Preview - Endhiran 'The Robot'

The most hyped happening thing over the weekend was the telecast of the audio launch of ‘Endhiran’ on Sun TV on Saturday and Sunday. Though I could not watch the entire event (no interest and no time), I watched and listened to a few glimpses – and my initial thoughts were:

1) Aish looked her age (old?) and wifey was quick to point out “it is time she got pregnant” and wifey is named so because she possess this 7th sense like spidey albeit on such matters!

2) Why have the function in KL? Is it so you can charge for tickets? Has Shankar lost his confidence in the movie grossing the investment?

3) If my weak memory serves me right, this film was started by AVM and then taken over by Sun Pictures. AVM was nowhere in the show and it was a total Sun affair (with the usual Sun propaganda that Tamil fans celebrated in KL while showing pictures of yellow autos and Nalli signboards which clearly indicated it was Chennai).

4) The entire show resembled more of a ‘Star Nite’ than an audio launch – the usual ‘song and dance with skimpy costumes routines’ and the ‘comedy-on-stage routines’.

I happened to listen to two numbers on the Radio that is a default in my car. I liked one - ‘Endhira’, but strongly disliked the other with the robotic sounds. So, it is now wait and watch for the film to get released. But, before that happens there is the usual guessing game of what the story would be. As with any Shankar or Mani Ratnam film, the story is a closely guarded secret. The discussion in our office tea breaks now mainly revolve around this and to my horror on Friday, there was this suggestion that the story is an adaptation of the Robin Williams starrer - BiCentennial Man.

I was shocked is the understatement of the decade. Though Bicentennial Man is not on my list of all-time favorites (pls. see my interests on my FB profile), I liked the movie, especially the acting of Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz and Sam Neill. It was an interesting concept and very well put together. But, if Endhiran is an adaptation (inspiration?!), then the consequences are mind boggling. So, just for the fun of it, I let my mind run loose and tried to imagine how they would have to adapt the movie to Tamil and in particular to Rajni’s image.

So here goes the story I could imagine:

The year – 2050. The world has just become more meaner and bad than it was. So the opening shot would start with a son whipping his mother for not keeping the Beer in the fridge. Rajni enters and there is a huge tsunami (we have seen the whirlwind in Padayappa and Sivaji). Rajni just raises his hand and the waves retreat – then ‘punch’ dialogue indicating the need to worship mother as a God. At the end of the dialogue he says, “you are lucky you have a mother, I don’t even have a dead one”. That makes you wonder, and then it is revealed that Rajni is a Robot. Of course, this is where the opening song is with all the ‘thathuvams’ (remember ‘dhevuda dhevuda’ and ‘balle laka balle laka’???) .

Now, there is a problem – you cannot kill Rajni’s character even when he is human, let alone when he is a Robot. So what do you do? The other problem, Aish is a human. You also cannot have a story spanning generations like the BiCentennial Man since Tamil audiences would not accept it. So, the best option is to gradually make Aish a Robot. Also, these Robots are so advanced they can marry, make children etc. (the continuation of progeny is a very crucial concept in Indian cinema!!!). So, the human Aish who gets Rajni (the Robot) as a gift and hates it at first, starts to slowly like it. Then she falls ‘head-over-heels’ in love with it. This situation demands and will get at least a couple of love songs in exotic foreign locales which are shot in the usual Shankar grandeur. Just around the interval time, you will see Aish going into a workshop to get herself converted into a Robot.

Now, the question of villains. An ordinary Rajni movie has at least 3 villains, but this being one where he is a Robot should have at least 15. All the villains plot against Rajni and want to steal the secret of manufacturing a superlative Robot (like the one in T2 or T3). They all conspire and use Aish as a bait and capture Rajni and put him in a deep freeze (like Optimus Prime of Transformers). Rajni is powerless and is shown to be all but dead.

Intermission.

Now, the movie picks up pace. There is a massive earthquake and since Rajni is out of commission, there is no one to stop it. The earthquake cuts the power to his deep freeze and Rajni slowly thaws to life with renewed vigor. The freezing has also given him superhuman powers that were with Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Fantastic 4, Ironman, Schwazzeneger, Stallone, Vadivelu, Vivekh et. al. How Rajni beats all the 15 villains through the use of his ‘supercomputer’ brain and all these powers forms the rest of the story. Of course, there will be a couple of more dream love songs with Rajni prancing with Aish on top of the new Casino in Singapore, a bungee jump scene from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and a ‘Flo-ride’ on ‘The Liberty of the Seas’ top deck.

If you think this is the end, then you are wrong. No Rajni movie is complete without a mention of the fight sequences. Rajni, being a Robot, has all the modern weapons as part of his arsenal. He can launch a nuclear tipped tomahawk missile with a flick of his wrist. After the intermission, with the addition of the powers of the Super heroes, he becomes unconquerable. But, Rajni being the fair Robot he is, never uses these powers against the villains who are all human. He is so chivalrous, that he does not use these powers even against the superior villain Robot built by the 15 villains. Sample this:

The bad Robot launches a nuclear tipped tomahawk at Rajni. Instead of counter attacking with a Brahmos, Rajni just grabs it and throws it out of the Solar system. Later in the fight sequence, Rajni disables the bad Robot’s weapons control. Then, he opens his own abdomen plate disables his own weapons control and starts the hand-to-hand fight!!! Come what may, he will win only by means that are fair and square!.

Finally, with the bad Robot disabled and the human villains killed, Rajni turns to Aish (who has successfully made the transition to a full Robot by now). They join their hands and walk away into the sunset – only that it is a sunset on Mars!!! 

Grapevine

Having been through the great storm (okay, not that great – 16 of the 25 comments were my clarifications!) my last post created, thought of rambling about something more uncontroversial. For the uninitiated, grapevine is the non-official communication channel within any organization. Grapevine has nothing to do with Grapes or wine or the vines that grow grapes – though the writer likes both grapes and the many varieties of fermented concoctions that are distilled out of its juice.

The online dictionary gives the meaning of grapevine as gossip, rumor, hearsay – but no dictionary can stress the importance of this channel of communication to the health of an organization. Some of the most important happenings in an organization - like who is going out with the hottest chick in office, who has bought the latest model of iPhone – get the attention they deserve through this channel. Many management gurus have understood and underscored the importance of this channel and use it to determine the success of an organization.

Grapevine has many uses and contrary to popular belief is a multi-channel communication. There are separate grapevines for 

1) communication within employees, 

2) communication of employee perspectives to management and 

3) of management perspective to employees. 

Of these, the first one is the most interesting and has sub-categories like 

1) Female only grapevines (‘who is the hottest hunk in office’ types), 

2) Male only grapevines (who is the best and least expensive chick to hang out with, is HR recruiting any hot chick this month? types)

3) VP/Managers grapevines (‘who got the best pay rise/new cabin with a view’ types) 

4) employee level grapevines (‘how to impress your boss and get promoted, when is your boss going on holiday’ types) and the 

5) generic grapevines (‘when is the appraisal getting released, what did admin find in the washroom cleaning over the weekend’ types).

Many people (including some in top mgmt) think grapevine is bad and promotes disharmony and gossip. But, on the contrary, it promotes a lot of bonding, camaraderie and friendships. If someone in Networks is interested in a hot chick in Operations or BD, they just need to take the TL or AM for a smoke break and get the details. It is that simple and always works wonders. The discussion would go this way:

Net: Machi, who is that new chick in your team?

Ops/BD: She is from xxxx company da. Comes with good assets credentials.

Net: She looks like a north Indian machi.

Ops/BD: I don’t know da, she said that she is from B’lore.

Net: Most people in B’lore are from the North machi.

Ops/BD: hmmmm, (ruing his missed chance) I saw her last week at Mayajaal with another guy 

Net: (thinking ‘aahaa vada poche’, but hiding disappointment) could be her brother machi.

Ops/BD : hmmmm. need to go for that client call, pay for the tea and smoke da.

This is just a sample conversation and I am sure that similar conversations about guys/hunks go on in the female grapevine world.

Grapevines really are a nuisance when appraisals happen. Appraisal conversation goes like this:

HR/Manager: This is your new pay package; this is strictly confidential and should not be shared with anyone. Understood?

Employee: (‘ f#@$ you’) Yes sir.

Before you come out of the room, the package details have spread across the floor and stopped just short of being posted on the notice board.

Grapevines also give you some important information beforehand so that you can be prepared to handle a resignation.

Employee: Did you see my FB profile, sir?

Manager: Yes, you look good in the profile pic (wipes his drool)

Employee: Oh sir, thanks. But you should see xxxx’s profile. She has posted pictures of her weekend outing with her finace.

Manager: Fiance? Is she getting married? (d@#%, I should have proposed first!)

Employee: (‘promotion!’ :-D) Yes sir, you didn’t know? Next week and going to settle in Singapore.

Manager: (oh my god. now I have to ask HR to find me a replacement) 

But the worst HR nightmare is this one:

Emp 1: Did you know that xxxx company is recruiting and they are paying twice the salary to people like us.

Emp 2,3,4,5,6: Really? (all 5 CVs get posted to company xxxx in the next half an hour).

Grapevines (especially the male ones) work best when mixed with alcohol. I have long wondered if any of these ‘drinking after office hours with colleagues’ are more productive and insightful than all the written and oral communication within office. It takes a couple of drinks for the topic to turn towards the office, but once it does, there is no stopping. The drinks loosen up the rigid false barriers put in place and give the mind a free hand in analyzing and criticizing everyone from the front office to the corner office suite. A few souls that are timid in office really show their true colors at these sessions and run a riot. 

So never find fault with an organization’s communication (both internal and external). You will never know till you join the organization and become part of the grapevine to understand the real strength and robustness of their Organizational Communications. 

Pregnancy Vs. Shaving

Caution:

1) This is a really, really long post.

2) The title might be a bit misleading to those dirty minds that think this post carries some material that may titillate them.

3) Already mentioned in one of my earlier rambles that my posts do not have much of a ‘female fan following’. So was thinking of remedying that with this post. The logic I have used to generate the female fan following is a copy from Tamil cinema – If you need a successful film, you need the buy-in of women and children; and if you cannot attract them, then provoke them.

Many a times, when having arguments with wifey, I have thought if that argument topic is something every other man faces or if I am unique. One such sequence of arguments happened when wifey was pregnant. At the close of every sentence she would say, ‘You can only understand if you carry this load’. Now, I had no qualms in doing that, except that God did not give me the paraphernalia required to execute the task. Also, those of you who know me personally can vouch for the fact that I have been carrying a similar burden since my baby days without any complaints whatsoever.

Now, this argument of women that they are alone in carrying a load, going through the pains of delivery and post-partum issues is an age old one. Although no woman would want to relinquish this ‘suffering’, they use it as a tool of emotional blackmail to get things done from their men. I had even heard my grandmom use this argument with my granddad – so it really must have been handed down from generation to generation (something akin to the use of Neem, Ginger and Turmeric in household remedies)!!!

I tried to find a suitable rebuttal to this argument and searched the internet to see if any of the great philosophers and thinkers had thought of a solution. But no, from Aristotle to Bernard Shaw to Cho Ramaswamy, no one had written anything about this. So my quest started - to find an answer on my own!!! I wanted to be the ‘messiah who delivered the men from a persecution they have endured for ages’. I had to rake my limited brain capacity to the fullest and it screamed the way a 486 PC would, if you run ‘Need for Speed II’ on it!

Finally, got a ray of light in my dreams! I had tended to my granddad in his last days. He was bedridden for close to 6 months before nature took him in. During those troubled times, my biggest challenge was to give him a decent shave. This set me on a path of discovery – a man with an average life span of 75 years, who starts shaving at the age of 16 and clears his stubble twice a week, shaves close to 6136 times!!! This number is conservative, since this does not take into account special occasions like interviews, client meetings, marriage(s), honeymoon(s) etc. Taking those into account, the number must be closer to 6500. Wow! Now, shaving 6500 times is a laborious task, but the real pain is in the aftershave! You endure that sensation of your face being on fire, 6500 times in your life. That is what I call ‘on a slow grill to a medium-rare perfection’. 

I am also aware that this is a generalization and there are a few ‘kai-pillais’ amongst men folk who only need to shave once in 6 months. For most part, they draw a mustache with eyebrow pencil or better still give a clean shaven look without any of the labors involved. Just imagine how much money they save on shaving creams/gels, razors, aftershaves etc. But again, there are women who also never undergo pregnancy for various reasons. So it kind of evens out, doesn’t it? 

I can already hear the women who heatedly question, what about men who grow a beard? Well, trimming and grooming a beard is more cumbersome and technically challenging than a clean shave!

So if women undergo pregnancy once or twice in life, they carry a load for 9-18 months, with one or two instances of painful episodes called ‘Delivery’ or partum. But so much research has gone into this field, that there are medications now available that ease the pain a lot. I remembered a pharma company’s poster from my field sales days, for a drug called Pitocin. It is an oxytocin injection that stimulates the uterus to contract faster and induces the labor cramps. The poster used to say ‘Pitocin Pleasures’!!! Moreover, most deliveries today are C-sections and happen under a GA or epidural. But for men, there is no GA or epidural during a shave or more importantly when they splash on the aftershave. 

So there you go women folk!, God has given men their own set of problems and given an equal, if not bigger, share in pain. Worse, men cannot stop till their last breath! 

Okay, now I know there will be a lot of appreciation from the men folk and those are accepted only in the form of cash or M.O. (don’t want to increase my tax burden by accepting cheques or DDs). I also know that there will be a lot of brickbats from the women folk and those are accepted only in the form of words. Though the writer resembles a ‘punching bag’, you may not use him for your taek-won-do or jujitsu practice!

P.S.: Tried this technique once with wifey, and the kind of look and expletives I had to listen from her after using this argument, made me stop after that single try. So this is a single use method only, that too at your own risk!

Private School Admissions in Chennai

This is a narration of real events that one of my colleagues endured last year which I know I will have to go through pretty soon as well!!!

As many of you know, I work in the night shift and normally sleep when others are awake. So the only time I get to speak with wifey (take on spidey as she has a similar 7th sense) is during our lunch just before I start to office. Although most days, the topics are generally inane like the War in Afghanistan, Gulf Oil spill, stock market manipulation etc., occasionally we discuss more significant topics like grocery purchases and the menu for the next day. This is precisely the reason I was shocked when wifey brought up this topic at lunch yesterday.

The topic was so significant and she was so fervent, I could not believe it was the same woman I had married! Of course the topic of discussion was our child's schooling. I thought we still had a good year and a half to start worrying (my son is 14 months old to be exact), but was brought to my senses by what wifey demanded. She had already chosen the school and will not even consider any other alternates I had to suggest. I knew that the school she suggested was good and also remembered some nugget of info about this school I had filed in some dusty corner of my brain which was narrated by my colleague last year. So, I sought out that colleague and took him outside the office for a break to refresh my memory. What you are about to read on is the narration of his experience.

My colleague had planned to put his kid in this school in LKG. One cold November night, he was going home after a tiring day at the office and happened to pass by the school and found a crowd standing in line. On inquiry, he learnt that the school was distributing Application forms for admission to LKG (in November for the classes that start in June of the following year). So, our man went to his home, refreshed himself, had dinner and came back around 11pm. By this time the crowd had swelled to about 50 people in line. This crowd was waiting for the school office to open the NEXTmorning at 9 am!!! Remember, this is for LKG admission.

So after an overnight vigil (I did not do that even for my US visa!) and due to the much larger crowd (around 500 by now), the school authorities opened the gates at 8 am. Our man rushed in along with the others thinking it would be a 'splash and dash' of paying money and getting the form. That is where he was wrong. The crowd was segregated into batches of around 50 and asked to wait in an ante-room. Then, they were asked to move to the next ante-room and so on till finally the forms were distributed at the 5th room. (spot the similarity between this and the Tirumala temple queue system?)

Now that he has successfully got the form, our man filled it up and returned it in 2 hours (though he had 2 day's time). Then there was an interview of the child. A process where a couple of teachers and the Principle of the school show various objects like plastic vegetables or animal dolls and ask the child for the answer. Once the interview is over, you enter the period of tense anticipation for the results which usually take a couple of days. Then you go over to the school and see if your child's name is on the list. 

If the name is not on the list, then you go through the much bigger and complicated task of obtaining recommendation letters etc. See how the process is simplicity in itself??!!!

I was obviously stunned into a stupor listening to this and my colleague stopped just short of performing CPR on me to revive my senses. After about 15 min of struggle when I got my speech back, I feebly asked him why he endured this much for a simple LKG admission? His reply was, "This process once completed, ensures my kid studies in a good school till 12th Std and I am sure he gets the best education" (same line that wifey had used!!!). Then as an afterthought he added, "since they have stopped LKG admissions altogether, you may need to start early. Now they admit only into pre-KG and usually they give the applications a year in advance, so why don't you go check with the school office tomorrow"? 

I relapsed into my stunned stupor!!!

The weather prediction Conundrum - Chennai Met. office diaries

Disclaimer: This piece is purely based on facts. All incidents are true and characters are alive. Resemblance to any person is intentional. Any reference to the Chennai Met. office and Met. Dept. are also fully intentional. Chennai Met. office and the Met. Dept. may have trademarks or IP assigned to them which fully belongs to them - no one would want to claim a share of that!!!

I asked my friend Muruks at 5pm if it will rain today. All of my other friends who had come to have tea had a good laugh at my expense when I asked this question. My friends on FB and some of my colleagues with whom I share office space will know my penchant for a free car wash (in the rain). In fact, at some point in the last few weeks I had thought of creating a website freecarwash.com, but was stopped in my tracks when I found one already in place.

So, is weather prediction such a difficult science? How do they do it? Well, though I am not an expert, I have done my Geography course on Remote Sensing in PG and know the basics. There are also several technological advancements in the last few years like the side scan Radar and for extreme situations (cyclones and hurricanes) - weather planes/drones that travel into the storm to pick up information.

But, we are going to talk only about the Chennai Met. office and how I think it functions. Indians in general and Chennaites in particular have this laid back attitude about weather. This I think stems from the fact that we have variations of only one season - hot, hotter and hottest. It rains intermittently for a couple of weeks in October/November (maybe a bit more if there is a cyclone) and thats about it. The so-called 'winter' is just a misnomer if you have seen real winters in the North of India or any other part of the world.

So, how does the Chennai Met. office work? Well the simple answer is - like any other Govt. organization in India. Basic instruments (some from the British era) coupled with some satellite pictures from INSAT, Kalpana or Cartosat. Of course Computers and modeling software are also available, but how often and how well it works is a different story! In spite of all these devices, I still think the Chennai weather for the day is decided based on one of the following methods:

1) Toss of a coin to say whether it will rain or not

2) Look out for crows and dragonflies and predict based on their altitude of flight

3) Inky-pinky-ponky method (my favorite)

4) Picking of lots - from in front of the picture of the rain God, Indra

5) The mood of the Met. Director's wife that morning - angry = rain and thunder

6) Pick a finger on which the choices are pre-determined

If any of you feel I am being unfair to our Met. Dept., I suggest this - listen to the weather report in the morning and you can be sure that the opposite of what is predicted happening by evening that day. People across the world are amazed by the resilience of Chennaiites towards weather - because they always see us going out in the rains without even an umbrella and venturing out in the sun without even a cap. Little do they realize that the credit should go to our Met. Dept. and its erratic weather predictions.

But on a much serious note, the weather this year has been erratic with unseasonal rains in July. The western world would do well to get out of its denial mode and look at its per capita energy consumption figures. So, our already harried weathermen have had a difficult month in July, which might be the flavor for the rest of the year as well.

So, what is the Chennai Met. Dept. good at - giving reasons. Again, like any Govt. organization they give you very good reasons why their predictions failed. ' The SW monsoon was delayed by 10 days from our prediction becuase.....' 'The cyclone changed its course at the last minute because....' 'This summer is hotter than usual because....' Very good at giving reasons and covering their backs.

Best way to get out of this drab, make your own predictions!!! You may feel very awkward and amateurish to start with, but over time you will get better at it and who knows maybe even very good. If at all your predictions fail, you always have recourse to 'because' and remember you cannot be worse than our Met. office.

Thin Line - Professional vs Personal life

After my last note, got a couple of comments that encouraged me to launch into one more rambling. Again, let me remind readers that you are free to ignore these notes and save yourself a lot of suffering. :)

A few weeks back, my missus surprised me one afternoon as I was leaving for office. Our anniversary was approaching and I had not even shown her any signs of recognizing that (though I had made some secret arrangements). Now, this is what she said as I was putting on my shoes - "now go to your first wife!" I was shocked and stunned and just stared at her for a whole minute. Here I was having a difficult time managing one, and she is talking about another! Then she clarified 'Your office is your first wife'. Sigh! I breathed heavily in relief and just left. Did not want to get into an argument at that crucial juncture in the day that has the potential to spoil the day for both of us.

The reason she was pushed to that level was that I was spending a lot of time at the office trying hard to boost my Pipeline and support the team. It totally escaped me that I was using the house as a Hotel - to sleep, eat food and get back to sleep. So hard pressed was I that I was checking official emails even on the weekends and felt restless after Sunday morning to get back to office.

Now, I could have chosen the easier route of trying to explain what was happening at the office. Though I keep my missus updated with the big picture, I never discuss the details. This is for several reasons. The major one being she will unnecessarily feel worried and pile up pressure on her already overworked home schedule. The other one being she just might not understand. This brings us to the crucial question - How much of your official life do you share with your spouse?

Now, I can understand sharing it completely if your wife is a Hillary Clinton, Indira Nooyi, Chanda Kochar or Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. They would understand the nitty gritties of professional life, its complexities and pressures. But is it the same level with your wife, mother and sister? I don't think so.

Though I do not have much of a female fan following for these posts, let me clarify that I am not the male chauvinist kind. The women mentioned above are of the business type who roll in the same muck as we do and can understand. But for a housewife or someone employed in a Govt. organization or a nationalized Bank, life in a private organization is as much of a mystery as 'The Lord of the Rings' are to me!

My final observations are these - there is a very thin line that differentiates professional and personal life. It is always good to know where that line is and try to avoid mixing up both sides too much. 

P.S.: My anniversary did pass of peacefully with the missus getting to see the surprise gifts I had got her. The low point is that I started getting restless after 7 pm at home and logged onto my official email!

How did I feel?

My first attempt at writing at all and that too without a copy. So apologize upfront for all mistakes and guffaws that are bound to happen. :)

"How did I feel?" - This was a question posed to me on a chat forum from one of my very close buddies. I did not know how or what to answer. There are so many dimensions to feelings that if you can describe it in words, then it loses all its meaning. Pardon me for the use of the word 'feelings'. This is a much abused word in general and in Vijay movies in particular as the comedian Vivek rightly pointed out.

Now to the crux of the matter. 'Feelings' is a word that is generally associated with love and its family of other words like passion, liking, warmth, feel-good, cozy, relationship etc. So how you feel depends on how much and how deep is your relationship. But that is not the actual topic of this post, is it? No sir/madam, the real topic is how you felt at that particular point in time. Believe me, there is nothing harder to tell than how you felt at one particular point in time. As mentioned before, it depends on several factors. If your relationship/love is deep and true, even then it changes with time and place. When today's events become distant memories, it is kind of a photo becoming old - acquiring a sepia tone to it. It may look a bit jaded and ugly, but retains its warmth and love.

It has also got to do with the choices we make. Life is a gamble and we all get to make choices. We sometimes make the right ones and goof up many a time. And it is the goof ups that come to haunt us as any gambler worth his salt would tell you. When you do make a goof up and live to see it blossoming in other places, what do you do? Feel sorry and pained that you lost your chance? Or happy that you did not take the risk? The share markets and love have so much in common that now I have started loving the share markets!!! You live to reap the profits of correct decisions and also live to reap the pains of the losses or goof ups.

I know that many of you may think this as a random rambling of an unstable mind, but think for a moment on the choices you had to make and whether you made the right ones, and you may still change your mind!!!

How did you feel?