Finishing Movies, CeBIT and Other Things

Yesterday I overstayed in the office. Normally I leave office by 5:00 PM. I had to stop for a very very short meeting. I had already finished my work. I really had nothing to do. I finished by work at 4:00 PM and was planning to go home by 4:30 – 5:00 PM. But then my boss made me wait and wait for 3 hours for a meeting that ended in 10 minutes. The objective was to explain a new responsibility which I am supposed to take over. I never understood meetings in offices. Sometimes they seem just like total waste of time. I remembered once I attended a meeting that went for three hours which achieved nothing except to fix on a time for a process we did as a routine and of course the date and time of the next meeting. A decision that could have taken 5 minutes in our department took three hours because an external supervisor wanted to know and understand the whole damn process.

13th March 2005, I attended the CeBIT exhibition in Hanover, Germany. CeBIT in German stands for “Centrum Buero Information Telekommunikation”, which in plain English means “Centre for Office and Information Technology”. It’s the biggest IT event and exhibition in the world related to computers, IT, Services and telecommunications. This year 6270 exhibitors participated in the exhibition, 52% of them were outside Germany.

This means almost 3260 exhibitors participants were outside Germany. India’s contribution was just 61 exhibitors. While India is considered the IT super power, the participation was pathetic and a lot more is left to be desired. Out of the big 5 in the IT service industry, only “Satyam” was present at the exhibition. The others were small software service companies and government software companies. We were surprised to find the stall of Orrisa Software services and Punjab Software services stall completely empty as the representatives had decided to go sight seeing.

Taiwan was impressive with 777 participants followed by China at 300+ participants. The Indian section was poorly decorated and made a very low impact. China and Taiwan had gone for jazzy colours and better arrangements to attract people to their stalls.

The exhibition is spread over a large area and is very tiring. Priced at 37 euros as entry fee, it is costly. It is priced so to discourage the non-technical/non-business people who like to attend for fun. A day is too less of a time to complete the whole exhibition.

Yesterday night finally completed watching “Stop”. I had seen most of the movie long time back and could not complete it because the laptop’s DVD drive did not play the last part of the movie. I guess I should have tried in my DVD player.

It seems that I had missed only the last 15 minutes or so. The movie has a very normal end without any melodrama. The story ends normally just like it would have ended in real life. The movie is good and entertaining and was a big flop. It didn’t have big actors or big publicity.

We always complain that Indian movies do not show realistic stories. They are far away from reality. We ridicule the way the Indian Hero-heroines dance around trees and yet most Indians cannot get enough of it. When an almost realistic movie does come up, it is scrutinized and shredded to pieces. I say “almost” because the makers would have to take some cinematic liberty to make it interesting. A small mistake is blown out of proportion even though more than ninety percent of the movie stuck to reality. An example would be Swades and even Black. If you don’t believe me read the reviews.

I am not against masala Indian movies. I love such movies. I believe that movies should be entertaining. A social message could be an added attraction but should not be a necessity. If I wanted reality, I should be watching the life of people around me. I see movies because I want a break from daily life, problems, etc.

Movies are to be enjoyed. And when a different movie does come up, go and see it instead of making a mission of finding out the unrealistic part in the movie.