Water; An attempt to understand cinema

I was just listening to the music of Water by AR Rahman.. Melodious music no doubt from the master, but this post isn't about the music. Instead I was thinking about the theme of Water directed by Deepa Mehta. This is the last in the trilogy after Earth and Fire. I am not a great fan of Deepa's work, & happened to see the above 2 movies for their controversial themes, especially Fire. I watched Earth for Aamir Khan..!..
Water is the movie which was disrupted by Bajrang Dal activists in Varanasi, protesting against the way the hindu widows were being betrayed by Deepa Mehta.
I saw the trailer of the movie in some website, I am not able to recall, some days back & it did have something to do with how a child is married & she becomes a widow at a young age (played by Lisa Ray). She can then no longer marry & is forced into isolation till the time she happens to meet John Abraham & I am assuming the rest of the movie is how they overcome the odds and get married.

This triggered a thought process, where I was wondering what the real purpose of cinema is;
is it for entertainment or does it serve a kind of larger social cause.
Can it trigger an awareness of the society's problems, or is it that directors like Deepa Mehta want to sensationalise some incident and gain popularity (this was the main grouse of people when she released Fire, which did not address the hidden-under-wraps issue of lesbians).

Why do people see cinema?
I for one think it is mainly entertainment & I am sure for most of the masses would not want to spend 50 rs for being lectured on morality or see some serious issue after spending a hectic day at office or work.
Is it any wonder that No Entry a laugh-a-minute comedy is the biggest hit.. if so why do people like Deepa Mehta make these kind of movies?

Change

Hey
I have changed the look and feel of the blogpage... the old one I thought had outlived its exsitence..
Do let me know how this feels..?

Currently reading..

Heat & Dust by Ruth Praver Jhabvala...
the Booker Prize winning novel...

Review of Rising.. Mangal Pandey

I managed to see Rising some days back at Rex cinema in Bangalore.. this was my first movie in quite a while & Aamir Khan's in 4 years..!..

Needless to say Aamir Khan doesnt disappoint.. he is revolutionary incarnate as Mangal Pandey, his eyes, his face convey all the emotions & bring to life this long forgotten freedom fighter.
Toby Stephens as Capt Gordon is excellent & is unbelievably good in the last scene where he tries to defend Mangal.

There are also grey areas in the movie, esp the two heroines Rani & Amisha whose characters arent very well developed. Also some songs, esp the Rasiya one can be easily removed from the movie since it dampens the proceedings. Rahman's music is also OK, but could have been better.

But all in all a very good attempt by Ketan Mehta to bring to life a long forgotten historical figure & yes Aamir Khan (good to see you..!!)

The Rising.. Mangal Pandey

Rising is all set to hit the screens on 12 August.. & is the most awaited movie of the year.
It has already been premiered at Locarno festival..
The reviews from there havent been very good though.. read here

Betting has already begun for the movie, whether it will be a hit/flop etc... bookies have been to Locarno for the movie & have predicted that the Rising will be a flop..!...

Lots of reasons given..
1. Ketan Mehta's awful record as film maker. (Maya Memsaab, Oh Darling yeh hai India etc)
2. Period films generally havent done well in India.. (Bose is the most recent example)
3. Rising has been in the making for almost 4 years now.. & a film loses its punch once it takes so long to make..

These have been the arguments..

I for one would defintely like to go & watch whatever the press says... simply for Aamir Khan & the fact that he is acting after a gap of 4 years.. & also for Rahman's music..
Sak kushal Mangal hui Jaaye..!!...

Bangalore's traffic.. & my take on it

My solutions are quite simple really..

1. Metro
2. Metro
3. Metro...

Well, its that simple... Metro or any kind of mass transport system is definitely the need of the hour. I think we have wasted enough time & resources trying to figure out what is best for Bangalore.. Delhi Metro has shown the way ahead & this I feel should be the way going forward.

4. Traffic police & their role in the traffic management needs to be redefined. They need to be more proactive & book people on spot during traffic violations, especially auto & bus drivers. On busy roads one observes this quite frequently, where traffic police are mere bystanders & dont take any firm action.

5. People (pedestrians) should be taught to walk on footpaths, sometime footpaths are occupied by hawkers etc, the traffic police should ensure that these are cleared off. Sometimes debris is collected on footpaths, this also hinders pedestrian movement. The agency responsible has to act & clear the debris immediately.

6. Usage of traffic lights on all busy traffic intersections, I have observed that even on Hosur Rd, there arent traffic lights, leading to lots of chaos...

These are small suggesstions, but I guess this is the only way forward.

Bangalore's traffic.. & Ethiraj is caught in it..!..

Well.. well.. so Govindraj Ethiraj of CNBC is caught in the famed Blore traffic... for us it is a daily ordeal..
http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/jul/15guest.htm

His article is suprisingly quite mild where he praises the citizens of Blore & says that they are trying to save the city. Well if the citizens have to pay taxes and come to the streets every now & then, what is the Govt for?

The BDA only gives deadlines & more deadlines for existing projects to complete... while on the other hand it announces new ones..!!... ironical..!!...

I promised I will give my take on what needs to be done for this mess... well I am going to do so.. watch out....

Bangalore's traffic.. & solutions

I have now spent almost 27 years of my life in Bangalore, the famed garden city of India.. now this very sobriquet will only elicit cynical laughter or a sigh from Bangaloreans...
I travel by the dreaded Hosur Road daily, since I work in Electronics City, I notice that to cover just 9 kms of stretch from Electronics City to Silk Board Jn it takes 25-30 minutes, which is a pathetic 20 kmph on an average... this distance should ideally be covered in 10-12 minutes..
Anyways to cover the distance to my house in distant Yelahanka it takes 1 hr 15 minutes.. !!.. the distance just 30 Kms.. again an average speed of just 24 Kmph...

With this kind of infrastructure it is ridiculous to find the so called administrators of bangalore messrs Deve Gowda, Dharam Singh, BJP fight over Metro/Mono rail...
If my memory serves right this Metro project was conceived some 15 years ago.. when I was in school... yet the debate goes on.. why? what has happened since then.. Why hasnt any decision been taken.. Ditto for International Airport.. this project too was initiated some 15 years ago.. it is only now that some action has been taken...

This list is endles.. (Now that I write this, I can recollect the Hudson Circle flyover was supposed to start long long time ago.. it is only now I can see some activity happen & I am sure no flyover will materialise in the near future)
I think time has now come for some decisive action from the residents of Bangalore.
What are the solutions... let me brainstorm in the next post.

Back again.. & again..!...

Last time I had remarked that I would be regular in my postings.. but seems I really havent done justice to my remarks..
Anyways hope to be more regular...

Some of the important events that happened since the last time..
My son Dhruv's arrival....will upload some snaps soon.
Trip to US & some great learning experiences..
New found interest in Marathi Literature, Marathi movies, philosophy esp Gita, Wine making, HR-BPO.. ha ha seems like a pretty wierd list...
will want to talk about them in the future...

Back again

I have been off the blogging arena for a long time... was busy with work & was out of the country for some time now...
But i am now back & will start the blogging afresh....

Accident on Kokan Railway...

It was really sad to hear about the derailment of MatsyaGandha Express today in which around 25 people were killed.
This was the same train I had taken when I travelled to Mumbai from Mangalore some months back. The Konkan Railway though a man made wonder and extremely beautiful, still is not free from accidents. I remember another accident about a year back.
Although the rocks around tracks have been covered up properly by steel meshes, when it rains the boulders still roll on to the track. Something needs to be done urgently to reduce the accidents especially in the monsoons. Maybe the rail minster Laloo Yadav can take this as a priority.

HR folks at the TOP...

Hey it has been a long time since I blogged.. lots of reasons.. but now I intend to be more punctual..
I picked up this from Gautam's Blog.. since I also a HR person it made good reading to know that lots of HR people are at the top. Of course Sujith Bakshi is the one who comes to my mind immediately.

Well I am not talking about the usually understood contexts of glass ceilings as applied to minorities in the corporate workplace.

Instead, I am referring to the functional glass ceiling. For years, accounting, sales, marketing and finance people were usually the first choices to lead businesses as CEOs. Most people who had spent their careers in a support function like HR had to be content with a job like Director HR in the corporate ladder. The only route that was open to them to actually head businesses were in niche industries like HR consulting outfits.

No longer.

In India at least I see a rash of HR honchos who've made it to the corner office, and interestingly its in the people intensive BPO industry. There are several reasons for this but lets take a look at the people:

- Sujit Bakshi of vCustomer
- Aadesh Goyal of Hughes' BPO unit
- Bhaskar Das of Sutherland Technologies
- Prashant Sankaran of Digital Contact Centre (a part of HP)
- Vinoo Thimayya of Honeywell's BPO

I am sure there are others in the non-BPO industry too ( I know of Dr. Ajoy Kumar who briefly headed Cummins Deisel Sales & Service after a stint as GM HR of the Tata Group, but then he wasn't a career HR person). And a lot of CEOs have done some stints in HR.

Coming specifically to the case of HR people heading BPO operations, I have the following theories:

- BPO work is quite content-free and the essential skill required for a leader is people management skills, where HR people are the assets
- When BPO organizations mushroomed in India there were not too many top leaders available and with the reason given above HR directors were given the chance

The First big blow to the NDA

The first big blow to the NDA led alliance was felt when the TDP lost badly in the AP elections. There is a landslide victory for the Cong alliance here.
If these results are anything to go by then the Lok Sabha poll resukts suggest a similar sweep to the Cong. This will be a real disaster for the NDA which hopes to do well in AP & TN.
The results of these two states could well decide who forms the next Govt.
Eagerly awaiting the results on May 13.

exit the polls...!!....

It is that time of the elections when the pollsters take over... television channels are oudoing each other in analysing exit poll results... and the political parties are crying hoarse that these polls do not reflect the true character of the indian voter.
anyway I guess it is too early to make any predictions about the outcome of this election. even some months back the pollsters had got it terribly wrong on the assembly elections in MP & Rajasthan. there is no evidence to suggest that such a thing will not repeat again that too for a national level poll.
better to wait till May 13..

GMAIL

started using the google's much hyped email service, which could usurp yahoo's position as a leading provider of free email service.
the service is good.. no worry about mail storage space etc.. over 100 MB free space..
looks good maybe i might shift completely to this in some more days..!

India goes to polls

India today Apr 20 went to polls to elect its MPs to the 14th Lok Sabha. These elections will be spread over 4 phases and the counting will begin on May 13. It is a long drawn affair and will test the EC to its core.

As Indians most of us are waiting for these results. Will NDA repeat its performance of 1999? Will it get a reduced majority as some opinion polls are suggesting? Will Mulayam or Laloo become king makers? All these answers will get answered partially today when the results of exit polls start coming in. Anyway the polls are yet to begin in other parts of the country like UP etc which are more crucial to the NDA.

This is probably the first poll to have development as its core agenda and a good majority to NDA will help the reform process greatly.

Nikhil Shembekar & his blog

Picked up from gautam's blog.

This is Martin Bower's memo on behaviors he wanted to be admired in McKinsey


I want the newcomers to know what kind of behavior we admire, and what kind of behavior we deplore:
1. First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don't pull their weight in the boat.
2. We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great (organization) without brainy people.
3. We admire people who avoid politics--office politics, I mean.
4. We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates.
5. We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments.
6. We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates.
7. We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.
8. We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you.
9. We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings--particularly the people who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers and people who don't tell the truth.
10. We admire well-organized people who keep their offices ship-shape, and deliver their work on time.
11. We admire people who are good citizens in their communities--people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, the Community Chest, and so on. In this connection, I am proud of the example set by some of my colleagues during the year."

Infy crosses 1 billion

Infy declared its results today & as expected crossed 1 billion in revenues.. it is a great achievement for an Indian company. consider that for a company which was just 250 mn 4 years back. & you can see that the growth has been tremendous. When i joined last year I was told that it might take 6 quarters for it to cross.. but it has taken just four. so it has been excellent progress.
Of course challenges remain for the company:
1. managing career aspirations of an ever increasing workforce. (last year was particularly bad when attrition reached flashpoint)
2. managing salaries of workforce due to competition from MNC's who have set up shop in India
3. to develop a different (consulting?) kind of mindset in the employees to take on challenges from MNC's
4. managing a rising rupee and dipping margins
5. creating that top of the mind recall for CXO's in the US
6. creating a scalable & efficient global delivey model & offering not only cost effectiveness but also great quality "solutions" to client. As Nandan said " we want to be active business solution providers not reactive problem solvers"
Of course Infy will benefit with an ever increasing interest in Outsourcing and the future looks good for a great company.

Mitti map recasts farm future

Mitti map recasts farm future
National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP), under special mandate from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Following exhaustive work spanning three decades, the bureau has created a databank guided by 40 different parameters — including pH level, water holding capacity, texture, depth, stoniness, microbe content, salinity, minerology, irrigability — to determine the quality of various kinds of soils in the country. If intelligently used, the inventory can revolutionise the way agriculture is managed in the country.

excellent work done by the ICAR.. and this should revolutionised Indian agriculture.. sort of news which should make headlines..

Outsourcing: Long-term gains for all

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Outsourcing: Long-term gains for all
an article by economist kaushik basu who raises important points for the opponents of outsourcing
also a letter to this article sums up everything..
Outsourcing frees up resources which should, in theory at least, allow those resources to become more productive in other or new areas of the economy. The governments of those countries being adversely affected by outsourcing (with the loss of jobs in the short term) should focus on creating an environment that fosters and promotes an innovative, entrepreneurial culture to enable this migration to better jobs in the long term. Better tax incentives, funding channels, start up promotion and less red tape - all these and more will help to combat job losses.