The air this January hangs heavy with the shame, despondency, discontent and the heat of ensuing conflict.
What is wrong with us as a populace-- for surely , we have a role in lending a voice to manic madmen like Mutalik and self professed godpeople like Sadhvi Pragya.
Is it our misdirected anxiety (at the general state of the recession hit globe) manifesting itself as a suddenly retrogressive society?
Can something as active and aware as a mind be demoted to just an organ without rationale?
Excellent editorial in TOI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Not_Just_Saffron/articleshow/4048519.cms
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obamania!
Even across continents, seven seas etc., at 10 p.m on the night of 01/20/09 , Obama's Inaugural speech gave me goosebumps.
No fluffy clouds and rose tinted dreams; the man did cut to the grey dreary depressing chase, right on.
No fluffy clouds and rose tinted dreams; the man did cut to the grey dreary depressing chase, right on.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A.R Rahman on Tehelka
I'd like to share this feature on A. R. Rahman that has appeared on Tehelka:
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ne240109cover_story.asp
Intriguing read.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Slumdog Slumdog, all the way...
Slumdog Millionaire wound off my rather weary weekend. Quite the icing on my weary cake weekend.
Slick - interesting movie; in an overly gushy moment, I might even call it ' really really nice'. If you could just overlook the bizarrely improbable Brit accent of our Mumbai slumdog- Jamal Malik ( played by Dev Patel). Oh well, I have an excuse for that too - he worked as a chaiwalla in a call center that catered to Scottish and English folks.
Life screws you over and over , when you are born into a slum life. You drift down the turbulence hurled at you , make the most of circumstances and just find a way to keep your head above the water. And then when opportunity crosses your path, seize her, hold her by the neck ,draw her into your bosom and use your screwed over life with impunity to overpower her. That was Jamal Malik's life.
The little kids, played by Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) and Salim(Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) are excellent actors.
Irrfan Khan and Anil Kapoor are stellar performers. Anil Kapoor especially, plays the cynical, sadistic and envious game show host with perfect elan.
The four options concept of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire show and Kaun Banega Crorepati are subtly interspersed into the flash forward- flashback sequences of the movie effectively.
All in all, an extraordinary, intelligent, well shot and gritty movie. And Rahmans background score is superlative. Just like it should- it adds depth and character to the movie.
Must See! Must See!
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Satyam Saga!
While Ramalinga Raju continues to hog headlines for all the wrong reasons, here is an email forward by a Satyam employee. Intriguing how minds work. I understand that employees harbour gratitude and good memories of the ole' days in Satyam, but those memories or anything else equally 'disloyal' are no excuse to forgive or forget deceit of this magnitude. And no, Raju's CRIME cannot be relegated to a "only human mistake".
Here goes, the email by the Satyam employee, who I'd rather keep unnamed:
At a time when almost 90% of my Satyam friends are cribbing about the fraud and betrayal by Ramalinga Raju, I have a slightly different opinion. It's bold of me to write this in black and white but this comes straight from my heart and experience. Let me start by quoting an example of 2006. Most of my friends were unemployed with 50-60% plus marks in BTech, with a degree from an average University and hunting madly for a job.
Whether people accept it today or not but the truth remains that Satyam was the ONLY saviour and the only mass recruiter who was ready to accept students who had back logs but had cleared them and also it did not put a very strict minimum marks criterion. And this was true not only for my small college at Lucknow but also those across India .
Satyam is the fourth largest in IT in India. Looking at India's population I really want to thank Raju for giving some 54000 Indians jobs atleast for all these years . He was the reason for the revival of confidence and the reason for the bread and butter for many a families.
Satyam training was renowned all over India. Their STC training centre created numerous love stories and unexpected rekindling of a youthful environment where girls and boys were more independent than their college days . I remember most of my Satyam friends felt that they made better friends at Satyam's three to six months training than those in the four years of BTech.
Unfortunately people forget to thank God in sad times . I understand that what Raju did is deplorable and unpardonable. He should have treated business more formally and not dealt with it like a family affair . He should have been strict a couple of months or years before itself. Why did he hire so many non potential candidates and keep them on bench? When were the managers and the team mates last told that if they don't work hard, they will lose their job? Business cannot be run lousily. I have been staying with some 200 odd girls for the last 2 years and many of them are from Satyam. Moreover I network a lot and I have lots of male friends at Satyam . I have seen how people tail gate to Satyam, how they give their swipe cards to others to swipe it on their behalf , how female employees have gone home sharp at 6am irrespective of when they landed at office, how employees sit at home for months at a stretch, prepare for all kind of post graduate entrance exams and still enjoy a full month's pay, how often they went for movies at local theatres at office hours, how often employees went to office just to sign on registers in the morning and at evening, how often they faked their certificates , how often they put unlimited fake medical and house rental bills. How can we blame just one man when EACH AND EVERY person was disloyal ? How can we exclude Auditors like PwC ? How can we exclude the Board of Directors who have washed their hands off so clean? How can we exclude banks who gave hefty loans without true verification? How can we exclude the Chief Minister of AP who allowed leniency for Raju's fellow businessman? How can we exclude managers who were never able to trace which bench employee under him had been away from office for how long ? Yet how can people forget this is the same man whose ideas and potentials gave them an identity for the past several years? How many couples found the right match at an IT industry , courtesy Satyam and how many Andhra farmers benefited from their crores of investments in Satyam shares .How can people forget that Satyam launched its offices right at the doorsteps of a residential colony, where people can simply walk to work ? The most gruesome experience that I can recollect was when a Satyam tag wearing person was waiting to attend an interview and I overheard him saying that he was in a business meeting at the My Home Satyam ( Madhapur) office when he was sitting right in front of me at a totally different company. When employees themselves show such a lousy attitude and don't care a damn for the brand that they carry around their neck, how can they expect others to care? I am not saying that ALL Satyam employees are bad. I have known very dedicated people too, but my point is very clear, before pointing fingers at others, introspect .There are thousands of people who have completed certifications at the cost of Satyam, got trained at Satyam. Satyam made several freshers stand on their feet to get better jobs elsewhere across the globe and attain on site exposure through Satyam. What Raju did was to keep the business of Satyam going at any cost. I see a very smart man in him when he understood that he should rather accept his mistake than be caught by the USA laws . I see a selfish father in him too that he put a lot at stake for Maytas. However, he resigned with a lot of dignity and his letter of resignation shows humility. It takes a mammoth amount of courage to accept your mistake in public at a time when the media is ready to blow everything out of proportion. If humans don't make mistakes who else would ? My last salute to this man is for creating such mass employment in India for 57k employees and 57k families when even opening a beetle(pan) shop in a lane in India is a challenge !! Thanks to him for creating income for all the thousands of families who benefited through food chains, the tiffin wallahs, the transport people and all those who made money by renting their houses. I read he donated Rs 12000 crores from his personal pocket to give the January salary of his Satyam employees. Today Satyamites call Raju a FRAUD. The true and loyal Satyamites surely have all the reasons to say this word. But all the rest who sucked every rupee out of Satyam without doing any value addition need to understand - who was a bigger fraud.
Call me hardhearted or unmoved or ungrateful, but honestly I have no sympathy for Raju!
Here goes, the email by the Satyam employee, who I'd rather keep unnamed:
At a time when almost 90% of my Satyam friends are cribbing about the fraud and betrayal by Ramalinga Raju, I have a slightly different opinion. It's bold of me to write this in black and white but this comes straight from my heart and experience. Let me start by quoting an example of 2006. Most of my friends were unemployed with 50-60% plus marks in BTech, with a degree from an average University and hunting madly for a job.
Whether people accept it today or not but the truth remains that Satyam was the ONLY saviour and the only mass recruiter who was ready to accept students who had back logs but had cleared them and also it did not put a very strict minimum marks criterion. And this was true not only for my small college at Lucknow but also those across India .
Satyam is the fourth largest in IT in India. Looking at India's population I really want to thank Raju for giving some 54000 Indians jobs atleast for all these years . He was the reason for the revival of confidence and the reason for the bread and butter for many a families.
Satyam training was renowned all over India. Their STC training centre created numerous love stories and unexpected rekindling of a youthful environment where girls and boys were more independent than their college days . I remember most of my Satyam friends felt that they made better friends at Satyam's three to six months training than those in the four years of BTech.
Unfortunately people forget to thank God in sad times . I understand that what Raju did is deplorable and unpardonable. He should have treated business more formally and not dealt with it like a family affair . He should have been strict a couple of months or years before itself. Why did he hire so many non potential candidates and keep them on bench? When were the managers and the team mates last told that if they don't work hard, they will lose their job? Business cannot be run lousily. I have been staying with some 200 odd girls for the last 2 years and many of them are from Satyam. Moreover I network a lot and I have lots of male friends at Satyam . I have seen how people tail gate to Satyam, how they give their swipe cards to others to swipe it on their behalf , how female employees have gone home sharp at 6am irrespective of when they landed at office, how employees sit at home for months at a stretch, prepare for all kind of post graduate entrance exams and still enjoy a full month's pay, how often they went for movies at local theatres at office hours, how often employees went to office just to sign on registers in the morning and at evening, how often they faked their certificates , how often they put unlimited fake medical and house rental bills. How can we blame just one man when EACH AND EVERY person was disloyal ? How can we exclude Auditors like PwC ? How can we exclude the Board of Directors who have washed their hands off so clean? How can we exclude banks who gave hefty loans without true verification? How can we exclude the Chief Minister of AP who allowed leniency for Raju's fellow businessman? How can we exclude managers who were never able to trace which bench employee under him had been away from office for how long ? Yet how can people forget this is the same man whose ideas and potentials gave them an identity for the past several years? How many couples found the right match at an IT industry , courtesy Satyam and how many Andhra farmers benefited from their crores of investments in Satyam shares .How can people forget that Satyam launched its offices right at the doorsteps of a residential colony, where people can simply walk to work ? The most gruesome experience that I can recollect was when a Satyam tag wearing person was waiting to attend an interview and I overheard him saying that he was in a business meeting at the My Home Satyam ( Madhapur) office when he was sitting right in front of me at a totally different company. When employees themselves show such a lousy attitude and don't care a damn for the brand that they carry around their neck, how can they expect others to care? I am not saying that ALL Satyam employees are bad. I have known very dedicated people too, but my point is very clear, before pointing fingers at others, introspect .There are thousands of people who have completed certifications at the cost of Satyam, got trained at Satyam. Satyam made several freshers stand on their feet to get better jobs elsewhere across the globe and attain on site exposure through Satyam. What Raju did was to keep the business of Satyam going at any cost. I see a very smart man in him when he understood that he should rather accept his mistake than be caught by the USA laws . I see a selfish father in him too that he put a lot at stake for Maytas. However, he resigned with a lot of dignity and his letter of resignation shows humility. It takes a mammoth amount of courage to accept your mistake in public at a time when the media is ready to blow everything out of proportion. If humans don't make mistakes who else would ? My last salute to this man is for creating such mass employment in India for 57k employees and 57k families when even opening a beetle(pan) shop in a lane in India is a challenge !! Thanks to him for creating income for all the thousands of families who benefited through food chains, the tiffin wallahs, the transport people and all those who made money by renting their houses. I read he donated Rs 12000 crores from his personal pocket to give the January salary of his Satyam employees. Today Satyamites call Raju a FRAUD. The true and loyal Satyamites surely have all the reasons to say this word. But all the rest who sucked every rupee out of Satyam without doing any value addition need to understand - who was a bigger fraud.
Call me hardhearted or unmoved or ungrateful, but honestly I have no sympathy for Raju!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
And the Golden Globe goes to...
A smiled played on my lips, as I saw the looping video of A.R . Rahman making his acceptance speech when awarded Best Original Score, for Slumdog Millionaire. The mostly quiet and reticent Music Director made his nervous acceptance speech, reading from a cue card.
Smiles. Smiles.
As a tribute to the talented music composer- the famous "Masakalli "dove video from Dilli-6.
Smiles. Smiles.
As a tribute to the talented music composer- the famous "Masakalli "dove video from Dilli-6.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Its another new Year...
So, we have entered another year over Pizza Exoticas, Argentinian Malambo wine, and card games.
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