Common Sense: An Autobiography

You all are responsible.

Hi Everyone! I guess there should not be any need to introduce myself because all of you must know me, however if I consider that, there should not have been any need to right this autobiography as well. So let me first introduce myself. I am common sense. I got that name because I am common among all individuals (people in old times were not very creative when it came to naming things). That also means that when I take any decision irrespective of on whose behalf I am taking that decision, it remains the same under same circumstances. Like when an elevator door opens my decision is to let individuals inside the lift get out before you get in. So as long as people using the elevator are allowing me to decide their actions everyone inside the elevator desiring to get off on that particular floor will first get out of the elevator and then people outside will enter. Doesn't it sound like utopia? That's the power I have to change your lives for good, if you allow me to. The problem is I no longer exist. I died long back. 

That's me tingling.

I am sure you want to know how I died. Well; I was driven to commit suicide by all of you. Before we get to the end, lets first explore the beginning. Like most of the celebrated success stories, I also had a very humble beginning. I was born inside the minds of animals, before humans even came into existence. Those animals used me to improve their lives. If you are familiar with the concept of social animal you should also know that it was me in their little brains who prompted them to live in groups to improve their chances of survival. I was having very interesting childhood inside these animals and by the time I became adolescent humans came into existence. Like any other confused teenager, I took some confused decisions in the beginning and got into conflict with curiosity. Sometime curiosity won over me but later we both realised the futility of these conflicts and decided to work together for the betterment of human existence. It was me in partnership with human curiosity who shaped the early years of human existence. Whenever curiosity dictated something you looked at me for the advice and most of the time you followed that advice and fortunately I never let you down. I peaked when humans started forming societies and started living together. It was no problem because they all used me for taking decisions on common matter and they agreed with each other on the decisions taken because it was me taking decisions on all of their behalf. Trust me, I used to be a big deal back then. Everyone would consult me before taking any decision and I was enjoying that.

As it happens with every good thing. I was also not to remain at the top forever. Things started changing. Some people who were smarter than others decided that it is difficult for the less smart ones to decide trivial things on their own, so they decided to make rules to help them decided. These basic rules of life were called religion and everyone was expected to lead their lives governed by these rules. When some people tried to consult me on certain matters and I suggested them something that was against the rules defined by religion, they were frowned upon by the people who got their power by becoming the so called caretakers-cum-enforcers of religion. Situation got so bad that people consulting me were even tortured and many times killed by these religious warlords holding the positions of power. 

Dramatic representation.

I saw many ups and downs from that point onward. Sometimes making the situation even worse by giving birth to even more religions and hurting myself in the process all the time. Then at some point in time another group of powerful people decided to come up with new sets of rules and started calling them law. Now I was becoming irrelevant in human world. Instead of consulting me in their day today lives they had to decide based in these set of rules sometimes in the name of religion and some time in the name of law. I did not give up at this point. I still kept fighting for my survival. I started suggesting people on how to follow those rules i.e. still consulting them on their lives however with my limited capacity. 

The last blow to my survival came when people even started defining processes to follow these policy. That is when my relevance became almost non-existent. People would not refer to these processes instead of consulting me. One day I saw a notice at the entrance of an elevator "please allow people inside the elevator to get out first before trying to enter." That was the day I decided that this is the end of me and I decided to commit suicide and leave the human kind on their own in their battle for survival. I jumped from the heads of the humans on the ground and these stupid humans by now not aware of me instead of picking me up crushed me under their feet. 

You get the idea what I am talking about.

I wish good luck to human kind in their battle for survival and I hope they come out stronger but I know very well that with me dead, this battle is already lost by the human kind and they are heading towards their inevitable doom; unless some part of me still survives in the heads of some smart human beings and they are smart enough to revive me. My only message to everyone out there is to help these humans revive me instead of frowning on them and suppressing their efforts. You survival depends on it.

Yeah. That guy. Don't suppress him.

I Hate Spammers

I probably would be one of the biggest victims of spams, considering that  I win multimillion dollars  euros and rupees every week, some dying nigerian prince wants to share his wealth with me for some reason (considering the amount of such mails I receive I believe life expectancy for Nigerian princes is very low and every Nigerian is a wealthy prince), everyday at least one girl promises to be the best life partner I could ever have, some mails have even started selling me child insurance (probably hoping that I would have by now fallen for one of those marry me spams), often RBI or Income Tax department expects me to share my account details with them, which they already have easy access to. Sometimes I receive mails with suspicious attachments, which I have never had the courage to open. Every week I receive multiple tips about earning quick money from home and almost daily I receive multiple e-mails about some walk-in for some opening in some call center offering me 10 times lower salary than what I already earn. All these are mails delivered to my inbox. Now imagine what I would find if I ever check my spam folder which receives at least 10 times more mails than the inbox. 

However recently I have noticed that I do not receive any such mails on a Sunday. That made me wonder that these spammers have become organized and have started taking weekly offs. Since I started the thought process, I continued and decided to trace the roots of spams. According to wikipedia "Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately." I think that spams go much beyond the invention of electronic-mails. 

I belong to a generation that probably still remembers that post offices were not exclusively intended to be used for sending government or corporate communications. I have used inland letters and postcards during my early hostel days to communicate with my parents and I remember receiving postcards with some story written in it and asking me to send 10-100 such postcards to random addresses if I do not want to be cursed or if I want to be blessed. Much similar to a picture of some god on facebook asking you to share the picture if you want the blessings. Now writing a postcard and posting takes much effort than clicking share button on facebook yet just the fact that I myself have received some such postcards means that some people then used to put that effort. The number could have been much higher it the postcards said "Alcohol god will drink all your stock for a dry day if you do not share this with 25 people" or "the hot girl in your college will fall for you if you send this to 10 people" (much like deodorant commercials) etc.

Nowadays with social media becoming so prominent we are seeing multiple people becoming spammers without even realising it. Otherwise how do you classify multiple people sharing posts with titles like "Share and see what happens" (this I think is the most stupid of them all), "if you love you mother, share this post" (now how much I love my family is decided basis the amount of spamming I do), "Share, if you love Jesus" (if I do not share an stupid post on facebook, somehow that makes me an atheist). Most prominent of them all are by these pseudo patriots who believe that clicking like on a facebook post with change the country and make it corruption free. These guys more often share posts with content, which they were too lazy to verify. The height of this stupidity reached its peak when some prominent people in our national politics thought that they can make APJ Abdul Kalam the president of the country again without him even contesting for the post. 

In short. I hate spammers. Except for the ones who are too stupid to make me laugh. 

Heroine: Not a Review

I have not seen the movie yet and I am not sure if and when I will watch it. So this post if not a review of the movie and should not be used to determine how good or bad the movie is. This post is purely basis the pre-release activities of the movie. This post is a result of my discussion about the film with my friend and the analysis the followed. 

We realised that Heroine while it appears to be is not a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie. I do not think I have to say much about what a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie is, yet for those who yet have any disconnects. Madhur claims to be a realistic filmmaker (whatever the hell that means). This claim helps him win National Awards, because National Awards jury are sucker for realistic cinema. Madhur typical picks up a setting like dance bars, jail, traffic signal, corporate world etc and puts together all the perceived evils about the particular settings and then tries to fit all these evils in the form of a story. Irrespective of the setting he chooses, the common factor about most of his movies is that the setting is the lead protagonist of the story and all the characters are designed to portray the evil impacts of the chosen setting on themselves. Pick any of his popular movies from Chandani Bar to Fashion and you would understand what I am trying to say here. He even creatively ;) chooses his titles to avoid any confusion in the minds of tha audience. Chandani Bar is about dance bars, Page 3 is about page 3 parties, Corporate is about corporate world, Traffic Signal is about traffic signal, Fashion is about fashion industry and Jail is about, well; jail. The reason he casts not so famous faces in his movies is because he does not want the actors to dilute the portrayal of the surrounding and in few cases where he hired known actors, I presume they were instructed to play their part in a way that highlights the surrounding and not themselves. Counting the number of National Awards he has won, that seems to have been working well for him so far.

Now lets talk about Heroine. The title itself is enough to give away the difference from other Bhandarkar's movies. The title is not Showbiz or Films or Entertainment or Bollywood that means the movie is not about the Film Industy, it is about the Heroine. The main protagonist here is not the setting, it is in this case the Character played by Kareena Kapoor. Since I have not seen the movie, I cannot say how this diversion from his usual style has shaped up. Last time he deviated from his usual style, he gave us Dil To Baccha Hai. So you can get an idea.

The poster screams "it's all about Kareena"

Now imagine how his other movies would have been if Chandani Bar was titled Bar Dancer, Page 3 was named Celebrity, Corporate was named VP-Marketing, Traffic Signal was named Homeless, Fashion was named Super Model and Jail was named Qaidi (prisoner). What that changes is that they now become stories about the impact of the lead characters on their surroundings rather than other way round. Now I am expecting the people who have seen Heroine to tell me how accurate our analysis is.

Inspired by Saas-Bahu style fights with-in team Anna, Balaji announces a daily soap around the same

So many fights among various members of team Anna has inspired leading TV producer Balaji telefilms to launch a daily soap around the same. A senior executive in Balaji confirmed to Faking News, "These fights are so much similar to saas-bahu fights, which is the premise for all our daily soaps and we want to jump to the opportunity and exploit the situation. This will also save us whatever we spend on screenwriter ans will be a unique combination of daily soap and reality TV thus capturing both the audience groups."

"Anna is like baa, who is respected being the eldest in the family but everyone thinks he is too old and senile to take a correct decision hence nobody follows his instructions. Baba Ramdev is like the illegitimate child trying his best to be adopted by the family name but this decision is not liked by the legitimate children of the family. That is why the eldest son Arvind stages a walk-out from the ceremony of including Ramdev as a family member." He draws a comparison from the latest event.

"This is not only about the plot and story line. It is also a wise business decision. We have found out that the TRP of Arnab's news hour debate on Times Now goes higher than our prime time shows on the days of these fights in team Anna. It is a clear indication that common Indian enjoys the drama in Anna's family more than the drama in Kapoor family." He justifies the decision further. "We have even modeled a character inspired by Arnab, who is like the Narad muni from those mythological serials" he adds further.

*Originally written for Faking News.

I want to be the President

So much discussion around coming presidential election has got my attention again after five years about the existence of the post. Since now I am again made aware of it, I somehow am feeling the urge to go for it. Not because I want to serve the nation by becoming the President. That is clearly not what last president did, as per the information available to us, which is almost non-existent. So I am assuming that if nobody was aware of your existence, you clearly did not do anything that made any difference.

Why I want to be the President is because of the benefits associated with it. Such as, you get to live in one of the biggest houses in the world for five years. You get to holiday in all corners of the world along with your family and friends without worrying about the cost, since Indian public is paying so much tax to sponsor those holidays anyway. Even when you are out of office all your expenses are sponsored by the government. Above all you do not have any accountability of any of your actions or inaction. This clearly sounds like the best job in the world.

What more, I think I am also qualified for the job. I do not have any political affiliations. Nobody knows me. I can even enjoy my holidays better than the current President. I will not make for an awkward sight on a beach. Besides our country will feel so good on finally having a president who can walk on his own without any assistance. It can also help fool other world leaders for India finally becoming a progressive country by having a young head of state.

The only thing that probably disqualifies me for the job is that I am not completely useless.

Biometric Authentication

It's a new year so I decided to start with something new. So far whatever I have written in this blog had very little to do with what I do professionally. This is the first post in the series of multiple posts I intend to write hoping that they reach out to relevant people.

With UID coming into picture and being discussed everywhere for reasons good or bad; there is another related topic gaining popularity, which is Biometric Authentication. I have had multiple discussions in the past, some dating even before UID became a hot topic in payment industry, related to authenticating the customers using their biometrics with people from varied backgrounds. I have even worked on and implemented one such solution for my organization couple of years ago. Some of the points put up by various people during those discussions surprised me. Here is what others suggested and what I believe.

Biometric Authentications is required more in rural India. 
One common point that most of the people seem to agree is that the need for biometric authentication is more in rural India. I beg to differ. First lets talk about why it is not as much a requirement in rural parts than in urban parts.

The primary reason given to support the above argument is the level of literacy and exposure to technology among rural population. They say that an illiterate person cannot handle the PIN. I say being illiterate and being stupid are two different things and they are not co-related. I have seen semi-literate people running successful business and I have also seen very educated people writing their PIN on the face of their cards (which is very risky and should not be done under any circumstances). I am assuming the assumption is that the group of population we are talking here are semi-literate because we are expecting them to perform banking transactions. So they understand numbers and also basic mathematics. Even if they don't PIN is not a 4 digit number, what I mean is if your PIN is 2645, it is not two thousand six hundred forty five; it's two six four five. As long as each of these images look different and can be matched with the images on the keypad of an ATM or a handheld device, anyone can punch the PIN with or without any education on mathematics.

They also fear that a rural person might not be able to keep the PIN secure. There could be two meanings to it. One, he may share his PIN with others. Well, tell a person that this is the key to access all your hard earned saving and sharing it with someone with mean you risk all of it and then see what they will do. They will keep it as their best kept secret. Two, someone could fraudulently get hold of the PIN. For this I am relying on the assumption that a fraudster is supposedly a smart person and no smart person would go through so much trouble to steal few hundreds/thousands while he can by using the same methods steal lacs from urban population.

So, as per my logic a rural semi-literate person can handle PIN very well and in many cases even better than  his urban literate counterpart.

Why biometric authentication is a bigger need for urban India?
This should be easy to explain, since most of the people reading this belong to this section and will be able to relate to it. Here we are talking about a population who needs to remember so many passwords that these days many mobile phone manufacturers have launched smartphones with in-built password keeper application. A common urban person who regularly uses his debit/credit card for transactions also is the person who needs to remember a bunch of passwords. For example: Debit Card PIN, Credit Card PIN (which I presume very few bother to remember and are lost when they need it for some specific transaction), telephone banking TIN, Internet Banking IPIN, e-mail password, workstation password, passwords to many social networks he might be a part of and so on. The list is endless. Now if to such people I tell that they need not remember a few of these passwords and they can be authenticated using their finger prints when they are using their card at ATM/POS and they can be recognized using their voice while using telephone banking, I personally believe they will be delighted. It will also save them the trouble of changing their password every few month for fear of compromising it.

Another point in support of my argument is the level of identity theft and skimming frauds, which are on the rise. As long as there is a PIN it can be compromised, if the fraudster is smart enough. Urban population is more likely target to such fraudster simply because they offer better return on investment to the fraudster. Now if there is no PIN and only my finger print can allow withdrawal of cash from an ATM, what any fraudster can do. If we manage to build a strong biometric authentication mechanism we may even be able to do away with cards. No cards, no card frauds.

Hoping for a brighter future and a happening year ahead for payment Industry. 

Politics or War

Today morning while reading the newspaper I found a news story about some Republican Sena. That again reminded me of an earlier discussion I had with some colleagues about Maharashtra politics.

How come political parties calling themselves sena promise any constructive development? Sena's primary responsibilities are to protect and/or destroy. During peace time what they are protecting and from whom. That leaves us with the only other option and which is what they seem to be doing. Delivering what they are promising.  

Some people may argue that it is just a name. Well, name is symbolic to what you are and what you aspire to become. Had I been in any decision making power in election commission, I would not have allowed registration of any political party with name sena in it.

Story Telling: Where RA-One Went Wrong

After watching RA-One while in conversation with Sunny (my friend who accompanied for the movie) we discussed the one very basic thing that was wrong with this movie and had it been taken care of the movie could have been on a different level. I thought I must write this post so that anyone interested in creating a story benefits from it.

There is one basic rule of any sci-fi story and for that matter any story which is told in another space, time and does not follow the understood rules of the nature in the world we know. The rule is that you need to first define the rules of the environment and then follow the rules throughout the story without defying them. Any exception to any of the pre-defined rules makes the story weaker because you end up ridiculing your own rules. Pick any good science fiction and this rule applies. In Avataar Cameron goes to great length to define the Pandora and surroundings. One of the finest such movie I have seen in recent times Inception spends almost half of its run time to first define the rules and then the entire movie is woven around those rules. For that matter take Judgement Day, which loosely inspired some part of the RA-One's plot. Imagine if somewhere in the middle of the movie the robot somehow develops emotional intelligence. He is a machine throughout the movie and behaves basis his programming. I-Robot is another such example. Where rules of the environment are mentioned multiple times through the movie for the audience to keep tab of the same.

Any creative liberties you want to take must be taken while defining the rules and the environment but one the same is defined your story must stick to them without any deviation. Like in RA-One the character of RA-One in the game is a bot and does not need any third party to control it, however the character of G-One needs a player, i.e. any person wearing the suit, to control  it. In the movie sometimes G-One is following the instructions of the kid without being able to act on his own, while in some other scenes he just doesn't need the kid or anyone else to control his actions. Had they remained true to this one rule and would have shown G-One in control of the kid throughout the movie, it could have been more fun. G-One is nothing but a walking-talking computer program out of a first person fight video game and it is silly to show him sing and dance to the tunes of Chammak Chhallo.

I have already spent a lot of words writing about RA-One hence would not go into it again. You can read the other post if interested.

Toofanon Se Jahan Nahi Badle Jaate

"Hawa tej chalta hai Dinkar Rao; topi sambhalo." was the dialog in my head when I first heard about so many youth pledging their support to Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign. Whosoever has seen Agnipath doesn't need to be told, what happens after that. Dinkar Rao is ousted at once by the tej hawa, but the change was short lived. I am sure if the movie continued for few more minutes we would have seen that not much changed in that village, except for faces. The reason to me looked very simple. Toofanon se jahan nahi badle jaate, uske liye barson tak ek disha me hawa bahni chahiye; because change caused by storm is destructive and short lived, because after the destruction normally the tendency to restore the original rather than re-invent. However constant effort in same direction will bring the change, which will be long lived and acceptable.


Call me whatever you may, I am just referring to something which was taught me in school. "karat karat abhyas ke jadmati hot sujaan, rasari awat jaat se sil par parat nishan." Which means, with constant effort even the biggest assholes can turn into gentlemen just like with repeated friction against the stone even a fragile rope can make a mark on the stone.


So the celebrations are premature. We need consistent effort in the desired direction and that can start any level. The important thing is, it should not stop till you start seeing markings on the stone.

Talk to strangers

I believe I am a friendly person and do not have any reservations in talking to strangers, since it is only natural. All our lives we talk to strangers. When we open our eyes in this world we see few strangers looking after us. Most often we find ourselves in the arms of an stranger who calls herself our mother and we believe her without any question, because at that moment our minds are not corrupt. We are not used to the fact that people are not always nice. Later as we grow up we meet more strangers, some we are told are our relatives and some we choose and be friends with.

As we grow we start hearing about bad things that people do or can do to other people. Why only bad things? Because negative emotions are stronger and survives longer in our memory. If you don't believe me, turn to any news channel and find one good news reported against 5 bad news. Surprisingly most of us agree to the fact that the bad people who mean or can cause us any harm would be less that 5 in every 100 people we come across. Yet in order to avoid these 5 people we end up avoiding all 100 and loose 95 good people whom we could have known.

As we grow, such feelings get stronger and that is the reason we make better friends during school days and fewer friends during college days and even fewer during our professional life and almost none after retirement. The reason is, our trust in others keeps declining as we grow because of the negativity surrounding us.

As far as I am concerned, I take the other approach. I talk to all hundred with the assumption that they are nice people and keep my senses open to spot the 5 and save myself from any harm. If I fail to spot anyone of these 5, which I have at times and get harmed, which again has happened, I had 95 others to support me, which I would not have had in other case. I have learned that this harm is a small price to pay for meeting the nice people I have met and befriended over the years, I for that fact have made more friends during my 4 years of college than I have in my 12 years of school and having so many friends has helped me in many ways.

India: a country of extreme emotions.

I have always been told human race is superior to other creatures on the earth, because they have got a brain which is more advanced than any other species and they understand and feel emotions better than any other living being. Well, I always believed it; but when I look around and see the way people behave I seriously doubt what we have been taught all our lives. First most of the time we do what we are being asked to do by our elders at home, by our boss at work, by our celebrity cricketers and actors, by our politicians, by our news channels. The list is endless. The amazing thing is, we don't tend to use our brains before doing any of those things.

The other fact that disturbs me much is that we always show extreme emotions to everything. We don't know any middle way. There is no grey, we either see black or white. Sachin is a great batsman, we start calling him God. Rajnikanth does good in some of his movies, we start calling him God too. Suresh Raina does well in five innings and we start seeing next Sachin in him. India fails to win a series, we start throwing stones at the houses of the same cricketers who we were worshiping couple of series back. Someone marries against our wish, we kill them. Someone refers Mumbai as Bombay, we stone their offices.

Why do we always behave in such fashion? I hope to find an answer to this question and a solution to this problem some day.

Eklavya: Not the movie

Continuing from the thoughts in my previous post, another thing which is crippling the creativity among us is we only learn what we have been taught, without using our intelligence. Irony is, we are also taught that we have a wonderful analytical brain unmatched in any other living species. Don't know who to blame, the education system, which is fit to produce only clerks, the society, where we have always been taught it's not polite to question your elders or ourselves, who chose to believe whatever we have been taught and decided not to question.

I have asked this question to many people in recent past, what is the most important thing you learn from the Eklavya story that has been told to us plenty of times as a kid and probably as a grown up too. The usual answers I got are, respect your teacher, if you respect your teacher you can even learn from his statue etc. Some who probably don't understand the question answer, what Dronachaya did was not right and not ethical, Eklavya should not have given in to Drona's demands.

Well, I think the most important thing we learn from the Eklavya story is that, in order to achieve anything the most important thing is the intent to achieve it and and honest effort towards the same. If you have the right intent, you can achieve whatever you want despite not getting the desired environment and support. In order to do so you will be innovative and discover something of your own, which you probably would have never achieved had you given the desired environment and the intent was missing.

Think for once, had Dronacharya accepted Eklavya as a student, all Eklavya would have learned was what Arjun learned. But with the right intent and right effort, he learned some things that he could have never learned, had Dronacharya actually been his teacher (remember the barking dog incident, that took even Drona by surprise).

I am not saying that this is the best and the only interpretation. I am just requesting you all to start thinking beyond what you have been taught and start questioning.

PS: I believe that any literature that we read has been written from the point of view of the author and sometimes has been modified from the point of view of the editor, translator or compiler and but it is written assuming that whoever reads it is an intelligent person and will derive his meaning out of it using the gifted brain he has got.

Blind Faith

I am not sure about the rest of the world but we all know that a typical Indian blindly follows whatever he/she is asked to follow, without asking any questions. Some people reading this might not agree with me. For those people here is a recent incident from my work life.

We recently shifted to new work place and till the new automated attendance system was in place we were asked to mark our attendance in a register. The register was not kept at the entrance, it was kept in the far corner of the office where many people would not go all day if it was not only to mark the attendance. Because of this many people missed to mark their attendance in the register. Since the office was not very strict about the attendance, nobody bothered and the register was kept at that far corner for couple of months.

Later the management became very sensitive about the attendance and people started cribbing with in groups about the place where the register was kept, but nobody raised a concern. I took the initiative and placed the register at the entrance so that anyone coming to office can notice the register and mark his/her attendance. But to my surprise I noticed that next day the register was again moved to it's original place.

I decided to reason with the person who was made responsible for attendance register, and was really surprised with the reason given by that person. Before going to details of the conversation, let me tell you two things. The minimum qualification of people working in my office is graduate and since it's an analyst profile I would assume they are supposedly people with good logical reasoning ability. So following was the reason given by a highly educated person with supposedly good analytical skill.

The person in question, told me two things. One, why the register was kept at the place where it was kept and two, why it cannot be moved at the entrance. The reason for keeping the register at the far corner of the office was that the unit head used to sit there and he wanted to monitor when people are coming in. I thought that is justified, but since the unit head has moved to the cubicle close to the entrance by that logic the register should also be moved. To this the person gave me a reason which I did not understand then, he said, the register cannot be moved because now people are used to it.

Few days later I was talking to some friends about the blind faiths in India and could relate that to the above incident. What is a blind faith? We start doing something because of a reason, but keep on doing it even if the reason doesn't exist any longer. Because we are not the questioning type. The above incident is a very good example of how a blind faith is born is a period of 70 days and here we are talking about 100s and 1000s years of history and tradition.

So, people start questioning what you are doing without even knowing and understanding the reason behind that act. May be the reason doesn't exist any longer.

Is Ashok Chavan SRK's bodyguard, asks Thackeray

"Is Ashok Chavan SRK's bodyguard, asks Thackeray" reads the headline on Times of India web edition today. Had I been Mr Chavan, I would have said, "Yes, I am the bodyguard of SRK and all the other people living in Maharashtra, including you Mr Thackeray. That I think is my duty as the elected Chief Minister of the state." In addition to this, I would have also added, "Had I not been the bodyguard of yours, what would have happened to the Z+ security given to yourself and your beloved son. So you better be grateful for me taking the bodyguard's job and keep your mouth shut from spitting hatred among the people."

Reality Shows (some random thoughts)

These days there is a flood of reality shows on TV and there so many types covering many walks of life. Some of them test your talent and some test your smartness and some are game shows and some are just there to create controversy. I watch a lot of TV and since I cannot relate to any of the daily soaps, I switch to some of these reality shows. Once during a training on presentation skills, I was asked to present something on a topic of my choice and was given 5 minutes to prepare. I chose to present on reality shows and will try to write down some of those thoughts here.

I have read somewhere that the concept of reality shows was introduced by TV series COPS, started in 1989 because of Writers Guild of America strike. The show is still running and is based on real life cops work. First time something like this was introduced to Indian audience in the form of Antakshari. This idea of a reality show was introduced to me by the 1998 Jim Carrey starer popular movie The Truman Show. After coming to Mumbai in recent years I started watching Roadies, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Americal Idol, Dance India Dance, Splitsvilla, BiG Boss, KBC, many Comedy shows etc and very recently Marriage shows, Dare to Date, Emotional Atyachar, and Music ka Maha Muqabala.

Many times people tell me that everything in these shows is scripted and well rehearsed and I tell them, what difference does that make. In the end it's all about entertainment and I am more entertained if I assume that it's real, then so be it. I am enjoying.

You need to PROVE yourself to DESERVE the RESPECT. Prove, deserve and respect being the most commonly used words in the reality shows. Sometimes it's funny to hear these words misused in weird situations. While talent based reality shows are popular the more popular ones are based on group dynamics, like Bigg Boss, Roadies, Splitsvilla. What makes audience stick to these shows is their involvement in the shows. Critical decisions in many of these shows are based on audience votes. So starting episodes focus on knowing the contestants and once audience decides on their favourites, they start voting for them. Once you vote for a contestant you want to see how he/she is performing. So it becomes like a cycle, you vote for the performance and then watch the performance because you voted. This is true in case of many talent based reality shows.

Another reason behind the popularity of these shows, which is more applicable for the shows based on group dynamics, is that they make the audience relate to the characters. In my personal opinion, since there is not much social life left in urban Indian society, these shows make the audience feel closer to the society. These shows become a part of the social life for the audience.

Last but not the least you have some usual suspects who have perfected the art of being on a reality show. Himesh Reshamiya, Malaika Arora, Abhijit, Alka Yagnik, Anu Mallik, Ranavijay, Nikhil Chinappa to name a few. Then there are star appearances to promote their upcoming movies, most popular appearances being of SRK, Salman and Amitabh.

I don't read the newspaper, because they all have ugly prints

I used to read newspapers earlier but now a days the only thing close to a newspaper I read is Mumbai Mirror. There are two reasons for that, one, it's magazine sized and easy to hold when you are doing something that doesn't require eyes and hands. Other is that they claim to be a masala paper and they print what they claim.

As a kid my parents and school teachers used to tell me to read newspapers to be aware of the goings on around us. Since I always liked to read I used to read the newspaper and it was my only way to be aware of the recent events. Today there are so many modes available for the same and my favourite is internet, because of very obvious reasons.

Besides availability of other mediums these newspapers have lost what they used to stand for. What would you say when Tiger Woods' sex stories are covered in sports pages along with what Eva Langoria bought on her b'day and what is Victoria Beckham's shopping schedule and what is Cheryl Cole's holiday plan. When all you can get on the cover page is IPL auctions, film awards and celebrity b'day parties.

I think the reason for calling these so called news stories page 3 news was to restrict all these stories in one single page and that is the 3rd page and not front page. Unfortunately there are so many page 3 these days. These days journalism is not based on stories rather it's based on persons. Like sports news is not sports news, it's sport person's news. Water quality is Hritik Roshan's bathroom happens to be a bigger news than many thirsty Mumbaikars.

By the way, I would rather read Filmfare, if I had to read about celebrities. At least they use better pages and print.

How obviously fake can it get?

It's funny when Shiv Sena talks about not letting Australian cricketers play in Mumbai, because of the attacks on Indians in Australia. If anything Shiv Sena should be supporting Australians in their attacks. If we go by the ideology of the party that brought this very particular party into political map, people from other parts of country should not be allowed to come into Mumbai for job opportunities and if anyone does so they should be thrown out by force.

Not sure about the realities in Australia but even if we go by whatever is being claimed in media, they are not doing anything different from what Shiv Sena and MNS did and are yet doing to non-Marathi residents of Mumbai.

In a classic case of opportunism I heard the party leader saying, "agar IPL walon me thoda bhi desh prem hai to wo Australians to IPL me khelne nahi denge." I just want to ask one question, "where is this desh prem when your party workers beat up the citizens of the same country?"

Giving attention where it is not required.

It's been 4 years I have started my professional life. I have learned a lot many things in these years and am still learning and hope to keep on doing the same in coming years. Whenever I am at loggerheads with any of my colleagues for some reason or the other, I get really agitated and I overreact at times, and every time my boss tells me, "you are giving him/her more attention than he/she deserves."

I think Indian media is also suffering from this syndrome. They are concentrating most of the their attention where it is least required. Recently word Bombay was used instead of Mumbai in a movie and some good for nothing people have protested against the same and lead the director to apologize to their so called leader, and this news took 1/4 of the front page of Times of India, the most read English daily in our country.

If you had to name the most covered people by Indian media, they would probably be Rakhi Sawant, Raj Thackeray, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, M S Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Gandhi and recently joining the band wagon is Shashi Tharoor, for all the wrong reasons. In case of Shashi Tharoor, the reason he is covered so much is because he keeps on giving free news through twitter.

I wish our media also learns what I am trying to learn i.e. not waste your attention where it is not required.

It happens only in MayaPuri: 8 year old booked under Goonda Act.

My friends from MP don't be mad, but I have a thought of changing the name of UP to MP (MayaPuri). Where things are happening that nobody else can think of. Talk about out of box thinking and here it is. Who could have thought that an 8 year old boy would be booked under stringent anti gangster law aptly named Goonda Act.

There can be only two possibilities. UP kids are now becoming very enterprising and taking on the profession they would be taking at a later stage very early. After all it helps to start early. Or UP police have become really talented in recognising the promising talent very early. Whatever it is, kudos to Behenji for bringing law and order in the state. Book all the future goondas at and early age and you have a goonda free UP for the future.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/UP-8-yr-old-booked-under-goonda-Act/articleshow/4681953.cms

Indians in Australia

One of the news doing rounds of various news channels is recent attacks on Indians in Australia. We are cursing Australians for doing so. Everyone is appealing to Indian government to do something about it.

First talk about cursing the Australians part. Well I have heard from the same news channels that Australian government is makings laws against such attacks and trying to make the existing laws more stringent in order to discourage such attacks. At least they are doing something about it. They are not keeping a mum like our government did when few MNS workers were beating students and taxi drivers from UP and Bihar in Mumbai, for trying to earn a living in their own country.

Now talk about appealing to Indian government. Well isn't it expecting too much from a government to stop attacks on Indian in a foreign land, who is not even capable of stopping such hate attacks against Indians in India. I would have appreciated it more if PMO would have clearly told the appealing students and their families that they are not capable of doing anything in this regard, because they are not even capable of stopping such attacks in their own country where they hold the power, forget about any foreign land.

Now talk about the biggest irony of them all, a very prominent political figure has made an statement today appealing BCCI to not allow Australians in IPL in order to penalise them for the attacks on Indian students in Australian soil. This sounds ridiculous coming from the mouth of the same person who has build his political career by coming up with the idea of son of the soil and beaten up so called outsiders in order to force them away from their so called land. Well, if son of the soil is applicable for people of Mumbai, how come it is not valid in the same way and even more in case of Australians.