The Amisha Patel episode
‘ I need a Mercedes to go back home ’.
Amisha Patel , the photogenic and well endowed actress , shot to fame in the movie Kaho Na Pyar Hai . Actually , she didn’t quite shoot to fame as much as Hritik Roshan , the hero of the movie and son of not-so-successful Bollywood actor Rakesh Roshan , did , creating history unheard of before . The movie was a miraculous debut for Hritik , he became a legend overnight . One of the reason for his success was he had broken the stranglehold of the ‘Khans’ , namely Salman , Shah Rukh and Amir who were the reigning Kings of Bollywood with movie after movie starring either of these three . Hritik was Punjabi , tall , muscular and handsome , combined with great agility helping him create some super dance moves . None of the Khans had his personality , height and slick killer looks . Another reason for this success was the movie’s choreography , marvelously shot in Mauritius it was a ultimate relief for an ordinary movie-goer . Then the music . And finally , fresh , mysterious , good looking Amisha Patel.
‘I need a Mercedes to go back home ’
I had only heard of the tantrums celebs threw before , here I was witnessing one . We had bought her a return air ticket from Mumbai to Pune , as part of our compensation to her to inaugurate our radio station . She had insisted that her mother’s ticket also be paid for , which was done . Now , having done her bit by giving the first on-air interview to pune’s new radio station , she wanted to travel by road and not by air , as we had planned and agreed earlier . The flight was leaving in an hour , but she was clear that she wanted to go back by road . As time ticked , I needed to organize the car and fast .
The first of May was Maharastra day and labour day , a double holiday . On any given day , most shops shut for a siesta between one and four in the afternoon in Pune . On a holiday like this one , it was impossible to organize anything for this city of the tired , retired or ready to expire .
I made the first impressions executive call up all the travel agents in the city .
Shut .
We attempted to call the travel desks of all hotels .
‘No Mercedeses , sir . Will a Toyota Qualis do ?’
It won’t . I thought hard for a solution .
And then it struck me .
As usual , the answer was the most obvious , right under ones nose and completely hidden till the last minute .
The Mercedes Benz car in India is manufactured in the Chakan factory industrial area , twenty two kilometers from Pune . And that this fact struck me so late came also rided on the caveat that a factory can’t lease out a car , just makes and sells .
I thumbed through the telephone directory to find the numbers of the factory. The best thing to do on a holiday is to call the residential numbers of the people listed .
I called up the first guy listed , Suhas Kadlaskar .
‘Mr.Kadlaskar , I have a sticky situation . Amisha Patel has just inaugurated our radio station here and she would like to go back by road in a Mercedes . We had organized air tickets for her , but she insists on going by road . It’s a holiday , have tried all avenues and finally decide to call you from the directory . Can you help me organize a Mercedes for Ms.Patel ?’
‘I know it’s a strange request . You will need to give me some time . Can I call you back in a couple of minutes ?’
‘Sure , Mr.Kadlaskar ’
The next ten minutes seemed to last a lifetime .And the five minutes after that were awesome .
‘Where must I arrange for the car to come ? ’, said Kadlaskar .
‘Hotel Blue Diamond , Koregaon Park ‘
‘The car will be there in half hour . Could you please ensure that the car is back by the evening ?’
‘Sure , Mr Kadlaskar ‘
It was remarkable of Suhas Kadlaskar to have done that . I mean , we didn’t know each other , yet he sent his own car to drop Amisha Patel to Mumbai on my request .
Siraj Baig besides being one of our best sales managers , was also a big Amisha Patel fan when he was not busy chasing his targets . And a big , crazy fan , at that . He carried a tattoo of her on his chest and a photograph in his wallet . You couldn’t say a bad word about her in his presence . He would pick up a fight and defend her .
I called Siraj up at his house .
‘Siraj ,do you want to drive back Amisha to Mumbai . She’s leaving in ten minutes . And it’s a Mercedes which has to come back to Pune by evening .’
Siraj was dumbfounded . Amisha Patel , heartthrob , live . He didn’t believe me. Some things just can’t come true is the general belief .
‘ Her mom is traveling with her , you can even propose marriage ‘,I joked .
He just didn’t believe me , missing the opportunity of a lifetime .
Siraj can’t get over what I said then , till this day .
Suhas Kadlaskar , as it turns out , is the Financial Controller of Daimler Chrysler Benz in India . he’s the most powerful man on the board and the distinct number two man in the company in India after Hans Huber , the CEO .
As we chatted on the day of the launch of the Mercedes E230 launch on Indian soil , I pointed out the Amisha incident to him and asked him what made him send the car on a strangers , or fellow professionals , request on a holiday .
‘ Well , ‘ said Kadlaskar , taking a deep breadth ,’ you see , Amisha Patel is our customer . She drives a Mercedes in Mumbai and as part of our cultural ethos , our customers concerns override everything else .’
I was thoroughly impressed by the car and its ethos .
Later , as I test drove the car and felt the exhilaration of its absolutely superior engineering , I was convinced nothing even comes close .
On July twenty seventh , unprecedented rain caused havoc in Mumbai with major flooding in all the roads . It took three days for the rain to clear . Many people abandoned cars on the roads and ran home , creating absolute chaos . Some people died in their cars as the mechanical systems failed and the doors jammed , making it impossible to break the windows and get out before water swallowed them . Thousands of cars were rendered useless with their gear boxes turning paralytic . Most car garages after that took days to even register the cars for repair . Only one company replaced all the cars that had functional disorders due to the floods . Mercedes .
I walked upto Amisha Patel .
‘The Merc is waiting for you ‘
‘Thanks . Is it ok if we leave in an hour ‘
‘Sure , just that the gentleman who sent the car needs it back by the evening ‘
‘Sure .So we get anything to eat while on our way to Mumbai ?’
‘You could grab a couple of sandwiches here . You can’t stop on the expressway .’
‘Good idea ‘, and she disappeared in the elevator to her room .
An hour later , she was on her way to Mumbai . Siraj didn’t come and missed something .
The photographer gave the developed photographs in two days .
Amisha Patel looked stunning , ravishing and brilliantly photogenic . The entire office was staring in stupor at her beauty and charisma .
I keep a photograph of her with me and my team next to the photograph of the Mercedes E230 , the most outstanding car ever made .
Noone quite knows how the photographs are connected , yet .
The Hritik Effect
The fact that Hritik was visiting our studio was enough to send shock waves across the company rank and file . He had just completed his comeback movie , Koi Mil Gaya , a science fiction flick , directed and produced by his father just like his first mega hit , Kaho Na Pyar Hai . And as part of his promotional tour , he was jet-setting cities giving interviews to publications , television networks and radio stations . The hysteria that had ensued after his first movie was a little missing this time and one felt it in the air . There was a deafening loss of public memory after his first movie . He had been relegated as a one film wonder and abandoned to darker corners of peoples’ memoirs . From Hritik , Hritik to Hritik , who had been a painful transition for this young actor . Worse than ignomy is ignomy post enourmous fame . He coped by working his muscles even harder and waiting for the right script that could turn his fortune .We were , in effect , meeting him when he was pretty much down and out . He was expecting the release the next Friday with dated breadth , hoping for some sort of a reinstatement of his erstwhile superstar status . Fridays are when new movies hit the theatres and that’s when a star’s fate is decided , with the box office collections playing the jury . Next Friday would decide Hritik’s fate .
‘He’s coming at five’ , ‘ anybody and everybody knew this .
The photographer was studying areas around the studios trying to see places he could shoot from , looking at the possibilities of creating a not-so-ordinary environment for the photographs . Shortly, he stood on a desk , held the camera close to his eyes and examined the effect . Then he jumped and went behind a work desk to study another possibility . He looked at the studio equipment and tried creating an angle that would avoid the mikes and glares reflecting from the window .
A large flower basket was ready to welcome him . Kabir would probably object . I remember his couplets
Mujhe us panth per rakna dal ,
Jis panth per chalte veer anek .
Kabir , the faqir poet , rued the practice of garlanding people that didn’t matter . His couplet describes the desires of a flower , which as part of a garland , wouldn’t like to be placed around the heads of politicians , not on the feet of Gods , but on the path that is treaded on by courageous soldiers and freedon fighters .
Hritik didn’t qualify to be anyone of those mentioned by Kabir , but he could qualify as a fighter , fighting for a comeback in peoples minds and hearts , many years after his first movie . Just about .
‘Is the script ready ?‘, screamed the enthusiastic and energetic young producer of the show , Deepika Rana . Deepika was one of the coolest cucumbers one will see . that she handles production remarkably well is established . How stress and success sit easily on her shoulders is to be seen to be believed . Pretty cut and dry too, they don’t make creative professionals like her anymore .
Minutes later , there was some commotion .
Hritik Roshan , potential king of Bollywood , acting talent and phenomenon , was here .
Hritik looked much more smarter in person than in print or camera . All the photographs and television snatches failed to catch his extremely handsome personality . He was physically perfect , his jaw and cheek bones aligned , his musculature defined to the T , am sure his six-ab pack had rippling muscles . Tall and slight , he was well defined male. His smile and nods could easily set hearts flutter . In all fairness , Hritik perhaps deserved all the adulation he got .
His handshake was warm and friendly , neither firm like Shah Rukhs’ nor out-of-the-world like Amitabh Bahchans’.
I noticed curiously how he was paying particular attention to each and every girl in the office . He wanted to know if they were looking at him !
It was strange that he wanted acceptance demonstrated . Most girls who work in a radio station are star struck , since movies and television is the most definite next halt for most creative radio professionals . Yet having seen many stars close and having spent interviewing them on their lives , meeting them when their movies didn’t do well or when they went through trying circumstances in their lonely lives , most radio jockeys take the stars very lightly . Hritik was looking for some sort of a reaction from every girl present there . He was double checking his relevance amongst today’s young ones .Times change radically nowadays , more so in India . Every couple of years is a new generation .His last movie had been five years ago .The stars change every five years compared to decades earlier .Even technology changes radically each year now , so this new movie was adequately armed with a lot of science fiction , making sure audiences fell for its special effects and the star was reborn .
Hritik was just reading if his fan following had dried up .
Checking his effect .
He gave a soulful interview , full of optimism and hope .
Ten days later , Koi Mil Gaya , the science fiction remake of Spielberg’s ET was declared a massive super hit of 1994 , raking in millions in its opening weekend and turning Hritik into a confirmed sensation in the movie business .
I saw him again at the Filmfare awards precursor , celebrating the best movies of last year. It was the fiftieth year of the Filmfare awards , the most respected awards in the movie business in India and the coveted statuette had been turned golden for the ceremony . Everyone would get golden statuettes instead of the traditional black tanned one that was given for the last forty nine years . ‘Hamara Yaar , Hamaara bachchpan ka dost ‘, is all that Javed Akhtar , the much celebrated script writer , had to say when asked to describe the filmfare awards and compare it with the other newer movie awards that were lauched in recent years by other media houses .
Hritik was again in the reckoning for the best actor award for his performance in Koi Mil Gaya , an award he had won when he debuted five years ago with Kaho Na Pyar Hai .He looked cool with his grey flannel suit and worn jeans , holding hands with his beautiful wife Suzzane .
Confident and more surer of himself than when I had met him first , Hritik Roshan was beginning a new climb to superstardom .
Waiting for Sandhyali .
As we waited for the inaugural ceremony of the latest event that we had created , I was cordoned off in the open air lounge of the Maharastra Education Trust college of Management in Bandra with Sandhyali Sinha , a fellow army brat and an upcoming movie actress .
Her last movie and as I jogged my memory , probably the only movie she had done to date , was a tear-jerker called ‘Tum Bin ’ where she played the role of a girl who was expecting her fiancé , but as fate would have it , the guy is killed accidently by some rich guy’s son , who then falls in love with her . She has to overcome the grief first to fall in love again and so they move to Canada where she joins her uncles business and then eventually the most evident thing happens and she weds the accidental killer of her fiancé.
I remembered the movie as a fast moving script with good choreography .
She was our celebrity guest invited to inaugurate the Business Process Outsourcing event that we had organized at the third floor of the institute . Intensive radio promotions would lead to a lot of aspiring people looking for jobs coming to the venue . Sandhyali Sinha would inaugurate the event and was the main draw in our ceremonial beginning of the event. We waited at the open-air lounge , awaiting the signal that enough crowds had come and we could go ahead and inaugurate the event . The last time around we had a similar event , three months ago , we had Dia Mirza to inaugurate the event . The event was a sell out . Dia was an extremely simple girl and had an opinion on a lot of subjects under the sun , including the entire BPO revolution which she felt was damn good for India .Dia Mirza also was on a rapid fire ascent up the Bollywood ladder , being a finalist of the annual Miss India contests and having represented India on the World stage. Her list of movies was rising each couple of months .
Sandhyali , who wore her hair very elaborately , was different in that she was a relative unknown in the industry and bagged a role when she was spotted by the director at a party .
She was a little too pretty for an army officers daughter . She detailed for me the life she was leading now with leased apartments and her grandmom cohabiting with her in harsh , capitalist Mumbai . Her next movie was something called ‘Ab Tumhare Havale Watan Saathiyon ‘ with a whole host of stars and slated for release in a couple of months . She talked excitedly about the movie and her expectations , sharing wee bits of the movie story .
It’s common practice that whenever two army officers children meet , you tend to check the schools one has studied in and the locations where their dads were transferred to , hoping to find a link somewhere .
Nothing matched in our case . Srinagar , Mhow , Tezpur in Assam , Ambala , Gwalior ,Shimla Nagpur and Pune read my list . Jabalpur , Bangalore , Jodhpur , Patna , Lucknow and Chandigarh read her list .
Alas !
Nevertheless , we struck an instant communication over movies that I liked and movies that she was going to act in , again not reaching any kind of mutual agreement on a Bollywood formula that we both liked .
Soon it was time to inaugurate .
The inauguration was quick , the traditional lamp was lit , the flashlights blinked , the crowds were parted and we walked in to meet each participant company in their classroom-stalls .
In an hour ,we were done .
As I walked with her to her car , I wished her the best and promised that I would see her new movie for sure . She smiled , shook hands and left .
The movie bombed . Within a week of its release, the movie sank without a trace . It was withdrawn without even reaching a lot of cities it was meant to be distributed in .
I couldn’t keep my promise this time around and Sandhyali Sinha vanished somewhere in tinseltown waiting for another script , another movie ; leaving me with good memories of a lively conversation .
The Serial Kisser of Bandra
The Photographic studio neatly tucked outside the Mehboob studio near Mount Mary hill also doubles up as a photocopy shop . While running around for the British visa , I found this shop pretty well located for my tasks of getting my snaps done and organizing document copies .
As I emerged from the photo lab , I found Emraan Heshmi , the newest Bollywood star standing with his girlfriend discussing a photocopy requirement with the shop owner .
Emraan Heshmi , will write his name in the history of Indian movies as the guy who brought about a great cultural revolution without knowing it .
He has earned the sobriquet ‘ serial kisser’ , because of the elaborate kissing scenes his last three movies , Murder , Zeher and Ehsaan with three new actresses . The movie Murder had scenes of uninhibited sex , something that was brought brashly out of the closet by Mahesh Bhat , low budget moviemaker . Most of his movies are made on a very small scale , address an typical social issue and create a controversy to get free publicity and therefore save on promotional costs . Murder was the story of this bored housewife’s extra-marital affair . Mallika Sherawat shot to instant fame because of this movie though her debut movie boasted sixteen kisses , seemed like they were in vain . This one rocked . The audiences lapped up her sex appeal and Emraan Heshmi’s ordinary boy next door cum jilted lover profile and kept visiting the theatre for more of her skin show . While Mallika Sherawat fell out of the Bhat camp , one of the low value camps in Bollywood , the Chopras and Johars being the biggest ones , Emraan became their mainstay for future movies . Mallika is also the smartest kid on the block , with an attitude ,and she’s made it to the Cannes Film festival as a celebrity invitee on the basis of just one movie , while Aishwarya needed a ten year working history post winning the Miss World title in 1994 to be invited . She is ever ready with a soundbyte and knows what people want in this day and age .
Emraan Heshmi on the other hand is very short for his screen presence and am sure he was unaware of the revolutionary thing that he has started - kissing was suddenly okay in public and on screen , unlike the last fifty years in Bollywood where in each movie , as soon as people came close to kissing , there would surface a set of flowers covering their faces and the audience would need to assume that the actors kissed .
Maintstream movie superstars with great reputation started kissing their actresses on screen starting a revolution of sorts . Amitabh Bachchan , clean superhero without a doubt , kissed Rani Mukerjee in the movie ‘ Black ‘ released a full year after Murder , Sanjay Dutt elaborately kissed the difficult but most beautiful actress ,Aishwarya Rai in ‘Shabd’ , Kareena Kapoor kissed Fardeen Khan blissfully in the movie ‘Dev’ and Saif Ali Khan numerously kissed Priety Zinta in the movie ‘Salaam Namaste ‘. And Manisha Koirala , who’s starred in some great movies with superstars even kisses an unrecollectible non-descript actor in the movie ‘Tum’ .
With that one movie ‘Murder ‘ , Emraan Heshmi has made sure that no actress can ever refuse a kissing scene in a movie . Lesser actresses like Neha Dhupia probably can’t refuse any number of kissing scenes .In two of her recent movies , Siskiyaan and Julie , she kisses her co-stars with great abandon , making the act larger than the movie itself .
Movies have given way to television serials trying to present the kiss to the family closeted in front of the television screen .
Television has followed up the moviedom’s experiments with kissing with many of their actors and actresses kissing away to rating points .
Newspapers couldn’t be left behind , in the issue of twelfth January 2006 , Mumbai mirror a mailine daily supplement , carried a large article on ways in which people kiss and methods to improvise kissing , something that was usually discussed in issues of Cosmopolitan and read by young girls in the privacy of their rooms .
The serial kisser from Bandra just changed that .
The hardworking Kapoor
‘What next after No Entry ?’ I asked Boney Kapoor , the producer of the new movie ‘No Entry’ as he sat next to me in the Sahara airline lounge in Lucknow airport waiting for our flight to Mumbai .
Big Boney Kapoor laughed .
‘Did you see the movie ?’
‘Yes, I did . It was terrific ’
‘ Thank you . Working on my next film , it’s a big film . Tying up loose ends .’
Boney Kapoor , twice married husband to South Indian heartthrob Sridevi , was also the elder brother of Anil Kapoor , who has built his reputation in Bollywood working in the remakes of all movies that have hit great success in the south . Most of Anil kapoor’s movies have had good success and baring a few audacious large format movies like Ram Lakhan , Taal and Tezaab , he’s done well for himself in remakes .
Anil kapoor , sat quietly , saying nothing . There was a third guy in the group , who looked like a producer type . The ones who manage the monies for any movie .
Anil Kapoor soon opened up .
He animatedly had a conversation about some new movie project .He was upset with Boney for some concessions that he had done for some supplier . He was also upset that some co-actor’s role had been made larger than necessary . ‘You can’t build someone else’s brand on our money ‘ said he emphatically , ‘ I work hard , harder than any other actor . I might not have the best of personalities , but I work harder than anyone else in the industry . ’
I thought about him . Many years back , way back in 1987 , just when I entered college , the movie ‘Tezaab’ was released . It was a gangster movie on the people living on the fringes of society and their milieu . I had to fight for the tickets at the queue as it was sold out for many many weeks and when we had decided to see the movie , we needed all seventeen tickets together . There was mayhem at the ticket counter , and in the mad rush our task was to make enough way for one of us to hit the counter and get the tickets . It was an amazing experience , but we got them with our clothes and our spirit intact .Anil Kapoor became a rage . But after that , somewhere down the years , he couldn’t position himself well enough to be a good mainstream actor like a lot of the others have managed to do . And when the Khans took over Bollywood in the mid-nineties , Anil kapoor shifted to remakes for survival , only to reemerge after many years with this hit movie ‘No entry ’.
I quite liked the hard working Kapoor . He seemed to be sincere than most actors I have met .
The 88% problem
The biggest event that we pulled off was the builders mela , where consumers could get home loans from banks and multiple options for properties across Mumbai .
Vivek Oberoi , dashing young hero of ‘Yuva’ and boyfriend of the extraordinarily beautiful Aishwarya Rai was invited for the opening ceremony .
He was a true sport . he spent a long time in the studio describing how he needed a home loan himself and therefore was coming to the mela inviting all the others to come too . That it was a mela for only expensive real estate properties helped him establish his credentials as a premium actor too . Houses worth upwards of sixty lacs were up for grabs .
Vivek Oberoi came on time , cut the ribbons and walked around the stalls looking at each of the exhibits carefully .He spent time talking to each of the builders and exploring possibilities of buying the property .
An hour later , we got him to our stall where the entire sales team had been assembled for a small ceremony for rewarding the team that had sold the event .It was quite historic as an event of this magnitude had never been sold before in Mumbai and we had made a tremendous amount of money out of the event . This one event transformed our entire sales team and turned it into a victorious outfit that could go out and sell anything ,achieving the years numbers and growing the company’s performance dramatically . The team had also hit eighty eight percent of its targets for the first time in history .
We aptly got a large cake with the numbers 88% written in the centre and ‘congratulations’ written around it .
Vivek Oberoi walked upto the cake . I handed him a knife , explained the occasion for the cake .
‘Wow, fantastic show , guys ’ said Vivek to great cheering from the team .
And he cut the cake to general shouting and loud bonhomie .
Then he turned to me on the side , shifted his weight to move away from the cake , put an arm around my shoulder and said ‘ Next time , do 100 % . Okay ! ’.
Damn !
The Greatest
Ever since ‘Deewar ’, the movie about values in life , I have been a great fan of Amitabh Bachchan . All other movies added to his legendary status as the actor classique’ of Indian cinema . Much of his life is an open book , he’s covered by every publication worth its salt , the nation prays whenever he hits the hospital , his wife , son and daughter have pretty clear non-controversial lives . Even if there are , like in the case of his son’s love affair or his political career or his attempts at corporatizing Bollywood with his company ABCL or his friendships with strange political bedfellows or Rekha , he rides them over with ease .He had been there and done that and was still at it .
I had no idea of what the reality was till I actually met him as part of the Filmfare Awards ceremonies .
The new multiplex Inox was the venue where the golden statuette of the Lady in Black , as the Filmfare award trophy is called was being unveiled by us . Select guests included Dilip Kumar , Bollywood thespian , who had won the first filmfare award when it was instituted , lata Mangeshkar who had won the award for best singer and Javed Akhtar who had a great role to play in the many movies that went onto become blockbuster superhits . Yash Chopra was invited as he had made a lot of those movies over the last many years and Amitabh Bachchan was invited because he was Amitabh Bachchan and no Bollywood ceremony is complete without him .
Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu , his wife and actress of yesteryears was the first to arrive.It was a strange sight . He came dressed in ordinary clothes and had an orderly carrying the clothes that he would eventually wear for the ceremony . He walked using a walking stick , his age catching up with him fast .
Yash Chopra , Javed Akhtar and Lata Mangeshkar came in one Mercedes car and were promptly ushered into the room .
Every heart and soul there at the entrance of Inox theatre beat for Amitabh Bachchan as news spread that he was round the corner signal and expected any minute.
Ten minutes later , the crowd was swelling and ecstatic . Suddenly a whole lot of photographers emerged from the blue . Surely , they were greater than the number invited by us .
Another minute later , a large golden Toyota Lexus pulled in .
Out stepped Amitabh .
My heart sank . He has undoubtedly ,immense aura and stupendous charisma . Impeccably dressed , he emerged as a man in great spirits and as many cameras merrily clicked away , he smiled superbly .
‘Is this the party ’, he asked in his characteristic deep baritone .
I just extended my hands , ‘ Welcome ’
He grasped and released my hand firmly and rushed in .
As I ran to catch up with him, there was absolute commotion . There are two escalators to go up and down parallel to each other as one enters Inox . It could have been a scene from a movie , as Amitabh moved up the escalator , many photographers who were waiting inside came down the other escalator trying all kinds of camera angles and shots .
Amitabh Bachchan leaves an impression , unlike any other actor anywhere . Probably Shean Connery comes close . Tall imposing and very well read , his smart repartees make people take notice . As he entered the room , no one was larger , or more magnetic ,or more authoritative and or commanded more attention than the Big B . The event started and stopped with him . He could feign humility but I know now that there’s nothing bigger than the Big Bachchan .
I saw him at a couple of other occasions and it reinforces the truth . Jeetendra , father of the creator of Television sitcoms Ekta Kapoor , was once asked how he ranked himself in the industry . Prompt came his reply , I am the eleventh best star in Bollywood .
He was asked , so ‘who are the top ten ’ .
‘Amitabh Bachchan ’, said he , without batting an eyelid . It’s true .
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
Spoilsport !
Bush is coming to India next week . In his interview he gave to a newspaper today , he states that he likes the game of cricket . George Bush , capitalist extraordinaire , commander in chief of the world’s most powerful army , likes the lowly game of cricket which is not even played in the United states ! Surely , something is amiss .Probably , he hasen’t seen a game or didn’t want to sound ignorant .
This nation of a billion people is obsessed with cricket . Was there ever a lousier game than cricket ? A game played by twenty two fools and watched by twenty two thousand . That’s the description George Orwell gave the game . Aptly so.
There can’t be a worser format than this game’s . Played either over five days or over one day , it needs a very elaborate format of play with many many matches resulting in no result . The records are created over years of play and stay unbroken for years more . There’s no other game that has players consistenly joining the game at intermittent intervals .It’s like a soap opera that has characters coming in and out of the game creating emotional turpitude . There’s no other game that has a substitute player running the runs after the batsman has hit the run in case the main player limps around nursing an injury . There’s no other game that has nine hours of play or worse , forty five hours of play . There’s no other game that interrupts a nation’s productivity over such a long period of time as much as this game does . There’s no other game played over just eight countries most of whom are poor . There’s no other game that has so much of drama and controversy . And there’s no other game that has generated so much money as cricket has. Then there are players like Mohammed Kaif , the guy is a brilliant fielder . No batting , no bowling , just fielding , Imagine standing the whole day waiting for the ball to come their way just to know that it will probably land in your hands twice a day . And there’s probably no other game that burns as little calories as this game does .
Yet , cricket is religion in India . Cricketers are worshipped like gods .Sport crazy Kolkatta went on strike because their representative Sauruv Ganguly wasn’t selected to the Indian team . That Sachin Tendulkar , accredited best batsaman in the world , didn’t pay taxes on the Ferrari that he stealthily imported into the country was forgiven inspite of the riches that he has amassed endorsing brands . The fame he stakes a claim to is a result of the opportunity provided by the country and yet he decides to default on the tax is incredulous and unforgivable . The nation forgives and forgets a cricketer .
Hansie cronje was the ruthless result-oriented captain of the feared South African cricket team with many victories in his bag .One fine day , the Delhi police, who I think rank as the best police team in the country , cracked a plot wherein game information was being given to punters by some cricketers , who were betting big dollars on the game .So, for a consideration , say ten million dollars , a cricketer would be approached to share information on a critical team decision like what would the team decide to do if they won the toss – bat or bowl . Then , a bowler would be payed to bowl bad deliveries so runs are easily scored . ‘Match Fixing’ ,this method of sharing information or playing to external gambling groups , is the hated legal term now . Hansie Cronje crafted many victories for the South African team that went on to get many laurels . A whole host of cricketers , Indian and South African got caught in the quagmire and regretted it . A promising Indian captain Azaaruddin and a budding batsman Ajay jadeja are out of the game , suspects of match fixing . This crazy lure of the moolah as laid to rest this brilliancy of any of their efforts . The game is forever suspect .Hansie Cronjie was pardoned by Nelson Mandela , started a new life consulting for a South African company . Just about settling down , he lived life as a recluse till one day , he died in an aircraft crash .
In no other sport has so much fame led to such a brutal end .
I dislike cricket from the bottom of my heart . It’s the lousiest game ever invented . Am glad that just eight countries play the game and that no new nation is planning to love the game .
The game that I love is soccer .
Short bursts of forty minutes , intensive calorie crunching , great team game , fantastic to demonstrate leadership and with the simplest of formats. Played by the richest countries in the world it is definitely the best game one can play .
Was introduced to the game in school , couldn’t play much in college but had many occasions to play while at work . the only sports medal I have ever won is the silver medal in football that I won in my eight grade . My bulk relegated me to be a backie , but have migrated to being an aggressive right winger , scoring many goals in my soccer games . Remember thrashing ICICI bank and onward technologies , two companies that I had the pleasure of thrashing in exciting forty five minute soccer games .
Soccer requires a strategy that’s intense and teamwork that has no equal .
The pleasure of Ronaldo tearing through the ranks to score his goal , the ecstacy of watching Beckam’s footwork or the brilliance of Henry Thierry each time he gives Real Madrid with its contingent of stars a run for their money is extremely satisfying .
The stylish brazilains , the systematic germans , the arrogant british and the aggressive argentinians , all make this game a sheer simple delight .
Soccer is certainly the most superior game on earth ,
So why on earth would the President of Rugby and Basketball playing country bother giving cricket even a remark ?
This nation of a billion people is obsessed with cricket . Was there ever a lousier game than cricket ? A game played by twenty two fools and watched by twenty two thousand . That’s the description George Orwell gave the game . Aptly so.
There can’t be a worser format than this game’s . Played either over five days or over one day , it needs a very elaborate format of play with many many matches resulting in no result . The records are created over years of play and stay unbroken for years more . There’s no other game that has players consistenly joining the game at intermittent intervals .It’s like a soap opera that has characters coming in and out of the game creating emotional turpitude . There’s no other game that has a substitute player running the runs after the batsman has hit the run in case the main player limps around nursing an injury . There’s no other game that has nine hours of play or worse , forty five hours of play . There’s no other game that interrupts a nation’s productivity over such a long period of time as much as this game does . There’s no other game played over just eight countries most of whom are poor . There’s no other game that has so much of drama and controversy . And there’s no other game that has generated so much money as cricket has. Then there are players like Mohammed Kaif , the guy is a brilliant fielder . No batting , no bowling , just fielding , Imagine standing the whole day waiting for the ball to come their way just to know that it will probably land in your hands twice a day . And there’s probably no other game that burns as little calories as this game does .
Yet , cricket is religion in India . Cricketers are worshipped like gods .Sport crazy Kolkatta went on strike because their representative Sauruv Ganguly wasn’t selected to the Indian team . That Sachin Tendulkar , accredited best batsaman in the world , didn’t pay taxes on the Ferrari that he stealthily imported into the country was forgiven inspite of the riches that he has amassed endorsing brands . The fame he stakes a claim to is a result of the opportunity provided by the country and yet he decides to default on the tax is incredulous and unforgivable . The nation forgives and forgets a cricketer .
Hansie cronje was the ruthless result-oriented captain of the feared South African cricket team with many victories in his bag .One fine day , the Delhi police, who I think rank as the best police team in the country , cracked a plot wherein game information was being given to punters by some cricketers , who were betting big dollars on the game .So, for a consideration , say ten million dollars , a cricketer would be approached to share information on a critical team decision like what would the team decide to do if they won the toss – bat or bowl . Then , a bowler would be payed to bowl bad deliveries so runs are easily scored . ‘Match Fixing’ ,this method of sharing information or playing to external gambling groups , is the hated legal term now . Hansie Cronje crafted many victories for the South African team that went on to get many laurels . A whole host of cricketers , Indian and South African got caught in the quagmire and regretted it . A promising Indian captain Azaaruddin and a budding batsman Ajay jadeja are out of the game , suspects of match fixing . This crazy lure of the moolah as laid to rest this brilliancy of any of their efforts . The game is forever suspect .Hansie Cronjie was pardoned by Nelson Mandela , started a new life consulting for a South African company . Just about settling down , he lived life as a recluse till one day , he died in an aircraft crash .
In no other sport has so much fame led to such a brutal end .
I dislike cricket from the bottom of my heart . It’s the lousiest game ever invented . Am glad that just eight countries play the game and that no new nation is planning to love the game .
The game that I love is soccer .
Short bursts of forty minutes , intensive calorie crunching , great team game , fantastic to demonstrate leadership and with the simplest of formats. Played by the richest countries in the world it is definitely the best game one can play .
Was introduced to the game in school , couldn’t play much in college but had many occasions to play while at work . the only sports medal I have ever won is the silver medal in football that I won in my eight grade . My bulk relegated me to be a backie , but have migrated to being an aggressive right winger , scoring many goals in my soccer games . Remember thrashing ICICI bank and onward technologies , two companies that I had the pleasure of thrashing in exciting forty five minute soccer games .
Soccer requires a strategy that’s intense and teamwork that has no equal .
The pleasure of Ronaldo tearing through the ranks to score his goal , the ecstacy of watching Beckam’s footwork or the brilliance of Henry Thierry each time he gives Real Madrid with its contingent of stars a run for their money is extremely satisfying .
The stylish brazilains , the systematic germans , the arrogant british and the aggressive argentinians , all make this game a sheer simple delight .
Soccer is certainly the most superior game on earth ,
So why on earth would the President of Rugby and Basketball playing country bother giving cricket even a remark ?
The Empire is srikes back
India’s moving .
Three news articles in the Times of India last week set me thinking .
The Dept of posts has moved courts to legislate a law banning private courier companies from transporting packets weighing lower than 500 gms which is sixty percent of the courier business and could in effect wipe out the private courier market .
The postal department has been fighting a losing battle with email which has truly dropped the mail business dramatically . Around ten years back , I wrote my last letter in longhand and its been ages since I put pen to paper to communicate a message . Email rules our lives now , thanks to Sabeer Bhatia who’s hotmail changed things forever . There’s no revenue model yet , but the concept of free email generating millions of users got Bill Gates charges enough to buy Hotmail for four hundred million dollars and send Bhatia into retirement at the age of twenty nine . In this one masterstroke , suddenly , the world was a different place . It also created a flatter world , something that Thomas Friedman woke upto very late . Information , the key ingredient of all decisions was suddenly available to boss and employee alike and also students and teachers alike . Email exploded communication many fold , besides sounding the death knell to industries like greeting cards , stationary , photocopying machines and of late the telephone booth . You can transfer a file using the pen drive , you can host information websites , you can publish your book using blogspot , you can email photographs , files worth gigabytes across miles of space . Why go to the post office ? Prompting the department of posts to first play along by seeking to be a large mail order company supporting the internet infrastructure requirement of delivering products bought online and having failed in generating any ecommerce delivery revenues, to now examine a law that stops the competing courier companies from delivering light documents . Will it win the war in an increasingly irreversible economy .Time will tell .
Why go to a bank ? Last time I visited a bank was five years ago . Today I get all my transactions done virtually , buy and sell stock , send money transfers , create demand drafts , track my investments online . Life has changed . I had fumed at a manager of the unjab national bank manager in late 1991 when he took a long time to clear my withdrawl slip for cash withdrawing while taking a long time to open a new account for a young girl . Why does it take such a long time , I wondered for me to withdraw my money from my bank ? Citibank changed that with the Any Time Machine . My money is mine anytime I want without having to ask anyone . In one stroke , banking separated the men from the boys . Parallely , down Dalal Street , paperless trading knocked out the stock exchange thrill of seeing hectic trading across counters reaching feverish proportions , making the private sector electronic banking systems richer by making available to them portfolios of the rich and the famous . State owned banks missed out on this large profitable opportunity big time . In response to the attempts of private banks to move in and takeover government banks , the largest Indian bank , the monolithic State Bank of India , finally responded after five years of being in the sidelines watching India go capitalist . The mother of all banks has now embarked on an image correction spree with a fantastic advertising campaign . Which bank has more customers than the entire continent of Australia ? Which bank has an asset base larger than three next-in-line- banks ? Our home loans are transparent . There’s a television commercial that has a girl losing a bet on how the bank can give loans without a guarantor . There’s another that has a guy who gets to make rotis on losing a bet about a home loan from State bank of India . The elephant has moved and how .
Railways have turned a neat profit . rollon-rolloff , khullars , upgrades , increasing capacity revolutionary . In the batch of thirty people attending this years Dynamic Pricing class in Indian institute of Management , Ahmedabad , over thirteen were from the Indian railways . Television channels were abuzz with the news that two couples had been upgraded by the Railways from their second class compartments to air-conditioned class due to the new dynamic pricing policy . This one change is pretty unheard of in Indian railway history . Also , some waitlisted people were called up and confirmed seats in first class , thereby utilizing the available empty inventory in the first class . The headline in the Economic times of today , the 23rd nov blares the audacious discounts being offered for passengers to upgrade . An unheard of concept in sloppy , sleepy Indian railways – the differential pricing principle . Different rates for different folks . Peak season surcharges , lean season discounts . Hitting out at the private airlines with these strategies , the Indian railways is gaining ground , slowly and surely .
Another railway concept , RORO or Roll-on-roll-off is the new buzz amongst transporters . To fight the impeding loss of revenue due to the fantastic infrastructure created by the ministry of roads , wherein transporters were finding it better to transport on the roads with renewed vigour rather than using railways . The fully loaded trucks have to just roll onto the railway wagons and roll off at the destinations . Saving fuel bills and maintainence costs encourages the truck owners to use the railways now . The empire is striking back .
The other news piece was curiosier . You can no longer swin with the fish and stay alive . Akbarally’s , one of the larger departmental stores in Mumbai , known for decades as the final stop for shopping for a whole range of products , closed their Santacruz branch down . The reason – bigger and better malls all around . Is this sounding the death knell for mom-and-pop stores all around the country ? The employees , all of whom were unskilled labour didn’t have an inkling of something like this coming their way and therefore were shocked out of their wits when the owner sealed the store and walked away . The most the employees could do was stage a demonstration against not being informed . The formidable competitor was Big bazaar , whole mega mall in Lower Parel recently shut just an hour after opening as the number of customers swelled to uncontrollable proportions . The cops were worried of a stampede . The Mall extended its sale to over three days though it was touted as just a republic Day sale for just a day .
Thirteen kilometers away , one of the oldest theatres in Mumbai , Minerva is shutting shop .The owner , recalled sadly how it was a theatre that created many a blockbuster and he counted out the number of silver jubilees over the years in his interview to the television channel . Sadly , he has to close down next week . The economics doesn’t work anymore for his movies shows priced at twenty rupees . The audience is now used to swanky theatres with great reclining seats with large leg space , dolby surround sound , fifty rupee popcorn and a brilliant experience . It’s neighbour , the magnificient Metro cinema closed last year and is now being renovated to be a multiplex . Noone wants to see a movie here now . It’s the same state of affairs as in the Plaza theatre in Bangalore . Spankling new multiplexes would take its places . The prices of tickets would be five times the prices currently though the multiplex enjoys a tax holiday .
The maths is simple .
Six hundred tickets in the old style theatre would get it eighteen thousand rupees , adding upto seventytwo thousand over a day , while a multiplex with a four hundred seats at hundred bucks a seat adds to forty thousand a show or half a million rupees a day for its eleven shows a day . The multiplex follows a different logic . Instead of the standard four movie format in a day the multiplex logic of a movie within any half hour of you coming to the theatre works wonderfully well as people run between their new economy schedules to catch movies . Most of the new multiplex companies have publicly listed companies making enough and more money from the entertainment boom .
The Economic Times had another article today . Long distance calls cost will be priced at one rupee with the one tariff plan announced by the government last week , creating havoc in the telecom circles .Indian was the only country in the world where the number of cable television connections were larger then the number of the telephone connections which were larger than the number of cellphone connections . This was in 2002 . Three years later , we face a very different reality . There are over seventy million cellphones , around sixty million cable television connections and a fifty five million telephone connections . The world has spun around full circle . People had started surrendering their land line phones back , and with this one rupee-a-long-distance-call masterstroke , the government wants to get the landline , fixed telephony up and running again. One rupee long distance calls will change the telephony industry suddenly . What happens to all the STD booths across the country that all of us used to frequent . The kind of employment created by the last surge in connectivity due to the STD booths ten years back will be put on the block now as people move from coming to STD booths to make a call to using their cellphones for calls . They have uncertain futures , while the nation looks to a great well-connected future . How will they reinvent themselves as each member in each family has a cellphone connection , guaranteeing them instant connectivity anywhere ?
Old jungle saying , ‘some questions don’t have answers .’
India is changing , and how .
Three news articles in the Times of India last week set me thinking .
The Dept of posts has moved courts to legislate a law banning private courier companies from transporting packets weighing lower than 500 gms which is sixty percent of the courier business and could in effect wipe out the private courier market .
The postal department has been fighting a losing battle with email which has truly dropped the mail business dramatically . Around ten years back , I wrote my last letter in longhand and its been ages since I put pen to paper to communicate a message . Email rules our lives now , thanks to Sabeer Bhatia who’s hotmail changed things forever . There’s no revenue model yet , but the concept of free email generating millions of users got Bill Gates charges enough to buy Hotmail for four hundred million dollars and send Bhatia into retirement at the age of twenty nine . In this one masterstroke , suddenly , the world was a different place . It also created a flatter world , something that Thomas Friedman woke upto very late . Information , the key ingredient of all decisions was suddenly available to boss and employee alike and also students and teachers alike . Email exploded communication many fold , besides sounding the death knell to industries like greeting cards , stationary , photocopying machines and of late the telephone booth . You can transfer a file using the pen drive , you can host information websites , you can publish your book using blogspot , you can email photographs , files worth gigabytes across miles of space . Why go to the post office ? Prompting the department of posts to first play along by seeking to be a large mail order company supporting the internet infrastructure requirement of delivering products bought online and having failed in generating any ecommerce delivery revenues, to now examine a law that stops the competing courier companies from delivering light documents . Will it win the war in an increasingly irreversible economy .Time will tell .
Why go to a bank ? Last time I visited a bank was five years ago . Today I get all my transactions done virtually , buy and sell stock , send money transfers , create demand drafts , track my investments online . Life has changed . I had fumed at a manager of the unjab national bank manager in late 1991 when he took a long time to clear my withdrawl slip for cash withdrawing while taking a long time to open a new account for a young girl . Why does it take such a long time , I wondered for me to withdraw my money from my bank ? Citibank changed that with the Any Time Machine . My money is mine anytime I want without having to ask anyone . In one stroke , banking separated the men from the boys . Parallely , down Dalal Street , paperless trading knocked out the stock exchange thrill of seeing hectic trading across counters reaching feverish proportions , making the private sector electronic banking systems richer by making available to them portfolios of the rich and the famous . State owned banks missed out on this large profitable opportunity big time . In response to the attempts of private banks to move in and takeover government banks , the largest Indian bank , the monolithic State Bank of India , finally responded after five years of being in the sidelines watching India go capitalist . The mother of all banks has now embarked on an image correction spree with a fantastic advertising campaign . Which bank has more customers than the entire continent of Australia ? Which bank has an asset base larger than three next-in-line- banks ? Our home loans are transparent . There’s a television commercial that has a girl losing a bet on how the bank can give loans without a guarantor . There’s another that has a guy who gets to make rotis on losing a bet about a home loan from State bank of India . The elephant has moved and how .
Railways have turned a neat profit . rollon-rolloff , khullars , upgrades , increasing capacity revolutionary . In the batch of thirty people attending this years Dynamic Pricing class in Indian institute of Management , Ahmedabad , over thirteen were from the Indian railways . Television channels were abuzz with the news that two couples had been upgraded by the Railways from their second class compartments to air-conditioned class due to the new dynamic pricing policy . This one change is pretty unheard of in Indian railway history . Also , some waitlisted people were called up and confirmed seats in first class , thereby utilizing the available empty inventory in the first class . The headline in the Economic times of today , the 23rd nov blares the audacious discounts being offered for passengers to upgrade . An unheard of concept in sloppy , sleepy Indian railways – the differential pricing principle . Different rates for different folks . Peak season surcharges , lean season discounts . Hitting out at the private airlines with these strategies , the Indian railways is gaining ground , slowly and surely .
Another railway concept , RORO or Roll-on-roll-off is the new buzz amongst transporters . To fight the impeding loss of revenue due to the fantastic infrastructure created by the ministry of roads , wherein transporters were finding it better to transport on the roads with renewed vigour rather than using railways . The fully loaded trucks have to just roll onto the railway wagons and roll off at the destinations . Saving fuel bills and maintainence costs encourages the truck owners to use the railways now . The empire is striking back .
The other news piece was curiosier . You can no longer swin with the fish and stay alive . Akbarally’s , one of the larger departmental stores in Mumbai , known for decades as the final stop for shopping for a whole range of products , closed their Santacruz branch down . The reason – bigger and better malls all around . Is this sounding the death knell for mom-and-pop stores all around the country ? The employees , all of whom were unskilled labour didn’t have an inkling of something like this coming their way and therefore were shocked out of their wits when the owner sealed the store and walked away . The most the employees could do was stage a demonstration against not being informed . The formidable competitor was Big bazaar , whole mega mall in Lower Parel recently shut just an hour after opening as the number of customers swelled to uncontrollable proportions . The cops were worried of a stampede . The Mall extended its sale to over three days though it was touted as just a republic Day sale for just a day .
Thirteen kilometers away , one of the oldest theatres in Mumbai , Minerva is shutting shop .The owner , recalled sadly how it was a theatre that created many a blockbuster and he counted out the number of silver jubilees over the years in his interview to the television channel . Sadly , he has to close down next week . The economics doesn’t work anymore for his movies shows priced at twenty rupees . The audience is now used to swanky theatres with great reclining seats with large leg space , dolby surround sound , fifty rupee popcorn and a brilliant experience . It’s neighbour , the magnificient Metro cinema closed last year and is now being renovated to be a multiplex . Noone wants to see a movie here now . It’s the same state of affairs as in the Plaza theatre in Bangalore . Spankling new multiplexes would take its places . The prices of tickets would be five times the prices currently though the multiplex enjoys a tax holiday .
The maths is simple .
Six hundred tickets in the old style theatre would get it eighteen thousand rupees , adding upto seventytwo thousand over a day , while a multiplex with a four hundred seats at hundred bucks a seat adds to forty thousand a show or half a million rupees a day for its eleven shows a day . The multiplex follows a different logic . Instead of the standard four movie format in a day the multiplex logic of a movie within any half hour of you coming to the theatre works wonderfully well as people run between their new economy schedules to catch movies . Most of the new multiplex companies have publicly listed companies making enough and more money from the entertainment boom .
The Economic Times had another article today . Long distance calls cost will be priced at one rupee with the one tariff plan announced by the government last week , creating havoc in the telecom circles .Indian was the only country in the world where the number of cable television connections were larger then the number of the telephone connections which were larger than the number of cellphone connections . This was in 2002 . Three years later , we face a very different reality . There are over seventy million cellphones , around sixty million cable television connections and a fifty five million telephone connections . The world has spun around full circle . People had started surrendering their land line phones back , and with this one rupee-a-long-distance-call masterstroke , the government wants to get the landline , fixed telephony up and running again. One rupee long distance calls will change the telephony industry suddenly . What happens to all the STD booths across the country that all of us used to frequent . The kind of employment created by the last surge in connectivity due to the STD booths ten years back will be put on the block now as people move from coming to STD booths to make a call to using their cellphones for calls . They have uncertain futures , while the nation looks to a great well-connected future . How will they reinvent themselves as each member in each family has a cellphone connection , guaranteeing them instant connectivity anywhere ?
Old jungle saying , ‘some questions don’t have answers .’
India is changing , and how .
Sunday, February 19, 2006
An Italian in Shanghai
‘Have you told your wife that we are coming over ?’ , Massimo asked normally .
‘No , I said , a little surprised . Though it set me thinking .
‘Oh , you must always call up and inform .’
‘I’ve never done that ‘. And why haven’t I , I wondered .
‘ In Italy , it is normal practice to call up your mate before you go home . It saves both a lot of embarrassment , in case she is with a companion ‘
‘ Massimo , what are you saying ! ’, I smiled nervously .
‘ Happened to me once . Found Marie with someone else in our house and we had to big fight and separated .’
An interesting concept , I thought .
‘I trust my wife ‘, I said .
‘Aha ‘, said Massimo .
Massimo Guantieri could easily be described as a handsome , dashing , young man . As Director – international sales , he was , in essence , the first foreigner that I spend a considerable amount of time with , just about close to two years.
Thirty two year old Massimo was tall and lanky , and had hair till his shoulders , which he would constantly dig his hands through pushing them behind his years . He wore well-designed clothes , stitched to fit and was pretty aggressive for an Italian . Through him I learnt much about Italians including bits and pieces of the language , even though it was Mrs. Bergero , wife of the operations director who formally took my Italian classes at eight every morning for over eleven months . And Massimo was quite intelligent , could talk on a variety of subjects sports , politics and most of all ,women . He was pretty blunt and direct too , mincing fewer words .
‘You still drive this ‘ he laughed , on day , pointing to my fiat .’we had Fiats around the world war . This is a forty five year old car ! ’
‘Hey , lacs of cars are used as taxis in Mumbai and on other towns like Pune , lot of old businessmen still drive the fiat . We have only three cars , the fiat , the ambassador and the maruti . For the rough and tumble of Indian roads , Fiat and Ambassador score hands down ’ I had said then .
Massimo Guantieri , Managing Director – Solatalco ,read his card from the ‘other life ‘ . The Solatalco , was a largish discotheque in Turin , hundred miles south of Rome . I could visualize the scene – Massimo , standing in the first floor abbey overlooking the wild below , smoking his cigars . As the Disc jockey would rattle out his numbers , Massimo would prospect for a companion for the extended Italian weekend . The reason why he had started free rueda lessons each evening was to have the largest crowd every weekend , in fact the place was packed and sweaty every Sunday . Young couples preferred the Solatalco to the others like chez nous or patio , primarily due to these free classes that were the brainchild of Massimo .
Turin was a historic roman camp which transformed itself to become the first Italian capital , which is the reason for it numerous museums . It also has some great wines and chocolates . It has eighteen kilometers of arcades that criss-cross the city centres keeping one away from the hot summer sun and the rain .
‘ One has to be thin in Turin , women there like it that way and can strike a friendship with you on the beach easily .’, said Massimo when I asked him why he didn’t eat much . Spicy Indian food would make him sweat like crazy , and he would only eat small morsels from small helpings .
Sicily and the south of Italy , which was Massimo’s sales territoty , houses the notorious mafia .Some of it has been made famous by Mario Puzo with his Don Corleone and co. Massimo used to describe vividly the sales calls he would make with the businessmen there , particularly the one about a small trader of industrial pumps tucked inside one of Sicily’s numerous mini-localities .
Massimo would come in his stark red Porsche car and screech into a halt just a couple of metres from the shopfront , enough to make an impact . As he would emerge with his briefcase in a smart suit with an aggressive demeanour , the businessman would be forced to take notice of Massimo inspite of any other customers present .
The first reaction would be the pulling out of a gun and placing it on the table . An average Sicilian is always prepared to face the mafia . In this , they are pretty much like the Indians , lots of taxes , lots of black money , lots of corruption and lots of political masala . In fact , the current prime minister of Italy , Sergio Berlusoni was our competitor then . But since then , he has bought over large television and radio networks and become a large media baron . With his becoming the prime minister , he is the media and he is the minister . Known for his unscrupulous business acumen , he can quash a competitor at his own free will now that he is the politician and has interests in many industrial and commercial businesses .
So, the businessman would keep his gun back only when he was reasonably assured of the fact that the visitor was harmless , didn’t want to collect taxes and didn’t want his customers or business .
Massimo would then kickstart his sales spiel , effectively using all the tools in the trade and attempting a conversion of the business to a client .
If, at the end of the entire exercise , the businessman was still not convinced , Massimo would try his brahma-astra , the ultimate weapon .
He would get up from the table by dramatically pushing his chair back .
‘Hey listen , if you don’t advertise with me , I lose one customer , that is you . I still have one thousand five hundred customers this year . But , you will surely lose the potential thousands of customers out there . The equation is pretty imbalanced , as you can see , with your loss being greater than mine . I will still drive a Porsche ,keep a great job , get a good salary , but you may just lose the opportunity to reach many new customers with your product message , have a better choice of customers , make more money and more profits . I leave the decision to you , you can think about it for a minute and tell me .’
Must say this is one of the most radical sales pitches I had ever seen and Massimo was very good at demonstrating the effect it would have on the Sicilian businessmen , who would typically drive around on a scooter , struggling to build his business .
Massimo was quite an aggressive charmer and they don’t make them like him anymore .
Walking down marine drive in downtown Mumbai in the middle of the night is always a great experience . On one cold December night with an India-pakistan day-night cricket match being played in the nearby Wankhede stadium , Massimo, the dude , enlightened me in more ways than one .
The match had crossed the half time limit and was nearing the end of the second innings with India batting . Pakistan had made a very large total of over three hundred and fifteen runs and India needed to cross that total in the fifty overs . A tough task , but has been done before by many teams and could now be done by India too . They had begun well with Sachin Tendulkar having crossed a fifty run mark milestone and an ecstatic crowd egging him onto a century . Vinod Kambli was supporting him in a hundred run stand . Runs were flowing and everything seemed to point to an Indian victory . Television telecast on the screen above and the floodlit match could be seen live at a distance from the revolving restaurant on the rooftop of the Ambassador Hotel where we had finished a quick dinner . We then decided to walk around the area , consuming some of the Mumbai weather and spirit .
‘Lot of gays in India ?’ said Massimo suddenly . It was a strange observation and I had never thought about it before , so I thought for a minute .
“How do you say that , Massimo ?
‘Look at these people . they are all holding hands and walking . Look at that green shirt .Look there at the white shirt . See the guys on the bike , they share a cigarette , the pillion’s hand is on the rider’s legs ’
I looked around . Sure , these guys were holding hands and the pillion on the bike had his hand on the thighs of the rider and the white shirt twosome had arms on each others shoulders . It suddenly dawned on me . They couldn’t be gay .This is normal here . People physically touching each other without malafide intent .
‘In Italy , you wouldn’t hold another man’s hands ‘less you were gay !’’
‘Good observation , Massimo . But , here , I guess , we have a nation of a billion people and urban centres are crowded . Your Turin has a population of less half a million while Mumbai is fifteen million . Why , even Pune is a good three million . So this holding hands and using shoulder support is just a gesture to confirm a state of belongness in these big cities . And the pillion on the bike is just making sure he holds onto his seat by clasping the rider . Nothing more , nothing less .’
‘ Aha ‘, said Massimo.
Another set of five –six guys broke into our scene and there was a lot of back slapping , camaraderie and loud laughter .
Massimo observed them intently . Though he didn’t say a word , I could make out that he was re-adjusting his definition of such behaviour in his mind .
We had walked now for a good fifteen minutes when suddenly , there was a surge of people on the marine drive road . In fact , the crowd swelled and swelled .
‘ Is the match over ?’, I asked someone
‘ No , Sachin is out and so is Kambli . We will lose the match ’
‘What happened ?’ said Massimo .
‘We are about to lose the match and since it is already one am , people are heading home to sleep . Tomorrow is a working day again ‘
‘I don’t understand ‘
‘The average runs that India needs per over is very high . So there is no chance that we will win . And Sachin , who is the star batsman , is out . ‘
‘Aha ‘, was all Massimo said .
As more and more people started onto the streets , Massimo couldn’t but help comment .
‘When our team is losing , we cheer them more . We want them to win ‘ he said gesticulating with a clenched fist .’ We don’t leave the ground till the last minute . Another attempt , another goal . How can you leave the team alone when they need support the most ! ’
I smiled . How strange , I thought that he should observe this .
For us , it’s normal to abandon cheering or supporting our struggling team and attributing the blame to anything and everything . We are , by our very nature , not a sporty nation and use scarcity as a survival tool .
A land of plenty makes one think of opportunities as infinite and therefore develops one to live a life accepting failure and encouraging re-attempts at success . A land of scarcity , of opportunities , of wealth , of infrastructure develops survival instincts in each of its citizens , ready to abandon failures and condemning the failed .
There’s the famous crab analogy . A bucketful of American crabs needed to be sealed with a lid , while a bucketful of Indian crabs could be transported without a cover . While American crabs would help each other and climb out of the bin , the Indian crabs would constantly keep pulling each other down , making sure none of them was free ever. Sheer survival demands it .
Massimo’s email came like a bolt from the blue .It’s been ten years almost since he had left for an assignment in Spain and we had stopped communicating .
‘Massimo ! you’re in China .’ , I shouted into the phone , calling him on the number he had given in his email .
‘Yes , friend , teach English here ’
‘English ! Man , you learnt a lot of it from me ‘I rejoined excitedly .
‘I write to you to acknowledge that fact , friend . Remembered our days together ‘, Massimo was a quintessential public relations guy too .
‘Send me royalties !’ I laughed out .
I can vividly picture Massimo , the tall and lanky italian , with shoulder length hair standing in front of a class ful of short chinese men and women with small eyes , all wanting a piece of the global action ridding themselves of the lack of English knowledge , the one thing standing in between them and capitalism .
Teaching English in China is probably the best money making opportunity in today’s world . For Massimo Guantieri , as always , and as the Sicilian businessman probably thought about later , the equation is again loaded in Massimo’s favour .
‘No , I said , a little surprised . Though it set me thinking .
‘Oh , you must always call up and inform .’
‘I’ve never done that ‘. And why haven’t I , I wondered .
‘ In Italy , it is normal practice to call up your mate before you go home . It saves both a lot of embarrassment , in case she is with a companion ‘
‘ Massimo , what are you saying ! ’, I smiled nervously .
‘ Happened to me once . Found Marie with someone else in our house and we had to big fight and separated .’
An interesting concept , I thought .
‘I trust my wife ‘, I said .
‘Aha ‘, said Massimo .
Massimo Guantieri could easily be described as a handsome , dashing , young man . As Director – international sales , he was , in essence , the first foreigner that I spend a considerable amount of time with , just about close to two years.
Thirty two year old Massimo was tall and lanky , and had hair till his shoulders , which he would constantly dig his hands through pushing them behind his years . He wore well-designed clothes , stitched to fit and was pretty aggressive for an Italian . Through him I learnt much about Italians including bits and pieces of the language , even though it was Mrs. Bergero , wife of the operations director who formally took my Italian classes at eight every morning for over eleven months . And Massimo was quite intelligent , could talk on a variety of subjects sports , politics and most of all ,women . He was pretty blunt and direct too , mincing fewer words .
‘You still drive this ‘ he laughed , on day , pointing to my fiat .’we had Fiats around the world war . This is a forty five year old car ! ’
‘Hey , lacs of cars are used as taxis in Mumbai and on other towns like Pune , lot of old businessmen still drive the fiat . We have only three cars , the fiat , the ambassador and the maruti . For the rough and tumble of Indian roads , Fiat and Ambassador score hands down ’ I had said then .
Massimo Guantieri , Managing Director – Solatalco ,read his card from the ‘other life ‘ . The Solatalco , was a largish discotheque in Turin , hundred miles south of Rome . I could visualize the scene – Massimo , standing in the first floor abbey overlooking the wild below , smoking his cigars . As the Disc jockey would rattle out his numbers , Massimo would prospect for a companion for the extended Italian weekend . The reason why he had started free rueda lessons each evening was to have the largest crowd every weekend , in fact the place was packed and sweaty every Sunday . Young couples preferred the Solatalco to the others like chez nous or patio , primarily due to these free classes that were the brainchild of Massimo .
Turin was a historic roman camp which transformed itself to become the first Italian capital , which is the reason for it numerous museums . It also has some great wines and chocolates . It has eighteen kilometers of arcades that criss-cross the city centres keeping one away from the hot summer sun and the rain .
‘ One has to be thin in Turin , women there like it that way and can strike a friendship with you on the beach easily .’, said Massimo when I asked him why he didn’t eat much . Spicy Indian food would make him sweat like crazy , and he would only eat small morsels from small helpings .
Sicily and the south of Italy , which was Massimo’s sales territoty , houses the notorious mafia .Some of it has been made famous by Mario Puzo with his Don Corleone and co. Massimo used to describe vividly the sales calls he would make with the businessmen there , particularly the one about a small trader of industrial pumps tucked inside one of Sicily’s numerous mini-localities .
Massimo would come in his stark red Porsche car and screech into a halt just a couple of metres from the shopfront , enough to make an impact . As he would emerge with his briefcase in a smart suit with an aggressive demeanour , the businessman would be forced to take notice of Massimo inspite of any other customers present .
The first reaction would be the pulling out of a gun and placing it on the table . An average Sicilian is always prepared to face the mafia . In this , they are pretty much like the Indians , lots of taxes , lots of black money , lots of corruption and lots of political masala . In fact , the current prime minister of Italy , Sergio Berlusoni was our competitor then . But since then , he has bought over large television and radio networks and become a large media baron . With his becoming the prime minister , he is the media and he is the minister . Known for his unscrupulous business acumen , he can quash a competitor at his own free will now that he is the politician and has interests in many industrial and commercial businesses .
So, the businessman would keep his gun back only when he was reasonably assured of the fact that the visitor was harmless , didn’t want to collect taxes and didn’t want his customers or business .
Massimo would then kickstart his sales spiel , effectively using all the tools in the trade and attempting a conversion of the business to a client .
If, at the end of the entire exercise , the businessman was still not convinced , Massimo would try his brahma-astra , the ultimate weapon .
He would get up from the table by dramatically pushing his chair back .
‘Hey listen , if you don’t advertise with me , I lose one customer , that is you . I still have one thousand five hundred customers this year . But , you will surely lose the potential thousands of customers out there . The equation is pretty imbalanced , as you can see , with your loss being greater than mine . I will still drive a Porsche ,keep a great job , get a good salary , but you may just lose the opportunity to reach many new customers with your product message , have a better choice of customers , make more money and more profits . I leave the decision to you , you can think about it for a minute and tell me .’
Must say this is one of the most radical sales pitches I had ever seen and Massimo was very good at demonstrating the effect it would have on the Sicilian businessmen , who would typically drive around on a scooter , struggling to build his business .
Massimo was quite an aggressive charmer and they don’t make them like him anymore .
Walking down marine drive in downtown Mumbai in the middle of the night is always a great experience . On one cold December night with an India-pakistan day-night cricket match being played in the nearby Wankhede stadium , Massimo, the dude , enlightened me in more ways than one .
The match had crossed the half time limit and was nearing the end of the second innings with India batting . Pakistan had made a very large total of over three hundred and fifteen runs and India needed to cross that total in the fifty overs . A tough task , but has been done before by many teams and could now be done by India too . They had begun well with Sachin Tendulkar having crossed a fifty run mark milestone and an ecstatic crowd egging him onto a century . Vinod Kambli was supporting him in a hundred run stand . Runs were flowing and everything seemed to point to an Indian victory . Television telecast on the screen above and the floodlit match could be seen live at a distance from the revolving restaurant on the rooftop of the Ambassador Hotel where we had finished a quick dinner . We then decided to walk around the area , consuming some of the Mumbai weather and spirit .
‘Lot of gays in India ?’ said Massimo suddenly . It was a strange observation and I had never thought about it before , so I thought for a minute .
“How do you say that , Massimo ?
‘Look at these people . they are all holding hands and walking . Look at that green shirt .Look there at the white shirt . See the guys on the bike , they share a cigarette , the pillion’s hand is on the rider’s legs ’
I looked around . Sure , these guys were holding hands and the pillion on the bike had his hand on the thighs of the rider and the white shirt twosome had arms on each others shoulders . It suddenly dawned on me . They couldn’t be gay .This is normal here . People physically touching each other without malafide intent .
‘In Italy , you wouldn’t hold another man’s hands ‘less you were gay !’’
‘Good observation , Massimo . But , here , I guess , we have a nation of a billion people and urban centres are crowded . Your Turin has a population of less half a million while Mumbai is fifteen million . Why , even Pune is a good three million . So this holding hands and using shoulder support is just a gesture to confirm a state of belongness in these big cities . And the pillion on the bike is just making sure he holds onto his seat by clasping the rider . Nothing more , nothing less .’
‘ Aha ‘, said Massimo.
Another set of five –six guys broke into our scene and there was a lot of back slapping , camaraderie and loud laughter .
Massimo observed them intently . Though he didn’t say a word , I could make out that he was re-adjusting his definition of such behaviour in his mind .
We had walked now for a good fifteen minutes when suddenly , there was a surge of people on the marine drive road . In fact , the crowd swelled and swelled .
‘ Is the match over ?’, I asked someone
‘ No , Sachin is out and so is Kambli . We will lose the match ’
‘What happened ?’ said Massimo .
‘We are about to lose the match and since it is already one am , people are heading home to sleep . Tomorrow is a working day again ‘
‘I don’t understand ‘
‘The average runs that India needs per over is very high . So there is no chance that we will win . And Sachin , who is the star batsman , is out . ‘
‘Aha ‘, was all Massimo said .
As more and more people started onto the streets , Massimo couldn’t but help comment .
‘When our team is losing , we cheer them more . We want them to win ‘ he said gesticulating with a clenched fist .’ We don’t leave the ground till the last minute . Another attempt , another goal . How can you leave the team alone when they need support the most ! ’
I smiled . How strange , I thought that he should observe this .
For us , it’s normal to abandon cheering or supporting our struggling team and attributing the blame to anything and everything . We are , by our very nature , not a sporty nation and use scarcity as a survival tool .
A land of plenty makes one think of opportunities as infinite and therefore develops one to live a life accepting failure and encouraging re-attempts at success . A land of scarcity , of opportunities , of wealth , of infrastructure develops survival instincts in each of its citizens , ready to abandon failures and condemning the failed .
There’s the famous crab analogy . A bucketful of American crabs needed to be sealed with a lid , while a bucketful of Indian crabs could be transported without a cover . While American crabs would help each other and climb out of the bin , the Indian crabs would constantly keep pulling each other down , making sure none of them was free ever. Sheer survival demands it .
Massimo’s email came like a bolt from the blue .It’s been ten years almost since he had left for an assignment in Spain and we had stopped communicating .
‘Massimo ! you’re in China .’ , I shouted into the phone , calling him on the number he had given in his email .
‘Yes , friend , teach English here ’
‘English ! Man , you learnt a lot of it from me ‘I rejoined excitedly .
‘I write to you to acknowledge that fact , friend . Remembered our days together ‘, Massimo was a quintessential public relations guy too .
‘Send me royalties !’ I laughed out .
I can vividly picture Massimo , the tall and lanky italian , with shoulder length hair standing in front of a class ful of short chinese men and women with small eyes , all wanting a piece of the global action ridding themselves of the lack of English knowledge , the one thing standing in between them and capitalism .
Teaching English in China is probably the best money making opportunity in today’s world . For Massimo Guantieri , as always , and as the Sicilian businessman probably thought about later , the equation is again loaded in Massimo’s favour .
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
125cc forever
Japs are Japs .In and Indians are Indians sort of way .
An early morning drive from New Jersey to JFK airport showed me the brilliance of the Honda civic . The tar road coupled with its intricate engineering helps the car glide steadily at 100 miles an hour .
The precision that the Japs apply on making automobile engines has created huge demands and helped economic revolutions across the world for ages .
Koreans on the other hand like to make low cost cars and these cars remain that way – low cost . The constant re-pricing of their cars at lower than their inaugural price reflects poor quality handiwork and reliability . The Optra with a Korean Daewoo Nebura engine began selling at a ten and half lacs and now retails at six . The Korean Hyundai Accent drops thrity percent of its value in ten minutes of driving out of the showroom . The Daewoo Matiz vanished . Mid-Day once carried a photograph of a Hyundai Cielo that caught fire on the road suddenly . Noone drives a Korean Hyosang bike although the model made it to India five years back .The fourth Chief Executive officer of Hyundai has just committed suicide as Korean authorities caught up with him for financial irregularities.
Ten years back , I had my first set of wheels , a company hand-me-down fiat . Hierarchy demanded that I get the fiat and I got it . It seemed a pretty long car for Pune’s roads then . Maneouvrability was quite an effort . But , it was fun . The change to a car from a bike meant new things , some strange , some unwelcome . There was a sense of loss of freedom though . The freedom to zip around without objectives . One can’t do that in a car . There’s no feeling the rain on one’s face , no feeling the wind around your ears . No glares when you zip past other bikes . No woman gripping you tight in order to avoid a flight off the bike . No circuitous traffic snarls . No speed limits. A sense of freedom that a car can never give .
Driving a car migrates you to a different class , one that lacks feeling , one that has enough , one who’s ambitions are insatiable , one who pauses and thinks before one acts , one who is not actually free .
Bike is also cult . Car is not .
Except probably the Mercedes Benz .
I test drove one of the first E230’s that were being launched in India , on the internal roads of Tata Motors factory in Chinchwad , Pune.
It is a cherished memory .
I described the drive to my excited collegues back in office .
“If God is here ‘, I said gesticulating in the air with my right palm held flat at my eye level , “ The Merc is here “, I concluded placing my left palm just under my right .
“The Merc is next to God.”
“ At 230 kilometers per hour , the car is the next best experience to experiencing God. After 140 kmph , the chasis of the car drops down a couple of inches for better grip . You feel a sudden lowering , the kind that hits you when an aircraft starts to descend . Ans at 160 kmph , if you take a turn , the car drops its speed intelligently to 40 kmph. As you start the car and take off , it hits 100 kmph in 4 seconds ”
“Man , the Merc is something ”
Everyone gaped at me , wondering what the whole experience was and what they were expected to do about it .
‘Rest of the cars will die aspiring ‘, I said in conclusion .
As one turns off the expressway into Pune , there is a deluge of buzzing bikes all over the road . Everyone and his uncle has a bike . The bicepted beefcaked guys drive the high powered getaway bikes while the giggly girls drive a small 50cc make-your-own-way moped. The young girls generally have a colourful bandana garment covering their faces and head , leaving just the eyes open to navigate . It helps them stay away from the pollution , but stay close to their boyfriends incognito . Perhaps it was invented by the local maharastrian girls who didn’t want to be noticed by their parents while biking around with a bunch of their college boy friends . Mumbai offers tremendous anonymity with its great geography and zillions of places to hide , Pune doesn’t , so this is therefore a remarkable invention.
Pune’s roads are thickly populated with students on their 125cc bikes , unlike Chennai which has 50cc or 100cc bikes ridden by thousands of working men and women . Ahmedabad has lots of scooters and lots of brash women drivers .Their three wheelers used to run on kerosene , considered the poor man’s petrol . There is no traffic and civic sense in Ahmedabad , Pune is a shade better . In Mangalore , they buy a car when they go to study , so most students arrive in the coastal town with a car and a house in tow . So , there’s this student who is going to be spending the next 6 years doing his medicine which costs him a good 20 lacs , so for a ten percent extra cash , one buys a car too . Handy for college . Handy for style .Handy for dates .
Again unlike the scooters of the traders in Ahmedabad and the working men in Chennai or the car-ed students of Mangalore , the bikes of Pune belong to students .
That’s why Pune as a city is much younger than Chennai or Mangalore or Ahmedabad or even Bangalore .
‘Pune , powered by 125cc ‘, could make a nice advertising line .
It’s density of bikes is probably one of the highest ,making the city buzzing and youthful .
Pune will never grow up .
Be 125cc forever .
An early morning drive from New Jersey to JFK airport showed me the brilliance of the Honda civic . The tar road coupled with its intricate engineering helps the car glide steadily at 100 miles an hour .
The precision that the Japs apply on making automobile engines has created huge demands and helped economic revolutions across the world for ages .
Koreans on the other hand like to make low cost cars and these cars remain that way – low cost . The constant re-pricing of their cars at lower than their inaugural price reflects poor quality handiwork and reliability . The Optra with a Korean Daewoo Nebura engine began selling at a ten and half lacs and now retails at six . The Korean Hyundai Accent drops thrity percent of its value in ten minutes of driving out of the showroom . The Daewoo Matiz vanished . Mid-Day once carried a photograph of a Hyundai Cielo that caught fire on the road suddenly . Noone drives a Korean Hyosang bike although the model made it to India five years back .The fourth Chief Executive officer of Hyundai has just committed suicide as Korean authorities caught up with him for financial irregularities.
Ten years back , I had my first set of wheels , a company hand-me-down fiat . Hierarchy demanded that I get the fiat and I got it . It seemed a pretty long car for Pune’s roads then . Maneouvrability was quite an effort . But , it was fun . The change to a car from a bike meant new things , some strange , some unwelcome . There was a sense of loss of freedom though . The freedom to zip around without objectives . One can’t do that in a car . There’s no feeling the rain on one’s face , no feeling the wind around your ears . No glares when you zip past other bikes . No woman gripping you tight in order to avoid a flight off the bike . No circuitous traffic snarls . No speed limits. A sense of freedom that a car can never give .
Driving a car migrates you to a different class , one that lacks feeling , one that has enough , one who’s ambitions are insatiable , one who pauses and thinks before one acts , one who is not actually free .
Bike is also cult . Car is not .
Except probably the Mercedes Benz .
I test drove one of the first E230’s that were being launched in India , on the internal roads of Tata Motors factory in Chinchwad , Pune.
It is a cherished memory .
I described the drive to my excited collegues back in office .
“If God is here ‘, I said gesticulating in the air with my right palm held flat at my eye level , “ The Merc is here “, I concluded placing my left palm just under my right .
“The Merc is next to God.”
“ At 230 kilometers per hour , the car is the next best experience to experiencing God. After 140 kmph , the chasis of the car drops down a couple of inches for better grip . You feel a sudden lowering , the kind that hits you when an aircraft starts to descend . Ans at 160 kmph , if you take a turn , the car drops its speed intelligently to 40 kmph. As you start the car and take off , it hits 100 kmph in 4 seconds ”
“Man , the Merc is something ”
Everyone gaped at me , wondering what the whole experience was and what they were expected to do about it .
‘Rest of the cars will die aspiring ‘, I said in conclusion .
As one turns off the expressway into Pune , there is a deluge of buzzing bikes all over the road . Everyone and his uncle has a bike . The bicepted beefcaked guys drive the high powered getaway bikes while the giggly girls drive a small 50cc make-your-own-way moped. The young girls generally have a colourful bandana garment covering their faces and head , leaving just the eyes open to navigate . It helps them stay away from the pollution , but stay close to their boyfriends incognito . Perhaps it was invented by the local maharastrian girls who didn’t want to be noticed by their parents while biking around with a bunch of their college boy friends . Mumbai offers tremendous anonymity with its great geography and zillions of places to hide , Pune doesn’t , so this is therefore a remarkable invention.
Pune’s roads are thickly populated with students on their 125cc bikes , unlike Chennai which has 50cc or 100cc bikes ridden by thousands of working men and women . Ahmedabad has lots of scooters and lots of brash women drivers .Their three wheelers used to run on kerosene , considered the poor man’s petrol . There is no traffic and civic sense in Ahmedabad , Pune is a shade better . In Mangalore , they buy a car when they go to study , so most students arrive in the coastal town with a car and a house in tow . So , there’s this student who is going to be spending the next 6 years doing his medicine which costs him a good 20 lacs , so for a ten percent extra cash , one buys a car too . Handy for college . Handy for style .Handy for dates .
Again unlike the scooters of the traders in Ahmedabad and the working men in Chennai or the car-ed students of Mangalore , the bikes of Pune belong to students .
That’s why Pune as a city is much younger than Chennai or Mangalore or Ahmedabad or even Bangalore .
‘Pune , powered by 125cc ‘, could make a nice advertising line .
It’s density of bikes is probably one of the highest ,making the city buzzing and youthful .
Pune will never grow up .
Be 125cc forever .
One man's meat
I stared at the hostess on my flight back home . Noopor , her name badge read . She had a simple smile , the kind that looks stuck on her . As she cleared the dinner plates into her service trolley , I wondered what was it that motivated her to do such stuff . The sixty – seventy passengers whose plates she clears in each flight gives her the satisfaction of a job well done or is it the glamour of flying around or is it the sense of service that’s pervading in them to give themselves to such a task ? Or is it just the good life ? Jeanine , our brilliant radio jockey , has become an airhostess with Virgin Atlantic airlines , flies to London for two days every week and has the week to herself whether she’s in London or in Pune . So , is it the good life ? One must agree that she is the service type , someone who doesn’t mind putting others needs first
And Danny ? That’s the other guy as a part of the service team on this flight .What motivates him ? Why would he , a smart looking ,handsome young man seek a more interesting vocation rather than this servile and drudging task .
I had walked up the escalator since this part of the airport has an aerobridge entry to the aircraft . There’s a cop at the exit gate . What’s his motivation ? Checking each boarding pass to see if it has been stamped could be duty . But isn’t the guy controlling traffic or the guy chasing goons across city lanes enjoying a more thrilling and rewarding career ? Compared to checking boarding passes ? Is his job rotated – from airport checks to traffic to crime or is it superspecialization ?
What motivates a conducter in a bus to spend his life checking tickets ? The driver has all the thrill , maneovring through rush hour traffic , controlling his environment every minute , every day . The conductor checks cash daily for each trip . Hands out change and manages money . Is he doing it because it’s his job or is there some thrill or has he decided that’s his life ? What motivates a girl in housekeeping at the Taj to check my laundry needs everyday , clean my bedsheets and re-arrange the flowers ?
What motivates a vegetable vendor to stand behind his vegetable stand everyday making a couple of hundred ? Just plain occupation , the need to survive or the joy of feeding many a family by providing access to farm fresh produce ?
Why does someone working in IT spend his life staring at a computer screen ,a prisoner of a two-by-two cubicle ? Is the satisfaction of having cracked a code that can save a warehouse eight billion dollars in annual savings good enough to keep going ? Or is it this urge to rake brain cells solving complex problems or is it a personality disorder not seeking to understand the world outside ?
The newspaper vendor whom one never gets to see delivers a paper everyday , making a penny for each paper . Why does he keep going ?
The girl at the billing counter at shoppers stop in In-Orbit , malad . What motivates har to do exactly the same thing everyday ? What motivates the young dude behind the McDonald’s outlet on Linking road ? The freedom that money gives him to date , dine and detox every weekend or the sheer pleasure of a swelling bank account ?
What motivates the petrol bunk attendant attached to the country owned outlet on Cadell road and who is going to be there for his entire work lifetime of forty years to keep filling ambitious cars with fuel so they can meet their dreams ?
What motivated those bunch of musicians on the Titanic to keep playing even as hope perished around them ?
What motivates a teacher to teach the same subject from the same textbook every year to a different class in the same classroom ? The same questions , the same answers and the same exercises . Mrs. Chitnis taught us Chemistry and she was exceptionally finicky about the way we learnt it. We needed to carry four different coloured pens , each of which would be for a different chemical reaction . She referred to five notebooks of notes which were very neatly preserved for years . Did the thrill of getting someone to understand AgCl + NaNO3 = NaCl + AgNO3 enough for her to be motivated for life , creating multi-coloured reactions separated by equations ? In her case , it had to be more . There’s no deeper relevance of things like valencies and periodic tables in ordinary life. She taught us to make soap from carbolic acid , though I haven’t made soap ever after . Her passion with the subject helped us learn it fast enough . What really ignited her passions to deliver batches of students who preferred physics and biology rather than lifeless chemical equations ?
What motivates a child to wave at a passing train ? Who does he smile at ? Why does it give someone happiness in waving at a bunch of strangers passing through on their journey ?
The soldier knows fully well that he stands half a chance of returning alive and half a chance of returning dead . Yet , their sense of duty is amazing . There’s not to make reply . There’s not to reason why . There’s but to do and die . Imagine being posted to Iraq , fighting someone else’s war someplace else . What’s in it for them ?
What motivates a sales guy ? The achievement of having motivated someone to part with his money for things that he has managed to sell or the gamble of meeting revenue numbers month on month or the capacity to influence people to change their minds ?
Moolah motivates . Everyone working , I imagine , to the best of his ability seeks a life of respect . Money buys respect . It doesn’t buy peace or happiness . it buys respect . Work brings in the moolah . And goals are objectives that form the basis of the need to work . Goals and opportunities are pretty straightjacketed in our lives here . One kind of job for a lifetime . In the west , there’s study , compulsory conscription and diverse , exciting work options . The Palestinian army major who was co-habiting with me in the Panjim Inn in Goa was in India to study nuclear warfare . The Srilankan damsel was studying marine biology . Dinner table conversations were stimulating and experiential . My tenant in one of my houses in Pune is the chief engineer of the Holiday Inn project building a hotel in Kalyaninagar . He’s just back from a similar project in Dubai . That’s some job . Aamir Khan does a movie every four years and has promised to improve his record . That’s some job . Dr. Dharmarakshak has the best cardiothoracic surgical record in the Nizam’s institute of Medical Studies . He operates on severe arthero-sclerosis and cardiac arrest cases and the precision with which he grants people their lives dependent on their abused hearts is remarkable . No wonder , the corridors of the hospital section where he consults reverberate with hope . His sign outside his room could as well read ‘God is in ’.That’s some job . And some responsibility .
What would I like to do ?
Buy a nice cottage on a beach in Goa , fill one of the rooms with thousands of books and the state-of-the-art home theatre with a great DVD collection of the best movies ever made . Find a muse , Padmalaxmi , for instance . Hit the dirt road once a year for a two-three month long journey through Indian hinterland or travel extensively through one different country every year for a couple of months .
Eat . Read .Write .Converse .Swim .Storytell .Observe .
Live .
And Danny ? That’s the other guy as a part of the service team on this flight .What motivates him ? Why would he , a smart looking ,handsome young man seek a more interesting vocation rather than this servile and drudging task .
I had walked up the escalator since this part of the airport has an aerobridge entry to the aircraft . There’s a cop at the exit gate . What’s his motivation ? Checking each boarding pass to see if it has been stamped could be duty . But isn’t the guy controlling traffic or the guy chasing goons across city lanes enjoying a more thrilling and rewarding career ? Compared to checking boarding passes ? Is his job rotated – from airport checks to traffic to crime or is it superspecialization ?
What motivates a conducter in a bus to spend his life checking tickets ? The driver has all the thrill , maneovring through rush hour traffic , controlling his environment every minute , every day . The conductor checks cash daily for each trip . Hands out change and manages money . Is he doing it because it’s his job or is there some thrill or has he decided that’s his life ? What motivates a girl in housekeeping at the Taj to check my laundry needs everyday , clean my bedsheets and re-arrange the flowers ?
What motivates a vegetable vendor to stand behind his vegetable stand everyday making a couple of hundred ? Just plain occupation , the need to survive or the joy of feeding many a family by providing access to farm fresh produce ?
Why does someone working in IT spend his life staring at a computer screen ,a prisoner of a two-by-two cubicle ? Is the satisfaction of having cracked a code that can save a warehouse eight billion dollars in annual savings good enough to keep going ? Or is it this urge to rake brain cells solving complex problems or is it a personality disorder not seeking to understand the world outside ?
The newspaper vendor whom one never gets to see delivers a paper everyday , making a penny for each paper . Why does he keep going ?
The girl at the billing counter at shoppers stop in In-Orbit , malad . What motivates har to do exactly the same thing everyday ? What motivates the young dude behind the McDonald’s outlet on Linking road ? The freedom that money gives him to date , dine and detox every weekend or the sheer pleasure of a swelling bank account ?
What motivates the petrol bunk attendant attached to the country owned outlet on Cadell road and who is going to be there for his entire work lifetime of forty years to keep filling ambitious cars with fuel so they can meet their dreams ?
What motivated those bunch of musicians on the Titanic to keep playing even as hope perished around them ?
What motivates a teacher to teach the same subject from the same textbook every year to a different class in the same classroom ? The same questions , the same answers and the same exercises . Mrs. Chitnis taught us Chemistry and she was exceptionally finicky about the way we learnt it. We needed to carry four different coloured pens , each of which would be for a different chemical reaction . She referred to five notebooks of notes which were very neatly preserved for years . Did the thrill of getting someone to understand AgCl + NaNO3 = NaCl + AgNO3 enough for her to be motivated for life , creating multi-coloured reactions separated by equations ? In her case , it had to be more . There’s no deeper relevance of things like valencies and periodic tables in ordinary life. She taught us to make soap from carbolic acid , though I haven’t made soap ever after . Her passion with the subject helped us learn it fast enough . What really ignited her passions to deliver batches of students who preferred physics and biology rather than lifeless chemical equations ?
What motivates a child to wave at a passing train ? Who does he smile at ? Why does it give someone happiness in waving at a bunch of strangers passing through on their journey ?
The soldier knows fully well that he stands half a chance of returning alive and half a chance of returning dead . Yet , their sense of duty is amazing . There’s not to make reply . There’s not to reason why . There’s but to do and die . Imagine being posted to Iraq , fighting someone else’s war someplace else . What’s in it for them ?
What motivates a sales guy ? The achievement of having motivated someone to part with his money for things that he has managed to sell or the gamble of meeting revenue numbers month on month or the capacity to influence people to change their minds ?
Moolah motivates . Everyone working , I imagine , to the best of his ability seeks a life of respect . Money buys respect . It doesn’t buy peace or happiness . it buys respect . Work brings in the moolah . And goals are objectives that form the basis of the need to work . Goals and opportunities are pretty straightjacketed in our lives here . One kind of job for a lifetime . In the west , there’s study , compulsory conscription and diverse , exciting work options . The Palestinian army major who was co-habiting with me in the Panjim Inn in Goa was in India to study nuclear warfare . The Srilankan damsel was studying marine biology . Dinner table conversations were stimulating and experiential . My tenant in one of my houses in Pune is the chief engineer of the Holiday Inn project building a hotel in Kalyaninagar . He’s just back from a similar project in Dubai . That’s some job . Aamir Khan does a movie every four years and has promised to improve his record . That’s some job . Dr. Dharmarakshak has the best cardiothoracic surgical record in the Nizam’s institute of Medical Studies . He operates on severe arthero-sclerosis and cardiac arrest cases and the precision with which he grants people their lives dependent on their abused hearts is remarkable . No wonder , the corridors of the hospital section where he consults reverberate with hope . His sign outside his room could as well read ‘God is in ’.That’s some job . And some responsibility .
What would I like to do ?
Buy a nice cottage on a beach in Goa , fill one of the rooms with thousands of books and the state-of-the-art home theatre with a great DVD collection of the best movies ever made . Find a muse , Padmalaxmi , for instance . Hit the dirt road once a year for a two-three month long journey through Indian hinterland or travel extensively through one different country every year for a couple of months .
Eat . Read .Write .Converse .Swim .Storytell .Observe .
Live .
650 metres between Tulsi pipe and Cadell roads
Life stinks .
Just after you cross Mahim causeway from the suburbs towards town , the road breaks into three ,creating some kind of a choice forced upon unsuspecting inmates of India’s capitalist prison , Mumbai .
The one on the left goes past Raheja hospital to Tulsi Pipe road . The two sides of this road are entirely different . The left has filth , squalor , dirt and muck of rows and rows of slums , inhabited by the erstwhile workers of flourishing textile mills , all of which are now closed , in central Mumbai . Half clad women and naked kids with soulless eyes mark their presence in hundreds . The entire stretch goes through Matunga and Dadar onwards to Lower Parel and Mahalaxmi . Matunga and Dadar are Mumbai’s original inhabitants , staying in original houses of four storeys with twelve feet high roofs and large houses with balconies , something you can’t find in the rest of Mumbai . Lower Parel is where all the mills where .
One used to hear tales of great labour union leaders who ruled this part of Mumbai complete with their factions and connections to the underworld . The mills fell silent somewhere in the late nineties when local industry met competition . These were casualties of the first wave of liberalization and advent of the competitors from all over the world . Cotton , Silk and Wool perished dramatically as readymades and brands took over .The manufacturing firms gave way to marketing firms who got apparel from other places , branded and sold . Some firms like Century textiles have recently got readymade brands into the marketplace. Too little , too late , one wonders .Others like Bombay Dyeing haven’t yet got their act together and make more monies from their mill land sale than from textiles . So much so , they recently launched an airline called Go air , the brother that runs that part dates Preity Zinta ,the beautiful and dramatic actress .
For the last ten years till a couple of months back , Lower Parel was an eerie place. There are many dilapidated , silent mills , all of which are being sold at astronomical prices now to builders from all over India who are setting up mega malls , residential towers and multiplexes . The workers of these closed down mills found their way into the slums on Tulsi pipe road all the way from Mahim to Lower Parel , a good six kilometer stretch . There are no signals on this road so one drives rapidly , except pausing for an occasional dash that a small kid would do to cross the road or to avoid overdressed women soliciting precariously on road dividers .
All of this filth ends completely on Mahalaxmi , home to the race course . Mahalaxmi . Eternal magnificient moolah , literally . Every Sunday from November to March , the social gliterrati assemble in their magnificient dresses to place their bets on horses of the season and make returns on their frivolous investments . The who’s who of Mumbai and Pune creating greater and greater wealth for themselves every Sunday morning . The McDowell Derby is the biggest of them all , fetching close to a hundred million dollars in the second Saturday of February each year .
The middle road , called the swatantra veer savarkar marg , or sv road for the initiated takes one right through the back of all these mills and serves as a conduit for people who would work in the lanes of the poorer and older Mumbai . The lanes are full of residences of people who work in normal jobs , take home normal wages and have asense of community , local sons-of-the-soil kind of people . The road dissects Mumbai’s townside into two and carries on on the other side of the causeway to Kandivali , some twentyseven kilometers away . All kinds of shops dot the way beginning with the Mahim Church , sweet shops , phone shops , travel shops , petrol pumps , bank atms , bookstores , restaurants , any kind that would serve the need of the local populace .Somewhere along the way , it embraces Shivaji park in Dadar , the hotbed of political activity and the official political rally ground in Mumbai . Many a politician has claimed their rightful place in Mumbai’s political sun by demonstrating the size of their persuasive power in getting supporters to fill in these grounds and then delivering fiery speeches .
The third road , the Cadell road splits away right from Mahim causeway and creates a surge of office traffic headed to Nariman point , the commercial capital of money-minded Mumbai. There are no two –wheelers or three-wheeled autorickshaws on this road , just the best cars that run on Mumbai roads . The rich , super-rich and the uber-rich travel through this road . The road is cemented , with a clear footpath and not a soul in sight for most part of the day on the roads . It passes through mini-pakistan , as the small muslim dominated area at the beginning of Mahim is called and then reaches Siddhivinayak , the famous ganesh temple that can fulfill all your desires unconditionally and ends at Haji Ali , the muslim dargah . Cadell road also houses Samudra mahal , one of the most expensive real estate residences in Mumbai , costing well over five million dollars.
Life in Mumbai is reflected in the six hundred and fifty metre distance between these three roads , the swanky Cadell road , the middle class SV road and the filthy Tulsi Pipe road . They have co-existed for many many years and think will continue to do so .
As you speed past large buildings and patches of lush greens on Cadell road on a rainy day , you feel the pleasure and joy of it all . The struggle has been worth it and you have earned the momentary glory of conquest .
As you drive cautiously through the bumper to bumper sv road , one looks at all those shops out there and wonders about mundane things like some forgotten books to be bought for kids next semester or tickets to the movie for the weekend or a shoe to be repaired .
And , as you look at the people in the roofless slums of Tulsi pipe road on a rainy , wet day you feel the poverty and the pain and question the emptiness of this constant striving for materialistic pleasures .
This is just one part of Mumbai .
The other part is cruising at a hundred miles per hour and is minutes from their next destination . The daily commute in the fast suburban locals defines everything for this lot, just about a million or two of them .
But , theirs is another story .
And we’ll keep it for another day .
Just after you cross Mahim causeway from the suburbs towards town , the road breaks into three ,creating some kind of a choice forced upon unsuspecting inmates of India’s capitalist prison , Mumbai .
The one on the left goes past Raheja hospital to Tulsi Pipe road . The two sides of this road are entirely different . The left has filth , squalor , dirt and muck of rows and rows of slums , inhabited by the erstwhile workers of flourishing textile mills , all of which are now closed , in central Mumbai . Half clad women and naked kids with soulless eyes mark their presence in hundreds . The entire stretch goes through Matunga and Dadar onwards to Lower Parel and Mahalaxmi . Matunga and Dadar are Mumbai’s original inhabitants , staying in original houses of four storeys with twelve feet high roofs and large houses with balconies , something you can’t find in the rest of Mumbai . Lower Parel is where all the mills where .
One used to hear tales of great labour union leaders who ruled this part of Mumbai complete with their factions and connections to the underworld . The mills fell silent somewhere in the late nineties when local industry met competition . These were casualties of the first wave of liberalization and advent of the competitors from all over the world . Cotton , Silk and Wool perished dramatically as readymades and brands took over .The manufacturing firms gave way to marketing firms who got apparel from other places , branded and sold . Some firms like Century textiles have recently got readymade brands into the marketplace. Too little , too late , one wonders .Others like Bombay Dyeing haven’t yet got their act together and make more monies from their mill land sale than from textiles . So much so , they recently launched an airline called Go air , the brother that runs that part dates Preity Zinta ,the beautiful and dramatic actress .
For the last ten years till a couple of months back , Lower Parel was an eerie place. There are many dilapidated , silent mills , all of which are being sold at astronomical prices now to builders from all over India who are setting up mega malls , residential towers and multiplexes . The workers of these closed down mills found their way into the slums on Tulsi pipe road all the way from Mahim to Lower Parel , a good six kilometer stretch . There are no signals on this road so one drives rapidly , except pausing for an occasional dash that a small kid would do to cross the road or to avoid overdressed women soliciting precariously on road dividers .
All of this filth ends completely on Mahalaxmi , home to the race course . Mahalaxmi . Eternal magnificient moolah , literally . Every Sunday from November to March , the social gliterrati assemble in their magnificient dresses to place their bets on horses of the season and make returns on their frivolous investments . The who’s who of Mumbai and Pune creating greater and greater wealth for themselves every Sunday morning . The McDowell Derby is the biggest of them all , fetching close to a hundred million dollars in the second Saturday of February each year .
The middle road , called the swatantra veer savarkar marg , or sv road for the initiated takes one right through the back of all these mills and serves as a conduit for people who would work in the lanes of the poorer and older Mumbai . The lanes are full of residences of people who work in normal jobs , take home normal wages and have asense of community , local sons-of-the-soil kind of people . The road dissects Mumbai’s townside into two and carries on on the other side of the causeway to Kandivali , some twentyseven kilometers away . All kinds of shops dot the way beginning with the Mahim Church , sweet shops , phone shops , travel shops , petrol pumps , bank atms , bookstores , restaurants , any kind that would serve the need of the local populace .Somewhere along the way , it embraces Shivaji park in Dadar , the hotbed of political activity and the official political rally ground in Mumbai . Many a politician has claimed their rightful place in Mumbai’s political sun by demonstrating the size of their persuasive power in getting supporters to fill in these grounds and then delivering fiery speeches .
The third road , the Cadell road splits away right from Mahim causeway and creates a surge of office traffic headed to Nariman point , the commercial capital of money-minded Mumbai. There are no two –wheelers or three-wheeled autorickshaws on this road , just the best cars that run on Mumbai roads . The rich , super-rich and the uber-rich travel through this road . The road is cemented , with a clear footpath and not a soul in sight for most part of the day on the roads . It passes through mini-pakistan , as the small muslim dominated area at the beginning of Mahim is called and then reaches Siddhivinayak , the famous ganesh temple that can fulfill all your desires unconditionally and ends at Haji Ali , the muslim dargah . Cadell road also houses Samudra mahal , one of the most expensive real estate residences in Mumbai , costing well over five million dollars.
Life in Mumbai is reflected in the six hundred and fifty metre distance between these three roads , the swanky Cadell road , the middle class SV road and the filthy Tulsi Pipe road . They have co-existed for many many years and think will continue to do so .
As you speed past large buildings and patches of lush greens on Cadell road on a rainy day , you feel the pleasure and joy of it all . The struggle has been worth it and you have earned the momentary glory of conquest .
As you drive cautiously through the bumper to bumper sv road , one looks at all those shops out there and wonders about mundane things like some forgotten books to be bought for kids next semester or tickets to the movie for the weekend or a shoe to be repaired .
And , as you look at the people in the roofless slums of Tulsi pipe road on a rainy , wet day you feel the poverty and the pain and question the emptiness of this constant striving for materialistic pleasures .
This is just one part of Mumbai .
The other part is cruising at a hundred miles per hour and is minutes from their next destination . The daily commute in the fast suburban locals defines everything for this lot, just about a million or two of them .
But , theirs is another story .
And we’ll keep it for another day .
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