Sun will rise from South - "Abhyudaya - 2008 "

IFMR Times, News Network
Local Correspondent, Chennai

On Second Feb, "The Sun will rise from South".

Though it is an intellectual phenomenon rather than being a celestial one.

Our news correspondent from Chennai reports that Sun is all set to rise from South on 2nd of Feb as students of IFMR (a leading B School in Chennai)will be celebrating the third edition of their Annual National Level B School Festival Abhyudaya.

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Human civilizations have risen and fallen. From Cesar to Alexander, and Chandragupta to Akbar everybody had to see the end of the day. Their empires extending from one corner of the world to another corner finally came to an end. Nothing was spared not even the mighty 'English Empire' where the 'Sun' never use to set. Things do change as 'change' is the only constant force which is omnipresent around us. However there is something which hasn't changed. Since time immemorial he has been rising every day without fail. He has been here, there and everywhere and have seen it all but never boasts of his mighty powers. he can overpower anything or anybody with display of even 1% of his energy but prefers to remain calm and quiet throughout the day. He seems small and vulnerable from a distance but nobody can even dare to rise to his level. Everyday he starts his journey from East and travels all day to set in the West only to give rise to a brighter tomorrow. In a period of 10-12 hours he refills the depleting energy levels of the nature around us without demanding any attention.

Simple things around us really go unnoticed sometimes. By Abhyudaya, we are trying since last three years to underscore the importance of the simple events like 'sunrise' around us. Through the 2 days 'extravaganza' we celebrate and salute the 'spirit' which is the source of all the energy and light around us.

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Be there to celebrate the spirit with us and well you might even walk home with a lot of cash stashed in your pockets.

Link to Abhyudaya blog here..

Letter to Aamir Khan..

After watching Taare Zameen Par, I couldn't stop myself from writing this letter to Aamir Khan. If you like some senti stuff then go ahead otherwise like typical blogpost of mine, it's long, boring and full of grammatical errors. And it doesn't even have the movie review.

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Dear Aamir Khan,

I really want to thank you for the masterpiece directed by you. As you haven’t directed too many movies, I hope you know it’s Taare Zameen Par which I am talking about. To start with, its one of the finest movies I have ever seen in my life and also one of the selected few I can relate to. Part of the reason is that I myself am dyslexic. Earlier, I thought I will write a review but now I have changed my mind as most of the people who read my blog have already seen the movie. So I thought to do something different and have decided to share my story with you.

The letters use to dance before me too and though over the years I can pick up their dancing pattern now, but still, I keep on repeating the same mistakes. Grammar makes no sense to me (even till now), I use to flounder with simple mathematics till I found one teacher like your character in the movie, who taught me how to solve geometry and trigonometry. He always use to say “that the fun is not in actually solving them, the real fun is in looking at these pictures and finding out what’s so different about them”. He has remained an important part of my life forever.

The last pages of my notebooks use to be filled with the different spellings of my name like Rajneesh, Rajnees, Rajnish, Rajnis, Rejnish etc. I use to mistake the ‘a’ sound with ‘e’ sound (well now I realize that that is the problem with whole of Germany). And the worse part was to confuse between the ‘sh’ sound with the ‘s’ sound and ‘we’ sound with ‘be’ sound (this continues even till now). My handwriting was something that I only could read. My cousins and sisters were really fed up of my ‘imaginative’ lies. I remember how I was sent to hospital from school for a sharp pain in stomach (I was of-course acting) but I am glad that my parents always encouraged my imagination. This helped me a lot in countering my fear for errors. Well, things improved without any external help. I slowly learnt how to paint letters, how to form the patterns and how to write within the margins. My strength was my imaginative and creative thinking which continues till now. And this gave me the confidence which later helped me improve.

However my parents finally decided me to put into a boarding school not because they were sick of complains from neighbours (they were proud instead) but because they wanted me to live away from some family problems. Well the boarding was really a good place to grow up. No, not because I had ‘Ram Shankar Nikumbh to take care of my dyslexic traits but yeah I had some really good teachers who taught me how to sing words. Suddenly all the words around me became beautiful. Though I didn’t get rid of my dyslexia completely, but I learnt how to do things on my own and how to enjoy life alone (Loneliness is something that I still enjoy). I was ‘the dreamer’ for my friends.

I went to a very competitive higher secondary school and I have around 60 -70 schoolmates who passed out of IIT and more than 100 went to IIMs but it was okay because I am still ‘the dreamer’ among my old friends. I was really lucky to have friends who always supported, encouraged and partnered with me in creating some small success stories (some were themselves having minor problems which they overcame so well).

I have been lucky to have parents who never pressed me to do anything. They never wanted me to excel in anything and were happy to see me doing just good My father was a bit surprised when he tried to teach me swimming and I failed to pick up. Despite being a champion swimmer himself, he never pushed me into swimming again. Frustrated and unhappy with my progress, I quit learning after a couple of days only to realize after 15 years that it’s not very difficult to learn swimming. The same thing was with driving. I never was able to comprehend the road signs properly; brakes and accelerator always confused me.

Having graduated from engineering college (without even spending 24 hours on a single subject) and now doing well with management education, I feel that it’s not very difficult to compete. Dyslexia is not a problem if you get the right support I still find it difficult to multitask between things and even three-four assignments together can give me sleepless nights (I can’t stand more than 2 windows open on my computer) but over the years I have learnt to cope up. People do point out my silly spelling and pronunciation errors all the while (which are of-course embarrassing).

The confusion between sounds ‘s’ and ‘sh’ and ‘b’ and ‘we’ still prevails but I have pushed myself much beyond ‘two dozen’ miss-spelt and wrongly pronounced words in my vocabulary. People always tell me that knowing your limitations and turning them into strengths is the key to success. As it is not always possible to convert weaknesses into strengths, I think that just being aware of them is enough. People have other strengths as well. In the words of Oscar Wilde – “Who wants a cynic who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing?”

I can never thank my parents enough for their support and encouragement. I know that when everyone around me are happy with my new job, my parent’s only fear is that this will take me away from them. The same thing goes about my friends. They realized my problems and were happy to live with it. Thanks to Piali (She is a major in brain and cognitive sciences from MIT and spent a summer at our college) who told me about Dyslexia and thanks to you Mr. Khan to have researched on the subject and not to make a mockery of a touching subject like this. I stand behind you in spreading the message that Dyslexia is not a problem at all.

I am an example.

What after Death of Benazir Bhutto?

The headlines of one of the popular newspaper of Punjab and Kashmir reads " Nazir ban gayin Benazir" (Nazir is now without any Nazir). Though more than 90% of the Indians have hated her for being a Pakistani and also for being a prime minister (well most of them admired her fair n lovely look though), but now we have a bigger devil to blame "Mian Musharraf".

This post is inspired by one conversation between several people in the TV room during dinner time. I am wondering that what are the gains for different people after her sad assassination? Have tried to come up with a list but mind it, it's not exhaustive.

Parvez saab - He will get a chance to showcase the terrorism in Pakistan and he will take no time to announce that it's a terror act and Pakistan is committed to weed the terror out of their country. This sad incident will increase their commitment towards the cause. However this incident also proves that Pakistan will not be able to fight on its own and they will need the cooperation of Mr. Bush and for that matter the dollar power. Just watch how Musharraf use this opportunity to increase the inflow of western aid coming.

Mr. 'The' Bush - The poor lady was forced to come back to Pakistan as she was promised an private audience with Musharraf saab on the negotiation table. Well, Bush ji will also repeat the same thing and probably will pledge more help to Pakistan. He needs Musharraf for his bigger plans like to dump their rusted fighter planes and infested wheat into Pakistan and he needs an Islamic partner to show that he is only against terror and not against Islam.

Nawaz Shariff - Though he might be fearful for his life, but this gives him a lucrative opportunity to unite both the parties and become the leader of the united opposition. And I think this is lucrative enough to take on some more assassination attempts in future.

Manmohan Singh - He will reiterate that how disturbing the situation has become and its in the interest of US to leave Pakistan. Well, indirectly this incident will give him another opportunity to sell the 1-2-3 deal to the fellow MPs. India needs more nuclear reactors and this will be possible only when they go ahead with the deal.

Well, these were the majority stakeholders and there are some minority ones too whose cries doesn't even matter.

People of Pakistan - Another reason to display their shock and disbelief over the current regime.

Hoodlums - will get their chance to loot as many shops as they can and ....

Bloggers all over the world will get their one 'extra' post.. May Benazir's soul rest in peace and may her dream for a democratic Pakistan come true... (the sooner the better)

I am an Infoscion finally ..

After 19 years of continuous education (1 year gap after higher secondary makes it 20) finally, I became an Infoscion by the virtue of getting placed in Infosys on the first day of our campus placements. The initial reaction after getting the news was of absolute frenzy with tight hugs and warm handshakes from batch-mates and then hours of phone calls for sending out the 'breaking news'. Well, quite a good news as my parents were waiting for this since last 3 and half years. They finally breathed the sigh of relief as this was a cue they were waiting for (they seems to have discounted the news that I was going to become a 'Sadhu').

For my close friends, this was the music to their ears because after one and half years I was telling them that I am back the world of "Information Technology". I was really sick of explaining the full form of acronym "IFMR" (Institute for Financial Management & Research which happens to be my MBA institute) to my friends so I started using the catch phrase ICICI bank which are among the promoters of the institute. So for all this while I sounded less like a student and more like an employee of ICICI bank. On one hand I was defending myself to the fact that my institute is not 'so well known' (even Indian Institute(s) for People with Money is more popular and they get more number of admission enquiries than us) and on the other hand I was trying to keep my confidence level high by assuming that "agar kuch naa hua to ICICI bank hai naa" just like their ad campaign "HUM HAIN NAA".


On the day of placements ICICI really showed that "They were there" by offering jobs to almost half of the batch (you can always play around stats isn't it?) but for me it was the time to make a brave decision by venturing out of the comfort zone and redeeming myself. Day 1 was Monday and that meant sleepless Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was having 4 IT companies to choose from and after two 'natural rejections' I finally got to celebrate on Monday. It was more like a dream come true (more because I was dreaming about the interview scenarios since past few days hehe..). Well I was really happy to have accepted the offer.

And finally I am all set to join Infosys sometime after graduating from IFMR in April. Infy! I am coming but it will be really great if you people can tell me my joining dates, profile and salary because it seems that you change your mind in every other college.


Well, have to write a lot of interesting stuff from placements. So keep watching...

Beginning of an end..

Almost everybody is writing about Narendra Bhai Modi these days and literally nothing is left to write about him now. Thanks god! he doesn't read blogs or else he surely would have found a way to block the bloggers also. Now, when the new year is coming he will be again in news because two of the three ingredients of a good party liquor (Madira) and girls (late night partying) is already banned in Gujrat. Well with these two things absent from the normal lives, I wonder how reporters are still able to cook up a lot of 'masala' about him. Well, they sure must be working out of Gujrat (ofcourse they are)..

Media seems to be hurt by the victory of Modi though they are not candid about it but the 'sponsored blogs' conveys the same feeling. Congress can cry that it is the victory of Hinduism but they seems to forget that it's also the victory of Gujrati pride as well as of the development. The recent elections everywhere conveys the same mood of the electorate. People want development. Congress should do some introspection as they and their partners are loosing everywhere.

The India shining campaign failed last year as Gujrat and Andhra were big disasters. Somehow the stalwarts failed to read the mood of the electorate. But now the changing waves are giving away new signals. Anti-incumbency will definitely favor Chandra Babu and the same with Jaylalitha as in the wake of recent anti-Brahmin remarks made by Karunanidhi, Brahmins are getting united under one banner.

Anyways, to say that BJP will come back to power in the next union elections will be a long shot but if you see the latest election results then you'll find that the Congress is loosing their stronghold everywhere. Punjab, Bihar, Gujrat, Uttranchal, MP, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Himachal (may be) and then if Andhra and Tamil Nadu comes under its fold, it will be definitely a cause of worry for Madam and Manmohan ji.

Narendra Modi is all se to to come back.. Congress is all set to cry "Fake, Fake"

The tide has finally eased out giving way to clear blue waters and more or less it seems out that Narendra Modi is the champion of Gujrat. Though Congress was able to put up a good fight (as portrayed by Media because none of the exit polls showed Modi to be the clear winner, though they all did gave him 90+ seats) but Gujrat's public pleaded their support with Narendra Bhai. Politics is really strange and the worse is that you have to go with simple majority. But the fact of the matter is that this is the least bad of all the alternatives available.

Congress have got a shot in their arms. Senior leaders of Congress announced that Modi will be brought under rule of justice if Congress comes into power but well now that have to wait and all these leaders have to bite their tounge before they speak. For Sonia, Manmohan and Rahul (poor people, well there is always a second time)

Ten Best Hindi Movies of the Year 2007 -" My List"

You'll find a very few compilations of the best Hindi movies of the year (there were not enough good movies either) and most of those list will be done by professionals so they will rather deal with the camera angles than the 'fun' value of the movie. Here is a list compiled by a fan of Hindi cinema who never mind shelling out his 'own' money to buy movie tickets and paying up to his nose for'"popcorns' and believe me it was really tough to come out with a list of good 10 because most of the releases this year were utter trash.

Well, I would admit that this list is based on my recall capacity (what I can't even recall was surely not worth spending two hours in a theater and getting frustrated over the air conditioning). So dear Himesh Reshamiya please don't mind not to be included here because it doesn't matter to you to figure in my top 10, you can always pay some fluent writer to write for you ofcourse. Anyways here is the list.. ( In alphabetical order**) and for those who don't want to read the post here is the posters arranged in the alphabetical order..

For the inquisitive types who love to read full blogs... go on..

Aaja Nachle - Good comeback by Madhuri Dixit. Though the script and direction was nowehere near good but atleast the director and producer knew that Madhuri's best part is her dance. Thanks god they developed the movie around the same theme and gave us a reason to visit theater.

Awarapan - After a long long time the serial kisser was casted in a role of killer (it's LL and not SS) and oh boy, he can act too. Better than the others if not a good movie.

Bheja Fry - Though a rip-off from The Dinner Game but still it sends out the message loud and clear that "don't mess with a stupid person" or you will get your hands full. Well, everyone laughed their heart out and the producers laughed their way to the bank. The trivia is that this movie was not even released nationally but that didn't dampen any hopes and it slowly spread the contagious laugh all over the country.

Cheeni Kum - Light comedy. Though it dragged too long in the second half but still worth watching once. Amitabh is great in his role.

Chak de - Nice movie on sports theme and the victory of Indian football, hockey, Cricket, Kabaddi team (yeah yeah I am making this last one up) helped to the cause of this movie. It carries on the stamp of a typical Hindi movie (the captain was allowed to play only in the semi-finals to break the man to man marking and she did it with style without match practice) anyways a good retreat for the movie goers from the boring and dull releases during that period.

Guru - Perhaps will be Abhishek's best movie till long time to come. It's called to be a portrayal of great Dheerubhai Ambani's life but then the set is from some South Indian village. Have some basic flaws in the script but the music does a leveling effect. Good movie.

Jab We Met - Good comedy, for a change Kareina's overacting was tolerable as it was the demand of the story. Thumbs up.

Life in a Metro - One of the best movies of the year with literally no star power. The movie rides on the shoulders of Irrfan, Konkana, KayKay and Shilpa. But according to me the best thing about the movie was "Kangna keeping her mouth shut". He he.. nice movie.. I almost missed it out.

Namaste London - The year of star comebacks, this was marked by the comeback of Rishi Kapoor. Well he doesn't have to speak enough in the movie but yeah set into the backdrop of Punjab and London, this movie has done well to impress the crowd and ofcourse me (I don't think it will feature in lists of too many people)

Taare Zameen Par - The best of the lot and my personal favorite ofcourse. Like a typical MBA I would have bought future options on this movie for it being one of the classics in long long time. I know, it might not be nominated for an Oscar (ofcourse not, we have just sent Eklavya hahaha) it might even not get a thumbs up on box office but this is one movie which has the capability to shake a million or two people from their deep slumber. A must watch for all the parents (young or old) and for all those who aspire to become parents (that pretty much covers the whole universe right? Okay take out a majority of non Hindi speaking population. Happy now?)

Well, well well yes I am a big fan of Amir Khan and not because he is fair, have six (four may be) packs and is rich but only because he is the best. He proves it once again by acting, directing and producing this movie at the same time.

Okay, now comes the funny part. Give yourself one point for the one you have watched. If you have got six or more its good enough (lucky enough to have saved around 12 hours of your precious time). Anyways don't try too hard to make up for the lost opportunity instead feast on the best 10 from Hollywood. Below is a list of 10 Best Hollywood releases of the year. The list is meticulously done (unlike mine).. Hahaha enjoy...

Ten Best Movies of the Year 2007

Love, Loose but Learn to Love Again..

This is the only short story I have ever written. Try reading it and if you are able to understand (my language flow) then I will pat my back (can't pat I know but ya khujli to kar hee sakta hoon..) hehe... Go on..

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Higher Secondary days are something hard to forget for anyone. Those are the days when we really form some strong memories. First bike, first accident, first experience of living out of home, first chance of being on your own, first crush, first love, first visit to disco, first drink, first suit and first of many other things. For this character of my story those were the days of many 'firsts' in his life. Light, camera and action. Kahani starts now.

On a hot summer day, I boarded a train to reach to my uncle’s place and who later enrolled me to a school which was famous for sending students to IIT and AIIMS. Honestly speaking, I didn’t even know that what those acronyms stand for but could hear everybody talking in some cryptic language and Everytime I asked something they would tell me that its either Chemistry or Physics. I thought that people there spoke only one language on the campus and that was Science.

Due to my poor comprehension abilities, I resorted to back bench but in a couple of days I realized that it was too dangerous to sit there because I had to share the last row with these two really naughty people who would keep chewing gums during the lecture and which they will later stick to someone’s dress. Now innocence doesn’t work when you are actually in the company of notorious people. I still remember that weird look that I use to get from 'girls of our class’ and worst was that guys also simply repeated the act. And talking about girls, Sneha was one among them. This is a universal truth that all the good looking girls of your school are always in the other courses but luckily god was a little kind to us. There were eight of them and all were pretty. With curly black hairs, dark brown eyes and a slender frame, Sneha was different from others (not just a figment of my imagination, she was really different).

Sneha was dominating in nature and part of it was explained by her good looks and a smile which can sweep anybody off his feet. In a voting process to choose class representative she got majority votes and given that there were 57 boys out of 65 her victory can easily be explained. At the same time I got this news that my mother met an accident and due to my mid terms exam I was unable to go home. So the falling health of my mother made me grow a shell around me as I tried my best to cut myself off from the world around me. I needed a friend to talk to and the best I could find was my inner-self. I started writing poems. I loved my mom and years of separation use to play on my mind sometimes. My poems had resonance of two emotions: my hunger for love and anger against god. I never thought that my poems will bring me closer to Sneha.

Though I preferred to remain silent and laid-back, my poems earned some publicity for me as many people turned to me for advice on personal matters. Surprisingly most of these personal matters involved Sneha. She really had many secret admirers and most of them turned to me for a shoulder to lean on. I don’t know why they all chose me for advice because for the first six months the only words that I exchanged with her were ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’. I knew very little about her but I tried not to lie to anybody, I was just telling them what they wanted to hear. However the attraction of these boring counseling sessions were that most of them happened over good food at the place of my choice so this freedom of choice helped me a lot to put on some weight on my lean frame. I noticed two strange things in my behavior, I was opening up a bit due to all these conversations and I started getting interested in her.

Days and months went by and many people suffered many heart breaks during those passing days. And then one day it all happened suddenly in a purely filmy style (kahani hai bhai, don't start thinking that it's a reality!!). My roommate was out to gym and then I get a call with a couple of girls giggling on the other side and calling me names. “Hey don’t you recognize us? Idiot! Why you are acting like this? Come on you are not taking Naazish out for a date? This is not fair man, this is not done. You have to go; we all have promised her and now please say yes. You asked us to set this up and when its all done you are backing up, come on don’t break her heart, we all know you like her”.

I guessed that it was about Abhi (my roommate) and Naazish (one of our classmate). As I knew the background of the story I thought to play along a little while. So I didn’t utter a word for a while and then someone snatched the receiver on the other side and unleashed a flurry of adjectives well directed towards Abhi. I thought that it will be difficult for me to justify this to Abhi so in a plain cold voice I answered that this is not the actual person they intended to talk to. The line went dead. So this was my first brief encounter with the ‘tom boyish’ girlie Sneha Sinha. None of us thought that this brief conversation will change our lives.

She was apologetic for the whole day and I was enjoying every moment of it. In the evening we talked for about half an hour and that was my first interaction with her. Everything about her was amazing. She was witty, humorous, intelligent, confident and beautiful. At that point of my life, I needed someone to talk to and within a week of that first meeting, I started feeling some change in my behaviour. Consciously or unconsciously I was trying my best to get close to her. In library, in hallways, in the classroom, in lab everywhere, I was chasing her. The best thing that happened to me was that she knew it and silently approved of it. For the next few days, books will fall off her hands and I will pick them up for her, she will feel hungry at the break time and we would walk together to the corner restaurant, she will have doubts in some subjects and will call me to clarify them. And sometimes these calls will come after midnight and most often than not, the conversation deviate to "other things".

We started talking more often and that helped me a lot to take certain things off my mind. We use to go to shopping together just to sit in this ice-cream parlor where nobody ever bothered us to leave. Those were good times indeed. She would hold my hand and keep looking intently into my eyes. My feelings for her started growing in intensity. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to imagine my life without her. Her personality started growing on me though slowly but gradually.

I never realized when my poems changed their shades to colours of joy and love. Sneha was painted all over them. I really started liking her a lot and longed to tell her this thing. So one day finally I confessed my feelings to her. Her face grew blank with a shade of pale yellow on them. Her bright eyes reflected fear and then a drop of tear trickled down her face. It stayed there for a while and waited for me to wipe her face clean. She didn’t cry but told me that she never expected a guy to say these words to her. I was the first one in her life to confess his feelings for her (pahla pyar, in a filmi ishtyle!!). But she needed some time to arrive to a decision.

We met after 3 days. I could tell from her face that she did not sleep last night; the dark circles beneath her eyes were testifying that. We waited for each other to speak and then I broke the silence with these words “Tell me dear, what?” After a brief moment of silence she finally uttered “I don’t know whether I like you or not, but I can’t imagine my life without you. I think we should give it some more time before we can take a decision. I promise I won’t disappoint you.” She was right. It was too early for us to decide as we were roughly 18 years old and higher secondary examinations were just round the corner.

The frequency of our conversations and even the duration decreased during exams. It was the day of the last exam and Sneha called me in the morning asking me to meet her in evening. I was leaving for home on the next day. Around 6 pm, Sneha knocked my door. She was holding a poster in her hand which she handed over to me and said she will call me later as her father was waiting in the car. They were leaving for a vacation. We shook hands and she left in a jiffy.

I came home and was happy to see that my mother was doing well. She looked happy and the feeling of happiness on her face was all that I was looking for. I let myself loose in her embrace. Those days were wonderful. She was feeding me with her hands; she was stroking my head and playing with my hairs at bedtime. I can say that I discovered my lost love, the love of my Mom (Comeon I was spending time with her after like 10 years). After 3-4 days, I called Sneha but nobody answered the phone. For the next one week, it was the same result. I rang up one of our common friends Reshu and asked her about Sneha. She also had no ideas about her whereabouts. I tried getting in touch with her several times but to no avail. She was gone, it felt like somebody wiped all her records clean. The feeling took some time to sink in and my college buddies helped me a lot in getting over that.

About four years passed after that . I was traveling to Delhi and as I was getting bored I decided to take a walk till the pantry car to fetch a bottle of Coke and water. While coming back, I noticed a known face. It was Sneha. I stood there for a while to see her raise her face above the book. Her eyes captured my gaze and stayed there for a while. There were question marks all over my face but her face was blank as if pleading not to ask any questions. I felt something on my shoulders. I looked at the guy standing behind me he was Abhi my roommate asking me to make way for him. Abhi looked at me startled, Sneha was looking at him and before any one of them could say a thing, I started walking towards my compartment.Delhi was 2 hours away and I could see my train rushing past lush green fields. I got off the train. I felt that she was waiting for me but then I ignored and made my way out of the bustling crowd. I still had four hour of bus journey to make.

I closed my eyes and suddenly the bus stopped with a jerk. A familiar smell hit me and I woke up to a sweet voice calling my name. I was home (my college) where someone was waiting for me. She knew all about Sneha so I don’t think it will be difficult for me to narrate the day’s happening. I smiled finally. Sometime I feel that how beautiful life would be when you'd just be able to forget everything. But yeah, not everything. You should carry the small 'lessons' ahead. After all its a part of growing up.

[Well, about Sneha and Abhi, I later learnt that her father got transferred so she didn’t receive any of my phone calls or letters. The poor girl didn’t have my home number so she contacted Abhi to ask about me. He was not knowing anything about me but instead of admitting this he did tell some story to her about me never bothering about her and all. (come on, I told you folks that she was beautiful and brainy too, too tempting a combination to fall for) Buying his version of story she never tried to contact me after that. Within the next two months, they both came closer and later joined the same design school in Delhi. Recently I heard that they both separated just after that train incident as Abhi confessed everything.]

Marketing a Movie - Mast hai Bhai

MBA’s love to show off their jargon bank as after all the ‘A’ in the MBA is Attitude only. For me, the jargon of this week is "MaM" and that is the title of this blog. (Wait, you doubt that MaM is just a stupid jargon then hello! tell the same thing to Microsoft people for their new acronym "SaaS" which stands for Software as a Service")

Gone were the days when you just had to announce that the movie stars Amitabh Bachhan or Dilip Kumar or the jubilee star Rajendra Kumar and people will flock to the theatres (even in bullock carts) filling up every inch of available seat. Time has certainly changed. A good product is not at all a good product until it goes all out blowing its own trumpet. The world is surely thankful to the first person who gave this jargon “Marketing”. ( I don’t know exactly who, but some people believe that it was Procter of Procter and Gamble who started marketing his products instead of just selling them).

In recent times, you might have seen captions floating all over TV channels. Captions like “The best movie of the year”, “the top grosser on the first day”, “The biggest movie of the year”, “The biggest movie of all time”, “The first Tamil movie to make it into UK top 10”, “The biggest Hindi movie of the year” and things like that. You just dig a little bit deeper and you will find that most of these captions were just selling gimmicks, just a cheap stunt to market horrible movies. However not all marketing stunts sell because after all every one is not as lucky as Shilpa Shetty.

There were two movies which claimed that they were the biggest movie of the year. Om Shanti Om obviously has still to prove on the box office but yeah they are biggest in star-cast. 31 guest stars appear in the movie for less than 2 minutes each but yeah, it gives the movie a marketing opportunity. The song is only of five minutes duration but just recently a news channel telecasted a 30 minutes show on the making of this one song. Well, the other surprise claimant was Himesh Reshamiya starred “Aap ka Suroor” which claims to be the biggest Hindi movie of the year. I have not met a single friend of mine till now who admitted to have watched this movie. Though I know that some of them have gone to watch but still they are not admitting. If this is some indication then sooner than later his fans will start comparing him to super stars like Rajnikanth.

Talking about Rajnikanth, his movie Shivaji which was released around May end is still ruling the charts in Tamil Nadu. The movie is a very good example of marketing gimmicks where everything about the movie was news. How Rajnikanth got his fair n lovely look, how he in-spite of becoming fifty still manages to fly away the goons all around the place and how the movie was the first Tamil movie to make it into UK top 10. During the same week another movie made it into UP top 10 and that was Jhoom Barabar Jhoom which grossed more than Shivaji during the two weeks it stayed in the UP top 10.

Marketing is becoming very important in movies now. The good thing is that the directors and producers have started understanding and appreciating its importance and it is because of this factor, a whole new economy is coming up. Every other movie has a banking partner, a media partner, an online partner and a logistics partner. Soon tourism companies will get involved and I guess that somebody should talk to Laloo also as he will be the first one to jump into it. “Sab cinema me rail dikhate hain, par railway ko ek paisa nahi milta aur Coca Cola ki ek bottle dikhane ke liye ek lakh lete hain” (nobody pays a penny to railways for using it’s logo in the movies but to show a bottle of coke they charge more than a lakh). The industry is moving in an interesting direction and it makes sense to track the marketing habits of the movies. Today there are two big releases and hope I would be able to post an article about the marketing tricks employed by these two self proclaimed “super-hits”.

Anyways, MaM is not as easy as it sounds. If you doubt, go ask Ram Gopal Varma who is into deep thoughts about how to promote his next ventures. Despite all the brand name and star-cast hoopla, his Sholay flopped like anything. So it’s not as simple as that. Every Friday is not a “good Friday” and every one is not Shilpa Shetty.

"Vimal" is back..

Reliance is enjoying the bull run on the stock market and both the brothers together have beaten Bill Gates in market capitalization hands down. But anyways, Mukesh alone has amassed enough wealth to make it to the top 5 league. With Anil not very far behind soon we will hear the adage that "beat one Ambani and meet another Ambani at the top". Though Reliance's story is not a very clean one but still the kind of value they have created for their share holders is amazing. One stock of the group trippled in 3 month time and another grew by more than ten times in one and half years.


Well, the stock story needs a lot of discussion so lets just focus on the brand Vimal or for that matter on "Only Vimal". Reliance Fresh has not gone down well with the small retailers but the format is already a hit and timing was perfectly alright as it would have been difficult to follow Bharti-Walmart in this space. Two things were certain. One that Reliance wants to eat into the retail pie and two that they were really serious about it. Just recently they announced their intentions to enter into health-care retail and now the return of Vimal has been formally announced.

It's no more lonely at the top -
Things surely have changed in all these years since Vimal choose to stay away from market. The focus has shifted from the stitched to ready to wear segment. Even the stitched segment is dominated by brands like Reid and Tailor and Raymonds. The retail scenario has completely changed. Pantaloon Retail with it's multi-format retail ventures is big and booming, Arvind mills is planning their own retail outlets and Mudra Garments is likely to follow the Arvinds in their retail foray. And these two companies together have brands like Lee, Arrow, Levi's, Wrangler, Flying Machine, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Louis Phillipe, Peter England etc which together accounts for more than half the market of the branded ready to wear (men's) segment and feeling the heat of the growing muscle power of the discount retailers and in-house branding strategy, these manufacturers are planning to enter into the retail sector.

Vimal's makeover -
A contemporary logo (which is not very contemporary), Italian designers to design the ready to wear garments (the irony is that those who are familiar with the designer's name wouldn't buy the Vimal brand and those who are not familiar with the name it doesn't matter to them whether the designs are coming from Italy or elsewhere) and most importantly an enhanced product offering were the part of this makeover exercise. The product offering includes Vimal Red, White and Black ranges. The Reds and Whites are targeted towards value segment (people like me and most of my blog readers) and value conscious segment (bottom of the retail pyramid) and the black will be slightly upmarket offering targeted to eat into the market share of definitely the Madura brands (Allen Solly, Louis Phillipe and Van Heusen).




Name or the nemesis? -
I am not sure that the company is going to launch both the ready to wear as well as ready to stitch fabric under the same brand name. My guesses are that the company is thinking about the same brand name Vimal for all the three segments with the color appended like Vimal Red, Vimal white or Vimal Black. The argument is the 'nostalgia' attached with the brand. My argument against is that though I like Vimal brand and their catchy advertisements of the past but still it could work well against this brand also. After all, who wears a shirt bought by his father? A gift may be yes but if I am supposed to buy for myself, I would still go for Louis Phillipe, Van Heusen or Zodiac. Yeah, the one thing which will work with this name is the large pool of retailers and distributors who will be more than eager to carry this brand. Vimal has old connotation about it and as far as I think, they should go for a branding exercise and should create a few brand extensions on the Vimal Platform. Which I think they will do because Reliance is looking at a long term strategy and they are here to increase their retail foot-prints so sooner or later we will see some brand extensions coming out of the Vimal's stable.

Life is surely tough -
There are several factors which can hinder market adoption of the brand like Vimal. Take the fabric market, the whole space is cluttered with new players like Reid and Tailor, Belmonte, as well as some strong old players like Raymonds, Mayur, Digjam, OCM, Siyaram, Dinesh which all enjoy good recall. Infact, just recently Dinesh and Mayur has started aggressive advertising again. In the ready to wear market, it's fiercely competitive in every segment. The ride ahead is surely bumpy but we all know about Reliance. They are expert in creating a market and growing it. So, lets see.

Brand Ambassadors? Who?
Mayur of course has got the right brand Ambassador in Salman Khan which will go a long way in building on the recall of "Mayur Mayur kya hit, kya fit". Amitabh has been taken already and Belmonte has launched a campaign of BelMonte style Studio with Shah Rukh Khan. Amitabh is already endorsing a brand. Saif is with Provogue. So it seems that Amir is the only good choice left. Let's see what their creative agency has stored in for them.

Creating a brand has become extremely difficult these days. The media is widely fragmented and expensive and even researchers are struggling to find proper ways to measure brand loyalty. Only time can tell that whether Vimal will be able to win it's old consumers back but yeah strategically Vimal's makeover and relaunch is aptly timed.

Once upon a time..

there was a blogger called Rajneesh..

My god! it seems like eternity since I blogged. Part of the reason was that I was trying to keep myself busy with other things and part of it can be attributed to some external variable beyond my control. Placements are round the corner and I guess I will get little time to catch up with the blogging scene but the fact is that who reads my blog? All those avid readers (my old buddies from engineering) are busy celebrating their recent salary hikes and my new buddies are busy preparing for the D-Day.

About me, I guess that I am loosing on my writing talent as just recently I attempted my hands at writing a strategy paper on Education System in India (come on, any one can write on that) and I can admit that I was fumbling with words. The realization dawned that at-least blogging keeps me alive. For me the most cheerful months were that of June, July and August as lot many things were happening on both personal as well as professional front and these were the months where my blog was most active.

Hahaha, some lessons emerging out of introspection. Good to see I can still talk to myself...

After Salman's Marigold, its Aish turn to make gold in Hollywood

All I can say about this movie after watching the trailer is that its a grand project. Hollywood is famous for the grand manner in which it presents the war movies or the movies which are set against a historical background. It will be really a treat to watch Aishwarya fighting instead of doing the run of the mill "acche lagtey ho dancing sequences" and may be the director might have taught her the basic acting tricks again. Let's hope so.

Boys Becoming Men

Take the pressure off their back and they will win you a world cup. Don't have high expectations and they will deliver their best. India have just achieved something which is capable of going down into history books and if not atleast it is worthy of becoming a case study.

If Cricket is a strange game then 20- 20 has lived up to the reputation and produced some amazing games worthy of a world cup. Minnows and marginalized team like Zimbawe beat the world champions in their first game. The world champions got their act together and produced some ruthless cricket to knock teams like Sri Lanka out of the tournament only to find Yuvraj too hot to handle. Bret Lee was hit for the longest six of the world cup by him and the little onslaught sealed the fate for the champions. On their way India also butchered South Africa who was undefeated in the tournament.

And this was a team without an experienced captain, without a coach, without any real experience of the game format and without any experience of playing together as a team. Nothing was expected of them as memories of an early world cup exit were fresh in the minds of the people. Advertisers were shying away from the cricket, board was battling it out with Indian cricket league and hockey and football team were doing the Chak De act at their respective stages. So what was expected was to get into the second round and then make an exit at the hands of England who were playing quite an aggressive cricket and were high on confidence after recent series victory. They were playing the same team who demolished Indian bowling attack at numerous occasion in the last series.

What else, to compound the problems India were without their three pillars of batting attack and the lone warrior was Yuvraj Singh with the maximum experience of one day cricket. But it was one over which changed everything. Yuvraj hit the ball all around the park with miraculous ease and absolute power. The most economical bowler in the one day series was hit for six sixes in an over and Indians crossed the magical 200 figures for the first time. It changed everything. Indian team started believing that they are capable of producing some good cricket and if the boys kept their act together, they can do it. The team as well as fans started smelling victory from there on. And that was what I think was the turning point of this tournament. Indian team came home with the self belief and after a long long time, Indian fans had a nice sleep with dreams of Yuvraj hitting the ball everywhere and India winning a world cup.

The average age of Indian team was 24 years and if you put up the experience together than the whole of the team combined has played lesser one day internationals than the 3 senior players who were sitting out for the greater cause. The players like Joginder and Rohit Sharma were never tested before in international conditions but the way Rohit maintained his pause in the crunch match against South Africa and England it was really a delightful treat for the eyes. It requires a lot of confidence to hit Mohd Asif for a six off the second delivery that you face and Yusuf Pathan justified his inclusion in the team by hitting the ball out of the ground.

We never had a balanced pace attack and in this format our bowlers were expected to be hit for anything but then it’s the bowler who won us the quarterfinal against South Africa. If the batsmen were capable of some audacious stroke play then bowlers also proved that they can work wonders if they get their act right. Sreesanth was a bit inconsistent in the tournament but luckily he completed a nice finish by holding on to probably the most precious catch of his life. RP Singh was spectacular while Irfan Pathan once again proved that what he is capable of. I wonder that if in a batsmen friendly match he can be so potent then he would have done wonders in the seaming and swinging conditions of England and what else that this chap can wield his willow also a little bit.

An inexperienced team playing without a coach has done something so wonderful that it’s worthy of going into the history books. It has done a lot of good for Indian cricket and hopefully in the history of Indian cricket, this victory will get a place near to the only other world cup victory. Kapil was about 24 years old at that time and the average age of this team has been 24. What a match and what a tournament. Presence of ShahRukh Khan reminds us of Chak De factor but the boys have proved themselves that they are worthy of taking on men now. We have a street smart captain who doesn’t hesitate in making fielding change after every single ball and we have a team who can hit Australians with the same power as if they are playing minnows.

Questioning Hindu Consciousness – Save Lord Rama first, Ram Sethu Will come later

Instance 1: CARTOON ROW - A Danish cartoonist just painted a cartoon of Prophet (which they said resembled Prophet because Prophet himself was never photographed) and the Muslims around the world set ablaze anything related to Denmark. Our own secular India was not far behind and every political party condemned the action. Effigies were burnt in India by people having political affiliation to national as well as regional parties. Denmark is a secular country with very high living standards and the origin of cartoon was to highlight Islamic terrorism. Well, the whole world believes this but the projection and association was wrong and that’s why Danish reputation suffered a lot. But if you ask this question about existence of Islamic terrorism and whether our political leaders approve of this fact or not, I guess that most probably our leaders will question the credibility of this fact. They don’t even believe that Islamic terrorism is the right word. This is vote bank politics where you defend your vote bank first and use an Ostrich view (I see nothing so nothing is happening around) to see things. All the political parties extended their support to the mass protest against Cartoons.

Instance 2: DA VINCI CODE – Bangalore was the first place to go up in arms against the release of the movie Da Vinci Code. This movie questions the credibility of Jesus Christ and then all the political parties tried to lean their shoulders to support Christian minority. Again a vote bank politics to attract the 6-8% votes of the Christian of the country. Da Vinci Code was disapproved by Pope but still both the sides of the coin are co existing since approximately 500 years. Every party supported the Christian agitation during that time also.

Instance 3: RAM SETHU – After Muslims and Christian this time it was for Hindu to raise their voice against destruction of Ram Sethu (Adam’s Bridge) and it was expected that almost all the political parties would support Hindu agitation also but then Indians were surprised by some knee jerk reaction by some politicians.

Instead of debating about the alternate bridge routes possible, Congress (the ruling coalition at the center) and DMK (ruling party in Tamil Nadu and a part of the coalition at the center) raised questions on the credibility of Lord Rama itself.

Who was Rama and what was his contribution? To answer this question I would like to ask a simple question that “What image Karunanidhi would want for himself in people’s mind after his death?” Whatever he want, the shelf life of that image will be maximum 100 years after his demise or who knows may be only 10 years or lesser than that after his political demise. So may be after 10 odd years people will remember him as MK Road, Or Kalainar TV or Kalainar Nagar or ex chief minister (most of these images will change depending on who comes to power next, Jayalalitha will leave no stones unturned to wipe all this off in the near future). But think about Rama, he has the same image persisting in people’s mind since thousand years. Just imagine about his greatness that he became a part of the folklore and is still alive in the mind and heart of millions of people. His symbolic acts still are the parameters of the right and wrong and are guiding millions of people everyday.

About scientific evidence - I don’t know he was a myth or a reality because I don’t think that science has reached to a point where they can answer questions like existence of god and ghost. I would ask Mr. Karunanidhi that was his father a genetic engineer that he was created like this? Perhaps he don’t has the answer neither we have but even the top of the scientist would like to believe that there is a power beyond our understanding and beyond our comprehension and only fools would like to believe that there is no supreme power than them.

Congress took a foolish step and then retracted but DMK simple jumped the gun and still would like to believe that they are right. You can’t prove or disprove the existence of Rama in court but DMK is simply proving the lack or moral fiber by not following the court’s suggestion. The Supreme Court has ordered about exploration of possible alternate route but nobody wants that and I don’t know why. Is it just because Hindus have no collective consciousness and people can easily toil with their emotions? Or it is because they don’t have a common political affiliation and thus their vote does not count? Or is it because somebody needs another controversy to simply push the country into elections? Well, whatever it is, one thing is pretty certain that we are projecting our secular image forward. “Listen Western Powers, What you always believed to be a country of Hindus is actually a secular country where all the other religions are assured of their religious independence, safety, security except Hindus”. I don’t know Rama existed or not, but if he ever existed then perhaps Hindus are waiting for another Avtaar to come and save the mythology. Hindus will not do anything. Poor Rama you forget to visualize that instead of fighting Ravana one day you have to fight this secularism bug deeply routed inside political leaders.

Jai Hind

Lord Rama existed or Not? Questioning Hindu Faith

I don't think that anybody can fight a court case in the favour of existence of Lord Rama and win it because its easy to shrug off thousand of years of heritage in a moment and its easier to prove that everything which supports that claim is invalid but then the question is not about existence of Lord Rama but rather it goes one extra step to question the Hindu faith.

And that is where the subject become touchy. I was just having discussions with one colleague of mine who was having the same opinion that there are really no historical evidence to suggest that Lord Rama ever existed but then equally true is the fact that there are no evidences to prove that other religious Gurus like Mohammad or Jesus ever existed or even if you can prove that they had a physical existence, no body can ever prove that they were really something like Prophet or Messiah. We can always degrade ourselves to question the faith of a community or a religion on the broader level but have we ever tried to think that who exactly was Lord Rama or Krishna or Jesus Christ?

Why do we need idols to worship or why do we need a religion to follow? The answer lies in Anthropology or behavioral sciences. It is the common need to socialize that bring us and binds us together. This need to feel a part of the group is so strong that it gave rise to groups and 'Kabilas'. This is common for all animals including the most civilized ones like us. With the evolution of groups, it became mandatory to differentiate and for that symbols were required and slowly these symbols evolved into religious symbols. That's why you will find symbols like Air, Water, Sun, Moon, Fire common across all the religions.

Another reason was to attribute some unexplained phenomenons like flood, fire, disaster, earthquake etc to some super mighty powers who had the capability to bring terror and cause damage to life and property. This fear again bound human beings together and helped them create a code of conduct. Due to this incapability in comprehending certain things people actually started believing in super powers.

The third reason was the wide gap between level of intelligence and power between the tribes. There were strong and weak tribes. The strong one will often loot and plunder the weak ones and make their life miserable. In all the religion you'll find concept of saint, demons and of warriors who will fight the demons. Jesus represented this supressed class and became a symbol for the weak and poor of the world. Even if nobody believes in his existence today and we have no historic evidence to prove, I will still say that Jesus at that time more than being a god was a symbol of hope for the millions of poor and depressed people and that is why Cross is still one of the strongest symbol of the social injustice today.

Ram or RamaRajya more than being a physical person was a symbol and that is most important. He was an object of faith and people worshiped him because he relieved them from the terror of Ravana. VHP has become an icon of foolishness and they can still afford to play around with the Hindu faith but then if a statement like "Rama did not exist" comes from Congress party then I am more than sure that something is seriously wrong with their think tank. Try saying some day that the Muslim or Christian gods never existed and you will be wiped out from the national political scene but anybody can question Hindu faith and still walk tall among the political circles. This is a sheer example of how people have taken advantage of the Hindu tolerance Level which is fairly high compared to other religions. Don't forget the cartoon row or the demonstration against Da Vinci Code.

Anyways, Congress is in deep waters now. They have not just questioned the Hindu faith, they have also challenged the basic premise of being a Hindu. There is no point of following a religion when the base never existed in the first place. The next logical step is to prove that as Rama never existed so no point in fighting for Ram Janmbhumi and then no point in being Hindu. When the whole world is looking forward to Vedas and Gita, this statement coming from a well educated individual have surely embarrassed the whole country.

Nothing captures the existence of Rama better than this -

"Man se Ravan jo Nikale, Ram uske man me hai"
(When you will be able to take Ravana out of your mind, you will discover Ram inside)

Ram Gopal Varma Ki ************

If the title is not self explanatory, then your are dumb enough to last for 3 hours of this movie. Yeah I am right, only people without brains can survive this mockery of the epic.

Some of the adjectives to describe this movie will be "annoying, frustrating, time waste, wastage of money, pathetic display, mockery etc etc". I have never ever seen people walking out of theater during interval form a Amitabh's movie, but then Ram Gopal Varma's genious has made that possible. Truly, he is a genious. And he should be given credit for several reasons.

He claimed that his favorite movie is Sholay so as a tribute to that cult classic he has taken this project which seems more like making a mockery of the old. I don't know how Amitabh reacted to this project. Well, he'll say that it was a different experience and working with Ramu was blh blah blah but then the fact is that the age factor is creeping into his system. Yeah he is well past 60 right? It shows in the movie.

The man who wrote dialogue for the movie should be forced to watch this movie 2 times in a go without any interval and I am sure he will die of brain damage or perhaps would never take any writing project again. The same punishment should be inflicted on the entire crew of Ramu. He should be thanking to god that his movie company is not public or the public would have rightly rewarded him by bringing his stock prices to unprecedented low levels.

Dialogues are so pathetically written and so pathetically enacted that you are left with no other options than to scratch your hair. Half the theater was empty after the interval and those who were there were begging for the "basanti ka naach" which was not there and then everyone left. Those who survived the movie were just to justify their expenses.

Don't watch this movie, if you are a true Sholay Fan. Watch that movie again instead. But yeah is you want some skin show and some wild camera angles, go waste your time and money.

All the best.

Ex Supermodel Ki Kahani

" Take off the camera, stop shooting or you'll regret every moment if it Stop! Stop! You'll all go to jail, just stop". The girl was shouting but none of the photographers stopped shooting. They kept her in focus and the cameras tried to shoot every possible angle. The girl was pleading but no, there are no jails for these photo journalists. Within minutes, the photos made to the website of the popular news channel and also to some of the blogs. Poor she.

Ex- Supermodel - Geetanjali Nagpal has a very impressive educational background with names like Mt. Carmel and Lady Shri Ram to quote. She claims that she did some modelling assignments with Sushmita Sen however, no channel tried to contact any of her friends or any designers. They were too busy in shooting her hip movements in the designer skirt. Nobody knows that where she modeled and for what. Even Mehr Bhasin was unable to recognize the name or the face. Anyways, the world is too big and given the kind of looks and figure, its sure that she looks like a model but super model? Way too much for the imagination.

Sleeping on the street - Take a look at the pic below.



How many of you will believe that she is sleeping on street and that too on Delhi's street? I know that many of the Delhi people might be curious to know about the street where she is sleeping. But the channel has put in headlines that she is begging for a living and is sleeping on streets. But the video shows Geetanjali sipping Pepsi and standing outside some shop in a crowded street. Comeon everybody knows that Delhi streets are not safe for a girl to sleep and for a girl like her, people will actually crowd on the street and make it impossible for her to sleep. Looks like this, even when dressed shabbily don't go unnoticed dear.

Well, whether she is begging for living or sleeping on street, the news channels have got their breaking news and enough masala to build on a sensational piece (psychiatrist and a model was just add on) and I have got a blog piece.

Where are Ramesh Powar's Famous Red Googles?

In the recent series against England, Powar sported a new pair of goggles which were surprisingly not Red. So where did the red ones go? Big question, Check the two images. Is this Hyderabad Bomber a fan of Powar? Nice timing for Powar or else you never know about Indian police.

"The Great Indian Media"

Orkut was recently banned by most of the educational institutions in India and in some states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh speculations are ripe that they will issue directions to all the cyber cafes to impose a ban on social networking sites. Well, the major trigger was the kidnapping and murder of Adnan who was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by his 'Orkut' friends. I don't know but by banning Orkut the only people who will be happy is microsoft people and I am sure that the ban is not for parents or for the benefits of the masses. It's sheer lack of wisdom and may be just a byproduct of the generation gap.

In India, we are trying to ban the social networking site whereas recently Tony Blair expressed his interest to join one popular networking site after his retirement. Can we think such a thing about Mayawatis, Sharad Powars or even for Manmohans? Anways, your police department is inefficient, ban Orkut, You have no control over other media like news paper and Tele vision then ban the websites. Talking about indecent content I guess that advertisements and the kind of news items getting highlighted as breaking news contains more derogatory content than the Orkut. Look at the classifieds carefully you will find numerous advertisements of "friendship clubs" and "massage parlours". Well, I don't know but may be the next step will be to ban "I don't know what, our enforcement officers are sick". In India more people die of heart attacks due to poor performance of cricket team or due to Stock market crash. I have a solution, ban them.

Let me highlight the major reasons for the two recent happenings.

Murder of Adnan -> The story goes that Adnan made friends with some people on Orkut who envied his lavish lifestyle and for that they planned to kidnap him. All went well but then the news of kidnapping spread like wild fire and kidnappers who were amateurs panicked under police pressure and murdered the boy. So, to stop somebody from making friends ban Orkut. Nice solution.

Everybody is pointing fingers at Orkut but then the actual reason for the murder was not the Orkut but our Great Indian Media who were breaking news after every 3 minutes and were interviewing Toms Dicks and Harrys about what they think is right. There is so much competition for news these days that news channels are fighting to go on air first and once they go on air, they just keep hanging there. They will show 20 seconds footage for 20 times to make it look like a 7 minutes video footage. Anyway, the real reason for the murder as quoted by Bombay police was

------------------------------

Sixteen-year-old Adnan Patrawala may have been alive if his kidnappers had not panicked after hearing of the story making headlines across news channels.

Adnan's parents share that view and even the police are now trying to identify who leaked the news to the media. "The police office should be investigated who leaked the news to the media,” says Adnan’s father Aslam Patrawala.

To ensure that similar situation doesn't arise again, the police have formed a new strategy to handle kidnappings.

The FIR will now be lodged much later than usual to maintain complete secrecy. Instead, a written complaint will be taken down with the family's consent.

Instead of informing the Control Room, the Crime branch, which investigates sensitive cases, will be called in immediately.

----------------------------------------------------

Well, Mumbai police is taking proactive steps to counter these happenings but Media will not learn its lesson.

Public Lynching of a Thief - As I said, they were showing a 20 second video footage for more than 20 times showing the public bashing of a chain snatcher. No mention of the lady, whose life was endagered by this thief. There have countless cases where chain snatching can end into a life threatening act. You can just imageine a gold chain tied around your neck being pulled out by full force. So they kept saying that its a human right violation act. Agreed. But its a case of public fury and its the culture of a place. There has been a similar news on the same news channel's website about an Indian man whose one arm and one leg was chopped off because he stole a pizza.Go on, great Indian media, fight it.

Bring it to public that what is happening. But no, how can you? You are too busy to show human right violation. Its right that theythey have brought the issue to light but have also given it a communal angle. I don't know whether the public asked his name first and then started beating him but the journalist made it sure to enquire the name and established that he was a minority. Wow! and what happened next is that a crowd gathered and stoned a police stone because a minority boy was beaten up by the mob and police helped them. So soon everybody forgot the chain snatching act and communal tension is slowly building up in the town. Tomorrow some people will catch a hindu thief and lynch him to death and then something bad will happen.

Media is great and when it come to creating controversies, they are really wonderful. Perhaps the latest hit "Chak De India" has tried to capture the stupidity of media in true light.