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40+ awesome free Windows apps you can download in 2 seconds

2009-07-03T18:50:52Z

Vatsap?

2009-07-03T03:40:07Z

Popularity: 3% [?]

Acorn: All poor, all backward

2009-07-02T08:23:20Z

When the not-so-poor label themselves poor, the really poor suffer

“If numbers are anything to go by,” Mint says in today’s editorial, “the second incarnation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is likely to notch an unenviable record: an upward march in the number of poor in India.” Why? Because an “expert” committee appointed by the ministry of rural development “felt” that the actual number of rural poor are much higher than the 28.3% that the Planning Commission claims. Based on this “feeling” they upped it to 50%. One gets the feeling that they were feeling a little too ungenerous, for surely, there are people who feel that more than one in two people that they meet in villages are abjectly poor.

This cannot be mere statistical quibbling: A big increase in the number of poor in any country is a political matter. It raises interesting questions. Was the UPA-I’s record so unenviable that five years of its rule has made more people poor than any recent interval of our history? More remarkably, how did the UPA succeed at the hustings with such a disastrous record? [Mint]

Not only is the feeling-based poverty rate setting dubious, the methodology to identify the poor is more so.

Anyone who doesn’t spend large sums of taxpayer’s money based on feeling will know that if the expert committee’s recommendations are accepted, a whole lot of people will claim to be below the poverty line. Many will figure out ways to declare themselves abjectly poor, thereby increasing corruption at local government levels. (Look what happened in Karnataka). Political entrepreneurs will quickly figure out how to secure votes by promising to make their voters poorer. Just as more and more communities aspire to become backward or scheduled castes, more and more communities will aspire to become poor. Oh, their social standing, political empowerment and economic wealth will have nothing to do with these labels, of course.

So what? Well, without accurate measures of how many really poor people there are in India, it is very hard to devise policies to actually help them. Properly targeted policy measures will become harder, if not impossible. Besides, those who genuinely need government assistance will find themselves in competition with better-connected opportunists. Raising the poverty line wrongly is a good way to trample those who are really below it.

Gay Sex Legal In India

2009-07-02T08:01:49Z

Those perceived by the majority as “deviants’ or ‘different’ are not excluded or ostracised from inclusiveness of the Constitution: Delhi HC [Tweet Notes from Gay_India]

Freaking unbelievable. Absolutely speechless. Who would have thought we had logical thinking, mature individuals in charge of our judiciary system. So finally after 7 years of court battle, Delhi High Court legalised gay sex among consenting adult.

“We declare that Section 377 of IPC in so far as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private is violative of Articles 14, 21 and 15 of the Constitution,” a bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Murlidhar said. [Link : Rediff.com]

However IPC 377 will still hold for cases involving children and non-consensual sex. All good me thinks though it would naive of us to think that our esteemed self-appointed moral brigade will not try to make most of this opportunity. Thankfully though this time round, the law is on the right side. So these douchebags can very well shove their fingers up their stinky arse.

*For detailed information on the HC ruling, visit Desicritics.

Indian Television’s Finest Hour

2009-07-02T03:14:02Z

As I watched the first two episodes of “Rakhi Ka Swayamvar”, I realized I was witnessing history—an aesthetic amalgam of Dali-ian surrealism and Dada-ist anti-conventionalism, a monument to the post-DD “India Shiney (Ahuja)” Youngistan socially and culturally conscious media, the kind of media that gives us news like this:

“There are two things that you notice instantly when you see Deepika Padukone. One is that she is pencil-thin; and, two, she has a love-bite on her neck that is still to fade away.”

Make no mistake. Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, now being shown on the appositely named NDTV Imagine is Indian television’s finest hour. In the past, we have been shocked by Tamas. We have been educated by “Bharat Ek Khoj”. We have danced to “Ek chidiya anek chidiya”. We have cried with Haveli Ram. We have dreamt with Mungerilal. We have flown with Shaktiman. We have become “Putrabati bhava” with Mahabharata. But never have we ever been as moved by anything as we have been by Rakhi ka Swayamvar, as classy as a circus freakshow and as spontaneous as Dick Cheney.

The show’s all-round grooviness stands primarily on the shoulders of the central protagonist, “divya roopi sundari nari” (as a contestant addresses her) Rakhi Sawant. A child of the 24/7 media, we have seen her life unfold itself in front of the camera. Whether it be heart-wrenchingly expressing the challenges in being an item girl (she told Prabhu Chawla: Kapde utaarna asaan naheen hain sirrrr) or being kissed by Mika or slapping her boyfriend Abhishek Awasthi as he apologizes to her on bended knee after a fight, Rakhi has lived her life in the public gaze (some people claim that she lives her life ONLY when she is in the public gaze) ever since her star turn as a chick with a dick in “Masti”.

So the fact that her choosing a husband would also be a public spectacle was inevitable. Of course as Rakhi and the show’s creators go to great pains to make us realize that this isnt a game show. This is life. Rakhi’s life. The life of a simple, shy, traditional middle-class Bharatiya naari with fake gazoombas, equally fake old-world demureness and ceaselessly fluttering eye-lids who needs all our help in finding the right match for her.

And I wont kid you. It’s not easy getting a husband for this lass. As she repeats throughout the show, in various ways, men only want her for her ethereal beauty and her fame but no one recognizes the simple lost girl behind the cantilevered lingerie, a lost little girl who just wants to settle down and put to rest her tortured past.

Now critics might call this show “a sham money-making exercise that appeals to the lowest common denominator” but I see it for what it is—– a searing monument to the institution of marriage and its enduring relevance even in today’s item number world.

Critics also might call the show “scripted” but hey, even our lives are scripted by the one above. If no one objects to that why should they be worried if a few humans script Rakhi’s considering it’s ultimately all “maya”.

Supporting Rakhi are a stellar support cast. There is an Udaipur palace. There are dancing women who dance as each of the prospective grooms arrive to the tunes of the same song from Om Shanti Om. There is Ram Kapoor (famous as “Mr. Jay Walia” from Kasamh Se) who I think tries desperately not to burst out into giggles during Rakhi’s earnest insights into her tortured soul. Finally there the man who is Rakhi’s surrogate brother, asking the hard questions and vetting the candidates—megastar Ravi Kishan from the land that has given us “Meri nayee payjamia phad di dehati rasiya” , who is the ideal person to get into the minds of the “small town” boys from Saharanpur and Kanpur and Mathura who form the majority of the suitors.

Which brings me to the show’s knockout assets—-the sixteen prospective grooms. It takes a special sub-species of homo-sapiens to want to marry Rakhi Sawant, the kind that can slide their balls on a razor’s edge and into a bowl of aftershave.

And what an unique species these mushtandas belong to.

A gabroo “God of Luv” named Luv Khanna (he announces his intentions with “Jaise Shree Raamji sadiyon se pahele Sita Maiyya ko swayamvar main jeeta tha , waisi hi is kaliyug main uska beta Luv aap ko jeet ke leke jayega”, an opening line that so impresses the traditional Rakhi that he wins the opening “first impressions” challenge).

An all-clad-in-white Gujrati NRI who drops hints that he is loaded (of course not that Rakhi cares for wealth—unrelated factoid is that he also won the “first impressions” challenge)

A gym instructor.

A dance master.

A comically flamboyant stunt coordinator.

A man with a hairstyle like a cat.

A policeman from Kashmir (a sure sign that infiltration is down in J&K is when a policeman from that state gets leave to marry Rakhi Sawant)

A Bihari boy who hands Rakhi a kangan that his mother has sent for her dulhan.

A bunch of struggling actors who speak as if their spontaneous words of love are rehearsed.

A friend of Rakhi’s ex-beau Abhishek who the lady claims has been pursuing her ever since childhood (reality show experts opine that this man is the hook through which Abhishek might make a surprise appearance later on in the season).

A chocolate-faced, unemployed student.

And my personal favorite—a man who claims he sits in temples thinking about Rakhi (”main ganaptiji ke mandir main baitha tha aap ke yaad main”). The man with the best story of all—who claims to have fallen in love with her after seeing her courage in the Mika incident and after seeing her dance in “Mohabbat hain mirchi”, a man who today just earns a few thousand rupees a month, sacrificing an easy career earning thousands of dollars/pounds in New Jersey and UK just because of his love for Rakhi, a love that made him learn acting and dancing.

Impressive.

Summing them up, if you thought Rakhi is a self-effacing ordinary woman who does not care for publicity or hesitates to use notoriety for career-advancement you haven’t seen the men lining up to put a mangalsutra on her. They are even better.

The main reason I personally so much love the show is that it provides me occasion to speculate about legendary Swayamvars in the past. Did Karna gift Draupadi a pink teddy bear? Did Dushashan offer Draupadi an alcoholic beverage to which she like Rakhi Sawant, with an expression of careful shock on her face, ticked him off for offering a Bharatiya naari “Bacardi” ? Did Arjuna suddenly break out into an impromptu ” bhootni ke” dance in front of Panchali to seduce her?

All this of course means that I shall keep watching “Rakhi Sawant ka Swaymvar”.

I accept.

I cannot take my eyes off it.

Because as the Aerosmith song goes “I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Careers 360 :: IIPM - BEST ONLY IN CLAIMS?

2009-07-01T03:58:15Z

A superior course, global exposure, international faculty and dollar salaries, so claims IIPM. Careers360 investigates

by B Mahesh Sarma

1 2 3 4

This started off as a normal investigation, into the malaise affecting the education system and the checks and balances that need to be brought in. After all, we all know that the government cannot be a sole participant in making the youth employable and the country a prosperous one.

Everyone that we spoke to was of the unanimous opinion - while a systemic overhaul is essential to improve the quality of many bad institutions in the country, the least we could do is to protect students and parents from being misguided and misled by willful wrong-doers. There are institutes where students walk in with their eyes open and know what to expect. And there are those where they walk in, blinded - misled, misguided and misinformed, by a campaign where media, regulatory agencies and academia become willing accomplices. While we can't do much about the informed decisions, we have to take up the cause of those who were cheated, an act that robs students of their career and in a way, their life.

As we scanned the ads, spoke to experts, affected parties and counselors, we realised that one name cropped up the most - IIPM. We decided to investigate. We sent mails to all those, that IIPM draws upon to validate its claims in its advertisements, namely - journalists, editors, foreign universities, employers. We spoke to current and former students and their parents. What our investigation unravelled left us cold. Here is an institution that enjoys all the privileges of an academic institution (according to IT authorities, it claimed exemptions citing Section 10(23C) (VI) of the Income Tax act, 1961) with zero responsibility and accountability. Here is an institution that brazenly uses its power and reach to make unsubstantiated claims that play with the lives of students and parents alike. We know we are opening a Pandora's Box, but are prepared for the repercussions, knowing fully well that you, our readers are with us. We were shocked by our findings, and what you are reading is just a part of it. We await your verdict.

BBA/MBA degrees

IIPM CLAIMS to award PG/UG degrees from IMI Belgium. We checked with NVAO, the accreditation organization of Netherlands and Flanders(Belgium) about IMI Belgium. The response from them is given below. This implies that the degree that students earn would be useless for higher education or employment anywhere in the world, where formal degrees are required.

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXXXXX@nvao.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:14 PM
To: XXXXXXXX info@nvao.net
Subject: RE: Kind attn: XXXXXXXX,as per telecon yesterday
Dear XXXXXX
To answer your first question, I would refer to our official register of recognised institutions and degrees: http://www.highereducation.be . Please read two items in our section FAQ:- http://www.hogeronderwijsregister.be/faq/117/48 - http://www.hogeronderwijsregister.be/faq/117/49 IMI Belgium is not a recognised higher education institution (neither in the Dutch nor the French speaking part of Belgium). Since it is not recognised it cannot award recognised degrees.
In our position it is difficult to answer your second question. For us only registered institutions with accredited programmes are considered credible.

Best regards

Campus placement
BASED ON some of the claims about MNC employers participating in the campus recruitments at IIPM, we checked with a few of them. We are listing a few responses, of employers, who have denied having recruited from the IIPM campus from the class of 2008, though IIPM claims otherwise. There have been a few more, who did not respond and we did not pursue, as we already got a sample of what is in store. Some gave us information but refused to come on record.
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, says
We have hired 9 students from IIPM this year, though this was not through the campus recruitment process. These are all freshers.
BARCLAYS, DUBAI
I have looked into the below and we at Barclays, UAE Dubai have not done any campus placement with this institute.
DEUTSCHE BANK ( sms response)
Deutsche bank has no association with IIPM in terms of campus placements. We may have one or two employees from IIPM at the junior level but that's about it
Un(en)viable International Placements
ANY B-SCHOOL that claims to have the interest of students at heart should ensure that only companies that would treat students with respect, dignity and care would be allowed in the placement process. We are listing out some of the placements facilitated by IIPM. Look at the offer details and make your own judgement.

Saud Bahwan Group
Position: Senior sales officer
Salary: 275 Omani Rials or Rs.34,000 P.M plus 23 rials as food allowance
Job: It is a two year contract and not a job offer
Conditions: Passport to be surrendered and Termination at employer's discretion during probation with 48 hours notice.

Khimji Ramdas

Position: Section Sales.
Salary: 250 Omani Riyals or Rs.31,000 P.M or 3.7 lakhs P.A
Job: It is a two year contract
Conditions: If you leave before 24 months, you pay the company recruitment, visa, air ticket and other expenses. Even if you have to temporarily leave for an emergency, deposit the same amount with the employer.

Al Sharawi Group

Position: Executive Trainee
Salary: 2300 AED in the first year progressively reaching 3000 AED in the 4th year (27600 P.M in the first year going up to Rs.36000 P.M in the 4th year).
Conditions: If you resign during the contract, you can not take up employment in competing companies, and pay the company two months salary.

Frequency Advertising LLC
Position: Marketing Executive
Salary: 3500 AED(incl HRA) or Rs.42,000 P.M.or 5 lacs P.A Conditions: Office hours 8.30 am to 6.30 pm, 6 months probation, No leave entitlement during probation.

Ceramin FZC
Position: Management Trainee - Sales & Marketing
Salary: 3000 AED (incl HRA) or Rs.36,000 P.M or 4.4 lacs P.A
Conditions: 12 months training period, Valid Passport to be submitted at the time of joining.

Note: All the jobs excluding Frequency LLC provides single accomodation

International collaborations
IIPM claims to award a global certification in management for all its students from one of the leading universities of the world. Every advertisement carries the logo of institutions like Darden, Haas, Judge etc as partnering institutions. Some ads even say the certification is from one of these universities. We wrote to each of the institution to check the veracity of IIPM's Claims. Here is what they have to say.

McCombs Business School, University of Austin,Texas
From: XXXXXXXX
To: XXXXXXXX
Cc:XXXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Query regarding your Institute's association with IIPM,Delhi
I'm sorry, but I am unaware of any association between the McCombs School of Business and IIPM. It is possible that they have a connection I am unaware of with a particular professor, but in any case they are not an official partner school.
I should caution that I am only responding for the McCombs School of Business. While McCombs is the only business school at the University of Texas at Austin, it is possible that they have a relationship with another college at UT-Austin. If that were the case I would not be aware of it.
Best regards,
David E. Platt, Ph.D., Director,CIBER, McCombs School of Business
Judge B School, University of Cambridge
Hello XXXXXX
Thanks for your enquiry about the programme Judge Business School is delivering to IIPM participants.
This is a five day non-degree executive education programme delivered in Cambridge by Judge Business School.
IIPM have engaged us to deliver and the first group will commence in July 2009. There are no university qualifications awarded from Cambridge University or Judge Business School. The only certificate is a certificate of attendance which is what we provide to participants on all our programmes.
Very best
Aislinn Ryan,Communications Manager, Judge Business School
Darden B School, Univesity of Virginia
Dear XXXXXXX
Thanks again for your e-mail. The University of Virginia's Darden School of Business has agreed to provide a series of week-long Executive Education programs (i.e., a contracted teaching arrangement) for IIPM. Darden has no partnership agreement or tie-up with IIPM.
Along with Cambridge (Judge) and UC Berkeley (Haas), Darden will host IIPM's Executive Education program participants and deliver to them a high-quality mix of general business class sessions. No course credits at Darden or UVA are associated with this program, as IIPM is not a partner school and their participants are not taking Darden courses.
Best regards,
Juliet Daum, Director of Communication, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia

For a few dollars more - The changing colours of UCB
Haas B School, University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
THE SLOWDOWN may have hit the revenues of the international B-schools! The desperation with which they are getting into arrangements with Indian B-Schools to lend their name as 'participating,' 'partner', 'affiliating' B -School - all to earn a few dollars more, while compromising on their ethics and professionalism left us flummoxed. And when no less than the University of Berkeley tries to wriggle out of a situation through three different mails, each a reaction to a correspondence by us and possibly IIPM as well, we are bewildered. The first said no connection what so ever, second acknowledged a client relationship and the third announced CEE sending faculty to IIPM programme (which programme?). We cannot understand what is the truth and why this progressive grovelling? (Read the mails below and form your own opinion).
Ist Response 27th February 2009
From: Pamela Tom [mailto:ptom@haas.berkeley.edu]
Sent: 27 February 2009 01:51
To: XXXX
Cc: UTE FREY
Subject: RE: query regarding your Institute's association with IIPM,Delhi
XXXXX UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business is in no way affiliated or connected with IIPM.I am told this institution has been known to claim associations with top universities without any basis. One of the ways they do this is that they invite faculty to do some executive education stint and then use the university name for ever. It is possible that some Haas faculty has done work for them but the Berkeley and/or Haas name should not be associated with IIPM.

Pamela Tom
Media Relations, Haas School of Business
2nd Response
XXXXX, On February 26, you wrote to verify the "association" between the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) and the University of California. While the statement that the two are not "affiliated" is accurate, at the time, we were unaware of a new client relationship between IIPM and the Haas School's Center for Executive Education. CEE and IIPM have a contract, the first program will begin in June and the agreement permits client institutions to say that they are "participating" with the Haas School of Business.
3rd Response
From: Pamela Tom [mailto:ptom@haas.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:45 AM
To: XXXXX
Subject: RE: In continuation of your correspondence with XXXXXX
In response to your inquiries about the Center for Executive Education's contract with the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM): During the duration of the agreement, IIPM, the client, may represent itself as a business school "participating" with the Haas School of Business. Participation means IIPM has contracted with CEE to provide Haas faculty to teach courses in the IIPM program. A five-day program scheduled for January 2009 was cancelled. A five-day program is now scheduled for June 2009.
Pamela Tom

First Person
"IT IS VERY EASY FOR YOU TO ASK WHY I DON'T SPEAK UP"
Sir, I have a mom, who is a heart patient, a father who is a teacher in a school, and a village which looks up to me. It is very easy for you to ask why I don't speak up. If I do, my people would come to know I did a degree which is useless, my company will sack me, and the bank would strangulate my dad for the loan instalment." says Ramesh*, a pass out from IIPM. Ramesh like most of us comes from one of the tier 3 towns of our country. He completed his BSc and sought salvation in an MBA. But he chose IIPM, thanks in no small measure to the full page multicolour advertisements he and his parents frequently saw, in publications they trusted for ages. He adds ruefully, "Sir, I got a good percentile in MAT (above 90 percentile), and had offers from the best colleges. At least I would have got a recognized degree."
"What did you learn?" I ask. "We are frequently taught by students who passed out from the last batch and work for Planman Consulting," said Ramesh. He fought bitterly and got placed through campus in a company based in south India. The institute promised him Delhi, the company told him that they had specifically informed the placement office of IIPM about their need for people in the south. So he was on his own again. Ramesh smiles at a thought. "I am much better off than some of my friends who got a campus placement in companies where you are paid Rs.200 as commission for every card you sell, and no salary at all." His bitterness creeps through. He goes on. "Sir, 10% of MBAs secure jobs, because we are well-groomed, speak good English, and are well-connected. 50% of us are not connected but have the rest of the qualities, and struggle a bit. The remaining 40% who has neither are already in s***. So the least they can do is to keep quiet."
Ramesh pays more than 2/3rd of his meagre salary to service his loans, lives in a cramped shanty, puts up a brave face to his doting parents, hopes for the best and keeps quiet. While relating events, the brave boy, briefly wavers and with a lump in his throat says. "Maine yeah soch ke ayaa, yeah ek formal interaction hai. Baat karthe karthe bahout kuch bol diya." (I came to meet you, telling myself it is a formal interaction. But as I got talking I spoke quite a lot). All of us look in different directions, and let that moment pass.
* Name changed to protect identity
First Person
"WE WERE TAKEN FOR A RIDE"
"The IIPM had indulged in heavy advertising promising the sky and claiming to be the best management institute in the country. It was very clear in its advertisements that it will give MBA degrees from a University. We got lured by the fake ads coupled with newspaper news praising IIPM institute," says Shiv Prasad.*
"It is only after the UGC blacklisted it that the cat came out of the bag. Now it started giving advertisements that it prepares students for BBA and MBA degrees and does not give degrees by itself. This is a clear case of cheating as we have the copy of the earlier advertisements claiming that they give degrees. Parents from Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal, Haryana and UP are still falling prey and the institute is flourishing!
The institute has never given full receipts for the amount we paid and if given, it was under a different head. Recognition was never a concern for us, because the ad blitz was so strong we got carried away and the UGC also acted very late. Most of the parents are still not aware about the UGC controversy as the matter appeared in Delhi newspapers only.
Regarding placements, this year (2009) all students have been clearly told that the institute does not guarantee placement. Students have to look for positions on their own. Many students with campus jobs could not join as HR divisions of companies are avoiding IIPM students. Most of the students are coming back with their useless training certificates. The institute has hardly any campus placements and it does not help students find jobs elsewhere as well. Having taken a bank loan between 4 lakhs to 10 lakhs, we are ruined, and actually don't know which way to turn." * Name changed to protect identity NOTE: Readers may look for the counter view of IIPM in the next issue, if received

Spelling It Out

2009-06-30T18:18:00Z

I’m just back from dinner with a few friends of mine, among them Anand Ramachandran and Salil Tripathi. They shared a couple of superb anecdotes that, with their permission, I’m reproducing here. The first is about when Anand’s dad, in the good old days when ISD calls cost a bomb and you had to scream into the phone, was spelling out ‘America’ to a friend.

The Friend: What did you say? Can you spell it out?

Anand’s Dad: America, da. A for Apple…

The Friend: A for Apple.

Anand’s Dad: M for Mother…

The Friend: What, what? M for what?

At this point, Salil told us a story about how he had to spell his name out for somebody.

Salil: My name is Salil Tripathi.

Somebody: Sorry? How do you spell that?

Salil: Salil. S for Singapore…

Somebody: How do you spell Singapore?

The possibilities are endless, you will note.

Update: Reader Seshagiri Sattiraju writes in:

I faced the opposite situation. Someone told me a word on the phone and I tried to spell it out for him

Me: Is it B as in Bombay?

Other Person: Not sure what B stands for…

Well, it could also stand for Mumbai, I guess.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
Visit: India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Bollywood Crimes

2009-06-26T15:03:01Z

The Hindustan Times reports:

Varun Gandhi’s infamous hate speech and journalist Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder will be made into a film titled Ganatantra, being directed by JP Dutta’s assistant Surender Suri.

Rajan Verma, who essayed the role of Kasab in Total Ten, a film on the 26/11 terror attacks, is now playing Varun Gandhi. He says, “The film shows Gandhi in positive light.. as an able man, not given the place he deserves in the political party. The film will also depict a love story between the characters played by Varun and Soumya.”

The only thing not WTF about the above excerpt is that the actor who played Kasab is now playing Varun Gandhi. The rest of it leaves me speechless. I especially wonder what poor Soumya’s friends and family feel about this. Who thinks up these storylines?

That isn’t the only WTFness in that article. A gentleman named Kanti Shah is quoted as saying:

Yes, I am making a film on the Shiney Ahuja rape case. Shooting will begin soon. It is titled Rape and newcomers Imran and Sapna will play the characters of Shiney and the maid. Although the film will be based on true events and there will be no fictitious details added, there will be song and dance sequences.

Go figure. ‘Tasteless’ doesn’t begin to describe these guys. I need a plastic bag.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
Visit: India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Four Michaels, down to Three

2009-06-27T14:21:00Z

Growing up in a predominantly Maharashtrian suburbs in the 90s and late 80s, I initially wasn't exposed to as much non-Indian popular culture as you would think. The big names for us back then were all Indian - Amitabh Bachchan, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Ramesh Krishnan, Geet Sethi, P.T.Usha, Aamir Khan, and so on.

Then cable TV came to India, exposing us to the Western world. Remember those really early days when there was only 1 channel - simply Star TV? For a few hours, they would show MTV, then sports, then American TV shows, some news, and then MTV again? And considering the big names or icons we got exposed to in different fields, you could be forgiven for thinking that you could not become famous in the West unless you had the name Michael. There were four Michaels who dominated the scene in their respective fields.

Michael Jordan was at his peak, inspiring us to rush to hitherto ignored basketball courts on the playgrounds. Mike Tyson was on the wane, but still the biggest name in boxing, his knock-out wins being replayed all the time. Michael Schumacher was the man who turned "oh just a boring sport with cars going in circles" into the exciting and addictive world of Formula 1 racing. And the fourth one was of course Michael Dukakis who made us all want to get into a tank and ride it around.

Obviously, I kid. The fourth Michael was the biggest of them all - Michael Jackson. Everyone, everywhere, knew him. Even in the tiniest of second tier towns, you might not have heard of anyone from the world of "Western music", but you knew Michael Jackson. He was the most universally well-known person in every corner of the globe ever.... until the current American President whose fame is probably greater.

Ever since Jacko died, two music videos are ubiquitous on television - Billie Jean and Thriller. But for people from my generation (born in and around 1980), the two songs that spring to mind at once when his name is mentioned are Bad and Black or White, in that order. I was still being potty-trained when Thriller came out. So Bad was the album that was all the rage when I started understanding things enough to remember them. I can not even count the number of times some kid my age dressed in black would pop a cassette (remember those?) into a "tape recorder", hit play and then start dancing, mouthing the words I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it. The song was performed at school gatherings, Ganapati festival shows, New Years celebrations, and also in living rooms in front of guests when parents would go "Our son dances exactly like Michael Jackson!"

Then came cable TV and his album Dangerous. The video Black or White is the first music video I have a clear recollection of watching and liking. It was a perfect crossover hit for Indian kids. It featured then child superstar Macaulay Culkin. It had amazing visuals and never-seen-before "oooh so cool!" seamless morphing of faces into one another. And of course, it had a desi chick doing a classical dance.

After that, every few months, a new music video from Dangerous was released, and the progression of the content in the videos almost perfectly mirrored the rapidly changing phases of life that I was going through at that age. The Jam video had another Michael, Jordan, playing basketball, right around the time I was discovering the sport. Remember the Time was imaginative and exciting, featuring Egyptian royalty, and came out around the time I was enraptured by books by the nutcase Erich Von Daniken. And of course, watching a skimpily clad Naomi Campbell dancing seductively in In the Closet was heartily appreciated by my then exploding hormones.

From the age of 9 to about 14, Michael Jackson really was King and God for us. Then the scandals started. And a couple of forgettable albums came out. And of course, I discovered other artists and bands that were a bit more "eclectic" and listening to Jacko's music suddenly became very uncool and "country-chhaap". Then he came to India and we were exposed to him through interviews and other appearances.... and the dude just seemed bizarre. Gradually, he went from being a pop icon to a weirdo has been, whom I paid attention to only when some new salacious news item about him came out.

And now he is suddenly dead. Bringing back memories of those childhood years when he was something larger than life. A legend. I don't think I really feel his "loss" as such, because I know that music-wise he didn't have much more to offer me. But it does feel like it'll take a little getting used to the idea of living in a world without Michael Jackson.

Failed states index - a look under the hood

2009-06-30T02:54:39Z

It’s not the ranking, it’s the change in the score

In 2005, when Foreign Policy magazine first published a failed state index, The Acorn argued that “rankings by themselves do not convey as much information as the direction of their change. How countries change their position, even by this imperfect measure, will be the thing to watch in future years.”

In fact, the rank on the league table is not so informative as the actual change in the country’s score. For instance, Pakistan’s rank improved this year (from the 9th most failing state in 2008 to the 10th in 2009). Yet, it’s total failure score increased from 103.8 to 104.1 (See the article on the magazine’s website). Assuming that the good people at Foreign Policy have used the same methodology year after year, this doesn’t suggest an improvement in Pakistan—it suggests a worsening of conditions.

Here’s a comparison of the actual score of countries in India’s neighbourhood over the last four years.

It’s generally bad news: other than Bangladesh, state failure is worsening in the neighbourhood. Bhutan does best, but even its score has (surprisingly) fallen.

Related Post: A post on the 2006 index.

Links for 2009-06-13 [del.icio.us]

2009-06-14T00:00:00-07:00

Online Conversion - Clothing Conversions

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2009-06-13T00:00:00-07:00

How to Rebuild your Computer and Reinstall Windows from Scratch

Live A Creative Life.

2009-04-22T02:10:00Z

One of history's most creative people was Leonardo da Vinci. He observed, drew, took notes, and was thoughtful about pretty much everything, and logged pretty much everything in his notebooks. There are about 8,000 notebook pages that still exist. We think that's about half of them.

One of Leonardo's great strengths was his ability to look at the ordinary -- the routine -- and see possibility. (Another was his posture: his posture was said to be so great that people actually went out to watch him walk down the street. Think about that: this guy was such an inspiration that people just wanted to watch him walk.)

In his excellent book (and companion workbook), "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci," author Michael Gelb breaks the Leonardo approach into seven "mandates" that form a pretty valid way to approach living a life creatively. This is a much-abridged version, and I hope Mr. Gelb will forgive me. For a much more descriptive look, get the book.

So here are the seven steps to living a creative life, ala Leonardo:

1. Be curious. About everything. Ask a lot of questions, of yourself and others, and keep a journal to record your observations. Then thumb through it to look for connections, patterns, new thoughts.

2. Test what you know. Be your own Devil's Advocate. Search for all the ways your conclusion can be wrong to better help it be right. Be willing to accept new information even if it isn't what you want to hear.

3. Trust your senses. Leonardo felt that people should trust their senses as much as their intellect. He especially seemed to like sight, and even talked of "knowing how to see." The implication: immerse yourself in the complete experience: see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it.

4. Love a good mystery. Like Leonardo, cultivate the ability to hold many conflicting thoughts in your head rather than jump to a conclusion, however sound it seems initially. Have internal argument. The right answer will work itself out.

5. Balance art and science. Neither the left brain nor the right brain is the best brain. The whole brain is. In my past life as an advertising creative director, my colleagues and I would debate: is marketing an art or a science? The answer, of course, is both. Smart marketers know this. Dumb ones have no balance.

6. Love your body. No, not in the "Oh yeah, I look good" way (although that's OK too). Leonardo was a big believer in grace, dexterity and being fit. Remember, people just liked to watch the man walk. The implication: be healthy, be physical, have good balance, focus on well-being.

7. See the web. Mufasa (Lion King? Simba's dad? Remember the Disney movie?) was right: "All things are connected, in the great Circle of Life." (It sounds better when James Earl Jones says it). Look for the connections between everything and everything else.

Go out and try just one of those tomorrow. Or right now. Your life just got more creative.

The Cleartrip Experience - Part 2

2009-06-24T11:40:00Z

This is a follow up post to my experience with ClearTrip during my trip to Kuala Lumpur. Please read the first part if you are new to this. Also read the blog post by Hrush, Cleartrip's co founder. ( Apologies for the delay in writing the second part.)

After a harrowing experience at the Chennai Airport and a thrilling last minute rush, me and my wife were on board the Malaysian Airlines flight to KL. As soon as I landed, I had to rush to the conference venue. This kept the bitter memories off my head as I was fully occupied with the conference.

Once the conference got over, later that evening, I wrote a detailed post on Cleartrip's Customer Forum. I knew that forum posting will have to meander through layers of authority and hence I followed it up with emailing Hrush, the co-founder and Nikhil Godbole, Senior Manager, Operations.

Prior to this, I also made a tweet venting my frustration. I wanted to make a detailed blog post but a combination of complete lack of sleep the previous night and a draining day at the conference left me with little energy. That's when I realized the importance of Twitter. You get to say what you want to say in quick time. No wonder Twitter is cannibalizing blogs!

I wasn't expecting a prompt reply. Cleartrip surprised me here. Nikhil wrote an apology email and confirmed that my tickets for both me and my wife will get taken care of. I was asked for my hotel phone number and soon enough, he gave me a call.

The next day, I received an email with the PNR details for our return flight. Nikhil called me up once again to give me the confidence that they had double checked the tickets.

To me and my wife, having a confirmed return tickets was a major source of relief. We could now enjoy our vacation without worrying about nasty surprises.

On the morning of Day 5 in KL, the day we were to fly back, I received an email from
Cleartrip saying that they have bumped us up to Business Class. They explained that they were sorry for spoiling our Wedding anniversary and wanted to make up.

We were spoilt bad on Business Class. Pampered would be an understatement. There were just two other passengers in the entire Business Class. This meant that the stewardesses out-numbered us.

I consciously ordered Champagne. As we toasted, we couldn't help but think of the stark difference between the two experiences. What started on a disastrous note ended on a fairytale.

Important lessons learnt.

It's natural to screw up. But it takes courage to admit one's mistake.

I'd give credit to Cleartrip for following up and resolving the issue. The phone calls and prompt reply helped.

Before making the blog post on Cleartrip's blog, Hrush wrote to me seeking my permission to take this incident as a case study and to explain the reasons. I agreed. He earned my respect for following this simple courteous gesture.

I will continue to use Cleartrip to book tickets. But from now on, I will take the extra effort to make a phone call to the airline to confirm the tickets. Definitely so, if its an international one.

Twitter is indeed powerful. I no longer look at it as a ego-massaging, narcissistic tool. It's a fantastic community tool. Just this morning, I had requested for an illustrator for children's book and I got over 20 personal references via email and Twitter. Now, that's usefulness.

Twitter is useless if it is used as a PR announcement tool. It's strength comes in when corporates engage in genuine conversations. Cleartrip gets a thumps up for that.

You need balls of steel to point your customers to vent their frustration and complaints on your corporate website in full public view. At first sight, it looked like having the public Customer Forum on Cleartrip's site is like shooting your own feet. At least that's what most PR folks at a conference in Bangalore said when I took Cleartrip as a case study. But look deeper and you will notice that they use it as a transparent tool to show resolution of complaints. And they are using the public scrutiny to their advantage to resolve issues.

I'm looking forward to the reimbursement of the ticket money from them. I'm assuming that's under process.

Also, looking forward to the changes that Cleartrip said they will be making based on the learnings from this incident.

Like they say, Alls well that ends well.

Faith And The Monsoon

2009-06-25T10:33:01Z

The Times of India reports:

With the monsoon playing truant, Andhra Pradesh CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy has ordered all temples, mosques and churches in the state to offer special prayers to appease the Rain God. Starting form Wednesday, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams will conduct prayers in all major temples run by it. Special prayers are to be held in mosques and churches for the onset of the elusive monsoon.

And The Hindustan Times:

As strange as it may sound, some organisations and individuals from Andhra Pradesh are taking help of frogs to induce rains.

In Vemulwada town in Karimnagar district, hundreds of people participated in a frog marriage on a dried up tank bed. Reports of similar marriages came in from Kurnool, Adilabad and Anantapur. It is widely believed by rural folk that frog marriages will bring in good rains.

You know where this is headed, don’t you? Hazaar prayers will be conducted across AP, and hazaar frogs will be married off—and then it will rain. And people will conclude that the prayers worked, and getting the frogs married off worked—never mind if the frogs in questions are ignoring their nuptial vows and bonking random other frogs. Post hoc ergo propter hoc—that, and the confirmation bias, explain why we’re still such suckers for superstition of all sorts.

Maybe I should also conduct a ritual of some sort that can later be sanctified after its glorious success. Hmm, let’s see, what can I do? Ah, I have it: A beef burger at Indigo Cafe, medium rare with a fried egg on top, sunny side up. Followed by some liquor chocolate, and maybe coffee at Costa’s. There you go, I’ve sorted it out. Just you watch now, there will be rain.

(My thanks to Sandeip Singh for the ToI link.)

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Nandan Nilekani to head UID Authority

2009-06-25T16:03:25Z

Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and vice chairman of the iconic $ 4.5 billion Infosys Technologies has resigned from the posts of Vice Chairman and Board member of Infosys to head a unique organization – UID (Unique Identity) Authority of India).

UID Authority of India has the ambition to uniquely identify every Indian; with 1.2 billion population, India’s UID is rather complex.

Countries like USA have their SSN (Social Security Number) that was designed a century back. Many counties (both big and small) have similar schemes. I was in Thailand in late 80’s when Thailand initiated such a project. India started very late. Though the idea has been around for several years, it got bogged down with some States not co-operating; these States relied on illegal immigrants to win election often using the bogey that Muslim women do not want to be photographed); techies got bogged down with the “right” smart card technology; and, Election Commission did a great job with EPIC (Electronic Photo Identity Card), but forgot to addresss the “backend” issues.

Nandan is the right person with technology, business and execution skills to execute this mammoth project. Once executed, it can make a huge difference to the country; it could be a technology to break the disease of corruption – the way Railway Reservation project removed bribery to TTE (Traveling Ticket Examiners). UID can also help in targeting subsidies direct to the beneficiery.

Nandan is a tall business leader. Within hours Forbes, New York Times and Reuters carried the news item.

Infosys and Nandan must be complimented for their corporate governance; within hours Nandan resigned from Board Membership and Vice Chairman post of Infosys.

Nandan is

an outstanding programmer, systems analyst, project manager, CEO and vice chairman of Infosys for the past 27 years,
a celebrity author who wrote the best selling “Imagining India”, and,
head of an Authority of the Government with the rank of a Cabinet Minister,

Nandan would be donning every role!

The Greatest. Period.

2009-06-26T04:44:09Z

It was in 1984. I was sitting in front of the TV when the pre-Grammy awards program came on. In pre-MTV days, state-controlled Doordarshan had almost no Western pop/rock programming except some horrible Europop that acted as fillers.

So I had absolutely no idea as to what I was going to see. I did not even know what the Grammies were. Good Bengali boys were supposed to listen to Rabindrasangeet and not even think about the devil’s music.

And then I saw him.

I did not know his name. I neither understood the lyrics. Even if I did, I doubt whether as a seven year old I would have understood a song about an illegitimate child.

But I was blown away. By the man in the video. The tip-toe stand, the twirl, the way he moved his jacket. The walk. The beat. And the pavement glowing as he put his foot on it.

Who was this mystery man?

My maternal uncle (mama) had just come back from the US. He had a wondrous cassette player and a few cassettes. One of them was “Thriller”. It was then, over endless loops of that album, that I fell in love with what we then called “Western fast” music (as opposed to the slow Beethoven).

And I also fell in love with the man whose album it was. A man whose name I, and my generation,will never forget.

Michael Jackson.

There is a lot to say about MJ and it will be said much better by more serious students of music. They will explain to you why it is unlikely that Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, the largest selling album in the history of the world, will ever outsold. Historians will tell you that before Oprah and Obama, he was the first mega icon who transcended color in America. Pop culture experts will swear in a single voice that his music, his dance steps (the lock, the pop, the crotch-grab, the trouser pull, the shoulder pat, and of course the ” moonwalk”) , his videos (revolutionary in their style and execution), his styling (the red jacket, the white socks, the gloves, the hat), his persona, the iconic freeze-frames (the wind blowing up below him, arms outstretched and looking up), his concert performances have strongly influenced all public performers, no matter where they be in the world. Finally any Indian will tell you if there is one “foreign” music artist they know it is “Michael Jackson”.

So instead of all that, I shall just talk about the way Michael Jackson and his music has touched my life. In high school, my study time began at 6:30, rigorously enforced by mother. But from 5 to 6:30 was my own time. On rainy days when it was not possible to go out onto the streets to play cricket, my Sanio cassette player would blare out “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” and “Who Is It” and “Dirty Diana” and of course “Thriller”, “Beat It” and “Billy Jean” while I, in my baniyan and shorts, would do my desperate imitation of MJ’s iconic steps with my feeble attempts to do the moonwalk exerting such pressure on the straps of the hawai chappal that they would, damn them, snap. In college, after a bad attack of hepatitis that required hospitalization, I announced my return to health with a frenetic sweaty pelvic rendition of the pulsating “I am Bad I am Bad” which alarmed my mother, considering how weak I was. But I did it and no other artist could have made me get up from bed. And even today whenever there is a dance party and the DJ stops playing bhangra and gives me a real dance number in the form of a Michael Jackson song, I invariably break out my embarassing Michael Jackson steps and when I do, you are advised to clear the dance floor. Else there will be, as the song goes, blood on it.

I am sure I am not alone in these personal remembrances. I am sure everyone has their Michael Jackson stories. Everyone. In every corner of the world. This is where MJ transcends his identity as a superstar and as a musical genius. Michael Jackson was a part of us. A part of our childhood memories. A strong influence in our choice of music. No make it a strong influence in our definition of music. And also of entertainment.

With his passing, something about us is also gone.

Or is it?

The thing that defines the true greats (and great is an overused word) is that their creations outlive and outlast their life-spans, giving these men a kind of immortality that us mere mortals merely strive for. From that perspective I suppose there is nothing to be sad about. However one cannot forget Michael Jackson’s isolation, his bankruptcy and the sadness that engulfed him in his last days and one wishes that his end could have been under happier personal circumstances, even more so as he seemed on the verge of a breakthrough with his final concert tour scheduled to start in July.

For now however the best tribute we can pay him is to watch and listen to him as he was, when he walked the earth at the height of his powers. And applaud Michael Jackson, who was without exaggeration the greatest performer of our generation.

Wherever you are, old friend, keep twirling those toes in the way only you can.

Mahesh Sharma fact-checks IIPM - Episode 2

2009-06-27T06:48:00Z

In this episode, Mahesh Sharma of Careers 360 demolishes a new claim by IIPM that its students will receive their BBA and/or MBA degrees from the University of Buckingham, UK.

[While the story has a somewhat muted headline -- "IIPM makes another claim" -- read the URL. It's blunt and to-the-point: "IIPM -- Yet Another Lie"!]

The new claim about the University of Buckingham was made in a recent ad -- an ad that was released after Sharma exposed the bogussitude of IIPM's earlier claims that the BBA / MBA degrees were from IMI, Belgium.

All power to Mahesh Sharma and Careers 360. They are doing a job that is too ducking fifficult for our regulators -- AICTE, in particular -- and some of our stupid magazines that keep including IIPM in their annual rankings of B-schools (Outlook, which dumped it in 2005, is an honorable exception).

* * *

I linked to the first episode of Mahesh Sharma's fact-checking coup . The youth magazine JAM did a fact-check on IIPM in March 2006. You do remember all the great things it led to, don't you?

Vir Sanghvi

2009-06-29T04:41:08Z

Tell me, why is it that people don’t respect me?” Anu Malik seems genuinely pained as he asks the question. “Why do people act surprised when they find that I have composed a good song? What is it? Is it the way I dress? Is it the way I talk? Is it because I still don’t act like a big music director?”

I grope for an answer. We are sitting in the coffee shop of Bombay’s ITC Maratha and Anu is supplementing his clear chicken soup (“I am trying to lose weight”) with many bread rolls as he speaks.

He does, indeed, seem far removed from the image of a senior composer, which after so many years in the business, I guess he is. He is wearing a waistcoat over jeans, speaking in that characteristic rapid fire way and --- every five minutes or so --- breaking into song (complete with rhythmic thumps in the table) as he remembers the big hits that have marked his career.

“It’s never been easy for me, you know”, he says. “It’s just struggle, struggle, struggle. Just when I think that things have settled down, something goes wrong. And I have to start all over again.”

And then, there’s the problem with the media. “Just because of one song – that Macarena thing --- which I admit was a mistake and I should not have done it, they keep calling me a plagiarist. Every time they hear a good tune by me they say ‘I wonder where he copied it from?’ Is this fair? I can give you a list of songs that every Indian music director has copied. You know, pop songs from the West and even tracks by Indonesian bands. So why single one out for that one song?”

I listen as Anu agonizes. But the truth is I don’t know either why he has an image problem. I’ve known him now for ten years and have no doubt that he is one of the best composers in the business. As the cliché goes, he has the music in him. Ask him to compose a tune and he will do it on demand. Nine times out of ten, the tune will be excellent.

But I see his point. These days he is probably best known for his appearances on such hit shows as Indian Idol and more recently Entertainment Ke Liye Kuchch Bhi Karega, and there aren’t that many producers waiting at his door.

He does have one of the year’s biggest films coming up next month though: Kambakht Ishq with Kareena, Akshay and Sylvester Stallone. And if that film is a hit (the music is already doing well) then it could be the comeback he needs.

But then Anu Malik is no stranger to being down. And being up again.

==============

Anu Malik’s father Sardar Malik was one of the best composers of his generation. But because he was a retiring sort of person, he never found the sustained success he deserved. Anu’s mama --- his mother’s brother ---- was the lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri.

So, Anu grew up in a musical family but nobody bothered to teach him very much. He seems to have learnt the harmonium on his own and there was no network of contacts to help him get started.

“By the time I was 17 or 18,” he recalls, “I knew that I wanted to be a music director. But I also knew that nobody was going to help me. I would have to do it myself.”

The story of his early days is the story of many struggling young music directors in the 1970s. He would find out from the security guard at Tardeo’s Air Conditioned Market where the big producers sat and then turn up unannounced at their doors, offering of play them his tunes. Because he could not afford much more than public transport, he would lug his harmonium along with him on trains and buses, ignoring the stares he would draw.

He got a few contracts but his real break when he was able to persuade FC Mehra’s Eagle Films to sign him up. Anu’s advantage over other composers was that he also wrote words. So he could sit and write hooks for potential hit songs at his home and then burst into unsuspecting producer’s offices in full song.

No producer was safe from Anu and his singing harmonium. He remembers how he had to get Eagle’s Umesh Mehra to hear one of his songs. When nothing else worked, he chased Mehra into a public toilet and then, when Mehra’s hands were occupied, began singing to him.

Fortunately, Umesh Mehra liked the song – if not the venue for the song sitting --- and he signed Anu up.

======

When we look at today’s music industry with its music TV channels, FM radio stations, talent contests and young singers, we sometimes forget how different things were in the Seventies and the Eighties.

In those days, the music business was a closed shop. Two female singers, the Mangeshkar sisters, sang nearly every song of consequence, punishing composers who dared give breaks to new talent. The only male playback singer of note was Kishore Kumar, who had taken over from Mohammed Rafi whose star had dimmed.

Music directors ran their own little cartel. The big shots of that era were Lakshmikant-Pyarelal, followed by RD Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji and a few others. There were only two music labels in the Seventies, there was no MTV, no satellite TV at all, and AIR was the only radio network.

A music director could only hope to break into this closed shop if he had the backing of a major producer. And even then, the big producers would come under pressure to drop successful composers outside the cartel and to return to the established names. So Anu did a few films but he was far from the big time.

That only happened when he met Manmohan Desai, the most successful director of the decade from the mid Seventies to the mid-Eighties. Desai had make his name with a series of pictures starring Amitabh Bachchan, then the industry’s reigning superstar and music directors vied to work with him.

Anu pushed his way forward and made Desai hear his tunes. Desai liked them and said that they would talk again after he finished Coolie.

But that took longer than anyone had expected. Amitabh was seriously injured during the shooting of Coolie and Desai suspended all work – which included listening to Anu’s songs.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Desai called. Would Anu please come to Chandivali studios? Anu rushed to the studio to find that there was already a huge crowd. It was the day Amitabh Bachchan was returning to work after his accident.

Anu waited till Bachchan gave his shot. Then Desai called him to the star’s dressing room. “Ok Anu”, he said. “Play us your songs.”

And Anu played. He sang. He talked. And he hummed. He knew that this could be his big break. After a couple of hours during which Bachchan remained entirely poker-faced, they asked Anu to leave the room.

A few minutes later, they called him back.

“Congratulations” Desai told him. “You are doing the music for Mard, my next movie.”

===================

Mard was a superhit and Anu had arrived. He became the favoured director for Manmohan Desai’s movies and because he was attached to the industry’s biggest star and biggest banner, his stock rose through the ceiling. He developed a collaborative relationship with Bachchan, getting him to lend his voice (and some of the tune) for Toofan’s Don’t Worry Be Happy (not, Anu wants you to know, a knock-off of the Bobby McFerrin hit but a completely original song.)

All went well till Desai and Bachchan delivered the total stinker, Ganga, Jamunaa Saraswati, perhaps the worst film of Amitabh Bachchan’s career. The movie was a disaster, sinking like a stone and Anu Malik was associated with its failure.

Manmohan Desai never made a great film again and Anu’s links with the banner now counted for nothing. Worse still, from his point of view was that the industry was undergoing one of its periodic generational changes. Bachchan himself seemed ill-suited to the roles he was still playing and a new breed of stars (Salman Khan, Aamir Khan etc.) emerged as did a new breed of composers. The old closed shop was dead; the music business was opening up. But even in the midst of this expansion, nobody had any time for Anu Malik.

“It is a funny thing and you will not believe it”, says Anu as he bites into another bread roll, “but in this business you can go from being a big shot to being a nobody overnight.”

The offers dried up. He was considered to be too old-fashioned for the new generation and even as he coped with his father’s illness, he found that no money was coming in.

So Anu Malik went back to scratch. He made the rounds of producers’ offices, he took his harmonium with him, he tried to break into such new camps as Gulshan Kumar’s T-Series (they told him to go away; they wore very happy with Nadeem-Sharvan) and he listened to lectures from filmmakers.

Mahesh Bhatt told him that he was like a scooterwallah who had held on to Manmohan Desai’s truck and been carried along by its momentum. But now, said Bhatt, the truck had stalled and Anu had fallen flat on his face.

All Bhatt would offer him was a TV film. “Can you imagine that! I had given music for Amitabh Bachchan films and now I was being asked to write songs for TV movies!” Anu Malik still seems shocked by the memory. “But I had no money and no choice so I agreed.”

The movie sank without a trace and Anu was back where he had started.

Anu knew Ratan Jain of Venus Music and when Jain invited him to the Juhu Centaur for a party to celebrate the jubilee of a movie, he went along at least partly because he had nothing else to do.

Jain took him aside at the party and told him that he had a project in mind. The film would be called Khiladi, would be directed by Abbas-Mustaan, would star Tanuja’s daughter Kajol (who was just starting out) and an actor from the TV serial Fauji called Shah Rukh Khan.

It was not a big project but at least it was something. So Anu grabbed it.

A few months later, Ratan Jain called him. They had changed the name, he said. Khiladi was out. They were calling it Baazigar.

Anu protested. It was a very unmusical title, he said. How was he expected to compose a song featuring the word “Baazigar”?

Nobody paid any attention to his protests.

Then, one day, when he was walking on the beach, the hook came to him, words and all. He rushed to Ratan Jain’s house and sang it to him. Jain called Abbas-Mustaan. They like it too. A studio was booked, Anu hired a huge string section (70 violins alone!), a chorus and Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik.

Everybody turned up for the recording and they ran through the song. The producer said he was happy. So did the singers.

But Anu seemed downcast.

“It doesn’t sound right,” he said. “I need to change the song.”

In the music business, you do not change things in the studio. Arrangers have written out the orchestra parts for 115 instruments. They are not thrilled by the prospect of having to rewrite them. Plus, there’s the overtime factor. The morning shift ends at 1 pm. If the orchestra and chorus have to stay beyond one, then thousands of rupees (more, actually considering how vast the orchestra on this recording was) will have to be paid out as overtime.

But Anu would not listen. The problem with the song, he said, was that it began with the hook. He needed to put a verse before you got to the hook. And while everyone stood around, he rewrote the song and re-recorded it.

He shocked his producers during the recording of “Yeh kaali kaali ankhein” as well. They turned up at the studio to find Anu sitting with an arranger and a synthesizer. He was doing to lay down the song electronically he told them. Only later did he overlay other musical instruments.

Both songs became huge hits, showing two sides of Anu Malik, the man who could do an electronic dance number and the guy who liked massive string sections.

That year, Anu won the Filmfare Award for Baazigar, over Laxmikant-Pyarelal who had Choli ke peechchey in contention.

Accepting the award he said, “This has been twenty years in coming.”

========

That would be a nice place to end our story. But nothing in Anu’s life is that smooth. After a few good years and some great songs (Sandese aate hain from Border for instance) his career went into another decline. Yet another crop of music directors (AR Rehman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy etc.) emerged and Anu began to seem like a throwback to an earlier era.

Despite the successes (he released an album of English songs, Baz Luhrman picked up Chuma Chuma from China Gate for the soundtrack of Moulin Rouge etc.), he continued to be regarded as a marginal figure who had been left behind in time.

Needless controversies (had he really harassed Alisha Chinai? Not really, considering they are buddies now) dogged his career and as he points out, he was unfairly tagged as the industry’s only plagiarist. (“I should have said no to the producer when he asked me to do that Macarena song. It was my mistake. By why pick on me?” etc.)

There were big breaks. He did terrific songs for Main Hoon Na and basked in the adulation when the film became a superhit. But director Farah Khan did not repeat him for her next movie. (“I don’t know why. It makes no sense. But I will never ask her. I am not like that.”)

It was TV that came to his rescue. When the call came to be a judge on Indian Idol, it was his daughter who told him that she had seen Pop Idol and knew that he could be India’s answer to Simon Cowell. He took the job and resurrected his public profile.

But, to be honest, there aren’t that many films any longer.

Loyal producers like JP Datta and Sajid Nadiadwalla (who has made Kambakht Ishq) continue to sign him up but the rest are all in search of the Next Big Thing. Do they really want to sign up a man who had big hits in the 1980s? Shouldn’t they go for somebody more contemporary?

Anu doesn’t mind that. He knows that people who break down the walls --- as his generation did when the industry was a closed shop --- are swept aside by the next wave. And though at 48, he has years to go, he is older than many of the new directors.

That’s not what worries him.

It’s the respect question that keeps him awake at nights. “Just tell me: what is it? Why don’t people give me the respect I deserve?” he asks, tossing aside his bread roll.

I honestly don’t know. In my view, he’s a musical genius, a man who can pluck tunes out of the air. And the fact that he’s still around 30 years after writing his first score should be a testament to his talent.

But respect? That’s a tough one.

“I think it is the way I talk and the way I dress”, he says sadly.

“But what to do? That’s who I am.”

The Mountain Man

2009-06-28T09:46:24Z

Here comes the latest in the wonderful series of profiles from our guest writer, Utkarsh Joshi. This is the story of Padmashree Dr. Anil Joshi, who learnt early in life that in order to develop the hill community where he worked as a lecturer, he would have to focus on rural advancement and making the best use of local resources. Read on to know how he brought about this revolution.

To the people of the hills in the upper reaches of India he is no less than a messiah and what he has achieved is no less than a miracle. Padmashree Dr. Anil Joshi, or “Sir” as the local populace refers to him, has made it his life’s mission to make the villagers in the hills more self reliant - by promoting the local economy through local means and by upgrading generational hand-me-down wisdom.

Dr. Anil Joshi was born in 1955 in Kotdwara – a small town on the edge of Uttrakhand, at the foothills of the Shivalik range of the Himalayas. A bright student, he did well through school and college and after completing his PhD. in environmental science he eventually joined the Kotdwara government college as a lecturer. But being a man of the hills, he wanted to do more for the mountain community than just research. With inaccessibility, a lack of infrastructure, and most of the men folk either working in urban centers or foot soldiers in the army - these communities were getting increasingly dependent on urban centers and products for their livelihood. The answer as per the young Dr. Joshi was rural development and one which needed to employ local resources and make the villagers self reliant.

That was the initial thought with which he tried to break ice with the locals, telling them that he was a social worker. But most of the villagers he first approached shunned him, telling him that since he was not staying with them, he would not know enough to help! When he remarked he was a social worker – they asked why he didn’t think of roads or schools. But he remained patient and slowly worked on building his relationship with the hill community. It’s a relationship which has prospered in the intervening 29 years and brought about a silent revolution in the way these communities exist today.

He began alone, but decided to give a more formal name and face to his approach, and thus Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization or HESCO was formed in 1981. Some of his students and colleagues joined him as well. Based on their fundamental principles of participatory research and with a combination of science and tradition, they have gone to villages and enlisted local people to help them with their research. Doing this, they have developed new things while at the same time upgrading their hand-me-down knowledge to make them more relevant in today’s age. For instance, the hills were overrun with ‘Kurri’ a wild shrub which was identified by the HESCO team as a weed. They identified uses for the shrub in order to control its growth. The sticks were strong enough to be used for furniture, the flowers and leaves could be used for incense sticks and the leftovers as fodder for goats! This has provided employment as well as monetization. HESCO has also worked on upgrading the local water mill used to grind grain or the ‘gharat’ - to make it an effective tool for power generation and provided indigenous electricity to these villages. According to Dr. Joshi, if all the traditional ‘gharats’ are modernized in the same way, local employment can mushroom while at the same time the hills can produce up to 2500MW of power for the country at practically no cost!

Stopping landslides and soil erosion using biological methods; creating a social platform for women to generate employment and marketing opportunities; advocating forest fire prevention and disaster management methods; circulating a local children’s newspaper; using local development as a tool to wean away youth from anti social activities in border states - these are just some of the activities that HESCO and Dr. Joshi have been tirelessly working on to bring about a change. His highly educated team gets paid between Rs 2000 and Rs 6000 per month but their motivation keeps them going.

The government and the international community have also taken note of the stellar work that is being done by Dr. Joshi and team. Dr. Joshi was awarded the Padamshree in 2006 and HESCO works closely with government organizations like the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Bio-Technology, BSF, ITBP, CRPF, the Social Security Board - to name a few.

Dr Joshi’s role model is Mahatma Gandhi, and he believes that to help the common people, one needs to stay with them and stay like them. Thus he leads a simple and austere life with the villagers and knows that his work is far from done. But he can sit back and be satisfied as an agent of change for his first love – the hills. It is not everyone who has the satisfaction of doing something which impacts close to 5 lakh villagers, in more than 10,000 villages, spread across 9 mountain states of the Himalayas.

The mountain man has truly lived up to his name.

To learn more about HESCO and their work, visit their website.

Also check out some other interesting such stories:

Lakes of Mysore - Kukkarahalli and Kaaranji

2009-06-28T19:06:00Z

Two famous lakes of Mysore are Kukkarahalli Lake and Karanji lake. Kukkarahalli lake located near Mysore University is spread across 62 hectares. Lake has a surrounding walkway which has stone benches for visitors. This is used by Mysoreans for morning walk, jogging. Here are some of the snaps of the lake.
Kaaranji or Karanji lake spread across 55 hectares has a giant fountain(Kaaranji in Kannada) at the center. Boating facility is also available here. But the biggest tourist attraction is the aviary located within the foreshore area of the lake. It is the biggest walk through aviary in India. Hornbills, peacocks, white-peacocks, turkeys and black swans are some of the birds found in this aviary. A walk through this aviary is a wonderful experience. Peocock spreading its tail feathers to reveal the 'eyes' is a treat to watch. You can also watch White peacocks climbing the trees around. Kaaranji lake surroundings buzzling with life is worth watch. Surely visit this lake, when you come to Mysore.

The ICC Hall of Infamy

2009-06-28T23:20:54Z

You gotta love the burra-sahibs at the ICC. Recently, following an article in the TOI I had a chance to look at their Hall of Fame (evidently only people who retired before 1995 being eligible for consideration) and their Hall contains twenty-two Englishmen, eleven Australian and fourteen West Indians and yes only three each of Indian and Pakistani players.

Not that ICC’s Hall of Fame matters a rat’s ass but it’s funny to see the “revenge” of the bura-sahibs who seek to bury their own obsolescence and the loss of colonial power (ever since the English and the Australians lost their veto power in the ICC) with a Hall of Fame that is so “oh those were the good days” nostalgic and so laughably biased that it isn’t funny.

Not that I do not understand the colonial angst. In a perfect world, cricket would be still be a game played by old chaps over a cup of tea and polite conversation and thoughts of the Queen while the brown natives would stand around holding the umbrella and the gin and the tonic, with their participation in the game being limited to fetching the ball from the boundary or fielding when a sahib got a “touch of the sun”.

Instead what do they have?

They have IPL, screaming crowds of thousands of sweaty “white man’s burdens”, humiliating defeats at the hands of the natives and worst of all, a total financial dependence on the old slaves to sustain the game. Everytime Michael Atherton or any of the British/Australian old fogeys abuse T20 and rue India’s influence in world cricket and tell us that the Ashes still remain the pinnacle of cricketing passion one is reminded of a fox and a bunch of grapes.

Coming to the Hall of Fame. Let us take the example of an inductee. Derek Underwood. An old chappie. In 86 Tests he took 297 wickets at an average of 25.83. Now let us consider another spinner who played in the same era (since some claim cricketers in different eras should not be compared). Bhagwath Chandrasekhar. In 58 Tests (28 Tests fewer than Underwood), he took 242 wickets at an average of 29.74. Statistically, there isn’t a whole lot to choose between them. But Chandrasekhar does not make the list. And one wonders why considering that nothing prevented both of them from being in the Hall of Fame.

One could argue that cricket isn’t just about numbers but more about style and class. True. But then how do you explain why Graham Gooch, another “he’s a jolly good fellow and so say all of us”, whose batting could put a room full of insomniacs to sleep makes the list while Zaheer Abbas, one of the most attractive batsmen of his generation, does not. And oh, the numbers—-Gooch’s career average is 42.58 and Zaheer Abbas’s is 44.79.

There are other examples—- Englishman Tom Graveney scored 11 centuries in 79 matches at an average of 44. Mohinder Amarnath scored 11 centuries in 10 Tests less (69 matches) at 42.50. Only one of them however is in the Hall of Fame. One could ask why Vijay Merchant, who had the second highest first class average after Bradman and a Test average of 47.72, is not there as well as several other similar embarassing questions but I think you get the point.

I started off by saying that the Hall of Fame does not matter. Well let me clarify that. It may not matter to me or you or perhaps even to superstar billionaires like Dhoni and Sachin but I am sure for cricketers like BS Chandrasekhar and Mohinder Amarnath, who derived very little financial benefit from the game (unlike their modern counterparts), some kind of official recognition for their contribution to the game, would definitely mean a lot. And they do deserve it.

But then again, we jolly well know that despite many changes the ICC still remains, at its heart, an old boy’s colonial country club. So nothing unexpected here.

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