Jai Ho for the Slumdog

(Image courtesy: wikipedia)

Slumdog Millionaire has won several awards at the Oscars. Eight to be precise, which includes, Best Music, Best Director and Best Film. I can understand the Best Music award for Jai Ho is yet another gem from Rahman (the music for Roja still lingers in my mind). But Best film?
If you see the films it had competed with
Milk - which sends out a strong message from the gay community,
The curious case of Benjamin Button - a story of an old man growing younger physically but wiser with age
Frost/Nixon - a window to American politics and the Nixon era and
Reader - a movie which won the Best Actress award for Kate Winslet

every one of them has a powerful taut story. What does Slumdog have? The same 'rags to riches' story where the hero walks away with the heroine into the sunset. The actors have done a great job, but is the movie as powerful as its competition? While some say its good timing, to portray a movie that shows optimism and hope in times of recession, there are others who say its mediocre.

Whatever is the opinion, one thing is true. The movie, a simple love story, in an Indian setting, made by an Englishman, nominated for the Best Movie in an American film chamber, has won the award. Truly, cinema can't get more global than this.

p.s - While everyone's besotted with Slumdog, my heart cringed at the story of Pinki, which incidentally won the oscar for the documentary feature. Reminds me of another bizarre physical deformity story which got corrected through surgery.

Koffee with Karan

No, I'm not yet famous and certainly do not have a filmy background to be a guest on this show. Lame joke aside, I happened to see a rerun of an old show with Richard Gere today; someone whom I admire, not for his talents but his Buddhist beliefs. While for most of time, the Hollywood star was a tad too careful, he really opened up on things that were close to his heart - his social work and his Tibetan culture.

One thing that struck a chord was this summarization he made about his beliefs. "No matter who we are or where we live, we all have these vices - anger, jealousy, greed. Whether one is rich and famous or poor, all of us have them and it is these enemies that we have to fight against." - Not exactly those words, but something close to it.

Strong Koffee. Bitter yet true.

Captured moments from Aero Show 2009

Some frozen moments from the Aero Event

Aero Show - the war is over

Its over. The much hyped Aero India 2009. The war between F-16s, Eurofighters, Sukhois, our own HAL produced aircrafts, which showed its might and power in the hazy Bangalore skies, completed their show yesterday.
I went to the show on saturday. I might have missed the high flying Abhinav Bindra and Rakesh Sharma or failed to spot Ratan Tata, but came out dazed by the modern defence aircrafts. The F-16 and Eurofighter 'Typhoon' took my breath away. Though the bigger aircrafts are equally important, 'twas the LCAs that the public loved. The acrobatics of the LCAs was quite like watching a video game. That brought home a sobering thought. The devastations of a video game can also occur in real life - with such modern planes and neo-technology weapons. I certainly hope it does not occur in our lifetime.

While the show was spectacular, the organisers, CII, did not do a good job. I have listed some glaring facts which I hope they read & correct for the next show.

1. Seating - It was pathetic. Many people were sitting on the carpeted ground or out in the sun. Hundreds thronged the runway and as a result the people behind them could not see the landing or take off. It would have been simple if there were adequate chairs and seating area barricaded so that everyone, seated at a safe distance, could have watched the entire show.

2. Public address systems (TV Screens, Speakers) - Again, very Inadequate. There were 2 giant screens which incessantly displayed the inflight meals in Boeing and Kingfisher, while the show was ongoing. Speakers were few and many American announcements could hardly be heard. If you are sitting in the Sun, forget hearing anything.

3. Tickets - I was told at Cafe Coffee day on Devanahalli Road that tickets were available at Gate 1. What I wasn't told was that it was also available at the parking areas too. This resulted in us buying the ticket at Gate 1 and walk down a distance of 3 kilometres in hot sun to reach the place where we found to our dismay that there are no seats to sit. A simple statement that 'Tickets available at each Parking' on the many signboards on the Airport Road would have saved the trek, especially for the elders in the group.

4. Food counters, Toilets - Very insufficient. CII, please do your math and arrange accordingly next time.

5. A handy guide, which explains the day's flights and timings, for the visitors would have helped. Especially since eighty percent of the crowd could not hear anything from the only two speakers that decorated the seating arena.

Cribs aside, the air acrobatics was superb and I enjoyed every moment of it. I'll upload some photos of the show in the next post.

5 Beginner's Links on SEO and Social Media

I spent the whole of yesterday surfing internet job sites for some writing/blogging jobs. Of the job descriptions I liked, many asked the candidate to have 'knowledge of SEO' or suggest 'social media friendly' topics. Now I'm not the professional online writer who keeps up with technologies of the world of social media. I dont use 'twitter' yet and use Facebook only occasionally. But I write and maintain a few blogs and would like some freelance jobs.
So for all those like me, beginners in the world of SEO and Social Media, here are 5 good links to start with.

1. Wikipedia - Just what is SEO and Social Media? The Wikis are generally a great place to learn from scratch. Here are the links to -

SEO
Social Media

2. SEOmoz.org - This is a great place to learn about the world of SEO. However its Jane Copland's article that introduced me social bookmarking sites and the tactics they use to provide relevant topics to their user driven communities.

3. 7 traits of a Social Media friendly website - Self explanatory and very useful.

4. SEOmoz.org - Another article from this website that explains how a Good Title can make or break your submission. I came to this article from a link on the previous one.

5. Lastly, how SEO and Social Media are inter-related. Makes sense. Blogs and Online communities have the content SEO's search in.

Disclaimer: Like I said before, I'm a beginner and this is just my opinion. I'm sure there are many other sites with pretty good basic information on these topics.

Pink chaddis and pub going 'loose' women

Here's an ingenius and satirical reply to Sri Ram Sene's moral policing. Started on the Facebook by Nisha Susan of Bangalore, the response has been so immense all across the country that its become the media's latest news. You can join the group even if you are a male and have no pink chaddis in your wardrobe. Buy some as large as the Sene's political policies and drop it at the collection centres by Feb 11th (Delhi & Mumbai) and 12th(Bangalore).

Judging by the response, if Sri Ram Sene's political aspirations fail, then can always open a lingerie store - thanks to 'pub going loose' women with a sense of humour.

People just want cheap thrills!

It was during an usual 'blame the politicians' conversation at breakfast, when my FIL made this remark. We were discussing about the recent antics of our home grown character, famous overnight and with Shiv Sena kinda politics - Muthalik. After beating up young girls in a pub, his next claim to fame is a threat to all young lovers on the Valentine's day.

Though, I didn't initially want to write about him, my FIL's remark made me think. Do people really want the 'shock and awe' kind of news. Does cheap thrills really excite us? Considering the viewership of Saas Bahu serials - where the young girl is subjected to all kinds of barbs, plots and et all - my guess is we do.

Just think of the news footage by all news channels on the 'pub incident' and its film coverage - my guess is we love such shocks. And those who don't, well they have no choice, with our kind of loud mouthed extremely insensitive media. So men like Raj Thakeray and Muthalik continue to rise. Jai Ho.

The serious side of comic strips

Deccan Herald had been the popular newspaper in the Eighties for Bangalore’s significant English speaking middle class. Now of course, sadly, TOI reigns in the state. Of course some Tamilians and avid news analysts still favour to ‘The Hindu’. The reason I write about these newspapers is not about their news coverage or quality but the comic sections that provide relief from the depressing news on the main sheet.

DH ran (and continues even now) a ‘Blondie’ comic that is almost 1/4^th of a entire page on its Sunday edition, apart from the weekly strips. Like all Indian kids curious about the US, I got to know about a typical American family through ‘Blondie’. The fact that, like any average middle class family in Bangalore, we did not own a car or any have spacious lawn in front of our tiny houses did not deter me in relating to the Dagwood family. Every Sunday, I would read about Dagwood going to work in a car pool, playing golf with Herb or mowing the lawns while Blondie maintained the house and worked as professional caterer. My dream was to have a couch like the one Dagwood slept on.

As we grew up the newspaper price wars started in our state. Our family like many others switched over to TOI. The leisure section in Bangalore Times became my everyday past time. One advantage of TOI is that they have a daily comics section covering many famous comics – Peanuts, Garfield, Calvin and of course Archies. But the picture quality and comic space has shrunk to an incredulous size. Sometimes I read the same comic strip reprinted on consecutive days. Obviously TOI thinks either comics are only for kids who look at the pictures or no one gets past the BT supplements models on its cover page. Though I love the collection, especially the indefatigable Calvin, I hate their utter disregard to the size of the strips. I’ll challenge anyone to a bucketful of icecream if they can read the Denis comic strip without squinting their eyes. I don’t mind reading only one comic on a Sunday that would extend to half a page.

Sometimes I feel, we need an Indian newspaper that dedicates an entire sheet towards cartoons. After all, everyone loves a laugh right? My internet search on the war of news publishers with comic space led me to Wikipedia. This is what Wiki says –

“Main article: Sunday strip

Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips, such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Later strips, such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates, were usually only half that size, with two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the Chicago Daily News. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller, to save the expense of printing so many color pages. The last full-page comic strip was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Today, most Sunday strips are smaller than the daily strips of the 1930s.“

I guess in the coming days, the section might shrink further or worse, will be published only in the internet edition. Its time the money making publishing firms shrunk some ad space for our beloved cartoons, isn’t it?