My interpretation of Qissa: A story of displacement?
Can we ever get displaced? You get displaced from land. But has your mind really uprooted? You are displaced mentally from your body. But physiologically can you displace from the body? What if you died? And became a ghost? You are stranded between the ether...
Badlapur: So who was the villain?
Nawazuddin Siddiqui or Varun Dhawan? Or the retiring police officer? Or death? Fate? Who becomes who or what? Is destiny the villain? Or are our obsessions the villain? Let’s blame destiny for a moment. I think the movie actually starts in the end. I really...
Advice to startups approaching media
My 2 cents worth of advice to startups when they approach media through email or Contact Form: Try not to send a mass mail. ‘Hi’, ‘Hey there’, ‘Hello’ look so dumb. Try and find out name of the journalist you are trying to approach. Personal...
Rape: A societal problem, not just of Uber – 1
The problem is much deeper than Uber not doing a background check. It should have done those checks. But by pinning the responsibility just on to Uber, we are offloading and limiting our collective responsibility on to one brand, because we have to find that...
In the month of Pausa
It snowed last year It will snow this year too. I was a kid When my granny told me: In the month of Pausa When the world wears the shroud When the grey slates turn white The nymphs walk down They take away the kids...
हमसे आया न गया तुमसे बुलाया न गया …
एक साँझ में हमारा यौवन नहीं बीता था कोई त्रिमूर्ति था तो कोई अद्वैत। रवि के चढ़ने से श्वेत पंकज खिलते थे तो देव नायक भी रमते थे। सिन्दूरी क्षितिज को देखे दशक बीत गए बस यूँही अब कविता नहीं निकलती आज एक टीस...
The CFL scam in Himachal?
The Himachal Pradesh government, a couple of months ago, introduced a scheme, under the ‘Atal Bijli Bachat Yojana’, whereby it would distribute about 64 lakh Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) in exchange of incandescent lamps. The scheme, I believe is on a verge of becoming a...
Dial M for dummies
My third Column in Pitch Issue: August 2011 Marketers spend Crores of Rupees to outdo their competitor in the communication war, but they often forget the end-user… I have often felt my intellect and worth demeaned, when each time, I’ve gone to a retailer to...
Where is our Victoria’s Secret
My second Column in Pitch Issue: July 2011 Innerwear is a category, which is a mega market – each one of us has a dozen of them in our wardrobes – yet is the most neglected… When every category is moving to create an emotional...
The eighth P – Policy
My first Column in Pitch Issue: June 2011 Consumer durables and automobiles should go for 7 Ps instead of the 4 Ps of marketing, as ‘service’ is an inseparable part of the package… As a consumer, I don’t want to be tied to a non-functional...
Woe-da-fone
The story does have a plot in the last two days, yet it goes back to when Woe-da-phone was not Hitch, but SR. I had promised myself at that time that I’ll never have an SR in my life again. I shifted to Water-tel. And...
Want to run away to Himachal
The feeling is not new, but of course lately, the rigmaroles of city life are convincing me to get back to where I belong. Wish I could get out of this rat race. The life I live is so fake. I work for my bosses...
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