Dass

It's funny but true. She was my dream girl.  She was so many fans' dream girl. She even acted a title role in a movie with the same name. Dream Girl. She was older. When I was 10 she was  all of 27/ (b 1948) and she was the one who was chaperoned by her  mother and was a star that many aspired to become. She acted in a lot of movies but got only one Filmfare award. She was so famous, even her daughters could not fill her shoes. She was not recognised as a great actress, true but she did many roles that deserved a mention. I fell in love with her as kid and remained true to her till another South Indian Actress - Jaya Prada - made her way to my heart. Even Jaya began her career as a child. She was closer to my age and 15 years younger than Hema Malini. Jaya Prada was beautiful and most of the people will agree. Once she was called as the most beautiful woman in India. She was even offered a role by Sathyajt Ray. I never met Hema Malini but I met Jay...

One of the tailor made roles for Big B is that of Spock in the Star Trek Movies. Some might be able to see the resemblance.. Any Takers? 

We are programmed to be what we are. By time.

I am not talking of Steve Jobs. Though he is worth writing about. He has a movie on him too... But I am writing about jobs, as in a career. For beginners.... I would suggest a single page of resume. One page would be a covering letter. Short and to the point and depending on the role, why you think you are fit for that job. The resume starts with your name and then if necessary, objectives that you have set yourself. First of all  it is important to know and accept that as much as you need the job, the employer is looking for somebody who can fit the role best. As much as you need the job and the money the employer needs to make money too. So it is not always about your wants but your employer's wants. So your resume or bio data should be designed to that purpose. Name the file with your name and position applied for. Make it easy for them to search. In a country like India or elsewhere, there are a number of applications for a single job. So what will make you...

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. - Peter Drucker

When you are born in one state and live in another, travel the world and are educated in a language that is not your own, you can forgive the person for his inability to communicate properly in  any of the national languages. That's me by the way. My paternal grandfather, Doraiswamy, would be immensely shocked that I can communicate well in English but so poorly in Tamil. I am better in Kannada and Hindi but that does not take away the fact that I made a career because of knowledge of English. It does not take away the fact that I miss being versatile in any of the Indian languages...   In their foreword to Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gerard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf have said, “Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting the largest cultural heritage that any civilisation has produced prior to the invention of the printing press.” Preservation of ancient texts is ...

Okay. So I had planned on  writing about a lot of other things. I made mental notes and then I came upon this piece in my phone. From Quartz.com and voila! I had something new to write about.  No, I don't believe in plagiarism. But I believe in research.  https://qz.com/1712239/a-childrens-book-about-the-global-economy-and-the-future-of-work/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=daily-brief The piece in Quartz is written by  By  Dan Kopf  &  Bárbara Abbês . And it is in the form of a limerick or poem, Should appeal to all. I think it is great that we re-invent the staid old A for apple and make it relevant to today's living. This one is too Americanised. So I have added some of my own. A               Automation                                                  It's perfec...

I have always been fascinated by music. And ashamed that I can't appreciate it the same way as some mastreos do. I started to set it out straight by listening to a variety of music. From Beethoven to Pandit Ravi Shankar, Today I found out I shared my birthday with Pandit Ravi Shankar. (7 April 1920 - 11 Dec 2012). So this is his centenary year. I then dedicate this piece to him! And he was older to me by 45 years. He went on to achieve world renown by becoming the first Indian musician to bring Indian music to the world stage. The Beatles were instrumental in this as one  of them - Harrison - was a staunch believer in occidental music and religion. The Sixties were also the period of the Hippie culture that was a craze then. The Pandit even played his sitar in the famed Woodstock concert but later regretted it for its unashamed association with drugs.  He was truly a gift for India. I cannot think of any other musician who has done India so proud. There are many, of course, li...

This is the new book I am working on. Hopefully (!) should be out by June 15 2020. (Nope its a year later and now I hope to see it done by September 2021) It's a e-book and available only online for the first two months. The hard copy will be available by August 15. (No Chance!)

What Wikipedia says... "Amitabh Bachchan was born Inquilab Srivastava (11 October 1942]) is an Indian film actor, film producer, television host, occasional playback singer and former politician. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India's "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Bollywood. Big B has since appeared in over 200 Indian films in a career spanning more than five decades. Bachchan is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema as well as world cinema.So total was his dominance on the Indian movie scene in the 1970s and 1980s that the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry". Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he also has a large overseas following." Of course there is so much of him in Wikipedia and the internet but this is my version and I do not intent to copy paste, but to write of what ...

Long before the Swiss and others managed to rein in the Chopras and the Rajs to shoot their movies in the Alp facing locales, there were - and still are, mind you - places such as Dandeli which would once in a while attract the stars to descend here to shoot their movies. I must have been around nine and studying in Dandeli in a school called St Michaels. Our world during those days used to very much revolve around movies. We loved playing cowboys and sometimes, we would be the Hindi film stars. We recognized even stars such as Jeetendra and Amitabh, (who was just then rising liking a meteor) apart from villains such as Prem Chopra and Ranjeet. We never did understand the movies and the only thing that excited us was the fight scenes or the chase sequences. Oh yes, our movies were filtered by my mother and we got to see the ones that passed their censoring eyes. Ours was an idyllic world where apart from school and a few minutes of homework, it was all play and mischief. One bright day...

Anegundi – Where the rocks tell many tales… It is a bewitchingly beautiful zone reminiscent of a fairy tale kingdom. And if you feel that you have seen everything in your bucketlist, you should probably add this one high up on the top. The whole region is covered with hills and mountain all laden from top to bottom with rocks and boulders of all sizes, many perched precariously as if ready to topple, many other balanced neatly betwixt more boulders. The rocks, brown and smooth are laden on the land as if playfully placed by a giant. And believe it or not, they seem to be singing – muted but visually captivating and many or wont to stare and wonder at the masterful rending by mother nature. Here is place that has every bit of everything possible for a roving eye. The rocky terrain has a history of millions of years by being born when the volcanoes submerged in sea spewed forth lava and dust in the form of rocks that were heaved into the heavens and fell back in poetry. The water played ...

It all started when he once wanted to buy gunny bags - jute sacks - and went online and made enquires at a few sites. And lo behold, he was inundated with sackful of responses. Mind you, the enquiry was not made to any person. He just searched for suppliers and that was it. Of course he had to give out some details including email etc. And what he got was was a few dozen suppliers eager to get is order. Not just his inbox, every site he visited ads popped up informing him of sacks available from Kolkata to Beijing. One year after the one time enquiry he still says he gets pop ups informing him of sacks. He is thankful, they have not permeated into his dreams yet. That is the power of Search Engine Marketing. Or paid advertising which is also called PPC or pay by per click. For those who are new to this let me elaborate. There are two ways of reaching out to people on the net. The organic way - which is to use search engine optimization by using the right key words etc and this does not...

My mother was a religious woman. More catholic than the pope I might add. Orthodox and highly regular church goer, she believed that everybody in the household had to follow her cue. Fortunately for her my brothers and sisters were quite okay with the rule. My dad, was another story. I, however, had a problem. When I was a kid, the evenings were meant to be whiled away with friends playing games and soaking in life - unfortunately, it was also the time when the evening mass would be held - around 6 PM. It took a lot of threats and cajoling for me to dress up and head for the church - grumbling and tumbling and one step away from blaspheming. No wonder I grew up with the moniker.... of being Satan's child (-: I was a foot taller and in college and my mother continued to be her worshipful self. She endeavoured to take us on pilgrimages spread across south India. I remember visiting Velankani with the whole family and I felt like I was in a Bollywood movie as we all got separated in t...

Truly Great! If one is truly great, one will love all humankind! One will love the good and bad amongst all humanity. The good will be loved with pride, admiration and joy. The bad will be loved with pity and sorry, for one will know - if truly great - that both good and bad qualities of people are often but the results of circumstances over which they have, because of their ignorance, little control. To be truly great, one will be compassionate, sympathetic and tolerant. When compelled to pass judgement upon others, one will temper justice with tender mercy, throwing oneself always on the side of the weak, the uninformed and the poverty-stricken. Thus one will not only go the extra mile in a true spirit of fellowship, but will also go willingly and graciously. And if the second mile be not enough, one must go the third and the fourth, and as many additional miles as may be necessary. - Napoleon Hill (Master Key to Riches)

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. - Peter Drucker  Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.  -Albert Einstein Great wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data.  -Peter Drucker Customers can’t always tell you what they want, but they can always tell you what’s wrong.  -Carly Fiona on the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast If you want to understand how a lion hunts don’t go to the zoo. Go to the jungle.  -Jim Stengel CMO of P&G It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.  -Charles Darwin “If content is king, then conversion is queen.” -John Munsell “Where there is friction there is opportunity. Either you solve it for your customers today or a competitor will do it tomorrow” -Bryan Eisenberg “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. ...

Those who are capable of humility, of justice, of love, of aspiration, are already on the platform that commands the sciences and arts, speech and poetry, action and grace. For who so dwells in this moral beatitude does already anticipate those special powers which men prize so highly. Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the morning and evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart - builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody - for music is the voice of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes Worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart and without the sacred passion, that divine swoon, we a...

Best One Liners It is very difficult to tell the truth.  - Leo Tolstoy It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on.  - Marilyn Monroe If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.  - Abraham Maslow Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level - then beat you with experience.  Everybody should believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.  - W. C. Fields (Me too if you don't mind!)  Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.  - Nikita Khrushchev A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.  - Joseph Stalin I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.  - John Maynard Keynes Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.   - Leonardo Da Vinci I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.   - Bill Watterson When I'...

HOW DOES COMMUNITY MARKETING WORK FOR BRANDS? Community marketing is a simple enough strategy. Every brand, optimistically speaking, should have a community or communities. Most have - and they are usually a disjointed cluster of people/consumers (now usually found on social media assets). Almost everybody on these social media follow one or more brands and entities. They follow the brand and get informed on what the brand is up to. They are eager to snap up any bargains that come their way. They participate enthusiastically in surveys and promotional activities that promise some goodies and some even when there is nothing on offer. These are people who like to have their voices heard and share a strong bond with the brand. And they like to share their experiences and comment on others’ experiences as well. It’s all very connected to some extent and a brand manager’s first hand exposure to customers’ feelings towards his/her brand. And the nicest part is that when the going is good, th...