The Mehta Boys is a film that understands that in a fight between family members, words are weapons. The bulk of the story is set over a weekend when an estranged father-son duo are forced to spend time together. Very simple set-up and a very simple story. Done with grace, and a fairly deft hand.

I watched the film for free with 1,100 other people at the iconic Regal Cinema in Mumbai as part of the Kala Ghoda Arts festival.

I got down from my taxi at the circle at 7:58, ran across, entered the theatre, weaving past the Prime Video team - who are releasing the film directly on their platform worldwide - and grabbed an empty seat just as the movie was starting. I was sitting in the last row, in the second seat from the aisle. A few minutes into the film, a tall gentleman walks in and stands near the door. Every few minutes he will shush someone, or scold someone for using their phones. The voice seemed awfully familiar.

Boman Irani plays an old Gujarati man. A recently widowed man who lives in Navsari. He is haggard and pot bellied, he has slumped shoulders and messy thinning hair. He sprinkles in Gujarati-isms into his dialogues. He says “nehver” instead of never, shakes his head, and ahms and ahs just like a man who has replaced many calendars. The man standing besides me is the opposite of this. He stands straight, in a smart Nehru jacket type of situation, and has a commanding yet appropriately quite and clear voice in which he shushes people. I thought he was one of the staff. A few scenes and several shushes later, I realize, the man is Boman Irani himself. He is watching his own film. Amazing.

Anyways. The film is quite good. They have captured some very real moments - things that your father has done. Switching off the lights behind you - even if you have stepped out of the room for literally one second. Adhi minute pan nathi pappa. What the hell! Or the, “now you will teach me how to do things?”. It’s all cute and relatable, and a few tears were wiped. And Boman Irani is obviously extremely watchable. The rest of the cast is also serviceable. There is a strange, almost Namastey London type of monologue towards the end of the film. And how they tie the son’s work life into all this is a little hokey.

But ultimately, Boman is more than enough to keep you entertained for two hours, and leave with a smile on your face and an intense desire to call your dad.

Also very funny thing, I forgot to mention. After the film, the principal cast, the marketing head at Prime Video and the moderator, Rohini came up on stage for a small talk. Boman talked about how he loved seeing the film with an audience and how he wished the film had gotten a theatrical release. Which put the marketing lady in an awkward spot, but Rohini deftly handled that situation by talking about “global audience, wider distribution” etc etc. Very well done. But the audience had a good chuckle at the faux pas.

(Say hi in the comments if you spotted the Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal reference in the sub-head)

If you are still reading this and are in Mumbai tomorrow (Saturday 1st Feb), go to the Regal at 7.30 to catch the 50th anniversary screening of Deewar. In 70mm.

Bye.

I should mention that there is another version of this song, which is actually the main version of this song and it is a far inferior rendition. Both songs are composed by the great Madan Mohan, who is most famous among Bollywood junkies my age as the composer whose music was used in Veer Zara. The music used for Tere Liye was first composed 50 years ago for Dil Dhundhta Hai, but then they went with another version. There is an incredible recording of Madan himself singing the song set to various tunes.

But my god, I am two sentences into this post and I already have had to do a four sentence side bar🤦.

So anyways the song goes like so:

दिल ढूँढ़ता है फिर वही फ़ुर्सत के रात दिन

बैठे रहें तसव्वर-ए-जानां किए हुए

जाड़ों की नर्म धूप और आँगन में लेट कर

आँखों पे खींचकर तेरे आँचल के साये को

औंधे पड़े रहें, कभी करवट लिये हुए

roman: dil dhundhta hai fir wahi fursat ke rat din

baithe rahe tasawwur-e-jaana kiye huye

jaado ki narm dhup aur aangan me let kar

aankho pe khinch kar tere aanchal ke saaye ko

aaundhe pade rahe kabhi karwat liye huye

trans: the hear yearns for those days of leisure and peace,

lost in thoughts of your beloved,

lie around in the backyard in the sweet warmth of the winter sun,

in the shelter of your shadow,

lie face down, turning lazily

The first couplet is taken almost directly from a gazal by Ghalib, मुद्दत हुई है यार को मेहमाँ किए हुए (Muddat hui hai yaar ko mehmaan kiye hue). And I learnt this only a few months ago. This is one of the shers (couplet) from it:

करता हूँ जम्अ' फिर जिगर-ए-लख़्त-लख़्त को

अर्सा हुआ है दावत-ए-मिज़्गाँ किए हुए

roman: Karta hun jama phir jigar-a-lakht-lakht ko

arsa hua hai davat-e-mizgan kiye hue

I didn’t understand what jigar-a-lakht-lakht meant. Jigar I knew….jigar means courage…right?

“Jigra chaiye….” is Hindi slang for “you need balls…”

There is also that unbearable marital arts film with Ajay Devgn called Jigar.

But then wait … what does the song “Jigar Ka Tukda” mean? So jigar probably means heart …right? But then there is also that song Dil Jigar Nazar Kya Hai which I sometimes catch myself singing because I was once stuck in a cab where the driver played this song atleast three times, and has since been embedded in the deep crevices of my cranial folds.

So what the hell does jigar mean? Let alone what jigar-a-lakht-lakht mean!

Because I was reading the gazal on rekhta, which has a helpful feature where you can click on words and it will give you definitions, translations and pronunciation guides - I found out that jigar means liver. So the movie Jigarthanda and the beverage Jigarthanda means something that cools your liver??

The entire sher translates to

I collect the shredded pieces of my liver,

as it has been a long time since i have feasted on your eyelashes

Liver and eyelashes? Well eyelashes I get. Eyelashes can be considered attractive and it is at least an externally visible feature of a person’s body. But liver? The dil I understand (heart), it has been used for centuries, across cultures, as a meatphor for love, as the seat of emotions, versus the brain which is associated with cold logic. And therefore I have no problem with Gulzar, Ghalib or Sanjeev Kumar’s dil searching for anything, even abstract concepts like peace and leisure. But hell! Collecting pieces of liver? The only time someone should be collecting shredded liver is from your favorite non-veg restaurant. And then 15 synapses fired at once (is 15 synapses a lot of synapses? I don’t know how the brain works) - minced mutton liver is called keema kaleja. And I had never thought about the phrase “kaleje me thandak padna” which means “are you relieved?”. I am sure in 6th or 7th grade, in my Hindi paper I would explained the meaning of “kaleje me thandak padna” for a 2 mark question, but why did I never think of what kaleja means. And why does the liver need cooling? Why the hell is there a drink specifically made for cooling the liver. None of this makes sense. And it makes me furious. Oh my god that song from Karz dard-e-dil dard-e-jigar.

The world had opened up to me and I was only spotting weird non-English organ names in poetry and songs everyday. It is like those videos where people with colorblindness wear those glasses and their minds are blown. I discovered several examples, and thought of writing a post about it. But while researching, I came upon this excellent blog post from a couple of years ago and there is no point in trying to best it - so here it is:

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2022/07/dil-and-jigarthe-heart-and-liver.html

It doesn’t really provide an explanation but walks us through some really great examples, garnished with a healthy dose of humor.

If you have any other reading/listening/watching material on why we use these body parts metaphorically in this way, send em my way.

Also what is your favorite poem or song with a slightly off putting use of a body part?(ankhiyon se goli maare doesn’t count)

Bye!

Okay let me walk back on that immediately.

What I mean is, I don’t mind being bored. It’s true - I have a higher than normal capacity for just sitting and doing nothing. I like to think of boredom as the quiet part of a song. It exists so that the loud part actually feels loud. If you are constantly stimulated, and are main-lining shallow entertainment, the really enriching stuff won’t seem as enriching. Those awe worthy moments won’t hit you as hard. This concept of ‘dynamic range’ can be applied to not just music or photography, but to our experience of the world itself.

Have you ever cut sugar out of your diet for some time? You only know how sweet a normal mug of tea with 1.5 tsp of sugar is, after you have abstained from it for a few days.

But the last couple of years, post COVID I think, I have sort of forgotten how to just sit with my self. Binging and mind less content consumption, which was, during those dreadful months - starting March 2020 - a coping mechanism to keep the scares away; is now the default way of being.

I live such an over stimulated life! I have so many devices - a phone, a laptop, an iPad and a Kindle. These devices are with me almost 24x7. Even in the shower - I take my phone and put on a specific playlist. I know to wash out the shampoo after the chorus of a particular song has begun, and so on (playlist reveal at a 1,000 subscribers - I promise). And I am so focused on not wasting time, I even plan leisure. From the moment I wake up, I am listening to some podcast or audiobook - almost always for pleasure and sometimes for information. My day is jampacked with scheduled entertainment. And the unscheduled moments (those spent waiting in the line at Reliance Fresh, or in line at the boarding gate) are filled with the many infinite feeds at our disposal. And now that we are talking about screens, I think what is even more shocking that my screen time numbers is the number of times I unlock my phone. Unlocking your phone, opening an app and closing it a few seconds later is the digital equivalent of opening the fridge, and shutting it almost immediately.

Anyways, in an attempt to claw back my life and my attention from the algorithms, I decided to run an experiment. On a 15+ hour journey from Ahmedabad to Melbourne I decided to not watch or listen to anything. I had even disallowed myself the option of scrolling through the in-flight entertainment screen. Heck - not even the mesmerizing flight preview which shows the flight path and altitude and outside temperature and other geeky stuff (The only time I looked at the screen was to browse through the in-flight menu).

And it was wonderful. I re-discovered my love for people watching. How fun is just looking at people doing their own thing (it sounds creepier than it is. I promise. It is completely benign). Anytime I noticed something peculiar about a person on the flight, I felt like I was Shawn from Psych. I slept for only ~4 ish hours. The rest of the time, I was just sitting. Twiddling my thumbs, looking at what the cabin crew was upto, talking with my parents who were right next to me, and just letting my brain wander. I came up with a lot of cool ideas for content projects and such.

I don’t really know what the point of this post is - but I quite like the fact that I came up with the phrase “dynamic range of existence”.

Ok Bye!

An Audible subscription, which at the time of writing this (Jan 2024) costs ₹199 per month, gives you 1 credit every month and access to Audible originals, which we discussed in the previous edition of this newsletter. That one credit is good for any title on Audible. A title may be an audio adaptation of a print book, a radio adaptation of a published work, an audio-only work distributed via audible and/or similar platforms, and so on. Basically, 1 credit can get you access to any one of the paid titles (works) available on Audible.

The Audible library is different across geographies, and I find there to be a serious lack of resources on the Internet catering to Indian audiences in this regard. Hence, this newsletter and this new subreddit (it is unpopulated at the time of writing this, but let me know if you have ideas for how to make this work).

Now, there are titles, genres, and authors that work better in audio, but we will reserve that discussion for another edition. Instead, we will talk about how to optimize your 1 credit every month.

The simplest thing is obviously to select for length. There are six-hour books and twelve-hour books. And obviously, the twelve-hour book is a steal. Yes, it is. I often find myself using up my credit on a longer book. I think I still have a few tips that you might find useful.

• Search for your favorite author and download collections. Here are my favorites:

  • P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1 (nar. Stephen Fry)

  • Sherlock Holmes : The Definitive Collection (nar. Stephen Fry)

Actually, you know what, look up titles narrated by Stephen Fry. They are all great, without exception.

• Full-cast Radio Adaptations

  • Poirot's Finest Cases Eight Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

  • Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister - The Complete Audio Collection

These have some of the best voice acting. Real timeless stuff.

Now for some highly specialised tips. In case you are someone who likes reading multiple things at once, if you are listening to two (or more) audiobooks, or if are you are reading a book with an audiobook, the consider mixing up the genres. Sometimes you are reading a dry, information heavy book, consider listening to a cozy crime mysteries a la Agatha Christie, or a few non-canon Holmes:

• The Thursday Murder Club (Book 1)

• Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons

  • yes it is a sequel to the beloved and iconic Hound of the Baskervilles, which reminds me …

  • The Hound of the Baskervilles a full cast adaptation of the classic, once again, starring Stephen Fry

(it is worth mentioning that the last two are not strictly cozy, but, nostalgia and all that)

That’s it for today :)

audible ORIGINALS are exclusive titles available for audible members, and in my experience, most subscribers are not utilizing this section enough. If you are not a subscriber, hopefully, I can convince you to subscribe with my recommendations over the next few editions of this newsletter.

Alison Espach is an American novelist and writer who wrote a brilliant and inventive comedic series for audio-only. And rightfully so, this ‘concept’ works best on audio.

The series also has one of the most intriguing yet clear titles - “IN-DEPTH MARKET RESEARCH INTERVIEWS WITH DEAD PEOPLE.” It is exactly what it sounds like recently dead people (or sometimes a singular person) in purgatory, being interviewed by a market researcher for a brand that the deceased person(s) either used or has stopped using recently. Secrets emerge, revelations are made, and, most importantly, brand loyalty is tested.

There are three in-depth interviews, and I would be happy to listen if these were monthly or even weekly. All three ‘episodes’ - Volvo, Tempur-Pedic, Bounty - are voiced by a different set of actors and they are all great.

In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People: Volvo

In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People: Tempur-Pedic

In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People: Bounty

(I will try not to mention UPI in this article because while there may be some similarities in how the projects came up and it serves as a good indication of the scale and impact ONDC wants to achieve, it is not a helpful analogy in building an understanding of ONDC. This is because (1) I don't fully understand how UPI works, and more likely than not, neither do you; therefore we may mistakenly apply our poorly built frames around UPI to ONDC; (2) there is a loss of nuance inherent in such comparisons and analogies, which is against the aim of this exercise)

We will center our analysis on retail e-commerce because that is the most intuitive, and we would also be able to put ourselves in the shoes of the various service providers involved in the business. By the end, hopefully, you will be able to imagine how ONDC can work for other applications.

Here's what we will cover:

1. Platform businesses and the current digital commerce landscape in India

2. What is ONDC and what it isn't

3. History of ONDC, formation and some technical stuff

Platform businesses

Platform businesses like Zomato have multiple jobs to do - they have to onboard restaurants (sellers), and also have to acquire consumers (buyers). A critical mass of both is required before the platform becomes viable. Customers will stop using the app if they don't find enough variety of food options, and restaurants won't want to try registering on an app and maintaining a separate workflow if they don't get enough incremental customers. The charges (platform fees) for the increased visibility that a restaurant receives and the delivery services have to be lower than what monies incurred would be if the restaurant were to set up its own delivery systems. Similarly, the added convenience for the end user has to be worth the delivery fees that they incur, or else they would directly order from the restaurant or go pick up their order or eat out.

Solving for both the buyer and seller sides requires extraordinary investments, thus erecting very high barriers to entry. Eventually, as the market becomes dominated by a few platforms, each can exercise more power - i.e., throw their weight around and dictate terms for both sellers and buyers. The platform knows that both buyers and sellers both have very few options. Also, all platform players become stores of values independent from each other (they operate in siloes - another metaphor most loved by MBA types like me), i.e., they are unable to (and are disincentivized to) exchange information. Another implication of this silo-ing is that a buyer and a seller can interact only if both are on the same platform (foreshadowing for later).

The concentration of relative power in the ecosystem also leads to a few points of failure. The classic,  all eggs in one basket threat emerges for sellers, who might have become dependent on a single platform for a large chunk of their business. These platforms can also act as gatekeepers and may enact policies that prefer certain participants over others, with no incentives or control mechanisms forcing them to be transparent. Sellers are also locked in and suffer from what is known as the portability of trust problem. If a restaurant on Zomato realizes they have a large, consistent demand base in their area and want to start delivering on their own, they will run into a few problems. While it makes sense that the restaurant doesn't want to pay the platform fees and retain that value for themselves, they may soon realize that it may be almost impossible:

• Convincing people to stop using a perfectly fine app may be very difficult

• The users also trust Zomato to take care of any issues with payments, issues with deliveries, etc

Platforms to network

A lot of bottlenecks (in addition to the ones discussed above) exist in platform businesses. And we haven't talked about category-specific problems that might exist in other types of digital commerce. These problems are only compounded by India's sheer diversity and size and the fact that the digital commerce ecosystem is nascent. While many private participants are trying to solve these problems, with the most recent thrust aimed at increasing digital adoption among small sellers (see Jio Mart); a coordinated strategy that operates at the scale of the entire country might help.

A paradigm shift from scaling what works to identifying what works at scale

An approach that unbundles this chain can enable greater participation and if this system is built on a decentralized network that allows interoperability (buyers and sellers don't have to be on the same platform) and aligns incentives such that the success of the network (and all participants) is predicated on the success of the end users, can be truly revolutionary.

But wait, let's see how this looks visually; some things might become clearer.

Participants on this network, unlike platforms only have to solve for one side of the equation. Seller apps worry about onboarding and helping sellers while buyer apps worry about serving the end customer. If you are a restaurant on Zomato, only those end users using Zomato will be able to discover you. But with ONDC, being present on just one seller app makes you visible to all buyers on all the buyer apps.

Also, all those videos you see on YouTube about ordering food via ONDC? Well ... they are not quite accurate. You can't order via ONDC, you can only order via a buyer app on the ONDC network. And because ONDC has a lot of buzz right now, some apps use the ONDC label, but there is no real reason why an end-consumer ever has to know that the app they use is on the network.

Now, who are these buyer apps or these seller apps? Any player who has acquired a customer base and wants to engage in some commercial activity can add a digital commerce functionality or develop a buyer app. For example, PhonePe, the country's number one UPI payments application, has deep expertise in app design and managing payment transactions. This is why they launched a hyper-local delivery buyer app called Pincode, which offers seamless login and payments through PhonePe and all other digital payment methods. But unlike Dunzo, Zepto, or any other q-commerce players, Pincode didn't have to build dark stores or onboard local Kirana stores. They just had to build the buyer-facing app. Whatever you read on the internet might seem confusing because there are players like magicpin who operate on the buyer side and seller side.

At the risk of ordering khayali pulao from Pincode, let me lay down what the future might look like. A business management platform like Khatabook has many small businesses registered with it that might be selling their products/services to an end consumer in some fashion - say kirana stores; can come onto the ONDC network, allowing for all customers of Khatabook to become sellers. This can be done through the Khatabook app or they might wish to create a separate Khatabook Commerce application. That is to say, any business/service/participant who by some means has accumulated enough potential online sellers can plug into the ONDC network and enable sellers to start selling online. In a pre-ONDC world, if Khatabook had digital commerce ambitions, it would have had to build an app (platform) and acquire customers for that app, which would compete with the likes of Blinkit.

Similarly, any service that has onboarded/acquired enough consumers, can plug into the ONDC network. For example, Google Maps has a lot of people looking for directions. Presumably, by plugging into ONDC, users of Google Maps can get a list of sellers of mobility services. This is achieved on the backend by multiple aggregators of mobility services (seller apps) who are also present on the ONDC network. This obviates the need for Google to create an app (platform) for rickshaw drivers or taxi drivers to register.

The above two examples hopefully also get you excited for the future.

Now let me blow your mind even further: have you heard of how restaurants might have to figure out deliveries themselves with ONDC? Well, that's not true. Let's go back to PhonePe/Pincode. They don't have expertise in logistics and managing a fleet of gig workers! But Amazon does, and so does Delhivery. Well if these logistics experts plug into ONDC, they can provide their services to buyer apps. The diagram will look something like this -

ONDC enables multi-pronged interactions

In fact, this is exactly what Amazon has committed to do, in addition to providing their store management and retail digitization services (SmartCommerce) via ONDC.

One more thing: if a restaurant (seller) wishes to switch seller apps (for whatever reason), their reputation will be ported to the other seller app. The network enables this portability, and no lock-in is created, unlike platforms.

Now, you may ask, how is the seller matched with a buyer? Will some service providers be preferred over others? We will handle all of that in the next part of this piece. But first, let's rewind and get some facts straight.

History and technical stuff

We will have to roll all the way back to NASSCOM - the National Association of Software and Service Companies, which is a non-governmental trade association - an industry body and an advocacy group that works closely with the Indian government.

Then came iSPIRIT - Indian Software Products Industry Round Table - a think tank, which started as a NASSCOM offshoot. They are involved in, among other things, promoting the India Stack, a highly ambitious project involving Aadhar, eKYC, eSign, UPI, and DigiLocker, and many other things I am forgetting.

Then came Beckn Foundation who in partnership with iSPIRIT developed the Beckn Protocol. And just by the way, the brand "Beckn" is owned by Open Shared Mobility Foundation, whose sole investor is Nandan Nilekani. And yes, Mr. Nilekani is involved in all of the projects and organizations I have listed above.

So what is the Beckn protocol? Well - it is the set of rules that enable the interoperability. It is the "open" of it all!! It contains a lot of specifications for building networks that enable/facilitate e-commerce. So Beckn is the protocol - the HTTP (from the internet world) equivalent in commerce, and ONDC is an adaptation of the protocol.

ONDC is a private non-profit Section 8 company. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) set up a nine-member advisory council in July 2021. It tasked the QCI* to incubate ONDC. Between November 2022 and March 2023, various banks - public and private - like PNB, Kotak Mahindra, SBI, etc, and various organizations like CDS, SIDBI, NSE, and the similarly complicated NPCI all picked up stakes by contributing seed money.

Quality Council of India, which is an autonomous body set up by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and various industry associations like ASSOCHAM, CII, FICCI who became promoters

Now, some of the clarifications I had promised earlier - ranking and discovery specifications are required to be made available to all participants. No black boxes can exist.

Charges? Well it's a bit complicated - usage charges may be rolled out soon - but this is like UPI again ... who is paying for all the tech and the infrastructure, I don't know! Charges for the buyer and seller apps - you can read about that on the excellent FAQ page.

How are the big e-commerce players responding to ONDC? Some are dipping a toe in the river, like Amazon who I mentioned plans to offer their logistics services through the network; most it would seem are waiting and watching.

Details like grievance redressal, weeding out bad actors, and exact details on the liability of network participants are being worked out.

How to deal with large players that operate on both the seller and buyer side who may tip the system in their favor? Piyush Goyal and the likes are hoping that the entrenched players like Paytm, Zomato etc. come onto the network fully, and not create offshoots.

But this is an evolving space and things will change (hopefully for the better).

It is envisioned that all ONDC will need to do in the future is maintain the set of APIs that enable buyer and seller apps to plug into the network. Sounds awesome right?

Reading List:

https://docs.setu.co/commerce/ondc/overview

https://community.nasscom.in/communities/application/what-beckn-protocol-backbone-ondc

https://developers.becknprotocol.io/docs/introduction/introduction/

https://www.medianama.com/2022/09/223-ondc-commissions-grievances-search-rankings-ratings/

ONDC Strategy Document - released by ONDC

In a rare moment of self-awareness and honesty, I decided to do something about it, and be more conscious of the kind of language I use. Now, this is one of the least harmful effects of social media, but I did not want to be the sort of person to put ill-thought-out stuff on the internet, under my name. I have to remind myself that employers look at your social media (and I have made no efforts to hide my identity on the social internet).

But more importantly, I did not want to be the sort of person who feels better about their taste in media by declaring how only I know what some work's worth is. Because that's the implication, right? When I say something is underrated, I am trying to put myself in an exclusive in-group that knows what's up and categorize others as TMKOC-watching media illiterate dumb-dumbs.

It is also an instinct I have noticed (about myself and others) never to state likes directly, and to always state dislikes directly. Why do I find saying "I love something" more difficult than saying "something is underrated" or an even snarkier version of that - "y'all haven't seen something and it shows"? Sincerity is difficult, it makes you feel vulnerable.

I have a big problem with those words, by the way, 'underrated' and 'overrated'. Rated by whom? Because clearly there is a hierarchy in our minds on whose ratings matter. If too many people like something and those people are not in your in-group (imagined or actual), and there isn't social currency to be gained to be seen as being an admirer of that something, it becomes overrated. If there is social media currency to be gained because you don't see many people talking about it, it is underrated. The underlying, slightly sad implication is, that I am trying to make someone who hasn't interacted with that 'underrated' piece of media, feel bad.

But anyways. What do I know? This was written in 20 mins so I don't take any responsibility for the words if this is a bad piece. If it is good, I am just a genius and I would like to take all the credit.

Now, I am not one to defend the education system. But I disagree with these memes.

For one, my grandfather was a botany professor! If he hadn’t learnt about the mitochondria, I wouldn’t be getting all those sweet cash gifts on every birthday.

There is a certain kind of person, who generally makes these arguments. They value making money over all else. The kinds of people who look at the world as a zero-sum game, made up of losers and winners (and they are most definitely winners, thank you very much!). When you talk about the importance of knowledge, your arguments are discussed as being idealistic and you are asked to ‘think practically, man!’.

Look, it is important that kids are introduced to the wide array of progress our species has made, and all the pain, grief, and suffering we caused along the way. An appreciation of our place in the universe, our relationship with the rest of the natural world, and how we relate to other members of our species is extremely crucial and necessary grounding.

My life would have been significantly poorer if I hadn’t been introduced to Zakir Hussain as a tabla player in GK class in 3rd grade. If I hadn’t been exposed to that Vikram Seth poem about Melon City, I wouldn’t have found my favorite writer.

How do these idiots think the bridges, roads, satellites, vaccines, or pressure cookers work? Without, Pythogoras, and other sciency, mathy people!!! (look - I study things like brand voice, customer experience, and social media marketing ... I don’t know how the real world works).

Sure, there are problems with the education system, of course the syllabi could be better. But you can’t reasonably expect private or public schools to teach every life skill. Infact, I don’t think many of those skills are teachable. Nor do I think that a 6 - through - 17 years old me would be receptive to most of those ‘real life skills!’.

The most important skill, I think, which a good school teaches is learning to learn. So that I can learn to learn, how I can declare the money I get every year from my grandfather as a gift and not have to pay tax on it. So that I can learn, if I want to, how pressure cookers work*

Now of cours, I was privileged enough to go to a school (and tuition) where I learned how to learn! Not everyone has that privilege. But the solution to that is better schools, better teachers, and more public monies spent on these things. Not, tech-solutionist garbage like ‘teach everyone to code’, or drop ‘French Revolution’ and instead teach ‘History of Crypto' !!

*If I am being honest, I won’t actually, ever sit down to understand how pressure cookers work. Heat and water, and pressure and something. Those things all sound scary, and I have sat in enough thermodynamics classes to know that that stuff is for freaks and aliens to understand.

The most common way of classifying India in the marketing verse is the NCCS or the New Consumer Classification System. Developed by the Market Research Society of India (MRSI) and Media Research Users Council (MRUC), it classifies the approximately 319 million Indian households on two variables - education of the chief wage earner (the individual that contributes the most to household expenditure) and the number of consumer durables owned by the household from a predefined list.

Here is a pretty succinct explanation of the old and new classification systems - read the full article for some more interesting reads about the complexity of defining middle classes and another popular way of segmenting Indians (that old India - I, II, III system - that is most famous in the startup/investing circles).

This debate/dilemma mirrors that which exists in other parts of the world about ‘generations’ - millennials do this, and Gen-Z does that.

Oh, BTW - I find it extremely amusing that in our classes, we use the words ‘Indians,’ ‘population,’ ‘target audience,’ ‘TG,’ ‘people,’ and ‘audience’ to mean ‘consumer.’ It is almost as if, in addition to bipedalism, language, and tool use, CONSUMPTION is what really makes us human.

Just for some context, I study marketing at a post-graduate level with a  specialisation in Media & Entertainment Management, and this non-rigorous segmentation system came up in a class about sectoral trends.

There are three Indias according to this classification. Of the ~300 Mn households (HHs), 30 Mn live in what we can dub ‘America’, 70-80 Mn HHs live in ‘Indonesia’, and the rest live in ‘Africa’. It is a little callous and not the most politically correct, but I found it a useful way to think about the country. People like me live in what the professor dubbed LA, right at the tippy-top (the professor was the first to accept that he belonged to LA, perhaps even the nicest part of LA).

What made him optimistic about the future of this country is that by his reading of long-term macro indicators, Indonesia is fattening, and so is America. This means, more consumers in Indonesia and more consumers who consume a lot in America. Which means (hopefully) a better-paying job for me.

Besides being an India optimist, this guy was a TV optimist. His reading (and mind you, his analysis and opinion carry a lot of weight) was that, as incomes in Africa rise, they will first purchase a TV set and a Free Dish

If you don't know what Free Dish is .... click here

Free Dish, if y’all don’t know, is Prasar Bharati’s Free DTH service operated by the public service broadcaster - Prasar Bharati. There is no subscription fee; you only need to pay once to buy a dish and a Set Top Box (STB), which will only cost you ~INR 2,000. You get some 200+ channels, and broadcasters are paying an arm and a leg to be available for free on Free Dish. Just to get in front of that next billion consumers - and sell ad space to soap brands and ed-tech companies. And Prasar Bharati is making a killing at auctions. So that’s more money in the bank for the government. Good!

It is possible that Africa leapfrogs TVs and jump straight to smartphones, the same way we leapfrogged pagers, went straight to phones, and skipped the PC revolution for the smartphone revolution. But for that to happen, smartphones will have to get cheaper, and that too quickly. Comparing prices for a TV and a smartphone (or even second-hand TVs and second-hand smartphones) directly is unfair. TV often makes more sense as it is a viable entertainment solution for an entire family and not just for one person, who might take the smartphone with them when they go out.

We can only wait to find out :)

Other frameworks can also be overlaid easily on-to this three-tier system, except the number of people in each section would vary slightly. For example, the wave model of coffee cultures,

by the by - he also has some really innovative game shows. Check out a playlist here.

A couple of weeks ago he released a video about the world’s oldest hotel. A Japanese establishment, which unlike most of these claimants to the 'oldest hotel', or 'oldest business' tags, hasn’t resorted to gimmicks. It hasn’t tried to maintain some sort of old-world charm, living-museum vibe about the place. Keeping old things as they are, might be a more western thing. Although for a culture as obsessed with tradition and culture as the Japanese, this is kinda surprising. It’s almost as if culture is a complex force and is not as simplistic as Japanese=traditional.

Not that it looks like your average Western hotel - it has traditional Japanese-style dining and so on. But the hot springs are pumped up to a 'modern' pool, there's fast WiFi and so on.

As most of Scott's videos, it doesn't stop there. He talks about the complexities of defining 'oldest' or even 'hotel'. The problem is, the idea of a 'hotel'  doesn't fully map on to the idea of a 'ryokan' - which is what this establishment is technically called - a inn with hot springs. More troublingly, the idea of a 'business' itself also doesn't fully map onto Japan-from-several-hundred-years ago when this ryokan first started.

But what I found really interesting about the video, is a new YouTube feature that is enabled here (atleast till the date of publishing this). There is an AI powered English dubbed audio track, which overlays an auto generated English language track over the interview of the owner of the hotel. It's very very very very well done. I obviously can't attest to the accuracy or quality of the translation, but the voice sounds naturalistic and matches the English language translation embedded into the video by Scott. The feature was released in February of 2023, and was previously tested by a small bunch of creators including Mr. Beast - who has talked about his multi-language growth strategy before.

Mr. Beast uses human voice actors to dub his videos and multiple audio tracks are available from the same menu you use to change your closed captions settings. If you know anything about Mr. Beast, it shouldn't surprise you to know that he has hired Junko Takeuchi, who voices Naruto.

From a business perspective, it makes complete sense:

1. for Mr. Beast to want his content available in multiple languages. His videos are easy to follow and rely on ridiculous premises. The visual language is loud, and kids (and younger folks in general) love it!

2. running multiple channels, one for each of the languages, just makes life difficult for his team, who have to write multiple video titles, actually upload the videos to the different channels. Time better spent in executing Mr. Beast's next insane idea

3. YouTube plays the video in what it identifies as your primary video-viewing language, regardless of the original language the video was posted for. This has huge implications on how a video is received, and would likely increase stickiness of the platform

I don’t know if this was intentional but I just love the fact that the first video Tom used this feature, discussed the complexities of imposing one understanding of the world onto another culture. It is also fitting that while I type this out, the website editor shows a "Translate" button on the left, claiming to translate website content into 120+ languages along with SEO optimization. sigh...

What do machine translations mean for the entertainment world, for arts & culture and for society in general? We'll find out....maybe.

According to one report, the government and public sector companies, including banks, spent about INR  8.8 crore every year until very recently on calendars, diaries, and other booklets, in addition to several hundred hours of human effort. Private companies who extensively used calendars as marketing tools had cut down on these efforts decades ago. In 2021, the government announced that it would stop this wasteful expense. Although calendars continue to sell, they are no longer a medium of cheap mass advertising. At best, they work for niche brands, artists, and internet communities as merchandising, or maybe my grandparents’ drawing room as decoration.

Amongst a litany of calendars branded with the drab logos of cooperative banks, insurance companies, public sector companies, and religious trusts, one branded calendar stood out - the Kingfisher calendar (although you would not find this last one at my grandparents’). Described as a cross between the Perrier calendar and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, it was the most prestigious calendar to come out from India from 2003 until its demise in 2021. Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Lisa Haydon, and Nora Fatehi all received a major boost to their careers after being featured on the calendar. It died, but not without one last ditch effort to stay relevant - with the launch of the Kingfisher Calendar app.

It is apparent why the calendar was popular back in the day - beautiful women in bikinis on beaches in exotic locations! Celebrity photographer Atul Kasbekar and Vijay Mallaya, the then head of United Breweries Group (which markets its beer under the Kingfisher brand), are credited for the idea. The calendar fit hand-in-glove with the image that Kingfisher and Mallaya had built for themselves - a flamboyant and glamorous, ‘Page 3’ personality - for the luxury and fame-seeking youth. Most people that Kingfisher targeted did not purchase a calendar, but conversations about the calendar, about who was photographed and where, about previous years’ models who had made it big in the films, were titillating enough. 

With the increasing penetration of mobile phones and, more importantly, cheap internet; social media and other less honorable websites more easily fulfilled the need for titillation. The vicarious experience of luxury, through a peek into a lavish lifestyle, was also fulfilled by these same platforms. The giddy hands-pressed-against-store-window excitement about an annual calendar is a thing of the past. 

References

Doctor, V. (n.d.). Why Indian govt's decision to do away with calendars, diaries makes sense. Economic Times. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/cutting-up-the-calendar/articleshow/81994995.cms?from=mdr

Sharma, M. (2019, December 15). Calendar art continues to thrive in digital age. Hindustan Times. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/calendar-art-continues-to-thrive-in-digital-age/story-gZko0kFFX0E3AqR8WbvyOM.html

Vernacular Capitalism, Advertising, and the Bazaar in Early Twentieth-Century Western India. (2020). In B. Harriss-White, S. Schwecke, A. Gandhi, & D. E. Haynes (Eds.), Rethinking Markets in Modern India: Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction. Cambridge University Press.

Hegde, R. S. (2008). [Review of Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art, by

K. Jain]. Anthropological Quarterly, 81(1), 301–304. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30052748

Uberoi, P. (2002). Chicks, Kids, and Couples: the nation in calendar art. India International

Centre Quarterly, 29(3/4), 197–210. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23005826

IANS. (2022, January 19). Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar is now a thing of past. Times of India.

Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/fashion/buzz/kingfisher-swimsuit-calendar-is-now-a-thing-of-past/articleshow/88971034.cms

It’s funny and frivolous and it doesn’t claim to be anything but. It is so much fun to see (what seems like) Karan have the time of his life. The show's appeal is that it is celebrities doing what they are supposed to - entertain. The show is clearly highly managed …. but so what?

Now about the set. I like that it is obnoxious and over-the-top, it adds to the illusion of the other worldly-ness of these celebrities and their lives. They do kinda live in a separate world, and it’s best if we only talk about frivolous things with them. I feel like I am getting a peek behind the curtain, and I like the un-relatableness of the entire conversation. I like the mystique of the mystery gift hamper - of not knowing what it contains.

They ruin all this in the first episode of S07, which dropped exclusively on Disney+ Hotstar featuring Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh. The rapid-fire round this time is judged by a live audience of what seems like 30 people. The show does a terrible job of establishing geography. Where are they sitting? Can the guests see the audience? What the fuck are common people doing this close to these celebrities?

Alright that’s it. Bye!

From whatever is publicly available about him - he was a thorough gentleman and a charming personality.

Here is a lovely interview by the great Syed Md. Irfan for the RSTV program Guftagoo:

for a surprise click here :)

See you next time.

PS: I do not want this to be a celebrity birthday/death anniversary newsletter but that’s all I have energy for these days.

This quick Indian Express article if you are unfamiliar with the man and his legacy

This Firstpost article w/ short anecdotes featuring Freddy Mercury, Kushwant Singh, and MF Hussain. Written by a close friend of Kalra's

Bye :) See you in the next, hopefully longer post

Malegaon has as many theaters as district HQ - Nashik, despite being at least thrice as small. Until a few years ago it also had a thriving film industry which produced rip-offs, spoofs, and everything in between. Filmmakers with little technical know-how and even less money would assemble a ragtag team of an almost always unpaid crew. These films would be littered with local references, dialects, and would reference problems of the common folk. For example, in Malegaon ka Superman, the bad guy loves pollution and filth. The cell reception in Malegaon is not too good, so Superman has to climb up a tree to make calls. You get the drift. All of this - with a healthy dash of slapstick.

SoM is an endearing film. The video-hall owner turned garment seller, Naseer Shaikh is the most successful filmmaker in Mollywood - his Sholay spoof Malegaon ke Sholay brought in 200,000 Rs against a budget of 50,000 Rs, running for several weeks in dingy video parlors. Naseer wants to take the next leap - and use a green-screen to make Superman fly. But how did he get started? His love of film comes from his childhood which was spent at the video parlor his father owned. But he is a pragmatist, he knows this is and can only be a hobby. He has no dreams of moving to Mumbai. He even advises his relative against getting too involved in the film line. In contrast, is the writer Farogh Jafri, who poetically laments the pain of creating characters and not being able to see them on screen, in a particularly touching scene (one of many) in the documentary, but still holds on to the dream of making it in Mumbai.

The film also reflects on some *heavy* topics - the communal tensions between Muslims and Hindus (the town still makes the news whenever there are updates in the highly-politicized 2008 blasts case), It also talks about the working life of men in Malegaon. About 40% of the adult population is directly employed in power looms. Now, power looms are an early 20th century invention - but small scale, decentralized production of grey-cloth (not enough space here to explain what that means) in centers like Malegaon is an important node in the value chain of garments that are ultimately meant for the export market. Most of these power looms are owned by or rented by individuals, with little access or willingness to take on debt. So competition from cheaper labor markets like Bangladesh has been putting pressure on these Indian entrepreneurs. Demonetisation hit this cash reliant sector particularly hard, with production almost halving. The Covid-19 lockdown also did not help. While labor was not scarce in Malegaon, as almost all the loom workers lived in Malegaon; but demand downstream was affected, as the principal buyers of gray-cloth in Gujarat and Rajasthan heavily relied on migrant labor. So the Malegaon looms were also hit, shutting down completely for days at times. We can only hope that the industry can power through the coal shortage affecting the already distressed GENCOMs and DISCOMs.

Naseer in an interview said that the rise of social media and ease of piracy with greater internet penetration has killed the local film industry. The local religious leaders would frown at all the naach gaana (frivolity), and that this also affected his decision to step away.

But just how true is the first claim. Now of course, Naseer is probably right - availability of short form video content has affected the film industry worldwide. Of course it would affect the local industry! But it is interesting to note that, in the nearby Khandesh region, short form video and internet has created superstars.

Go to YouTube and type in the word ‘Khandesh’ in the search bar and let autocomplete do its magic. Almost all the results would be related to comedy sketches. These are short to medium length videos (anywhere between 8 to 30 minutes), with the words ‘Khandesh’ and ‘Comedy’ in the title, and pop-bright thumbnails, and millions (and in one instance >1 billion) of views.

Now Khandesh comedy is a catchall term, and some of the popular names in this space actually live and work in Malegaon. Since the last few years the industry has pivoted to content driven by and made for the internet. It is informed by the latest trends on the internet and puts them in a local context. Over the years, certain actors - like Asif Albela or Chotu Dada have become famous - and they play the same characters across videos. The formula for the video title of a popular video would be : ‘Popular Khandeshi actor/character’ + ‘buzzword’. 

Ex: ‘Chotu Pusha’, referencing the superhit Telugu action film, ‘Pushpa’; ‘Choti Gangubai’, referencing the then newly released Hindi film, ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’, etc. There are literally hundreds of these videos. And from what I can gather the videos have little or nothing to do with what it is referencing.

The new form videos seem to retain the vibe of the feature length films that gave rise to this genre. People are pulling faces, and doing slapstick. Someone is always running a scam and someone is always getting scammed. So what is the appeal? I don’t know. It is tempting to say their popularity has something to do with the characters speaking in a local dialect. There is a lot of out-migration from Khandesh and that part of Maharashtra, maybe people are looking for something to remind them of their home? I am not so sure that the audience for these videos is purely Khandeshi. They are way too popular to be this highly regional in its appeal. 

But my instinct, backed by a very unscientific research methodology tells me that the audience is not the most tech-savy and is probably not comfortable with English. And I say this mostly because these video creators don’t have a significant presence on the social media platforms popular amongst the urban affluent - Instagram, Reddit, Twitter. And even on YouTube, the comment sections are strangely empty. Textbook case of passive viewers. (But even passive viewers are fodder for the adsense machine. And I am sure these creators are making a sweet buck for their efforts). Another clincher - none of my friends know who these superstars are. 

There is also big corporate money in this genre (if you could call regional language content a genre). A lot of Khandeshi comedy videos are hosted on channels with familiar names : Ultra Cinema, Wings Music, Venus Music - all big music and film distributors. In fact Venus rebranded to ‘Ishtar’, after it was bought by the French media conglomerate ‘Believe’. I could not find a lot of information on this deal online (to be honest, I did not look to hard), but it seems that this rebranding signals a push and focus towards Hindi/regional content (‘Ishtar’ being how ‘Star’ is often pronounced in several Indian dialects).

We have digressed significantly from the original premise of this post. 

What are the people involved with Supermen of Malegaon doing now?

Naseer Shaikh went on to direct the Mr. Bean inspired SAB TV silent comedy ‘Malegaon Ka Chintu’ for a couple of years. He has quit filmmaking and now runs a restaurant in Malegaon. 

Shafique Shaikh who played the role of Malegaon’s Superman died of oral cancer shortly after the release of the documentary. Shafique is survived by his wife and their two kids. 

Farogh Jaffri, the writer, passed away in September 2020 of multiple organ failure, presumably because of Covid-19 complications. 

And what’s Malegaon doing? Not much has changed. Power cuts are still rampant, there isn’t another industry replacing the fewer and fewer textile jobs and the Hindu-Muslim divide still remains entrenched. The only thing that seems to have changed is that people are consuming content on their phones and the video parlors have shut down.

Sources:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/2008-malegaon-blast-case-lights-out-in-malegaon/

https://scroll.in/article/825160/demonetisation-brings-sputtering-power-loom-industry-of-malegaon-to-a-near-halt

https://www.indiaspend.com/notebandi-frontlines-out-of-cash-a-dying-textile-town-goes-silent-55759/

https://www.indiaspend.com/in-times-of-job-loss-and-insecurity-malegaon-emerges-a-successful-outlier/

https://www.news18.com/news/india/malegaon-ka-superman-actor-dies-of-mouth-cancer-398961.html

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nashik/malegaon-ichalkaranji-miss-out-on-textile-park-feel-pinch-of-customs-duty/articleshow/80636725.cms

https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/soaring-cotton-prices-textile-exporters-left-high-and-dry/2487287/

https://mdd.maharashtra.gov.in/Site/Upload/Pdf/Malegaon_Report.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/SupermenOfMalegaon/photos/a.433520133327624/3505853519427588/?type=3

PS: There is another connection between the new age Khandeshi superstars and Supermen of Malegaon. One of the first roles, Chotu did was in the Naseer Sheikh’s TV Show - ‘Malegaon Ka Chintu’.

If you have read till here - consider subscribing and sharing with a friend (or two)!

November 9 this year will mark the 15th year anniversary of Om Shanti Om (and Saawariya - we can save that for another article). In the lead up to its anniversary, I want to watch all the films that inspired its making. Well, all the films that DIRECTLY inspired its making. Madhumati is one such film. The climactic showdown where the evil rich guy gets his comeuppance is the same in both films.

Production, Background & Team

Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala had both acted in Bimal Roy’s Devdas (1955). Devdas was not commercially successful and Bimal Roy Productions was looking for a mainstream commercial hit for his next venture.

The story of how Devdas got made is also interesting. Bimal Roy wanted Meena Kumari to play Paro and Nargis to play Chandramukhi. Kamal Amrohi, who was married to Kumari interfered and had a falling out with Roy. Amrohi apparently did not like Dilip Kumar. Mina Kumari was keen on playing Paro, but alas. Kumar opposite Kumari would have been a really funny credit sequence (I know they starred opposite each other in atleast one film which has a really interesting premise). Nargis also backed out as she wanted to play Paro. Ultimately Suchitra Sen would make her Hindi film debut as Paro and Vyjayanthimala would play Chandramukhi. That Vyjayanthimala was a well regarded daneuse, helped nudge the casting choice.

That’s a big digression. Anyway.

The team behind Madhumati is truly stellar. Bimal Roy and his go-to cinematographer Dilip Gupta use mist, water and silk curtains to highlight the ethereal quality of the story very well. Trees, shadows and clouds set-up an eerie atmosphere. The same trees, shadows and clouds also soothes, when Mukesh, Lata, Asha or Manna Dey take center stage. The story and screenplay are by the great Ritwik Ghatak, and dialogues by Rajinder Singh Bedi. Hrishikesh Mukherjee won the best-editor Filmfare for Madhumati.

[Mukherjee would win his second Filmfare for editing in 1970, for Bedi’s directorial debut - Dastak. Bedi, Mukherjee, Ghatak had previously collaborated on the brilliant film Musafir (1957). The film was Mukherjee’s debut as director, and also stands distinctly in his oeuvre for its content. Dilip Kumar was the lead in Musafir as well. ]

Madhumati today is known as one of the first reincarnation story. But, I would like to posit that it is only the first revenge-reincarnation love story. Bimal Roy had edited Kamal Amrohi’s 1959 film Mahal, which was a reincarnation love story, perhaps the first of its kind. Falling portraits and abandoned havelis are common elements in the two films. Karz (1980) and Om Shanti Om (2007) both directly inspired by Madhumati are reincarnation-revenge love stories. The revenge takes place after the reincarnation it these films, hence the distinction.

Themes

Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala are the time-transcending, janam-janam-ka-pyar having Anand and Madhu. Anand is the newly appointed upstanding manager at a timber estate owned by a spoiled brat,and run by goons and cheats. Madhu is the daughter of the tribe leader, who lives across the river where company men are not allowed to go. The tribe and company men have clashed before, where the tribe was effectively crushed. The leader is a leader in name only, and the tribal folk live diminshed lives at the mercy (or lack thereof) of the company goons. Madhu represents nature herself, and the raja sahib/company owner is of course a stand-in for exploitative capitalism.

Finding Frames

The film has a lock camera —> character-enters frame —> dialogue/action —>either moves towards camera or away from camera —> exits frame style; and it works quite well. I know this sounds like any other film, but that is the best way I can articulate the direction style.

Here are some of my favourite frames from the film.

All songs are very well done, but this one is the most visually interesting

So many trees in the film. Really beautiful

the devilish Rajasahib (Pran) enjoying a nautch performance

Anand looks for Madhu as the haunting song Aaja Re Pardesi plays, which is used as a liet motif for Madhu’s character, and later her memory/ghost

a distressed Anand looks for her wife and newborn kid who were passengers in a train that met with an accident

Watch Madhumati on YouTube, JioCinema, or Zee5

BYE. :)

My parents have this weird thing where they don’t like anything on the dining table. “It is meant for food” my mother would shout every time I would leave my bag on the table after school. Well it is the only large flat surface in the home MOM. The bag can not be on my bed because the bag has been outside (as if you ever got sick from the outside). The bag can not be on the table because where would I put my books, the bag can not be on the floor because someone might trip over it (there were only three of us - who is going to trip). But we are getting distracted.

Like I said - dining tables can be full of drama. That’s why there are so many dining table scenes in films. But those are more character driven, dialogue heavy and tend to feature much better clothes.

My favourite scenes are where there is a palpable tension, people don’t want to be there but are forced by convention and societal mores to stay sitting.

Like this one in Shrek 2 or this one in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD) or this one in Fleabag, except a smoking break offers a respite in that last one.

Much has been written about how blocking, camera work and props can reveal character, etc. Who sits where, how is food served, how much food, what kind of food, and most importantly what is said on the table.

If someone were to show you a picture of my grandparents eating food on the kitchen table - you could deduce several things about their lives. You can see several shells and coral rocks under the glass top. My grandfather was a zoology professor and had collected these rocks on research trips and class excursions. One edge of the glass is uneven. The glass had to be cut a little bit because my grandpa accidentally left the clothes-iron flat on the table. He irons clothes, after the breakfast is cleared. He does it after laying an old bedsheets folded up to protect the glass. But this one time I guess he mad a mistake, and laid the iron on the glass instead of the cloth - long enough for the glass to crack. You can also tell that they love plastic and glass jars. There are an inexplicable number of odd jars on the table. Always. Most of them empty. You will also notice my grandmother sitting with the chair not parallel with the table. She always sits with her chair slightly tilted, so that she can get up and go to the kitchen quickly, if something needs to be brought in. A habit that she has carried over from her younger days when she was the primary caregiver at home. It is just the two of them now, and with a reduced diet because of their old age, there is never a need to get up in the middle of a meal. But she still sits slightly askew, never fully comfortable.

When I tried thinking of dining room scenes in Hindi films, two came to mind immediately.

This scene from Sarkar is quite good. We are shown earlier in the film that the boundary of work and personal life is fairly porous. A lot of the work is done from home, with the women and children exposed to a lot of these conversations. The scene sets up the differences between Kay Kay Menon’s Vishnu and Abhishek Bachchan’s Shankar very well. They are discussing some local thug, who has done something - I can’t remember. But it has some interesting details. Shankar eats with a fork - he has just returned from the USA; Vishnu the elder brother - the sleazy film producer - eats with his hand. Amitabh Bachchan’s character - Sarkar - is the head of the family, and sits at the head of the table; and the two women of the family hover around serving food, only interrupting to interrupt a fight between Sarkar and Vishnu.

This scene from Dil Dhadakne Do - a film directed by Zoya Akhtar (who also directed the previously mentioned - ZNMD), also comes to mind. Anil Kapoor’s character is clearly a rich dude - who else is as fussy about oily foods; and is seated as far as possible from his wife - played by Shefali Shah. Quite fitting given that they are arguing. The curt dismissal about “… your money? You have money because I make the money” makes us dislike Kapoor’s character. It is brilliant. In the middle of this verbal warfare, there is Ranveer Singh’s character. Literally in the middle of these two. Trying to broker peace. The scene is composed of standard shots. A wide - when all three characters are on screen, Ranveer symmetrically in the middle. Cutting to over-the-shoulder shots of the two people directly involved in the argument. This is nothing groundbreaking. Just competent filmmaking.

In the Indian context, the very presence of a dining table puts the characters in the film in a certain socio-economic bracket. Not only do they have space for a dining room, their habits are … for lack of a better word - modern and westernised.

Please share your favourite dining table scenes. Share links to books/articles etc about how food is consumed in India.

Also read this rather personal piece by film critic Rahul Desai.

Ok. Bye.

Also please completely ignore the use of Rockwell’s Freedom from Want as a cover image. I just needed something as a preview image.

But my point is, when she did come back, and I had forgotten...Sorry I should mention I would almost always forget to turn it off after the requisite number of whistles. But not because of confusion over the importance of time in cooking, but because of sheer carelessness. When she did come back, and I had forgotten to turn off the cooker she would scold me. I deserved it. She would say "Sorry … ain't gonna fix dinner". And she was right. Saying sorry won't fix anything.

Now that's a lesson some comedy writers need to be taught. Just because you acknowledge that a joke is lazy or is derivative of something else with a smart alec quip, a fourth wall break or any other nonsense it doesn't make the joke funny. That’s preemptive defensiveness. That's a lesson Deadpool 2 (2018) writers needed.

Look - everyone’s done it. Monty Python has that famous ‘two coconuts in hand’ bit. Shakespeare has done it (“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” ~ Twelfth Night). But why am I annoyed at Deadpool doing it but not when It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia does it. I don’t know . It all comes down to whether something is funny or not. 

The Simpsons

The impetus of the previous 300 words was a Simpsons episode. ‘The Simpsons’ S04E18 episode titled “So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show”. It's April Fool’s day in Springfield and fed up with Homer’s incessant pranking, Bart plays a prank that lands Homer in the hospital. The episode then turns into a clip show. The first clip show in Simpson’s history. This episode aired in 1993 and this is the early days of Simpsons, where the writers, animators were famously overworked. So the clip-show as a format works in this context. You can reuse old clips, therefore less storyboarding, not as many cells to animate etc. But this self-aware ‘So It’s Come to This” title annoys me. Either go for the joke or don’t.

As soon as the Caribbean fixer Quarrel mentions the presence of a 'dragon' on Crab Key - Dr. No's lair/island; I knew there was going to be a nuclear angle to the story.

Dragons as a metaphor for nuclear threats is tempting. The folks at "Bulletin for Atomic Scientists" - the non-profit that maintains the famous doomsday clock - published an article in 2019 comparing Daenerys Targaryen's dragons from Game of Thrones to nuclear weapons. The analogy does not work completely as several nations have nuclear capabilities, while in the GoT universe only one party has dragons.

I encountered dragons in the nuclear context again in Derek Muller documentary ' Uranium -- Twisting the Dragon's Tail'. In the last section, Derek talks about a creation spirit in Australian mythology that sleeps underground and must not be disturbed. Derek draws a connection between the presence of large Uranium and Thorium reserves in Australia and this myth. As I said - the metaphor is very tempting.

Any ways as it turns out, the dragon in Dr. No is only a large truck like vehicle with an attachment on the front that spews flames. All created by the evil Dr. No to keep people off the island. James Bond somehow saves the day again.

Nuclear threats in the James Bond stories are also not new. Almost a quarter of all the films have some sort of nuclear threat. The Ian Fleming stories don't have as many nuclear plotlines. It is very easy to draw conclusions about Cold-war era anxieties and nuclear threats in plotline, but as my totally overkill chart below shows, this is not true.

James Bond - Nuclear Threat Analysis

Anyways, Dr. No is surprisingly watchable, Sean Connery is cooler than I thought possible. They don't make films like these anymore - which ultimately is a good thing I guess.

Images:

Rob Bogaerts / Anefo, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL

<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

I live in Ahmedabad and the nearest power plant is the coal-powered Sabarmati Thermal Power Plant. When I was a kid, my father used to work for the Torrent Group which operates and owns the plant. His office was in the same complex as the power plant, even though he was not employed in a technical role. The power plant is on the banks of the Sabarmati - the river that divides Ahmedabad in more than one way. Every time we would drive over the river, my dad would point out the chimneys with great pride. He would make sure to use the technical word for chimney - chimney stack. Of course, my mother and I knew he had a less than working-knowledge of the sciences. Now that he has left that job, we turn it around and gush about the chimney stacks every time we drive by.

I thought for a long time that the electricity that powered my computer and fridge came from that particular power plant. But I know now - after four years of electrical engineering that that is not true.

There are two reasons for this confusion:

• we think of 'electricity' as if it were a tangible thing. We pay for it like we pay for newspapers, on a monthly basis

• often the companies producing electricity are also responsible for transmitting & distributing it. For ex.

Torrent power is in the business of generating power;

• transmitting it (those towers you see on the highway) and

• distributing it (the final stage of power delivery - where electricity reaches the individual consumer). This last stage includes getting the power to your homes, meter reading and all that

But really, generation to consumption happens via, and in a system called the electric grid. It is basically magic.

I still can't wrap my head around this - but the demand for electricity is instantly matched to supply. Every time you turn on a light that much more electricity is generated somewhere in the system. This is how it happens.

Power generation

Most of the electricity in the world is produced by steam passing over turbines. That's it. So much human effort through history has been spent figuring out ways to create steam, and use steam to turn heavy steel whirls. We burn coal, burn natural gas, hit atoms, use heat trapped under the earth, collect water behind huge concrete walls just to get turbines to spin.

In India, all turbines that are connected to the grid operate between 49.5 - 50.5 Hz. This is fancy talk for "turbines spin 50 times in a second, +-5%". Now it is essential that this 'rate' is maintained to keep the system 'in-sync'.

The greater the variance in 'load' the greater the chances of system falling out of sync. Here is how power engineers handle this.

System Inertia

Power engineers and other kinds of responsible, smart people account for variance in electric demand. We know people will turn on their ACs in the summers, so you account for that.

But the little fluctuations in demand - when I switch on the light, when I suddenly feel cold and turn off the AC - we don't need to account for that.

The system has inertia and these small fluctuations are handled by the system. Here is the best way I know to explain that.

Consider this painting that my mother made a couple of decades ago, and that hangs in our dining room.

If someone were to pour additional liquid in the vessel while the lady was turning the plunger. What would happen? Well, the plunger would slow down a little, until the lady expends that extra energy to compensate for the extra liquid. But the plunger does not stop completely. This is system inertia.

When I turn on a light, a turbine slows down every so slightly. When this happens, the automated control system accounts for this and increases steam flow through turbines. The reverse happens when I turn off a light, a turbine speeds up ever so slightly; and the control system reduces steam flow. Now, the bigger the turbine, the more variation it can ride through.

Of course, this is a greatly simplified explanation. A single power plant is complicated enough ... an interconnected system that spans an entire sub-continent is nightmarishly complicated. Literally. I still get fever dreams about my Power Systems exam.