Race 4 - A Script

 There was this horrible Hindi film called Race 3 a couple of years ago. So, being the creative mind that I always was (patting myself on the back is congenital and incurable), I sat down to think about a script for their next- Race 4. If you can't beat them, join them was my watchword. And, I succeeded. So here it is. I am selling it to the highest bidder.

Race-4

There are 4 teams in the race announced by the Intergalactic Vehicles Association based on Asteroid no. 420. The four are- Branson with a virgin (craft), Jeff Bezos with a new girlfriend, Elon Musk with a pet, and Salman Bhai with Katrina Kaif (or Jacqueline, based on who wins THAT race- to speak Hindi properly).

They start from the Sahara desert, because there's no parking available in Nevada anymore. All of them have a crew of two to four, in case they get lost, and have to be steered back to Earth. Whoever finds the headquarters of the Godforsaken Planets Association (GPA) on Pluto wins. 

They all blast off at the scheduled hour, when an Olympics gun borrowed from Tokyo is fired. Katrina (or Jacqueline) looks at Bhai and says, "Yeh kya ho raha hai?" like Dhritarashtra did in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro when mayhem took place in his court. Bhai explains the rules of the game to her and says, "Don't worry, Bro, hum hi jeetenge." (the dialogue writer from Race 3 was borrowed here). 

The vehicles run by the competitors all have the latest solid fuel technology, and take an intial lead. But they are no match for the Hindi film heroes that take inspiration from writers that gave them so many flights of fancy over the years. So, there is a happy ending (not that kind, the filmy one), and Bhai's craft (with Jacqueline, or Katrina) sails into the GPA HQ and lands gingerly, waving the Tiranga. The crew sings to the losers, who appear after a few minutes- "Tum besahara ho to, kisi ka Sahara bano,." -signifying THE END.

There are a few twists and turns along the way that I cannot reveal, because this script is for sale. Interested? Bids close tomorrow.

Colleagues No More

 I mean ones who are no more, or who have passed away.

Recently, a former roommate from the school hostel at Hyderabad passed away. He was generally in good health, and had no history of any problems. Just died of a heart attack. 

That made me think of some others who were my colleagues or friends. One was a lively faculty member at IMT in Ghaziabad. I came to know she died after a battle with cancer, after I had left IMT. Had no idea she was ill, even. Maybe it was discovered later. 

Another three that died early. My good friend and classmate at Osmania engineering seems to have had some kind of a rare infection many years ago, and died from it, though most people survive. A colleague at IFIM, and at KIAMS, who may have brought it on himself, with his lifestyle. And earlier, yet another colleague and great friend in the U.S., who also had an early demise, probably caused by some lifestyle and consequential issues.

COVID has been relatively kind to my friends' circle and most who got it came away unscathed. Not so with office colleagues, some of whom lost a loved one.

Second Billionaire Flies Into Space

 Amazon guy Jeff Bezos is amazing! Invested his millions into building Blue Origin, and flew into space (or the edge of it, definitions vary-take your pick) on July 20, 2021. Some pics taken from the live coverage by CNN. 

Taking off around 8 am Texas time. 20 July 2021.

Up and about, around 3 minutes flight.

After 3 more minutes in weightless glory up there,  gliding back on a parachute, after a drop of some height.

Parachutes open, to make the drop slower and palatable.

Landing- while raising some dust.

Looks like the captain of Starship Enterprise?

Lasted less than 15 minutes. Open for tourists soon. Interested?

Labelling Things or People

 You want to sort stuff, like inventory or stock of items - in a store, warehouse, or anywhere else. Therefore you label them, or number them in some manner.

What about people? Tall, short, fat, thin, balding, blonde (a favourite in the US-we don't have that many blondes), standoffish, a show-off are some labels that we use to describe people. If it is by way of a description, accurate and not demeaning (except when warranted), it is an easy way to identify certain traits or attitudes in people. Introvert versus extrovert is a case in point. It is a generalisation, but could be used like shorthand to describe some qualities of a person. 

Labelling is not always a bad thing, like jargon. If both sides in a communication understand jargon, it makes for an easy conversation, or reading of an academic paper, for instance. But if used against unsuspecting recipients not on the same wavelength, education, background etc., it can hinder communication.

Also, adjectives need to survive. Their major use is in describing or labelling.

Virgin Takes Off Into Space

 I mean, the company Virgin Galactic, and its enthusiastic founder Richard Branson, of course. His enthusiasm and sense of drama are unmatched by any CEO or founder in my memory. They called it Elan at one time, I think.

Anyway, he made it to a sub-orbital level in a test flight, meant to be a curtain-raiser to many commercial flights, with a few hundred passengers already signed up for a dekko at earth from up there.

Some snapshots from the live streaming and the CNN coverage. 

Banning Things

 Just thinking aloud.. hopefully no one's listening, like in a class.

What are the new things we can put on the banned list?

1. Intelligent behaviour that can prevent further spread of COVID. Anyway, that seems to be in short supply. Might as well ban it, and enjoy the Tokyo Olympics in a stadium.

2. Surge Fares for cabs/flights. Since there are hardly any customers, this may hardly matter. People are just driving to the nearest hill-stations, it seems like.

3. Hill-stations can be banned. Remove the roads leading to them. Air drop supplies to residents.

4. Population-reduction devices (also known as family planning devices) ..when we have Covid, there's no need for those.

5. Maths- If we have no exams in 10th and 12th, we can help everyone by banning the subject.

6. The coot- Bandicoot! How's that for the closing shot?

Dilip Kumar

 He was not really from my generation. It was more of Rajesh Khanna rising, and then Amitabh. But I did see a few of his happier films, and of course, Mughal-e-Azam. I liked his restraint in Shakti too. Not familiar with the roles that got him the sobriquet Tragedy King, so I won't comment.

The gossip columns described how Madhubala and he broke up over his principled stand on a producer's action against her for violating a contract. If so, good that he took a stand-very few people do, anyways, on anything.

Today, he probably wouldn't have survived as an actor- certainly not as a hero, what with shirts discarded, dancing crazily, and doing inane stuff most of the time. He would probably have gracefully withdrawn and watched from the sidelines. Of course, we do have Ayushmaan doing some interesting stuff, so you never know.

Anyway, it was a great innings in films, and hats off to him. And goodbye. After all, THE END is part of life, and the screen has to come down some day.

Successful Branding

 Branding involves Product + Image in case of physical products. Or, Service Experience + Image in case of service brands. The intangible part is mostly in the image, creating which usually takes a long time, and involves word-of-mouth plus imagery created through associations, communication etc. The tangible part can often be copied.

Some Indian brands that have done very well over the years include-

Amul

Asian Paints

Fevicol

D Mart

Flipkart

Coffee Day

Good Knight, Ujala, Krack, Moov

International Brands or Global Brands (people) include- 

Parasuraman of Services Marketing fame, CK Prahalad of BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) fame, Raghuram Rajan of Chicago, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, etc. 

Professors can brand themselves by publishing, consulting or writing books, apart from teaching well or uniquely. I can remember some from IIMB and Clemson (Cantrell, McNichols, Stahl) who were unique, after many years.

Students can excel in class, or in extra-curriculars. My suggestion is that you also do something unique, or much better than anyone, like blog, take photos, make films, play online games or create some, write cases or research papers.

A word about image of some politicians- 

Putin, Xi, Kim of North Korea, and the first Prime Minister of Singapore- Lee Kuan Yew. What's the word that comes to your mind when you think about each one? That's called Association, and can be a good test in reverse, as in "What's the brand that comes to mind first when given a word, say a 'crunchy treat?' "

And a word about Brand Value. There are many ways to estimate this, and for listed companies, one formula is Market Cap-Book Value. This measures the contribution of perceptions about the intangible value that can be attributed to the "Brand" that the corporation represents.

Marketing research can show you the health of a brand through Tracking studies done regularly. Unaided recall, Aided recall, loyalty, and perceptions against competing brands are some of the brand-related research studies done by many brands.

Bonus- Adding some Social Media Use Pointers (for better branding) from various sources- Guy Kawasaki is one.

1. Do more rather than less. Many reasons- it's an ocean, you are likely to get lost in it. Of course, this assumes you are sharing sense and not nonsense (from your followers' point of view, before you ask).

2. Be bold, and take positions. This establishes your credibility (assuming you want it).

3. Choose a good picture of yours for the Media, and stick to it for a while. If you don't have a good picture, God help you. Also, be visual, in general.

4. Don't use bad words. Bad words are bad on any medium. Learn to do without them, unless you are a teen trying to be cool. (Everything is pardoned THEN)

5. It's impossible to generate loads of new content regularly. Use curated stuff mixed with original content. Cite the source, where applicable.

6. Provide information, analysis, help or entertainment. They work better than other content, particularly if you are trying to build a large or regular following. How to Videos on Youtube are one example.

The News

 This is based on a survey of around 5 English news channels- three international, and two national.

Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria are the major countries in the world. Myanmar comes fourth, when there are protests. Kidnappings or protests that turn violent pushes your country up a notch. Palestine and Israel replace Myanmar, when they have fireworks.

The only news is bad news, with very rare exceptions. Fear-mongering is a part, about Mucor..whatever, the Third Wave, and impending doom, in general. Businesses closing down are news, but not those that are booming in the pandemic.

Travel shows and cookery shows are most popular, but they are not on news channels.

Political violence or killings are very important news, because they never happened before in the history of mankind.

Who took oath as what is news. What they did after that is not. Every word spoken by a small time politician is more important than what an artist, a scientist or a common man speaks, if you go by time allocations. 

Are Men Boring?

 This is a question that if answered- or at least satisfactorily researched- can get someone their Ph.D. A very useful study for humanity it would be, too-particularly if it suggested ways to make men less boring, and more interesting (assuming the answer they found was in the affirmative).

But really, if you contrast men with women, it's obvious who is the more interesting of the two. This is based on observational research, if there is such a thing. Men seem like they are least interested in anything happening around them, except global football, or politics. But try drawing them into a conversation about mundane things that affect their lives everyday (or anything else at all), and they clam up. 

Why men are boring is a topic worth exploring. Is it that they miss their hunting-gathering days of bravery in the jungles or wherever they lived? Is it the burden of office work that they carried home (now the twain have merged, so there's no carrying involved)? Could it be too much education of the wrong kind, that precludes enjoyment of life? 

On the contrary, what makes women more interested in everything, and therefore more interesting? I will leave you to ponder an answer to this important question.

Second Wave Ebbs

 I mean the COVID wave in India, or at least most of India. But like an ocean's waves, a third wave may be preparing to hit us if we don't watch out. It seems to be readying itself in some western countries. 

We were completely foxed by how quickly the second one rose to affect lots of people, hospitalise some and kill some. There is a bit more preparedness here, perhaps, but much recklessness too.

As an educational institute, we hope we can run classes at the campus instead of online. Students have told us they hope for the same, and we are exploring ways to do that in a safe manner. We have all had enough, but till a large number is vaccinated, it is still wise to be cautious. 

So we don't have a repeat! Be safe, get vaccinated, and still wear a mask. Let's beat it this time at least.