Quiziccal....

Watched an interesting Robert Redford movie called "The Quiz Show". Its about a popular American Quiz show called "Twentyone", which is based on the concept of a depending champion who is up against a new challenger every week, and if the challenger manages to beat the 'defending champion' , then he becomes the new champion.

The organizers of the show figure out that to hold the interest of the audience and so keep TRPs up... they would need to create a certain 'sense of drama' in each episode. This ranges from having a depending champion stay on for a certain length of time such that he becomes a part of the audience's life, to "dropping off " the incumbent for a new guy as the TRPs begin to taper off... Ofcourse they do all this by revealing the questions to the depending champion till such time that they want him to be on the show...

The charade is up when a former depending champion who has been made to take a dive, exposes the "setup" to a lawyer from Washington. An elaborate inquiry is setup resulting in the organizers of the show being implicated and a loss of face for a prominent professor (The latest champion) who had acquired such fame from this show as to be featured on the cover of TIME magazine... An interesting sidelight is that NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) and Geritol (The show sponsor) both get off scot free (A case of the bait being to small for the big fish??)

Points to Ponder: Set me thinking about the 'genuineness' of some of the popular quiz shows in India and also is television all about TRPs and contrived drama??

Books....

Here's a list of books that I want to read this year....

1. The world is flat --- Thomas Freidman

2. Not a Penny more Not a Penny Less --- Jeffrey Archer

3. The Tipping Point--- Malcolm Gladwell

4. Wuthering Heights --- Emily Bronte

5. Tuesdays with Morrie --- Mitch Albom

6. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy --- Douglas Adams

7. Namesake --- Jhumpa Lahiri

8. A Suitable Boy --- Vikram Seth

9. Freakonomics --- Stephen Levitt

10.Dilbert --- Scott Adams

These are not in any particular order, let's see how many of these I actually manage to read...that reminds me I need to get a membership at the local library....

Life...

Came across this interesting quote a while back, which speaks about the zen philosophy of life, which says that life is a journey and not a destination... well here are my two cents on what I make of it... As you go through life, you realize that life is indeed a journey interspersed with multiple milestones. So, the objective should be to make the journey as pleasant and enjoyable as can be. However, I feel it is important to establish one's priorities and aspirations clearly and also constantly work towards realizing one's potential to the fullest so that meaning can be given to the so called journey. The idea therefore is to have such a good time on the journey that the "destination" automatically becomes secondary nay irrelevant.

Couple of interesting quotes, one original and one from a book called "The Monk who sold his Ferrari". The quote in the book indicates the importance of focus and goes thus " If one eye is focussed on the reward, then there is only one eye left to focus on the purpose" . Simple words with a profound meaning and indicates how important it is to focus on the processes and methods rather than on the end result.

The quote that I have come up with is essentially to tell myself that while 'winning' is great, 'defeat/failure' is not such a bad thing, as it brings with it some important learnings/lessons. The goal ofcourse is to chalk more wins and keep defeats to a minimum. So now to the quote ...

" Sometimes I win and sometimes I learn, but I never lose for at the very core of my being is a winner who does not know what defeat is."

Dinner...

Had a farewell dinner for a collegue of ours who is going back to India. It was a gathering of about 10 ppl at an a Indo-Chinese restaurant in Winston-Salem. The food was good was without being great (Didn't like it as much as I did the first time I ate at this place). Part of the reason may also have been to do with the fact that lunch was an 'Indian' buffet which didn't leave me with much of an appetite to savour the dinner. But then being a farewell dinner, it was the occassion that was more important than the food :-)

Apparel Industry..

The Apparel industry is all set to take off in India. Two major reasons that I see for this being the relaxation in textile exports (one of the advantages of being a part of the WTO regime..) which is a welcome boost to textile and garment manufacturers in India. The other reason is the increasing domestic demand...driven by an ever increasing middle class and also the increase in disposable income with people in this category. I believe the next major surge could be driven by a demand for quality goods at affordable price points in rural India. This is a huge market that is just waiting to be tapped...

My interest in the apparel industry is ofcourse driven by the fact that my sister owns a clothing business -- Indiyarn, which sells high quality cotton and khadi (India's traditional fabric) shirts and kurtas at wonderfully affordable prices... (You actually have to buy them to realize this...).

A couple of interesting articles that I came across recently ... That Steve & Barry's (A US retail chain with over a 100 stores) is planning a foray in the Indian market and the other being the huge success of the Retail Yatra that is organized by Pantaloon on annual basis.

Food ...

Staying away from home and not posessing a wide range of culinary skills has made "eating right" a bit of challenge. On weekdays, lunch is in the office canteen, which means that the number of meals to be cooked in the day is down to just 1 (dinner). The problem is somewhat more acute over the weekend... esp those weekends where one is confined at home due to not so good(read extremely chilly) weather. I was wondering if today would turn out to be one such saturday... but my roomate has saved the day for me... he had gone to a place closeby which has a lot of good Indian/Asian restaurants and got me some biryani (yummy) from there. So, dinner's done !! ... looking forward to tucking into some delicious Indian food.

India v/s Pak overkill?

Yet another India - Pakistan cricket series is upon us and the excitement levels are shooting up. Its the third such series in the last three years and while some critics are questioning the frequency of these events, I for one feel that playing often with Pakistan is infact a good thing. For one, cricket is common passion in both nations and needs to be looked at as more than just a sport. It can indeed serve as vital bridge building activity and help foster respect for each other and hopefully more peace in the region. Also, I remember the early and mid 90s when cricketing encounters between the neighbouring countries were few and far between, and how each "encounter" was looked upon as some kind of a "war". More India-Pak matches will mean that people will take these matches in the right perspective and enjoy them in the right spirit. So, here's hoping the next month or so provides us with some exciting cricket and may the best team win (ofcourse may that team be India....)