while friends and family took corny photographs. We moved on to the place where the players step down from their coaches and first meet the press before a match. We even walked down the path to the point where the teams enter the field but we were not allowed to step onto the grass which is apparently laid out and changed every year.
The two football clubs of Munich used to practise and play in the 1972 Olympic stadium in the city. They requested the original architect of the Olympic stadium to make modifications to modernise it, which he refused. The people of Munich went on to a referendum and by an overwhelming majority it was decided to build a new stadium, the foundation of which was laid in 2001 and completed in 2005. The stadium was built at a cost of Euro 340 million and used only funds from the clubs and corporate sponsorships.
As we walked away exhilarated from the stadium after one and half hours we realised what made football such an all encompassing game for the masses. My Tennis crazy child grumbled that she could not tour the Wimbledon club or Flushing Meadows. We had visited a golf museum close to the lovely St. Andrews links but there is no tour of the facility. Such an inclusion can only increase revenue, brand equity and popularity which eventually translates into heavier purses for the players and their sponsors.
I am not a major football fan but when I saw the Allianz Football Arena rising like an egg shaped space shuttle on top of the hill, I was intrigued. I was also spurred on by my daughter who is a fan of nearly every sport on the planet. It was a cold dreary day with a high wind chill factor and stringy rain. Like vain desi women we were hopelessly under clad and shivered as we trudged the kilometre from the metro station. We just made it in time for an English tour of the Arena. Everyone in the tour was around half my age and had twice my fitness level. After a film of fifteen minutes on the making of the stadium which bored everyone but me, we had to climb 181 steps in a minute because the six and half feet giant guide had very long legs. I concentrated on yogic breathing and tried not to wheeze or turn into an embarrassing shade of purple. The guide asked us very seriously if anyone suffered vertigo for we were being ushered into one of the higher seats of the stadium which had a view close to seventy degree of the field to the horizontal. The architects had managed to construct a stadium to seat 66000 people plus 4000 standing seats without a single beam to obstruct the view. To ensure proximity to the field the seats were placed an alarmingly increasing angle to the horizontal.
We moved on to the locker room where the local F C Bayern fans apparently swoon, faint and get delirious. The guide was dismayed at the lack of reaction of English speaking junta. We saw the exercise rooms, massage rooms, pool, VIP enclave, sponsor gallery and Fan club area. We moved to the press conference room and were allowed to pretend while friends and family took corny photographs. We moved on to the place where the players step down from their coaches and first meet the press before a match. We even walked down the path to the point where the teams enter the field but we were not allowed to step onto the grass which is apparently laid out and changed every year.
The two football clubs of Munich used to practise and play in the 1972 Olympic stadium in the city. They requested the original architect of the Olympic stadium to make modifications to modernise it, which he refused. The people of Munich went on to a referendum and by an overwhelming majority it was decided to build a new stadium, the foundation of which was laid in 2001 and completed in 2005. The stadium was built at a cost of Euro 340 million and used only funds from the clubs and corporate sponsorships.
As we walked away exhilarated from the stadium after one and half hours we realised what made football such an all encompassing game for the masses. My Tennis crazy child grumbled that she could not tour the Wimbledon club or Flushing Meadows. We had visited a golf museum close to the lovely St. Andrews links but there is no tour of the facility. Such an inclusion can only increase revenue, brand equity and popularity which eventually translates into heavier purses for the players and their sponsors.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The power of a brand
One had never seen such motley of well heeled people jostling and waiting in a line. You know, the kind that wears Prada and Dior, whizzes past into chauffeured cars leaving behind a whiff of their perfume. I was naturally very intrigued as I walked across to the concierge to ask what was causing this flurry. The man peered at me over his reading glasses and said “Madam, Hermes is having a sale.” Not being the kind to be easily intimidated I asked the tacky question of the discount percentage they were offering. He frostily told me that he understood it was forty to eighty percent. At hearing the latter figure I enthusiastically said I would visit the event. I was informed that one needed to be invited to gain entry but since I was staying with the hotel for a while they would be glad to acquire an invitation for me.
The next morning we were surprised to see that the crowd in the venue was not the regular mayhem one had viewed as it was Father’s Day in the country. We grabbed our card which was written in a language that we could not comprehend and made our way to the gate. We were redirected to a reception table where a pretty lady in tiny attire asked us for our invitation. She peered at the card and stated that what we possessed was not an invite. She gave a long sigh and gave us a form which we were required to fill up to gain entry. We were thereafter given two huge orange bags, the size of potato sacks in subzi mandi, in which we were instructed to keep all our purchases till we reached the cash counter.
The event was very enlightening. Some of the male consultants were wearing pink and canary yellow pants and advising people on what they were trying. I was educated on the existence of infant booties and sweaters that equaled one’s monthly salary. People had stuffed their large orange bags and were running out of space. Lots of folks were very stressed about their purchases. The stocks on the hangers kept flying off at an alarming rate. Only a pre-determined number of people were allowed to enter at a given time like a visit to the Alhambra or the treasury containing the Queen’s jewels and the crowd outside the venue was building up. We soon realized that scarves and ties were the best options to consider. Well heeled women would come up and ask if I really intended to buy the scarf I was holding for they wanted to include it in their booty. This suddenly seemed like a sari sale at Vichitra in South Extension market where Auntyji and I would grab the same sari at different ends and play tug of war. Even men would grab any tie that one put down for a moment.
Now nothing gets one’s heckles up better than other people coveting what one is undecided about buying. I held on to the objects which I had originally no intention of buying. I slowly began to listen to the male consultant who insisted that color of my hair matched the specks in the scarf, a line that I seemed to remember from some old romantic novel of yester years. The power of needs being created where none exist by the hands of marketing was casting its spell on me. The two of us who had stepped in for a lark were suddenly feeling bad about how little our bag contained. We stepped into a line to make a payment.
My daughter asked for a tax refund after the purchase. The man disdainfully said “Sorry, you should have told me before the transaction and not after its completion.” He underestimated my daughter who just stood there and refused to budge until the distraught guy had to manually write down the refund voucher with a pen. She tried to humor him by saying this was her present to her mom and dad for Mother and Father’s day to which she received a cold stony gaze. The last event dispersed the magic spell that had been cast over us in a Poof!
As we returned to saddi Dilli and handed over the ties as gifts we hoped people recognized the brand and the effort behind the purchase. And as for my tiny scarf – I shrieked in dismay when Kantabai asked me whether she should wash the “Roomaal” (handkerchief) in the washing machine or hand wash it with the sweaters.
The next morning we were surprised to see that the crowd in the venue was not the regular mayhem one had viewed as it was Father’s Day in the country. We grabbed our card which was written in a language that we could not comprehend and made our way to the gate. We were redirected to a reception table where a pretty lady in tiny attire asked us for our invitation. She peered at the card and stated that what we possessed was not an invite. She gave a long sigh and gave us a form which we were required to fill up to gain entry. We were thereafter given two huge orange bags, the size of potato sacks in subzi mandi, in which we were instructed to keep all our purchases till we reached the cash counter.
The event was very enlightening. Some of the male consultants were wearing pink and canary yellow pants and advising people on what they were trying. I was educated on the existence of infant booties and sweaters that equaled one’s monthly salary. People had stuffed their large orange bags and were running out of space. Lots of folks were very stressed about their purchases. The stocks on the hangers kept flying off at an alarming rate. Only a pre-determined number of people were allowed to enter at a given time like a visit to the Alhambra or the treasury containing the Queen’s jewels and the crowd outside the venue was building up. We soon realized that scarves and ties were the best options to consider. Well heeled women would come up and ask if I really intended to buy the scarf I was holding for they wanted to include it in their booty. This suddenly seemed like a sari sale at Vichitra in South Extension market where Auntyji and I would grab the same sari at different ends and play tug of war. Even men would grab any tie that one put down for a moment.
Now nothing gets one’s heckles up better than other people coveting what one is undecided about buying. I held on to the objects which I had originally no intention of buying. I slowly began to listen to the male consultant who insisted that color of my hair matched the specks in the scarf, a line that I seemed to remember from some old romantic novel of yester years. The power of needs being created where none exist by the hands of marketing was casting its spell on me. The two of us who had stepped in for a lark were suddenly feeling bad about how little our bag contained. We stepped into a line to make a payment.
My daughter asked for a tax refund after the purchase. The man disdainfully said “Sorry, you should have told me before the transaction and not after its completion.” He underestimated my daughter who just stood there and refused to budge until the distraught guy had to manually write down the refund voucher with a pen. She tried to humor him by saying this was her present to her mom and dad for Mother and Father’s day to which she received a cold stony gaze. The last event dispersed the magic spell that had been cast over us in a Poof!
As we returned to saddi Dilli and handed over the ties as gifts we hoped people recognized the brand and the effort behind the purchase. And as for my tiny scarf – I shrieked in dismay when Kantabai asked me whether she should wash the “Roomaal” (handkerchief) in the washing machine or hand wash it with the sweaters.
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