India Trip Report 2003

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Written in free time, so Read it in free time

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Starting with taza khabar from Raipur. Thanks to Jogi
jee it was in limelight and bharat ka bachha baccha
janta hai about this city now a days. I feel proud!

So whats the latest movie there in Babulal talkies.
"Football-Shootball ....Hai Rabba!"
(yes thats the hindi version of Bend it like Beckham).

It seems Salman Khan hair style (Tere Naam) is a big
craze. saw many one in that style.

Lots and lots of ATM centers, Nearly all big shops
accept Credit cards (sliding machines, connected
to phones....no more pressing business).

ICICI is omnipresent. Very nice service. They are also
in insurance business and giving hard time to others.
The most popular product is ICICI-Prudential Life term
(and surprisingly they do cover "suicide" but atleast 1
year after the policy has been issued). You are right..
I bought one.

This is funny, and I witnessed it.
Raipurians are still not used to traffic lights. So
they have 3 policemen in one crossing. The one sits in
a stool and controls switches. The second one looks at
the traffic and asks his colleague when to press green
or red. (thereare No YELLOW lights).
And the third one "danda phek kar marta hai..whoever
breaks thelight". I saw one cycle man fell from his cycle
after getting hit.

DVD/MP3 are big hit. Very soon VCDs will be wiped off
(as happened with VHS). You get rs 200 DVD which has 3
movies. Quality is far better than VCD but less than that of
DVD seen here...

Cell-Phones/Mobile technology awareness, among average is
more than here.

Nearly all the studios keep digital cameras. All of them expertize
in "puraney photo sey naya photo banaye" and all other featurs
of Photoshop/Arcsoft softwares.

Amir Khan is a big hit in the ad world. His coke ads are too
popular and catchy. In one he enacts a "gurkha" and in
another as "kishore kumar".

Talking about TV, I thought FashionTV had been banned. But was
able to watch(on the excuse of surfing channels). Unfortunately
once UmaBharti sworn it they took that off.

Nearly all the news channels have continous tickers at the bottom
of the screen with latest updates and.....guess..?.
So in "Aajtak" I was following the tickers like "saddam husain
pakda gaya...thand sey 5 marey....kuhra key karan train radd..
and suddenly..  kamar tod dhulai super power ultra rin sey....
aaj hee isteymal karey ...and then back to News again"
Yes it was too much.
Tip to CNN on how to increase their revenue.

Oh..yes...the song "kanta laga" has won sahitya academy for
largets selling albums (I think more than 30 lakhs).

and last before leaving this segment:
Siddharth Basu is back with his quiz show in BBC.
he looks much older now.

Do you know whats the latest in Bhopal.
Everything there is ISO-9001. It is BIG thing and bhoplais are
too proud of it.
So they have India's first ISO-9001 Railway station (HabinbGanz),
India's first ISO-9001 Train (shan-e-bhopal exp, from bhopal-delhi),
I saw ISO-9001 Hospital (Ayushman hospital), and Restaurants,
Hotels. Bank branches....I wont be surprised soon bhopalis will
start wearing ISO-9001 tags.

Raliways have improved like anything. 99% of trains are in right time.
Platforms/trains are quite clean. We had to travel from Pipariya to
Itarsi (70Km) in 3 tier. That being a short distance we could not get
reservation and just boarded in 3 tier sleeper. I was surprised to find
that we were the only ones without reservation. and the coach/toilet
was so clean. There are new trains running called Jan-Shatabdi exp.
with chair cars. Quite popular.

Coming back to elections and politics....

Gone are the days of "muhar lagana hai"...now it
is "button dabana hai".

Whole country is in BJP mood. (at least the places we visited).
And it is much more professional when it came to campaigning
and all. All the state capitals there were behind-the-door teams
of professionals of BJP who did the survey, drafted the resolutions,
discovered the weak points/areas, managed the whole show.
The public never saw them, but they conducted many select
gatherings of city intellectuals addressed by likes of jaitley, yashwant
sinha and other big diggazs.

Whereas for Congress...
Ajit Jogi and team tried to convince the adivasi
voters in Bastar that if you press any buttons other
than "panja" you will get electric shock.
dont laugh..It is true.

Before assembly elections the whole Raipur was in grip
of Jogi family. The CM's son (who is an US citizen,
had appeared for IAS) virtually ruled the whole city.
He took over forcibly the dhanajya parihar's cable business
and renamed that Akash channel
(Mr D. parihar was a local goonda who killed a batchmate of ours)

Coming to Delhi/Bombay where I spent half day each...
The big big business (not legal ofcourse) now a days in Metros are
the "secret massage parlours".  More than half of the classified in
TOI/HT (delhi/bombay) are about that. Ads are like "4 start/5 star
guests only, nri/foreign welcome, room service available etc etc
followed by just one  cell number". And it is going to be the next big
challenge  for law officials.

Mirchi FM is too good....

There are many private colleges who offer diploma in call center
handlings. Talking of that, I read somewhere that the latest syndrome
(seen in Gurgaon) is call-center syndrome.
These people work in night, and in day they behave and think like they
are americans. They try to impress by their newly learned accents.
And this very strange working hours in call centers are causing
problem to many employees.

I also spent a week in London.
Not much there but I will only say that "Princess Anne's dog had bitten
her housemaid" was BIG and NUMBER ONE story for 2 days. All
channels/papers/tabloids had nothing else to discuss that whether
that dog needs to killed or Princess punished, and what is the
psychology of dog, why they bite, what the maid shall do now,
can she sue a princess....by they way this morning 141 people
died in Egypt plane crash"

and AT Last...
"Yeh desh hai veer jawano ka" is still the most favourite tune
for the band and generally the last one, before barat comes to an
end....
Yes...I experineced it on 19th and 21st nov in both my brothers
marriages...
All went well...and we had a great time!

Thanks for reading till end....
Happy New Year!
Gans