Lagaan - An institution in itself; but an exception nevertheless :(

Nicely written. You are right, havoc. The production houses in India lack professionalism. In the indian film industry, most films are on the mercy of the whims of the director who prides himself on writing lines for his stars (nobody is an actor in India... they are all stars) on the eve of the shooting.

Films like Lagaan are a case study on how a film should be made. The pre-production was to be shot in one schedule so that the shoot would wind up before the monsoons. (All those who've seen lagaan would know why). A bounded script was provided to every person who was involved in the making of the film. Every actor was chosen after a tedious audition process.

The attention to details woulld have made Stanley Kubrick proud. The elephant which made a guest appearence for a few seconds during the fag end of the match was also chosen on various parameters. The entire cast of british actors was authentic. A british agent was appointed and the director chose the english team not only on the basis of acting but also on how well they could wield their bats and how believable their bowling action was. The producer of the film, Mr. Aamir Khan who also was the lead actor was skeptical about the two british actors that Mr. Gowarikar had chosen. Aamir Khan, who is famous for being a perfectionist relieved the actors from the film before the shoot began; but paid the requisite promised amount to the actors reasoning that a verbal agreement is a contract in India.

The village was recreated on a barren land spreading hundreds of acres and the characters playing different roles from diverse castes were asked to live in their respective huts to get a "feel" of their character and hence bring something new to the table.

Ashutosh Gowarikar was fresh from his two doomed ventures, Baazi and I can't even recollect the other. But he secluded himself to a lonely place far away from civilisation where only a pot of coffee kept him company for six months. The result - A 135 page script with detailed study of different camera angles.

Lagaan was the face of the indian film industry at various film festivals throughout the world. Even in countries like Switzerland, people evinced interest to unparalled levels. A scene where Paul Blackthrone, the british ruler challenges the perceived country bumpkin, Bhuvan to enter the maidaan and fight the british raj in a game of cricket, the result of which would decide the fate of the village that is ridden with debts connected with an audience which was far away from India. The entire crowd at the screening understood the poignancy of the scene and started whispering aloud, "Accept the bet, accept the bet" and when the camera panned on Bhuvans eyes as he thought out aloud, "sarat manzoor hai" (i accept the bet), the entire audience erupted in anticipation of an exciting feature film.

A total of 10000 villagers were arranged to visit the sets so that the crowd noise and the participation of the villagers could be filmed.

The cast assembled at sharp 5:00 am everyday and boarded a bus which would take them 50 Km. into the expanse of the brown soil. You show up at 5:01 and you were too late. When Aamir Khan was left behind on the second day for having missed the deadline by 2 minutes, it set the tone for the entire team.

I expected things to get better with time. But such examples are few and far between. We have a long way to go in acknowledging the essence of cinema. "We'll get there", is a refrain of the patrons of the film industry, but I'm afraid, we are moving towards an era where creativity in movies is getting relegated for the want of commercial success. If David Dhavan's 'Mujhse Shaadi Karogi' was announced as a super hit fot the year 2004-05, I am not very optimistic about the Indian film industry's capability to woo the audience with films with more meat in them.

sOid Speak: Unity in diversity?

Yes! sOid Speak is back!!!

No! This is not a heart warming post on the feeling of 'one-ness' in the country.

"According to the announcement made by Communication and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran, the government is working towards OneIndia, a scheme aimed at bringing in uniform telecom tariff."

Thats an interesting newsbit I found on the BSNL knowledge portal.

My last post on telecom spoke about how number portability in the telecom industry meant more than just a technological extravaganza - more towards service marketing and customer retention and customer delight. This news also delves into the same areas - customer delight...

What can play more music into the consumer's ears than getting to know that his daily lovey dovey calls to his/her dear ones far off will be fre from the hassles of getting a calling card, or having an STD line, or typing any magical long numbers before you actually get to share those special moments.

Single Call Rate or OneIndia plan is a policy where calls made to any destination within the country will be treated as calls made within a state. Ya hold your breath - there is more... Under this plan, there will be no diverse call rates, whether you dial a local number or a long distance one. There will be only one call rate.

One India, one country, one rate.....unity in diversity perhaps? Redefined???

Well what this also means is that in case the same applies to the mobile subscriber base in the country as well, the Indian cell user will no longer need to pay roaming rates. "Roam like home..." like one of the service providers once promoted its services, will actually mean much more and cost much less if the One India plan is to be implemented.

So now what's the con side of it?

The implications and views of the views submitted by the industry need to be understood clearly, in addition to reworking on the present licensing and ADC (access deficit charges) regimes before implementing the policy.

"Besides, operators will have to rework their interconnection agreements, before the country can move towards uniform rates. This would require a truly unified licence, treating the entire country as a single market. In addition, the local call rates in rural areas needs to be revised" so reads the article further...

Once the One India initiative is implemented, there would be no difference between your local call to the nearest grocer, and an STD call to your call to an important customer in another city. The big question is whether you are willing to pay as much for a short distance call, as you will have to shell out for a longer one?

The rules just get reversed - customers will now face comparatively costlier local calls since an STD costs the same! Does this mean that users will cut on their local calls, because they now PERCEIVE them to be costlier, even if they were to pay perhaps the same rates?

Customer perception will once again play an important role in this initiative - the authorities have to take care not strike an axe on the local call market, and at the same time make an STD cheaper and viable! To me it sounds like asking me to shorten a piece of string so that it looks shorter, yet remains the same length! A knot in the middle perhaps? But is it as easy as that? Mr. Maran and co. please reply!

I`ll like to leave with another interesting question that comes to my mind - how will the calling card industry take this news, considering that the entire calling card market will become defunct and useless, once One India happens...