Baahubali

 I watched the first part of Baahubali in Vinayaka theatre on its first day, first show along with two of my colleagues. After witnessing the interval scene where Baahubali single handedly saves the people from getting crushed under the monumental statue of Bhallaladeva, all of us thought Rajamouli has completely lost it. We compared that scene with Balayya’s stunts like the one where he reverses the train by slapping his thigh. After the movie was over, all of thought that the movie was well made but might fail at the box office. Defying our predictions, the movie went on to become the biggest grosser in the history of Indian cinema at that point. That, obviously raised an interesting question. Why did the movie succeed?

  Before I attempt to give my opinion about the question, I would like to tell about an interesting article I read recently. The article discusses persuasive ad techniques. It says that there are three ways to sell a product, Pathos, Ethos and Logos. The Pathos technique involves appealing to the emotions and feelings of the customer. For example, Patanjali markets its products as swadeshi products and tried to appeal to the patriotic sentiments of the people. Ethos involves using credibility to sell products. Toothpaste ads are the best examples for this technique. ’99% of dentists in India believe that Colgate helps you avoid dental problems’. Since dentists are the authority on the subject, we believe, Colgate is the best toothpaste. Third technique is Logos. This is the age old technique where we try to persuade people using logic. For example, ‘vaccination prevents Covid as per carefully conducted medical trials, so please get vaccinated’

  Now, let’s understand how Baahubali was sold to us. We all remember that it was marketed as the pride of Indian Cinema, the magnum opus etc. Here, they’re using Pathos technique to convince us. They’re appealing to our patriotic sentiments to sell the product. Similarly, numerous reviews talked about how South Indian films are a class apart from the Bollywood. Such reviews appeal to the emotions of people belonging to the South which is the main market of the movie. Then, there’re promotion events. The entire film industry came together to sing paeans about the movie. People like Karan Johar called it the master piece. However, there were some reviews where they criticised the movie for not giving enough space for the female protagonists. Of course, the movie had a great story, brilliant action sequences and breath taking visuals. That is the Logos. 

  The movie ended in a cliffhanger, ‘Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali’. This unleashed a publicity blitzkrieg for the second movie. The entire country discussed why Kattappa killed Baahubali. That was a marketing master stroke. However, all the earlier techniques were used too. It was again marketed as the pride of Indian Cinema, it was again praised by everyone. Added to that, they made sure that the earlier criticism was addressed. The reviews were all praise about how the women of the movie were so powerful and how the movie stood for feminism. Thus, they managed to woo another section of audience which criticised its first part

  This is not to say that it’s a bad movie. It definitely is an extremely well made movie. It created a huge market for South movies across India. It had become the torch bearer for fantasy movies and paved the way to make movies like Spiderman etc within India. This is just to say that he movie had achieved such stupendous success because of a brilliant marketing campaign which ran in the background. This is to doff the hat for those who silently worked in the background to create the history

 

If our world becomes Hogwarts

Yesterday, I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire again. Fantasy movies are my escape from the monotony of the daily life. While watching the movies, I was wondering what I’d do if I possess similar magical powers. Voila! We’ve a new blog post

  My vote for the most disruptive magic power goes to apparition. While work from home has many pain points, one major benefit is it removes the necessity of travel. It saved me close to two and a half hours of commute every day. I get a lot more time to pursue my hobbies these days. Imagine a world where everyone having an ability to apparate. It’ll be a world without Amazon, Indigo, Swiggy, Walmart. It’ll be a world where you could have Pongal in Chennai for breakfast, tea in Himalayas, Biryani in Hyderabad for lunch and coffee and dinner at Coorg. Imagine the privacy issues. Paparazzi would’ve given you exclusive footage of Virushka’s wedding. Imagine the security issues! It has potential to become the doorstep delivery of terrorism. Imagine the Kumbh Melas. Actually, don’t! BBMP would be so relieved. I used to pray everyday that I don’t want to be stuck near the under construction Koramangala flyover. God heard my prayers and now I moved out of Koramangala. Even God realised BBMP will never finish its work. Apparition would be a god send

  Coming next, my vote for the lazy man’s charm goes to the summoning charms. Oh, I kept glasses on the table. No problem! ‘Accio glasses’. I misplaced my pen somewhere. ‘Accio pen’. I lost my mobile. Not an issue. ‘Accio mobile’. Whose mobile is this? Ahh, it’s okay. This one is better than mine. I lost the love of my life. ‘Accio …’, sorry, even the magical world can’t help

  My vote for the most desirable magic power goes to the time turner. There are far too many moments in the history that I’d love to visit. I’d love to see how the people lived in Indus Valley Civilisation. I’d want to witness the teachings of Buddha. I want to visit Nalanda in all its glory. I want to be present when Sankara is debating with Mandana Mishra. Ugh, I don’t know Sanskrit. Can I take my smart phone with Google translate along? How nice would it be to witness the pride of Andhra, Bhuvana Vijaya! Personally, I’d go back to tell myself that my life will be much better than I ever hoped for. Is this the future me conveying me that everything’s going to be okay!?

  What about Legilimency? Could we’ve read Modi’s mind about demonetisation months before it was announced? I’d love to read HR’s mind while negotiating my offer. Did my crush like me too? What a shame! I should’ve asked her out. World will be a much better place if people realised the hurt they caused others. On a second thought, maybe it’ll still be the same

  Finally, Hermione. Why’s Hermione in the list of magics? Because, Hermione is the magic(Maybe Emma Watson is :)

 

Puja ceremonies

 Have you guys ever sat through Puja ceremonies lasting several hours? Recently, I had to do that every day for eleven days straight. To give a bit of context, our family priest called my dad and told him that, I’m going through a bad phase. So, it’s advisable to perform some rituals for Shanti. I was dead against it initially. I thought it’s an unnecessary expense and didn’t believe in such things. But, finally, I agreed to take part in it. Sitting through such ceremonies for hours together without any other distractions meant I had ample time to ponder on existential questions

  Firstly, What’s the purpose of Puja? I tried to understand the chants the priest is performing. Most of them seemed to praise the God for various deeds he has done to save the humanity/universe. If God managed to listen to them, what does he think? If ever I’m part of a meeting where everyone praises me non-stop for 2 hours, I’d be frustrated (I’m not saying, you guys shouldn’t do it. Who am I to stop you ;) ) Surely, He/She won’t fall for that

   Then comes the part where we listen to stories. There’s a definite pattern to these stories. Most of them say that, if you do this puja, your sins are washed away. If you perform mistakes while doing these ceremonies, great disasters befall you. Surely, God isn’t so petty that he takes revenge on the beings he created over material reasons

   So, what then could be the reason? I observed that all these ceremonies, no matter how cheap or expensive have something in common. That’s charity. All the ceremonies exhort us to donate food/clothes/money to the needy. There is prasad that will be distributed to everyone at the end of the ceremony. Ultimately, it seems to me that all these ceremonies are intended to serve the maxim, ‘Manava Sevaye Madhava Seva’

   I’ll end this writeup with a small side story. One of the priests told me that the ceremony has to be performed by Brahmins. Because, they observe strict rules in their daily life. It seemed to be a rule invented to create exclusivity among beneficiaries. God didn’t mind meat from Bhakta Kannappa who’s a hunter by birth. Would he care for such rules?

 

Ramblings about freebies

 Recently, I’ve been to Srikakulam. I went to Vizag on flight and then took a cab from the airport to our home. The driver was a talkative guy, We chatted quite a bit. In the course of the discussion, he said something thought provoking. He said, “Government is giving free money to every one to get votes. That’s making people lazy and people like him have to work throughout the day to earn their bread” At that time, I agreed with him and moved on to other topics but the topic haunted me ever since. 

  It seemed to me that the answer isn’t straight forward. On one hand, utilising the money to invest in capital expenditure seems like the right thing to do. It creates assets which generate future revenue. It also creates employment during and post the investment phase. Despite its obvious advantages, why does the government dole out the money to people instead? To understand the answer, we need to rewind a little bit. In may 2020, Government imposed lockdown to contain the pandemic. This move destroyed the livelihood of millions of people. A lockdown implied people couldn’t go out to do business affecting the economic activity. This violates the fundamental right which allows people to earn their honest livelihood in any part of India. Due to the lack of income, these families struggled to make their ends meet. This in turn violates the right to life, guaranteed by the constitution. This right encompasses the right to food, right to shelter, right to education for children and right to the basic health care. It’s imperative on the Government of the day to make sure that these basic needs of life are met. So, when Government is doling out cash to the poor during the pandemic, it’s not doing them a favour. It’s discharging its constitutional duty

Now that the economic activity is resumed, should the government stop giving free money? The answer is again no. The economy has not resumed to the pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment is at a record high. If government stops supporting the poor, it leads to lot of social problems in the long run. It might mean, a lot of children might drop out of school. This risk is particularly high because a lot of children lost an year worth of studies due to pandemic. Once they lag behind in the curriculum, in most cases they don’t catch up. This problem is more intense in children from low economic background who could not afford a quality education through online classes. This in turn, deepens the economic inequality. Secondly, the pandemic has impacted everyone in one way or the other. The health care costs have risen across the board, from the very poor to the very rich. Some families have lost the main bread winner pushing them from above poverty line to below poverty line. There is a necessity to support them too.

   Governments started giving sops long before the onset of pandemic. Was that justified too? I think, it’s a much harder question to answer. For example, the successive governments in AP have run a scheme to waive the farm loans. This had the unintended side effect of farmer not paying loans in the year of election. That in turn led to banks refusing to lend loans to farmers for the fear of increased bad loans. However, in principle, lending economic support to farmers makes sense. In India, majority of farmers depend upon rains for agriculture. Even when the monsoon is good, most farmers don’t make a lot of money due to raised costs of fertilisers, seeds, irrigation(power), supply-demand mismatches. There’s a lot of risk involved with farming. For the risk taken, the amount earned isn’t commensurate. For people working in private sector, there’s an appraisal every year. As the experience of employee increases, his/her wages and his/her standard of living increases. Being a part of formal sector, he/she can avail loans for financial necessities. In case of farming, there’s no such benefit. Every year, the return depends on a huge number of factors and the money they receive is not stable. They aren’t part of formal sector and hence, don’t have similar economic benefits. Considering all this, I think it becomes the duty of government to support farmers in short run and make farming sustainable in long run

  Let’s all hope things return to normalcy soon, that Government isn’t forced to give out huge amount of freebies.

Independence Day

Last year, I was talking with my cousin’s son. I asked him about the significance of Independence Day. He told me, it’s the day when Britishers left India. In other words, it’s the day when Indians started ruling themselves. That got me thinking. Is that what independence means? There are several despotic regimes across the world which harass their own people. Are those people independent? All the Indians living abroad are ruled by the people of different nationality. Are they not independent?

  I started reading a bit more to understand its true meaning. In 1816, a man called Granshaw killed his servant because the servant accidentally knocked off his hat while raising the umbrella. The courts refused to prosecute Granshaw stating that it is a needless expense to conduct a prosecution for a crime that’s manslaughter at best. Our history is littered with incidents like this where the Englishman was favoured over the Indians. Independence is the equality before law. Independence is about justice reaching people irrespective of their class, caste, race, sex or religion

  In the British India, all the higher positions are reserved for the Britishers. For example, an Indian Sepoy could never rise to the position of general of an Army. Independence is Chaiwallah becoming the prime minister of the country. Independence is not facing discrimination by the colour of your skin, the language you speak or the cap you wear.

  The then British Government wanted to bring constitutional reform to India. To this effect, it formed a commission, without Indian representation. In Lahore, a small group of people protested against this decision, carrying the black flags. The group was led by none other than the Punjab Kesari, Lala Lajpat Rai. The police brutally charged him, eventually leading to his death. Independence is the ability to voice one’s opinions freely without the fear of persecution. Independence is the ability to protest for what’s rightfully ours

  Independence is about living a decent life, and dying a dignified death. Independence is about the hope for a better tomorrow. Independence is everything more than the tricolour and the anthem

  I wish you all, a very happy independence day!