Salaam Bombay

On April 3,  I wrote this.... But could not post it... hence posting it now...

 

Saw <i>Salaam Bombay</i> yesterday. The film deals with the issue of street children and their lives.It was moving.

Even though entirely shot in Bombay in 1986 it is sad that even today one can easliy find such children in huge numbers in Indian cities. In the DVD there were a few documentries about how the film brought awareness in general public and how some NGOs have been started for the betterment of street children .

Here is one.There were video footage of some of such centres as well. Their effort is really commendable but I must say that much more needs to be done on a massive scale.

In India all these issues of poverty- corruption-Infrustructure-Growth are inter-related and we as a nation are struck in visious circle.Some way has to be found to come out of it.

Winning

I am reading "Winning" by Jack Welch these days....The book is the result of hundreds of seminars and Q&A sessions Jack Welch conducted since he retired from GE.

A lot of the book's material is taken from the real questions people asked Jack and his replies to them.... The guy is just amazing..... While reading the book frequently this was happening :

I'd see some question and I'd have some idea about what Jack is going to reply but his actual reply would be so different and so much more practical that it really challenged my thinking.

The other thing about Jack which I felt was his ideas and his "theories" sound so universal that I never felt that he is an American talking about American business. He has mass appeal. His ideas make real sense... It will be wonderful to see them in action.....

For example this is what he had to say on being a leader and taking tough decisions:

"You are not a leader not to win a popularity contest, you are a leader to lead".

On getting a promotion his advice is:

"Do deliver sensational performance, far beyond expectations, and at every opportunity expand your job beyond its official boundaries".

he then goes on to give an example from his early career:

He was asked to make a presentation to a visiting senior manager about the progress they were making on a new plastic product, He not only did that but he also made a detailed analysis of the market potential of the product, its competitors and a five year market outlook.

".......You are a leader to lead."

"Do Deliver sensational performance......."

The words are so inspiring for anybody to go ahead and take on the world!!!

The Da Vinci Code - The movie v The Book

Wrote this entry on the day after I saw the Da Vinci Code but forgot to post it---

The most awaited movie of the year has finally been released!!

Being a big fan of "The Da Vinci code" (TDVC) I went on the first day (but not the first show) of opening. Me and another TDVC fan were eagerly waiting for May 19th and had virtually read every news/bit/info about the movie.

First the logistics: The movie was marketed well and here in Ann Arbor it was released in a 20 screen multiplex called Showcase Cinemas, to be sure, we had booked tickets on the net but later found out at the theatre that there was no shortage of them on the spot. The reason being that TDVC was being shown on 6-7 screens parallely!!! we were amazed and praised America yet another time...:-)

The movie as such as good or even great! but paled in comparison to the Novel. I somehow felt that the production team had a tough job on hand, trying to make a movie on such a complex subject/story is not easy. There was just too much information in the book to which justice can't be done in a 3 hrs movie, hence we saw all the historical facts mentioned in the books being shown as some kind of background images which moved quickly. I really wondered if people who had not read the book would have really made out the story!

Probably a TV mini series of a total of 6 hrs would have been better but then it won't have made as much money for the producers.

The cast was just Perfect. Tom Hanks was superb and so was Audrey Tautou.

In India the movie was banned in some states, its really funny because all the christian countries are showing it. Why our Indian christians alone are so conservative I don't understand. There were news reports that in some states even the muslims objected to the movie!!! I fail to understand why...

Of BHollywood and Hotel Rwanda

The movie season continues. First it was Hollywood-Bollywood and then Hotel Rwanda.

Hollywood-Bollywood is a light movie based on the "Immigrant-theme" and the ABCD generation.
Lisa Ray was charming as usual. Rahul Khanna is a good actor but has done very limited number of films till now. One dialogue which I liked from the Movie was when Rahul Khanna start thinking that Lisa ray was a prostitute, he tells her this:

"Sue, As such it doesn't matter but those middle class values are too deeply ingrained in me". (Not the exact words but something similar)

I found it to be so true, those "Indian middle class values" and the fact that they are imbibed deeply in such families.

Hotel Rwanda was a vastly different movie. That was not an accident pick, I wanted to see that for some time. I had heard and seen on TV about the Rwanda genocide of 1994, I did some searches on the internet out of my interest and came to know that about a million people were killed by the hut militia.

The movie though was a far more detailed account of what happened there. The story is a real life story of a Hotel Manager Paul Rusesabagina and his heroic handling of the situation which led to the saving of 1200 innocent lives.

There were two main ethnic groups in Rwanda: the Hutus and the Tutsis. Their mutual hatred was a result of the colonial past, The Belgian rulers gave the Tutsis privileges in the power structure so the Hutus started feeling alienated. It reminds me of the "Divide and Rule" policy of the British in Indian subcontinent.

The movie is a brave attempt at shaming the international community to not to forget Africa and not let such a shameful thing happen again.

In the features section of the DVD there was a video clip of real life Paul Rusesabagina visiting Rwanda for the first time after the genocide. There were clips of tens of human skeletons (Including those of small babies) lying in the rooms of the "Genocide Memorial" in Rwanda. Its unimaginable that such a thing really happened.

Of "Notting Hill" and our resistance to change

Notting hill remains one of my favorite movies. Having seen it on star movies umpteen times I remember a lot of its dialogues too.
The most touching scene is when Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) tells Hugh Grant:

Let me tell you, this fame thing is not real, and don't forget that I am also just a girl, standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.

Gosh! the dialogues are so good...

I equally like the soundtrack too, particularly:

It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart

and She

In the DVD which I borrowed from the library there were other features too. There were a 3-4 scenes which were shot but later deleted from the movie, looking at them I felt that it was a good decision, but then had they been part of the movie originally I don't think I would have mind.

Its amazing how we get used to things as they are and can't imagine them to be something else.

Talking in the context of movies, "Swades" was supposed to have Amir Khan as the lead actor but since he refused Shahrukh Khan was chosen. Having seen the movie I can't imagine anybody else playing that role other than Shahrukh! Perhaps in this case it is his excellent acting and screen charisma which is responsible for it.

I am able to relate this to a number of other things in life and I feel that things which we (if I may take the liberty to generalize for everybody) like or which are considered good by us, we are not willing to change anything in them. I guess this is what is called "Resistence to change" and the book "Who moved my Cheese" was all about it.

Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad Ad

I read this interview on rediff and felt "inspired".

Remember those "Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad"¹ messages on Doordarshan in good old days? There were so many of them. I think in those days those messages used to outnumber the commercial ads on DD.

Anyways I dont want to get distracted by their memories right now, what I want to mention here is a particular message out of those numerous messages. I dont remember it exactly but it went something like this:

An unemployed guy in a village is shown cursing the government for his situation, and then in another scene a 'self-employed' guy is shown running his own business, it is shown that he is also employing a couple of other people.

Finally the clip used to end with a punchline "Kudh bhi rozgar pao aur dus aur logon ko bhi rozgar do" ( Get yourself means of living and also give employment to ten more people).

The idea obviously was to encourage young people to start their own businesses and not depend on government for jobs.

I don't know how effective that message was and what difference it really made to the lives of unemployed youth, but some how I imbibed it deeply; and that is partly why I find interviews and articles like the one mentioned above very interesting and inspiring.

Having said that I guess I don't want to start a business just to create new employment, my idea is to do something more meaningful than I am doing now and do that with real passion.

I guess I need an idea to start with. When will I get my idea? Is there something as novel and as big as "Internet" going to happen?

I don't know and its difficult to forsee also, but what I know is that I should be ready.
Right now everything is abstract in my mind. I don't even now what should I do to be prepared. For now I am just going to entrepreneur.com to read some articles.

---

1: I forgot what they used to call it in english. Anybody who is reading this please let men know, if you know - Thanks in advance

Sonia Gandhi resigns from the Parliament!

This morning when I opened my laptop for the news the surprising news was: Sonia Resigns

Although not a 'Congress fan'; I appreciate this decision taken by Mrs Sonia Gandhi. After all how many of our politicians are willing to take such a bold decision? Even the left has said that their MPs won't resign.

One must also remember the decision taken by her Mother-in-law when she was disqualified from the Lok sabha. She imposed Emergency on the country.

Times are different one might argue and also Sonia Gandhi today is on a far high pedestal vis-a-vis other politicians, but still this is a very good development for Indian democracy and must be welcomed.

In my view Mrs Sonia Gandhi has set an example.

Google - just an obsession or is it for REAL

Like a billion other people I am also thoroughly impressed with Google!

The way they started off,
The way they have expanded their business based on one core competence "Search", one would have never imagined that search can be so powerful!
The way they listed their stock.
They have an "official blog" AFAIK no other major corporation has one.
The way they recruit.
Time management policy (the 20% free time rule).
Their Amazing products! ( I just love my google desktop search) including recently launched Google finance

The list can go on and on...

Due to above reasons and some of my "Gut feeling" I wanted (or do I still want?) to own Google stock.
I started tracking it when it had already run upto 420-430$ after listing at 85$ in their IPO.
Google was having its dream run. After figuring out that it is possible for me to own it, I had
decided to open a brokerage account with scottrade here in the US.

But then one fine day Google began to slide coz of some bad news and has slipped by about 100$ since.
I postponed my decision indefinitely :-) and am watching it closely.

While discussing this with a friend it occurred to me that its better for me to stick to the "known" waters of the Indian stock markets, afterall they are giving some very good returns for the past
few years! But then "in the Indian market can one find a stock like Google?" goes the counter argument.

I think I need to do some more home work before arriving at any decision.

DVD Wars - Netflix and BlockBuster

When I was India, I had seen Netflix ads on the internet but never bothered to figure out what it is.A couple of weeks back I got to know about how Netflix has put DVD rental giant Blockbuster out of business in the issue of knowledge@wharton .

At the same time an "NRI"(well he doesn't claim to be) friend of mine suggested subscription to Netflix so I decided to figure out what this Netflix thing is all about. The first stop was their website. It offers 2 week of free trial and unlimited DVDs + no late fees + free both ways shipping. I was amazed at the business model. It seems that Netflix founder got the idea once he had to pay 40$ as late fees to his DVD rental company(which is an obvious reference to Blockbuster).

I checked out their collection and was happy to see a lot of Bollywood movies there.

I was wondering how Netflix is making money! Then I found this from wikipedia.

It was a smart business model but was unfair to the customers. Even now the same practice of 'throttling' exists but it seems they disclose it in their fine print.

Hence finally decided not to subscribe to Netflix!

Blockbuster also decided to open a "me too" DVD rental service, But I don't know if that also suffers from the same "flaw". They are offering one month free trial.

Ann Arbor Library

Ann Arbor has an excellent public library system (website).

I had heard about libraries in America but still for me it was hard to believe that such a good facility can exist in such a small(relatively) American city.

I am even able to find DVDs for bollywood movies! Having said that I found that the only way to get what you really want is to use their website and reserve the items in advance. Having a policy of "unlimited checkouts allowed" ensures that none of the "hot" items is available on the shelves.

Overcome by greed I reserved and got about 5 DVD's of my favorite actor Tom Hanks ...But didn't found the time to see them....

Still managed to see "Sleepless in Seattle", "LadyKillers", "You've got mail" (this is for the nth time I have seen this one), currently I am watching "The Green Mile".

also got "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintaining" as I was not able to finish it earlier in India...Somehow I had lost that book....

TFTs continued..

Its been pretty exciting ..my last 2 months in the states,Here is a list of TFTs (Things done for the first time :)

1. Experienced tempratures below -10 C for the first time in my life :-)In fact one day a walk across the road felt as if I am on a trek to the north pole! ...wait a sec ..I think I need not goto that level...otherwise I will have to write for the rest of my life..so henceforth only the"substantial" things...
2. Flew a single engine small plane!!!.wait here is the fine print*... The snaps are here.
3. Got into a swimming pool! ..definately a substantial achievement for me!!! yet to learn swimming though.
4. Played Tennis!!! this was as recent as last sunday..12th march.

* with the help of an instructor.