Category Archives: Musings

When Beer is Cheaper than Water

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Talking to a former colleague the other day, an interesting point came up: that beer is way cheaper than water in Germany. Well, I haven’t verified this, but I am inclined to believe it, especially at the time of Oktoberfest. I am reminded of one of those emails that somehow linger on like ghosts in the cyber-sea, rising up for a breath in our inboxes at unpredictable intervals – this one starts by telling you that India is a country where lime juice is made of artificial flavouring while dishwashing liquids have real lemon extract in them.

Now, I might have read the above factoid on Facebook as well, because Facebook is one huge wellspring-cum-megasink of material which gives you the fake satisfaction of having thought of something serious when all you did was think of some clever comment for a friend’s photo. (A quick aside: the other day, an article in The Hindu mentioned that “most Facebook users have low self-esteem.” You can find the article at http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article625076.ece till it vanishes. I would think that most Facebook users love to hate Facebook.)

Getting back to the initial point. This Antoinettesque phenomenon reveals itself elsewhere as well. And I am not necessarily talking of cars being cheaper than bikes. How many times have we longed for a sip of water, only to find that the only thing that gets drained faster than the bottle is our pocket? And this, at a railway station where there is a drinking water fountain right next to the shop where you bought the bottle, but you just know instinctively that the fountain must be avoided at all costs.

Fast food is cheaper, easier to find and more aggressively marketed than healthy, balanced meals. A taxi ride is more easily accessible than a bicycle for rent (if at all the latter is ever available) or even the healthiest and cheapest option of walking – for when roads are in pathetic shape and footpaths non-existent, jolting over potholes is preferable to twisting your ankle in an unexpected pit on what passes as the footpath. Moreover, the car that looms around the corner is any day a greater hazard than the cardiovascular illness that five minutes of walking might help avoid.

Now that the Commonwealth Games is near, no writer can desist from taking a jab at the glaring inefficiency and corruption. Or is it indifference and complacence? So you read about sports equipment allegedly procured at unbelievably high prices, while sportspersons of all hues decry the lack of attention paid by authorities to actually advancing sports in the country. As for meeting deadlines, even Octopus Paul would refrain from predicting whether the preparations for CWG would be completed in time or not. Bill Gates supposedly once said,”I like pushing things to the edge. That’s often where you find high performance.” Is there some unsettling inference to be made here? After all, the much touted jugaad philosophy might yet save the games and whatever is left of names and faces. Or will people heed voices of popular writers and boycott the nation’s time of reckoning?

All this has to be taken with a pinch of salt, for the highly fashionable “paid news” system in the media has made it difficult to decipher news and views from sensationalism and cleverly-couched mudslinging. Talk of turning on its head the old adage of fact being stranger than fiction. Fact is now not a stranger, but a really close ally of fiction.

PS: I shudder to think of what would happen if any of the millions of fans on Facebook’s Facebook page happen to read this article. Or, given declining attention spans, even the first two paragraphs. But I am smug because they are too busy for that!

PPS: Yeah, I agree. The title seems rather sensationalist…

Nothing Very Original – My Take on Raavanan

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Unlike a typical movie review which starts with a suspense-spoiler-alert, this one needs a suspenselessness-spoiler-alert. But then, the title of the post has already given away the fact that the movie has no original plot after all.

Shuffling into our seats five minutes late, mumbling apologies, secretly glad that our sheepish faces couldn’t be seen, we didn’t know what we had missed. Later, a helpful friend mentioned that a song, a mind-boggling leap worth watching and a kidnapping had all taken place in those critical initial minutes. Well, this is yet to be verified. But, given that any school-going kid knows the story of Ramayana, we could imagine not only what we had missed, but also whatever we were yet to watch. (A moment of pause: the new generation of kids who know Potter and Bond better than good old Rama and Arjuna might be forgiven for thinking that the injury-kidnap-revenge saga is a modern invention.)

I had some reservations watching a Tamil movie because I was certain that it would be sub-titled in English, and for a compulsive reader, sub-titles are profoundly distracting. In hindsight, I am glad to have watched the Tamil version and not the Hindi one firstly because the cast is better in Tamil (not everyone has what I would term the screen presence required for a villain who is allotted the screen time normally reserved for a hero)  and secondly because the dialogues and songs are better too. Of course, this is a moot point…

Coming to the story. There is a boat, a guy who could be the hero or the villain, a girl and some others. Since the girl is bound and gagged, and the guy seems quite proud of it, you guess that he must be the villain. Veera and Ragini have made their entry! By the way, for the uninitiated: when I say “boat”, please don’t get the idea of a blue-coloured plastic-bodied motorised dinghy.  Instead imagine a wooden structure, completely bio-degradable, in tune with all the mind-blowing greenery in the movie.

Let me confess that, since I had not done any prior googling, at this point it had not struck me that Raavanan was purported to be an interpretation of Ramayana. I had imagined that the reference to one of world’s oldest villains was purely symbolic and that the setting would be a modern city or at least a village. So, when Dev, the inspector, encounters the drunkard on the way to the forest, I naively wonder at the audacity of the latter. But when he swings across tree-branches, there is a moment of epiphany – so this is Hanuman, which means that is Rama, and those were Ravana (to use the usual English spelling) and Sita. Now some things have fallen into place. Although mildly disappointed that the story has become predictable, I tell myself that a landmark movie like Jurassic Park would have been only slightly less enjoyable even if I had read the book.

Jatayu, the discarded pushpaka vimana and other indispensables of Ramayana follow in quick progression. Before the audience gets engrossed in predicting which scene of Ramayana comes next, songs make their way in. A. R. Rehman and Karthik have done a decent job in ‘usure pogudhey’. There are some other songs as well, at appropriate places. (Of course, there rarely is an appropriate place for a song except perhaps as a background score. Indian movie directors irrespective of the language seem to think the exact opposite.)

The acting is reasonable if expectations are kept reasonably low. Clearly, that is not the selling factor of the movie anyway. The camera-work is far more impressive. In a variation from the usual sequential narration, images are superimposed to show what happened just minutes ago as Dev follows the trail of Veera. Also, there are scenes where the comical and the serious are juxtaposed. But instead of reinforcing the gravity, the comical aspect dilutes the seriousness; the “demon in a king’s palace” dialogue by Veera is one instance that comes to mind. There are also other striking dialogues that act as saving graces at times. For example, Veera asks how he could have killed someone with no fear of death in her eyes.

Towards the end when Dev casts aspersions on Ragini, it comes as a discordant note. Bringing in the lie-detector idea was unnecessary and incongruous. And once the train of improbable scenes has begun, there is no turning back. So Dev does nothing when his wife alights from the train in the middle of a forest. (It goes without saying that everything in the movie happens in forest settings.) Ok, Dev did nothing because has a purpose – he wants to settle more scores with Veera. And he can be mindlessly cruel when he is desperate. But what about the guard and the conductor of the train? It is not very pleasant to imagine that if you pull the chain, stop the train and get off, you can walk away, no questions asked, as if you were on a bus! But then, once you accept whatever has happened in the movie till then, this is a negligibly small leap of faith.

On a less criticising note, the movie has some merits as well – the skill with which the greenery has been captured (the backdrop of the climactic good vs evil battle which becomes a white vs black fist-fight), the attention with which natural beauty has been depicted (remember the dragonfly?), and the vibrant display of colours (the wedding of Veera’s sister). But here again I cannot help asking: weren’t some of the colours a little too rich? Somehow I don’t seem to have noticed such rich colours in a real forest or wedding!

Bottomline: I have always felt that hype is almost never worth it. And nothing in the movie has changed this feeling.

<Personal opinion disclaimer applies.>

Favourite lines from ‘Atlas Shrugged’

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The spirit of Atlas Shrugged is evident even in Ayn Rand’s comments on the book. My list of favourite lines starts with an excerpt from the author’s notes. “To all the readers who discovered The Fountainhead and asked me many questions about the wider application of its ideas, I want to say I am answering these questions in the present novel and that The Fountainhead was only an overture to Atlas Shrugged.” Terming a not-so-small book an “overture” powerfully conveys the hubris innate in Rand’s objectivism. And yet, there is no offence meant to anyone in her celebration of humanity. This could be why Rand has die-hard fans; and also why she has staunch naysayers.

Here go the quotes:

——-

“Dagny, how many years is it going to take you to learn to be yourself?”

“If any part of your uncertainty,” said Galt, “is a conflict between your heart and your mind—follow your mind.”

“Dagny, we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we’ve made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to make.”

The two boys had the open, joyous, friendly confidence of kittens who do not expect to get hurt, they had an innocently natural, non-boastful sense of their own value and as innocent a trust in any stranger’s ability to recognize it, they had the eager curiosity that would venture anywhere with the certainty that life held nothing unworthy of or closed to discovery, and they looked as if, should they encounter malevolence, they would reject it contemptuously, not as dangerous, but as stupid.
“If you wish to save the last of your dignity, do not call your best actions a ‘sacrifice’: that term brands you as immoral. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty. If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who’s willing. If a man refuses to sell his convictions, it is not a sacrifice, unless he is the sort of man who has no convictions.”
——-
Clearly the list is not exhaustive.

Rand’s philosophy is perhaps possible only in an ‘Atlantis’, far removed from the real world inhabited by imperfect beings who probably don’t even understand objectivism. That said, it is to Rand’s credit no other philosopher would dare to use a turn of phrase such as “radiant selfishness”!

Why I Did Not Like ‘3 Idiots’

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Talk to friends about movies, and the discussion veers round to ‘3 Idiots’. (These days it quickly moves on to ‘Badmaash Company’ and ‘Kites’, and from there to gossip about the lives of movie stars if you happen to be in the conducive kind of company.)

Assume ‘3 Idiots’ (3I from now on) is a campus movie. In Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, I have watched better campus movies. And even in Hindi, there are better ones. ‘Nammal’ (translated as ‘We’ which simply does not capture the sense of togetherness embodied by the Malayalam word) is a story that seamlessly brings together a vast range of feelings – the mother’s love, the orphan’s sense of loss, the lover’s sweet musings, the father’s caring seriousness, the friend’s joviality, the senior’s rashness, and the campus’s thrills. All of this, woven around a story worth acting and worth watching. (That the movie was shot in the college where I studied is only an added incentive. I would have watched it countless times even otherwise.)

‘Classmates’, another Malayalam campus movie, is perhaps more comparable to 3I since it too involves a batch reunion several years after graduation. But there the similarity ends. ‘Classmates’ is sensitive, and wonderfully acted. And the story – which is a story and not a prop for everything but – engages with the audience.

Of course, unlike 3I, ‘Classmates’ does not make feeble attempts at slapstick comedy, especially of the kind where the story has to leave its natural track to go and fetch the comedy that seems to have vanished like a naughty kid. Now, if 3I is a comedy movie, set in a campus, to what genre will genuine campus comedy movies like ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ belong? The latter was one Bollywood movie that did not have to rely on superstars or glitz or unreal romance to bring home the point or the money. And it is worth one watch. Even when Munnabhai becomes overly sentimental, the critic in you has enjoyed the movie till then so much that you excuse some lapses.

‘Happy Days’ in Telugu is sugary-sweet and childishly optimistic. But it too manages to tap some corner in the hearts of engineers who have spent four years in a roller coaster of common subjects like graphical drawing, common concerns like grades/marks, common troubles like hostel life, common worries like placements and of course, campus life with its inevitable romance. The movie does not pretend to be what it is not. It is a simple narrative of the lives of  a few engineering students, with a few songs and dialogues.

A stronger story is present in ‘Boyz’ – that superhit Tamil movie with its hit songs. (Anyone who has heard Karthik’s rendition of “paal poley…” would agree.) It brings in all the usual campus movie elements – friendship, love, loss, a drive to do well, and so on, along with some bold takes on issues such as parental pressure to perform. The acting was not too memorable but the freshness of portrayal did not go unnoticed.

But not so with 3I.

The characters are all, without exception, caricatures. Take Rancho – the super-successful charismatic intelligent class-bunker who still bags the first rank. (Come on, do you want to ratto-fy and get the rank, or do you want to bunk classes and become a five point someone? Because the system still has not evolved to the point where you can be both. Even an Einstein will get the first rank only if he writes the right answers in exams, not if he makes remote-controlled toy helicopters.) Then there are two of Rancho’s admirers-cum-sidekicks who have no existence if not for Rancho (the evidence for this is right here: I am unable to recall the names of the duo). And what would the movie be without Chatur – the studious nerd, who too revolves around Rancho? The list doesn’t stop here. The principal of the college acts just like you would expect his caricature to, and his daughter is just as disappointing. And don’t even bother to consider minor roles like the daughter’s fiance.

If the characters are poor, can the story be far behind? So you have the stereotyped damsel on the bike, and vacuum cleaners and car batteries put to the one of the most uncreative (no pun intended) purposes possible. You have hostel scenes that should put any decent guy to shame. Ultimately, suicides and suicidal attempts have to save the show through sensationalism.

Yes, 3I has its vocal supporters, who laughed through the repeated obscenities in Chatur’s Teachers’ Day speech and rotfl-ed watching the same speech again on YouTube. But not me. Give me ‘Nammal’ any day. So that I won’t have to laugh at the pathetic attempts at comedy.

<Personal opinion disclaimer applies.>

IIMA Placement Chairperson speaks on “media fixation with salaries”

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IIMA Placement Chairperson Prof. Saral Mukherjee says “Media must end fixation with salaries”. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5674000.cms

On ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’

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“At a cafe table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an American stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting…” – from the back cover of Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’.

These lines make so much more sense after reading the book, because words like “bearded” and “stranger”, and even “fateful” are key elements in the narrative. The story is a monologue by a Pakistani who embraces the US and its ways after coming to America as an undergraduate student, and holds these bindings closer as he starts working in a coveted position at a valuation firm.

A turning point in the story is the terror attacks of September 2001. (A short aside: The attacks seem to have happened just yesterday or ages ago depending on how you look at it. Many people, including yours truly, can still recall what exactly they were doing when the shocking news came upon them. And yet, now when it figures in the news because certain photographs have been released, it seems like an event that took place in some long-lost and misplaced memory.)

Sometimes the writing gets intensely personal, and strikes a chord with the reader’s sensibilities. For instance: “… [Jim] continued to look at me in his steady, penetrating manner until eventually he said, “You’re a watchful guy. You know where that comes from?” I shook my head. “It comes from feeling out of place,” he said.” Now, this happens long before 9/11, before the protagonist Changez senses alienation in his adopted country. It makes the reader wonder whether Changez felt at home in the first place. Does any immigrant ever feel at home? What is it that ties a person to his roots – what makes Changez happy after he returns to Lahore? But he is not ungrateful, for he realises that the US is perhaps one of the rare places where he can hope to achieve so much without the backing of connections.

Parallel to this thread of political disillusionment runs the story of Erica – Changez’s girlfriend – who loses herself to depression. The book does try to portray the emotional fallout of 9/11 on the minds of Americans, but even the loss of Erica is not so much about her as about him. And while it may seem that Changez loses his quality of being a “shark” that never stops swimming, never stops competing, that notion could be mistaken. For it is this nature of his that urges him to lead protests and demonstrations in Lahore. And ultimately results in the ending that manages to be unexpected enough to stop your thoughts and yet expected enough to be believable. And this, in spite of flaws such as a glossed-over description of Changez’s Lahore days, makes the book worth reading.

A question: why do many books end up giving the feeling that the penultimate parts have been hurried through? Also, since the book made it to the Booker shortlist, the question arises: isn’t it too short for a Booker? But then, if ‘The White Tiger’ could get shortlisted, and win, why not this? Perhaps there is a real shortage of books with more substance, or perhaps authors and publishers believe the Twenty20 generation cannot handle anything more complicated.

Calvin on Business

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Calvin On Business

What Calvin has to say on running a business. Rings very true in today’s corporate scenario! From http://www.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/1992/02/199202.html

Christmas at WIMWI

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It started off like any other day. (Is this post starting off like any other nondescript post?) There were two exams, and tea was served in the middle of each. Nothing very remarkable. In the evening, a group of 40-odd students set off from the mess to bug their professors on Christmas eve. They sang little-practised carols, did makeshift dances and “laughed all the way” through cakes at every house. The Santa stole the show!

Let me try to remember what we sang – “Jingle bell, jingle bells, jingle all the way/ Oh what fun it is to ride on a one-horse open sleigh!” Singing carols for the first time in my life… a beautiful experience!

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s lecture

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As part of the GRIIT (Globalizing and Resurgent India through Innovation and Technology) course – an elective conducted in the second year of PGP, Dr. Kalam presented a lecture on environmental sustainability. Needless to say, since first year students were given the option of attending, I attended it. The lecture focussed mainly on climate change and sustainable development.

My first feeling was a sense of mild disappointment. Somewhere in a corner of my mind, I had expected nothing less than enlightenment on coming face to face with a personality whom I admired and respected in equal measure. The initial powerpoint slides with climate change statistics added to my feelings. But as the lecture progressed, I imbibed a sense of the vibrance that keeps this great person going. There was a spontaneity in Dr. Kalam’s replies to questions, which seemed a refreshing break from the measured and “correct” replies – which usually are neither here nor there – that many speakers tend to give. The lecture ended with an oath that the participants took, committing ourselves to do our bit for the environment by planting trees, recycling and so on.

Climate change is an issue with no easy solutions. Can policy makers and carbon traders grasp the significance of issues that are not so obvious inside air-conditioned boardrooms and cars?

The Labyrinth

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A Harvard Business Review article ‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership’ (September 2007) piqued my interest. It made intriguing reading for someone interested – sometimes indignantly- in issues of women empowerment (for lack of a better term that can express all the complications involved in gender disparity and its consequences).

Start with a very basic question. Why is it that there is far more commentary on the appearance of women who are public figures, when compared to men of the same stature? Perhaps this point has not even struck you before.

And move on to more striking issues. Consider the corporate world. Starting from subtle notions on capabilities of women leaders to blatant prejudices, there is an entire range of issues that women in leadership positions need to tackle on a continuous basis. This is not to deny that some women manage to navigate the labyrinth successfully. But for most women leaders, it is almost as if success requires a combination of circumstances that is harder to come by than in the case of men.

Where do the solutions to this situation lie?