Jhalak Dikhlaja - Bajaj Platnia

Jhalak Dikhlaja, a song from Himmesh Reshammaiya - I admit his music is good, but he can certainly stop singing - has been used in product launch for a new bike by Bajaj Auto.

Bajaj Platina launch has used Jhalak Dikhlaja for the campaign. Created by LOWE, this campaign can be viewed online here. MagIndia has a couple of print ads and the TVC.

Coming on to the much awaited review (my review :)), I think the product (Bajaj Platina) sucks. The "jhalak" part would fade away in a couple of months and the selling point of the bike - the shiny new looks would be gone. Further, there are lots of options for people when it comes to buying bikes. Coming on to the song, I think the song sucks big time (more than the BIKE). The lyrics are bad. The word aaja repeats throughout the song for eternity. Coming on to the Singer, the singer sings through the nose and all his songs sound the same. I am sure if you heard a piece of song, you wont be able to tell which song is that.

But ... yes BUT when the two (and product and worse song) are combined together in that ad by a genuis (the copyrighter, creative director and other people for the Bajaj Platina project at LOWE), the ad becomes a piece of art. Amazing picturization and direction. I think I have some kind of liking for the Black n White species.

Bachchans are worth Rs 227 cr

This appeared in Times of India

Lucknow: Her rivals may dismiss her as a political lightweight but her assets would be the envy of most. Jaya Bachchan, who filed nomination papers for Rajya Sabha on Thursday, is from a family worth Rs 227 crore on paper.

According to information in the nomination papers, Amitabh Bachchan's assets are Rs 190 crore while she herself has Rs 37 crore in property and jewels. Jaya claimed that she has Rs 11.41 lakh in bank deposits, while her husband has another Rs 3.27 crore in his name. Bachchans also have an investment of over Rs 137 crore in shares. Of this, Jaya's share is Rs 3.09 crore, the rest is Amitabh's.

Jaya claimed she owns jewellery worth Rs 3.67 crore and her husband's jewellery is worth Rs 2.91 crore. Apart from gold ornaments worth Rs 27.18 lakh and 364 kg silver, Jaya also owns Rs 3.22 crore worth of diamonds.

On the other hand, her papers said Amitabh owns 394.55 kg silver worth Rs 15.78 lakh, Rs 1.88 crore worth of pearls and diamonds and Rs 36.20 lakh worth of other ornaments. He also owns watches worth Rs 7.5 lakh.

The couple also owns more than a dozen cars, including a Land Cruiser and a BMW. Jaya and Amitabh also own other movable properties worth Rs 16.41 crore and Rs 29.56 crore respectively.

Jaya's immovable properties, according to the nomination papers, comprise a plot worth Rs 35 lakh in Noida and a flat worth Rs 25 lakh in Bhopal. She also has a bungalow worth Rs 13.5 crore in Juhu, Mumbai.

A Real Life Crime Thriller ... ?

It looks like a plot right out of a Jeffery Archer or a John Grisham novel.

A very fast emerging country. A very enigmatic and popular leader. An important man in the opposition party of the democracy. Equal number of followers and mudslingers. Some people claim that the leader was corrupt and took bribes in tunes of millions of rupees.

One fine day his own brother shoots him thrice from point blank in broad day light. The leader, fighter he is, grapples with life and death for 12 days in hospital before succumbing to bullet wounds. The brother says he was used as a discarded toilet paper by the leader.

A month later, the only son of the slain leader is brought into the hospital. The servants claim that the son complained of breathing problems after a late night party at his house. Preliminary investigations reveal the case of food poisoning, alcohol consumption and drug (cocaine) abuse. Along with the son, the secretary of the slain leader is also reported DOA (Dead on Arrival).

Servants report three unidentified youths in the home, brought in by the recently killed secretary without any authorization and security checks. The autopsy of the secretary reveals poison in the gut. Police recover white powder on dead secretary, ill son and the house. The staff cleared the crime scene by "cleaning" the bottles, glasses and vomit.

The son, like the father is in the hospital, on life support system, fighting away the ultimate truth. The cops are waiting to question the son.

(to be contd ...)

The leader in here is late Mr. Pramod Mahajan. The son is Rahul Mahajan. The dead secretary is Vivek Moitra. It is reported that he was supposed to visit Assam to complete the last rites of his late father.

Google ... TM !!!!

Today I noticed a little TM next to all the Google Logos. Insignificant little addition to the Google Logo. Wonder what they are upto ... !

Wikipedia talks about Trademark here.

Medico Strike - My Point of View ...

I can't seem to find a single thing that the students have achieved by protesting and fasting. However there is a huge list of things that they have lost.

To start things of, reservation is incorrect. Politically, ethically, morally it is incorrect. Coming on to strikes, agitations, mass movements and the fallout, I think they are all uncalled for. The govt. has to do what it has to do and it would not stir from all these agitations.

Few things of note would be ...

1. After the lathicharge on "students" at mumbai, a couple of professional event managers were caught. One of them actually went on air a television channel and talked about problems that they were facing and his personal distress. I wonder what kind of distress was he under. May be not getting his payments?

2. Then there were campaigns on sms nationwide. People said students sitting on hunger strike have died and media is barred from going there and talking to them. Wow. The next moment there is HoD of AIIMS on media and declined the allegations made. Are we trying to win our "fight" against reservation by false campaigns and rumors?

3. Further it was said people from all over the country are coming for a rally in Delhi. A "leader" of the movement told media that he had been requested by these 2000 students from other states to make arrangements for boarding and lodging. I don't know if people have an idea of the kind of logistics required to manage 2000 people but it was impossible in every sense of the world for just students to manage it. And what about the money? Assuming that you spend mere 100 rupees for every student that comes down to the capital, we are talking about 2,00,000 rupees. This is no small sum for 500 odd medical students in Delhi.

4. Then there was a website and they were openly asking for contributions (in kind) from people. Agreed that no money is changing hands but why ask them ... ? Wasnt it a student run initiative? Didnt they say they would not involve anyone who is not a student?

5. The day Supreme Court said it will hold people in contempt .. the strike was over. I wonder if honorable Supreme Court would have stepped in on Day 1.. could we have seen all those people on streets thoughtout India?

6. One of the main organizers were quoted in media as saying that they did all that to get attention from media. Now the strike is over, I hardly see any mention of medicos and reservations in Media. May be they were correct. May be Indian media is about sensational journalism ...?

Confessions of a Value Investor !

For a long time, Mr. Warren Buffett held the post of the best long time investor. His investing philosphy is simple. He would identify a company that he thinks would do well in future, make sure that the managers running the company are good and invest heavily in them. Finally he would wait and wait and wait ... Over a period of time (he is still waiting) his investment would sit there, multiply under the ever increasing compound interest.

But I guess very soon there would be a new long term investor .. ME (Mr. Buffett is still waiting with his stocks). I wanted to be someone who would invest for a short period, turn inventory and make quick buck. I wanted to buy stocks, make intra-day trades mostly or hold on for atmost a week and cash in. But looking at the current movements in the Indian stock market, I am bound to become a long term investor. I simply can not sell they reach the levels I bought them at. This is indeed a bad investing philosphy considering that I might end up with a lot more loss than if I had had a stop-loss figure and exited in time.

Discliamer:
I hold Mr. Buffett in vey high regard and I wish someday I could get even 1% of what he is today. This post is just to indicate that Indian Stock Markets are very very volatile at this moment.

P.S.: I want to go and work for him some day ... :)

If someone is interested in reading about Charlie Munger (he is the low-profile partner of Mr. Buffett) ... here are a few interesting links ...
Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

CAPTCHA aka Word Verification

CAPTCHA aka "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart" is awesome. It helps people (rather website owners) filter out real, lame and unsuspicious users from automated bots. The concept is very simple. They display a word, obscure it with putting some graphic effects, adding lines, dots etc. and then display it at the authentication point on a website. They assume that machines a.k.a. bots won't be able to read it and a human would be able to. To authnticate yourself, you need to read and decipher whats on it and enter your credentials.

I would agree to disagree here. Its ok that you skem the thing so bad that a machine can not read it but sometimes (more often than not), its obscured so bad that I have hard times reading it. I have to refresh the page 5-6 times to get a comprehensible image and proceed. May be I am a machine, may be I am a bot and may be its about time I got my eyesight checked?

There are arguments both in the favour and against the technology and since I hate CAPTCHA, I would tend to favour the ones against it ;)

A detailed discription can be found on Captcha and Wikipedia.

Mario and Nintendo Amusement Park

Ever since I bought a controller for my laptop, I have been hooked onto old NES games ... Mario and Contra to name a few.

Further I think I am a Google stud and can search for anything ... I was searching for Mario vids and came across this page on Wikipedia. Needless to say vids were forgotten and werent thought about again for some time.

I also came across Nintendo Amusement Park. This is a place where students from ITP created "a real life obstacle course which a player jumps through using a power assist harness" based on the popular Mario series. They call this "Physically Augmented Reality". I wish I was in NY :( I want to try this so dearly ...

I posted about Ben Mario Piano long time back and it has helped me get a few hits... Here is a reference to it yet again.

:(

This article makes me sick ! There are people in dire need of help and few "doctors" are striking against something that is not relevant.

I hope some of them are reading this .. !

Things I Live By !

These are the things I plan to live by ...

1. If we have agreed on a time and you fail to turn up, I will leave.
2. When I call you, if you do not pick up in four rings, I will drop the call.
3. I will wear what I feel like. Do not push me for wearning anything other than shorts if I am not in office.