Reality Bytes

She sat under the Banyan tree, munched the corn and mulled over her decision.

 
 

The world in front of her was bustling with people. She could see her Business Development Manager in a heated argument with someone near the smoking area. Then her project leader was almost running to the next building perhaps to attend a meeting that probably started five minutes ago.

 
 

Her flame Vikas was seen talking on the cell phone to probably his flame – Rita, an Ex-employee of the organization.

 
 

She worked through the corn. She had a deliverable to be sent to onsite that evening. That hardly concerned her. She knew when to shut off her mind to such thoughts.

 
 

Arthur entered the scene. "Hi" He startled her. She sprang to her feet and couldn't believe her eyes.

 
 

"Arthur? But I thought you…" Arthur cut her short – "That is correct. I just returned to guide you. St Peters has a soft corner for me you know!"

 
 

"I can't believe this is happening" She was almost out of her breath. Arthur smiled and suggested they could debate on the reality or lack there of of the current situation – comfortably seated under the Banyan tree – It was not very convenient for the him and for her also to stare at each other while standing near a very comfortable bench.

 
 

"You mean you could come back just like that?" She was still not able to accept that Arthur was in front of her – apparently in flesh and blood.

 
 

Arthur sighed, "Let us not venture into that. You'll only be opening a can of worms. Let us just assume that Arthur is here as he really is and get on with your burning problem."

 
 

She silently nodded, "Arthur, you know I have read" – He impatiently coughed, "I know you read all my works umpteen times. Now what is it that you want?"

 
 

"I want to write a novel." She declared with a quivering voice. "I want to write something on the software industry. A big book of 500 pages. And I want it to be as interesting as your Airport or Overload."

 
 

Arthur smiled, "That's a great start. Intent is the most important aspect of writing a novel. You've nailed down the subject too."

 
 

"Yes," She said, "But what do I write?"

 
 

"That's a million dollar question. Isn't it?"

 
 

She shook her head, "I don't even know who my hero is"

 
 

Arthur smiled, "Why do you want to single out a character as a hero? Why not talk about a group of important people?"

 
 

She did not reply. She weighed her options.

 
 

Arthur sighed, "OK, let us just start with the character profiles. Shall we? Talk about one of the characters of your novel – Develop that character's personality methodically and see if he or she is a potential hero."



"I want my characters to be real - so real that they can't be heroes. Like me for instance." she said.



Arthur smiled again. "Maybe you are a character in my novel."



It was her turn to smile. "But I know I am not."



"How?"



"Because I feel myself. I can't be a character of a book. I have a soul. I have a sense of being" she could not understand where all this was leading to.



Arthur took a paper and wrote a sentence. "Monalisa Kumari is disgusted that she is a human being."



"Now tell me, is Monalisa a real human being?" he asked her.



She stared at him



"She is disgusted. She knows that she is a human being. Is she real? or is she just a part of the sentence I've just written?" Arthur pressed.



She looked at him disbelievingly. "But I am real."



"That's what you think. People who are reading this don't think so. For them you are just a character. Character in the story - Reality Bytes."



She blinked, "You mean someone is actually writing me?"



Arthur nodded. "That's a distinct possibility."



She took her bag and stood up. "I'd better be going. This is crazy."



He didn't move. "How else can you explain my being here and talking to you?"



It then hit her - the realization that she had taken Arthur's presence for granted. She had actually believed that she was talking to Arthur. She knew Arthur could not have been talking to her. She realized there was a fundamental gap in her perception of the reality.



"You mean I am just a figment of someone's imagination?" She was about to break down.



Arthur held her hand. "I think so. If I am in India talking to a software engineer under a banyan tree instead of sleeping peacefully in my grave, something is definitely fishy. And I suspect someone called Venu Vedam."



That gave her a jolt. "Wait. I know this guy."



"How?"



"He is my project manager!"



Arthur laughed - "Now you know whom to kill."



She saluted Arthur - "Doesn't matter. I had a chance of meeting you - I don't care whether it is someone else's imagination or real. Probably I will return the favor to Venu by going back to my cubicle and completing the task he has assigned to me - on time!"

 

The End.

Market your movies well. Reap the benefits.

How do most Yash Raj Films movies manage to succeed at the box office? Is it because they are great scripts? Or is it because Yash Raj Films spend a fortune on marketing their movies?

 

They sure know how to smartly package a movie. The result? An otherwise average movie opens to great weekend collections all over the world thanks to the initial hype created by the excellent promotions. In fact around 40 to 50% of the total budget of the movie is actually spent on promoting the movie.

 

This is a very good tactic because it ensures that the producer (or Distributors as the case may be) recovers his or her investment by the time the talk spreads about how good or bad the movie is.

 

These movies depend solely on the first weekend collections. In nine of ten cases, the opening weekend tickets are sold out well in advance. This is because by the time the movie hits the marquee every Tom Dick and Harry in any corner of the country know even the minutest details about the movie.

 

Switch on the TV and you see an interview with the lead actor in one channel, a Page 3 report on something related to the movie in the next channel and a staple diet of the movie's songs in the third. Enough about the idiot box. Grab your newspaper – You see reports after reports on how this movie is made.

 

Interestingly, there is this "Est" factor. People talk about their movie and use words ending with "Est" liberally. (Best movie, Scariest time of my life, Funniest experiences…) This superlative "performance" of the media partners works big time for the movie.

 

Recently while watching a Hindi movie, I was amazed to see the number of media partners the movie had. The titles flashed at least twenty partners!

 

Compare this with the Telugu movie industry. Most of the movies in Telugu suffer from inefficient publicity. The professional approach Hindi movies adopt is missing in Telugu. While some movies are bogged down by over publicity, others have practically zero publicity.

 

When I mentioned this to a friend, he opined that perhaps the Telugu movie makers were scared of creating a hype – which might work against the movie.

 

What differentiates Hype from Publicity? You can't hype a movie but you can publicize it. Smart packaging of the movie's prerelease media exposure is called "Publicity" while elevating the movie to the zenith purely based on the actors/technicians involved amounts to creating Hype.

 

The differentiation aforesaid is off my hat. I am sure the line dividing these two is very thin and quite fuzzy. Clear definition of Hype and Publicity maybe not possible. However we can very well tilt the equation heavily towards smart publicity – by taking a leaf or two from the marketing cookbooks used in Bollywood… especially by Yash Raj Films.

“Have you seen him” I asked Julie, my best friend.

She nodded. “Pink”

Now, as much as I would love Ishaan to be “pink” in complexion, anybody with a sane mind would find it odd that an offspring of a man who was born and brought up in a tropical city like Madras could be described with that rosy an adjective. Either the commentator was kidding or perhaps the definition of pink had changed over the last twenty four hours.

“Pink?” I responded.

“Yes. The word that comes to my mind – Pink.”

“Interesting”

“What is so interesting about it? Haven’t you seen his face you dumbo? How could you remain so calm?” She flared up.

That was when I realized that “Pink” was not what it sounded like.

“Uh, Julie – Exactly what do you mean by ‘Pink’?” I was alarmed.

“Mosquito bites. Do you even realize how dangerous they are?”

I took a deep breath. “I know. What can I do? There are a million mosquitoes out there. The liquid repellents don’t work. The coil – Doctor says NO – Too toxic for the baby. He banned even the repellent creams like Odomos.”

Julie stared at me. “You are hopeless.”

“Why is that?”

“What about a mosquito net?”

“We already have one in Hyderabad. Didn’t want to buy another in Chennai because we are going back to Hyderabad in a week’s time anyway.”

“Till then?” Julie was relentless.

“You tell me”

She told me the solution. Probably it was something to do with a mystical concept known as Woman’s Intuition that she came up with an idea like that. I was dumbfounded to say the least – by the illogical nature of the solution. However I had to try it out at least. I wouldn’t be able to face Julie the next day.

So I went home and switched the AC on. It was as simple as that. Julie instructed me to keep the temperature at least five degrees below the room temperature. Agreed it was Chennai we were talking about. Yet, in the month of December, in a beach facing apartment at ten in the night, the weather felt a bit chilly and I felt like a fool switching on the AC. As per Julie, cold weather drove away mosquitoes.

“But mosquitoes like cold and damp places” I argued with her.

“Yes. But not cold weather. They hate it.”

The next day, little Ishaan woke up with a broad smile on his face. Julie took one long look at the kid and exclaimed. “Why! It worked. He is not so pink anymore.”

I somehow managed to smile. It defied all logic. Why would mosquitoes hate cold weather?

But it worked. The number of mosquito bites had come down drastically. My wife and I threw a party in honor of Julie for coming up with this great suggestion.

So next time you are troubled by mosquitoes, you know what to do. Just bring home an AC!

- Venu

PS: Because of the AC, we had to fully cover Ishaan with two layered blankets. That was why mosquitoes spared him.

A Little Bit of Calvin...

P1010471, originally uploaded by Venu Vedam.

Me and Calvin went to Nellore this weekend. The house may be a bit rundown but our spirits were soaring high :)

I think I haven't posted this on blogspot. You might have already read it. :)

“One black coffee. No sugar please” He told the Café CoffeeDay employee.

Everyday at 1:30 in the afternoon he ordered exactly the same configuration as dessert after lunch – sometimes after skipping lunch.

The girl standing next to him eyed him curiously. “Americanized!” she remarked with a smile on her face.

He was jolted. It was a clear intrusion into his privacy. She had no business accosting him like that. He wanted to tell her how annoying her remark had been.

But he didn’t – mainly because the girl in question was Monalisa Kumari. Twice she had been unanimously elected the Crown Princess of SoftSol, the company both of them worked for.

Monalisa was part Indian part Deutsch. She was fluent in Hindi, Spanish and French apart from Deutsch. She was so beautiful that it was difficult to describe her beauty in words.

He would accept any word spoken by this girl. Guys considered it a privilege to talk to her.

She was still looking at him. He realized he had to respond.

“Not exactly. I love black coffee.”

She nodded, “So you are saying, you loved black coffee ever since you were a kid!”

He thought about it, “No, only in the last five years”

“That is – after you visited the West”

He was surprised, “How do you know I’d been to the West?”

“Oh, that’s pretty easy!” she replied casually, “One: you said Black Coffee. No Sugar and not Black Coffee without Sugar. Two: You said Please! Three: You look quite old. Everyone in this firm of your age had visited the West at least twice.”

He laughed, “One and Two are quite good. But I think it is Three which gave me away!”

“Right Dr. Watson. So you started your tryst with black coffee after an expedition to the West! Am I correct?”

“Yes” he responded.

“Quad Erat Demonstrandum” she smiled.

“That doesn’t prove that I am Americanized” He retorted, “It only proves that I was introduced to black coffee’s virtues in America”

“Same difference, ain’t it?” Monalisa gestured him towards a table nearby.

They walked to the table and occupied it.

He sipped his piping hot black coffee and started talking, “You know! It is not the same. Americanization means – a paradigm shift in the way we think and operate. Just liking your coffee black does not mean you are Americanized. It just means that you are familiar with certain Western practices. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

She stared into his eyes.

“Whatever it is. I still believe people drink Black Coffee just because it is the in thing you know… and not because they love the taste of it. Who would love that bitter liquid anyways.”

He was offended. She might be the most beautiful girl of the campus. She might be a swift driver of a Swift. She might be a 99 percentiler. But she still had to respect the tastes of her colleagues.

She knew at once there was something wrong. “Oh I am sorry Srini. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know I really don’t know why people like this black coffee.”

He composed himself and came up with the most daring proposition of his life so far.

“Why not give it a try?”

She was surprised, “Black coffee? Eeeks! Thank you very much. I am pretty much Ok with my Latte – full of Sugar – Soulful!”

He asked her, “Have you ever tried it?”

“No!” came the emphatic answer.

“Alright. Let us play a little game. Tomorrow onwards, every afternoon at 1: 30, we will meet here and have a cup of black coffee – for five days. I suggest you don’t drink any other type of coffee in this period. If at the end of the fifth day you still don’t understand why people drink black coffee, I will stop drinking it.”

There was silence. Pin drop. She eyed him suspiciously. It was evident that he wanted to spend more time with her. She knew it.

“Tomorrow at 13:30. Same place.” She said.

Day 1:

Monalisa examined carefully the contents of the cup.

“Do I really have to drink this?” she asked no one in particular. He didn’t respond. He knew she cared a damn for his answer.

And then she took the first sip. Her facial expressions changed at the speed of light. He waited. She eventually came back to this world.

He didn’t say a thing.

She silently walked over to the trash can and threw the coffee cup into it.

“Let us get out of here. I want to show you something.” She gestured him to follow her.

Half an hour later – they were seated in a dilapidated dhabha off NH45 twenty kilometers from the office.

He sipped the three rupee coffee sans sugar. It was delightful.

“What do you infer from this?” she asked him.

“That coffee in a NH45 dhabha twenty kilometers from the office tastes really good?”

She laughed, “You do have a sense of humor”

He smiled, “Maybe yes. What is the point?”

She sighed. “One way of looking at it – pay 3 rupees and have a lovely coffee. Or pay ten rupees and drink the rubbish you’ve been drinking till now.”

He was stupefied, “you want me to drive twenty kilometers to this dhabha just because it offers me coffee at 3 rupees?”

“Think about that” she took her purse out.

Day 2:

Srini was curious. Monalisa sipped her black coffee and told him, “You know! We don’t have to do this. I am most certainly not going to like this liquid.”

“We decided. We follow.” Srini was adamant.

Monalisa winked, “All this just for black coffee?”

Srini thought for a moment, “I am enjoying these meetings”

“Friends?” she extended her hand.

“No” He was firm.

There was a stunned silence. She was swept off her feet. “What did… why?”

“I don’t think we can ever be friends. You are too beautiful to be a friend.”

She stared at him, “When Harry Met Sally?”

“Partly yes” he responded.

“More than twice?” she asked.

“More than twenty times. I own the DVD.”

“Aren’t you taking it a little too seriously? It is possible for a girl and a boy to be just friends. Give me a break. We see so many such friends in the food court everyday.”

He shook his head, “I don’t want to talk about others. Myself – I am attracted to you. Wait! I am not saying anything wrong here. All I am suggesting is that we can never be friends.”

She finished the black coffee in three quick gulps, “Goodbye Harry!”

Day 3

She was dressed in a black chudidaar. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“You are staring.” She said gently.

He was caught off guard. “Not my mistake”

She smiled and sipped the black coffee. “You know what! This is turning out to be a very interesting incident.”

“Drinking black coffee?” He asked her.

“Drinking black coffee with you.” She looked into his eyes. He lowered them.

“Why are you so nervous when I am talking to you?”

He looked up. “I told you yesterday.”

“Srini, you do realize this is not a movie.”

He nodded. “Yes”

“Real life is not reel life.”

He cringed, “Thanks for the cliché Monalisa!”

Her face turned red. She kept the black coffee cup on the table and stood up. “What do you think you are Mister? Just because I am drinking coffee with you – doesn’t give you the right to say whatever that comes to your mind.”

He was surprised, “All for that pathetic cliché?”

For a while neither of them talked. “Coffee’s on you.” She said.

He agreed.

Day 4

“As such life is a great mystery.” Srini told her.

They were driving down the highway NH45 to the dhabha. It was a pleasant afternoon. Traffic was scarce.

Monalisa laughed, “What a cliché”

Srini shook his head, “It is the truth.”

“So you speak truth and nothing but the truth. When I say something I speak cliché and only clichés”

He smiled. “You have a way with words.”

She didn’t reply.

“What are you thinking Monalisa?” He prompted her again.

“Mona. Call me Mona.” She deftly swerved right throwing Srini off the seat.

“What the hell was that?” He was dismayed.

“I was avoiding a speeding buffalo you idiot.” She yelled, “God! I hate driving in India.”

Srini was silent. They reached the dhabha.

She ordered two cups of coffee. He observed silently. She knew there was something wrong.

“OK. What is it?”

“What?”

“Why are you so silent?”

“Nothing. I am OK.”

“Idiot?”

“Yes”

“Can’t I call you idiot, dear?”

“How can you? I want to be treated with dignity…” He abruptly stopped and stared at her. “What did you just say?”

“Can’t I call you idiot, Dear?” She ruffled his hair, “Can’t I?”

“Wait. Whatever happened to being platonic friends?” He asked her.

She didn’t reply.

“So Harry met Sally?”

She nodded. “I saw the ending again yesterday.”

Srini couldn’t suppress his quirky smile. “A lovely little fool I know told me sometime back that real life was not reel life.”

“Yes. Don’t push it though.” She sounded cold.

Day 5

“I still don’t like this black coffee. Will it really make a difference? It is the final day – right?” She pleaded him.

“The agreement is binding Ms Monalisa Kumari” He was ruthless.

“No way out?” She wouldn’t give up.

“There is” he smiled.

“Great! What is it?”

“Number one: Since you don’t want to finish the fifth day black coffee, I need not stop drinking black coffee”

“With no sugar?”

“Or without sugar.”

“OK. What is number two?”

“You tell me what made you talk to me on the first day.”

She didn’t expect that. “What?”

He was serious. “Tell me Mona. Why did you initiate the conversation on the very first day?”

“I thought you were cute”

“Bulls. There were many more cute guys around. More handsome and dying to talk to you.”

She looked around. “I can’t see any?”

“Don’t change the topic. Tell me what made you talk to me? A bet with your friend?”

She stared at him. “You knew!”

“Yes. Unfortunately your friend is my friend’s girlfriend. He told me last night when I was raving about you.”

She stood up; held his hands and said, “It all started because of that bet I agree Srini. However our black coffee encounters introduced the real Srini to me. The bet did not govern my actions after the first day. Please believe me.”

He shook his head. “And all the time I thought you were really interested in me.”

She was horrified to see tears in his eyes. “Srini please. I like you. I really really like you. I am extremely sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. But tell me Srini… How would I ever have known the real Srini if it were not for the bet with my friend? You are an introvert. You don’t talk to girls. How could I have found you otherwise?”

He kept his black coffee on the table and walked away. “Srini. I said Sorry.” She shouted completely ignoring the other people in the cafeteria.

He stopped, turned back and told her – “Convince me.”

The End