Hindu Undivided Family

Back in my school days, I remember reading 'Kane and Abel' by Jeffrey Archer, with tremendous interest. It was probably my first 'big' book. All these 'Hardy Boys', 'Perry Mason's were quite small (around 250 odd pages). Maybe, the story of Mahabharata, which is indeed a story of brothers fighting each other kept me interested in Kane and Abel as well.

So skirmishes between brothers or siblings is neither new nor serious. That is in 'stories'. In real life, I always viewed such news with lot of circumspection. Maybe the political events inspired to view everything as a 'conspiracy' to deceive others. When An empire split, I had no doubt in my mind that it was a ploy to reduce tax burden (evade?). My reasoning was simple. The revenues can be siphoned off to different firms and net tax obviously can come down with each company coming under different tax slabs etc. The so-called Ambani feud (I still believe that it was nothing but drama) was a ploy to deceive people and mainly courts that a split was 'inevitable'. An honest answer that they want to avoid taxes was probably not forthcoming. Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is illegal, I remember the lecturer telling in my ICWA classes. Maybe the corporate laws deal voluntary splitting of companies differently than a 'bloody' spit of companies. One more reason could be to further reduce tax. A bloody split with court battles can lead to lot of 'expenditure' to legal and attorney fees for the new company.

It is not surprising that when there is no news, I cannot accept anyone as leader after Karunanidhi made for much talk. I didnt read too much into such political talk, but other news yesterday made an interesting read - about N Ram filing a defamation suit against Indian Express. This was apparently against the Battle for control breaks out in The Hindu very divided family article in Indian express. To quote from IE,

Ram is said to have recruited two family members in the company: Narayan Lakshman, son of Nirmala Lakshman; and Vidya Ram, his daughter.

and

This was strongly objected to by Murali, Ravi and Malini Parthasarthy, among other members, who alleged that these appointments were made without the board’s consent and proper governance norms were not adhered to.

Well, I along with probably few others mailed Hindu 3 years back on needless coverage given to Vidya Ram and Readers Editor responded

As for "dynastic politics", The Hindu is a 100 per cent family-owned newspaper and the family has been in control. Vidya and her cousins will be the fifth generation of the family working in the newspaper, should they decide to join it (so far, it appears, nobody has). "Dynasty" and "family" have acquired an unsavoury connotation in recent times, but that need not extend to all cases.

I cant help feeling that Ram and Murali are doing like Anil and Mukesh. I wont be surprised if Ram takes Hindu and Sportstar and Murali takes Frontline and Business Line. Now, if their 'new relatives', Marans also fight and split, it will complete a straight circle :))

Guru Dutt

My sister during her recent trip to India, wanted to gift something to me (for what?) before she returned to US. This 'tokenish' token of affection was a gift coupon from Odyssey. It was obvious that this action was just 'tokenish' (without any research on other possibilities) because Odyssey didnt have any books/DVDs that I wanted (what sort of a bookstore it is?), despite showing it on online catalogue. I finally decided to use one coupon at Odyssey, Chennai to buy DVDS of GodFather I and II. I found it in Bengaluru that those DVDs dont work in Philips DVD player :o After two more trips to Odyssey, Bengaluru, I finally settled on a set of DVDs of classic Guru Dutt films. It actually proved to be a serendipity.

I have gone many times to film festivals over weekends in Chennai. I was awestruck by the b/w cinematography of Mexican films made in 1940s or even before. In India, it is tough to get such work even with all the modern 'comforts'. Of course, most b/w films in India are like a camera placed in front of a stage, given the big drama/theatre background in different states. Indoor shooting mostly led to development of studios. There were a few exceptions even in those days when SS Vasan or Sridhar resorted to outdoor shooting even in b/w films.

In Hindi, I had great regard for Dev Anand, because it was in his films that I saw outdoors. Much was talked about Satyajit Ray's work in Pather Panchali, but I really found it pretty ordinary. In comparison, Guru Dutt's movies are masterpieces in Hindi cinema. It looks Hindi cinema has no real 'native' players. If not for Guru Dutt, who is from Karnataka, they wouldnt have known what is film-making. If not for Burmans, they wouldnt have know what is music in films. I now read that Dev Anand and Guru Dutt did share quite a lot.

To quote from the link, Remembering his old friend Guru Dutt, Anand quotes, “He was a young man he should not have made depressing pictures…”. I dont know if I like films made with heavier heart, but I know that I surely dont like 'goody-goody/mushy-mushy' films. When I read V.K. Murthy awarded Dada Saheb Phalke Award. I remembered seeing his name in Bharat Ek Khoj. I now realize that he has shot almost all films of Guru Dutt. Some of the shots are really milestones in Indian cinematography. Some scenes shot my regard for Guru Dutt by light years immediately. Though Kaagaz Ke Phool is immediate in capturing our visual attention, I thought Pyaasa was the real classic. I think Guru Dutt had a keen eye on the lyrics and was probably very particular on Mohammed Rafi. I personally prefer Rafi over Kishore Kumar on any day. He also seems to understand Urdu quite well and dialogues/lyrics are too deep.

Multiplexing

No, I am not referring to go to multiplexes :), which I dont prefer anyway.

Moonlighting is another term that is used these days of recession (why dont they call it 'depression'?). It has been in vogue atleast in Tamil Nadu maybe for centuries. The multiplexing that I am more bothered is people doing many things at the same time. I have heard some people say that I have lot of bandwidth and am able to do many things. Yes and no, actually. Sure, I can code, document and test for different projects in the same day. I cannot do all of them together. For me, I was amused when I saw/read/heard that some cannot work without listening to songs. I cannot do such an activity, which is referred these days as 'multiplexing'. I dont hear, I listen. I dont watch, I see. I dont eat, I taste. Doing many things at a time, dilutes my sense and sensibility, I feel.

I can afford to ignore this as long as people keep it 'self-contained' and dont affect others. Especially moving in public is a big issue atleast wherever I go. People are shouting the hell out on their mobile phones and I think there is some sort of madness in people to be perenially hearing something on their mobile, forget about their shouting replies. People are hearing a lot but listening very little. Talking a lot, saying very little. I think muddling up many things in the name of 'multiplexing' is not for the better of any of it. Neither are they saying anything nor are they listening to the other person. I was not at all surprised to read - Don’t use mobile phones, motorists told.

RTO (Madurai central) T.G. Thomas said that talking over mobile phones and riding/driving vehicles was more dangerous than drunken driving. Vehicular checks carried out by the authorities (on drivers who were spotted talking over phones) revealed that they (drivers’) were not concentrating on the driving.

Indeed :(

Update: 31 Mar 2010

Not at all surprised to read doubts expressed on human multitasking.

Simply dealing with the deluge gives people the illusion of productivity. But statistics indicate that might be all it is - an illusion.

In particular, efficiency experts are alarmed by the effects of computer-enabled multitasking on office work and office workers. "I used to say that multitasking made a task take 15 percent longer. Now I say 50 percent," says Bary Sherman, Head of PEP Productivity Solutions, a California-based management consultancy that specializes in helping organizations become more efficient.

Awful awesome!

Latest Tharoor controversy is storm in v-cup is the big issue on (non-existent) news today.

A storm in a v-cup — v for vocabulary — is how the latest controversy over Shashi Tharoor’s remarks ought to be described. For only someone with a very modest collection of words at his disposal, or a very large hatchet, or both, could possibly interpret the junior minister’s reference to Saudi Arabia being a “valuable interlocutor for [India]” as assigning Riyadh a mediatory role between New Delhi and Islamabad.

It looks like politics is slowly becoming the interpretation, misinterpretation, quoting-out-of-context slugfest. Strangely, it is English and not any of the regional language that is involved. Legal eagles usually nitpick on the syntax of English used in India to the point that people are better off using regional language. To promote 'exclusivity', English is often praised as a language that helps in better 'wording of ideas/thoughts'. English-bred people are apparently better than Marathi-bred or Tamil-bred or Bengali-bred.

I am not sure of the intention in complicating issues with strange English usage. I noticed it first during Mumbai attack, when P Chidambaram, who apparently studied law in Harvard, acted like a legal eagle and mentioned '“It is a detailed dossier, supported by electronic evidence like transcripts and intercepts and interrogation reports...' I was amused by the choice of word 'dossier'. It served no other purpose but to keep journalists and critics guarded or in awe because 'unheard' word has been used.

Recently, with Marathi manoos ruling the roost in Maharashtra, Chidambaram chose “This is a pernicious thesis, and it will have to be rejected. Anyone can work and live in Mumbai.” Not surprisingly, newspapers in Maharashtra were not amused, definitely not Pune Mirror.

Sir, next time you want to trash the Shiv Sena or MNS on its Marathi manoos and Mumbai-for-Marathis stand, you should keep in mind that the rudimentary saffron mind does not carry a dictionary around (because the lathi and the flag occupy the hands). You must have the wisdom to see that they aren’t going to understand stuff like ‘pernicious thesis’. Forget, the average Sena or MNS worker, even most liberal capitalists would need a dictionary for something like that.

Now Shashi Tharoor is spending hours in explaining what 'interlocutor' means. It probably indicates how far the politicians are detached from the public and talk only in Greek and Latin. The choice of vocabulary to indicate 'status' not just in politics. Almost entire 'desi' flock uses stupid adjectives which even more stupid Americans use. I remember getting some sort of shock in Jan 2000, when one senior person in Texas Instruments commented on a book - 'Awesome'. At that point of time, I was more used to 'awful' and 'awesome' was new to me. Since the book was written by Sainath and I too posessed one such copy, I assumed that the word was used in 'flattering' light. Later, I realized that Americans used that adjective for every 'godda thing' :o and Indians are using it to show they are 'American'. I was irritated during one recent conference by Mentor Graphics, when the 'anchor' kept repeating 'awesome' throughout the day :(

Similarly during one of my 'girl seeing' visits to Chennai, I noticed kids playing on the road saying 'pass it here, dude' :o Probably dude was either passed on from his father/mother (or) caught during a US trip. Another irritant is the usage of 'tonnes of' and even my sister from US was mentioning 'there are tonnes of buses to HAL' :o I remember one manager in one company during one of those interviews about 'tonnes of projects'.

It is awesome that I am having tonnes of patience seeing some dude talk ;)