New Year, Renewed Hopes

The girl looked out through the window. She could see a sky filled with dark clouds. The weather was gloomy. She had never liked gloomy weather. She always felt that gloomy weather in turn translates to gloominess in her heart, adding on to the level of inactivity around. She could sense that level of inactivity around. She came and sat in her couch, feeling dejected. Minutes flew by. Slowly she could hear the sound of rain drops touching the ground. It didn’t take long for the rain to become a torrential downpour. She ran to the door. Pitter Patter the raindrops fell, all around her. She could sense her gloominess being washed away with the rain. She let the rain touch her, wash away her gloominess with every single drop. The rain lasted a few minutes. The clouds parted and out came the sun. She could feel the sunshine on her face. She welcomed it with both hands. She held her both hands high as if to take in every single bit of that sunshine.

May the sun shine as bright as it could for you, in the coming year.



Have a fun filled, rock n' roll new year. May this year brings lots of happiness for you.

Expressing myself

Earlier Airtel ads used to focus on one superstar(from Shahrukh to Kareena to Sachin) endorsing the brand. Those ads never had a lasting image in the minds of Indian consumers, who considered it as another celebrity endorsing yet another brand. Then Airtel went on to create a signature tune with A.R.Rahman in 2002, which they continue to use till this date. I think, the ad which changed the whole look of Airtel in the minds of Indian consumers was their first ad with tagline "Express Yourself".



The ad showed an entire gamut of emotions and reactions, which one will experience in a lifetime. It showed

A bride looking at bridegroom through tears - Say Yes
A War Scene - Say No
Two persons sitting at two ends of the couch - Say Something
A person standing infront of a grave - Say Nothing
Three girls sitting at a coffee table - Conspire
A child saying something in an old man's ear - Confess

and so on....with the mesmering signature tune filling your ears towards the end.

This Ad went on to touch the Indian minds with its excellent visual imagery and creativity. And from then Bharti's market share has kept increasing to being the biggest mobile service provider in India. Its wonderful to see how an ad for a telecom service provider can achieve its purpose without talking anything about talktime or tariff rates in its ads. The Airtel's tagline EXPRESS YOURSELF was well potrayed in all of its subsequent ads.

However my favourite ad among all the Airtel ads is the latest one. The ad portrays, two boys separated by a border, a football and an urge to play together.



There is no wall, no barrier that can keep us apart, if only we talk to each other

There wont be any war, any terrorism, if only we could understand this.

Taare Zameen Par

On a lazy afternoon, succumbing to my little sister's exhortations, I went to watch this movie. First of all, I went to watch Taare Zameen Par without any expectations. Because I watched it on the release day, I didn't have any reviews to base my expectations on. This helped me watch the movie with an open mind and I was amazed by what i saw in those 120 minutes.

Taare Zameen Par comes with the message "Every child is special" and lives up to it. It tells the story of dyslexic boy whose world is filled with colours, fishes, kites and everything that is remotely liked with grades amd homework. The movie unfolds to show how he, inspite of being labelled as a 'failure' by his father and teachers, turns out to be a confident and achieving person, with the right guidance from an arts teacher.

Darsheel Safary who plays the dyslexic child, gives a soul rendering performance. Aamir Khan is commendable in his role as an arts teacher, though his role is very small compared to Darsheel's. Music of the movie is heartwarming. I particularly liked the song "Maa"(lyrics by prasoon joshi and sung by shankar mahadevan), which made me choke up in between, because of its intense portrayal of the child's emotions.

Kudos to Aamir Khan for taking up a subject which is very relevant in today's world. With the world becoming more and more competitve each day, most often, parents push for high grades without realising what the child is actually going through. I believe this will be a wake up call for many such parents. The movie helps to bring more awareness about dyslexia which is still a disfunctionality not known to many people.

My five stars for Taare Zameen Par :). Don't miss it.

Untitled!!!

Almost five months since i blogged.

And yeah, five months since joined my B school.

Life had been full of new experiences since then, a whirlpool of casestudies, assignments, quizzes, exams, lots of new friends and lots of fun.

My latest crush - FINANCE. I never thought i would love this subject this much. I had almost decided on my specialization before joining the B school. But it only took a few days with my finance books to change my decision. Our finance prof. further piqued our interest in the subject by saying "No Money, No Honey", in the very first class. I must say, a very innovative way of generating students' interest in the subject :)

Ofcouse i can't boast that the so called "busy schedule" in a B school was the reason for my absence in blogosphere. But yes, i plan to make up for it and be a regular blogger from now on.