It is hard not to get energized by supercop, mother, social worker and TV anchor Kiran Bedi (born 9 June, 1949). She is a bundle of energy and is always in a hurry. Her diminutive frame is deceptive. She is a woman of conviction and resilience to do what she has set out to. She has always attracted admirers and critics in equal measure.
Quick Gun Murugan's official website says, "Quick Gun Murugun is an unlikely Superhero with Guntastic powers. He is a sincere South Indian Cowboy who considers it his duty to serve and protect. The movie revolves aroundmis-adventures of Quick Gun Murugunand his fight with his arch villainRice Plate Reddy! In 1994, a maverick called Sashank Ghosh (MBA from University of Jodhpur), left MTV to become the creative head at Channel Vand created a character called Quick Gun Murugan. Those "fillers" in between programs were a rage among the youth. Quick Gun Murugan trailers quickly became the talk of the town especially in the colleges across India. It introduced the phrase "We are like this only" as a tagline that reflected the growing comfort with Indian English. An out and out spoof on film heros who duck bullets, thulp twenty attackers without ruining the shirt crease is what Quick Gun Murugan the movie is all about.
You are the rising star of the corporation. You are working at building a resume that will qualify you for the corner office in the next few years. You want to set the world record for being the youngest head of the corporation. In anticipation, you have started looking up models of corporate jets you could buy and the power suits you will need to order for the swearing in ceremony. In the midst of all this comes the email on the blackberry that your manager wants to know if you would be interested in a short term assignment to New Widgetovia, the country where your company has struck gold. You would need to be there for three months... maybe six... ummm ... a little bit more perhaps but hopefully not.
I am a fan of writer, lyricist, music composer and film director Vishal Bhardwaj. He brings in a breath of fresh air into Indian cinema especially mainstream Bollywood. He has cracked the magic formula of making movies that are aesthetically appealing and yet are commercially successful. Never afraid to experiemnt, Vishal is gifted and gutsy. As a director, his films Maqbool (adaptation of Macbeth, made in 2004) and Omkara (adaptation of Othello, made in 2006) have made audience sit up and take notice. Taking great stories to the masses is a challenge. To take the complexity of a Shakespearean play and adapt it to contemporary India and yet make it appeal to a broad spectrum of audience is what Vishal does best. His literary and cinematic mentor Gulzar writes songs that play at an upmarket nightclub as loudly as they do in the autorickshaws. Omkara had Saif Ali Khan and the blockbuster song Beedi Jalai Le (watch the song here if you have not) featuring a sizzling Bipasha Basu. Kaminey has Shahid Kapur.
Many moons back when I started off my career as a HR person, I had a chance to attend a training program. All the HR folks used to have this once a year get together and just bond. I was briefed by my boos that being the lowest in the food chain, I had to just take the opportunity to get to know the big fish in HR. Being a really obedient kind of person I took that advice to heart. I spent the next tea break running around that huge hall like a headless chicken collecting names and faces. I will tell you upfront that I have difficulty remembering zillions of names with matching faces. Within fifteen minutes of this maniacal pursuit of perfection, I discovered that the names and faces were all a big jumbled up noodle soup. I gave up.
To be able to write and to have access to forums that will publish one’s writing widely is a privilege. As a journalist and a reader I’m left in no doubt that there will always be people to write about the rich, the powerful, the glamorous; sometimes when they have nothing to say. But writing about such people, doesn’t impact them in the way writing about the marginalised and the alienated does. To write about those who have no voice, or whose voice has been silenced, is to empower them. Writing about the farmers of Vidarbha, who have been committing suicide since the 1990s, at one time at a rate of one every 12 hours, for example, has had a tangible impact on the political attention and economic stimulus offered to their community and their families. Having another profile written about Shah Rukh Khan, however, makes no difference to him, and frankly to readers—what more is there to learn about him?
I suppose the pyschologists and pyschiatrists - called "shrinks" in popular parlance - have their own code of silence. Once they are certified to practice, they are not supposed to give away the secret tests and techniques about how they figure out of the person lying on the couch is normal or abnormal depending on the response to the tests. To the person being tested this can evoke different feelings eg Awe or Aw (short for awful) and everything in between. So naturally people are anxious - which by itself could tell the shrink stuff about you that you don't want them to know.
It is truly a magical moment when you read the manuscript and suddenly feel that there is nothing more left to add or to take away. If you add stuff you will feel the need to trim the fat and you cannot take away a single word without leaving gaps in the mind of the reader. It is that moment when you feel the most self-confident. You are ready to take the book to a publisher.
You started as a small fish with dreams of being a biggie. You routinely practiced your moves. You tried to learn new tricks to please those who held power to hand out generous changes in S&B (Salary and Bonus). You regularly preened yourself as you passed the mirror, admiring the lean mean fighting machine that you continued to be ... at least for the initial few years. When you met the other alum from your college or B School, you traded notes to see if anyone had learnt a trick that you had no clue about. There were usually a few who always had something clever to share. You read professional journals. The names were all familiar. The Professors would keep egging you on to read more and more and yet would sneer at your term paper before labeling it a B+. That just built in you the grim determination to keep slaving away at sharpening your skills until you could extract an A+ from the hard-to-please faculty. That was then.
