Oh, well...

Technorati Tags: Racism,Australia,Times of India,media

There's a funny feeling I get when I post on this blog. Its like I'm talking to nobody, yet talking to myself. Maybe that's what its all about....hmmm.

Anyway, Its been 10 months and life has made sure I've been shit busy all along. I'm settling into a 9-5 thingy once more, but this time its different. (When i write this, it feels like one of those Hindi movie directors that introduces his film as a "different" one, for lack of anything else to position it as) ... oh, well. :-D

Since I'm here, thought I might as well leave a token to restart our conversations. The recent talk about racism in OZland and those attacks...it's all a big funny....or so I believe. While racism anywhere should be laughed at, I fail to understand why a petty crime (mugging) is being converted into such a national issue for weeks on end, and then suddenly dropped like a hot potato. What's happening to Bhajji's nephew's case, what about that dude who's still in coma? Does anybody know? I'm sure NDTV's australian correspondent (forget the person's name) is clueless as to why he doesn't see himself on prime-time anymore. Poor him, he prolly din't know how the media fraternity functions - either that or he had really high expectations... oh, well... 

Back to the topic - it irks me to see that we citizens allow the media to bloat up petty crimes (racially incited or otherwise), while at the same time we're happy to see an issue (however small or big in it's significance) suddenly cease to even exist in the eyes of the media. I remember having a chat about this with a few friends over bakery tea and cigarettes, where all I heard was appreciation for an editiorial (presumably the last one focussing on OZViolence) written early June in TOI. While its well written and all, the focus seems to be on delivering well-structured back-handed compliments to OZ on being racist ‘just like India’. It’s as good as stoking the fire by telling the people that it’s okay… oh, well…

*puts his virtual pen down*

*goes for a toilet break and forgets he has a blog*

Vidd.

Social Media Demographics in India

Technorati Tags: Social Media,India,Twitter,Facebook,PR 2.0,internet

While just being a Tweeter in India today is being perceived as being ‘plugged in’, there’s yet a long way to go wrt Social Media in India. Some of the statistics here seem to validate this argument. Thought I’d share it with you.

While India has had overwhelming print / TV media eco-system (over 25 news channels, 20+ national newspapers, over 150 registered vernaculars, etc.), social media is yet to evolve to a stage where marketers start taking it seriously. The growth is rapid, however, it is still only the beginning of the transition phase for Social. A large part of it could be attributed to the Indian psyche of being less dialogue-oriented and more functional online behavior. Having said that, 52% of the current netizen population is under 25 and most of them spend time online going to dating & matrimonial sites. :-)

Social media might be premature, but before we say ‘Slumdog’ we could be left out of the lightning-fast internet community unless we create a platform for ourselves and utilize it to connect with our audience!

I’ve been attending a few conferences / workshops on Social Media and my honest opinion is that if you’ve attended one, you’ve done all of them. The reason being that fundamentally, they all say the same thing: “We can give you tips & tricks, but largely, most of it is DIY!" I completely agree with this, as you can NEVER use social media effectively with cob-webs in your head and more importantly, you’ll never be able to communicate well if you don’t try enough! Just go out there and start your own twitter profile/ FB page about something you believe in. And when you do, get back to be and give me some tips. :-P

 

More later,

Vidd.

New life!

Quit work last week. And I've been working on 2 different scripts, swimming, lazing, vegetating, chiilling, eating, watching, sleeping, eating, hanging out, cleaning, packing..........life seems so purposeful now. ;-)

Cheers!

Vidd.

Time to Reboot

You see, I've always wanted to make movies. Actually, most of my memorable moments in life, especially related to my background and family, have been associated with movies. Even through my pre pubescent days, I would dream about being either a hero or a villain in a movie and would secretly, in my dark and twisted mind, make my very own brand of movies and call them 'my dreams'. Pretty twisted for a young kid.

If you fastly fast forward to today, much of that dream seems distant. I work to earn a living, I sleep to let my body heal, I eat to fill my stomach, I survive. But I'm still not living.

After many weeks of intense thought, I've realized that though I am multi-talented, I am incapable of multi-tasking. I could do no more than 2 things at a time. However painful it is to admit it, it's true. I work every day from 10 in the morning to almost 8 or 9 each day. Obviously, it's hard to focus on much else post this time. Though I've always been a night person, my job demands that my most productive time falls during the day. It has taken me 10 months to tweak my lifestyle accordingly and I've gotten somewhere with that. One of the side-effects of the tweaking, though, is that I hardly find time or even make the time to work on some of my older ideas or incomplete scripts. I don't even get to read much on cinema nowadays because...........just......


Now that the weak link has been established, let's look at the bright side. I'm not too keen on earning big and making it as a rich and famous person. I was born in a farmer's family, and I am absolutely okay with farming for the rest of my life, as long as I have conviction in what I'm doing. I plan to take off on a pilgrimage of sorts. I say pilgrimage because I intend to do more soul searching than have 'fun'. I need to pull out of the daily mayhem and ask myself and the world a few questions. I feel the need to progress through levels of existence, I do. I don't really know how clearly I understand these concepts, but I want to. I want to weed out the grossness of my existence and grow the saplings of my inner being. I do intend to get back home after that, and explore more movie-making, PR, etc. I really want to be me, the unabashed, brash and cocky movie-maker who sleeps days and works nights; drinks coffee for breakfast and tea for dinner.

Some of the things that I expect and even look forward to: Random people giving me pearls on how I should lead my life and me rebuking them outright. Folks going paranoid over a talented working boy who had finally realized his responsibilities as a good societal being suddenly going back to his nameless and aimless ways. GAAAAH!I LOVE BEING A REBEL!! :-)

There's a lot to be undone and done in the next six months or so.............