Social Media- Misuse and Dangers

I was reading an article yesterday about a Youtube celebrity (female) who went to meet her fans offline. One of her admirers took out a gun, and shot her, and then shot himself at this meet. This is an extreme case, but illustrates that you really don't know too much about online connections, particularly when they are of the "celebrity-admirer" type. Of course, confidence tricksters from around the world have also made their online friends part with money in many cases, some of which have come to light.

An interesting case of a big amount being asked for (and given) by some random person who promised big returns in a short time has happened to someone in my friends' circle, and may not be an isolated case.

There is worse, and one reads about stalkers and predators doing nastier things globally. So it may be wise to be careful, and allow some regulators (not necessarily government, but including govt.) to exercise control, and make privacy laws stringent, so that at least you are protected to an extent. Of course, be careful whom you befriend online.

Best Female Dancers in Hindi Films

Helen takes the cake there. She is just too good, in a variety of dancing situations, mostly on the stage, and the highlight of a song. But among the other ladies (leading or otherwise), here are a few favourites-

Mumtaz was on song in many a dance, but my favourite one will remain the Shammi Kapoor duet, Aaj kal tere mere pyar ke charche har zubaan par,..from Bramhachari.

Vyjayantimala had numerous great dances to her credit, and just one highlight was Hothon mein aisi baat main dabake chali aayi from Jewel Thief. I also liked the Main ka karoon Ram mujhe buddha mil gaya from Sangam, and her duet with Uttam Kumar - Chhoti si mulaqaat pyar ban gayi, pyar banke gale ka haar ban gayi, ya ya hippi hippi ya ya ya..

Asha Parekh did full justice to her dances when given a chance, as in Aaja aaja, main hoon pyar tera in Teesri Manzil, or Parde mein rehne do, parda na uthao, or Sayonara, sayonara, my first intro to the Japanese language in Love in Tokyo.

Hema Malini was also a trained dancer, and she sometimes got to show her mettle, but she was as good in pure commercial stuff like Naseeb (Mere naseeb mein tu hai ke nahin), and Sholay (Jab tak hai jaan jane jahaan mai nachungi).

Leena Chandavarkar had a few good outings in the times of Jeetendra, with Haye re haye, neend nahin aaye being my favourite.

Madhuri Dixit was a graceful dancer too, and my favourite of hers is from the film Raja- Ankhiyan milaun kabhi ankhiyan churaun kya tune kiya jadu..

Pakeezah had some great dances, but it is rumoured that someone else did the dance steps, as Meena Kumari was too ill.

Asha Bhosle by Raju Bharatan- Book Review

A must read for fans of a great singer. I am happy that the musical journey of a country has been captured by a serious writer like Raju Bharatan. Being interested in Hindi films and music, I have read several biographies/autobiographies such as those of Dev Anand, but the singers' and music Directors' biographies are special. Having read RD Burman's life story earlier, it is interesting to read about the role played by them in each other's lives.

It was actually OP Nayyar who brought her individuality to the fore, though other music composers played their roles (SD Burman among them). After a split with him, she teamed up with RD Burman and created many songs that shattered records and won them lifelong fans. Some also had RD Burman singing with her (Piya tu ab to aaja, in which he mostly said, Monica, O my darling), and the picturisation of some of the others (the Teesri Manzil songs like Aaja aaja main hoon pyar tera, and O Haseena zulfonwali are good examples) brought her a lot of attention. She was actually good at all types of songs and sang some ghazals for Umrao Jaan impeccably. Her duets with Kishore Kumar and Rafi are among my favourites.

Though she played second fiddle to Lata Mangeshkar, who was the first choice of most music directors, the number of songs Asha sang are a few thousand, and she left an impact in many of them.

A lovely read, if Hindi music interests you.

How to Have Fun

Our definitions of fun may vary widely. For someone, fun may mean skiing in the Alps, for another, beach-running in Goa, and for a third, trekking in the Smoky Mountains.

But I have tried classifying what I consider fun things to do-

Having an unstructured conversation (Gossiping) over a beverage- Chai, usually, and wine or a malt at other times. Accompanied by food, usually. I remember many such conversations with Savitha, Achint, Pallavi, Shafique, Vrinda (and her family), Shweta Agarwal, Abha, Tosha, Urvashi, Garima, Meghna, Ratnashree, Divya Singh, Radhika, Sowmyashree, Prabhakar, Dash, Harish, Himanshu Manglik, Pragya, Arvind Joshi, Mrunal, Sheetal Garg, Anant Ram, TK Chatterjee, Gadgil, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal,.. and some family members, over the last couple of years.

Planning what to teach or how to teach it- the actual thing may be fun or not, depending on the response. Planning an exam, likewise.

Discussing ideas for research/case writing. Sometimes the doing is also fun, but getting bad reviews is not!

Travel, for any purpose..essentially, the prospect of something new is exciting, even if the travel is sometimes tedious. Road trips are actually more relaxed, and I did many of them in the U.S. Train travel in Europe was pretty cool too.

Reading. I love reading, though my throughput has reduced thanks to social media. But there's nothing like a good book. Currently, it's a biography of Asha Bhosle that I am reading.

Watching a movie- of late, my tastes have changed from the formula film to a slightly more meaningful type of cinema, but I still like a variety of films if well-made.

We Are Multidimensional

Women more so than men I think, but we all are to some extent, multidimensional. I think the tendency to look at a human being as only one thing (or two) is extremely myopic.

We all function for about 60-70 years in ways that require many skills at work, and even more of them outside it. We might pursue a hobby (or many of these-photography and writing, in my case), maybe play a sport (I have played Golf, Badminton, Tennis and cricket at various points, apart from Table Tennis), travel alone or otherwise, interact with a variety of people from all walks of life (maids, drivers, assistants at work, bosses,...you get the picture), and some of these are not easy things to do.

We communicate, handle emotions of great variety, from anger, frustration, joy, hope, in ourselves and others too, and handle mundane tasks like cooking, cleaning, setting up a home, bringing up kids, buying a vehicle, and need various life skills to do that.

Did I mention academics? It is deliberately left to bring up the rear, because I want to make a point.

The End of the short lecture.

Kolkata- A Pictorial Tour

A pic is worth a thousand words- here are a few thousand words.

 With my classmate Dash-we met 37 years ago at IIMB, where we have been partners in crime.

 You ain't seen nothing if you don't do the Amar Prem run..Chingari koi bhadke..

 This is Tolly Club, and the building below is where we did an alumni party of
IMT Ghaziabad a few years ago, when I worked there.

A fuller view..

Innocence Lost in Lanka and Elsewhere

There was a time when governments fought wars over territory, or colonials conquered the armamentally backward for commercial gain, all through history. Dictators occasionally chipped in with murder and mayhem, but at most of these times, common people got along well, and there was an age of innocence among them. It seems that those innocent times are now history. It is no longer an army participating in an officially declared war with some rules (Dharma Yuddh?), but anyone who has a grouse getting up and killing anyone who may or may not have had anything to do with the creation of that grouse.

Where all this will lead, is anybody's guess. This could be the time for good governance to kick in, and show that it can bring humanity back from the precipice where it finds itself. More than all the nukes in the stockpiles of the nuclear powers, this is the trend that is likely to eliminate humanity. Not sure how much of it remains, after the regular spate of killings by individuals and organisations that see no other alternatives to killing other humans.

Hopefully, there is still some hope..

50 People Who Messed Up The World- Book Review

 

The authors, Alexander Parker and Tim Richman are South Africans. Aided by a cartoonist, they have compiled a pretty good list that contain some surprises. I won't give it away, but it includes a musician, a couple of magazine editors, a big sports cheater, a social media founder, and a good number of mass murderers. The musician (a teen heart-throb) is accused of spoiling our taste.

Written in a humourous style, it makes for an easy read, one or two chapters at a time. The chapters are well-researched, and show more than just a passing acquaintance with the history of the places and people they write about. The lessons to be learnt are also summarised well, to caution us not to let History repeat itself..but of course, it always does.

Naturally, they excel at the African dictators and Diamond merchants, being so close geographically. But the Pol Pot and Mao chapters are no less instructive. So is the Father of the Atom Bomb, Oppenheimer. Ponzi king Bernie Madoff is also given pride of place in a chapter. And Kim Kardashian. In other words, they are unsparing, and don't talk about political animals alone.

A great read, and I am glad I bought it. Worth every penny.

China Gate- The Film Reviewed Late

Very late, because I had never seen the film when it first released- when Urmila Matondkar was a star. She has an item number in this film, and now that she has joined the Congress politically, she seems to be (in retrospect, of course) making a point in that song of hers- something about capturing U.P. and M.P., with her thumkas.

There is a galaxy of good actors in the film- Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Danny, Amrish Puri, Paresh Rawal and a few others- Jagdeep, for example, who played Soorma Bhopali so well in Sholay. The similarities with Sholay are many, but of course, without the magic. Most of the actors do not have a well-written role.

And there are no big stars, the dialogues are average, and the plot unfolds in a very uninteresting fashion- of course, you can't compare too many things to Sholay, because they would fall flat. This film did too, in spite of that Urmila number, that comes in too late in the film anyway.

Not bad for a TV watch, but I would not have paid to watch it in a theatre.

Luka Chhupi- Film Review

There was this Marathi film last year, called Chi va Chi Sau Ka, that was based on the same basic idea. But it was a much better-made film, engrossing, and funny.

This one's not bad, too, but may be could have done with a little more of funny situations. These are few and far between. The nosy neighbour is not very funny, and looks like a force-fit. The family members on his side are quite funny and natural, while Vinay Pathak's act, though a satire on the moral-policing ways of some parties, looks a bit forced too.

All in all, it's a watchable romance with a live-in thrown in for good measure. Kriti Sanon and Aaryan Kartik are OK, but I liked Pankaj Tripathi the best. Abbas, played by ... Khurana, comes in second for me. Some visuals of both Mathura and Gwalior are nice- the Fort, and the lake.

Digital Minimalism- Book Review

This is a book close to my heart. How the Smartphone has dumbed down our lives is one of its themes- not the only one, but an important one.

Self-control, or self-help, or Philosophy of Technology, or How to Help Yourself to Small Tech Doses, could have been alternative titles for this book. Written by a Prof., Cal Newport, it is a book which preaches to a convert, in my case.

Much of what he says is fairly obvious, but like telling a smoker about the ill-effects of smoking, it still needs to be said. Our lives have been hijacked by Silicon Valley hijackers, and there's no escape from the pinging, and clinging to a device.

If some sanity (really, mental health of adolescents is a serious issue according to him) is to be restored to human lives, we need to restrict or cut down the use of social media and tech devices, is his basic argument. He is a moderate, though, and argues that you can figure out judicious use of tech and social media, not abandon it altogether because it has its uses.

I could have written this book, maybe not as well as he has. So I think you could do well to read it. There are some possible actions, some of which I follow, some that I have not been able to.

New Revenue Ideas

Revenue streams are a lifeline- ads for the media, for example. Card companies invent Days of some sort- so far, there are only 365 of them, but in future, who knows?

Similarly, photographers need to invent new things all the time. Wedding shoots (and Baby Bump shoots) are passe, and there is too much competition for those. Pre-wedding shoots are also running out of steam, as all the bizarre locations and poses have already been exploited.

So, the new revenue for a photographer can only come from some of the following-

Honeymooning with the couple- if Kangana could do it alone (in Queen), what's wrong with a threesome?

Bungee-jumping with the jumper, skydiving with the diver.

Research-paper writing with the researcher- a photoshoot for academic types.

Agonising over homework- candid shots of a school kid.

Slapping your tantrum-throwing kids- an in-camera slap-stick! This cannot be done outside India/Asia, as it is illegal to slap a kid in some backward Western countries.

Suicide in progress- laws will have to be amended to make the photographer not guilty as an abettor.

You get the picture, right? Other ideas could be-

Doctor-patient conversations, lawyer-client meetings, first dates as a reality check, first kiss- no, let's not go there...

Romeo Akbar Walter- Film Review

I wish it had been Romeo and Juliet. I wouldn't have minded seeing that tear-jerker rather than suffer the boredom of watching this "spy thriller." The first half is so boring that it took great resolve to watch the second.

John Abraham proves yet again (if proof was needed) that he can't act to save his life (pun intended- he is a secret service agent, endangered at all times). Why anyone should want to cast him in this role perfected by the likes of Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore, is anybody's guess. Maybe he produced the film.

The only good thing about the film is it sticks to its story and does not bring in item numbers or other irrelevant stuff. The problem is, there isn't much of a story, and another non-actor, Jackie Shroff, joins our hero in competing for the (non-acting) laurels. I did like the acting by the villains though.

Ho-hum, and stay at home is my unsolicited advice.

Memories of France

I visited many parts of France, thanks to a friend, Anne, who lived in Pleudiry in rural France. We visited Mt. St. Michel with her, and the surrounding areas including Rennes. She also came to visit us in India when I worked at Harihar. Also remember going to Hampi and Pondicherry with her. Some pics of both her visit to India and ours to France-

Weekly Roundup

I had a visitor and had a great time partying. This came just after my outing with the dirty dozen-marketing area colleagues.

April fools' day passed by without my looking any more foolish than I do on other days year-round, so it was not a bad one. This reminded me of Hyderabad where the local paper, Deccan Chronicle, used to pull a fast one each year on this Day. Enjoyable stuff, and good-humoured.

Teaching for the academic year has come to a close, and we had also finished with the Convocation, so more time for rumination- and grading, of course. Look forward to eating more of mangoes that will soon be in season, and see if that beats the heat.

Golf is currently not happening, but that does not mean I can't post Golf pics, right? Here is one from the Air Force Golf Club at Nagpur, where I am preparing to take a drive. Prof. Gadgil is with me.