Pardesi Pardesi Aana Nahi

On Sunday, Raj Thackeray thrashed taxi-drivers and hawkers in Dadar who have been ekeing out a living in Mumbai for decades. Most of them even before Raj Thackeray was even born. Their crime: either they or their fathers were born in a different part of India.

On Monday, Radio City, the last bastion of good music in Bangalore city (which, contrary to what BIAL may believe, is not called Bengaluru yet) turned "local". For some odd reason, having local pride in India excludes national pride. As a result, some programming head decided up in his Ivory Tower that popular entertainment must talk the "official" language and not the popular one. 60 years after independance, officials would have us believe that hindi--and not English-- is the link language. In the remotest corners of the country, if one must be understood, the only thing that works better than English is sign-language!

A similar myopia has hit the radio industry. With ad budgets being reserved for television, the size of the FM pie is so small that the channels are unable to recover their costs no matter what they do. Reeling under the illogical high license fee to operate an FM station, most are being driven to random and desperate acts of management before they get snuffed. Two such acts are

• playing only the latest 5 tunes all day long with even songs from the 90s relegated to a 30 minute "Golden Oldies" show at 7AM on a weekend.
• getting all the jock-talk to be done in the state language, alienating the youth and migrant audience.
  

This is a good idea for say, a new channel to differentiate itself. But when all channels do exactly the same thing, not only do they become extremely monotonous but also waste precious airwaves that could be used for genuine entertainment. Just like the film-industry of the 1980s was run by businessmen and not film-makers, no one running FM channels today seems to have any music-sense. When they proudly claim in interviews such as this one that the only differentiator in their channel is a chance to win Rs.One Lakh if you tune in, can you really expect this chap to now his Santana from his Nusrat?

I saw the same depressing trend in TV with new channels like NDTV Imagine and 9X shying away from new programming and maintaining the glut of saas-bahu serials with lengthy titles and zero-page scripts. The punch-line is when they wonder aloud in trade-magazines later as to how they haven't managed to make an impact. I mean, hello, are they really paying MBAs to do this thinking for them?

Why is it that as Indians, our "soch" does not extend beyond 2 square miles whether it comes to food, music or plain humanity?

Tata's Nano -- First Look

I always curse Bajaj uncle every time I step on the brake while driving.

The easy-maneuverability, wobbly design and low-cost running of the 3-wheelers (fondly called Autos or Autorickshaws) that he sprayed onto Indian roads have become the largest hurdle in having a decent traffic pattern. Cities like Bombay have banned autos from the business districts, which is such a blessing. In Bangalore, the irrationally large number of licenses doled out by vote-happy politicians have multiplied the mess. With their sudden stopping, sudden swerving and smoke-spewing posteriors, this breed of vehicles takes back in public safety and convenience what it offers by way of "transport".

Tata Uncle has brought the same menace to 4 wheelers now. The Tata NANO was launched at Auto Expo in New Delhi today, with an ex-showroom price of $2500. While we appreciate his concern for the middle class to have an affordable vehicle, we wonder whether at that cost he can really promise a SAFE ride to the family? With the raging road traffic, especially the Monster Cabs and SUVs, being in the Nano might be akin to sitting in Bajaj Uncle's autos!

While the commercial success of this-- and copy-cats to follow-- is near assured, one wonders if that same middle-class is not cutting the branch it is sitting on? Corrupt or sleeping municipalities sanction new Malls and Office Complexes as part of India's reality boom with parking sufficient for 20 vehicles and seat capacity of 3000 or more! Residential complexes sport the "Visitor Parking Not Allowed" banner. Fancy hypermarts like Forum, Spar and Big Bazar have absolutely no access road, causing main-road traffic to pile up for miles as cars wait to find parking slots. With high-end vehicles like Skoda and Hyundai spewing black smoke, the sanctity of PUC certificate is a joke!

Add the Nano and its sisters to this milieu. Tata and Toyota would do the common man a much greater service if they came up with more affordable, more efficient and more accessible public-transport vehicles that city municipalities could deploy with their meagre budgets.