Dreamzzz, Desires n Desperation...

And the blogging starts again..

2010-02-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

छीनता हो स्वत्व कोई और तो, त्याग तप से काम ले वह पाप है
पुण्य है विछिन्न कर देना उसे बढ़ रहा तेरी तरफ जो हाथ है

I remember these lines from one of my favorite poet "Dinkar" who happened to be the national poet around the independence times. Profile Here He has primarily a history student who bursted on the national scene with his fire brand poetry and inspired millions to join/support the freedom movement.

Well, yesterday was reading the novel from Premchand, today I am reciting the poetry of Dinkar. I think something has gone horribly wrong inside. But well, hope the poet inside me, is trying to come out.

Most of my friends might not be knowing that I was very fond of Hindi literature. Anyways, this is an experiment. If I am able to publish Hindi and English together in this post, then probably soon I will be posting some of my poems here. It might give a new life to the poet inside me.

Oh Ok! some of you, who are still wondering why I chose the above lines! Well, the literal meaning is that "is somebody is taking your freedom away, don't hesitate in taking the extreme measures. That is all ethical".

Hope this time I clock in some more posts.

Two States - Story of My Marriage

2009-10-10T03:29:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading " Two States - Story of my marriage" and will post a review by tomorrow as it's like 'one fly' book with lots of masala. Well, this is about a Punjabi boy marrying a Tamil Girl and I hope that Chetan has used his humor well. On a lighter note, thanks god! he didn't write a book of a Marathi boy/girl marrying a North Indian boy/girl or else he also would have to say sorry to the owner of Bombay oops! it's Mumbai.

off to my reading.

The longest Journey of Rajdhani Express

2009-10-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

It took them around 84 hours or 3 and half days to reach Delhi from Bangalore. The train started from Bangalore on Thursday evening but reached Delhi only on Monday morning. More than 2000 passengers were stranded on Raichur station which is at the border of Andhra and Karnataka. The alertness of the local people and the railway staff helped avoid a disaster as the train was stopped on time. Later they found about 100 meters of railway track hanging in air as the wooden sleepers which holds the track together was washed away by the gushing water. This happened at 5 in the morning on Gandhi Jayanti. Else, it would have easily become a catastrophe for 2000 of the passengers who were deep in sleep.

Well, the train was brought back to the nearest station and then was stranded there for about 36 hours. It started moving only on Saturday evening and was diverted through a different route. Finally it reached Delhi today morning at around 6. Only 2 days late.

This could be a good movie subject but then only for foreign filmmakers. Well, Anurag Kashyap/Vishal Bhardwaj/Aamir Khan?.. are you listening??

Some links from the TimesofIndia hyderabad edition covering the train journey.

Link1 , Link2 , Link3 , Link4

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale

2009-10-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

Tum Chalo to Saara Hindustan Chale series - This was a part of Lead India Campaign of Times of India

I think it's Shankar Mahadevan's voice along with the voice of one of it's

kind Sukhwinder Singh (Sukhi).

Confirmed. It's Shankar Mahadevan, Sukhvinder Singh and the lyricist is

Gulzar. Nice initiative by Times of India. More about this here.

My name is "Johar"

2009-10-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Kya kya Johar dikha rahe hain? . When you are frisked in US you do nothing. When your friend is frisked, you see this an opportunity to promote your film (guess what? the film is centered on the same theme). You actually question the whole frisking business. You take it as your own insult and decide not to travel or minimize your travel to US. Well that is United States of America which at-least does not have double standards and are likely to follow the rule of law for one and all. Incidently, Bob Dylan was also arrested/frisked on the same day for charges of roaming suspiciously around. Link here to a media debate on the issue.

Well, it seems that the same Karan Johar can bend more than his back for an issue which concerns him. In one of most cowardly act displayed by a public figure in recent times is Karan Johar apologizing for using the word Bombay in his movie "Wake Up Sid". I don't know what explanation he has given but it's sure that there are people in our industry who has flexible moral standards. One day they are condemning one act, next day supporting the same. Watch the video and see how he is still confused between Bombay and Mumbai. But then, this is industry. Reminds me of the song from Hero No. 1 "Main tere pyar mein kya kya na bana meena, Kabhi bana kutta, kabhi kamina"

Video Embedded from "You Tube"

Updates..

2009-10-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

I surfed across some of the news channel for any news related to the train which is stranded since last 36 hours. And this is what I got. In the prime time news, one was showing conspiracy behind Sachin's food poisoning (they used the word poison some 70 times in 4 minutes). Well, gosh! I think they still haven't got the pathology report of what Sachin passed out the next morning.

The other channel was debating why Karan Johar apoligized to Raj Thakrey. It seems that Thakrey bhau is back into news and Karan Johar might have provided him the right podium after a long pause. Since 26/11 he was not getting much coverage. Karan Johar's timing is superb and his sense of humour is awesome. First, he tried to capitalize on "My Name is Khan" controversy and now he has given Raj bhau some priceless prime time coverage. The Channel found out that Raj Thakrey's daughter studies in Bombay Scottish School and was arguing that he should apologize to whole of Maharashtra that his daughter studies in a school which has Bombay word in it.

A third channel is showing that the restaurant where Sachin got his food poisoning is not the one which the other channel was showing. They went one step further and interviewed the manager who said that Dhoni, Pravin Kumar and some other stars have come but not Sachin. Great. point to be noted -

1) The first channel was claiming that it was Nehra, Dhoni and Bhajji. The second mentions about Praveen Kumar and Dhoni.

2) How come the restaurant manager remember Praveen Kumar? Hmmmmmm..

Next is what?

Ram Gopal Varma will visit the station where the train is stranded and will make a movie out of it. That movie will be watched only by Varma and his fans. (PJ warning - No fans at all, he as an AC now.)

Well, Ashutosh Gowariker might also decide to make a movie and it will be exactly 1/10th of the 36 hour ordeal. The title will be "3.6 hours Ordeal". The more the people in the train will suffer, so the people in the theater.

36 Hour Ordeal..

2009-10-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's really a tough task getting up at 5 in the morning on a national holiday, and for a lazy bug like me, it seems like an ordeal. While debating over the importance and obviously the rarity of occasion, finally I got up at around 6. I had to catch a train at 7:30 from Secunderabad railway station and it normally takes around an hour to reach there. So according to my calculation I started early.

I reached station at 7. Was happy at my achievement. Well, Lalu might take the credit for the turn-around of railway but it's almost a rarity to find trains running at time. Though Rajdhani has an entirely different perception in my mind, I still thought to do a casual enquiry as on which platform it will arrive. The enquiry clerk looked like in a foul mood. I don't know what it was? the time of the morning, the frustration of working on a national holiday or was it that his replacement did not arrive in time? Whatever it was he was shifting his pot belly from one angle to another on the chair with a "constipated look" on his face. Yeah! I know how it feels like working overtime on a night shift. Thanks to my IT employer.

Anyways, the train was 2 hours 30 minutes late. Bull shit! I asked again whether it will get further delayed so that I can cancel the ticket and get a full refund? Railway has this policy that if a train is running late for more than 3 hours then the passenger is entitled for a full refund. He gave me a weird look and again shifted his bottom to a different angle. "pata nahin" was his reply. I thought to shout at him but then I decided against my original thought. There is no way to find this out until you actually wait it out. I had this experience before, until the system updates the late running status, you will not get the refund. So, I thought to wait for the next 3 hours.

AC waiting room was full so I went to the sleeper class waiting room. Luckily I was able to find a laptop charging point. I was happy as I could watch a movie now. It was around 9. I looked at the LCD screen which was flashing the train running information and for a minute I was not able to find out Rajdhani Express in it. Well, after a minute it refreshed and now it was showing 4 hours late. My experience with Indian rail has been really good so this was one of those feel good moments. Your opinion is vindicated and there is no better thought that that. I told my friend that the train is not arriving any time before 3 pm and it's the typical railway's trick to give you a slow death. At 11 they will definitely make it 1 and so on. He laughed at my cynical comment. Well.

Now, the task was to cancel the ticket. Don't think it's as simple as that because it was an e-ticket. The only easy thing about e-ticket is to get one. Believe me, cancelling e-tickets can be really tricky. The rule states that we have to file a TDR (depository receipt) and the process is available online. However it's more like you can file the TDR tomorrow. For a moment I thought that today's train might come tomorrow only so that I can file the TDR receipt properly. Well I came back home and cancelled my trip. Will go some other time.

At home, I thought to inquire why exactly the Rajdhani express is delayed. A train of that importance should find a mention in the news. After all, champions league is over and the channels are again news deprived. There was nothing on it, till I found this piece of news on web. Andhra and Karnataka have seen some heavy rainfalls in the last two days and it seems that the route along which this train runs (Bangalore - Secunderabad - Delhi) is heavily affected by rains. This has affected the train service in this area and logically most of the trains are running late. As simple as that. I was wondering why Railways could not provide this simple information to the passengers? (Sounds like a good consulting opportunity for the top 5 IT companies).

So now the question was where is Rajdhani and how late it is?

See the answer for yourself. It's only 36 hours late till now :) with the possibility of getting further delayed :(. The most logical reason is that it's stuck somewhere in the flood hit area and will be there for at-least for the next 36 hours. I hope it's stationed at some railway station so that all the passengers can be evacuated if needed. Was not able to confirm as the train running information is inconclusive as where exactly the train is.

Hope the passengers are safe and their ordeal ends as soon as possible.

Force India finished forth..

2009-09-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Call it sports illiteracy or call it pure negligence or may be like Government of India our journalist fraternity also think that Formula1 is not a sport. Otherwise Adrian Sutil's achievement today in a Force India - Mercedes car would not have gone unnoticed for almost two hours. That too when just a week back news papers had a full page coverage on the achievement of Fishichella in the same car.

Well, just over two hours back Adrian Sutil drove his Force India Mercedes to fourth position (partly helped my Hamilton) and collected some points for his team. Call it a sweet poetic justice as Fishichella who was driving his dream Ferrari finished 9th. The year is turning out be good for Vijay Mallya. First Royal Challengers finished second in the IPL II and now his team has collected points in back to back races. Just sometime back he set a target of 2010 for the first podium finish but then Fishichella drove a brilliant race and finished second. As many people were speculating, Fishichella joined Ferrari as a substitute driver and Vijay Mallya agreed to release him (don't know whether money changed hands or not). The last two races have been really great for Force India and all the credit should go to Mallya for giving a moment of sporting glory to the believers.

Anways, GOI (Govt of India) doesn't like to call it a sports because right now they are busy talking about austerity or things like that. So going by their definition Formula1 is not a sport and that's why they rejected a request from JFSK (JFSK is promoting F1 in India). Okay fine, it's not a sport then why it's a problem that a proviate company wants to organize a racing event in the country? Anyways lets leave this debate here. So those of you who 'celebrate with Kingfisher', I think Sutil has just given you a chance to 'celebrate for Kingfisher'. Enjoy.

Amir and Deepika Playing Badminton

2009-08-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I know this is stale. But, given your busy lives I think you might not have checked this out.

Aamir does take things seriously. See the way he is moving in the court and that too against likes of Prakash Padukone and Aparna Popat. Got this news from Aaamir's blog which I was visiting after a long long time (given my busy life as well).

Got really bad news about Aamir and Kiran loosing their child. Despite of all the money and medical advice they were unable to prevent the miscarriage. Incidents like these do make you believe in the presence of some supreme power who has a script ready for all of us. On that note, well, it's the beginning of Ganesh Chaturthi as well as the holy month of Ramzaan today. For the next one month Hyderabad will be abuzz with festivities.

God bless Aamir and his family and hope they come out of their grief soon. And god bless you all. Hope no grief could ever touch you.

The GAS War Intensifies..

2009-08-20T03:49:00.000-07:00

The GAS war has intensified as Government has set up a panel to discuss the issue. With each new advertisement, ADAG is digging deeper into their allegations and some of these are serious allegations like Corruption, Hoarding, Profiteering, Creating Artificial Scarcity etc. The point is that had ADAG not believed into the evidence that they have, they might not have spitted the venom out in the press. Clearly, they want a public debate more than a judicial debate.

This advertisement blitzkrieg by ADAG has raised eyebrows across the political and corporate circle. But now the debate has turned towards petty issues like whether the supreme court will take cognizance of this or whether the judiciary will completely ignore this and hear the case based on the pure facts and evidences brought in the court? I don't think anybody is discussing the more potent issue of corruption.

The media is debating the morality of this campaign. I think that the main purpose of this ad is to elicit a response from the two parties. Government and RIL. Ministry has to come out clear and RIL too have to take a stand.

We have so many reference points to decide about the price of the gas. Petroleum ministry has approved a price of 4.20$ for reasons unknown. DGH has earlier said that the cost of production is only 1.28$ per unit. That gives RIL a neat 300% margin. (--What's the problem with that? Indian gas is no more cheap boy! And also we are in habit of selling the national assets cheap. Did you forget the 2G auction? More on that here)

ADAG claims that the capex was inflated which would obviously inflate the cost of production. This inflated capex will result in loss of revenue for the govt. (--Are you talking about inflation? well who is worried about that? )

DGH or Director General of Hydrocarbons claims that their figure were validated by a third party Source Here . ADAG claims that this third property has conflict of interest with RIL Source here. Back to square one.

NTPC first decided to take RIL into court for the gas supply agreement that they signed some time back. Later they backtracked and it seems that a group of senior employees are content with the new prices decided by petroleum ministry. What's the reason? "Upar se order hai bhai".

Well, the debate has started and will continue till 1st of September when the apex court will decide on the fate of the shareholders of the two group. But till then, I think enough water will go down under the bridge. Just brace for RIL not to start offensive against ADAG group companies like ADLABS, RNRL and Reliance Communication.

Want some mirch masala on this issue? It's here.

IT IS ALL ABOUT GAS..

2009-08-18T03:36:00.000-07:00

The 'Gas war' has started. The younger brother has sounded the war cry and has drawn the first blood with a blitzkrieg ad campaign which left the corporate circles abuzz with gas all around.

Corporate India woke up after a long weekend with this news piece on the front page of leading national dailies. Media was buzzing with discussions centered around this ad campaign. Rumors are that the spend is in millions of dollars which means, that there are more questions on this.

So it's sure that this 'War for Gas' will continue for sometime. We will see some counter ads because everybody knows that the Anil Ambani Group is also not the 'Sadhu' one. RIL also might be having some tricks up their sleeves. Anyways, it's hardly a coincidence that the person who was behind the 10 questions a day campaign against Rajiv Gandhi (Bofors Deal) might be the brain behind this Ad campaign as well. And that is Ram Jethmalani. I tried to do a search on his famous 10 questions but was not able to get anything as Indian Express Archives are available from 1997 only and the incident happened in 1989.

The stakes are high, the daggers are out, brethren is vouching for blood and gas and well, media will do all the 'gassing around' for the next few days. This will be an interesting 'war of gas'.

Top 60 Engineering Colleges in India..

2009-08-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are so many university and college rankings available these days that nobody bothers about them anymore. What’s in the ranking dear? You will always have one to justify your decision. What’s more? You can have a customized ranking tailored made for your institute if you buy the right ad package.

Anyways, it’s more like 18 years since the first wave of privatization hit the country but still you will find IIT’s and IIM’s, Xaviers, LSR, Loyola, Presidency topping the chart. Partly, because they are senior citizens of the education industry respected by one and all. And partly because having these big names on the list adds to its authenticity. So, it’s better to have them there for the first few slots and then cleverly capture the “first best available slot”. I think soon we will have packages marketed like this -

A - If you spend this much then we might think of giving you fifth position?

B – But how? We have six institutes already who should figure in the list to make it look authentic?

A – Oh like that! Then we will give you the seventh position. We also have a package for ranking your competitors. If you are willing to spend this much then we can lower their ranks as well.

Anyways, the economics of ranking is something which does not come under right to information or you would have case studies on that.

Anyways, I stumbled on this piece of article in my favorite online news paper which aroused my curiosity. The authors have tried to rank all the institutes based on a common parameter. What makes this ranking different is that the data is available in public domain and is purely objective. Though it’s the only parameter chosen but still is in a better position to tell the tale about the state of engineering institutes in India.

And if you are wondering why suddenly out of blue I am posting this article on my blog. Then well, I went to the engineering school listed at 23rd position. Good to see that they have got the name and the place right.

A good start to the Extravaganza called IPL.

2009-04-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

What a day of cricket it has been? IPL really has changed the cricket otherwise who would have expected to see two great cricketing brains (Shilpa Shetty and Mandira Bedi (Pun intended!)) analyzing the performance of the likes of Dravid and Warne? After India's and Pakistan's first round exit at the last world cup anything is believable but then certainly nobody would have believed that Rajasthan Royals would be routed for the lowest total ever in the IPL and that too by Royal Challengers who finished just before the last team in the previous edition.

I am sure that the organizers would gloat about the presence of Hollywood stars as well but then, this was the day of extra-ordinary cricket by the two teams, who were at the fifth and seventh position last year. And man! What else could be better for a fan of classic test cricket than to watch Rahul Dravid hitting one of the biggest sixes of the match? Nothing could delight me more than watching a retired cricketer like Anil Kumble taking five wickets in four overs. Nothing could be more beautiful than watching a vintage Shane Warne still moving the ball at his will. Still capable of drawing the batsmen forward into the drive and then turning the ball to clip the top of the leg stump. It’s really an eye candy to watch Shane chit chatting with the likes of Praveen Kumar and then our ‘desi’ boy clubbing him over the top for a six. The format might have changed but then the spirit has not and that’s really good for the cricket.

It was a really incredible day for Indian cricket and well this is something for which IPL can take credit. I mean! this is a format, where you can see a certainly young Dhoni, taking on a vintage Tendulkar and then you wonder why Tendulkar refused captaincy or have decided to opt out of the national team in this shorter version of the game? Well, half into the second match of the season and you watch Rahul Dravid clubbing a slower ball from Munaf Patel and sending it deep down the deep midwicket boundary. You wonder that is this the same guy who was sent packing out of the one day squad last year? Or is this the same old fox ‘Kumble’ who hanged his boots last year? But then at the same time some body might be thinking that have they made a bad choice in the form of South Africa as the venue?

The ball does move here a bit.

This is a country where the ball does its own thing and it seems that a score of 170 – 180 could easily be the winning score. The boundaries are big and the crowd is and will be more interested in the ‘beer’ than watching the action in the middle. The conditions will be windy and younger players will be more likely to fail than their experienced counterparts. The bowlers will be no more at the mercy of the power hitters and well the way Praveen Kumar was moving the ball around both sides of the wicket must have delighted the likes of Irfan Pathan Zaheer Khan and Nathan Bracken. At the same time this also must have sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of some big hitters of the game. Well, as the tournament will progress the pitches will suffer wear and tear and hopefully will become more flat but by that time it seems only the best will survive.

Moving the venue to South Africa seems to be good for the bowlers but then ‘twenty twenty’ is called slam bang cricket and my doubt is that it stands to loose a part of the audience it has attracted in the last season. So, we might see moves like removing the cap of 4 foreign players in the playing 11. It might be relaxed to five or even can go up-to six because you don’t expect some of the inexperienced domestic players to make an impact like they made last year.

Anyways, the first two matches were really a treat to watch. It was really delightful to watch the legends like Kumble, Sachin and Dravid rising up to the challenge and proving that ‘class’ is ‘the class’ and will always be the ‘class’. Though it’s too early in the tournament to predict the end but then be ready to see some spectacular performances from the oldies. Who were all written off by the critics not much ago.

Image courtesy this blogger.

The Making of the new 'Gandhi'

2009-04-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

The latest in this whole drama is the plot to murder the 'new' Gandhi which according to police reports was hatched by the D- company. A person was suspiciously arrested and Karnataka Police immediately declared that the guy in-charge was here to plot the murder of Pramod Muthalik and Varun Gandhi. Well, these two gentlemen have become very famous in the past 2 months and all of this has been made possible by media. The national media is behaving more like communist party (wants all the power with no accountability). It's the combination of sheer shortage of good news items and the 24 hour broadcasting compulsion. that they are bound to generate newer sources of stories and to fill the 24 hour schedule by repeating them time and again by adding different flavours. 'Re-usability definitely matters'.

Anyways Karnataka is a BJP ruled state so hardly anybody will buy this argument that D-Company is hatching a plot to kill Varun but, then at the same time the news becomes credible in the light of the fact that for more than two decades this constituency and the neighbour districts have been the recruiting ground for the A, B, C and D companies. There are folklores about these companies and their master henchmen. Though no sane logic can justify Varun's hate speech but then many people feel that this incident is all a media blunder and the only proof is a video footage which can not even be defended in a court of law.

Well, this case will definitely become a good example of how media can change a boy who use to write prose and poems to a man who can single handedly hijack the election campaign of a national party. Within a matter of one month Varun' s image has been overhauled and suddenly he is in the league of extra-ordinary (controversial) people in politics. Well, he will win election or not only time can tell but it is sure that this person will live his life on the edge now and nothing of this has been possible without the help of media.

Varun has denied making the speech and he is sticking firm to his stand partly because his legal advisers would have told him that the CD can not be defended in the court of law and partly because his political advisers would have told him that "make a small concise statement and wait for the media to interpret it. The more the merrier". Well, it is really surprising that though statements came into light after a gap of around 2 weeks, none of the TV channels actually dug deep to verify the source of the news item. They just broadcasted it like they broadcast popular "You Tube" videos.

More surprising was the fact that even election commission did not do any sort of verification and simply pronounced their decision against him. Had the decision based on some credible evidence (a bit more than what was already available in public domain) then probably this episode would have died down but then it was all about luck by chance. BJP stayed defiant against EC as no credible evidence was provided against Varun and also because they are already protesting against one of the members Navin Chawla. Congress who blatantly disregarded the advise of Chief Election Commissioner regarding suspension of Chawla is not upping the ante against BJP to heed to the advise of the election commission and criticizing them for inaction againt Varun. "Sab ek hee thaali ke chatte batte hain".

Varun was finally jailed and it just made the right kind of news. Article 144 was enforced in the town of Pillibhit and the entire national media covered the whole event. The live telecast and repeat telecasts made Varun one of the most talked about subjects of the month. The politics immediately followed. NSA was slapped against Varun and is mainly because BSP does not want him to campaign in the state. It's almost sure that he is not likely to repeat the same sentiments during his election speech but he will definitely snatch some Hindu votes from BSP. BSP is worried because the alienation of Brahmins from Brahmin-Dalit vote bank will severely dent Maya memsaab's chances of becoming the prime minister.

Well, the UP government's quick action which was supposed to keep this person behind the bars will definitely not succeed because, the same media which was talking about stern action against this man, will turn against Mayawati. They will telecast and repeat telecast stories of the political motivated action against him. One way or another, Media will keep getting their stories, news channels based on their broad strategies, will keep adding masala to simple news items and then at the end of the day, everybody will realize that a new Gandhi is born. Political analysts will soon start comparing him to his late father Sanjay Gandhi .The same Gandhi who commanded really strong influence over his late mother and at one point of time was regarded even more powerful than Indira. Time will tell whether Congress takes him in his fold (seems unlikely because of his mother) or BJP brands him as their reply to the Gandhi family. Either way Varun is set to make many more headlines. Good that he has discovered this art early on in his political life (like another cunning politician Lalu) and we all will see whether he can master this art over time.

"Bhai Ho" A fitting reply to Jai Ho.

2009-03-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

I was watching this video on You Tube which looks amateurish but still drives the point home and is a fitting reply to the "Jai Ho" campaign by Congress. Well even A. R. Rahman agrees to this fact that "Jai Ho" is not among his best of creations but still it's a perfect example of "Bahti Ganga mein haath dhona" loosely translated, it's similar to swimming with the tide.

So Congress paid a good price to buy the rights of this song. (Well not sure but still I think that the ruling party might have passed a part of the cost to taxpayers like us). Anyone remember which was the most repeated ad during last IPL? Well, it was the "Bharat Nirman" ad. The giant 90 second ad sung by Kailash Kher (the second video in this post). I think that the ad money came from our taxes only as it was done much before elections and government could easily pass off the expenses in the name of awareness campaign for government programs. Well anyways, it seems that BJP has just elbowed the "Jai Ho" ad out of their way. But, I guess it needs a little fine-tuning. They should seriously start thinking of building around this concept which the party claims is sent by some well wisher. In that case, Jai Ho.

News ke peeche ka news..

2009-03-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the title, It seems that slowly my blog is more and more becoming a Hindi blog. Anyways harz hee kya hai?

So was just going through some newspaper articles to kill time. I can't tell you but I really want to watch Sachin and Dravid bat together in a test match because it may be their last New Zealand tour together and for Dravid this country has always been special. It was here where he shed his tag of being a slow batsmen and later in the same year was the highest scorer in the world cup. As the timings are little odd, here I am. Up at 3 am in the morning waiting impatiently for the match to start.

Well, I was reading through ibnlive.com and immediately went on to read some masala news. It seems that they had a little quiz about who is the highest paid actress in Bollywood. They show pictures of Katrina, Aish and Kareina in that order and suddenly there is a fourth picture of a smiling girl who they say is charging 13-15 crore for a movie. And can you believe this that she is Freida Pinto? Well, may be, somebody tipped this exclusive news to this channel. Maybe tomorrow it will become breaking news on some other channel as well. But pata nahin who is paying this girl 15 crore for a movie? That too when her only claim to fame is 15 minutes of 'disguised documentary' Slumdog Millionaire. Phir pata nahin 15 crore kis baat ke? Naa hee to itni sundar hai aur naa hee itni popular.

Anyways, it seems that surely this counter has not been hit by slowdown yet. But well, isse pahle ki lene ke dene pad jaayein (I mean about a time when she has to pay some money to the producers to cast her in a lead or second lead role) hope she slows down a bit. If not, then Ye Mumbai hai meri jaan.

image courtesy - http://ibnlive.com

IPL is gone finally..

2009-03-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

The cat and mouse game between IPL and Govt. of India is over and the final verdict just confirms the initial speculation but after lot of drama. BJP leaders immediately jumped onto the scene and accused government for letting IPL go. Congress will counter this attack by highlighting the relationship that Modi shared with erstwhile Rajasthan chief minister whom Lalit use to address with the nickname "Vasu" (and one of the reason why Jaipur got a franchisee last year and probably the reason why Jaipur was denied any matches in this edition). Also, the other leader who has just leveled the accusation has his last name common with the "karta dharta of IPL" (and because Ahmedabad was likely to get a franchisee soon).

No wonder if you hear the news about BJP wooing Sharad Pawar in the name of IPL as Pawar was the guy who ultimately had to bargain with the government. Anyways I think the government is right by denying IPL the permission for this year. Arre bhai itna bada political circus is already under the way? Who needs distraction?

Well there are some reasons why IPL should be held in India and first of all the name itself is Indian Premier league. It's really a shame if Indian premier league is to be hosted by England or Australia for that matter. Leaving aside the 'I' connection, I think the business needs are more compulsive. Just imagine -

If it is not for India or Indians then who will really bother playing 7 Indian players in the match?

Difference in Time zones will make the IPL TV coverage less lucrative for both franchisee and the sponsors. At the same time the costs will go up unless they play in Bangladesh.

I don't think that the stadiums will get the same capacity crowd in some foreign country. What worked in India (the quantity of the matches) might not work in the Videshi land. I don't find lots of Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers or Kolkata Nightridders in let's say Tunbridge Wells.

So it's a blot on the homeland security (forgive me, I know there is no homeland security thing in India but the word looks lot cooler) and the home ministry and it's foolishness on the part of the organizing authority to ask for police protection. It also raises a basic doubt that why government should provide security to an event being organized by private parties? Had IPL paid anything to the home ministry for the public/state services availed by them? "Hmmmm a nice Right to Information idea". Well, even if it's there can't the organizing authorities be a little more sensitive to the larger issue at hand like holding free and fair elections?

Well, anyways this will be definitely good for the Kolkata Knight Riders's cheerleaders if Shahrukh really allows them to travel with the team. Good hai.

Sakshat Jhoot. $ 10 Laptop a "WHITE" Lie.

2009-02-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

Around six months back this news piece speculated that India is developing a $10 laptop and also a low cost access device. And see the speed of research and development that within six month our HRD minister even unveiled it. And wow! just after first look at this device you want to shout. What a lie and man see the color. It's actually a BIG WHITE LIE and nowhere near a laptop. The name couldn't have better "Sakshat Jhoot" which means total lie.

Kaun hai Garibon ka dushman? Kaun hai jo baar baar garibi ka majaak uda jaata hai? Kaun hai jo bhagwan ke darbaar mein khade hokar bhi jhoot bolta hai, logon ko dhokha deta hai? Well, who is this publicity crazy guy who doesn't even know the difference between $10 and $100 and for that matter the difference between a storage device and a computer? It's none other than our honorable HRD minister whose hunger for publicity has made India and Indian technology a laughing stock in the western and Indian Technical press.

His claim to fame is the famed Indian project of 10$ laptop which was finally unveiled in Tirupati (Bhagwaan ka darbaar). This is an excerpt from what our press reported about the unveiling function.

-----------------
Arjun Singh had an interaction with the vice chancellors of the remote states like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur to prove the point that the device will be able to bring about high quality networking among the various institutions of higher education and also increase the skills of e learning of the students in rural areas. (Source - Rediff.com)
----------

Out of the three things mentioned about this device - high quality networking among various institutions of higher education, increase the skills of e learning and most importantly the 10$ price tag is all a big bad joke played by minister and his office. The western media was surprised about this project whose details were made public without even a feasibility analysis. Well due to some publicity hungry people the target population is confused and the whole bunch of media is reporting it as a big joke played on student community. Wo to IIT and IISC involve they so maan bhi gaye nahin to pahle se pata tha ki kya hoga.

Anyways, this is election year so you can expect some nuisance but something of this magnitude can come from the stable of this old timer only. His humor is well known but what is sad that this episode will bring a bad name to the partner institute like IIT Chennai and IISC Bangalore. I don't understand the compulsion to go public with the prototype which looks like a cigarette case with cables attached to it. Huh made for each other. I want to laugh at the audacity of same people who go on to put it on record that some components were developed by students. I agree, it do look like a prototype that we use to present during annual model exhibitions. And most of the engineering students know from where the components come from. "Kanhi ka cement, kanhi ka roda, Bhanumati ne kunwa joda" kind.

And our elite press whose technical knowledge comes out very well with this episode. None of them had the modesty to dig deeper into the device, the technology and into the press release. It seems that they published verbatim whatever was handed over to them even before the minister(s) started their bhashan about how this machine will change the life of Indians.

Well everyone is laughing now and those who will see the device will definitely laugh too. Meanwhile one thing is sure that some very very senior people do not differentiate between $10 and $100 and also between a pen drive and a computer. Well, a 2 GB pen drive is available for Rs 200 now (5$). Download a portable free Operating System from web. Install it on a pen drive and it becomes your Government of India laptop at half the price and double the memory.

Next is what?
A 20 $ scooter? Arre bhai kya hua jo tumhe tyre, engine, piston alag se lagana pade, aakhir scooter ka frame bhi ko bhi to scooter hee kahte hain" Kyon Vice Chancellor Sahab? Theek kahe naa?

Chalo! Jaane de jaane de thodi hawa aane de.

Scanadalam Part 1.

2009-02-07T00:34:00.000-08:00

What happened, how it happened and who did it? In my earlier post I speculated about more people being involved and well, it seems that some very intelligent people are about to confirm this fact. They might tell that they do not have the liberty to speculate on things but rather have to back it up with concrete evidence. Well, I am sure that they are still speculating only and have not found any concrete proof yet but due to dilly dallying they have given those people enough time to cover at-least a part of their tracks. And kyon naa ho brother, people like IAS officer, Police personnel, senior politicians and many other important person seems to be involved.

Well I have a simple story to tell about how it was made possible. It goes like this. Once upon a time there lived two brothers in a small city. They start a sweet shop as the whole city was crazy about sweets at that point of time. Due to the presence of some famous shops around, not a single customer walked into the shop. The same thing happened on day 2 as well. The local municipality required all the shops to maintain their account books properly and they published a ranking of the sweet shops in the locality.

The weekend was still two days ahead and then the brothers came with a strategy to cook their books. The next day they called all their relatives for a feast in their sweet shop. Their family, friends of family and even neighbours of the family friends came for free sweets. And that was the day when the fortune of the sweet shop changed forever. It topped the ranking based on sales that week, next week and for many weeks thereafter. It became the best shop of the city, district, state and even of the country. Everyone just loved it and liked it. It became a case study in many business schools and the owners became the most popular businessmen in the country.

Only few people knew what happened exactly but as most of them had free sweets on day1 and were having shares of the listed company with them, they kept quiet. What exactly happened that Ram sold half the sweets to Rama and received money. Rama distributed those sweets among his family members. Then Rama sold the rest of the sweets to Ram and got back his money. Ram distributed those sweets among his family members.

Everyone had free sweets, technically all the sweets were sold, money did change hands more than once and the transactions were recorded on the books.

The story sounds simple but then the Satyam Scandal is not this simple. I will be back with more stories and more insights here on this blog. So if you are reading this do come back here.

The Moment of Truth..

2009-02-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Who will steal the concept? Who will bring it to India? Will be able to see another slumdog millionaire in the next few years? Will it be a new kid on the block, or some famous production house or the guys who claim to have the best sense of humor in film industry?

Today I watched the TV game show “Moment of Truth” for the first time and the first thought that came to my mind is that who will steal this concept because it looks like a crowd puller. The show simulates a lie detecting environment and you have to answer questions on your personal life in front of your family members. And these questions are not the comfortable ones but actually will involve lot of grilling and the worse thing is that you can’t even refuse to sit on the lie detecting machine. Another popular show "Hole in the Wall" is already 'adapted' and Syrus is hosting it in Hindi. I am wondering why 'Moment of Truth' which will enter its second season is not copied yet? Maybe, somebody is planning big for it. "Ismein aisa kya daal doon ki show mera ho jaye" type.

The moment you refuse to answer any question, you are out. It is an interesting game show with lots of drama and I am sure that if some of the so called intellectuals from our film industry are watching this show then they must be salivating too hard. This is really one show where there is lot of scope to dramatize things. And mirch masala is something we all love. More about the format is here.

So let’s wait for the show to be presented in

India

and I am damn sure the funniest question will be for the producer/director “This show is your original concept?” I am sure that there are many filmmakers here who can fail the lie detector with their confidence. So let’s wait for it. To put it more aptly, let's wait for the "Moment of Truth".

Behind the Scenes of Raaz, the mystery continues..

2009-01-26T02:00:00.000-08:00

Let me break the first mystery - "ki ye naya concept kanha se uthaya hai Mukesh bhai sahab ne?" The concept is shamelessly ripped off from the popular TV Series Heroes where the character of Isaac Mendez use to paint future. He was the author of a famous comic series "The 9th Wonder". And the most famous of his paintings which was his last one as well was painted on the floor. That's the mystery behind this ripped off concept. Mr. Bhatt junior might have borrowed his central character from Heroes, the zombie artist Isaac Mendez and have given him the Indian touch.

Watching Heroes might have been an 'Eureka' moment for the director. The concept was good but movie ke liye you need a full script. And there the twists and turns started. And jab koi star nahin mila to apna superstar Hashmi sahi. Still there were doubts in the mind of some people.

Producer - "Sir aab Imraan Hashmi ki picture kaun dekhta hai?, chalo phir bhi naam kya rakhenge Sir?
Director - Well, even I don't know what the movie will be like? Abhi to puri story bhi taiyaar nahin hui hai?
Producer - Kya baat kar raho ho? Story is not ready yet? Why?
Director - I don't know yaar, it's a Raaz.

Now, this was the eureka moment for another Bhatt family member. He shouted from behind Call it "Raaz part 2" only.

Director - But Papa ji! it is not at all related to Raaz.
Papa ji - Who cares, you know, I know, the crew knows it but audience doesn't know it right? Let them discover. And don't worry about the hit or flop thing. At-least we will ask one great movie reviewer to write rave reviews about it. (You all know who the famous reviewer is, who not only review the movie but also predict about it's collection)

The only original thing about this movie is the dialogue " Kutte ki maut aati hai to wo ek kona pakad ke baith jaata hai" To add weight to this dialogue, they even portray the character in a 'kona' of his house. Or may be the script writer wrote the original line about "Geedar ki maut" but "Geedar" might have been too old fashioned for the creative genius of the Bhatt parivar. "Geedar geedar sab kahe, kutta kahe naa koi" So there goes the "Kutte ki maut".

Isn't it the creative genius of the director that the whole movie is centered around one dialogue "Tum Ashudh ho, Tum Sadh Chuke Ho". This mysterious dialogue takes us on the journey of 5 lives interconnected. Anyways, during the entire duration of the film I was feeling like the producer and director wanted to send this message across to 'Ramu the great' that " Tum Ashudh ho, Sadh chuke ho, isliye apna kona pakad ke baith jao". We have given two horror hits so, please refrain from this genre now.

Okay, so now here is the story lineup. A person supposedly managing a 'NGO' is murdered and a Englishmen is involved. His last call was made to a TV reality show host who then sells the tapes to the Gora in exchange for producing his TV series. Then after the success of his TV reality show, he bought a flat from that money and then gifts that flat to his love in life. Kangna holds the flat keys in her hand and that was the moment when ghost decided to haunt her as if "he was waiting ki kab ghar kharide and kab ladki aaye and kab hum shuru ho jayein". If the show would have flopped perhaps the ghost would have never decided to haunt him thinking ki "leave it yaar, bechare ko itne paise bhi naa mile ki ghar ka EMI de sake, sharm aati hai mujhe apni maut pe. Isko haunt kar ke kya milega, let's go and haunt his girl friend instead".

Well, the bhoot might be too scared to take panga with the Junior Sekhar Suman "Kya pata Sekhar bhai sahab agli movie khud produce karein and usmein Jackie will be given a negative role and junior Sahab will do his pitai. So Jackie might have requested or Mohit might have requested him to haunt Kangna only. Waise bhi who will come to watch this son of Shaker to be haunted on screen? So there it goes.

So the bhoot decides to enjoy with the leading lady like waiting for the Kangna to enter the bath tub and then playing around with the lights. "Arre bhai bhuton ka bhi koi iman dharam hota hai yaar, thodi mood lighting ho jaye, phir enjoy karte hain". But, agar ghost is here to enjoy it alone then what is the use of our serial kisser Hashmi? So suddenly he wishes to play around and start throwing stupid visions to Imran. And poor Imran living alone, hooked on beer and might be reading a lot of stupid bollywood magazines suddenly starts painting his imagination on canvas.

All his paintings carries images of Kangna and they both discover together the mystery. Jackie da is too fat for a ghost and reminds that "upar jaa ke bhi khana badhiya milta hai bhai". Imran tries to fit into the role but Kangna's boyfriend is a total waste in the role of the reality show star. In the award function, they simple nominate this only reality show and give the award to him. No Farah Khan, No Sajid Khan, kaisa award hai bhai? No insult, no poor jokes nothing. Kaisa award hai bhai? Sajid ko naa sahi kam se kam Rakhi Sawant ya Mandira Bedi ko to bulate?

Anyways movie is a total waste of time and money. But yeah, you can take your girlfriends to this movie and to put this message across that for any of her unjust demands, it will be she who will be hunted by ghost aka jackie aka Mukesh or forget it yaar, aise bhoot se darta kaun hai? Bhoot lagta hai face painting competition se bhaag kar aaya hai.

MTV Roadies - Behind the Scenes

2009-01-24T06:00:00.001-08:00

No no no. I am no way associated to the Roadie franchisee and this "behind the scenes" version is written as the Roadies is in progress. (Not even related to the one where all the crew members sit in front of the camera and try to make the audience believe that whatever is happening is real).

The most pleasant sight is watching Devarshi doing the Ghoda dance in the room itself. Well may be this is the kind of scene which inspired the famous PJ "Ek ghoda doosre se poochta hai ki bhai? Ye Ghode pe gadhe ko kisne bitha diya?" (One horse is asking the other that who made this donkey sit on the top of this horse?) And what a dance he did. Despite of all the shoes and sandals which was thrown by the crew members of the show (a small indication of the respect they have towards participants of this show). Well, waise bhi getting shoes thrown at you is now a status symbol. Don't believe this? At-least the most powerful person on the earth for eight years will swear by this.

Another scene is where the girl with a funny accent (Tamanna) runs to the terrace, two guys run behind her thinking she might commit suicide and well, well, well the cameraman also runs behind her with a camera (so irresponsible). But then you know that it's a reality show and like all the reality shows made in India, there are just a very few things real here as well (only) .

Anyways, another very interesting part was when the "Singh is King" (well the original Singh is King is now busy preparing an explanation why Chandni Chowk to China flopped so badly. He has to explain otherwise this lad won't go to Africa) brand guy Pradeep kicks the living daylight out of the Ahmedavadi Devarshi. I am sure after watching this episode, a Marathi poster leader will try to expand his empire to Gujrat as well, because this is a clear example of a North Indian ill treating a Gujrati boy. A spokesperson might also claim that the shoe which hit on his face came from a someone who belong to the other part of India.

There was discussion going around in our office that MTV is slowly becoming a beep channel. I think that it's a conscious effort on the part of the franchisee to get this positioning. And they want to stick to it now. I am not sure how far this will go because at some point they need to alter the format to keep the fun alive. Beeps spoil half the fun. Waise bhi all the hooplah around the "Hell Down Under" is fizzing out and it seems that "Visa nahin bana hai abhi tak. Jinka reject ho gaya wo show se bahar nikal diye gaye and jinka banega wahi jaa payenge. Isliye bechare India mein hee naach rahe hain". Cost cutting ka jamana hai bhai. Waise bhi Slumdog ne dikha diya hai ki Garibi mast chalti hai and mast bikti hai. Maybe this one thought inspired the Gobar collection task.

Chalo, the show has still some half an hour to go and thanks god! somebody invented remote.

Just In.. "Microsoft is Firing"

2009-01-22T08:34:00.001-08:00

Oh God! I must be dreaming. No posts for more than three months and then suddenly two posts in a day. This was the day

Well, our News Channels as well as Business News Channel might be slow in reporting this news (after all the source is same for me and them, the only thing is that I probably understand the implication this news could have on several other things) but the news is just in that "Microsoft is Firing". When TCS gave pink slips to 700 (about 0.7% of total workforce) employees, it became a big news and IT stocks lost the favor from investors, this news is surely going to have an impact. Perhaps a bigger one.

In a major development today Microsoft announced that it's going to downsize about 5% of it's workforce (5000 employees) to streamline costs. What is more alarming is that the company has also decided to eliminate merit-based pay rises, cut travel costs and reduce the use of contractors to increase the profitability. And to top this all, it's happening with Microsoft, a company which everyone believed will stand tall as computers are slowly becoming integral part of everybody's life and the demand for which will grow even during tougher times. Well, it's happening and it has just begun.

What does this mean for the IT, ITES industry?

The reason behind this desperate measure is to shore up the profitability as the company is able to see the slump in the global demand for the sales of PC or Laptops (bad news for Dell, Compaq, HP, Lenovo and millions of supply chain partners like vendors, resellers and distributors). All these manufacturers will start bundling their hardware with Free or cheaper open source softwares to cut their costs further deepening the slump in the sales of Microsoft products. Sensing this threat, Microsoft is trying to take appropriate steps by right-sizing the workforce.

“Economic activity and IT spend slowed beyond our expectations in the quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Chriss Liddel said in the statement. “We acted quickly to reduce our cost structure and mitigate its impact.” (Source - Bloomberg).

In this statement lies the clue for Indian IT/ITES industry. The slowing down of IT spend is alarming. Nortel which use to be one of the top 10 client of one of the top 5 Indian ITES company filed for Bankruptcy protection on a cold Wednesday morning. Other clients are either delaying their budgets or canceling the existing contracts. Clients are asking the companies to renegotiate the deals and the day is not far when they will even ask to halt the development or off-shoring to preserve cash.

The top 3 Indian IT companies have reported growth despite of the downturn but there is a sense of fear in the reported numbers. For the first time in six years all these companies are speaking of caution. The way Microsoft has reacted today, I am sure it will instill a sense of panic and will send a shock wave among the employees, stock holders and analyst all over the world. After all Microsoft was supposed to be above everything.

Let's see if our IT companies also follow in the foot steps of the big brother or they go slow and adopt the wait and watch policy which will mean avoiding the extreme step of retrenchment and adopting other measures like incentive cuts, salary cuts etc. It's surely going to be a tough time ahead. This year doesn't seem to be better than the last one. Anyways, let's pray for the 1400 of Microsoft Employees would loose their job tonight.

Jo hona hai hoga, for the time being let's believe in our Prime Minister's assurance that India is relatively insulated from this crisis (which he is repeating along with the ex Finance Minister Mr. Chidambaram since the stock market was at 22000 levels about one year ago ). I don't know how many of Indians will be among those 5000.

(As I finish writing this post, Dow is down by 3%, Nasdaq fell by 4% while S&P 500 also shed some 3% from the Yesterday's gains. Microsoft has lost 10%. Infosys ADR has lost some 5%, Wipro has lost 10%, Cognizant by 5% and IBM has lost some 7% by now. )

A Wednesday!

2009-01-22T07:38:00.000-08:00

And the terror hit the Stock Market this time.

The day Satyam's news broke out people were in mad rush of selling shares. Call it coincidence or sixth sense, I advised one of my friend to sell all his Satyam shares before Wednesday and I specifically mentioned that market will fall on Wednesday. I never thought that this prophecy will come true. And what a fall it was.

Raju has definitely added a chapter in the "Sabse Bada Scamsters" an yearly magazine published jointly by CBI and CID. This magazine consists of all those people whom CBI probed but never was able to prove a case against them. Lalu Yadav, PV Narsimha Rao, Rajiv Gandhi, Hinduja, Abdul Karim Telgi, Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh all have decorated the front pages of this magazine but then Raju or Raju brothers deserve a special mention. They did not fool only the investors but rather all their stakeholders including Foreign Investors. He can gloat in glory "Lalu ne sirf poor Bihari logon ko loota, Harshad ne sirf stock investors ko loota, Ketan ne sirf bankers ko loota, but Humne to sabko barabar loota. Aur to aur Americans ko bhi khoob loota".

Scam ka king kaun? "Raju Bhai, Na Raju Bhais"

CID is investigating it, SEBI might just get some time to chat friendly with brothers and our honorable prime minister will keep monitoring the progress on this issue and then finally our honored CBI will be pulled into action. And then? Kya hoga aagey? Honestly I don't know. Nobody knows, not even the chief of CBI.

Well, one thing is sure that a scam of this magnitude cannot be pulled by just one man. Many more stakeholders are there and it's just about time when the body count will increase.

That's about Satyam. I think this issue brought me back to blogging. (and also increased the credibility of my stock tips) I am planning to migrate to my own domain name and currently I am searching for a cheap and reliable web hosting service provider. I am promising myself to take some time out for blogging atleast on weekends. So let's hope I keep the promise this time. Anyways, I am writing one investigative article on Satyam Scandal and am hopeful that I will be able to pack it with information.

"The Year of Terror"

2008-11-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-23T03:22:00.000-08:00

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 -

Getting more deposits from the people and that's why the interest rates have increased
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..

2008-11-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

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"

2008-10-31T22:26:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-10-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Super Mario Gamegreat free widgetsWidgetbox

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!!

2008-10-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-10-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-10-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-09-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-09-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-09-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-05-07T03:50:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-05-07T03:32:00.001-07:00

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..

2008-05-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

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..

2008-03-06T02:15:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-03-05T03:55:00.000-08:00

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..

2008-03-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

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..

2008-03-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

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 ....

2008-02-27T00:59:00.000-08:00

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.

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..

2008-02-22T02:56:00.000-08:00

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) .

Which Team to cheer for in Indian Premier League??

2008-02-21T06:13:00.000-08:00

Zone wise, I should be cheering up for Kolkata team because I belong to that zone. Dhoni was an year senior to me in my school and I treat him more like an inspiration (not for cricket but rather for his money making prowess and why not? none of his classmates have made even a million dollar till now and look at him..) so that gives me a reason to root in for Chennai team. My cricketing heroes are Sachin, Sehwag, Dravid, Kumble and Yuvraj so that give me reasons to watch matches including any of these players (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Mohali). For the pure pleasure of cricket I would like to see Afridi, Gilchrist, Symonds and Gibbs playing for the same team so that makes it 7 out of 8. Jaipur has Shane Warne but I don't know how he fares in this boom boom format.

So 7 teams to support but at the same time, I would never want Mcgrath to get Sachin out on duck, I would never want to see Kumble trapping Sehwag LBW or Mohd Kaif plucking a brilliant catch of Yuvraj Singh off a Shane Warne delivery. I wouldn't want to see Ishant Sharma celebrating after uprooting the stumps of Dhoni and VVS Laxman congratulating Andrew Symonds for a brilliant run out. I don't want to see Dhoni shouting "come on Murali" from behind the wickets when Yuvraj hits Murali for a boundary.

What to do, whom to cheer for? This IPL is surely giving a lot of options (but who needs all these options). Some even say that this one event is going to change the history of cricket. May be, but the best option left for a cricket fan like me is to hopelessly follow some of the matches with no emotions involved, no India taking on Australia or Pakistan and nothing like South Africa choking up in a big match. To Keep the boredom away a bucket of popcorn and a can of Pepsi might prove useful.

Mere 25% of Indian Graduates...

2008-02-21T05:51:00.000-08:00

"ARE EMPLOYABLE"... The statement is not coming from me but rather from a senior level executive (Jeffrey Fuller, principal advisor of Human Capital, a consulting arm of Mercer) who says that out of the total graduates only 25% of them are employable. Link to the mint article here

Two possibilities -

1) Perhaps they are not counting all those who are going to IT, ITES & BPOs companies (may be because you don't even need to be a graduate to get a job into some of these companies or these companies have realized this long back that to defend their margins and to keep the salary mix low, they need to hire those who does not really feel that they are employable. So whatever you give them as salary they will be more than happy to accept). May be while defining employability they might have forgot that there are enough BPOs (either around or in the startup pipeline) to employ every man woman and child by 2020 (the 'year' is made up ofcourse by me)

2) The survey which forms the basis of this observation (if there was any) might be conducted by some of those belonging to the other 75% and in order to prove that they are worthy of their jobs, they are coming out with these ridiculous numbers.

See if the first is a possibility then it proves the second point right??

Cost of Failure..

2008-02-20T03:00:00.000-08:00

Q - What is the value of Quality?

Ans - The price that you pay for bad quality (litigations, law suits, product failures, burning investments on bad products etc etc.)

Well to simplify this thing, if Dhoni fails in the IPL, the price that India cements will have to pay for the failure is Rs 6 crores. So whether their decision to pick Dhoni was a quality decision or just a mad rush of blood in the mind of some cricket obsessed board member, only time can tell.

Meanwhile, it will also be point of interest to see the movement of stock prices of India Cements (the company who got the Chennai Franchisee of the IPL).

HDFC Standard life Advertisement

2008-02-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

I see hundreds of ads on a daily basis (thanks to Chennai which is really a poster city) and this one particularly caught my attention. The only thing which comes to my mind is "Cleverly Simple". The advertisement successfully drives the point home in a very simple manner.

Will also post a Kingfisher Airlines print ad which really amused me a lot. I looked for it on the internet but was unable to get it and my poor camera is out of battery. That ad is a good example of lifestyle marketing.

It's decided now, 12th May, Hyderabad

2008-02-13T00:23:00.000-08:00

I finally got the job offer from Infosys on 6th of this month which says I will be an Associate Consultant - Enterprise Solutions from 12th May onwards. The training place will be Hyderabad. I was going through some blogs about Hyderabad campus and found that though it's not as big as Mysore DC but still, it's not far behind. Check this out... (The images take some time to load but they are good).

So the countdown has begun with less than 90 days to go.

"IT Mein Jaana Hai"

2008-02-04T05:32:00.000-08:00

With slowdown worries round the corner, everybody is slamming IT companies these days (some has even made it a point to bitch about IT twice/thrice a day). Nobody is willing to give them a chance and the funny thing is that during these 'defining' times, I am going to start my career with an IT company. People are now saying all kind of things about IT people like they are responsible for soaring real estate prices, for higher salaries and for plastic money. Some even go to the extent of saying that they are responsible for cultural change. Anyways, it won't be surprising if politicians start blaming them for increasing poverty, unemployment as well as inflation.

Even after all this hammering and battering, recently I asked my 20 year old nephew who is in second year of his Mechanical Engineering course that what sort of career he wants for himself? The reply was truly amazing - "IT mein jaana hai". Well, hope his dream doesn't die too soon. At-least I believe in IT and will continue to believe in IT.

B schools start market trading lessons.. hahahaha..

2008-02-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

You can call it awakening (I am not talking about B School. It's awakening of news channels.)

Wanted to laugh about this news. It sounds less like news and more like a publicity stunt for a selected B school which happened to "tip off" the story. To give the story some more credibility, they have added name of IIM also. Here is the story published on IBN Live. Great that they have started teaching investment now but if that means playing moneybhai on moneycontrol then I think the news piece and also the introduction of course is too little too late.

First because what happened in the market was unprecedented and second that virtual money can't teach you about the feelings that comes after investing real money. (Those who have played moneybhai will subscribe to my thought because there you buy or short sell like anything but with your own money it's like near impossible to do things like that).

Well, not to mention that we are learning investment management since last one month (most of the B schools have similar courses like that except that they keep quiet) and about 40-50% students play with their real money. We believe that B schools are not just a place to live in the virtual world but rather it's a place where you learn to take risk and most importantly you learn to grow your own spine.

Grow some spine kids.

Reliance Power - Power limited for few only

2008-02-01T09:02:00.000-08:00

What does a public limited company means? It means, "the profits will be limited to only some public (atleast initially). If you don't believe this then sample this news piece from IBN..

Reliance Power allots shares, people who bid below 225 shares got none and that proves what a public limited company stands for. When the IPO was announced, Reliance power launched a blitzkrieg advertising campaign over all forms of media. Half page ads, radio, TV, hoardings everything was just shouting out loud that this is the IPO from a company which is famous for empowering small shareholders. Anil Ambani mentioned in his interview that Reliance power was his late father's vision and he belongs to the same company which popularized the stock market in India. People rightly say that stock market has seen two periods: before Reliance when people invested in land or gold and after Reliance where people started believing in the power of equity.

People still has the same faith in anything remotely related to Reliance and that's why when the IPO was announced the stock market witnessed a crash after long long time. The reason offered was absence of liquidity as people were keeping money aside to invest into Reliance and these were not those investors who has lakhs to invest but rather those with little cash to invest. And well, they ended up getting no stocks in the end.

They say that the world is biased towards the resourceful and it's true but Dhiru Bhai Ambani was someone who defied the perception and created wealth not only for himself but for million of small investors. A legacy which is unmatched till now across the world and something, which his son(s) are forgetting (atleast the younger one did show some signs of that).

I don't understand that a simple mathematical equation can become so complex when it comes to selecting investors. Reliance power will definitely prosper but the 450000 small investors will sulk for not getting any share. I am not one among those, instead I would invest in NTPC which is producing more electricity than what Reliance power will produce in 2012.

Anyways the good news is that now liquidity is unleashed and hopefully we will see some momentum in the market now.

Valentine bells..

2008-01-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

With Valentine day just two weeks away, it's going to be love all around. It will be talked on Television, will be written about in newspapers, will also be the flavor of the blogs and then will be on the hit-list of the saffron brigade. Well, we are also entering into the last 50 days of MBA, so it's also likely to be the most talked about subject in the campus also (well not many care about studies these days and those who care actually talk about the same thing but in financial terms like mergers and acquisition, takeovers, value proposition etc etc. Basically it all boils down to the same hot topic). These 50 days are going to be tough on some souls here who are actually left with very little time to express their feelings. Well, we are still waiting for some more people to succumb to their heart beats and meanwhile I think I am falling in love with one of the songs from movie Philadelphia..

"Sometimes I think that I know
What love's all about
And when I see the light
I know I'll be all right"

---------

Just don't get me wrong (those who have watched this movie, you know what I am talking about) I like this movie because maybe sometime back in the past, I wanted to be a lawyer and what a brave movie it is considering it was made in 1993 when the gay rights were not even an issue back then in US. "The best thing about being a lawyer is that occasionally if not usually, you become a part of the justice being done and that itself is a great feeling".

Well said, and I hope that people here would be able to do justice to their feelings. Let's hope..

It's all about bull..

2008-01-30T11:01:00.001-08:00

So finally they have found the culprit for the stock market mayhem. I never thought that a bull can do so much damage and for the first time share market is not so bullish about this "bull". The story goes that traders got fed up of looking at the backside of this bull during the past two weeks (as there was nothing to do in the market) so they have finally decided to look at it's better (sober) side. I keep hearing the phrase " the market is not efficient", now I know that "it's all about the bull". Well, in this case you actually can't say "Cut the Bull" (that also we keep hearing often). Let's see where the bull takes us.

No rate cut for January

2008-01-29T02:33:00.000-08:00

And that proves that the interest rates are not decided in India, but rather in USA. Great going and so finally we might have to wait for some more weeks to see RBI backing off from it's present stand of keeping a relatively higher interest rate. Meanwhile the debate on the rate cut is likely to continue (in campus) today also.

No customer is a wrong customer..

2008-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

Marketers always believe in the power of Word of Mouth marketing and Viral marketing where some key influencer(s) are targeted and who are believed to spread the good word about the product. In simple words, these individuals commands a power in the society and acts more like 'cheap' brand endorsers. But well, there is another school of thought emerging up and I really admire his fresh thinking.

Duncan Watts of Yahoo research believes that there is nothing like key influencers in absolute terms. A marketing program targeted towards these selected few is flawed and is no better than good old mass marketing. He argues that the key factor is the readiness of the market. If the society is ready to embrace some change then it will take the lead from almost anyone. There will be first movers but almost anyone could be the first mover. This is called accidental influential. [really a great idea]

Take an example: In viral marketing those people are targeted who do nothing other than forwarding mails. I get a lot from a couple of guys and most of the time I delete without even reading them. Sometime gmail saves me time by putting it directly in the spam folder. At the same time I do read mails from friends who write to me once a while (even when it's a forwarded trash). So you see, these people have more power than the the friendly 'spammers'.

Well, that's a disturbing news for the companies which put a lot of money on seminars and PR work. A new trend doesn't need to endorsed by Big B or SRK because if the market is not ready then no matter what it will fail and if it is ready then people like me or you can start a trend. That's a good news that no customer is a wrong customer.

Why RBI has to cut interest rates?

2008-01-28T04:55:00.000-08:00

This is the most heated argument doing rounds in the hostel with Rajat at one end asking all sort of fundamental (innocent ones with a lot of 'Why's) questions and with Sunny and Shila at the other end trying to quench his thirst for macroeconomics by throwing all sort of jargons. This is something that Prof Banik should feel proud about because out of all things forgotten at the end of first two trimesters, Economics comes first and well if you thought it's OB then believe me it comes way behind economics (I still remember our Professor telling us that may be after 10 or 20 years, HR is what we will need most, but well that is still 10-12 years right?). Did you also mentioned stats? well, can't say that you are wrong!

Well, we haven't answered the original question yet, right? Anyways reserving that for tomorrow's morning lecture. Hopefully the discussion will get some more participants to pitch in.

Goodies for SALE

2008-01-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

Where are you? Time to go shopping..

Come January and the whole city is painted with the fliers notifying SALE. Everything is up for grabs right from apparels to furniture and bed room linen to bathroom fixtures. The shopping really becomes a pain these days. You don't need it but still you buy it with the expectations that you might need it in future. Ever wonder what the 'sellers' gain from the SALE? I have certain hypothesis like 'Winter Sale' means what did not sell well last year is up on the offer and 'Fresh Stock' word attached to it signifies that its coming straight from the godowns. The logical explanation for missing buttons and loose thread is "shipping and handling defects" (the same will be termed wardrobe malfunction if the discovery is made by someone else other than you).

Normally there are two kinds of SALE that you see in India the stock clearance one and the other 'occasion related' (Holi, Deewali, Pujo, Pongal, New Year, Christmas etc etc) SALE. While the occasion based SALE targets the family savings, the stock clearance sale mainly strives for a preponed purchase as the company has to fill the shelves with the new stock. I am confused about the way the companies are trying to clear their stocks. Some brands are putting on goodies for SALE like three times in an year and I think that they sell more during these 2-3 months than what they sell during the entire year and that's a clear indication that people believe that these goods are really overprices during the 'normal' season.

Or what else could explain the sheer volume of visitors to the Genesis showroom which is running a promotion of 50% flat discount since last two weeks. Normally on any weekend evening I hardly find 4-5 customers in the showroom but last Wednesday it was like 100s of them crowding both the floors and some even waiting outside for a entry. The same with John Players. They were having 40% off and there was a big crowd in the shop which normally sees 20-30 visitors on average and I guess less than 20 purchases a day. But during promotion time, I myself witnessed about 10 bills being made in a brief 40-45 minutes period.

Given the increase in footfalls, I was amused that how these companies are funding the sale because it doesn't make a business sense to keep those stock piling up while you know that their real perceived price is 30-50% low than the marked price. So what is the catch? And I doesn't have to look for long..

Westside who is running promotion of upto 50% off has done a great thing. I visited their stores somedays back and I wanted to see whether the thing that I have bought have become cheaper or not? (Feels like shit if you can relate to the feeling of getting duped because of your bad timing, any investors here??) So, I saw a change in the store layout. What was there a couple of weeks ago was missing and it was replaced with other goodies (I hope you understand). There was sale only on selected items (it ring any bells?) and majority of that was something you won't buy until you are desperately longing for that item. Later I found out that John Players did exactly the same thing. They shifted all the 'non sale' item to the second floor and well given that move, you are not left with enough options to choose from.

Pantaloon's sale was not even worth checking as it was a winter sale in Chennai where there ain't no winters. (Great, but who knows they might be targeting those people who are traveling to North in the recent future and might need a pullover or two. See, you just can't really doubt the genius of Biyani type).

I like window shopping but the girls always insist to walk into the stores. They like touch and feel well, if I enter a shop I really feel embarrassed in walking out without buying something (something which my closest friend hate about me and I think it always burns a hole in my pocket too). So I did buy a shirt and the T-Shirt that I liked was not available for sale and which I thought was really overpriced at the MRP. Late in the night I checked online and bought it (the risk is that whatever you buy online people feel it's from Paymate gift coupons, great!). Well, they sent me a Hrithik poster also but I think it would have been a lot better if they mention their next 'Sale' date so that I don't make a fool of myself for buying in the 'regular season'.

"Save the white brothers"

2008-01-12T09:38:00.001-08:00

On the day when ICC removed umpire Bucknor from the third test, I wrote it on my blog that it's merely an eye wash and soon BCCI will be celebrating the result and will glorify this move as a victory. And it did happened in the same chronological order. (I am not boasting of my insights I just want to drive the point home that it's so simple to understand these things for even a common man, why the jokers at BCCI fail to read that?) Just look at the happenings after that, West Indian board hit out at ICC. All the biased reporters started bitching BCCI for 'hostage crisis'. Reporters like Dilip Premchandran whose biasness is not hidden from anyone and who feels that he is the only cricket expert left on this earth (rest according to him are a bunch of jokers who watch only one over of the match and write a report). Well, so finally a bunch of jokers at our BCCI handed the power to the ring master in a typical circus like drama and the ring master finally announces that the tour is on. Poor cricketers. Now it all depends on them, if they win from here, the moment will go into history books with all the people shouting shame Australi!, Shame Australia! but if they loose, the attribution will be on their low morale.

About taking cricket as hostage, I don't see it as a problem. India is the cricket superpower and I can't see why people have a problem with that. Nobody questions the integrity of United Nations which has been held hostage time and again by America and just by the virtue of their 'yearly grants' to the organization. If Indian spectators and marketing companies brings in the majority of the cricket revenue, why people have problems if they want to see the justice being done. And no, we are not talking about injustice, we are just talking about a fair trial process.

Anyways, the big issue was sorting out the racist thing. Rasheed Latiff (an Asian) got banned from a test match because of claiming a controversial catch but these white shameless buggers escape without getting the stick and shamelessly keep repeating the authenticity of the catch. Now, if ICC can't do the justice with their strongest member then it's always right for BCCI to form it's own rival organization and mind you Mr. Derek Pringal and all others who are hitting against Indians and Indian board, the problem is not that BCCI is holding cricket as hostage but the bigger problem is that "people like you will loose your job if India start playing against its neighbours only". Nobody read your columns in India and overnight your 'rate per word' will fall to nothing. It's not cricket what is troubling you all. It's actually the money dear. And well, if the jokers at BCCI would understand even a single bit of the game and emotions involved, they would have by now bought out ICC locks, stocks and barrel and would have left Australia playing England only. (We have no problems with the New Zealanders and South Africans dear and for English, I understand why all reporters are playing "save the white brothers" game).

Some good articles on the recent crisis..

greatbong hitting it hard
Derek Pringel's save white brothers cry
Dilip Premchandran's most biased article
Peter Roebuck calling 'spade a spade' (He is an Australian by the way)
Shake the tree for the sake of the game
Prem Panicker's superbly written piece

Engineers make the marketing look lot easier..

2008-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

Even before the 'PEOPLE CAR' was out, speculations about its performance were rife and most among the elite (Competitors, reviewers, environmentalists, politicians, journalists etc etc) gave it a big thumbs down. The best comment came from Maharashtra chief minister Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh that " if so many people are going to buy this car, where they will keep it? Where they will run it?" Well, I think that the person who is spending 1 lakh from his/her pocket can figure out all this. They are no fools.

Reports were that this being the cheapest car on the road only few people will want to own it, will be most polluting and has a dabba shape (plastic body). But well, the launch and the coverage thereafter says it all. In the words of RATAN TATA " a promise is a promise". And well, he stood firm on his words.

Ofcourse, it's the cheapest car on the road but is cuter than Maruti 800, Zen Estilo and our big old Ambi and it is lot safer than the 800 and bikes. It can't run at 100 kmph but I can bet my money on the fact that if they say 70 kmph, it will go to that speed without shaking. The Euro IV compliant engine ensures that it remains less polluting that any car on the Indian roads today and the price tag offers unmatched value.

Two days back, we were having a small discussion on the future of the car and most of my friends felt that it's too costly for a bike rider to switch to it and too cheap for a CAR and thus it will be hard for the company to even break even. My personal view was that let's leave the marketing to the company (they can always do the segmentation and targeting) but what is more important is that this car is an engineering marvel adn will bring a new trend of cost efficient design. It will inspire a whole new generation of automobiles (Renault, Suzuki, Ford, Hyundai etc now all aspire to bring their own cutie little bird on the road) and it's a moment of pride as an Indian. With the kind of buzz the cute little bird is creating on the road, it makes me believe that good and sound engineering can make the marketing look lot easier. You never know from where the customers might come.

The excitement among auto drivers just support this basic belief.

Bucknor is Buckled finally...

2008-01-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

Going.. Going.. and Gone

The infamous old man of the game Bucknor has been shown the door but, it's just and eye wash by ICC because no sooner than later some other cricket boards like West Indian will start lobbying for him. And may be Bucknor himself will file a law suit claiming for damages like 'Darell Hair' did.

Anyways, I am hypothesizing that BCCI (an organization run by some mentally challenged people) will call a press conference soon and start boasting of it's glory and the muscle power. Poor old fellows will shift the attention from the real issue and then start celebrating. After all, we are Indians and even a sight of victory is enough for us to get high on it and then end up getting really low, really really low. We lost the first test just because of our this Indian spirit (well it must be powerful like the real 'spirit' because most of our board members are always high on it). 5 wickets down and there you go partying letting the opposition off the hook "oh chak diye fatte yaar!!" Well, let's wait for another drubbing of our cricket team. And the only possible scenario in which the tour can be called off is the communist opposing it. Well, so much for the Indian cricket. Good luck India. Hope the result is not 4-0.

Dear cricketers, ff you have some sense of pride left in you, then go and thrash the Australians on the field. Even if you can't at-least die trying. You know you can't get it done off the field (your sick board) so do it on the field.
Good luck guys..

On the lighter note - Good news for our freedom fighters...

2008-01-07T05:49:00.000-08:00

Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose and most of the freedom fighters must be savouring each and every moment of cricket these days (from heaven). Come on, nobody would have thought that someday an Indian would be able to racially abuse an Englishmen (Well Symonds have English origins though he chose to play his cricket for Australia). It's like a dream come true, isn't it? Bhagat Singh did dream about a day when Indians would be treated equally but well, I want to send him the message that we have managed to beat his expectations. People belonging to developed countries are now accusing us of racial abuse.

Great, I can see human right organizations of Australia putting up road shows and awareness campaign against Indians in near future. I can't stop laughing my head out imagining that 20 years from now, people in Australia would be watching movies like "Maine 'Sandy' ko nahi maara", ''Sandy my father'' etc etc. Just imagine Andrew Symonds being thrown out of one of those Indian Railway's trains and then awakening of a whole nation.

Hahaha, with Dollars (though US and not Australian) going down and Rupee rising up, of-course martyrs from our freedom struggle must be smiling up there.

Racist? Who?

2008-01-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

Harbhajan and Haneef - What is common between both these gentlemen? If I would have asked this question one week back the clueless answers would have circled around the obvious facts like "their name starts with H" "they both have 'a' as the second letter in their names", "they are both Indians" and like that. Today you ask these questions to anybody who is following the news and they will say that they both are the victims of RACIAL ABUSE. Not much water has passed under the bridge since Dr Haneef's case when the Australian government agencies were first to pronounce their verdict without any proof and later have to cut a sorry face by dropping the charges. Now, they are calling Harbhajan racist but the way his case was handled surely points out to the root of racism.

Who is racist? Talking about racial abuse, I don't know what problem Symonds has in being called as monkey (I am unaware of the relation between monkey and ethnicity what I know that we all had simian ancestors, we even have monkey god 'Hanumana'). I never thought it to be a racial remark (one of our classmate keeps calling everybody as monkey) and demeaning or defamatory. Umpires were blind - acceptable, the third umpire was not even able to read braille script (he erred with the presence of technology also) - again acceptable but match referee have gone one step further and have shown signs of racism by choosing to selectively listen to selective people. Umpires didn't hear it, Sachin heard it but referee chose not to hear him and Ponting who didn't hear it, referee chose to hear him. Well, this whole 'hearing matter' was confusing and was an eyewash because it was already decided who is going to get the axe. Match referee deliberately delayed the verdict to avoid a possible walk off by the Indian team. How come a match referee can ignore the plea of Sachin and selectively listen to arguments made by Ponting who has no credibility among any of the Asian teams? Well, the whole matter shows signs of racism and that too very very focussed towards Indian players.

Harbhajan or Haneef are not the victims of racial abuse or racial discrimination, rather they are victims of a mindset which makes people point fingers at the Asians for any unexplained happening. Racial abuses have a history and and we all know which races continued to practice it as late as 1990s. Ask Africans, they are in better position to tell you. I am not so happy to see that some people like Prokter are carrying forward that legacy with them. Racism is not about saying something when provoked, it's more deeply rooted in the mindset. Or what else would explain the remarks made by the CEO of Orient Hotels against TATAs of India. Well, be it business or cricket (which is again has become more of a business and less of a game) it's a shame for India not to have put up a fight against blatant Racism all around us. I think that Sharad Powar should escalate the matter and call the tour off.

"Jake Rakho Saiyan..

2008-01-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Maar Sake Na Koi". (One who is protected by God himself can't be killed by anyone). Well, not even a 500 Feet "free fall"...

A window washer who fell from 47th floor is still alive and Doctors are saying that he will be walking all by himself in a couple of months. No kidding, see for yourself

Railway stations to get a face lift..

2008-01-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

Indian railways have decided to put up 22 of its railway stations up for a face lifting job before their possible public listing (IPO) announcement. Alright, I am cooking up the last part but who knows? In typical Lalu's tone, "Laloo hain bhaiya, agar maatha ghum gaya toh? (He is Lalu and nobody knows what will be his next move). Several railway ministers came and went but Lalu can claim that he is the only one to have heard the railways singing "Mujhko bhi toh lift kara de".

Everybody would like to believe that Indian Railways is on the right tracks but well, I can bet my ten bucks that these people must be taking flights themselves. If they have then I will bet another ten bucks that their houses must be full of cockroaches. These cockroaches thrives in the air-conditioned compartments of most of the trains. Well, they must be really lucky or what else could explain their survival on pantry car's food (oh! I just forgot that Cockroach can survive anything even in the absence of food and water). Anyways they are lucky that they travel free and are expanding their empire from one corner of India to another corner.

Even if you forget about the cockroaches for a while and try to enjoy the ride, it becomes boring after a while. The same hawkers going around selling the same things (this is not valid for the Rajdhanis or Shatabdis but they do have cockraoches) and the same people around with the same problem that "trains are too slow and the journey becomes too long". Even a journey of 300 kilometers might take upto 6-9 hours. Ab 200 miles ke liye koi flight leta hai kya? Check in 1-2 hours in advance, driving out of city may take 1-2 hours, 2 hour in flight cursing why it's not taking off, 30 minutes in baggage claims and then again 1 hour of driving in the city makes it look like more or less the same. On top of that pay around Rs 2000 as taxes plus the airfare. Low cost is no more low cost. Yeah they are low in comparison to each other (relatively lower) but exorbitantly high when compared to Bhartiya rail.

So the government has protected railways from the competition by increasing the fuel surcharge and other taxes on the airlines. Clear indication that government don't want anybody to save time. Lalu's explanation is pretty simple "Our people don't have money but they have lots of time, so they want a cheap transportation mode" (the other reason is that if people will have extra time then they will start watching cricket again and Sharad Powar's weight in the coalition will increase). I know I am again cooking it up. But well, the fact of the matter is that though it has turned around, railway still continues to haunt many people like me. They are too slow, continue to remain filthy and have not been able to keep pace with growth of demand.

Now, the recent move to offer the 22 railway stations for a face lift is really a welcome move. It will surely push the prices forward but then the cross subsidy method where the AC fare subsidizes the non-AC fare will keep things in control. I have been to most of these 22 stations and I can say that without any exception they all are filthy and poorly maintained. Security is inadequate (I haven't ever seen the metal detectors working and what else people can sneak through the sides) and during the peak hours it just looks like another crowded street of Delhi (minus the cows and bulls). Out of these 22, Gaya to be mentioned specifically. It's the gateway to famous tourist attraction Bodh Gaya and perhaps your first tryst with this railway station will paint you the real picture of Hungry India Poor India (HI-PI).

Corporates like Reliance, TATA and DLF are bidding for the contract but it is still to be seen that who gets it (I personally want to see who will be interested in bidding for small towns). Railways contracts have a notorious legacy behind them and no doubt political parties are so interested in fighting for the railway ministry.

Anyways, let's hope that the Professor G Raghuraman of IIM A who advocates a public private partnership knock some sense into the think tank of railway. Well, wherever there is money, there comes a will (no it's not Bill Gates, comeon! he has sobered up a lot lately). So what next? An IPO, who knows? May be*.. Why not?

*I am hypothesizing purely

And now you have Reliance Tech Also..

2008-01-01T20:10:00.001-08:00

After the recent victory dance of Rupee against Dollar, few would have thought that IT services company's days are far from over. But wait, Reliance (R-ADAG) have recently announced their foray into IT services with their Tech Arm Reliance Tech (Link Here). No wonder, IT has still a lot left in it otherwise a shrewd business empire like Reliance, would have never thought of entering the arena.

I am not very amazed with their entry into IT services because it coincides with the fact that other big players are also changing their focus to Indian market. Given Reliance's experience in playing around with Indian conditions (recall that conversation between Guru Bhai and a Rajiv Gandhi look alike in the movie Guru) it's no surprise what they are up to. Just recently two big organizations namely Indian Railways and State Bank of India have announced their IT ambitions. With politicians like Lalu Prasad Yadav at the helm of affairs it's no surprise that Reliance's experience can come handy. The telecommunication vertical is also heating up as Bharti and Idea have announced their IT budget which is in the range of 700 mn$ - 1 bn+. The market looks really lucrative as R-Adag brings their domain expertise and they already have demonstrated their capability in the telecommunication software area.

Well, they may be a little late in joining the band wagon but the party is far from over. The IT space has yet not matured in India, in-fact it's just picking up. What was earlier considered as a non profit (low billing) area is fast becoming a natural hedge against depreciating Dollar. Reliance's entry just gives a hint of that. What else, it has deep pockets, manpower and momentum and they can always poach the best (whatever it takes) from the best. It's so easy to start a company these days. You just need to have the appetite and of-course the money power to support it. Rest, you can always acquire from others.

Sun will rise from South - "Abhyudaya - 2008 "

2007-12-30T03:58:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-12-29T03:09:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-12-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

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 ..

2007-12-27T09:17:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-12-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

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"

2007-12-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

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"

2007-12-22T03:32:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-12-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-11-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

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..

2007-10-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T04:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

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 ************

2007-09-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

" 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?

2007-09-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

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"

2007-08-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

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.

The league by Extraordinary Gentlemen.

2007-08-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Subhash Chandra has tried to give India an option and its irking many. BCCI is worried about its cash flows because now they have to compete for the advertisement time and rate and its going to be difficult for them to compete because they follow a top heavy bureaucratic system where even for a simple decision they might have to go through a couple of meetings. So that means that for an action of ICL they might not be in a position to revert back quickly and that erodes their competency. Kapil Dev backing this effort is another nail in the coffin of BCCI because he is also the chairman of National Cricket Academy (he was sacked recently) and now Brian Lara has also joined it.

Anyways talking about competition, BCCI is really worried and the frustration was evident from the way they announced crisis control measures likeputting a life time ban on the players who will become a part of the league. The other day, top officers were bragging about the fact that nobody will pay attention to these stars of the yesteryears but my dear friend, thou shall not speak when you are not sure. Atleast you shouldn't make forecasts like this which you know are bound to fail.

This league might not benefit the senior players or the Board as such but then it has a lot to give to Indian cricket and to almost all the other stakeholders.

We the public who waste the share of our time on watching our senior players either running after the ball or sitting in the dressing room with a towel draped around their shoulders want to see some players in action. We want something different. We want our men in the thick of the action, we want an identity separate from Indian team, we want to watch cricket and want to identify with these players because we don't treat you as just players, we treat you as our little symbols of heroism and we try to find happinness in your game. We need change.

For domestic cricketers - It will mean a lot to them. In most probability these players will be kept out of the system due to the presence of senior (read OLD) players and also because of political affiliation or due to halo/horn effects Look at the list, try to identify who are they? Deep Dasgupta was in prime when Ajay Ratra replaced him who in turn was replaced by Parthiv patel, whose career was spoiled by Dinesh Karthick and then Dhoni took it all. Kaarthick made it back due to his batting but then everybody is not Kaarthick and even if they are only 11 can play for India at a time. Shalabh Srivastava and Mritunjay Tiwari were the part of under 19 squad who won the world cup. They contirbuted as much as Yuvraj and Kaif contributed but then in India they dont make pitches for fast bowlers and their career is cut short due to the extra hard work they need to put in to extract bounce from a dead pitch. Shalabh has joined and hopefully after one successful season or two Mritunjay will also join provided he has some cricket left in him.

I don't know they will achieve something or not but then they will get to play quality cricket because their compensation will be linked to their performance. They have to entertain public and as they don't have ICC backing they might not care for their records in the long run. In short they don't have to play for the wrong reasons. They don't have to prove it again and again that they are capable of playing cricket. All they have to do is to go on the ground and play cricket.

For Foreign Players - They will bring the much needed experience and expertise into the system. Look at some of the names. Abdur Rajjak's I guess is fitter than some of the fast bowlers of India and perhaps generate more pace too. Nicky Boje is obviously fitter most of the present crickets. For Lara and Inzamam, they quit the game at the last time and as they will be able to operate in a free environment far away from Red-Tapism and bureaucracy, I guess they will flourish under the condition. Meanwhile, getting financial independence is another issue which will definitely bring in some seriousness into the game.

For Advertisers - It gives them option to put their money in. Most of the companies are taking cautious steps after the world cup debacle which will reflect on their balance sheets next march. They are still scared but now atleast they can take baby steps or in marketing terms can test market this ICL which can be aptly titled as league of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They will be having more options for merchandising and sponsorships. And we can see some happy faces there.

ICL will bring in goodies for grounds and small centers also which are solely dependent on BCCI for their bread and butter and the only other option they have is to rent out their facilities to private parties for priavte functions. Now, they will be in the thick of the things because to start at this time, ICL has to contract the grounds and support facilties. Given the kind of hiccups that are expected I guess that the long term viable solution is to develop grounds facilities and this is where BCCI has to depend on the ICL.

Its not like ICL is without the disadvantages but then, on the face of it advantages seems to be outweighing the disadvantages so let's support it as true cricket fans. I am sure that may be our senior players will draw some inspiration from this league of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

What was wrong with Godse?

2007-08-17T04:35:00.000-07:00

What really was wrong with Nathuram Godse? Looking some sixty years back I can tell that we haven't ever tried to find for the answer. As a management student I am tempted to look about his motivation to kill a personality like Mahatama Gandhi. But well, Nathuram is braced as he is not alive to take a 120 questions questionnaire of MBTI or FIRO B type and all I have to be contend with is secondary data which is far too rare. Cogress government made is sure that nothing substantial should come out. But well, most of the politicians and policy makers are web illiterate and even if they are web literate they have no control over web content monitoring so some people have put up some important piece of data on web. Among the few rare documents there is a confession statement of Nathuram. and an analysis into it which you can access by clicking on this link.

I might not be able to get much insights from this because its practically of no use to me because HR people like face to face interviews and as I can;t get an interview in this life, I have to wait for my chance. Maybe in next life I will invite Gandhi and Godse both for a panel discussion with Mandira Bedi as the moderator. What do you say?

Villains of Modern India.. An "OUTLOOK"

2007-08-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

Call it cheap publicity, call it a publicity stunt or call it a competition for news Outlook has managed all that in its latest edition where it has enough Masala about the villains of Modern india. Bal Thakrey, Sanjay Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Azharuddin and Godse have been portrayed as modern villains. I don't know who murdered Keneddy but I guess the whole of the Indian media had made a hero out of Godse.

Mohd. Azharuddin's case is still in court and though nothing substantial has been proved against him, he was victimized by press, BCCI and media. Poor he, his advisors asked him to make reference to his minority status and that spelled doom against him. Even his non-muslim fans vented their anger on him and his effigies were burnt in different part of the country. Well, he is now fighting a life long battle against the BCCI. I wonder that when people like Kapil Deo, Prabhakar, Jadeja were braced then how come a magazine like Outlook can portray Azhar as a villain. We have seen his craftsmen like cricketing skills and if you takes into consideration his contribution towards Indian cricket then for a moment you might be tempted to think that he was innocent. Well, that is a matter of court's jurisdiction and I feel that its completely unfair for Outlook to take a position against him. Perhaps he was the only sensible Indian middle order batsmen who use to play with run a ball strike rate. Rest we all know about Shastris and Vengsarkars of yester year.

Godse, was hanged in the morning and cremated at unknown place. Even his ashes were not made available to his family members and as alleged were dumped in a river and the place where he was cremated was ploughed evenly so that people can't build a monument at that place. The story goes like that the book he authored was confiscated from the press and his ashes were dumped in a river from where a fisherman actually recovered the eathen pot and claimed that it's godse's ashes. His brother Gopal was freed after serving a life term in jail and in one of his interviews which was sensored, he mentioned that Gandhi didn't utter the word "Hey Ram" because the revolver they used didn't give you that much reaction time after the bullet hits you. Anyways the whole thing appears messy because I haven't even heard any assasination victim uttering even a word like "Oh god". We have seen the Gandhi side of the history but not the Godse side. His confession statement were never made public and I wonder that no Right to Information activist have take up the cause. Well, this is a country where being anti Gandhi is a crime and most of the people who opposed Gandhi's philosophy they died a painful death. Had it not been the courage of Bhagat Singh and a slew of movies made on Bhagat Singh his story might also have ended in dumps. We all know about Subhas Chandra Bose. Government never had the courage to put the papers relating to the investigation about his deaths on the table. Neither they asked Japan or Zermany to provide more information.

I am not compairing, Godse with any of these great leaders but the fact that there is not enough writing in the public which is enough for a magazine to take a stand. Anyways was hunting on google and this is what Nathuram's Court Confession document. Click Here

Sanjay Gandhi was arrogant brat but he wasn't able to match his mother in terms of arrgance and dictator like attitude. Seriously he was nothing. But probably the magazine can go ahead with Sanjay's character and can't take the present government head on by publishing anything against Indira or for that matter Nehru. Congress very easily shrugged off "Nehru Was Naive" comment from American diplomat but the fact is fact. He brought on us the three wars. We still have lot of ground to capture against these two countries. Sanjay could be a villain but we had bigger villains in congress itself.

Modi is a dictator (alleged) but atleast he lead Gujrat to Glory in less than 10 years. What about Lalu Rabri combine who plunged Bihar into a state of poverty and illiteracy. The growth figures were negative and the state became a hub for kidnapping, ransom and daylight murders. Gujrat is still way safer than Bihar and way more developed. Bihar got divided into two states and the state of law and order went to mess. Cattles roam freely on road filled with potholes whereas Gujrat added more than 50000 kilometers of highway. I have no doubts that Modi is acting as a tyrant and is against freedom of press and practicing a politics of hatred but still his sins are of lesser intensity than that of Lalu. By not taking any proactive measures to stop a riot is genocide but what about allowing law and order to fall down to a level when no one feels safe. MCC, Ranveer Sena in their dual killed 1000s of people in these 15 years of Lalu's regime but nothing much happened. And can you beat this that the top brass of Ranveer Sena (the private army of landlords) was a 75 year old man who was a follower of Gandhi and participated in freedom struggle?

About Bal Thakrey, I don;t know much but I know this thing for sure that to get cheap publicity you need to poke into something big and they have hit the target this time. Given the tolerance level of the Shiv Sena I guess that at-least they will take this issue further and will storm the news paper's office at some more places. Though the government is of opposition but still Shiv Sena has powers to break a few window panes to scare even the influential people. Well, now they can be sure of enough text against the Shiv Sena.

God bless them, I guess the biggest villain for modern India have been media which instead of focussing on bringing existing issues to the light is dishing out some exotic flavours to sell more copies. Great

The writing is on the wall.. Smoking kills..

2007-08-02T07:41:00.000-07:00

Amazing Creativity.. this poster is on the ceilings of one of the IT firms..