On 'Amma, Appa and Rajnikanth'...

One of my junior collegaues at work recently pointed to me, when children are born in Tamil Nadu, they are introduced to three people even before devotion and temples beckon - Amma, Appa and Rajnikanth - and not necessarily in that order. Such is status accorded to one of the greatest filmstars ever to some on Indian screens. Adulations and deity like respect is not alien to film stars in South India, where a good percentage of the population have the pictures of a MGR or an NTR in their prayer rooms and also among the sepia tinted pictures of the yesteryears. These are film posters, cuttings from obscure film magazines and the like. There are also the framed pictures of them among the Hindu deities.

The current generation has seen less of this and there are some who attribute it to the waning influence of the medium of cinema in general and also the fact there are now more avenues of entertainment, increasing literacy and the birth of 'internetectuals'. But there are still times when one cannot ignore the impact of these phenomena of the past and we get live glimpses of this, even today. Such was the release of the movie ' The Robot' and its vernacular version 'Endhiran'.

As a first disclaimer, I must confess that I have not seen the movie die to work related exigencies and also will not attempt to review this movie as I have not had the firs hand feel. But I can't suppress the desire to write about what I hear about the movie and the frenzy around it. For firsts, the movie has got good reviews about it from nearly every quarter. The yardsticks are that of a standard Indian pot boiler with the regular recipe of good Vs evil and we are not looking for a arthouse critical claim and nor we have any illusion that the art of film making would have gained anything worthwhile from this contribution from Shankar. But like his earlier movies, he has managed 'scale' yet again and the demonstarted yet again that we are in no ways inferior to the Jerry Bruckheimers and the Camerons and can manage scale in our limited economics.

Now talking of the actor. It also needed someone like Rajni to pull this through. Look at the size of his fan associations. Among the four popular associations he has, there are appraoximately 25,00,000 fans. Which means if every fan watches his movie once ( @ Rs.100 ticket) - that is close to 25 crores which is the average collections of a decent hit in India. So most of his movies are guaranteed successes. We have not even delved into the astronomical ticket pricing of the theatres and the multiplexes etc. Rajni Saar has the filography which vouches for the fact. Added to this is persona of this man. He is as simple as an ordinary man in real life, spartan living style, does not unduly force his image into politics and stays miles from any product endorsements. he is the only actor at that who does not indulge in cashing his popularity any further with the pot pourri. A trend which is unimaginable in today's economics and inimitable.

On second thought, is it suprising that he has a fan following like this. He shows all virtues of great mind, simple living and has a saint like truthfulness in his appeals to the people. And these appeals are seldom requests to watch his film. While intelligence and 'rational behaviour' will still be tall excuses to us, the common man will still not flinch from telling his child his legend - Once upon a time there was this gentleman called Rajnikanth .......

On the fascinating fact of life - AGING

Well, with all the advancements of medical science, we still have not found solutions to stop aging neither have we, with all technology experiments, managed to stop time. Called it old fashioned, but of these things of the yore are here to stay. So like all aspects of life, when something is a given, we attempt to make the best out of it and make it look good in our minds (at least)…

There is something very poetic and lyrical about aging. Most of the amazing emotive words and phrases in the English Lexicon have something to do with it. Check out ‘wistful blues’, nostalgia, memories, ‘ache in the heart’ are all concepts around this. While three quarters of the cosmetic industry tries to fight this ‘evil’, quite a lot of the literary world survives just by writing and painting visages of this concept.

I have a theory. When we age, we initially have an excitement of moving up the time ladder. More and more independence comes our way and the excitement of ‘growing’ is in every neuron in our body. The excitement dies down somewhere down the line and the inflexion point is somewhere around thirty years, when we built in a ‘subtle sadness’ of the fact that we are ‘growing old’. The general tendency is to look at ‘those good days’,’ when I was your age’ and starts sounding a tad boring for some of the folks listening to us. Then of course the war stories creep – “You know this incident when I...”; And interestingly we ignore the ‘there he goes again ….’ glances around us.

That is the funny part! Then, there is the romantic part where our five senses sends a pulse when we have a déjà vu experience. That taste, that sight, that familiar smell et.al. Our minds then moves into quickly to place the similar experience of the past and then there is ‘wistful blue’ fleeting though your mind and the all too familiar ‘ache in the heart’. What does that tell you? We never cease to be our young selves. Age seldom hits our mind when we are silently sitting along and flirting with our solitude. It is only we are amongst others that we are silently reminded of the sundry years of the past. Within ourselves, we are the toddlers, who loved to play with trivial things, ask the naïve questions and had our lives full dream, ambition and hope.

So the recipe for remaining young – think young , feel young and the final secret ingredient - spend some with yourself – once in a while …..

On my daughter's high heeled shoes

This piece is dedicated to all my ardent readers who abuse me on my procrastination and ‘promise of a more productive tomorrow’ ; I finally decided to write when the abuses descended to bomb threats and booby trapped emails which procreate viruses on opening…

Shopping has never been my forte! It has always been something others are better than me at. I have done the minimalistic stuff during my courtship days and hid the yawns and fast emerging critical comments. But my wife was quick to latch on to my ennui and as we grew old, she was understanding enough to make sure my wallet was well informed and not me of the purchases ! Well, not to sound chauvinistic, she picked all the right things and made the right choices ( including me :-))


Now shoe mania – that is a different story… I am fond of shoes – well that is like saying that the Sultan of Brunei is rich! I am obsessed by shoes. The story is that as a kid I would wear my shoes in the morning and my mother would remove it only after I am fast asleep – otherwise I would not allow her. Being the spoilt first child of my parents – I did have my way in those days! Well, circa 2010, the disease has been genetically passed on to my 5 year old daughter. She is equally obsessed about shoes. The most popular pastime she has is to dress Barbie in different shoes physically or play one of those computer games of changing shoes of Barbie !


So, the last week, when I had a rare Saturday to spend time at home, we did a little 'father and daughter' shopping. I had to pick a regular black shoe (yeah, I like all colours of shoes as long it is black) and I thought of picking up a sandal for her. We spend exactly 5 minutes for my purchase and then we moved into the kids section. The offerings were not too much as it was regular store with shoes for all genders and ages.


She picked a silver beaded high heel shoe right out of one of her comic books. In the next 45 minutes, I coaxed her with every other model in the store (fearing some straight talk if I land up home with heeled shoes for her ). Every ploy in my book of negotiations fell flat as she did not budge from her stand and choice and I politely relented at the end…


In spite of my initial fears, I was pleasantly surprised to see her walk wearing them. There was a certain sense of poise and confidence which I found inexplicable. She seemed to have aged by another 5 years just wearing them. Well, may be my brain is playing the cuckoo, but I was just happy seeing her thrilled wearing it. Maybe that is what Jimmy Choo means when he says that ‘women in heels make men heel around them’ …

On reporting of tragedies ...

I don’t read obituaries. It has been a while. I never even peruse the news items on tragedies, terror attacks, air crashes and the like. Can’t remember from when but has been so for a while. So am I scared of such news items – maybe I am! Maybe that is why, in spite of lot of advice on picking on a writing career, I never considered a career of a journalist. Whether it is the print journalist who thrives in romanticizing every calamity or the sheer bravado of the TV journalist trivializing every iota of respect by pestering near and dear ones of martyrs, my blood curdles when I see the naked disregard for others.
And then you see the mockery on the television screens of every channel covering an air crash in Mangalore! Well, I do agree that people are entitled to hear the truth related every such event and be aware of causal factors because that is when the civil authorities work their best. It is also very imminent that the factors of resolution become part of daily mitigation operations going forward. It is also one of the fundamental tenets of risk management – never to lose an opportunity to learn from an untoward incident.
But are we learning here? Or are we tickling our sadistic vein which loves to hear and see gore and derive some perverted voyeuristic pleasure from all this footage. The answer is both is not remotely attached to what the media should be doing which is
1. Report the tragedy
2. Understand the ‘why ‘ and ‘how’
3. Ask the relevant questions
4. Close the footage with homage to the deceased and polite prayer for their souls
That is it ! And what do we see – television channels using ever simulator available to re do the crash and with back ground music ! Well, my friend in the media, I don’t see audience foot tapping to the disaster background music ! Having no empathy is pardonable but public mockery and apathy – is criminal.
My heart goes with the survived and the relatives of the deceased. God give you the strength to continue on ! Life adjusts but never becomes normal again. For the souls , I wish I could say what was written on a cenotaph at Hiroshima – “Rest in peace, for the mistake shall not be repeated…”
Amen !

On Kerala - Gold's own country...

Wealth is a state of mind and in Kerala is the status of your gold jewellery. Fascinating but true ! When you are totally flummoxed by the throng in the jewellery shops in Kerala , come rain or sunshine ( read recession or economic boom ), you are even more amused by the attire of the average buyer. You will see white lungi clad men and women wearing the most casual sarees and perhaps even a pair of bathroom slippers - the ubiquitous Hawaii chappal.. The only sign of wealth is the dilapidated handbag safely tucked in the arm pits and which they carefully caress every now and as if they are the stroking the mane of their chihuahua pets ! And then lo the smiling salesman at the counter brings out a six figure bill and they don't bat an eyelid ! Three minutes down, you will see the same customer negotiating tooth and nail with an autoriskshaw driver who is asking for 20 bucks over the normal 16 or 17 rupees ... In most likely they will skip the luxury and head for the public buses ! Well, that is Kerala for you !

So why this fascination for the yellow metal which is of course a wonderful investment but limited in value of use. Most of the purchases are for one time occassions like marriages and most of it is hardly worn by besides on the big day. The liquidity content has never been a big motivator perhaps till recently since no middle class or uppper middle family wants to pledge their jewellery for loans. But that is changing... Gold finance is ctahcing up steam and is flying ahead in its business. Gold has truly replaced land as the prime asset to watch out for as the prices seem to the steeping up the curve come whatever economic macro situation.

So how come gold came into fashion in Kerala which does not have any metal deposits to boast of.Well, history tells us that when the spices were more popular than metals , a bag of pepper or cardamom fetched bags of gold from the traders from other coutnries. So gold started being the foreign commodity which was wanted much by the rich and famous and their ofcourse their wives... Then of course the craftsmen took to the design and the artistic talent burgeonef across generations...

Well let me not bore you more history than can be palatable - Check this out - an average middle class woman wears a chain ( avg. 3 sovereigns), two bangles ( 4 sovereigns ), a ring ( one sovereign ) and a pair of earrings ( 2 sovereigns). At today's cost that is Rs one lakh seventy thousand rupees - equivalent of $ 3,200 ... And that is only for accessories ! Maybe I am exagerrating but that is something - What say you D&G, Versace, Gucci and my Italian friends ...

On the new year ...

Another year go by ... Lots of new things, tons of old and no question that I had a whale of a time ! Hope this year brings in its own bouquet of the old and the new...

Have never really been the 'new year resolutions' kind but have been quite successful in changing habits these days. Whether it is teetotalary ( which is total ) or vegetarianism ( which is an on-off fad ), it has always been a pleasure to embark on the journey and see how one manages the various twists and turns...

But there are several facets of 'new habits' which has reconfirmed that the times are changing ....

1. One of my close business friends addressing a public gathering lamented " Signing of cheques is fast becoming a rare activity"... While the humor in the statement hits you fastr than the true meaning - these are the ominous signs of times to come...Stinginess is in...There will be a lot of caution execised by corporates while spending. The good timeas are around they say but this habit is here to say. So the days of doing less with less have gone and now are days of doing more with less ...

2. Methodologies and 'the way we do things' is changing faster than one can fathom... The regular terms like long term strategy and 5 year plan are passe and now the horizon decision making is smaller. So what does that mean - getting back to the drawing board much more than often...

3. The last point also ushers in the new competence - ability to unlearn. The changing landscape not only reiterates the point of picking up new skills but also permanently erasing some business practices of the past

4. The 'how of doing things' have also changed. Ethics are good business practices are much more in cmversation and for once most senior business heads urge their teams to walk the talk and constantly reinforce the need of following these practices. If one if doing or abetting the wrong things, he / she can be sure that the damocles sword is much more closer to his/ her head than it was couple of years ago. Luckily a lot of rhetoric in the media speak this language of straightforward deals. Quoting Subroto Bagchi in Professional - " Ethics is about dong the right things even when no one else is watching" I cannot imagine it be more succintly put ... Or what Narayana Murthy says - " Integrity is the sofest pillow"...

So are we in for more learning and fun this year... I am sure it is - There will be more roads to cover and alleys to traverse and I touch the feet of Ganesha and walk on ...