Managed to catch the most anticipated movie of the year , James Cameron's 'Avatar' yesterday at IMAX in Mumbai . Decided to wait for a day to let whatever i saw sink before i attempt to write something about it , this is not just the review of the movie ... this is about the experience of watching the whole thing unfold. Its taken a long time , but this one is worth all that time and effort invested Cameron has delivered a movie which will definitely be remembered for a long while , whatever be the merits or demerits ... this is one movie which should change the whole movie going experience and how movies are made forever. I had read lot of stuff about the new kind of cameras used , the technological advancements , 'performance capture' techniques etc .. and movie seems to achieve what the makers set out to create an awe inducing visual spectacle.
As i sat wearing those uncomfortable 3-D glasses , the movie moved in same expected arc but right when Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver were plugged to their respective Avatars and went out to explore forests of Pandora ... the way Cameron managed to capture the planet through 3-D images I felt like I was right there along with them leaving my body behind in the multiplex seat !
I Have not seen such brilliant usage of 3-D imagery before , in almost all 3-D movies till now .. the 3-D part was just a gimmick to keep audience enthralled with an occasional object thrown at audience or some such tricks .. but this was the real deal ! The visuals trump everything else and easily makes us overlook the somewhat weak story , friendly nature of proceedings aimed at generating a blockbuster movie . The moment Pandora's flora and fauna were showcased i was reminded of the shot from Jurassic park when i saw real looking Dinosaurs running along on lush green landscape ... that was a great cinematic moment , this one was similar. These kind of movies are milestones and remind us what the medium is capable of ! Hopefully the advancement in technology and brilliance with which the story has been executed on screen will ensure other filmmakers can dream more such brilliant projects and will have the technical ability to translate those visions onto screen effectively !
Storywise as many reviewers have said this was "Dances with Wolves" set in space ! That Kevin Costner western sure seems to have acted as an inspiration to this one , but in spirit this is close to another visual masterpiece Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" . Mononoke was about how nature and all beasts live in complete harmony with man getting more greedy and trying to take more than the fair share through deforestation and industrialization. Cameron delivers a similar message here with hints of mistreatment of native Americans (Naavi do seem to resemble them ! ) and also hints of American misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its still the same old good vs evil clash with clear demarcation of both to make things very simple ! While the earlier mentioned movies had subtle messages , this one makes it very clear with mean Military thugs with machine guns and missiles taking on primitive naavi armed with bows and arrows and large heart !!! The actors are pretty competent in their roles and 'performance capture' works well as avatars manage to convey a lot of emotions and are totally convincing.
The World of Pandora viewed through 3-D in Imax is as real as it can get on screen , Cameron has painstakingly created an entire planet , fascinating plants and animals , 10 foot tall Naavi with their blue skin - feline features , their language , culture and what not. This Tolkien like creation itself deserves repeated viewing to appreciate. Despite some minor misgivings I think this one is a ground breaking effort and no words can capture the experience of watching and getting transported to a strange new world !
PS : For Avatar 2 , i sure would like to see the coporate sleazebag played by Giovanni Ribisi coming back maybe even with an Avatar and introducing Na'vi people to credit card , cable tv and internet connection and then lets see how the game changes !!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Rocket Singh - the pursuit of honesty !
Synopsis : A youngster finishes college (just scrapes through) decides Sales is the field for him and joins a Computer sales firm and gets exposed to the big bad world of sales , involving cut throat competition , hostile colleagues who suspect others of backstabbing them , People expecting bribes , companies over charging customers to make profit ( How dare they make so much money like this !) , lack of ethics etc .. u get the drift by now ... Young man , enters gets shocked and scarred and faces the challenges and tries to carve a niche for himself
When a story like this comes on Indian movie screens ... you expect them to be made by one Mr.Madhur Bhandarkar and you expect some standard judgments to passed on the big bad world of sales and unholy nexus between salesmen , politicians , mafia , MNCs , USA , CIA , Headley or whoever !
Also the movie would have been plainly called "Sales" !!!
But this one aint called sales! Its got a delightful name and a makes a real good sales pitch through a clever trailor and has Ranbir Kapoor in lead and is made by the most promising duo of Shimit Amin and Jaideep Sahni ... just like Rocket Sales corp in the movie , they represent good meaningful stuff without exploiting the target audience , this was my expectation when i went for this one
After the movie i can say for sure it was a refreshingly take on the subject , its leisurely paced and well acted and doesn't have any irritating commercial elements like needless songs /item numbers , sub plots to spice up or entertain/reach out to all sections of audience .. this is a very neat effort no doubt ... lot of positives .. lot of heart warming moments and smartness by the movie makers ... right from the time titles roll
It captures the struggle of a middle class boy to achieve his ambitions and to make a mark in something which he feels he should be good at ... it plays out almost like cross between "Pursuit of Happyness" and "Boiler room" ... elements of struggle to achieve your goal in a highly competitive environment and disillusions in discovering that the whole setup is one big con ... Like in Boiler room , HP Singh also faces moral dilemma and the route that he takes though is slightly different putting himself in a unfavorable position legally though . The movie is his fight against a bad system which consumes basic good in humans and converts them to mean things driven only by money .. typical pitfalls of young and ambitious who sacrifice a lot to gain success ! is it worth ? it is there a way out ? is what the film tries to explore
I was let down by the length of the movie and lack of cleverness in the script ... dont get me wrong it wasnt a bad movie .. but proceeding did get a bit monotonous after a while .. perhaps it was the weight of expectations from previous outings of the director , was always waiting for the tour de force towards the end , but all we got were a serious of long speeches ! Some plot elements were plain guessable and at times felt let down by the way things moved, as lot of people in the audience remarked (and i do concur ) this was almost like a TV serial !
Despite all that a satisfactory movie .. still feel it could have been much more given the talent of its makers and their sensibilities .. hoping this trend of making good movies continues and delivers even better fare in the coming year!
When a story like this comes on Indian movie screens ... you expect them to be made by one Mr.Madhur Bhandarkar and you expect some standard judgments to passed on the big bad world of sales and unholy nexus between salesmen , politicians , mafia , MNCs , USA , CIA , Headley or whoever !
Also the movie would have been plainly called "Sales" !!!
But this one aint called sales! Its got a delightful name and a makes a real good sales pitch through a clever trailor and has Ranbir Kapoor in lead and is made by the most promising duo of Shimit Amin and Jaideep Sahni ... just like Rocket Sales corp in the movie , they represent good meaningful stuff without exploiting the target audience , this was my expectation when i went for this one
After the movie i can say for sure it was a refreshingly take on the subject , its leisurely paced and well acted and doesn't have any irritating commercial elements like needless songs /item numbers , sub plots to spice up or entertain/reach out to all sections of audience .. this is a very neat effort no doubt ... lot of positives .. lot of heart warming moments and smartness by the movie makers ... right from the time titles roll
It captures the struggle of a middle class boy to achieve his ambitions and to make a mark in something which he feels he should be good at ... it plays out almost like cross between "Pursuit of Happyness" and "Boiler room" ... elements of struggle to achieve your goal in a highly competitive environment and disillusions in discovering that the whole setup is one big con ... Like in Boiler room , HP Singh also faces moral dilemma and the route that he takes though is slightly different putting himself in a unfavorable position legally though . The movie is his fight against a bad system which consumes basic good in humans and converts them to mean things driven only by money .. typical pitfalls of young and ambitious who sacrifice a lot to gain success ! is it worth ? it is there a way out ? is what the film tries to explore
I was let down by the length of the movie and lack of cleverness in the script ... dont get me wrong it wasnt a bad movie .. but proceeding did get a bit monotonous after a while .. perhaps it was the weight of expectations from previous outings of the director , was always waiting for the tour de force towards the end , but all we got were a serious of long speeches ! Some plot elements were plain guessable and at times felt let down by the way things moved, as lot of people in the audience remarked (and i do concur ) this was almost like a TV serial !
Despite all that a satisfactory movie .. still feel it could have been much more given the talent of its makers and their sensibilities .. hoping this trend of making good movies continues and delivers even better fare in the coming year!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
T - 20 , An incredible Journey !
I had started following cricket in early 90s , around 91 i think , started reading newspapers and 'Sportstar' magazine . Since the time i started following Indian cricket there was this young kid with curly hair , who was regarded as the most talented by one and all . As kids we loved him as he was a youngster who could take on much older guys , it also helped that he was bloody good . Benson & Hedges cup tri -series in Aus (91-92) was when i started following live cricket action on TV first time , used to wake up early and follow the matches , thts when i saw Sachin in action for the first time ! That tour confirmed to the world what he was one of the most talented and complete batsmen with his centuries in Sydney and Perth . For me as a viewer that series was the beginning of the era of a legend whose career i would be following eagerly over two decades . A career with a lot of promise which actually ended up getting fulfilled , one with a lot of expectation which were easily surpassed effortless by the man known as The Little Master , but for the legions of cricket crazy fans in India for whom the game is nothing short of religion , He is God !
Over last 2 decades a lot has changed in India , post liberalization and opening up of economy the country has totally transformed , among all the crazy transformations the only constant has been the His presence in the Indian line-up . They say 90s was the decade of hope after a long period of just sustaining and surviving India decided to break shackles and slowly tried to make its presence felt . Sachin was a symbol of that hope of 90s , a country that was changing ,as TV sets became more common the fanatic worship had begun , then and now, He was/is always the reigning deity and He never disappointed the millions. Indian cricket in 90s began and ended with Sachin Tendulkar , such was our belief in Him that the moment He got out millions of Indians without a second thought used to switch off the TV and come out of the bubble of hope and exuberance that was built by His mere presence at the crease . As long as He was around we were always in the game was what majority of Indians felt.
As 90s ended , India as an economy had acted on the promise just like Sachin . Economic growth took off in 2000s , things started improving all around , IT , communications , infrastructure boomed , basic facilities improved , red tapism had gone down , private sector was running the show now , cable TV and news channels had emerged and for many Indians life started getting better. The cricket team also improved , VVS Laxman and Dravid put up a huge partnership following on and even without Sachin doing too much India made a miraculous comeback and defeated Aussies. More victories started coming , other support players emerged , Ganguly was the brave new captain .. Sehwag was new hard-hitting fearless opener cracking triple centuries ; But for most of us He was still the no:1!
The presence of an effective support cast meant a lot of burden was lifted off His shoulder/elbow (the tennis one !) He moved to a different role that of a consolidator , the boy ripped apart attacks was cast aside and the man who could ruthlessly accumulate runs was born. We didn't like it initially we wanted the old kid back , one who would pummel the opposition to surrender , the one who would create nightmares for the bowlers even if they were regarded as Greatest Leg-spinner ever. But He knew better and He excelled in his new role as a mentor figure for youngsters , someone who would guide India home.
Economy was now clocking steady growth , BSE Sensex was mirroring the run aggregate of Sachin and things around us were improving at a steady rate , Sachin was also scoring at a steady pace . However time and again critics would surface point out flaws only to have The Little Master put them to shame with an impeccable display of batting They said he cant play in finals , He thrashed Aussies with a 117 and 91 in 2 finals to guide India to victory in the CB series finals in 2008 , they said he cant play in the 4th innings in test match , He scored an assured century and guided India to a brilliant victory chasing a huge 387 run target in 4th innings at Chennai . Just when u think you have seen it all , He turns the clock back and comes up with knocks like the 175 in the recent ODI agains Australia which turned an impossible run chase to a thrilling one and almost had India coasting home !
To the person up there .... Thanks a lot for 20 years of Tendulkar !
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Back to the Past !
Recently went to attend the marriage of a friend of mine in a small city in Kerala called Calicut (or Kozhikode ) ... i had decided to travel alone in train (good time to read books/introspect was what i thought) . Anyways i finally landed up in Calicut (as i like to call it) after a journey of 20 hours ... actually i was landing up in Calicut after a journey of 15 years....
When i was a kid ( my parents were getting transferred every 4 yrs to another location at work) i had spent 4 yrs in Calicut ..that was between age 9-13 of my life ...so when i think of childhood .. this is where the rewind lands ... we lived in an apartment complex (rarity in those parts in early 90s) , lots of kids to play/hangout with , tht school , traveling by buses alone for first time in life , playing cricket / football in the play ground we had ... there were lot of memories ...
During the journey , i was reading this book called "Istanbul" by Orhan Pamuk , in which the author reminiscences about his childhood in Istanbul , so promised myself tht maybe i will just go and re-visit these places i last saw 15 yrs back ... a couple of times i had passed through this city , i was always tempted to those parts of the city i grew up in .. but never went ... infact i have never re-visited any place of my childhood or previous years ... thats something people who grew up in same place may not understand .. every time u shift ur base to a new place u leave lots of things behind and start afresh and then again leave it behind and move on .. thts what we did and i actually liked it .. its a bit sad . But again things are never same even if u stayed in same place as my friends tell me ... even if u don't physically move ... things around you will change
Anyways this time i was in Calicut the day before the wedding and i had reached much before even the wedding party had arrived .. so i checked in to the hotel and after debating internally whether to actually make the visit or just stay in the bed watching cricket on tv ... my friends were supposed to join me there in the morning called up to say they wud arrive by afternoon only ! so there u go .. i showered got ready and stepped into the heat ... it felt good to back in this place .. the sun ,the heat , the bustle .. the language ... the shops .. all so familiar ... locked away in a corner of your memory ... occasionally i wud see a building/landmark which i knew from childhood days... the hotel was located in a place i used to visit frequently earlier , so easily located the bus-stop and got into the correct bus which wud have taken me 'home' 15 yrs back ... now its another place, just an address .. took the ticket till last stop as i ddnt know from where i wud start my 'back to past' tour .. how much i wud cover ... there were so many places (2-3km radius tht kids of 10-12 yrs explore ) to see .. so many memories to revist ... before i knew it i was in familiar land .. things had definitely changed ... but heart warmed up whenever a familiar house , building came ... the bus was moving in a cruise mode (there were stops every 500m) finally reached the last stop ... it was bang opposite my School ... the school was located in a house/palace once owned by the erstwhile ruler of the place the Zamorins , the school had expanded with main building being the 'palace' like one , but most of the classrooms were in proper concrete buildings built nearby in same sprawling compound ... whenever i think of my school i always remember the huge building and big wide open space in front of the main building ...we used to play cricket there and scoring a boundary / hitting six then was very tough as it was really huge... So I got out of the bus and headed to the school .. it was a Sunday , so the gates were shut ... the walls which were huge and intimidating then were just my chest height now .. the playground looked pretty normal ... infact school was looking much smaller , cramped as opposed to a spacious sprawling palatial building tht was residing in my memory ... i somehow couldnt go in .. it was looking strange n different in someways unsettling .. anyways no one was around and the gate was closed ... i turned back and decided i shuld probably walk as sometimes i used to from school to home ... i knew a lot of shortcuts ... while walking on the main road .. i cud see a lot of such smaller roads i used to take as a kid , roads leading to some friend's house ... seemed familiar , but cudnt recall ... so i stuck to the main road as i was not sure whether i shud venture down those lanes ... after walking for 5 mins , the heat got better off me ... i hailed a rick and reached the area where i used to live earlier , got down and saw the video library there had become a VCD/DVD shop ! my barber shop was still there , so was the bakery and the grocery store , some things hadn't changed ... i walked to my apartment complex ... there was a security gaurd there ! What do i tell him ? My house address ? i used to know a lot of people there and almost all of them were locals who owned the flats surely there must be people i know over there still ... as i paused outside , the gaurd just got up and went out ... should i go in or not ? ... finally had a good look from outside ... took a walk down the road remembering the good old days .. flood of memories rushed by when i took in familiar sights the house nearby where cricket balls used to disappear if we hit a six from the playground (it was six and out as balls were tough to retrieve !) ... decided to check out the playground on the backside , wall on the other side was pretty low so cud see the apartments more clearly ... they looked different now with a different shade of paint ... i saw the playground of my childhood where we used to play cricket and at times soccer / badminton ... in my memories it is a sufficiently big ground ...but as i looked over the wall at tht ground suddenly things seemed to have changed just like my school .. the ground was so small ... it took a while for it properly sink in .... what had happened here ? what had changed ? How did it reduce in size ? why is it all different i wondered , got back to my hotel room without any further exploration ... then the obvious answer came to me .. nothing had changed .. it was just the perspective ... the boy who was looking at these things had grown... maybe thats how the world changes ... u just grow bigger !
When i was a kid ( my parents were getting transferred every 4 yrs to another location at work) i had spent 4 yrs in Calicut ..that was between age 9-13 of my life ...so when i think of childhood .. this is where the rewind lands ... we lived in an apartment complex (rarity in those parts in early 90s) , lots of kids to play/hangout with , tht school , traveling by buses alone for first time in life , playing cricket / football in the play ground we had ... there were lot of memories ...
During the journey , i was reading this book called "Istanbul" by Orhan Pamuk , in which the author reminiscences about his childhood in Istanbul , so promised myself tht maybe i will just go and re-visit these places i last saw 15 yrs back ... a couple of times i had passed through this city , i was always tempted to those parts of the city i grew up in .. but never went ... infact i have never re-visited any place of my childhood or previous years ... thats something people who grew up in same place may not understand .. every time u shift ur base to a new place u leave lots of things behind and start afresh and then again leave it behind and move on .. thts what we did and i actually liked it .. its a bit sad . But again things are never same even if u stayed in same place as my friends tell me ... even if u don't physically move ... things around you will change
Anyways this time i was in Calicut the day before the wedding and i had reached much before even the wedding party had arrived .. so i checked in to the hotel and after debating internally whether to actually make the visit or just stay in the bed watching cricket on tv ... my friends were supposed to join me there in the morning called up to say they wud arrive by afternoon only ! so there u go .. i showered got ready and stepped into the heat ... it felt good to back in this place .. the sun ,the heat , the bustle .. the language ... the shops .. all so familiar ... locked away in a corner of your memory ... occasionally i wud see a building/landmark which i knew from childhood days... the hotel was located in a place i used to visit frequently earlier , so easily located the bus-stop and got into the correct bus which wud have taken me 'home' 15 yrs back ... now its another place, just an address .. took the ticket till last stop as i ddnt know from where i wud start my 'back to past' tour .. how much i wud cover ... there were so many places (2-3km radius tht kids of 10-12 yrs explore ) to see .. so many memories to revist ... before i knew it i was in familiar land .. things had definitely changed ... but heart warmed up whenever a familiar house , building came ... the bus was moving in a cruise mode (there were stops every 500m) finally reached the last stop ... it was bang opposite my School ... the school was located in a house/palace once owned by the erstwhile ruler of the place the Zamorins , the school had expanded with main building being the 'palace' like one , but most of the classrooms were in proper concrete buildings built nearby in same sprawling compound ... whenever i think of my school i always remember the huge building and big wide open space in front of the main building ...we used to play cricket there and scoring a boundary / hitting six then was very tough as it was really huge... So I got out of the bus and headed to the school .. it was a Sunday , so the gates were shut ... the walls which were huge and intimidating then were just my chest height now .. the playground looked pretty normal ... infact school was looking much smaller , cramped as opposed to a spacious sprawling palatial building tht was residing in my memory ... i somehow couldnt go in .. it was looking strange n different in someways unsettling .. anyways no one was around and the gate was closed ... i turned back and decided i shuld probably walk as sometimes i used to from school to home ... i knew a lot of shortcuts ... while walking on the main road .. i cud see a lot of such smaller roads i used to take as a kid , roads leading to some friend's house ... seemed familiar , but cudnt recall ... so i stuck to the main road as i was not sure whether i shud venture down those lanes ... after walking for 5 mins , the heat got better off me ... i hailed a rick and reached the area where i used to live earlier , got down and saw the video library there had become a VCD/DVD shop ! my barber shop was still there , so was the bakery and the grocery store , some things hadn't changed ... i walked to my apartment complex ... there was a security gaurd there ! What do i tell him ? My house address ? i used to know a lot of people there and almost all of them were locals who owned the flats surely there must be people i know over there still ... as i paused outside , the gaurd just got up and went out ... should i go in or not ? ... finally had a good look from outside ... took a walk down the road remembering the good old days .. flood of memories rushed by when i took in familiar sights the house nearby where cricket balls used to disappear if we hit a six from the playground (it was six and out as balls were tough to retrieve !) ... decided to check out the playground on the backside , wall on the other side was pretty low so cud see the apartments more clearly ... they looked different now with a different shade of paint ... i saw the playground of my childhood where we used to play cricket and at times soccer / badminton ... in my memories it is a sufficiently big ground ...but as i looked over the wall at tht ground suddenly things seemed to have changed just like my school .. the ground was so small ... it took a while for it properly sink in .... what had happened here ? what had changed ? How did it reduce in size ? why is it all different i wondered , got back to my hotel room without any further exploration ... then the obvious answer came to me .. nothing had changed .. it was just the perspective ... the boy who was looking at these things had grown... maybe thats how the world changes ... u just grow bigger !
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Some thoughts on PWYW model
Recently read a couple of posts on Freaknomics blog about 'Pay What you Wish' model , originating from this story of someone starting a taxi service where you can name what you want to pay.
In India also we have similar non-fixed price service , but only issue is the taxi driver doesn't easily agree to your price and we haggle and arrive at what is mutually deemed as the 'right' price.
But what is the right price for any product or service ? who decides it ? isnt it a great step in Customer satisfaction (delight ) to let her/him name the price for the service she/he enjoyed ?
Pay what you Wish Model hence is an interesting model , something which is very bold ,daring, risky , but still if cleverly implemented will be a very successful one !
Recently when i was studying in Singapore , we used to visit this Indian Restaurant called "Annalakshmi" in ChinaTown , which used to serve really good South Indian food , the ambience was also very nice , it was part of a group of charitable institutions in India and was run by volunteers. This restaurant in Singapore , implemented PWYW model , there used to be buffet system , the food was really tasty and of good quality. But they didnt have any price printed in the menu card , the price you wanted to pay for the food consumed was left to you.
Whenever i visited , there was a lady who used to enquire if we were satisfied with the food and service and used to ask us the total number of people , before accepting the money. We used to visit the place often , still by our estimate we used to overpay most of the times as the entire experience was too good that you loosen your purse strings without second thoughts . Again here we didn't mind because the 'profits' from this restaurant was used for charitable purposes only.
It is the social element which is a key factor in this model , we don't want to be seen as the guys who dont pay properly by the patrons of the restaurant . The system works best if you dont know what others are paying for the same service. Also the service/product needs to be good goes without saying !
Another set of people use a variant of this model very successfully in India , the guys who come to collect money for festivals /temples ... they never quote any specific amount as the donation for these causes is always a voluntary one by the public. Though you hardly have a choice and rarely do people say no to a donation for religious cause . These guys were pretty enterprising they always used to carry notebooks / receipts printed with names of certain people who had paid say Rs.100 , when you actually wanted to pay only Rs.10 to the guy. Now even though the guy has not quoted any price for the donation and just asks you money ... you see what some other folks have paid and the social pressure ensures you never underpay him and actually in more instances really overpay !
Tipping in a restaurant , is another PWYW service - the guy never demands it , but its a social convention . The amount of tip depends majorly on the experience in the restaurant.
In normal PWYW model , this tendency to overpay is one bad thing about this model - u logically want to pay as less as possible but you feel guilty about it and your conscience makes you overpay. But is it really overpaying ? We actually end up paying what we think/conclude (at that point of time) is the 'right' price and often there is a satisfaction in paying whatever we wished to pay and even if we got conned into paying that amount ! On top of this there is a tremendous 'goodwill' associated with the concept too , the very fact that someone trusts you to evaluate their performance/value and empowered you to decide the right price itself makes this little extra shelled out worthwhile !!!
It would be really interesting to see this model being extended successfully elsewhere for what is deemed conventional services too . How would it be if you could name your price for whatever you purchase and same way get paid for your work at prices deemed right by others and what if all parties concerned are happy with the arrangement? Possible ? Well then we would be at Utopia right ?!
In India also we have similar non-fixed price service , but only issue is the taxi driver doesn't easily agree to your price and we haggle and arrive at what is mutually deemed as the 'right' price.
But what is the right price for any product or service ? who decides it ? isnt it a great step in Customer satisfaction (delight ) to let her/him name the price for the service she/he enjoyed ?
Pay what you Wish Model hence is an interesting model , something which is very bold ,daring, risky , but still if cleverly implemented will be a very successful one !
Recently when i was studying in Singapore , we used to visit this Indian Restaurant called "Annalakshmi" in ChinaTown , which used to serve really good South Indian food , the ambience was also very nice , it was part of a group of charitable institutions in India and was run by volunteers. This restaurant in Singapore , implemented PWYW model , there used to be buffet system , the food was really tasty and of good quality. But they didnt have any price printed in the menu card , the price you wanted to pay for the food consumed was left to you.
Whenever i visited , there was a lady who used to enquire if we were satisfied with the food and service and used to ask us the total number of people , before accepting the money. We used to visit the place often , still by our estimate we used to overpay most of the times as the entire experience was too good that you loosen your purse strings without second thoughts . Again here we didn't mind because the 'profits' from this restaurant was used for charitable purposes only.
It is the social element which is a key factor in this model , we don't want to be seen as the guys who dont pay properly by the patrons of the restaurant . The system works best if you dont know what others are paying for the same service. Also the service/product needs to be good goes without saying !
Another set of people use a variant of this model very successfully in India , the guys who come to collect money for festivals /temples ... they never quote any specific amount as the donation for these causes is always a voluntary one by the public. Though you hardly have a choice and rarely do people say no to a donation for religious cause . These guys were pretty enterprising they always used to carry notebooks / receipts printed with names of certain people who had paid say Rs.100 , when you actually wanted to pay only Rs.10 to the guy. Now even though the guy has not quoted any price for the donation and just asks you money ... you see what some other folks have paid and the social pressure ensures you never underpay him and actually in more instances really overpay !
Tipping in a restaurant , is another PWYW service - the guy never demands it , but its a social convention . The amount of tip depends majorly on the experience in the restaurant.
In normal PWYW model , this tendency to overpay is one bad thing about this model - u logically want to pay as less as possible but you feel guilty about it and your conscience makes you overpay. But is it really overpaying ? We actually end up paying what we think/conclude (at that point of time) is the 'right' price and often there is a satisfaction in paying whatever we wished to pay and even if we got conned into paying that amount ! On top of this there is a tremendous 'goodwill' associated with the concept too , the very fact that someone trusts you to evaluate their performance/value and empowered you to decide the right price itself makes this little extra shelled out worthwhile !!!
It would be really interesting to see this model being extended successfully elsewhere for what is deemed conventional services too . How would it be if you could name your price for whatever you purchase and same way get paid for your work at prices deemed right by others and what if all parties concerned are happy with the arrangement? Possible ? Well then we would be at Utopia right ?!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Movie-meter-2
In my previous post i had cribbed a lot about how people use hype generated by movie , its star power and Box-office success as criterion to measure whether movie is good or not ... which i feel is not correct . Since i got started on it and also because i watch a lot of movies these days , i feel i should pen down how i pick out 'good' movies , what are the criterion's i use for choosing movies to watch.
Movie critic plays a very important role in guiding us on what movies to watch and in setting the basic expectations about the movie , again its not the rating given by critic it is the reason why he/she recommends/thrashes the movie that is important for me. Again critics are also humans and they would obviously write reasons why they like the movie , why they think the movie should be watched/not .... It may or may not match your view of world/movies ... critics' sensibilities and your sensibilities may or may not match ... I have a set of critics whose views/opinions i concur with on most occasions and i have mostly agreed with their recommendations , so it is pretty helpful in choosing movies.
But more than critics , my favorite method of choosing movies to watch is through imdb site ... again this is public opinion , unlike BO verdict , this is opinion by people who watch a lot of movies and whose tastes mirror those of an informed movie viewer , Imdb ratings are a very useful guide to determine whether to watch a movie or not, when you are not very sure.
But again recent movies , popular genres among the voting public always get better ratings ... but despite a few faults its more or less most accurate way of determining if movie is watchable
There are also sites like Rotten-tomatoes , metacritic which are aggregators of reviews/rating by critics and should appeal to more serious or more evolved film viewers.
The Top 100/250 lists (there are various versions floating around) represents another fascinating way of choosing movies , here are the best (in the eyes of certain experts) movies chosen and arranged in order for you ... whether these are best or not is not the point , but these are definitely movies which stand out in some way or other ... Lists represent a very good way to discover great movies , while on lists i think Imdb all time top 250 list is the most accessible to the average film goer , if she/he wants to undertake this journey to discover better movies.
Since it is voted by a public consisting of informed movie viewers this list would be the best place to start looking for good movies to watch , the list ofcourse is a bit lopsided with recent movies dominating it . Personally im targeting to watch all the top 250 movies from this list , as i discover a movie i discover a lot more about that genre/director and ending up watching a lot more movies made by the director/in that genre which may not be present in the list but are definitely enjoyable. This list in a way guides me to a lot more movies , i might deviate sometimes , but by following this kind of list i do explore all popular , highly regarded movies of all genres.
In various forums , i have noticed a lot of average film viewer complaining that most these top movies are over-rated or beyond their grasp and many don't see a point in viewing these movies and are happy catching up with latest blockbuster movies . They have a pattern for viewing movies and dont see a point in experimenting. But that is never the case , our choices and preference changes/should change during the course of time , hopefully for the better. As noted critic Roger Ebert puts it "one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in"
Movie critic plays a very important role in guiding us on what movies to watch and in setting the basic expectations about the movie , again its not the rating given by critic it is the reason why he/she recommends/thrashes the movie that is important for me. Again critics are also humans and they would obviously write reasons why they like the movie , why they think the movie should be watched/not .... It may or may not match your view of world/movies ... critics' sensibilities and your sensibilities may or may not match ... I have a set of critics whose views/opinions i concur with on most occasions and i have mostly agreed with their recommendations , so it is pretty helpful in choosing movies.
But more than critics , my favorite method of choosing movies to watch is through imdb site ... again this is public opinion , unlike BO verdict , this is opinion by people who watch a lot of movies and whose tastes mirror those of an informed movie viewer , Imdb ratings are a very useful guide to determine whether to watch a movie or not, when you are not very sure.
But again recent movies , popular genres among the voting public always get better ratings ... but despite a few faults its more or less most accurate way of determining if movie is watchable
There are also sites like Rotten-tomatoes , metacritic which are aggregators of reviews/rating by critics and should appeal to more serious or more evolved film viewers.
The Top 100/250 lists (there are various versions floating around) represents another fascinating way of choosing movies , here are the best (in the eyes of certain experts) movies chosen and arranged in order for you ... whether these are best or not is not the point , but these are definitely movies which stand out in some way or other ... Lists represent a very good way to discover great movies , while on lists i think Imdb all time top 250 list is the most accessible to the average film goer , if she/he wants to undertake this journey to discover better movies.
Since it is voted by a public consisting of informed movie viewers this list would be the best place to start looking for good movies to watch , the list ofcourse is a bit lopsided with recent movies dominating it . Personally im targeting to watch all the top 250 movies from this list , as i discover a movie i discover a lot more about that genre/director and ending up watching a lot more movies made by the director/in that genre which may not be present in the list but are definitely enjoyable. This list in a way guides me to a lot more movies , i might deviate sometimes , but by following this kind of list i do explore all popular , highly regarded movies of all genres.
In various forums , i have noticed a lot of average film viewer complaining that most these top movies are over-rated or beyond their grasp and many don't see a point in viewing these movies and are happy catching up with latest blockbuster movies . They have a pattern for viewing movies and dont see a point in experimenting. But that is never the case , our choices and preference changes/should change during the course of time , hopefully for the better. As noted critic Roger Ebert puts it "one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in"
Sunday, August 23, 2009
When Pigs Could Fly !
It was the time (of) Swine Flu !
For a few months now we have been hearing about 'Swine flu' or technically proper term 'H1N1'virus . The current form of the pandemic had originated in Mexico and has since then slowly spread across the world - . The first recorded case was in Hyderabad way back in May
As expected after a while it started spreading to other parts of the country . But the entire system which was aware of this still waited and only when it reached the panic button was pressed. Panic started in Pune where lot of cases started getting reported then it slowly spread to Mumbai. Even though authorities stepped in handled things well their actions were more of reactionary , pro activeness was unfortunately missing. Whether the virus was spreading or not , the panic was spreading very fast ! To make matters worse , testing for this could be done only in govt labs and only certain hospitals could treat the patients all this just increased the pressure and panic. Even the correct masks to be used were also in short supply.
Elsewhere in city , administrators surprisingly arranged an SMS poll to general public to gather inputs on whether schools should shut down or not in the wake of a possible epidemic. The whole idea of 'sms poll' was ironically thrashed in mainstream media through a couple of other opinion polls ! Its hard to disagree with the majority view in those programmes that it was totally unnecessary to ask confused public for directions !
At my work place most of us were unperturbed , though there were still a few people sporting masks. However all the hell broke loose one afternoon when someone from my floor was suspected of having contracted the virus. Some family member of that person had tested positive and that person also had got tested and was awaiting result. Even before any confirmation came people were not prepared to take chances and in a matter of a few minutes the entire workforce in my floor had disappeared. Thankfully HR in my company was prepared for the situation and do's and don't s related to the virus were quickly circulated ! Next couple days were memorable as lots of people did not report to work or came dressed like bandits ! People moving around in masks , handkerchiefs and duppattas covering their faces was fun but the smell of the eucalyptus oil which was supposed to ward off the flu (as per sms fwds) was so horrible !!!
I was reminded of scenes from various zombie movies where entire population gets infected by strange virus and go crazy , for while it seemed like all those crazy things will indeed become reality
But all the hoopla and media frenzy lasted just a week by end of the week the 'swine flu scare' had slowly faded away and out went those dirty handkerchiefs and surgeon's masks sported by general public. At its peak during that one week , the panic had totally altered many things affecting Business ,education and entertainment . School kids ,TV channels , medical shops and black-marketers/entrepreneurs selling these masks benefited from this . People disappeared from public places , avoided restaurants , those commuting to office started avoiding trains which were perceived to be crowded , multiplexes couldn't release new movies as there were no viewers and had to shut down for a few days . Slowly by end of the week panic had subsided , lot more meaningful information started being available and rational people started getting more footage in TV channels and in newspapers. Suddenly lot of statistics were dug up which showed that mortality rate of this flu is much lower compared to other diseases and importantly a lot of meaningful debates started getting triggered on how our country was ravaged by so many other diseases which is not given enough attention.
Even though it was un natural panic reaction , the awareness about the disease spread quickly and general sanitation and outlook improved and maybe in a way helped contain a much wider outbreak. However out in the streets , after a couple weeks things returned to normal and all those masked crusaders disappeared !
For a few months now we have been hearing about 'Swine flu' or technically proper term 'H1N1'virus . The current form of the pandemic had originated in Mexico and has since then slowly spread across the world - . The first recorded case was in Hyderabad way back in May
As expected after a while it started spreading to other parts of the country . But the entire system which was aware of this still waited and only when it reached the panic button was pressed. Panic started in Pune where lot of cases started getting reported then it slowly spread to Mumbai. Even though authorities stepped in handled things well their actions were more of reactionary , pro activeness was unfortunately missing. Whether the virus was spreading or not , the panic was spreading very fast ! To make matters worse , testing for this could be done only in govt labs and only certain hospitals could treat the patients all this just increased the pressure and panic. Even the correct masks to be used were also in short supply.
Elsewhere in city , administrators surprisingly arranged an SMS poll to general public to gather inputs on whether schools should shut down or not in the wake of a possible epidemic. The whole idea of 'sms poll' was ironically thrashed in mainstream media through a couple of other opinion polls ! Its hard to disagree with the majority view in those programmes that it was totally unnecessary to ask confused public for directions !
At my work place most of us were unperturbed , though there were still a few people sporting masks. However all the hell broke loose one afternoon when someone from my floor was suspected of having contracted the virus. Some family member of that person had tested positive and that person also had got tested and was awaiting result. Even before any confirmation came people were not prepared to take chances and in a matter of a few minutes the entire workforce in my floor had disappeared. Thankfully HR in my company was prepared for the situation and do's and don't s related to the virus were quickly circulated ! Next couple days were memorable as lots of people did not report to work or came dressed like bandits ! People moving around in masks , handkerchiefs and duppattas covering their faces was fun but the smell of the eucalyptus oil which was supposed to ward off the flu (as per sms fwds) was so horrible !!!
I was reminded of scenes from various zombie movies where entire population gets infected by strange virus and go crazy , for while it seemed like all those crazy things will indeed become reality
But all the hoopla and media frenzy lasted just a week by end of the week the 'swine flu scare' had slowly faded away and out went those dirty handkerchiefs and surgeon's masks sported by general public. At its peak during that one week , the panic had totally altered many things affecting Business ,education and entertainment . School kids ,TV channels , medical shops and black-marketers/entrepreneurs selling these masks benefited from this . People disappeared from public places , avoided restaurants , those commuting to office started avoiding trains which were perceived to be crowded , multiplexes couldn't release new movies as there were no viewers and had to shut down for a few days . Slowly by end of the week panic had subsided , lot more meaningful information started being available and rational people started getting more footage in TV channels and in newspapers. Suddenly lot of statistics were dug up which showed that mortality rate of this flu is much lower compared to other diseases and importantly a lot of meaningful debates started getting triggered on how our country was ravaged by so many other diseases which is not given enough attention.
Even though it was un natural panic reaction , the awareness about the disease spread quickly and general sanitation and outlook improved and maybe in a way helped contain a much wider outbreak. However out in the streets , after a couple weeks things returned to normal and all those masked crusaders disappeared !
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Movie-Meter - is it all about Money ?
We all want to watch good movies , no one wants to waste 2-2.5 hrs of their precious time in causes they dont identify with ... How do we know a movie is a good , decent / watchable movie before watching it ???
Word of mouth from People Like Us , who would possibly share similar tastes is more or less accurate way .. but how easily is this information available , how will we ever get recco from friends for all movies we want to watch ... so what are the other indicators of how good a movie is ?
One friend of mine goes by the logic of Box Office verdict .. he and several others like him watch movies which are success at BO ... "If a movie has grossed so much that means people have enjoyed it and movie watching public are no fools , if millions have watched the movie then it SHOULD be good" , that is their formula.
A lot of people follow this simple rule of equating how good the movie is with its Box-Office collection ... im not saying its necessarily a wrong thing , they could be right on lots of occasions and this is a pretty simple and infact a very easy rule to judge whether to watch a movie or not.
But on the flipside this has more to do with the tendency of 'herd mentality' and this is not really connected to what the movie really is ... its more to do with what majority 'think' the movie is ... my guess is that majority of these people go to these because others are going !!! Newspapers these days are full of huge Ads declaring the biggest opening ever ... But does that necessarily mean a good movie ... if a movie has made huge amount in the opening day its because of advance booking made by people who have no clue about the actual content / quality of the movie ... the movie could well be a very badly made one but if it has enough 'star power' and is publicized well it will be declared a hit based on its revenues from first couple of days.
So in effect lots of people watch the movie because they think it might be good and lots more follow because the first lot went to see it ... whether the movie is really good or not doesn't matter much here ... its merely the numbers that matter !!!
These days its been a trend for movies to be declared super hit or mega hit after opening weekend , every movie seems to make 50-60 crores in a matter of couple of days ... no one really knows what happens truly , but i guess no producer will admit that his movie tanked big time ! what follows during the weekend after some big budget movies are released would be that well known critics give it a proper appraisal and give it a rating it deserves. But who is deciding things after reading reviews in newspaper on Sunday ?! by Sunday the same movie would have been declared ultra mega hit with some mind boggling figures also quoted and public gets really confused and ends up watching it and also bad mouthing it later while at the same time contributing to it becoming a hit all the same !!!
This is exactly why i believe movie viewing is more personal experience and when we watch a movie we should be watching the movie to enjoy the movie , not simply because it made $ 300 mn world wide ! We are not getting any money for watching something which had record opening .. so how does the money it makes really matter ? I believe in going by what is in the movie and trying to understand why the movie should be watched and why it could be a good experience for me ...
How to exactly identify and come up with what movies to watch n avoid is obviously not easy at all , will explore some of the options i use in the next post
Word of mouth from People Like Us , who would possibly share similar tastes is more or less accurate way .. but how easily is this information available , how will we ever get recco from friends for all movies we want to watch ... so what are the other indicators of how good a movie is ?
One friend of mine goes by the logic of Box Office verdict .. he and several others like him watch movies which are success at BO ... "If a movie has grossed so much that means people have enjoyed it and movie watching public are no fools , if millions have watched the movie then it SHOULD be good" , that is their formula.
A lot of people follow this simple rule of equating how good the movie is with its Box-Office collection ... im not saying its necessarily a wrong thing , they could be right on lots of occasions and this is a pretty simple and infact a very easy rule to judge whether to watch a movie or not.
But on the flipside this has more to do with the tendency of 'herd mentality' and this is not really connected to what the movie really is ... its more to do with what majority 'think' the movie is ... my guess is that majority of these people go to these because others are going !!! Newspapers these days are full of huge Ads declaring the biggest opening ever ... But does that necessarily mean a good movie ... if a movie has made huge amount in the opening day its because of advance booking made by people who have no clue about the actual content / quality of the movie ... the movie could well be a very badly made one but if it has enough 'star power' and is publicized well it will be declared a hit based on its revenues from first couple of days.
So in effect lots of people watch the movie because they think it might be good and lots more follow because the first lot went to see it ... whether the movie is really good or not doesn't matter much here ... its merely the numbers that matter !!!
These days its been a trend for movies to be declared super hit or mega hit after opening weekend , every movie seems to make 50-60 crores in a matter of couple of days ... no one really knows what happens truly , but i guess no producer will admit that his movie tanked big time ! what follows during the weekend after some big budget movies are released would be that well known critics give it a proper appraisal and give it a rating it deserves. But who is deciding things after reading reviews in newspaper on Sunday ?! by Sunday the same movie would have been declared ultra mega hit with some mind boggling figures also quoted and public gets really confused and ends up watching it and also bad mouthing it later while at the same time contributing to it becoming a hit all the same !!!
This is exactly why i believe movie viewing is more personal experience and when we watch a movie we should be watching the movie to enjoy the movie , not simply because it made $ 300 mn world wide ! We are not getting any money for watching something which had record opening .. so how does the money it makes really matter ? I believe in going by what is in the movie and trying to understand why the movie should be watched and why it could be a good experience for me ...
How to exactly identify and come up with what movies to watch n avoid is obviously not easy at all , will explore some of the options i use in the next post
Monday, July 06, 2009
Return of The King !
The greatest ever Grand Slam final ?
No it was never supposed to be ...
That was last year , when the challenger had finally come of age and had toppled the established order ... Today it was supposed to be the match that would establish ' The Return of the King'
Roger Federer in his quest for 'G.O.A.T' status was waiting to add that one more Grand Slam to make it 15 and go past Pete Sampras and Wimbledon Centre Court was the perfect place for the feat. It couldn't have been scripted better than this !
After his superb win in Rolland Garros , Wimbledon esp after Nadal withdrew was supposed to be a mere formality and entire media was only focusing on Roger. The result seemed to be a foregone conclusion for most people add to this a gallery of famous names in the Royal Box – Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver - the legends of the game - were watching, ready to grace the occasion when history was to be made ... You couldn't be faulted if you thought Roddick was there just to make up the numbers ...
But the final was something totally unexpected ... Andy Roddick came from no where with a vastly improved game and great hunger for the crown and almost pulled it off !
What a match ... When Federer came back from 2-6 in the 2nd set tiebreaker , saving 4 set points it looked like the momentum had swung especially when he took 3rd set. But Roddick wasn't quite done , he fought and fought really hard.
The fifth set was an amazing effort as the two players hung on and battled like Gladiators ( Russell Crowe who was part of the crowd would have agreed!) . I always thought tie-break for 5th set was not proper , but today after watching both these players giving their best ... struggling to stay afloat until mistake of one decided the winner , I think we are better off with tie-breakers , would save players from exhaustion and would be kinder to spectators with weak hearts !
Congrats again Roger ! its been such a treat to just watch him play , i think he totally deserves the World No:1 ranking and G.O.A.T status now , what a comeback for him after he was totally written off exactly an year ago by many after a defeat in a similarly grueling 5 set marathon . The icing on cake would be an US Open win by defeating Nadal in the final !!!
While i feel so great about Roger winning , feel sad for Roddick though especially after the way he played in this final , yet another Goran ?! Hope he is also able to script a fairly tale comeback
No it was never supposed to be ...
That was last year , when the challenger had finally come of age and had toppled the established order ... Today it was supposed to be the match that would establish ' The Return of the King'
Roger Federer in his quest for 'G.O.A.T' status was waiting to add that one more Grand Slam to make it 15 and go past Pete Sampras and Wimbledon Centre Court was the perfect place for the feat. It couldn't have been scripted better than this !
After his superb win in Rolland Garros , Wimbledon esp after Nadal withdrew was supposed to be a mere formality and entire media was only focusing on Roger. The result seemed to be a foregone conclusion for most people add to this a gallery of famous names in the Royal Box – Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver - the legends of the game - were watching, ready to grace the occasion when history was to be made ... You couldn't be faulted if you thought Roddick was there just to make up the numbers ...
But the final was something totally unexpected ... Andy Roddick came from no where with a vastly improved game and great hunger for the crown and almost pulled it off !
What a match ... When Federer came back from 2-6 in the 2nd set tiebreaker , saving 4 set points it looked like the momentum had swung especially when he took 3rd set. But Roddick wasn't quite done , he fought and fought really hard.
The fifth set was an amazing effort as the two players hung on and battled like Gladiators ( Russell Crowe who was part of the crowd would have agreed!) . I always thought tie-break for 5th set was not proper , but today after watching both these players giving their best ... struggling to stay afloat until mistake of one decided the winner , I think we are better off with tie-breakers , would save players from exhaustion and would be kinder to spectators with weak hearts !
Congrats again Roger ! its been such a treat to just watch him play , i think he totally deserves the World No:1 ranking and G.O.A.T status now , what a comeback for him after he was totally written off exactly an year ago by many after a defeat in a similarly grueling 5 set marathon . The icing on cake would be an US Open win by defeating Nadal in the final !!!
While i feel so great about Roger winning , feel sad for Roddick though especially after the way he played in this final , yet another Goran ?! Hope he is also able to script a fairly tale comeback
Friday, June 26, 2009
Television ga ga 2.0
Before i pick up from where i stopped in the previous post , let me tell you about this incredible site called -' Paleofuture ', this site has ideas of future predicted by various 'experts' in previous century in 1920's , 30's , 40's etc of world 50 yrs henceforth . Needless to say most of the so called experts got it wrong. Which just proves nobody is qualified enough to make accurate predictions about the future . So i guess i can easily stick my neck out and make a prediction for future without much worry !
Why are we always visualizing all these home entertainment ideas with TV in the centre ?
So what i feel is when convergence arrives , TV will not survive . Internet revolution has touched us all and Computers have managed to integrate themselves into our lives and has managed to enter a huge number of homes and the growth in the coming years is expected to shoot up exponentially .
Now why will people continue to back TV as the central medium in a convergent era , its fairly obvious that the mantle will be passed onto Computer (with a wide LCD screen if u may ) DVD player/ set top box might become redundant
I guess its bound to happen sooner or later ... now ubiquitous television set will get replaced by its more powerful nerdy cousin which can not only display visual images but can also do processing and various other activities.
Already this is slowly happening around us , some of my friends no longer watch TV they download their favorite programs on laptop and watch at their convenience without any commercial breaks in between to bother them ! In last 2 years i have watched 5 TV series but i didn't watch any of them on TV. I had downloaded the episodes and had watched it on my laptop whenever i was free. A friend of mine recently told me he had set up his house with all electronic gadgets except TV which he felt was not needed at all if you have a broadband connection. Yes he sure misses the odd live sporting action , but then most of the other stuff can be viewed with internet , live online feed for sporting action also wont be so difficult i guess. Life without conventional TV doesn't seem all that difficult !
This is fairly easy prediction to make , one of the harbingers of this new wave is 'you tube' . the day wont be far when there is a channel on your tv/computer which allows you to search and watch videos you want - movies/ songs / concerts / college fests / video shot by a friend , or any random stuff ! Given the way reality shows dominate the programming in normal tv channels of today , going forward we would have more and more content featuring ordinary people , prepared by users , circulated among groups ... reality TV driven by us / featuring us .!
In short we might move from 'Broadcast' where channels create stuff they think people want to see and beam it to everyone , to an era of 'Multicast' , in which we move away from one size fits all idea of Television channels , idea would be to simultaneously make many things available and user is given much more power to choose what he/she wants to view.
Come to think of it the most popular videos could be the ones shot by people like you and me wont it be funny it were to be a song like "Television Ga Ga" or even a "Internet killed the Video star"
Why are we always visualizing all these home entertainment ideas with TV in the centre ?
So what i feel is when convergence arrives , TV will not survive . Internet revolution has touched us all and Computers have managed to integrate themselves into our lives and has managed to enter a huge number of homes and the growth in the coming years is expected to shoot up exponentially .
Now why will people continue to back TV as the central medium in a convergent era , its fairly obvious that the mantle will be passed onto Computer (with a wide LCD screen if u may ) DVD player/ set top box might become redundant
I guess its bound to happen sooner or later ... now ubiquitous television set will get replaced by its more powerful nerdy cousin which can not only display visual images but can also do processing and various other activities.
Already this is slowly happening around us , some of my friends no longer watch TV they download their favorite programs on laptop and watch at their convenience without any commercial breaks in between to bother them ! In last 2 years i have watched 5 TV series but i didn't watch any of them on TV. I had downloaded the episodes and had watched it on my laptop whenever i was free. A friend of mine recently told me he had set up his house with all electronic gadgets except TV which he felt was not needed at all if you have a broadband connection. Yes he sure misses the odd live sporting action , but then most of the other stuff can be viewed with internet , live online feed for sporting action also wont be so difficult i guess. Life without conventional TV doesn't seem all that difficult !
This is fairly easy prediction to make , one of the harbingers of this new wave is 'you tube' . the day wont be far when there is a channel on your tv/computer which allows you to search and watch videos you want - movies/ songs / concerts / college fests / video shot by a friend , or any random stuff ! Given the way reality shows dominate the programming in normal tv channels of today , going forward we would have more and more content featuring ordinary people , prepared by users , circulated among groups ... reality TV driven by us / featuring us .!
In short we might move from 'Broadcast' where channels create stuff they think people want to see and beam it to everyone , to an era of 'Multicast' , in which we move away from one size fits all idea of Television channels , idea would be to simultaneously make many things available and user is given much more power to choose what he/she wants to view.
Come to think of it the most popular videos could be the ones shot by people like you and me wont it be funny it were to be a song like "Television Ga Ga" or even a "Internet killed the Video star"
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Television ga ga !
Im a trivia lover and since childhood was an avid quizzer , so would start with a piece of trivia which is in a way relevant to this post -"Video Killed the radio star" was the first video to be aired in MTV in North America and it was about singer whose career was cut short by television.
This refers to the changes in Home entertainment industry in 1960's ... till about 50's radio was the medium and voice was everything , when TV arrived it changed the whole game .
But it was in early 80s that TV became popular in our country , Doordarshan ruled the roost in 80s . We watched what they deemed fit and whatever time they chose . Infact for a long time many activities in life revolved around the timings of our favorite programs on TV. For instance 8pm in the evening meant English news on DD national . Wednesday evenings had Chitrahaar and in late 80s every Sunday at 9:30 am all activities used to come to halt across the country as religious epics used to be beamed on Natl Television !
But thankfully in early 90s before cable era ushered in unimaginable variety for the viewer and spawned a whole new industry. Late 90s brought a flurry of news channels soon they were beaming news 24x7 , democracy received another major boost !
In a few years public started getting more and more involved with the content that was being provided , shows like KBC set the dice rolling as it required public participation over phone and later through sms. Inspite of having charismatic and popular icons from acting world as hosts these shows were hit because of the involvement of 'aam junta' and the vibes shared between the host and the participants who the viewers felt could have been one of them.
This gave away to more and more game shows/ reality shows involving public , but again very minuscule proportion of the population managed to make it on screen . Along with the popularity of TV in Indian middle class , other electronic gadgets also started making their entry. The one with the biggest impact was mobile phones and in no time most of middle class Indians had a phone in their hand.
Next masterstroke from TV was to draw these people to participate in the shows , instead of a celebrity judge deciding which contestant stays in the show / gets booted out , general public were given the chance. Suddenly the ordinary viewer who was enthralled by all that was happening in this wonderful box started feeling important , now he had the chance to decide and control the show.
We have slowly moved on to era of user centric content ( a la Web 2.0 if you will )
Last couple of years has seen a whole new industry called Digital home entertainment sweep into households. Now the Indian television viewer has lot more options as a famous movie star tells during a service provider's Ads , he can pause live action , attend those phone calls , can be nice to relatives , can entertain guests , need not tussle with wife over remote without feeling he will miss the match/ she will miss the serial . The digital set top box with hard disk solves all the problems.
The next revolution slated to hit homes is called IPTV , we will have what is called Triple play.
Let me pause here as the aim behind this post was to talk about change that is happening in home entertainment ; So whats gonna happen next ?
(to be contd in another post)
This refers to the changes in Home entertainment industry in 1960's ... till about 50's radio was the medium and voice was everything , when TV arrived it changed the whole game .
But it was in early 80s that TV became popular in our country , Doordarshan ruled the roost in 80s . We watched what they deemed fit and whatever time they chose . Infact for a long time many activities in life revolved around the timings of our favorite programs on TV. For instance 8pm in the evening meant English news on DD national . Wednesday evenings had Chitrahaar and in late 80s every Sunday at 9:30 am all activities used to come to halt across the country as religious epics used to be beamed on Natl Television !
But thankfully in early 90s before cable era ushered in unimaginable variety for the viewer and spawned a whole new industry. Late 90s brought a flurry of news channels soon they were beaming news 24x7 , democracy received another major boost !
In a few years public started getting more and more involved with the content that was being provided , shows like KBC set the dice rolling as it required public participation over phone and later through sms. Inspite of having charismatic and popular icons from acting world as hosts these shows were hit because of the involvement of 'aam junta' and the vibes shared between the host and the participants who the viewers felt could have been one of them.
This gave away to more and more game shows/ reality shows involving public , but again very minuscule proportion of the population managed to make it on screen . Along with the popularity of TV in Indian middle class , other electronic gadgets also started making their entry. The one with the biggest impact was mobile phones and in no time most of middle class Indians had a phone in their hand.
Next masterstroke from TV was to draw these people to participate in the shows , instead of a celebrity judge deciding which contestant stays in the show / gets booted out , general public were given the chance. Suddenly the ordinary viewer who was enthralled by all that was happening in this wonderful box started feeling important , now he had the chance to decide and control the show.
We have slowly moved on to era of user centric content ( a la Web 2.0 if you will )
Last couple of years has seen a whole new industry called Digital home entertainment sweep into households. Now the Indian television viewer has lot more options as a famous movie star tells during a service provider's Ads , he can pause live action , attend those phone calls , can be nice to relatives , can entertain guests , need not tussle with wife over remote without feeling he will miss the match/ she will miss the serial . The digital set top box with hard disk solves all the problems.
The next revolution slated to hit homes is called IPTV , we will have what is called Triple play.
Let me pause here as the aim behind this post was to talk about change that is happening in home entertainment ; So whats gonna happen next ?
(to be contd in another post)
Friday, April 17, 2009
The early morning Jog
Its morning , im jogging ... its taken some time to get adjusted to life here in a new city - Mumbai ... everything about this life/new job is so different ... My interests/activities has also changed a lot over the years , sometimes I wonder if i have changed totally as a person as i hardly feel a connect with the kind of life i was leading a few years back ... earlier i used to read a lot after getting back from work ... these days im always online chatting/reading blogs , watching movies/TV series on laptop ... for sometime i thought there was no connect with the life i used to lead and i had moved into some other dimension altogether like in the plots of some of my favourite Superhero cartoons or like Neo at start of Matrix Revolutions. That was until i started my early morning jog ...
These days i go for a jog in the morning in a park nearby and mostly i am all alone early in the morning and while running alone my thoughts get sucked into a nostalgic whirlpool , my mind wanders off into the past ... My memory jogs back to the days when two young lads in Coimbatore had finished their engineering college and decided that they needed some exercise as months of sitting at home and awaiting for joining letter/job was taking its toll .. the Two of us used to go to a huge ground/stadium in an University near our place ... we used to jog in the athletics track in the stadium which was empty during summer ... i can still vividly remember the cry of peacocks and sights of the hills in the backdrop of the stadium , athletes training in one corner , while we do the rounds cracking occasional jokes , discussing cricket sitting in the shade of a tree after jogging ... i keep running while looking at my watch , there is still no one here in this park today.
Its early morning in Bangalore and 2 super energetic roomies drag their thin roomie out of bed and i reluctantly trudge along and we go for morning jog in the parks of JP Nagar ... the air is so fresh and pure , the place is full of people doing exercise, jogging , oldies out for a walk and catching up with old friends in park benches , laughter therapy sessions ... the place is so full of energy and activity early in the morning as i keep running trying to catch up with my roomies ... Occasionally a sound of Lorry passing by or car honking reminds me that im still jogging alone here in this park , i look at the time just 10 mins up ... i spot an old man wearing t-shirt and formal trousers with sports shoe doing brisk walk ... i keep running
Three of us at office decide to hit the gym and all of us being lazy bones - we call each other early in the morning over phone to ensure we all turn up in the gym and we ensure that the one who misses gym is taunted the whole day . Its morning at Infy Bangalore and three friends are running on the treadmill ... we trade an occasional joke in the middle of it and pass comments on the latest chick to hit the gym , we compare notes on the exercises we are gonna perform that day and how much of 'muscle building' has happened ... i keep running the sun has come up and its getting really sweaty , even mornings in Mumbai are hot ! no wonder there are only a few people in this park ... I keep running its been 20 mins , there is a strange sound somewhere nearby , i stretch my arms ...
The two young lads are again running in Coimbatore in the same picturesque university ground ... they are back jogging together here after 5 long years , but little seems to have changed , the track looks the same , there are athletes practicing in a corner, the peacocks are still abundant , the lads still share the same camaraderie , crack the same old jokes ,talk about the same old stuff and run ... I slow down , the hot Mumbai sun has emerged and is making its presence felt, im sweating a lot , again i hear a strange sound ,look around don't see anything , i stretch my arms .
I start slowing down and shift to brisk walking , the well paved concrete path in the part that im running on seems so familiar , as i walk around the park , my thoughts deposit me somewhere esle , the scenery changes , im wading through the neat concrete pavement however around me there are blocks of similar looking apartments ... its hot and i continue walking the scenery has changed im a road which seems to be placed in Shire and not in this world , its so green and there is grass all around on one side of the road is a slope full of grass leading to dense growth of trees and on the other side and huge and beautiful houses, i half expect to meet hobbits ... im on Canterbury Road in Singapore , i slow down in my walk
Im covered with sweat ... i hear some strange sound near my ears ... did i overdo my workout ? Whats going on ? whats the strange sound , now its getting real louder , its so close by ...
I wake up in a pool of sweat , the power seems to have gone for quite a while . Its so hot inside the room ... i realize my cellphone alarm had been snoozed a couple of times ... damn i didn't get up early to go for a run in the park like i have been planning to ... i again slowly drift into sleep , before finally getting up when the never tiring alarm tries yet again to wake me up !
PS: I finally managed to defeat the tendency to press the snooze button and keep on sleeping and im actually going for morning jogs (atleast i did it 3 times last couple of weeks ! )
These days i go for a jog in the morning in a park nearby and mostly i am all alone early in the morning and while running alone my thoughts get sucked into a nostalgic whirlpool , my mind wanders off into the past ... My memory jogs back to the days when two young lads in Coimbatore had finished their engineering college and decided that they needed some exercise as months of sitting at home and awaiting for joining letter/job was taking its toll .. the Two of us used to go to a huge ground/stadium in an University near our place ... we used to jog in the athletics track in the stadium which was empty during summer ... i can still vividly remember the cry of peacocks and sights of the hills in the backdrop of the stadium , athletes training in one corner , while we do the rounds cracking occasional jokes , discussing cricket sitting in the shade of a tree after jogging ... i keep running while looking at my watch , there is still no one here in this park today.
Its early morning in Bangalore and 2 super energetic roomies drag their thin roomie out of bed and i reluctantly trudge along and we go for morning jog in the parks of JP Nagar ... the air is so fresh and pure , the place is full of people doing exercise, jogging , oldies out for a walk and catching up with old friends in park benches , laughter therapy sessions ... the place is so full of energy and activity early in the morning as i keep running trying to catch up with my roomies ... Occasionally a sound of Lorry passing by or car honking reminds me that im still jogging alone here in this park , i look at the time just 10 mins up ... i spot an old man wearing t-shirt and formal trousers with sports shoe doing brisk walk ... i keep running
Three of us at office decide to hit the gym and all of us being lazy bones - we call each other early in the morning over phone to ensure we all turn up in the gym and we ensure that the one who misses gym is taunted the whole day . Its morning at Infy Bangalore and three friends are running on the treadmill ... we trade an occasional joke in the middle of it and pass comments on the latest chick to hit the gym , we compare notes on the exercises we are gonna perform that day and how much of 'muscle building' has happened ... i keep running the sun has come up and its getting really sweaty , even mornings in Mumbai are hot ! no wonder there are only a few people in this park ... I keep running its been 20 mins , there is a strange sound somewhere nearby , i stretch my arms ...
The two young lads are again running in Coimbatore in the same picturesque university ground ... they are back jogging together here after 5 long years , but little seems to have changed , the track looks the same , there are athletes practicing in a corner, the peacocks are still abundant , the lads still share the same camaraderie , crack the same old jokes ,talk about the same old stuff and run ... I slow down , the hot Mumbai sun has emerged and is making its presence felt, im sweating a lot , again i hear a strange sound ,look around don't see anything , i stretch my arms .
I start slowing down and shift to brisk walking , the well paved concrete path in the part that im running on seems so familiar , as i walk around the park , my thoughts deposit me somewhere esle , the scenery changes , im wading through the neat concrete pavement however around me there are blocks of similar looking apartments ... its hot and i continue walking the scenery has changed im a road which seems to be placed in Shire and not in this world , its so green and there is grass all around on one side of the road is a slope full of grass leading to dense growth of trees and on the other side and huge and beautiful houses, i half expect to meet hobbits ... im on Canterbury Road in Singapore , i slow down in my walk
Im covered with sweat ... i hear some strange sound near my ears ... did i overdo my workout ? Whats going on ? whats the strange sound , now its getting real louder , its so close by ...
I wake up in a pool of sweat , the power seems to have gone for quite a while . Its so hot inside the room ... i realize my cellphone alarm had been snoozed a couple of times ... damn i didn't get up early to go for a run in the park like i have been planning to ... i again slowly drift into sleep , before finally getting up when the never tiring alarm tries yet again to wake me up !
PS: I finally managed to defeat the tendency to press the snooze button and keep on sleeping and im actually going for morning jogs (atleast i did it 3 times last couple of weeks ! )
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Broken Spell !
Right from ancient times , when human beings learned to communicate with each other , spelling was very important to the language. It was one of those vital things which ensured we communicated what we wanted to communicate correctly. We have always given utmost importance to getting this part right . Right from early stages of education in schools a huge stress has been given to spelling , in my school the teachers used to punish spelling mistakes by docking 0.5 marks for each error. An answer sheet with all words spelled correctly was the sign of an intelligent and well educated kid who will achieve something in life !
The main reason why i started writing this is because of a few things i noticed over last few months. In office we had to write a letter in normal paper with pen for some purpose and a friend of mine started writing and he couldnt write a single sentence without making spelling mistake ! "I always type on MS-Word dude", he told me , "it always corrects my spelling mistakes , i just need to supply the alphabets in somewhat correct order".
This was bound to happen to most of us who were working with computers for quite a while , only when he spelled it out i realized it !
I was surprised by his remark but still felt that such things wont happen people like me who were very good in English language since school days. However recently a friend of mine spotted 2-3 spelling mistakes in a mail i sent to him ( i don't run spell check on personal mails as we use words from Indian languages in it ! ) and then i realized that this spell-check dependency had affected me too !
Now this guy has a really good command over the language still i could spot a mistake in the mail he wrote me informing me about my spelling errors (these were not typos as they got repeated couple of times ) . Now i realise a lot of us will not able to spell 100% accurately like how we
used to do 6-7 yrs back when we did not use computers.
But the more i think about it , more i realize that knowing the exact spelling is no longer required in today's world , the computer is here to help you with it ! I guess the brain has realized this and no longer cares too much about getting the proper spelling of all the words typed !!!
The language purists will surely disagree and the schooling system will not drop its attitude towards getting spelling right , which i think is fair. But deep inside me im kinda convinced just like how my brain/subconscious mind felt while typing .. it no longer matters :)
The other day when Spelling Bee contest was getting aired on the TV , i simply changed the channel ... i really don't see the point of remembering such complicated spell(ing)s ... after all we are just Muggles !
The main reason why i started writing this is because of a few things i noticed over last few months. In office we had to write a letter in normal paper with pen for some purpose and a friend of mine started writing and he couldnt write a single sentence without making spelling mistake ! "I always type on MS-Word dude", he told me , "it always corrects my spelling mistakes , i just need to supply the alphabets in somewhat correct order".
This was bound to happen to most of us who were working with computers for quite a while , only when he spelled it out i realized it !
I was surprised by his remark but still felt that such things wont happen people like me who were very good in English language since school days. However recently a friend of mine spotted 2-3 spelling mistakes in a mail i sent to him ( i don't run spell check on personal mails as we use words from Indian languages in it ! ) and then i realized that this spell-check dependency had affected me too !
Now this guy has a really good command over the language still i could spot a mistake in the mail he wrote me informing me about my spelling errors (these were not typos as they got repeated couple of times ) . Now i realise a lot of us will not able to spell 100% accurately like how we
used to do 6-7 yrs back when we did not use computers.
But the more i think about it , more i realize that knowing the exact spelling is no longer required in today's world , the computer is here to help you with it ! I guess the brain has realized this and no longer cares too much about getting the proper spelling of all the words typed !!!
The language purists will surely disagree and the schooling system will not drop its attitude towards getting spelling right , which i think is fair. But deep inside me im kinda convinced just like how my brain/subconscious mind felt while typing .. it no longer matters :)
The other day when Spelling Bee contest was getting aired on the TV , i simply changed the channel ... i really don't see the point of remembering such complicated spell(ing)s ... after all we are just Muggles !
Saturday, March 28, 2009
education-system-when-will-change-come - part 3 : This is how !
I started thinking about the education system when i saw this :
Xo laptop - the $100 laptop developed for school children in third world countries
There is a non-profit arm of the company i work for and they are responsible for spreading OLPC movement in India
Now this is not a plug for my company/OLPC movement .. though i admire both for their efforts.
It was quite an interesting experience to know that children in a school in remote area in Maharashtra were doing their learning in school with laptops and were doing pretty well and enjoying it !
This is about the idea of each school going child owning a laptop and doing his/her work on it ... wont it totally revolutionize the education scene in the country ?
We all agree current education system is not enough , there are 2 main problems currently as i see it.
First is the spread of education and access to it. Second one is the quality of the education provided. Usage of technology would be the solution which would address both these problems.
Once education system embraces technology , it could provide a much better education to children and also would widen its reach.
The whole concept of education will change with laptops/internet entering and digitizing classrooms , the current model of a single person imparting knowledge to 60-70 students in a cramped room, students not getting enough attention , students losing interest/dropping out etc can be significantly reduced.
Schools will once again become places which encourage 'learning' , the teacher becomes more of a facilitator or a mentor who helps the children explore the world through computer and influences their interpretation of what they see/read about.
Since our future is a result of what happens in today's classrooms , its time we stopped making incremental changes to system and take a quantum leap.
If we can build Rs. 1 lac car then cheap and effective laptops will not be difficult for our nation and dream of every school child learning through a low-cost laptop doesn't seem such a wild idea
In case you have doubts whether the children in rural areas/lower strata will learn how to use computers , take a look at OLPC site or at the famous Hole in a Wall project - which gave the idea to writer of the book which became the famous 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie !
Xo laptop - the $100 laptop developed for school children in third world countries
There is a non-profit arm of the company i work for and they are responsible for spreading OLPC movement in India
Now this is not a plug for my company/OLPC movement .. though i admire both for their efforts.
It was quite an interesting experience to know that children in a school in remote area in Maharashtra were doing their learning in school with laptops and were doing pretty well and enjoying it !
This is about the idea of each school going child owning a laptop and doing his/her work on it ... wont it totally revolutionize the education scene in the country ?
We all agree current education system is not enough , there are 2 main problems currently as i see it.
First is the spread of education and access to it. Second one is the quality of the education provided. Usage of technology would be the solution which would address both these problems.
Once education system embraces technology , it could provide a much better education to children and also would widen its reach.
The whole concept of education will change with laptops/internet entering and digitizing classrooms , the current model of a single person imparting knowledge to 60-70 students in a cramped room, students not getting enough attention , students losing interest/dropping out etc can be significantly reduced.
Schools will once again become places which encourage 'learning' , the teacher becomes more of a facilitator or a mentor who helps the children explore the world through computer and influences their interpretation of what they see/read about.
Since our future is a result of what happens in today's classrooms , its time we stopped making incremental changes to system and take a quantum leap.
If we can build Rs. 1 lac car then cheap and effective laptops will not be difficult for our nation and dream of every school child learning through a low-cost laptop doesn't seem such a wild idea
In case you have doubts whether the children in rural areas/lower strata will learn how to use computers , take a look at OLPC site or at the famous Hole in a Wall project - which gave the idea to writer of the book which became the famous 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie !
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Education system - When will the change come ? Part 2
When i started the last post on same topic i took a slight detour while picturing the old classroom , the effort was solely to convey that very little has changed in the system. Its month of March tht means its Class X / Class XII board exam time again .. same old remember Hall ticket ... be in the exam venue on time , do not copy/interact with kid next to you , concentrate ,perform well in the all important exam , the same boring academic rigmarole the system imposes on us... This one test is supposed to determine where u end in life (atleast that's what the kids think or are made to think) that is the system most of us grew up in , some say we are good because of this sytem , maybe or maybe not ... i wud like to believe we made it despite the system !
So this post is my ramble on the current system as i compose this i realise i will make one more post after this !
As i read the newspaper i see stories about how certain kids forgot their hall-tickets and reached exam venues , a few other kids missed their train / got stuck in traffic etc and cudnt make it to exam hall on time . This time all these people called some 'Board Helpline' and informed the powers tht be of their miserable plight. Kids who cudnt make it were allowed to write in nearest centre , the ones who came late were granted extra time to finish their papers , the kids who misplaced their hall ticket were allowed inside !
Thts such a nice story for the newspaper ! But seriously why were the kids made to travel to a far-off centre , why cudnt they give it in a place close their home in first place ? Wud a Hall ticket be needed if the kid is writing exam in the same school itself or cudnt the examination Authorities collect the photo and signature of each candidate . Later along with Qn sheets given to the neutral invigilator at kids own school ,why cant they give a sheet containing Candidate name , photo , signature ?!!!
A poor 15 yr old kid already has the pressure of one exam which (acc to her/him ) will determine where she/he will end up in life ... it doesnt matter if he/she has aced the smaller tests , exams in Class X , it doesnt matter if he or she has topped from Class I to Class IX ... This one exam determines his worth ... at such a young age isnt tht a huge pressure you are putting them under ...
No i wont take talk like survival of fittest etc ! coz my point is this determination of academic worth after 10 yrs of schooling shuldnt be based on a single exam held on one particular day in the year .
Finally doing well in the exam is not just about ur academic worth , its about how well you are handling the stress , how thousand other external/internal factors co-odinate and cooperate with you plus some dollops of luck which determines how you perform in this system . Make no mistake about this -hardwork does pay most of the time .
But when you see external factors like simple forgetting to get ur pen box , vehicle breaking down , traffic jam and a 100 other things make a mess of quite an amount of hard work , you gotto feel for the poor kid being put under such extreme pressure !
So what do we DO about this ?
Proposal 1 :Cant a computerised test like SAT be conducted between say March 1 to March 31 be used instead of all this ! kids can choose their own order of computersied test , they can take their stronger subjects first or move from weak to strong , which ever suits them . Bottomline is technology needs to be used to make the scene better for the students end to end
Proposal 2 : Dont reduce exam to a single chance in an academic year .. give them an opportunity to bounce back from unexpected setbacks . Second chance based on predefined conditions - to be selected when applying for exam
Based on their previous scores / averages the kids can set a minimum and good score for an exam for eg if im strong in English and i expect to score 70 min .. i wud set
the range and if fail to score 70 or above , but at same time score above 50 { min target - 20 } then I can be given a retest chance
On the other hand if im sure of acing say Math and set my min score target as 90 then if i dont score 90+ but score above 70 { min - 20 , again helps to convince the Board tht u r a genuine 90+ type of guy } then u can be given a chance again
Now if u aim to score 70+ and score 42 then u dont get a second shot , same case u get nervous and screw up twice , then u had it coming kid !
[Note :Im just making up a few numbers here for illustrative purposes , but the aim of the exercise according to me is to reduce luck factor , wean away pressure and allow people a fair chance to make a mark]
Proposal 2.1 : Again computerised tests as mentioned earlier to be administered for all subjects , this will help kids with not so good handwriting (esp ppl who write like me ! ) , since no one writes anything by hand anymore , so why insist on result of such a huge exam dependent on someone's handwriting . These days computer corrects everyone's english spelling , so punishing kids for English spelling errors in manual papers doesnt make sense anymore IMO !
PS : Part 3 of this on the way ... now thts connected to education scene but in a totally different way !
PPS : In case you are wondering i did screw up my board exams , but managed to move on and do not so badly after tht but at the same time I did ace another Board exam , so i know how it feels to be on both the sides !
So this post is my ramble on the current system as i compose this i realise i will make one more post after this !
As i read the newspaper i see stories about how certain kids forgot their hall-tickets and reached exam venues , a few other kids missed their train / got stuck in traffic etc and cudnt make it to exam hall on time . This time all these people called some 'Board Helpline' and informed the powers tht be of their miserable plight. Kids who cudnt make it were allowed to write in nearest centre , the ones who came late were granted extra time to finish their papers , the kids who misplaced their hall ticket were allowed inside !
Thts such a nice story for the newspaper ! But seriously why were the kids made to travel to a far-off centre , why cudnt they give it in a place close their home in first place ? Wud a Hall ticket be needed if the kid is writing exam in the same school itself or cudnt the examination Authorities collect the photo and signature of each candidate . Later along with Qn sheets given to the neutral invigilator at kids own school ,why cant they give a sheet containing Candidate name , photo , signature ?!!!
A poor 15 yr old kid already has the pressure of one exam which (acc to her/him ) will determine where she/he will end up in life ... it doesnt matter if he/she has aced the smaller tests , exams in Class X , it doesnt matter if he or she has topped from Class I to Class IX ... This one exam determines his worth ... at such a young age isnt tht a huge pressure you are putting them under ...
No i wont take talk like survival of fittest etc ! coz my point is this determination of academic worth after 10 yrs of schooling shuldnt be based on a single exam held on one particular day in the year .
Finally doing well in the exam is not just about ur academic worth , its about how well you are handling the stress , how thousand other external/internal factors co-odinate and cooperate with you plus some dollops of luck which determines how you perform in this system . Make no mistake about this -hardwork does pay most of the time .
But when you see external factors like simple forgetting to get ur pen box , vehicle breaking down , traffic jam and a 100 other things make a mess of quite an amount of hard work , you gotto feel for the poor kid being put under such extreme pressure !
So what do we DO about this ?
Proposal 1 :Cant a computerised test like SAT be conducted between say March 1 to March 31 be used instead of all this ! kids can choose their own order of computersied test , they can take their stronger subjects first or move from weak to strong , which ever suits them . Bottomline is technology needs to be used to make the scene better for the students end to end
Proposal 2 : Dont reduce exam to a single chance in an academic year .. give them an opportunity to bounce back from unexpected setbacks . Second chance based on predefined conditions - to be selected when applying for exam
Based on their previous scores / averages the kids can set a minimum and good score for an exam for eg if im strong in English and i expect to score 70 min .. i wud set
the range and if fail to score 70 or above , but at same time score above 50 { min target - 20 } then I can be given a retest chance
On the other hand if im sure of acing say Math and set my min score target as 90 then if i dont score 90+ but score above 70 { min - 20 , again helps to convince the Board tht u r a genuine 90+ type of guy } then u can be given a chance again
Now if u aim to score 70+ and score 42 then u dont get a second shot , same case u get nervous and screw up twice , then u had it coming kid !
[Note :Im just making up a few numbers here for illustrative purposes , but the aim of the exercise according to me is to reduce luck factor , wean away pressure and allow people a fair chance to make a mark]
Proposal 2.1 : Again computerised tests as mentioned earlier to be administered for all subjects , this will help kids with not so good handwriting (esp ppl who write like me ! ) , since no one writes anything by hand anymore , so why insist on result of such a huge exam dependent on someone's handwriting . These days computer corrects everyone's english spelling , so punishing kids for English spelling errors in manual papers doesnt make sense anymore IMO !
PS : Part 3 of this on the way ... now thts connected to education scene but in a totally different way !
PPS : In case you are wondering i did screw up my board exams , but managed to move on and do not so badly after tht but at the same time I did ace another Board exam , so i know how it feels to be on both the sides !
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Education system - when will the change come ?
I finished my school 10 years ago ; I changed 5 schools during the 14 yrs of schooling , we always had same kinda classrooms with desks and benches , playgrounds cramped with kids .We had textbooks in which the 'stuff to be learnt' was present , we got new textbooks every year and there was notebooks in which whatever learning happened in class was 'recorded' . Initially we wrote with pencil on notebooks ( with double lines , there was even something with squares , one with 4 lines in a group to improve your 'cursive' writing ) then gradually moved from pencil , eraser , sharpener era to ones with fountain pen , Brill/chelpark ink , ink filler , blotting paper/piece of cloth to counter a spillages etc to better pens , finally in my case it was a Hero pen which contained a flawless nib and u just had to put in the ink bottle and it would drink up necessary fuel :) ... then gradually towards the end started using ball-point/micro tip pens. Then there was that geometry box (isnt tht the name ? ) which contained protractor , divider (which was really a mystery device and was never really used ) and compass and a couple triangluar scale like things .. ofcourse in class we had blackboards with duster and white chalk ... there was teacher who was mostly strict , mostly carried a cane around and did not hesitate to use one if needed . Physical punishments i hear is not present tht much these days. Ofcourse there were homework , exams , midterm tests and other gory stuff which was balanced by games period , sports and other competitions in equal measure !
What i described must have been what most of us had in 'class room' the bare basic stuff ... my older cousins had the same , my parents also had the almost the same stuff ... my Grandmom who was a teacher would also say the same when asked to describe school ... i dont know how different is todays classroom in fancy schools in big cities , but rest of India would mention roughly the same on the topic of classroom and learning ... Oh I almost missed it ...there was something called Computer lab which was added to schools in mid 90s ...
Which brings me to the main point of writing this post , how has education system changed over last few decades ? Isnt the way we learn , the way we ' show' how much we learnt , kinda unchanged over last few decades .. but when you look at the outside world for which these kids are 'prepared' in school , there is a whole lot of difference in the kind of jobs and the way the jobs are performed . Todays workers are lot more smarter , more tech savy , tech oriented than the ones before , thats the way it has been always and that is how it will be. When you go to buy provisions , previously the guy at small store used to write something on piece of paper and total it and tell you the amount . But now we buy stuff from supermarkets where smart looking youngsters use bar code reader and determine product code and price and give you a consolidated printout of the bill and use cash register. This is just an example , any field of work for that matter, computers have found a way to make themselves useful. Cellphones have been accepted by people of all strata and have been put to good use to make their lives better. This is the age we live in , where entire population have started embracing technology to lead a better life.
But shouldn''t our education system also evolve much more in tune with the changing world ? im not saying it is exactly the same , whatever changes have happened are cosmetic ones. Im talking of Radical changes not just in select schools , in the whole system ...when we are living in an age where technology is available for masses , shouldn't the education system wean itself away from the traditional 'textbook - notebook' routine with 'board exams' which has existed for ages now ???
Now im not shooting in dark , i do have a few more thoughts inc the main reason for this post , will put it in part-2 of this post ... coming up sooooon
What i described must have been what most of us had in 'class room' the bare basic stuff ... my older cousins had the same , my parents also had the almost the same stuff ... my Grandmom who was a teacher would also say the same when asked to describe school ... i dont know how different is todays classroom in fancy schools in big cities , but rest of India would mention roughly the same on the topic of classroom and learning ... Oh I almost missed it ...there was something called Computer lab which was added to schools in mid 90s ...
Which brings me to the main point of writing this post , how has education system changed over last few decades ? Isnt the way we learn , the way we ' show' how much we learnt , kinda unchanged over last few decades .. but when you look at the outside world for which these kids are 'prepared' in school , there is a whole lot of difference in the kind of jobs and the way the jobs are performed . Todays workers are lot more smarter , more tech savy , tech oriented than the ones before , thats the way it has been always and that is how it will be. When you go to buy provisions , previously the guy at small store used to write something on piece of paper and total it and tell you the amount . But now we buy stuff from supermarkets where smart looking youngsters use bar code reader and determine product code and price and give you a consolidated printout of the bill and use cash register. This is just an example , any field of work for that matter, computers have found a way to make themselves useful. Cellphones have been accepted by people of all strata and have been put to good use to make their lives better. This is the age we live in , where entire population have started embracing technology to lead a better life.
But shouldn''t our education system also evolve much more in tune with the changing world ? im not saying it is exactly the same , whatever changes have happened are cosmetic ones. Im talking of Radical changes not just in select schools , in the whole system ...when we are living in an age where technology is available for masses , shouldn't the education system wean itself away from the traditional 'textbook - notebook' routine with 'board exams' which has existed for ages now ???
Now im not shooting in dark , i do have a few more thoughts inc the main reason for this post , will put it in part-2 of this post ... coming up sooooon
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