The Sting Circus

2005 would be best remembered as the year of the sting. It made Hindi movie plots come alive on your small screen. It made public the best guarded open secrets of Bollywood, politics and crime, the hottest newsmakers iof this country. With catchy taglines like Shakti ki aurat bhakti, Aman ka ujda chaman, politicians ke poll khol and IG ki ayyaashi , news channels had a ball going anywhere with secret cameras and shooting anything worth half an eyeball. Sadly tsunamis and petrol pilferage were not hot enough. Sting was the new fling of popular culture.

Now stings are approaching reality. There is already the case of a person catching his seniors taking a bribe because they did not pass on a cut to him. I am predicting that stings will be a regular feature in the Indian corporate world. Certain examples could be

Sales Strategy Summit : or the Scapegoat Screwing Session

In the first hour devoted to official work in the 2 day drunken revelry (3 S for tax purposes) , the CEO asks his Sales Head why are sales slowing down. In the boring corporate Powerpoint presentation with a mash of graphs no one understands or wants to know, the Sales Head manages to show it was not his fault but the wrong category strategy that the CEO ordered. But the CEO feigns complete ignorance(corporate amnesia at its best). The Sales Head unveils his sting video...

Cut 1 the CEO is shouting ' I think this category will grow. I dont care if you think otherwise. My belief is your command.Go do it'...

Cut 2 CEO at a page 3 party extoling virtues of the competitors products.

Cut 3 CEO at a shopping mall where he admonishes his wife buying his company's products.

Result: In the drunken merry making that follows, Sales Head gets double his bonus for managing growth in a dying category.

HR interviews

'As you know Mr.Alec Smart , our company is paying you the CTC benchmarked to the top quartile of the compensation survey conducted by Screwit and Co. Plus our company offers a great environment and has policies designed to motivate and take very good care of the individual'... Ms. HR Hingorani completes her spiel to the confused MBA with more jobs than his fingers can hold. After joining he realizes that the new VP has shrunk his role, Finance has decided to make employees bear FBT (fringe benefit tax) to show a higher EPS and the only employee motivation was coffee and bitchy conversations. As HR launches a 3P(Productive People for Profits) program for impressing the CEO , Alec Smart does a video on HR Hingorani.

Cut 1:on how she actually recruits outstation candidates to help fuel her hubby's real estate broking business .

Cut 2:on how she rates 30% on productivity since she spends 4 hours a day discussing nail enamel, lip gloss, restaurants and clothes with her staff who look upto her as the diva of corporate dressing

Cut 3: On how she sleazily tries to seduce the CEO.

But Alec Smart eventually gets fired . HR Hingorani has the last laugh as she removes him for sexually harassing an intern with a morphed video.

No Lights, camera , action . Playing at an office near you. The Sting circus. Beware...

So whats new

How many new years should one celebrate? As soon as one drinks to glory to forget all the mistakes of last year which is typically not exercising and not cutting on drinks, one is faced with another new year within a month. In Jan you will have Tamilians celebrate Pongal with all the bulls they can lay their hands on, in March you will have Marathis make a pot with Gudi Padva and in April you will have Baisakhi and Vishu for two polar sides of this country Punjab and Kerala.

Atleast the Indian new years typically come at harvest time, hence anyone celebrating it will have something to look forward to, new seeds, fresh crops, new clothes, summer holidays et al. Whereas 2006 promises to me more of the same, the glassy exterior of a stuffy office, traffic jams on Tulsi pipe road , the same boss, blah blah. New year is actually like most Indian festivals a triumph; in this case its of marketing over common sense instead of good over evil.

New year 2006:Where you have to 'buy' yourself momentary joy at a price that will never justify the most extravagant optimism you have for the new year. Where you will end up celebrating the new year in your car as you wait on Andheri-Kurla Road to get into the Leelas for the Mardi Gras party. Where you will spend the new year in bed trying to nurse a hangover. Where you will break your limbs trying to dance but will be left with whom you started the new year with. And then having to prove later in office that you had been to the best new year dig in town.

At least the 90s were better. There was good old DD that did a new year wrapup in terms of news and movies. Then you had Jaspal Bhatti cracking a few vile jokes. As the screen blanked out, you could sleep peacefully wondering what new resolution to make.

A good marketer sells hope, but a smart person manages expectations. If there is nothing to expect, a good nights sleep is the best way to begin the year if it promises to be as bad as the last.

Bluffmaster: Mumbai Udipi

He is the man that millions of women in India "go fida" over. And he still ends up in a goofy Superman T-shirt while escorting his papa from Lilavati Hospital. He has given Govinda's pelvic gyrations a stylized makeover and replaced the 108 teeth smile with a hungry naughty look that gives coolness to essentially tapori steps. Thats the new star for you. Abhishek Bachchan. The country's newest darling in his first solo shoulder movie. The movie had a bumper opening due to the rap song rendered by the man himself and a marketing glitz that cleverly masked what the movie is all about and created audience interest.

Rohan Sippy has created a smart movie. And if one goes to watch it like a Mumbai Udipi meal, then its enjoyable (No al-dente, no mineral water, KISS, no hatke). The screenplay is pedestrian at times but is livened up by good dialogues and performances. Abhishek plays a con man with just 3 months to live and a fiance(a wonderfully realistic Priyanka) who can take his lies anymore. So what does he do to make his last few days memorable? He prepares a best practices manual to be kept in the conmen knowledge management system. Well not quite. He decides to train Riteish Deshmukh to pull off a heist to avenge his fathers discomfiture. And the man to deceive is Nana Patekar , someone who does an aarti in front of the mirror and various other idiosyncrasies.(I particularly liked 'yeh dialogue likh leta hoon, baad mein kaam aayega' in his interactions with AB).

One good thing about this movie is that it is completely shot in Mumbai. So you can catch a glimpse of Carter Road CCD to the standard Marine Drive to the view from the tallest residential building in Mumbai ( wow to have a ked like that). Rohan Sippy also pays homage to Shaan by using it in a critical scene of the movie. I dont know why debutant directors can never get over this urge. In fact Nana's character has a self-deprecating humour that seems to humble Shakaal. So how could this be a tribute as claimed by Rohan in his interviews? ( another marketing stunt or evolution). Plus the end is a bit oversmart but cool.

Plus even in a con movie, Abhishek and Priyanka manage to work up enough mush thanks to those intense eyes of no prizes for guessing and candid expressions of the other. Riteish can now be a cool second hero/sidekick revelling in a role as a phattu ( Reminds me of Amol Palekar at times). Nana is a breeze. Boman Irani is now getting very stereotyped and hammy. Songs are well placed and extremely hummable . The variety dished out by Vishal Shekhar is amazing. From the remixes of Mehmoods Sabse bada rupaiya , parde ke peeche and do aur do paanch to the Iranian 'Boore Boore' to the bhangra-funk 'Say na', these guys are the ones to watch.

Bluffmaster is medu vada... you can crib about the sambar being too sweet, the chatni being soggy but you will bite in and enjoy nonetheless.

An analyst on hymn street

Some cultured vultures , some new generation Indian and of course Chutney Spears have got so hassled with my earlier post 'Marutis who sold their monks' that I sometimes feel like Uma Bharti. In writing, usage of extreme poles always attracts attention and thats normal. But some further 'mediocre' thoughts from my side.

Should we junk sanskrit just because it cant give jobs? The script of both Chinese language ( Mandarin and Cantonese) is very tough to learn and is very old . Nobody in China should learn or write it. If they learn it also , they wont get the BPO and IT jobs which India has. So lets not learn even Hindi or mother tongue, Sanskrit to door ki baat hai.

In sheer capitalist terms, why cant things several hundred years old be a big opportunity for India. One-third of Americans consume alternative medicine and its a $ 10 bn industry there. Why does Ayurveda provide a much holistic cure for some illnesses than allopathy. Yoga with different versions of it ( Bikram, Iyengar et al) are slowly taking over fitness machines in the US. Give me the chicks at the gym anyday boss, who will eat all these bitter Pith nashak kadhas and perform the akhandbhujasana.

Should the spirit of human inquiry be crushed just because the process means digging into something old. Well paleontologists dug our evolutionary past to discover dinosaurs which was interesting to know but practically useless( of course smart people like Spielberg made millions from it).

Why do self help books sell more than management books. Why are so many people in the world in search of a greater meaning to life inspite of achieving all material wealth. Most self-help books prescribe nothing but a ritual . The previous best-seller Stephen Covey had a rational core whereas the latest Robin Sharma has a spiritual core that gleans a lot from some old Hindu ways of life and religion.

But some dudes feel religion is irrational . So are a lot of things we humans do . Even the most rational breed of analyzers better known as economists are junking their rational choice hypotheses. We all love to think we are rational but while standing at the shopping mall with twenty five shirts to choose from, we might be making irrational choices and still not be sure if we made the right choice.

Everyone loves the seduction of logic and order. Unfortunately gaining insights by reading and synthesising multi-threaded information pathways is difficult. Ask anyone trying to research or do a Phd . Most scientific papers are writings where the simplicity of thought is lost in the complexity of equations and other scientific terms. The Vedas or other religious texts are no different in terms of degree of difficulty. But if one believes there is no benefit like enjoyment and practicality(essentially lower order needs which every man achieves with temporal imbalances) in reading or delving deeper, dont even try. You would be worse off than Schrodingers cat.

The other big crib is "hey dont blame us , nobody taught us , didnt give us a for dummies type textbook blah blah". Well dudes no one taught us sex education we all learnt it in our own unique ways.

At the end of the day, everything is a personal choice. Collectivism even in India is finally a summation of millions of different views, and I am just on a quest to form a view. But let us not delude ourselves into thinking that a community of 15000 bloggers represents a fair sample of the vast population of resident and non-resident Indians. Issues still affect real India but may be not virtual India.

In a lighter vein , what is a Sanskrit name like pundit doing on the gateway of Indian blogosphere?

Amen to that.

Bollywood 2005:bubbling ahead

One year has almost whizzed by and the Bollywood factory is in fine form. Looking at the releases for this month, Neal N Nikki, Ek Ajnabee and Family look very promising. Ek Ajnabee has Big B in uber cool suits and his towering screen presence would be best savoured at multiplexes. Neal N Nikki will be another attempt by the czar of karva chauth,chiffon and candy floss to reel another story about Indian hypocrisy about kissing, skinny dipping and premarital sex. But we will end up enjoying it like most of his movies.Family is a movie by Rajkumar Santhoshi, who is probably the most underpublicised director in the country. His last movie Khakee was dark, exciting and powerful.

Going back this year, it started off with the breezy Dil Maange More whose title epitomises the current spirit in Bollywood. Good production values , corporatization , increased multiplexes and a plethora of TV channels and newspapers that need movies as a staple diet has really helped. Of course the scripts need a lot of improvement and nepotism is a huge issue. Zayed, Fardeen and more such star sons cant act. But this year probably belongs to one star and his son. Abhishek Bachchan stands tall as the man who can be naughty , adorable, funny , serious and droolworthy. And his dad with a killer schedule has shown with a vengeance like good Scotch whisky, maturity matters. The duo gave India the biggest hit of the year "Bunty aur Babli" and their serenading of global item Ash in Kajra re had the nation dancing. They also gave us the best Factory movie Sarkar where one could learn how to hold a tea cup in style and how business can be managed by just stares and glances.

The other big successes were the comedies, each one trying to outdo the other in crass humour, trite situations and number of biwis per person. The best in toilet humour was Kya Kool Hai Hum where Ritesh and Tushar ran amok with the corniest lines possible. It had all the school level jokes ( D K Bose anyone?). But had some great situations with Ritesh trying to patao Bobby Darling and a pundit who does last rites being got for a marriage etc etc. The next was No Entry a clean lift of a Tamil movie Charlie Chaplin but it was funny thanks to an in form Salman singing 'Tan Dole mera Man dole' on seeing a snake while hanging from a cliff. And absolutely zany songs like "Adi di da Adi di di, just love me" sung by Anu Malik. Then came Garam Masala which had Akshay Kumar and John Abraham competing for attention of 3 air-hostesses. This fourth Priyadarsan comedy after Hera Pheri showed that his formula was finally wiliting. The problem was that unlike his earlier movies the number of characters(remember Babu Bisleri) were too low and situations very trite. Akshay carried his funny act with the entire jamboree cast of the old 'Awara Pagal Deewana' in "Deewane hue Pagal". This had better situations and more characters with Paresh, Shahid, Suniel, Om and TV's funny man Rajesh Menon adding to the madness. And Anu Malik's heavily Bhangra Pop inspired music was better.

Page 3 was probably the best hatke movie that entertained and provoked at the same time.

This year had a lot of critically acclaimed movies that didnt get box office success. One of them Paheli also went to the Oscars. The other one Black with superb performances by Amitabh and Rani did reek of the standard Bhansalisms, melodramatic excess and overdone interiors. Then we had the sugary sweet Parineeta which was an ordinary story with good songs, Vidya Balan and the naturally dumb Saif. A great marketing effort by Vidhu Vinod Chopra but had a 60's kind of feel with brilliant performances.

And then Yash Chopra made Preity and Saif the uber cool duo of the country in Salaam Namaste and everyone in the country was wearing pink and discussing live-in relationships and saying "Ekzaktly" for everything one agreed with. But the movie that according to me had cool written all over it except for the last twenty minutes was Dus. Chhota B and old tharra Sanjay Dutt with Shilpa Shetty's kicks thrown in for good measure. And again super hit songs Dus Bahane and Deedar de. Talking about music, we also had the usual Mahesh Bhatt camp giving musical hits like Zeher and Aashiq Banaye Aapne. "Woh lamhe" and "Aapki Kashish" still rock most pubs in Mumbai.

The most high profile flops were probably Kisna, Shabd , Shaadi no.1, D(will we have A aur M based on Abu Salem and his paramour) , Lucky, Kaal and of course Mangal Pandey where Aamir Khan after ten thousand retakes gave us how not to mix commerce, naach gana and history. Looking forward to more First Day, Fourth Shows next year. And a few more international film festivals whenever there is an overdose of Bollywood.

full on croaking , hit n hopping

Phew!! ... Visits to my blog on a particular day have surpassed all records ( although it maybe only one-tenth of popular ones like the page 3 of Indian blogging(guess guess)). All thanks to a 'dogmatist', 'regressive', 'fundamentalist' post.Wow I can easily be a member of the the 'non-secular' alternative party in India . Like most youth in this country, I have grown half-knowing what true Hinduism is, why some rituals exist, why we pray , blah blah. But rather than rubbishing it, I am just determined to dig deeper and find what, why , when etc etc. However going by some extreme responses which sounded like foreign investors staying away from India because they saw some cows on the roads of Delhi, it seems the baby is out with the bathwater and without the Johnson soap. There is a clear need to separate concept from context and precept from practice. Things degenerate for a lot of reasons including human greed and war between religions. Every religion sometimes faces the need to be harsh and stricter in times of despair. But a certain portion of that austerity continues to flourish even later by force of habit. For instance, the world awful was supposed to mean full of awe a praise rather than the way we use it today. The problems in this search are many:

1. Unfortunately there is no Navneet type guide to all our texts. And pray tell me which texts is it the Vedas, is it the Gita.... well I dont know.

2. Even our parents or grandparents dont know the meaning of a lot of things we recite or do.

3. Time/practicality. Will it get me my this years bonus or promotion.

The path/journey would atleast leave me wiser than reading Mumbai Mirror.

And it definitely gets the hits on the blog. That should be enough incentive.

Till then its back to watching Tanisha's cleavage and bad hair with in Neal n Nikki. What a song...

Nikki Bakshi.... cute n sexy...full on rocking...hot n happening.... aarghhhhhh....

The marutis who sold their monks

As India proceeds on its 8% brave new world growth rate, as the intestines of an aging superstar get more prominence than the rain ravaged interiors of Tamil Nadu and as ' naughty becomes in and nice is out' since the czar of candyfloss claims it in Neal N Niki, I always wonder how Hindu roots, rituals and traditions would evolve in the next 5-10 years. Usually there is one section of the young generation , which believes that most of our rituals are crap.They dont know why a shraadh should be performed every year, why a sacred thread should be worn, and have forgotten to pray with verses . There is one section that believes in God but not in the ecosystem that comes with it , the pujaris and the pyres. There is one section that just follows their parents and performs activities as per their wishes just to avoid any confrontation. There could be many other sections.

What is of acute concern is the amount of time we spend to gain insights into the Hindu religion and its philosphy either through experiences or reading. It is unfortunate that most youngsters learn a foreign language like French during school for better global prospects rather than Sanskrit. Knowledge of Sanskrit enables one to atleast understand the various mantras chanted during a ritual or the scriptures in the Vedas. Another barrier is the mental block associated with the effort required to understand or experience. Sample this ' I went to Enigma this weekend; it rocked' versus ' I went to a Rudrabhishek pooja yesterday'. How uncool . Today's generation is making choices without adequate knowledge. Its a strange vaccuum where the joys of materialism after years of Brahminical restraint and the vapidity of mainstream media have left us very little time or inclination to find and know our roots.

However the outside world is now exhorting the virtues of the Hindu way of life with all the marketing chutzpah associated with it. For this look no further than 'The monk who sold his ferrari'. The wisdom of the fictional 'Sages of Sivana' mentioned there is no different from the journey of self-improvement advocated in the various texts. If one starts seeing the holistic picture based on 'using religion as a means to spiritual bliss and being a better person, the wonders of yoga and ayurveda for a healthy mind and body, there emerges a beautiful path to being a better person which is what everyone strives for. My next post would be how all the modern thoughts of self-help and science and lot of our age-old wisdom are the same.

As a start let me leave an interesting thought: We all know that E= mc2 where E = energy , m = mass and c= velocity of light . If one studies Hindu mythology we have a multitude of Gods. Well all our Gods are just different manifestations of energy and God and all the mythological stories are physical forms ( the m part) of that energy. In fact if one reads some ancient shlokas, they describe the arrival of some Gods as "prakashit" and prakash in Sanskrit is nothing but light. In fact some of the world best healing technique "Reiki" is energy based. Now there are enough dots like the above. We all need to connect them in our unique way on this journey to wisdom. And there is no destination, the journey is all that matters. No wonder some sages in the Himalayas as claimed even in the "Monk" are more than 100 years old.

Spiritual experiences

As India proceeds on its 8% brave new world growth rate, as the intestines of an aging superstar get more prominence than the rain ravaged interiors of Tamil Nadu and as ' naughty becomes in and nice is out' since the czar of candyfloss claims it Neal N Niki, I always wonder how Hindu roots, rituals and traditions would evolve in the next 5-10 years. Usually there is one section of the young generation , which believes that most of our rituals are crap.They dont know why a shraadh should be performed every year, why a sacred thread should be worn, and have forgotten to pray with verses . There is one section that believes in God but not in the ecosystem that comes with it , the pujaris and the pyres. There is one section that just follows their parents and performs activities as per their wishes just to avoid any confrontation. There could be many other sections.

What is of acute concern is the amount of time we spend to gain insights into the Hindu religion and its philosphy through experiences and through reading. It is unfortunate that most youngsters learn a foreign language like French during school for better global prospects rather than Sanskrit. Knowledge of Sanskrit enables one to atleast understand the various mantras chanted during a ritual or the scriptures in the Vedas. Another barrier is the mental block associated with the effort required to understand or experience. Sample this ' I went to Enigma this weekend; it rocked' versus ' I went to a Rudrabhishek pooja yesterday'.