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Some time early this year, we stumbled on Confused of Calcutta—how, we don't recall. We did remember the URL, though, because it's kinda catchy, and we liked the little homage to old-style sign-offs to Letters to the Editor. Of course it's also a well-written blog, and has some really lucid, insightful thinking aloud happening. We meant to tell DD and Nilanjana about the URL—they have a Cal connection, so we thought they would find it of interest—but it slipped through our collander.

On one of our visits, we see a post about a picture we recognise instantly from the description. We enlist Aunty Google. We find. We leave a URL for JP. We don't mention it here. JP does another post about finding the picture (and another coincidence, which you should go read about).

In connection with another complex discussion, we mention the site to Amit. Amit blogs about it. DD, who I can claim to know before either of us knew Amit, reads about it at India Uncut, finds something familiar about the name, visits, finds dear auld buddy from way back when. Oh. Mark the sequel.

[Pause for reflection.]

Earlier today, Amit posts about a column of DD's in Business Standard (a paper we wind up reading only in office reception areas when waiting for someone). It's about game theory and suchlike high brow stuff, and mentions an Orkut feature. We read, having recently resumed frequenting Orkut, which we'd abandoned quite a while ago after signing up pretty early in the day.

In the course of an insomniac night (and it is pertinent to note that we became pals with DD because we were the only owls working on a project with larks), while chatting with DD on Gtalk, exchanging links and generally shooting the breeze, we mention the BS piece. He says it came off a back-channel chat with the Rangaswamis. Ah, we say, JP? No, says DD, his younger brother, who was in school with me. And sends us the link.

Which, we find, is a jolly good blog about advertising and media, one we hadn't come across before, run by someone right here in Traffic-Jam-by-the-Sea: Whether Pigs Have Wings, by Anant Rangaswami.

Now, there's probably a moral or a learning or summat with all this. Must ask scholarly types like Dina (by the way, we have another story about a set of coincidences regarding Dee, so many that we both considered checking with our parents if they'd been anywhere near the Kumbh Mela or Bandra Fair). Or JP. Or DD. Or Anant. We'll just put it down to this.

What goes around comes around.


Oh yes. Here's the picture we mentioned, that got all these connections going.



All the links above, the picture, and this update, added in the wee hours of 18th Nov.

The saga continues

Today (well, technically yesterday, but we follow the vampire/owl rule: the night belongs to the day that precedes it), when we were checking the Caferati inbox, out of the erm, ether, we got an email offering to help out with a project that has been in limbo for a while; loss of sponsors and suchlike. After gleefully capering around the room uttering glad cries, we looked at the name. Anant Rangaswami. Could-it-be-could-it-be?, we wondered to ourself, and then, because we are cynical, naah, too many coincidences. Then we dial the number Anant left us, and whaddya know? Not just the same chap, but he happened to be having a drink at a pub near Pinstorm's office. (Now it would have been completely brill to have said that we then popped down to Toto's to join him in a beer, but our tum was misbehaving, so, though we had meant to, we hadn't made the trek into Bandra today. Alas.)

Tomorrow, or soon, at any rate, we shall sip a beverage with Anant. And frankly, even if he tells us that he won't be able to swing a deal our way, we're still pretty sure we're ahead of the game. We have yet to meet a pal of the Datta-Roy household that we haven't liked.

Serendib, can we have our citizenship papers please?