@ Next Media

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Hello, from the middle of the spectacular Rockies in a mountain town called Banff. I'm attending the Next Media conference and I'll have a couple of posts related to it in a few days, but till then, here's a video interview.

@ Verve Lounge

Verve Lounge is cocktail salon that Verve magazine organizes each month at its office in Bombay. The idea is that a magazine doesn't just exist between its pages, it exists as a mindspace, as a community, and as a conversation between its producers and readers, and Verve Lounge is one of the offline manifestations of the Verve idea. So each month, the magazine team assembles an eclectic guest list of people from Bombay or visiting Bombay, and this could span the arts, the sciences, the creative and business worlds. Then they think up a theme - either related to the forthcoming magazine issue or not, and plan the whole event around it. There's usually a speaker, or a show and tell, and the decor, food, drink, music, etc. all revolves around this theme. I've been a part of several Verve Lounges and it's always interesting to see how the concept gets executed into reality and then the actual lounge itself, with the conversation and energy. This month's Lounge centered around my book. We kept the book reading part of it shorter than book store readings, but that worked, I think, given the nature of the event, and people seemed to connect with what they heard. I had several one-on-one interactions with a range of people later on. It was also great fun to hang out with other authors like Manil Suri and Tara Deshpande - both of who have written about Bombay so evocatively and beautifully. In the pictures, please don't miss the red Rooh Afza cocktails, served with exactly one rose petal in each glass. (Those of you who've spoken to me recently might have discovered my Rooh Afza obsession, it's pretty close to my Tashan craze :-)

Chennai Reading Pictures

The Chennai reading went off excellently. At about 6.15pm, I wondered if there might be just 5 people attending at Oxford Book Store: Anirudh and Padma from Shakti - the co-organizers, two random store browsers who'd managed to find themselves in the middle of Cha Bar while the chairs were being arranged, and me. Then suddenly, the deluge, and by 6.30pm, the store was packed and they even had to call in for extra chairs to handle the overflow. There were some good questions asked - including a bunch by a doctor that I personally found quite relevant. She said that she had many patients who she often counselled regarding their sexuality, and that it wasn't always as rosy a picture as I was painting. Secondly, she wondered why I couldn't write more simply and had to be so academic sounding. Padma, Anirudh and I all replied to her. I also wanted to point her to some of the reviews that accuse the book of not being academic enough, but seriously, she struck a chord. I really don't think academic writing needs to be difficult to understand. I have tried to write many parts of the book as simply as possible, but I admit that it has its flaws and the writing does get clunky at times. Hopefully, the next one will be simpler and easier to read. Visiting Chennai once again was wonderful, I like the city more and more each time, and the pleasure is multiplied on reconnecting with friends like Ramki and hangouts like Amethyst, which I faithfully did on this trip as well.

Jimmy, Jimmy...

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel really bad for Mimoh after reading the nasty, smug reviews of his debut film? I can't believe how vicious some Bollywood film reviews have gotten of late. Whether it's Nandini Ramnath calling Mimoh a "rejected person" in Time Out, or Rajeev Masand announcing in his RGV Ki Aag review that "Nisha Kothari is not only the worst actress in this country, but possibly the worst actress in this whole wide world", it makes me wonder, what do these reviewers eat yaar to become so acidic? (Are these critics or are they citrics?) Meanwhile, here's Jimmy, Jimmy with papa Mithun, a song that I loved while growing up, and oh, does anyone want to go (Mimoh's) Jimmy with me this week?

Utrecht University offering fellowships to Indian PhD students - apply before June 9

Sylvie Beauvais at UPenn just alerted me about this. Utrecht University is offering 14 short stay fellowships for PhD students from Indian universities to spend 3 months in Utrecht. It's a good deal - the offer includes airfare, visa resimbursement, accomodation, insurance and a monthly allowance. You need to first get in touch with a professor at Utrecht to see if (s)he wants to supervise your study and then the professor will nominate you for the fellowship. Find out more by accessing the application form here - the deadline is June 9, so if you're interested, you should apply soon. I've never been to Utrecht but from the pictures (like the one accompanying this post) and from hearing about it from one of my former professors who teaches there half the year, it's gorgeous.

MySpace/Saregama/Phonethics collaborate on school media literacy project

There's an interesting experiment going on in the media literacy space. Corporates like MySpace India (a social network), Saregama (or HMV, a music label) and Phonethics (a mobile IP and advertising company) are collaborating with students of Podar High school in Bombay, to create a series of music videos. The students are spending the first two weeks of their summer break in learning how to create media (everything from photographs, to story boards to scripts, and videos), and they will them collaborate with media professionals in making 4 music videos for 4 new Saregama artists that will then play on MySpace, etc. I was invited to give a talk on media convergence to these young media-creators last week (see pics above) and was very impressed by their intuitive understanding of what might work and not work, as well as their imagination of vidoes with trans-media narratives. The study program that the organizers have put together is good, given the relatively short time that they are dedicating to it, and it seems to be a genuine effort to participate in a conversation with these kids rather than a corporate marketing program. (Having said that, it would be nice to see such programs with longer engagement periods - say, a few months instead of a few weeks, to enable the kids to really practice the skills they have learnt. Perhaps the next iteration will take this into account.)
The afternoon brought back memories of working with the Education Arcade at MIT, where I helped Henry with a series of interviews on video game literacy. The approach, then and now, has always been that children are media literate only when they can both create and consume their own media, and at the same time critically analyze what they are doing. In the creation, consumption and analysis process, what we often realize that the type of media that they are interested in and want to consume is different from, and more interesting than the type of media adults manufacture for children, and their views on media are often more complex and nuanced that we might imagine. If you're interested, here's an interesting post from Henry Jenkins' blog where he talks about an integrated approach to media literacy education - its part of a lager white paper he has written about the theme, and you can also check out the Project NML website which explains what participatory culture means in this context and also offers a range of media literacy solutions that you might want to adopt. Meanwhile, I'm going to track my Podar kids with great interest, and see what they come up with.

Delhi book reading pics

Sorry for not putting these pictures up earlier...it took some time for the photo CD to be couriered to me from Delhi. As you might be able to tell, the event went off well. The trip was energizing; I reconnected with old friends like Amulya, Nomita, Amit, Himanshu, Nikhil, Paul and Udrrek, got to know my fabulous Sage team members a little more, and made new friends like Suman. Since it was the first book store reading and book launch event, I was nervous and excited to hear about how people would respond and it was a relief to see the book connect in some way to existing and potential readers. I also felt a little wistful, going to places like Lodhi Gardens and CP - places that evoked memories and images of a togetherness that is now absent. But places can also be inscribed with new memories, and that is what I tried to do on this trip. They do not replace the old memories, but sit alongside them, and hopefully, the next time around, the multiple layers will be a source of happy comfort rather than sadness.

Cleartrip and Nurturing Relationships

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending time with one of the companies that my company Mahindra has invested in – the travel portal Cleartrip. We are focusing on how we can engage with our employees and customers in a much more compelling manner – excellence is now par for the course for most product and service organizations. How does one move beyond excellence and create “nurturing relationships” at Cleartrip – so that the company can gain loyalty beyond reason from all its constituents and become what Kevin Roberts has called a “lovemark”? There are several ways that we’re going about it at Cleartrip – and not all of the nurturing is directly related to profit, but this is not the space to discuss that. What I want to share is a story. This is about a customer evangelist for Cleartrip. He was of course delighted that Cleartrip gave him excellent service when he had a problem. But what converted him from a merely happy (well served) customer into an evangelist was the fact that one of the group’s founders (Hrush, who also blogs regularly on the Cleartrip blog) nurtured him when he wanted to share his views about web design and simplicity. Now, it just so happens that this customer really knows his stuff (and he’s also very funny, he’s designed a whole presentation on how to piss off customers with bad design – a template for what not to do!). Cleartrip has already published his posts a guest blogger on their site and plan on using him to bounce off any new design changes they make. He in turn, never loses an opportunity to talk about Cleartrip’s refreshing approach at every forum he can. Such kind of intensity – let’s call it love - never comes out of marketing exercises. It comes out of a genuine belief that one’s work is important and every engagement is a chance to transform the lives of others, and in the bargain, one’s own life. In the context of the this particular corporation, I would think that value = profit + nurturing where nurturing = meaningfulness + positive transformation.

Why I LOVED Tashan

Why did I like Tashan? It's exuberance. It's style - real and not phony, at least to me. The spirit of masala that it captured beautifully, I thought it had died, but by god, this eez da pharmoola, Mr. Jaarj Buss, don't you see? Bad villians, lovers connected as children reconnecting, small town goodness in the midst of big town badness, everything larger and louder than life, and how.Kareena. Sex in a bottle. Aiyo - after seeing her writhe in Chaliya, I am having doubts about myself :-) Big bangs, big bangs. Kya action tha, yaar. James Bond meets Jackie Chan meets bollywood big bang theory. And this was just at the pure energy level. I couldnt stop dancing in my seat all throughout the movie. On another level (and I know many reviewers don't think it doesn't have one, but allow me the indulgence) it captures the essense of small town aspirations to me, just like Bunty and Babli did. The desire to learn English (even in Bombay, has anyone noticed the huge rise of Veta English classes advertising in train compartments over the past few months?), the suggestion that people from Kanpur or other towns in the hinterland can make it in big cities only because of gangster might, the acknowledgement of parallel private armies running both in urban and rural India...the depiction of a contemporary where the Ramayana performed playfully and a heroine cuts of her jeans (transforming them into hot pants) while hitchhiking in a truck just because she feels like it, right? Its unreal, and bizzare of course, but I love it because it touches upon a chord, at least in my mind, of the fantastic possibilities of Bollywood, just the same was as watching Mission Impossible or Independence Day does with Hollywood. Big, silly, incredulous, but what total timepass man! Tashan for me, is a 4 star film. Paisa vasool. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to scope out eBay for a blond wig.

My loneliness and I

My loneliness and I, we often have this conversation:
If you were present in my life, how might it be?
You'd say this, or you would say that…
You would be irritated by something I'd say, you'd laugh at something else…
If you were there, it might be like this, or perhaps, it might be like that,
Yes, my loneliness and I, we often have this conversation.
(Silsila, Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum, 1981)