Voting time…

Voting tomorrow, April 30th. The big dilemma, as the Thane constituency has colorful candidates:

1. Vijay Chaugule (Shiv Sena – Rampage party #1): (Seat sharing with BJP)
Declared assets: 1.1 Cr
Education: Some schooling
Criminal Record: Yes

2. Dr. Sanjeev Naik (NCP): (Seat sharing with Cong.)
Declared assets: 6.2 Cr
Education: ?
Criminal Record: Yes

Sanjeev calls himself a doctor, but he is neither a medical professional nor a PhD. Apparently there is a case against him as he has falsely declared himself to be a Dr. in his candidature form.

With the seat sharing (BJP + Shiv Sena) and (Cong + NCP), my options have become rather limited. So whats left:

3. Avanindra Tripathi (Bahujan Samaj Party – Mayavati and gang!)
Declared assets: 1.1 Cr
Criminal Record: None (Wow, surprise!)

4. Rajan Raje (MNS – Rampage party #2)

And then some nice ones, parties I have completely unheard of:

5. Kranti Kari Jai Hind Sena

6. Navbharat Nirman Party

7. Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangha

8. Republican Paksha (Khoripa)

Am I left with just 49-O? [1] [2]

Films in Q

Birthdays are nice. As a consolation for growing a year older, I get yummy gifts from my folks. Very thoughtful. Here is the list:

1. Lord of the Rings – A special extended edition of the trilogy.

2. Wall-e.  (Esp at a time when I just finished reading Steve Jobs’ iCon). This is a brilliant film.

3. Sous Les Bombes – Philippe Aractingi

4. Amen – Costa Gavras (More suggestions for holocaust films are welcome. I’ve done Schindler’s and Life is beautiful already).

5. Goodby Bafana – Billie August. A film based on the memoirs of Nelson Mandela’s prison guard.

6. The Orphanage – Juan Bayona.

7. 8 1/2 – Federico Fellini.

I wouldn’t know the Bio’s of those filmmakers from each other. I’ve just put the names here for the sake of completeness. But there is enough to make me look forward to the weekends ahead.

DVD Titles

If you want to read about what it takes to build a world-class product idea, read iCon. Beyond the glory and money that comes with it, the book talks about the pain, rejection and failures of a hundred ideas that came before it.

It talks about a man who made a lot of mistakes in the process. Someone who learnt to stand up, dust-off the failures and try again. Conviction and sweat, more than anything else, have made a successful Apple and Pixar.

For those aspiring of startups, the book taught me one thing – “the road is long”. You have to stick-to-it. You have to put all your bets on it. The companies in the limelight today, floundered for years, before they hit the tipping point.

Slumdog yawn’ionaire

Can anyone please tell me what is the big deal about this movie?

I resisted the urge to watch a pirated rip that landed on my hard drive weeks ago. Saved it all for yesterday evening. Shelling out 180 bucks at PVR.

1. I didn’t find the movie engrossing at all. It had a feel of discontinuity and shallowness. There were a couple of scenes worthy of memory, but that’s it. I was wondering… just another hindi movie?

2. Did I blunder by watching the english version? It seemed *so unreal* to see pot-bellied mumbai police speak impeccable english.

3. The platform dance, just before the credits, was completely unnecessary.

4. JR has already caught the “meet me at VT station” goof up.  Oh don’t worry, just by the Sir Qasab memorial. It’s hard to miss.

Maybe the film appeals to the western audience. But I don’t think it deserves an Oscar. And it doesn’t deserve two hours of your time.

I watched a *far better film* the weekend before: Changeling – starring Angelina Jolie, John Malcovich et al. Brilliant work. How do they portray the Los Angeles of the 1920’s? A really huge movie set? I love the style and tone of the spoken english in those days.

There was a noisy two-year-old sitting right next to me. Couldn’t the parents find him a garden, a park or a mall? Why Changeling? Why center-seats-third-row-from-the-back?

I just sooo hate it when people come to the cinema hall with an agenda other than watching the movie.

Lok Sabha telly…

Watched an interesting interview of Dr Kasturirangan on Lok Sabha TV today evening. Inspiring, amazing. A lot of insight on how to build fundamentally strong organizations. He also helped answer a question that often runs in my mind: “Why does a country like ours spend billions of dollars into space programs?”

If there is a re-run, it would be worth a watch.

I think there are some fairly sensible people editing the Lok Sabha channel. One would expect a government-run channel to carry the same ol’ politically correct, nationalistic stuff.

On the contrary, I often see drastic perspectives from the guests there. The past few weeks I’ve watched open discussions on so-called taboo subjects in the Indian context – gay rights, mercy killings, personal privacy, artistic freedom etc.

Frauds, bailouts…

Watched the evening press conference, lead by Mynampati and the gang today. The placard in the backdrop quoted their corporate tag line:

“Business Transformation Together”

Yeah! At least you guys got that right. Thank you for burning my money.

Now, the US porn industry is asking for a federal bailout! I mean, c’mon. What are the 693,000 unemployed last december doing at home?

Amongst other interesting things, lost my job. Another startup close to going bust. No grudge taken. Going by the thumb-rule, 2 in every 10 succeed; so I have plenty more to go statistically.

Working on a couple of consulting assignments now; freelancing a bit and working on a few other ideas. It is fun,  but riskier to live with. My folks think I’m jobless. But actually, it’s enough to pay the bills and buy some beer right now.

For once in my life I have enough time to keep a regular workout reigm in mornings, and enough time to indulge in an ever growing stack of books.

One of them is relevant today – Adam Smith’s “The Weath of Nations”. The original treatise is titled much longer than the terse title I’ve quoted.

From the father of modern policital economics, I’m trying to understand what does money really mean? What is the inherent value of money? And I’m hoping it was not invented just to keep us amused as we track our portfolios for hours every morning..