Chandrakant Khot published a Diwali ank aa-ba-ka-da-ee between 1973 and 1996. The issues could not be published for some reasons during 1976-77-78. Thus in 24 years, 21 issues were released. The magazine was experimental. Some issues are devoted to the themes.Some treat the genres such as autobiographies, diary, letters, portraits of persons, interviews etc. The concluding issues are devoted to extra-sensory perceptions, faith, miracles, truth, reincarnation and such spiritual matters. Lok Vangmay Griha has compiled selected articles from these 21 issues in the book-form called Nivadak Aa-Ba-Ka-Da-Ee.
Author: Shabbir Chunawalla
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Contemporising Amritanjan Balm
Amritanjan balm is perceived as out-dated grandma’s therapy for pain relief. It was to be connected to youth. It was in need of contemporisation. The love and affection route was used. A young man and his companion board a train. He complains of a head-ache. A young woman follows him in the corridor, and offers to apply balm. As they retire for night, the man ensures his wife sleeps on the upper berth as he reaches out to the young woman across the berth. The agency is Shining Consulting.And the Creative Director is Shombit Sengupta.
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Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayege — DDLJ Last Show Today, 19th Feb, 2015
It was a historic run for a Kajal- Shahrukh Khan starrer Dilwale Duhaniya Le Jayenge – DDLJ for the last 20 years. The movie was released in 1995.It has ultimately been decided to make a final curtain call today after the 9.15 morning show.In all the movie has been screened for 1009 weeks at Maratha Mandir theatre, opposite Mumbai Central station, Mumbai. When the movie completed 1000 weeks, there were celebrations.Till then there was one show daily at 11.30. That made it difficult for the theatre to accommodate the shows of other movies and in consultation with the Yash Raj Films, the morning show was pre-poned to9.15. That also resulted in manpower and logistics problems and then it was decided to end this most endearing and endless romance. But it will continue to haunt us for ever.
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Prosthetics — Silicone and Foam Latex
Hyper-real prosthetics, made of new material such as silicone and high-grade foam latex are being used in films. There are hyper-real mannequins and life-like body parts. The mannequins of silicone could, in future, replace body doubles who perform stunts or nude scenes for the actors. They make pregnant stomach prosthetic with foamed latex — silicone is too heavy to carry. Dirty Hands is a prosthetic design firm based in Ahmedabad. Each full body hyper-real mannequin costs more than Rs 10 lac. The Ramsays were the first to make use of the prosthetics in a big way. They used rubber masks. Foamed latex became popular in 1985.
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Lingerie Models
As Indian models are reluctant to endorse the lingerie brands, this sector is completely dominated by foreign models. They have a perfect body., and hence no inhibitions. Comparatively, their Indian counterparts do not have the same fitness level. Indian models are not comfortable posing in lingerie. A foreign model charges Rs 30000 for a show, while the Indian model would charge more.Calendar models are accepted, as they are made in a classy way.
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Visual Hammer — Laura Ries
According to Laura Ries, the left brain is associated with verbal messages and the right with visual messages. A totally verbal message ignores the right brain. These things have an emotional contect too — your marriage anniversary, your accident etc. A total verbal message is flat and unemotional, which in turn affects its recall value. Most marketing messages are abstract ideas. Many slogans cannot be visualised. There is a lot of evidence, according to Laura Ries, that visuals play a far more important role in marketing than that played by the words. Though advertising is filled with visuals, very few visuals hammer.
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Media Control
Meenakshi Natrajan proposed a legislation that sought to regulate media. The desire to regulate media is not new. The media extensively covered the scams and the campaign against corruption and black money. Media sometimes hurts the ruling party, but benefits it too by its coverage. The elected representatives may feel threatened by the media coverage. They become insecure.
Instead of controlling media through legislation, politicians invest in media business. It is another way to restrict the media. There is a growing nexus between corporates and politicians. It further affects the freedom of the media, as some of these corporates have stake in the media. It is desirable that politicians and political parties are not allowed to own media companies lest media become a tool of propaganda. There is a conflict of interest too. The best way out is for media to do self-reputation.
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Leslie Lewis — Colonial Cousins
Leslie Lewis is now 54( 2014). He has worked as a producer and mentor for musicians like Sunita Rao ( Pari Hoon Main), Alisha Chinai (Bombay Girl) and KK (Pal). He toured the world with singer Hariharan as Colonial Cousins. He had brought out an album in 2012. He has written the lyrics, composed the music and sung for the album. His father PL Raj was a choreographer for the Hindi Film industry. Divya Lewis is his 17 year old daughter who composes music.
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His Master Loses Voice, Brand Nipper Lives On
The name His Master’s Voice was coined in 1899 by English artist Francis Barraud for a painting of his brother’s fox terrier, Nipper. This was purchased by the Gramophone Company of Britain for 100 pounds and used it as banner for its stores., eventually shortening the name to HMV. Gramophone ultimately became part of the EMI Group — a record label. EMI spun off HMV shops in 1998. The company faced financial collapse which could mean closure of 230 shops and retrenchment of employees. HMV has 53 trade marks registered with Britain’s IPO such as His Master’s Voice, HMV Headphone Hut, HMV Gate Closer, Nipper’s image as a trade mark for business ranging from clothing to toys to coffee shops.
The company owns trademarks in the US and across Europe.
The brands may be down but the so-called phoenix brands can be revived for new applications and uses.
In the US, Victor Talking Machine — a phonograph maker used Nipper as a trademark. It then passed on to Radio Corporation of India in 1929. Nipper today is used on radios by RCA Trademark Management (part of French entertainment company). JVC Kenwood (subsidiary of RCA Victor) owns Nipper in Japan.
HMV can thrive in its new incarnation if it establishes its credibility in a new segment and can appeal to customers.
HMV in India was established in 1901. The Gramophone Company of India was incorporated in 1946. In 1985, it was taken over by the RPG Group.The company’s name has been changed to Saregama India.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence aims to create computers capable of performing tasks that humans do with the help of their intelligence. The cutting edge intelligence enables us to understand higher level emotions and respond to these emotions in an appropriate manner. How easily we can be funny or loving or sexy ! But in terms of behaviour, these are very sophisticated behaviours.We expect the computers to show similar capabilities. That makes them ideal for interaction with us. To understand emotion, one has to understand the language. And language is the key to grasp knowledge.
There is progress in this field of developing AI. IBM’s Watson computer is able to play the TV game of Jeopardy ! which is broad task involving complicated natural language queries. Watson acquires knowledge by reading Wikipedia and other encyclopedias. Google’s self-driving car is an example of the application of AI. Apple’s SIRI and Google Now answer questions.
Ray Kurzweil, director engineering, Google has written the best seller The Singularity is Near. He predicts that by 2045, singularity will be achieved. This metaphor has been borrowed from physics. It means that by 2045, we will have our intelligence multiplied a billion fold by merging it with AI we are creating. That is a profound transformation. By 2029, it is predicted that computers will match human intelligence. They will pass the Turing Test. It means they will be indistinguishable from human intelligence. This does not mean they will compete with biological humans or displace them. They would rather enhance the biological beings. They already do so. The caveat is that technology is a double-edged sword, and must be used judiciously.
We can expect by 2030, technology will advance so much that for every passing year, one year will be added to human life by controlling genes and having nanobots in the blood stream to fight infections.
Machine learning or Artificial Intelligence is promising in three areas — health, core infrastructure and transport. One more area could be added — research.
There is increasing interest in AI because of e-commerce investment in India.
Many companies in the AI field have offerings bordering on analytics based on a database rather than on learning. There is a fine difference. Analytics draws on a database collected on the back of rules. Learning engines sift through unstructured data from unlikely sources to draw infrernces. Therefore, learning engine explores the text in the social media and cookies on the computer. The line between highly evolved business analytics and AI is thin. The yield should provide satisfactory result to the customers.
Jet Airways is experimenting with the assessing of the passengers based on their previous searches so as to offer the best hotel deals, fares, discounts and so on. The work is being done by Vizuary.Vizuary profiles 700 million different types of customers on a continuous basis. For an automobile company, AI should recognise emotion. A small camera captures the driving style of a test driver and his facial reactions. This data generates the most suitable car models for the customer.
Stephen Hawking, a distinguished physicist warns that the development of full-fledged AI could spell the end of the human race. It can make humanity dispensable. It poses existential crisis for the human race. Machines could be the masters and may treat humans the way humans treat the animals today. Some do think that all this is exaggeration. We cannot abandon AI because it does not come with a 100 per cent goodness guarantee. Let there be a marriage of human and machine intelligence to get the grandest innovations. Human-like machine intelligence can leapfrog the time scale and can fix the global warming equation before we all get strangulated.