The Great American Hegemony - Bring back the British!

Out of the myriad of television channels available for viewing pleasure (Sony Pix) or in most cases, displeasure (Star Plus) to the Indian market, there is one commonality that has been scratching my brain like an infected rash. Namely, why the hell are all the English channels in India catering to American shows and American shows only?

In the insanity of crapula that Indian TV throws at the viewers, I used to find refuge in Star World. But lately, I have been second guessing myself. Watching American sitcom 'gems' like "According to Jim" and "Yes Dear," I have come to appreciate how really retarded commercial humour can be. Here's how to make a typical dialogue in an American sitcom:

Person 1: "Blah de blah blah"
Person 2: "Well, blah de blah blah blah"
(Play fake but assertive laugh track)
-Repeat-

The other day I had the chance to spend some time at a friend's house and use his Tata Sky DTH TV service. Having read that Tata Sky is the only service showing the "BBC Entertainment" channel, I decided to check it out. Not to my surprise, I found the shows compelling, substantive, and more importantly not intended for the brain dead (well most of them at least). But that is not to say that the shows are pretentious or intellectually condescending. The pity is that even Tata Sky only shows this channel from 6pm to 6am.

What's worse is the attitude of channels like Star world and Zee Cafe who take pride in "bringing [us] the latest American hit shows" - as if that should give us all a collective hard-on in our pants.

Taking this argument further, one of my pet peeves about Delhi, and perhaps India in whole, is the dismal standards of Movie halls here. On any given day, open the paper and check out the movie listings. Every move hall will show exactly the same movies - all Hollywood 'Blockbusters' - one mind numbingly stupid ass slapstick comedy / chick flick / retardo action movie after another. And while it's trite to argue that this is what the audience wants, I would contend that this is what the audience knows. People aren't necessarily stupid (though all evidence points to the opposite). But they are not movie 'buffs' at the same time, and people will largely eat what they are fed, unless they know any better, and my contention is that they don't.

But where did we as a society throw in the towel and bend over for the American media / Hollywood? And more importantly, why the shit do we continue to do so?

I can only hope that with news companies coming in to the TV industry and new technologies emerging like IPTV, the consumer is given more choice, and we get to see not just American, but British, European, Chinese, Japanese etc. shows and movies.

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Justice is a dish best served with a side of STFU: Sanjay Dutt - Behind bars or Above the law?

This whole Sanjay Dutt thing is getting out of hand. Contrary to logic, sense, the rule of law and all things noble, the media, celebrities and in fact the public-at-large as per my diagnosis has gone bonkers. Reluctantly, I am forced to exercise my brain at this wee hour to present to you a point by point dissection of why everyone is SO wrong.

Disclaimer: The following post contains a healthy dose of the contempt I have in my heart for:
a) People
b) Bollywood
c) Sensationalism
d) The media
e) The media
f) The media
If you are faint of heart or rather faint of brain and / or cannot comprehend or appreciate sarcasm, I strongly advise that you don't read this post, or my blog, ever. Seriously.


Now here are some statements I have come across blurted out in his defence (and an assortment of other delectable jewels of a mix of 1 part stupidity and 5 parts sensationalism):

1. "People make mistakes."
   Yes, and sometimes they have to pay for their mistakes. This is one of those times.
   
2. "He's already served time. He should be let go now."
   It's the responsibility and the discretion of the judiciary, and not the media or popular opinion, to decide on the quantum of sentencing of a person convicted of a criminal offence. I place the judicial sensibilities of a judge much higher than that of ordinary journalists and lay persons.
   
3. "He's a versatile and talented actor."
   Of course, everyone else convicted of a crime that they have committed are talentless idiots. I can juggle while whistling "Saare Jahaan se achcha...". Maybe I will use that in my defence one day.
   
4. He's been targeted because he's famous.
   This statement makes me laugh and cry at the same time. It is a favourite statement of people who, had he actually been acquitted, would have whined that he got away because he's famous.
   
5. "He's such a nice guy."
   Clearly, since the vast majority of us have had great personal interaction with him and are privy to his thoughts and feelings, we can state with authority even the subtlest facets of his personality. I think I should note this one down for my future defence too. I am sure if I am faced with defending myself in a criminal prosecution, being a 'nice guy' would make all the difference. I wonder if in jail Sanjay Dutt is signing Alice Cooper's, "No more Mr. Nice Guy."
   
6. "Something like this shouldn't happen to someone who so many people love."
   No, only people who are hated by a lot of people should be subject to the law. Public adoration should literally be a 'get out of jail free' card.
   
7. "He's reformed now."
   The above point applies here as well. In addition I would say that it's not my place to judge whether he is reformed or not, because that's a job for the court to do. And this exact matter would have been considered by the judge in the assessing whether he should be given probation or not. I do think however that it's worth of noting that at the end of the day his job is to act, i.e. stage performance. So hypothetically speaking, if he is indeed unreformed, it would not be too arduous a task for him to mask that whilst in the public eye.
   
8. "The bollywood industry thinks that the court sentence is too harsh."
   The day that I start giving two shits about what the bollywood industry thinks is the day that I will myself purchase a gun - not to support terrorists, but to shoot myself in the head. (btw this is a solution I advocate to others too).
   Postscript: People in Bollywood think? I wouldn't have thought so considering that most of their movies are terrible rehashes (and allegedly plagiarised copies) of other movies?
9. "Other people are getting away with committing bigger crimes than he has."
   While this may be a true and sad state of affairs in our country, or actually, much of this world, it doesn't exonerate him of his crimes.
   
10. We should petition the President of India to get him out.
    (Let's not even get into the controversies surrounding the President). We should petition God for some good sense and restraint before making dumb comments instead.

Now, I have no personal grudge against the guy. He may not be my favourite actor, but he is far from being my most hated. If in the course of the appellate process his sentence is reduced as per due proceudre, I have no issues. But if he is let go because of public sentiment and misplaced activism, I think it would be a travesty and an insult to law-abiding citizens and the legal process.

By the way, not that this has to do specifically with Sanjay Dutt, but there is an excellent movie made on the Bombay blasts called 'Black Friday.' I highly recommend this movie if you haven't seen it yet. Despite the grim topic, it is very entertaining.

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Twisted Logic #3 - Egypt - 1, India - 0

Twisted Logic: Voting for the Taj Mahal was probably one of the most unpatriotic things you have done this week.

Major Props to Egypt. They not only had the brains, but also the guts to stand up to the 'New 7 Wonders' and call it for what it is - bullshit. While their government stood up for their cultural heritage, and refused to participate or support this rubbish, our people and news agencies opened up their hearts and wallets (but shut their minds) to the corporation behind this farce.

Ironically, people voted for Taj Mahal out of a perceived sense of patriotism. The truth, however, as exposed in this article in The Pioneer is that the very people who spent their money on this bogus campaign are the furthest thing from being patriotic. We as a country have given a number of greedy individuals and companies our money in the name of cultural heritage and some really skewed idea that this will somehow increase tourism. The said money, which the article estimates to be around Rs. 150 crore (yes, you read that right!!) if had been donated to actual upkeep, preservation and promotion of the Taj Mahal, would actually have been the real patriotic thing to do and would have done miracles for the monument. Shame on us.


The Shitlist so far:

• Indians who voted for this campaign
• Bernard Weber
• New Open World Corporation
• DNA Networks
  
• BSNL
• CNN-IBN
• NDTV

(This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you know of any other individuals, organizations or companies that perpetuated this abomination, please leave a comment, and I shall add them to the list).

The Heroes:

• People who actively chose not to vote
• Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni
• UNESCO
• The Pioneer (15 June '07, 8 July '07)
  
• The Indian Express (Link)
  

The travesty of this is that the greedy assholes are not done yet. Now they are proposing another 'campaign' called the "New 7 Wonders of Nature."

Note: In case the link for the Pioneer article doesn't work, go to The Pioneer's homepage | Scroll down to "Archives" | Select 15 June, 2007 (or 8 July, 2007) and click "Go!" | Scroll down to the Article and click on the Headline.

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Boo PVR Cinemas & (Pepsi) Aquafina

PVR Cinemas, particularly the multiplex at Saket, is perhaps one of my most despised locations to watch a movie in Delhi. Bad legspace, terrible audio, overpriced yet extremely unappetizing snacks, parking problems, non-availability of tickets, poor variety of movies (Hindi & English mainstream 'blockbusters' only) are just few of the factors why I would rather buy / rent a DVD and watch it at home than go to this place. Today I found another one - bottled water.

It was one of those days where I wanted to see a movie on a big screen, and was able to do so in the morning. Morning shows alleviate the problems of parking and non-availability of tickets. so I said, "What the heck." The movie was nice, but here's something interesting I found. PVR cinemas gets specially packaged water from Aquafina. No big deal there. In addition, as per their display board, the cinema hall charged as per the MRP (Maximum Retail Price) on the bottle. That's sweet of them.

But here's the kicker.

The bottled is marked MRP Rs. 20.

But the net weight is only 750 ml.

With a little bit of Math, that means that this bottled water costs Rs. 26.67 per litre. Interestingly, a bottle of Aquafina in the regular market (presumably the water in both is of the same quality) comes for Rs. 12 per litre!

So what's going? Presumably this has something do with the case of Ankit Jain, who took Nirula's (a fast food chain) to Consumer court for charging him way above the MRP for a soft-drink can, won the case, thereby enforcing the law that packaged goods cannot be sold at cost above than the printed MRP.

Seems fishy!!! - has PVR cinemas found a loophole by colluding with the manufacturer to jack up the MRP?

Disclaimer: The alleged collusion and all above information is nothing more than a rant. There is no claim to truth in this article. I am not party to any information or agreement between PepsiCo and PVR Cinemas. This post is merely an observation by a lay consumer which leads to an interesting question. Furthermore, I do not claim that any such action or related actions by PepsiCo or PVR Cinemas is in any way contrary to the provisions of law. However, I reserve the right to have distaste for their deficiency of services.

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DVD Region Encoding, Piracy, Solutions...

This came as a surprise to me. Apparently the main purpose behind DVD region-encoding is to curb piracy! I always thought that it was just to irritate consumers.

Disclaimer: I neither condone nor condemn piracy. This is a mere rant.

Most people who use DVDs have probably experienced the annoyance of region encoding. Simply put, region encoding is a mechanism built in to original DVD movies (and video games) that disables you from playing DVDs from one region in a player belonging to another region. For more on regional encoding, click here.

Unfortunately the forces that be are most probably going to extend this tremendously stupid practice to the next generation, though in the case of Blu-Ray discs the number of regions would be reduced.

The reason I call this tremendously stupid is in relation to the fact that pirated discs are what is called 'region-free' - i.e. they don't have this locking mechanism. So in essence, pirated discs are more consumer friendly than original discs! Couple that with the fact that you can get pirated discs for a fraction of the cost of an original DVD movie, and you have marketing suicide.

The only reasons that DVDs sell are that people don't know of the pirated options, and/or don't want to bother with visiting seedy shops. In a few cases, people might even have an ethical objection to piracy. That would be fairly remote though.

So how can they fight piracy?

A better business model - There is no way that the movie industry et al will win this war in the courts. No. way. There are too many people involved in copyright violations and piracy, and moreover, most of them operate beyond the jurisdiction of American courts. The 'war' cannot be won by technological means either. The very nature of hackers is that they thrive on intellectual stimulation. Companies adopting more complex and tougher copy protection mechanisms only translates to offering a greater challenge to pirates (not to mention, also increasing their profit potential!) The only way piracy can be beat in long term is by giving better value for money, i.e. an improved mix of price and quality.

Price :
The irony in region encoding is that it could have been best used to enable companies to utilize price discrimination, i.e. they could have charged different costs for their movies in different countries. e.g. an original ps2 game in India costs over Rs. 2,000. A pirated ps2 game Costs Rs. 50. An average college graduate in an area like New Delhi can hope to earn between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000 at his first job. Which option do you think he / she would go for? In my very unscientific but empirically sound judgment, I find the difference in cost of living translates such that an average persons spending $40 in the U.S. is about the same as an average person spending Rs. 400 in India. Thus, perhaps a more appropriate price for original ps2 games would be around Rs. 500.

Furthermore, by changing the method of distribution from physical DVDs sold in brick-and-mortar stores, if the industries focus more on distributing via the internet (and concurrently investing in ISPs to increase speed and connectivity), they will find themselves with a bigger profit margin, part of which can be passed on to the consumer in terms of lower prices.

Quality :
The biggest flaw with the DVD and other optical disc media is durability. A few scratches on your disc, and you can no longer enjoy your movie / video games / music. This is one area where original media beats pirated media, but only slightly. Pirated discs are typically of low quality but given the way the average person uses them (short term not long term) this is usually insignificant. Moreover, the price difference is such that you can buy and replace your pirated discs several times over for the cost of one original disc. However, notably, most people when they buy something like it to work without any issue or hassle, and this is one of the few reasons why someone would opt for original content over pirated content.

The appropriate measure to take here would be the introduction of schemes whereby consumers would be able to replace their scratched discs at a nominal cost instead of having to buy the disc again. (But of course, the best solution would be to move to a more durable format).

Conclusion : Legal and technological options alone will not end piracy, but would only make piracy more profitable. What the industries need to do is to look at their very own foundation of capitalism - the 'war' has to be fought in the market. Ironically, the very ideology that started modern industry has now in this case come to bite them back in the ass. Compete or be extinct.

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Boo This Man!

You may have never seen this man before. But he sucks and you may be a victim of his marketing. His name is Bernard Weber. A Swiss national, he is the 'brains' behind the 'New 7 Wonders' campaign. If you have received any SMSes / e-mails asking you to vote for the Taj Mahal, you would know what I am talking about. More on that, and the newspaper article which exposes this farce after the link.

This campaign is an atrocious attempt to make 'American Idol' style voting bullshit out of the world's cultural heritage. The main idea is that the Weber and his New Open World Corporation have taken it upon themselves to create a new list of The 7 Wonders of the World. How do they do this? They have signed up with multiple telecom companies throughout the world to establish a system whereby you can vote for your favourite monument via SMS, phone or the internet. This of course generates revenue for them as well as the telecom companies, though they claim on their website that this is only to "fund the project." This way their corporation feeds off the patriotic sentiments of gullible people throughout the world, to make some money, and to have a swell party in Lisbon in July to announce the 'winners.'

Unfortunately a lot of people fall for this bullshit, and fail to even address the basic question of who gave Bernard Weber or his corporation the authority (or even the appropriate credibility) to engage in this 'campaign'? The '7 Wonders' can be traced back to ancient times (a few hundred years B.C.) and although there is a lot of debate but no consensus on what comes under the list and what doesn't, I for one find it wholly inappropriate for a corporation to use it commercially in this manner. The tragedy is that patriotism is a sentiment that can make idiots out of people as I recently experienced.

Surprisingly, (at least with reference to my recent criticism of the media) I highly recommend reading a very good article written on this farcical enterprise by Girish Sharma in The Pioneer.

Edit: In case the link for the Pioneer article doesn't work, go to The Pioneer's homepage | Scroll down to "Archives" | Select 15 June, 2007 and click "Go!" | Scroll down to the Article titled " 'New list' of wonders a money-making ploy."

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Innovation: A Famine in India

When it comes to consumer goods, especially electronic items, I come across one very common phenomenon time and again - and that is the import of electronics and other goods which are designed for western markets into India, without any apparent application of mind in adapting the product for Indian conditions. A few examples:

1. In places like Delhi (and AFAIK Mumbai) most cars are driven by drivers and not the owners themselves. Would it not make sense then to provide separate air conditioner vents for the back seat? I find it absurd that people spend 20, 30, 40 etc. lakhs on cars, and then their drivers get to stay cool more than the owner!! (of course eventually it cools down - that's not the point). The only car I know of that has this feature is the Tata Indigo.
   The same, by the way, applies to automatic transmission, which is just oh so sweet for driving in traffic jams, but still few manufacturers offer AT, and when they do it comes at a significant premium.
   
2. HDTV - this is my personal favourite pet peeve (mainly because I don't have one! ;) ). But coming to the point, shops are selling, and people are buying widescreen, HDTV LCDs left right and center - in a country where there is no HD content on TV!!! And even widescreen content is limited to DVDs, which again are not as preferred by the mainstream as VCDs. Yet, people spend lakhs on a single TV only to watch their fave saas-bahu serial all stretched out horizontally... sick!
3. Cell Phones - Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others all are quick are importing and advertising their latest imports. However, what's the point of importing phones that are 3G when 3G is not even available in India! (and there are some really nice phones like the SE M600i which only have 3G internet access capabilities, and not even EDGE).
   

What's worse is than in a country which is so prominent on the IT map of the world, domestic products are terrible. Only someone with a very tight budget and/or little value for quality would go in for a desi TV, or other products such as the atrociously ugly and overpriced HCL Neopod mp3 player. The end result is that we depend on foreign manufactured products, and consequently have to bear the atrocious duty on such products.

Really, what is the problem? Is there a famine of creativity in our country? Why are we so good at being servile (e.g. BPOs) but so bad at being innovative? Why is it that we are not coming up with the next new thing in TV technology?

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