Managing Knowledge

A booming economy, disparate sources of information, rising salaries, attrition, push to create a 'knowledge economy' - all of this justifies the effort that many leading companies are putting into managing knowledge. With IT spends increasing, especially in the booming financial services industry, apportionment towards seemingly niche areas is increasing.

Business is slowly moving away from a 'seat of the pants' sort of approach. Infusion of fresh MBAs, management techniques, strategy driven approaches, focus on long-term RoI - all this smacks of a new wave of business acumen. And during such times, business houses are also learning to negotiate the common problem of knowledge centricity or person-dependency.

The other driver for knowledge management is - 'how soon can I access the data that I want?'. How soon can business access mission-critical information? The information may already be there, but relational linking might not have been considered. This scenario may have arisen due to price sensitivity of technology upto five years ago. But with cost of database and access technology on a downward spiral, these worries no longer impact technology-upgrade decisions as seriously as they used to in the past.

Technologies assist in managing knowledge from various stand-points - portal based access management to data repositories, RSS feeds management, drill-down, access to external or proprietary database via connectors, segregation of duties, version control, auto-refresh etc.

Various software vendors have their own knowledge management solutions aimed specifically at fulfilling the knowledge needs of verticals such as finance, manufacturing etc. IBM, Microsoft, Interwoven and Documentum span the breadth of Knowledge Management right from collaboration to document management. Inter-operability of technologies and open standards engineering make access across various flavours of environments seamless. Niche vendors such as Kalzoom and CMIE (the economy monitoring behemoth) are also making a play in this space.

RoI is a big question especially before SMEs make an investment in a sophisticated solution. Judgement of RoI should not be wrongly taken on a short-term basis. Instead RoI should be calculated on an annual to 3 year basis. Metrics such as quantum of 'access effort' saved etc. should be clearly measured to arrive at RoI.

Efficient Internet Search

According to a recent Microsoft study, people on an average spend 11 minutes on a typical Internet search. It could be due to a variety of reasons -

· Not knowing exactly what it is that they are searching for,
· Trawling through giga-bytes of irrelevant data that is generated as the result of a key-word search,

being just two of many reasons.

It makes sense to create a search strategy for optimizing Internet search results and to decrease the amount of time spent in looking for what you want. Optimization can be done in two ways -
· Using several search engines to synergistically arrive at your results
· Utilizing one search engine efficiently

I have outlined three websites, that could help you to meet your search needs in an efficient manner. Most of this information is freely available on the Internet, and detailed understanding is just a click away.

http://www.blogger.com/www.vivisimo.com - This is an Internet clustering search engine, wherein your searches are aggregated based on content groups. This tool works best, when a person is unsure of what sort of information or key-word search would lead him or her to the desired results. Ideally vivisimo.com would throw up results that can then be fine-tuned using focussed key-word search via http://www.blogger.com/www.google.com or http://www.blogger.com/www.yahoo.com

http://www.blogger.com/www.Answers.com - This is an interesting website that trawls through around 100 reference databases to arrive at a set of results that will usually give a relevant set of search results to any questions or keywords that you may choose to enter. In addition, the predictive technology feature can help you choose from a variety of options as you type out your query.

http://www.blogger.com/www.google.com - This is used across industry due to several path-breaking innovations in search. I have attached a set of Google tips that may come in handy during a search. Use http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en as the URL for utilizing the interesting Google Suggest feature, an excellent predictive text search facilitator within Google within the Google.com website.

For more Google secrets, visit http://www.google.com/help/operators.html.

Media Tech!

The Indian electronic and print media are gradually making the transition to tech-have-nots to the tech-haves. From Hindustan Times which gets its design re-done by leading designers from abroad, using the latest technologies to companies such as Adlabs which are implementing an ERP solution for accounting and other activities, we find that the 'Tech' buzz word has been enmeshed into the thought-fabric.

Financial Accounting, Sales Force Management, Campaign Management etc. were previously thought to be human capital intensive jobs. Exit the old rational school, enter the seemingly irrational new school - where each and every activity can be traced via a project management Work Breakdown Structure chart and collated to an item in the company's Chart of Accounts.

Companies such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft etc. have come up with solutions that address issues in CRM, HR, Knowledge Management etc. that can be tweaked for the Media industry. Especially industry specific solutions from the SAP and Oracle stables take away a great deal of the pain that normal CFOs,CTOs and CEOs in the media space undergo on a daily basis while transacting their business.

Of course, this comfort comes at a price. While ERP as a buzz-word has become popular due to plain vanilla implementations, the true value is often found only at the end of the rainbow when the client either implements a lot of the value-added features, which he must of course pay a premium for, or indulge in a great deal of customization. The latter is because of the peculiar nature of our indusry, which is still ad-hoc and not process driven. Best practices from abroad cannot be implemented in a home-grown company as easily as it can be in an MNC subsidiary in India. As a result, ERP implementations normally take recourse to customization to mimic to-be processes that have some delta from the existing process.

Explore the open blue ocean

Presenting one aspect of Competitive Strategy - avoid the clutter, cut through the noise, perception of the core value etc., calls for a lot of effort in wading through a pool already crowded with numerous strategies and peripheral analysis. A company tends to expend resources and intellectual bandwidth in trying to squeeze every last drop of merit in an already depleted reource or industry - akin to flogging a dying horse.

Blue Ocean strategy is remarkably refreshing in that it just asks the consultant or the XIO to think outside the box - and cultivate an understanding of the opportunities that lie un-harnessed in as yet un-discovered areas falling within the organization's core competence spectrum. An example would be that of an automobile ancillary manufacturing company ELECON diversifying into heavy engineering gear-box manufacturing, because its initial business of manufacturing gear-boxes for the automobile industry was being threated by decreasing profit margins due to imports and increasing cost of playing the economics-of-scale game. Heavy engineering gear box manufacturing would have been the niche playing field of foreign players, that is now being targeted by the smaller, nimble-footed and hungry Indian firm.

This strategy of exploring the unexplored, can work equally well in the Service industry. Creating a retail opportunity out of Vada Pav - the ubiquitous Marathi snack-on-the-go has led to enviable operating margins for the Jumbo King chain. Ten years ago, it would have been considered infra-dig to commercialze the common man's food. But exploring possibilities and converting them into realizable value propositions never hurt anyone. All it takes is a bit of courage, the wherewithal to stick it though thick-and-thin and valuable strategic far-sightedness.

Saturday

Its a Saturday in this part of the world - a day perfectly sandwiched between one that was full of apprehensions regarding the week gone-by, and one that will be the harbinger of yet more apprehensions that will fuel speculation about my longevity in the Consulting main-stream.

http://www.krishna.com/ is a great site for people who are caught in a bind just like me. The download-able murals, the music and chants all help to lend a different perspective to my life.

A visit to the ISKCON temple in Mumbai also alleviates much of the skepticism with which we tend to view our lives after going through a rough patch.

It has often been averred by the pundits of mind-bend that a couple of minutes each day spent in meditation puts you in touch with your core. As a child, I used to religiously undergo this communion with the Higher Spirit and feel good about it. As I grew older, worldly influences came in my way of continuing my interlude - though I used to make shy amends. But as I with time, transition into a more responsible mortal role, I realize how important it is to regain the lost innocence that used to fuel my essence.

I see all around me people who are adept in the art of "High Thinking and Low Living", people who preach compassion to the world without cleaning up their own backyard, people who spout 'morality' but who turn a blind eye to the goings-on in their own families. As I strive to grapple with these issues, I thrash around haplessly in the waters of mental unrest.

It is during such time that Krishna steps in and shows me the way towards a solution. For all Your Sanguine graces, I am grateful to You my Lord.

Nuclear Deterrent

With all the talk about India's nuclear deterrence capability and how it would play a huge role in determining national security in the face of over-riding pressure from across the Atlantic, I thought - why not update myself a bit on the issue.

I came across terms such as The Hyde Act and the puerile sounding '123 Agreement' and was amazed at the implications that Indian government's decisions may have on the Indian public. A book by a key author of the Indo-American nuclear deal - Ashley Tellis, "India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal" also caught my fancy.

An insightful piece of information which I thought captures the core of the discussion is a must read for all you fission-fusion afficionados out there:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/16guest.htm

This article penned by S Ragotham has an interview with Ashley Tellis which captures some fantastic insights into the machinations that are so often not transparent to the common man. The basic question - "Should India eschew its right to conduct further nuclear tests?" is one that should be left open for considered debate not just amongst bureaucrats but also intelligentsia and technologists. And the time for debate is Now!

Revelations in the Divine Story

CNN has published a story outlined in TIME, which gives some startling details on the life of Christ. In continuation with some thoughts that I had shared in this blog, thought that this might be relevant.

Please follow this link for updates on the story:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1593893,00.html?cnn=yes

Lets await more developments on this front.

Advise? Get Outa Here

Ho Hum! Its two years now, and time for a long retrospective look of the roads I have travelled and the time I have spent, in this much vaunted, but sub-optimally efficient profession called - the Big C - C.O.N.S.U.L.T.I.N.G. Time was, around 2001, when the word 'Consulting' meant having doors closed on your face, hushed whispers behind your back. And that was before, the era of benevolence ranging between the mid-eighties till the late nineties when 'Consulting' was used as an excuse to engage a beleagured business prospect (read - client), on a long-winded assignment, with PowerPoint slides invidiously being used to prophesy to them, should first of all, we not be engaged, or horrors of horrors, our recommendations be not taken on board at the end of the engagement (I use the word 'we' to loosely describe the entire flock of well-minded consultants).

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Personally speaking, the two years have taught me a lot - about LIFE. Some golden phrases that come to mind are - 'Look before you leap', 'Keep your mouth cleverly shut' ( i.e. when your seniors fall over themselves to aggrandize themselves with the client), ' Do not snicker at a report during review' (howsoever hilarious the recommendations might be), 'As soon as you enter a new job, get your CV ready for the next switch', ' value-addition is for the long haul' (everyone knows that the client is only looking for the brand). And the word that has acquired an altogether different meaning is 'Chargeability'.

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I have been away from the country on two different occassions, both turned out okay ( I managed to come back). I also managed to salvage my marriage despite a 9 month long telephonic relationship. Had occassion to do the whole chip butty, beer thingy. Take-aways from these trips have been to the most degree ... well...immense (Chinese food in an authentic environment, sadly does not end in Chow-mein , you never 'intimate a client' about a meeting, since taking a relatoinship to that level would be going beyond the call of duty, 'when four out of five people look towards you in your group at the pub, it means that it is your turn to buy the drink').

Quality of advice - if we had a trip meter to measure this metric, we would rap it twice every time at the end of the assignment - wondering if there was a problem with the thingummy especially since it was still lying at zero. You have also wondered why sometimes the needle is trying its best to go the other way (below zero) - surely something wrong with the car (you furtively check up the company's website to check how long your company has been consulting for the client).

Gap analysis - usually is a very rewarding assignment (for the consultant) - its like going back to college, only this time you get paid per hour for learning everything about the industry, making small talk while continuing your education with the reverent top-shots of the organization, and generally feeling very good about your calling in life (call it almost gloating) whenever you see your charge-out rate.

All in all time was, when I used to consider the industry with a certain amount of trepidation. I guess, the time has now come, to allow the clients to do all the worrying.

Suggested reading -

'Rip-Off'

'How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Tell You The Time'

A Tight Squeeze - Through Time

Winnie the pooh and Tigahh!! - they represent an age gone by, innocence so reminiscent of one's childhood. Sometimes during the frenzy of a monotonous series of events - that is called the humdrum of life, I long for a slice of the past - a gentle squeeze through the barriers of time, allowing me once more to view the green fields of my youthful imagination.

As I hearken back to the past, glimpses of my childhood flash by. School, bus-rides, self-invented games of skill, fiercely debated topics ranging from Knight-rider to the superiority of one cola over the other(what made these topics so 'hot', I now wonder, especially when all I now have to debate is 'which is the next company to move to' and 'why oh why am I paying so much tax' !!! ).

As I give up the ghost of the past, a sigh redolent of frustration and longing, escapes my lips and wafts into the shrouded mists of mysterious time. Colours once vibrant lose their lure and imagination once fertile, appears unsure.

I called up someone special yesterday and asked - 'So what did you have for dinner'? Prompt comes the reply - ' a bit of carrot, some cabbage and a bit of potato'. Nopes I was not dreaming about Wonderland nor was I having delusions of having become a living embodiment of Alice. Were rabbits to have a greater role in deciding what I ate, I would have grown long ears and two shiny teeth to nibble away at the greens and a bob-tail to hide the alluring fanny. Live life, love life - but not pint-sized rabbit style, nor yet cute sized-bunny size. If you choose to continue nibbling away - then lemme know, and I shall add ur snap to the crowd above.

Of Yorkshire and Shetland Ponies

Its Christmas time and time to spread the cheer. Had occassion to travel to the countryside. And as good luck would have it, was able to see a Shetland pony up real-close. Name's Betty, main diet apples. Height is 2.5 feet above any ground level and a beautiful brown coat. This wonderful piece of God's creation has a wonderful disposition and is wont to nuzzle up close to anyone who shows a bit of the good ol' fashioned TLC.

Of course, photo-ops galore, and have included one to let my memory linger a bit.

Wii

Nintendo has once again broken new ground - spelling doom to titans such as Sony and Microsoft. Wii orogonally named the Revolution is pure 3D gameplay , putting you directly in the driver's seat. Be it a first person shooter or a cookery game, due to the 3D movement of the console the player is part of the environment with respect to movement in a 3D matrix. In the case of the cookery game, the console becomes the player's virtual chopping knife, with the vegetables getting cut a la Gordon Ramsay or a Jamie Oliver, very neatly on the screen. The magic comes out best in games such as golf, sword-fighting etc. where the player is actually standing/sitting holding the console -i.e. the virtual golf club/sword and physically moving the console in like manner to see his or her avatar replicating the movements on screen.

Truly RevolutionaRY!!!

http://www.videogamesblogger.com/nintendo-wii-revolution/ for more insights

At £179 this is a steal - buy it and enjoi....freedom of expression in a 3D matrix.

This is what technology is about - the breaching of the next frontier in technology. Something straight out of an MIT Lab - into the hands of game-crazy mortals

The Lost Gospels

Saw a fantastic show on Channel Four BBC yesterday - The Lost Gospels.
What amazed me was the profundity of the entire information. Anglica priest Pete Owen Jones traveled from Nag Hamadi in Egypt to the St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, unraveling the mysteries of the Coptic scripts which never made it to the Scripture. The views, research and the alternate scenarios played out were truly mind-bending - and explored how Christianity would have looked had even one of the Lost Gospels been accepted by the fledgling Church, thousand five hundred years ago.

The Gospels of Mathew, Mark Luke and John are the ones that all of us are familiar with in the New Testament. The ones we were not aware about were - the gospels of Philip, Peter, Mary and Thomas. In addition there were the as yet undiscovered gospel of the Ebionites.

Gospel of Philip - radical idea - Jesus was a loved teacher, who loved his students back in equal measure, including Mary Magdalene
Gospel of Peter - radical idea - Jesus Christ was an God Himself. He came to Earth and abstracted a man - Jesus' body, to carry out His supernatural deeds and then left for His heavenly abode, leaving Jesus' body to suffer on the cross. This school of thought came to be known as the 'Deceitist' school of thought, 'deceiius' in Latin meaning illusion.
Gospel of Mary - radical idea - women had an equal part to play in the Church as men did. Also, this gospel established revelations pronounced by Jesus after His resurrection
Gospel of Thomas - radical idea - the female of the species is weaker to the male and not fit to enter Heave. This was spoken in the context of Mary Magdalene, who was supposed to have received the revelations from Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars interviewed by Pete Owen Jones mentioned that this might have implied that it could be the female aspect of one's nature - the effeminateness related ususally to weak beliefs etc.

The Ebionites gospel, contended that Jesus was a man and that it was his baptism by John the Baptist which made him divine. This gospel was rejected outright by the poweres that be, and the name Ebionite, meaning 'poor' in Hebrew was attributed to those who propounded this gospel. By 'poor' is implied the impecuniosity of thoughts of this particular sect.

Marcien from Turkey who reached Rome around 150 AD was the most revolutionary thought-leader who was struck by the dichotomy of the divinities presented in the two versions of the Testaments, the Old and the New. The Old Testament portrays a God who exacts revenge and retribution for any wrong-doing. On the other hand there is the God, who suffered Himself in order to release humanity from the bonds of pain and agony brought on by the weight of sins and perfidy. Marcien's solution was two Gods, which was explained by him in a couple of works which were instantly banned by the Church as heresy, leading ultimately to Marcien's excommunication. Marcien had propounded this because he felt that a God who loved would be more widely accepted, far removed from the Jewish God of the Old Testament who insisted that His subjects follow a strict set of rules.

So what finally caused 27 sacred texts to form the Holy scripture (New Testament) from among the 80 odd in circulation till around 500 AD. It seems that the three most important factors were - proximity to Rome with respect to where it was written, moderateness in outlook, pronounciation of a male led Church. Not satisfying even one of these criteria could have led to most of these 80 texts to be disqualified, so much so that even Peter's gospel was not included in the newly formed Holy Scripture of the Roman Catholic Church. The young Church was looking to establish itself as the world's foremost religion of the Middle Ages, donning the mantle of power brought upon by the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine.

Johnny Mathis : Magic Lyrics

These lyrics are magic - do watch the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvwVZJIru1k

A Time for Us (Love theme from Romeo and Juliet)
- Artist: Johnny Mathis
- peak Billboard position # 96 in 1969
- competing instrumental version by Henry Mancini charted at # 1
- from the 1968 film produced by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey
- Words by Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder and Music by Nino Rota

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A time for us, some day there'll be
When chains are torn by courage born of a love that's free
A time when dreams so long denied can flourish
As we unveil the love we now must hide

A time for us, at last to see
A life worthwhile for you and me

And with our love, through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me

For you and me

And with our love, through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me

A world of shining hope for you and me

A Time for Us

I was just sighing, thinking about yet another day wasted billing at £150 an hour for 7 hours, when I came upon this most wondorous of violin masterpieces -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsHOF7Av6Ks

The is adapted from the love theme for the enchanting 1969 film 'Romeo and Juliet'.
Youtube, yet another wonderful creation of mankind opened my eyes to this jewel of a video.

I suggest that anyone who feels that this world is rapidly degenerating into materialistic hedonism, should watch this refreshingly soulful video.

If your heart pines for more, then watch the piano arrangement by the genius Nino Rota -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpGNKVv2umA

Oh - Bless the soul who pines so
That his breath escapes and flies freely away
From his mortal body, leaving

But a trace of his mere wounded self behind

God bless

Project, Systems Development Methodology

I was working on a client requirement today and the question of the exact difference between project management methodology and systems development methodology came up. Be it for an advisory or an audit project, we normally tend to talk of both in the same breath, sometimes even blurring the lines between the two.

Will try during these ramblings to highlight a few differences and also de-mystify some new jargon in the process -

I had occassion to look at the MSF model for CMMI process improvement which does Agile development...

My rose pines for me

My lovely rose pines for me
As would a thrush for the evensong
Her smile so beautiful that I wish to see
But a reflection of her in the sun kissed clouds above

I am back in England again, as winter sets in and the migratory birds fly off to warmer climes, I am exiled to this bleak dreary land, where the sun rises at 8 and sets at 4. More painful to me this time, is this journey because of my heart I can feel no sign, having left it back to pine in my own land.

Marriage

Many consider matrimony to be an institution, so much so that it is spoken of in revered tones. How many of us understand that marriage is more a state of mind than anything else? Many of us, have married people whom we have got to know better in our places of work or from other social and professional avenues. During such unions, the two people concerned just transcend one particular sub-set and join up in another. Nothing changes - not the way they love each other, nor the way they together perceive the world around them. All that changes is that they are now legally wedded. A string of words which has got official sanction. Does the fact that the two people are married cause one or both of them to feel more responsible for the other, or cause them to love each other more? More often than not, this is not the case. So wither the hallowed, sanctimonious dither about institutions and things?

Marriage is a good way of taking stock, where are we now? Are we where we wanted to be, when we started out? Such is practicality of marriage. Shorn it off all its glamour and what we have is a relationship between two people that exists to assist in mutual aggrandisement - physical and emotional.

Six Degrees of Separation

Social Networking (as opposed to social Engineering) is a practical concept that we use everyday to find and ultimately use something that we want (well, now Social Engineering looks similar too).

Recent work(Six Degrees of Separation) was inspired by research pioneered in the late 1960s that focused on navigating social networks, explains the author Simsek. In a now famous study by psychologists Milgram and Travers, individuals in Boston and Omaha, Neb., were asked to deliver a letter to a target person in Boston, but via an unconventional route: the message had to be passed through a chain of acquaintances.
The people starting the chain had some basic information about the target individual—including name, age and occupation—and were asked to forward the letter to someone they knew on a first-name basis in an effort to deliver it through as few intermediaries as possible. Of the letters that reached the target, the median number of people in the message-passing chain was a mere six. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news6386.html)

This is a fascinating find, validated to a great extent when we use sites such as linkedin, orkut and others. If this sounds interesting then check out this interaction:

Worked with Alice at my first job
Got friendly with Alice's husband, Bob
Bob then found me my second job, and I ended up relocating
Passed my resume to Bob when I wanted to return to his city
Bob passed my resume to Charles, who had worked with him during a few earlier jobs
Charles passed my resume to Diana, a director at his current employer
It turned out that Diana remembered me from my first job
Diana passed the resume to Ed, another director
Ed interviewed and hired me (Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/)

Looks interesting? Well then why dont you try it out in personal life and put some method into the madness of maybe finding that elusive friend, that rogue song on the tip of your tongue or go and land that dream job of yours?

Lost in Hatta, found in Al Ain

This is an account written by my bro...Sankar Sri Pillai
Prepare to laugh out real loud...

What’s the perfect number of people in a saloon for a long road trip? One is an odd number and a very bored driver. Two is good but it gets kind of silent in the back, three is cool but chilly for the backseat passenger. Four makes it even. There’s a good flow of conversation upfront which has a funny way of transforming itself into laughter in the back. Could give credit to a genuine sense of humour forward or aft or a hidden source of laughing gas in the travel gear. Any which way you look at it, it’s cool up front and it ain’t chilly in the backseat - just the way to enjoy a trip.
Just the way we did it.
That’s us, three happy-go-lucky friends and one fat, amateur cameraman with a knack for missing the ‘Kodak’ moment’. Me. Must say, we made one helluva team.
The journey was to the twin tourist spots of Hatta and Al Ain and we four bachelor boys had been thinking about putting the two day weekend to good use and the combination of a fort and a dam, virgin green and hot springs seemed a sin to refuse. Some talked about escaping the heat. Miserable epicureans, They’re all the same. What’s Dubai without the heat?
So, backpacks in tow and with the Lulu Supermarket at Karama acting as our rendezvous point, we pushed off on a Thursday morning for Hatta, our first pit stop. Our plan was to hit the dune buggies, on the way to Hatta. Someone said it would be fun. He was wrong. It was crazy. And fun too. We’re sure we looked liked grossly oversized kids straight out of kindergarten, hollering and whooping on those buggies as the kids present on the dunes had their fair share of laughter watching us unceremoniously slamming into dunes and coming away with sand in our faces, mouths and some other less mentionable orifices. Scrapes, slips and skirmishes with the dunes, it was all part of what goes into male bonding for a bunch of bachelors to be chained in holy matrimony a year hence. A galling thought and one to be drowned with rapid swigs from the water bottle and vigorous pats after having enjoyed a session of serious fun. There was no escaping the sands with the car getting stuck nose first in a bucketful (trusted steed our car was but she WAS a small un) of the stuff. But it was nothing that a four wheel and its macho driver couldn’t help out with. A pull, a tug and our li’l baby was out of the sand in double quick time. So much for adventure. Later, as the air conditioned air gave way to the cool mountain breeze, we were delirious. Noise levels in the car hit an all time high as the laughing gas did its job with proficiency and we wound our way to the Hatta dam. We had to walk the final stretch to the top of the dam since our car would not have supposedly taken the load of four adults gorging on chips, sandwiches and all things that brings out sheer gluttony in man.
The dam at Hatta is not the picture one would conjure up of similar gigantic man made structures. There was not the roar of water, for there was hardly any, just a dreamy, shimmering pool of the elixr of life, ensconced amid mountains in stark grey and brown. It was quiet atop the dam except for the shrill shrieks of the children present with car loads of families, taking in the breathtaking view. It was mesmerizing, magical and worth all the huffing and puffing all the way up the steep climb to the top. Picture perfect moments presented themselves with landscapes and vignettes being stored away in pixels for posterity.
Moving away from the dam, our next stop was the fort at Hatta. Taking us back on storyteller’s wings to the mystical times of kings and serfs, the Hatta fort comes with its share of mystery and allure that evokes a sense of respect and humility in the eyes of the beholder. Come to think of it, the Hatta fort is not a relic in the real sense of the term, being only a couple of centuries old but there is a lot to see. From battlements and towers to quaint houses fortified behind the stout walls of the fort, the majlis, bedrooms, storehouses and more allowed us to take a peek into history’s pages. All that’s missing were the true occupants of the fort. They were replicated to a certain extent by wax dummies of stern soldiers kneeling and aiming their rifles and blunderbasses at the imaginary enemy through the peepholes; works of art that would have done the museum at Madam Tussaud’s proud.
Souvenir time! While yours truly settled for a compass (the lord alone knows why, I don’t) the others selected more sensibly from among a mind boggling array of items - miniature authentic Arab tea sets in copper and bell metal, knives, cute little treasure chests and jewelery boxes, lovingly crafted by skilled artisans, all for a steal. And yes, the dear man at the counter is most welcome to a decent amount of bargaining. We might say in retrospect that we were a bit harsh on him, swindling him of his wares for small change. He was a nice man. He even offered us cold water for our pains. Sob!
Time flies when you are having fun. We had set out at 10 in the morning and it was getting close to four when we bid adieu to the fort. For the more knowledgeable among us ignorant ones, that left just about an hour-and-a-half to catch the sunset atop Jebel Hafeet mountain at Al Ain. And old timers say if you miss the sunset from atop Jebel Hafeet your journey might as well be incomplete. That’s a distance of roughly 160 kilometres considering we would have to come all the way back to Dubai’s outskirts before taking the turn to Al Ain, all in the aforementioned time. That’s tough, even for a driver possessed, like our very own captain Blackbird at the wheel. And what’s more, we were hungry for we hadn’t had a regular meal since we set off and all those chips and other cholesterol enhancers we happily gorged on fizzled out as fast as its genre is labeled. A quick bite at a wayside restaurant was called for as we settled for, what else, burgers and sandwiches. We are all going to die one day, might as well do so with a resounding belch than with a cramped belly gasping for its next quota of diet crackers. The saving grace in all that overload of junk was the wine leaves and some fresh fruit juices and cocktails quaintly named Tinku and Dum Dum. Picking our teeth with the contentment of carnivores after a ritual feed, we blazed the trail to Abu Dhabi and onward to Al Ain.
Al Ain! The change was already noticeable as temperatures plummeted further and the green hit us between the eyes with a welcome wallop. Dodging road radars and restricting a sickening urge for road rage, we tore on towards Jebel Hafeet. The first view of the mountain was heavenly as it rose in all its grandeur from a neat range of evergreen trees in perspective on the highway. We forgot our resolve for a second as we almost stopped right in the middle of the highway to take in the view. But just in time. Hearts pounding and anxious eyes switching back and forth between a swiftly setting sun and the rapidly approaching mountain, we ate up the remaining stretch in right royal Formula lap timing. But nature is cold to man’s appreciation and the sun mocked our puny efforts. Twisting and turning our way up the meandering mountain road, we eventually realized that the sun had beaten us by a whisker. We took a few pictures, parking on a deserted stretch of mountain road and consoling ourselves that there always was a next time. Reaching the top of the Jebel Hafeet plateau, we were welcomed by hordes of people with the single minded intention of clicking the last rays of the sun and looking mighty happy at having achieved it. Smug tourists! Pah! Later, nursing our tea and cold drinks at the At the Top Of Jebel Hafeet restaurant (At The Foot Of Jebel Hafeet Mountain restaurant opening soon, watch this space. Joking) we took stock. It was close to six and we still had the hot springs to visit, a must for us weary travelers. Having fun is fun but it comes with its aches and the hot springs seemed an inviting prospect to, well, chill in the hot water. The trip down Jebel Hafeet was accomplished in half the time with father gravity helping us along. But it was still around eight when we reached the hot springs.
The hot springs has gone in for a decent amount of landscaping and hidden lighting systems makes it look like a dream world straight out of Alice’s wonderland. A cold stream that runs down a hillock was what we hit first. Resting our tired feet and twiddling our taut phelanges in the water was heaven. Later, the more adventurous among us (that’s the other three, I prefer terra firma to revolting heights, thank you very much what with that crazy rush to reach the top of Jebel Hafeet having strengthened my resolve) struck for the top of the hillock, made more slippery with the shale and algae as also the flow of the cold water down its sides. Done with all that climbing we rested our tired feet (didn’t we hear that before?) in the hot springs before lying back in the thick grass and gazing into an inky sky devoid of stars. Would have been romantic if the stars were there but that’s alright. You gain some, you lose some.
Everything had been working like clockwork this far except for the missed sunset but we had decent pictures of the same from somewhere near the top so it was a trip that was all said and done, a largely successful. one.
Nothing to cheer us up though when we thought of leaving all this in-your-face-freshness and nature for Dubai’s concrete. But that’s how I guess, we measure the success of a retreat. The less inclined you are to get back home, the more is your travel destination a successful haunt for those weary of heart and soul. It’s the perfect yardstick. We loved Hatta and we fell in love with Al Ain and hated the prospect of leaving it all. But leave we had to, however daunting the prospect. So with an unfaltering promise to be back for another shot at the sunset, we wound our back to Dubai, and civilization.