Branding

There are elections in India. The only thing we were looking forward to, was to see the incumbent Congress party go. Looks like that is happening. 

We have been getting updates from supporters of different parties on the Facebook feed more than from any news media. This morning, decided to see what Google news presented for me and here it was (link)

Now for someone who is not that much into Indian History and knows Nehru as Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi... 

Ok, I know the desi's who read this are going "not possible", but seriously! Today's American textbooks have three pages for Indian political history. Not much mention is there of the fact that Indira Gandhi, who gets mentioned as the first woman prime minister of India is not related to the Mahatma. People put two and two and come up with four!

In all of Indian history, this move by Indira to marry a dude with the same last name as Mahatma Gandhi, was probably the most brilliant branding or marketing idea! 

In South INdian families we stopped using caste or religious sub sect related last names post Indian Independence. Then folks started using their fathers first name as their last name, as "expanded initials". That is why I am now Sundar Narayanan instead of Sundar Iyer. My fathers first name is now my last name. Still it made sense in a way that we were all part of the Narayanan family. Unlike family names in the US, this gets to be tricky. My wife does not want to take my fathers first name as her last name. She was okay with being Sangeetha Sundar (which is how it works in India if a woman wanted to change her last name, she took her husbands first name!) and that also made sense.  

This is a common issue in desi families when they apply for a US passport. They all want to fill out one customs form and have the same last name but cannot agree on one. So the new trend is that the entire family changes their name to the old system. Either go with sect, subsect names or their Gothrams(lineage) in Brahmin families. 

If we ever cross that bridge, we should take a page from Indira and find a "nice" family name to change to!

The Alto Sax Diva..

That is my darling daughter, posing with an attitude when I requested a photo of her playing Saxophone.. 

We then switched gears from the Carlos Santana mode to Carnatic Sangeeham mode and here is the result..

She is getting better with more practice. Have to say a heartfelt thanks to Candida Connolly and Kadri Gopalnath for publishing a book that brings these almost 400 year old tunes to Western notation. Initially she was playing it staccatto and now that she heard the CD that came with the book, has figured out that the notes are to be played slurred and there are tie'd notes where she lips only the first note! 

It is an interesting experience for me watching her figure this out as well as helping her figure this out! 

A funny conversation after we listened to the amazing Kadri play Nagumomu..

me : you see how he just floats that note for a fraction of a second? can you do that?

Jr. : how long has he been playing the saxophone?

me : 30-35 years?

Jr. : Let me guess. That is what he does for a living?

me : yes. I think he is a full time saxophone musician.. not some part time bank employee playing saxophone on the side.

Jr. : I AM A BEGINNER! I DON'T FLOAT NOTES LIKE THAT APPA!

Well, that came out of nowhere! If I had only captured that dialogue on video, it would have made the videoblog even better..

Here's to my diva! 

"If little girls had Brains!" - How autocorrect is ruining inflight entertainment

On a recent United flight they played a Sandra Bullock Movie called The Heat.

There is a scene in this movie where the cop character played by Melissa McCarthy, is searching for the police chief's "balls". She is searching everywhere in the office and even annoucnes to the rest of the police force "has anyone seen the captains balls? they are small, tiny, the size of ball bearings? no.. they are the size of little girl balls, IF little girls do have balls!"

Or at least that is what I remember seeing in the trailer!

For some strange reason, United decides to play this movie in a flight that does not have personal TV screens. Why they would do that is beyond me as it is an R rated movie that is not appropriate for kids staring at the big screens, given all the language in the movie.

For a worse reason, they decide to "autocorrect" the dialogues in the movie.

I am not sure if this was United's doing or Fox pictures doing, but it was a bad call. They replaced words like shit with stuff, other four letter expletives with kids choice of abuses and the worst choice was to replace "balls" with "brains"! 

There I was half asleep, trying to fight my stomach convulsions trying to divert myself, put on headphones to see what the movie was about and the first dialogue I hear ? 

"they are the size of little girl brains.. if little girls had brains!" and it just pissed me off. Was thinking "why won't little girls have brains! My girls are smart. How insulting is that for any little girl who happens to be on this plane? what are they thinking?!" and then it came to me that the original script was not this. 

United seriously needs to rethink its movie choices and they need to stop this autochange feature. Given the new dialogue was in Melissa McCarthy's voice, I am surprised she would do a voiceover for a dialogue that needlessly ridicules girls!