Arbit Scratchpad

1] Indian Idol is as entertaining as Harry Potter is; as much for the judges' fights as for the extremely talented singers' performances. 2] Soha Ali Khan is absolutely gorgeous looking - I am her fan. ( Ahista Ahista - a simple, slow movie). 3] 'Khosla ka Ghosla' is one of the most humorous movies, I have watched in the recent past, watched it a second time few days back. 4] Equally humorous is The Pink Panther (new version starring Steve Martin) - hilarious. 1] Monitoring of employees' personal blogs, prevalent these days across the world, is quite obnoxious in my opinion. 2] Office politics and nasty jerks at work are a source of loss of productivity and attrition ( McKinsey Quarterly Article ). 3] Just the reverse is also possible - as per Pareto principles 20% of the people can make work greatly interesting and pleasurable. 4] Neuro Linguistic Programming ( NLP ) is a great tool for effectively communicating with people and understanding their behaviours ...

(c) SHAMIT BAGCHI, July 2007 (Gimp on Linux).

The last few books that I have read: 'The High-Performance Entrepreneur' (Subroto Bagchi) - detailed, well developed and valuable inputs and examples on every step for starting up a new venture. 'The McKinsey Mind' (Ethan Rasiel and Paul Friga)- excellent book on the methods used by 'the firm', has loads of insight from ex-alumni. 'Identity and Violence - The Illusion of Destiny' (Amartya Sen) - superlative writing; with the central theme rejecting the definition of a person by a singular identity, for example that of religion only. Amartya Sen, I reiterate, is my favourite non-fiction author. 'Five Point Someone' (Chetan Bhagat) - everyone would have read this by now, I got this using the Citibank loyalty points; never wanted to buy it, but pretty decent first book and quite funny at times (burst out laughing when reading the 'Family Planning advertisement in the cinema hall' part). I am currently reading the following: 'The For...

Inspired by the SMS, a viewer sent to an English news TV channel: 'If Sharad Pawar can be the BCCI chief why not Sonia the coach of the Indian team?' Brilliant idea, actually. First thing, it would set a new precedent: a woman becoming the coach of a men's team; a history of sorts for the most adored sport in India: Cricket (apart from Milk Abhishekam, the new sport that fans of a certain BOSS, love to play out on the streets these days). Also the nature of selection would be intact like when Ford refused, Watmore was not acceptable (what more could Watmore do, he tried literally everything) and our Indian coaches have much more important media assignments. Just as heavyweights like Shivraj Patil, Pranab Mukherjee, Karan Singh ... Of course you see the analogy, don't you ? Shivraj Patil was a classic candidate for the 'other selection', who when asked a question on security ended up saying 'we are looking into it', by 'it' he meant his suit and t...

(C) SHAMIT BAGCHI, June 2007 (MS Paint and Gimp).

The NDTV expose and the Gujjar violence in Rajasthan were the two major items that kept the news channel counters ringing this last week. The NDTV sting operation (which I could not see being shown on any of the other channels except obviously NDTV) was indeed sensational just as the BMW case itself was. The collusion between the defense lawyer and the public prosecutor seems to have put the judicial system under the scanner for having scaled the very heights of corruption with the aim of protecting the guilty. The repercussions were many, as the public prosecutor was dropped from further handling the case and the Bar council created a committee to look into the alleged breach of the legal procedures for the same. Kudos to NDTV, which is, by far the best news channel on Indian airwaves. The other two - CNN-IBN and Times Now try to be aggressive to the extent of becoming frivolous, though CNBC-TV18 is good on the business news coverage. The way Sanjay Agrawal, the prime witness was wire...

The sun had set and it was getting dark, when on a Friday evening, I stood at the entrance of 'Ranga Shankara' the theatre hub created by Arundhati Nag, wife of the late kannada actor Shankar Nag (also director of 'Malgudi Days'). My good friend (VikramR) had invited me to be an audience to a play that he was part of and I after some deliberation, accepted it, and that turned out to be a very good decision. Apart from the auditorium, Ranga Shankara also has an eatery and a bookshop, where I browsed through the books on the shelves for a while after buying the ticket, as I had some time before the play was underway (7:30 PM). It is a nice spot for theatre lovers from young couples and groups of friends to older and even elderly couples with an avid interest in drama/theatre. The play itself was a rib-tickling comedy named 'When the Python followed the Actor', by the troupe 'Version One dot Oh'. It was in two parts, the first one 'The Actor's Dilem...