Resurgence

Rebranding Kolkata (Calcutta)!!! “Who will funds all these projects?” the Danish girl raised the question. We were having a guest lecture on city planning and development and an eminent city planner was putting forth his vision for the city of Kolkata (I would rather use the colonial version of the name -- “Calcutta” as it sounds more appealing to me). The planner asked the reason behind the apprehension. ‘I know that most of these projects which you talked about will not take place because of the political compulsions.’ The girl replied. ‘Even after being one of the largest cities of this part of world this city lacks basic amenities and people here seem to lack courage to implement good plans on map.’ The planner smiled at this. ‘I think this is perhaps not the best time for you people to visit this part of India. The whole Singur episode might have left you with a very negative impression regarding the administration and politics of this state. And I am not advocating that the city ...

Romeo Romeo! Romeo! Romeoooooooo!!! The movie started with the song and I saw the quantum leap that India took in terms of animation content through this venture. It’s far ahead of all our previous ventures in animation whether its Hanuman, Krishna or Cheenti- Cheenti Bang Bang. The tag of Disney helps it seems but don’t be fooled by the Disney’s association with the movie. They are associated with it as a producer and the entire art work is handled by the team of TATA Elxsi- VLC. So yeah we have reached the international standard entirely on our own. It seems that the budget was the only problem for us to move ahead and let this movie start the revolution needed in the animation industry in India. So have we arrived at the international stage yet? Well not exactly. The movie is a treat to eyes and provides exhilarating visual experience apart from minor blemishes. In hindsight, there were some issues with the animation as well. At some places the background did not combine well...

Arbit-Bakar “Phew!!!” he put aside the book and went back to the slides uploaded by the professor. Sonu was trying hard to motivate himself to study. He had exam in less than 12 hours and yet he had not completed the slides of the first lecture. He somehow managed to glance through the entire presentation in the next 15 minutes and smiled. He knew he had not understood any of the concepts in the presentation yet he was quite content with his effort. It was not that he was dumb. In fact he has always performed decently as far as academics were concerned. But times do change. He started listening to the title track of “Drona” and wondered what the director actually wanted to do with the movie. He could not withstand the fact that a good idea was wasted by inept handling at the helm and some insipid or over the top performances by the leads. Yet he loved the song. Now don’t judge his taste of music by a single choice of song. He looked at the watch. 1 am. What to do next? There were 9 mor...