"Please do the needful"

Its an Indian term, its an all-encompassing Indian term; its used when you know specifically what you need done (or need to do) and still say, "do the needful"; its also used when you don't really know what needs to be done, but leave it to the better judgement of the other person, and say, "do the needful". I find myself very tempted to use the term at the end of business emails and somehow manage to rephrase.

To satiate my nostalgia and home-sickness, this is a post about my hometown, Bangalore**. Bangalore is now the Showpiece of the Indian Economy. When the Premier of China visited India few months back, he didn't go to the capital Delhi first, or even the finance hub Bombay, he was most intrigued by the goings-on in Bangalore, the IT Capital of India. B'lore is where most of the IT work going to India gets outsourced; where multinationals are setting up shop at a phenomenal rate; where most of the outsourced calls get answered from; the land of the IT giants, Infosys and Wipro; the city that Tom Friedman of the nytimes spent a few months in last year and got the inspiration for his book, "The World is Flat"; the Indian city with the highest hotel rates; the fastest growing city in Asia (and if there's a city growing faster anywhere else in the world, I dont know about it)...but that's not the B'lore I know..

In spite of being born in Madras (now, Chennai), since I grew up in B'lore, I consider myself a Bangalorean. B'lore then was the Garden City of India. A relaxed, laidback town, boasting of very good infrastructure and planning (ironic, eh?), great weather all year through, clean air, and a great bunch of people. It was the land of "solpa adjust madi" (loosely translated, "please adjust") - it would take a lot to hassle a B'lorean. A typical Bangalorean was a simple straight-forward soul, without the slyness associated with the neighboring Tamilian or the Malayali, a happy-go-lucky character enjoying his city. Sadly(?), Bangalore today has more people from other parts of the country and the world than actual Bangaloreans.

Hard to say why the IT boom exploded in B'lore - we don't claim to have the best Engineering institutes in the country, there is no shortage of talented people alright, but its not like we had all the talented people in India concentrated there...then what was the reason? I think it was because of some right political/diplomatic moves by the local/central governments and Messrs. Narayana Murthy & Asim Premi starting up Infosys & Wipro in Bangalore.

Bangalore finds itself at a very crucial juncture now - the way things go for the next 2-3 years could decide where the city is going to head in the long run. Bangalore wasn't planned for this many people, period! The city is choking under the IT boom. It was a case of too much, too fast. It doesn't yet have an International airport and hopes to have one in 2-3 years, public transport is inadequate, roads were not meant to handle the traffic volumes it has to contend with now. I was very impressed with the collaboration between the local govt and the IT biggies, Infosys and Wipro, to come together, and work together, to improve the city. Rarely have I seen the industry be such an active participant in the development of a city. But the local and the central govt have to get their act together in the next 2-3 years. If they miss the chance now, it will just turn into this one big mess!

Infrastructure apart, Bangalore shouldn't forget the softer aspects of a community. It shouldn't go about cutting down trees and forests at a maniacal rate to expand horizontally. Its time for skyscrapers in B'lore - the city needs to grow vertically now..and maintain the greenery that B'lore was once famous for - we don't need another concrete jungle, if we can avoid it. Its amazing to see the greenery in Gotham, for instance. Back then, B'lore was cutting edge with music in India - the indie scene, the big concerts - that hasn't changed, and that's great. I saw a decent interest in theater in India, not to the extent seen in Bombay, but there is potential. Bangalore has never been much of a movie-city - the standard of their local movies suck to be honest and Bangaloreans would rather listen to good rock in a bar, drink some beer, or sip coffee in one of their coffee lounges, than watch a movie in a theater, most afternoons. For a movie buff like me, I would be quite keen to see how this changes in the next 2-3 yrs. I think there is *great* potential for an indie movie market in Bangalore (smart, socially-conscious, very large middle class), both Indian and world films. I would be keen to see if someone really taps into that in the near future.

I want to go back "home" eventually and "home" for me will always be B'lore. But sadly, the Bangalore I have in my mind is but an image, its a thing of the past. B'lore has the best chance for imbibing the best of the west with their inherent goodness; to provide state-of-the-art western lifestyles with the "solpa adjust madi" culture - that would be something great to back to. I will keenly be following from afar how B'lore "progresses" over the next 2-3-4-5 years. Till then, all I have to say is, "please do the needful"

** - A line I liked recently, the Quote of the Day - "when you are unsure where you are going, go back to your roots."

Indian George Clooney

Under severe pressure to post an entry, I couldn't do any better :)
This is what a certain lady said I looked like, "under the light" (and "influence", if I may add..:)), an Indian George Clooney.

Of late, have become a fan of the guy (no, not because I am supposed to look like him) - I like how he mixes his commercial flicks (Ocean's XI, XII, etc.) with his more creative, challenging, meaningful ventures (Traffic, Good Night and Good Luck, most recently Syriana, etc.)

Good Night and Good Luck was very nicely done - I didn't know much about McCarthy-ism before the movie and was insightful. His latest, Syriana - in one word, demanding! Full of plots, sub-plots, multiple stories in multiple threads (like Traffic, Crash), linked together by what they call, the earth's greatest natural resource, OIL. I was very keen to watch the movie as soon as it released because of its relevance in today's world - the middle-east and oil is at the center of the 'developed world's' foreign policy. There were 4 major threads - Clooney as a CIA agent who gets screwed over by his bosses, Matt Damon as an analyst working with a Saudi prince, Jeffrey Wright as a merger advisor, and 2 naive, simple, decent pakistani kids. Of them all, the merger story was the one that really drove the point home for me - only can only imagine the kind of corruption ("Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why we win" screams a character in the movie) and under-the-table nonsense that goes in some of these major mergers and acquisitions. Mergers are not always a good thing - competition keeps people honest, with mergers and monopoly can sometimes come a slackness in standards and ethics.

A similar movie that I saw about the dirty collusion of corporation and government was Constant Gardener (it had Rachel Weisz in it - to me, one of the most beautiful women - the looks, accent..) - this one was about the other big corporation that people find easy to hate, the pharmaceuticals. It deals with the issue of pharmaceuticals using Africa to test out their meds on. The "justification" is that these people don't have any meds anyway, how does it matter if pharmaceuticals dump their past-expiry-date meds to write off tax benefits or *test* a new cure for TB on these people. Am not in a position to comment on the legitimacy of these claims, but the movie offers a great view of Africa - cinematography was excellent - great shots of the continent. On another level, it also made me realize (and revisit) the futility of trying to completely understand someone, a significant other, or a closed one. Ironically, all this *testing* that these Western pharamceuticals supposedly do and we still have to put through boring medicine ads on tv that finish in a flurry with, "Side-effects may include drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, constipation...and anything that we have not yet tested for on African kids"