Bangalore Theatre Update

My Experiments With Sense - @ Nani Arena-CFD, 5th Floor Sona Towers, Millers Road -- April 29, 8:00 pm

The criss-crossing lives of the most unlikely people, brought together by destiny.

Bangalore Theatre Update

Final Solutions - @ Rangashankara, April 21, 7:30pm

I've heard a lot about this play. I've heard it's a very powerful commentary on communalism. Playwright Mahesh Dattani was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for this play in 1998. There was a performance at college (IIT Bombay) a couple of years back, but I missed it that time. I might miss it again this evening, coz I expect to be stuck in traffic halfway across the town even if I start early from office :(

I might be able to catch the next play on Saturday or Sunday. I know nothing about this one...

Madness - @ Rangashankara, April 23 & 24, 7:30pm

Of Friday Mornings And Survival Of Statistics

There is, I think, a strong correlation between the occurence of Fridays, a good game of tennis, and my posting something on this blog.

Sometimes you do things just to strengthen your random proclamations .

Never Share A Doc By Mail Again!

I found this new utility called Instacoll this morning. It's a web-based real time file sharing utility. What this means is that you can work on a document, a spreadsheet or a presentation together with your colleagues sitting in Shanghai and Sydney, all in real time. You can deliver an interactive presentation online. You can also share your desktop or just one application, so Amit can check his mails in private while Ajay is adding notes to his presentation. And they can chat simultaneously as well.

No, you can't talk yet. For that, I recommend Skype. So you'd need to set up a Skype session, or a webconference on your IP Phones, and the like. Currently InstaColl supports only Microsoft Office applications for collaboration. And it's not bug free, indeed I crashed my Word when I tried to start a session from an icon InstaColl put there. And there's no guarantee on security yet. And I'd like to see better emoticons.

But despite the current limitations, InstaColl's utility is very very compelling, and it's supposed to be much superior to MSN LiveMeeting, and it also works well on low-bandwidth networks. My bet's on InstaColl partnering with Skype, coming out with a kick-ass all-bugs-fixed version that can talk, and getting very popular before getting bought over by one of MSN and Yahoo.

By the way, it's been developed by a Bangalore based company. Next I'm checking if they're listed :)

Moonlight and Skytoffee

Always curious to watch a play with an intriguing title.

At Rangashankara, this weekend (April 9 & 10), 7.30pm, by a group from Chennai called Magic Lantern.

Here's My Fiver For French Open

The French Open has quite some time to start, yet my bet's already on Rafael Nadal to play Roger Federer (who else!) in the finals. Why? He said so, so it must be true. He said so shortly after he had lost his first Masters Series final (the Nasdaq 100 Open) to Federer 6-2, 7-6, 6-7, 3-6, 1-6 in a gritty 5-setter.

I play Valencia, Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, Hamburg. I stop one week and play the French Open in the final.

Rather pleased with himself? Of course, for he knew he had come awfully close to causing the upset of the year. That this fearless Spaniard was just a two shots away from beating the man with a 32-1 record this year could only mean that the 18 year old was on the verge of establishing himself as one of the best in the business.



Roger would agree. He was up against the wall for three sets and probably had to gather every ounce of his grit, and lose a little bit of his ever-cool temper to hold on to the match.

I consider myself lucky to get through... Even on the run he can hit it with the spins - backhand to the court, make you hit another tough shot. We'll see very much from him in the future. So for me this was a big match because I know what a great player he will be one day.

The day may not be too far.