Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Picture perfect?

Image is to the mind what perception is to the soul. Have movie-makers ended up distorting both in an attempt to deliver ‘happy’ stories?

You’ve got mail. Every time these words appeared on Kathleen Kelly’s computer screen, she got butterflies in her stomach in anticipation of the words (from her mysterious friend) that lay unread in that mail. But this together with the background song ‘You’re a Dream to me’ often leaves the audience with the same feeling too, especially those who thrive on sweet nothings! Whether it is the perfectly-directed chemistry of love and companionship between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in movies like You’ve Got Mail and When Harry met Sally or the extremely optimistic plot performed to perfection by Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in flicks like Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, romantic Hollywood flicks leave many mesmerised and hopeful (rather adamant) of true (rather perfect) love in their lives too. A recent Australian survey released by Warner Home Video backs this observation. Almost half of the respondents blamed the ‘inevitable happy endings’ of rom-coms to have ‘ruined their view of an ideal relationship.’

Well, with this research, let’s not assume that the Australians are extra-soppy! Hollywood and Bollywood (largely) have immensely influenced Indian minds and hearts too. “The image of a good relationship in the minds of most of the couples I meet stems from Hindi films. The influence is so deep that subconsciously the expectations from each other are from the perfect relationship portrayed in movies like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ). In fact, many girls look for the boyish charm of Shahrukh Khan (of DDLJ) in their partner and I often end up telling them how Shahrukh in reality must not be like that all the time! In the beginning of the relationship, all is hunky-dory but as monotony sets in, (which is absolutely normal) people tend to overreact since the ‘perfect picture’ starts to dissolve,” says Dr. Nisha Khurana, a Delhi based Marriage Counselor.



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Friday, August 24, 2012

Think before you Tweet!

Ever since actor Shahid Kapur underestimated his popularity and revealed his hotel and location in Edinburgh on Twitter, he has been having a difficult time. Even father Pankaj Kapur, who is directing him in the movie Mausam, is unhappy with the series of events since the hotel and shooting sites have been swarming with people. Seems that the effects of unintentional badmaashi are beyond repair now…


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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Of blood bags and an American dream!

His company came out with an IPO even before it rolled out the first medical device. Then, he had two choices – to make his dimes count or be annihilated. Luckily, his bet paid-off! Today, his outfit named Poly Medicure, is the largest listed medical devices manufacturer in India. B&E’s Steven Philip Warner and Amir Moin catch up with the risk-taker, as he lets-off some nostalgia at his oldest manufacturing plant in Haryana

When Himanshu Baid started off, he was not in an appropriate cash position to start a medical devices manufacturing business – what he had was just not enough. He was forced to borrow capital from his family and friends, roped-in banks and NBFCs and went public. 13 years later, his business is the largest-listed company on BSE (amongst all in the sector). It recorded a gross profit margin of 51.31%, much higher than the average of the sector (22.59%). With a revenue per employee record of Rs.1.44 million in FY2009, Baid, MD of Poly Medicure, who is also one of the largest shareholder of his company (8.83% stake held directly and another 4.32% indirectly), dreams to take this owner-cum-management entity to newer highs. With forays into the Chinese and Egyptian market already, he has his eyes set on his next target – the mature American market! Excerpts from the interview follow: B&E: 1997 was a time when everyone else was investing in the booming IT industry. Why did you choose the medical equipments business, even over the-then growing generic pharma?
Himanshu Baid (HB): When we started, my family was into the business of plastics. So this became a low-risk extension. The knowledge of that business helped us to set up this project. We had an experience in plastic-moulding. So medical equipments happened naturally.

B&E: You exist in an extremely fragmented industry, where you can at best enjoy a small pie of the overall business. Even the ratio of your revenues to the industry’s leads us to a figure which is less than 1%! Your explaination...
HB: We operate purely in a medical device segment. The industry figure that you are talking about is approximately $2.5 billion, which includes every single device that can be “quoted” directly or indirectly as a “medical equipment”. Out of this, we are mainly into products that are of one time usage in hospitals. This segment is roughly around Rs.30 billion in India. Now out of this Rs.30 billion market, the syringe category accounts for atleast Rs.10 billion. And we are not into syringes. So if you zero-down to the 78 products that we manufacture, we are left with a total market of less than Rs.10 billion, of which, we have a share of about 20%. That’s big.


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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

A mysterious and fascinating set of islands lie in the Bay of Bengal, ready to give your most adventurous imagination wings…

The people of Andaman, or to be more precise the tribes of Andaman, are the most mysterious element of the culture and history of the place. Precisely because little is known about them and their nature and way of life varies from one island to another. There are about 12 such tribal units, among them the major ones being the Jarawas, Shompen, Nicobarese, The Great Andmanis, The Little Andamanis, The Onges and the Sentinelese.

The origins of these tribes have been difficult to establish, although the most accepted theory remains that the Negritos made their way into the islands from the east in Burma. The Jarawas were the tribe that I had a glimpse of while on a bus to Baratang. I was told immediately that it was a matter of extreme fortune that I managed to see a tribal ‘live’ and not in a painting in the museum. Apparently, most of the tribes remain notoriously elusive and cut-off from civilisation. The Jarawas, who inhabit middle Andaman and South Andaman, are of Negroid origin and are mostly hunters and foragers. On the Nicobar Island live the Nicobarese, of mongoloid origin, and as legend would have it, they are descendants of an exiled Burmese prince.

This tribe is the most advanced of the lot in the sense that they use modern agricultural and animal rearing methods unlike the other tribes, where the people are mostly hunters and foragers. Then there are the Onges, who live on the Little Andaman and Rutland Islands. Part of the Nicobarese, the Shompen (about 200 of them remain today) live on the Great Nicobar islands.

The Sentinelese are reportedly the fiercest and most evasive of the lot and inhabit the Sentinel Islands. Most of these tribes have little or no contact with the settlers in the island except for the Nicobarese.

Despite the isolation, the aborigines’ right to their resources and way of life has increasingly been under threat for the past few decades, as the influx of settlers has passed on diseases, increased deforestation, and cut-off access to resources (like the Andaman Trunk Road that runs through the Andaman Island that has limited the Jarawas reach into fresh hunting grounds) and posed a threat to these rare communities.

Ultimately, Andaman is about islands. Whether it be the Barren Island, home to the only active volcano in India or Ross Island, once the seat of British power and now a collection of ruins ravaged by time and serving as a grim reminder of how the mighty can fall, every island tells its own story. That is what the essence of these islands is about – fascinating tales and stories. Some are well documented, some perhaps figments of some creative guy’s imagination. But as you look around and explore, you also get to fill up some of the blanks with your own imagination. 


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