Sunday Posts

We have two Jobs: One, the magical creator of iPhone, and even more, of the whole iGeneration, whose life story is one of a visionary, one that stayed steadfast through various failures and ultimately prevailed. The other is, of course, much more human, with all the failings, tempers and tantrums, who refused to accept parenthood of his own daughter and made life miserable for his colleagues at Apple so much that he managed to get fired from his own company. This latter story makes him no less visionary, but just a bit less perfect! The perfect millennium man, the first story eventually overshadowed the second story at the turn of the century, as the second coming of Jobs - his very successful return to Apple and making it the most valuable company in the world - played out, helped no less by his Cancer survival and finally, death. One can say I was watching Steve Jobs, a very good movie with Michael Fassbender as the lead. I am slightly weary of hero worship, and therefore, woul...

Here is a movie I loved: Loved so much that I saw it four times within my return flights between London and Calcutta. This beautifully crafted Woody Allen movie, third in his series of exploring various great European cities (after Matchpoint in London and Vicky Christina Barcelona in Barcelona), puts middle class Americans in an alien setting yet again. But this is a different movie from the depressing Matchpoint or the erotic Barcelona, this is magical. Like the other two movies, this is indeed about love and human frailties, with an acute understanding of American (shall we say universal) middle class values and lifestyles transposed in the middle of an unfamiliar, yet stereotyped, setting. I shall be honest: I love the movie because I love Paris. Those who know me know that I shall much rather live in Paris than anywhere else in the world. And, this movie touches my heart, exactly where it matters: Isn't my greatest wish to escape my conformist surroundings and be able to l...

I am still fascinated by how cultural differences taint communication and continued studying the ways they affect us all the time. I have already been through Geert Hofstede and found his work illuminating. However, while I found his studies fairly straightforward and helpful, I had two problems with how he, and his numerous followers who lead the way how Western businessmen think about other cultures, treat the national cultures. I must admit that both these problems are actually acknowledged in the literature. The first is the etic method of looking at national cultures - the fact that the cultures are classified against an external, largely western, framework. I am conscious that there is an alternative, emic , method to see cultures against their own structure, and some work has happened on the Chinese culture using a predominantly Asian perspective. The obvious outcome is the fifth dimension of the Hofstede model, the short-term versus long-term orientation - something plain w...

I have finally seen Slumdog Millionaire as I am back to my movie times, long intercontinental flights. As I write this sitting in my favourite writing place, in the lounge at Dubai Airport, in the middle of the night, I must be honest in stating that parts of the movie was too graphic and painful to watch for me, and hence I skipped parts by channel switching between this beautiful movie and almost meaningless Quantum of Solace. But let me talk about Slumdog Millionaire. This is every bit as good as its Academy Awards [and other] honours suggest. Brilliant script and editing, some stellar performances, great music etc have already been mentioned in many other places. Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto surely are outstanding new faces and I am sure we will see more of them in the coming years. Irrfan Khan is very special, and he does a great cameo; so does Anil Kapoor. But I am no movie critic and will not pretend as one. I would rather return to my favourite subject - modern India. The star of...

I went to watch Priyanka Chopra in FASHION, but was impressed by the movie itself instead. It's a Madhur Bhandarkar movie, and I learnt [I am not exactly top of things bollywood ] that he made his name making movies depicting real life situations. I have seen PAGE 3 in bits and pieces, and it was okay - it was a bit simplistic but had a message. FASHION too was a bit simplistic on that scale, but impressive in its execution. Like so many other bollywood movies, FASHION really does not have a story. The young Meghna Mathur of Chandigarh defies her parents and comes to Mumbai to be 'a supermodel'. After lots of catchy lines, a sequence of improbable good luck and a string of impressive costumes, Meghna falls a victim of her own success, steps over the line when she makes public her affairs with her married benefactor, and is soon dumped, back to Chandigarh. There is a follow-up story, indeed, of her second coming and struggles, where her parents now support her and...