IIPM Business School

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Nawaz's task is cut out

Of all the problems facing Pakistan that Nawaz needs to tackle during his initial days in office, dealing with the energy crisis appears to be the priority, says Saurabh Kumar Shahi

When Nawaz Sharif took oath as Prime Minister for the third time, he turned a chapter in Pakistan’s political history. It was for the first time that an elected political dispensation took power directly from the outgoing government.

But the euphoria needs to give way to some serious governance, something that was in short supply in the last five years. After a short delay and power-haggling, the cabinet was also sworn in. A cursory look at the list of ministers, both cabinet as well as the MOS, indicate that PML(N) has balked at offering a revolutionary lot.

The list indicates that pragmatism and experience have won the day over political correctness. Therefore, unlike the previous ministry, one can just see two female ministers, both of them MOSs. Also, Nawaz has chosen efficiency and ability over regional considerations. Nawaz seems to have sent the message loud and clear that merit will be given the utmost priority.

Also, unlike PPP’s cabinet, Nawaz does not have the problem of plenty. He has won a lion’s share of his seats from Punjab while picking a couple of them from here and there, unlike the PPP of 2008 that almost swept Southern Punjab apart from its bastion of Sindh. However, that does not mean that there are no representations from other provinces. PML(N) bagged a lone seat from Karachi. Abdul Hakeem Baloch, the greenhorn winner, was awarded with an MOS berth. Sardar Yusuf has been made minister from KPK quota, whereas Abdul Qadir Baloch represents Balochistan. Similarly Pir Sadruddin Rashdi and Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi, both veterans from Sindh, have found their way to the cabinet. Kamran Michael, the minister of Minorities Affair, completes the rainbow. The other berths are almost equally divided among Northern, Central and South Punjab MNAs.

This includes political bigwigs who have supported Nawaz and the Party through thick and thin. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan as the possible Interior Minister, Khawaja Asif as Minister of Water and Power, Ahsan Iqbal as Minister of Planning and Development and Information Technology and Ishaq Dar as Finance Minister are good news. All of them are qualified and old hands in Pakistani political landscape.

Tariq Fatemi looks all set to work as advisor to the prime minister on foreign affairs whereas Sartaj Aziz will work as an advisor on the economy. However, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as Minister for Petroleum, Oil and Gas can be considered bad news considering his reputation.

The single biggest challenge that Pakistan faces today, apart from terrorism, is the perennial power crisis that has affected the economy severely in the last few years. Pakistan has a current installed power generation capacity of around 24,000 megawatts (MW). However, the total generation is in fact less than 10,000 MW. The primary reason is attributed to Rs 1 trillion circular debts, which prevents the government from making payments to independent power producers on time.

“The new government is going to be ruthless in its management of all the public-sector energy companies,” says Zafar Iqbal Sobani, who headed Hub Power Company very recently and looks all set to become one of the advisors soon. “Expect to see many people summarily fired from these organisations as well as the ministry of water and power."

There are other serious concerns as well. Nawaz Sharif is close to the US and Saudi Arabia. Both these countries are trying to undermine Iran for strategic gains. The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that President Zardari championed amidst pressures of all kinds might face hurdles. The pipeline is essential for the survival of Pakistani economy. But if Nawaz decides to accommodate the wishes of his American and Saudi friends, it will become an issue of contention. “Here comes the test for the new government as to how well it can advocate its cause and the urgent need of energy to sustain the economy as well as quell growing social unrest. It would require even more vigorous diplomacy with the US. Our national interest must precede all other imperatives,” says Raza Runi, director of Jinnah Institute.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Made in China, and works!

I’m a sucker for quick fixes! I’m on that tightrope called the thirties and I know that my choices today will go a long way towards ruining or empowering the decades hopefully to come. Of course I want to drag and stretch what remains of my youth as far into my middle age as possible. My wife says my teens have so far bypassed my twenties and thirties as far as maturity and a sense of responsibility is concerned but what of the body?

Is there a way to stay fit and strong and youthful? I’m not happy with washboard abs and bulging biceps alone. I mean, sure I want them too, but I don’t want to end up like Don Youngblood, you know…

Don was an inspirational figure on the bodybuilding circuit in the early 2000s. having spent his youth setting up a successful trucking business, Don took up bodybuilding when he was 34. Don took to the gym like a fish takes to water and soon grew bigger than some of the trucks his company owned.

In 2002, Don won the Mr. Olympia in the masters category. He was huge, about 111 kgs at 5’9”. Though he looked the very picture of health, strength and youthful vigour on the surface, inside his body was crumbling. His muscles and bones were like those of an immortal titan but inside, his organs were ageing, burning out before their time. At 51, three years after winning the Mr. Olympia title, Youngblood died of a heart attack, leaving a shocked family and incredulous fans searching for answers to questions they had never imagined they would ask. Don after all was the super strong, super fit hero who was supposed to stick around long after everybody else had gone.

Evidently, building strong muscles alone wasn’t what it took to live a long and youthful life. And when I say youthful, I don’t mean a lithe gym-toned body topped off with a wrinkled face fighting a losing battle with gum disease, cataracts, male pattern baldness and goodness knows what else, either.

Health ought to flow from inside out. So, where are we to find the guide-map to the fountain of youth that keeps the organs healthy and the skin glowing?

A few weeks ago, I had mentioned the Five Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation that promise health and youthful vigour. Not only is this system of balancing our chakras effective and potent but is also extremely efficient. In fifteen minutes a day, the body, promise the rites, turns back the clock bit by bit, and restores balance within the body.

But what about people whose physical limitations wouldn’t allow them to perform the five rites? Or what about people who need a little more variety in their workout? Is there a system that is as powerful and as efficient that can rival the Tibetan system? Hatha Yoga and even Tai Chi Chuan are amongst the most complete systems of health and longevity but the practice is elaborate, complicated and needs the guidance of a qualified teacher.

But there is one set of rather accommodating exercises within the greater system of qigong that is pretty much the king of health quick-fixes.

They (in this case, the Chinese) call it Ba Duan Jin. Ba means eight, for the number of exercises in the set. Duan denotes continuous practice (or that’s what I understood of it) and Jin stands for silk brocade for the system envelops the body like exquisite silk.

I chanced upon this qigong practice many years ago while doing some research about longevity practices.
Though not certified by Guinness officials, if one were to accept the records of the longest surviving civilization in the history of man, the oldest man to have ever lived would have to be Li-Chung Yun, a tall Chinese Taoist who was born in Kuei-chou, in the mountains of south-western China, in 1678 and whose death was reported by an envoy sent to look for him by Chiang kai-shek in 1930. His legend is rather popular with venerable martial artistes and healers all across China.

Stuart Olson, a westerner who studied tai Chi with the great T. T. Liang, who himself lived to be 104, wrote a book about Li-chung Yun’s incredible longevity practices. And the cornerstone of Olson’s book and his recommendations was Ba Duan Jin.

Olson said that in all his interviews, Master Li had always maintained that he practiced Ba Duan jin every day. Eight exercises, practiced seated or standing for just about 20-25 minutes a day, promise to heal illnesses and ailments triggered by energy blockages and rejuvenate the whole body.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

ExecutiveMBA

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Of gardens and grandeur

With its rich museums, expansive gardens and history at almost every nook and corner, Teheran offers a lot for every kind of traveler, says Saurabh Kumar Shahi
It is surprising, and rather sad, that how the perception built in the media actually helps or hampers the chance of a city or a country to emerge on the international tourism map. The country that has suffered the most from this propaganda war is undoubtedly Iran. A country with a rich tradition of culture, heritage and literature, Iran has hardly figured on the radars of international tourists with the exception of Shia pilgrims who flock to Qom and Masshad.

However, lately, western tourists have started to see through the propaganda web of their respective governments and have started visiting Iran. It is expected that this trickle will only turn into a tide in days to come. And the destination that is expected to host the maximum tourists is capital Teheran.

Teheran (also written as Tehran sometimes) is a bustling city of 14 million Iranians and is situated at the foothills of the mammoth range, aptly named, Al Borz Mountains. In fact, the city was built in a grid from north to south and hence there is a significant altitude variation in different parts of the city. But that also means that on a same day and at the same time, different parts of the capital register a temperature difference of as high as 6 degrees.

Teheran has a dry, semi-arid climate with moderate temperature. February to June and September to early November are the best times to visit the city. There is an evident dryness in the air and the absence of trees intensifies it, therefore winters is not the best time to plan a visit.

Start with the basics. The Iranian Embassy in Delhi issues the visa and take a couple of days. One does not need a guided tour booking to get a visa but an advance booking in a hotel is desirable. Mahan Airways, a private Iranian airline, flies four times a week from Delhi whereas Iran Air flies from Mumbai. One has the option to take either the Dubai or Abu Dhabi route. The flight time is close to three-and-a-half hours. Imam Khomeini International Airport caters to all international flights and is situated 30 kilometers outside the city linked by an expressway. One can decide to hire a taxi or take a bus.

Inside the city, there is an envious network of public transport systems that leaves you with lots of choices. The city roads are clogged with traffic during office hours, therefore it is preferable to take public transport. The city has a swanky and efficient metro system that crisscrosses the city. The murals and bass relief at the metro stations are a sight in itself. When you are traveling by the metro, keep plenty of time in your hand to fully enjoy these murals that depict incidents from Islamic history as well as the history of Iran from the pre-Islamic days. The sheer scale of these murals and the use of colours will leave you stunned.

You can choose BRT buses for fast movement. The prices of the tickets are cheap and if you take seven days or one month cards, the cost in Indian rupee turns out to be negligible. The announcement in Metro system is in English and Persian. But if you feel lost, just approach someone in his teens or early youth. They are expected to be well versed in English and considering how warm Iranian people are, they will go out of their way to help you.

Iran is a city of palaces, museums and parks. The sheer numbers of all of them will leave you overwhelmed. For example the city has over 800 well maintained breathtaking parks. It is therefore advisable to make a proper itinerary before setting out. Irrespective of what kind of sight seeing you prefer, allow at least 3 to 4 days in the capital before venturing out.

Of the city's main attractions, Azadi square and Azadi Tower comes right on the top. Constructed to mark 2,500 years of the Persian empire, the structure is a sublime mix of Sassanian and Islamic elements of architecture, thereby actually representing the zeal of Iran. The structure is surrounded by a park where families are seen spending time. This is also the site of several political marches and rallies.

Milad tower is another must-visit destination. This TV tower is the fourth tallest tower and 12th tallest freestanding structure in the world, and one can see it from practically everywhere in in the city. The tower boasts off a restaurant and an observation deck nestled near the top and offers a sweeping view of the city and beyond.

Among palaces and museums, there is nothing to Match Golestan Palace complex. The complex houses as many as 19 palaces, gardens, museums and grand halls. Once residence of Qajar dynasty, the palace has a breathtaking museum that has several exhibits of historical Iran on show. It also displays exhibits representing lives from all the provinces of Iran and is very interesting. It gets crowded with children in the weekends. Reserve an entire evening for this.

Another place unique to Iran is the very famous Treasury of the National Jewels near the iconic Ferdosi Street. The museum boasts of a collection of some of the most expensive jewels in the world including the world's largest uncut ruby, the world's largest pink diamond, and a golden globe made from 34 kilograms of gold as well as over 50,000 precious stones of all make and sizes among others.

The National Museum of Iran, on the other hand, will not just give you a peep into the history of Iran but also of the nations where the extent of the Persian empire reached in its hey day. The museum has two huge buildings displaying pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Iranian collections. A trip to this museum cannot but make you stop and ponder how history shaped this region.

It is difficult to make a choice among hundreds and hundreds of beautiful parks in Iran, but if one were compelled to do it, then the Jamshidieh Park, which is in the Niavaran district at the base of the Kolakchal Mountain, can be voted as the most picturesque of them all. Allow yourself to submerge into the world of green shrubs, trees and fountains of varied shapes and sizes. Niavaran park, which is nearby, is also worth visiting.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

ExecutiveMBA

Deaths in farms, again!

Farmer suicide has more to do with agriculture policies

Agriculture is the bed rock of Indian. But the sector has been besieged with a number of problems that has become an ignominy and blight to our country’s progress chart. One such acute agrarian crisis is of farmer’s committing suicide. Despite media outcry and expressed concern by our policy makers, there are no signs of the suicide rate dropping. Experts have revealed that over 17,500 farmers committed suicide between 2002 and 2006 – a figure that largely mirrors an upswing of the trend that started in the early 1990s.

According to the latest NCRB report, the five states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, account for two-third of farm suicides in India. The situation in these states has worsened, with the farmers’ suicide rate increasing from 15.8 per 100,000 in 2001 to 16.3 in 2011. This rate is very high if one considers the average suicide rate in our country that stands at 11.1 per 100,000. And what is most alarming is that while the new Census 2011 data reveals a shrinking farmer population, the number of suicides has upped!

Successive governments have come and gone, but their apathy toward the agricultural sector continues. With urban development taking precedence, modern farming techniques have not penetrated our farms leading to over-dependence on monsoons. There is no sight of any financial inclusion for our farmers who have to depend on the merciless loan sharks for their financial needs. And when the farmers are unable to repay the loan, they make the dreadful choice of committing suicide.

The aftermath of the economic meltdown also saw a ‘reverse migration’ where farmers from the urban centers went back to cultivation.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

ExecutiveMBA

Friday, September 6, 2013

Where the past breathes again

For a decade now, the past has been coming alive every May on the Croisette, with the Cannes Film Festival showcasing restored prints of cinematic masterworks in its Classics section. So, even as the glitzy French Riviera event celebrates the finest and the most provocative of contemporary films, it also turns the spotlight on the steadily spreading global campaign to save world cinema heritage through the systematic restoration and digital re-mastering of old movie negatives.

The festival, in its 66th edition, has expanded the scope of the Cannes Classics sidebar to include 20 full-length features films and three documentaries. Among these films is Satyajit Ray’s iconic Charulata (1964), based on a Rabindranath Tagore novella. Its screening will be part of the Cannes celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Indian film industry.

Many landmark films like Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra (1963); a 3-D restored print of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987); and a mint-fresh print of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) will be unveiled in the course of the festival, which runs from May 15 to 26.

Also in Cannes Classics this year are two French Nouvelle Vague (new wave) path-breakers – Alain Resnais and Jacques Demy. The latter’s Palme d’Or-winning 1964 film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the restoration of which was supervised by his 84-year-old widow, celebrated filmmaker Agnes Varda (herself a Nouvelle Vague pioneer), her daughter, Rosalie Varda Demy, and son Mathieu Demy.

Resnais, 90, competed for the Palme d’Or last year with You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet and is set now to start shooting a new film, Aimer, boire et chanter, based on British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s Life of Riley.

Hiroshima Mon Amour, made in 1959, was Resnais’ first fiction film and a major catalyst for the French New Wave. The film, “reborn in sparkling digital form”, will be a major highlight of Cannes Classics 2013.

So will Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast), which was selected for the very first Cannes Film Festival in 1946. A digitally re-mastered print will be screened to mark 50 years after the death of the influential writer, poet, filmmaker and painter who had an active association with the festival in the 1950s.

“As cinema’s link to its own history was about to be turned upside down by the arrival of digital and because films from the past are an integral part of the Festival de Cannes, 2004 saw the creation of Cannes Classics, a programme presenting old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored,” the festival’s website declares.

“A natural, vital part of the Official Selection – and an idea which has made its way into other international festivals – Cannes Classics is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyright holders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world. Thus, Cannes Classics lends the prestige of the Festival de Cannes to great works from the past, accompanying their release in theatres or on DVD.”

The screening of the four-hour-plus Cleopatra will be hosted by Hollywood star Jessica Chastain (Coriolanus, The Tree of Life, Zero Dark Thirty) and attended by Richard Burton’s daughter Kate Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s son, Chris Wilding. The restored print of the film goes into distribution from May 22 in the US and elsewhere in the world.

Eighty-year-old Kim Novak is slated to be a guest of honour of the 66th Cannes Film Festival for the screening of Vertigo, a film that is generally regarded as the defining work of Hitchcock’s career. She will also attend the closing ceremony of the festival and give away one of the awards.

Legendary Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu died 50 years ago, in 1963, but that isn’t the anniversary that Cannes Classics is observing this year. Instead, the screening of his 1962 film Sanma No Aji (Autumn Afternoon) commemorates the 110th year of his birth.

Autumn Afternoon was Ozu’s final film – he died the following year. But his reputation has continued to grow over the years thanks to the many formal innovations he made in the art of cinematic storytelling and in the use of a stagnant camera often looking up at the actors.

Autumn Afternoon featured Ozu regular Chishu Ryu in the role of a widowed patriarch supervising the wedding of his daughter.

Cannes Classics will also honour 83-year-old Joanne Woodward (although her participation in person has not been confirmed yet) with a screening of the 2012 documentary, Shepard & Dark. The film about American playwright and actor Sam Shepard’s 50-year friendship with comedian Johnny Dark was produced by Woodward, renowned actress and wife of Hollywood icon Paul Newman from 1958 until the actor’s death in 2008.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

ExecutiveMBA

Monday, July 29, 2013

The ugly duckling

He sat by the tracks and felt the line come to life. The rail road quivered, excitedly. And in his little toes, he felt the same excitement as the distant rumble rolled closer. He put down the diary in which he was giving words to his angry tears and got to his feet. The ballast poked and pricked at his bare feet but he couldn’t feel any of it.

The green engine loomed into view, and charged towards the boy like a ravenous monster gobbling up the horizon. The boy, turned and looked at the train, and from the fire in his eyes, you could tell he had been waiting… for this day, and for this train.

The train too seemed to know its nemesis. As it came closer, it picked up speed, as if sure of victory. The boy though was tired… tired of being picked on… picked on for being too scared, too fat, too slow, too dull and for being too black. He swore it would all end today.

The train drew near and was nearly upon the boy when those bare feet struggled against the ballast and propelled his tiny form forward. The diary, the stubby pencil and all that remained of his inhibitions were flung into the bluebells by the tracks as his arms carved the air like a buccaneer waving twin cutlasses. The train thundered past the boy as he turned his head from side to side in a desperate attempt to pick up speed. Blur against blur tore through the country side. The train was crashing towards the opposite horizon but the boy had an old oak standing in his path. As the oak drew near, the boy calves beat down on the dirt like pistons, his nostrils flared and eyes narrowed as he drew level with the train. For a frozen moment, engine and boy were locked in a frame, and then the boy inched ahead. The boy’s head turned as he pulled away and the fierce eyes took in the victory. In that moment, the boy returned to those eyes and as he sprinted past the oak, he broke into a wide grin. It was his first victory but it wouldn’t be his last.

The train would lose many more times, and years later, still fuelled by the hurt and anger that burnt up a childhood, Herschel Walker would trample down defensive line-men like a rogue bull-elephant crashing through a brittle bamboo fence. As a shy and timid child in racially charged Georgia of the 70s, he was often beaten up by white kids. He had a speech impediment and was ridiculed for it by both students and teachers. He was too fat and slow to be any good at sports.

Then one day, he started racing the train. He raced and raced till his legs hurt and his lungs burned and the day he won, he refused to ever feel fear again. While watching television, he started doing pushups during commercials. And he ended up doing thousands of them. Pushups, sit-ups, dips, hundreds even a thousand, each day. And he ran. He even tied a rope to a tyre and pulled it as he ran.

Young Herschel came from a poor family, and his school had no gymnasium to speak of. He was un-athletic and weak. But he let none of it get in his way. Within a couple of years, Herschel had become one of the quickest and strongest boys in school. No one picked on him now. But they did pick him for the football team. And college football in the United States, just so you know, is perhaps the pinnacle of amateur sports. The stands are always full and the best players are the biggest celebrities in the state.

Years later Herschel had said that he did not hold anything against the white boys who had heckled him, nor for the racist slurs or the constant taunting, for he said he realized that they are the ones who had problems. And they just took out their problems on weak and meek little Herschel. But it is they who fuelled the fire that forged Herschel Walker as we know him today. When he talks about them now, Herschel almost sounds grateful.

But those days in school, Herschel took out all that repressed anger in the football field. He was just too fast and too strong for the opposition. Colleges queued up for him and at the University of Georgia, Herschel found immortality. He became the biggest name in college football history and broke records and bones each year to win the Sugar Bowl for his college and the Heisman trophy for himself. And while playing football like a pro, the ‘stupid black kid’ had also studied hard and smart to become a valedictorian.
The freight trains he raced as a child had come back to haunt those who stood in his way, for Walker would charge through line ups like his old racing partner.

Though a Hall of Famer Herschel didn’t quite win the same honours in the senior NFL (National Football League). That wasn’t because of Herschel’s lack of trying though. He still continued to break records as a running back. But the teams he played for just weren’t good enough those years to make good on Walker’s enormous talents. In 1997, Herschel Walker retired from football. Some would say his career did not attain the stratospheric heights his talent and power truly deserved. But Herschel would tell you that he soared further and higher than he or anybody else ever thought that timid little kid would go.

But why am I wasting your time over a retired football player? And that too the kind of football we neither play nor watch. Well, that’s because a few days ago, while preparing for a local martial arts tournament, I went to YouTube looking for videos of Fedor Emelianenko (for the sacrilegious few who don’t know who that is, Fedor is the Muhammad Ali of mixed martial arts -MMA) for inspiration. And there I ran into videos of a 50 year old Walker who had now started competing in MMA, fighting fighters half his age and winning.

Look around you. That man is in mindboggling shape at 50, far ahead of where most of us have ever been or will be, and therein simmers the purpose of this tale.

Herschel Walker doesn’t go to a gym. He doesn’t eat any fancy foods. In fact he just eats once a day. While in college he was too busy working, playing, studying and training to think about eating, and so the habit stuck. He might have a fruit or some water through the day but at night, around 8 or 9 pm, he has soup and salads and a little something to eat, but not very much. And no red meat… in fact not much meat at all. Incidentally, even our ancient yogis recommend eating just once a day.

And as for exercise, Herschel still cranks out 1500 to 5000 push ups and sit ups every day. And some handstand push ups to wrap things up. Then he runs, sometimes with a tyre, like he used to all those years ago. And he wraps it all up in the wee hours of the morning.

Herschel doesn’t just look young. He fights like a young man too. Herschel’s cardiovascular fitness would rank higher than most athletes half his age, or for that matter, any age. That man seems to have the fountain of youth burbling inside him and all you just read seems to be all you need to do.

Strength, especially in the upper body, usually is the last to go. Which is why most of us who have gently crept past our mid 30s and are living out our lives doing little more than swiveling in a chair never find out how unfit we have become till we have to run a few paces in an emergency. Panting for breath, we resolve to renew that gym membership, but unfortunately that’s all we do – renew the membership, not our lives.

But Herschel’s life tells you that you have no excuses. That no matter how ugly the start today, there’s a gorgeous swan flapping its wings inside us, waiting to soar... All we need to do is build a little will and take off from our perch.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

ExecutiveMBA

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Why Ray's heroes are a breed apart...

On the occasion of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s 21st death anniversary on April 23rd 2013, Monojit Lahiri pulls back to provide both, a long shot and a close-up of what made his heroes so different, special and unique.

In epics, sagas, legends and folklore, the ‘hero’ is always Mr. Perfect. Brave, bold, truthful, chivalrous and noble. In the Mumbai-manufactured ‘masala’ movies, add sexy handsome and macho (and don’t bother to strain the brain cells too much!). For over three and a half decades the one hero who blazed the screen and scorched the imagination of millions was the towering and charismatic Amitabh Bachchan. In recent times, the likes of Sunjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, The Khan combine (Saif included) and Hrithik Roshan have clashed swords for that coveted clot.

In serious cinema (parallel cinema that is) the concept of hero and heroism is not quite as bombastic. Here there is no specific agenda to titillate the wish-fulfillment aspect of the turned-on viewer. He does not spew armpit rhetoric aimed at the front benchers. He is a flesh and blood character, acting out real feelings with identifiable honesty, sensitivity and feeling. Agreed, he doesn’t always win, but who does? Not you or me – only the larger than life caricatures in masala land!

The heroes of Satyajit Ray’s films are a breed apart. They are even more rooted to the soil and milieu of their environment. Observes Chidananda Das Gupta with rare perception in the most definitive book written on the maestro, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray. “The natural character of an actor was important to Ray, not only in the case of the non-professional, but professionals as well. He must, in real life, reflect some of the basic qualities sought in the character to be portrayed. Acting against the grain of the actor’s nature is unacceptable in Ray’s scheme of things. That is precisely why Ray’s actors exude more or less the same impression of themselves in real life as they do on screen. Soumitra Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chaterjee (Pratidwandi) or Pinaki Mukherjee (Jana Aranya), all have the unmistakable imprint on them of an intellectual pursuit and contemplative nature. The characters they play on screen are very like themselves.”

Let’s start with Apu in Apur Sansar, the third and last chapter of his unforgettable (Pather Panchali, Aparajito) trilogy. Apu is a young man who marries, writes his first novel and then loses his wife in childbirth. This tragedy sends him staggering into the wilderness. His pathos is summed up in one magnificent image as he casts away the sheets of the novel. They flutter down the hillside in the luminous light of dawn, evoking an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Apu is filled with nostalgia, but when at last he is reunited with his on, it gives him a new vitality and joy with which to face the future. Thus the wheel has turned full circle and the trilogy closes with Apu carrying his child just as it began with his grandmother rocking him in the cradle. Fittingly for the role of the sensitive Apu, Ray introduced Soumitra Chatterjee – an actor whose physical and intellectual parallels bore such striking resemblance to the character he was to portray, that it inspired the prestigious Time magazine to eulogise, ‘His actors act not with the usual combinations of oriental drama, but as though the camera found them alone and simply living; and they live as few characters in pictures do – real lives that swell to the skin with pain and poetry and sudden wit.’

Take Nayak where the great god, Ray, took Bengal’s (late) King of Hearts, Uttam Kumar for the first time, causing many to believe that the maestro had finally lost it! Nothing of course was further from the truth. The essence of the film concerned itself with the emptiness that plagued the life of a celluloid superstar. The storyline oozes out of the empty confines of an air-conditioned coach carrying him to Delhi, where a State award awaits him. On the trip he meets an intelligent, young, woman journalist (Sharmila Chatterjee) in the dining car. A rapport develops between them and in a rare moment of human contact, he tells her of his most private frustrations, doubts and weaknesses. While it is commonly recognized that Ray’s best works are derived from literary sources other than his, his eye for impeccable casting has almost always been universally acknowledged. Uttam Kumar was Bengal’s reining superstar, whose mere name on the marquee set off serpentine queues. What Ray did was to write a script with him in mind, eliminating his popular, cliché-ridden mannerisms and concentrating on his seldom-tapped acting prowess. In this he succeeded magnificently, inspiring the late star to comment, “Manikda was the first director to really teach me what film acting was all about.” This new insight was reflected in most of his subsequent movie roles.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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