"Give IT - India " a personal perspective

A retreat to the heart to see a different sharukh's movie. Somewhere deepdown i had a soft corner to this guy who has raised from a fouji to coach and wandered in millions of heart for the last 10 years or more which made me watch "CHAK DEY.." on the day of the release after watching a preview of the theme song a week back which is quite isnpiring. After "Swades" this is best performance oriented role by the king khan. Infact you really u dont see all those Regular Quirks and you get to see a different Khan altogether. And applause to the director to have done such a wonderful screenplay and giving equal importance to all the characters from across the states of the country with an awesomely knit storyline. Breaking the sterotypes of the women to be restricted to the kitchens...and what it really takes to be a champions the movie is nicely paced with three different aspects - set-up, build-up and climax. A subtle comdey from every character and equally subtle dialogues making an impact in some portion of your brain. Indeed a bold step to involve 16 amatuer actors in a game like hockey who just stick to their natural instincts of acting and give life to the characters with few giving that extra edge over others. Somebody rightly mentioned you need to be a coach to give the best out of team than a manager, and Kabir Khan though unconventional may be in his methods devised on the few young egostic expereinced women, a few submissive, one super-charged angry , a dissent one, another skeptical one all characters that we normally find around us in our lives weaves them together imbibing some sense of patriotism, demonstrating attitude, aggression, sporting spirit and the killer instinct to achieve amidst fighting all odds.

There is something captivating about the sporting movies in general and this one is a niche one in that category where the movie watchers were cheering as if it is a real match which proves that there isn't much exaggeration of any scene at all. I am fascinated with movies which leave an impact, which makes you ponder and the ones which allow you fill something missing and i am sure this one is a blend of all.

Its a must watch for everybody whether you aren't sharukh fan or whether you dislike sports, its most unlikely to make you move around the seat with unease as the movie runs around your anticpation and makes you realise the ADIDAS slogan with the entertainment at its own place.

A double thumbs-up to everybody behind the making of CHAK DEY INDIA and to the KING KHAN in particular delivering his best in the form of the coach taking the 16 young babes to victory.

I wished i could write those few dialogues and moments that i enjoyed, liked right from the first scene where Kabir Khan walks out of his colony with his mother the most beautiful shot to the sublte comedy he does at McDonalds to the introduction of the women's team in the traditional indian style with that not so great yet inspiring climax speech, overall its worth waiting for 8 months to watch a movie on the Big Screen and not even a single soul standing up to leave their seats just before you realise the movie is going to end waiting till there is blackout
And walking out in your minds !!! CHAAAAAAAK DEEEEY INDIAAAAAAAA.

Are Advertisements Widening the Gap?

A wonderful excerpt from Mr Desai CEO & MD - Future Brands - Whether Advertisements are widening the gap between the Have's and Have Not's :

Do you remember this ad for an air-conditioner where a poor young girl fills up some cold air in the cup of her hand and runs across to the fields where her father is toiling in the hot sun to give him some relief? The magnanimity of the air-conditioned world is staggering, that it gives so freely of itself to the poor is deeply moving.

We cannot help the poor, so let’s mock at them instead with our pretended sympathy. Let the brand gain by speaking emotionally. So what if the poor are twice exploited?

The traditional argument for advertising increasing the distance between haves and have-nots is that it makes the latter aspire for a lifestyle beyond their reach and hence creates a set of false desires leading to people living beyond their means. The traditional argument need not be true.

Advertising can play a powerful role if it creates a ladder of aspirations that inspires consumers to continuously move up in their lives. For this to happen, advertising must speak to all its potential consumers and give each constituency the respect it deserves.

And this is where advertising is failing today. While it is more inclusive than it was a few years ago, it is still focused narrowly on a very small group of people. For instance, when was the last time you saw a village in a commercial that was not out of a tourist brochure? Barring a few instances, advertising excludes large parts of India from its mental model of consumers. This is particularly true for rural India but also applies to a whole set of mass-market consumers at the lower end.

When it does depict them, it is most often as caricatures for the amusement of the rest of us. The implicit perspective is so metro-oriented that Lucknow is seen as a small town and spoken down to. The ‘us versus them’ mindset is embedded deeply and conversations with ‘people like them’ are usually patronising, stereotypical or both. The worst cases mock the consumer, as in the example of the air-conditioner ad above.

Advertising is part of a larger discourse that includes popular cinema and news media where the rich have become the centre of our universe. By being concerned largely with consumers rather than people, and that too consumers with deep pockets, we are eager to listen to their concerns and tend to ignore the rest.

In a larger sense, of course, advertising is the infantry of an army that seeks to make our world a place where we measure our worth according to the things we buy. In an inherently unequal society like ours, this can only magnify the distance between those who have the means and those who do not. Potentially, advertising could give those lower down the economic ladder the incentive to push themselves harder in the name of consumption. That it has chosen not to do so, is a tragedy.