Movie Review: Hat Trick

March 19, 2007 1 Comment

All right All right. Yes I am on a blogging binge. But this is part of the series of stuff I wrote over the weekend but never managed to post because of my erratic internet connection at home.

And so, here I am, trying to review another below average movie which I shouldn’t have watched in the first place.

Anyways, Hat Trick is another useless attempt by a seemingly good director (Milan Luthria) to weave multiple stories together without there being any common thread. One story is that of a rather acidic doctor (Nana Patekar) being brought to life (humor, fun n all) by an ex-Cricketer (Danny). Second – of an obsessive cricket fan (Kunal Kapoor) being brought to his senses by his wife’s (Rimi) love for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Third- of an airport janitor (Paresh Rawal) in UK desperate to get citizenship.
Why is the movie called Hat Trick? Well, I will exhaust two guesses-
1. Three wicket taking deliveries, three audience killing stories!
2. Hat Trick requires you to really pull some magic out of thin air. Here, the crew is trying to pull a story/movie out of thin air.

Paresh Rawal, the great actor that he is, has taken his greatness too seriously. He is overtly loud in this movie. His character required a certain desperation, an ABCD kinda mentality, a clear generation gap, and a personality for whom nothing really is going right. What he does is similar to what Amitabh was trying to pull off in his “Jadugar” and “Toofan” era. Dish some crap. People won’t realize because my crap stinks better than cK Eternity!
Paresh Rawal is so loud in this movie that you are almost about to shout at the theatre guys for being in love with him and turning up the volume every time he comes on screen. But of course you realize that these guys are not DJs who turn the volume down almost instantaneously when his wife/daughter is talking. And the tragic nature of his character can be bettered only by Ekta Kapoor’s K-series.

Nana Patekar, typecast long back, sleep walks through his role with ample ease. It’s a character that he is used to playing – angry with life for some weird reason, but a gentle and nice person at heart, extremely righteous, has fun towards the fag end of the movie, etc etc. Danny shines as an ex-cricketer. But then, there is no point wasting ink and space on these two guys unless they do something that they are not used to doing – acting badly! (Which Paresh Rawal has done in copious amounts)

Kunal Kapoor is good, ok, decent, etc. But is not the same he was in movies like Minaxi or RDB. His pairing with Rimi in the movie adds a lot of absurdity to the movie. Though there are a couple of comic moments, but barely so. The pair could have been dispensed with. And while I think about it, the movie could have been dispensed with too.

The song Rabba Khair Kare is nice (situational, in the backdrop, and interspersed throughout the movie). Harsha Bhogle, in his movie cameo, is not as natural as he is otherwise. But he is better than Paresh Rawal.
And Milan Luthria, after Kache Dhaage and Taxi No. 9211, and even movies like Deewar, is expected to make a slick fast paced movie. The pace of Hat Trick is sluggish, snailish at times!

Overall – Rating 3 on 10. Avoidable! Unless, you are in love with Kunal Kapoor who does pull a Salman Khan for a couple of minutes (not the receding hairline bit silly! The bare all Salman!)

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One of the finest renditions of our National Anthem

March 19, 2007 Leave a comment

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Ek Ghazal

March 19, 2007 Leave a comment

TeriI SadiYOn meIn jii rahaA hooN maaiN

SAans lene ki kise fursat haii

MujhKo hairAani se mat dekhaA karo

Mera visAal hi aE dost merii furqat haii..


JAane do lamhon mein kyaa kyaa yahaan bikhraa paaya

JAane kis kis ki tamanNaon ka silaa paaya

Do ghadii ruk gaya to waQt badal jayega

Ajnabi aasmAan merii pehchan, merii jaroorat haii


Baandh lo mujh ko merii Umr ke viraAne meIn

TumSe firr mil sakooN bas itni merii hasrat haii…

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Theatre Watch: "One Small Day"

March 18, 2007 Leave a comment

I happened to catch a performance of One Small Day at NCPA. Not quite sure if it follows the mood of watching an idyllic sunset at Marine Drive with special someones, but the play was good in some parts, and average in some.

Backdrops first – Directed by Jayant Kripalani, Produced by Anish Trivedi, and enacted by Dipika Roy and Anish Trivedi himself, the play traces the interaction between two very different, yet similar people, caught in a room together where the lady has come to kill the gentleman (in a self-redeeming effort of avenging her sister’s death).

First, about the cast and the people. Jayant is known for his wit, timing and acting, right from the days of the TV Series – “Khandaan”. Truly a man of great theatrical skills, Jayant lends his credibility and touch to this play. Anish, an ex-Investment Banker turned playwright, with his previous play “Still Single” going off the streets after an year of performances, started the Banyan Tree production company, and has a radio show on 92.5FM. Banyan Tree is one of the largest radio programming companies in India. Theatre, has been a recent foray for Anish and Banyan Tree. And for encouragement, the previous act (Still Single) did win him some good and some bad press. Dipika Roy has also been around in the theatre circuits for quite some time and has a list of impressive plays to her credit. Anish’s partner at Banyan Tree, she is Anish’s muse for sure given her role in Still Single as well as One Small Day.

Trivia: In the initial running of the play, Jayant was acting and Anish was directing. But for some reason, within a month or so, the roles were reversed.

Back to the play, which apparently is an inspired play. The original required people to take sides, define things as right or wrong, while Anish and Jayant’s effort is more on the humorous side. It’s not an intellectually challenging play, and plays for approximately 2 hours on the humorous/ satirical side of things.

Sheila (Dipika) barges into Bollywood Producer Hari Kapoor’s (Anish) office to kill him. His crime – Sheila’s sister Seema has committed suicide, after Hari failed to live up to his promise of casting her in a role. A heartbroken Seema ends up taking her life, but not before telling her sister why she is doing it. Having had a troubled childhood (after losing her mother at the age of 18, and father at the age of 22, Sheila raises her 14 year old sister all by herself. She has lived her life by the social norms of right and wrong, doing all the right things and sacrificing her “life” in return. She blames Hari for having lost the most important person in her life- Seema. Hari, over the course of a long conversation which fairly wittily tries to address the question of different personalities, insecurities, actions, motives, reality, people, emotions, individuality, sacrifices, choices, careers, and most importantly, the futility of it all, end up liking Sheila, and making out with her (not on the stage, of course! Indian audiences are not ready for that real a play as yet!). Sheila, however, having been pulled out of her shackles in the first half of the play, digs out Hari’s insecurities in the second half, and shooting him (not fatally, though) towards the end.

The play continues to hit upon the broken dreams and failed aspirations of each of the characters (Sheila, Sushma and Hari) and the roles they played in making them the kind of people they were. And the undertone used is –humor and sarcasm. The play is quite funny, with its wisecracks. However, the essence of a powerful script is that the audience should carry the play with them when they move out of the theatre. That does not happen here!

Background score used in the play is quite involved and in sync with the theme. The stage handling is very apt, and so is the use of the stage. The two actors have played their parts well. However, some of the estrangement and grief that two torn lives should have was missing in their performance.

Overall- a good effort. Can definitely be watched. Much better than spending a weekend on movies like “Just Married” or “HatTrick”

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Moview Review: Just Married

March 18, 2007 Leave a comment

An ensemble cast full of losers, largely loser performances, mediocre editing, average music, and an ok storyline. Chef Comment – Passable Movie!

The story is about the lead couple Fardeen and Esha having gotten married (arranged marriage) and going on their honeymoon where they are staying with 4 other couples (Bikram Saluja-Perizaad, Mukul Dev- Sadia Siddiqui, Raj Zutshi-Tarina and Satish Shah-Kiron Kher). Each of these couples has its own story, set of highs and lows, and a love & hate relationship. Finally love is supposed to triumph, and so it does!

Performances

Fardeen and Esha – Its surprising how Fardeen can make Esha look like an actress! Fardeen is pathetic as usual. With 70% of the dialogues being delivered by Fardeen (explicitly or through a voiceover), it reminds me of how li’l kids participating in elocution competitions are supposed to memorize the lines by rote with no real importance to the emotional punch. The only difference being – Fardeen is worse! He does not have the kiddish innocence required to carry that off!
Esha (even without the Deol) is supposed to giggle, shy away, look confused and act dumb. She is given minimal dialogues, and I wonder if that was Meghna Gulzar’s (the director) mega strategic maneuver. Asking lousy actresses to just stand there and do whatever they feel like doing is a good way to save time and energy.

Bikram Saluja has still not realized that for anything beyond the Grasim and whatever suiting shirting ads he does, some importance is attached to how you act. People are supposed to have a bit of variation in their dialogue delivery. I wonder if his fights with his girlfriend(s) have the same tone as the romantic evenings!
Perizaad Zorabian (and sadly) Irani is wasted as she tries to put some semblance of credibility in this movie through her character. Pity, she didn’t get to build on the tragic side of her story. That she looks good and can act is something that we know!

Mukul Dev and Sadia Siddique are like a TV couple. Sadia knows how to play those small roles well and she does, and one look at Mukul tells you why he was thrown out of movies’ world!

Fourth couple – Raj Zutshi and Tarina Patel – is also a good for nothing, and I don’t know why you are there in the movie couple. Raj has few dialogues. Tarina- fewer

Saving grace of the movie – Satish Shah and Kiron Kher. They rock! Their banters as a couple, their comic timing, and the fact that they are the only ones who add what the real element this movie should have been – Comedy! The scene where both of them are sleeping with their monkey caps and mufflers on is cute and funny. While the continuous “phir bus beech mein rukwaoge” kinda comments are hilarious. And the fact that their concluding sentiment is the only message that this movie could have stood for – You need to stand by your life partner, whatever may happen!

I wonder if Meghna Gulzar identifies and relates more with that generation more than this. While her current day couples are stories that you probably can find in your lifetime, the treatment of what their problems are and what they go through is extremely shallow, her treatment of Satish-Kiron couple is just perfect!

Any other high points- can’t remember!

Overall – Watch it if you have nothing better to do. Or, if you get a free DVD or something, keep skipping to the parts where Satish Shah and Kiron Kher are! You’ll think you watched a gun movie!

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Movie Review : The Pursuit of Happyness

March 12, 2007 Leave a comment

I happened to watch “The Pursuit Of Happyness” over the weekend.

Based on the original story of Chris Gardner (the man behind Gardner-Rich brokerage firm), the screenplay and characterizations are just perfect. The movie ranges from tragic to funny to inspirational.

The title of the movie has Happiness misspelled as Happyness – in the memory of the day care where Christopher (Chris’s son) goes everyday.

Overall sentiment : Must watch.

Biggest draws – 1. The performances of Will and Jaden Smith 2. The Screenplay.

Biggest Flaw – Another story about the Great American Dream. While the story still inspires you, there is not much new in terms of the storyline

Will Smith in the lead role has pulled off another marvelous performance. As a struggling yet positive father whose only dream, probably, is to keep his son happy, Will packages poise, understated pain, downright humor in one nice packet. As most of the reviews point, Will Smith elevates the movie to a different level.

Jaden Smith, the little boy playing Christopher Gardner (Chris’s son) is equally amazing.

There are some amazing wisecracks, which I dont know if they are inspired by real life incidents that the real Chris Gardner lived through.

Reference to Thomas Jefferson’s declaration of independence and the right to “pursue happiness” keeps the theme moving. But the best is when the narrator says – probably he was right. we can only pursue happiness. We can never have it.

The wisecracks are good. (e.g. the brokerage firm interview of Chris Gardner – One of the men asks him “What would you say if I told you we once hired a man who came in without a shirt on?” Chris pauses then wittily replies “Those must have been some really nice pants.” )

There are those tragic moments as well – especially the shot where Chris and Christopher are spending the night in a rest room.

People may have different views about the movie but for me the endgame was Will Smith’s portrayal.

Some movies are not meant to be analyzed for “is it really possible?”. They are just feel-good movies (yeah! The great American dream.. hmph!). What makes such movies great are performances such as Will Smith’s.



Couple of first timers for me –
1. I watched a movie all alone, all by myself. And its a pretty good experience – if the movie is good, there is no disturbance whatsoever. If the movie is bad, you can just walk out without having to convince anyone else to walk out as well!
2. The first shot of the movie was the intermission break. Thats a neat one! The show was going to be an uniterrupted one – no intermissions later. I wonder if the popcorn and pepsi sales are higher for such uninterrupted shows (with people wondering what if I feel like having it later!)

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The Big (Mouth) Fight – Ponting vs. Gavaskar

March 12, 2007 2 Comments

Subhra just pointed me to this post quoting Mr. (We cant do anything wrong) Pointing

I am not a great supporter of Mr. Gavaskar.. but Ponting should know the (cricket) history (at least!) right, and should not link two extremely unrelated issues without establishing the six degrees of separation!

Gavaskar was pointing to Asutralian team’s behavior on the field, and not their success rate. And Ponting, epitomising the truly defensive attitude that the whole team has about their big cavities, starts blabbering. The only equivalent that he has for his big mouth is Andre Nel!

And if the big mouth has a correlation with being victorious and good, I don’t remember the whispering deaths of 1970s (West Indies team) ever having to swear at someone to prove their point. But the pansy li’l babies of current Oz team cant help whining everytime someone slams a boundary! And I am sure the 5 consecutive one-day losses are not helping their wet pants.

Back to the quoted incident, it was more about the number of bad umpiring decisions than anything else that prompted Gavs to walk off! But of course, li’l Ricky wont remember those things.

And hmmm… isnt it high n mighty of Mr. Ponting to remind Gavaskar of what’s right n wrong!

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Couple of weeks of missed reviews!

March 7, 2007 2 Comments

Few snippets that’ve been lost in the sands of the last few (phew!) weeks –

1. Double deal – I decided to catch up with this fairly well known play. Experience – 4-5 out of 10.
Sandhya Mridul looks very beautiful. But Mahesh Manjrekar acted better. Even if I am the only person to think so – I always got a feeling that both the people are acting at 2 levels – 1. when they are trying to have this continuous conversation in English (I find it normal for Indians to intuitively think in their native tongue and then translate before conversing), and 2. The play itself.
It must be difficult to pull these multi-stor(e)y acts!
Also, its a one-act play split into 2 halves. 2 characters. Talking continuously.
Sense of humor – ok. Sense of drama – average. plot – good. Use of stage – minimal. Use of props – minimal. Characterization – could be better. Background music used- average.
Final comment – Its that one thing you dont want to do for fun when you want to do something for fun.
2. Ghostrider – Again.. Pathetic! Of all the comics turned movies, I have ended up liking X-men and Spiderman. Superman- the older ones. The recent one was not quite there.
Ghostrider is that Ajay Devgan action movie where even if he jumped from the 50th floor to land on 2 bicycles, there would be some B-grade movie watchers hooting for him. And the director would still say – my movie is different. It appeals to a different class of people.
Nicholas Cage, and Eva Mendes disappoint. Cage looks like a doped patient of running-stomach-syndrome. I want to go somewhere but I am too doped to understand where I want to go kinda looks! The devil is useless – does not evoke a laughter, definitely does not scare. Villains are more funny with their frozen white makeup!
Action sequences are basic, stuff that can be seen in every third movie.

High point of the movie – Emraan Hashmi, the serial kisser of Bollywood, was standing next to me in the washroom. And I realized that he is shorter than me (for those who havent seen me, someone has to be extremely extremely short to be shorter than me). God bless Indian Cinema!

3. Chennai – the city deserves a mention. I was in Chennai for 3-4 months in 2003. While talking to Bonnie and Tushar, we all agreed on two things –
a. Anyone who stays here for more than x months, should be a given a certificate of appreciation. X is a function of how far north of chennai the person is from.
b. If you see a beautiful girl in Chennai, then most probably she is a tourist. And its not about them not being good looking. They just dont have the attitude to look good.

In 2006, with probably 60% of educated families having one family member who is/has been abroad, the city is down in the pits with its conservative nature. The autowallahs havent changed in the last 40 years it seems. The roads continue to be messy (though definitely better than Mumbai roads). People on the street still cannot come out of the north-south divide and their biases. Extremely unfriendly. And any johnnie can become a hero down south!

4. Saving the best for the last – Prithvi Theater– Celebrating Poetry. I was there on a saturday when they were showcasing the emergence of progressive poetry. However, the story went back to as far as Bulle Shah, Kabirdas and covered Ghalib, Nirala, and contemporary Nida Fazli sahab as well. Beautiful collection of poetry. Couple of the actors could have done better by memorizing their lines completely.

Final suggestion – The Babbar family kids (Raj Babbar’s son and daughter) – they should stay away from theatre. Those who cannot act in movies, will never be able to act on a stage. and especially, if the stage is like Prithvi!

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Friends Series (2) : Those Nothing Guys!

March 1, 2007 2 Comments

Another Phoebe-ism
Oh, oh, but y’know, you always see these really beautiful women with these really nothing guys, you could be one of those guys.

1. The practical theory of relativity – Those guys are really “nothing guys”. They just look like “nothing guys” because they are with these awe”some” women!
and usually, if you like the girl, you are better off believing that she made a wrong choice!
2. An analogy I use – “Just because their is a goalkeeper on the goalpost, that does not mean you stop shooting at the goal” and “Just because you are a goalkeeper, that does not mean you cannot score goals”
3. Another MBA quip – Everyone who graduates out of the IIMs in this country, wants to replace the CEO of his company. Their hopes are high, but hopes from them… low! (Unhe badi umeed hoti hai, lekin unse.. badi kam!)
4. Norman Vincent Peale – with due apologies to all his lovers.. all those who have seen small town book shops at the bus-stations lined up with titles like “Dont say yes when you want to say no”, “You can be a winner” and blah and bah.. This Phoebe-ism is definitely inspired by that. I mean, come on! There are these losers going out with these babes! But they are not complete losers like Chandler 😉 They have cars, money, or girlfriends who think with something that’s kinda below the knees.
5. A phrase I love – Night is always darkest before the dawn.

and

Nothing is something, and the not the lack of everything!

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Friends Series (1) : I didnt have anything on that topic

February 25, 2007 2 Comments

I just realized that in my friend circle (especially the IIMB one), a lot of us have this habit of cracking one liners from friend. And I thought I should pay homage to Friends through this episodic writing on some of the most amazing one-liners I’ve seen people pick.

Phoebe has a knack of cracking phenomenally universally applicable statements like this one –

I didn’t have anything on that topic, so I went another way. (Context: Season 1 – Ep. 6 -The One With the Butt…. Chandler narrating the story of his date with the Italian girl Aurora who is married to Rick and has another boyfriend Ethan and the “friends” are discussing about the uncomfortable feeling around going out with someone who is going out with someone else. Joey cracks the landmark – When I’m with a woman, I need to know that I’m going out with more people than she is )

What does that remind me of?

1. ACP – Arbit Class Participation – a phenomenon that every MBA has definitely been through, and especially in courses where faculty members/professors have additional weightage for participating in class discussions. People come up with such garbage CP as “In the multidimensional and prospective interest of the economy, its important for organizations to add value to the pet allowance of the third strata of economically imprudent and strategically deprived dogs sleeping in the garbage cans of south mumbai.” (Background questions could have been something as simple as “Do you think Maneka Gandhi and her animal activism is the way to go?”
This ACP reminds me 2 more things – First, A2Z CP where people had explanations of A to Z of CP, e.g. BCP – before class participation, CCP- creative class participation, DCP – Desperate class participation and so on.
And the second was bullCP – where backbenchers would float 5 random keywords which had to combined in a single participation – whoever does that successfully, gets to float the next set of keywords. Example – Intoxicating, Aliens, Titan, Paradigm Shift, Professor – There are organizations known to have made paradigm shifts in their strategy without realizing any benefit because a bad strategy could make a customer feel like an alien, say something like customers perceiving Titan not as a brand of watches but as a company that is disposing intoxicating wastes in space simply because they agreed to a professor’s suggestion of coming up with a brand called Titan WaistLine. Beat that!

2. Wheel of Fortune – and hence, Shilpa. I have associated WoF with a random turn of wheel leading to a random topic on which someone asks questions, etc. Shilpa has a knack for that – On a table where strong discussions on credit cards is happening, she can end up asking a question like – who killed Lala Lajpat Rai.

3. The way people live their life – like defeated warriors. I could not change the tide of things, so I decided to do something else. I tried a couple of times, but realized that I cant change this. So I decided to do something else.

4. The need to be counted- A lot of people have this problem. I have that. I feel a little left out when I dont have anything to say on a topic. Either I try to paraphrase. Or, I go back to the drawing board and learn something new. But most of the people have an urge to be counted.

There are so many things that you can read in this …

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Movie Review: Black Friday (2007)

February 20, 2007 Leave a comment

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind – Mahatma Gandhi

I watched the censored version of Black Friday a couple of days back. I have been thinking of why it was banned. It was said that it will bias public opinion in favor of the charge-sheeted offenders. Will it?

Since eternity, all wars/battles have been master minded by some and executed by several others. These several others are made to believe that they are fighting for a cause. That the cause is greatest cause one can fight for. At times, its revenge for the brotherhood, at other occasions, it might be a struggle for existence and survival. But the cause is always fair. Wars shall cease to exist if people believed in Gandhigiri – someone slaps you on one cheek, offer him the other cheek for slapping. Keep doing it till he is tired, confused, and shocked out of his wits and that’s precisely when his thinking becomes clear. That’s when he would apologize and seek mercy.

Does that mean once my sanity is restored, I should justify the reasons for the fight and the motives of the offender? Hmmm… I don’t quite think so.

Black Friday is a very well researched and well made movie(?). I would rather classify it as a documentary. Or, the serialization of history as shown on History Channel. The bottomline remains – it’s a great movie.

But that does not take anything away from the star-cast full of enraged, confused, frustrated, cheated, lost common people.

Pawan comes up with a truly superlative performance. And Kay Kay comes up with another good restrained and underplayed performance. All the other supporting actors have done justice to their role.

The movie has its comic real life moments as well. Imtiyaaz Ghavate chase which goes on for a long time, and the policeman eventually saying “Ae Imtiyaaz! Yaar ruk ja yaar!” and the shot where a hungry Kay Kay peels off a banana to eat and a hungry constable walks in.

The screenplay is realistic and gripping. The editing is slick and fast paced. Cinematography is just what it should be – scratchy, real, and not with a lot of jazz. The real footage shown from the then Newstrack videos adds the element of nostalgia.

Music – Indian Ocean don’t need a mention. Bandeh is the probably the pick of the lot. But its an album you can keep for the keeps.

Vote- Watch it. Unless you are a pig headed religious captain who cannot absorb reality the way it is. It’s a must watch.

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Movie review: Eklavya – The Royal Guard

February 17, 2007 2 Comments


How many times have you had a great meal followed by a bad dessert? Or a lot of drinks and a great feeling before you puked and destroyed it all? Or, a JJWS kinda feeling where someone pulls that final gear and beats you in the race just when you thought you had won it?

The movie is a pretty good one, but for one haunting memory of the India-SriLanka one day match (the second ODI of the recent series). Everything cruises on so smoothly that you forget that it’s a contest. You are ready to give India a thumbs up on their performance. And suddenly, they lose the match! Eklavya is just that. A great movie where Vidhu Vinod Chopra just decided to go bollywood in the end and come up with a very very very typical climax.

Eklavya – Amitabh, is Eklavya’s movie. Just that Amitabh is the Lord Krishna of Bollywood. Movies, Media, Scripts, Characters, Stories are all centered around him. And he never disappoints. Saif Ali Khan stands tall in front of Amitabh, and that speaks volumes about his performance. Amitabh and Saif are the Maharaja Mac and Coke of this happy meal. And there are plenty of tiny little French fries.

Story, Screenplay, Dialogues, Cinematography are the big plusses. Obviously, in addition to the performances of the stars. Characterization is the biggest strength of this movie. Eklavya’s love for tradition and his innermost conflicts are well portrayed. All the characters – Harshvardhan(Saif) as the heir apparent who realizes his true origins after his mother’s (Sharmila) death. Rana (Boman) and his anger at realizing that his royal palace guard is the father of his children. Nandini (Raima) as the mentally retarded daughter and her joys and fears. Pannulal (Sanjay Dutt) as the low caste DSP is good in his cameo. Rajjo (Vidya) as the poor-girl-love-interest of Harsh & Jyotivardhan (Jackie)- the deprived brother of Rana – these two could have been built better. But considering that the movie is really about Eklavya only, creating these strong profiles is a big achievement.

The element of suspense as the drama unfolds is quite intriguing. It’s a well tightened 2 hour movie, implying no embarrassing song and dance sequences.

Movie does not have a consistent pace – it varies with different stages of the movie. The average movie goer will be disappointed at times. And the yash choprization of the climax where everything falls together is the worst thing about the movie.

And the last big take home – a Trailer of Munnabhai chale America in the intermission

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Wow with Windows Vista and Tata Indicom

February 15, 2007 Leave a comment

I had not quite liked the WOW advertising Windows vista folks had done with Coffe day tie-up.

But here I am sitting at the MUmbai Airport, and suddenly the usually paid Tata Indicom Wi-Fi Service is being offered free by WOW. Catch – you have to download and view a demo which takes about 15-20 seconds. Takes you through some catchy sections and walks you through the features. Even though you are in a hurry to get through the demo, you end up walking into their hands and notice a few nice features like instant network, 3D flip windows, instant search, etc.

But the baseline marketing problem – how do you catch the attention of a customer effectively, has been answered pretty effectively! Hit the pain point (need to be connected) of a user segment (corporate travellers/ with wi-fi enabled laptops) at a location where they need it (airports in India- minimal connectivity, high idle time if you reach in time). Bingo!

The interesting bit would be –
1. given that the websites visited via this gateway is an information that would (hopefully) be available with Tata Indicom, and can be snapped by WOW. Can they effectively use this data?
2. More simply, whoever registers with this access code, also ends up providing an email id (maybe a personal one). Here, you are talking about people who have already seen a demo of the product. Can you think of the next stage marketing strategy for these guys?

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(Ticket)less amusement

February 14, 2007 1 Comment

here.. another proof that Lalooo gets as much media attention as Ash-Abhishek

However, the most interesting part of the coverage is 3-4 versions of the same incident by different people, all closely related to the event!

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Frontrunner Paradox

February 13, 2007 Leave a comment

Nice post by Seth.

The frontrunner paradox is not something new. However, from a totally experiential perspective.. I have seen the big become bigger with consummate ease. Small becoming big is news item, yes. but big becoming bigger is the most obvious thing to happen!

The big question is – are the front runners, who more often than not, lose (as per Seth), lose so hard that they cant win again? Or, is it a vicious cycle of winning and losing?

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