22 Aug 2018

Kerala Floods: God’s Own Country Needs Our Help!

Open Our Hearts And Wallets For Kerala!
Every Little Help Counts!

Donate Help, Material Or Funds! Many Options Available To Stand Up For Kerala!

Lots of ways to help! Lots of people and organizations helping!

Listing a few options:

1. Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund

The best help right now is monetary help.

Financial assistance can be provided using the CM’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF). The donations are exempted from income tax as well as Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010.

Donation Link: donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in

You can use international or national payment option.

2. Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund

PM Fund:https://www.pmnrf.gov.in

3. Goonj

Goonj is one of the most genuine organizations that has been helping less privileged. Its founder Anshu Gupta is a Ramon Magsaysay winner. You may have seen him in KBC as well. (I know him via his brother Nishu Gupta, who is my SPJain batchmate). Genuine guys!

You can help via them:
https://goonj.org/rahat-old/

4. PayTM, Amazon Etc.

All major apps including PayTM and Amazon have donate button. (See images)

5. Common Indians have risen up!

Friends of my friend Sridhar have taken up the mantle of helping Kerala…And so are other Indians…if you know authentic guys, please help. See one example!

We are putting together and organising resources for help for people in Kerala. We request your kind help in any way possible. We need volunteers for collection, transportation, Delivery and Distribution into Kerala. We are also in need of any relief material that you are able to provide us with from the below list:

Materials required:
Water purification tablets
Diapers
Soap
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Towels
Clothes( please dont send us unusable clothes)
Medicines – crocin, antibiotics, cough syrups, first aid etc.
Dettol
Packet food ( biscuits, ready to eats etc)
Sanitary pads
Candles
Matchboxes
Milk powder for kids
Mosquito repellants
Chlorine tablets
Tarpaulin
Rubber chappal
Rain coats
Mats for sleeping

For Chennai collection:
please deliver at
No. 14, 3rd street,
Ganapathy colony,
Teynampet,
Chennai – 600018

For Bengaluru collection
please deliver at
Hermitage Apartments,
No.22, Haudin Road,
Ulsoor,
Bengaluru

Please contact:
Gayathri – 9677251362 / 994040003
Sridhar – 8939114640

You can send the money to the below given account with the transaction comment as “For Kerala Relief”. Account details are:
Acct holder name: Sridhar Divakar
Bank: Citibank
Acct number – 5014973445
IFSC code – CITI0000003

Please help! Every little help helps!
30 Jun 2018

Sanju: Hirani’s Payback Movie

PK. 3 Idiots. Lage Raho Munnabhai. Munnabhai MBBS.

Sanju does not really fit in the league of the above movies and does not represent a right progression for the skilled director of Rajkumar Hirani’s calibre. But Rajkumar Hirani is Rajkumar Hirani thanks to Munnabhai series. Maybe this is a payback movie. Maybe Hirani was moved by the father-son relationship story or the general drama of Sanjay Dutt’s life.

Sanjay Dutt needed an image makeover. Ranbir need a comeback. Definitely, Hirani did not need this movie. The movie needed Hirani. We will never understand why Hirani chose this movie but let’s move out of this question and think of the movie independently.

The Ranbir Kapoor starrer is the story of selected episodes of Sanjay Dutt’s roller-coaster life. The movie focuses on his addiction to drugs, gun-possession and father-son relationship. The first half focusses purely on the drug addiction and friendship with Vicky Kaushal – who continues to shine and rise. The second half is an attempt to delve deeper into the gun episode and resurrect his image. The demonization of media and the fake news are highlighted smartly to cash in on current sentiments. The second half brings out the goodness of Senior Dutt and his unparalleled efforts to bring his son’s life back on track. The father-son element is the highlight of the movie and will bring tears to you. Indian father-sons have complex and difficult relationships!

Thanks to legal machinery and defamation case industry, the many relationships with women, politicians and others are avoided. Bal Thackeray is absent. Richa Sharma is absent. Rhea Pillai is absent. And so are many ‘heroines’. So, less masala. There are fictional elements introduced like the biographer.

The stars of the movie are Vicky Kaushal and Paresh Rawal. Both of them outshine Ranbir Kapoor – who himself has given one of the best performances of his life. His has completely mastered the character, behavior and physical appearance of Sanjay Dutt. The women actors have marginal presence and music is average.

Rajkumar Hirani fails himself by showcasing only select elements of truth of Sanjay Dutt’s life. Rajkumar Hirani brand loses to Rajkumar Hirani the friend. The midas touch is missing in this wasted opportunity. A pity and a loss for all of us!

Sanjay Official Trailer
13 May 2018

Loving Vincent – When Paintings Come To Life!

We can only speak by our paintings
Vincent Van Gogh

Loving Vincent brings alive the magic of Vincent van Gogh. The movie, made of oil paintings, is a visual delight. The film’s 65,000 frames are actual oil paintings on canvas – painted in Van Gogh style by more than 125 painters. What a thought! What an execution! What a result!

The movie is a cinematic experience not to be missed! It’s like Van Gogh’s paintings and characters coming to life as you experience the story. The efforts and detail-oriented execution of 6 years of creative work bring rich results on screen. The director Dorota Kobiela had planned this as a short movie with crowd-sourced funding but the project gathered momentum and it has become a mammoth masterpiece. The film was made at a cost of USD 5.5 million – a fraction of Marvel and DC budgets! Dorota Kobiela deserves a rich applause for this magnificent and innovative work!

Loving Vincent is the first fully painted animated feature film which revolves around the mystery of Vincent van Gogh’s death. Postman Joseph Roulin asks his son Armand to deliver Van Gogh’s last letter to his brother Theo, but both the sender and the recipient are dead. It’s almost one year since Van Gogh’s death and Armand tries to find out the real cause. There is no conclusive evidence. During his pursuit, the audience discover Van Gogh’s genius, his approach to life, his loneliness, his troubled childhood, his professional challenges, his relationship issues and other facets of his life.

What impressed me the most was that he created his masterpieces and genius body of work within a decade. He had more than 2000 works of art in a decade – we do not need a lifetime to create works that are timeless!

Watch Loving Vincent Trailer

Watch The Making Of Loving Vincent – Painting Techniques
16 Mar 2018

Celebrating Learning & Innovation – The Museum Of Failure

The winner takes it all! Winning at any cost seems to be the modern mantra – whether in business, politics or any other aspect of life.

But what about failures? Failure is a learning process. Failure is an important part in our journey of evolution. Unless we fail, we do not learn the important lessons that are necessary for our growth – personal as well as professional.

Once a famous Indian King had to make a choice between two able generals for an important war. One was a general who had never lost an war. He was the lucky general. The other one had won more wars but lost a few as well. The upcoming war was an important one and king chose the one with a mixed record. The second general would not take success for granted. He would be less arrogant and take the right steps for winning the war. And who knows the first one could run out of his luck – law of averages would catch-up! Wise choice.

Today, the excessive focus on success has made failure a completely negative concept. Failure is not welcome. But failure is nothing to be shameful about. Every race has always one winner – so we should not consider the rest as failures.

Failure is an equally important factor in the innovation journey. Hundreds of innovations became successful, but thousands and thousands failed before the successful ones!

I recently came across an interesting Museum – the Museum of Failure. Hidden in a small town of Helsingborg in Sweden, it is a collection of all interesting innovation failures. It has a collection of failed products and services from the world – to drive home a single point – that business of innovation is risky proposition, but it is a learning process.

Some of the famous items on display include:

– Apple Newton

– Harley Davidson Perfume

– Google Glass

– Nokia N-Gage

– Kodak Digital Camera

– Sony Betamax

– Lego Fiber Optics

– Ford Edsel

– Donald Trump Board Game

– Colgate Beef Lasagna

– Coke Coffee Cola

 

The important thing is to not get disappointed after failure or lose enthusiasm. We should avoid self-doubts as well. Failure tells us to start once again but with more intelligence and information. Hence failure is never final. It is a stepping stone towards success!

Official Site of Museum of Failure

 

Check A Quick YouTube Video:

 

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