Guldasta

She May 18, 2007

Filed under: India,women — gurdas @ :

I plunged my bike into the curve and just as I came out of the turn, I saw her.

Sweat on her brow and broom in hand, she was one of the many women working on the new road under construction.

Who is she? What are her aspirations? Does she have kids? How many? Do they go to school? How does her husband treat her? Will she always only clean roads in the sweltering 40degC heat? Does she worry about her future?

I had no answer to my questions. How small I felt and how ignorant.

As I passed in front of her, our eyes met.

It was as if she knew all about my questions. And yet happily forgives me for having just questions.

I wonder who she was…

Comments (2)

Review of Life in a Metro May 13, 2007

Filed under: Movie Reviews — gurdas @ :

If you are short on time, here is my three word review of “Life in a Metro”

Go see it.

If I could, I would have given a money back guarantee in case you did not like it. The story revolves around six love stories played out with a common thread running through them.

But before you go on, maybe it is best to know what kind of movies I like. Because any review is at best a reflection of likes and dislikes of the person writing the review. From the recent years, these are some of the movies I loved (in no particular order) – Dhoop, Seher, Water, Dil Chahta Hai, Main Meri Patni Aur Woh, Bheja Fry, Yahaan, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Omkara, and Swades. That is not a complete list but maybe just enough to tell you what kind of movies I like. If you do not connect with this list, we are probably very different people and my review holds little meaning for you.

I am NOT going to tell you the names of the characters, or who are the pairs or the many situations. That is for you to find out. I am just going to tell you the emotions and thoughts I carried back, with some minimal help from script details.

Words that came to my mind while watching the movie and later as I replayed it in my mind are these: sensitive, real characters in real situations, beautiful poetry in the songs and the dialogues. There were a few scenes which seemed over cooked but they are just a few and I happily forgive the director (Anurag Basu) because the rest of the movie is just so poetic.

The surprise package is Shilpa Shetty – watch out for her. I haven’t seen all her movies but from what I have seen, this is her best performance by far. She is the big boss in this tale. And then you have Konkana, Irfan and Sharman giving solid performances. Shiny is very good too. Kay Kay is good but I would rate him lower than others because his expressions and mannerisms are so alike his other works that I felt I was seeing Kay Kay and not the character he was playing. Kangana is good and looks her part. And if I had a choice I would have cast Waheeda Rehman instead of Nafisa Ali. Sure Nafisa is a beauty even at her age but she appears wooden in some scenes which otherwise had good potential to move you. And Dharmendra was not very good either.

The songs have great lyrics and beats and are nicely woven into the storyline. The characters themselves never sing – thank God for that.

Except for the Dharmendra-Nafisa story, all the other threads are well sketched and get sufficient time in the script. The movie is full of thoughts that leave you thinking for a long time after. But you need to be alert for some of the lines else you will miss them because the director never pushes them. He just leaves them lying around like gems to be picked up. Hear Shilpa describe her failed marriage and finish it with a superb line which goes something like “ab hamare beech ki khamoshi aapas mein ladai karti hai”.

A small peek into the script – The character of Irfan is done extremely well. Konkana is your typical suave, polished, intellectual girl dreaming to fall in love with someone like minded. Understandbly, she dislikes Irfan who is your typical crude, loud talking, no qualms about lying, roving eye kind of guy. How their love story develops is a class act and the underlying message about what really makes good character is superb.

I’d hate to tell you about specifics and ruin the fun of chancing upon gems. So, heres the conluding line:

If you want to see a movie with greater characterisation, genuine poetry, real life delimmas and real life lessons, go see “Life in a Metro”.

Comments (4)

My affair with the Queen of Godabanda May 12, 2007

Filed under: fiction+fact cocktail,nostalgia — gurdas @ :

“Dadi, amaye ekta golpo shonau”1, I would say with that killer smile which only a child can generate. Dadi, I knew, aside of her protests was as eager for our story time as I; and what followed made ‘Lord of the Rings’ look like amateur. The great Indian curry in my case had talking tigers, flying carpets and the occasional ogre. And so every Sunday we created a world of our own, impervious to the unromantic world around us. I considered it a rude joke on God’s part that she was not my age because then I would have married her and relished a story every hour! I told her of my thoughts and she lit the air with her dry chuckling saying that I would not have made a better husband than the one she has. This hurt me enough and I envied ‘Mr. Dadi’ for quite some years. Though we never met, I sure had him resemble some conspiring devil in my mind!

She was my queen, my queen from Godabanda. What was it like in Godabanda I would ask every once in a while and never receive an answer. This unknowingly was pure rhetoric, for an answer I never did wish to get. Godabanda (I deduced for myself) must be the place where all her stories transpired. That set me up for a visit to this mysterious village where reality took a backstage. “Godabanda ta mane ki” 2, I asked one ingenuous afternoon, sure of receiving another mindful dose wild imagery. I was enlightened with the information that, long time back, a gallant prince had once roped his blue steed here (the rest I calculated as such; “Ghoda” = horse and “bandha”=tied). The missing ‘h’ must have been a victim of the local dialect. That night I dreamt of ‘h’ as a miserable waif mercilessly butchered by a dragon. My imagination ran amuck after every frenzy of ‘smartness’. And in this case I walked vaingloriously for many a passing day, secure of my superiority due to this exquisite piece of information.

She fed me in the more worldly sense too. Well actually, she sold ‘mudi’ (puffed rice) for a living. I never liked it much but was caring and gallant enough not to refuse the bowlful that she offered on each Sunday. I considered my silent suffering highly matured and had no doubts that this would easily qualify me as worthy of some monument! She was a million things to me at the same time. Imagine the curiosity it created in my friends when I proudly displayed Dadi’s rakhi every year. A rakhi from a wrinkled old lady on the virgin wrists of a seven year old?

Her wrinkles were like some purposeful makeup that she adorned. They remained adamantly and magically unchanging since the earliest of my recollections. My sister, who was my elder by some twelve years, reiterated my observation. And she knew Dadi before I was born! It was as if time had left its footprints all over her, hiding its secrets in the precipices of some grand canyon (and then forgot all about it). She told me that they were her earnings and I nodded happily, thinking she must be very rich even though she looked the contrary. The fallacy of this would dawn on me many years later.

Our affair continued for another three years and we never missed a ‘date’, except once when I was down with jaundice. Then school got in the way of my ‘education’ (Mark Twain surely had a similar childhood to warrant like thoughts about school and education). Slowly science and social studies perverted my mind with their knowledge. I started to realize that manliness and my relationship with Dadi did not go well together. We still met every Sunday but the unassuming love was tarnished for once and all. My smart mind got the better of a simple heart. She understood this better than me but was not stoic enough to prevent the pain from reflecting in her eyes. In the days that followed, and for the first time in many years, I felt that her wrinkles were increasing. Time had returned to end her reverie.

The pangs of growing up in my case thus revolved around a wrinkled old woman. Dadi was my first name for her and it remained so, neither of us caring for the frivolity of a name that her parents might have conjured up many many years ago. “Godabanda ekhanthake kauto door?” 3 I once asked and she replied “teen kose” 4. That left me dumbfounded and I continued staring at her as if she were some incarnation. As children we would mark out our kingdoms (much like animals) and most of our time was spent inside these imaginary walls. School too happened to be within walking distance. My world was marked by a one kilometer circle, though, occasionally my father would ride me away to far off places on his bicycle. So, her answer left me in a state of uncontrolled imagination. It seemed Godabanda was at the end of the world. What proved to be the icing to my imagined cake was the fact that she was always barefooted (and her clothes as unchanging as the wrinkles). What kind of courage would it require from a wrinkled old lady to walk thirty kilometers every day with a sack of rice on her head? I voiced my question and her reaction left me puzzled. She laughed the question away but her naïve eyes belied the sorrow beneath. Her visage registered clearly into my mind and so, that evening, I approached my father with my predicament. His initial reaction was that of surprise and what followed was to change forever my relationship with Dadi. Carefully (and delicately) I was explained the monetary aspects of living and by the end of the discourse I knew what needed to be done.

The next Sunday, I offered my piggybank with its curative treasures to Dadi and remarked that she no more needs to sell mudi. This tore her apart and tears welled in her eyes; unknowingly mourning the death of our affair. Things were never the same again. I was now party to a dark secret of hers. A secret she had kept me insulated from as if she had anticipated its poison. She lost her natural flair, aware of her poverty and maybe the loss of her wealth when she was with me. That night I dreamt of me as a dragon scorching sunflowers in a beautiful garden.

We drifted apart after this episode. She visited our neighbourhood less, limiting visits to the odd Sunday. My interests wandered and I lost the attachment, burdened by the vagaries of the hurried world around me. I did not have time for a slow and old wrinkled lady anymore. On more than one occasion I had somebody lie to her that I was not at home. The reasons for such impudence escaped me, was it my embarrassment or the fear of a hounding guilt that I had murdered her world? A world where time had stopped for her.

Many years later, when I chanced upon a dish of ‘mudi’, something snapped deep inside. I had an uncontrolled yearning to rush into the lap of Dadi and then ask for a story with that killer smile which only a child can generate. Time had returned to hand me my childhood joy, the difference being that there was no Dadi to share it with.

Notes:

Godabanda is a small village on the South Eastern outskirts of Jamshedpur; a city in the state of Jharkhand in India.

Dadi – Grandmother

Rakhi – an Indian tradition wherein a sister would tie a thread on her brother’s wrist and he in turn would vow to protect her from any harm.

1 – Grandma tell me a story

2 – What does ‘Godabanda’ mean?

3 – How far is Godabanda from here?

4 – approx. 10 kms.

Comments (1)

Haystack May 10, 2007

Filed under: poetry — gurdas @ :

Day and night he toiled and tilled

For his sons and their children

Until his fields bore produce in abundance

And his family wore clothes bright and new

From atop each haystack he saw a future rising

And a smile would break the sharp curves of his cheekbone

Inspired, he worked till the moon shone bright

And back to the fields he came before morning light

The years so passed until one day

His sons found small the house of clay

To the city they went for a better life

And left behind the old man and his wife

Frail and weak he has now become

His knees shudder and hands shake

And wrinkled legs speak no more

Of the strength that made up village lore

But where are his sons he asks

To stand beside him and share his tasks

The setting sun has turned a thief

And robbed him even of his belief

The field he still furrows and seeds

For it takes care of all but a man’s greed

Sons he may have none to call his own

But the haystack still in the moonlight shone

—

Continued here

Comments (1)

Jeh Jawan, Jeh Kissan, Jeh Aam Aadmi May 9, 2007

Filed under: Automobiles,Business Houses,India — gurdas @ :

So, Tata Motors is going to launch a Rs. One Lakh (1,00,000) car!
So, I don’t think it can be done.
So what even if it can be done?
So, it will be crap and nobody is going to buy it!

So much skepticism!! Typical statements you hear when the subject of discussion is the upcoming Rs. 1-lakh car from Tata Motors. And I remember hearing similar stuff when Tata Motors announced they will launch India’s first indigenously designed car – now known as Indica. But that was in 1998. The rest is history.

Indica is maybe still not very refined and the overall fit and finish looks like it needs some help. But, guess what, it is India’s second largest selling car model that happily has some 144,690 units rolling off every year! Which means, every single day close to 396 people in India buy an Indica. Some numbers, eh?

And the Tatas have learnt a few tricks from their experience with Indica. To me that means if anybody can pull off the 1-lakh car, it is the Tatas. A view held by many others. In an ongoing poll on sify.com more than 85% people say Yes to the question “Do you think Tata’s will keep their word in bringing out the 1 Lakh car in 3 years?”

Before we talk of other stuff, here is what is more or less known about this ‘super’ car:
Engine: 600cc (to be very exact, 630cc), 2-cylinder, about 34bhp, rear fit.

Gearbox: Might have a CVT, i.e. no gear shifting required.
Capacity: 4 seater, and by India’s standards that automatically means 5-seater!
Looks: very cute
Price: Rs. 1,00,000/- ex-factory… boy oh boy!
Name: “Jeh”, after J.R.D. Tata. Might change. But I would love it be this.

So, what does that price mean? Let us consider an on-road price of Rs. 1,20,000/-.The down payment works out to just Rs. 18,000/-. The EMI for the remaining amount on a loan period of 7 years would come to less than Rs. 1700/-
Voila!!
Note: when you buy a second hand car, the loan duration is calculated as: 7 – years since manufacturing

For a Maruti 800 (in excellent condition), it must be model 2002 or before to be available at 1.2 Lakh. This means, at best a 2 year loan. And the interest rates for second hand cars are significantly higher than new vehicle rates.

Is this the kind of reasoning folks at Tata Motors would have fallen on to estimate the threat from Maruti 800. I do not know. Any caveats I left out? Please tell me.

That said, the biggest threat to the market pie for this segment is likely to come from Suzuki, a company known for its superlative grasp of small car dynamics.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=148278

Who is a potential customer?

I would say every two wheeler owner who is looking to buy a two-wheeler costing more than 48000/-
Intra-city taxi services. This could be a surprise market. Never before have we had a car that is great economics for intra-city taxi services. With this car, your typical 8hr, 80km inside city slot might become available for 30% less than today’s rate. And for every 1 Indica, the taxi wallah can now buy 3 Jeh.
The college going 20 year old whose parents earn 4+ Lakh/annum. You might see a sudden churning in gender based vehicle sales with rich parents wanting to give their daughters a car rather than a 2-wheeler.
The ‘other’ vehicle in a family where one spouse travels more and has a bigger car, while the other spouse travels occasionally (or to short distances).

What the car MUST achieve to become a hit?

Cost close to 1Lakh for the entry version and below 1.2Lakh for the version with AC.
Good fuel economy. If it gives 30kmpl, landslide sales are more or less guaranteed. Anything above 25kmpl will be acceptable. Fuel efficiency is the least known figure of this car and I believe will play an important role in deciding how much of a success it is.
Cute looks. Remember the Volkswagen Beetle? Cute looks = Love. And when in love, people become blind to even obvious flaws. I have a strong hunch that the Beetle is the car the Tatas have in mind The 1955 ‘bug’ (the Beetle’s nickname) had a rear engine, top speed of 115kmph and 34 bhp engine. And if you were to say “that was in 1955”, just remember that the Maruti 800 even today produces only 37bhp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle
Should not be visibly compromised in safety and finish.
An advertising campaign that forces home the utility of a car vis-à-vis a 2-wheeler. Like showing the pain of carrying home vegetables and grocery from the market. Or taking 2 kids and your wife to the movie. Or taking your old parents to the hospital in a rickshaw. Or struggling to save your precious documents from getting wet on a rainy day. Or desperately wanting a bath simply because the car ahead of you created a dust storm (while you were on the way to office). Or having your kid catch pneumonia because you’ll got wet on the way back from school. Unlike ever before, this car’s campaign must persuade the target customer to take on a small economic burden to offset the daily pain of not having a car. Spend no time comparing this car with other cars. Just pitch it against top-end 2-wheelers. And maybe low end second hand cars.
Partnership with finance agencies to deliver an innovative scheme which will minimise the economic burden of the 2-wheeler buyer migrating upwards.
Give a “in your face” warranty – like say 3 years. Might not be feasible due to cost concerns. But if this can be done, it gives a subtle and yet full message that says “listen, this car is good quality”.

What does NOT matter

Any technical wizardry. Like how many bit processor, fuel injection or carburettor, how many cylinders or valves per cylinder, bhp, cc. Who cares?
Top speed figures. If the car touches 100kmph with 4 people seated, it is enough. Period.

Possible impact?

A major addition to vehicular pollution levels. I hope the Tatas have done their homework here.
Space crunch on the roads. The government might have to take some drastic measures. At 8 million per annum, the 2-wheeler market is huge. If just 5% of that converts to Jeh, you have a figure of 4,00,000 – that is nearly 2 times the total passenger vehicle sales from Tata Motors!!.
A definite change in mindset. Remember, in India, the car is still associated with luxury. If the average Indian suddenly has a car parked in his house, he/she is going to feel important, and more worthwhile. Who knows we might see a revolution in the very approach to life in India.

.
I have purposefully taken some sweeping projections. I wanted to do that because it is important to estimate what is possible. Maybe Jeh does not achieve even half of this. Maybe it will do twice as more. But what really touches me and is the single biggest reason that makes me pray for its success is this – the average middle class Indian will be able to take his family of four for an outing without having to worry about safety, wind, sun or rain. I do not care much if the college going kid gets a car or the taxi wallah gets his taxis – they are just numbers. The real thing is that middle class Indian who deep inside his heart feels a pinch every time he gets onto his 2-wheeler, has his wife struggling to balance one kid on her lap while he perches the other kid on the petrol tank.In an interview that appeared in the English daily Telegraph, Mr. Ratan Tata voiced being inspired by a similar scene.

Mr. Tata, I love Jeh the visionary, I love you, and I am already in love with Jeh the 1-lakh car.

Bring it on!.

A quick background so that my piece is read with a pinch of salt.

I was born and brought up in Jamshedpur – a city literally built by the Tatas. An amazing oasis in the desert of Bihar (now Jharkhand). And how wonderfully they have kept it! My father retired from Tata Motors after a stint of 39 years. And though I have never met any of the top brass at Tata Sons, my life and the lives of so many around me, have been touched by their corporate governance and social responsibility standards. One needs to visit Jamshedpur and its surrounding areas to see what the Tatas have achieved.

In India, they have no parallel.

To hear what Suhel Seth has to say about Jamshedpur and the Tatas, click

http://www.tata.com:80/tata_steel/media/20040505.htm

Links that helped me gather information

The 1-lakh car

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0416/070.html
http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/mar/30tata.htm (same article as above, easier to read)
http://www.blonnet.com/2007/03/07/stories/2007030706000100.htm
http://www.blonnet.com/2007/04/05/stories/2007040504260200.htm
http://news.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=279302

http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/31tata1.htm