Marriage.java

Futurisk Trading Limited

Futurisk Trading Limited ,as a part of the name suggests, will deal with Futures Trading and as the other part reveals, will be a high risk venture. What is so significant about that, some may ask, as all futures trading is high risk. What makes this more riskier than even oil trading is that this deals with MPs of our country. (For some strange reason, deals and our MPs can never be too far away,even in a simple sentence.)

This idea stuck me after watching the stocks ("rates") of our MPs move to never before seen high of 25 crores before plummeting down to a stupefying low of 3 crores. What if there was an institution to take advantage of this? Just imagine how, if by chance, a company had seen this coming and off loaded its MPs just in time. 22 crores in a matter of a few hours is amazing money to make.

What makes this such an intriguing business is that unlike other futures trading commodities, there is no proper information stream to base your decisions on. In fact you'd have to look at at least three or four different sources to get the complete picture. And the fascinating aspect is that each MP is a totally different entity. It is not like the Brent North Sea crude and the light sweet crude, which are mere divisions and are driven by the same forces. For instance while one MP would be satisfied with a couple of crores as pocket money, others might insist on a cabinet berth and one or two might have the audacity and power to insist on a CM berth. Of course, since it becomes difficult to quantify such aspirations the company will only strictly deal with those MPs who settle for cash.

While discussing this idea with a couple of people, I got a rather cold response. My brother in fact totally dismissed it by saying this is nothing new and that there is major betting going on anyways in related matters. I figured that in that precise point lies the beauty of my plan. Why not streamline all this trading and make it official so that more people can participate in it. It will give us all a chance to make money from our MPs . Isn't it time that we got at least something from electing these people to power.

So next time you have a convict elected to the Parliament do not sulk and despair at the direction in which our democracy is heading. Instead, be sure that when the time comes for some voting in the Parliament, these are the very people who would figure prominently in the futures trading circuit. And if you want to know whom to put your money on keep watching this space.

Rock On!! Feel good sounds good.

If you live in a city on the shore, you'll understand the significance of some time on the beach. It allows you to breathe in some much needed fresh air and gives you time to stare at the sea reminiscing about the past. How many ever times you go to the beach, even though you may have the same surroundings and know what to expect it is still a refreshing experience each time. Rock On is a movie which provides for such an experience.

Rock On!! is the story of the ups and downs of the music band band Magik and the people associated with it. Very well written and almost perfectly executed by Abishek Kapoor, through its four lead characters Joe(Arjun Rampal), Rob(Luke Kenny), KD(Purab Kohli ) and Adi(Farhan Akhtar) he showcases four different paths that people take when their college dreams are shattered. Rob: Though he broods about how life could have been, ,he ends up working in a field which is connected to music and derives some satisfaction from that. Joe: A man who refuses to compromise on his first love and despite growing economic difficulties doesn't want a job which demeans what he loves. A glowing example of the everyday man, Adi as the individual who compromises in order to lead a materialistically comfortable life, while attempting to shut out the past from his life. And KD is shown to be the light hearted fellow, whose attempt at normal life includes messing up orders in his family business and trying to have a blast whenever he can.

Apart from these four "leads" there are a couple of other characters, the wives of two of the men involved, who get a lot of screen time and importance, something which does not usually happen. Debbie(Shahana Goswami) as Joe's wife plays the wife who's worried nuts about their son and the growing economic problems and pesters Joe to find a well paying job, even if it means under utilizing his talent and hurting his musician ego. She also hides within herself the agony and the pain in the manner in which Magik was disbanded and Joe was treated in that particular phase. A very tricky character to be played and one which if played improperly would have made her irritating. However, she carries off the role in a manner in which Debbie evokes more sympathy than irritation. Hats off to her for the wonderful performance. Sakshi(Prachi Desai) is possibly burdened with the most one dimensional character of the movie and is forced to play a sweety sweety wife who wants her husband to enjoy life and be emotionally more contented. A reasonably easier part to play and creditably played without any flaws.

Being a mini musical, it is only obvious that music becomes a character in the movie and Shankar, Ehsan and Loy certainly make it a part to remember with mostly cheerful and at times soulful tunes. They have carried a heavy burden and have succeeded with elan.

Full of little moments and deft touches, the movie which can be considered a little slow by commercial standards, manages to hold on to the viewer's attention through out. Wonderfully underplayed performances by Arjun Rampal and Luke Kenny play perfect foil to the more complex character of Farhan Akhtar and the witty Purab Kohli. All four of these actors have given their characters a dignity and a life like feel to it and this is possibly the biggest success of the movie. A special word of mention to Farhan Akhtar, who has proved he's as good in front of the camera as he's behind it. He plays two totally different characters in the movie, one who gives a soul to his songs and the other who lives his life without one, and he lends much credibility to both the roles.

The stand out feature of the movie is its dialogues,very natural and meaning more than what is said. The lines of each of the actors are written in step with the kind of characterization and nowhere do you find any character mouthing lines which seem to be forced.

Though saddled with a few commercial compulsions which prevent it from being a full fledged music movie, Rock On still succeeds in making the viewer move and feel with the characters and ensures that this lingers on after the viewer has left the cinema hall.

Water water everywhere..

What do people do when the rains are so bad that their car parks get flooded? This. Or atleast this is what I saw some one doing.



Additional information: The road in question is already full of slush and the part of the road where this water was "released" was perhaps the only walkable stretch.

Note: This is the author's first attempt at doing anything (useful) on image editors and he therefore seeks refuge from disparaging, and therefore discouraging comments on the image part of the blog.

End of an ad age.

Disclaimer: The characters who form a part of the following blog are entirely non-fictional, though the events associated with them are not. The author claims protection against any possible defamation suits by claiming that all this is in good humor (hopefully).

Boost has decided that it would pull out of its deal with Sachin Tendulkar because the costs involved were getting unmanageable for them. No, Sachin did not hike his fee. (those days are either in the pre-Mendis era or when Kalki decides to pay, possibly one of the longest anticipated visits, to our part of the universe) The reason as an "inside, highly placed, credible source who does not wish to be named" put it was because of the spiralling costs in their Countdown to 11954 campaign.

In all its eagerness to be associated with the record breaking event, Boost had at the start of the Sri Lanka series decided that on some of the tv channels there will be a sort of a counter which would display the number of runs that the Little Master had to get to cross Lara's milestone. Little did they know they'd have to run the campaign for a couple of months rather than the couple of innings they had hoped for. The source (the same one as above, so i'll spare the adjectives) also suggested that, if only Tendulkar had let them know his intent of breaking the record at home against the best team in the world they would have waited before launching the campaign.

Saurav Ganguly meanwhile has approached Pepsi and asked them to include him back in their list of brand ambassadors. In fact he's offered to do it for free but has made just one request in return. He wants to shoot an ad similar to the "sympity" raising one a couple of years back, where the king of come backs is shown almost fighting back tears as he pleads the nation and the selectors to give him one more chance. Pepsi have reluctantly agreed.

This time however, plans are on to shoot the ad at the old home of cricket where Dada will be seen practicing his off side magical shots on one side of the screen and similar strokes from his still awe inspiring debut century are shown on the other. This is being described as an attempt to remind the selectors,and more importantly himself of what he is/was(choice left to reader depending on whether he/she is Bengali or not) capable of. One factor which they seem to have not taken note of is that Star Cricket has already shown that innings N-1 times where N is k/0. So the moment an image from the match comes up they will switch channels at speeds = k*speed of light (k > 0).

In the meanwhile,Kissan have stated that they are not very happy with the way Dravid has associated himself with their brand of late. They say that Dravid seems to be projecting an image of being stuck in a jam, the traffic variety. On the one hand, run traffic has stopped and on the other the pedestrian signal seems to be always green,explaining why he's almost always walking to and from the pavilion.

However, all is not lost for The Wall. Gillete have expressed a keen interest in extending their contract with him. A senior management official was quoted as saying "We have always prided ourselves on being able to provide clean and close shaves. One just has to watch the replays of his recent knocks and the number of close shaves that he has had will be very much evident. And ya, there are no cuts at all. It matters little though that instead of a clean shave, he's geting himself clean bowled more often these days."

After all, there seems light at the end of the tunnel, the one in which Indian batting stars seem to have gotten derailed right in the middle of.

Sensation and Insensitivity

July 2004 : Fire rages in a Kumbakonam School and 100 odd children are, for the sake of avoiding a more gruesome word, burnt to death.

Cut to August 2008: A fake alarm of a landslide triggers, at a temple in Himachal Pradesh, a slide of humans instead and in the ensuing stampede 140 people are crushed to death.

Apart from being tragedies which evoked both anger at the administration and sympathy in a large scale for the victims, these two and many more such tragedies share another common thread. Highly insensitive reporting by the media all in the effort to sensationalize these events. The photographs in the leading dailies of our nation in addition to presenting a sad story also cut a sorry picture. For instance, The Hindu, a supposedly more conservative paper , had a dozen or so pictures of charred remains of the victims, totally distraught kin and more pictures of charred bodies splashed all across their back page . The recent stampede ensured Times of India had something other than scantily clad women to feature on their front page. What about a photo showing dozens of dead bodies instead?? Who cares as long it creates an impact.

The electronic media (television primarily) aren't exactly finger licking kids either in this respect. The most disturbing visuals were aired recently after the Kabul bombings. It showed the son of the slain individual performing the last rites of his father. How more insensitive can the media get? I am not risking my stakes at any level because just as you think reporting has reached a nadir they dig down even further. If only they dug so deep for oil across the world, we wouldn't be bothered about rising fuel prices atleast. In the recent past we have seen so many instances when the kith and kin of victims of crime are made to come on camera and then made to answer questions which only intensify the pain and sufering they undergo. Would it be asking for too much to ask the media to avoid such sound bytes?

Even a couple of days back, in one of the news channels coverage of killings in an ashram they had a parent of one of the kids sent there wailing on camera for the whole nation to see. It is one thing if someone suddenly starts weeping uncontrollably when on air and totally another when the camera is not taken off the faces of these individuals but instead, kept on them long enough, that it gets highly revolting. This is not a one off incident but something which has been happening with unfailing regularity on our news circuits. The editors and correspondents who are behind such coverage would have a great alternate career as script writers for the K series of soaps. They realize the impact that tears have in living rooms across the country.

It wouldn't be a crime to say that the beheading videos that various terrorist organizations upload on their websites are better than the kind of news items the media carries. After all when you enter the site you are aware of what you will be viewing. Imagine a 15 year old who is an avid sports page fan of The Hindu, eager to get his fill of the happenings in the world of sports first thing in the morning, turning to the last page and finding photographs of burnt bodies instead. What is the impact that it will have on these impressionable young minds. Or lets consider even a 65 year old who's seen everything in life looking at those pictures. He is not likely to be too visually impressed either. What is the point of using such photographs? Everyone knows that a tragedy has happened but not everyone would like to chew their morning breakfast looking at these photographs.

What is even more saddening is that in a decade when two of the most event defining pictures have been published in our national dailies such disturbing photographs and videos are starting to form a staple ingredient. Lets take for example the now timeless picture of that Ahmedabad tailor, terror and fear evident in every sinew of his face, pleading to be left alone, during the Gujarat riots a few years back. The photograph did not contain any images of weapons, dead bodies or blood. It told a story. In fact it did much more than that. It created an impact. It was worth a thousand editorials. The other photograph in focus is the award winning picture taken in the aftermath of the Tsunami which took more than one lakh victims. It wasn't a picture of strewn bodies. It contained just one woman who was dealing with the loss of her loved ones. It does contradict what I said about grieving images being disturbing. But this one was different. It had a certain raw appeal about it. Like the Gujarat riot picture, it put the whole Tsunami in perpective with just a single picture. The loss that the victims kin feel, the loneliness and the despair, everything was so effectively conveyed in just this one click of the camera.

When such amazing works are possible in the most disturbing situations and in tragedies of such magnitude, why can't the media work towards bringing a more cultured rather than sensational approach to stories of human suffering? Are TRPs and number of copies sold the only measure of success for a media organization? In the information era when the power of the media is ever increasing, it should try to break information barriers than be mere breaking news tools, and more importantly try to be more sensitive than sensational.

Hair raising issues

A sachet of Head and Shoulders which I purchased a couple of weeks back threw me a pleasant surprise.On the cover was written the brand name in three local Indian languages, Hindi, Tamizh and another language which I couldn't quite decipher. Of course being a Tamilian it gave me some sense of satisfaction that fellow citizens of my state were such an important customer base for a hygiene related product. Maybe the next time I sit in a local bus, I don't have to worry about how many sweaty heads before me polluted the seat with the latest lice varieties.

However this smug satisfaction was to be short lived, and instead a totally different line of thought set in when I bought the same company's shampoo bottle instead. The first thing I did after I set my eyes on the bottle was of course to check whether the bottle also had writing in the Indian languages. On the contrary , this one had used just one language, English. Did this mean that the shampoo bottle and the shampoo sachet are intended for a totally different customer base? Was it possible that the shampoo bottles were more used by the middle and upper middle classes who were expected to know English, while the sachets were primarily used by people from the lower strata of the economy. If so, it presents a rather interesting insight into the spending patterns of our society.

As we go up the income classes we find that people prefer to spend more in bulk, while in the lower levels people would prefer to buy short term even though if they were to buy the bottle they would only benefit in the long run. Is it got to do with something as complex as the mind set that your growing up environment develops in you, or does it come down to something more basic as the amount of cash people have in hand at any given point of time. Also, given that there is a section of people who buy only sachets and not bottles, do they buy them often and therefore at the end of the day their frequency of washing their hair is comparable with those who buy bottles. If that were to be the case, the country's upper classes would have to give up their self righteous claims of being more hygiene conscious just because of their placing in the society.

However one thing which puzzles me is that why would the company not use the local languages even on their bottles. For one I am sure that doing so will help them to connect better with their Indian customers, however few they might be in comparison to the sachet users. For if there is one thing that companies have learnt over a long period of time in history, it is that the more you appeal to the local populace, the more your chances of success.