That feeling of being at an imaginary place persists even when you are walking through the arched corridors near the bridge.

But when you are finally walking on the bridge, it feels like you are passing through a busy bazaar in India. Except that people with striking resemblance to Einstein might make an appearance.

I had carried along my new-found obsession for shuttered windows and old façades from Rome. Worse, I wasn’t content merely clicking them and tried to draw them in my pocket diary while waiting for lunch (with disastrous results). I guess when you are in the town where Michelangelo grew up, photography feels a bit passive – even a betrayal of sorts.

The corridor that led us to Palazzo della Signoria (where a replica of Michelangelo’s David awaited us), was lined with easels and painters practicing their craft. Some had left their tools and gone away. We saw some confused artists running around and wondered if they were dodging harassment by local police.

We knew we were seeing a replica of David but that didn’t make it any less awe-inspiring. For reasons that I have forgotten by now, I couldn’t get myself to photograph it and was perfectly content clicking random things around it. I do remember being very happy.

We spent the remaining day walking and enjoying random surprises that the streets of Florence kept springing at us.

By now the cathedrals were giving us déjà vu. On seeing one, the wife asked if we had seen it before and I said, “well, we must’ve, but in Rome”.

I was reading Huxley’s Devils of Loudon during our visit to Rome and Florence, and I couldn’t help but think of Urbain Grandier on seeing this door engraving.

Something about Ponte Vecchio drew us towards it again. It was the perfect note to the end our visit to Florence on.

May 2012 bring knowledge, wisdom and beautiful music to everyone’s life.

PS I picked up a new camera shortly after Christmas. It’s a Sony NEX 5N.

M. Adam and his fellow apothecaries sold Perpetual Pills of metallic antimony. These were swallowed, irritated the mucous membrane as they passed through the intestine, thus acting as a purgative and be recovered from the chamber pot, washed and used again, indefinitely. After the first capital outlay, there was no further need for spending money on catharitics. Dr. Patin might fulminate and the Parlement forbid; but for the costive French bourgeois the appeal of antimony was irresistible. Perpetual Pills were treated as heirlooms and after passing through one generation were passed on to the next.

We now look at the medeival doctors’ understanding of the human body; their bloodlettings, clysters and humors, with a sense of pity mingled with horror. Considering we began figuring out anitbiotics less than 90 years ago and that we were still discovering vitamins till as late as 1941, I wonder how much there is that we still don’t know. More importantly, will the generation 200 years from now look at our present medical practices and shake their heads in disbelief at our ignorance?

But they’re three!

It’s been a grim 3 months. While M. A. K. Pataudi, Shammi Kapoor and Jagjit Singh were icons we shared with our parents, Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie were the icons of our age. Nothing makes you feel older than the passing away of your icons. I don’t want to be in a world that I don’t share with Tendulkar or Rahman. I’ve been having this bizarre vision of having been put inside a sealed, transparent glass casket and left to float in outer space. That would be nice.

P.S. Alternate title – ‘The sheep and the ship’ if you take into account the mast protruding into the frame on the right.

P.P.S. Yes, the green tags in the poor beast’s ears are rather unfortunate. That I am posting this on Gandhi’s Birthday (which is now the International Day of Non-Violence too), even more so.

P.P.P.S. If you are looking for an Indian rendition of the nursery rhyme, look no further than Rajshri Films.

Indeed, cricket can be a double edged sword. Two recent anecdotes come to mind.

Almost the entire cast of the upcoming movie Dum Maro Dum was present for the South Africa vs India match in Nagpur last Saturday; purportedly to cheer India to a victory; but quite obviously to launch the audio and promote the movie. Not only was the match telecast across India, they also had a (literally) captive audience of 50,000 to market the life out of. All this would’ve been fine had India won, but India’s loss soured everyone’s mood and must’ve created a negative association with the movie.

Betting big bucks on individual cricketers can be risky too. Just a few days before the World Cup, huge billboards of Praveen Kumar promoting Nike, sprang up all over Bangalore.

The man promptly injures himself and consquentially has to sit out of World Cup. What do Nike do? They replace every single billboard of Praveen Kumar with that of Sreesanth. You’ll agree that it was a desperate change – not necessarily for the better:

But it gets worse. It so happens that in the 5 games that India has played so far, Sreesanth hasn’t been given a chance – not even as a substitue fielder. I am sure the marketing guns at Nike aren’t too chuffed.

Coke ads have usually been classy. I still remember this old campaign of theirs vividly:

Now compare this with the annoying tripe that has been played ad-nauseum during the World Cup this year (I’ll completely understand if you feel like plugging your ears):

Pepsi’s TV Spots have been border-line amusing this time, but their outdoor campaign involves plastering naked cricketers (their bodies painted) all over the city (and indeed all over their World Cup special edition bottles).

via ESPNCricinfo.

That leaves us with mostly ads for cheap mobile phones and, yes, seeds (ask any cricket lover these days about Krishidhan seeds). Those companies will neither have the budgets to hire the O&Ms, nor will they risk anything that doesn’t communicate about their product very literally.

Perhaps the big spenders are holding their purses tight for the quarter finals stage. Or perhaps it’s the IPL they are all waiting for. For no matter who wins that tournament, the Indian cricket team doesn’t lose.

This passage from Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza does a better job than I can myself:

You’ve only been in the world for about seven thousand days together; and one has to have lived through at least ten thousand days before one begins to realize that there aren’t an infinite number of them and that you can’t do exactly what you want with them. I’ve been here more than thirteen thousand days, and the end’s visible, the boundless possibilites have narrowed down. One must cut according to one’s cloth; and one’s cloth is not only exiguous; it’s also of one special kind – and generally of poor quality at that. When one’s young, one thinks one can tailor one’s time into all sorts of splendid and fantastic garments – shakoes and chasubles and Ph.D. gowns; Nijinsky’s tights and Rimbaud’s slate-blue trousers and Garibalidi’s red shirt. But by the time you’ve lived ten thousand days, you begin to realize that you’ll be lucky if you succeed in cutting one decent workday suit out of the time at your disposal.