Thursday, January 28, 2010

New Mile Sur Mera Tumhara - Just Rocks

Yesterday, I saw the new "Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara". The new version rocks. I loved it. Hats off to the director, choreographer, music director…to the entire team.

I already hear and read people talking\writing that this new video sucks. The newer version is scrap and nothing can beat the older (original) one. I totally disagree with those critics.
This is why I am writing this blog. I want to tell why this version is also great. (also is used in the sentence to indicate that the original "Mile Sur" was great too.)
I am now going overboard to advertise this wonderful new composition.

The concept in the new one like the original, is capture TODAY. Should we think about the old stars of India, when we have to capture TODAY. (Please note that I still consider the oldies as stars…and not insulting them).
Whether one likes it or not, today's stars in India are the Khans, Kapu(oo)rs, Chopras, Padukones, Shettys, Bachchans…So they are captured here. (Its an altogether different argument if one questions their stardom).

But there are other subtle things that one needs to take note of.
TODAY is a blend of traditional and modern lifestyle. And personally I believe that this is shown in the song.

  • The song starts with Rahman playing the modern musical instrument - Continuum. (as a additional point, Rahman has used this instrument for a composition in Dilli 6). Still the older more traditional instruments (like tabla) are relevant and are shown in the song.
  • We have the very traditional music (Yesudas, Bhupen Hazarika) with the hep film music(Kya Bolti Tu tune for Aamir). Both coexist very well in India today.
  • Contemporary dance blending with traditional dance - Shamak and Shobana troupes dancing for the same tune.
  • Captures the traditional tourist spots…Qutub Minar, Taj, Golden Temple, Big banyan of Bangalore, Rajasthan palaces, Howrah, Mahabalipuram, Jumma Masjid etc.. But the Modern landmarks are also shown - Bandra flyover (somehow I felt they missed Delhi metro)
Other smaller topics that are touched very well showcasing the new India --

  • Women power - Solar cells assembled by women when Shilpa sings.
  • Care for the physically challenged. - Salman Khan's actions with the children is touchy.
  • Respect and care of elderly - Mahesh Babu's Telegu recital with the elders of India.
  • Local talents honored - Sand sculpture artists work is shown well (Look at the theme of sand sculpture - National integration), fishermen with the special setup for catching fish in Kerala
  • Baton being passed from the old to younger generation - Jr Yesudas , Jrs Kavitha , Jr RaviShankar, Jr Amjad Ali Khan...depicting the smooth transition from traditional to a modern society.
  • Importance to rural schools\children - Aamir singing with rural kids
  • Lesser known sports are given chance - Bhutia, boxer Mary Kom….Best part is honoring our Olympians.
  • Shot in the background of the rich diverse landscape of India, beaches, lakes, rivers, icy mountains, rains, forests, rocky hills etc etc…
The ending of the song deserves standing applause. The armed forces get the respect which they richly deserve.

One compliant I hear most is the lack of representation of cricketers in the song. Dropping of cricket stars from the song is well deserved after the royal insult by Dhoni and Bajji to the President of India (Remember being in India, they did not attend the award ceremony by citizen No1 of India).

There are also questions asked about Why Deepika and Priyanka are in the song? Whats their contribution to national integration? The answer is the same for the following questions. Why are Tanuja and Sharmila Tagore present in the original version? And both are "Good questions" (FYI - "Good questions" do not have answers.)
Like all other products, this product is also not perfect.
  • The sheer length of the song (~16 mins) makes it hard for repetitive viewing and beaming.
  • The rich widlife of India seems to be forgotten. (In the original one, the Malyali portion was sung by a mahout on the elephant).
  • It could have included people from non-entertainment industry but very few would recognise them anyway.
All in all, a beautiful composition with super blend of talented singers in the pleasing background to depict today's India.

Unfortunately the youtube links for the video do not work because of copyright issues.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Media vs Reality - Prologue to Rann

It was "world earth day" or "world environment day". I don’t remember. It was some years ago. Basically it was the day when everybody wakes up with a sudden urge to save the world. Like every global special day (fathers day, mothers day, valentine day…blah blah blah), media had time slots to give special coverage on this day. In-fact the build up to the day was also great. They signed film stars to talk about earth, politicians came and blabbered that all their constituencies will have mini forests etc etc.

My company also wanted to save earth in its own way. A small group of volunteers was formed. We signed with Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) with a lake (bank) cleaning project. There were some schools, other corporates who aligned with the same project.

Mentally prepared to work the whole day, I came to the lake early. The lake and so its bank was vast. The dirt was all over the place. Lays covers, Biscuit packs, ice cream cups, spilt bhel...you name it and it was right there. It was still a festive atmosphere on the lake bank, with the chairman of BDA expected to kickoff the project. Localities of the area had joined with the huge number of school kids. The chairman came. The inauguration speech did not start. Why? Media were not on time. Media arrived late with cameras and mikes covered with channel names. Then the speech started and ended. Cameras shot them. Breakfast was served in paper plates and water in plastic cups. People merrily threw the waste all over the place. (why not? They remembered very well, that we were there to clean the lake bank :-))

We were given big plastic sacks to collect the waste. We started off. Then the reporter of a prominent news channel(call it YenDeTV*) came to our coordinator and spoke guss guss. The coordinator called a volunteer to pose in-front of camera…It was actually similar to movie direction.

Action. Take1. "Pick the dirty plastic cover slowly". Cut. Bad acting. Action. Take 2. Plastic cover back in the ground. "Kneel down and pick the plastic cover..Slowly, slowly…Turn right…Smile".
"Yes! Great acting. Thanks, watch yourself at 8pm today on YenDeTV* channel". Bye!
And so the media vanished.

Then came the grumbling from the volunteers. "Its so dirty". "its stinking". "Its so hot". "they are not giving certificates for this project". "YenDeTV* shot only that guy, I will not be on TV". As the grumbling continued, in 10 mins, we collected some 5 sacks of dirt from 3 sq mts of the vast lake bank. Tired of the complaints, the coordinator asked us to windup. Lets take grp photos. Smiles, photos and again action, Take 1, Take 2…Huhh.
In less than 10 mins of media vanishing, we were done with the lake cleaning. And we vanished from the scene.

8 pm special program - YenDeTV* channel -- Reporter from Bangalore -- "Silicon city Corporates clean lake. Huge number of volunteers took time off their busy schedule for mother earth.". Oh yeah, we had cleaned it...or so the world thought.  Then I saw the great acting performance.
But wait,  media showed the reality. The actor had picked just one plastic cover (in-fact he picked the same plastic cover twice).

Now watch Ram Gopal Verma's Rann over the weekend.

Last but not the least - Just to be explicit on this - Nobody is paying me to write a prologue for Rann.
*YenDeTV - Is an imaginary news channel. Any resemblance to any real life channel is purely coincidental :-).

Monday, January 25, 2010

Annual finalist

I am a regular participant in the annual competition since sometime. Since 4 yrs I have been in finals (6 teams in final, among 30-40 teams). I partnered 3 different guys in the last 4 yrs. (This year, I went solo in the team game). But never been able to finish in the top 3 (precisely top 4). Surprisingly, when I enter the tournament, I myself do not expect to win. So it does not hurt a bit.

What should I do now?

First and foremost - Compete to win...
Though its real fun to be just in there, but it would be rocking to win it. Ofcourse this can add to pressure, but its no fun without the heat ;-)

Shed the casual approach
Spend some time to prepare for it. Afterall its a knowledge game and I havent heard anybody die of excess knowledge. This could be taxing as getting the winnable knowlegde is immensely huge task.

Role of a partner
They say that team games are not one man shows. (Stepping out of the topic : This statement is somehow not always true for Sachin Tendular's crazy fans. When he scores a ton and Ind wins (which is a rarity), its a one man show. On scoring a ton if Ind looses, the team did not contribute and cricket is not a one man game.)

But in this event, I am not sure of this. With different partners, the result has not changed...As mentioned earlier, even without one its no better. The regular winners have their team set and will not split to join me (not that I want them). So let me leave this aspect as a blackbox. 

And comes the easiest option - Skip the event -- I will not unless its really unavoidable.

With all this, I may still not do a podium finish, but then I know I am not worth it.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Want to experience life

I have some very different (some call it weird) thoughts on what I did not experience in life (and want to experience someday). Guys around me call me a psycho when I tell them this…I think their idea of psycho is irrational.
Here's the list of experiences I want to experience.

  • Stay in a suicide bomber school, just to analyze how can one be motivated to commit mass murder with an assurance of death.
  • Spend some days with some tribesmen (which is totally cutoff from the rest of the world) and enjoy their lifestyle….Clearly not to transmit our worldly cultures to them
  • Tent on Siachen Glacier when there is war - Fight the enemy and the cold with the same intensity…
  • Get lost in a jungle and then find my way out - all alone….This will test anybody's mental toughness and innovativeness to survive.
  • Be a passenger in a hijacked plane - Experience the pain, different other emotions that one undergoes when there is total insanity surrounding you.

I have a few more exotic wishes which surely will remain as a wish…Not that the ones above will be fulfilled..I can at-least hope that the above may happen but not the ones below.

  • Bungee jumping in Niagara falls
  • Experience death and come back to life
  • Live in pre-Independence India -- Too fascinated by the lifestyle details explained by parents and relatives who lived it
  • Survive the cruelty inflicted by Hitler.

I believe that the best authors cannot explain their experience. Experience is to be lived. Not just read. Not just seen.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Paa - Surprises galore

Surprise Surprise and more surprise! What? Here are the reasons -
  • Surprise starts with the name of the movie - Paa - It could have been Maa. Its clearly not a "father son, son father" story. It could be termed as "a mom son, son mom" story. But it was ABCL production and junior B was the Paa - thus came the advertising name & caption. But I feel that it was about relationship between lovers and the kid was just a pawn only.
  • Did you notice that all the songs had the unusal words and the words repeted (mudhi mudhi, hicki hicki, udhi udhi, gumm gumm). Music and songs are good. Illayaraja and Swanand Kirkire score 8/10. The different and the short "Hal ke se bole…" is splendid.
  • Kids are protrayed very well in the movie. The support they show to Auro when he suddenly falls sick, the entry scene of Auro, hospital wishes are good to watch.

  • I am cazy about dialogues. And that’s the biggest asset of the movie. Though some of the dialogues that come from kids really surprised me. Vishnu talking about his father was funny but later I realized some statements could have been trimmed. Junior B's Doordarshan's speech is intense and complex. Probably it could have been simplified.
  • The movie had clearly 2 unlinked parts. Amol (junior B), Paresh as polticians on one side and the Auro (Big B), Vidya, Bum (Arundati Nag) on the other. The 2 parts never meet, which is a weakness.
  • Balki is insprired by AB's acting in Sarkar (remember AB's  intense eyes acting there). So he has concentrated on the closeups of AB's eyes. This was not so impressive here. It was also surprising when the makeup on the face was the USP, very less was shown about it.
  • Amitabh did not act in Paa. Rather he had nothing to do. But for the repetetive monkey steps and dialogue delivery with false tooth, he can boast of nothing that was impressive. Vidya and Arundathi Nag steal the show with brilliant performances. Good to see Mrs Nag back on the big screen.

  • The movie moves slowly and the ending is very predictable.
  • Probably the promotion budget was more than the film budget. AB did a cricket show as Auro, makeup of AB was highlighted in the web, articles about Progeria in magazines, comparisons to TZP, twitter and facebook accounts for Paa - were some of the attractive promotional activities conducted.

Paa could be a good example of  - average movie being a hit because of excellent promotion.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

All in my blog

Was reading some of my old blogs...Hmm...i dont have one word to describe what i am feeling...

Hapazard thinking, links to unlinked topics, mindless criticism, jumbled way of writing, mockery of English (which i continue to do even now), open ended conclusions, nauseating descriptions, blunt politics, mouth watering cricket, evergreen films, real life drama...is there ONE WORD to describe these?

My emotions also varied as I read through my blogs. At times I was happy that i wrote those. But after reading some of them, I am disgusted with the way i put across my thoughts. Infact I found that some are vulgar. What I liked was, true to its name, the blog reflects my feelings - "Lost in thoughts".

As I wrote earlier, forget these and just vent out. Simply blog madi.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Wanted @ BCCI - Good Project Managers

Just consider organizing a cricket series\tournament as a project (of course it’s really a project).
One line requirement for the prj - Make the series a trouble free affair.
And for the program mgmt team - Ensure that the series help the country's cricket.
What’s Project Mgr's role - Run the prj to ensure that the one liner above is fulfilled. His functioning begins much before the series starts. He plans for the prj and executes as per the plan.
Past few days have shown how bad is the planning of BCCI.

BCCI did not expect India to be No. 1 test team.
We had very few test matches to be played in 2010. The result of which was obvious, India will loose the number 1 ranking, not by loosing tests but by not playing enough. Some patch up activities are taken up now to have tests but the schedule will tire the overworked cricketers.
Bad prj planning here, but they have shown some risk mgmt strategy...though may not be the best.

Kotla pitch fiasco
A newly laid pitch, never ever used...is put to use for the final match of the series. Delhi was playing ranji trophy matches and not one of them was at Kotla to test the pitch.Luckily India had wrapped up the series against Lanka 3-1 in the previous match. Imagine the series tied at 2-2 and the final match is called off because of bad pitch. India would not have become the number 1 side in ODI even after yesterday's win. BCCI would use its negotiation skills (read it bulldozing strategy) to come out with minimum impact to Kotla. Wait and clap!

Ranji finals - Eclipse day
The fifth day of Ranji finals was to be on the day of one of the  longest solar eclipses. It would be dark during the major part of the day. Govt agencies have asked people not to look at the sun with naked eyes. So if the batsman sees the ball, he just has to take the aerial route. No fielder would dare to lift his head to see the ball. Karnataka Cricket association made a proposal to advance the match by a day (not for solar eclipse though)...but the managers at BCCI turned a deaf ear at them. Luckily the match got over on the 4th day.

Ranji rules
BCCI did not formulate the rules for India's biggest domestic tournament. The fixtures for the knockout stages were not ready. Probably it was intentional (to favour the BCCI headquartered team Mumbai). They twisted the fixtures after Mumbai unexpectedly finished 2nd in their group. In this case, BCCI had a project plan which was to have no plan.

All these happened because of severely bad prj mgmt. Efficient project managers are the need of the hour.

One prominent soft skill you would want is - handle the crab mentality really well. 
BCCI is a good place to work. (I will come up with a blog on why I say this!) And the company can pay you well. They have one of the best Project Managers of the country. Lalit Modi. But he is busy with another major project. IPL 3. The way he organized the IPL 2 in SA on short notice could be a case study in itself.   It was a very successful project.
Recently BCCI decided to clip the wings of our best Project Mgr. This is not really surprising. There’s big money in this project. And of course like everybody else, BCCI has the great “crab mentality”. But one can learn from him.

Best of luck!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Why not movie from tweets?

We are in the era of social networking. Basically learning from and talking to people whom we never met or would never meet. Some of the discussions are very personal, some business oriented and more often they are random thoughts. If there is a person who has time, patience and willingness, he or she could compile a book or a movie script from the different tweets, facebook status, myspace comments etc...the list never ends. And the book\movie could be a smashing hit. We have immense talent floating around. I don't think anybody disputes this! Why should somebody not leverage some of social networking messages and compile a story? I hope that collaborative script writing by Netizens will be a reality shortly. Get the script ready and do not worry about music - There is already Royalty free music.

Controversies surrounding movie scripts are not a rarity today. If we had 3 Idiots in Bollywood, Hollywood's reply was SpiderMan-4. Remember earlier example set by "Krazzy 4". Spiderman is more disastrous as the movie itself seems to be shut off because of the script saga.

Financial motivation for these projects, comes from various research reports and examples. Dell made a cool $ 2 million business from twitter alone.  I mean, these just show the reach and potential.
And for those who think, ahh this is a field of professionals, what can I achieve, here is an example - Amateurs can take on the professionals too.  Amateur cameramen can make a  visually strong movie.  The hand camera movie, "Paranormal Activity" which grossed $100 million.

So somebody just go ahead! Unleash the talent in the web.
Why not me? This is a good question (you know good questions do not have answers!)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

"Shut Up" - Sequel to 3 Idiots

The movie 3Idiots has raked in around 300 crores in less than a month. Its touted as the biggest hit of Bollywood (even bigger than Sholay). Like the money, there are several of controversies around the movie. In-fact we could have a movie about the controversies. Name it "Shut up!".

Credit controversy
The Aamir Khan starrer is loosely based on the famous Chethan Bhagat book, "Five point Someone". This is not the first time that CB's book is used to make a movie. Previously the movie "Hello" was based on the book "One night at the call center". The movie sank without a trace though the cast had Salman Khan. I am not sure on how was CB credited for Hello, but he was thoroughly unhappy with the way he was credited for 3 Idiots. I am not sure how the placing of the credit is going to impact both the movie and the CB. Then came an illegal act, the NDA was made public. Then i realized the financial aspect of the movie. This is nothing about credit blah blah. It was about paisa. CB sold his book to Vinod Chopra for whopping Rs 11 lakhs. Hats off to CB for being so generous on Chopra. CB seems to be too naive to understand the economies of bollywood. Looks like CB did not estimate the value of Aamir Khan, Raju Hirani, VVC and importantly himself. Now theres no point in repenting. Chethan should just learn to value himself realistically. But CB can still smile, the sales of 5PS has increased 30% and so something of some weight in his pocket.

Dramatic press conference
I became am a fan of Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Not for making 3I or Munnabhai. For asking the media to "Shut up!"...yes a blunt Shut up! Getting irritated about irrelevant questions on "Credit controversy", VVC asked a media person to "Shut up" if he has not read the book. Media fell on VVC. But this did not affect the prospects of 3I. Infact more people saw it and the film received more publicity. I am sure media will not take this lying down. I am waiting for the revenge act when VVCs next production goes on floor.I cant see more than a 2 star rating for the next VVC production.

Ragging saga
There was a mass arrest of students of a medical college in Mumbai for ragging. So whats the connection with this movie? The students gave a statement to the police that their ragging was inspired from 3I. The media and the police immediately blasted 3I and the censor board was asked as to why they cleared the ragging scene. I do not agree that a film can be held responsible for a crime that is committed away. Munnabhai and several other movies had ragging scenes. And to be honest, ragging is a reality (at-least was a reality). And there can be no excuse given to the students, whatever they claim to be the inspiration. How can the director or producer be blamed for showing whats happening(happened) around you that too in a subtle way? Why was there no comments when the book was made? All in all this was a meaningless controversy.

Kareena missing from publicity 
Incidentally, the heroine of movie was never used for publicity. Though 3 guys are 3I, there is rarely a Bollywood movie without a lover lady for the hero.And when a top notch heroine like Kareena is in, one would expect her to be in the publicity campaigns always. But not even once did she appear or comment for publicity, especially when publicity is gaining huge importance in B'wood. This incident is luckily missed out by the hungry media and is a just a curious question from me here.

The movie is good even without this aftermath. Its enjoyable and "Aal is Well" for the producers, writer(s), actors and most importantly for the viewers.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Is it time for Google to fail?

I have always been wondering on how Google gets out successful products or products that are eventually successful. There is a subtle difference between the two. The former are acquisitions and the latter in-house developed ones. Let’s look at few of the recently launched products and news from the search powerhouse.

Google wave 
Though I was amazed looking at the Google wave launch and thought its yet another great product, I have now realized that the value from wave is not so great. There are thousands of people requesting invites and thousands do not know what to do after getting an invite. I have my own doubts on the success of Wave. I can compare my childhood sticker collection. I collected stickers just to show off…I was never allowed to stick it on the walls, books, doors etc. Whats the point, in shouting "I have Google wave invites" when you cant use it? There are better products in the same space. But they do not have the brand value that Google has. Hopefully it wont turn out to be a chatting tool.

Chrome
The browser Chrome has been doing good with great adoption rates. Recent reports indicate that Chrome is 3rd in terms of browser market share (just a few % points ahead of Safari). But they are still a long way off from the top two - IE & firefox. The top two are significantly investing into their browsers too.

Then there are some other products which are the so called "Labs" brainchild. Google scholar is a separate product. To me its plain and straight forward "Advanced search". Calling it another application is rather amusing. If you have free time, you can also explore the primitive Google tables

Recent downtime of gmail did not go well with the users. Orkut is loosing its sheen to other social networking sites. No good news on this front yet!

Now comes NexusOne
Google has ventured into a territory which it has not earlier been in. Hardware. It’s a different ball game here and the competitors are too strong. The brand name "Google" has evoked interest into this phone. Otherwise it is yet another Android based mobile phone. The features are not extraordinary. Google voice could be the game changer.
On the other hand, there are fewer applications on Android than on the iPhone platform (though probably android is better). iPhone has established as a business phone and the casual users could use other vendors like Samsung, Nokia. Motorola etc etc. With NexusOne new challenges would be thrown in for Google. One of the key issue is the customer service and support for Nexus One (incidentally if NexusOne is abreviated its NO :-) ). One needs to wait and watch here. Google, with its tremendrous talent can pull it off.

If Google fails with nexusone, it would be a good eye opener for the giant and probably hopefully stay away from making a Google PC\tablet.

Google should continue to create what they are best at. Software. Their new Transliteration service is one of the best. Waiting for work on Chrome OS. Google talk rocks.
Like the earlier days, Google should focus on excellence and let success follow it (I love this philosophical statement of Rancho idiot).

Friday, January 08, 2010

Rear guard action

What would any South African cricket fan do, seeing their side settling for a draw again after getting 9 opponent wickets? But they had company in Australian fans during the Ashes of 2009. And the tormentors for both SA and Aus were the English tailenders.

SA is down 1-0 in the series with a test to go after this.
England - 4th innings 9 down and 2.5 over to go (runs were not a concern for both the teams).
England was playing for draw and SA was in need of a win desperately.
Last 2 batsmen, Onions and Swann (rather bowlers) in crease.
Two of the best bowlers, Morkel and Steyn bowling at them.
10 fielders surrounding them in catching position.
Occasional taunt at the batsman from the closein fielders.
Crowd against them.
And the 2 batsman survive to draw the match.

English and SA are too familiar with this situation.
Travel back 20 days to Centurion for the 1st test of the series.
England were 9 down with 19 balls to survive.
Collingwood and Onions stared down by 22 hawk eyes.
And believe it or not they survive with Onions facing 12 balls.

None of these compare to the historic Ashes match last year.

England survived 69 balls (yes a long long 11.3 over) in the 1st Ashes test.
The heroes of the match were Monty and Anderson (not for their bowling though). England were staring at an innings defeat when the pair came together after the fall of the settled Collingwood. Monty played perhaps his longest innings of 35 balls to deny the Aussies a victory. The crowd in the Cardiff stadium was vociferous when the final ball was negotiated. England celebrated as if they had won the test. But perhaps the damage was much more than a victory. Aussies are generally not in such a situation and were totally unsettled. What happened next is not only history but historic…England beat Aus 2-1 to win the Ashes. The pride on Aus was dented which ultimately resulted in they loosing No1 ranking.

The might of the tail is shown in such daunting circumstances and the English are right on top.

Will SA loose the series is something to be seen after the remaining test.

Collingwood’s contribution in all the 3 tests is very significant though the accolades deservedly go to the tail.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Arahanta - a review

Multiple failed attempts to book tickets for 3 Idiots and Avatar. A weekend without entertainment. It was heading to a dull finish. Then came Arahanta. Where-else - Rangashankara.

First impression on the Kannada play -
  • Thin storyline
  • Excellent acting
  • Good costumes
If you want numbered ratings - 3 out of 5

Story starts off in a Jain monastery with the announcement that the Jain king of Kalinga has just vanished from the palace and his "not so good" (NSG) son will take over the gaddi. Quickly you can recall the battle of Kalinga after which Ashoka(the Great) became a peace lover after a blood bath. So the story is about the same Kalinga kingdom.

Story continues - Kalinga is now a subordinate of the powerful Hindu kingdom of Magadha. And as a mark of their superiority over Kalinga, Magadha emperor has taken the revered and massive 1st Jain thirthankara statue from Kalinga to Magadha. Long standing "ambition" of all Kalinga emperors is to bring back the statue but the "ambition" is still a dream. The catch is the statue needs to be got back only through peaceful process and not war. Why? Because Kalinga is a Jain kingdom and Jains are peace lovers\followers.

NSG is young and energetic. Quick results is his way. He has a minister who adds fuel to NSG's burning "ambition". "If the statue is ours, then whatever means we take (war or peace), we should get it" is NSG's philosophy.
On a parallel note, there are efforts to bring back the statue in a peaceful manner with the help of Jain businessmen and their money.
But circumstances force a war between NSG and Magadha kingdom and NSG wins.

The climax of the 90 mins play will answer the open questions -
  • Can NSG bring back the statue to Kalinga ?
  • Will NSG become good ?
  • What happened to the runaway king ?
Arunsagar's stage setting is simple and good. The king's dialogue delivery is loud and touching. NSG has shown good aggressive nature. Unnecessary characters like NSG's mother, the monks of the monastery could have been avoided. Playwright Ramnath has overused the Jain religion concept of peace. Magadha rulers are shown in a bad light needlessly.

Message for today was very loud and clear - Avoid wars and embrace the peace path for success.

I hope to be back

I will be back in the blogging world. Atleast for now, I have decided not to take a long break from blogging. But still unsure on what to start off with.