THE PERFECT SHOW



After a long lull, PERFECT Show is back with a bang :) Due to other pressing commitments, I couldnt devote sufficient time to the Show. But as the saying goes, the good shouldnt be left undone for a long time.So we are back to routine :)



Its a matter of great pleasure to have Mr.Shekar Sir, an IIM B professor and also a distinguished alumni of NIT,Trichy as a guest in this edition of Show. Mr.Shekar had kindly consented to share his life experiences and views with others.Iam grateful to him for agreeing to be in the Show.



Mr.B.Shekar has a PhD in Computer Science from IISc,Bangalore and a M.E from IIT,Delhi and a BE from REC,Trichy. He donned various roles before joining IIMB as a faculty member. Presently he is Professor of Information Systems and Mathematics in IIMB.



He has received many honors most prominently being the recipient of “Best Teacher in Management Award (Southern Regions) conferred by The Deccan Herald and being Listed in the Marquis “Who’s Who in the World” - Editions : 2000, 2007, 2009″ and being nominated as a ‘Leading Educator of the World - 2007’ by International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England. He has given a lot of lectures/seminars on Creativity,Thinking Paradigms and Problem Solving at various academic institutions across the country.



Over to the Show now.



Host - Prashant Sree - PS

Guest - Mr. B.Shekar - BS



PS: Welcome to the Perfect Show Sir.

BS: Thank You. Upfront let me state that the views that I express are my own and are not those of the institution that I am working for; nor is the institution responsible for these views.







PS: Very well Sir. Starting with the first of the ‘Perfect Questions’, what are you passionate about in life?

BS: I would be using the word love interchangeably with passionate. I am passionate about life itself – Strange as it may sound but that is the real truth. Here I would like to elucidate this cryptic statement. I am passionate about life in all its forms and colors. For example I am passionate about knowledge as that opens several doors and leads me through different corridors to unexplored and uncharted territories. At the same time I love ignorance – it is the one that gives me humility and some times it helps me to develop reverence toward others, and quite a few more things that constitute a good human being.



PS: That definitely shows ignorance in a new light. I agree with you Sir that awareness of our Ignorance leads us to Knowledge. Now, what have you learnt in your life( other than academics), which you would like to share with others ?

BS: There are too many things and in fact most of them may be shared. I may be willing to share but sharing is a two-way cooperative coupling and I do not know how these may be received. Never-the-less here is a minimal set.



There is none who is despicable or who is hate-worthy or pooh-pooh-able. If at all such feelings get evoked, they are issue-related and that too temporally bound. These feelings occur immediately but one should be able to recall the issue-relatedness immediately and get out of these feelings quickly.



There is a lot to learn from everyone you come across in life. This is irrespective of social status, moral status or financial status. In actuality one can even learn from non-human living beings. However it requires a tremendous effort. I have been taught by auto-rickshaw drivers, canteen/hotel bearers, and corridor sweepers to name a few. Learning is to be construed as “becoming a better human being” as compared to what you were a time slot prior to that event.



One should be able to accept one’s mistake unreservedly, genuinely and immediately – Not because it is a great quality or anything of that sort (as it is generally claimed). Most importantly because it leaves you with a very good feeling and this feeling is enough a reason for practicing it.



The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

- Bertrand Russell



PS: I am sure your learning’s will be effective learning for our readers. Particularly, what you said about opening your mind and learning from any source that can teach us. If you are given a wish to change one thing in world, what would you change?

BS: MYSELF – Because I think that is the only one I have “some” control and that too not always. I am talking about living beings only. Reference is not being made to non-living things and abstractions such as world, society, and environment. If you ask me about the environment then I would certainly like the environment to have more love, compassion … However I think all these things will turn out to be the way you see them. That is why I said “myself”.







PS: Wise words, sir. One can only act on the zone of influence he has control over. The improvement starts with self. Now let me ask a question about mythology. Which is your favorite mythological hero, and why?

BS: I have many. One of them is Sri Rama – Even to utter the name of this character, I do with utmost reverence and I consider it a great privilege to have known this character through His story.



Usually one has a tendency to admire traits or people because you want to have those traits or you would like to be them; essentially implying you do not have those traits or you are not those people. This is precisely why He is my favorite. He lived for Dharma and nothing else. Though this term encompasses many attributes I would like to explicitly cite a few - Truthfulness, compassion, dutiful … These have been practiced by several others (mythical and non-mythical characters). The specialty here is the unimaginably high intensity levels.



Some of the incidents make me stand up in awe and reverence. Here is a character who went through a sequence of trials and tribulations to keep up a word (not given by him) but by his father. He considered Kausalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi all as his mothers. Some of the passages in Ramayan reveal the consideration he shows to Kaikeyi. His attitude toward Vibishana displays another one of his traits. The subtle way of exemplifying humility (with respect to Hanuman’s devotion to Rama) to Hanuman is a lesson on “how to teach”, or more precisely “how to make someone learn”.



PS: Lord Rama’s deed and valor is very well known. His attributes and qualities certainly serve as a reference point for someone who wants to live his life in an ideal way. What would you like to evangelize or stand for in your life?

BS: I do not understand this question. Some of the answers to the previous questions will give some idea of what I appreciate, like …. “Stand for” is too strong a term and it can become vague also. I do not stand for anything, and even if I stand for something I do not think I have the capacity to state it succinctly. Yes, I would like to lead a life according to Dharma though I am far from that right now.



PS: What is your charm?

BS: According to me, I do not have any. If any individual feels or thinks that I have, then this question should be put to him/her.



PS: I definitely feel that humility would be on the top in the list of your charms. :) What do you consider the Thumb Rule for success in life?

BS: Here there are three terms that are open to interpretation. What do you mean by life, how do you define success and how should you view a thumb rule?



A thumb rule (by classical understanding) is a rule that is signified by experience and is not backed by theory and proper analysis and somewhat akin to heuristic. This can lead you to success many a time; however, it can also result in failure as experience is never universal. This being the case I do not think one should look for thumb rule(s) in life as life is a very serious affair and there are several attributes, a primary one being “one cannot put back the clock”. Hence I would not like to search for thumb rules to be given to you all; I very much doubt their existence on such matters.



Now we come to the more important terms given in your question.



Life - Any individual leads many lives, common nomenclature being personal, professional, … Every relationship may considered as a life in itself – mother, wife, brother, friend, … In each one of these, success assumes a different colour. Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? In actuality I am not. I am just mentioning the reality. I am not saying that we wear masks because mask implies “hiding something”. I am just saying every relationship is a part of the sum totality of life that we are leading. I know instances where an individual has been a failure as a husband but has been a successful professional. At the same time he has been a failure as a father. This being the case, how can one have a thumb rule for life (in all its complexities)?



Next is success – It has a variety of definitions all of them being person-centric, experience-centric, philosophy-centric. One individual’s definition may be utter nonsense to another. Hence I would not like to even delve into this complex knot. Any statement that I put forward may be (who knows) a very defensive part of me coming out.



With this long winding bends and turns on the road let me at least say what I think may (strictly MAY) give happiness (not success) to an individual. Identify your natural strengths and natural weaknesses. Seek environments that need your natural strengths and contribute (and you will as there will be natural motivation for contributing). Try to overcome your weaknesses (it is not at all easy). It will be slow and will take a long time; that does not matter. You will definitely go ahead. There is no question of turning back. This is all easier said than done.



One may think it is easy to identify strengths and not weaknesses. In actuality it is difficult to identify both. This is where people around you should help. Only your well-wishers may do it. The axiomatic well-wishers are your parents. After that your sieve should be applied. Let me again state I have not said anything about success. Strengths and weaknesses are abstractions that need to be translated into real entities depending on what “life” you are looking at – relationships, career, professional…



One may wonder why I had to give a long pre-amble to state the above. This is because one should know the right context and interpretation for the terms and for the question



Let me highlight some difficulties with respect to the strengths-weaknesses discussion.



(1) Many a time we may not be able to identify these strengths and weaknesses. As I said earlier parents will definitely have interest in our well-being and hence can certainly point these out. Genetic disposition does play a large role and again they seem to be relatively more qualified toward this. It could be a direct descent or more than one level descent.Again the same statement holds. However parents can always be blinded by extremes due to excess attachment. Working parents may not have the time to perform this arduous task as it needs observation over a large stretch of time and correlation of a high order. Uncles, aunts … may be useful surrogates. However we have come out of the joint family set up and got into a nucleus fold.



Thus there is a genuine problem. I do not have any solution for this. Each individual is placed in a unique situation and hence examination has to be done on a case-to-case basis – Again no guarantee. Apart from this there is another serious problem. Societal constraints may influence parents, … leading to lack of sensitization toward the “strengths” and consequent possibility-of-happiness of a child vis-à-vis success (defined in their and societal terms). I have been a personal witness to such a happening. When such things occur I can only feel sorry for the unfortunate situation. The mid-career transition from industry to teaching in my case was amidst one such similar difficulty.



(2) Strengths themselves may become weaknesses depending on the environments. There are very few universally valid strengths and universally valid weaknesses. Thus one should be able to pick the right environment. It is a phenomenally hard task.



(3) There is a natural urge for an individual to ignore the strength that may be glaring to the eyes and pursue the weaknesses (such as what an individual Is not good at) and try hard toward overcoming them to the point of not utilizing the strength. I know several such individuals. While it is good to attempt overcoming weaknesses it should not be at the cost of underplaying and undermining strengths. This can be tackled only by personal counseling done by well-wishers who are in the immediate vicinity and on whom the individual has confidence. This analysis is applicable the other way round also – strengths replaced by weaknesses.



Many of the so called “successful” individuals have been utilizing their natural strengths. I for certain believe that every individual is bestowed with natural strengths that need to be groomed, well-directed and placed in the right environment. If not I can only feel sorry. If you closely analyse some of the “successful” people you will find that their strengths have been their sheet anchor. A few examples – Einstein, Newton, Chandrasekhar… These personalities have stated the key trait (in the passing, somewhere in their writings) that helped them. The key trait is not something that most people possess. An example of weakness overpowering strength is the genius music director and singer A M Raja.





PS: Your answer has shown ‘Thumb Rule’ in a new light. Who are your favorite role models and why?

BS: I do not have a single role model in the generalized sense. However from different angles I have (real and not mythical) some traits/people whom I like, admire … These people - either I have had personal contact or I have got to know through their works. To give a few examples along with respective categories (sometimes there may be more than one in a category – Mentioning just one does not belittle the others whose names have not been stated):



Administrative acumen, professional competence and courage – My father Dr. L. R. Balasubramaniam



Intuitive Grasp, Understanding of situations and people – My mother Neela Balasubramaniam



Communicating great and possibly difficult ideas and consequently inspiring the audience – Professor Vittal Rao



Involved multi-emotional singing (hindi) – Mohd. Rafi

(tamil) – P B Sreenivas



Light music composer/arranger (tamil) – Viswanathan and Ramamoorthy (as a duo)

(hindi) – Madan Mohan

(non-Indian) – Mantovani



Visual art (Static – drawing) – Raja Ravi Varma



Visual art (Dynamic – Cinema) – David Lean



Classical music singing – G N Balasubramaniam



Classical music composer – Saint Thyagaraja



Classical literature (Indian) – S L Byrappa

(non-Indian) – Leo Tolstoy



Sports personality (specific attributes not listed here) – Viswanathan Anand



PS: Could you please share any 3 Must Read Books for any Manager/Entrepreneur ?

BS: A serious study of Mahabharat. (for a manager)



Les Miserables - to have an (in depth) appreciation of different emotional facets of an ordinary human being



Euclid’s Elements along with mandatory “attempting to solve” at least one problem at a convenient periodicity should go a long way in sharpening the intuitive, creative and logical nature of the human mind. (This is not necessarily for a manager)



These are books for anyone. I don’t think I can suggest anything only for a manager/entrepreneur



PS: Thank You Sir. Now let me put a few questions regarding your profession. Being a professor, what motivated you to choose this career? At what point in your life, you decided that you have to become a teacher.

BS: I am not cutout for industry. Relatively I am better off on the dais. I realized it in 1983. A huge amount of time had passed by then. Better late than never. This industry-dais difference however small it might be was sufficient enough for me to cross over to the teaching profession





One has to be a scholar and adopt a scholarly approach to life in general. This category has a few whom I know. I am far from it – the only saving grace is that I am trying (many more steps to go).







PS: Very humble way of saying that the learning streak in you still remains. Could you please share any three most important things (related to professional) you learnt in your career.

BS: I cannot prefix “most important”. To me any learning is important. However I will mention three things I learnt. Do not ask me whether I practice them. I am trying to. However I have learnt that they need to be practiced. These are life’s teachings.



A thing that is worth doing is worth doing well. If it is not worth doing well then it is not worth doing at all. Try to practice this as far as possible. The more you are able to practice, the more you will be better off in your mind.



Never harbor negative feelings (jealousy, hatred …). It is bad for your health – mental and physical. Your mind will never be at rest. Modern science hypothesizes the presence of a psychosomatic component in many of the physical diseases.



Your actions will invariably have a thinking component and a feeling component. Give importance to both. Don’t be skewed in your approach. Just as an illustration – suppose a guy is caught copying in the examination. Punishment is a necessity as that is going to teach him and others not to do it. A capital punishment will destroy and possibly demolish him. A punishment should be to mend and reform, resulting in his contributing positively toward himself and the society.





“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”

- Albert Einstein



PS: That was useful. Talking about learning, how can one ensure that the spark of Knowledge remains shining in them?

BS: It will continue to shine provided the spark is a result of your love for “that” knowledge and not merely an indirectly and externally motivated result. Thus you need to do what you love. It is not always easy. There may be several sacrifices you may need to make. It is important that you should know to differentiate true love. Otherwise your sacrifices may leave you disillusioned.



PS: Few questions on Management. MBA is considered a way to fast money. How much of it is true…?

BS: Good money - Yes. Fast money - Not necessarily. A word of caution - Anything that comes quickly also goes away quickly.



I do not think this is true. Students certainly give a lot of value to what they do to earn that money. Most of them are aware of what they like and otherwise. They choose jobs based on that. They do hop from one job to another fairly quickly before they settle down on a job, money being one of the important parameters. However it needs to be within the bandwidth of their likes.



PS: In what ways should a student pursuing MBA spend his time so that he utilizes the most of his time in the 2 year MBA stint.

BS: I am not competent enough to answer this question as “ways to spend his time” and “utilizing the most of his time” is too general and at the same time too person-centric. I don’t think I can answer in a meaningful way also. I do not want to say - “Work hard, Get a good CGPA, develop your personality, develop team spirit …” as these are tautological statements and may hold in other similar academic environments too.



PS: Some questions on Manager and Leader. There is a subtle difference between a Manager and a Leader. Which is more desirable?

BS: That depends on a person’s attitudes, aptitudes and goals. Some comments are warranted here.



My contention is that a good manager is more by nurture - by training as long as there is willingness to work, learn and implement. On the contrary a good leader is more by nature than by nurture. It has to be in you. Of course if one has the spark there can be ways and means of making a fire out of it. It is better to be a reasonably good manager than to be a bad leader.



Quickly let me add that every job has a leadership component and a managerial component. This mix changes as you advance in time. There is bound to be a leadership component as you approach the later stages of your tenure. Hopefully everybody has a little bit of “leadership” nature.



PS: MBA school teaches the students to become an able Manager. How to mould oneself to a Leader?

BS: I do not know whether one can mould toward leadership (see the answer to the previous question). One important point - a sham/bad leader will very easily be noticed as compared to an OK manager. Unfortunately there is nothing like an OK leader. People will just hate you for lack of leadership if you hold a position that imposes such demands as compared to managerial effectiveness. Another feature - technicalities are more in management and can be learnt and practiced. Leadership on the contrary has less of this.



PS: The education industry in India needs to change so to effectively empower the students. What kind of change is required and how can it be brought about.

BS: First of all I do not know whether I will agree with the first sentence. In addition I take objection to the term “education industry”. If “education” as an industry makes a major headway in our/any country, then I will feel sorry for the citizens and future citizens of that country. I do not know what you mean by empower. You need to state “empowered” to do what?



Education should be personalized as learning should take place on a one-to-one basis – the Socrates approach to learning. It might be expensive from various angles. If that is the case then so be it. I believe that education should be classified as a basic necessity like food, shelter and clothing. Hence budget for school education should occupy a high position in the priority list of any government. I do not even know whether it should be a governmental initiative. To me “education industry” comes very close to being an oxymoron.



One thing I am happy about - in good private schools personalized attention is being attempted in a serious way albeit being an extremely expensive proposition. Here let me point out the existence of a “school for the gifted” in Hungary, which has produced great mathematicians…



Let me quote the famous mathematician Paul Erdos:

“In Hungary a few years ago a special high school, the Michael Fazekas High School, was opened in Budapest for children who are gifted in mathematics. The school started just when Pósa was due to go to high school. He liked the school very much, so much so, in fact, that he refused to leave it for entrance into university two years early. Soon after attending Fazekas High School, Pósa was telling me of other boys in his class who he thought were better at elementary mathematics than he was. Among these boys was the now prominent Lovász.”





I really do not know why we do not have such things in large number for different subjects and at subsidized rates in our country. I know there are several issues that need to be resolved. However there is no point in ignoring something because it is difficult. Every child gets treated differently in the school mentioned by Erdos. Recall Einstein’s dislike toward his school (called gymnasium at that time). It was primarily because of regimentation and approach. He was all through an opponent of regimentation. Incidentally regimentation is an inherent attribute of any industry-oriented environment. It is a process of bunching things together ignoring the differences however subtle they might be. One cannot graduate students like mass produced engineered products such as pen-drives, locks and keys.





Evaluation systems have problems. According to me, there should not be any evaluation system at all. By and large, students will orient themselves toward evaluation. This is also because all students do not have high motivation levels. Again this is because of possible societal pressures.



PS: .After hearing your reply, I would like to retract my statement and rephrase it to mean “How to Change the evaluation System in India”. The individualized attention if given to kids will be definitely beneficial. I believe Indus School is also a new step in the education system which emphasizes more on overall learning along with academic learning. Sir, we have reached the end of the Show.



It has been a great pleasure to have you in the Show and learn from you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. On behalf of the readers and with me, Warm regards to you, Sir. Thank You.



BS: You are welcome. All the Best.

(A travelogue in many parts–I promise–written without any restraint at all. Truthful mostly.)

Trained by years of three-hour long summer vacation flights across the Arabian Sea, I am not one to dawdle with drinks and dinner inside an airplane cabin.

When you flew the dreaded Gulf Air connection between Abu Dhabi and Bombay your whole strategy was about speed and accuracy. Drink your first Johnnie Walker miniature too slowly and you were doomed. By the time the drinks trolley made its circuit and came back the only spirits left would be cans of lukewarm Heineken from within the bowels of the trolley and a couple of mini-bottles of white wine from great wine producing nations such as Turkey and Paraguay:

“This exquisite wine, also available in distinctive looking tetrapak boxes, is fruity with echoes of berry that give way to an after taste of burnt toast followed by full-bodied projectile throwing up.”

This was because two rows behind you sat bachelor boys Anto, Johnny and their friend Anto Johnny. All of them veteran Gulf Air flyers, who, over many years of annual leave trips, had perfected the art of hitting the drinks trolley harder and faster than a majestic Venkatesh Prasad cover drive crashing straight back into his stumps.

Miniature bottles of whisky, which Malayalis frown upon as a matter of principal, were thrown back by Anto and company two at a time in rapid-fire succession. Sometimes even before the stewardess has turned back with plastic glasses and peanuts. While the hapless crew-member shuttled between seat and trolley, a few bottles were stealthily slipped into pockets for the drive home from the airport. By the time Anto reached home in Chalakudy he was very, very happy and enveloped in a mixed mist of Johnnie Walker and Brut pour homme.

So you can imagine my chagrin when the cabin crew of my Delhi-Dubai Emirates flight not only kept all of us well nourished with many assorted beverages–”We only have Absolut vodka sir. Will that do?” “Alas! I will manage somehow. GLUG.”–but I was also among the first few people in Economy Class to be served dinner.

This may sound very grand and all, this being served before everyone else. However two things can make this very uncomfortable.

First of all you must realise that Economy Class travel is one of the great social levellers of the modern world. No matter what you are in the world outside–consultant, journalist, social media evangelist or investment wanker–if your boarding pass says Economy you have been grouped up with everyone else sitting around. So what you if you have a Blackberry and a tiny, almost pointless laptop? Since you clearly can’t afford Business or First shut the eff up and eat cold butter and drink warm beer like everyone else bro.

But this forced social homogenity also means that any preferential treatment by the cabin crew causes cabin-wide consternation.

“What did that boy just get? A coloring book! I want one immediately!”


“But darling you are 34!”


“So what stupid man. We are entitled to everything they are… Look someone’s getting an extra BLANKET now!”


“Oh please be mature woman and pilfer the cutlery like we planned.”

(I won’t tell you exactly who but one of my relatives is an expert at pilfering things from an airplane. When people visit for dinner parties she tells them that the cutlery, dining set, toilet paper, moisturizer and most of the sofa cushions were gifted to us by someone “high up in Cathay Pacific who get these things for free during Diwali.”)

So in all things Economy class passengers must be treated alike. Anything less could lead to revolt, uprising and eventually the guillotine. So when the stewardess placed dinner before me many a malicious eyebrow was raised. Apparently Emirates had actually taken the meal preference I had entered online seriously. And they brought me my seafood special before the regular meal trolley made its rounds.

Excellent customer service, but the craning necks and irate whispering was disconcerting. I waited for everyone else to be served before launching into an excellent prawn cocktail appetiser and salmon fillet main course. Most excellent.

Adding to my difficulties was the second factor: the pregnant German woman sitting across the aisle on my left. This big-boned frau was in that stage of pregnancy that medical professionals call “Feed or avoid”.

She polished off her meal tray in seconds, bread roll and all. And then, after shifting around in her seat for comfort, demolished her husband’s meal tray as well. Utterly unsatisfied she then turned around and glared. At my food. Incessantly. Not a prawn went from bowl to my mouth unobserved. My engagement with the fillet and her keen observation of the same was a remarkable case study in my hand-her eye coordination.

When she finally realized I had a different meal she summoned a stewardess demanding an explanation. Which was promptly offered in the form of a third defenceless meal tray. I quickly finished dinner while Mother Germany was distracted.

The missus, meanwhile, was having her own set of problems with another German who sat next to her. This gentleman was a standard issue Lonely Planet traveller perhaps en route to a connecting flight back home from Dubai. A nice short, stout fellow who spent the entire flight reading a German book.

Not that the missus did not try to quash his attempts to do this. First she dropped half lemon welcome drink in his lap. He laughed it off. And then, during the beverage service, most of a glass of orange juice fell over as well. He smiled and she apologised profusely. The glass of water she tipped over during dinner did not amuse him one bit. And then, in a stunning last act, the missus let go of the inflight entertainment system remote control which snapped back on its spring-loaded cord, whipped across the meal tray and leg-glanced the chocolate pudding over and onto his foot. He was enraged and looked this close to invading Poland as is the way of his people when pissed.

Needless to say she remained motionless for the rest of the trip while I sat back and enjoyed an in-flight entertainment system that, for once , was not programmed in Fortran.

And as I sit in the cabin watching grim, grey televised interpretations of Kurt Wallander novels with Kenneth Branagh playing the title role, let me tell you a little about the fortnight’s worth of travelling and sight-seeing that lay ahead.

The missus and I had cherished plans of a fortnight in South Africa for a couple of years. What with the brother-in-law having moved to Johannesburg a long time ago. Also Bill, as we shall henceforth call him, had this great Punjabi need to take me there all expenses paid and treat me like a king. Who am I to say no.

Alas just when it looked like the missus and I had managed to wheedle out some leave time together to pay him a visit the global economy crashed. Bill’s employers were not immune to the meltdown that hit the banks. And after weeks of turmoil and tension he was finally asked to suddenly move permanently to London. Off went Bill to a cozy two-bedroom two-bath place in Islington, just a few minutes walk from Arsenal football club’s Emirates Stadium and around the corner from Holloway Road tube station.

Weeks later when we found that Emirates was giving away Delhi-London-via-Dubai return tickets at around Rs23,000 per person after tax we did not hesitate. Tickets were booked and Bill was immediately asked to set aside a sizeable portion of his 2008 bonus. Bill, dear loving Bill, did even better. He booked tickets for a football match, a West End musical, and even arranged for a local SIM and mobile phone.

(Remind me later to tell you why and how you boys must marry into a Punjabi family only.)

Later after some group gmailing the two week long trip became much more exciting. Since we’d be landing just before the long Easter weekend the first item on our agenda would be a three-day road-trip across Scotland. Edinburgh and Inverness would be the highlights. And joining us, yay!, would be a jolly group of eight friends, all bankers in London. None of them, let me assure you, had anything at all to do with CDOs, CMOs and sub-prime mortgages. I don’t mix with those types anymore.

So where was I? Ah yes watching Kenneth Branagh as Wallander on the Emirates inflight entertainment thingie. Before the flight I had no idea that Henning Mankell’s Wallander books had been made into a TV series. If you are one of the few people I haven’t already forced to read Scandinavian crime fiction then I implore you to do so. Mankell is most good. But my favourites are the ten books of the Martin Beck series written by Sjowall and Wahloo. The husband-wife team produced delightful crime novels all set in the Sweden of the sixties. The books are all very grim with short days, long nights, grumpy people and overcast skies. Still they manage to be funny and utterly enthralling.

After one and a half episodes of Wallander I began to drop of to sleep and so switched the channel to audio tracks of Seinfeld stand-up. I had heard every single one before. Perfect background chatter, then, to fall asleep to.

The changeover in Dubai was smooth as butter. We deplaned, ran our shoes, belts and bags through an X-ray, did a quick circuit of a huge, shiny and impersonal Duty Free section before swiftly boarding the connecting flight to Heathrow.

A splinter of nostalgia shot through me as I picked up a copy of the Gulf News from a trolley outside the plane door. (NRIs nod in understanding please.)

And then in just a few minutes we were inside, the doors were pulled shut and I continued watching Wallander where I had left it off before.

Now I will spare you detailed narration of six hours of flight travel as I have to run right now. I just turned thirty years old a few moments ago and I am celebrating by cracking open a packet of Lindt dark chocolate to celebrate with the missus.

Do return in a day or to when we will continue on into Scotland and talk about the most complicated problem tourists face when they fly to the UK. Exactly… the Mensa puzzle device that operates the shower in hotel bathrooms.

Till then, as they say in the United Kingdom, ciao!

(By the way the people at GiveIndia do good work. Check them out. Click below. Go on.)

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You might feel that this topic should have been posted a few weeks back but as you mighted have noticed, I am posting after a long break of two-and-half months. Actually, I have been busy all these days leaving no time for blogging and another reason for this hibernation period has been the ban of ‘Blogspot‘ in our college (I don’t know the reason for this yet).



The four Golden Globe winner, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire“swept the Oscars, winning eight awards. I loved the movie. The first part of it was extremely good and actually has a very Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay kind of touch to it. The second half of the movie is a little less intense if you know what I mean. Overall, it’s a good watch for sure. Dev Patel plays the main protagonist and has done an amazing job. The movie takes audiences to the poorest sections of India and shows a level of poverty and human misery that’s almost beyond our imaginations and yet so pervasive that people seem to take it in, as a consistent fact. The movie gives education as to how people live their lives in India. The story is about Jamal and his elder bossy brother Salim, from their childhood to adulthood. Their life in the slums of Mumbai and their hard events in life from getting an autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, losing their mother in Hindu-Muslim riots to the exploitative begging mafia teaching them lessons. As a matter of luck, destiny or a mere co-incidence Jamal gets to participate in “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire”, and he has the answers of the questions asked through his life’s happenings.



This movie swept through the Oscars, and yet, the only rejoicing I see in Indian newspapers is at A R Rahman’s Oscars. Our issues with the movie apart, the question is if we even believe it is an Indian movie.



Is “Slumdog Millionaire” a Hollywood movie, a British movie, or an Indian one? I watched the news on BBC the other day and found them referring to the movie as a British movie - Danny Boyle, the director, is British after all. Hollywood treats Slumdog as an American movie, entering it in the Oscars under the main category instead of ‘Foreign film’ which is what other movies set in India usually end up in.



What makes a movie Indian? Is it an Indian movie if the director is Indian, if the producer is, if the cast is Indian or if the movie is set in India? I’d say a movie is certainly Indian if it is set in India. In the case of Slumdog, the cast is also either Indian or of Indian origin. So then why do we consider Slumdog a British movie? Does the director’s nationality alone determine the where the movie belongs to? On that basis, then, should we consider Elizabeth to be an Indian movie because it was directed by Shekhar Kapur? Does the producer’s nationality make a difference? Saawariya was co-produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment, but that does not make it any less Indian in our eyes. So why do we hesitate to embrace Slumdog Millionaire? Granted, most of the crew is British. But even then, Slumdog Millionaire is at best an Indo-British movie, not a British movie. Gandhi, on that basis, was also Indo-British, and interestingly, the first Indian Oscar (Bhanu Athaiya) came from Gandhi.



Many of us believe there are many Bollywood movies that are far better than Slumdog Millionaire, yet none of these received any Oscars. Obviously, this was because all these movies competed in the “Best Foreign Film” category, and not in the mainstream category, where you can compete for many more Oscars. The lesson for Indian filmmakers should be - sell the North American distribution rights to a US studio that will make a push for the movie at the Oscars. We know that the Oscars are not just about having a good product but also about how well you market it to the judges.



But the million dollar question remains - why do Indians care so much for the Oscars anyway? The Oscars are, at their core, just an awards ceremeony for Hollywood movies, never mind their nod to foreign films with a single category. Why does Bollywood need Hollywood’s approval?



Bollywood (and Tamil and Telugu) movies, with their song and dance routines have their own international appeal in the Middle East and Africa and parts of Europe. We’ve all heard anecdotes of Raj Kapoor’s popularity in Russia and of Rajnikanth’s in Japan. If Hollywood epitomizes the West, Indian movies epitomize the East. Our movie industry is just as big (or, in terms of the sheer number of movies annually, bigger) than Hollywood. In many parts of the world, it is even more popular than any Hollywood movie.



And yet, we seem to crave for approval from the Oscars. I cannot understand why….