Author

Kanupriya

Bollywood on Social Media

April 5, 2008

After Subhash Ghai’s Black & White promo on Facebook, now Yash Raj Films as well as Devagan productions have taken the route of promo through social media for their upcoming films Tashan and U, Me Aur Hum respectively. Both these upcoming films are having their official communities on Facebook, Orkut and Youtube. Their official communities have promo clippings, songs as well as downloadable pictures of these movies. While Facebook group of Tashan is having more than 400 members, Orkut group is having more than 19,000 members. Orkut group is quite interactive with people discussing their thoughts and casting votes in the polls. Even U, Me Aur Hum group is very active Orkut group with approx 6000 members and very interesting poll questions.
Hmmm, looks like it has become a major trend in bollywood as well to ride the wave of online social communities. Almost every bollywood movie getting released these days is resorting to sites like Orkut, Facebook, Youtube etc. Well, why not? After all, more than anywhere else, that’s THE place where you can catch the young India these days. According to a recent study done by AC Neilson across males and females between the ages 13-35 years across the country, users spend an average of nine hours per week on the Internet, only for personal purposes, and of these nine hours, approximately 25–75% is spent on a social networking site (Source: Express Computer, March issue).

Of late, bollywood has become quite innovative in promoting the films in varied ways. Gone are the days of film promos where the names of actors like Raj Kapoor or Nargis or director like Satayajit Ray itself used to the biggest marketing hook for any film. Now in this age of commercialization and media bombardment, film marketers are trying it all- from traditional media like hoardings and television promos to digital media like exclusive websites to new age television phenomenon like reality shows and now to the latest IN thing, interactivity through social networking sites. With zero media spend and a sure shot way to capture the minds of Indian youth, of course interactive promo on social communities like these has to be the next BIG thing for marketers.

Pondicherry : Give time a break

March 2, 2008

Yeah “Incredible India” campaign for Pondicherry says this & it’s a very right statement for Pondicherry aka Pudducherry “Give time a break”… Got this t-shirt in Pondicherry from one of the Incredible India stalls…

Well, we both were just dead-tired of our hectic work life for past so many days…n it was over four months that we were planning to go on a long drive. But of course work pressure and our series of official tours were not allowing us to do so. Finally last Friday we suddenly thought to go somewhere even if it meant no good hotel bookings anywhere (thanks to Bangalore and Bangaloreans’ weekend trips that getting good hotel rooms during unplanned weekend trips is a rarity). After debating on few places we finally zeroed on Pondicherry… but yeah pondicherry meant one more day apart from weekend… hmmm. Shall we try our luck with our bosses for one extra day off? Afterall we have been working on so many weekends since long. We tried & here we go, we managed to get that 1 extra day off on Monday and so we were all set for Pondicherry next morning.
Plan was to start at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, but hee hee hee me and my sleeping habit, we finally started at around 8:30 am in the morning, route was pretty simple and we had taken printout of route available on net, so it was quite easy to drive ahead. And I must say that drive was just awesome, it’s a delight to drive on Hosur-Krishnagiri road for all those who enjoy driving. It took us five and half hours to reach Pondicherry and we finally settled at a nice beach resort at ECR road. Oh whosoever said Pondicherry beaches are not good are just fools… well I agree it’s surely not like Goa but it definitely is a cool place for enjoying those peaceful mornings and silent evenings near the sea. Other attractions of Pondicherry are serene Aurobindo Ashram, astounding Auroville, beautiful French colony & yummmmy sea-food!!! Oh it’s a foodie’s delight to eat those amazing delicacies… me n hubby were just not getting tired of eating J… and yeah last but not the least shopping, hmmm now this was so much fun that this itself can be a topic of another full post from me. Finally after all that masti for next two days, we drove back to bangalore on Monday afternoon. For other travel related details, you can read my travelogue here.
 Overall, we had a great time far away from the city traffic and terribly hectic work life of ours, no laptop and no phones for three days :-). It was a perfect place for lazy weekend and relaxed time. We finally did manage to give time a break for three days!

India highest scorer in viruses

February 21, 2008

Earlier we were in hit list of spam and now virus! Well, this is just one of the downsides of internet penetration in India I guess. Few months back I had read it somewhere that as per Govt of India report, 76% of mails originating from India are spam!!! And now there is a report stating one in ever 30 emails in India contains virus! “Virus activity increased across a number of countries in January, including India, which takes the number one spot with 1 in 30.5 emails,” a study conducted by a web security services firm MessageLabs said. India has been identified as the most vulnerable destination for virus as well as spam. The ratio of virus attack in western countries is far lesser in western countries. Infact in New Zealand its 1:768, in Australia its 1:298.7 & in US its 1:191.5.

Phew, so where are we as far as internet security is concerned? On an average I get somewhere between 12-20 spam mails on each of my account – yahoo, gmail etc. Despite my all trials of deleting / unsubscribing from all those junk mailers, there is not much refuge from the same. And every fourth email which I get is having an attachment with .pif / …. kind of unknown extensions which surely contains virus. Not to forget those viagra & other such werid product promo mails and yeah our very own O3 spam comments which sometimes are in such huge numbers that the mere thought of deleting soooo many comments makes one scared. Well, regardless of best possible anti-virus software & spam filters, those junk emails keep flooding my mail boxes everyday. Infact yesterday only I was trying to delete my spam messages from my yahoo id which has got the worst spam filter I guess and after deleting a few I just felt sick & tired of doing the same thing again and again! Well, no wonder if we accounted for 76% spam origin & 1:30.5 virus attacks as the repercussion of the same can be observed in my own inboxes as well J. I’m wondering – is it the phenomenal growth in internet penetration in India or is our poor security systems that we are such a susceptible target for spammers & virus attackers?

Sexy women at IBNlive???

February 5, 2008

Of late I’ve been observing these advertisements of IBNlive.com all across web. Whichever site you go to, you see a google ad of IBN which says sexy women at ibnlive.com.
Displayed below are some of the screenshots of ads which caught my attention while surfing through news sites, google or blogs.

I’m seriously confused, why a serious site like ibnlive.com is using promo messages which read like this? Isn’t it contradictory to the brand image of ibnlive? Well, we all know that sex & women as keywords sell a lot in search engines but still… catching attention by using messages like these by a site like IBNlive is quite weird and ridiculous. Out of curosity, I clicked one of the links & it actually took me to IBNlive’s website with so called sexy pics of Bipasha, Kareena etc…Are they short of genuine content that they are resorting to gimmicks like these? To me it projects absolute desperation of IBNlive to increase their web traffic & readership. Don’t’ know the logic or thought behind this but looks like the brand person or the online agency has been given some tough task of increasing their web traffc & hits by X % hee hee hee… Well, quite bizarre!

Beggars @ traffic signals

January 17, 2008

Everytime I wait at those traffic signals, shiver run through my spine to see those kids – burn marks all across their faces, bruises here & there, impaired limbs, weathered out clothes, tears running down from their eyes… oh god, what a agonizing scene it always is…& the worst is many a times kids carrying another infant in their laps & pleading that if you don’t give money that poor kid will die because of hunger!!! Yeah I’m speaking of kids begging at traffic signals in all major Indian metros & in such a poignant condition how can you stop yourself from paying some bucks to those poor souls?
Howmuchsoever I’m aware of forced beggary racket & the need to discourage it strongly, I still can’t sometimes control myself from giving away money to these kid beggars. It happened with me yesterday as well…one girl with completely bruised face & with a crutch walked upto me & pleaded for money. Initially I ignored her, but she kept on persisting me, one look on her again & oh gosh…so many contusions on her face!!! Looked like somebody had beaten her badly, for maybe not earning enough money last night by begging, maybe for not revealing the actual money she earned to the begging racket leader or maybe…oh before any more dreadful thought could have come to mind, I just pulled out money from my purse & handed it over to the little girl. Well, I know I again did wrong, I’ve again contributed towards the dirty begging industry, but…
Here are some quick facts about begging in India:
? Begging has actually been coined as one of the industries!!! Yeah “Begging Industry” so to say…
? Begging industry pegged to be more than Rs. 200 crores in India.
? A child beggar earns only Rs. 10 to 20 a day & rest all the income is being taken by the racket leader!
? Majority of the kids who had been rescued from begging last year & kept in children home preferred to go back to begging as they were not able to earn & feed themselves on their own.
? Analysts have even come out with results that begging sometimes work out to be more lucrative option than a low-wage job.
? There has been enough number of messaging & coverages asking common public to discourage begging by not providing any money to beggars.
Well, I guess most of us are aware of the above mentioned facts but despite the knowledge & our rational minds which say that we should dissuade begging, is it possible to ignore the bruises & tears & hunger of all those kid beggars who just stand in front of you during those red lights? Is it possible to ignore the cries of small infants who are supposedly howling because of no food or extreme weather conditions? Hmmm…atleast its not possible for me, as honestly speaking I keep on getting disturbed by seeing those kids & I either end up paying money or end up thinking about them all my way…and even after thinking a lot I don’t know what’s the solution to it!

Joker in the pack – Book Review

January 11, 2008

Just finished reading this book yesterday. I had picked up this book while traveling at some airport. Well, the cover design as well as the line “An irreverent view of life at IIMs” were self explanatory & it was no-brainer to guess that its another one after “Five Point Someone”, “Mediocre but Arrogant”, “Anything for you ma’am”, “Above Average” etc etc. I still picked up the book as I wanted to read some light stuff.

After Chetan Bhagat’s huge success I guess it has almost become a trend to come out with some novel with theme around “Life at IIM/IIT/X/Y/Zs…”. Surely five point someone was interesting and I personally had enjoyed reading it but similar theme of campus fiction repeated over & over again… ummm nah, I guess its too boring now L.

Joker in the pack written by Ritesh Sharma & Neeraj Pahlajani is all about Shekhar Verma (the main protagonist) & the great Indian middle class dreams. Its about Shekhar’s run in the same rat race of performance & excellence in education so as to get a good job with lots of money & foreign placement. Its about all the extras in life who take so much of interest in your performance and the world where performance doesn’t meant your own performance but performance as compared to others, well as you say typical RG (relative grading) culture!!! It surely gives a detailed view of life at IIMs, hostel life, summer placements, final placements & professional-personal life balance. Well some of the things like summer placements, hostel-life etc are so relatable to not only IIM guys but to other business school pass-outs as well. The hostel life description & Shekhar’s encounter to reality during summer placement days definitely made me nostalgic J. The summer placement part & placement description created some excitement in me as reader but rest all other parts were too predictive. Hmmm and like a general happy-ending plot this book also ends with Shekhar realizing his ultimate dream of job, foreign placement & money. The only sentence which touched my heart was the last sentence “I realized my dream but in all this never realized that I’ve lost the main force who was the motivation for my dream”. Well, in this performance obsessed world I guess this is happening with many professionals of our generation.

To sum it up, I will say it’s an average book with some interesting plots. Its one of those books which you can read casually, finish up fast & forget it immediately. Positive points – light humor filled language & effort of the authors (I must say it’s a commendable job to write a whole book with full time jobs) & Negative points – Too predictive & repetitive plot, well old wine served in a new bottle.

Education in 2.0 world

December 27, 2007

Be it my love for maths as a subject or my strong conviction about need for education / tutoring portals in India, one site which I have always closely followed up since its inception is www.mathguru.com. This site was launched somehwere in July last year & the recent metamorphosis which this site has undergone is a lovely change I must say J. The site has evolved as a very interesting online tutorial portal & as per the industry sources, the site has got 15,000 registered users till now & is expected to grow to 25,000 users by March 2008 (Source: Hindustan Times)

Well, as a kid I remember how many of my friends used to hate maths as a subject & considering the phobia of maths in many students till date I think it’s an excellent move to have a portal like this to make the life of students simpler & easier. Oh how I wish such portals would have existed when we were kids!!! Life would have been so simpler for many students in our generation as well J However, why only maths, I think there is a need for many such portals in India who can offer education to students in an easier and cost – effective ways. Such portals are a win-win situation for all in a country like India, where curriculum based education is being given the highest priority as compared to any other country, where teachers in normal schools and colleges are one of the lowest paid salaried individuals & where accessibility to good education in most of the states is still a burning issue. With such cost effective portals students can get access to quality education in an easier way & at the same time even teachers can make more money as compared to their low salary being paid in most of the schools/colleges. Considering the need & potential of education as a category, I’m all eager to see the developments in this category in future & I’m sure this category will also see a huge boom like travel, job, matrimony & entertainment.

Imagine, another one as NDTV imagine

December 14, 2007

Today saw web banners of NDTV imagine all across main internet publishers. Well, the banner surely raised curiosity & made me click the links immediately and oh yet another entertainment channel & that too with nothing new L… same old daily soap concept. Though I was aware of NDTV launching 3 new channels in entertainment & movie segment but still after seeing the programming details of the channel on its website, I personally got disappointed… same story soap concept, musical reality show & then dance reality show etc…Aren’t we done to death with saas bahu sagas & reality shows? Well, the formal announcement of NDTV new channels always said fresh entertainment but the sneak preview on the website definitely promises nothing like that. Maybe once the channel is live, we can judge its best.
Well, lot many channels got launched during the last 5 to 6 years & Indian Television Industry has surely seen an explosive growth. Infact its one of the fastest growing industry in India, with more than 300 channels launched in last one & half decades. The industry is surely saturated as far as channel concepts & programming are concerned but still in last few months, we have again seen quite few new channel launches. Despite the clear cut advantage lying with first movers like Star, Sony & Zee since years, new set of biggies like UTV launched Bindass & INX launched 9X entertainment & 9Xmusic in recent past!!! Gosh… too many me-too channels with same kind of programming! Isn’t it sort of ENTERTAINMENT OVERDOSE for Indian television viewers???

Well, this one was really bad

December 9, 2007


This has not happened for the first time that I’ve got jam packed in Bangalore traffic in such a way that it looked as if the jam would never come to an end but somehow my yesterday’s drive back to home really left me wondering & shaken from inside. I felt this terrible desperation & helplessness after yesterday’s incident.

A reputed hospital comes on my way back home & so generally I find one or two ambulances running on the road. As any other road in Bangalore, even that particular road is jam packed during peak hours, sometimes so much that a stretch of 3.5 kms takes as much time as 30 mins to 45 mins to be covered. Infact occasionally I have spent even more time on that particular stretch. So, as usual even last night was nothing different when I was just stuck in the jam with so many screeching & screaming horns here & there. In all those sounds, there was one ambulance sound also roaring its alarm like anything, well but what can one do to help that ambulance as those who live in Bangalore know that there is hardly an inch for any vehicle to move here & there if you are stuck in jam. Suddenly my eyes went to that ambulance window & I saw a lady crying appallingly… somebody in that ambulance was critically injured & as per the auto driver next to me it was her husband who had got injured. Her loud voice & continuously running tears were just making it impossible for me to withdraw my eyes from her. That ambulance driver came out to instruct people to move here and there explaining the critical condition of the patient & even public was willing to move seeing the desperate condition of that female…she was just crying like anything & everybody was soooo pained to see that. But alas, no place for any vehicle to move back, front, right or left… we all were just stuck…even with all the intention to help, none of us were able to do anything…Oh god, what a moment that was…I felt like just jumping out of my vehicle & allowing that ambulance to go. But of course that would not have been of any help as what to do with the vehicle… In all this chaos & millimeter by millimeter progress of vehicles ahead, more than 25 mins were over, the hospital was hardly any distance from that place but still L…Then a bunch of guys suggested all of us to move back & there was a small service lane kind of thing in the back in which people started entering, so that atleast that ambulance can move back & maybe try some other route to reach any other hospital. But ohhh suddenly we heard the sudden loud wailing of this lady…she started banging her head on that ambulance window… oh god, what happened, has he died???????? I was just wondering & the taffic started moving, maybe one of the signals had become green… I tried asking my neighboring window, “what happened, is he ok”?, he replied, “looks like he is dead now”!!!!!!!!! And zoom that ambulance went ahead as the jam opened…

Well, I don’t know what happened to that lady’s husband, is he alive or he just died in that jam waiting to reach the hospital which was hardly 10-15 mins away from that area… I just kept on praying that may he be alive as that lady’s tear filled face was hounding my mind… and whole of my way back I was just wondering about the traffic jams & ‘n’ number of vehicles plying on the road… Well, traffic woes are the reality of any city these days but is there any solution to it in a city like Bangalore where the roads are so narrow with no space on sides to expand the roads even an inch??? The city has exploded completely with migratory population like us & the infrastructure was not at all geared up to bear an explosion like this… we all only crib about the traffic etc etc here, but when I see those narrow roads, those upcoming commercial spaces & the incidents like yesterday, I keep on wondering… if there is any solution to it???

Kiran Bedi seeks VRS!!!

November 27, 2007


Just now a colleague shared with me this news & oh I read it also, how sad this news is… very few people are there in our system whom most of us really admire for their gallant & honest work which they have done in their tenure for our country & Kiran Bedi was definitely one of those whom I think most of the Indians really admire as idol. Well, sad it is but looks like India’s first woman IPS officer who has always been known for her deeds & ingenious acts has also finally succumbed to the dirty politics game. I remember as a kid how I used to admire Ms. Bedi & how mesmerized I used to be when she used to speak on DD news. What an aura & what an exemplary personality she was!

She has surely denied the reasons like Dadwal becoming commissioner instead of her or Govt not fulfilling its promise of giving her due position rather she has quoted strong academic & social interests as the guiding factor for her decision. She has stated that she would like to work outside the system & fulfill her dreams.

Well, whatever be the reasons I think she has taken a very right decision. Despite the weird comments by some media guys & few people that she is throwing womanish tantrums to show her dissatisfaction for not being made Delhi Commissioner, I personally feel that such laudable personality surely doesn’t deserve to be in Indian Govt. System. It’s an irreparable loss for Indian Govt to lose somebody of her caliber & as far as her future, dreams & responsibilities towards society are concerned I am sure she will do even more wonders if she works outside the system without any insane rules & regulations imposed on her & will definitely keep on contributing more & more to the society the way she has done in past. I have always saluted this lady & will keep on doing this forever. Good move Ms. Bedi & as always kudos to you!