Wilson Garden

A nice name. Conjures up images of an idyllic place blooming with Gulmohurs and Jacarandas, with the occassional evening shower, the sun peeping through the clouds to cheer the rain, nattily dressed grandpas and grandmas sitting on the wooden park benches...

I have spotted the name on numerous signboards in seemingly disconnected directions and could never figure out where exactly it lay. And this weekend I saw an ad that said Brand Factory has opened its second oultet in Wilson Garden. Brand Factory is of no consequence to me, but the ad listed the phone number of the store. My first 'contact' in Wilson Garden! I called up the store and took down the directions in great detail.

I set out on the quest for Wilson Garden with S briefing V about what happens in a Factory! Car Parts, Robots, Assembly, Painting machines, shiny stuff...

It turned out that Wilson Garden was indeed nicely tree lined, with broad roads and a flyover but fully crammed with buses, trucks and autos. And numerous Ganesha installations. And a few reputed hospitals, with the bus stops bursting with people.

And Brand Factory seemed a welcome relief from it. I hate big stores in general, because it magnifies the worlds problem of excessive production AND consumption. But this one was okay because the number of consumers seemed rather low.

WE didnt buy anything except delicious cheese grill sandwiches and pomegranate juice. Which in part made S forget his diappointment on what Brand Factory turned out to be. And made me hope that the trees of Wilson garden are still around for a long long time. Anyways, dusk is not the best time to make a judgement about a place, for your views will always be clouded. So, I shall still think of Wilson Garden as a nice place.

Making sense of Digtal Intimacy

Read an article in the New York Times this morning.

Among other things, it helped me understand why Twitter makes sense to all the people who use it. Analyses if the internet has actually raised the Dunbar number of 150. Maintains that even if one has 200 facebook friends, the circle with whom you maintain close connections amongst them will always be a much smaller number.

I used to be especially puzzled because I never got hooked on to any of the ever changing flavours of the internet. Way back in 1998 or so, when MSN messenger was introduced, I was super excited, but gradually that enthu wilted. Even the subsequent voice chat and webcam versions made me more lazier. Not to mention Skype. The telephone-will-do attitude thus limited my knowledge to that of a close circle of family and friends. Not much room for maintaining 'acquaintances'.

Email I loved and still remains the most utilised means of communication.

I did go about creating accounts on twitter and facebook and reunion and classmates ...under various pseudonyms, but never got enthused. It is not that I am trying to guard my privacy at all costs...its just that I find it burdensome to 'maintain' all those outlets. Its after all a substantial amount of time, which doesnt result in anything meanignful for me.

All my nieces think I am a granny in this aspect. But I shall soon start a group on Facebook called Non Facebook users...if it already doesnt exist