The great Indian card trick

I am at my desk, hard at work or at least pretending to be. The cellphone comes alive with its infernal trilling. The caller claims to represent the bank who thought I was solvent enough to receive a credit card. It’s a male voice with a sloppy accent fumbling with my name. The image in my head of a cute telecaller seated in a sterile bank cubicle goes poof in a cloud of smoke. The caller stumbles through the pleasantries, mutilates my name and announces that he bears glad tidings. The bank wants to reward my ‘loyalty’ with some ‘exciting’ gift. Of course, before that, there is this minor formality which requires me to confirm sensitive personal financial information over the phone to this complete stranger who sounds funny to boot. Just at the point where I am coaxed to reveal the CVV number on ‘the backside of the card’, I start digressing and distracting this fine young man from his important business. My gratitude gushes out as I become chatty and ask him if I can come see him personally. Put a face to a name and to enthusiastically pump his hand in a heartfelt handshake dripping with appreciation.

By this time the caller is impatient and itching to dump the receiver and send his index finger probing inside his nostril. After that he has people to call and joy to spread. At some point, when my pointless but polite badgering gets to the caller’s nerve, he spits out some expletives in Punjabi containing unflattering references to my mother-sister and disconnects the call. I gape at my phone; having lost the chance to discover what ‘surprise’ would I have been at the receiving end of. In the meanwhile, somewhere else, another lucky customer must doubtlessly be on his way to having his fortune made.

NH 10 - A malicious review

A romantic trip for a city based yuppie couple turns into their worst nightmare. Throw in an honor killing along with a social commentary on how India treats her daughters and you have a recipe for a gritty thriller…or not quite. NH 10 opens well enough. Rowdy bikers in the initial scenes trying to waylay a solo female motorist is more than enough for the audience to pounce on Delhi and scream blue murder. Other snippets like the tollbooth exchange about a recent shootout leave nothing to the imagination about the NCRs badlands credentials. I liked how a parallel was drawn between men, their ego and how thin the line is for them to be driven over it and commit violence, regardless of their social class. The husband’s reckless driving of the Fortuner after he is slapped around by a murderous posse drives home this point. The film overall makes a scathing indictment of how in India, an excuse for violence is found in our primal belief around women being less of human beings and more of objects over which clan honor is earned and lost.

The narrative leading halfway into the film is taut, tense and keeps you on tenterhooks. It is the latter half with Anushka hogging most of the screen time is when the film’s Bollywood credentials come to the fore. The cheap thrills are unnecessary, Anushkha’s sporadic limping interspersed with some spirited running keep the audience guessing about how injured she really is and finally, her transformation into Kill Bill, hacking her tormentors to bits, takes the proverbial cake, icing and all. That’s when the film stopped being an edge of the seat thriller and became something straight out of the Milla Jovovich school of acting.

A good possibility let down by multiplex compulsions.

IIM from IIN

Commercials have come some distance in the last few decades. In the seventies, the defining moment of Indian commercials were provided by Lalitaji, a no nonsense homemaker who almost talked down to the target audience about the virtues of a popular brand of detergent. Celebrities like Kapil Dev, had only to be their untutored selves, sporting a clean shaven, shiny cheek, made possible by a popular brand of shaving cream. Kapil da jawab nahin! Many of them survive in popular consciousness even today, made by admen who earned their chops through these. Being witty was never the forte of Indian advertising, though some confectionery and adhesive companies are bucking this trend (the Ramesh-Vivek duo from 5 star always has me in splits) Despite that, many examples like the Lalitaji, Gold Spot etc efforts were memorable, before the cola majors unleashed their ballistic budgets and glitz replaced substance. 

In recent times however, a certain righteous discourse has trickled into the ad scene and when seen in the context of the product it promotes, things appear downright ridiculous. Lets take the Idea ad as a test case. The target audience here is a broad one, retail users of the internet which is accessed by smartphones to consume data, most of which is burnt on social networks and instant messengers. Not too much evidence out these which suggests that users are spending hours on Wikipedia and About.com. Yet this commercial turns the usage pattern on its head. The punk next door, the jaded mom, even the sex worker are not spared, all of them united in their celebration of the IIN or the Idea Internet network, for the uninitiated. The IIN has singlehandedly demolished social barriers, torpedoed through taboos and even made merit based selection meaningless. Such miracles have been achieved by making education accessible to all via its data connection, or so the ad claims. As noted previously, the assumption is the average Salman wannabe on the street burns his megabytes trawling through Wikipedia or perhaps even racks up virtual degrees on Coursera. One wonders if he also multitasks by sharing videos via Whatsapp between analyzing Pythagoras and memorizing Wordsworth.

I have found ads which set creativity benchmarks without perhaps doing anything substantial for the company topline. The iconic Amul girl by Da Cunha has been tickling our imagination for decades, if not making you clog your arteries with more of the spread. These make for pleasant television viewing. The IIN school of advertising however, leaves you counting the grey cells remaining after the last ad break

The mufflerman returns

The Aam aadmi party has titillated the imagination of the Indian public. Clean politics in India has been an oxymoron. Politicians will make hay, a semblance of governance is a happy byproduct. Two years back, the AAP juggernaut pulled into Delhi and traditional parties were caught with their pants down. Who would have thought that the common man was actually serious about clean politics? The reality of governance however, soon dawned on Kejriwal and his band of crusaders. Pre election promises came home to roost, spelling a quick retreat for AAP to the fringes with a bloody nose. With this as the backdrop, nobody would have given them a second chance, much less the landslide which swept everything in sight. Still, the crusader tag can prove to be a heavy millstone around their neck, such are the compulsions of parliamentary democracy in India.

For starters, they should focus on the economics of running a government. Slashing electricity tariffs may be music to the common man’s ears, but does nothing for improving the creaking infrastructure, if not sustainable. AK presents an interesting caricature, perhaps not entirely unintended. A man of slight built with a scarf a permanent fixture around his neck. A coughing crusader willing to take on a well entrenched machinery but unable to shake off a nagging cough, betraying his common man with common problems credentials. He would have to go beyond the rhetoric now, in order to deliver. Electorates have been known to be notoriously fickle; their memories don’t go beyond the last price cut.

The new Deal

Do you have a startup? A single digit team with a cute business model? All bolstered by an idea whose time has come? Maybe you are waiting for a generous uncle to stump up the dough. In a country where middlemen have exploited our pockmarked infrastructure and thrived, spotting a business idea is akin to locating an elephant in a swimming pool. How do the gigs work though? E-tailers hawking garments at anemic prices with multiple prices stacked one above the other on the tag. You spot all but the bottom figure scratched out. You realize this is your once in a lifetime opportunity to pick that spaghetti top up for a steal, or at a 80% discount. Kitted out in the latest in fashion, you spot another round of discounting mania on another portal, all in the same week.

Sample this popular furniture portal, whose name is more appropriate for a culinary vendor. They promise to spare you the pain of having to put your own cupboard together (when was the last time you had to pick out your own wood for the dresser?) and delivering it to your doorstep by a friendly handyman who offers a Namaste to your proferred tip. In one commercial, a yuppie couple debate their planned purchases, where the wife is all smug, secure in the knowledge that even her husband can’t cock up with his ideas on interior decoration, the smart portal is idiot proof you see!

All of this is music to the ears of harassed urban dwellers who would rather knock back pints than make the trip to brick and mortal stores. The start up ninjas, corporate misfits some, are all gung ho with angel investors handing out cash faster than it can be burned. Many of these fledgling ventures would fold or be swallowed up by biggies in an eventual round of consolidation. In the meanwhile, customized push up bras anyone?

She devil

The Clintons are at it again, atleast one of them or TIME magazine tends to think so. The former President used to smile like an assassin at the height of the Lewinsky scandal. Can the former first lady be left too far behind? Right on cue, the 'M' in TIME looms over the lady's cover spread like a pair of horns.

This comes close on the heels of a recent controversy where she used a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State. Sensitive emails, potentially embarrassing, were apparently deleted. Tantalizing is the prospect to have picked her mind when Monicagate was in full swing. Did she suffer in silence? Or did she cut a deal? There is no denying her ambition. Whether that translates into a coup in the next elections remains to be seen. In the meanwhile, she may consider an image makeover.