Read this post on the website: Rajesh Khanna and the Red Rose in Fabina Suitings & Shirtings ad

I doubt whether the proprietors of Fabina Textiles Pvt. Ltd. watched Rajesh Khanna’s 1980 psycho-thriller Red Rose before agreeing the sign on the fading superstar for the advertisement?

There are some films so bad that they are just plain bad, and there are some films so bad they are hair-raisingly awesome. Somewhere in the large wasteland between these two extremes (but no one knows exactly where) falls the 1980 Rajesh Khanna-starrer Red Rose, about a psychotic killer who hates women because of the things some of them did to him when he was a boy (or more specifically, when he was the ever-suffering Master Mayur).

In case you also haven’t you may view the movie on the video embedded at the end of this post.

Rajesh Khanna star of ‘Red Rose’ indicates his preference when it comes to fashion fabrics.

Fabina
Suitings & Shirtings

For a free autographed, colour photo of Rajesh Khanna, write to:
Fabina Textiles Pvt. Ltd.
Balrajeshwar Road
Mulund, Bombay-400080

Watch Red Rose (1980)

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: To promote Chrome, is Google playing cheap?

Google’s Chrome is right on track to unseat Microsoft’s Internet Explorer from the web browser throne and the folks from Mountain View are trying every trick in the trade to push their software to users computers. Even employing un-Google like approaches such as full page ads in newspapers and outdoor hoardings (albeit with an incorrect URL).

So far so good, but today when trying to create a presentation on Google Docs, I got an alert that said “You’ll soon lose the ability to edit this presentation” and prompted me to upgrade to a ‘modern browser’. The problem here was that I was already on a modern browser, the latest version of Mozilla Firefox (my browser of choice). So what is that modern browser that Google wants us to install? Chrome of course.

The system requirements for Google Docs clearly mentions that Firefox is supported. So why call Firefox 10.0.2, of all things, an outdated browser when according to Google it is a supported browser?

But on Safari, there’s no such message. Why? Because both Chrome and Safari are both WebKit-based while Firefox is Gecko? Or because Safari is hardly an opposition in the browser wars? (Internet Explorer isn’t fully supported, they say)

To me this is nothing but a tool in fulfilling Google’s goal of browser domination. I have been an admirer of Google and many of the things the company does (I nicknamed my son Googool), but some of these albeit little incidents is slowly taking Google off that pedestal.

Google seems to be sacrificing cross-browser capabilities in a blatant effort to push forward Chrome. It is the leverage of Google’s overwhelming Internet presence that has helped Chrome adoption accelerate. Now it is the same presence that Google is apparently misusing.

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: #fail (randomness): QR codes

Some random thoughts that come me randomly. The first in what I would like to believe would turn into a series.

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: How to read the stories behind the Google Doodles

Google has till date posted 1304 doodles (yes, I counted), but added stories for only 96 of them. So how to we find those elusive Google Doodle stories?

Like millions of you, I also am a huge Google Doodle fan and have spent hours browsing through Google’s Doodle archive. And when Google launched the revamped Google Doodle site that included information on what went into the making of some of the doodles, I, to put it simply, was thrilled.

As much as I love seeing the art work on the Google home page and playing with them (whenever they are interactive), I am also interested in knowing what went behind the scenes.

Google Doodles have helped expand my horizon, opening up fascinating new worlds to my eager eyes. Never having watched The Gumby Show, I was unaware of the existence of Art Clokey. Similarly hadn’t I seen the doodle inspired by the work of Diego Rivera, I would have still been left unexposed to his art.

While you too may be as interested in reading the stories behind the Google Doodles, the problem is that of the 1276 1304 doodles (including today’s Cold, Cold Heart Valentine’s Day doodle) that Google has put up since the first ever Google doodle back on August 30, 1998, only 96 (excluding the V-Day doodle) have associated text explaining what went into the making of the doodle.

Browsing through 1276 doodles, is best left to people like me. Most of you will have neither the time nor the inclination to do so. So here’s a link through which you can access all the 96 Google doodle stories (and those that will be added in the future). If you need them sorted according to dates, click here.

Google hasn’t added any link to filter the doodles that comes with a detailed description, but since Google is about search a little search query does the trick. I noticed that every post explaining a doodle has the common text “Posted by” and therefore searching for that text throws up what I needed.

Before you get busy reading the Google Doodle stories, the little animated love story that Google put up on its home page for Valentine’s Day, I have converted it into a comic book (Some text may not be very legible, for a larger view click here).

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: When @MasalaBai got @PoojaB1972′s goat

Work for me is fun, more so with colleagues like @MasalaBai (Rituparna Chatterjee) around. So today following the news of the blast in an Israeli embassy car in Delhi when actress-turned-producer-turned-director Pooja Bhatt went on a rant against the media on Twitter, @MasalaBai couldn’t restrain the journalist within her. What followed was a tweet skirmish – @MasalaBai versus @PoojaB1972.

Good going girls.

I can say with absolute confidence today,if you want to know what’s going on in the world, DON’T watch or read the NEWS! Rely on each other!

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

Note to all news channels in Delhi- How do you explain your pay cheques??

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

The way you explain Angrakshak #CitizenJournalist RT @PoojaB1972: Note to all news channels in Delhi – How do you explain your pay cheques??

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

The way you explain Angrakshak #CitizenJournalist RT @PoojaB1972: Note to all news channels in Delhi – How do you explain your pay cheques??

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

@MasalaBai That was actually Gratis. I replaced an actress who was dead! what’s your excuse einstein?lol

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

@MasalaBai Besides,you are meant to do a service. We merely entertain… grow up girl and wake up to the world and especially your city! LOL

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 You just advised thousands of your followers if they wanted to know what’s going on to not to read the news. Is that maturity?

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 Exactly. Everyone thinks they can manage someone’s job better than them. Ican critique but can’t act to save my life. Vice versa

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

@MasalaBai Seems like u can’t cope with the inefficiency of your brethren as well! LOL

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 Sigh.

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

The day logic took a battering from Bollywood.

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

@MasalaBai Don’t blame you for your blind hate! It’s tough to deal with the fact that you were caught sleeping I guess! Have a good life!

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 Blind hate, where did that come from? Media verifies before it reports. Better to be correct than to be first. Don’t you think?

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

Seems @MasalaBai had the last tweet.

Oh wait! It’s not over yet. Bhatt has some more ammunition left in her armoury and so does Chatterjee.

@MasalaBai Enjoy your two minutes of fame as well as your ignorance,which in exalted spheres,is termed as bliss! LOL

— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 I’ve been nothing but courteous to you. You in return have displayed a total lack of civility. Understandable. Enjoy your rant.

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

@PoojaB1972 I choose not to discuss ignorance with someone who thinks rumour-mongering is best way to report events. Stick to your own field

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

Re-tweeted @PoojaB1972‘s last tweet to me to make a point. Every Tom Dick Harry wants to diss the media. Without an idea how media works.

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) February 13, 2012

All that LOLing by @PoojaB1972 reminds me of Dimple Chaddha (Parineeti Chopra) from Ladies vs Ricky Bahl.

PS: I don’t follow @PoojaB1972

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: Top 10: Indian political parties with amusing (if not hilarious) names

I would have named the party I founded as the ‘Tea Party’ only that the prerequisites of a constitution, 100 members, Rs 10,000 and 100 affidavits on Rs 2 stamp papers are a bit too overwhelming for a chaiwallah like me.

If you think Tea Party is a funny name for a political party, check the little list below for the funniest of them all. I read through all the names of 6 national parties, 53 state parties and 1308 registered unrecognised political parties in India (a total of 1367 registered political parties in India) to come up with this list of 10 with the most amusing (if not hilarious) names for a political party.

10. Jagte Raho Party
Headquarters: C/o Ms. Kshama R Desai, 2, Vatika Bunglows, Near Sabari School, Vasna Road, Baroda, Gujarat

Translates to ‘Stay Awake Party.’ Jagte raho is also the watchmen’s night cry to assure one another that they are on the job. Also I am quite amused to know of a road called Vasna Road in India. It may mean and pronounce something different but to dirty old men like me vasna is always equal to lust.

9. Indian Oceanic Party
Headquarters: K-316, MB Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi 110030

I know that India is a peninsula and there is also an ocean named after the country but cannot fathom the reason behind naming a party ‘Oceanic’. Also the party headquarters is no where near a waterbody, leave alone the ocean.

8. Pyramid Party of India
Headquarters: 2-1-83, Kola Street, Tirupati 517501, Andhra Pradesh

The Tirupati Temple may look a little like the Pyramids of Giza, but that shouldn’t be inspiration enough to go through the troubles only to register a party by the name Payamid Party of India.

7. Life Peaceful Party
Headquarters: Sarvadharma Bhawan, Hindu-Muslim Viswa, Shanthi Ashrama and Komusowharda, Vishwashanthi, Sarvadharma Ashrma Trust, Rajanagara, Poona-Bangalore Road, Tumkur 572106, Karnataka

We all seek a peaceful life but political parties rarely succeed in acheiving that for us. Honest intentions maybe, but brings a smile to my lips.

6. Holy Blessing People’s Party
Headquarters: Shop No. 3, Laxmi Niwas Building, MN Road, Kurla (W), Mumbai 400070, Maharastra

When the holy blessing is there with them, the Holy Blessing People’s Party shouldn’t even bother with trivial stuff such as elections.

5. Labour and Job Seeker’s Party Of India
Headquarters: 66, Royapettah High Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600004, Tamil Nadu

Looking for a job? This is the party you should join.

4. Akhil Bharatiya Bharat Mata – Putra Paksha
Headquarters: Nandurbar 425412, District Dhulia, Maharashtra

I have heard of Pitru Paksha (the fortnight of the ancestors) but am not sure about Putra Paksha. Putra refers to son, so I hope that this isn’t a party that doesn’t believe in celebrating the girl child. Maybe not, as the first part of their name translates to ‘All India Mother India’. Also not sure whether it is just a mother-son party (like some that we know) or something else, but amusing nevertheless.

3. Bharatiya Muhabbat Party (All India)
Headquarters: H No 18184, Chandsar Basti, Bhatinda 151001, Punjab

I am in love with the name of this Indian Love Party, more so by the part in parenthesis – All India (Double emphasis indeed) but am not sure about the Shiv Sainiks and Bajrangis.

2. Ministerial System Abolition Party
Headquarters: Ministerial System Abolition Party 25, Burtolla Street, Kolkata

I am all for what the name suggests. Abolish the ministers (they only watch porn anyway, not that watching porn is evil), bring in the secretary system that the United States has. Let the (unelected) experts handle the job and the MPs and MLAs will be able to focus more on law making. Till that happens, read the name again and chuckle.

1. The Religion of Man Revolving Political Party of India
Headquarters: Kabitirtha, Kabitanagar, P O Bongaon, District 24-Parganas (North) 743235, West Bengal

Can you beat this name? The second on the list doesn’t even come close to The Religion of Man Revolving Political Party of India. This is how parties should be named. The name has everything in it – man, religion, political, party, India and most importantly (and inexplicably) revolving.

Got a funnier Indian political party name? Drop them in the comments or as a tweet to @soumyadip.

And in case I am ejected from the Tea Party (as it sometimes happens with party founders), I will establish another – the Rave Party (All India).

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: Opening a third front in the Times of India vs Hindu ad battle

As The Times of India versus The Hindu advertising battle rages on, Cutting the Chai thought it was about time to add a new perspective. So here am I, jumping into the arena with a public service advertisement.

Share. Spread the word.

PS: I don’t subscribe to any newspapers anymore. Reasons in a different post.

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: When India became a republic: Front page of The Indian Express (January 28, 1950)

There’s a difference in knowing from a history book and learning via a historical source. Accounts from a time when an historical event happened and later day interpretations by historians have a different flavour and a blend of both is necessary.

Most of us know about January 26, 1950 (and many don’t), but for me the knowledge was mostly through history books. Reading a newspaper account of the events of India’s first Republic Day revealed many dimensions of the day that I was never aware of.

I had read and heard accounts of what the Indian communists did during the 1962 Indo-China War, but wasn’t aware that the commies were also opposed to the idea of India becoming a republic (I wasn’t a history student for long). Discovered this through a news item on violent anti-Republic Day demonstrations by the communists in different parts of the country, on the front page of the January 28, 1950 edition of The Indian Express, Madras.

Also that one BG Keshkar attempted to assassinate the Nizam of Hyderabad the same day.

But what is more captivating is the account of the Republic Day events, as described in the newspaper (January 26, 1950 was a national holiday so there was no Indian Express dated January 27, 1950 and therefore the accounts of the Republic Day were published on the January 28, 1950 edition).

INDIA PROCLAIMED SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

RAJENDRA PRASAD SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT

Proclamation Read Out By Retiring Governor-General

NEW DELHI, Jan. 26.
The birth of the Indian sovereign democratic Republic was proclaimed at 10-18 this morning by the country’s last Governor-General Mr. Chakravarti Rajagopalachari at the Durbar Hall at Government House in the capital and the Republic’s first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office to the boom of a salute of 31 guns at a most brilliant ceremony.

Until 1976, India was constitutionally described only as a “sovereign democratic Republic,” the words “socialist” and “secular” were added by the 42nd Constitutional amendment in 1976. The Government House is what we now knows as the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

The language of news journalism has changed so much over decades. Back then, when there was no 24×7 television news, the language of print was more visual than analytical. Read and you can feel being transported to an India six decades ago.

Front page of The Indian Express, Madras on January 28, 1950

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: Audio recording of Swami Vivekananda’s 1893 Chicago address is fake

Today (January 12, 2012) is the 149th birth anniversary of one of India’s most revered philosophers and religious leaders. One of the landmarks of Swami Vivekananda’s life was his address at the 1893 Parliament of World’s Religions at Chicago.

As far as I knew, there wasn’t any audio recording of the historic speech and therefore never even bothered to look for it. So when a colleague asked me for an embed code of the speech to accompany a story, I was surprised.

Here’s the audio file in question:

Intently, I listened to the audio and wasn’t convinced. The voice sounded very trained and the pronunciation very modern and hence a hoax. When I pointed this out, another colleagued argued that Swamiji was a great orator and in all likelihood that professional sounding voice would be his. I disagreed and began my research to verify the inauthenticity of the purported voice recording of Swami Vivekananda.

Much of the web seems to agree that voice was indeed of Swami Vivekananda and I was glad to find a few naysayers like me and came across the following article by MS Nanjundiah in the August 2010 edition of The Vedanta (embedded below), a monthly magazine published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai and started at the instance of Swami Vivekananda himself. And therefore in the matters of Swami Vivekananda that source should have some credibility.

MS Nanjundiah contacted people within the Ramakrishna Mission and also historians and libraries and archives in the US and they all were unanimous in their decision that no recording of Swami Vivekanand’s address to World Parliament of Religions ever existed.

Nanjundiah also points out that the audio recording technology available in the US in 1893 could record for only two to three minutes at the most and outside the studio recordings were not practicable. “In view of the limitations of the technology, a recording of the sessions at the Parliament of Religions in 1893 would not have happened,” Nanjundiah asserts.

He also says that it is “unfortunate” that a fake recording is being circulated on the Internet as Swami Vivekananda’s real voice and that the fake recording not only includes the first address but also includes other addresses delivered by Swamiji in Chicago and runs for several minutes.

Another clue that Nanjundiah draws our attention to is that the applause in the audio clip is only for a few seconds while Swami Vivekananda himself had said in a letter that the applause after his opening statement, “Sisters and Brothers of America…” lasted for two minutes.

In conclusion Nanjundiah brings in another technical evidence. “Recordings of that era (such as Edison cylinder recordings) when retrieved after many years have an ‘accumulated noise’ which, if removed, will distort the sound; the recording under circulation has no such noise. It cannot, therefore, be an authentic recording.” And I agree.

A little more online research led me to this page on RPG Group’s HamaraCD.com. The Vivekananda speeches being circulated online origin from this album. The credits on the page clearly mention that the voice belongs to Subir Ghosh and not Swami Vivekananda.

While the Internet is a rich resource (richer than any other) of information, it is also the richest resource of misinformation. We should always be sceptical of what we stumble upon, and quite like the Swami Vivekandana voice recording could very well be bogus.

Swami Vivekananda’s Voice Recording?
A note on voice recordings of speeches given at the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893
MS NANJUNDIAH

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury

Read this post on the website: Cutting the Chai Calendar 2012 (printable, A4, with Indian holidays)

Given the time I spend Googooling these days, that the 2012 – and therefore the sixth edition of – Cutting the Chai calendar is up on this blog is an achievement in itself.

As expected, the Cutting the Chai Calendar hasn’t changed much except the dates and a few touch ups. You can download the calendar in any version that suits you and take a printout in an A4 size paper or use it as a desktop wallpaper. Simple, na?

No limited edition stuff, no calendar girls you don’t want your son to ogle at and no flipping at the beginning of a new month.

This one-page wonder also includes Indian festivals and holidays (in concurrence with the official Government of India list of holidays, both gazetted and restricted, for the year 2012 List embedded below).

Have a wonderful 2012!

Preview

Download printable A4 one-page 2012 calendar with Indian festivals and holidays

2012 Calendar in PDF [2.23 MB]
2012 Calendar in PNG [361 KB]
2012 Calendar in GIF [307 KB]
2012 Calendar in JPG [866 KB]

Government of India official list of gazetted and restricted holidays in 2012

Cutting the Chai - A blog on advertising, vintage Indian ads, tech, movies and life in general by Soumyadip Choudhury