This was the caption on one of Amul Butter hoardings at a busy traffic junction ! Besides of course the obvious disturbance of each passerby stretching to see and savor the hoarding, one could not but pass a silent chuckle on seeing this satire. True our own version of the 'Enron' scandal has come in the form of Satyam and the seething rage is also because the organisation has the audacity to fudge a bluebook of its 'socially and environmentally concerned' policies and win the Golden peacock award for corporate governance !
Perhaps one of the good outcomes of such a scandal is the stricter review of what auditors do at the firm during the periodic audits. True it is very difficult for auditors to pick out anomalies in organisation which have cooked and marinated records for years and even the law suggests that the auditors need to treat the records furnished as bonafide ! But now auditors will go the extra mile and ask more questions to vouch their work.
The hapless employees of such organisations - my sympathy goes with them. After doing all the right things - burning the midnight oil and delivering value to the orgnisation and its clients, one fine day uncertanity walks into their lives as an invited guest and eats up their supper and usurps their houses. To add to it the general stigma attached to them - as if they were somewhere part of a unholy nexus which cheated not a company but an entire industry and the aspirations of a nation. Then the auditing firm PWC. Once such scandal is enough to turn stars into pariahs and the obvious plethora of coments like the Shakespearean " There is something rotten in the state of Denmark!"
With able names and eminent personalities joining hands to clean the mess, one hopes and prays that this will also pass !
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire again !
We just can't have enough of this movie, can we ! And not the ten Oscar nominations and the wider acclaim to A R Rahman has endeared this movie more than any Indian movie. And I finally watched it !
Absolutely wonderful, like a sugar candy with the sweetness lingering longer and I refusing to fluch my mouth to retain the taste. Danny Boyle has done it ! To think it took an Irishman who has never really seen India to make a movie like this - capture the city like none of our desi directors . Perhaps the only similar camera work of an Indian city was Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair where she painted Delhi like no other. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay is amazing and far more captivating than Vikas Swarup's book and of course the famous potty scene - One of my all favorite cinematic moments which will remain with me for a long time.
Our media had a field day with some pundits including our own Big B raising an opinion or two. But nothing can take away the glory from this story and actors like Ayush Khedekar who will never age in the mind of the viewer, being the same 5 year old all his life.
And then of course the Oscar mention for Gulzar. Boss, take a bow - You may attribute everything to A R Rahman but every song you pen deserves a bow !
Absolutely wonderful, like a sugar candy with the sweetness lingering longer and I refusing to fluch my mouth to retain the taste. Danny Boyle has done it ! To think it took an Irishman who has never really seen India to make a movie like this - capture the city like none of our desi directors . Perhaps the only similar camera work of an Indian city was Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair where she painted Delhi like no other. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay is amazing and far more captivating than Vikas Swarup's book and of course the famous potty scene - One of my all favorite cinematic moments which will remain with me for a long time.
Our media had a field day with some pundits including our own Big B raising an opinion or two. But nothing can take away the glory from this story and actors like Ayush Khedekar who will never age in the mind of the viewer, being the same 5 year old all his life.
And then of course the Oscar mention for Gulzar. Boss, take a bow - You may attribute everything to A R Rahman but every song you pen deserves a bow !
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
'Slumdog Millionaire' at the Golden Globes
Yesterday morning had the Golden Globes ceremony coming on live on the television and I beat the morning cuckoo to wake in the wee hours of a Monday. With A.R. Rahman being nominated, it promised be an occasion not to miss and that too with a lot of favourable press reports of his chances and the prayer of another 'First Indian to ...."
And disappointed I was not ! When the shy maestro fished out a little piece of paper and read out his 'acceptance', one felt a rare sense of pride. When Danny Boyle walked to the dias to accept his 'Best Director', I tried to hide my face seeing Anil Kapoor monkeying around and thumping the air in a gauche manner. But what the hell, all is pardoned when honours galore were bestowed on a movie we have now 'adopted' as our own !
What I hope it will usher is more foreign studios hunting for scripts in the subcontinent, looking for talent in areas more than acting like music. I also hope we get more Indian producers getting attracted to more 'interesting' and meaningful cinema. But with the films that hit the screens last year, there is also a promise of good cinema with audience flocking to the multiplexes appreciating 'different' genre films and actors like Abhay Deol, Vinay Pathak showing the way to senior colleagues.
And disappointed I was not ! When the shy maestro fished out a little piece of paper and read out his 'acceptance', one felt a rare sense of pride. When Danny Boyle walked to the dias to accept his 'Best Director', I tried to hide my face seeing Anil Kapoor monkeying around and thumping the air in a gauche manner. But what the hell, all is pardoned when honours galore were bestowed on a movie we have now 'adopted' as our own !
What I hope it will usher is more foreign studios hunting for scripts in the subcontinent, looking for talent in areas more than acting like music. I also hope we get more Indian producers getting attracted to more 'interesting' and meaningful cinema. But with the films that hit the screens last year, there is also a promise of good cinema with audience flocking to the multiplexes appreciating 'different' genre films and actors like Abhay Deol, Vinay Pathak showing the way to senior colleagues.
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