How to become a millionaire in a minute

Short on HLL at start of day with a thousand.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Honchos_caught_in_cross-fire_at_5-stars/articleshow/3762020.cms

Of terror and voter cards

I read an article today, the kinds I only read these days, about a conscious citizen trying to get a voter card. The crux is that he went through the travails of getting one made, finding a different photograph on his card, going through the entire process again and getting nothing. Then he takes time to work to go to the central office, finding others like him there, the office locked, the chief not picking calls and out till three, and an irritated clerk shooing them away – if it’s not here, you didn’t give it. I think he mentioned 200 people.
To those in Delhi and who have seen all that beaming – jago – hype, with even a national hijacked attempt from a tea brand featuring the new face of the country, away from their usual self-congratulatory post-91 reality-fantasy of the country, sipping tea and looking positively “awake”.

These were people who were not asking for any benefits – a locked pension file or a land record gone missing – these were people waking up from an electoral “sloth” and hoping to participate in the system. And this is what their awakening wrought.

A strange start to an article on terror.

But do you imagine the raw appeal of the machismo with which a group of boys, within minutes, have tattered the reputation of a superpower-claimant? The minute the first bullet in Taj was fired, the terrorists succeeded. Everything that followed was a special. And we know how much they have dolloped of that.

Terrorism – or naxalism also in our context – is a war with the state.
And what is the Indian state – if you take out the hollow jingoism – but that babu shouting at 200 people that they are lying?
And what is the state than those 200 people who don’t burn that office down and tear that man’s throat out?
This happened in the heart of Delhi. And there is an India, a whole pie of it, outside the Mumbais and the Delhis.

Suddenly, after Delhi blasts, the cops who are the biggest enemies of the daily-wage earners in the streets go, are suddenly supposed to be the confidants to whom all suspicions regarding “suspicious activity” is transferred.

In Lucknow, last Sunday, meeting a school friend from Lucknow visiting from Australia, after fifteen years of spending class1 to 10 seated adjacent due to the sequence of our names, our car was towed from a parking zone coz a dignitary suddenly arrived; a parking zone where half an hour ago parking fees was being collected. After pleading in vain for half an hour to an unrepetant cop, Ahsan, the friend, he had to pay 750 to release it. I mention Ahsan's Muslim idntity to highlight that many (but not all, I agree) of the frustrations of the community are ironically secular [Ironic since the country's claim to secularism is manifested usually in the meting out of daily injustices only - the priviliges bagged by either by quota or do-you-know-who-my-uncle-is].

Injustice is the fabric on which the Indian state is wrought - right from the PSU to the babu to the politician to the hawaldaar. The separatist movements, the naxalism and terrorism are only manifestations of its various forms.

The biggest myth regarding Shivaji that the Hindu thugs, claiming to be spokesmen of the religion, propound is that it was a Hindu war for lost pride against the Muslim villains.
Wrong. Read your history assholes. Read your economic history.
It was a movement primarily fired by unjust taxations and blatant corruption of a kingdom of wasted rulers and court intrigues. Forces of frustration do not change with time – while religion might ensure a peaceful afterlife of 72 odd virgins (depending on your choice of opium) - the issue of daily bread, and if you’re slightly fed, dignity, is directed more by governance.

What India is under attack right now? The India that is under threat is an India we know is there buried beneath the miles of shit that we have let the “system” crap above it. Forget Shivraj Patil – do you really think that any politician in India in his place and things would have been different? Any party other than the Congress?

Bring on the terrorist laws (and make it all the more worse), platitudes and juloos. Today is the twang of the bow that was stretching since the past fifty years.

My fear is this: the sheer audacity of what happened today, and the Taj elitism of the hostages, would inspire a thousand of other “misdirected” youth trampled by the system who will vent their frustration against this invisible miasma of unrelenting injustice and oppression against a definite face, although anonymous and multitudinal, and the aphrodisia of an automatic in hand. These might be youths who've been running around courts for a piece of land lostin the 50s, the excesses of the local political goon or police, or one of the many things that are commonplace in an Indian middle-or-below class citizen.
There is nothing more ominous than a misdirected rage right now.

but unavoidable.

Shivaji didn’t break the stranglehold of the decadant Mughal empire in his lifetime; but the inspiring and enduring legend of his audacity, as opposed to the grovelling reality of successive kings towards the Afghan raiders, did.


To be born again, you have to die first; To raise an edifice again you have to raze first: this is the frightening reality that looms ahead unless the “system” changes from within.
How?

Stepaway from these brothers

Some of the greatest scripts start off with the question – what if? Unfortunately, so do the worst.
The prime example in recent times would be Adam Unfunny Sandler’s Click where the scriptwriter raised the cilched question – ok what if life could be controlled by a remote? And the monstrosity followed

Step Brothers apparently starts with the pairing of rather similar body-structured John Reilly and Will Ferrel. What if we got them together as retarded brothers?
If the 80s, outside the Monty Pythons, marked the acme of Hollywood comedy scripts (‘All of me’, ‘A fish called Wanda’), the 2000s must definitely mark the nadir.
Sample the comedies it’s delivered – The scary movies series, the ‘teen date’ type flicks, and movies like ’40 year old virgin’ and anything starring Katherine Heigl in a comic turn. In fact, a decade where comedy has been dominated by the likes of Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider.
It all started with Something With Mary. The hair-raising scene gave licence to just locker-room talk pass for comic timings. Genitalia and the various so-far private affairs that come along with owning one became plot plodders. Be it the stuck zipper in something about Mary or erections in Road Trip, Scary movies and 40-year old virgin. In Step Bros, of the 1hour 20 minutes movie, almost five minutes are spent on a scene where one guy threatens to bang the other’s drums with his balls and is then explicitly shown to do so (prosthetics, I assume; and hope).
When I was churning comic scripts in college, it became a challenge to get the laughs without sexual innuendoes. Not that I was a prude but simply it was too easy. Have Anil Kapoor mouth a ‘Teri maa ka...’ and then trail off and 90 times out of 100 you would get a laugh. Heck, even fardeen khan might register that average. And then ask Fardeen to deliver something really funny and count the laughs.
Risqué turns have always been a major theme in comedy – and no one has handled it with as much hilarity as that genius - Woody Allen. Everything you wanted to know about sex has got to be the best sex comedy ever. The last episode is entirely about a man making out and ejaculating and it’s HILARIOUS.

But there’s a line between risqué and tasteless, unfunny and funny that is as thick as Reilly and Ferrell together.
Step Bro never judges the line, the script and the direction waste two very good actors.
Reilly is no Jeff Daniels and Will Ferrell is no Carrey. And this is certainly no Dumb and Dumber.
Avoid this one unless you think one-minute long farts in interviews is the funniest thing you have ever seen.

On a side note, as soon as I saw this guy in a guest role, I knew that there was no rescuing the movie anymore.
With classics like Knocked Up, 40 year old virgin, zack and mimi make a porno under his belt – he makes Ben Stiller look like Chaplin.

The unfunniest man since Jinnah, someone please put the likes of him to sleep!

Ethics un-hinged

Some archbishop today just declared that forced conversions are anti-Christian. Of course, terrorism has always been un-Islamic. In the same vein as there is no Hindu terrorist.

Reminds me of my company that, by lieu of employing me, deigns to morally instruct me on the value of ethics and smiling at people.

Why can't - because it is not the decent thing to do - be reason enough?

Maha-arrogant-raja

As far as Bollywood reviews go, I like Raja Sen. Hence when I logged onto rediff and saw that he's going to analyze the best of cinema over the decades I didn't exactly rub my hands in glee, but I did smile. Ad then when I clicked on the link, I realised it was the bet of Hollywood.

Who the hell is Raja Sen as far as Hollywood goes?

What is he going to add onto a study that has already been done to death over and by people of much higher stature than him?

Why do I have to read his thoughts in a genre where I already have the best of the world? Just because we happen to be fellow Indians? That might hold true for Bollywood - the cultural nuances and meanings stuff (tho' associating those with Bollywood makes me guffaw) but why Hollywood?

What irritated me is the fact that it seems that Rediff has allowed itself t become an ego-stretching exercise for a small-time critic like him. is rediff his personal blog? And the insinuation that we Indians need an Indian to interpret world cinema for us in an age where access to Roger Ebert's reviews is just a click away.

And, of course, the irritation stems from the fact that it did not turn out to be Bollywood that was under the scanner. For the simple reason that it is a much tougher genre to grade. A genre where wooden-faced models twtiches pass for thespian milestones, movies like DDLJ are lauded as all-time best, directors like Satish Kaushi allowed in film-sets and the entire Salim Khan progenies allowed to breathe.

Thank you, Raja.

but no sorry, mista

i don't need assista

To read Hollywooda

Not even from Booda.

Get a job. You can always sell insurance to someone in detroit and perhaps share your insights into whether GoodFellas was a better mob movie than Godfather.

Wokay?

Time to revisit our definitions

Is it just my perception or have we recently entered a phase of accelerated history?

Everyday, something new comes in: a new dimension to a financial crisis of a scale never seen before and unanticipated by even billions-guzzling CEOs( a situation that even after a couple of months no one and no one actually knows the value at risk!), a new technique to brutality in a murder in Delhi, a new law flouted, a new barrier overcome (Bolt’s “Bob Beamon” moment, the coming of age of Indian cricket), and most importantly – a new definition to a phenomenon. I found myself comparing these times to the ones following 9-11 and I wondered why. And then it came to me. It was a time when we revised our definitions too – the definition of what is evil and what is good; of the grouping of non-alignment with opposition (‘Either you are with us, or against us’). Of the triumph of action over retrospection.

What is the revised definition that faces us right now? A blank line patiently waiting to be filled under our bated breath and poised quill?

Terrorism.

Is it any act of violence by a group of people using firearms or bombs? Or is it the violence of the minority against the majority?

Ponder over this.

I did. And found that actually the two are interlinked. Being the minority, violence that requires head-on collision with the majority adversary is a no-win situation and suicidal. Hence, the use of upgraded weapons – where the person using the same is more effective to damage more members f the opposition than with, say, a lathi or bare hands.
I conclude that the definition we, as a country, have finally arrived at is this –

Terrorism is the act of violence by the minority against the majority in an area with a predominance of the majority population.

Godhra burning of the train was, hence, not a terrorist attack. The reason being that the perpetrators were the local Muslim majority gundas. By the same definition, the aftermath, Gujrat riots, were not a terrorist attack since, again, the majority razed the minority – albeit on a bigger scale than the train attack.

Thackrey’s attack on outside state railway examinees and VHP’s attack on churches is again, by the same criteria of who perpetrated the attack, the majority (the Marathis in Bombay, the Hindus elsewhere), not terrorism but the n number of things we declaim it with.
A fatwa crying for the head of a fellow Muslim who has expressed himself contrary to the majority belief, is an internal problem. The state using the same against a dissident group is military action.

The definition has international connotations too. LTTE is a terrorist organization since the Tamils are a minority in Sri lanka. The Sinhalese persecution of the 70s was not a terrorist action.

Hence, my definition, seems to stand the test of all euphemisms that we have lately decided to select for different acts of violence.

Ok. What’s the point? Violence by any means and by anyone looks the same – gore, blood, tears.
The point is that terrorism is the new pariah of our times. It is what Hitler did to the idea of eugenics – incontrovertibly evil. Without any extenuation.


It’s not a definition a community has imposed on us – we have silently arrived it across our multiple identities – religious, caste, regional, ethnic, national, class.

Hence, when I mention Raj’s brand of politics to my Marathi friends, they can glare at me and scream – why only Bombay should be tolerant?
My Hindu friends can in the same breath that they say ‘The Orissa violence should not be allowed..’ mutter ‘... tho’ there are some justifications to it.’
My Muslim friends can close ranks and murder a dissident and tell me to piss off – since his muslim identity is bigger than his human identity (wherein my weak fellowship credentials lie)

But mention terrorism and nobody attempts to extenuate that.

I propose that we cement this in stone and set out the rules – you can be violent if you are the majority. Sneak attacks done covertly are not allowed. You have to have the numbers to spill on the street to be given the right to be defended in conversations even among the intelligentsia (or the new bourgeoisie who have arrogated on themselves the right to a nation’s morality and best interests without either questioning the assumptions or any in-depth analysis)
Or we can choose to group all violence – perpetrated by anyone by whatever means – as indefensible. Non-violent debate the only accepted recourse. But for that we might have to start listening to stuff we don’t want to. Sardars might have to live with a comical take on a Sardar identity, muslims live with the right of others to tell them how they see them, hindus with the idea that their historical grievances are history now, regional parties with the idea of nationhood and of earning their own rewards.

But no – we have more or less accepted that just by being the majority we have some more rights than the minority. Because since we are more, we have more men, and if you don’t believe in this, we can beat you up easily.

Try telling this to the Huns or the Mongols. You can’t attack us, we came here first. We are more.
Try telling that to Ghazni at Somnath, conquistadors at Mexico, British settlers at America.

The new nation state was built on the principle of inalienable rights of all people as equal. Otherwise, America would have gobbled every nation of the world and only the ruling majority would have only rights.

And yet within this system that guarantees us the fundamental rights, we question them. (For ex. Hindus quoting Somnath attack eight hundred years ago as some extenuation for Ayodhya demolition can do so only because the nation-state system ensures that the Muslim nations, in reprisal, can't get together and trample down their ass like they did then)


Hence, to solve this paradox, I offer two solutions:
Accept my definition of terrorism and hence only allow violence by majority
Do not allow any argment that rides on the back of violence. No matter what genuine credentials the argument may have.

Gandhi, at Chauri Chaura, took the second call: much to the consternation of a nation. It is a chice too subtle and too slow to be understood by the masses. Hence, the only way out, I see, is the new definition of terrorism, and right ot violence, that we have agreed upon.

Amen.

Quickie

what a cat fight

Opinion Poll

A discussion being overheard from the cabin adjacent to mine. A guy using the words - dynamic, international, standards, consumer perception.

No kidding.

What say the guy doesn't know a shit about what he's talking about?

Loyalty Program Primer

An article on loyalty (लोयाल्टी for vishesh) programs, that I liked.

It appeared in Mint, sourced from WSJ, Oct ०६ (Vishesh, ६ अक्टूबर), called loyalty plans need to be customised. Can't find the link on the net.

It talks about rewards along two lines -

Tangible and Intangible; and Intrinsic and Extrinsic.

Intrinsic rewards are along the line of the customer trip type (further explained below), while the latter are outside it.

For definition,these are the trip types and their intrinsic rewards:

Hence, or a guy who's come to buy the milk and eggs that he’s run out in 7-11, the trip type is functional – he wants to get in and get out quickly – and the best award will be faster checkout. Giving him a price discount (the most common easy way out approach adopted by retailers) He might buy the promoted item today,but that would not be reinforcing his natural shopping motivation in your store. Because the focus is on the product offered, and not the brand of the store that the customer perceives.
Tangible awards work in low involvement purchases (detergent bar-soap) while intangible awards more in high involvement. Too easy to mull over.

Liked this article. By the way, in case you’re wondering how to identify a trip type of a customer, there are ways (clustering and segmentation on customer type and trip type and then a matrix to define which customer makes what sort of trip).