Burka or Bikini??

The newspapers today blared with the news about the Burka ban in France, where citizens voted for a ban for women wearing veils. For Indians, there are two ways to look at it. This ban will also move on to the turban ban which would affect fellow Indians abroad. For the Muslim states, this is being deciphered as a political statement by the west. I feel that the ban is justified because in Muslim countries, women who are foreign nationals are also forced inside the veil and slight exposure of their skin leads to stringent punishments. So every country has the right to enforce laws on citizens and foreign nationals in that country. The sad fact is that women are always a soft target for the west as well as the east for showing their political muscle power.
In today's Hindu, there were eight letters to the editor, where six men (Hindu names) welcomed the ban and two men (Muslim names) decried it. Another image was from Pakistan, where several men were on the streets again decrying the ban.
WHY THE HELL ARE MEN SO CONCERNED WITH WHAT A WOMAN SHOULD WEAR AND SHOULD NOT?????
This reminds me about the incident where Shreya Saran was accused of disrespect towards the Tamil Nadu CM in a function, where she was wearing a knee length skirt while receiving her award.
And again, the women groups outside Mamta's house accusing her of wearing indecent clothes.
If I get a chance, I would definitely line up these morons and send them to hell.
AGAIN WHY DOES ONLY A WOMAN'S ATTIRE AFFECT THE SENSIBILITIES OF THE LOCAL CULTURE????
On burka, I personally feel that it demeans the identity of a women as a human, separates her from the society, and makes her responsible for her physical safety through the burka. The truth is that anyone of us can be physically abused, irrespective of the fact of how we dress.
My second concern is on the self appointed Hindu groups that are increasingly becoming a menace for Indian women. If these groups are so committed in protecting the Hindu culture, they can instead concentrate on:

• Domestic violence
• Child abuse inside the family
• Child marriages
• Honor killings
• Dowry deaths

But then what Shreya Saran or Mamta Kurkarni wear is so much more important than these things!! How can these groups work on the petty stuff that I listed above?? After all, the essence of Hindu culture, according to these people is keep women subjugated. And we as Indians, need to tackle these problems, instead of talking about the Burka ban.

The Indian FMCG story

When I was in college, studying advertising, ad making for FMCG brands was such a big deal. It was separate subject in itself and client servicing for these brands was a big deal. But recently, when I was doing my MBA, I came to know that the whole game has changed. Today, FMCG's are looking out for survival tricks and so are the ad agencies, who serviced them long back. The new FMCG trends we saw in India are:

Brands like Himalaya and Dabur setting up their own retail outlets
This move has been due to shortage of shelf space in Supermarkets. Whether it would be a smart will be decided by time, because this move involves investing in infrastructure and store manpower.

Giants like HUL, ITC and P&G going rural
The whole jazz about reaching out to rural India was done so well that it gained a CSR sympathy for these companies. But the reason behind this move for completely different. Our professor explained to us that these giants used to bully local kirana shop owners, decades ago for pricing and delivery. The influx of malls and supermarkets changed the story for these brands. When FMCG players used their muscle power with supermarkets, they retaliated by bringing their own store brands. Alas, the FMCG profits came down big time in India in the early 2000s. Remember HUL doing a revamp for its product lines some years back. So, the only option these brands had was to go rural and show their muscle power to small store owners in the rural India. Well, luckily it has been a success for them till now. We will have to wait and watch till supermarkets enter rural India!

Now coming back to our ad agencies, where many of my classmates might be working... Today ad agencies are looking for different opportunities like social networking, Public relations, corporate communications and consumer analytics. This is because billboards are history, magazines are becoming paperless, TV is also going to be history and radio is just for emergency entertainment. These were the bread and butter for ad agencies a few while ago. But now, due to recent changes in consumer habits, everything is gone for a toss.
I remember my group discussion for getting a B.M.M seat in SIES college, my topic was "Is Advertising important for the industry?" and  I debated for NO, its not important!

Rajneeti: Complete stunner

Finally, I watched the only movie worth watching in 2010, well at least so far.
Rajneeti is an absolutely brilliant movie to the core. I have watched Prakash Jha’s movies earlier and enjoyed them but this one is a stunner. I am impressed in the manner he has sketched each character in the movie, and Ranbir’s was the most striking part in the movie. The film is said to be a paralleled with the story line of Mahabharata, with

• Nana Patekar as Krishna
• Ranbir Kapoor, as Arjun
• Arjun Rampal, as Yudhisthir
• Manoj Bajpai as Duryodhan and
• Ajay Devgan as Karna

I found all the roles perfectly executed except for Yudhishtir. Arjun rampal’s charater was shown as fickle minded, intolerant, unforgiving, and a rather stupid one. Whereas Yudhishtir had none of these qualities except that he had taken some stupid decisions. I applaud Ajay Devgan’s work. I think this has been his best role so far. Nana and Manoj were as splendid as they always are. Ranbir’s part was the best because he is the mastermind of the game but has the power to exit the game and go back to his previous way of life. This is impossible in the real Indian politics that we see today. I feel that once a person gets the taste of unrestricted power, it’s hard to be normal again.
And not to forget our dear Sonia oops... Katrina who did a wonderful job in the small role that she got. I felt like I was watching Sonia Gandhi.
Naseer had a really small role, damn I am disappointed. He made the communists look good which was not necessary! Even Sara's role was aptly sketched with her Irish background. And I think this is the first time an American is shown to be sensible in an Indian movie. :)
Once again, I am totally dazed to watch such a brilliant movie after a long time. Kudos to Prakash Jha and all the actors who did a superb job!

Of Maamis and Mamiyaars!

Maamis are an Indian species,  who have a unique possession called "vaith erichal" or in other words, "green eyes", with which they emit envious radiation on children and youngsters. You come across these species when you are dragged to family functions, marriages, and get-togethers. Their rays can affect you from spoiling your mood till making you really frustrated in the end. But the truth is that we all have to face these species in this Indian society. They also possess other avatars like chitti (maasi), perima (badi maa), etc.
My encounters with such species have been pretty interesting, so far. When I was a kid, I did not understand their techniques and methodologies. For example, one maami would often tell my mom, how tanned I have become. After a point of time both my mom and I got irritated, but when we saw her kids, they were really tanned! Then, one always wanted to create a complex in me. So, she would always praise my cousin sister in front of me.
Another one, the most irritating of all, whom I have learned to ignore, would be ready with her advices. She is one hell of an agony aunt, who would give free advices to everyone around. She would tell me that you kids are so spoilt, you see MTV all day, don't learn good manners. Ahem, her girls dress like MTV VJs and even put on accents, and she is advising me! Once, when all maamis made a gang, ya gang :'(... and started to pressurize my mom to get me married, this one started advising me on how should I change my manners and all. I was so tempted to talk back "Why don't you advise your gals? They change boyfriends like their nail paints, go out with guys, sit in their lap, drink with them and even put the photos on Facebook and orkut. They need your free advises more than me!"
Recently, when I had to meet this maami, she came to know that I was doing my MBA. She told me about a girl who was also doing MBA in a college with less fees. As usual, I ignored her. :)
In the end, how ever tempted to talk back you are, its best to ignore these people. But what I have observed so far, is that these maamis are jealous because their girls are not doing that well as I am. So they take out their frustration in this way. So long, my dear maamis......

Are our metros still standing?

Are our four glorious metros: Delhi , Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai as great as they were during the British era?
My answer is that these metros have only been successful in changing their names so far. Mumbai, my favorite city, when it comes to bashing, is so broken today.
The underworld threats, political problems, pollution, fully non-functional infrastructure, and the overgrowing population have harmed the city so badly that future development in the city is uncertain. Kolkata's political non-development agenda to keep the people poor and businesses away has been successful so far. Today, it is not even considered a metro. Chennai, is better than Kolkata, as it has attracted the IT and and a reasonably functional infrastructure. But I foresee social squabbles because of the increasing influx of immigrants. And it has a closed culture due to which it is not preferred by expats.
Delhi is the only survivor because it is the capital. It has managed a reasonable infrastructure, a pretty good influx in businesses, planned suburbs and a quality life. And Delhi is slowly usurping the title of financial capital from Mumbai, as financial businesses are moving their head offices to Delhi.
In the end, the fact remains that today tier 2 cities like Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad have a better quality of life compares to these metros. And tier 3 cities like Ahmedabad, Mysore, Coimbatore and Jaipur are also joining the bandwagon.
Hence, the so-called metros need to do a reality check and see where they are. For all that I know, It will take a century before Mumbai becomes Shanghai ;)

Review on Raavan

Highlights:

Prithviraj is hot without moustache!

Ash and Vikram have done a good job.

Storyline and direction are pretty good, but dint feel Mani Ratnam's oomph factor.

Good music!

Things I did not like:

Long poetry like dialogs

Karthik flying like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

Prabhu- He irritates me....

Well the story is around Tirunelveli, but I doubt its shot there....its more like Ooty and Kodai, cos lots of mountains around. Ash is perfect for the role of Sita. ;) Married but still makes any guy go mad for her!

In all a good entertainer, but not worth spending money at Inox to watch this.

A pirate that I was meant to be!

Well for those who know me will also know that I must be talking about a game ;). The game is "The curse of monkey Island". Never guessed that a point and click game can be so interesting and challenging. Nevertheless this game is awesome and so funny.

The main character in the game is a wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood. He rescues his lover Elaine from the Zombie pirate Lechuck. The characters that Guybrush meets during his quests are very interesting and the clues are also planned brilliantly.

I got stuck in this game so many times that I have finally started using hints from the web. I know that sucks but I am not that intelligent to solve all the puzzles by myself. The scenarios in this game are also very fascinating. This game is so made for me.


All in all, a very adventurous game for all wannabe pirates. :)

Corporate Sheman!

Women make a bad example, when they try to ape men. One such example was Priya. When she laughed, her team mates would get scared. People in the office kept as far from her as possible. Whenever, someone joined her team, they would get the “best of luck” from people around. She was one great example of people who liked to drop their shit on others and penalize them for that.

She had scraped her way through promotions by her family influence and became a team lead. So, she was very insecure about her abilities. Once, a new project manager joined the company. When Priya got introduced to her, she introduced herself as a project manager!

She had her harassing techniques in place. Whenever she received a storyboard, she would make a hell lot of edits and tell the content writer that it was a poor quality work. Whenever people replied in mail for doubts clearance and verification, Priya will never mail back to them. She would go and sort it out verbally. This was her strategy, because later whatever was wrong would be shoved back to the person and she would be on the safe side. Her motto was to never make anything formal from her side so that she will not be held responsible.

She had no hint about the word professionalism. She thought that her team members were puppets and she can behave however and talk anything to them. She would demand formal birthday treats from her team members in the name of team activity. She would call people names, under the pretext of being friendly. Whenever someone would tell her politely to stop doing it, she would get back at them and say that they are not cooperating as a team.

Her best tool was that she was irritating to the core. People would do anything to make her go away. Therefore, she was a difficult person to handle. When someone would get the strength to confront her, she would just confuse them. They would give up and she would prove them wrong.

Phew, never thought I would meet such people. But only when you meet such people, will you know the worth of good people.

Petting memories

It all started from Kiki. She was my first pet. She lived in the kitchen window extension area, with her mom, dad, and little sister. Thats when we discovered the pigeon nest. Well, we discovered it, when Kiki's parents nested one set of babies before Kiki's turn. But at that point, the baby was almost grown up and was learning to fly. Kiki was around 10 days old when I saw her. She would squeak so loudly when her mom visited in the evening. Her voice could be heard in my room, when I was busy playing age of empires. She would try to put her beak into her mom's beak and pester for food. Her sister had a weak growth from beginning. She stopped growing from her 6th or 7th day. Kiki looked very old, big, and fluffy in front of her. When mom and I used to peek from behind the window, Kiki's mom would know that someone is around. She would hint her to stop squeaking and stand still. Both of them would stand there without moving, like statues. Kiki was the cutest baby I had seen. Her innocent round eyes, her small wings, cute little tail feathers, her cute squeaks that earned her the name Kiki. :)
Then came peeku and teeku, velvet, later pingu, black beauty, baby and a whole lot of cuties, who made our window their home. In some time, there were babies in our bedroom windows, and balcony area too. Whenever I was bored, I would pick and gather the babies and have a tea party. Their dads who baby-sitted in the day time would get annoyed with me. One dad at the kitchen nest would make weird pigeon sounds to tell me that he wanted his babies back.
I miss them so badly. Watching them was so much fun. The mom pigeon cuddling the babies, the mom and dad sharing the egg-sitting duties, the babies learning to fly. Take it from me: Birds, especially pigeons make the best pets!

All's swell that ends well!

Phew! The journey along these five months have been pretty insightful for me. You never know where life takes you and you reach a point and introspect to find out that thats the place, where you wanted to be and were planning to be. These five months were definitely my testing period but I did reach where I planned to be. So, I will have a good night's sleep today.

To begin with, let me tell in simple words, what I went through for these five months. Starting with the placement season at my college, my first interview was with Manipal for a marcom role and ya I was not selected. I took it with a pinch of salt and moved on thinking that I will get a better role. Then came Optima on day zero of placement, where again I was put aside. Then there was Heymath, where I thought this would be the one. But when I reached their office, I felt a tinge of my old elearning days and asked myself, if I wanted to go back to the same atmosphere. My interviewer set me free and I was again rejected and this time I was not disappointed. Then came Marg, 3I, Everonn, Exemplarr, and Infinity.

Finally, I started searching for a job myself, which was a more disgusting experience. I got calls for technical writing(most boring job around), IDing (less boring but boring), and even call center openings! Even more worse was that most of them were on contract to hire. Everyday became routine where I started applying for as many jobs possible in Naukri ( trying to reach the goal of applying 50 openings per day) besides playing sorority life.

Surprisingly, I got a call from a corp comm role in TVS, I applied and was called for an interview. Even more surprising was that they selected me that day itself. Well, now I look back and find out how life is so testing but also promising.

Ahem..., so I met the VP of GSCM yesterday, will be meeting VP HR today and things are pretty interesting at this point of time. So I am to make up for the time and start filling my blog space again!