"The Year of Terror"

Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi and now the fourth Metro to be targeted in the same year. What more you can wish for? That too in one year.

Another day, another city and so many lives. I woke up this morning with the shocking news about what happened in Mumbai but worse was the news about what is happening in Mumbai. This is really unprecedented and if prime minister is to be believed (if he is to be believed) then perhaps this will not be repeated but well we are hearing the same words over and over again.

It seems that we are slowly becoming a country of 1 billion dumb, lame people. Our lives have become so cheap that when 100 of Indians are killed nobody notices and all the press coverage is given to some foreigner's bodies. Nothing affects us until it happens to us or our people. Prime minister appeared on TV and made some vague statements about things which should have been done earlier. The police cribs about no intelligence input and the best is the joke cracked by Intelligence that "this attack is clearly a terrorist attack". I don't understand what was taking intelligence agencies to take so long to say something which even any assho** can say.

This might be just another terror attack but it comes at a time when most of the cities are supposed to be on high alert and then suddenly out of blue some 40-50 people land on the shores with automated guns and grenades and suddenly start firing on innocent people. They take a city on hostage and kill hundred of people, they kill some senior police officer and meanwhile also kill some well identified targets which were mainly whites and westerners. And well in the middle of everything our media is cracking jokes. Some sample are -

Deepak Chaurasia - Looks at the dome of Taj and says that "Meri analysis kah rahi hai ki Taj ke doosri side mein aag lagi hai jo kabhi tez ho rahi hai aur kabhi kam ho rahi hai". (I think that there is fire on the other side of Taj which is rising and dying at times). Well his anal-a-ysis was actually right and there was fire on the other side of the Taj dome which the other news channels were already showing.

Umesh Kumawat - He repeated the same lines for minimum ten times that it's really a painful situation and terrorists have taken some 30 people as hostage.

India TV even claims that they have a caller from Oberoi hotel (where terrorists have holed up) and though he says that he is from Deccan Hyderabad, India TV proves that the guy on phone sounds Kashmiri.

And the height was prime minister's speech where he repeated the rhetoric that this was a cowardly attack (now what you want more, should they come with armored tanks and missiles? Would that be a brave attack). During his award winning (award was prime minister's chair during the no-confidence motion) he mentioned that Advani's astrologer is ill advising Advani. Well, I am not sure what to say about prime minister's astrologers or about his advisors.

One thing I can say with surity is that life of an ordinary citizen is now in the hands of these few terrorist. It's on them to decide where, when and how? And well, we all know what will be the sequence of events after the next terrorist attack. Ab bhi nahin samjhey kya? TV Dekho, TV..

Is the banking trust broken? My experience

One of the fallouts of the ongoing financial crisis is that it seems that banking trust has broken or at-least in the process of breaking up. They may not accept it on the face and issue public statements like everything is safe and sound and that the deposits are secure, there are some tell-tale signs that the mutual trust between banks is weathering out.

There are things happening with me and several others which shows you that the desperation on the part of the bank has increased for two things -

1. Getting more deposits from the people and that's why the interest rates have increased
2. Preserving whatever cash they have using whatever means they have and one of them is to taking off their ATM network from the common grid. And that means no more transactions on the ATMs of other banks

And this is what I have to say about. I hold a corporate salary account with one of the leading private sector bank (compulsory for me to hold salary account with this bank only). One of the perks that comes bundled with the salary account is that I can have 15 transactions per quarter on the ATMs of other banks. That's a luxury right? Not at all!.

I was going to drop my friend home and then it happened. We had dinner and then I walked her home. On my back I realized that I have only 4 Rs. in my purse plus 1 ATM/Debit card and 2 Credit cards (plastic money huh!) . Auto wallahs don't take change and to save embarrassment I got down at a place (from a shared auto) till where the fare was only 4 Rs. Now, armed with 3 plastic cards and zero cash I rushed to nearest ATM. It was of a little known Catholic Syrian Bank but the ATM counter stated they take Visa cards so I went in. 2 transactions were rejected. My fear grew on me. The other ATM was about 1 and half kilometers. I decided to walk. The other bank was HDFC bank. Despite of the VISA thing they still rejected the transaction. Next was SBI ATM, result the same. Indian Bank, Corporation Bank and Andhra Bank, transaction declined, unable to process, temporarily unable to process, Try another time etc etc. The same result.

I was becoming desperate. I had an option to call my friend and ask her to come and give me some cash. The other was to take a meter auto till my office and ask the guy to wait. Then walk in the campus, take the money from the ATM and then take the same auto to home. I will save embarrassment. I decided not to use the first option and then suddenly walked to the guard of the HDFC bank and asked him if I can get the ATM of my bank nearby. He laughed and then said try Kotak Bank ATM next door. It might work. I have never waited like this for the sound of machine counting the notes. The machine waited for a while, then whirred, hissed and there came the Gandhi. I thanked the guard and the god and then took the first auto home. It was 11 already in the night .

I tried 6 banks. Under normal circumstances I could have got the first transaction going and could have saved the extra effort but then these are not normal times. These are extraordinary times and we all need to be extraordinarily patient. We can afford one or two failed transactions but if a bank fails, we just can't even think about it. So be prepared for one two failed transactions. A better way is to keep enough cash and be less reliant on the plastic money.

Later I realized that I had a 500 Rs. note torn from the two corners again courtesy the ATM of the same bank. As I noticed that note only after like 10 days, I didn't bother to complain. It's better to take that note to my brother in law who works for a government bank and who I know will change it without asking for proof that it came out of ATM of his bank. I still have that note.

Behind the scenes of Karzzz..

I don't have sufficient words to write a review for this super successful movie (as predicted by the great modern day movie reviewer Taran Adarsh) and kyon naa ho.. sometimes even Himesh ji fall short of words to praise (guess who?) himself.

The high point of the movie is the helicopter scene (now that's really high right?). Where a plastic faced girl (who happens to be the promoter's daughter) narrates her story about how the rockstar "monty" (read Himesh) couldn't take his eyes off her during a party. Then suddenly a chopper appears in the air with Monty hanging from the door and singing his favorite song. I don't know how the director might have planned this scene but it's really the high point of the movie and you know what's a high point means. Well, let me clarify a bit. The chopper is flying high, Himesh is singing a high note (which even beats the shrilling noise of the chopper blades and reaches out to it's target audience), the girl standing down is feeling high with the sight of the great rock-star Monty wooing her and well you feel that the director and script writer are also high on something. On something really disgusting.

Well, "Himesh ji ki movie ho aur Himesh rockstar naa ho, ho hee nahin sakta". After all if cinema is the mirror of the society then Himesh must be a super star, rock star in it. It's so easy to portray the character in reel life which you really are in real life. So Himesh is again the great rock star here. I am wondering if Satish Kaushik had the idea of remake or Himesh went with rock star idea to him. If Himesh went to him then what could have went behind the scenes, here is a take on that -

Himesh - Satish jee, ek rocking movie ka idea hai. Rock star ka re-incarnation hai. And believe me it will be a mindblowing, fantastic, rocking movie. Let's make a remake of Karz

Satish - Ok, sir let me guess you will give music in it. You have the music ready and you want to show me some tunes.

Himesh - Kya Satish bhai? I will definitely be the music director but this time I also want the Rock Star role.

Satish - "God! whose face I saw in the morning?" Ok! well but this role was played by Rishi Kapoor. People will compare.

Himesh - So what! May be I am a little low on the face value but apni height aur weight to Rishi jee jaisa hee hai. And people can easily relate with me with the role of Monty. I am already a rock star sir.

Satish - Ok Ok. Let's make it but I might need some financial help from you.

Himesh - Don't worry. You are in the company of a rock star. I have another idea. (whispers..) we will take Shweta "Indra Kumar's daughter and Kumar sahab might get ready to promote the film as well.

Satish - (Oh no!) But will Kumar Sahab agree? Why a remake to launch his daughter. He can launch her with any big star.

Himesh - Well superstar nahin to kya hua? I am a rock star. You go and try and he will definitely agree. (Click for more masala)

And there was the origin of one of the best dialogues of the movie where Danny reminds the modest Himesh how big a superstar he is. Anyways Indra Kumar might have said that "Apni beti ko launch karne ke liye kitne logon ko superstar ke darwaze pe khada dekha hai, but yanha to kahani bilkul ulti hai, Ek Rock star khud meri beti ko launch karne ke liye mujhse bheekh maang raha hai. Le lo, jitna paisa chahiye le lo. " (I have seen many people begging at the doors of superstars for launching their daughter, but here the rock star himself is begging to launch my daughter.).

(After reading the script of the movie, Indra exclaimed in pride that this is his dialogue and therefore they deducted Rs. 2 from the script writer's salary. Why Rs. 2 only? Well, who will pay more than Rs. 2 per line for a script like this and that too for a remake).

And so it was. Himesh is really a modest star. Though he has all the qualities of a star but he maintains modesty (that's what he says) and a proof is that out of some 600 possible chances to gloat with glory Himesh only does it 3 times. There are at-least 3 irritating (modest) reminder dialogues that who is the rock star in the movie. The best is when Danny says this "Tumhara jaisa rock star hamse hamari bachhi ka haath maang raha hai". Well everyone feel so overwhelmed with the personality called Himesh. And you are so head over heel in love with the character of Himesh in this movie that you don't want to see anything. Not the multiple facial expressions of Urmila, not even the antics of Sir Judaa when he plays music on his funny arm. Well, I liked Sir Judaa and the way he plays some tunes on his mechanic hand and there pops the explanation from one of his side kicks. This side kick knows Sir Judaa so well, that you often wonder whether Karan Johar will borrow some ideas from this relationship between Sir Judaa and his side kick for his next movie "Yaaraana 2". You never know.

Himesh sings, he dance and he romances. He does all with grace. May be right from the beginning he had this idea that he has to carry the movie on his shoulder as this is movie about him. And except those punchy dialogues, he does well. The other star in the movie is Urmila and the super star in the movie is a temple which is in the middle of nowhere. You can see it from a height of 35000 feets, you can see it in the dreams of Himesh and you see it in the end.

Thanks god the movie flopped this time or it would have given him another chance to make Karzzzzzzzzzzzzzz is back or "Karzzzzzzz ka bojh" with the opening dialogue as "Rock Star kisi ka karzz nahin rakhta".

Have you even wondered whas is behind the title Karzzz? Well, whatever it was. I feel that atleast the director and script writer were dozzzzzing off on the job. Or may be "dosing" off. Dosing off what? Rock star's rocking music ofcourse. "App bhi naa, dirty mind".

So what's next? Jimmy or Rocky? Who will be back with Himesh next time. Believe it or not, it must be some rock star in the next movie of Himesh. After all, it's so easy for him.

Life threat for Sachin .. (Behind the scenes)

In the afternoon a press conference was called in Nagpur where the commissioner of police announced that there is threat to life of Sachin Tendulkar and this threat comes from JEM (a terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammad). Well, in the evening itself the version of the story changed and in another press conference it was clarified that there is a death threat but no specific player was mentioned. Here is a humorous take on what could have happened behind the scene(s).

Immediately after the press conference the senior officers called the commissioner -

Senior - Arre! Dixit sahab, what is this baba? Kuch bhi bolte hain (you say anything). If your people are pressurizing you for extra match tickets then there are better ways. What is this?

Mr. Dixit - Sir, you are experienced. You know all this. But now I have announced already. Well, I think I might call another press conference.

Senior - nahin, leave it. It's ok, let police wallahs also have some fun. Waise bhi who will come to watch test match yaar? I don't think that even terrorists have so much idle time.

Mr. D - Oh thank you sir! but what should I do now. I think people have already started writing about all this.

Senior - Call another conference and say that the threat is not for any specific player. That way you might be able to accommodate more police men into the stadium. I also have pressure from my people to get passes. This way I will save the embarrassment.

And by the way, why you mentioned JEM? Did you get any email from them lately?

Mr. D - How do you know that?

Senior - Man! without these self declamatory emails, how would we the people will come to know who is doing what? And you know what we do when we don't know anything about something? Chalo chalo.. go ahead and make the arrangements.

Behind the Scenes of Movie "FASHION"

This is my second post in the series of "behind the scenes" series after I wrote the BTS of "Hello". Well, between Hello and Fashion there have been several movies worthy of a Behind the Scene post but Fashion is something which deserves immediate attention. So here is my version of what could have happened "behind the scenes" while the movie was still being made.

Well after watching the movie I literally asked my friend that "is kahani se kya shiksha milti hai". She bought into the realistic message and replied that "you shouldn't forget about important things to reach an unworthy milestone". I think her message got lost in translation anyways her actual words were "Hamein pata hona chahiye ki hamari limits kya hain and uske liye apni family and friends ko nahi leave karna chahiye jo cheez unworthy hai". Well, my understanding was different. Through this movie Madhur actually teaches you rather reminds you of two age old important moral lessons.

1) Aurat ek mard ke bina adhoori hai (A woman is nothing without a man)

2) Kutte ki poonch kabhi seedhi nahin ho sakti (A dog's tail can never get straight)

Well, you do not agree then, read on..

The high point of the movie comes when a struggling model points to a man and asks another struggling model "is that Madhur Bhandarkar, what is he doing with this model"? "Arre wo to Madhur Bhandarkar hai, wo is model ke saath kya kar raha hai". The girl replies "yes he is the guy who makes realistic cinema and he might be doing his research as I have heard he is making a movie on Fashion". "Suna hai wo Fashion pe movie bana raha hai, realistic movie, shayad research kar raha hai". Well well well, she was not the first person who was asking questions about Madhur Bhandarkar being seen with a struggling model and about his so called "research". Anyways, at that point of time you actually think that Madhur Bhandarkar might have put some of the insights from his research in the movie as well. Afterall, the movie doesn't show anything more than what everybody already know about the fashion industry. Well, it's nice to see that somebody is finally following the Himesh Reshamiya way.

Let's get on with the concept. Madhur is narrating the concept to one financer -

(M)adhur - Sir, is baar apni movie ka concept mast hai.
(F)inancer - Leave mast wast, tell me ki scenes hain yaa nahin?
M - Kya baat karte hain Sir, lagta hai aapne meri pichli movies nahin dekhin? Ab sir realistic movies mein scene to honge naa sir?
(F) - Ok, concept kya hai?
(M) - Fashion industry pe concept hai sir. Jara sochiye ki mast mast models about 2 hours tak ramp walk karti rahengi short short dresses mein. Just imagine.
(F) - Okay concept to accha hai but from where you got this inspiration?
(M) - I was talking to this struggling model lately who told me some of the nitty gritties of the industry.
(F) - Oh that's fine that you are talking to all these models but make sure that you doesn't get stung again. Thoda bachke raha karo yaar in models se, ek baar pahle bhi fans chuke ho.
(M) - (Smiles) tabhi to sir, this time I am taking no chances. I am doing it under the cover of research.

Another high note of the movie when Priyanka was interviewed by Kittu Gidwani for the modeling assignment.

Kittu Gidwani - You have come to become a model? (Model banne aaye ho?)
Priyanka - No, Supermodel (nahin, Supermodel)
Kittu Gidwani - I like your confidence

Just picture this scene -
a senior guy from top IT company interviewing a fresher for an IT job (don't ask questions about why IT company, arre bhai! aajkal aur kaun recruit kar raha hai IT companies ke alawa?)

Interviewer - Consultant banne aaye ho? (You have come here for a consultant post?)
Interviewee - Nahin, CEO (No, CEO)
Interviewer - Oh! I like your confidence (but for the time being you can go to hell, assho**)

Maybe Madhur wants to be a little realistic here and he might be sending the message across is that all that works in the modeling industry is a combination of nice figure and a history or at-least a promise of zero brain activity (I wonder why blonds are not the obvious choice then).

The movie goes on to strengthen the first morale that a woman is nothing without a man. First a struggling female model needs a handsome struggling male to tell her that she has only one option to find an apartment in Mumbai and that is by living in with someone. Then she will need another man to promote her and then another man to fall back on. If she does not succumb to demands then she is doomed. Comeon Mr. Bhandarkar what the hell you are thinking here.

Throughout the story, Madhur slowly keeps on building the second premise that "Kutte ki dum kabhi seedhi nahin hoti". Though Priyanka tries hard to keep Kangana away from drugs but in the end she dies of overdose proving that you believe it or not but you can't teach old dogs new tricks.

I don't understand from where Madhur picked this bit of his research. There have been quite a few wardrobe malfunctions in the recent past but still I have never heard of a model committing suicide for that.

The movie is an average attempt from Bhandarkar at realistic cinema and it actually deviates and look like a typical masala movie which teaches you the same old lessons.

So all you cute girls who are aspiring for a career in modeling, please watch this movie and convince yourself that your rightful place is in your hometown itself (if your hometown is Mumbai then god bless you) and all you cute girls who once aspired to become a model, you can console yourself by telling that thanks god! you never became one. I would like to repeat the most repeated dialogue from the movie for the movie. "Spare me the horror!"

Jokes apart as I have mentioned earlier, the movie is a good time pass flick. Better than some other movies running parallely.

* Image courtesy - http://www.GlamSham.com

Play some of the games that most of us have grown up with..

For the sake of old times.

Especially I have grown up playing Super Mario and Super Contra. Saw this cool widget and was experimenting with how to add this on my blog. Will come up with some solution soon but for the time being you all can play this here.



Enjoy. Live up a moment from your past or a day when you bunked school for playing Mario at the game parlour. The controls are - Up to Jump, Down to duck, Forward and Backward arrow for movement and Space bar for firing.

Gilchrist Sahab! Control!!

Update - I have heard that Pragyan Ojha and some local player have asked for more money from Deccan Chargers management this year and they are blaming Gilchrist for this. "Gilchrist ne to kuch socha nahin bas bol diya. Yaar wo to wicket ke peeche safe rahega and khaali peeli public Ande Tamataar boundary waalon ko maaregi. Gilchrist sahab socho yaar socho."


His confidence is marvelous. The news of his ascendancy to the captain's rank for Deccan Chargers will take some time to sink in that's why he is letting his mouth do the talk rather than his bat. "Kyon naa ho bhai, Laxman ko uske home ground me peet diya". I only think that he should have been a little bit more careful in the timing of the comment because it's still time that the news will sink in with the Indian fans and IPL is still a bit far away. 6 months is a long time and it might be time that Deccan Chargers (new owners) decide to let Gillie go. It's so easy to find a substitute these days. Well, that's about the consequences if the matter is allowed to let go off the roof but I have heard that the damage control has started from Gilchrist's end.

The MonkeyGate is still fresh in the minds of the Australian cricketers and they just lash out at Bhajji at the first opportunity. Bhajji might have proved himself a spoilt brat and the Australian can sharpen their daggers for him but man Gillie have picked the wrong guy. Sachin is not an idol just because he is a legendary batsmen but also because he is among the best sportsman we had seen on the field in our living memory and perhaps is the player with most number of controversial decisions going against him. MonkeyGate episode brought exposed the Australian cricket from both inside and outside. Even some very die hard patriotic Australian cricket fans pointed their finger against the punter and his team. Gilchrist was no exception because despite of you walking before the umpire raises his finger, you still have to share the same dressing room with some very very dishonest man who feel that they play cricket tough and smart and worse is that they think their approach is right.

MonkeyGate exposed the financial weakness of Australian cricket and reinforced the belief that take India out of world cricket scene and nothing is left to think about. Gone are the days when a certain Australian cricketer can just sledge a Indian cricketer and get away. Gilchrist even can't. Things have really changed but the publicity agents or the book agents still like to believe that writing something controversial about some Indian cricketer might prop up the book sales by a notch. A certain Flintoff might have wrote a chapter against Ganguly and escaped but, then those were really the bad times for Ganguly. Sachin is different.

During MonkeyGate episode Sachin didn't stand up for Harbhajan alone. He stood for the belief that Harbhajan was not the first one to start an argument. He stood for the common belief of an Indian that whatever Harbhajan said was not meant to be a racist comment and he stood for the belief that Australians throughout are getting their way out easily and someone has to stand for a cause. Sachin represented the belief of an Indian that Cricket is bigger than Andrew Symonds or Australia and he stood for the fact that someone has to deliver the knockout punch to Australians in their backyard. What happened next is history. India beat Australia in the next test humiliated them in the one dayers. Billion of Indians still think that we won that test series by 2-1 or at best is that we gifted them a victory in the controversial test because a 'punter' captain and his 'pup' deputy were willing to stake their dignity in front of camera for a victory.

Given the importance of that test series there could be many reasons why Gilchrist decided to paint a different picture of the episode. It could be economical as Indian cricketers doesn't need a book deal to earn financial security. It could also be on the advice of the book publishers who might be worried about the numbers and think that this is the only way to enter the market of 1 billion cricket crazy people. It might be personal also as that was the last series of Gilchrist and he was humiliated both in the test and one dayers by the Indian team. (His scores totaled 151 in 7 innings in teh test and 9 in the two finals that Australia lost.)

Behind the scenes - (A sneak peek into what might have happened behind the scenes)

Deccan Charger management have called him and advised him to keep control. "Arre Gilchrist saab thoda to control karo yaar! Hyderabadi public abhi pichle year ka haal nahin bhuli nahin, ab isse pahle ki log pichle saal ke ticket ka paisa wapas maangne lage uske pahle tum bhaiya maafi maang lo. Ye Sahin Tendulkar hai mamu. Waise bhi we are planning to sell a stake in out franchise and kahin aisa naa ho ki Sachin becomes your master by buying a stake. Pahle socho phir bolo bhaiya.

If stock Market Reaches 1000, How will India get affected?

Today there was a question posted on our bulletin board that if the stock market bottoms down to 1000 then how does the country "India" gets affected?

Well, in most simple terms the answer is that when people were predicting that market will reach 40000 (just last year around this time) they were doing that because our government was basking in the glory of a 8% GDP growth. FIIs were proud to invest in India and apart from Saas (not the Software as a Service but the mother in law) and Bahu, slowly sensex also caught the imagination of every Indian. Nobody wanted to miss the northbound train actually.

Banks churned out funds after funds, companies making break and gears also diversified into mutual funds. It was so easy those days. You want to start a company and have no money? Great, take a loan, pool in some money from your side, find a venture capital and then bring an IPO after 3 years. The venture capitalist will be out with his share of pie and poor investors like you and me who are so damn excited to become a part of this growth story will be sucked in.

You want to buy a car? Wait, buy Reliance Capital, hold it for 6 months and the money will double and you can buy a better car. Why you are wasting the money on insurance man? Put them into a ULIP and just watch them grow. Need a house? Buy it now because the price is going to go off the roof. See, Mr Sarma bought a duplex for 25 lakhs in Gachibowli (30 kms from Hyderabad railway station and 40 kms from the proposed airport) 4 years ago and he is already asking 1 crore for that. Comeon! what are you thinking? The interest rates are also 7% only on housing loan and you get tax benefit extra.

Okay okay but taking a loan is not an option. So I will sell the stocks that I got as stock options. It has already multiplied like 40 times. Well, so you sell those stocks and buy that dream house/car of yours. Great isn't it? Everything is perfect. You work in a company which has brought it's IPO some five years back and made so much money that it can keep a bench strength bigger than some of the biggest companies we have heard of. You feel that all your dreams will come true some day. The market will reach 40000 and you will sell all your stocks to buy a sea side villa and will spend your day fishing and blogging. Well, that is just not going to happen now. It was so easy to do things. But then it is the beginning of difficult times now.

When things were good there was optimism everywhere. People had hope and they were willing to take risk. House prices went off the roof really. For each Munna having 20 lakhs maximum to buy a house there were several Pappus who didn't mind shelling out a couple of lakhs more and were even willing to make a down payment of more than 25%. "Kyon naa ho bhai, onsite jao aur paise le kar aao" was the mantra. Well stock market gave "wings" to "ambitions" to broadly two kind of people. Those who had the guts went on their entrepreneurial mission thinking that raising money won't be a challenge and those who had money and thought that there will be no dearth of opportunities for multiplying their wealth. Both these kinds feed into each other's ambition. Market was just a medium. It was easy to raise money abroad and at the end of the day FIIs were always there to invest. Roads, Ports, Airports, Airlines, Buildings, Malls, Sezs were all fueling the story of growth and development. Company borrowed more and more, people consumed more and more but then suddenly the money dried up.

The banks are not willing to lend, people are not willing to invest, those who have invested are pulling out their money in fear, those who have made losses will cut down their expenses. Those who had plans to fly tomorrow are suddenly thinking ki "chalo bas 24 hours hee to lagte hain train mein" and suddenly Sleeper Class feels more comfortable than the AC III tier ("suffocation jaisa lagta hai yaar, saari windows closed hoti hain").

Well, what will be the ultimate result? Honestly I don't know and I can tell you that nobody knows with certainty. All I can speculate is that the shopping mall which was being built on the main road to office might get delayed now (there is no construction activity around). Some of my friends who have bought flats might get their possession late. The metro project might also get delayed. You might not be able to withdraw money from ATMs other than the bank where you have your account. You might not see the charming girl living next door after one month (she worked in Jet Airways). Expansion plan of your company might be put on hold. You yourself will start feeling that suddenly you are using geyser too often and you should save on electricity bill. Carpooling is an eco friendly thing and blah blah blah. The moral is that stock market does not exist in isolation. The mall where you shop and the brand which you shop are all dependent on the stock market in one way or another.

Everything is connected.

Behind the scenes of "Hello"

Watching a movie on it's first Fridays is no more a luxury given the full time status of my job (and well as half of them didn't even survive their first week) so have thought of writing a Behind the scenes post. And that way I might even be able to use a little bit of creativity as well (otherwise most of the reviews are almost the same phir chahe wo Masand Sahab hon ya Raja Sen).

Anyways, this weekend I took the liberty to watch "Hello" in PVR where 80% of the seats were empty. That too in Mayanagari Mumbai on a Saturday evening show. Great! Now even if the producers claim ki "2 weeks mein 40 crores kamaya" then just understand that woh audience ko "KIDNAP" kar ke laa rahe hain theaters mein. (For those who didn't get the pun, I recently saw one ad that Kidnap has earned 40 crores by the end of second week, hahahaha kya majaak hai bhai)

Behind the Scene(s):

------------------------------------
Saaman, Aghaaz, Solaill and Atul all on a conference call with Ketan Bhagat.

Sallu bhai - Bhai Ketan, apan ek movie banana chah rahe hain wo tumhari book hai naa "One night stand bolke" us par?

Ketan - Arre sir, I can't believe ki aapne bhi mera novel "One night @ call center" padha. I can't believe this.

Aghaaz - Arre Ketan bro tune apne bhai ko anpadh ganwar samjhela hai kya? Apna bhai ka novels me full interest hai.

Ketan - Oh No sir, you are taking me wrong. This is my dream come true sir. I use to dream about making movies even in IIT. Sir, meri to saari stories hee filmin rahti hai. You won't find any reality in that sacchi!. It's all about Masala. I think you'll give me the chance to write screenplay as well.

Sallu bhai - Yeah, Yeah, woh sab to tuhi likhega, the only thing is ki apne bhai kaa naam aana chahiye tumhare saath mein as a screenplay writer.

Chetan - Which Bhai? That big brother from Dubai?

Solail - Arre yaar, fansayega kya, phone hai bhai and waise akal to tere mein kam hee hai (whispers to his brothers - teri books padh ke pata chalta hai) but anyways Atul Bhai ki baat ho rahi hai. Resume kuch kamzor ho gaya hai bhai ka, wo kaafi dinon se koi film nahin mili (chali) naa. So, bhai ka resume strong banana hai.

Ketan - Okay okay brother in law. Fine with me. I will still get the credit right? Let's do it.
-----------------

Another conference call

Atul - Bhai I have never seen a call center from inside. Do you think we should do our home work and visit some call center to see how things work?

Sallu - Bhai hamne nahin dekha to kaun sa pure India ne call center dekha hai. Whatever you want to show just do it. Whatever we will show waise hee ho jaiyega. Karan Jauhar ko dekho bhai middle class family ko bhi helicopter mein bitha ke ghoomata hai apni movies mein.

Atul - How many people normally work in the call center at a particular time?

Sallu - How many stars are there in our movie? Arre yaar! it's no use showing more people than the number of our main characters. How does it matter? People are coming to watch a movie and not a call center.

Atul - Okay okay one last question bhai. What is a computer Virus?

Sallu - Bhai you don't even know this. How dumb you are. Anyways ask Ketan. He will give you the correct answer.
---------------------------------------------

Once they were done with screenplay the shooting started. I think there was a lot of pressure from Salman Khan for a guest appearance and aajkal Salman akele to kahin jaate nahin (I am not talking about his bodyguards) so katrina also got a guest appearance.

Atul - Saalu! (he has the right to pronounce Saaman Khan as Saalu and not Sallu) yaar tera woh simple guest appearance where the girl narrates the story to you is not looking good. What do you say?

Sallu - Yeah you are right. What the hell you people are thinking? You don't have any item songs planned for me?

Atul - Yeah yaar, we have a item song but that would look nice in a female voice (Bang bang bang, zamana bole) and Ketan is saying that bhabhi jaan will be good in that. Waise bhi she is the best pole dancer I have ever known.

Sallu - Arre yaar, you people are just too much. Look, fit me somewhere in that song. Waise bhi Shahrukh is doing item numbers only these days and jab Amitabh sir item number kar sakte hain to hum kyon nahin? So I will take it and Bhabhi ki jarurat nahin hai. I can do something that she even can't.

Atul - what?

Sallu - Arre jiju, all these years of inactivity has made you dumb. I can even dance topless idiot.

So that resulted in a half baked song which makes you feel like you should have reached the theater half an hour late. Man! how many times you reach the theater late and not feel guilty for that?

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

Atul and Ketan brainstorming on the ideas -

Ketan - Sir, the movie is short of two hours. Atleast make it two hour movie.

Atul - Okay, I have an idea. We will show the titles and credits for 10 mins. Waise bhi, people take time in settling down in the theater.

Ketan - Whatever you say. You are my "mai baap".

And in low tone he whispered, you dumb I have already got another movie deal and thanks god! it's Amir Khan this time.

So here it is. A movie in which hardly six people work at a time in the call center. The cafeteria is always empty but next moment you see hundreds of agents popping up from neighborhood to attend a conference, call volumes suddenly increase with hoax calls from the agents (to hell with regulations and ethics). Well, anyways the purpose of the movie is achieved from the crew's end.

Salman gets to remove his shirt.
Amrita gets 10 minutes of Camera.
Sohail his chance to play the best role and the luxury to spoil it
Atul and Chetan gets a couple of lines in their resume each.

Well, looking from this point of view, the movie is atleast 50% successful, Isn't it?

Capitalist World teaching lessons in Communism..

The last few weeks have been really disastrous for the financial markets world over. The dust has still not cleared and the primary reason is that when everybody thinks that the worst is over suddenly the worse happens. Every other week a new institution is adding to the stockpile of the debris. Much like the bomb blasts in India these days. When you think that this was the last as police has solved the case, it shocks you again. In Delhi even the debris of the last blast was not cleared properly when terror struck the city again.

Well, coming back to the financial markets, first Bear Sterns failed. Everybody knew that something is seriously wrong with the system but companies were employing good methods to hide the storm inside their account books. The stock market world over reacted to the news driving the wealth of the equity holders down by many percentage points. Very people were able to understand that why when Bear Sterns fails in US, the stock of Reliance Enery goes down in India? Anyways, I can't understand that even now but one thing that I can see is the capitalist world is perhaps teaching some lessons in communism to the world. The supporters of free market are trying to find excuses to cover their theory and the governments who funded fight against communism for more than 4 decades are wisening up to the thought that somewhere something went wrong.  

Bear Sterns was bailed out and has to go for a fire sale price of around 10% of its original value. Lehman Brothers, Fannie and Freddy, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Washington Mutual, Northern Rock etc etc. They all fell prey to one single crisis and except Lehman all others have to enter into an agreement with the government. Just today the news came about Bradford and Wingley and of Wachovia bank. Bradford will most probably be resuced while Wachovia for the time being is on its own to find a buyer who could assume its debt. These were some of the institutions which have spearheaded the financial sector reforms and their failure actually casts a spell of doubt on the efficiency of those reforms. 

Well, the unified message coming out of this crisis is that one country single handedly brought the world's economy on its knees. Some of the American financial institutions are breathing their last and news have started coming from British institution. Bradford and Wengley is the current victim and hopefully within a couple of week many more companies are going to announce the quantum of losses. Over reliance on USA have pulled many economies into this crisis and it's just a matter of time when the government across the world have to go shopping for companies. 

Someone must be smiling even during this bloodbath. I wonder if it's Karl Marx up there. 

5 Cities in 5 Months - Is it so easy to bomb a city in India?

Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat and now Delhi, five months and five different cities. One thing which is common in all the blasts is the ease of execution. People just come on bicycle, scooter, bikes, cars, etc. They park it somewhere and it simply explodes. After months and years of beating around the bush our intelligence machinery and police department comes with interesting inputs about how the scooter/car was stolen from ABC place, how the cycle was bought from ABC shop and what was the explosive used (which is predominantly RDX). I remember that the investigation report of Mumbai serial blast contained a detailed report on the pressure cookers as the bombs were sealed in the pressure cookers and were kept in the train compartments. Police traced the make of the pressure cooker, the distributor and then they were wondering that out of the 8 pressure cooker purchased, only 7 exploded and they have no details about the eighth one. (May be the guy who was given the responsibility to plant the last one might have threw the bomb in the sewer and decided to run away with the pressure cooker. What a steal. On being quizzed about the suspects, the police was double sure that they have crossed the border. In Ahmedabad police was actually looking for the old cycle sellers because the bombs were left on the carriers of the bicycles.

Well, nothing much happened in Jaipur blast case, Bangalore blasts didn’t hurt many people so no body took it seriously and then Ahmedabad happened. There is something special about Gujrat these days. Camera and press follows Narendra Modi like they are waiting for him to err so that they can simply pounce on him but somehow this leader never fails to inspire. Suddenly bombs starting popping out of every gutter and sewerage of Surat. They were found hanging like guavas on trees and a possible disaster was averted due to the alertness of police. As usual they traced the stolen car, the various number plates and even made some arrests. And when everybody thought that “okay bad times are over and let’s start enjoying the shopping malls again” suddenly the terrorists decided to jolt the capital.

Great feeling it gives. Our honourable Prime minister tabled his statement against Mr Advani in lok sabha during the recent debate and was seen flashing the sign of victory in front of camera (so uncommon of him but anyways). One of the sentence was “How can a country forgive a home minister who was sleeping when terrorist was knocking at the doors of Lok Sabha?” I guess he should do some introspection now. I don’t know another era in Indian history when so many bombs exploded in so little time. How come he or his home minister will be forgiven by the people of the country? 

It seems that terrorists are striking at their will. I sometime wonder that how easy it has become to terrify people and how easy it has become to pacify them by making a statement like “We all need to stay united at this hour of need”. People forget easily and this Delhi blast will also be forgotten. Not much water has gone under the bridge since Ahmedabad blast but then it seems that terrorist are not afraid of the law and order, they aren’t even afraid of the police machinery and well why not? Government is afraid of taking a decision on Afzal’s hanging because of some political reasons, they are against POTA or any law parallel to that and some of the stake holders in the government even support organizations like SIMI.

It seems that there are people who think they are capable of doing anything, anywhere and anytime. They don't even spare a holy month of Ramadan. The failure of our machinery and lack of commitment to fight terrorism is acting as a booster to that will. Well, as the bomb blasts are slowly becoming a part of our subconscious (aaj yanha fata kal wanha fatega) I guess soon the security people stationed in front of important buildings will get back to their regular routing of chatting with each other while the metal detector keeps beeping. Nobody cares if somebody comes with a bag full of explosives and decides to explode some place in any city. If the big cities are not safe then imagine about the small towns. Perhaps terrorist are not targetting small towns because it looks less glamorous.

Image is copied from the http://www.bbc.co.uk .

I am Back.. Finally..

Before leaving for Hyderabad (for my job) I speculated "if I would be allowed to blog @ my new job?" Well, I am not. So that's one reason for the delay. Another reason being the new schedule. In a way I am allowed to blog but only on the company's own website (moderation issues and all that) so I choose to rather wait and wait and wait.

So I am finally in Hyderabad, settled in my new house (a rented one) and am happy that now I can blog courtesy my Reliance Broadnet conncetion (however slow it is, it is still good enough to post blogs). I was promised an unlimited 300 Kbps however it comes out that it's not Kilo Byte Per Second but rather Kilo Bits Per Second and the difference is it's 8 times slower than the promised connection. Reliance is good at making money and see they even fooled a guy having computer engineering background. Well, initially the sales person promised full download speed but the maximum I got was around 30 Kbps so finally I asked about my plan. He simply told me to divide the maximum speed by 8. On futher enquiry he told me that "Sir, this is the way, you always divide the maximum speed by 8". His emphasis was on the number 8 and then finally it clicked that okay so it' s the difference between bits and bytes.

Anyways, I am not in mood to change connection because first, it's really difficult to get one and secondly Airtel and Sify are equally non-reliable so it's fine. I'll stick to it for some more time. It seems that lots of things demands my attention and I am failing miserably in time management. Will be back soon this time.

Why Charu?

The news came out yesterday that Charu Sharma was sacked by the Bangalore Franchisee from the CEO post of the Royal Challenger team. I am not sure whose decision it was to make him the CEO? Had it been Vijay Mallya then going by his records (tastes) Mandira Bedi should have been put ahead of Charu. So you see, sacking Charu is not a mistake but a correction.

Rumours are there that Katrina Kaif has to shoulder the extra responsibility for the time being as Mandira Bedi is busy with her anchoring commitments. Meanwhile the franchisee is also thinking about tying the compensation of cheer leaders to the number of boundaries hit and wickets taken by the Bangalore team. It's largely being felt that they are being paid for nothing till now. Well, the cheer girls have been spotted in one of the famous temple last day praying for the team. In these dire circumstances thankfully Bangalore has someone to pray for them because the fans are better off wasting money on Royal Challenge rather than wasting time and money on Royal Challengers. At-least it saves the time.

Updates...

One reason for my prolonged absence from blogging scene was the lack of internet access at my home and the scorching summer heat killed the will to walk to the nearest cyber cafe. To top it off, I got a bad form of corn in my foot where the corn caps proved to be useless (they are useless anyway). So I got operated on 8th of April and it was so bad that even after one month there is a hint of limping in my walk.

My Job - I am joining as Associate Consultant in the Enterprise Solution (ES) unit of Infosys at Hyderabad on 12th May. There will be a 2 months training program after which I will be relocated to my base location. (A lot of traveling indeed) I don't know whether Infy allows me to blog about my life at Infosys but hopefully I will try to keep the flame alive.

Have a lot of posts due and I am dying to write one on my experience with the Indian Railways. Will pen down it soon.

Thanks readers..

A big thank you to all of you who have responded to my earlier post on the plight of the migrant workers in Maharashtra. Thanks for the comments and mails. The issue is growing out of proportion and even the Maharashtra government is not doing anything because this "son of the soil" is such a sensitive topic that nobody dares to speak against it. The saddening thing is that Maharashtra is not new to this kind of hate politics. The senior Thakrey started all this in 70s against the South Indians and now the junior Thakrey who is the self proclaimed successor of the Thakrey legacy is targeting north Indians now.

Anyways the good thing is that even after the extended hate campaign of 70s South Indians still continue to flourish in Maharashtra so the same thing will happen this time. Another good thing is that the government in Bihar and Bengal are rising to the challenge. Traveling across Bihar I witnessed some change. Though it still has a long way to go but these baby steps will definitely add together to become the giant leap. I saw roads being repaired, new roads being built, Bhojpuri film industry flourishing (well this thing really has a long way to go before they get wider group of audience, they are still very vulgar) and education sector being liberalized. Fitting it all together, there will be increased job creation and opportunities for the students of Bihar (among the most talented in India) to study in their home state. A rough estimate shows that the state looses around 8000 crores every year that the Bihari students spends outside. Add this with the fees revenue going out to substandard educational institutes in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and you see what kind of opportunity is there.

Well, the hate campaign is likely to continue till the elections and if the Thakrey looses it then it might escalate also with addition of some more states. The will to fight is lacking in the government and they have to pay the price in one form or another. No wonder big corporates might come into picture sooner or later.

Love them or Hate them: But You need Them..

A migrant worker (img courtesy BBC)

When management guru C. K. Prahlad wrote the famous book “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” he had the millions of poor living across the world in his mind. This came almost at the time when India was waking up to the opportunities available around the world and the benefits of having a large population hungry for success. Soon we saw India becoming the back office of the world. Remittances from middle-east and other countries doubled and tripled in no time. Increasing number of call centers, IT offices, H1B visas and increase in remittances sent to India created demand for consumer goods, services, luxury goods and all these factors combined, propelled our economy into a higher growth orbit.

Before this period what was the identity of India across the world? In 1980s some of our doctors and engineers were considered just good enough to taxi in New York. All across Canada and US you could have found Indians working in grocery stores at gas stations, as lorry drivers and in all other menial jobs that you can imagine. They faced abuse, harassment and all other dirty things but still they kept their feet and head grounded and the only reason was that they have to send money back home. Every-one of them had dependent parents, unmarried sisters, siblings studying in colleges and they knew that if they rebel against the inhuman conditions, that will be like murdering the dreams of the people whom they loved and cared for. So they kept on ticking, and kept pushing themselves in the hope that things will change.

Things changed in the 90s. Our government woke up and liberalized certain policies. The money pumped back into the country created engineers, doctors, and managers who could redefine the word India and Indians. India was believed to be the land of snake charmers. The “hungry India poor India” image was beefed up with all those shots of people living in extreme poverty and the backward image was reinforced with news of riots, caste clashes and mob violence. People had an image in their mind but the question is that “Was the whole India poor or backward or illiterate at that time?” Weren’t there enough rich, civilized and intellectual people out there at the same time? Myself being an Indian know the answer to these questions and I actually laugh at those innocent remarks.

The point I want to drive is that the old image of India in the world is now of Bihar (and some parts of UP) in India. The question remains the same, are all the Biharis dirty, poor or illiterate? Add one more allegation “threat to a civilized culture” to it and it becomes a political agenda. Fifteen years ago India was the base of the world’s economic pyramid where it positioned itself as the cheap labour supplier and now it is the duty of states like UP and Bihar to supply labour to all the major industries. Will it be possible for Surat’s diamond industry to survive without migrant workers? I don’t think that Punjab will produce even half of the wheat that it produces now without the workers from Bihar and eastern UP. The same will happen to rice producing regions of Haryana. Who will work as the temporary workers in the construction sector (which is on boom now) for cheap? Without the cheap supply of labour would the balance sheet of these construction companies would look even half lucrative? Who will sell vegetables and fruits on the streets of Mumbai? Who will work as motor mechanics, tailors, coolies, carpenters, cycle rickshaw pullers, security guards and in many other unthinkable jobs without which our lives won’t look half as comfortable as of now?

Forget the menial jobs, how the numerous private engineering, medical and management institutions would survive in the absence of students from these states. Do a random survey and you’ll find that an average Bihari middle class family spends maximum part of it’s earnings on the education (an investment which will change everything) . In the absence of educational institutions in the state, where is this money going? The answer is: it’s going to cities like Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai etc. Can our society do away with Bihar and UP? Well some people can still afford to say yes but not before they make sure that all the minerals and other resources are loaded away.

It’s unfortunate that the past governments in Bihar and UP have not done enough for the people in those states but does that give us the moral right to humiliate those poor people and deprive them of their basic fundamental right to earn a living at a place of their choice? Why do we forget that 25% of our population resides in these 2 states and it’s the generosity of state like Bihar that all our industries are flourishing now (about 60% of all the mineral deposits were in Bihar and Jharkhand) add to it the human resource available and then you will see that these 3 states combined form the rock solid base of our economical eco system. Migrant workers from Bihar and UP have changed the colours of islands like Mauritius and Fiji.

It’s easy to target these poor people to gain political mileage because everybody knows that they can not struggle. Anybody whose main struggle is to manage the next meal, how come they could struggle against organized mob violence? Time never stands still. 15 years ago nobody gave India a chance but it happened. Today nobody gives Bihar and UP a chance but I know it will happen again. With 25% of population in their fold, they are capable of doing amazing things only if the government wake up and take positive steps to create an environment of growth. They just need to recognize their potential and we should not forget that they have the capability to slow the whole economy down or to speed it up. They form the base of our ecological system and if the base shaken you can just imagine what will happen to the edifice. It's just a matter of time.

Is your brand RED-e?

More and more brands are turning red these days by choice (luckily stock markets can't be held culprit for this).

Chennai is a colourful city and much of it is due to the tall and broad hoardings which runs on the sides of all the roads however wide or narrow they may be. These giant structures (or strictures) does not differentiate between roads and locality and are omnipresent across the city. However recently on a ride across one of the busiest roads (which is also blessed with lots of hoardings) I noticed an interesting pattern among the various brands which have come across the last one year. More and more brands are turning to colour Red. And to substantiate the statement, it all started with the Aditya Birla promoted brand of departmental stores 'MORE'. And when I started noticing, the whole gamut of brands appeared to have something red in them (it's another thing that most of them are also seeing red in stock market).

After the More stores, again what caught my attention is the posters of Arvind Mills promoted discount stores MegaMart which promises a 365 days sale. The posters covered like 2 kms stretch of the road near Guindy and announced the opening of the first big store in Chennai. It was again all Red.

Then I stumbled upon the Reliance Fresh outlets and noticed that how everything is designed on a Red theme. The boards, the refrigeration units, interiors and even the lighting casts a spell of red all around. I think Mukesh Ambani has a fascination with red colour because Vimal suitings which was re-launched last year had got a new look with Red colour all around. The new logo has a vibrant Red colour as the background. Walk down the road and there you'll get Subhiksha mobile stores teasing you with a prominent Red and little Blue on the display boards. It immediately reminds me of one of their competitors "The Mobile Store" which again has a red theme around their logo. Well, if you want to shop around then take some money out first. Walk into the Axis Bank ATM next door which again has a pleasingly Red (though looks more on the maroon side but will still qualify as close to Red) display board welcoming you to use the facility. Want to get a recharge coupon for your mobile? thousands of outlets are lined up one after another offering top up but well, Vodafone is also Red and to add to the agony, the colour Red also has to play a big part in their competitor's logo: Airtel.

I like red colour but what surprises me is that most of the brands that I noticed have come up in the past 12-18 months and they all have chosen Red as the base colour (or atleast one of the prominent colour) to design their brand themes. MegaMart, The Mobile Store, Subhiksha, Axis Bank, Reliance Fresh, Vimal and More are all new brands which have decided to take the Red Route. My engineering logic tells me that as the colour Red has the largest wavelength, it can be seen from a farther distance so most of the brands prefer to have some element of Red in it. It's not only the new brands old big wigs like HSBC, AirTel, Punjab National Bank has some elements of Red in their logo. But my intuition tells me that the choice of red has something more then mere engineering logic. May be the Red displays are cheaper than others or may be some astrologer or colour consultant out there is making lots of money. "Going Red by choice seems to be the new Mantra".

Have time to kill online?

Then read on....

Only last week I realized that I am a member of contests2win.com when they sent me a reminder that I haven't participated in any of their contests since long. I don't even remember becoming a member because there were too many sites of that genre which offers you little brownie points to do things that they want you to do. Yeah it's something similar to our mothers telling us to get grocery from the next store for the promise of a chocolate. So there was bargain for both of us. Mother has the convenience of not getting out of home and we are getting the chocolates. I am not very surprised to see that the same thing has become business model. There is just a little difference and this little difference was hyped to be a revolutionary concept. Though our parents use to reward us for fetching grocery or doing other chores (like getting a hair cut, completing home work, cleaning room etc) they never paid us to play video games or for that matter any other game. After all, ours is a society which is built on the principles of "पढोगे लीखोगे बनोगे नवाब, खेलोगे कूदोगे बनोगे खराब" (Simple translation is "just keep yourself immersed in books, you dare go out of home to play).

Our English administrators were really successful in driving the point home and boy-oh-boy, look how successful they were actually. Though the 1 billion population is not good enough to get even a single Olympic gold medal, every other day a son of soil starting an IT services company (back offices are easy to setup and start). The older generations can feel happy that what they sowed all these years, is bearing fruits now. Well, to come back to the point, for people like us who were emotionally attached to sports and whose teachers and tutors made it sure that they don't waste their time on useless things had no other resort than to turn to virtual world. I may not be right but what else can explain the cricket craziness of 1 billion people? Why is that every average Indian can advise Rahul Dravid as to how to hold the bat or how to hit Bret Lee over the top or for that matter how to rotate strike in one dayers? Most importantly it's the feeling of guilt in most of us that we lost some of our precious time reading books rather than getting dirty in the field.

Well, coming back to the business plan, we have seen some good websites coming up during the last couple of year like Zapak.com, contests2win.com etc etc. Their business model "we pay you to play games online or we pay you to have fun on the web". And a nation where sports grounds are best used for grazing cattle or hosting big fat weddings the only resort of the young, literate and computer savvy people like us is to indulge in computer gaming and as internet was becoming a hype so by the rule of association internet gaming became the buzzword. Was it a new concept before zapak or contests to win came on the scene? My answer is an emphatic 'No'. Yahoo had Yahoo gaming and Indiatimes use to give brownie points for even reading news on Times of India (well otherwise who will read Times of India online?). Well, Indian startups have made it an habit of picking up an idea existing in US or other markets and then repackaging and re branding it for Indian masses (not a bad idea in itself because I have also plans for doing this only). So online gaming came to India with a bang. Anil Ambani bought Zapak.com and there you go (comeon! if Anil Ambani believes in online gaming then you know this must have some potential).

What's in there for us?

Games like Sudoku is simply boring and are better to do offline. Other small games are simply time waste and have no real fun. Contests to win goes a step further and asks you simple questions (which any idiot can answer and if he/she doesn't then it's a warning signal that their IQ is less than 40 and their parents should take them to a doctor) which any one can easily google. The business model is based on the number of participants because the more people will participate, the more money the website will make and the less chances you have to win contests. I don't know what fun is there in answering questions like "Who married Aishwary Bachhan"? or "Who is the director of movie Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag"?. Well, I know the answers are not simple and many people will mistake Amitabh for Abhishek but who cares, I will get those 5 points on offer.

And how many points you need to redeem a 256 MB pen drive? A staggering 10000 points for a 100 Rs। thumb drive? Isn't it a cool reward? Well, ofcourse it's cool but not for a person like me who has to spend around 6 hours online attempting for all those stupid questions or games to get points (that too over an entire month) and have to pay the broadband bill at the end of the month. It's other thing if my father pays for it. So guess who is making money out of our stupidity. But well there are no brownie points for answering that question. So contests to win staff! be assured I understand your tricks. Now will you please stop spamming me?

Update about HDFC Bank fraud attempt..

The bank didn't even bother to reply me. May be they never thought that it was a serious attempt of fraud. Or the most likely scenario could be they didn't read my mail also. Great going and it feels so good to think that even in a responsible position, you can afford to be lazy.

Hariot Balmers of the world, are you reading this blog??

Read my post on net banking security threat

What goes up, it comes down..

This is the share price graph of a company named Krishna Filaments for the period 3rd Dec to 3rd March. Looks like a perfect normal curve and is an example of the sweet poetic justice of stock market.

In the past few months, some of the companies have got soaring valuations but then our Finance minister is making sure that no any investor earns money (only the speculators can). Well, I was keeping a watch on this company. The stock price was simply going off the roof and though I was trying daily to buy this stock since it was Rs. 7, I never got a chance as it use to get locked in the circuit the moment it opened. Within 6 weeks it went on to hit Rs 60 (multi bagger) and I decided not to buy as it seems overpriced. And then suddenly without any rhyme or reason it started coming down. I doubt that whether anybody was able to sell it because on the ride down, it was hitting lower circuits daily and normally you can't sell that time.

Well, that is about stock but it also confirms an age old fact that "What goes up, it comes down". You just have to wait for the right time and when it comes, it feels like a sweet poetic justice.

Security threats to your online banking account ....

And how to avoid a disaster --

Five days back, I got a mail with subject line saying -

"Update Your Hdfc NetBanking Account Otherwise it Will Get Blocked"

To any unsuspecting customer, this might sound like a warning message and they are tempted to read the mail which has come from http://www.hdfcbank.net. The mail has normally the following content:

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

Important Notice :

In the last few weeks, our Online Banking Security team has observed multiple logons on your Internet Banking Account, from different Blacklisted IP's, therefore been blocked, to prevent further unauthorized access for your safety. we have decided to put an extra verification process to ensure your identity and your Internet Banking Account Security.

Click on for your NetBanking Online Access.

http://www.hdfcbank.com/1/2/securityaccess/precaution/internet-banking/

Security Advisory,
HDFC Online Banking

*Important*
Please update your records on or before 48 hours, a failure to update your records will result in a temporary hold on your funds - it's one more way that HDFC makes your online banking experience better.

© HDFC Bank Ltd. All rights reserved
-------------------------------------

The mail opens with the term important notice and it goes on to explain that as HDFC always thinks for your betterment, they will go to any extent to save your customer information. It also instills a sense of fear that someone is trying to hack your account and thus you need to update your login details. A link is provided and to make things look serious they have also added the copyright symbol.

For most of the customers who have little time to go through these kind of mails and are very loyal to the bank and are not very net savvy, this might sound completely unsuspecting. And they might even go the link and update their login details. Having worked for long on auto-surfing sites and common phishing techniques, I knew what it was. (We tried the same technique to dupe some of our friends for their Yahoo passwords to win a challenge by the same method and that too some 6 years back). So, having sensed the motive of the person this time I ventured out to collect as much information as possible on the source of the mail and attacking site. I even provided HDFC bank the whereabout with full contact details (yes full contact details) of this person but I am not sure where they will take some action or not. Sometime I do feel that like our people, our institutions also are not very techno-savvy. Banks have adapted IT but more in a way to fulfill the existing norms.

The modus operandi and how to avoid it?

Most of these phishing mail contains a link which opens up the home page of the target website (your bank, email id, online trading account, etc). The next is that they'll ask you to log-on with your existing user details and once you sign in, it will again re-direct to the target website as if nothing has happened. Now, the trick is that the page sent to you is a replica of the home page of Hdfc bank (in this case) and the moment you enter your login details there, it send the detail to the email of the hacker. If you doesn't smell anything then by the time you'll make your next transaction, someone might have transferred all your money to some account overseas specially set up for these things.

The risk involved -

For the record, most of our bank companies allow fund transfers only between selected accounts so it's not possible to transfer funds to some unsolicited accounts. But wait, there are other elements to it like your credit card number. If you think that what if they get the card number? they still don't have the expiry date or CVV. Comeon! you are living in 2008 where the processors have speed of 3 Ghz. It takes hardly an hour to crack a 3 digit CVV code (do the maths, it's only 1000 combinations) and everybody knows that a credit card expires within 3-5 years so that gives only upto 60 combinations (12 months, 5 Years). So one hour and everything is gone. Even if the hacker can't take away everything, just imagine that if he/she tampers with your account and transfer all the money to some 2-3 accounts linked to your account or donate the money to let's say Prime Minister Relief Fund? It still mean a lot of trouble for you.

Role of Mr. Harriot Balmer and Kim Pouncy -

The chase finally lead to two names who shares the same phone number and address and are most likely to be the partners in the crime. The phishing link in the mail leads to a website http://thebestteam.org which is registered in the name of Mr Harriot Balmer and the registration details included a phone number and address. The number lookup revealed the owner's name as Kim Pouncy who is also a resident of Graham.

Address - Harriot Balmer, B. E. S. T, Street1: PO Box 742, Graham, Washington, 98338, US.
Contact Number - 253 - 847 - 0231
Number registered to - Kim Pouncy, 24604, 47th Ave E, Graham, WA - 98338

I updated HDFC bank's information security team with all the details I had but even after 24 hours, nobody has replied. I am wondering that how many people fell prey to this phishing attack by Balmer's and Kim's pair? Though I can't generalize it but quiet a few of the institutions in India won't be able to pass even simple online security tests. If nothing has happened till now then it's a proof of a simple fact that "GOD EXIST". But at the same time, it's also equally true that "God help those who help themselves".

Dreaming about a house? Forget it for the time being..

Where the property prices are headed? Sub-prime is a big worry in US now and the way Indian Real Estate sector is heating up, I see lot of people postponing their plans of buying a dream house. Who knows may be 5-6 years from now, you get them cheap but on the other hand who knows whether after 5 years you will be able to afford a 700 sq ft 1 bhk flat even in the suburbs?

Rajpura is a small sleepy town in Punjab about 30 kms from Ambala and 50 kms from Chandigarh. It was a quiet little town till 7-8 years back and then the real estate boom happened. My engineering college was around 150 kms from Ambala which was the closest railway station as not all trains stop at Rajpura. So to reach Patiala you have to get down at Ambala and take a bus from there. The highway is really nice and on the sides you can see the greenery that Punjab and Haryana are famous for. Along the wide spreads of greenery you can spot some Gurudwaras with a hint of gold on them (I think there are a couple of those on the way). The deductive logic tells you that the land is fertile and people are rich. Silently they also tell you the story of the thriving NRI community. If the gold on the dome of the gurudwaras are not enough, then the numerous Western Union Money Transfer outlets will complete the logic.

The land is fertile, people are rich and every other family has a NRI settled abroad sending dollars back home. What does all this mean? The answer or rather the question came to me in the form of advertisement of Parsvnath builders. I keep hearing about this company and have seen their hoardings all over the Delhi - Ambala highway a couple of years back. With utmost curiousity a visit to their website tells the other end of the story about the skyrocketing property prices. The city is just like another small town with not very sophisticated infrastructure. Some of the Express trains does not stop at the station and many buses from Ambala take the bypass route to Ludhiana or Chandigarh. The only distinction is that the city is very close to NH 1 which for most of the stretch running around Rajpura is a six lane super highway. But wait, the road which connects the city with this highway is a 2 lane, poorly maintained one.

Can you believe that a 4000 sq feet house can cost you 62 lakhs... Yes, 62 lakhs in Rajpura. The price tag may look a tad costly but the same size flat in Mohali or Chandigarh will require you to shell some 5-6 times more than that (3-4 Crores). Looks like a good bargain right? Let's try to draw some more comparisons. After recent crash in the housing prices in US, with this amount of money (4 Crores) you can buy a house built on half an acre of land with a beautiful kitchen garden and you will still be left with enough money to spend on beautification. The quality of life will ofcourse be better than any other city in our country. In fact in some of our metros, it's worse than a class II or class III town. The roads are congested, the streets are littered and there are all sorts of dangers lurking by. And the price that you are paying for is a house located around 20 kms from the closest suburb of Chandiagrh (which itself was a sleepy town some 10 years ago). Factor the rising petrol prices and you'll see that it's all a lot overpriced. (Of-course you won't if you have that much locked in some account waiting to be spent and you fall for the advertisement which promises you so many things)

Our economy is on a boom and people can afford to pay that much but what will happen if it slows down. I keep hearing that "consumption will drive our economy" but for how long? In simplistic sense to buy these kind of house, people have to borrow money. If the people are on the producer side, they will raise the prices of their produce, if they are on the consumer side they will reduce their consumption of other things. In both cases the consumption will drop. Everything boils down to demand and supply and as long as people keep snapping up these shiny villas even for sky high prices, builders will keep churning out projects like these. Bloggers like us can cry but nothing will happen and the question will remain a question that when will I be able to buy a thing like that with my own money?

These are surely changing times (Not only for Rajpura of-course) .