It's a day of goodbyes

Today while driving to the office, I turned on the radio to my favorite Indian radio station "Bollywood Beats". Today was the last day of their regular programming. Starting monday they are closing down and will be taken over by another radio station from Houston. 

Emotions were running very high with the RJs saying many times today is the last time we will be talking to you and they were playing heavy and sad songs. The callers called in to say you did a good job and we will miss you and all. 

Apart from these RJs, today Jay Leno will bid goodbye to the "Tonight show". I will be watching it. I am sure emotions will run high on that show too. He is leaving the show after 17 years. That's a long time. He has got a lot of dedicated audience. I hope everyone would be able to control their emotions. 

In Jay Leno's case, he is not going away anywhere. He will be seen on the same channel, doing possibly the same things but at a different time. So it should not be too bad. But I feel a little sad for "Bollywood Beats". They provided us entertainment for 7 months and they are forced to close down.

But as they say everything happens for a reason. And people should move on with optimism and with the belief that something bigger and better is ahead of them. I wish all of them good luck.

The death of a prolific film maker

Today one of my favorite film makers Mr. Prakash Mehra passed away. He was a great story teller. His films were very entertainment oriented. My favorite films of Prakash Mehra are Zanjeer, Namak Halaal, Sharaabi, Mukaddar ka Sikandar and Laawaris. All of these had Amitabh Bachchan. Theirs was a deadly duo.

I feel he knew the pulse of the audience very well and he catered to their basic need: entertainment. Apart from being a writer, he was also a lyricist. He mostly wrote the important songs of his movies which actually conveyed the jist of the story. He also had a good knack of spotting things. I heard of an anecdote from Mr. Bachchan that once he sang "Mere angne mein" song in one of the weddings and when he heard the song, he told Amitabh not to sing this song anywhere because he knows exactly of a situation in his movie where he wants to incorporate this song. And we know how famous the song became.

Among the songs that he wrote, my favorite is "Jahaan char yaar" in Sharaabi. It is an awesome song. The music in his films was very good. He got the best music out of Kalyanji-Anandji and Bappi Lahiri.

This is my tribute to one of my favorite film makers.

The triumph of Indian democracy

The results of the month long elections are out. The UPA has achieved resounding victory. The people of India have spoken and they have spoken by rejecting the people who have spread a lot of bitterness and had threatened to divide the country on the lines of religion, region and have had unprogressive agenda.

The voters have done the right thing by giving heavy majority to a party or a coalition. This gives any party a free hand to implement reforms and not worry about satisfying the coalition partners. I think that was one of the Achilles heel of the previous UPA government. Personally I have high regard for Dr. Manmohan Singh. I think we need such a statesman as our leader.

Now the onus is on the new government to show us some progress in return to the overwhelming victory they have been given. In this election, another encouraging factor I have observed is there were a lot of young people who contested and lot of them have won. This is a very good sign. Hopefully this should encourage more young people to get into the public service.

Apart from the young people I would like to see learned men and women like Mr. Narayan Murthy, Ratan Tata and some of the entrpreneurs to enter public life. I would remember this election as the one where there was a lot of awareness created, lot of people actually voted, voters voted for the right people and suddenly voting and politics was cool.

It is time to show your cards!!!!

Today is the day before the counting starts in India. So many parties are in the fray. The exit polls say that nobody will get absolute majority. There are four fronts officially now but the interesting thing would be to see ultimately which party will get align with which party.

Depending on the results of the polls, these parties will shift loyalties and join whoever promises power. This situation reminds me of my school days. Towards the end of the last period, our teachers used to tell us that as soon as the bell rings, the school gate will be opened and don't go here and there go straight to the bus. Everyone says "yes teacher". Once the gate opens who knows where everyone is going? Some people are after the ice creams, some people are after those peanuts and we used to go to anyone who showed us something to eat.

I think the gates are going to open tomorrow. Nobody knows where each one will head. I hope that whatever coalition comes to power leads India progressively. I am deeply pained by some of the parties' unprogressive campaign promises. In UP, some party has promised to abolish english medium education. Some other party somewhere has promised to remove all Computers from the Government offices to address unemployment.

The world is focussing on developing countries like India. The Indian brand has finally started to get a makeover. People consider India to do cost effective business. We do not want leaders with promises like above. Apart from this my other concerns are national security. With our neighbouring countries in turmoil, we should be very alert and proactive with respect to our security. Another concern I have is communal harmony. We need someone who does not create divisions based on religion. I don't know if I am asking for too much but I surely know that people of India deserve such a government.