MellowDrama

I saw Black Friday, last Thursday, on my birthday. I mentally prepared myself for a lot of blood and gory details, chappals strewn all over the road, limbs, wailing men and women, lonely child- kind of images. I was carrying a tissue with me to keep the tears in check. I had even taken a few deep breaths before the film began. BUT…I was speechless through the entire length of the film. It did not evoke any pity or pathos. The film told the facts as they were. It did not take sides, rather it said so much of both the sides. The best thing about the film is that it said much without speaking. I am not talking about messages. The message is loud and clear and in the very first frame- ‘An eye for an eye makes the entire world blind.’ I am talking about the way the scenes were constructed. Inspector Marya’s angst, Badshah’s distress and disgust with running from place to place, the hotelier who kills his family and commits suicide after witnessing the harassment meted out to two Muslim wome...

Saif Ali Khan is doing it now and that too for potato chips but Anubhav has been earning his bread, butter and more by teaching people salsa for more than five years. It’s been three years since he has been boarding Shatabdi in the mornings to come down to Chandigarh on weekends for… “just dancing some more.” “All you need to learn salsa is high heeled shoes and a single piece of clothing,” says Anubhav, who was just your regular lad before salsa took over his life. Salsa in Spanish means sauce and in this context, Anubhav explains, it refers to the flavour or the style. Some more gyan comes our way. “Salsa patterns typically use three steps during each four beats, one beat being skipped. However, this skipped beat is often marked by a tap, a kick, a flick, etc. Typically the music involves complicated percussion rhythms and is fast with around 180 beats per minute,” says Anubhav. Anubhav went to learn dancing as a hobby after finishing college in 1997. He joined Fitness Planet in Panc...

Neena Singh, Senior VP, Head Branch Banking (North), HDFC Bank Right now, on her table, you will find Jack Welsh’s Winning, Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence; Bimal Jalan’s The Indian Economy and Undercover Economist by Cim Harford. She is reading them all. Well, she is also reading Bachchan’s Madhushala and keeps sprinkling couplets during our conversation. Neena Singh is the only female regional head in the HDFC Bank. A senior vice president, she has been in banking past 28 years. We stole some time out of her busy schedule to give us an insight into banking. What is the current scenario in the banking sector? The kind of banking that is gaining ground is retail branch banking. Because it is broad-based as a customer gets all kinds of products under one roof, it is being largely preferred. HDFC Bank is among companies with the lowest attrition rate. How do you manage that?Our objective is to become a world class bank. That can happen only when our efficiency level is very high, we ...

The point which I was always had against a job with a BPO was that you have to compromise on your nationality. But the good news is that this is changing or rather has already changed. Now that outsourcing is being accepted as a global phenomenon, call centres have decided to drop the aliases and accented English has given way to global English. Says Akhtar of Vision Unlimited, “Handling sdervices for clients from different voice cultures is tough. Everyone understands the need for global English. With time American as well as the British clients have accepted the fact that India can provide quality services, so they do not mind speaking to an Indian.”“Now everyone knows that they are speaking to an Indian. Companies abroad realise that it is more important that the message reaches across to a client rather than stress on developing an accent,” feels Sanjay Bhartiya, who has been involved with training people for BPOs for past four years.And just what is global English? Says, Sona a tr...

Aanandika Sood What are winners made of, what is the secret of their success and what sets them apart? We spoke to a few of those who had made it to the IIMs and to our surprise, they were very much human, like us but their determination, realisation of their own potential, their hard work and their faith in their abilities were what made them stand out.Kenny Heish who got a call from all six IIMs says, “I had this somewhere at the back of my mind but I got serious about it only a couple of years back.” Others also pitch in. Says Shipra who is doing engineering in Telecommunication and IT from UIET, “I always wanted to take up a managerial job. For me the biggest inspiration was that I did not want to end up as a programmer.” Kiranjyot, who is pursuing engineering in Electronics and Communication, had also known her mind forever. She says, “Look at the current market scenario. If I am able to combine my technological know-how with an MBA, it is a lethal combination.”Yagneshwar NV from ...

John Tulloch is professor of journalism and director of the School of Journalism, University of Lincoln. He is also involved with the Chevening Scholarship’s ‘The Young Indian Print Journalists Programme’. Aanandika Sood spoke to him about good journalism and all that is new and happening on his campus What is a good journalism school about? A good journalism school has to have a definite approach to journalism. It has to believe that journalism has more to do than just acquire a skill-set. Our philosophy at the School of Journalism, University of Lincoln is based somewhere in the middle of English and Humanities. We are interested in the links between journalism and writing. We are interested in finding out how has journalism changed, its future, its role in the world. A good journalist reaches out to the people. Good journalism embraces issues that people are concerned with. In our School the visiting faculty is a source of that. We have links with the BBC and the regional press and ...

I have been thinking of ways to save my articles with me and thought who not post them on my blog!!! I know it is not the greatest idea bu whatever...here goes the latest se pehle wala The North India Programmes Officer, Embassy of the USA, Clayton A. Bond will soon be taking over from Robin D Dallio, whose tenure in India as the First Secretary, Cultural Affairs, Embassy of the USA is coming to a close. Clayton says, “I went to the University of Hampton and studied Political Science and Environmental Studies. I was always interested in travelling all over the world and meeting new people, so I thought of taking up a career in the Foreign Service.”For Robin, who has been working as a diplomat for the US government for the past 12 years, the decision to join the Foreign Service just happened by chance. She says, “I always wanted to become a veterinarian. I was also very interested in learning languages. I joined the Peace Corps and on various assignments went to various countries as an ...

Yesterday night the real meaning of the phrase generation gap dawned on me. For the first time ever I accompanied Sachin to one of his bank meets. It had been organised in a disco and I did not know that. Now the prospect of an outing, that too in a disco should have sounded purrrffeeeeeeeeecccccct to me because the tv had broken down and all the guests who had been staying with us for quite some time now had left. The house would be unusually quite. So you would think that an evening out would have been a good change. But it happened so that I had a very usual day at work and was very hungry. All I wanted to do was go to an empty house make a basic dal-chawal kind of meal and play Ludo afterwards. The only good thing was that I would not have to cook and so I agreed to going with Sachin. When we reached the place we were guided to a disco. DISCO!! I should have been happy about the music and the lights and the works but it just managed to put me off in a big way and that is when I rea...

The writer in me does not want to write news stories. It wants to write something to which I an lend 'my' touch. Now I have often been criticised for being obsessed with 'my' self but well, there are some things we can't do anything about. So, now when I look at people who are happy with getting a byline and their salary, the halo of my happiness gets disturbed. I can't fathom how can they be happy about their stories being brutally mangled and changed. The fault is not with the people at the desk. Ok may be to an extent. And that too of only those who think of themselves belonging to a superior breed. Reporters don not know how to write. Largely they are not concerned about writing a story. They simply get the facts and like a postman deliver them at the doorsteps of the subbies. I have been a sub and was very unhappy in the job because of my obsession with 'my'. While editing those copies I could not get myself to feel proud of the improvements I would...