A historic day

Later this evening, people all over the United States will queue up to the i-phone, one of the most highly promoted and publicised launches this century. We have to wait for a few months before it hits our shows leagally, and even then we aren't sure who the service provider will be now that AT&T is no longer a part owner of our client Idea Cellular.

Later this evening, the media planning and buying fraternity in Mumbai will be gathered at the Emvies, an awards show we have developed serious doubts about. Still, the Idea ringtone innovation just might win, who knows! It surely deserves to.

And lastly today is the day when Lintas India has finally become a 100% Interpublic Group owned agency. Welcome to a whole new world. "Turn it on".

An ode to the rains, in Khar and Torda

Funny flies around gaily. She has grown into a pretty petite little crow, and by the end of this week I think she will be able to get her own food. Here is a picture of her settled on a leaf in one of the palms outside my bedroom window in Khar, the little black spot somewhere on the right, taken just before the rains hit Mumbai on Friday evening.

The TANUVAS vets came over to Goa this weekend to inspect all the AWO's at the behest of the AWBI, and were overawed by the weather. We however have learned to take the rains, the beauty and the destruction they bring with them in our stride. Things grow in the rains, and that's all we really want to care about.

Here are my weekend phone pictures of the Torda forest, here is the jungle outside my bedroom window purpling in the settling dusk.




This one is an early morning shot of the forest on the right of our shelter, the left is just as dense!










This is the view from my backyard, where you can just about sight the rust and blue of the surgery past Noella, the canna and the lime and mango trees.









This is a little calf we are looking after, he got hit by a truck on the NH17, and was brought in laterally recumbent, now he can stand and walk around and also run a little.





And here's leaving you with a final glimpse of Torda from my verandah, the hills beyond and yellow traces of the ancestral home below. Next time images of some of my darlings in Torda, walking on two and four legs.

Watching baby birds fly

In an earlier post I asked you to spot the crow's nest in one of my tree shots. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. The nest will soon be history as Funny has finally learned how to fly! Her parents, Specky and Fluffy, with us for the past year and a half, raised two nestlings to adulthood last summer, while their neighbours were less fortunate and ended up raising only one survivor - a cuckoo! Fortunately Funny is doing well, she took her first flight a couple of days ago, just a tentative hop from branch to branch. This morning she soared up to the top of the chinars and reappeared only after a few minutes. I hope she learns to fetch food for herself before the rains really hit us with full force.

Every attempt I make to capture her on film has been thwarted by Fluffy, who comes swooping down on me if he sights me pointing at her with anything metallic. So instead, I leave you with this darling film to mull over on the weekend. Enjoy!

Magic from Bindass and a new tarot

Yesterday a large team from UTV made a two hour presentation to us on their new channel offering for young people called Bindass. Great insights, great showmanship during the presentation led by Zarina Mehta at her effervescent best, and a real live magician who passed on an electric current through his fingers on to our guys, and played some really good card tricks. The icing on the cake was a leave behind. Not the usual channel mug at all. This one is a nondescript black one that magically turns white after you pour something hot into it, and the words and logo then leap out at you!

Here is the before and after. I am having lots of cuppas today!













While on the subject of magic, I'm wondering how my tarot card has changed so much. Have posted what it looks like now on the right above the links, it's a far cry from my tarot posted two months ago, but definitely more credible this time. Go check out yours too again, and enjoy the change.

Sound of Music

Consider this. The things we remember most vividly are usually those we didn't see, that used a non visual sense - like one's first kiss (tactile), a fine wine (taste), unusually bad or good smells, unforgettable songs and speeches.

A sound that first opened my mind to nature's limitless possibilities, a sound I will never ever forget, is the whale song. While studying at Brisbane, I had volunteered with injured dolphins at Sea World and then hand fed wild dolphins at Tangalooma before moving on to a whalewatching trip at Harvey Bay. The first sight of a breaching whale and her calf was memorable no doubt, but it was the hydrophone that really got to me. Web 2.0 hadn't arrived back in 1998, and I have long since lost whatever I captured on camera. Till I found something on YouTube today.

Enjoy the sounds. If you know the significance of the song of the humpback whale and the fact that she never repeats a tune the following year, you will love this even more. In this video, her song has been set to native American flute music.

Creative copycat

I attended an unusual business creativity workshop on Friday which featured Carnatic music. I intended to blog about it on the weekend, and then discovered this writeup from a fellow blogger that has done excellent justice to the learnings, pictures et al, so let me be lazy and just give you the link.

http://indiadrant.blogspot.com/2007/06/carnatic-music-business-creativity.html

Meanwhile, here are two images of the trees outside my fifth floor windows in Mumbai, wet with the first raindrops of the season.











Try and spot the crow's nest. And more pix from the Goa monsoon later.