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6/11/08

IPL-A magic not a match


Decades back when Sachin hit his first boundary in Lords inaugurating his splendid career, it was another feather to nationalism. The dozens boundaries Indian cricketers hit during IPL, changed and brought in new equations and alliances, both in sports and in nationalism. What does money-driven matches like IPL mean to us would be a million dollar question.When MS Dhoni’s Team-India won the Twenty Twenty World Cup, cricket fans cheered in one voice for Dhoni’s kids. But the same, cheering for Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals, against Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings, would appear slightly bizarre, though the truth. It was as if the history of fights between Indians & Kangaroos made into perspective. Kudos to sportsmanship, hardly anyone seemed mindful of Shane Warne who always played provoking tricks against Indian players sending them off to pavilion.The fights Indian cricket board fought with Australian and International Cricket Board seeking justice against Australians ‘inside pitch behaviors’ seemed centuries back. The age old cricket=nationalism equation got explicitly subverted bringing in new global and regional equations.

Apparently in the IPL final match half of the Indian fans’ hearts were beating for Warne and his time. That’s the magic IPL has played. It took cricket beyond nationalism. To the Rajasthan fans Warne was not an Australian but their team’s super captain. Interestingly the IPL 20 cricket super captain is not DHONI who brought the first twenty cup to India, but Warne an Australian- may be one of the teams Indians keeps grudge against next to Pakistan.This is the IPL effect; it has shaken the loyalties of the fans putting them in dilemma . Yes in IPL it was true, it was divided by team and united by kingfisher!


Looking at the way brands are being advertised in IPL it is visible that the whole game is divided by teams and united by King Fisher. Malliya has again let the card of surrogate advertisements play a major role in his product promotional activities. Held at a time when hot discussions on surrogate advertisements happening inside advertisement board, the team name royal challenger is bound to takes one’s imagination far beyond that very name. Kingfisher unites not just a team, or just those who fly but those who pub too!Hardly ever before individual as brand (SRK, Malliya, Preeti) was advertised through a game to this degree. Social media advertisements were not in the back seat. The number of times an Orkuter got I-poked with team support pop ups justifies this. The amount of crores flowed through TV commercials would definitely be greater than all the earlier times put together.


In short IPL was not just a match, a magic!

Rat-at-animation: A reflection on Indian animation industry


Although the rest of the world would like to dispute this fact too, we Indians had a different take on animals. Rat was the vehicle of the Indian deity, Ganesha while it was an ominous carrier of plague to the west. The first blow to this was done when Jerry and Mickey together proved themselves world’s classic hits, thanks to animation. Pixar through Ratatoille gave the world another (perhaps the best) rocking rodent hero Remy. Telling the story of a rat (Remy) who is passionate about becoming a cook in a decidedly rodent-phobic society, Ratatouille created a genre of its own. This would be a vantage point to look at the booming Indian animation industry- its hopes and hurdles.

The surveys and studies show that India is the most preferred, and preferably the best, animation outsourcing destination. Hard to believe it may be, parts of Hollywood movies and commercials we marvel at are born in the studios of Chennai, Bangalore or Mumbai. Even harder it would be then to believe that we never had a rocking animation movie. Whenever we had some, even the latest Bal Ganesha painfully not being an exception, they were confined to kid’s sections and cartoon channels. Out of the thousands of theatres, the doors of none were open to those animated movies. The Indian parents who go to national market would ask for either Shrek or Lion king or Finding Nemo to amuse their kids. Shrek series were rocking in theatres abroad with families (not just kids) dying to watch it. Finding Nemo, the Oscar winning animation hit, was labeled as “the best family movie”. Even parents are reported to have confessed that they went into theatres again and again without their kids to watch Finding Nemo.

Then we have the million dollar question- why do we never have such a stunningly rocking animation movie? The primary impulse would be to say “because we don’t have a Pixar or a Dreamworks here”. Convincing this answer could be, but there of course are more to it.

Indeed we do have animation production houses that can create special effect animation that comes as chunks of a full fledged movie. Our production houses do not have the technical expertise to produce a full fledged animation movie. Thinking of Indian animation production houses, we have neither brands nor any colossal figures (though we have hundreds of potential figures). The reason we lack in technical expertise can’t be blamed on money alone. The animation= cartoon equation is something that gives a fright to those who are willing to invest on infrastructure. For the Indian audience, animation is something that is for kids and that should be watched on cartoon channels. This not my cup of tea attitude stems from the content the movies deal with. Ratatouille is a scathing criticism on French intellectual society while Finding Nemo played before us the intensity of familial love and friendship. The depth of the storylines of those rocking hits played major part in driving the audience to the theaters.

It will be the rise of a new era in entertainment when a rat (for that matter any thing) unleash a change at Indian animation- a rat.at.animaion.