English Vinglish

I rarely watch Hindi movies. Rarer still do I come back appreciating them.

English Vinglish is worth it, even a bleary-eyed 6 am review.

After just about making it across town to the PVR at Oberoi Mall, Goregaon, was amazed to see that most of the invitees were on time, with thousands of eager fans, waiting to glimpse their favourite stars, and of course the star of the film. 

As if one needed a reminder, large billboards of Sridevi in a saree against the New York skyline, looking lost, stared back at us all the way.

The selling point for this film till the opening has been Sridevi's comeback. For people like me, who aren't a big Sridevi fan, it wasn't the most exciting news. But to contrast, my cousin in the US, much younger than me, and surprisingly a huge fan, (after all she had missed the superstar Sridevi days), has been waiting for this with great anticipation.

After the movie got over, I too can be counted as one of the fans. For her fantastic performance. Also for being perfectly cast in the lead role.

(Picture courtesy: 123telegu.com)

The pre-hype had already got the basics of the plot out - Indian woman in New York who doesn't know the language, has to pick it up double quick with the help of a motley bunch of fellow non-English speakers. I wouldn't blame you for thinking, "Hey, it must be a 'Mind Your Language' equivalent, I've seen that."

Well it is much more than that.

Gauri Shinde the award winning short film director and ad film maker is someone we were familiar with. We knew her passion and the dedication to the craft. Her ability to put the story across with minimum fuss.

What was a revelation was Gauri Shinde the script writer.

English Vinglish is a tight script. Its sweet without being cloying. It holds a mirror where it has to, and at other moments shows the way. The single mindedness of the story and lack of familiar Bollywood distractions of supporting comedians, songs (there are a couple, but in appropriate places), arch villains and hammy side kicks, is what makes the story click.

It is humorous, even in the 'familiar' classroom scenes, it is poignant, well-shot, without making New York a tourism board sponsored promotional video. One could sense the director's familiarity with the city, it was obvious she didn't need much help from location scouts. 

The casting is bang-on. The two kids are a revelation. Especially the younger one. He could be our version of Dakota Fanning. The elder sister was good too, but given that she has age and much more worldly experience on her side to draw upon, I would judge the sibling's performance higher. But that's just nitpicking. The teacher and the co-students are good too. And they make the film lighter. The rest of the family does really well to make this slightly-more-than-a-month-in-the-life-of Mrs Godbole in Pune/New York shine in a warm familial glow.

A couple of surprises in terms of guest appearances. On hindsight, one of them is an obvious one, given that R Balki's produced the movie.

There is a nice balance to the struggle of restricting English dialogue in an English language setting for a largely Hindi audience in a mainstream Hindi movie. After all, it is a Bollywood movie, for everyone, including the person who has painted 'Ladis' and 'Gends' at the convenience near Byculla, which I happened to pass by in the morning. So the grammar lessons are few and far between, language is used to convey mood and feelings, not necessarily the exact content, and dialogue only when it's absolutely necessary.

The cowering, lost woman transforms into a confident and self-aware person. That too without stretching the limits of believability. She doesn't suddenly become an orator in the newly learnt language. She doesn't lose her shyness either.

Special mention here of Sridevi, she allows the director to lead her and doesn't overpower the narrative, with a held back, controlled performance. She could have tried to do a lot more, considering this was 'her' film, after like a zillion years.

That is where the film hits you. It's real. You can easily identify with it. And is therefore that much more enjoyable.

I don't have stars to dole out. Just hugs for the entire team, because, like many others know, it's not easy to make a good film. That too your first one, and at the same time having the guts to relaunch someone's career after many years.

Excellent Vexellent.

3-D Creator - Push Button Play God

Even though the article uses the word 'printer', I thought 'creator' or 'modeler' might be more appropriate for the way it functions  - M

A 3-D printer, which has nothing to do with paper printers, creates an object by stacking one layer of material — typically plastic or metal — on top of another, much the same way a pastry chef makes baklava with sheets of phyllo dough.

The technology has been radically transformed from its origins as a tool used by manufacturers and designers to build prototypes.

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Charles Overy, founder of LGM, with a model of a resort in Vail, Colo. “We used to take two months to build $100,000 models,” he said, adding that now they cost about $2,000.

A California start-up is even working on building houses. Its printer, which would fit on a tractor-trailer, would use patterns delivered by computer, squirt out layers of special concrete and build entire walls that could be connected to form the basis of a house.

It is manufacturing with a mouse click instead of hammers, nails and, well, workers. Advocates of the technology say that by doing away with manual labor, 3-D printing could revamp the economics of manufacturing and revive American industry as creativity and ingenuity replace labor costs as the main concern around a variety of goods.

“There is nothing to be gained by going overseas except for higher shipping charges,” Mr. Summit said.

A wealth of design software programs, from free applications to the more sophisticated offerings of companies including Alibre and Autodesk, allows a person to concoct a product at home, then send the design to a company like Shapeways, which will print it and mail it back.

“We are enabling a class of ordinary people to take their ideas and turn those into physical, real products,” said J. Paul Grayson, Alibre’s chief executive. Mr. Grayson said his customers had designed parts for antique cars, yo-yos and even pieces for DNA analysis machines.

“We have a lot of individuals going from personal to commercial,” Mr. Grayson said.
Manufacturers and designers have used 3-D printing technology for years, experimenting on the spot rather than sending off designs to be built elsewhere, usually in Asia, and then waiting for a model to return. Boeing, for example, might use the technique to make and test air-duct shapes before committing to a final design.

Depending on the type of job at hand, a typical 3-D printer can cost from $10,000 to more than $100,000. Stratasys and 3D Systems are among the industry leaders. And MakerBot Industries sells a hobbyist kit for under $1,000.

But as 3-D printing machines have improved and fallen in cost along with the materials used to make products, new businesses have cropped up. Freedom of Creation, based in Amsterdam, designs and prints exotic furniture and other fixtures for hotels and restaurants. It also makes iPhone cases for Apple, eye cream bottles for L’Oreal and jewelry and handbags for sale on its Web site.
Various designers have turned to the company for clothing that interlaces plastic to create form-hugging blouses, while others have requested spiky coverings for lights that look as if they could be the offspring of a sea urchin and a lamp shade.

“The aim was always to bring this to consumers instead of keeping it a secret at NASA and big manufacturers,” said Janne Kyttanen, 36, who founded Freedom of Creation about 10 years ago. “Everyone thought I was a lunatic when we started.”

His company can take risks with “out there” designs since it doesn’t need to print an object until it is ordered, Mr. Kyttanen said. Ikea can worry about mass appeal.

LGM, based in Minturn, Colo., uses a 3-D printing machine to create models of buildings and resorts for architectural firms.

Full and unedited article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/technology/14print.html?src=me&ref=general

Heidi's Story

The 2008 financial implosion/meltdown/collapse: an interesting way of putting it -

Here is an easy understandable explanation of the cause of the recession in the form of story.

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed in a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic Vice President at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets, and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi. Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons. But being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations, she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and her eleven employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

Suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with not only having to write off her bad debt but also with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations. Her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses, and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar, no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in the Federal Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Random Thought Luck

Copywriters and Art Directors should also form unions. We also need a one stay strike to protest against higher workloads and lower quality of briefs. I suspect the only good thing that would come out of that would be the Union posters, if we were given a free hand.

Lokmanya BG Tilak had the biggest activation/on-ground idea before marketers racked their brains trying to form communities around brands or Harley came up with Harley Owners Group. Mr. Tilak's idea will be visible on the streets of Maharashtra in a 100 year old festival celebrated by throngs venerating the elephant headed god Ganpati.

Living in Mumbai

In Mumbai, when you buy a house, you buy into the location and not the surroundings.

Art As Investment

Art, when it does come up for auction is very rare. And the most expensive ones are works of European masters because among other things, even the well-known auction houses are Eurocentric in their outlook and located in London or New York.
The ten pieces below are the top 10 most expensive works of art since 1990. There may be other works of art that might be better, but they may not have come up for public auction.
The only thing to keep in mind is that this is never going to pay you back quickly. Most of these paintings are over 100 years old.
They are arranged in descending order of big bucks paid out for them, with the Picasso below going for a world record of Rupees 475 crore. A few of these and we could wipe out hunger for ever.

1. Pablo Picasso - Nude, Green leaves and Bust, $106.4 million, sold in 2010

2. Alberto Giacometti - Walking Man I, $104.3 million, sold in 2010

3. Pablo Picasso - Boy with a Pipe, $104.2 million

4. Pablo Picasso - Dora Maar with Cat, $95.2 million, sold in 2006

5. Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, $87.9 million, sold in 2006

6. Francis Bacon - Triptych, $86.2 million, sold in 2008

7. Vincent Van Gogh - Portrait of Dr. Gachet, $82.5 million, sold in 1990

8. Auguste Renoir - Au Moulin de la Galette, $78.1 million, sold in 1990

9. Peter Paul Rubens - Massacre of the Innocents, $76.7 million, sold in 2002

10. Mark Rothko - White Center, $72.8 million, sold in 2007

One Rank One Pension

There is a lot of confusion regarding the One Rank One Pension, previous Pay Commission anomalies and restoration of pension to original level of 70% for all ranks for retired officers of the three Indian Armed Forces - Army, Air Force and Navy.
A lot of state owned banks apparently don't have the knowledge and the wherewithal to understand, process and update the Government of India orders and claims of tens of thousands of retired officers and their widows, to whom the pension is an important way to subside in various parts of India and even the world.
A group of officers have been selflessly and tirelessly working towards this by providing help and information to their fellow officers and co-ordinating between the far-flung men and the concerned banks.
See image attached for details.

Kashmir

A representative from India began: 'Before beginning my speech I want to tell you something about Rishi Kashyap of Kashmir, after whom Kashmir is named. 


When he struck a rock and it brought forth water, he thought, 'What a good opportunity to have a bath.'

He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water.
When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished. A Pakistani had stolen them.'

The Pakistani representative jumped up furiously and shouted, 'What are you talking about? The Pakistanis weren't even there then.'

The Indian representative smiled and said, 'And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech.

Fear, Happiness And God

People have often suggested 'amazing', 'this is the baap of movie A or movie X' horror movies to me for a long time. I have politely declined and have tried to explain to them that I can't willingly trouble myself so much. It's a thrill that I haven't quite gotten addicted to. I'd rather stay a creepy arm's length away.

I feel that the fear you experience, stays with you longer than it should. It eventually gets buried deep within only to resurface at an (in)opportune time. Like the times when you are alone at home. Underground car parks after office hours. While working alone at night. I have heard of people packing up and leaving in spite of the advertising deadlines because they couldn't stay back and finish the job alone in office.

Happiness is a great emotion. Altogether fleeting. Unlike fear or sadness, it doesn't stay with you, at least as much as they do. Nothing new to say, but moments of happiness are mere punctuation marks in an otherwise staid, sad, unhappy, fearful existence, depending on the person and the circumstances.

Sadness is an emotion with a longer existence. It takes events, mental effort and circumstances to go away.

So if the fear of the spirits, possession and the occult is a constructed and continuing myth, it is the second most powerful sustained myth other than the concept of a physical manifestation of God.

Herein lies the duality that I live with.

I dislike horror because I feel it is an unnatural, artificial emotion that is propagated and sustained by various people (like shamans) and organizations (like film makers and studios) either for power and/or for profit.

If a human being is isolated and never introduced to the supernatural concepts, I doubt the possibility of such fear ever crossing his or her mind. If we check the isolated communities in Northern Andamans and Nicobar Islands or Polynesia would they have a 'devil' or 'evil' equivalent? I don't know.

When it comes to God and such like, I agree that most religions are, again, a way to control masses through another type of fear. The fear of heavenly wrath. So be good, do good, commit no sin.
So having being born into a religion, I accept it, I celebrate it but there isn't a fervent, 'blind' belief that one might be expected to have. Still, somewhere deep inside is a faith in a force of nature, Gaia like concept of integrated, interconnected creation, which could again have been because of the books that I have read.

It is still another milder, benign fear. Almost like Mother/Father/Androgynous/Big Brother Nature is watching. Which is why we do good. No one wants to be hauled up and dragged over the coals.

Which is also why criminals/mad people are Godless. They don't fear the supreme force because they realise probably that there might be none. Or simply because the Supreme Force or Being(s) are too busy with more important things than worry about a lie, a theft, or something more serious. And if they get caught, it's not like what goes around, comes around. It's more like the law of averages literally catches up with them.

Minority Community

Granted that the Muslims in India are just 13% of the population (160.9 million per 2009 estimate according to two sources: CIA Factbook and India Census 2009). But if you look at the figure, how can anyone (or any longer) call them a minority community? Call them vilified, oppressed, ignored or whatever else. But minority they are not. They are the size of an average country by themselves.
Parsis, Jews, Jains and so on can be the new, true minority communities.

Rude Food. Literally.

Had to meet a friend from out of town. So we decided on a convenient place that we could meet and catch up for an hour or so. 10.30 was the appointed time. We reach (wife and I). Friend is running a bit late. So to while away time I order a Cappuccino of the Illy variety. They serve it with lots of foam (fine with that) and a sprinkle of cinnamon (uh huh). After a sip I discover that it's not even lukewarm under the protective frothy cover. So in no time I have gulped it down, and then I almost choke on a big Sweet Lime seed in my coffee.

The friend shows up around 11pm. Wife and the new guest order coffee too. The waiter has hovered around a couple of times and asked if we would order main course. We say no.
As soon as the two coffees arrive my friend orders a Tiramisu.
The manager arrives with it and say, "Will you be placing your order for main course? The kitchen will be closing in some time."
We say, no food thank you. Just the dessert will do.
Manager, "This is not a coffee shop and we don't encourage ordering just coffee and dessert."

While it may be true of any hotel or restaurant to encourage people to come and eat a full board, I have never heard of anyone actually say it in so many words. What was also amazing was that it was Saturday night. Juhu. The area packed to the gills, with Gills, Shahs and Senguptas. Parking was a fight. Almost. But this restaurant was half empty. It was also empty of kids, as per the management policy. Apparently kids are not allowed unless they are well behaved zombies who follow strict orders.
So we weren't unnecessarily occupying a table during peak time.

Think about the Baristas. Five star coffee shops. While they come, wish you the time of the day, place a menu in front of you, they don't ever insist that you order anything. Forget main course.

Our friend knows the restaurant owner well. That made us shut up and try ignore the manager's rude behaviour. Instead, we seethe between spoonfuls of the world's best Tiramisu. Do try it out. As also the other equally amazing things on the menu. It is authentic Italian food made under the personal supervision of a finicky septuagenarian Italian man.


Thank god, there aren't more fine dining restaurants of the Don Giovanni kind. Supposedly in the hospitality business ha ha.

Paa

I had read about the brilliant prosthetic make up, seen the pictures and also got a little freaked out at the sight of it in the promos. Well, that is me.

But as the film opened and Auro made his entry, the visual comfort increased till, later and towards the end, the bald head with blue veins didn't matter as much as what was happening in the story.

Like Cheeni Kum, Paa is also well written, funny in parts (where after the initial guffaws, the humour stays with you longer than the usual slapstick delivered say in a 'All the Best' or Govinda No. 1 movie) and the performances are outstanding.

Amitabh Bachchan is Auro the 12 year old kid with progeria, Vidya Balan is Vidya, a Cambridge returned Gynecologist and Abhishek Bachchan is Amol Arte the young and dynamic MP from Lucknow or thereabouts. Paresh Rawal has less histrionics this time and is pretty good with what he gets, but that is expected from an actor of his calibre and there is Auro's best friend from school, Vishnu, (played by Prateek) imp sized with round black spectacles, who brings out the loudest laughs and practically steals the show in a scene.

When you think about it, the little boy is acting with Amitabh Bachchan and that is enough to send shivers down the spines of experienced TV anchors, forget grown up actors. I guess the boy, not burdened by the thought of acting with the legend called Amitabh Bachchan, is a complete natural while interacting with the character called Auro. Huge credit to the team that made the look and the character so seamless and independent of the Amitabh persona. And ultimately that is what works so well, where like I mentioned earlier, I forgot about the bizarre look and focussed on the unfolding story.

To get back, the colours are a treat, Cambridge University looks amazing, so does the other visual treat, Vidya Balan. Amol and the camera are equally adept at romancing her.

Briefly the plot is thus (spoilers ahead): Amol and Vidya bump into each other and sparks fly. Soon, she discovers that she is pregnant. Amol asks her to abort as he suggests they focus on their studies and the eventual individual careers. They split. Cut to 12 years later in India. Amol is the dashing MP that everyone loves. He believes in engineering social change through transparent governance. There are political and social messages galore throughout the film, taking on political stereotypes, corruption, builders, media, the works. Meanwhile, Vidya has decided to keep the baby and is now a successful doctor in a local hospital, but the two have never met.

Then the Auro story really begins. Amol happens to judge a Vision of the Future/21st Century India (something like that) competition in the prestigious school in town. That's where Amol (Paa, in case you haven't figured it out by now) and we first encounter Auro, the funny, intelligent and aged student who sees life through his 72 year old eyes.

Amol the MP and Auro the big-little boy become friends. While he is battling his political nemesis, the busy MP finds time for the child he is growing fond of. Interacting with such a special case who is precocious, knowledge hungry and wizened at the same time can be exasperating and yet there is a certain cuteness too. Abhishek has struck the right note while portraying a busy MP giving his precious time to bond with Auro. Fondness and exasperation in fine balance.

I don't want to let on to more of the story. Suffice to say that it is definitely worth a watch. Everyone has done a great job, the cast, the technical crew, special mention of the art direction, the music is soulful and syncs with the film brilliantly. If at all I have to nitpick, a couple of small blemishes. The Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi, has a bedside telephone with Sahara Star labelled on it. Vidya's 2008 Honda Accord morphs into the 2004 Accord in between. Auro the twelve year old child's finger has something that suspiciously looks like a voting mark. I may be wrong.
But all this is really trivial compared to emotional roller-coaster that the film is. Hugely enjoyable.

What Security?

I was participating in a Canon photo competition last Sunday for a lark, and of course for the all-expenses-paid trip to Japan which they had dangled enticingly.

We got an hour and a half per topic to run from Atria Mall to click pictures and get back to upload them at the Canon Center. The three briefs were - Stand Out, On The Job and Freedom. While roaming around Peddar Road, Babulnath Temple, Mahalaxmi Race Course and Worli Sea Face, I used to park my car somewhere and walk a bit around on foot trying to capture a picture that fit the brief. They had given us Canon T-shirts to wear and a huge badge to identify us as participants.

Almost everywhere, the security guards let me wander around and even saluted me!
Made me think about them, the fear that they have about anything and anyone looking even slightly officious. I don't think they could read Canon, but I suspect they could visually identify the Canon logo and let me through. I even drove to the stables at Mahalaxmi without any hitch, saluted by 2 guards on the way. At Gold's Gym opposite Haji Ali, it was the same case.

Scary that anyone can take advantage of these poor guys fear and desire not to upset a potentially powerful person just to safeguard their jobs!

Hippo Vs Aliva Vs Cracker Classic Lite Vs 5 Grain

A comparison between some new snack foods that have cropped up, all in the baked, not fried category and a few old favorites.
All of them flag off the Zero Cholesterol and Zero Trans Fat prominently. Some say made with wheat and dal instead of flour (maida). Some have 5 grains in them. Some have minuscule amounts of honey and other good things that they are irrelevant in the health claim.

So, do the just-launched snacks Hippo (Parle Agro) and Aliva (Frito Lay) score over a comparatively new 5 Grain Nutri Choice (Britannia) or the Cream Cracker (now known as Cracker Classic Lite Nutri Choice) (Britannia) or are they all just marketing hype? To me any thing that is packaged and has flavouring and emulsifying agents and a load of maida has to be unhealthy. Nothing can beat food made at home. So while I buy all of the above brands and more, the final nutri choice is up to us whether we choose to become hippos or stay alive in a cracking healthy way.
              
NOTES:
The 4 packs were of different sizes. So I have reduced the nutritional information to a common 10 gms. Also Hippo is a toasted bread snack and not a biscuit as the others clearly are. 1 kcal is just one Calorie. But the reason for all of them being here is because we are being sold these as a healthy alternative in our busy life.
While I was looking for pictures to add, I stumbled upon Nita's site. If you have read so far, I assume you care about what you eat, so please check out what she has to say about these claims.

Click on the image below, it's a hand-drawn table with the nutritional information compiled from the above packs.

Displaced... And Dazed

I was born in Bombay. My first few nappy changes brought along a heady rush of smells, sights and sounds as my parents took connecting trains and planes, shifting across the length and breadth of India bag, baggage, two bawling kids and 42 wooden boxes in tow.
 

Pathankot, Chandigarh, Kanpur, Silchar (in Assam), Poona, New Delhi, Bareilly, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and so on. 29 houses in 31 years to be precise. And a bunch of muddled and not so muddled memories.
 

Of numerous housekeepers. One really nice gardener. One nutty nanny in Silchar who insisted on feeding us milk and rice with sugar on top. Moving from large bungalows with picturesque gardens to shared accommodation in Air Force transit camps. From cramped whitewashed flats to large apartments overlooking the Arabian Sea. Memories of gardens winning first prize every year to Assamese Bashas made out of bamboo and nothing else. Ones that gave up their roofs to the gale-force winds in the North Eastern monsoons. And if not the roof blowing off, springing leaks that only large plastic sheets stretched under them could aim the leakage towards strategically placed buckets and pans.

There was a time I remember, when the monthly ration the peak-capped boffins in New Delhi sent, was a planeload of tinned biscuits and that is all the whole Air Force station had to eat that week.

Our extensive Poona garden with numerous fruit trees to swing and climb, from Mango and Guava, to Banana and Sugarcane. And the shock to discover that our happy playground was home to a huge brown snake. The long cycle rides in the cantonment roads chasing each other, playing catch and cook. The chance encounter with a girl after school, while waiting for our dads to pick us up, who was the only one ever to have made me go weak in the knees, all at the rather young age of ten. And later, becoming friends with her, knowing fully well it was never meant to be. Picking 'Ber' and dipping them in little packets of salt, carried just for such encounters on our secret short cuts in the Aravali hills. Roller skating from Subroto Park to Dhaula Kuan and back, racing trucks on the national highway. Hurried Table Tennis in the lunch break. Playing cricket every day, even during exam time and paying the penalty for it. The rod, I remember, was not spared.

When two boxes full of books collected, no treasured, over the years, had no place in a small house in Bangalore and were sent for storage in HAL. And after a year when we moved to our official house, to discover all that was left of them were little bits of paper chewed up by rats in a hungry frenzy. Or sheer frustration.

Or later in college, experiencing a culture shock of civilian kids and their completely different lifestyles and upbringing. The biggest being the perceived lax morals, having grown up in the city versus being closeted in insulated cantonments far away. An example of that being when I got my driving license, the regular way, paying the 45 rupee fee, while my classmates boasted how they didn’t even have to make a trip to the RTO office. They got theirs in hand by paying a princely sum of Rs. 300 to a tout.

The irritating times trying to convince traffic cops that the reason my scooter, car and bike had alien license plates was because my father had a transferable job and CHU 4844 was a 25-year-old Chandigarh legacy my father refused to give up, even when the papers were lost. Or hiding the fact that CKA 2432 was deregistered in Bangalore and then never re-registered, ever again. And UTF 9 was an IPS officer's car and getting salutes from cops was an embarrassment to be savored in secretive glee behind its dark tinted windows.
 

When I joined advertising in 1996, the mad world actually helped stabilize my life. In fact, Mumbai has now been my home for the longest period of time. After moving three more times, I moved to a place right across the road from the hospital I was born in (Dr. Pai's, Matunga) almost like a fitting end to the journey so far. And a poetic way to begin at the beginning.
 

To put things in perspective, I have one friend from school, a handful from college, no neighbours or neighbourhood friends and a whole lot of agency friends. Or rather, friends who happen to be in advertising.
 

I am glad with what I have.

- This started off life as a small rejoinder to a friend's article that was published in http://dsplaced.com/?p=324. It just became so humongous that I had to cut-paste it here and just leave a link there :)

Vuclip: More News

Vuclip’s redesigned web and wapsites make it easier than ever for users to search for and watch any Internet video on their mobile phones by adding social networking and other functionality to drive the discovery of new video content. In addition to having any video delivered to their phones whenever they want, users can now create playlists, receive alerts about new videos and share their favorite videos with friends.

“Users want to consume everything from first-run branded content to user-generated content but the mobile video viewing experience has been far too frustrating for it to become an everyday consumer activity,” said Nickhil Jakatdar, CEO of Vuclip. “Vuclip solves this problem by delivering video to mobile phones the way people want it, when they want it, wherever they are.”

The current growth and adoption rates for mobile video usage have been hampered by technological fragmentation in the marketplace as well as limited available content. Handsets have different screen sizes, media players and browsers. Network Infrastructure varies among carriers. The availability of mobile video content is often limited by pre-encoding and storage issues.

Vuclip addresses these fragmentation and content issues by allowing users to search for any Internet video, transcoding that video on the fly and optimizing it for each handset to ensure the best video viewing experience possible – all in real time. Vuclip works on more than 2000 handsets in 130 countries around the globe.

- sociableblog 

IT Calling

Got a letter from the IT Department, Government of India. My returns had been randomly selected by the computer for scrutiny under the CAAS system.

The Parel, Mumbai office of the IT Commissioner was a godown. The 3rd floor, where I was to meet the case officer was a mess. Piled with personal and corporate income tax returns on the floor, on racks nine feet high, on desks, on every available space, a hundred bound together with white strings. All dusty and dirty.

The Income Tax Officers and lesser mortals sweating it out in that dust-mote paradise with ancient fans whirring overhead. They don't even have a desktop yet. It is one of the 'demands' made by the labour union on a large, red lettered poster stuck in the landing.

The commissioner, there were many for each ward/zone, had a cabin with a comfortable air-conditioner and the works. But still it was a dumpy office. Certainly can imagine the vengeance they must be generating in their minds to go after cases of the rich and untaxed just by walking into that hell-hole everyday.

The above was the government not providing them facilites like air-conditioning, computers and filing systems and furniture.

But what about cleaning, dusting and sweeping the premises? The inside of the office had large pillars, and on each of them, four feet high, were countless blood-red pan and gutka stains spat out with gay abandon. Wall corners inside the office were doubling up as spittoons. The toilet was stinking. Plastic chairs for visitors dirty and broken. The water cooler was so dirty that touching it was a risk.

Do these people hate what they do so much that they couldn't care?

Typhoon Journeys 8000 Miles Non-Stop

The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) has deployed four Eurofighter Typhoon FGR.4 combat aircraft to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas for air defence duties.
The aircraft, which departed from their homebase at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire on 12 September, were accompanied by aerial refuelling tanker aircraft for their 8,000-mile journey to the South Atlantic island chain.
The Typhoons will spend a period of time conducting joint operations with the incumbent Panavia Tornado F.3s to ensure a smooth transition from one type to the other. The F.3s will return to the UK aboard chartered Antonov An-124 transport aircraft.
The Typhoons, drawn from 3 Squadron (which provides the southern portion of the UK's Quick Reaction Alert [QRA] cover) will be assigned to 1435 Flight at Mount Pleasant airfield for the purpose of deterring any incursions from Argentina, which lays claim to the islands.
- Jane's

When Will You Have Money?

In the twenties, you either couldn't care, or didn't have enough. Investment. Savings. Putting something aside. All these were for someone else. Definitely someone older. The reasons being:
1. Not now.
2. I'll start saving/investing later.
3. I don't have money now.
4. You earn so much more than me, that's why you can think about all this.
5. Some other stuff that you thought of, because the above were all my excuses.

As I came into the thirties, I realised that, oh yeah, I wasn't going to get any pension. Therefore I had to provide for myself, by making money work for me, and not work for money.

So what about savings? Being brand conscious meant that savings were barely matching the minimum required to keep my savings bank account active. And keeping up with the Joshis meant that I had to have all that and more.

The PF contribution from my salary, for the first few years didn't amount to much as the base salary was so low.

It is only recently that I have realised that the oft repeated mantra - start early - is so important.
And what does it take? Rs 2000 for a simple SIP with a mutual fund. 6 years will give you a savings of at least Rs 144000, or more, assuming the fund performs.

Or a few thousand rupees in shares. All it takes is a an investment every month on a few shares and then forgetting about it as you keep on building your portfolio. No one keeps track of the daily ups and downs of the sensex as one might think. It doesn't make sense either. Every six months or a quarter is all that is required. But study the market you must.

And what do you invest in? Initially, till you have extra money to play with, and till your confidence grows, start with defensive stocks. And later, when you can, cyclical stocks. Defensive stocks won't be star performers on the bourses, but they won't play roller coaster with your heart beat. They will give steady dividends and grow steadily too. Cyclical stocks will be the stars who add to your profit booking.

And should you have a heart attack because you invested your life's saving in the markets and saw the market plunge? No. Go out and buy the A-list stocks for cheap.
The market plunges for a day, a month, or a few months, but sooner or later the markets are sure to bounce back and grow. After all, the richest man in the world is not an entrepreneur, dotcom owner or a member of the European royalty. Just someone who started early, in his teens, and invested wisely, and rode all the ups and downs of the markets with aplomb.

This part of your investments should be about 5% of your wealth. And of the 5%, you can split it into safe stocks and slightly risky stocks. So by an off chance, something seriously goes wrong, you still have your 95% safe.

I suppose everything going bust is a rare event. Like in 2008. Property valuations bottoming out are hard to digest if you are a speculator in the market, but if you are worried that the house that you are currently occupying has halved in value, forget it. It is notional value anyway. That value is of no use to you. So is the wealth on paper with your shares. Till you decide to sell it, the shares are just something to objectively look at and for your chartered accountant to remind you of at the end of the year tax returns.

So what next?

Pay off all your loans, ideally by the time you are 55. Hopefully you have invested in property, gold, PPF, Bonds, Fixed Deposits and 6 month's expenses worth of savings in your account. Calculate the number of years till you reach 55. Figure out your 5% that you can spare in a year to be invested in shares and mutual funds. Read up on the best performing funds and the SENSEX / NIFTY 50 and A-List stocks that you can invest in. Ignore all thoughts of becoming suddenly, stupendously rich on a penny stock that someone gave you a hot tip about.

Open a Demat account and a trading account linked to your savings bank account. And start today.

With Rs 2000 to 5000 as a monthly investment in shares, it is not longer about 'I will do it when I have money', but rather, 'I will invest now SO THAT I have money' at a later date.
 

HDFC Securities - Shares As An SIP

HDFC Securities has launched something called Do It Yourself SIP. The difference being that instead of buying mutual funds in a systematic investment plan, you can buy shares on the 7th of the month worth a minimum of Rs 5,000, as an SIP.
The second good thing is that instead of buying shares via mutual funds and earning dividend through them, where they get to keep some of the earnings, you buy shares directly on your own name. And keep the dividend earned, which is tax free.
Now, there isn't an entry load on buying mutual funds, but there is an exit load. Here with HDFC Securities you buy shares, and there isn't any load, except a small yearly charge.
Plus, you can choose which shares to buy, or use the advice from HDFC Securities to decide.
The only clarity I haven't got is, after you sign some papers with HDFC Securities, is there a possibility to not buy anything in a month, say when the Sensex or Nifty are breaching dizzying heights?