Lazy Rambling

2010-10-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

Endhiran almost there, but not there

(Spoiler alert)

Back from Endhiran... It was like two movies in one. The first half had a taut script, It had Indian standard CG, Sujatha's intelligent writing being very visible (Fallibility of Inference Engines, Prime number, etc). It had "the pulse"... Second half was witless,trivial and long, It had Rajini's excellent performance and painstakingly created incredible CG, but it didn't have "it".

A R Rahman's work was unremarkable. Songs as MP3s worked in the context of being Rajini movie songs. But BGM doesn't work. Can't remember any other movie in the past where AR Rahman's BGM not adding anything to a movie.

In summation, what could have been coming up of age of Indian cinema ends up being just a valiant effort. Sujatha being alive to write the whole movie could have made all the difference...long live him.

2010-09-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Endhiran / Robot blow by blow account

This is not my review. CNN IBN's movie editor, Subha Shetty Saha posted these as short messages in her site, which I have reproduced here.

Here is the original link http://ibnlive.in.com/cwg/movies_pages.php

Enroute to catching the 'God' at the press show of Robot at Fame Adlabs, Andheri. The fear of riots after the Ayodhya verdict, thunder and rain, it's almost like Rajinikanth is daring us to brave all odds to watch his movie, tonight.

Waiting. All set. Looks like we have to wait for a while to catch a glimpse of the star the country easily loves the most.

Even tough it is a late night show unlike other press shows which happen in the evenings, the general mood is upbeat and happy.

Almost like everyone is expecting to like the movie already.

Oh oh! Technical snag. 10 more minutes to go before the movies that is the most looked forward to begin. Frown

The director, Shankar, is Rajini's favourite, it looks like, His earlier release Shivaji was also directed by Shankar.

Aishwarya had done a film, Jeans, with Shankar, in the initial years of her stardom. That huge budget film had flopped badly.

The movie begins and the audience actually clapped and cheered when Rajini's name flashed. First time ever I have seen this at a press show!

Ooh! God on screen in the first scene. In a Robot land. He is a scientist.

Ok. There are two 'Gods' in the film. Scientist Rajini makes a robot resembling him.

Rajini at 61 looks no more than 30. Reminds me of the joke he had cracked at the music launch of the movie. His friend when told that Ash was doing a movie with Rajini had asked him, who is the hero opposite her? The friend is in for a shock when he watches the 'young' Rajini.

It's funny and people are laughing every minute. It is a good sign. Robot Rajini is endearing.

The huge budget of the movie shows in the breath-taking locales as Rajini romances Aishwarya.

Aishwarya is looking drop-dead gorgeous but pales in front of Rajini in the charm department. But then can you really blame her?

If anyone can be cooler than Rajini it is the Robot Rajini. He is such a darling. A girl in the movie says. He really is. He is exciting too.

Really really cool scenes with Robot Rajini. Won't reveal and spoil the surprise. You have to see it to believe it. He is called chitti by the way.

A fight scene by Chitti and some goons is so rocking that I can her whistles around me. It is an incredible experience.

Mind blowing action. Only Rajini can do this. Amazing! Amazing!

Unbelievable action sequence in a train scene. Totally edge-of-the-seat stuff.

What makes this film exciting is it is not mindless action, Every second is exciting. Too cool!

Can Robots have feelings? Looking like 'God' will make the impossible, possible again.

A delivery scene just before the interval was absolutely mind blowing.

This is not just a movie. It is an amazing experience. No, I am not exaggerating one bit.

Mulling over popcorn during interval. I wondered why people in Chennai would want to spend five grand for a ticket. But half way through the movie, I believe it is worth that an much more. This coming from a cynical seasoned movie goer like me!

There is an actual scene between mosquitoes and Chitti conversing. Hilarious and creative!

Naina mile... fun song. Mad, mad lyrics.

What ceases to amaze me is the thought behind the idea executed so well.

Double role made so believable. Exciting stuff.

One scene makes you gasp in disbelief and next scene makes your roar with laughter. Every moment is action packed.

If I thought the movie so was was exciting, the climax is making me forget to breathe!

Did you say God is everywhere? So is Rajini. A part of the climax has an army of Rajini lookalikes. Oops! Did I reveal too much?

A line from a song: "purushon ka main raja hoon." We won't dare disagree.

The climax is so simply fantastic that it is indescribable. I am speechless. Super duper cool stuff.

Am thrilled to bits. That's the kind of effect Robot has on you. It makes you come alive, just like Chitthi, the Robot does!

The climax of Robot gives you the kind of thrill that you don't experience too often in life. Miss it at your own risk guys. I am happy, wide eyed and thrilled to bits.

Looks like we have a winner

KADHALIL SODHAPUVADU YEPPADI.avi

2010-06-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

Hats of M Balaji, acting and the technical team

2010-06-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Movie- Raavan. My thoughts

Let me come straight to the point. Raavan worked. For me, it definitely did. If you read further, you will come across spoilers. So if you're the kind that hates to know the story before watching the movie, and if you haven't watched it and you plan to watch it, then you will be well advised to to hit that small cross on your browser tab and say bye, now.

There are a number of things that I liked about the movie. I must admit, I didn't think the trailers were awesome. I liked a few songs and didn't like a few, when the album released. I didn't like what I read after the release. It turns out, the lowered expectations only gave me a great seat to watch the movie and the movie soared.

Yes, I liked the cinematography. Santhosh Sivan and Manikandam have done very well. But that's not the best thing about Raavan. Infact Raavan didn't surpass even Ashoka in camerawork. It definitely didn't out do Dil Se or Roja.

I liked the awesome BGM. The discerning ones among the ARR fans who've seen the movie would be able to recollect the Kannalane's Gum Sum Gum Sum Guppu CHUKK- inspired piece that comes twice or thrice. There is one interlude that reminds Thiruda Thiruda. And there is Jaa Re Udd Jaa Ree which gave me goosebumps when it came with Beera falling in SloMo. And there is this awesome Mangal Pandey like desi beats that run riot each time the Beera gang went on a rampage. But, there are bits where I felt Rahman could have done better. In the Song department, Kata Kataa and Behne Dee are my favorites. The others were good. But I couldn't appreciate Thok De or its placement or its relevance. So clearly, Music is not the overwhelming aspect causing me to care enough to write this review. That said, I have super high expectations from AR Rahman, higher than any other person who is credited for music in movies, and Rahman has lived up. Nice.

What really really worked for me is Maniratnam's brilliance. One thinks Mani has clearly reversed the goodness of the prime character's of Ramayan. Or that is what it seems upon cursory watching. That's what promos and pre release intuition would have us believe. But is that really the case, I beg to differ. If you notice carefully, Dev looks so unidimensional. We hardly adore the character. To top it Dev shoots Hariya. And he wears Ray Ban. And he utters hindi in rubbish accent. We naturally come to the conclusion that Dev is evil. We feel Mani wants us to hate the Ram of Ramayan and has been painfully obvious in his attempt. But look deeper. Did Dev commit any crime. Anything unworthy of a worthy police IPS. He did kill Hariya, but wouldn't it be naive of an IPS officer to let a dreaded criminal's aide go scott free. He could have taken him to custody or could have shot him, Dev chose the later, because Maniratnam was trying to fool us into thinking Dev was bad. I'll come to the polygraph test part later.

Lets come to Beera. Beera is supposed to be a dacoit known for killing police and looting guns for killing police. There is one scene where he is shown burning down a crowd of cops (2+ is crowd, isn't it). He kidnaps the IPS officer's wife to kill her because some khaki wearing people raped his sister. Yes shit happened to his sister. But Shit happens. The raping incident was never shown as Dev's fault. Beera's intentions of murdering Ragini changes only because he has a pretty_girl_jumping_off_the_cliff fetish. He is overcome by lust. From moment Ragini jumps off, his only agenda is to have Ragini stay with him. For all those overly concerned by lack of fear evoked by Bachchan in portraying Beera, he was supposed to act the seducing_married_girl act and not the spine_chillingly_cold_fear_inducing act. So chillax. In my opinion Abhishek Bachan did just fine. The plot mentions but doesn't delve on cruelty of Beera, by choice. Again Maniratnam's way of fooling us into thinking he is simplistically glorifying the Raavan of Ramayan.

Ragini is the witless, naive and fickle character. She falls for a totally_not_ubercool murderer who kidnapped her, gagged her mouth (the close up on Ragini's jaws forced apart by cloth was graphic, un-cool and un-sexy) and who is her husband's arch enemy from beginning. She is naive because the moment she knew that Beera is avenging for his sister, she starts feeling Beera's actions are justified. She is fickle because, at the slightest hint of being slighted by Dev she runs off and does and returns a Jhik Jhik Bukk Bukk to Beera to confess her love. But thankfully, she showed some decency by resisting the temptation of settling in Lal Mati with Beera till Dev takes care of the guilt part by questioning her chastity. If there is a character which is decisively different from Ramayan's portrayal, it is Sita's. Sita was as white as white, in Ramayan.

Do I even have to explain the Polygraph test. Dev never doubted Ragini. He reads Ragini's body language and learns that manipulating her could lead him to Beera. Which he does. Ragini falls for the bait. Dev follows her to Beera and kills him. I have come across reviews where authors have shown excessive concern about the future of Ragini's character after the movie ends. Guys come on, give me a break. She will either divorce Dev and live with her parents or marry again. Or she might even overlook that she was manipulated and go back to Dev. If she does it, in all probability the street-smart Dev would forgive and take the dancer wife back, for the high investment in mirrored bedroom that he has made.

If this version with a good Raavan and a bad Ram were the one that Doordarshan had shown us in scores of episodes in the eighties, Maniratnam wouldn't have had any problem in reversing the characters and showing Ram as good and Raavan as bad. Infact the Ram of Ramayan was guilty of doubting Sita. This Ram is whiter than that. Maniratnam has deftly attempted a double-double cross where ultimately Ram is not bad and a very smart, Raavan is a murderer and lusts married woman and holds married woman in captivity and waits for them to relent with no intention of releasing or killing or raping them, which the original Ramayan is anyways. The character that gets manipulated in all these manipulations is Sita's as I explained earlier. Mani Sir has just given his interpretation of Ramayan without touching the story. In summary, Raavan is a mindgame that is superbly shot and has great music. It is a pity that learned many could never get beyond the slow pace of the first half of the movie.

Dear Maniratnam, if you calculate lifetime value of your customers, us, double the amount that you expect from me. After Raavan, I will pay more to watch your movies irrespective of the reviews. Take a huge bow, Sir.

2009-03-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

It happens only in IIM-I

Some time back a few students from France were there in the campus. They were here for a term as part of the student exchange program. In one of the lectures that they attended this thing is supposed to have happened. The following is a simplified version of a true story.

It was early in the morning. Lets say 11:30 Am. A section of PGP2 had a class conducted by our beloved prof X. One of the exchange students from France had an urge to sneeze and let go without following up with an excuse. I wasn't there in that class but I guess the incident must have been followed up with a noisy nose clean up job, if anything. But nothing justifies what followed. Prof X, being the mercurial personality that he is, asked the student to leave the class. I don't know why he did this..lets take it at face value and move forward.

Apparently the French guy thought that it is not okay to sneeze and not apologize in Here. He assumed that he broke some sanctimonious protocol of India. He wrote to the consulate of France to help him out. He thought that the Prof had barred him from the subject altogether. The French embassy followed up with the Indian government which lobbed the issue to the HRD ministry who get back to the institute to reinstate the student.

Will I get in touch with Obama if I burp in the US of A?
Sorry I don't want to see Obama. I could do with a certain Carla Bruni's personal attention.

2009-03-17T11:46:00.001-07:00

Familiar Feeling

Last night I was preparing for some quiz. One of those quizzes that happened with an announcement. Being the procrastinator that I am, I postponed preparing for it till 1 am. There were about 100 pages of bland HR stuff to read. All of a sudden feeling became one that's very familiar. The one where one is tired but still has loads of things to finish. Those rare moments where even the most notorious of the nocturnal tissues of the eyes give up. The only option is to crash in bed feeling depressed and unhappy with oneself. Damn when it happens.

This is another in the same lines. There are no submissions to make tomorrow. Time was available in plenty. And lots of long term work pending. One and the most prominent was studying Finance 2. Exams were near and Fin had grown to become a huge Demon. I was very good in Fin 1 but Fin 2 was a different ball game all together. It is like a snake that throws venom the moment you try to go near it. So the plan was to somehow try studying when I had a slight temptation to play a game of cricket in the F block courtyard for 20 mins under the newly attached flodlights. So I called some friends who at first gave a sensible reponse of turning down my offer. I should have stopped then..but no I didnt. Finally we started what was supposed to be a 20 minutes game.

It went on and on and on. When I finally stopped it was 12:20 AM. I lost most of the games, lost the Pepsi bet. Lost energy. Lost the enthusiasm to study fin. Thats when I login to my blog and continue writing from a boring piece that I had left in draft. It is a pity that you had to read it. Sigh.

2009-03-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

2009-02-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

Chicks, Me and Roopa’s Marriage

The buggers back in the college created a buzz in campus. I’d like to call three people referring to a thing about me, four times, a buzz. As I was planning my trip for Roopa’s wedding they spread a rumours, the buzz, that I am going to Chennai to select girls to become my prospective bride. Any publicity is good publicity. And anything that connects me and the girls is good and rare at the same time.

There is something in me that keeps me away from the chicks. Probably I am magnetized North and the Girls are also magnetized North. I frequently find myself drawn un-necessarily drawn away from one corner of the room and later see a girl occupying a spot close to where I was standing. Ohh God. When a girl who has nothing remotely interesting to do ventures close to me, and if it is that one in a million days that I am relatively confident, I try talking to her. But all the creativity I have musters a “Hello” or a “Hi” and a vacant stare. My brain sometimes even refuses to process the response to the nervous “Hello”, even if the girl is considerate enough to actually respond, I wonder why. Unfortunately answer to this question comes in hordes. For one, my pale, dull looks, second reason could be my boredom inducing nature that some call studious. It could also me the nerdity. Or many things else.

There I landed at the wedding wearing an Orange shirt. There, I was teased by aged aunties and bored to death uncles, as the eligible bachelor who was going to go next and all. But how, I wish to know. When my family was going through the process of arranged marriage for my sister, I quipped stupidly to my mom that she wouldn’t have to go looking for a bride for me. How stupid of me. Where am I going to find a girl and feel like talking to her. When am I going to say something interesting that she replies in non-mono-syllables. For those who knows math, multiples of three probabilities <0.2 gives near certain impossibility.
Most of my friends have girl friends. They all run telephone bills in the thousands. But I never understood the knack of talking while having nothing to talk. How the hell do the bastards talk for hours when my conversations with anyone beyond 3 minutes have never been remotely interesting? . This has always been the truth for me even during the phase that I am concealing in this blog. Anyways…

At the wedding some interesting things happened. I saw a few girls looking at me a few times. I think this is what teens call “being hit on”. At least I hope so –for if it is true, it will offer some confidence for a few weeks. Of course I didn’t say Hi to any of them. Partly for fear of being proved otherwise.

As of now, the prospect of me seeing a girl and being able to woo her and she getting wooed looks remote. Until things change, I’ll have to hope my mom didn’t take me seriously. Seriously !!!.

2009-01-17T06:43:00.001-08:00

Start of Term 3

What do people do when the are bored, they write blogs. This is precisely what I am doing. Why am I doing this? other than the already hinted reason, I want to write about the new feel of IIM I that I have been sensing for a few days now. I will look back at this after a while to see if I was right. Thus there is a dual purpose. Kill current boredom and future boredom. Hurray.

Prof. Ravichandran of IIM A took over recently as the new Director of IIM Indore. He made quite an impression in his first very address to the students. He was sharp, witty and articulate. But then he was among the sharpEST, wittiEST among people whom I have heard to recently.He emphasised on the importance of the PGP course which gladened me.

He had mentioned about the National Youth Conference that he intended to hold, back then. Given the time frame of the event I was not sure about the feasibility, but then it turned out to be a great success. I was impressed by the quality of the lectures, particularly one on Safe India by Dr. Karthikeyan - ex director of CBI. It made it a good start for the 3rd term.

Then it was time for classes. We were in for a surprise in this front too. We had Prof K K Choudary from the Indian Stastical Institute to take up QT. To be frank, I had settled for what we had earlier and in the process became cynical. In this light, it was great to see the change that was on offer. Then it was time for Operations Management. We had Prof A H Kalro (served as Prof at IIMA and Director of IIMK) to handle the subject. That puts an end to the Goldrads Goal that we were at earlier (Good for you if you aren't from my class and still understand what I mean).

So all this means something to look forward to. Let us see. Let us see if the good times are for real or an India Shining.

2009-01-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

RaviC Quotes

http://mckinseymind.blogspot.com/2006/11/best-of-prof-ravichandran-at-great.html

-Prof Ravichandran is the new director of IIM I

2008-10-16T13:19:00.001-07:00

Reliance power IPO: A bird’s eye of the financial engineering with emphasis on the agency relationship.
By R Balachandran. Section D.

The company we know as Reliance power today was started in January of 1995 as Bawana Power Private Limited. It was rechristened several times and was finally named as Reliance Power Limited in july 2007.

The company has plans to develop 4 coal fired, 2 gas fired and 4 hydroelectric power plants whose completion dates range from December 2009 to March 2014.
Prior to the mega IPO of Reliance Energy Generation Limited, as it was called then, had shareholders fund of roughly Rs. 200 Crores according to its balance sheet and total equities of roughly Rs 201 Crores.

At this point the company drew aggressive plans for the next 8 years and planned a series of power plans as mentioned above. The next step was to raise funds for all those plants. Anil Ambani renamed the company as Reliance Power Limited and sold 10% of the to investors company for Rs 10500 Crores via the biggest IPO India has ever seen. It may be noted that 10% stake of the company whose assets were just 201 Crores were sold for Rs 10500 Crores on the basis of the elaborate plans developed. The remaining 90 percent ownership remained with Reliance Energy Limited and Mr. Anil Ambani (45% each) and just 10% with investors who subscribed to the IPO.

Post IPO, the shareholders funds were roughly Rs. 13500 Crores of which Rs. 10500 Crores were raised from investors who got 10% of Reliance Power. This clearly defies logic and reason. The investors ought to have a got a substantially higher stake in the post IPO Reliance Power.
During IPO Reliance Power shares were sold for Rs 450 each. At that time market was bullish and analysts had predicted that shares would reach Rs. 650. Mr. Ambani holding 45% directly and more through Reliance Energy Limited would have become India’s richest man had the shares crossed Rs. 650. But unfortunately that never happened. In any case this analysis encourages speculation on the real reason behind the IPO.

Upon listing price of Reliance Power share price dropped 17% by end of trading on listing day. The fall continued a few days. As a stopgap arrangement, Reliance Power issued a bonus to the IPO investors 3 shares for each 5 shares they had. This brought down the cost of Reliance Power shares to IPO investors to Rs 269 from Rs 450. This move was completely arbitrary. If the real worth was Rs 269, then IPO should have been priced at Rs 269.

45% of Reliance Power belonged to Reliance Energy Limited. The bonus issue would have degraded the worth of the Reliance Energy Limited’s investment in Reliance Power, which would have degraded the worth of REL shares. Mr. Anil Ambani acted in the best interests of Reliance Power at the expense of REL’s shareholders. This is clearly an agency problem. To compensate for this and avoid lawsuits, he compensated REL’s shareholders with 2.5% stake in Reliance Power from his personal holding in the later. This move again was totally arbitrary.
In conclusion, it is obvious that the whole exercise enriched Mr. Ambani at the expense of Reliance Energy Limited and Reliance Power’s shareholders.

The gas-fired plants of the Reliance Power’s mega plans depended on gas supplied from KG Basin. The agreement for KG basin gas was drawn before the famous Anil Ambani –Mukesh Ambani spat. The price of gas decided at that point was Rs. 2.5 per MBTU. Post spat, the KG-basin went to Mukesh Ambani. The viability of the gas-powered plants depended on this pricing. But now Mukesh Ambani is unwilling to sell gas at that price. It may be noted that the market price of gas internationally is at Rs. 12 per MBTU.

The lawsuits that have currently surfaced for the gas pricing, further degrades the value of Reliance Power shares affecting shareholders.

2008-10-06T08:17:00.001-07:00

Why MBA.

This is an abstract article. I will put in a few concepts and analogies that have very high chances of being disconnected to your view of logical correctness. So be aware and decide whether you want to read this.

Coming to the question, Why MBA. I was grappling with this question a few months back when I had to fill business school application forms. I had no clue as to what to write. Even at an intuitive level, I started doubting whether I was really born to be a manager. I anyway did fill something in the space provided for that question and going by what I had written there, I don’t know why I am here in IIM. The trouble caused by this question was enormous for me. I think of myself as someone who knows what he does and exactly why he should do it. So I had to find answer to the question. I think I’ve belled the cat now.

Conventional wisdom says that we have two types of sciences, pure and applied (I would use the words sciences and knowledge interchangingly). Going into what they are unnecessary considering that the possible audience of this blog. So it would suffice to say that pure sciences deals with atoms, molecules, magnetic field, gravitation, optical properties, etc –i.e. that abstract but real concepts and Applied sciences deals with engineering based on existing state of art of pure sciences and create products and services (from here on I will use the word product to mean product and services) that improve the standard of life. Frequently it is debated as to which is better, which is more important for people, etc, at an intellectual level. But from welfare point of view obviously both go hand in hand and have complementary relationships, as in it would be totally useless to have knowledge of pure sciences and do nothing which would make use of such knowledge similar to spiritual knowledge that people claim have or have no knowledge and try to make products which would be similar to designer cloths which no one knows where they derive value from.

People make their choices between pure and applied sciences based on their skills or more accurately based on their intuitive yearn. I made that choice. I would say at an intuitive level and I studied Engineering. Engineering was definitely not thrust upon me and I enjoyed it a lot. Fine thus far, but where to fit in management is the question that I am trying to answer.
Driving forward the notion of knowledge being pure and applied, there is a third genre in sciences that is management. Consider the reason as to why companies exist. Most of us will say, to make profits –yes, but that is just a part answer. A company basically creates and sells value. A car manufacturing company creates value for users in the field of transportation with luxury and creates a product that addresses this. Similarly Boeing manufactures planes, and apple manufactures IPods. These companies make money in the process of identifying and addressing a yearn –mostly unstated, among people. The objective of this article is not to discuss the objectives of companies to exist, So I leave it here, with the not-completely-substantiated thought that companies exist to create value.

Just as applied science exploits and depends upon pure knowledge to create useful products and services, management exploits these products and services for the betterment of human life. Management deals with the processes of determining the lacunae that it could fill (opportunity identification), invests in products that fill that lacuna (Research and development), creates those products (production) and places its products in a way that makes most people are benefitted (Sales and marketing). So basically efficiency in management leads to maximizing the cumulative benefit provided to customers of the product that an engineer created in the first place.
To answer the original question, with this knowledge, makes the intuitive yearn for management education pretty explicit. It suits my personality more to control this big picture of benefit rather than restricting myself to just producing the product. This is the same ghost (personality) that originally intuitively pushed to applied science as against pure science.

Let me crystallize the thought further by giving an analogy. Consider and Archer. The pure science is like the steel necessary for the bow. Applied science would be the bow itself, which wouldn’t have been possible without the steel but is much more useful than the steel. The Archer is like Manager who fires the bow in the right direction to hit bull’s eye. Choose for yourself where you want to belong. I want to belong to the Archer zone and I know it now.

At a certain level, an IAS officer(Indian Administrative Service, i.e civil service), is also a manager. His job is also to identify the resources, apply them properly, see to it that the system, i.e. application of resources- is happening properly, do firefighting when called for, etc. So he is also a manager and he, although, may not know, also deals with Management Science. Why restrict us to an IAS, even a politician is a manager. A manager with the greatest power and responsibility. A someone who can cause maximum benefit to the maximum number. So should one become a politician, yes, but only if he thinks he is good enough and thinks that current system will allow this kind of an attitude towards governance.

Let me conclude this article linking another favorite topic of mine, to management. Our country, India, has lot of intellectual people with exceptional potential for the betterment of pure, abstract and management sciences. The problem is, the potential gets manifested only for a few people with vast majority being wasted due to lack of education. In this context the role of a manager is pertinent as in he should apply his sciences to find ways to educate the maximum number of people with the minimal amount of resources that is at his disposal. Now whether the yearn to solve this problem more than inventing the next hot gadget that has the potential to become a best seller? Answer this to know whether you are an engineer or a manager at heart.

2008-09-07T15:51:00.001-07:00

Memorable Days in Switzerland
-R Balachandran, IIM Indore.

The wedding of my sister was wonderful. So was the feeling of being back at home. There was one thing that was making me feel less upbeat when I had reached India to attend the ceremony. That was the awareness that I would leave exactly nine days later. Nine days went without me noticing one. I had to leave back to Switzerland. I realized then that I could be a pretty good actor. Had to artificially emote being okay while fighting hard to hold back the lump in the throat. Anyway let me not delve into trivialities too long. However dramatically portrayed, these descriptive clichés are better left to Hindi movies.

So finally back in Zurich. The flight to Zurich didn’t feel that important this time for me to carefully remember each and every incident. Back in Zurich and back to office the following day.
Christmas was a week away. In Switzerland and other western countries, there is a week long vacation between Christmas and New Year. Vacation is a vacation. So even after leaving cozy comforts of Home, the impending vacation made me feel better.

There were three things in my agenda for that vacation. Experiencing nightlife, Trying out skiing and visiting Jungfrau.

Nightlife is a strict no-no for most Indians. Also there could be consequences for discussing it in a write-up for academic submission; so I shall go straight to the second item in the agenda. This way I can keep the reader(s) guessing. Guessing anything other than me meandering in the chill till dawn.

The next thing in our agenda was Skiing. Our confidence clouded shreds of fear as we took train to a place called Davos. We walked straight into a Rent-a-ski shop as soon as we reached Davos. The shoe that the shopkeeper gave us was a clear indication of things to come. The shoe was made out of some polymer that was totally inelastic, extremely hard, and unbelievably heavy. It was in the shape of a cowboy boot. It had some innovative tooling for buckle. The only problem was that the innovation was only on tightness and not a bit on comfort. It is very difficult to describe what that boot made me feel. It felt like 4 bricks tied around the calf muscle with a barbed chain. All this made me forget the six feet ski racks that I was carrying. After reaching the ice, I followed the shopkeeper's instructions and successfully clipped the ski on to the boot. What followed was a moment of insanity. Ice offers absolutely no grip to a Ski rack; I learnt this on that day. Friction was a word that seemed to have been removed from the dictionaries. All attempts to move forward slid me a few feet backwards. It made us the laughing stalk of the area. I wonder whether they had some cameras there and put us in candid camera shows. We had to move forward. A spurt in confidence enabled me to dig the stick in my hand deep and pull myself slightly forward. After a few attempts we were successful. We gained some momentum and moved into the actual skiing area. Eventually we were able to move around freely in ice in plane surface. All the speed had to be built by our strength. I wasn't satisfied.

In a spurt of overconfidence, I removed the ski from my boot and carried it to a slightly higher place some 200 feet away. I wanted to ski down. I didn’t know how foolish that decision could turn out to be as I forgot that I didn’t know how to turn or brake. In characteristic display of guts, I ignored my friend's warnings and put on the ski. Before I could balance myself with the ski, I started to move. The speed began to increase. As I reached the steepest part of the slope, the speed and balance were things I could hardly think of. All I was thinking then was how to fall with least damage. As fate would have it, I never fell till the bottom of the slope and gained maximum speed possible. At the end of the ramp, I completely lost balance and had the fall of my life. Full with somersaults and rollovers. One can imagine a typical hero heroine roll scene from Hindi films. Sans the heroine, it wasn’t funny.

Thankfully snow was soft and I dint bang into the trees. So there was no collateral damage. The thrill of falling was actually nice. We skied for the rest of the day. I must have had more falls than the day I learnt to walk. But then who complains. It was a day well spent. We planned to return to skiing before leaving Switzerland.

The rest of the holidays went in healing the aches. The first week of 2007 was quite eventless. The planned follow up ski weekend hadn’t happened. Nevertheless in one of the weekends, we made it to Jungfrau. The name of the pace is pronounced as Yun-fro meaning young girl in German. It is the highest railway station in Europe about three and half kilometers above sea. I think this has to be among the most exotic places on planet Earth. I can vouch that I’ve never seen anything better. It took about five hours of train travel from where I stayed.

The last two legs of the journey were by cogwheel trains. This route should be among the most scenic rail route anywhere in the world. The last leg of the travel is through the hill. They've bored a huge hole through the hill and put a railway track through it. So the train is like a slated Lift moving through long and steep tunnel. The construction of such a track is a colossal achievement of engineering.

In its journey the train stops at couple of viewing windows. What we see outside cannot be aptly described by my meager writing skills. Through those windows wee saw clouds at a slightly lower altitude than where we stood. The monotony of cloud was broke at places by ice-capped peaks. "Breathtaking " is an adjective the only comes close to fairly describing the view.

After a few minutes of viewing, the train resumed its journey and reached its small station. Jungfrau has a large Ice palace. Ice place is the name given to a huge cave built with ice. It has some statues made completely of ice. Outside the ice palace, Heaven awaits. I mean, if someone had to shoot Heaven for a movie, then Jungfrau has to be the location. Again my descriptive abilities fall short. The ice palace opens into a rocky pathway draped in hard ice. On one side we can there are snow-covered peaks. The other side looks like abyss. It is hard to see any colour other than shades of white anywhere. If we are lucky, as we were, to be in the place on a sunny day, we would see that snow glittering like gold.

The few weeks enriched me sufficiently. I had forgotten the glum feeling that I had as I was leaving India after my sister’s wedding.

2008-09-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

PGP1, 2008, IIM Indore
Organisational Behavior
Assignment 2: Case Study

Pritam’s Dilemma

Instructor: Prof. Sumit Kumar Ghosh

By,
R Balachandran
Santhosh Kanna
Shakthi Kumar S
Yashwanth Kumar

Section D

Pritam’s Dilemma

“I shall grab a bite at the cafeteria”, shouted Pritam to his wife as he hurried to his office in his car. His Santro was quick enough to get him to his office in 25 minutes. As he drove through the familiar busy streets of Mumbai, he screeched the brake at the crossroad signals, almost jumping them. He had always loved his city. But, today everything seemed out of place, the disorderly traffic, the long 185-second waiting time that seemed like eternity. He cursed himself under for not starting a few minutes early, given the importance of the meeting that he was to attend. He had waited for this very opportunity for the past 1.5 years for which he has been with Advaith Private Ltd.

Pritam Chakraborthy was a graduate from IIT Delhi and had done his MBA from a prominent business school in central India. He was always a go-getter. He was the secretary of the entrepreneurship club at IIT. He never let others mention what he should or shouldn’t do. He had his own beliefs and values, which he always lived up to. He didn’t think of himself as an extrovert, but others thought of him as one. He was known to invest in stocks of companies that were not mentioned in the TV shows and made good money. He was a prominent member of various interest groups and was known for the initiatives that he had taken. He has always been a self-confident individual who would take responsibility for all outcomes, be it positive or negative.

As Pritam waited for the signal to turn green, he checked out the other vehicles waiting along with him. There was a young man dressed uncomfortably in business formals with tension conspicuous in his appearance. “First day to work”, he thought. This reminded him of how excited he had been when he joined Advaith.

He was working in a large company prior to joining Advaith. He didn’t see himself growing in the company. He was looking for a change.

Advaith products were doing extremely well in the market and they were known for the exciting and creative advertisements. The company had gone through a, what was written about in magazines as, remarkable turnaround. A job in Advaith’s marketing team was just what Pritam had been looking for. He expected his job to be challenging; one that would make full use of his potential and he expected to make rapid progress in his career. Things were on expected lines the first few months. He often identified opportunities and took initiatives in the right direction and also voiced his opinion on significant issues, which reflected well on leadership abilities.

Of late, He always had a nagging feeling that he was not getting what he deserved.

Last week, Pritam was elated when his manager, Alok Gupta, managed to secure an appointment of Ashok Gaekwad, the CEO of Advaith products. Pritam has been working on this idea for the whole of the last one-month. He had carefully analyzed all the pros and cons and had come up with mitigation strategies for all the risks. While he was working on it he was having a constant feel of a funny churn in his stomach. He knew that no one could stop him this time.

After joining Advaith, Pritam had developed many ideas that would reduce the time to market considerably. He had prepared what he thought as, watertight cases twice and had presented them to Alok. Although Alok could not point out any shortcomings with the plans he still rejected them. “Ashok will not be impressed” was what he had said more than once before, whenever Pritam requested to meet the CEO.

Now when after this latest presentation when Alok said, “Be ready to meet Ashok on Monday”, Alok thought he had finally won. He knew that Ashok was a smart man. His colleagues often credited Ashok for the turnaround that the company had gone through. Pritam did not know what he should feel. Before joining Advaith, he had always been impressed by what he had read about Ashok. But after working in the company for all this while his adoration had reduced to just a formal appreciation due for a company head.

“Come right in. I was waiting for you”, said Ashok.
Not bad. Not bad at all “Thank you, Sir. I wouldn’t take much of your time. I would like to share with you a marketing plan for the our new product Sinewii”
“Your name is…” tapping vigorously the keys of the Laptop “Pritam Chakraborthy, is your name, right”
“Yes sir, sorry for not…”
Interjecting, “Come to the point…Why is Alok not here”
“Sir, I thought, well, Mr. Gupta asked me to meet you. I didn’t know you expected to have him as well”
“Pritam, I generally don’t meet people who don’t report to me. Anyway
tell me why you are here”
“Sir, I have this developed strategy that we could use for the introduction of Sinewii which I think would make it capture the market before Tuilio and Zufor could even launch their products.”
Searching for the files in his Sony Vaio.. “I would like to take you through this presentation”
“Am I the first person seeing this”
“No Sir. Mr. Gupta liked it when he saw it last week. He suggested I should meet you”
“Ahem… very well, go on..”
The meeting went in these lines. Ashok seemed impressed but not excited.
“Pritam, that was interesting.”
“Sir, I am glad that you felt that w...”
Interjecting, “But the idea is not something that we have done before. We will not risk everything just to try out a new way of selling”

He was dull throughout that day. He did not have the courage to reflect upon the events of the day. That evening as he was driving back, he thought about what he could have done better. The meeting had obviously not gone the way he planned. The CEO remained passive about the concept he presented, though occasionally, looked keen. He couldn’t figure out what would it take convince the CEO. “The idea was just perfect!”... he found himself stamping the accelerator hard.

He felt a lump in his throat as he tried to sleep that night.

“Wake up ! You are already late” shouted Sheetal when the clock struck 8:30.

He replied in a sleepy tone. I’ll probably go late or may be take the day off. Lets discuss the vacation you were talking about last week.

Pritam found himself unable to concentrate on work. He was staring at his table for a very long time. He had analyzed the market for the last 5 months and he knew that this particular initiative, a little risky though it was, would make them the clear market leaders within the next 3 months. Everything that Ashok and his top brass would need had been minutely researched and documented. He knew there was no reason this idea should have been shot down. Every interaction with Ashok only strengthened his belief that Ashok was very close-minded about the way the company should be run. While Pritam had a lot of respect for Ashok about how he had built this company from scratch by following a measured approach, Pritam believed that these were in fact what were making him closed to others’ opinions. Instead of adapting with the times and implementing advanced strategies and expanding, he felt that Ashok was adamant. He was the sole decision making authority and his emphasis on a sometimes-overcautious approach were holding the company back.

Pritam also felt that Alok was not backing him enough. As his manager, he had seen first-hand the thorough efforts he had put in. Also as someone who had been in Advaith’s marketing division for more than 3 years, Alok also understood what this would mean for the company. And yet, as with everything else that Pritam had asked of him, the reply here too was that there was nothing he could do. Pritam often felt that Alok was not assertive enough and blamed somebody or something else for things that didn’t go as planned. When he had talked about this to Alok, he had responded that with experience Pritam would also understand to what extent results are controllable.

Above everything else, Pritam felt that his personal career growth was being obstructed here in Advaith. While his classmates from IIM who had joined other companies now headed entire divisions, he was still yet to see his first idea implemented. While he felt very strongly about Advaith’s work culture and identified in particular with their policy on social responsibility and social inclusion, he sometimes thought if it was worth it to sacrifice his personal and social growth.

His suddenly realized what his unfocussed eyes had been on, a printed sheet of an email that he had taken two weeks back. With the suddenness of movement of someone who wants to start some action, he pulled the sheet toward him. It was from a friend of his who worked at H2O, a relatively new drinking water bottling plant that was starting to expand. His friend had talked of how H2O’s business interests were expanding and about how the position of Vice-President of Marketing & Branding had suddenly become vacant. He had forwarded Pritam’s profile and both the President and the Vice-President for Personnel Management had been impressed. They had expressed a desire to meet Pritam in person and everything looked to be a mere formality if Pritam decided to take up the offer.

H2O was one of the new plants that had come up to tap the growing market of bottled drinking water, particularly in urban India. Compared to the other entrants, H2O had shown startling success till date and the market generally expected H2O to soon become the market leader. A position such as the Vice-President of Marketing and Branding would pitch Pritam right into the center of this upward spiral where his ambitious nature would fit right in. However, not all was as glossy as it seemed. There had been some rumours about how H2O was not meeting some of the conditioning and treatment regulations in the manufacture of the bottles. The bottles were mostly manufactured from recycled plastic which came from a variety of sources. The industry specified several steps of processing to make sure the plastic that was finally used to make the bottles was not toxic on account of the number of types of plastic in the mix. The rumours were about this pre-processing and how H2O reportedly expedited the entire process by skipping a couple of conditioning and treatment steps.

His friend had also hinted that these rumours might be true. However, he also negated any prospect of danger by stating that there could be problems, if at all any, only when the bottles had been stored without selling for long durations. There was no need to worry at all as the government routinely made up regulations to take care of even very rare contingencies and in the current environment bottled drinking water, H2O’s in particular, was routinely out of stock in stores let alone being kept long enough for any danger. Pritam knew this wasn’t always true since bottled drinking water was often stored in warehouses for weeks sometimes during transport or delivery. As someone who had grown up in a small town, Pritam identified very strongly with social ethics and responsibilities and this was in fact one of his primal reasons in opting for Advaith.

Pritam spent the whole evening contemplating what he should do at this juncture of his career.

2008-08-10T02:55:00.000-07:00

50 First Dates

If you havn't already seen it, See it!
I dont want to give away anything. I watched it without having the slightest of clues of what it is about and thoroughly enjoyed.

Gets straight to the top few of the list of by fav movies.

2008-08-09T15:40:00.004-07:00

Azhagiya theeye

I watched this Tamil movie today.
A very good movie. Why didnt I watch it before...

2008-06-16T23:01:00.001-07:00

Kamal Hasan's Dasavatharam

The title of this blog is incorrect. It should have been named KS Ravikumar's Dasavatharam. Take a bow Mr. KS Ravikumar. Take a bow Kamal Hasan. Many congrats to the art directors the stunt director and to the talented cinematographer.

Dasavatharam rocks. It rocked big time for me. I have never seen a movie like this in any Indian language. Don't read me wrong. I am neither an ardent Kamal Fan nor someone who thinks Kamal is in the league of global actors of the caliber of the Al Paccino and co. I also didn't like the movie for its purported USP, i.e the ten made up Avtars played by the actor who played Avtar Singh. Yet Dasavatharam worked for me. If you need to learn more, read on.

The movie starts with a surreal aerial shot of Chennai. Chennai looks like Chennai in that shot (sounds trivial ? ). The bird eye camera captures the sky line (Earth-line is more appropriate) I mean the rooftops of the millions of two story buildings that inundate the city. The scene offers first glimpse of the non ordinary nature of the camera work in the movie. The shot zooms into a brass idol in a filled stadium and a Kamal's voice takes you to an episode of the 12th century.

If some understands the consequence of the events of 12th century to the rest of the movie, please tell me. I thought if one went to the movie 30 minutes late and missed all that, nothing would change. Anyways the shots of that part of the movie is has great camera work. The scene where kamal hasan is put through crucification inspired torture looks so real for an Indian movie.
This is the first Avtar of the ten. Kamal looks normal though one wonders how a 12th century pious brahmin who lives out of vegetarian food collected by Biksha (begging), as brahmins of those days lived, develop those well chiseled muscles. In one scene Kamal pushes a big statue of Perumal (Vishnu) which is shown to be too heavy for 6 people just seconds before. Aspiring for international standards Mr. Kamal Hasan?

The narrative returns to the stadium and quickly moves on to a biotechnology lab somewhere in US where a bio equivalent of nuclear weapon is being developed. The weapon is sold by the corrupt boss of the project to some international terrorist. This is where the protagonist Kamal, the 2nd Avtar who is the the top scientist of the project gets involved and steals the weapon in question to destroy it.

We are now into the first 40 minutes of the movie. Here a chase begins where the ex CIA agent now hitman, another Kamal in a foreigner getup is after the scientist Kamal. The make up of the hitman is okayish. It is very difficult to see Kamal in him so it is good but the man doesn't look like a human being, so make up is bad. But going by the standards of make up in this movie, this character is passable. During the course of the movie this character looks progressively less repulsive.

What I liked most about the movie is the lack of story in the plot. There is no clichéd hero vs villain both scheming against each other or superfluous romance or anything. There is just a chase. Plain and simple. The chase goes on for the next two hours and one is taken through a joy ride with so much comedy, nail biting stunts and 7 more Kamal Hasan's. This is where this movie stands out. This movie seems to be in the genre of Rush Hour or may be James Bond ones. Where the chase, the twists and turns form the plot. The movie could have been named Joy Ride as well which would have been more appropriate. The first half of of the movie is stunning without a single moment of slackness. A scene that involves an elephant, close to the interval, should be one of the best scenes that I can recollect in movies in general (not just Indian movies). Chidamabaram town is made to look so very lively with effervescent splendor and the song Mukunda Mukunda is beautifully picturised.

The post interval parts of the movie is slightly sluggish. It has typical Crazy Mohan's crazy dialogs. I am assuming the dialog writer is Crazy Mohan. Some scenes seem to last longer than required and some scenes seem avoidable. The movie would have been better if some 20 minutes of un-necessary footage second half were chopped. Any ways, I am still happy with the movie in general. attempts like this need encouragement and a bit leniency if one has to hope for Tamil movies to move out of Punch dialog and exaggerated nonsensical stunts of Vijay/Ajit/Captain movies.

My biggest criticism of the movie is its pathetic make up for some characters of Kamal. Almost all characters are played well and are lovable. But many look so un natural as if those characters were performed after sticking a department store mask on Kamal Hasan. For example the 90 year old lady Kamal Hasan is so endearing. It would have been brilliant had it been played by a lady. The make up for that role is pathetic. The worst among the ten. It is difficult to even keep the eye on the character. One wonders why Kamal had to endure it. Hours and hours of effort for such a trite looking result. Avoidable.

Same can be said of the 7+ feet tall Kamal. Again the character is endearing but un human looking. The Japnese Kung-fu artist is slightly better. So is the Poovaragavan character, although the entire character has no strong link to the story. The Raw agent kamal (Strong, extremely likeable Telugu accent and brilliant steriotyped mannerisms) looks okay. I already spoke about the ex CIA Hitaman. The two Kamal Hasans that look real good are the 12th century vaishnavaite and the scientist (protagonist). Avtar Singh is the best Kamal with a make up but the character was un necessary considering the plot.

One wonders why take the pains when technology has not matured enough for convincing (if not breathtaking) results. The dinosaurs of Jurrassic Park looked more convincing as earthlings than a few Avtars of Kamal. If Kamal had to show his penchant for doing different things neither the concept nor the results were worthy of praise (in my honest opinion).

Coming back to the good things of the movie (there are many), Mallika Sherawat is perfectly cast. I've not seen a better suiting character that Mallika Sherawat has played. Brilliant choice of the actor and a good performance here. Asin is too good. If the movie is lovable, which it is, then Asin is an important reason that the movie is that way. She looks honest, pesky, cheerful, and lovable. This is what acting is.

The Tsunami scenes are brilliant. Good CG. Best that I have seen in Indian movies. The link of Tsunami to the plot is good too. I thought it wouldnt be, but it was. The fight between the Japanese Kamal and the hitman Kamal is terrific, again the best that I have seen in Indian movies. Finally there is a subtle underlying acknowledgment of God , in a most logical manner. Good. Himesh Reshammiya is average. Mukunda number stands out. BG score is barely noticeable.

In the final analysis, I would say it is a collossal effort. And I give a thumbs up to its makers and actors (most of whom are Kamal Hassans :) ) and the art directors and the camera people and the stunt coordinators and the script writer (Kamal again- for having nail biting string of lively scenes in spite of the absence of any story as such). It is a risk taken and there are takers, like me, for the product. Congrats, Team Dasavatharam.

2008-02-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

IIM Indore Group discussion and PI Experiance

I am a compt Engg. 29months exp. 99.01 in Cat. IIM Indore call.

GD

Case.. Transport company meeting. Company in some issues due to recession.
2 proposals with the company:-

1. To go for a new client in existing business, investment need 8-9 lacs
2. to go into a new business area for an existing client, investment needed 5 lacs.

GD was relatively good. everyone had the opportunity to participate. I felt I did well.

After the GD I was asked for the photocopies of the marklists, I had left that at home. I had to let them know about it as it was asked in the GD hall itself... embarrasing. Since I had already called someone, it reached soon. So no fatal damage... I hope.

PI

There were 2 panelists, lets say p1 and p2.

P2: Who is infy CFO
Me: I am unable to recollect the name sir. Mohandas Pai handed it over to this person.

P2: His name is similar to yours
Me: I remember now, It is Balakrishnan.

P2: U r guessing based on the hint.
Me: No Sir, now I remember seeing the name in a quaterly results presentation.

p1: You have written that "Listening and Analysing AR Rahman music" is an interest. What do you men by analysing. Have you ever worked with a synthesiser.
Me: Said about how I feel Rahmans music has been evolving for Raw and electronic kinda music to more classical , Live orchestra music. And how unlike his earlier days it takes few listenings to like his music.

P1: Fav subjects
Me: OS, C programming

P1: What is shell
Me: Said

P1: Whats is kernel
Me: Said

P1: Data warehouse
Me: Said what I know.

P1: What is Queuing System
Me: Guessed. Told something about Queues in batch processing systems.

Thats the end of Acads. Thank God.

P1: What is Capital Expenditure
Me: (I had mentioned CAPEX in the GD and the summary). Said what I know.

Long silence. Then P1 walks away, switches on something and adjusts some GD seats.

P2: You have mentioned Investing in stocks is your interest. Tell me abouyt the current crisis.
Me: Subprime, Slight cool off in Asia, Flight of FII capital, Possible US recession.

P2: Tell about subprime crisis
Me: Done. (I had collected some info about it. I was happy about it being asked)

P2: No No . Tell me what the word Sub Prime Means
Me: Did

P2: Then what is "Prime"
Me: Some guesing. Should be right

P2: How is prime lending rates decided in India
Me: RBI fixes after Credit Policy review every quarter (eeeeh.... shouldnt have been so naively incorrect).

P2: Seems like you are just guessing and dont know exacltly
ME: Sir, Although I am not very well versed with this topic, I know some facts.

P2: What is Bank Rate
Me: Interest rate given to banks on their deposits with RBI.
(This is wrong. It is the interst charged on RBI lending to banks... another mistake. Got confused btn Repo rates and Bank Rate)

P2: Avg PE ratio of sensex stocks
Me: Said

P2: Chairman of US federal reserve.
Me: I know the name, But am not able to recollect.
(He gave hints, still couldnt recollect.)

P2: Previous
ME: Alan Greenspan

P2: RBI Deputy Governor
Me: I dont know Sir.

P2: RBI Gov
Me: Y V Reddy

P2: Planning commision Deputy Chairperson
Me: I dont know, Sir

P2: Chairperson
Me: Ahluwalia.

p2 mentions He is the deputy.
(I guess PM is the chairperson)

P2: Any extra curricular that u want us to note
Me: Used to assemble and sell computers

P1: That is not very technical. Something else
Me: I agree it is not that technical. I was interested in programming.

P1: Any achievements, Country, Dist or col level.
Me: Wont 2nd price in open softwarte inter collegiate contest orgnsd by my col.
(The frowning look in P1's face doesn't change)

P1: You may leave
Me: Sir, I am unable to recollect the name of the US federal reserve, But I know he tutored under the current head of the central Bank of Israel.

P2: One more hint, His first name is Ben
Me: Ben Bernanke

Me: Thanks you sir.

----------------------
Update: This interview has been good enough. Will be a member of Class of 2010, IIM Indore.

2008-02-11T00:50:00.000-08:00

Education for Prosperity

I am writing this to share with you a dream that I saw. A dream to that would create a revolution in our country and around the world. A dream that could put a smile on millions of faces. A dream that could enable millions more to dream.

Read further if you are interested.

Not long ago a survey by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEPD) was published. The survey was on the state of jobs in BRIC countries. The survey finds that 11 million jobs were created in India per year during the period from 2000- 2005. This no., according to the survey, was significantly higher than the no. of jobs created in developed countries and more developed developing countries. Of this figure, the survey says, 85+ percent of the jobs were in paltry waged informal and unorganized enterprises. Probing for reasons the survey finds out startling facts of state of education in India.

It finds, In India for every 21 year old who has cleared secondary education, there are four who haven't. For every single person who has a completed some higher education, there are 12 who haven't. We are not even talking about the standard of education that produced those 8 percent who have completed something after secondary school. Isn't this startling? Unfortunately government hasn't been able to or been concerned to do anything to change this situation. These meager percentages represent people who are less than 21 years old. Don't even dare to look at numbers considering the full population. Given the incapable government, the onus rests on us, the socially conscious ones blessed with education and technology, to solve the problem.

What if we share our education using technology? In a few years from now Internet is going to reach India's villages. Our telecommunications companies and MNCs will find ingenuous ways to monetize a huge untapped market. Of course there wont be internet connection for all homes. May be there won't even be a computer or even telephone or still even electricity for all. We are assuming none of it. All we are assuming is that the companies will put Internet in places reachable by the poor millions, like corporation schools, panchayat kiosks and so on.

Our idea is to create a portal. Something like a free online university. A university that will not involve itself with providing degrees. But it would offer free education to anyone who seeks it. It will utilize all forms of media (text, Audio, Video, Flash,etc) to teach lessons that are taught in the best of schools, to all. The content in the portal will be at least as high in quality as what the best of school offers. All this and more without charging.

We feel such a portal will help everyone. The students in cities will use it to overcome their inability to study in the best school of town. The students and teachers in smaller towns will be abreast with the most modern concepts and ways of expressing them. The teachers of village and corporation schools will have a place to look for when they are unsure of what and how to teach. And so on. This portal will make it possible for anyone to have access to the best education, wherever he is, whenever he wants it.

Using this technology, over a period of time, more people will be employable and the country can get out of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer syndrome.

Evolving this idea and contemplating its practicalities are part of my first feeble steps towards the realization of my dream. Please let us know what you thing of it, so that our next steps could be surer.

Yours,

A fellow citizen.

2007-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

My take on the ending of the Movie Guru (2007)

Mani ratnam desnt pass judgement on his character through his movies. People who’ve seen his master pieces like Nayagan and Iruvar, will know that he states facts brilliantly and leaves the judgement of whether the character was good or bad to the audiences’ imagination.

For Example, in Nayagan he portrays the protagonist in positive shades at various points throughout the movie. Yet, it doest amount to, the director approving the deeds of the character. He makes his disapproval, subtly, by running a parallel plot of the protagonists interactions with his daughter. In yet another master stroke, the director portrays the protagonist getting killed. The killer happens to be the son of a ruthless cop killed by the protagonist. One leaves the movie with contradicting judgments on the protagosist.

Iruvar too doest pass any kind of judgment on its protagonists Anandam or Tamizchelvam. Its states facts white and grey, and the movie ends on a philosophical note.

Audience seasoned to this non judgmental treatment fail to understand Guru. They feel that mani has broken his style and approves of Gurukant Desai’s deeds. I feel it is completely wrong to assume so. Guru is a take on the life and times of Dhirubhai Ambani, just like Nayagan and Iruvar. It is in this light that the climax court scene in Guru becomes very crucial. The fact is Dhirubhai Ambani did face a legal panel in the eighties and he came through that. So Guru being his story had to state that crucial happening. The scene cannot be avoided. Also it Gurukant cannot be shown as loosing in the court as Dhirubhai didn’t loose.

This given, we feel that the argument put up by Gurukant to the panel was tenuous, and unconvincing. We feel the protagonist may have been unfairly let free. We are pushed to doubt of whether the protagonist was in fact good or bad.He was a thug or a genius (taking a dialog from the movie), remains highly un-Trivial.

This is Mani’s masterstroke. Had the argument put up by Gurukant, been highly convincing, then it would have seemed that Maniratnam approving of the character. Had Guru been shown as loosing all popularity and support it would have been a biographical critique than a Maniratnam Biopic.

2006-04-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Ahmedabad, 30 April 2056: I attended the bash at the IIM-OBC Alumni Association to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the reservation of seats for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) in IIMs. Since I’m not an OBC, I was not supposed to attend, but at present, we MBFCs (Moderately Backward Forward Castes) together with the Non-Scheduled Tribes have a political alliance with the OBCs. We sipped champagne and talked about how so many of us had progressed from reserved seats in the IIMs to reserved jobs to reserved promotions. Unfortunately, the party broke up when a Non-scheduled Tribes faculty member objected to the OBCs dancing with all the pretty girls — he wanted equal opportunities for every caste at each dance. I pointed out that the Non-scheduled Tribes had exceeded the quota of champagne reserved for them. The party ended in a pitched caste battle.
1 May 2056: Today, I became president of the IIM Board of Directors. Under the present rotating presidency system, a member of each caste is made the president by turn. When it was the turn of the MBFCs for president, they had to choose me because I’m the only MBFC on the campus. True, I’m only the campus dhobi, but then every caste must be given an equal opportunity. All those centuries of oppression by the OSBFCs (Only Slightly Backward Forward Castes) and the OFCs (Other Forward Castes) must be rectified. I hope to restore the high standards at IIM — I overheard some foreigners calling it the Indian Institute of Morons, the other day.
2 May 2056: They’ve announced the cricket team for the series against Australia. I was overjoyed when they chose an MBFC man as captain. But my hopes were dashed when I realised he was a Most Backward Forward Caste and not a Moderately Backward Forward Caste. The selection committee lamented that it was gross discrimination that no member from the Jarowa tribe (the Stone Age tribe in the
Andamans) had ever found a place in the Indian cricket team. A squad has since been dispatched to the Andamans to capture a Jarowa tribal to play in the national team. I hope he will improve their performance — they had an innings defeat against the Maldives recently. I would have played myself except for the fact that I lost a leg some years ago when I was in hospital with a toothache and a doctor recruited through the Unscheduled Caste quota extracted my leg instead of my tooth.
3 May 2056: There are too many NFCs (Neo-Forward castes) in the IT business. Under the terms of the Business Reservation Act, their firms will now be taken over by the other castes. I hope they will be able to restore the Indian IT industry back to its former glory. For some unfathomable reason, it has gone down the drain after job reservations were implemented. I went for a movie featuring star actor Mungeri Ram. He may lack teeth, be four-feet-three and have hair growing out of his nose, but this year it’s the turn of the EBC-RYs (Extremely Backward Caste-Rural Yokels) to be stars and Mungeri Ram is the best of the lot. I wonder why foreign movies have become so popular.
4 May 2056: A truly great day. We now have an OFBMBC (Other Forward But Moderately Backward Caste) general as the Head of the Armed Forces. I hope he’ll be able to win back the territory we lost ever since reservations were implemented in the Army. Since then, the north has been taken by Pakistan, the North-east by China, the east by Bangladesh and the south by Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Only last winter, we lost the war against Bhutan and free India is now limited to the western coastal states. But I’m sure the OFBMBC general will turn the tide.
5 May 2056: My wife and I have been blessed with a bonny daughter. Since my wife’s an SBBNSBC (Slightly Backward But Not So Backward Caste), my daughter will be an MBFC-SBBNSBC. I must lobby for reservation for her caste. She’s the only member and I’m sure she has a great future.
From Business world magazine.
bala

2006-04-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Reservations and my Analysis.
One,

All of us who argue against reservation stating that quality of education will suffer is actually being a different kind of politician. The real reason why we feel agitated to see report is because according to us a less deserving candidate, according to our criteria i.e. marks, has gotten into a better college than we could manage. Isn’t this true?
We want, reservations not to continue, we use the proxy of quality of education. The politicians need vote, they use a proxy of society upliftment.

Two,

If we sincerely concerned about the common good of the country irrespective of personal scope for achievement (As Sale ability to MNCs- someone rightly said), Some kind of upliftment of the backward classes is necessary. I say upliftment of backward classes because they anyway are substantial in proportion of population and if India, the country, dreams to become an economic superpower, then of course the backward classes should be part of it.

Three,

Is reservation of any kind helping? The answer here is no. What it does is, it is relegating the backward classes to even more backward ness. I say this because, Suppose I am SC student, I know getting 200 /300 in PCM will secure a seat in somaiya, Why the hell will I have to work for 10 hours of a day to achieve it?
The people who enjoy the benefits of reservation are actually ones who "are" already uplifted. Reservation gives them a way to merely work less. Hence pushing them backward.

The people who actually need upliftment, may be, don’t even know about Somaiya.

Proposed solution,

Things like reservation makes us the well educated people loose our cool because it further reduces our scope of success and benefit the one who know well that they don’t have to work hard (At least as hard as us).

So, whatever solution is found to this problem should take care of these. One of which could be, the gov’t should bear the brunt of reservation by money and not by snatching general quota seats to refurbish reserved seats. I mean whenever a 50 percent reservation is proposed, the size of the institute should be doubled and the no. of general quota seats should be intact. As we also, who don’t have reservation, have a right to dream. Money and resolve could of course do it. A country of a billion could build more than just a few IITs and IIMs.

And Second measure, Which is more important, Should try to ensure that reservation does not reduce the amount of effort put by people to get into good colleges. People who are to be uplifted by reservation should be randomly chosen from a list of eligible needy (eligibility should only be clearance of the previous level), WHEN WE HAVE DECIDED THAT RESERVATION IS FOR SOCIETY UPLIFTMENT IN GENERAL AND NOT A FRUIT FOR MERIT AND HARDWORK, WHY DO WE NEED PROXY MERIT?

This second point will ensure that any Tom, Dick and Harry, who has from pre nursery studied with me, and has same ambitions like me, cannot feel that they will get into any institute because they have an added qualification of being from a backward caste.

Everyone seeking admission should be trying for merit seats alone, and the govt will uplift randomly chose, lucky people, who as a matter of fact, fall in the category who need upliftment.

If this happens, there wont be any grudge or disunion in the campuses also. The meritorious, the needy person, the faculty everyone will be sensitive to the needy person and help him.

Won’t a solution in these lines be better? I known nothing actually is going to happen, but its just sincere expression of my views

2006-04-07T08:41:00.001-07:00

Mathematical/Empirical theory that disproves absence of God.

First let us think about law of probability.
Suppose a dice is rolled, is it really that the number of the face is absolutely Random?
The answer is no definitely not. It, the number on the face, depends on the velocity with which the dice is thrown, the vector position of the hand w.r.t ground, orientation vector of the dice w.r.t hand, friction of the surface, heat, wind levels and many other well known scientific entities. Mathematicians call it random because it is too complex to calculate and that these factors change rapidly.

The same logic applies to any other mathematical problem solved on the model of probability.

This fact is proven by computers. In computers, It is impossible to generate an absolutely random number. We could generate random number with some degree of randomness. At most, computers use some external factors and operate over it to provide a seemingly random number. But the fact is there is no algorithm to generate a random number. These computer generated random numbers are pseudo random numbers.

Some amount of pondering over this could easily convince us that nothing is fully Random. Nothing at all.

The non existense of randomness proves presence of god.

Lets ponder upon scientific models of genesis of the universe. It is widely accepted that big bang was how universe got created.
And it is also agreed in scientific community that, out of trillions of other possibilities, universe exists in the way it does today. That is, randomly things fell into place. 999 999 999 999 out of 1 000 000 000 000 times, if big bang re occurred, universe would be in a different way.

My argument is, when nothing is random, like the face of a rolling die decided by existing entities, how could what followed big bang be random?
I mean when big bang took place there was nothing, no universe, no space nothing. Full of nothingness. Nothing that happened at that point can be considered random.

The void created by absence of any quantity that science has yet defined, and the presence of some quantity that caused the universe to fan out the way it is today, proves the fallacy in scientific models that states existence of god is an impossibility.

If science proves, randomness indeed exists and events like face of a falling die is not controlled by known physical entities,We could assume that randomness is god. That randomness that selected 1 out of trillions of options to make universe the way it is today.

Any arguments?

Bala

2006-04-07T08:41:00.000-07:00