Jan
12
Funny! It takes a foreigner to make a good India based movie!
January 12, 2009 | 4 Comments
online casinoedfaIt’s funny that we (India) boast of one of the (or ‘the’) world’s largest film industry, and it took a certain Mr.Richard Attenborough to make a great movie on Gandhi. It won him an Oscar for his direction, way back in 1982. Who played Gandhi? Well, that too had to be portrayed by a foreigner. Ben Kingsley! He too picked up an Academy Award for Best Actor. This was not all, the film won a total of 8 academy awards in all, including best picture, best art direction, best cinematography, best costume design, best editing and best screenplay! Phew! Well, it had 3 more nominations.
Twenty six years since, yet another film made by yet another foreigner with yet another foreigner (Dev Patel is a British Actor, born to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to the UK from Kenya! No, he is not an Indian, sorry! Funny how we adopt all PIOs if they are famous!) as the main character. And, it took a Dan Boyle to get A R Rahman a Golden Globe award for his score. This was not all, the movie also got the best Best motion picture, best director and best screenplay awards! To top it all, the film’s based on a novel called ‘Q & A’ by an Indian diplomat, Vikas Swarup. So, one can’t say it’s an alien story line. The cast ain’t from another planet either. Except for Dev Patel, the entire cast is Indian with the likes of Anil Kapoor, Irfan Pathan, Saurabh Shukla, and Mahesh Manjrekar. And well, Freida Pinto’s a Mumbai based model. So there you go, Indian story writer, Indian cast and Indian locales.
As for the movie, it’s an amazing story of romance and chance, woven around the existence of most Indians (who are poor) who eke a living in it’s large metros coping with it’s realities. The film refuses it’s viewer a chance to escape into a world of fantasy and fiction like typical bollywood flicks!
There are no songs and dances (except for one in the end), yet the film entertains and grips it’s viewer by his balls…till the end. The beauty of the film in my opinion is the way in which it balances hope for a happy ending while relaying gruesome images of orphan lives, extreme poverty, life in slums, organised crime and everything that even the average middle-class and upwards Indians turn a blind eye to and chose to ignore in favour of the ‘Incredible India’ adverts we show on television channels across the globe, promising a colourful tourist friendly destination instead!
Jan
7
India’s large format retail lacks innovation!
January 7, 2009 | 2 Comments
As big players entered the retail business, many debated the death of small kirana stores (as mom and pop shops in India are called).
Many financial newspapers like the Economist flip-floped with articles once predicting the demise of the small shop owner, and once discussing whether big retail can survive in India.
People like Kishore Biyani from Future Group made statements like “Kiranas have clearly won the first round” blah blah!
After going on a rapid expansion spree, the CEO of one of India’s larger Retail groups, Aditya Birla Retail tells the Economic Times that fast growth and wrong choice of locations coupled with high rentals is to blame for all the mess-ups.
I guess there are many more reasons apart from those being laid out, and somewhere no one is admitting that they screwed up in assuming that the Indian growth story will result in a retail business environment similar to the ones seen in the Western world. I guess Indian retail businesses have many highly paid morons! But, big retail is growing in general, so no one’s head’s on the chopping block! Yet. Then again, there is nothing for them to fear considering the overall retail business in India is set to grow at 13% a year!
I for one believe that India isn’t and will never be a country designed for large format retail to rule the roost. We do not have the right urban or rural infrastructure to support such establishments to begin with.
Countries where large format retail rules are countries with transport infrastructure and urban planning that facilitate such shopping experiences. These countries also do have a more-or-less homogeneus average customer profile, unlike India where only a small percentage of the population can afford a huge shopping basket every time they step out! A majority of Indians buy what they need on a daily basis or a weekly basis at most. Vegetables are picked up every day, and the average housewife does not walk to the supermarket everyday. Only busy software professionals, BPO workers, working couples and singles tend to pick up processed/pre-cut vegetables. It is here that the vegetable vendor around the corner turns out to be convenient.
Most, rather all supermarkets do not have proper parking lots, nor do people like to drive to a supermarket to shop for a couple of dollars. Supermarket chains do not deliver at home, small stores do.
Why don’t companies interested in the retail business develop models that are more suited for Urban and rural Indian customer profiles keeping in mind the fact that infrastructure, transport, social and economic realities of this country are really not suited for large format retail, atleast not in the way it is, today!
Why don’t they experiment with home-delivery, catalogue shopping, not have so many stores but deliver some stuff from warehouses. Many housewives in India telephone their local kirana store and order stuff by phone!!! Large format retail businesses seem to be too stuck-up!
Oct
3
Is ‘No growth’ a bad idea!?
October 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It’s ‘obvious’ for companies to be established with a set of growth goals. You plan for X growth in ‘Year 1′ and 2X growth in ‘Year 2′ and so on. Local establishments aim to be regionally known, regional ones aim to go national, and national aim to go global. In a way, aspiring to grow is the only way (that most of us know) to stay in business. In some ways, it’s like running downhill, you’ve got to accelarate just to stay in balance.
Then again, there are some companies that do not have growth plans, or let’s say their strategy is to stay small and profitable. Not everyone manages to sustain themselves in such a state. Retail shops do. But not many companies are able to. Or, maybe some are. Some technology companies survive being small, and stay so by taking few projects, and also working on a niche area.
Micro breweries are another example. I just found this through the blog of 37Signals, whose folk seem to take up every opportunity to justify how to stay small and happy. I guess they believe their company has similar principles.
The posting refers to an article on Chow.com, where the interviewer asks Vinnie Cilurzo, a Microbrewer on the importance of their local company going national, to which he answers…
Not at all……I get calls from distributors all the time from all over the country. But we do this more for the lifestyle…..I can ride my bike to work. …..I think you can get caught up way too much in growth. We don’t have any growth goals.
I guess it’s good to be clear about whether one is in business to grow or to live a lifestyle 
Oct
1
Better Blogs, thanks to Twitter and Facebook?
October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Blogs come in many avatars. And, for someone following people’s writings through blogs, sifting through the various types of content can be quite exhausting. But, thanks to new social utilities like Twitter and Facebook, I guess we are witnessing a culling in the blogsphere. I guess this is a good trend too. This way, Blogs would remain as focused and ‘information rich’ mediums, while other forms of information sharing moves to newer niche services.
People wanting to update what they are up to are switching to Twitter, and people who are trying to keep in contact with their acquaintances, share photos, talk about life etc, are doing so using Facebook.
Furthermore, the new Facebook has crossed over in to the Twitter space, with it’s ‘what are you doing now?’ feature, where people are litterally ‘twittering’ within a closed group of acquaintances. And to top it all, since services like Facebook only allow access to ‘friends’ we see more personal and detailed updates being shared with each other.
All in all, it’s nice to be witnessing a natural process of sorting of information dissemination happening on the Web, and I guess this is good.
Sep
29
When a company does a country thing! That’s history.
September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
How advanced is the ‘West’ be compared to the ‘East’! Half a century maybe. Going by the fact that way back in 1965, the Gemini 4 mission enabled United States conduct it’s first ever spacewalk! And, only 43 years later did the Chinese manage to send their men to space! Now this is not history or ground breaking. It’s just ‘me too’, ‘good job guys’, ‘Oh, better late than never, welcome to the club boys!’.
Space exploration is a ‘country versus country’ thing. It’s a showcase of a country’s growing technological prowess. It’s not a ‘yay! we build rockets too’ thing, it’s a finally, ‘we too’ build rockets thing… But what happens when a private company gets in to this space. That’s exactly what happened when Space X an American company, showcased it’s capabilities in an area that’s traditionally the domain of a few privileged countries. I just saw a video that shows them successfully launching Falcon 1, a space vehicle. Now, ‘this’ is history, as it is the first ever privately developed rocket that has made it into space. Notwithstanding the fact that this was their fourth attempt.
I wonder how long it would be before a private company in the ‘East’ takes up a space mission. Technically, it isn’t possible in China, unless they usher in democratic reforms and privatisation :). Then again, who knows what’s going to happen in the next 50 years in Asia! That leaves India! Well, we are yet to put our first man out there! It’s still a long way to go.
Pics
