Desicritics Category: Media: Internet

One Day, This Too Will Pass

Subroto Pant — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:06:25 EST

One day this too will pass. Each day on social interaction sites on the web, people log in, lurk, comment, fight and flirt with random strangers. They are drawn by the daily fix of interacting on sites that draws them in each time.
- I am leaving now and I mean it.
- No I ain't never coming back again.
- You don't deserve me ingrates.
- Yo! Wassup guys? Did ya miss me?

But it is quite possible that we never come back again. Life is short and not all of us wander around the earth in our 900th year. The first time a friend died was when I was in year six. I had left him behind, in the old cantonment town near Pune, to go and study far away in Nainital. He died due a sun stroke while I lived on in the cool air of a hill station.

Then there was 'dog'. Behind the bluster and fights lived a teen that needed love. Some of us loved boarding schools, but we had gone there because our parents wanted the best for us. There were others who were dumped because their parents had no time for them. That was dog's story too. He survived a horrendous year when his right hand was fractured in many places and he spent the whole year in a cast. Then we broke off for holidays and when we came back I looked for him until someone told me his story. His plaster off and freedom regained, he got on a moped to drive around the city. In another freak accident the door of a car flung open and he crashed into it. He died on the spot.

'Sam' had been accepted in the Masters program of his choice in US. It was his last Holi in Delhi and time to live it up. When we had wound down he was still going strong and drove off to Bhadkhal Lake. It was late in the evening when they decided to head back home but when the truck collided with his motorcycle he didn't have a chance.

M came back in a body bag from his first posting in Kashmir, whatever pieces of him that they found anyway. His father, a decorated soldier himself, had to ask his wife to not look at the remains, lest it sullied the memory of her son. This time there were children involved as he left behind a three year old and one year old son, and the wife he had married overriding objections in the family.

Last year it was JP's turn, JP who was my classmate in school. Originally a year senior, he joined us in year eight. Loud, noisy, in-your-freaking-face-so-what-you-going-to-do crazy JP. Mad about sports and good at it too, in each and team representing the school. The first person to initiate soccer game during a break, sorting out teams to play, endless energy that never seemed to burn out. And gone from our midst before his children hit their teens.

Each death came at a different stage in life. Each one reminded me that it's not just the old and the infirm that get taken away. That life does change in an instance, in the blink of an eye. Memories remain and then they too fade away.

Take care, stay well.

Too Much Tweeting? Mum Tweeting Son's Death Causes Uproar

DesiGirl — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:23:24 EST

By day singing praises of social media and the latest wonder it is capable of and by night, decrying those who use the power of the same to reach out towards some support and solace. The media, the blogosphere, everyone is at it again. Shellie Ross, aka Twitterer Military_Mom, finds herself the latest victim of a modified witch hunt, wherein she is being pilloried for tweeting about her two year old son's fatal pool accident.

Shocked gasps must have resonated across cyberspace when, at 11.08 pm on Monday, Ross tweeted "Remembering my million dollar baby". So of course this makes her fair game as "which mother will calmly sit and type when such a calamity has befallen her?"

What does one do when a loved one passes away? Ring close friends and relatives and pass on the message, who in turn do the same. When my baby cousin passed away suddenly in 2008, my mother and I rang many relatives to pass on the message. In fact, one of the first things we did on receiving the news, apart from falling apart crying, was ring one of my grandma's closest friends, who lives next door, asking her to go and sit with my inconsolable grandma. Not once did we pause to think: "why are we sitting here with a phone in our hand when such a horrible fate has befallen us?" Because that is what you do - in times of grief, and of course joy, we want our loved ones around us, to comfort us and grieve with us. In order to do so, news must be passed.

In the modern world, where social media gains more and more importance by the day, what is so astounding that Ross tweeted the worst news a mother can hear? Didn't that tweet cause her friends to rally around and support her in her darkest hour? What is so shocking that despite losing her son, she could sit and type out 140 characters to spell out the disaster of her life? How different is it from picking up a phone, dialing numbers and verbalising the disaster?

Poor Shellie Ross - not only must she come to terms with the loss of her two-year-old, she must first defend herself against people who cannot believe she used the latest technology to let the world know of what is happening in her life. If you can use Twitter or Facebook to tomtom your latest achievement, post photos of your children and even moan your migraine, what is wrong from using it to gain some much-needed support?

Some people should get a life. And leave the grieving ones to their grief.

Haagen-Dazs, Mistaken Cause

mbjesq — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:59:56 EST

Photo credit: Times of India

As I have written in a different context, Indians have a strange love of parsing insults from the innocuous -- or as in this case, the poorly thought-through. Particularly when the phantom effrontery seems to come from foreigners.

The latest uproar involves a newly opened Haagen-Dazs ice cream store, which had the bad judgment to fly the banner depicted above to announce its store opening. It reads:

PARTIED AT THE FRENCH RIVIERA? WELCOME.
Haagen-Dazs

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS

Access restricted only to holders of international passports.

The reaction began with a sketchily described post by Times of India writer and Chief Editor of Times Internet, Rajesh Kaira, on his TOI blog, Random Access. According to Mr. Kaira a pseudonymous "friend" of his was refused entry to this Haagen-Dazs store for failure to proffer an "international passport."

The story was repeated by the TOI as a regular news story. Both pieces carried the headline, "Sorry, Indians Not Allowed."

Since then, it has blanketed the blogs, generating breathless commentary. Feedback from readers has been overwhelmingly incensed and incendiary, even in response to the commendably even-handed post on Desicritics.

I don't get it. Sure, the banner was stupid beyond belief. But that's just it: who could read it and believe that it intended anything as sensible as an insult?

The promotion clearly meant to create cachet by equating the consumption of Haagen-Dazs with the romance and luxury of international travel. Was this ice cream seller determined to sell only to people who vacation in San Tropez? Of course not. To people who wish to sell us stuff, "exclusivity" means little more than "limited to anyone who will buy."

In Noida, that means Indians. It makes no sense to interpret "international" to mean "foreign" or "non-Indian". How many non-Indians are regularly hanging-out in the strip malls of the heinous suburban dystopia that is Noida? We can agree that the ham-handed promotion doesn't reflect a great deal of business sense in the first place, but was it really intended to exclude 100% of the store's potential customers?

True, the Times of India writer says his anonymous friend was excluded by the store manager (an Indian) for failure to present the so-called "international passport." Is this remotely credible? First, consider the source: TOI. Enough said. Second, doesn't this smack of, "I know a guy who knew a guy who..."? Third, what the hell is an "international passport"? The only thing I can think of is the United Nations Laissez-Passer, issued to employees of the UN and ILO.

The concluding line on the banner, "Access restricted only to holders of international passports" is, indeed, problematic. It is rather artless and seems takes the theme of "exclusivity" far too literally. But the clumsiness of the language also suggests that this was something generated locally and not by the marketing department of the American overlords. Leaving aside the inanity of the "international passport" requirement, what professional copy writer would follow the word "restricted" with the redundant word "only"? One in India, only.

Common sense suggests that (a) this was a dumb-ass promotional idea, (b) to foster the equally dumb-ass consumption of absurdly overpriced ice cream, (c) badly mishandled in the execution by some dumb-ass Indian ad agency, (d) on behalf of some dumb-ass decision-maker either at the franchisee or within the licensor's organization. The interesting issue is the last. Who was ultimately responsible for this idiocy? If there is insult to be found in this fiasco, was it a racist barb emanating from shameless foreigners?

I did a little investigation, calling first to Nestle, which owns the Haagen-Dazs brand, and then to the public relations office of General Mills, Inc., which owns the rights to all Haagen-Dazs franchise licensing outside of North America. The spokespeople at both companies stated that each store is an individual franchisee, with "independent responsibility and control of advertising and promotion." This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that General Mills didn't have a hand in the fiasco.

And which General Mills?

The next morning, I received an email from the director of Haagen-Dazs brand management at General Mills India Pvt. Ltd., Arindam Halder. Mr. Halder is the architect of brand management for Haagen-Dazs in India, and the man responsible for overseeing the opening of franchises like the one in Noida. His note offers some important details, which support my reading of the event as an ill-conceived marketing idea made even worse by incoherent manifestation:

There have been some reports on various online media alleging that the recently opened Häagen-Dazs shop in New Delhi, India, denied access to Indians. We vehemently and categorically deny this. Häagen-Dazs products and our Häagen-Dazs shop in India are and will always be for our consumers in India.
The recently opened Haagen-Dazs shop is open to one and all, and there’s no question of barring entry to anyone on any basis. The preview on Thursday, 10th December had a morning media event which was attended by journalists of repute from Indian media. The same evening we had a launch party for our friends and families, less than 5% of whom were foreigners. Also, during the mock training days at the shop leading up to 10th December, a lot of interest were generated and hundreds of walk ins were given samples of our ice cream. The store is now open to all public and seeing brisk business.

The poster in question was part of initial local store communication at a few locations within the same mall announcing the opening of the new Häagen-Dazs shop in the mall. The message was intended to suggest that you can enjoy, for instance, a taste of the French Riviera without traveling to France – by enjoying Häagen-Dazs. Unfortunately the reference to the international passport holder on the poster may have led to a significant miscommunication. This was completely unintended and we apologize for creating the misimpression that may have hurt our sentiments as Indians.

Regards,

Arindam Haldar
General Mills India

Clearly, there was no intent or attempt to exclude Indians; and we can all agree the brouhaha was the result of what Mr. Haldar euphemistically describes as a "significant miscommunication." But there are two very pregnant ambiguities in his statement. First, the "local store communication" language doesn't make clear who originated the promotional idea or created the banner, General Mills India (namely, him) or the franchisee. It simply says that the campaign was deployed locally, in the mall where the store was located. Second, the last line, in which Mr. Haldar says, on behalf of General Mills India, "[W]e apologize for creating the misimpression", suggests rather strongly that the banner came directly from General Mills India. It sounds very different than, say, "We regret that this misimpression occurred at a Haagen-Dazs franchise."

The concluding apology is also laugh-out-loud funny. So eager is Mr. Halder to self-identify as Indian, he essentially begs forgiveness for an Indian company having offended itself.

What conclusions can we draw from all this?

I think we can agree that there is no evil foreign hand in this story, no American or European racist out to mistreat Indians in their own country or determined to slight them. Indeed, Mr. Kaira of TOI got it exactly right (in his original essay, not the subsequent, abbreviated news item), even if he failed to look at the contribution of the licensor:

Whatever it is, it is idiotic. I checked later and found that the franchisee is an Indian company based in Delhi and the man incharge [sic] is also an Indian. I have often maintained that we ourselves are our biggest enemies. Our mentality is that of slaves and we think anything is good only if its approved by foreigners, or the “holders of international passport”. This is all about how India and Indians see themselves. Foreigners have nothing to do with it.

I don't necessarily fault the bloggers fanning the flames of this supposed outrage for failing to take the 15 minutes Mr. Kaira and I did to pick up the phone and get the facts. It is slightly disappointing, however, that the online commentators have almost uniformly ignored the obvious lack of malicious intent behind the fucked-up promotion. And there is yet deeper culpability in repeating only the tastiest, most shocking morsels of this story, in complete disregard of the basic fact that the errors in judgment were made not by foreigners, but by Indians -- even though this was reported and thoughtfully analyzed in Mr. Kaira's original story. This episode presents a cautionary study of how untrustworthy and manipulable online information can become as true journalism cedes way to what passes for "citizen journalism" in the blog world. It is always tempting to tell the story, not according to the facts, but according to the sermon one wishes to preach. The art is to tell a morally compelling story within the bounds of the evidence.

To her credit, and as we would expect, Deepti Lamba's Desicritics essay tells the full story -- as it was revealed in the original TOI piece -- and doesn't shy away from noting Indian responsibility for both the debacle itself and the underlying attitudes which engendered it. Yet, even Dee reaches the abrupt and slightly ambiguous conclusion that "racist brands" should be chased from India. Brands aren't ethical agents. People and corporations are. And those at the heart of this story were Indian. Perhaps Dee's intended plea is to abolish self-loathing; but somehow the anti-foreign implication creeps through.

There will be some, of course, bitterly disappointed that there is no longer a foreign scapegoat by whom to feel insulted; but they will have no difficulty transferring their ire to me for pointing this out. And it will feel just as good, since I am a foreigner.

If Indians want to salvage some national pride from the situation, they can always take encouragement from the fact this crazy promotion could happen in Mother India, but could never have occurred in the United States. After all, most Americans don't have a passport and have not heard of France.

Poetry: tweems - tweet-poems

temporal — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:14:02 EST

rajasthan
she pulled her palloo
across her face
and handed him his lunch
the smile on his face
spelled love
in the mid noon sun

wailing
unresolved
irreconcilable
mushrooming fault-lines
raining all over
turning walls
into wailing ones

such
kisay dhoond rahay ho?
such ko
woh busy hay
busy?
haaN - bridge tournament
oh
such khuda ka partner hay
oh achcha

truth
searching for something?
yes, Truth
Truth is busy
busy?
yes, playing bridge
oh!
Truth is God's partner
oh, ok

persiflage
so much can be revealed
how much, she asked
way too much but not all
you are mischievous
believe that at your peril

tou maiN kya karooN
suraj ki roshni
barish ki cheetaiN
kisi ki muskurahat
kisi ki bakwas
sub per barabar girti haiN

musing
sunlight
raindrops
captivating smile
idle chatter
are so democratic

irony

it is shutters down late

kiya karaiN?

we can only

make love, surf

or sleep

Facebook Messages That Annoy Me

Saurin Parikh — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:28:23 EST

Nothing annoys me more than these Facebook messages:

Still sleepy… yawwwwwwwn…

Variants: Had a good night’s sleep, Didn’t have a good night’s sleep, Is it morning already?

Ok, so you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or for a change, maybe even on the right side of the bed. But why tell me about that? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Why should anyone sympathize with you when you were up all night surfing porn or worrying over why your latest crush didn’t answer your call? Newsflash: no one cares how your night went, unless they spent it with you.

I hate Mondays!

Variants: I wish it was Saturday, Can I have 2 Sundays please?, Why is the weekend only 2 days? Its 1:34 am and I’m still at work, Sunday at work

I don’t understand why people don’t like Mondays. Probably because I’m not stuck in a job I hate doing. Probably because I don’t have to drag myself out of bed dreading the drudgery of the next 10 hours. And probably because I don’t have to lick posteriors to make a living. Another newsflash: hating Mondays ain't cool, doing some work that you really like is.

Sunday is Funday

Oh really? Then why are you spending it on FB? Don’t you have anything better to do, loser? I pity those whose idea of fun is FB.

I feel like…

Variants: I want to…, I wish I could…, Next month, I’m going to…

Wow, a guessing game! All your friends are so lucky that you’re giving them the golden opportunity of completing your sentences. Why don’t you give them the chance to help you finish pooping as well? Actually, the biggest losers are not those who post such messages, they are those who add comments to such messages.

Quotes by famous people

Reality check: everyone in your friends list knows that you’re too dumb to think of something so intelligent. Everyone knows that someone more famous and definitely wiser said whatever you’ve posted. So stop making a bigger fool out of yourself and give credit to the original quoter. Here’s one quote from me that you should post, with due credit to me of course – ‘The world is made up of two kinds of people: those who agree with me, and those who are wrong.’

Philosophical/Motivational messages

Examples: (1) The world is made of stairs, and there are those who go up and those who go down.

(2) The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more........!!

Groan, you make me want to puke. Here’s some philosophy from me that you should always keep in mind if you really want to come up in life – ‘The sun will never shine up your ass and that’s where your brains are.’

Go figure.

Don’t feel like doing anything…

Variants: Don’t wanna study, Don’t wanna work

Doesn’t posting messages, taking quizzes and playing games on FB qualify as doing something? And as far as those who don’t want to study or work, try telling that to your mom or your boss if you really have the balls.

Watching Balika Vadhu on Colors

Variants: Walking in my garden, Sitting on the pot, @ gym, Getting bored, Walking in my garden

Did anyone ever ask you for a minute-by-minute update of your daily routine? It’s wonderful that you have phone that allows you to access the internet, but so does everyone else. It’s 2009, not 1999. And why can’t you just enjoy doing whatever you’re doing? Are you so insecure that you can’t resist the urge to ensure that everyone knows what you’re doing? And frankly, watching mundane shows on TV isn’t something you should be boasting about, it’s something you should be ashamed of.

Off to Honolulu…

Variants: Just back from Goa…, In China…

So you’re going on a vacation. You’ve worked really hard all year, your leaves were cancelled three times before, but now finally you’re off for the much-needed holiday and hence, it’s time to make everyone jealous. Right? You’re wrong, as always. No one will be jealous, only happier because you won’t be spamming the FB homepage with your useless messages.

By the way, for the record, the only good FB messages are links to blog posts.

Tweeting the Kampala Riots: Access to Information

Zehra Rizvi — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:24:35 EDT

So, it's official. I love Twitter. Love it love it love it. As does my blogging buddy Toaf and I echo his sentiments when he said, everyone is blogging about twitter, I will too. His blog post ends up being something I am thinking about myself but just in Afghanistan instead of Kampala. It's true - everyone is writing about Twitter, Facebook, blogging and the power of social media, so why not me too?

I had joined Twitter about two years ago but didn't tweet for ages or check it or anything, and then all of a sudden, on moving to Kampala, not sure why, but I got active on it again. Actually, I do know why. Same reason my Facebooking and my blogging had a resurgence. It's a great way, a one stop shop for me to stay in touch with friends and family. It's fantastic, especially when you are on slow internet and you DO want to stay in touch. People are not an easy phone call away (not on a 7 hour difference, anyhow!)...

So I had been tweeting along and adding people selectively, and I even read a book about twitter All a Twitter by @TeeMonster (Tee Morris), which I mentioned last time and I keep saying I will write a review about (yeah, some day).

The real power of tweeting came to me during the last few days of rioting we've had in Kampala. Quick background on the riots: The Buganda King wanted to visit a part of his kingdom and Museveni, the President said, no, you can't until you meet two conditions, so pick up the phone and talk to me. The Buganda's in Uganda (6 mil in a country of about 30 mil) took offense and started rioting. Short and sweet. Google it to get more stories/background/in depth analysis if you really need to. Back to why I love twitter:

I remember when the Iranian election violence was going on and hearing about how everyone was using twitter and keeping abreast of things but I didn't really take it seriously. It was removed from me and I didn't get into it at that point. But this time, obviously, as I live quite close to where everything was going down, twitter became a lifeline.

I am working as a consultant out here in Kampala and normally, I am used to being a full fledged member of a delegation and being plugged into everything. (I wrote about it here and as it says, Kampala is totally safe and a lovely place to live). Not this time. Micky, my husband of three weeks, was away in the UK for a week and I was by myself and had no access to radio and no local TV channels. In case you think I'm a total loser, I would like to clarify that I did just move here (and that includes a three week break outside of the country for my wedding).

I heard about the rioting but the first day just thought, yeah ok, it's just protestors in town. I took it easy on Thursday and since I work from home, it didn't really bother me. Friday, when I had to go to the office, I asked my maid who came in that morning, all OK outside? And she was like, NO, it's not. I called up the woman I was supposed to meet, to cancel the meeting and she was like, yeah yeah, it's fine - come on out. Lessons learned here: TRIANGULATE your information. How MANY times have I done this?? Always always always hunt for the third opinion. Sheesh.

I went out to the office and was driving in eerily quiet streets (it's just a ten minute drive) and was standing in the office and all of a sudden heard a rat ta tat tat. No one else really blinked, so I was like, hmm, OK, my imagination. Second time I heard the sound, I was like, umm, guys, what's that? Answer: Police firing live rounds into crowds to disperse them.

Great. I am close enough to hear the shots and in about five minutes, there were shots on the street the office was on. Really, that's fantastic. For someone like ME, who takes security so super seriously, I was really out of the loop and annoyed about it. I still finished up my meetings and then headed home (with a pit stop to stock up on groceries for the weekend).

I came home and tweeted about it. Just one message. And all of a sudden, got a response from someone I didn't know. How @UgInsomniac found my tweet, was a mystery to me but then I saw the hash tag. I did a search on Kampala on twitter and was plugged in BIG time to everything. I spent the next day and a half glued to twitter and watched as the Kampala stories came flooding in.

It was incredible. There has been a media blackout and the only way for me and lots of others, including major newspapers to follow what was going on was through twitter. There was a map on Uganda Witness that very clearly showed where riots, civilians, deaths, military presence etc all were and it was information being received through twitter that filled it in . And it's not that it was just news flowing in. It was about the community of news and the support I felt from everyone who was tweeting. We were all in it together. Every once in a while, someone would crack a joke, or respond to yours and it helped in a situation where I felt like I didn't have anyone really, to turn to and I could have been living in a vacuum.

In the past two days of calm, the Kampala forum on twitter is posting blogs (two excellent ones that write about tweeting and the riots, WAY better than I have can be found here and here) and recapping what happened and staying in touch sporadically. The BEST thing I have seen though, is one I was thinking about last night: access to information.

This is something we think about a lot now in humanitarian work. Be it riots that we just had in Kampala or after a natural disaster: How does the communication flow to people? To the general public. Not as @CamaraAfrica rightly points out, to just the 'elite' who have access to twitter?

My friend Imogen Wall and her colleage Lisa Robinson, post tsunami, wrote this excellent paper on communication with affected populations. Great title, by the way. Left in the Dark: The Unmet need for information in humanitarian response. The link will take you to ODI’s website where you can get a synopsis of the arguments put forth not just in her paper but also what others think need to be done. Imo is a journalist and was working in Aceh at the time of the tsunami and this was a hot topic. It was a hot topic everywhere and something we were consistently failing on. Keeping people we were there to serve abreast and informed of developments. The World Disasters Report 2005, a publication of the Red Cross, stated access to information as a basic right and one that we had to look at more seriously (which, I think, is what also triggered Imo et al to write the paper).

A quote from John Mitchell Head of ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action) to start off the report says:

The flow of information throughout the disaster cycle is crucial for effective humanitarian operations. This year's report, with illuminating examples from before, during and after emergencies, will be welcomed by practitioners and policy-makers.

It took about THREE years, but last year, in New York, hosted by OCHA, there was a srious discussion about access to communication and from it, started a group. I have my issues with the group (it’s primarily journos and comms people within agencies and there needs to be more field practioners) and I know they have set up a working group etc to start to deal with how to improve communication. I will try and get permission to get emails etc IF people are interested in how to join or contribute to the group. Leave me a comment if you want the info.

Having said ALL this, I think there are important lessons to be learned and ways to move forward from the riots. I think the most important thing coming out of this is that communication was down. TV and radio were just not working and there was a media blackout. There was some of us, with internet access and twitter access who were able to stay in the loop but we were literally a HAND FULL of people. As @CamaraAfrica tweeted just this morning, her taxi driver was saying, yeah yeah, it’s fine, nothing wrong. (She also gave a rec for a great place to have a massage post riots...YAY!). There is a gap in communication and there are ways to be able to fix that, be it in a situation of a natural disaster or something like the Kampala riots. You could easily be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was, but got lucky.

Movie Review: Julie and Julia - For The Love of Julia

Harsha Goolya — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:58:10 EDT

Yes! It's been over a month since THE RELEASE (Julie and Julia) and it's a movie that is running very successfully, and no, I haven't stopped talking about and probably never will!

I am absolutely in love with Julia and Meryl Streep's near perfect portrayal of her. There is simplicity, humor and a certain charm that makes this movie have the effect of a warm donut in chocolate sauce.After compiling the responses of friends who have watched this movie, I must say they were left feeling the following:

* Very hungry-complete recall of all the delightful and perfect food that becomes the essence of the movie
* Weather transforms to a balmy romantic night where there's a song on your lips and the smiles of a stranger would seem like an extension of the warmth that envelops you
* Passion overflows- the search for the absolute love of life resumes.All the dull, boring routines don't seem like a burden anymore as the higher purpose beckons!

Yes, Julia invites you to a world that is cheerful, familiar and innocent! An old world yesteryear movie appeal blankets you.

It is a story of two remarkable women- Julia Child every bit a legend who brought French cooking to a servantless America (a term she coined herself, while looking for ways to present her cookbook) along with her ingenious and supportive husband Paul Child who played multiple roles in making a success of her passion for cooking and TV show. He could've gotten himself a business methods patent in the present times for his inventiveness in preparing part of the dish before the show. This was a first in the history of food television.

The other central character of the movie is the author of the book Julie & Julia - Julie Powell who took on the daunting task of making 512 recipes in a year. As indicated by her, she had a regular existence as a Government servant whose writing career went nowhere and was freaking as the thirty year age mark approached. At this juncture in life, she found the Julie Julia project gave her strength, sustenance and a responsibility to make every day newer through the recipes she replicated. Isn't that one heck of a storyline - a story in a story to inspire another. That's the effect it will have on you.

About the acting - the effervescent Julia Child could only be played by one of the greatest living actresses Meryl Streep! She gained 15 pounds to play the rule of Julia and had to wear very high heels throughout the filming as the real Julia towered at a 6 ft 2''. Meticulous as she is, Meryl has perfected the lilt in Julia's voice and makes it as authentic that friends who watched the original Julia child swear that she was perfect. Is there a higher benchmark for the woman with the highest number of Oscar nominations?Maybe not, only the next nomination would say!

The movie also left me with a thought, about our love for food, every Indian's love for food. If Bollywood would cash in on our craze for food and make an inspired version of this movie (apparently a first movie on a blog) would the movie be called Tarla aur Sarla in honour of our cooking legend Tarla Dalal or would there be a spin and dramatization of the story a possible East west masala where the movie would be Indra aur Sandra after the popular food blogger Indra of Mahanandi fame whose blog has become the quintessential guide to many Americans interested in Indian cuisine?

Warning! Many such questions may spin in your head after watching this movie! Do not deprive yourself - Bon Appetit!

PS: A video with Julie Powell

To The Cynics With Love: An Ode to Twitter

Sanjukta Basu — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:48:50 EDT

My sister is a complete opposite of who I am, she is more like dad and I am more like mom and since mom and dad have nothing in common, sis and I were bound to be different. She belongs to this ‘old is gold’ school of thought, like those conservatives who think everything new, particularly in the field of technology, is a conspiracy to spoil the nation’s youth, those who whine over emails and are often lost in cheerful nostalgia about those beautiful days of hand written letters and pink envelopes carried by pigeons. (Good thing is she doesn’t think too highly of blogs either so chances are she wouldn’t be reading this)

So sometime back she had put this YouTube video (which she thought was funny, I didn’t and I am writing this post to tell you why) on her facebook profile and asked me to see. [Link to the video]

I told you she belongs to the old school. So the video was a terrible take on Twitter. It said Twitter is for people who are self-centered exhibitionists who only want to flaunt their extra ordinary life style. That, on Twitter people think they are talking but they are actually are not talking because no body is listening, that even though you think you are keeping in touch with your friends and telling them what you are doing all the time, truth is those on Twitter have no friends.

I totally hated the video which my sister loved enough to share it with her Facebook friends. So I asked her, very cautiously lest we pick up a fight, “Why don’t you see Twitter as sharing? Everybody likes to share, didn’t you want to share the video, wouldn’t you be happy if more people saw what you shared and may be agreed with you, or even disagreed but reacted in some way?” She said, “No, I didn’t want to share it with the whole world, I only wanted to share it with you and some close friends, and probably post it on my profile only to give an idea to visitors about what I think of Twitter.”

It doesn't matter to her whether people at large know what she thinks of Twitter but it does matter whether her close friends and family know. She being a private person is against the idea of putting her whole life out there in front of the world nonetheless she too once in a while feels like reaching out to very close friends through Facebook.

Ultimately, she is restricting the use of social media but she is still using it.

Same is true for Twitter, you need not necessarily be sharing your updates with the whole world. You can choose to keep only your family in your timeline, you can privatize your updates so that random strangers don’t read them. You choose who follows you and who you follow.

This is true for most social media sites. You cannot generalize the usage of Twitter or any other social media tool for that matter in big square boxes. There are tons of creative users out there using these tools for various purposes. I’ll talk about Twitter specifically, not every body who tweets, do it for the same reasons as others. Not every body tweets the same information either. Sure, there are some people who are exhibitionist, who tweet to flaunt their extra ordinary life; sure there are some very lonely people who tweet only because they don't have real friends to call or text. But that’s not everybody.

Is Twitter about exhibitionism?

I don’t tweet for any one of the above reasons but for all of the above. Sometimes I really want to flaunt, so I would tweet something which in my opinion would make me look very intelligent and cool and then I would want my followers to read my tweets and be jealous or be in awe. But sometimes I don’t care if somebody is reading my tweet or not, sometimes I just want to tweet to keep a record of my own random thoughts. If I don't tweet they’d be lost.

But that’s what journals are for, isn’t it? If you don't care if people read or not then why do you tweet instead of writing your thoughts in a private journal?

Because while I don’t always care if people read or not, I wouldn’t mind if they do. I don't have a problem with people reading what I am doing. One might be comfortable sharing their life with a few close people; I am comfortable sharing it with thousands of them why should that be a problem? Why should they label me as some sort of 'dishonorable exhibitionist' just because I am comfortable in sharing?

Through Twitter we really do connect to somebody somewhere, no matter how insignificant that may seem, it still matters.

For example I came across this really funny page called Uncyclopedia. I wanted to share it with my friends as well as with the world at large. So I tweeted about it and also wrote a mail to few of my close friends. Half of them either didn’t read or read but didn’t care to reply and those who did reply did so only after two days. By that time my enthusiasm was lost.

But on Twitter a random stranger read it and responded immediately with equal enthusiasm. Then we exchanged a few @each other tweets over the topic. I don’t need to add him to my life as a friend right away, I don't need to have him on my Gtalk or exchange numbers, he continues to be a stranger but for one tiny topic, for few insignificant moments our minds did connect and that means a lot. Some of us essentially live in the moment.

It’s not true that I don’t have real friends, of course I do, I have a great family too but not all of them would be interested in all of my pursuits so I don't have the enthusiasm to share everything with them, but of the 1200+ odd followers on Twitter at least one of them would be interested in one or the other of my pursuits. So it helps to tweet rather than call or text the close friends.

Also, even if my friends replied to my mail immediately with equal enthusiasm there’s a limit to how many mails I can write to how many friends in a day. Pretty soon I would be called a spammer. No body wants unsolicited mails on their inbox but with Twitter -- hey they asked for it by choosing to follow me.

Twitter is not really just about what you are doing

I was watching this really cool interview with Abhay Deol on NDTV and I randomly tweeted it. In few seconds I got a reply from a follower thanking me for the ticker, he had promptly switched on the TV and was able to catch the interview.

Now, I had no idea what this friend / follower was doing on a Saturday evening, no idea if he was a fan of Abhay Deol or not, no idea if he was at all in front of the TV so of course there’s no question of me calling him up and telling “hey am watching this interview”. A call was pointless, but my tweet was relevant to him.

Similarly I would never know which tweet is relevant to which of the 1200+ followers I have but I still would like to think that I am giving out information that is useful to somebody or the other out there.

Exchange of information, breaking news, first hand account of major events are some of the most popular usage of twitter presently. Besides which twitter is also used as a place to broadcast yourself, like a quick shout to the world. Say you have a blog, every time you publish a new post you tweet the link. People get a reminder so they’ll visit the blog. Following somebody on twitter is easier than following blog RSS feeds or email subscriptions.

Most regular twitters also use it as random group chat on various topics ranging from funny to weird.

Celebrity tweeps

Twitter is now being used by celebrity to talk about themselves, connect to their fans, promote their new films/shows/books etc. With Indian celebs joining twitter and very actively tweeting and replying to their fans, twitter has revolutionized how we view our icons and how we communicate with them. While Gul Panag tweets to share her life with the fans at a more earthly and friendly level, Mallika Sherawatuses it as a fan mail central where she basically waves back to the fan frenzy. They both are very communicative yet we don't see the fans (baring a few) asking redundant repetitive questions like "Are you dating your co-actors?" On twitter, we respect our stars more because we get to see their human side sans the glitter.

About more usages, I’ll just say, as many users, as many usages. Twitter is like talking, can we make a list of usages of our ability to talk?

Twitter and ‘privacy’

I don’t understand this argument about ‘privacy’ around Twitter. Some people have this nasty habit of giving one weird look up and down your person and express silent disgust when they find out that you would happily tweet about how great was the sex you had last night. They say, “don’t you have a sense of privacy?” Then there are some people who would shudder at the very mention of any thing about their private life going online whether via tweets or blogs (Must add, many such men are living under the constant fear of me disclosing all about their private lives someday).

Pray why is privacy always surrounded by a cloud of insecurity? What is so horribly wrong with our private lives that it must be kept a secret? What is it that we are so embarrassed of?

I once tweeted one morning how the sex last night was good and my man asked me why I tweeted about such personal stuff. He clarified he was only asking and didn't have a problem with it, but still I wondered, why not? What is the big deal about a private tweet? You can tweet about the great movie you saw, the great dinner you had, but not the great sex. Eating and movie going are not part of your personal life? You can say you are feeling low, depressed, bored, but you can’t say you are feeling horny. At one time or the other we all are bound to feel horny but we won’t say it. Funny.

In conclusion, I would only say to the conservatives that twitter is NOT a conspiracy to spoil the youth, it is NOT a conspiracy to make us robots or retards its just one of the many things that we get excited about, use, explore and then be done with. So relax, don't sweat too much on the negative implications of twitter overdose.

Book Review: The Nudist on The Late Shift

Aaman Lamba — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:59:49 EDT

Barely two decades ago was known more for its fruit-packing plants, vineyards, and the salubrious climate just off the Bay. Ironic, considering that it has now reached eponymous legendary proportions. The three square miles from Palo Alto to Santa Clara contain more millionaires per square inch and more square Indians per American than most other places on earth. (Well, maybe they did before the Great Recession.)

To truly understand what sets Silicon Valley apart from its various imitations across the globe, one would be hard-pressed to find a better guide than Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift, and Other Tales of Silicon Valley. Bronson addresses the intangibles that make up modern e-culture by looking at the players, from entrepreneurs, programmers, salesmen, visionaries, and failures. he rakes up important questions like "Is the revolution over?" and "What makes one team of geeks outperform another, given similar ideas, funding, and motivation?"

It mostly reads like a zinging thriller, on the lines of Hemingway meets Hunter S Thompson, without resorting to gonzo journalism. One learns of various characters like the guy who sold marijuana to finance his first startup, to the Cubicle Guy who traffics in used partitions. Besides such new life forms are set futurists like George Gilder, author of modern histories Microcosm and Telecosm. Danny Hillis, the designer of the blazing fast Connection Machine, a never replicated computer, is profiled at length. An entire chapter is dedicated to Hotmail hero Sabeer Bhatia. The lesser-known co-founder Jack Smith and the Hotmail code name JavaSoft are referenced, but one is left unmoved by the depiction of Sabeer as a go-getting ruthless professional. Those who know him better might disagree. What comes out strongly in this section is that networking is probably more important than hard work. Bill Gates' description as Socratic might amuse some, but is apt, given his knack for perspicacious decision making.

Bronson follows an IPO through the entire process. This has been done only rarely, once with the Microsoft IPO in 1986. The story reads like a ride through a Hall of Mirrors, with communication masked by concealment, and decisions based on partial data.

On the whole, the book has a Wired look and feel, which is not surprising, since Mr. Bronson has been a writer for the magazine, and has been as much a part of the myth as its chronicler. Thus, in the best tradition of sociology, the natives are not changed by the observation, since their observer is one of them. What makes this book all the more interesting is that it was written in the hey days of 1999, and yet is still relevant, and a useful guide through the trenches for future generations of Silicon miners.

Virtually Real - How Life Imitates Art

karachi khatmal — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:16:25 EDT

(This post was written earlier in the year, in the aftermath of the latest subcontinental chicken dance. With events as they stand now, it makes for an intriguing look.)

How many of you remember Hollywood movies making jokes about masturbation before the movie There's Something about Mary came out? I can’t seem to think of any other movie making such a blatant reference to it – in fact, I remember thinking back in the day that the only reason people were so excited about that movie was that gag involving Cameron Diaz’s hair “gel”. Otherwise, was it really THAT funny?

iMDB says *drum roll* 7.2

That’s not really worth the hype generated about it in 1998, when the movie came out. I remember the sheer awkwardness of it all when the movie was chosen by people in their cousin get together movie-thons - when younger and even older family members would turn and ask the person laughing what the joke with her hair was about.

Just a year later, American Pie came out. Till then, summer movies about teens falling in love and all that shit was as American as American pie. By attempting to fornicate with the pie his mother made, Jason Schwartz’s character deliberately desecrated the clean-as-pie image of the summer movie.

Ten years later, EVERY summer movie, and every teen movie is just about getting laid and its associated pains and little else. (Look up Euro Trip, Road Trip, Superbad, etc)

I’m not complaining, but I was trying here to trace out a path of the time mainstream entertainment felt it was ok to bring sexual misadventures into the non-taboo realm.

(Of course, it goes without saying that the original summer teen movie is Dazed and Confused.Don’t watch it now, because you’ll find it too boring. Why? Because every joke in that movie has been repeated ad fucking nauseam. Its iMDB rating is 7.5, which I think is reflective of people who heard about what a classic it was, and then were disappointed when they saw it. However, the fact that it came out six years before American Pie, and that everyone else expropriated all of its gags says a lot about how ahead of its time this movie really was.)

The point I am trying to make is that humor slowly brings that which is taboo towards acceptance. But equally importantly, that process doesn’t necessarily make things better. An avalanche of movies with jokes about semen and masturbation and messed up sex haven’t done much to change sexual behavior or make it more responsible. Some would argue that mainstreaming these things has actually allowed people to be more comfortable with disgusting and irresponsible attitudes towards sexual behavior.

But what do I know, I’m just a model.

Even if I don’t know much, I am aware of the long running debate over the amount of profanity, violence and perceived vulgarity in movies. The same argument has also been extended to video games, which also involve an unholy amount of sex, drugs and violence within their confines.

Few games however have gained the level of notoriety as that veritable series – Grand Theft Auto. Each installment of the game unleashes a tsunami of controversy. And each installment is so goddam good, so terribly addictive and enjoyable that even if you oppose the graphic content within the game on principle, once you play the game you can’t help but be hooked.

The first version I played was the one in which you had a bird’s eye view and could run over a line of jogging Hari Krishnas.
The last version I played involved the indefatigable CJ and his Grove Street bro’s. And playing GTA IV – San Andreas was literally a ritual while we were in college, with CJ’s endless adventures a continuous source of stress relief and humor in equal measures.
Ahh, the good old days.

An argument trotted out in defense of GTA (an argument made its most recent entry into our collective consciousness in the lead-up to the release of GTA-IV, where you could beat up strippers and such) was that people who played such games were well aware that the whole thing was just a fantasy. Anyone who was inspired by a video game to commit such acts probably would have committed such acts anyway, and blaming the video games was just a convenient excuse.

In fact, the whole fun was the insanity it allowed you to propagate.

Imagine the fun when loaded up with weapons you managed to steal a police car. Immediate upgrade to two stars on the police radar. Now you can drive around the city, running over people at random and shooting them up all over the place.

They have stolen a police car and were driving around shooting, and the police took a taxi and were chasing them and they were shooting each other and as they were passing the main road a guy was sitting there watching and he was shot

Once you get bored with the police car situation, you can get off at some place, any place really - like a train station maybe -

and start mowing people down. Take out your big guns and just randomly kill all the people you see. Especially when those huge pools of blood splatter all over the place. You can literally waste hundreds without even pausing to think.
By this time, the heat would be really on. I mean this is the part the choppers start appearing, and the national guard is called out. The only way to survive is to hide inside some building or something. Once inside, its easier to take pot shots at all those trying to nab you and you can make your survival last much longer. Plus you can kill loads of civvies just to pump up the fun.
Of course, your health bar might be going down – so you can take food, or better yet, drugs.

That should allow you the superhuman strength needed to last for a really really long time. Because by now the cops and the commandos and the rest are gonna be all over you.

They’ll be storming from the roofs,
and they’ll be firing from all angles,
and they’ll be surrounding you from all ends. This is when the game gets most intense, when it’s really not about the game anymore but just firing your way to oblivion. If you get really lucky, and you keep up the intensity, you can actually make it last for really long. But of course, you know there’s no way out. Which induces an even greater sense of fatalism, a sense to fight it out until the bitter, bitter end.
But of course, all this only happens in video games.