An Open Letter to Rajdeep Sardesai

Dear Rajdeep,

I write this to you neither as a great fan of Indian media that you have come to represent, nor a disbeliever of what the Fourth Estate is capable of, merely as a common Indian who is intensely perturbed by the way things are. Let me also state here, that this letter of mine is in response to a note that you addressed to Anna, wherein you raised several points on the current campaign against corruption. First up, much like Anna, TV channels deserve quite a bit of credit for making the current agitation successful. Were it not for all the news channels that are hell-bent on outdoing each in the 24/7 coverage, Anna wouldn’t have been half as effective as he is now.

In fact, your admission in the letter, that news-channel like yours did not much co

ver Anna earlier as “Ralegan Sidhi is a long way from Delhi”, was quite telling. I have so far grown to the notion that reporters and editors follow news, where it is, not give weightage to them based on personal convenience. I guess that could be a justification as well for why news channels like yours have only given lip-coverage to Irom Sharmila, who has been fasting for the past 11 years, just because Manipur is far away from Delhi. I guess, if any crusader wants the press to pick up his just cause, he will now have to set up shop at Delhi.

Team Anna realized that to get the attention of news channel, he will have to land up in Delhi. In fact, isn’t it quite obvious, that even though the government was ham-handed and brutish the way it wound up the Ramdev agitation, the channels lost interest, once he was carted away to Dehradun. Not surprisingly, in the initial days, the government was very keen to not only evict Anna from the Ramlila ground, but Delhi altogether. It knew how the Indian media functioned; out of sight – out of byte.

One of the funny things in your mail to Anna was your reference to the Marathas as a community, talking about how after the 3rd Panipat Battle in 1761, Anna has “taken the national capital by storm”. The analogy was completely erroneous, considering that the battle in 1761, was fought between two kingdoms or principalities, of which one was alien to this land. This is not a battle between two ideologies or person (in fact, even the prime minister has been emphasizing the same time and again), it is against a common evil, namely corruption. Second, by dubbing Anna, as a Maratha, I felt you were trivializing the whole movement. He is not a Maratha battling it out for Marathas or Maharastrians as Sadashivrau Bhau was fighting for the Maratha Confederacy. He is an Indian, fighting for an issue close to all Indians, from the very top in J&K to the very south in TN.

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Be Disruptive like Jobs

There was muted silence as a frail-looking man in black turtleneck and blue jeans took stage at the Yerba Buena center in San Francisco. Over the course of next hour, Steve Jobs took the hundreds on agog enthusiasts through one of the most anticipated launches of the year, iPad 2. Literally within minutes of the launch, the cyber world was abuzz with reports and analysis, with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, news sites, feeding the frenzy. Steve Jobs had done it again for Apple, he had ensured that even before the tablet was launched, people would be clamouring for it.

iPad’s success is a brilliant instance of how innovation can be truly disruptive. It’s not as if Apple invented tablets, the concept has been around for decades. In fact the first patent for an electronic tablet used for handwriting was granted in 1888. The first crystallisation of the concept was made by Alan Kay in the early 1970’s, when he came up with the idea of DynaBook. And yet whenever most talk of tablets, they start with iPad. In a less than a year (iPad was launched in Aril 2010), Apple has sold 15 million iPads in 2010 and 40 million in 2011. iPads account for 95% of the market. Apple achieved all this not merely by inventing alone, but by innovating, through careful evaluation of user needs and crafting solutions that meet those. The company is not inventive, but disruptive.

Going ahead, Apple can be a template for any enterprise that wishes to be successful. One needs to deliberately look ahead, peer into the future, and craft products and services that will be ahead of its time. In these days of hyper-competition, innovation is not enough, disruption is required. As IT leaders, you to need to pick a leaf from Jobs biography and make an attempt to be the same. Look at things around you, talk to customers, keep a tab on competition, check the flow of the tech winds. Study, analyse, evaluate, and once you have done so, do it again. Only through force and habit, can you be really be disruptive. Remember Jobs didn’t create Apple in a day, it has been around for over three decades.

Thus, put on your thinking hat and start with a road map. Who knows – in the times to come, there might be many iPad like successes from this ancient land. There’s already talk of Sakshat and Adam doing the rounds…

The ills of democracy: A failed state?

64 years might not be much time, when it comes to assessing a nation’s progress. But it is sufficient enough to discern, where the nation is headed to. Examining India’s report card is an exercise in despondency. One can’t fail being saddened and shocked by so much going wrong at the same time. While, everyone paints a rosy picture of an Asian giant, growing at 9% y-o-y, the real truth is corruption is gnawing at India’s entails, resulting massively rising disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

Numerous statistics and facts, not to mention the frequent scams, point to one big unequivocal truth, India is steadily becoming a nation of a few billionaires and a billion starving mouths. We are not turning into an economic giant, but more of a giant balloon of sham, that can go pop anytime.

If you don’t believe the truth, here are some facts and figures that will tell you otherwise:

  • India continues to be among the world’s most corrupt nations. In fact, it has fallen further in the Transparency International index to be ranked at 87 among 180 nations
  • India ranks a low 119 among 169 countries on the 2010 Human Development Index
  • As much as 55% of the population suffers multiple deprivations while an additional 16% are vulnerable to multiple deprivations, according to the report
  • The gross national income (GNI) per capita measured on purchasing power parity terms for Indian was less than a third of the world average at $3,337 in 2008
  • India tops the list for black money in the entire world with almost US$1456 billion in Swiss banks (approximately USD 1.4 trillion) — estimated
  • 80% of Indians earn less than 2$ per day and every second child is malnourished
  • The total amount of money involved in various scams in India over the last 12 years alone, since 1992, is estimated to be over Rs 80 lakh crore (Rs 80 trillion) or $1.80 trillion!

So what could be the possible reason for this downfall? After all, we are one of the largest democracies in the world. How can the collective go so wrong? The horrible truth is, not only are we the largest democracy in the world, we are also the largest in terms of corrupt governance. Continue reading

Babubhai Mistry: The Father of Indian ‘Trick Photography’

For well over two hours, I was hunting across the narrow by lanes of Ville Parle (East), asking all and sundry whether they knew where Babubhai Mistry lived. Considering that his name was much in circulation till about a decade or so ago, I was hoping to find my way to him, through hard labor. Sadly, not one person could help us, and I was just about to give up in exasperation. In a last ditch effort, I asked a laundry fellow, whether he knew Babubhai Mistry, the ace cinematographer. Since, he could not fathom cinematography, I decided to dumb it for him. “Trick photographer, woh jo purana filmon mein sab bhagwaan log ko assman mein udaata tha aur heroine se train rukwata tha“. Something clicked and the laundry wala lit up like a bulb, “Arre, tumko woh Trick-scene photographer se milne ka hain, ruko mein le ke chalta hon“, he stated enthusiastically.

That is what the state was of Babubhai, when I met him in 2008. Sadly, Babubhai Mistry is a name not many are able to recall; even in Bollywood. The few that do, are completely oblivious to Babubhai’s (as he was fondly known) state of affairs; whether he alive or is no more. And yet, just a few decades back, he was a star in his own right, dubbed as the ‘trick scene director’, he was the person who made it possible for Hanuman to lift the Gandhamadan mountain or Hatimtai to fly on a magical carpet in Hindi films. For over 50 years, Babubhai was the man who gave wings to film maker’s and viewer’s fantasies, he was India’s premier special effects director with around 300 films to his credit as director or special effects cinematographer. Many dub his most active years, from 40s to 70s, as the age of the mythologicals (in another words, the age of special effects).

Once the computers and youngsters took over, he retired and settled down with his old memories at his place. Fortunately, I got to spend a few hours with him, as I was working on a story for my magazine. Over these hours, we spoke about a time, how things were and how changed they are today. In spite of his age, he was touching 90, and not keeping good health, he spoke with much excitement through his interlocutor (who was his nephew). And in the end, he shared with me, a couple of hand-written pages in Gujarati. “It is my story, full filmy chhe,” he smiled.

Since, I did not understand Gujarati, I did not pay much attention to it and almost forgot about it. The vagaries of life and work, kept me occupied. Till one day, Pa called and said that Babubhai was no more. Considering his age and state of affairs, it didn’t come as much of a shock. But I was much saddened by the news, more so by the apathy of the industry at large, who seemed to be quite oblivious to the passing away of a legend.

It was then that I picked up those pages (my friend, Jasmine Desai and her mom had them translated in English for me, long back) and decided to share with the world, the story of a man in his own words. So, here below, you will find Babubhai Mistry’s autobiographical take on how he started and how he went on to be the most celebrated trick photographer of his times. It is an interesting story, much like the films he directed. There might be some loses in the translation, but more or less, we have stuck to the original script.

Without much ado, let Babubhai tell his own story and may his soul rest in peace..

P.S. In the end, there is a Youtube link, on which I have uploaded a short video of Babubhai sharing his exploits. Continue reading