hit or hype

On any networking site, people look for friends for different reasons. Next step they form virtual eco-systems by rallying for or against some personality/ideology. One such example is the community for fan-clubs/hate-clubs. I was curious to know the front runner among all these clubs on one of the most successful networking sites - Yes you guessed right!!

This led me to the following snippets –

Case Study -1

I Hate Ekta Kapoor !!!

members (77255)
Description: Isn't there anything left in lives of women apart from plotting against one another & sleeping around with their husband's friends ?? May god help me out !!!

Ekta Kapoor - The Entrepreneur

members (19)
Description: For all those poeple who may not like Ekta Kapoor serials but admires her for her vision and her skills in creating this brand 'Ekta Kapoor' and taking Balaji Telefilms to new heights

When I typed “Ekta Kapoor” I got over 1000 results with the first one being the first one above. I wonder if someone else is hated with so much love than Ekta Kapoor. Curiousity went to next level - I delved deep into this hate-love affair went page after page till 100th result, the only fan- The Entrepreneur, which again had people who may not like her serials but admire her business acumen. I call it as a pesudo fan-club.

I gave up after 100 results, but enriched my vocabulary int he process having learnt snonyms for hate e.g. – sucker, virus, paralyzer, surpasses science, the sult etc. etc. I have excluded the words whose usage would be rare. Some wanted to kill her, behead her, and all other things to her. This hatred brought creativity to the fore; as they made all kinds of pictures which otherwise I could see in puja mandap of Durga and Kaali. Some one was teasing her while some said to her don’t tease us.

Case Study - 2

Himesh Reshamiya Hate Club

members (33638)
Description: Welcome to the oldest community for Himesh Reshamiya,s HATERS. For anyone who hate Himesh Reshamiya the nasal singer

Himesh Reshammiya Fan Club

members (29334)
Description: Himesh Reshammiya (born July 23, 1973) is an Indian Bollywood film music composer and singer. Early in his career, he received critical acclaim for his musical scores, although the films associated with them were not popular at the box office. As of mid-2006, he has become a popular name in the industry. His first film was Bandhan (1998), in which he collaborated with Anand Raj Anand to produce the musical score. Although it was not the first film to which he contributed music, it was the first one on which he was listed as a contributing music director.

Ek sherni to dusra sawa sher –

Himesh is already a rockstar. Hats off to him!! :) When I searched for him in the club section the same site gave me first two responses as above. Unlike Ekta’s case where a lot of clubs would be subsets of the other- as almost all of them were hate-clubs, (with the only pseudo fan club with around 19 members), his case is interesting in a different way - the intensity of love and hate; almost neck to neck.

In a way this is true even for Ekta Kapoor as lots of her fans are not netizens. I have personally seen hordes of old women sitting on the roads of Juhu, just to get her glimpse while she comes out for late afternoon jog. Not to mention, the entire household coming to standstill at the time of her serials. This is the segment which generally wont figure in the above clubs.

Kisi bujurg ne sahi kaha tha – Badnaami mein bhi naam Chuppa hai....

A City in a Village - A villager in IT

“A thin line separates your office and home – we call it as Hosur Road” – A statement on the hoarding advertising the sale of apartments struck me. Welcome to the Silicon Valley of India, also known as Bengaluru. Every Tom, Dick here is in Infosys and Wipro, and every Harry (the lesser mortals) are in HCL and the leftovers are in hundreds of others of the same ilk.

For my friends who never had the God forsaken chance of first hand visit of Electronic City in Bangalore perhaps this can be some news. What this statement meant is when all the IT giants are on one side of the road you can purchase a house on the other side of the road which is purely a residential area.

This statement should actually read – “A thin line separates the city and the village”. And all the nostalgic folks like me who miss their village life dearly for all this mad rush of becoming rich overnight would really cherish this situation. It’s like enjoying fruits of both the world; work with the most revered names in the industry and also enjoy the dusky lanes of a village.

This so called thin line also has another thick significance to it – the extremities of the lifestyle of the people. One side of the road you will find swanky lawns with all modern amenities, restaurants, shops and what not; inside the campuses that you can even plan a date. But on the other side, while you can easliy spot people enjoying som-rasa once it gets dark, you struggle to find a decent hotel for food.

But I guess this research is farfetched at least now since it doesn’t affect any because the people who work on one side don’t live on the other side and vice versa. I only wonder what will happen after one year, the proposed time for this thin line to become 6 lane flyover, when the city would be too choked to accommodate any more techies.

dadagiri to gandhigiri

The greatness of this man was his simplicity. Lets discover the Gandhi in ourselves

Very few people carry their reel life image to real life image with such panache as Sanjay Dutt; though Salman keeps flexing his mucles every now and then only to follow a close second.

Sanju is original Moombayya bhai who has been there, done that and showed the people what and how things gets done behind the curtains. Everybody knew that underworld existed only in newspapers till Sanju baba brought it out in the open with his quality flicks.

Now he wants to shed "bhai" image and promote the new concept - Gandhiri and he has done it with aplomb. The Sanjay Dutt starrer - Lage Raho Munnabhai has triggered Gandhivaad, which till now existed only in the minds but seldom practised. Gandhi, the face of Indian freedom struggle was always revered conveniently, only to be remembered on Public/ National holidays and forgotten on other days.

Never in the last 2 decades that i have seen "Gandhigiri" being discussed by Indians openly with so much of interest. Surely the student community would talk about him as they read in the books but as they grew up soon realised how out of place his ideas were in this materialistic world. What would follow then is pseudo reverence, not to mention the umpteen jokes doing round the corners, when Gandhi is remembered for all the wrong reasons at all wrong places at wrong times.

Hats off Sanjay Dutt that he pulled it off so nicely in Lage Raho Munna Bhai. I am not sure how far he would succeed taking this image to real life from reel life, but his movie has already started a new cult of life - Gandhigiri. The movie had definitely made people look back and think. They are questioning their current stand. Gandhi's idealogy is not transient but enduring.

Let's break the circuit....