Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro- Second Viewing

In my teenage years, old movies regularly re-ran at theatres in Hyderabad. Why this practice was discontinued I don't really know-must be the DVDs that are rampant, and downloads, legal and illegal. But it is fun to watch some old movies in a theatre for the experience. We had one such recently, watching Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro at Pune's new PVR in a mall at Nagar Road.

The antics of all the characters are amazing- Satish Shah as DeMello, the Commissioner who takes commissions, eats Switzerland ka cake (Thoda khao, thoda phenko), and lives and dies for the gutter, the perpetually drunk Ahuja (Om Puri) in a perfect Punjabi accent, Pankaj Kapur as Tarneja the builder who gives good logic for extending buildings beyond permissible limits, Bhakti Barve the 'saviour' of society and editor of Khabardar, Satish Kaushik as Namboodripad the bumbling assistant to Tarneja, Neena Gupta as his sexy sidekick, and so on.

And to top all this, the lead characters played beautifully by Ravi Baswani and Naseeruddin Shah. Script, direction and dialogue are absolutely brilliant, and I think deserve an Oscar-equivalent recognition. Of course, the viewers have already recognised it as such. Kundan Shah, the maker, you are immortal just for this creation. So many dialogues are immortal. Wahan hum dekha, peene ka pani alag, gutter ka pani alag (about America which DeMello has just visited), Or Dhritarashtra's lament, "Yeh kya ho raha hai", through the twists and turns that Draupadi's cheerharan takes, or "Shaant, gadadhaari Bheem" in the same scene. Bhakti Barve also plays her part of seducing Naseer into doing her dirty work to perfection. All in all, a heady cocktail, though it was made in 1983- by a bunch of talented FTII alums (Sudhir Mishra and Vidhu Vinod Chopra are also in the team). Definitely should be on everyone's bucket list. My daughters liked it too, and they are in their 20s.

Nine Eleven- My Book Launch at Pune Crossword

Someone reminded me that it was 9-11, Indian style. Not the WTC dhamaka, but a positive one at Crossword, Pune. My autobiography (My Experiments with Half-truths, edition 2012) was launched by the highly respected pioneer of Indian management consulting, Mr. Sharu Rangnekar. Jaya Jha of Pothi.com, my publisher, was also there to grace the occasion. So were a lot of friends and relatives.

The range of ages was from 14 to 80+ and thanks to my two daughters, the tilt was towards the teenagers, as you can see from the pics We enjoyed it a lot, and got a few sales too. Smita Dabholkar, as usual, was the brain and the limbs behind the event. All I had to do was show up.

A Walk in the Park

That's just the idiom or a way of expressing the idea. What I really want to write about is walking-anywhere. Compared to the gym, it has numerous advantages, for instance. You don't need a membership that comes at a cost. You don't have opening and closing hours. You don't need an expert to tell you what to do-unless you want to hire one for crossing roads heavy with traffic!

A jog is boring, as it forces you to concentrate on the act. While walking, you can let the mind wander about, and it can go beyond the road you are walking on- on roads less travelled, so to speak. Walking is free, and comes with health benefits such as exercising the muscles, and sometimes making you more agile, if the traffic is heavy and you need to do some quick thinking to avoid oncoming cars and bikes.

Walking in a park may be a luxury, and environmentally unfriendly, since you may need to drive to the park unless you live close by. But walking anywhere is better than taking a  car anywhere. This major realisation came to me after observing what happens to a car (and the person in it) in Delhi. If you can't walk, take the metro or the bus, is my sage advice to anyone who is not busy honking their way out of the traffic around.

Actually, my preferred personal transport is a personal flying vehicle, but the question arises- what do you do for flyovers in the sky, once traffic builds up there? Maybe that's why the sages (powers-that-be) wisely decided not to build such devices.

Obama, India, Fog and Storms

Quite a diverse set of topics to deal with. If Obama makes it to the White House again, he would be the longest Black president to live in the White House. How's that for a new take on the elections? I think he is a smart guy being ed astray by the 'establishment' which is into routine things like finding the next country to bomb and so on. No novelty, or out-of-the-box thinking.

India has elections going in the state of Himachal Pradesh, and I have no clue about the issues there. FDI in retail appeared shortly in TV debates, but disappeared just as quickly. Prices of apples, maybe?

Delhi had a few fogged-out days, which was the result of some unusual weather, and it was not a reflection of our fogged-out brains. The Chennai storm Nilam had something to do with it, plus other things.

Now, if only we had something more interesting on the anvil- actually, there is. The old classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is re-releasing. Should do a world of good in a humourless world. Go see it at a theatre near you. I somehow don't feel enthused by the new Bond.

Inventing the Enemy by Umberto Eco

A good collection of essays by the guy who writes some good stuff. At least, some of the essays are good. Particularly, the title essay. He says everyone needs an enemy, and the U.S. was getting depressed (after the Cold War with the USSR ended) before Osama handed them a new one via nine-eleven. He says we tend to invent enemies if there no real ones, and usually attribute qualities to them that we abhor- like bad-smelling, thieving, good-for-nothing etc. or murdering, lazy, ugly, or worse. He actually quotes several authors who describe certain sets of people in these terms. Makes sense! All our regional/ethnic  jokes are based on this principle, anyway.

There are some idle thoughts in another one as to why Utopias are always on an island. And many other pieces on diverse themes like the excesses in Victor Hugo's novels. He says one excess may sound stupid in a novel, but a lot of excesses piled on make the novel or story interesting!

Well, for sheer range of the stuff he writes about- like living by proverbs (all your actions are according to proverbs, because they are the source of wisdom- it is worth a look. Some of them are a little boring, maybe due to the translation.

Data Analytics Seminar

There are lots of openings for MBAs in Data Analytics. This was the message that came out strongly in a seminar on the subject where I was the odd man out. Meaning, I was the academician among industry speakers. This was held at Narsee Monjee Institute's Hyderabad campus. I spoke about marketing analytics by virtue of my having written the marketing research book, and having taught the subject.

There was an interesting presentation on Banking and its uses for analytics, particular emphasis being fraud prevention by looking at patterns of spending or other behaviors. There was another on Big Data. That reminds me of a joke I read elsewhere that a person wanted to do a course on Analytics techniques, AND on Big Data, thinking that Big Data was a software package for analytics. Anyway,  what I gathered is that Big Data is all data, text or graphics or Facebook Likes or whatever, about an entity that you are tracking-like you and me. Gathering it is easier sometimes than figuring out how to use it. We frequently have this problem with all types of data.

Anyway, one sidelight was that a speaker likened the Data Analyst to a Sherlock Holmes on a murder trail, because you are trying to find meaning in it, by trying out various things, or trying to prove a hypothesis. There was some discussion about use of the cloud by small and large companies, and of applications for cricket players and teams, and techniques like Camera-based reviews.

All in all, an interesting 3 hours, compered and organised very well by the students.

Julian Barnes- Nothing to be Frightened of

He talks about death- and agnosticism and atheism. And as the title says, it is nothing to be afraid of.

The author is a first-time read for me, and I wonder why. I had not even heard of him, which is a pity. Because he has such an engaging style of writing, that even a book about death is full of the gentle humour that reminds you of a breeze blowing idly, while you sit on a balcony or on a sea-shore.

Some examples.

He quotes Flaubert in advice to writers- 'Be regular and ordinary in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.'

Sibelius- 'Always remember that there is no city in Europe which contains a statue to a critic.' Or yet another quote from Ford Madox Ford, on critics - 'It is an easy job to say that an elephant, however good, is not a good warthog; for most criticism comes to that.'

A different one from Sibelius, " Misunderstand me correctly."

I know these are not about death, the subject of his book. There are many, actually, but I will reserve them for another time, another blog. Or you could even read the book.