Ripples on the brain

Happy Ramanavami. Just today I realized that I have got some good collection of songs on Rama. I made sure I listened to a few of those in the morning. My favourite one at the moment is the Tyagaraja kriti “Telisi Rama chintanako namamu seyave o manasa” in the wonderful raaga Poornachandrika. The kriti has a good pace, especially when the chitta swarams are sung. The version that I listen to, sung by S.Gayathri, is just divine and lingers in me long after I hear it.

While in Bangalore last weekend, I noticed this ad of Spice featuring Priyanka Chopra that offered a new feature to its customers - “Say NO to unwanted calls”. I was immediately reminded of the Tamil saying, “kuzhandaiya killittu thottila aatradhu” (literal translation: pinch the child and rock the cradle).

These mobile service providers sell their customer numbers to the marketing agencies for a fortune to facilitate their mass marketing efforts and then they offer their customers the option of filtering such calls, of course for an additional charge. Romba nalla irukku!

I couldn’t wait till the weekend to watch Mozhi as I had read a lot of positive reviews on the movie last week. My expectation from the second movie of producer-director duo of Prakash Raj and Radhamohan was high based on the online reviews.

The combination’s first movie Azhagiya Theeye was well-appreciated for its down-to-earth characters and realistic portrayal by actors who were not stars (Prasanna, Navya Nair). Mozhi is no different, except for the fact that, Radhamohan managed to achieve the same effect even with an established star like Jyothika. Neither was the story new, nor did the screenplay offer any unpredictable twist. Yet the movie was totally engrossing, with balanced doses of humour and emotion. As in his previous movie, Radhamohan’s heroine is more confrontational (though less comical in Mozhi than in Azhagiya…) and his hero, on most occasions, plays the soft pacifier role. Radhamohan’s achievement is that he has managed to bring out the best in each of the actors.

Among the actors, Jyothika’s performance has been talked about a lot. Her facial expressions, especially the quizzical looks when she doesn’t understand what is spoken, are just perfect. I think her greatest problem with acting in Tamil movies was lip-synching to Tamil dialogues. With that not required for this character, she has felt very comfortable emoting and this clearly shows in the movie. However, she could have avoided the Chandramukhi’ish expressions to portray anger. I was half-expecting a grand announcement of a recurrence of MPD towards the climax .

Prithvi Raj has essayed the lead role with such aplomb. I was disappointed when Prakash Raj’s usual hero (and my favourite in recent times), Prasanna, was not chosen for this role, and hoped this choice was only because he wanted to introduce a fresh face. It is also good that they didn’t do away with Prithvi’s “mallu” accent; that added to the humour in some situations. I think Prakash Raj’s inspiration for playing his character was Akash of Dil Chahta Hai played by Aamir Khan. The slapstick and self-deprecating humour employed by both characters are almost similar. The script-writer has infused humour into everyday conversations without making them appear artificial, similar to what Crazy Mohan achieved in the Kamal-Singeetham movies. It is also commendable that Prakash Raj shares screen space with rank new comers and has a good on-screen rapport with them. He also doesn’t try to look or act younger.

Swarnamalya scores with her smile and expressions. I think her theatrical expressions would probably look out of place in some other face, but they make her look cute. While I wondered the reason behind casting Brahmanandam as the comedian, I must say his presence definitely evokes laughter. I was surprised, though, that he found it so difficult to utter Tamil dialogues that his lip movements were awry. Chinna Thirai mega serials, for all their convoluted story lines and heavy dosage of glycerin, should be commended for bringing some good actors to the limelight. The way MJ Bhaskar looks comical initially and stirs up the viewers’ emotions later shows his acting prowess.

On the whole, Mozhi is a very positive film, with some subtle social messages. The film which is hilarious initially, drags a little towards the interval and again before the climax. It could have done without most of the songs that introduce some surrealism to a movie, which the audience can identify with otherwise. Vidyasagar’s music is good in parts, but the back ground scores are somewhat jarring at places (the poor acoustics in Mayajaal was also a culprit). I just hope Radhamohan and PrakashRaj continue to make such wonderful movies.

I think this is an excellent initiative from IIMA. All other business schools must follow this example if they really want to encourage budding entrepreneurs in every batch.

“The institute will introduce, for the first time, sops like placement holidays for students who want to give entrepreneurship a try. This means, students can try their hand at their own ventures, and if they feel the need, they can sit for placements next year or the year after that,” says IIM placement co-ordinator PK Sinha.

At ISB, batch after batch, we find that interests and compulsions become two different things during the course of the year and just before placements. From term 1 to term 6, students pursue their interests, work on business plans for their dream ventures, either for competitions or for courses like the PAEV (Planning An Entrepreneurial Venture) and express interest in working for non-conventional streams like NGO’s. As the placement week approaches, everything else is relegated to the bottom and the need for a good job with an above ISB-average pay packet becomes paramount. The in-campus competition, the seven-figure education loan (and the associated five-figure monthly cash outflow) and the media glare puts students in such pressure that most of them cannot withstand even a week after Day Zero without a job.

In this context and in a society that still doesn’t appreciate that urge to be an entrepreneur, it is great if your institution doesn’t pay a lip service alone to encouraging entrepreneurship, but really stands behind you. I am sure for a person graduating from IIMA, getting back to employment is not a problem at any point of time in his career. It is, thus, the symbolism of this gesture, encouragement exactly at the point he needs, that is appreciable.

This reminds me of my interactions with a school batchmate. Back in 2001, when I graduated from my engineering college and landed on what then seemed like a plum job ( “campus placement” ), I met him during our school’s annual alumni meet. “CEO of a start up”, his business card informed me. While wishing him all the best, I was secretly smug: “What a loser, couldn’t get himself placed in an MNC like I did!”. Fast forward to 2006, I met him again on the same occasion. His firm was doing very well. This time, though, I had so much respect for him. I enquired about his business, funding and what keeps him going and all that. Not because he was successful, but because my MBA had made me realize what an effort it takes to pursue your dreams. Add to it the fact that he had done it when he was just two decades old.

This writeup on the partnership between Kamal and Singeetham is excellent especially because it talks about two of my favourite movies of Kamal - Pesum Padam and Micheal Madana Kamarajan. MMKR is one of my all time favourite movies which I don’t seem to get tired of watching.

Though I like to know a lot about Kamalhaasan through writeups such as these, I think I can never stand that man giving interviews. Almost all of his interviews turn in to sessions of flattery and before long Kamal starts giving his bits of philosophy and what not. I just wish he answered the simple questions directly instead of posing as an intellectual in his interviews.

Ramki has pointed out a news item in the Hindu that talks about the decision to increase in tatkal quota in select trains just ahead of the Railway Budget this year.

1. Why wasn’t this change part of the budget itself (or if it was, why wasn’t it given more publicity)?
2. Isn’t it queer that even in The Hindu, the news about trains starting from Chennai appears in its Madurai section which most readers are bound to miss.

Whilst most of such decisions are made outside the budget, it only serves the respective ministers and the media to fool the gullible into paying more attention to the budgets while these invariably end up being damp squibs.

Times Now

While surfing channels, I have seen glimpses of this particular news channel many times. Almost always, I end up watching its Chief News Editor, Arnab Goswami (a product of Pranoy’s NDTV), either presenting news or conducting interviews (I think Rajdeep also had this problem - he was seen almost round-the-clock in the initial days of CNN-IBN. Fortunately, better sense prevailed and he no longer is seen that frequently). I don’t know who his inspiration is or from whom he learnt his news presentation skills, but I must say he’s the most irritating guy in business. As if he was not sufficient, he also has lady beside him during the prime news who probably thinks she competes with the likes of Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose. I don’t understand why all these news channels irrationally promote these lady journalists when it’s so very apparent they don’t deserve the prominence they get.

Okay, so coming back to Arnab, I think he wants to appear very aggressive, like Karan Thapar, and ends up making his users run for their remote controls. When he and his partner hold these multi-party video conferences, they almost invariably have to cut short the speakers irrespective of whether they speak sense or not and have to disregard the answers that they give if they don’t toe the line of these guys.

Sample this: There was this huge news of a GoAir flight between Bangalore and New Delhi getting delayed by 16 hours or so and they had put together a handful of people - some official from the Civil Aviation, a passenger on that flight among others for this news item. Their first question was to that official who while expressing displeasure at the delay explained to them how the airline had to fly a new crew down from New Delhi due to some law. Arnab cut him short saying he was defending the airline and didn’t allow him continue further. He then asked a question to the passenger to which she answered saying the attitude of the crew and they way they behaved was unpardonable. Arnab asked her who specifically didn’t behave properly with the passengers. The passenger had no other go but to take specific examples of specific people to substantiate her point. Arnab’s co-presenter cut her short telling her naming people didn’t make sense as they were not present to defend themselves (when she was exactly answering her colleague’s question). I was like why do these people agree to be interviewed by this channel.

Jaya TV

This is actually a funny piece I heard in Jaya TV news yesterday. The presenter was mentioning about the Lunar eclipse today when she mentioned that this particular lunar eclipse was very special since it was occuring on a full moon day . Ha ha ha… In their attempt to exaggerate even the mundane events, the editors fail to check on the very basic facts.