Blogathon Day 14: Small town quirks

Choti ungli pe nachai gee tujhe.. yeh hai small town girl!

Other than that, there are many more quirks of living or growing up in a small town. Some of those were brought back while discussing milk supply chain at work today. Maybe you also remember those.

# The time when your milkman used to bring the cow to your house, milk the cow in front of you and then your mother would haggle with him that the bucket in which he was collecting milk already had water in it.

# The days when your older brother /cousin would prepare for a mega kite flying competition and you would feel honored to be his trusted assistant, holding the roll of manjha between your elbows running behind him all day.

# Your neighbour with the highest building in the locality, whose terrace everyone would collect for the annual Eid moon sighting

# The uniform clad postman who visited your house every few days on a bicycle and brought inland letters from relatives far and few

# The discreet cyber cafe visits

# The only single after-school hangout that served pizza and burgers, where all your friends ended up giving their birthday treats

# Your scooty, that had a name

# The rickshaw, that wasn't auto

# Your parents always knowing everyone, through some distant relation or other

Well, those are just a few. Im sure there are many more. Do you remember any?

Blogathon Day 13: Things that were cool 10 years ago

There were things that cool folks did and showed off. And the rest of us just looked in awe. But then came a flood of herd mentality and too many people started doing those things, so much so, that even the perpetual "chomu" also managed to get his hands into these. That's when these things stopped being cool. The list is below. If you have been doing any of these things for less than 6 years, chances are you are in the herd. But then, who am I to stereotype anyone?

#1 Sporting a goatee

Despite the odd fitting leather pants and super tight shirts that made the look unbelievable, the goatee on Aamir Khan in Dil Chahta Hai proved to be a far bigger fashion trend than Kajol's hairband in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. From being a metrosexual man's mane, it went on to become the small town low cost fashion statement. There came different variations of it to gel with Chomu sense of style. And thats when it stopped being cool.


#2 Owning a DSLR

The price tag on DSLRs kept the herd away from these for a long time. Only the rich and famous could afford it. But facebook put so much pressure to put up great pictures every few days, that people started cutting eating-out bills to save up for the camera. Once purchased, albums with names such as "random clicks", "just like that", "my experiments with my camera"etc etc. littered facebook walls full of meaningless half cropped, modified and filtered images.

#3 Running a marathon

Not everyone could dream of running a marathon, not even a half one. Firstly there were not so many. Only few towns in India organized these and had limited participation. But then with free corporate sponsorship and marathons being held in every city, town, mohalla, and locality, everyone finds a marathon or two to run in. Even if you do a 3 to 6 km dream run, you could post a picture with a number pasted across your chest!

#4 Holiday in Europe

Going to Europe for a holiday was a thing for politicians, film stars and Ambanis earlier. But now thanks to Kesari travels, even old uncles and aunties have group tours in under 1.5 lakhs!






Given all the then cool things are out of question, wonder what are the cool people doing now? Entering politics maybe.

Blogathon Day 12: How to make a 500 crore movie?

First there was the coveted 100cr club. Then certain three idiots came and made the elite status a matter of aam admi. Since then, year after year, Khan after Khan (and certain superheroes!) are upping the count by a crore at a time, with the latest Saahir Khan making 500cr at the box-office.

This crazy number-game made me remember a time when we were advising a Bollywood client, trying to crack the formula that predicts how much business a particular film is going to do. There were several factors that were considered, and data for films released over the last 5 years was analysed. Regression analysis was done to come up with the correlation between these factors. But honestly, the formula was crap. We couldn’t predict nuts. And that Bollywood client had 3 films in the pipeline, only one of which released and tanked without anyone noticing.

But if there were to be a formula for making a 500cr movie, what would it be? Well, let me give it a shot. I consider myself an experienced consumer of films, and a consultant, and also an Indian, so obviously, I have an opinion on everything. Here’s my opinion on what makes a 500cr movie -

1. The K word - Either have a Khan in your film (can be Mrs. Saif Ali Khan, but not Imran Khan or Irrffaan Khan) or the main character is to have a name with K and have special powers. This condition is necessary but not conclusive.
2. Create so much hype that the first weekend is fully sold out in advance. And when that it done, there will certainly be those desperate souls who couldn't get tickets during the weekend, and hence would keep the demand for the week going, along with college bunkers, illegitimate lovers, and stingy people who watch movies during weekdays because the tickets are cheaper 
3. Lobby and coerce and scare other films to move their release dates so that there is no big release one week before and atleast 2 weeks after your film. This way, cinema hungry audience will have no choice but to go see your movie even though Vigil Idiot would have already ripped your movie into 5000 crore pieces, and every single person coming out of the cinema hall would have put a fb status with disappointing emoticons. 
4. The rest is simple math. Number of screens you release your movie in, and the price of your ticket. If the movie survives for more than 2 weeks, then you make atleast a 100cr on conservative scenario and 500cr in an optimistic one. 

Here is a quick calculation with the optimistic scenario (click on image to enlarge):

Just to put things in perspective, Dhoom 3 released in close to 5000 screens, the largest release for any Indian movie till date. Avatar released in 14,000 screens. Ticket prices for Dhoom 3 went as high as Rs. 900 for IMAX screens. And don't even talk about the overseas revenue, where ticket prices are way higher.

500 crores in today's times, prices and scale may actually just be ordinary rather than exemplary. But who cares, as long as the popcorn is hot!

Blogathon Day 8 : My musings

I’ll be honest here. I am sort of running out of ideas on how to make daily vanilla prompts into funny posts. Its kinda exhausting. I am afraid that if I keep depleting my humour resources at this rate, I might be running out of fuel soon. So for today, I choose to digress from the prompt and name this post after the most generic, commonly used, rarely interesting, most boring subject line ever. Ever ever. “My musings”

I have no clue of what I am going to write about and my thoughts at this point are as scattered as the popcorn from the paper popocorn bag that burst inside the microwave. I faintly remember naming one of my posts musings years ago. I was lame then. I had no content to write about.

I am still lame, and back to being content-less. I could just make a chalu post and get away with it. No one would know. Who reads my posts anyways? But I am a content driven writer and I endeavor to provide my readers with nothing less than 100% good quality material.

Or wait, did I just make one?

Blogathon Day 7: Music on my mind

Music for me is a railway track that carries my thoughts into deep green forests. It is also the thing that puts me on second spot in my husband's list of things he loves most. Huh. No wonder I hardly board that train.

But when I do, I get stuck too much on either the lyrics or the video, I hardly hear the song!

Although I truly truly love this below song for its sheer "don't know what they are doing" quality. No matter whether I choose to hear the lyrics, watch the dance moves or listen to the whole mix, its a delight!

Plus I love the guy who mix-ade (mix and made!!)  this. Yes, Jogiswing (Youtube and soundcloud). That crazy guy.

Don't miss the pelvic thrusts and silver mops they are wearing. Oh and the headbands.

Blogathon Day 6: The Books I read, or not

Although I like to showoff as a very well read person by wearing thick rimmed glasses and making walls with piles of books around me, the truth is, I  got these glasses with late night movie watching on laptop secretly. I buy so many books just to balance out the total net weight I claim from this planet. And, I love the smell of new pages, filed inside freshly bound books.

Plus, my choice in literature is slightly questionable in respectable circles. I also secretly read Chetan Bhagat and coerce my husband to download pirated versions of Fifty shades of Grey for me.

The last five books I read were - Ford focus product manual, Kenwood food processor manual, Timeout Dubai, Who moved my cheese and Desperate in Dubai. No I did not. I didn't read the fourth one. But how does it matter. I could finish reading it by the time you finish reading this post.

The point is, there is so much information around us these days, floating around in so many forms, that it is difficult to absorb all of it, leave aside pick up a static source of information like a book. I mean it is far more interactive to read a Wiki page where you can click on references and read more and go to further on related topics, add your own two points and what not.

It took me a month to finish the Life of Pi and then I saw it in 3D - in 180 minutes. What has a better return?

Reading fiction is a luxury. There is just so much new information every minute to catch up on. So little time to “stand and stare”. No matter how much I would love to sit with a book and not care a thing about the World, the sheer pressure of keeping up with the World (and the Kardashians!), would draw me out. I need to know about everything from Mangalyaan to Mandela to Mumbai metro, to Memento to Money market. I need information and I need it fast. Half of my news updates come from Whatsapp, twitter, facebook and Groupon.  I am constantly on the move, I am restless, I am in a hurry.

And then there is Candy Crush. Read between the lines, will you?

Blogathon Day 5: From Bucket list to List of Buckets

Its good to have a bucket list. Since it gives you an option to choose your next milestone. Whenever you feel goalless in life, just dig into your bucket and pull out an unfulfilled desire.

I would like to talk about my bucket list. But thats a serious matter and you might sleep by the time you reach item five on my list. So I will write about buckets instead.

Buckets, like people, come in different shapes, sizes, colours and popularity levels:

20 litre plastic buckets are like engineering graduates in India - available everywhere in large numbers and can be used for any kind of work. They might be produced in a high quality ISO something environment in Kharagpur or could be imported from from a cheap factory in China or maybe, Kota.

Then you have the large drum like ones with 100L - 1,000L capacity. These buckets are like introverts. They don’t fit anywhere, take in a lot, and you can almost never reach their bottom.

Another kind of bucket is the small 1 to 2 litre, steel bucket. Although, everyone seems to have one of these, no one seems to have bought them or need them anymore. These buckets make a lot of noise in the kitchen, often have craked heads (or rims) and need regular polishing to keep them glowing. We can say the same for certain women.

Don’t forget the small bronze bucket at restaurants such as Urban tadka, in which they often serve daal makhni. Well, these are pretty much the same as high maintenance girlfriends. Difficult to handle, glossy and expensive.

Finally there is the slightly squarish pocha bucket. These are the most talented of the lot, with innovative bends, ability to take crap, work in a team with the mop, help clean everyone’s mess and still be bright. You often see them at a desk next to yours.

What kind of a bucket are you?