Very few hindi movies would give an etchy feeling. A feeling of darkness and gloom around the main character. Or, portray a leading character who is a loser in every sense and yet you cannot determine whether you should sympathize or hate the character. Dev D is one such dark experience.
The Plot: The basic plot of the movie is an overkilled Dev Das story. However, this movie is not an entire copy of the existing Dev Das story. Although the plot involves Dev Das rejecting Paro's proposal to marry her and then suffering at a later stage after realizing that he was wrong, there are major variations from the original Dev Das saga of love and betrayal. Anurag Basu has used his imagination and directorial independence to the fullest.
Difference from Previous Movies: One major difference in Dev D from its predecessors is the amount of lust and seduction that is portrayed in the movie. The independence with which the characters in the movie are shown to express their desires in the movie gives you a quesy feeling. This is one of the factors that give the movie a very dark aura. Chunni babu is a pimp persofied and Chandramukhi is a tart to the core.
Loop holes: The moment when Dev Das rejects Paro's proposal seems very sudden and you don't expect it to come at that given moment. One reason for this is that enough time was not dedicated to portray the relationship betwen Paro and Dev D. As a result, you tend to get the feeling that major USP of the movie was to make the audience feel for Dev Das by showing him suffer for major part of the movie.
Performances: Full marks should go to Abhay Deol for his performance in Dev D. In contrast to previous Dev Das movies where Dev Das is shown to deliver very heavy and at times funny (over-emotional) dialogues, Abhay Deol hardly has any dialogues. Yet, his screen presence and performance do the trick. New comer Kalki Koechlin does total justice to her character and deserves accolades for her performance. Mahi Gill as Paro also does well, but does not have enough screen presence to leave an impact.
To Sum Up: To summarize, Dev D is an experiment with the age-old Dev Das saga. However, it is very different from its predecessors. Hence, it is worth watching atleast once. But, please don't expect to come out smiling after the movie. It is a dark movie and a very different from typical Bollywood love stories.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A Slumdog's Fairytale
Modern-day fantasy feel-good tales are hard to find. And, more so, in Indian context. Most movies with a perrenial feel-good factor associated with them turn out to be based on an American loser guy (an underdog) who wins a beautiful gal's heart and they kiss to end the movie. Well, Slumdog Millionaire is different. Not because it involves an Indian slumdog kissing to end the movie, but because it makes you believe in a over-hypothetical tale of Jamal.
The movie is based on how a Mumbai's Slum boy, Jamal becomes a millionaire overnight by winning the T.V. Game Show: "Who wants to be a millionaire?" The entire movie shows how Jamal's life revolves around the 15 questions asked in the game show. It is a matter of high coincidence and mostly beyond the realms of logic that despite not studying, Jamal is able to answer these questions only on the basis of his experience in life. But, when watching the movie, you don't realize this loop hole and cheer from your heart for Jamal to win the money and his love. The movie is fast-paced and gives you enough room to feel close to the characters and their lives.
The story presents the dark side of Mumbai and some parts of India in a light-hearted way. This has also been a point of criticism of the movie. It presents only the negative side of the Maximum City and India. Although most of it is truth, but that is not real Mumbai or India.
Best Scene: Young Jamal giving a $100 bill to a friend whose one eye has been removed by the begging crooks running the begging nexus.
Background score: AR Rahman rocks in Slumdog Millionaire. Three scores might take your heart away: The melody when Salim and Jamal go to a red-light section of Mumbai to find Latika (Ringa Ringa), The Latika's Theme, and can't miss out - Jai Ho.
People might say that Slumdog Millionaire is a sterotypical story like many old bollywood movies. However, what they are missing out on is the way the movie is presented and directed. The movie is so beautifully directed that you start vouging for characters in the movie. I would give Slumdog Millionaire 8 out of 10. It is not the best movie of the year, but one of those that you cannot missout.
The movie is based on how a Mumbai's Slum boy, Jamal becomes a millionaire overnight by winning the T.V. Game Show: "Who wants to be a millionaire?" The entire movie shows how Jamal's life revolves around the 15 questions asked in the game show. It is a matter of high coincidence and mostly beyond the realms of logic that despite not studying, Jamal is able to answer these questions only on the basis of his experience in life. But, when watching the movie, you don't realize this loop hole and cheer from your heart for Jamal to win the money and his love. The movie is fast-paced and gives you enough room to feel close to the characters and their lives.
The story presents the dark side of Mumbai and some parts of India in a light-hearted way. This has also been a point of criticism of the movie. It presents only the negative side of the Maximum City and India. Although most of it is truth, but that is not real Mumbai or India.
Best Scene: Young Jamal giving a $100 bill to a friend whose one eye has been removed by the begging crooks running the begging nexus.
Background score: AR Rahman rocks in Slumdog Millionaire. Three scores might take your heart away: The melody when Salim and Jamal go to a red-light section of Mumbai to find Latika (Ringa Ringa), The Latika's Theme, and can't miss out - Jai Ho.
People might say that Slumdog Millionaire is a sterotypical story like many old bollywood movies. However, what they are missing out on is the way the movie is presented and directed. The movie is so beautifully directed that you start vouging for characters in the movie. I would give Slumdog Millionaire 8 out of 10. It is not the best movie of the year, but one of those that you cannot missout.
Monday, August 10, 2009
XLRI Jamshedpur's PGCBM Course
I've completed my course in June 2009 and am awaiting results.
The Begining
I was looking for some management education that would add value to my overal profile while I continue to work. So, I began a mission to review each executive management course available in Mumbai, and also in IIMs. From the options available, XLRI's PGCBM seemed the best as:
- It had more coverage compared to similar courses offered by IIMs
- The duration was more than similar courses offered by IIMs
- It had lectures and contact programs (though they are based on Real-time Video Conferencing)
- XLRI's brand value in the industry
- I fitted into their admission criteria
The Course
The PGCBM Course is offered by two different vendors:
- Reliance Communications: The courses are offered at Reliance Communication's select Web Worlds across India. The training room consists of a table and a large LCD T.V. to display the instructor. The sound and video quality are acceptable. You are allowed to interact with the instructors at any given time just like normal clarssrooms. I used this platform to complete the training.
- Hughes Telecom: Hughes also offers a similar platform, but their training rooms comprise a dedicated computer for each student.
Overall the course is good and will add on to your decision-making knowledge. However, you cannot expect to get a new Management Job based on the course unless you are presently in a managerial role. You may not get an immediate professional edge, but in the long run it is a good choice.
During my batch, the course duration was 16 months, which has now been reduced to 12 months. As a result, the number of sessions allocated for each subject might have been also reduced. So, I can't comment much on the knowledge and discussions in the new curricullum, but during my batch, it was certainally a nice value add.
Overall, go for the course iff your present forte is long-term knowledge and value add and not immediate benefit.
Additional Information
For additional information, visit XLRI's Satellite Course home page.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Overcoming Cross-selling Made by Bank Staff
Privatization in the Indian Banking Industry has revolutionized the financial markets. In the previous decade, our Banking was limited to nationalized banks. Although the service levels were below par and paper work required long processing time, life and banking were simple. However, with the arrival of private banks, your banking might have become simpler, but banking has become riskier. One of the main factors for it is: Cross Selling made by banks' staff. The act of that of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer is called as cross selling.
Why not to blindly trust a bank's staff?
As it is said "Neve
r judge a book by its cover," the same way you should never make decisions on any investments based on the presentation given by the banking staff. However, it requires significant self discipline and keenness to research on the offer in which you are investing your money. In addition, you need to overcome the human tendency to easily accept advice from confident individuals who might not be experts. That is, we humans, tend to accept advice of individuals who are not experts on the topic of discussion, but present their advice in confidently.
For example, consider that you want to invest in a pension scheme. To determine which bank offers the best pension scheme, you visit four banks in your vicinity. In the banks, you meet four different advisers, A, B, C, and D. If B is the most confident adviser, then you are more likely invest in adviser B's bank (provided the schemes in other banks are not significantly different).
This is also reflected in a research conducted at Emory University. During that research, participants were asked to make a series of financial choices between a certain investment and a lottery. Choices were made in two conditions.
Behavioral results showed participant inclination towards choosing the option suggested by the experts. Further inclination was witnessed towards suggestions made by more confident advisers.
So, if you were to visit the banks (as given in the example ), you would not be aware of the level of expertise of the adviser. Hence, your brain maps the information such that a higher confidence level indicates a greater expertise. However, the confidence might not be the only indicator of a person's expertise. An individual might be parroting a script that they could have learned and thus fake confidence.
So how should you make your decision?
Every time you visit a bank (especially private banks), you are approached by various agents. They will present various schemes, credit cards, or other offers to you. Beware! Don't fall for their lucrative offers without taking some time to ponder over the schemes. In addition, even if you inquire about a Life Insurance, they would make attempts to sell their Mediclaim, Pension Schemes, and god knows if they would come up with something like a Funeral Scheme that would take care of all your funeral expenses and give you an excellent farewell from the world. :-)
While making a decision about investing with banks and other financial institutions:
Finally, take the pain of reading each and every line on the offer document. It has very critical information related to the fees and charges associated with investment schemes. In the name of service, bankers just ask us to sign the forms on certain marked places. However, never fall into such a trap. Be careful. It is your hard-earned money that you are giving someone to keep. If you don't care about the money, then be sure to meet me. I could do with some money that you don't need. :-)
Do leave a comment :-)
Lokesh
Why not to blindly trust a bank's staff?
As it is said "Neve
r judge a book by its cover," the same way you should never make decisions on any investments based on the presentation given by the banking staff. However, it requires significant self discipline and keenness to research on the offer in which you are investing your money. In addition, you need to overcome the human tendency to easily accept advice from confident individuals who might not be experts. That is, we humans, tend to accept advice of individuals who are not experts on the topic of discussion, but present their advice in confidently.For example, consider that you want to invest in a pension scheme. To determine which bank offers the best pension scheme, you visit four banks in your vicinity. In the banks, you meet four different advisers, A, B, C, and D. If B is the most confident adviser, then you are more likely invest in adviser B's bank (provided the schemes in other banks are not significantly different).
This is also reflected in a research conducted at Emory University. During that research, participants were asked to make a series of financial choices between a certain investment and a lottery. Choices were made in two conditions.
- During the first condition, participants were shown advices from experts
- During the second condition, no advice was displayed
Behavioral results showed participant inclination towards choosing the option suggested by the experts. Further inclination was witnessed towards suggestions made by more confident advisers.
So, if you were to visit the banks (as given in the example ), you would not be aware of the level of expertise of the adviser. Hence, your brain maps the information such that a higher confidence level indicates a greater expertise. However, the confidence might not be the only indicator of a person's expertise. An individual might be parroting a script that they could have learned and thus fake confidence.
So how should you make your decision?
Every time you visit a bank (especially private banks), you are approached by various agents. They will present various schemes, credit cards, or other offers to you. Beware! Don't fall for their lucrative offers without taking some time to ponder over the schemes. In addition, even if you inquire about a Life Insurance, they would make attempts to sell their Mediclaim, Pension Schemes, and god knows if they would come up with something like a Funeral Scheme that would take care of all your funeral expenses and give you an excellent farewell from the world. :-)
While making a decision about investing with banks and other financial institutions:
- Ensure that you don't blindly follow the bankers' suggestions. It is their job to win you as a customer so they might not have your interest at heart.
- Be selfish enough to determine what's best for you.
- Get off the couch and use Google to compare various schemes offered by different banks and investment firms.
- Consult friends who have made similar investments.
- Think over several options for at least a day. Do not make a decision right then and there.
- Use various scoring models to determine where each scheme stands against each other.
- Assess your present and future liquidity requirements. Investments are a liability while you make payments for them. As a result, if you need to maintain high amount of liquidity in your account for personal reasons, do not invest in a high-payment investment option. If you do so, you might end up seeking personal loan to make committed payments into your investment schemes.
Finally, take the pain of reading each and every line on the offer document. It has very critical information related to the fees and charges associated with investment schemes. In the name of service, bankers just ask us to sign the forms on certain marked places. However, never fall into such a trap. Be careful. It is your hard-earned money that you are giving someone to keep. If you don't care about the money, then be sure to meet me. I could do with some money that you don't need. :-)
Do leave a comment :-)
Lokesh
Friday, August 7, 2009
Swine Flu and Terrorism
Foreword: I've made an attempt to analyze the type of media coverage given to Swine Flu and Terrorism with the aid of some behavoral economic aspects. Comments welcome.
**********************************************************
On most news channels in India, the Swine Flu outbreak has taken away the spotlight from haunted houses, (so-called) saints with divine powers, or some kids falling in pot holes. This is especially true for some Hindi news channels. Additionally, the news papers are performing an excellent support role in making Swine Flu Panademic à (Panic + Epidemic). Some of you might have asked the question: Why such a hype around it?
Well, this type of special coverage by media is true not only in this case, but also in several other trivial cases like:
Why does the electronic media cover such, seemingly, trivial and queer topics during prime time?
The answer is Target Rating Point (TRP). Such stories might be queer to you, but are enjoyed by the masses. TV channels show what audience wants to see. And, what the audience views, sells like hot cake among the companies wanting to buy air time for advertising.
People want to view news about their favorite stars and hence it is understandable that they are keen to view prime time news about their idols. However, why would someone want to see news that overkills swine flu and terrorist plots?
The simple answer would be: both things are likely to take peoples’ lives; hence, everyone is inquisitive to know more about them. Rationally, the grave consequences of both the items are unknown. They send a sense of fear among the masses, which leads the news channels to over killing their coverage. Additionally, in case of terrorism, it can lead to a highly unpredictable and dreaded way of dying. However, collectively observing the number of deaths due to these threats, I can say that more number of people die because of poverty, accidents, AIDS, or natural death.
Well, if more people die off these, then why don’t the news media provide an extensive coverage to these causes of death? Is it because these causes of death are not as dramatic as terrorism, which involves movie-like blasts and gun fire (however most people are on the receiving/undeserving end)? Or, is it because the minds of people are now used to these threats and they are keener about knowing new things.
The answer to these questions can be given with the aid of neophobic human nature and relativism.
Neophobia is the fear of something new. Most living things are neophobic. Before the past decade, terrorism had not touched our shores so openly. It was limited to some regions of the country. Hence, its present widespread nature across the world is new and has stimulated the neophobic human nature. The neophobhic nature along with the human tendency to relate the present with the past has coupled the fear of terrorism and swine flu among the masses. However, in case of terrorism, the dramatic, cruel, and sudden nature of death has aided in propagating terror among people.
One very significant and grave consequence of relativist psychology with terrorism is associating people of one particular community with terrorism. Few fools across communities are propagating false agendas that we need to ignore and protest in every way possible.
What I’d like to change?
Instead of being scared or scaring others by these phenomenons, what we need to address is to understand their root causes, which is not an easy task. Specifically in case of terrorism, the root cause analysis is a must.
Terrorist organizations’ activities are extortions with no clear demands. They want to get things done in a way that will never reap any results. They are selling fear/terror that we must not buy and thus aid in derailing their campaign.
In case of Swine Flu, we should not pay much heed to the panademic forte of the news channels, but try to learn how to avoid and thus limit swine flu. We must not buy the panicky stories of news channels. Google is available for all the basic information that we need to avoid the spread of disease.
**********************************************************
On most news channels in India, the Swine Flu outbreak has taken away the spotlight from haunted houses, (so-called) saints with divine powers, or some kids falling in pot holes. This is especially true for some Hindi news channels. Additionally, the news papers are performing an excellent support role in making Swine Flu Panademic à (Panic + Epidemic). Some of you might have asked the question: Why such a hype around it?
Well, this type of special coverage by media is true not only in this case, but also in several other trivial cases like:
- Rakhi Sawant’s Swamvar (the most recent one)
- Amitabh Bachan feeling cold
- Conspiracy theories about Taliban
- Fictional terror plot discussions
- Making of stupid movies, OR
- Finally, 30 minute specials on Obscenity in a Bollywood movie (Censor Board needs to review these special prime time telecasts J)
Why does the electronic media cover such, seemingly, trivial and queer topics during prime time?
The answer is Target Rating Point (TRP). Such stories might be queer to you, but are enjoyed by the masses. TV channels show what audience wants to see. And, what the audience views, sells like hot cake among the companies wanting to buy air time for advertising.
People want to view news about their favorite stars and hence it is understandable that they are keen to view prime time news about their idols. However, why would someone want to see news that overkills swine flu and terrorist plots?
The simple answer would be: both things are likely to take peoples’ lives; hence, everyone is inquisitive to know more about them. Rationally, the grave consequences of both the items are unknown. They send a sense of fear among the masses, which leads the news channels to over killing their coverage. Additionally, in case of terrorism, it can lead to a highly unpredictable and dreaded way of dying. However, collectively observing the number of deaths due to these threats, I can say that more number of people die because of poverty, accidents, AIDS, or natural death.
Well, if more people die off these, then why don’t the news media provide an extensive coverage to these causes of death? Is it because these causes of death are not as dramatic as terrorism, which involves movie-like blasts and gun fire (however most people are on the receiving/undeserving end)? Or, is it because the minds of people are now used to these threats and they are keener about knowing new things.
The answer to these questions can be given with the aid of neophobic human nature and relativism.
Neophobia is the fear of something new. Most living things are neophobic. Before the past decade, terrorism had not touched our shores so openly. It was limited to some regions of the country. Hence, its present widespread nature across the world is new and has stimulated the neophobic human nature. The neophobhic nature along with the human tendency to relate the present with the past has coupled the fear of terrorism and swine flu among the masses. However, in case of terrorism, the dramatic, cruel, and sudden nature of death has aided in propagating terror among people.
One very significant and grave consequence of relativist psychology with terrorism is associating people of one particular community with terrorism. Few fools across communities are propagating false agendas that we need to ignore and protest in every way possible.
What I’d like to change?
Instead of being scared or scaring others by these phenomenons, what we need to address is to understand their root causes, which is not an easy task. Specifically in case of terrorism, the root cause analysis is a must.
Terrorist organizations’ activities are extortions with no clear demands. They want to get things done in a way that will never reap any results. They are selling fear/terror that we must not buy and thus aid in derailing their campaign.
In case of Swine Flu, we should not pay much heed to the panademic forte of the news channels, but try to learn how to avoid and thus limit swine flu. We must not buy the panicky stories of news channels. Google is available for all the basic information that we need to avoid the spread of disease.
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