Change

Change seems to be the buzzword now-a-days. Barak Obama talks about it and now chiranjeevi has taken the political plunge to bring a 'change' to the state politics. There is euphoria in Andhra Pradesh because of Chiru's political entry. Everyone is debating whether he would be a good politician. Would he bring the much needed change in people's lives?

I think it is too early to say it. I saw him on August 17th announcing his political entry and his interaction with the media. I saw in him a man with lots of humility, he appeared to be someone who is raw, vulnerable, who is ready to be moulded, can be moulded. I think the key for him is to surround himself with the right people. Because he is an outsider to politics, he should learn from the right people. He should not surround himself with these seasoned politicians who will make him another politician. If he is really looking for change, he should start from his party.

One mistake that Chandra Babu Naidu made which resulted in his loss in the previous election was he concentrated on cities and neglected rural areas. Now chiranjeevi says he is pro-poor, pro-backward people. That may be a good way to start with so that he can get enough votes, but I think when he gets to power, he should not make the similar mistake that Chandrababu Naidu made by concentrating only on rural areas and forgetting cities. I guess in this case an alliance of these two parties could be a good one for all the people. Chiranjeevi can concentrate on rural areas whereas Chandrababu Naidu can concentrate on cities :). But this may not be a reality.

At this point all of this is a euphoria. Who knows whether Chiranjeevi will get enough votes, whether he will come to power, whether he would work for poor or rich, whether he would work at all or simply make money. All of these questions would be answered with time. But I applaud him for entering the politics and I hope he will bring the much needed change.

Bollywood

Yesterday I was reading some movie's review on some website and the author made a remark which I agree. Since the time when the word "Bollywood" was added to the dictionary, lot of people from the Hindi film industry expressed disappointment with the term which makes us subservient or a branch of Hollywood.

Even I felt the same way till I saw this remark and I thought he is right. The remark was "why should the hindi film industry be not called Bollywood when the majority of the hindi films are unabashed copies of Hollywood films?

I feel the remark is very true. If we have so much pride in our film industry, then we should make original movies and should not copy the hollywood films. Then we can say that we are a different entity which makes completely different and original movies. For now it looks like the dubbing industry of Hollywood films and I would not hesitate to call it "Bollywood"

Kudos to Abhinav

Yesterday morning I opened ibnlive.com and I saw the news that Abhinav had won a gold medal in shooting at Olympics. I felt very happy. It must have been a few hours that he had won the medal and there were already so many endorsements lined up and I saw the news item that he jumped straight into Dhoni's league in terms of how much he would be paid for endorsements.

I also saw the news item that now he is the most eligible bachelor and there was an interview with his parents and they said people have already started sending the marriage proposals to them. I was happy and sad after reading all these news items.

Happy because overnight (or I should say overhours) a nobody attained so much publicity, attention, celebrity status and success. Everybody enjoys that. Sad because till yesterday nobody new who this guy abhinav was and suddenly he has done something remarkable and everyone wants a piece of his success. Suddenly parents are ready to marry their daughters to this guy, companies are ready to pay him hefty sums to get his endorsement.

Someone rightly said "chadte sooraj ko hi sab salaam karte hain, doobte sooraj ko koi nahin poochta hai". I feel sad at the opportunistic way this world works.

Friendship day

Yesterday was friendship day. I wish everyone a happy friendship day. Actually I did not even know about it until my wife told me and she came to know about it primarily because she got so many wishes from her friends in India.

In India it is celebrated in a big way. People gift their friends with key chains or tie friendship bands and a lot of other things. But from what I saw here in U.S, there was no hype at all. Here I think Father's day and Mother's day are celebrated with that fervor that we see for friendship day and valentine's day in India.

But still people in India think that celebrating friendship day is something that we copied or borrowed from U.S and those saffron parties make a big deal about it. But it is hardly celebrated here. That means that we Indians embraced this day and made it big. So it is not at all western influence.

Even if it may have been first thought about by some westerner, we Indians took it to to a different level. We celebrate it like nobody does.