Juggling books

Sidney Sheldon is one of those authors that you just don’t miss out on during your growing year if you are into reading. Well I didn’t miss out either. So when I suddenly spotted this book on the stands “Mistress of the Game” sequel to “Master of the Game”. I couldn’t help but grab it. On closer look I discovered that it was written by Tilly Bagshawe. Well Duh-huh, after all its been 2 years since Mr. Sheldon said good bye to the world.

Well after polishing off a 100 odd pages, I have goose bumps all over, coz it’s so creepy. I forgot how Sheldon novels used to be, crime, manipulations, sex, enmity, child rape, psychiatric depression ……well everything that’s wrong in this world and you have it in the novel. However I find my appetite for the evil is far lesser than what it used to be in my college days. I find that after 10 something atrocities I need to keep the book down and take a breather. So shall I stop reading it altogether? What you saying ….. Impossible!! How will I ever rest without knowing how it ended?

So that’s when I discovered why people end up reading more than one book at a time.

Me, I love reading one book at a time, for I am in that one make believe world and those characters are people I live with at that particular time. Can’t have too many worlds or too many characters going on at the same time. But with this book it feels like I am choking if I stay too long in this world, so I chose a safe book on L K Advani – “My life my country”. Reality and fiction, two different worlds and easier to exist in both at the same time.

You know I remember a time when I first realised that people juggle multiple books at the same time and I was totally astonished as to how they managed it. My first boss, a very nice, well respected and eminent person, used to juggle 3 to 4 books at a time. I was already in awe of him by the time I discovered that fact. Slowly it started registering how in interviews of CEO’s, CIO’s….heck all CXO’s, on the question of what are you reading now? It’s never a simple one book answer, it’s always multiple.

I do recollect how my boss had said that he enjoyed reading 3 -4 books at the same time, for it gave him an opportunity to relate content of different authors and draw his own conclusions and parallels. Whoa!!! Its one step at a time for me, I am now managing to juggle two books. Perhaps when and if I reach the advanced stages of book reading I too will be able to lay claim to what my boss has.

Bollywood AAJ KAL

After a dry spell of no movie watching I decided that my life was missing something and I had to get some spectacular visuals, good songs, happy endings and funny lines come my way. After a solid 3 movie watch I sat down with the satisfaction of an overfed obese. New York, Love Aaj Kal and Kurbaan – not bad at all!!! :) Lovely time spent hugging popcorn and peeping into the make believe world of other peoples’ lives….

And then my brain cells got ticking, quite a rare phenomenon but it did…..and I realised that all the movies I had watched was based out of foreign locations, not just a song or two in Switzerland but the characters were staying there in FOREIGN lands…….no way could these movies be hit after all the Indian masses could never identify with these guys. Well the movies were kinda nice but then I guess that’s how the chips fall. Whoooaaaa wait a min let me check the trade pundits’ reactions before I declare these movies a flop and then get to be the butt of jokes “in case I was wrong(!!)”

New York – Hit!!!

Love Aaj Kal – Mega Hit!!!

Kurbaan – Flop!!!

Okay so at least one of them was a flop. So there! But hey the other two are hits and did quite well too. So does that mean the average movie goer Indian masses are now okay with the hero – heroine being based abroad? Are we able to identify with these characters? Well intellectually speaking people are the same everywhere and the needs are the same – Roti, Kapda, aur Makaan! Just that some have white skin, others brown and yet others black and then of course there are coconuts. Whatever!!!

Okay let’s dig a little deeper shall we? There were 100 odd movies released in 2009, 114 approx if websites are to be believed. I chose out of the total, 10 movies, all of which had the entire plot based in foreign locations, the movies being –

• Aa Dekhen Zara                                           • Blue

• Chandni Chowk To China                             • De Dana Dan

• Kurbaan                                                       • Life Partner

• London Dreams                                            • Love Aaj Kal

• Main aur Mrs. Khanna                                  • New York

Offhand I already knew Aa Dekhen Zara, Chandini Chowk to China, Life Partner and Main aur Mrs Khanna were flops. They just didn’t fly…..or did they? Okay so back to the research board.

AAAANNNDDD the findings are – out of the 10 films 5 were flops (Predictable) and the rest 5 were a mix of hit, blockbuster hit (no guesses on that one!), above average and average performers. So that’s a mixed result we have there – it gives no conclusive idea as to whether its worth making a movie based at foreign locations or not. Shall we dig a bit deeper then?

Main aur Mrs.Khanna (MAMK) admittedly one of the most poorly done movies of 2009 and justifiably declared a flop. Right? Well a 22 crore budget movie which didn’t do well at the Box office but one of the most well performed movies on DTH, it grossed 21 crores from this source alone and went on to make a tidy profit when combined with the traditional sources ,i.e, theatres, music sales, etc. Chandni Chowk to China, this movie judged to be not an ordinary flop but a MAJOR flop made with a budget of 51 crores and said to have done a business of 75 crores. Guess the producers aren’t complaining are they?

Guess that sort of tips the scales doesn’t it? After all, of the 10 movies we listed, while 5 were box office declared successes, two more although declared failures were actually financial successes, which makes it a decent 7 out of 10. Which means to say that the acceptance level of films that are based in foreign locations are high. As a country we have, I guess for quite some time now enjoyed seeing lovely foreign locations, after all weren’t all Yash Raj movies of yore applauded for the lovely songs and the locations they were shot in? But to a large extent we were as an audience still not ready to identify with the majority of Indians who were living abroad and with their lives. They were after all foreign and hence a little alien to us.

With movies like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge, K3G, Bend it like Beckham the tide started changing slowly but surely. For not only were we enthusiastic to see their (Read NRI) lives but more importantly they were interested in seeing those movies. Overseas turnover was nothing to be sneezed at, with gross revenues ranging from 44 crores to 10 crores across different movies. This of course translates to a major impetus for producers and directors to make such movies.

At home our Indian Television owning homes grew from 88 million homes in 2000 to 105 million homes in 2007 to 134 million in 2009. More importantly the number of CABLE homes in India is set to cross the 100 million mark in 2010 from 90 million existing in 2009!!! As per studies conducted by TAM media, the number of cable homes has doubled in the last 6 years. Translated, we are now as a country more exposed to the world outside than ever before, which could be one of the reasons why we now have movies based abroad clicking with the Indian masses.

Also, as per the WTO projections, if current trends continue 50 million Indians will travel overseas annually come 2020. More and more Indians are today travelling abroad on business yes but also on personal vacations. Airfare to Malaysia, Singapore is far more economical than to travel within India from South to North or vice versa. As a society our aspirations and our exposure has truly enhanced.

While a Lagaan evokes an emotional response from us beyond measure a “Love aaj kal” doesn’t turn us off at all, does it? Bollywood bring on all the overseas based movies you can, for we, the Indian masses are today a truly glocalized society.

Sources – Nytimes, Business Standard, http://www.boxofficeindia.com, http://www.planetbollywood.com, http://www.wikipedia.org, http://www.pranaygupte.com

Disclaimer – Figures used in this article have been collected through secondary research and should be taken as only approximations not actuals.

Rann Movie Review

Ram Gopal Varma and Amitabh Bachan are back!! After the horrendous Nishabd and the horrifying “Aag”, this was perhaps the last duo that anyone wanted back. However, proving their mettle once again, Rann comes with the Sarkar flavour and the punch packed monologue speciality of Mr.Bachan.

While there have been a spate of movies on “Media – the evil”, this movie stands its own through its refreshingly honest portrayal of how media works and how situations create evil and not necessarily the other way around. RGV has captured the essence of the newsrooms, behind the scenes non-glamour and the media rat race pressure. Mr. Bachan has given a worthy performance, as the honest upright news person, the broken bewildered father and the evangelist of news ethics. However, it is Jai Mallik who steals the thunder. As the idolizing son who is churned out by the dirty politics of news business, he has carried with dignity his character through negative shades. A circumstantial victim who turned weak at crucial junctures, managed to still convey that after all he was just human. Riteish Deshmukh, as a serious sincere actor, whose glimpse we had all had in Naach, has again been extracted by RGV. Paresh Rawal, the dirty politician is no surprise and neither is Rajat Kapoor the manipulative businessman. However, the typical RGV touch is well evident in the scene where Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) seeks blessings from his ailing mother by placing her hand on his head, before he does so he wipes the dust off his mother’s hand and then afterwards from the top of his head where he had placed his mother’s hand. The simple scene highlights the hypocrisy of the character to the hilt.

The story starts with Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachan) who is head of news channel 24/7 and is reputed as the most ethical newsperson in the industry. However, ethics don’t run a business, money does! Jai Malik, the dutiful son, returns from abroad to take over the reins of business from aging father and discovers to his frustration that their channel is going down in terms of ad revenue and TRP. Trying to walk the fine line between accommodating the father’s principles and running a profitable business, he falls prey to the manipulations of his brother in law, leading businessman Naveen Shankalya (Rajat Kapoor) and the prime ministerial candidate Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal). The underhanded tactics and espionage employed by competition Headline channel is aptly acted out by Suchitra Krishnamoorthy and Mohnish Behl. Meanwhile, the beacon of hope, an upcoming idealistic reporter Purab Shastri (Riteish Deshmukh) who with his bloodhound instincts, begins to unravel the mystery of how things went wrong and why? The movie then ensues with how Mr. Bachan responds to the challenge of the situation, whether his principles are idealistic or not?

An enjoyable movie with a message and a predictable ending.

The Common Man

I was watching Rab Ne Bana De Jodi the other day and was struck by the way the wife describes her husband in it. She says – “My husband is a nice person, just that there is a commonness about him, the way he walks, he talks, he thinks – everything is like that of an aam aadmi”


Aam Aadmi – the common man. Did you know that “the common man is actually R K laxman’s creation. The cute old fuddy duddy with his stick and bag observing those around him and being unobserved himself. This guy came into existence in the comic strip “You said it” in Times of India in the 50’s and he struck a chord. Across generations we like this guy, empathize with him and generally we have a wry smile on our faces when we read the strip.

Cut!! So whats a common man? Why is he/she common? Coz he depicts the average population, everything about him/her is average, nothing too great or outstanding. The general majority of us fall into that category. I know I am special to my parents and among close friends, but I am still average. I don’t make heads turn when I walk neither do I make people faint with admiration when I speak. Indeed very rarely have I addressed a group of more than 10 people, if any, and held them spell bound. Not that I don’t dream of such things.


So then what is it that would make me NOT AVERAGE, NOT COMMON?


Well wealth would. The easiest possible way is amass hordes of money coz with money comes confidence and that stagger of knowing I am wearing branded clothes, driving around imported cars, talking to the who’s-who, having people to do my bidding. I am a cut above the rest, or at least quite a few of the average-ers. Hmm….so with wealth comes confidence and making people sit up and notice…….. so then why the wealth to have confidence…..could I not take a short cut and directly go to the wealth and get people to sit up and notice me?


Well, wealth gives me the power to back my words, to do things. So then there’s Power too in the equation. Oh yeah I shouldn’t forget intellect aka shrewdness. Without the capability of playing life like one would play chess, placing pawns and trying out strategies I would be a rich powerful dud translated that means super fast way to doom. Boy that’s a lot of powerful ingredients – confidence, power and intellect……looks like a lot of work and playing some hard ball too……hmm……


So what’s wrong in being a common man? He/She doesn’t turn heads or make people sit up and notice, but he /she lives a decent life, tries not to hurt anyone in the process, takes care of his loved ones, enjoys his/her moments of happiness, befriends other commoners, keeps faith, takes care of old parents, takes care of children…….ambitious to the extent that it doesn’t rock the boat too much.


We may not be outstanding, but hey we are NICE. In a world increasingly filled with violence, borders hardening and terrorism increasing, perhaps we are not a bad lot to be. Yes we may be meek, we may be more bothered by rising rents, EMI’s and telephone bills than peace talks between nations, but hey we make the world go round.

A Fun Trip

Well August 15th came and went and I am glad this year we had no untoward incidents. Indeed an anti-climax and one for which I am grateful. And i instead of cringing with anxiety in front of the TV decided to do something different this year....... :) My friend and his wife came down during that weekend and i took them to see an Athirapally waterfall which is around an hours drive from my place. It was crowded as hell since it was a holiday weekend, yet there is something so infinitely soothing about nature that just puts you into a good mood! The water was clear and quiet abundant due to the recent rains, and although my friends fell in love with the falls I was pretty nonchalant about it since I had been there like umpteen times. What I did fall in love with or simply adore about the trip was that on the way back somewhere in between the winding down road of that small hill the driver found us a quiet place to have our lunch. Mum had packed "Pathiri" (rice roti's) and curry for lunch. The place had a small clear stream with water up to 3 inches above our ankles and grassy bank.....that was heaven. You know it had been so long since i had been on a picnic......mostly in the trips I had been doing till recently, my friends and i have invariably always decided on eating at some road side stalls rather than pack lunches from home...... It was simple food, but for me, that day that place it tasted like delicious morsels from heaven. The next day we went to this place called Palayoor next to Guruvayur which is where St. Thomas first converted people to Christianity. It is claimed as the first point of entry for Christianity. “First Christian Church in India” – wikipedia.org. The place is undergoing this metamorphosis into an international pilgrimage and I wager that in years to come this will become a huge tourist destination too. St Thomas is said to have first de-embarked at Kodungallur, which he somehow didn’t find a suitable place so then he chose Palayoor as his next point. Here he saw some resident Kerala Brahmins (Namboodhiri’s) do the suryanamaskar after bathing in the pond and he challenged them to make the Hindu God accept the water they were offering. They couldn’t do that so they challenged St. Thomas back, seems he offered water which was then suspended in air for a minute before disappearing entirely. The Namboodhiri’s decided to embrace Christianity after that. What’s different about this church is that since the initial believers were from Hinduism there are quite a few things in the church which you will not normally find in other churches, like the church built has diya’s used in temples and even the practice of Thulabharam (offering your equal weight of some food particle/ flowers to god) still continues to exist in this Church. There is a huge museum built there as well, in the name of St. Thomas. This is the same St. Thomas who achieved martyrdom in Madras and in whose name you have St. Thomas Mount there.

So my independence day went in me utilizing my freedom and also exploring what our India is so great for, its natural fauna and its abundant and diverse culture. Jai Hind :)

August 15th! Independence Day! A holiday! A day where in today’s India, we are free to die at the hands of an unknown terrorist for his/her religious or financial or fanatic cause! My initial thoughts as this day approaches are usually on the lines of – “ Do Not Travel. Avoid crowded places and try to stay out of Metro’s” And after each August 15th I heave a sigh of relief – “phew escaped!”

Through the day itself I invariably keep scanning the channels to check if a blast has occurred or not, where have we been hit? I know its not just me either, I know the entire nation is gripped with the same thoughts, we may miss our national flag hoisting or even forget to stand up in respect for our national anthem but seldom do we allow ourselves to miss the grotesque details of mindless violence unleashed in our country on OUR DAY!

I am scared, I am concerned and I bloody well identify with Nasureedin Shah’s character in the movie “A Wednesday”. Where do we stop this? How do we get it stopped? Exercising my voting rights, ensuring awareness displaces ignorance or getting into the citizen police act all helps and contributes to save ourselves and our country but it feels like a drop of water against the red ocean of terrorism.

Intelligent society says as “Love” is the only vaccine for HIV so too is it the only vaccine for terrorism. But I am no Buddha to smile in the face of uncalled for anger and violence. I react with a mind filled with impotent fury and then get even more frustrated when I realize that my reactions don’t count.

It’s at times like this that I wish technological advancements had been restricted to only the field of medical science. After all without bombs and nuclear weapons we wouldn’t have been able to kill so many of us at one go huh?

Amidst all these thoughts I await Independence Day. May my country’s flag fly high and proudly with no blood shed to stain it. Jai Hind!

The Romance in Fragrances

A perfume has 3 notes - the head, the heart and the base. The head note is what you initially smell, the first impression, the heart note is what lingers and pervades your senses and the base note is what you are finally left with.......Astounding!!!! i never knew there was such romance to perfumes.....!!!

To me a perfume means nothing more than something to mask your body odor and that’s a nasty way of looking at it, I confess. Perfumes conjure up well groomed images, persons with manicured hands, attired to the occasion...... the final touch that lends the right "AAH" factor. And I truly envy those sorts; they seem ethereal and confident, as if they could handle anything that comes their way. I know i know.....don’t judge a book by its cover and blah blah......but hey what’s wrong in having an attractive cover?!!!

I’ve never been able to identify perfumes, fragrances….indeed it took me a long while to discover the existence of Eau de Cologne, Par fume extracts, Eau de Perfume, deodorants and what not…..But hey I am not a lost cause all together, I do know the basics…..perfume is meant not to be sprayed on but to be dabbed on your pulse points…the base of your neck, behind your ears, wrists, where the body emits heat and the perfume rises up around you mingling with your own body scent (or odor!). As the famous Coco Chanel quote goes - ''Wear perfume wherever you want to be kissed'' Lovely isn’t it?

Which reminds me….well yeah I like the romantic part of perfume and fragrances but then the business side of it got me curious, who are the top selling perfume companies in the world……well for one its called the fragrance and flavor industry and I discovered names that I had never heard of before like….GIVAUDAN, SYMRISE, IFF, TAKASAGO, FIRMENICH….. well Givaudan leads the pack is what I could make out from the net and they are headquartered in Switzerland with an all over the world presence but then the names didn’t strike a chord with me…..so I thought let me then read up on Chanel itself and I discovered Chanel No. 5 - “The company estimates that a bottle is sold worldwide every 30 seconds”

A perfume that was introduced in 1921 and is termed as a legendary scent…… my noses started twitching (pun intended!) While the history of how this perfume came about is interesting to read it, I liked the fact that I was able to uncover the three notes of this successful fragrance so lemme share that bit of info with you - Chanel No. 5 is classified as a floral-aldehyde. Its top notes include ylang ylang, neroli and synthetic long chain aldehydes such as 2-methylundecanal; its mid notes may rose and jasmine; and its base notes sandalwood, vetiver and vanilla.

Well, I guess its time to wonder about the scents and see if I can make myself a well groomed person too…..never too late for a make over I think, what say?