Lock Pal

Rajya Sabha adjourned sine die. Future of Lokpal bill may be pushed to Feb 2012. Parliament closed for winter holidays!

Unarviyam- A Rising Star on the Stage

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

-Oscar Wilde

In today’s world where technical developments aggravate audience’s demand for perfection, dramatics is indeed a very risky challenge. Without re-takes, editing from multiple shots, digital effects or mesmerising visual lavishness, it is quite unthinkable of delivering something that appeal to today’s viewers. Not to forget, the enormous amount of time and effort consumed from the time of conceiving the idea to scripting the scenes to making the props to rehearsing to perfection and finally performing on various stages. In spite of all these, there are still ardent fans of the theatre who have pledged to revive this traditional art form, and what’s more important is to make it equally appealing and connecting with the audience as films and music.

It was my pleasure to have attended the first stage performance of one such amateur theatre group called ‘Unarviyam’ last week. An immensely talented bunch of youngsters who performed an indigenous story of an intelligent thief in their mime play called ‘The Looters Looty’.

For a maiden performance, the actors’ confidence and connect with the audience was definitely commendable. The script was very much Chennai-ish with acts referring to day-to-day life in the city. This along with the fluent ease and casualness with which the main characters in the drama (the part of the play that had dialogues) Vatsan Natarajan who plays Fallu the thief (also the director and script writer of the play) and Prashanth Ramaswamy who plays Tiger the cop (also the head of the production unit of the play) handle their respective roles cleared all airs of reservation one might have for a debutant team. To complement them to near perfection, the mummers who played the respective roles Karthik GJ and Lokeshwaran exhibit a grace of movement and acting unparalleled by even professional artists. Their ability to communicate with the audience without a single word uttered definitely invited a great deal of applause.

The music by Muthukumar Anil was apt, with a distinctive ability to keep the audience excited and at the edge of their seats. The story was about an ‘intelligent’ thief who stole for passion. Though a few of the acts were inspired from popular cop-thief films, most of them were originally thought and adapted to suit the story. The character of Fallu the thief in both the drama and the mime were impeccably executed, always unleashing a flood of laughter in the hall. The script went on to tell us how there were almost ten ways of stealing happening in the society, and why Fallu felt that theft was integral at all strata of the society from politicians to tea-stalls. The policeman Tiger (who reminded me of Asrani from Sholay) also shone well among the audience with his repertoire, although the crowd was keener on pulling his legs with meowing sounds than supporting the character’s rationale.

Although thrilling to the deepest extent, there were some places that stood out amateurish in the execution of the play like the stage not being set before curtains went up and in between scenes, the script falling a bit shallow at times and dragging at a few places here and there. Though theatres have been responsible for creating revolutions in the past, I believe that political anecdotes in an apolitical context do not always add flair to the theme. Dragging the DMK and AIADMK, Anna Hazare, price rise etc. in this play I felt went a bit out of context and didn’t serve any purpose whatsoever in creating an impact or impression.

These minor things apart, I must admit it was a rejuvenating experience. In less than ten minutes since its beginning, the play and its cast were successful in making me shed the idea that I was watching a group’s first on stage performance. Unarviyam, the theatre group is undoubtedly here to stay and if they are able to adapt and improvise with every performance you can definitely look forward to a rising star in the otherwise plain night sky, under the light of whose success I’m sure other aspirants will also be motivated to enter the field and thus elevate theatre arts at par with the established art forms in today’s society.

Good luck Unarviyam!

Why did SRK make RaOne? (The story you didn't know)

“Why did he have to do this?! Why, I say!”

I had gone to watch RaOne with a bunch of friends. The show got over and we squeezed ourselves out of the movie hall, and were now recasting ourselves into what we actually looked like and catching some lost breath to regain composure. Some of the kids who had come to watch the movie seemed to go back happy and excited, but many of my friends were asking questions. “Weren’t things going fine for him; why did SRK have to do such a movie?!”

“Why did SRK make RaOne?”

These questions seemed to echo deep within my head, and I felt like some high frequency movement inside my brain. Like small cubes being tossed all around my cerebrum causing a virtual particle wave that translates into a real-time sensation called ‘pain’. This sensation increased steadily to a peak, and I was getting geared up for a black out in case of system collapse, but surprisingly there seemed to be a localised blackout inside my brain and it appeared as if I was staring at a pitch black screen, so grand in size that I could see no other thing. There was a single source of light that looked like one from a movie projector. The story unrolled and I could see it.

Only I could see it.

The year is 2006. The place looked like a very modern robotics research lab. Something intuitively told me that it was located in India. Perhaps it was the whole arrangement of the place or the big ‘Om’ symbol on the wall, but there was not single explicit evidence about its location. The lab and the project that was running there were owned by Mr.K. No one knew the real person behind this masked man wearing robotic overalls and appearing to be around 6-7 inches taller from five feet.He seemed to have been educated in one of India's top engineering colleges and cut off from the world completely. His identity was a secret more than the project itself.

Mr.K ‘s project was aimed to destroy the self-proclaimed king (or emperor, the person in question was quite confused!) of a virtual kingdom and thus conquer the kingdom of Bolly-wood all to himself. Coming back to the lab, there was a white board on a stand that said- ‘Project Dhan’. Yes, it was planned to destroy the king by attacking his wealth and to accomplish this feat, the team had just successfully devised a super villain robot that was closest to invincible.

The robot was the most advanced one on the planet. It had Advanced Adaptive Learning, Instinctive Strategizing, Well Evolved Lability Level (‘AAL IS WELL’); skills that made it unique and indestructible machine. But the team had not come up with any name for him. It was decided to call him Duryo-Dhan, in short D-Dhan.

D-Dhan could influence anyone into doing anything, but he was meant to influence only one, and he was already on his mission.

Early 2008, SRK was in his Mumbai apartment taking a break after the success of Om Shanti Om. There was a discussion going on about a cricket league centered around Indian cities. The short, round-faced Bengali person who was trying hard to convince SRK dada took his hands in his and reassuringly tried to persuade him to choose the Kolkata team in the league. In a matter of few minutes, like a Midas touch, the obstinate SRK was magically convinced and he signed the franchise for Kolkata. Kolkata, which had another prince who would not bow down to kings and queens of the real world, a prince who revelled in the arrogance and authority of his leadership, a prince who would charge in spite of successes or failures and most importantly a prince who is loved selflessly by the people of Kolkata.

D-Dhan had begun his work thus and SRK immediately put in US$75Mn into the team and called it KKR with the prince being its ‘senapati’. In time, D-Dhan ensured that SRK lost quite a bit of his money, his team flopped and he fell out of favour with the prince whereby falling out of favour with the people of Kolkata. Before he could recover from the fall, D-Dhan returned to him in the form of a friend with a Bollywood science fiction story.

SRK decided to produce and act in this movie, and D-Dhan took the shape of Ms.Pia from Mr.K’s lab and made herself a part of the whole scheme to be in constant touch with its development. Money was pumped into it as continuously as water flows in a waterfall. D-Dhan could instantly make himself look like any person he wanted to, and took various peoples' forms in these days to ensure the successful execution of his strategies.

He suggested shooting several scenes of the movie in the UK so that the cost of production wentup. He took up the role of an advisor who helped SRK and his friend with the plot. After a really poor opening scene for SRK, they zeroed on having a Tamil character as lead, where it was completely irrelevant. He also scripted the dialogues and shots in such a way that any south Indian who watched the character in action would want to puke on his face for his unbearable representation of a South Indian family man whom they all knew so well. (He also coaxed SRK to eat noodles with curd in this pretext, and now the Chinese government is planning to lodge a formal complaint against him for insulting their cuisine in public!) To rub salt on injury, D-Dhan recommended the inclusion of Rajinikanth in the movie so that the south audience would all make a trip to the theatres to catch a glimpse of their superstar, thus increasing their movie’s collection. Impressed by the idea, it was decided to cast Rajinikanth as his latest successful science fiction character ‘Chitti’. Now, D-Dhan scripted the action of the other characters sharing the screen to be so much overacting and the music too in a way that to many a viewers they appeared to be ridiculing Rajinikanth in that shot. All these ensured that SRK’s fan base in the south dwindled to abysmal levels.

Then came the part of giving the movie a name. D-Dhan made sure that they picked a name that he wanted them to, and managed to pass through the name ‘RaOne’ that sounded very much like ‘Ravan’ the latest Maniratnam movie with Idea mobiles ad star Bachchan Jr. He did this so that this movie did not get a unique identifier and if he could somehow manage to make the movie less impressive than the Maniratnam flick in the long run, SRK’s would NOT go down the annals of history as the original ‘Ra-v-an’ and shall always be referred to as ‘the other ra-one’ or ‘the not-so-good-ravan’. Smart of you, D-Dhan!

Once RaOne was made, and D-Dhan was inching close to the completion of his mission by having made the script weak and easy-to-be-forgotten, sequences mediocre and the whole experience debatable for most audience, he decided to put together his final act in the form of SRK ‘s promotion campaign manager. In this final role he managed to direct SRK to make a big-time predictable fool of himself going around the world like a door-to-door salesman so much so that social media was abuzz with rumours that SRK had turned himself into a domestic help in order to promote ‘the easy-to-handle, user-friendliness and perfect command reception skills’ of his superhero gaming character in the movie. For someone who could lower himself to the level of an annoying salesman (oh c'mon they show up everywhere!) in order to promote his movie, even his staunch fans were now made to wonder if the movie was not good enough to market itself! SRK spent close to US$30Mn on the movie.

While all this was happening, the media had begun to get clues about Duryo Dhan the super villain from the generation after RaOne, and were trying to trace up to his makers. Though no one had established who the primary instigator of the whole mission was, it was believed to be a product of the Khan rivalry. Nothing more could be said now.

Arr---j-j-u—uuu--nn..... Thud! Thud!

(Snapped back to reality) It was my friend who shook me up from ... what shall I say, my dream? I was there in the movie theatre, everything was normal. No one knew about D-Dhan or his plots. They were still cursing SRK for making a movie like this, and our friend Deepak for volunteering to reserve tickets for all of us.

Why did I come to know of it? Does Duryo Dhan actually exist? I am confused to say the least.

Then suddenly someone came up to me and started talking. I wasn’t listening, but.

“Arjun, you are dreaming again?”

‘A-R-J-U-N’, it struck me. If there is a Duryo Dhan there must be an Arjun to defeat him in the battle of the next generation. Yes, I am the new superhero who fights the super villain! When the story of RaOne continues, you know where things are leading to and you also know who’s gonna be the super hero in that super movie.

‘Arjun’- Me! Duh!

The Value of Freedom

My latest article for 21 Fools. Though it has been there for quite a while now, just realised that I never posted the link on my blog. So here it is - The Value of Freedom @21Fools

It about how a soldier realises the value of freedom from his old father, and why we must understand and appreciate the value of the freedom we have.

Hope you like it!

The Show That Stands

Steve Jobs was a phenomenon, much more than just another successful CEO. He is one among those visionaries who proved time and again that persistence on a chosen path can lead to reverential success.

Jobs was a visionary, I said, someone who actually changed the way people perceived something viz. Digital media! Years ago, there was another man- Dennis Ritchie who wrote some codes that laid the foundation for almost everything today including Jobs’ iPhone.

Ritchie is believed to be the father of C language and a co-creator of Unix (which later inspired many other things including Linux). We all knew about him as students. In fact some of us, like me, made it a point to buy the book he had authored on C language (it had a white cover page with a dull blue design on it, and much more boring content inside for an average newbie to programming) when we started learning the language in school. If parallels were to be drawn, there can be no dispute that Ritchie stood way too ahead of Jobs as the bigger visionary (who actually made deeper impact on the society and our life over the years).

Why would I draw such parallels? To those who haven’t seen it already on the news and social media, Jobs and Ritchie passed away around the same time. While one of them was given a heart wrenching farewell all over the globe, the other was simply overlooked. And it should not be a surprise that since we are discussing it here, it cannot have been the way that appears normal.

Yes, while Jobs was mourned all over the world, Ritchie largely drew no one’s attention on death. (Here I am reminded of an editorial that I read which said that it was surprising how Jobs was so popular in India when there was not a single direct Apple store and the i-products were so expensively priced that an average person was very unlikely to be in possession of one)

One of the images going viral on Facebook about this topic

Why did the world hail Jobs while many never remembered Ritchie beyond their school days (though we all still remember/use C or its direct descendent programming languages)? Ok, a quick quiz. Who was Dr.Martin Cooper? Who is Steven Sasson? What did Mathew Gray do in 1993 for the first time that changed internet forever? Any answer? Now match mobile phones, digital camera and search engines to the questions respectively. Do you see that we do not know who created some of the things that we have actually begun using as a part of us?

Remember the mega launches that Jobs held for all i-products? The gung ho over what could be the new Apple product, his routine jokes (‘there is one more thing...’), stage presence, drama over his role in Apple corporation etc. Remember the media appearances and books by Bill Gates at the peak of his success? Remember frequently seeing the face of Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia? The publicity stunts by Richard Branson? We do, of course we do! That could precisely be a major reason. 

If you are an exceptionally brilliant inventor your product will become famous. But if there is a story, a drama, a brand you build around yourself and most importantly continue to create news (good or bad, sometimes futile controversies) until your end, people will invariably remember you and your contributions. Because the more infrequent your face or name becomes the sooner you shall be forgotten! Not that we people are a thankless lot, but things evolve so fast that even five years mean a lot more than what they used to be. Five years back from today facebook was perhaps just a new idea, twitter was just about launched and there were no iPhones!

In such relative speed of time and technology changes, it should not be very surprising why Ritchie’s achievements and his adieu to the wonderful word he helped in shaping was lost in the smoke cloud created by the departure of this person who brought digital multimedia so close to the common man (which again was based on Ritchie’s codes to begin with)! 

After all, it’s your show alone that remains in people’s minds and hence only a showman for life shall get a tearful goodbye and boundless gratitude from people for all that he did for them in his life! This perhaps is what the management guys call 'Personal Branding'.

Happy Onam!

A new look for your old car

A quick thought about a new look for our cars.

I was traveling in an auto rickshaw through the rain stricken roads of Chennai when this thought occured to me. To those who do not know/ have not experienced the pathetic traffic conditions of this city, please have a look at one of my earlier post on the city.

Here the vehicles have very high rate of PDA and no moral policing applies for them, so you know they are an indisciplined lot. When my rick was bumped at the back by an oncoming car, I became desperate to find a solution for this recurrent problem.

I wondered how about having a very large car top carrier with edges fitted with rubber cushions or some other form of shock absorbers so that they protrude beyond the area of the car and thus ensure a safe distance between adjacent vehicles at all times?

Then, I thought why not put this to some good use? Since I am hearing everything solar around me these days, it didn't take a long time for the thought to take form. Cover the roof with solar panels that will power the car's air conditioners. Now from the energy saver's point of view, this has added advantage.

Sun ->Heat -> Solar power->AC
No sun/No heat ->No solar power ->No AC!

If it is hot, your AC will work. Otherwise, it will not! Smart right?

Now, will this not make my car very expensive? Hell yeah! And hence I say the government must make this compulsory as part of PUC certificate. Because of this, the number of cars on the road will reduce drastically and with that the traffic as well. People will prefer public transport, so less polution and congestion!

Most road problems addressed in one single shot; Howzzat?!
[Poppin' my collar with pride, and yeah... NO BRICKBATS PLEASE! My insurance has not been renewed yet! :-) ]

Five Reasons Why Anna's Campaign will be a SUPERHIT

Anna Hazare and his team has invigorated a long laid back population of the country beyond any question of doubt. But ever wondered what is it that has made it such a viral success?

Is Anna the superstar of this campaign, or is its success irrelevant of the protagonist?

I gave it a thought, and this is what I found!

Reason # 1
The issue in question touches every individual in the country at the core of his/her day to day problems. You thought corruption? No... I meant MONEY!

I was amazed by the different ways the campaign was being presented- 'Prices will go down', 'Alcohol gets cheaper!', 'No tax for next five years', 'Low fuel price' etc.

For our aam admi who is used to working hard through the day as cheap labor and complaining about his woes all through the evening over bottles of local liquor, the prospect of getting rid of his financial troubles is more appealing than anything (perhaps not alcohol!) and if there is a movement for that he will be there... at any 'cost'!

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Reason # 2
The immediate target of the attack is The Government and the wider target are politicians across party lines. Everyone hates politicians... because they are meant to be hated! (Politicians and political parties are probably the most consistent villains in India's history- even Amrish Puri and Gabbar Amjad Khan did comedy roles at times! )

And the timing could not have come more worse for this valiant 'Tughlaqi' government that nailed its own ministers and officials recently on corruption charges and exposed their own world-class scams.

(Psst... Is the affected DMK party supporting Anna Hazare's campaign to bring down the government? :P)

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Reason # 3
An old man threatening a pachydermal institution (you can call it an empire) to fast unto death in Delhi... sounds very familiar eh?

Yes, his Nehru cap (note the irony! It is named after one of Sonia Gandhi's closest relatives) and Kurta apart, many people consider Anna Hazare as reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi and needless to say, our parliamentarians as their British counterparts a few decades ago.

And in a style that our dear old Viru Sahastrabuddhe said, ' ... and this is World War... three!', Anna goes out to tell the people that this is second freedom struggle. Why would I not want to be a part of it; something that I missed out in its first part and then ended up reading about in big fat textbooks all through my school days?

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Reason # 4
The success of the Middle East uprising has set a lucrative precedent for people to come out and protest. A bunch of agitated guys with the help of facebook can bring down an entire government... Wow! And there's more... You get noticed and quoted in some of the biggest names in media!

And who knows, 'you' .. yeah you the reader of my blog, could also be India's Wael Ghonim and appear in Time magazine's list of influential people!

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Reason # 5
There is some kind of domino effect here.

-First a group of inspired people initiate the 'crusade'.

-Seeing them, a bigger crowd of people from across the country hop into the wagon (thanks to social media)

-A lot of sensation and buzz is created around the campaign, so the media hops in.

-Media is there and so much of action against the government, the opposition parties hop in.

-So many people, so much of agitation and unrest- time for some international policing and there you have the USA on board! (today they send wishes, tomorrow they send the military- even if that means some more debt!)

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Now you know that Anna's campaign is indeed set to become a blockbuster... chartbuster.... golden jubilee.. blah blah... (I'm lost for words.. i really am!) but we must remember that these are not 'watch now - forget later' scenes from movies!

They have consequences, they have repercussions... So we must think broadly, decide wisely and act intelligently.





It is not about Anna, it is about India!

Chintu's letter to Obama mama ji

[Dedicated to all the Chintus in our society who have nurtured the great American dream since their childhood, and are now at a crossroads.]

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‘Hari sona’ gaon

15 August 2011

Supremely revered Obama-mama ji!

Myself Chintu from India. You won’t know me, but I know you and all the previous Presidents of the USA very well. How is aunty ji? Last week in her interview to the Fox News she sounded like she was having a cold and throat infection. Ask her to take some tablet, and more importantly good amount of rest. Convey my regards to Malia and Sasha. Hope they are doing well in studies.

Mama ji though I was born in India I was raised completely American. No I haven’t travelled to the US without even an Indian passport in my name. When I was a child, my mother got American tinned baby food for me and milk powder that American kids (as the advertisements claimed) were being fed. When I went to school, my parents always spoke about Bittu bhaiya because he went to study in the US. They told me right from my infanthood that America was my destination. They drilled into me the great American dream even before I had learnt to construct my own small dreams!

But you know mama ji, it was far too wonderful to shun; at least when compared to the life back in my gaon. I learnt to grow with it. In schooldays, I had my room covered with everything American- the stars and stripes, statue of liberty, White house, the bald eagle and the liberty bell etc. I have watched more American movies than Bollywood ones! I knew everything about Tom Cruise and Leonardo Di Caprio, and felt it unnecessary to follow their Indian counterparts. I grew up listening to Bob Dylan and Micheal Jackson much more than Kishore Kumar or Kumar Sanu. I have sat up countless late nights and sometimes up to the next morning watching episodes of Friends, Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother even when I did not understand most of the humour in them. When many of my friends fantasized girlfriends like Aishwarya Rai, Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif, I was dreaming and talking about Lindsay Lohans and Megan Foxes.

I may not know all the states in India (especially after they added a few more) or their Chief Ministers, but I can definitely name each and every state in the US and their capitals, and in many cases their governors as well. I have subscribed to the New York Times and I never fail to catch up with all the NBA action live late in the night (in India) even if that means going late to class next day or not doing my homework. I adore Kobe and will pledge anything I have to meet him in person. When we had to buy a car and we did not have the money for anything but Maruti 800, I was very depressed. At last I forced my father to take a bank loan (at high rate of interest) so that we could afford the latest Ford in the market. Now I drive it on the highways assuming I am driving down the countryside in the US, with loud American music blaring out of my stereo.

You know my list of most important things to do in the US have recently gone beyond 75 and are expected to touch a century very soon? I can’t wait to get there in a year or two!

But recently I read in the newspaper- whether it was in the Wall Street Journal or NY Times I don’t remember now, that the US is slipping into a double depression and that you are neck (or perhaps, head-) deep in debt. The people around me tell that the US and the great American dream will soon turn into a big fat myth from the past! Tears swell up in my eyes and I can feel the knot in my stomach, at the mere thought of such a thing. Do you know what it means for me mama ji?

It means that my twenty odd years in this world have been utterly futile! My one and only dream in life is shattered, and I will end up being a ludicrous loser in front of my friends and relatives. It could mean that I will remain unemployed forever, or take up farming in my gaon. I will never be able to visit those places I grew up dreaming about. It will be a very rude awakening from a pleasant dream that I have been living all these years!

Mama ji, I fall at your feet. Do not deprive me of my future. Save America! Don’t let it slip off. Shield it with all your might, for you know now that it is not just the American citizens who are Americans- there are a lot many of us across the globe whose dreams, aspirations, hopes and ambitions are pinned to the United States of America. So please bacha lo mama ji!

Pranams to aunty ji, and love to the kids.

Always indebted to you,

Chintu

An Incomplete Attitude Shift

There would be no businessman in today's world who does not appreciate the role of social media in customer engagement, be it for promotion or feedback. If there is someone like that, all that I've got to say to him is 'The world is watching and talking about you even if you to close your eyes and ears!'

Of late I have seen a lot of cases in India where frustrated customers who are not redressed for their concerns approach the wider world to announce the dissatisfaction. Like I read somewhere, gone are the days when your discontent customer complained to his ten close friends. Today he voices it out to thousands and thousands of people on twitter or facebook! And worse still, even if you address the complaint the scar remains in the virtual world for years to come, available to anyone by just keying in your product’s name! If someone out there still questions the power of social media in brand building and developing a loyal clientele, I ‘m afraid you need to open your eyes!

But that is just one side. This attitude of free expression and uncommitted (yet valuable) opinions has evolved with the cyber world and open sourcing. The concept of such synergistic development through sharing has been further promoted extensively by social media network. Reluctant users in India who preferred to stand by the side and observe have at last begun diving into it, and the virtual world created by these networks is precariously threatening the real world which we are so familiar with. Common conversations seem to be dominated by terms like ‘online’, ‘facebook’, ‘wall’, ‘comment’, ‘friend request’, ‘tweet’, ‘post’, ‘network’, ‘follow’ etc. Like every other thing in the past that has been welcomed with apprehension, I am sure social media is also here to stay and it would be only wise to put your thinking hats and ensure that you don’t lose out to competition in making use of this new tool.

Looking at it from the customer’s side, social media networks are very powerful tools to grab the attention of those customer care agents who have been evasive for perhaps months together! I have myself had experiences in this respect. I contacted HDFC Bank and British Airways through twitter for complaints that were being ignored for months and I got immediate response, at least in terms of a reply which indicates that someone has gone through my case and I have a record for it now. The other instance that happened with me is regarding Vodafone. After having spent an entire day in the hassle of listening to IVRS and talking to countless customer care agents with their standard scripts I was annoyed to the extent that I wrote an open letter detailing the issue on my blog and sent the link to the Vodafone customer care ID and twitter account. You won’t believe me, what could not be done in one entire day of telephonic conversations was resolved in half an hour after I got a call from one of their senior executives who read my post! Now that’s the power of social media.

But the attitude shift remains incomplete. If social media is to evolve as the complete marketing and branding space, we must feed all kinds of reviews to the world. As of now it has become the place for companies to promote and customers to complaint. The wider meaning of customer engagement must germinate through these social media platforms. People on their part, must come up with all forms of review. Express your opinions and reviews- bad as well as GOOD! Make the most out of the ‘Like’ and ‘promote’ options if you liked something. It is only then that we realise the true power of social media. Otherwise it would end up as just another vestige once some other new marketing tool is introduced and companies shift their focus to that.

Companies and brands on their part must exploit the opportunities presented by social media to the maximum. They can interact with their existing and prospective customers on a one to one basis through these mediums, and what better way to make each one of them feel important? A customer who feels respected and taken care of, is definitely a success story for your brand loyalty building exercise. She is a promoter of your products through her channel of social networks, and in this new age there is nothing more dependable than network marketing!

Borrowing Victor Hugo’s words- ‘No one can stop an idea whose time has come’ there is no doubt that social media engagement is that new idea for businesses to thrive, and both brands as well as customers have a role to play in shaping it. The process has begun, but still incomplete and awaiting participation...

MEET MR. P - THE NEW BILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR

My satirical take on the recent developments at the Thiruvananthapuram Padmanabhaswamy temple over the last few weeks, published in Aaj ke Samachar section of 21Fools.

LINK

I wish to know...

I wish to know...

When I am gone, at the tip of a rope

Or the last poison drop

What do they tell about me?

Compelled by a social creed,

To speak only glory of deceased

They’ll call me all that I always wanted to be called

I wish to know...

When I am gone, after losing to hope

Struggling up to the final drop

What do they think about me?

Some not-so-close will grieve for days

Others closer shall for months

I shall then become part of the rusted records

I wish to know...

When I am gone, becoming nothing but memory

Roaming aimless and free

Will you show me my beloved ones, even if they can’t see me?

I loved them so much more than me

And that shall continue to be

But never once did they care to feel nor did they ever see!

-Shyam

At Gunpoint

Here's the link to my article 'At Gunpoint' published in the latest edition of 21fools magazine.

At Gunpoint

Mobocracy against the world's largest Democracy

“A democracy cannot be arm-twisted by a mobocracy” Well said Manish Tiwari! This is what must have been drilled into all those people, right from the beginning, who thought that anyone with a handful of followers and a sensation hungry media could make a monkey out of the elected body consisting of people who have years of experience of running the country through its various ups and downs in history.

Who is Anna Hazare? Who is Baba Ramdev? Or those people who claim to be with them like the Bhushans? Pappu Yadav is also a supporter of their mission who went on a fast in jail to display his relation with their ideals and objectives. Humbug! They are all overnight crusaders against the problem that has existed in our society for years more than many of their age.

The supporters of this so called ‘civil society representatives’ are of two kinds. One who are genuinely impacted by the social malady raised by them, and two the younger generation who have had ‘no first hand encounter’ with the corruption they are protesting against but are fairly excited at being a part of the Indian equivalent of the Middle East uprising.

The former category of supporters are assets, in the sense that they can give accounts of real life corruption incidents that can flag off the investigations against corrupt officials and organisations. The latter are a bunch of disoriented gullible victims of the new media craze who aspire to turn heroes like Wael Ghonim in Egypt, hence and otherwise a liability in the long term. Besides what can they contribute positively to the protest when their awareness of corruption is limited to the traffic policemen at the junction and to what is shown in Bollywood movies!

Anna Hazare does not have many true followers, and he is no 21st century Mahatma. One of Anna Hazare’s biggest achievements in reviving his village Ralegan Siddhi (the feat that made him popular first) is to ‘forcefully’ abandon alcohol and tobacco. How many among the Anna loyalists can claim to be totally alcohol and tobacco free? Also, Anna is no Gandhian style activist as there have been accounts of violence under his aegis in Ralegan Siddhi to ‘discipline’ the grown up people of the village and forcing them to live a life that he preached.

He is said to have justified his action of beating up alcoholics in the village thus. “Doesn’t a mother administer bitter medicines to a sick child when she knows that the medicine can cure her child? The child may not like the medicine, but the mother does it only because she cares for the child. The alcoholics were punished so that their families would not be destroyed.”How ridiculous and anti-democratic is this?

Anna’s social activism through the age old Gandhian tactic of ‘fasting unto death’ in front of a large crowd of sympathisers and thus tying the hands of the administration goes back to 2003. He used the same weapon against in 2006 for the RTI bill and once again in 2011 for the Jan Lokpal bill.

Such estranged and self-distancing attitude against the elected government in a democracy is highly unbecoming of a responsible citizen, and compelling the government to dance to one’s tunes by holding it up against an emotionally agitated mob is by far completely inappropriate way to deal with things- in particular a policy or bill which is supposed to go through a constitutional process before implementation.

The subcontinent countries have a highly inflammable socio-economic scenario that in addition to the ever growing population can be a highly potential and lethal political weapon if capitalised smartly. Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have to be political puppets, for otherwise they could end up becoming causative agents of a cataclysmic uprising that might see no real outcome but an end to our stable democracy and a nation-wide political riot!

Capital punishment for corruption is both impractical and absurd, and as dangerous as the blessing given to Bhasmasur (in Hindu mythology). At one end, it could work out to be the most successful effort to reduce the country’s population as innumerable number of people would go to the gallows orphaning their families behind and at the other end of it, the punishment could become the most successful method used to settle political scores with unrelenting officials at various levels by hooking them to a corruption case! (something akin to how narcotics helps the police today). Both of these outcomes are not intended, but inevitable in case the law comes into force.

The gap between such idealistic propositions and the political reality in our country stems from the inexperience among the persons involved from facing the ground reality. Performing social work or teaching yoga is nowhere close to running a country. In both the cases, you cater to a suffering mass that craves for your help to come out of its pains and despairs. On the other hand while running a country and especially a democratic pseudo-continent like India, the greater challenge lies not in doing the right thing but in avoiding the wrong thing that could instantly charge up the crouching tigers like fellow politicians waiting for an opportunity to pounce on you. Idealism and Utopia are words that were never a part of the political dictionary in a hard core democracy like ours.

It is never about keeping everyone happy, it is about keeping the most of them as much happy and satisfied as they can be kept! It is not about making everyone stand in a queue, it is about making 'everyone' believe they are the first in the queue! That is how a democratic setup functions, and corruption (in a small but wide scale) is very much one of the key lubricants that ensure the smooth running of such a setup, and hence cannot be completely eradicated overnight in isolation, by a mob of agitated and spirited people taking on the elected government and its seasoned politicians.

Jai Hind!