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 !
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