The India of the middle class

Beyond the vastness of Mumbai, Delhi, and Delhi lies an India that has defied explanation. People with more sense than me have tried and failed to fix a definition to this India. This India has sometimes shown its face when a small town Indian wins a medal at a sporting event or gets selected for the Cricket team. However this India is largely ignored by the people who are hard at grind in the so called metros. This India reaches out and kicks you in the butt when you step outside the confines of a sealed, artificially cooled cab or the hotel room or the centrally fumigated office block.

That India is still outraged by the scams, the people are essentially decent and live in the mortal fear of losing their dignity. That India gets embarrassed when faced with the guy behind the counter at a Gloria Jeans Coffee shop who asks them what kind of coffee they want. Or the India that shares a idli platter because they cannot fathom why 3 idlis and 5 varieties of chutney would cost Rs 90 when they get the same for Rs 15 back home.

My dad ran away from home to escape a hopeless existence in communist Kerala in 1960s to first Mumbai and then settled down in Pune. He married, had us kids and died a peaceful death. He never adjusted to the big city living, never could understand why we did not want jobs in TELCO or why we were so restless. He I suspect was suspicious of the kind of work me and my sis did at companies that were not names he recognized.

India of the middle class is now threatened.


___________________________________



My body is somewhere at 8 am in the morning while I am physically at 2 15 in the afternoon. That is the effect of waking up at 3 am to catch at 6 am flight. You might think I am crazy to reach the airport at 4 15 am. I love reaching early and having the airport to myself. It allows me to slow down and enjoy my coffee.

___________________________________


Here is something I loved reading : Acute Angle by R Sukumar of Mint

I however disagree with R Sukumar when he says that the easiest way to obfuscate the issue of corruption in governance is to highlight corruption in other spheres, and journalists and bankers, the protagonists of this week’s scam, are soft targets.

My take is that finally the murk is out in the open. Many of us suspected all along what the tapes have shown. India is fast becoming like Russia where a few have all the powers. I just wish someone would do a wikileak on all the scams. It would be easy, am sure all the information is available for a price.

three cities, two movies and one funeral later

In the last 20 days since my last blog post I have driven down to Pune twice, been to Hyderabad and generally moped around Bombay / Mumbai.

Driving down to Pune is like planning to go to war for me. One has to decide the exact time and the route to be able to make it to Pune or back in less than two and a half hours. I start at 6 am mostly and drive like my tail is on fire before the road hogs get onto the roads and cross into Pune by 8 30 in time for breakfast.

Lately however I have been tempted by the Misal Pav served at the Expressway pit stop. Its oily, spicy, acidity inducing and makes me swear that I will never eat it again. I give in to temptation each time. Compared to the MacD and the CCD stuff this is potent, earthy stuff.

____________________________________

My daughter missed Diwali again this year. In her 4 and half years we have seen a death every year. So technically she had celebrated just once when she was a year old. I have promised her that the next year she will be allowed to do what she wants and she will get to do bang bang with fire even if someone else kicks the bucket in the family.

On the way to Pune this year, I was informed about the death of a close relative. Diwali day was spent at the home of the uncle in the company of people I do not really know. It seems I look too alien to be a Malayali and too snooty for people to strike up a conversation. So I sat or stood or leaned around the cars and the chairs and the walls calling people, informing them, arranging for the food for the family.

The food was a very simple gruel of rice accompanied by a vegetable without any spice. The only concession was the mango pickle served as an after thought. Our plan was to have Diwali lunch at home with my in laws. Almost grudgingly I spooned a mouthful and it was brilliant. Maybe it was the ambience, maybe it has to do with the somber atmosphere around the place - death has a way of stupefying people affected. The gruel humbled me, it was nourishing and  filling. It did not make me feel sleepy like the festive food would have. I almost never attend events in my family. I cannot bear the politicking and the need for social graces. But this year I have mellowed down to allow people to talk to me. And connect.

____________________________________

26 years ago I used to live in an areas known as Dr Amberkar Colony in Pune. It was built for the followers of the original reformer of India. My neighbours we all Buddhists and most ceremonies started with Dhammam Sharanam Gacchami - the real meaning of which was understood by me much much later. This Diwali, the day after the funeral I travelled back in time. Drove along the roads that  were familiar - I used to walk to my school everyday - a distance of 5 Kms. Every little bit has changed - even though there are trees and walls and paths that have survived the concrete mishmash pune is becoming.

What did not change are Rajeev Dubey and Kavita Jain. They studied with me in the graduation years at Wadia College. My milestones of those years have these two along with Swati B and Poonam Ponde scattered in memories - of love and passion and jealousies and anger and despair. Of being blooded into being a Kishore fan, of Asha's voice and growing up. I met the families of Rajeev and Kavita for the first time. The feeling is strange. Of seeing the in between years in the faces of husbands and wives and children. Of not knowing whats protocol with people who have known your worst and best. The 17 years of not being in touch melted away. The years never existed when they sang Kishore - Asha duets.

________________________________________

Hyderabad airport is like home now. No the toilets do not smell of ammonia, the people speak good Hindi and you do not find Biryani stalls at street corners. This is the third city thats becoming close to my heart now. I love the pace and the people in Hyderabad. Will explore the city soon and find the quirks that make it a human place as compared to Mumbai.

__________________________________________

Loved The Social Network and HP7. TSN for the director's ability to take a bad book and make a quote worthy cracker. Will be writing a piece in defense of Mark Z soon for the business blog I write for.

HP has grown up. No more silly brooms and wide eyed wonderment. I plan to start reading Harry Potter Series to Tamara when she is ten. She will be able to enjoy the series before she gets hijacked by something called Twilight or its equivalent when she is 15.

Dinner time heaven

Did not want to eat out or order in. Made some spiced rice stuffed in red bell pepper, grilled cottage cheese in chinese spice and sesame seed oil . Just the pics. If anyone asks I will post the recipe.

The home has a nice fragrance of a slow roasting bell pepper, whips up quite some hunger. What a Sunday this has been.

Spiced Rice

Cottage Cheese ( Paneer ) grilled in Sesame Seed Oil and Chinese Spice Mix

Rust colored chunks

Done Perfect

Red Bell Pepper Stuffed with spiced rice being grilled

Nice!

Trust me this tastes Fab!

 Maybe I should just turn this into a food blog :)

Cooking is good for the soul

Here is a breakfast that is good for the soul, stomach and tongue. Just because your missus, kid and mom went off on a holiday to three different locations does not mean you have to depend on omlettes and bread or cardboard cheese sandwich at the local cafe.

You do need to have a bit of the following in your home first.

1. Two cups of macaroni / penne / linguine pasta. I used the whole wheat brown spagetti.
2. Extra virgin olive oil as per requirements
3. Salt - half a tea spoon - or according to taste - use less and adjust
4. Half a tea spoon pepper corns freshly ground - if using packed variety, please roast it to release the peppery aroma :)
5. Mushroom - supermarket variety - sliced very thin - about 5
6. Lime / Lemon juice - half a lemon / lime
7. Lemon / Lime rind - use a common steel grater available in any Indian kitchen and carefully scrape the green part of the lemon, white part is bitter - use half the lime / lemon. This gives a really great flavour and aroma
8. One very large garlic pod. or three small garlic pods chopped / minced fine - really really fine
9. About 8 stalks of coriander leaves chopped fine. Italians use parsley, we use kothimbir.
10. Cheese cube - amul is fine - or parmesan - grated

Boil some water in a pot, add a teaspoon of salt and two teaspoon of olive oil. When the water starts to bubble, toss in the pasta and cook as per instruction on the pack. Whole wheat linguine takes around ten minutes to cook.

Mix sliced mushroom, lime juice, olive oil, pepper, salt, minced garlic, lemon and rind, and chopped coriander while the pasta cooks. You can mix these upto an half hour before so that the flavours mix really well. When the pasta is cooked, take about half cup of the hot water and keep it aside. Now drain the pasta and do not rinse it with cold water like you normally do. Cover the mushroom mix with the pasta and let it be for 5 minutes. The heat from the pasta and the little water that gets into the bowl will cook the mushroom without it losing colour or taste. If the pasta mix is dry use some of the water you kept aside.

Toss well, sprinkle the cheese and eat with some green tea. It is good for the soul.

The original recipe is from Nigella Express show on TLC and I have just adapted it to Indian conditions.

The breakfast with the Sunday Hindustan Times was the best thing that anyone could get. Like I said, its good for the soul.

A mountain out of an Antilia

I have this intense desire to clobber anyone who has a problem with Antilia! Mukeshbhai has the money and like all people who have THE money and along with it the right to show off, he does too. It does not matter whether the building was designed by a bunch of designers using playdoh and lego bricks. Mukeshbhai likes it and that is all that matters.

I like what Salit Tripathi says in his Hubris of Height column in Mint - and I quote him with great relish :

"how Ambani should spend his money is entirely his business. Unlike Mayawati’s zeal to build statues and memorials at taxpayers’ expense, Ambani is at least financing his edifice complex from his own wealth. True, that money could have been put to other uses. Like Bill Gates, Ambani could have donated a large chunk of his wealth to fight an utterly treatable disease in India, such as cholera or diarrhoea, both less glamorous than the ones that captivate aid agencies. Or like Warren Buffett, he could have continued to earn his billions while passing his wealth to the Gates Foundation. Like George Soros, he could have funded advocacy groups. Closer home, like the Tatas, he could have contributed towards the building of academic institutions or a centre for the performing arts.

Instead, Ambani bought a flat—one far bigger than the standard 2BHK. In fact, he built a castle masquerading as an apartment: an in-your-face structure that stared down at the bungalows of older captains of industry, who had earlier built their fortunes in the city—from textiles, automobiles, shipping, trade. Step-by-step, Dhirubhai Ambani had climbed over them in the city’s pecking order; now Mukesh Ambani can literally look down upon them.

And fly over them. "

Whenever I see a large car the size of my bedroom go by on the very potholed Mumbai roads, I evaluate it in terms of what part of my flat could be bought with one of it's tyres: so far I have concluded that a BMW's spare tyre can fund my bathroom given the cost per sq feet in Mumbai.

I was amused this morning to read R Sukumar's Acute Angle in Mint ( R Sukumar is the editor )

He says Mukeshbhai is paying the price for being rich. :) Reminds me of old Amitabh movies where the seth was always fabulously rich!

Whatever the case maybe. Lets face it. Altamount Road has a new point of view and once Mukesh bhai shifts residence, everyone will look up and wonder what he does in there. Atleast he will not have to bother about "in how many steps does my house end"

Sorting my thoughts

Some smart arse googled me last month and found some stuff that is to the least politely put - obnoxious. These are people with rather low esteem of themselves - people who have been asked to step aside and hold that against me. The comments posted on every mention of me on the internet has caused me immense damage ( happy arse? ) and also lead to a quite resolve. To be vocal, with my thoughts and ideas and issues. Pushbuttonthinking and Alchemy of thoughts along with One More Verse became my reference points on the net. It gives me immense satisfaction to express myself. Kind of catharsis.

Sorting my thoughts

What is immediate, top of mind and personal, stuff that I want my friends to know come on Facebook in the various status messages and link I post. They are a mirror to who I am. My likes and dislikes.

Pushbuttonthinking is my diary. My long form, made for posterity notice board, where I write longish pieces on work, world, coffee shops, cakes, daughters, friends and books. In time I hope to be able to read through these posts and re-live frustrations and angst and joy that I went through. About moment of terrified loneliness.

Alchemy of Thoughts was to be a collablog - an effort that fell apart. A place for ideas on advertising, branding, building companies and startups. In time I hope to bring the collaborators back and persuade them to write again. It is time for them to speak up again.

One More Verse is my last collection. The poetry that never got printed. Jerry Pinto told me once that my work is shallow and that there are better writers out there. It made me stop writing fiction and poetry altogether. My loss entirely. It took a great deal of courage to put the work out in public. I shudder at the thought of someone reading it and telling me that its crap. ( please do comment nevertheless, I will survive )

The real reason for this post is to point out that there are organisations and individuals out there who will make a judgement about you by going through what google throws up in the first two pages of a search result. These things matter more to them than the person or his word. So when you see yourself from the eyes of that guy who is reading about you, what do you want him to know? Your ideas and your personalities or someone else's version of who you are? I want to be sure that when Tamara, my daughter reaches an age when she would google her father's name, she will get the real picture - a balanced viewpoint - with all the greys and the warts.

I admire people who have quitely made a name for themselves using social media. I will never be able to do what they do so well - sell themselves to a large buying audience.

Out of stock saar!

Have you ever visited the Crossword at Inorbit Malad? I go there atleast twice a month to stock up on books and movies. The store used to be huge atleast till 3 years ago, in recent times though it has been eaten into by the larger cousin Shopper's Stop. Try asking any of the sales assistants in there about a book or a CD and the standard answer will be out of stock saar! Archie Comics - out of stock, The Broker by Grisham - out of stock, Bipasha Health CD - out of stock ( don't ask why I wanted this one!).

On each occasion I spent the next half hour searching for the book and found it! And several copies of the same. When confronted, these guys do not even try to put up a semblance of interest. One of them muttered something under his breath and walked away. The supervisor is even better, he said it is not the job of the sales guy to find things for a customer but to assist in sales! Ah ok I said and paid and went away.

Regal shoes sold a pair of sandals and when the soles came off within a week, they refused to do anything about it till we raised our voices. After 4 months they gave a replacement. Their reason - once sold the good are the responsibility of the customer. The sales guy was more suited for extortion than serving the customer.

Almost two years ago I had been traveling with my then two year old and needed some warm milk. The Ginger Hotel in Baroda did not have a kitchen and the only option was to ask the onsite Cafe Coffee Day to give me some for which I was willing to pay. The barista at the counter refused to give me the milk saying it is against company rules. I explained to him why I wanted and presto a large takeaway cup of steaming milk was produced. He refused to accept payment saying he cannot take money for milk for a baby. I forgive all the barista's across all the CCDs combined for all their nastiness for that one act of kindness.

As a rule we in India do not expect any sort of service from anyone. We know when we spend money that we are on our own. Whether it is the cell phone service, the delivery boy or the society we live in we know that we can rant and scream and the effect is like that of water on a duck's back.

The fault must lie within us.

_________________________________________________________________________

I normally do not get shaken by suggestions of friends on how I can improve myself. Last week I was told gently that I should be less arrogant!!! Any suggestions on where I can start? Will plastic surgery work?

Saturday afternoon pangs

I escaped this morning to the refuge of the cafe to do some work. To think about the changes that have taken place in the last couple of months in life and career when my daughter realised that it was actually a saturday and I had promised her some fun and games. I was summoned back with the threat of being made to do some cruel things. Compromise solution was to make something she likes.

4 apples were skinned, cored and diced and then mixed with the juice of a lemon. A teaspoon of cardamom powder sprinkled on the apples and mixed well. Zest of another lime ( careful when you do this because, the white of the lime can be quite bitter) and some grated ginger was mixed with a finger of butter ( Amul will do fine, take a whole slab and cut off an inch worth of stick) and three table spoons of honey. Brisk mixing will give you a yummy creamy mix. Now toss the apples with the creamed sauce and bake them in a preheated ( 250 degree) over for 1 hour. Please remember to keep mixing the apples, stirring etc, else the ones at the top will blacked and char.

While the apples roast and cook. Take two cups of atta mix it with a quarter cup of sugar and a half tea spoon of baking powder, and use your fingers to run in the rest of the butter slab into it till it resembles a moist crumbly mix. Break in two eggs and mix it into a tight dough. Leave it in the vessel and pop it into the fridge to cool.

Once the apples are cooked and look like a jam, remove it from the oven and let it cool to room temperature. While the mix cools, take a oven proof non stick baking dish and using the fingers spread the chilled dough evenly along the inside of the dish. Spoon the apple mix over and spread evenly. Sprinkle evenly some apple pieces that have not been cooked, some cashew nuts. Use an egg yolk for an egg wash along the exposed dough and on the uncooked apples.

Pop it into the oven ( pre heated to 250 degrees ) for fifteen minutes. Cool and serve.

Let me know if your saturday afternoon pangs go away after this.

Seven inches is enough say the Blackberry Boys!

There its been finally said: All those guys and some gals who had a problem with the size of their equipment - the kind they flash in public and imagine they are getting 'the' looks for it - Seven inches is enough!! And it is endorsed by the all knowing guys at Research in Motion.

All this mine is bigger than your started the day the orginal bad boy of techies, Steve Jobs decided to justify the size of his new toy by calling all the others 'tweeners'. And boy did he get them annoyed.

Am sure we will very soon have the ones with bigger sizes clobbering the ones with smaller toys, all in the name of being ahead of the curve. While Apple, RIM, Google, Facebook make money off our need to conform to their distorted reality.

But then who am I to complain. I will merrily build things around all sizes and be happy with my E71.

And if you want entertainment read through this article which inspired me to post this comment

Brotherhood (maybe even sisterhood) of the cafe

I have always preferred to work out of cafes. There is some romanticism about working from a cafe - a sort of uber coolness about telling the stuffed shirts that old classmates have become, that you 'work' from coffee shops while they slog away in tiny air conditioned cubes in glass buildings. Even the Rowling lady wrote the first few installments of Harry Potter in a cafe in her neighbourhood.

There used to be a time when I used to be the lone guy in the corner with a laptop slogging away, often referring to notes on sheets of paper. Proudly telling people how I wrote the basic businessplan of a venture on the back of a tray mat at the Shivaji Park Barista in mid Mumbai.

Now even the Mahaveer Nagar Cafe Coffee Day has atleast four people working at any given time. The rest of the cafe crowd ignores us. Sundry couples think of us as nothing more than furniture and I suspect the staff thinks of us as some strange animals. But the brotherhood of the cafe grows stronger. In the last 6 months that I have been working from home and cafes, I have made friends who are joined by the murkiness of the coffee we drink and the one plug point we share. One of us has even invested in a multipoint outlet so that the one power plug point can be shared by atleast 6 people at the same time. We have shared anti virus software, video conversion software and even notepads, though I may never know all of them by name.

We share the burden of the traffic of Mumbai, of not wanting to be stranded on the road wasting hours getting to work, when work can be done at these cheery bright cool coffee shops.

If you pay attention to the spillover conversation you will realise that the sales of cosmetics is down by 24% in the festive season. That cost per square feet of a flat in Charkop is about 200 bucks lower than Kandivali. That dal wada in Poisar at 4 pm is best had with adrak waali chai.

I think one of these days I will start a community of people who work on cafes all over the world. For just a dollar you can access credits and discounts to the chai and food - payable via your mobile phone.

Any VCs listening?

Big Girls, Small kitchen (NSFW)

Am hungry! the half a croissant and a bowl of halfhearted salad sandwhich at Cafe Coffee Day vanished within the hour of eating. This morning I had no option but to swallow down a bowl of muesli (sugar free version) and I hated myself ever since. Now throughout the day I will be hungry and grouchy.

It must be something to do with me being a food fiend. I can live on coffee and sandwiches for ever. Or dal chaval papad pickle. But sometimes I need to eat food thats made with a lot of love and care and all that. Not that the regular fare is made without love - am sure the maid loves the three and half people at home enough to not poison us with her tender love.

Being the fool I am several months ago I decided to start cooking on Sundays. So far I have alternated between biryanis, pastas, cous cous, chinese mallu style and a whole bunch of cakes, tarts, cookies and desserts.

Last Sunday was memorable for a compote of plums that I managed to make without burning my fingers. Its quite simple - walk into the Malad Hypercity or Inorbit Spencer and look for the juiciest plums you can find. Hypercity sells it in cling wrapped containers, three at a time. Get back home, unwind and when they family decides that you are going to vegetate, get started with a thick bottomed vessel.

Wash, remove the pits and slice the plums into thin wedges and throw them into the vessel. Thrown in two star anise flowers and about a quarter cup of sugar. Squeeze in some lime, lemon whatever. Add some water and cover the vessel, forget the whole damn thing for about twenty minutes. When you come back you will find that the sugar had dissolved into the water and the plums have gone all mushy. Gently stir around and let mash reduce to a nice thick consistency. The plums would have let out a nice scarlet red colour.

Cool the compote. Now walk across to the nearest shop and pick up a good sponge cake. ( I forgot to pick up the cake in Hypercity). Crumble the cake until it resembles crumbs, do not press them. Fill some nice glass bowls with this cake crumb halfway through. Now get the vanilla ice cream ( we have this lying about in the fridge) and scoop a nice round volume out. Pour the syrupy compote onto the icecream serve. You can soak the cake crumb with some rum or with some bitter coffee. The combos are perfect.

It worked. This morning my mom asked me if she could pick up some plums!

And sometime ago I discovered this blog about Big Girls, Small Kitchen and reading it made me hungry :)

Tarakshi & Kaa deserve to be kept alive

Sometime when she turned 2 and 1/2 I started telling her a series of bedtime stories about a 8 year old girl called Tarakshi. She finds a baby crow who has fallen off his nest and broken a wing and takes him home. She thinks of many names for this little crow and finally settles on Kaa.

Kaa sleeps while sitting on the bedpost and tucks his beak under his wing to keep it warm (he forgot to tuck the beak in one day and it caught a bad cold). The two eventually find a way to talk to each other and end up making friends with the people who live in the tamarind tree outside Tarakshi's balcony.

And they have adventures of all kinds, mainly about small things that a three year old wants to know and their friends - Kooie the girl crow who is Kaa's cousin, Mignon the sparrow who has four babies - ChiChi, Maana, Tara and Crystal, Speedo the Snail, Ribbit the Frog who lives in the puddle and Scratchy and Floffy the squirrels who live on the terrace, Bunty and Moongi the two ants.

She is 4 and a 1/2 now and in this time I must have told her a story everynight when I have been in the city. Once or twice I have told her a small story over the phone too. The stories are extempore with sound effects and all. She thinks Tarakshi and Kaa are real, and relates to the two. As she grows she has started making up situations and events purely out of her imagination.

One of these days I need to put those stories down in a blog somewhere. Find an illustrator and make sure they are made immortal. Some day I will find the time to do it.

By the way, today, Tarakshi and Kaa play a trick on Tipsy their puppy dog :)

A different sort of Dusherra

For the fifth year running I forgot to pick up marigold flowers, loose leaves of gold (sona patta - it's a leaf that is given on Dusherra day as a token of good luck and is supposed to symbolise gold) and pedhas meant for the pooja in the morning at home which are then distributed as prasad along with some coconut. As usual at 7 in the morning there was a mad rush to buy everything and sane mithai shops do not open. So we returned home to a rather annoyed better half and mother. That is when I decides to make the prasad at home. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Puffed Rice lightly toasted - 2 handfulls
Grated coconut - half a cup
Black Sesame seeds toasted - 2 TbSps
Raisins - half a cup
Broken Cashewbuts - half a cup
Any fleshy firm fruit - I opted for an apple - chopped - half a cup
Jaggery or Brown sugar - 1/4 cup grated or seperated
Sandal powder - 1 tsp
Rose Water - as per discretion
Camphor - half a tablet crushed
Honey - 1 tbSp
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Gulkand - 1 tbsp - use rose petals if gulkand ot available or even marigold flower petals

Now mix everything starting with the puffed rice and serve it one spoonful at a time to everyone who comes and see their expression. My daughter loved it.

It was different and it was a great start to the day.

Hope you find your devils to kill too. And not just in your heard but also in your heads.

Two disasters in one evening

Disaster No 1:

I usually fight with my daughter for the tv remote - I win at around 9:30 pm when she finishes dinner and no longer has any of her cartoons running on the four channels she follow. And then I turn to MasterChef Australia. I drool!

And then there was gurbani, rona, dhona, mataji, patiji, drama, hamming, heartbreak!! See anything familiar? If you were not aware (not likely) of what MasterChef India was all about you would be confused as to what the big deal was all about. They all cry, curse, plead on any sundry reality show, what was the big deal here? And where was the class? Maybe, just maybe, the fault lies with the production house, who must have brought in people who know nothing better. Just add some naach gaana, and there hit ho gaya. Am waiting! and will someone get rid of the gelled hair of all the men? unless ofcourse there is money and sponsor involved.

And am waiting for the dekchi to be sponsored and the tel to be sponsored and the @%#$%@$#@ gas to be sponsored.

And Akshay decide what you want to be, Gordon Ramsay or a wimp. You cannot be both. and I hate you now for wearing that flowery shirt - reminded me Ratish Makhijani from college.

Disaster no 2

Rakhi Sawant Ka Insaaf : it made my skin crawl. Maybe this is entertainment for the masses! And if the masses want this then they deserve all the other crap on TV.

Extending Nandini Ramnath's column: Animated Discussion

Nandini Ramnath is always entertaining and most of the time she echoes questions about the movie world that comes to mind when you normally think about the layers that infect movies / entertainment / television in India.

In her latest column Stall Order in Mint Lounge titled Animated Discussion she asks why Indians do not make great animated movies like Wall-e or even the Disney Fare.

Why do we recycle the same 2/3 mythological stories over and over again and at that in a shoddy manner that even my four and half year old knows that My Friend Ganesha is 'so ugly' while her latest BenTen fascination extends beyond her regulated 2 hours of TV time.

I have often wondered why we do not have any sitcoms that go beyond the old school of tried and tested. Are we to believe that the Friends / Off Centre / Two and Half Men / How I met you mother kind of people do not exist in this part of the world? I think the real answer lies in the way the industry functions - cartel like with crony centric thinking. You want to see the thinking sessions / ideation rounds you are welcome to play voyeur at one of the coffee shops near Samarth Vaibhav building in Lokhadwala Andheri West, or at the new Costa at Seven Bungalows, in Andheri West. I know this because I have spent 5 years in these coffee shops working while around me 'story ka twist' or 'hatke treatments' are discussed by grown men and women who live in this world but believe that their version of India is actually correct. I have seen young men and women start off with great concepts and within 3 - 4 months fall back to the tried and tested. Have heard some well known names in content take the mickey out of these guys by telling them that if you stick your head out you will never get work. And that is true.

So while we lament that Japs have better ideas we swat anyone with a better idea in our backyards. I assume it is because we fear that the guy with the new ideas might actually succeed.

There is tremendous potential in creating concepts and themes that are about India and which can be identified by most people like me who now depend on VOD to get their fix of 'entertainment'

Or maybe there is the need for these people with interesting ideas to look beyond broadcast. Its time for content creators to look at handheld devices, alternate screens as distinct distribution vehicles and create channel, promote channels like TV is promoted. Coming soon on your Ipad may not be such a bad thing afterall.

In the meanwhile....

Two years from my last post ... My daughter turned four and a half. self promotion has two new tools - twitter and facebook. Avataar turned out to have a disney story at its heart and wow tech. Star Trek rebooted with a spanky new crew and a very iMac look. video content owners still do not have a clue about what to do with their assets. Aol is wooing Yahoo! microsoft is trying to be google, google is trying hard to do everything - do not be surprised if in the next 5 years you have cars, tv sets, electricity, and pretty much everything else with the Google logo.


Life goes on I guess..

Here is what I intend to do with this defunct, but now alive blog - comment on the headlines and try to make sense of whats behind the headlines. Hopefully I will not abandon this blog again.