Before I begin to pen my thoughts for the day, I must acknowledge the excellent blog that one of my frnd’s has begun to maintain. The link to the blog named “I Ran Over The Rain…” is to the right, under the name “Richa”… And no, this is not a reciprocation for her having mentioned my name on her blog … (I can almost hear her saying, “Yeah Right…”)
The previous week had been by far the most hectic for SMM students at the Dubai campus… With a schedule ranging from 8 in the morning to 9:30 at night… To top it all, we had a FIVE hour break in the middle… We had two courses this week, i.e. Industrial Economics (IE) and Business-2-Business (B2B) … I have never missed so many classes of a single subject than I have for IE… My attendance is like 4 out of 9 classes… K … But wat 2 do, the Prof was the single most boring faculty I have ever encountered in my student life… That added to the killer scheduling really killed my appetite for attendance… I must credit him for one thing, though… This blog (& for that matter Richa’s too) was started during his classes, and all the work on the blog so far had been done in his class… For that, I am grateful… Also scheduled in the week, were submissions & a viva for Mkt Research (MR), another subject which I dread… Even though we had more than 3 weeks to do the MR project, our group of late lateefs began doing it only half a day before the deadline & viva…
On the other extreme, B2B was one of the most enjoyable courses we had… I didn’t miss any of the classes… :-D … It was simulation based (INDUSTRAT), which is somewhat better than lectures, and the faculty from Mumbai was excellent… I don’t feel sorry that Richa’s group (Mowgli) beat our’s (King Louie) to the top spot, since I really enjoyed the simulations, & hey – 2nd place aint half bad, is it …?
So another week in the GMBA saga has gone by, but I hardly feel any smarter… Two more new subjects and another grueling week await us in a couple of days , interspersed with Guest Lectures (the so-called ‘Visiting Wisdom’) and Pre-placement talks… Well, I guess that’s life at a 1-yr MBA program… We asked for it, didn’t we…
Signing off, a few lines dedicated to Richa, Ritu n Rashi (our honourable team members & adverseries)…
“Jungle - jungle baat chali hai, pata chala hai…
Arre, Chaddi Pehan Ke Phool Khila Hai, Phool Khila Hai…”
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Gurubhai a.k.a Dhirubhai...
Spoiler warning !!!
Hell, that sounded just like a Wikipedia article... but then, for those of u who don't want me 2 spoil the movie for u, u can stop reading right here...
Mani Ratnam’s Guru is a story of a villager who dreams big and makes it big... Abhi's performance is one of his best in the title role as Gurukant Desai. The story follows his life starting as a teenager who travels to Turkey in search of work, and finds his inclinations to setting up his own "bij-nuss"... he finds lucrative ways of making money even in Turkey and returns to his village back in Gujarat as a young man who has made a little money in "phoren" lands... He wants to travel to Mumbai to sell polyester; but Guru needs more money to set up shop… he marries Sujatha (Aishwarya soon to be Bachchan Rai) only for the money he’ll get as dowry… Sujatha’s brother Jignesh plays a close friend of Guru’s, who becomes a business partner after Guru’s marriage…
The story then goes on to show how Guru fights the odds to start trading polyester in Mumbai’s Masjid Bunder area, and slowly goes on to expand his enterprise… Along the way he meets newspaper editor - Manik Dasgupta (Mithun-da), his grand-daughter Meenu (Vidya Balan), the journalist - Shyam Saxena (R. Madhavan) and others who help and/or oppose Guru and his ways… Through a series of expansions, IPOs, new plants et al, Guru & his Shakti Corp. reach the pinnacle by becoming “India ki No.1 company” (applause !!!)
Yes, Guru is shown bending and breaking laws, bribing officials and other corporate activities that easily classify as “un-ethical”, but Mani Ratnam somehow manages to show Guru in a positive light… Shyam keeps writing negative articles about Guru & his law-breaking schemes. Shyam regularly throws blows at him but Guru in the end always finds a way out…
The only failing point is peraps the music... A.R. Rahman has composed the score, but the songs are ill-placed and hamper the continuity of the screenplay... 'Tere Bina' is the best song by far... the songs also play in the background where they suit the situations more aptly...
All official announcements have denied any “relationship / resemblance to any persons, living or dead”, but anyone with a knowledge of Reliance & Dhirubhai Ambani’s past will easily have caught the obvious ‘inspiration’ drawn from the names I mentioned… For the uninitiated, Dhirubhai went to Yemen at the age of 16 where he worked for Royal Dutch Shell (in the movie, Guru worked for Burma Shell…) and returned to India to set up shop at Masjid Bunder for the trade of Polyester as well… The various scams of Dhirubhai are well chronicled in the unauthorized biography “The Polyester Prince” but have never been officially admitted (the book is banned in India)… Mithun heads the newspaper “Swatantra”, which has obvious similarities to Indian Express, which attacked Dhirubhai earlier. Guru’s scams are mysteriously similar to those allegedly done by Dhirubhai… Even the cars that Guru is shown to drive early in his career are the same that Dhirubhai is known to have driven…
And to top it all, Gurukant Desai is affectionately called “Gurubhai”, which has more than an obvious resemblance to Dhirubhai…
For the record, my frnd Nisheeth provided me with a commentary during the movie which pointed out the various similarities that I have mentioned above… But I have researched Dhirubhai Ambani (on Google & Wikipedia … :-D) after watching the movie and confirmed all these… I’ll post links to the articles after compiling them…
Well, that’s it for now…
Wishing Abhi n Ash all the Best !!!
Hell, that sounded just like a Wikipedia article... but then, for those of u who don't want me 2 spoil the movie for u, u can stop reading right here...
Mani Ratnam’s Guru is a story of a villager who dreams big and makes it big... Abhi's performance is one of his best in the title role as Gurukant Desai. The story follows his life starting as a teenager who travels to Turkey in search of work, and finds his inclinations to setting up his own "bij-nuss"... he finds lucrative ways of making money even in Turkey and returns to his village back in Gujarat as a young man who has made a little money in "phoren" lands... He wants to travel to Mumbai to sell polyester; but Guru needs more money to set up shop… he marries Sujatha (Aishwarya soon to be Bachchan Rai) only for the money he’ll get as dowry… Sujatha’s brother Jignesh plays a close friend of Guru’s, who becomes a business partner after Guru’s marriage…
The story then goes on to show how Guru fights the odds to start trading polyester in Mumbai’s Masjid Bunder area, and slowly goes on to expand his enterprise… Along the way he meets newspaper editor - Manik Dasgupta (Mithun-da), his grand-daughter Meenu (Vidya Balan), the journalist - Shyam Saxena (R. Madhavan) and others who help and/or oppose Guru and his ways… Through a series of expansions, IPOs, new plants et al, Guru & his Shakti Corp. reach the pinnacle by becoming “India ki No.1 company” (applause !!!)
Yes, Guru is shown bending and breaking laws, bribing officials and other corporate activities that easily classify as “un-ethical”, but Mani Ratnam somehow manages to show Guru in a positive light… Shyam keeps writing negative articles about Guru & his law-breaking schemes. Shyam regularly throws blows at him but Guru in the end always finds a way out…
The only failing point is peraps the music... A.R. Rahman has composed the score, but the songs are ill-placed and hamper the continuity of the screenplay... 'Tere Bina' is the best song by far... the songs also play in the background where they suit the situations more aptly...
All official announcements have denied any “relationship / resemblance to any persons, living or dead”, but anyone with a knowledge of Reliance & Dhirubhai Ambani’s past will easily have caught the obvious ‘inspiration’ drawn from the names I mentioned… For the uninitiated, Dhirubhai went to Yemen at the age of 16 where he worked for Royal Dutch Shell (in the movie, Guru worked for Burma Shell…) and returned to India to set up shop at Masjid Bunder for the trade of Polyester as well… The various scams of Dhirubhai are well chronicled in the unauthorized biography “The Polyester Prince” but have never been officially admitted (the book is banned in India)… Mithun heads the newspaper “Swatantra”, which has obvious similarities to Indian Express, which attacked Dhirubhai earlier. Guru’s scams are mysteriously similar to those allegedly done by Dhirubhai… Even the cars that Guru is shown to drive early in his career are the same that Dhirubhai is known to have driven…
And to top it all, Gurukant Desai is affectionately called “Gurubhai”, which has more than an obvious resemblance to Dhirubhai…
For the record, my frnd Nisheeth provided me with a commentary during the movie which pointed out the various similarities that I have mentioned above… But I have researched Dhirubhai Ambani (on Google & Wikipedia … :-D) after watching the movie and confirmed all these… I’ll post links to the articles after compiling them…
Well, that’s it for now…
Wishing Abhi n Ash all the Best !!!
Friends, Romans, Country-men.. Lend Me your Ears...
This post marks my return to the world of blogging... I had started a blog earlier in 2004 but never got around to maintaining it too much... As a result there r only 3 or 4 posts on it... anyhow, for future reference the address is http://rajatsinghvi.blogspot.com/ ... Well, so something about me... I'm 24 (as on 12th Aug'06, which happens to be my b'day), I'm an engineer, and am currently doing my Global-MBA in Services Marketing at SP Jain Centre of Management, Dubai-Singapore.... God, that sounds so much like a resume for a job application... but then, we've been brought up to give these kind of "Intros" ever since our first day at skool... I can just imagine..."Roll no. 245, khade jo jaao... Class ko apna naam batao... Aapke papa ka naam kya hai? Woh kya karte hain? Aapka ghar kahan hai? ... " So on n so forth... And even today we keep doing the same thing... the importance of our parents' names have diminished over the years, but in place we have things like qualifications, work-ex, extra-curricular activities etc etc... i've forgotten my point here, so I'll just leave it at that...
Now on to what my writings will address or try to address, both consciously and unconsciously, what an Industry would call its "Mission"... I'm gonna talk about frnds & family, music, movies, SPJCM, & to sum up all of these - "LIFE" - b'coz that's my life right now ... all the components, in that order of importance...
I'll just go on 2 introduce some of my frnds who r blogging around to establish the links ... Deva, Vandit, Shawshank, Devesh, Harshad, Sowmia, Richa, Abu... I'll add more later, coz dat's all I remember right now...
So i'll sign off for now... I'm in class actually... I'll try 2 keep this blog up-to-date...
Ciao !!!
Now on to what my writings will address or try to address, both consciously and unconsciously, what an Industry would call its "Mission"... I'm gonna talk about frnds & family, music, movies, SPJCM, & to sum up all of these - "LIFE" - b'coz that's my life right now ... all the components, in that order of importance...
I'll just go on 2 introduce some of my frnds who r blogging around to establish the links ... Deva, Vandit, Shawshank, Devesh, Harshad, Sowmia, Richa, Abu... I'll add more later, coz dat's all I remember right now...
So i'll sign off for now... I'm in class actually... I'll try 2 keep this blog up-to-date...
Ciao !!!
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