Blog Posts by Anisha Oommen

What is it about Steve Jobs?

What is it that makes millions of people who have never met him, mourn his passing? What makes them feel like they knew him.  What made his death so personal.

In an outpouring from the far corners of the world, people appear to share a personal connection with him. A friend of mine called it the 'Unites States of Apple.' Grief creates a leveling platform, where country, language and economics become irrelevant, and shared loss reminds us again of how much we have really in common.

The word "inspiration" keeps re-surfacing. We see our potential in him. A post on Twitter captured it —

"Jobs was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, dropped out of college, and still, he changed the world. What's your excuse?" - http://tiny.cc/6ieef

Is that what we see reflected in him, is that what unites digital titans and everyday gadget fans like you and me as we mourn him?

Messages from Apple fans across the world echo the same message — he created dreams for people, he

Read More »from What is it about Steve Jobs?

Today, the world across, there is shared sorrow in the passing of Steve Jobs. A legend in his own time, Barack Obama ranked him among the greatest of America's innovators, a man who exemplified the spirit of ingenuity, "Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." In a round-up of tributes from CEOs, friends and contemporaries, it is inescapably clear that his name will be remembered with the greats, not just as a visionary who instrumented quantum leaps in technology and design, but as a man who lived a life so full, that his legacy will continue long after he is gone.

As we pay our respects, we bring you some of the best of the web on Steve Jobs:

In this Playboy interview with a young Steve Jobs, barely 30, he shines through as a true visionary, predicting the depths of possibility, unimaginable at the time. His prophecy for the personal computer is unnervingly accurate, "It can be a writing tool, a communications

Read More »from The World Remembers

So finally, I made it to a Vir Das show. Live stand-up comedy with an all-Indian troupe, and an evening that didn't disappoint.

We've come a long way from those awkward open mic nights at Café Goa, where stand-up was taking its first shaky steps.  Remember the lanky, bespectacled student with his jokes scribbled on a soggy piece of paper (moist from all that nervous palm-sweating)? The lesbian with her acerbic hetero jokes? And an uncomfortable audience trying to decide appropriate reactions to this assorted mix of contestants. The self-assured host's attempt at keeping the mood light — OK, OK, I've got one for you! How many Jews can you fit into a Volkswagen? Simple: Two in the front, two in the back, and six million in the boot — was only met with aghast silence. But also, the unexpected thrill of chancing upon a natural, and watching as he builds an easy rapport with the audience. His self-deprecating humour, taking pot-shots at his weight and (lack of) luck with women, had the

Read More »from Comedy’s Coming of Age

Joan Acocella's piece on a cure for alcohol hangovers will find an audience amongst the most of us. I know I devoured each word eagerly, fully empathizing, fully delighted at having someone articulate the pain I feel the morning after a night of too many cosmopolitans with the girls.

In her piece for The New Yorker (which I discovered several years after publication through longform.org) entitled 'A Few Too Many,' she puzzles over how some of mankind's most common miseries are yet to be remedied. While one might accept that a cure for cancer could be a while in the making, how can it be that the common cold, the menstrual cramp and the hangover do not yet have a cure?

She accepts that while the most obvious solution to this calamity is to simply avoid drinking altogether, she puts up a strong defence as to why it is that people are drawn to the power of alcohol nonetheless: disinhibition, and the thought that we may have finally found the truth about life. She quotes Gorge Jean Nathan,

Read More »from Hair of the dog

Over the last fortnight, I have found myself waiting impatiently for the clock to strike 6 pm; just around the time of evening prayers, before the fast is broken.

In the days of Ramzan, the air at 6 pm is thick with celebratory aroma; the road across the mosque is lined with stalls, cooking up a storm, and it draws a crowd like moths to a flame.

The people it draws are wide and varied. I look around me as I wait for my first taste of the evening's pleasures. I see a girl with a dark, khol-rimmed eyes and a nose ring mount her bicycle, with a bag of steaming sheekh hung across the handle bars. Groups of boys, curly-haired and goateed, tear into legs of tandoori kebab. A couple of college girls with colourful jholas march determinedly from one booth to the next, paper plate in hand, steadily munching on assorted goodies. The local celebrity chef moves from stall to stall on a food walk with his friends, sampling the wares and taking pictures. And couples, united by their love of food,

Read More »from The days of Ramzan

   
It's that time of year again, when schoolgirl wrists are lined with colourful bands, often all the way up to their elbows, to represent the circle of friends that encompass schoolgirl worlds.

But it's not a tradition we carry with us into adulthood, and perhaps in the scheme of things, dropping it into the basket of 'leave behind' allows us to pick up other shiny objects from the basket for grown-ups.

But grown-ups have a lot of things on their minds — careers and house loans, laundry chores and grocery errands, babies and education funds. And friends often don't make the list. Friends must take a backseat to the grind of daily routine.

It's a loss that we learn to live with, and don't really miss. But what are we really losing out on? Does friendship merely represent an ear to hear our stories? Is it just someone to be silly with, to regress over memories of simpler times?  Not to belittle these things at all, but friendships can be so much more; more than sharing stories, and

Read More »from Holding on to friendship