Virtual Reality (VR) as a technology has its basis in the development of Stereographic Projections. Stereography attempts to produce an image analogous to binocular vision (3-dimensional depth perceptions). These projections are further used to build Immersive VR. Immersion in VR is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. It is best described in the words of Ivan Sutherland when in 1969 he described the “Ultimate Display” concept that was meant to simulate reality.
The Ultimate Display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming, such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”
VR as a concept has blurred our concept of reality and it is now interesting to note that we can actually talk of a Reality Virtuality Continuum with devices addressing each band of the Continuum. In Reality-Virtuality Continuum, at one extreme end is the real spatial world, followed by Augmented Reality & Augmented Virtuality and finally at the other extreme end is Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality is sometimes confused with Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality takes the real world of the present and projects digital information imagery and sound to it whereas Virtual Reality is completely in the digital realm. Augmented Virtuality is somewhere between these concepts of Augmented Reality and VR and involves the seamless merging of real objects in the virtual world. What seemed like a fantastical proposition in the movie Matrix is perhaps nearer than we thought!
The ubiquitous Head Mounted Display (HMD) is the most well-known VR device. Oculus Rift, Sony PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive and Google’s Daydream are some of the well-known examples of HMD devices. These are completely immersive devices and the HMD is able to track your eye movements and also gives you the ability to interact with the other world. It blocks everything else out. All industry reports suggest a market of millions of units being sold. These devices are the future of the world of gaming and have been positioned accordingly.
The adoption of VR devices in the gaming industry has been slower than what was expected. One of the primary reasons is the cost of the devices. While the haptic suits and gloves are almost prohibitive in cost currently for large scale adoption, the VR HMDs also need to be moderately priced. A high-end product like the Oculus Rift is being offered at around $600 on Amazon. And that is just for the headset. The whole bundle with Oculus Touch and Earphones included takes the price to $1000 approximately. Add to that the cost of PC required to run the product. Though we now, also have sub $100 headsets like the Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear, the entry level cost needs to come down.
While gaming would be a major player in the VR world for some time to come, we are also witnessing the adoption of VR in other areas.
Architecture
VR allows the user to visualise the virtual building. The user can explore the building before it has been built and understand the design and make changes if required. The adoption can also be used to display future construction to prospective buyers and thus help in sales and marketing as well
Medicine
In medicine and healthcare, VR is used for training and education. The VR simulations provide an ideal medium for pre-operative planning, diagnosis and treatment.
Military
VR simulators are being widely used for training soldiers for war-like situations eliminating the requirement for training which can be too dangerous or complex.
Communication
VR has the ability to change the way people communicate. Virtual meeting rooms are a possibility with all participants experiencing the room from their own positions. There are at least 100 official Meetup.com groups for VR, everywhere from London to Dallas, and Bangalore to Dayton, Ohio.
The Melbourne Virtual Reality Meetup has about 400 members. Its founder Stefan Pernar bought the original Oculus Rift Developer Kit 1 (DK1) in late 2013 and soon went about putting together MVRM. Part of what the VR meetup scene signifies is a major difference between the virtual reality community in the past and present.
Now, anyone with the desire and $350 can order an Oculus Rift DK2 and start tinkering, without battling prohibitive costs that limit access to the tech.
It’s cheap enough that now we have hundreds of thousands working on all of the problems of VR as opposed to a couple hundred well-funded research labs.
And because of websites like Meetup.com or even Reddit, it's easy to find and either physically or digitally gather people focused on VR.
In short, the movement has opened up.
THE IMAGE OF, rural and small town India as one dominated by bullock carts, thatched huts and dung fires is in need of a makeover. The dust remains but the smoke is clearing and soaring aspirations of this population segment is proving to be as transformative as that of the country’s metropolitan inhabitants.
Savvy corporates and businesses are increasingly targeting consumers in smalltown and rural India where growth in demand has shown the most dramatic increase in recent years.
India’s two-wheeler industry is a case in point. 2017 will see this sector’s fastest growth in years, and the most dramatic sales increases are expected in rural and small town India. It is the same for the consumer durables and the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector.
Hyundai, the second largest carmaker in India by volume, reported a huge jump in its rural sales from 14.5% in 2011 to 23.2% in 2016. Car maker Nissan too sees a great opportunity for its smaller vehicles such as the Datsun redi-GO in tier III and rural markets.
A study by AC Nielsen suggested that the rural FMCG market is anticipated to expand at rate of 17.41 per cent to US$ 100 billion during 2009–25. Already, the study showed, the rural FMCG market accounts for 40 per cent of the overall FMCG market in India in revenue terms.
Leading retailers such as Dabur generate over 40-45 per cent of their domestic revenue from rural sales while Hindustan Lever’s rural revenue accounts for 45 per cent of its overall sales. Other companies earn 30- 35 per cent of their revenues from rural areas.
This could be attributed to rising purchasing power, higher disposable income and rising aspirations. Clearly there is big money in the Rurban sector and lots of disposable income. The potential is huge given that rural India has 850 million consumers almost all of whom pay no tax and pay very little for housing.
The extent of potential demand in the Rurban market was illustrated by the now famous Aurangabad sales event where a group of the town’s businessmen, executives and professionals bought 150 Mercedes Benz cars on a single day in October 2010.
THE RURBAN CHALLENGE
As if the urban and rural dichotomy wasn’t enough to stress our leadership, the emergence of a third grey category of the large Rurban village now compounds the problem. Half our population lives neither in cities nor in villages but in Rurban centres where between 9,000 and 10,000 people live. These are significant numbers and lots of people living together. The village is no longer the idyllic little republic it was, with about 40 households where people lived in absolute harmony amidst a neat division of labour. It is now a competitive marketplace, a hub of activity and a cluster big enough to make irritating demands on governance and punish laggard elected representatives every five years..
The demographic change we now see is quite fascinating. The total number of villages in the country has remained more or less constant, we now have 6,45,000 villages compared to 6,40,000 in 2001. However, the number of uninhabited villages has gone up significantly, from 45,000 in 2001 to at least 65,000 now. Also, there are 82,000 villages that have less than 200 people and those are fast becoming ghost villages with more and more people migrating away to larger villages. According to the latest census, more than half of our population lives in about 1,00,000 villages which have a population of between 2,000 and 10,000 people. The number of villages with less than 1,000 people has drastically decreased
The fact is that all our cities have grown slower than imagined. Surprisingly the cities that grew by more than 100% over the ten year period between 2001 and 2011 are Kozhikode, Kannur, Kollam, Thrissur, Trivandrum and Mallapuram, all in Kerala. The only other cities that grew appreciably are Surat and Virar. Across the country, urban growth is not as fast as imagined. India remains a predominantly rural nation. Only 31% of the population of India lives in urban areas
What does this mean to the country and to its economy? Firstly, it means that there is some strong disincentive for people to migrate to large cities. The fastest migration we saw was in the seventies and since then the rate of migration has been declining. Our large cities have become difficult to live in, they do not have jobs anymore for the unskilled and even for the semi-skilled, they are far too expensive and unfriendly. This means that our rate of urbanisation is well below what Europe saw in the nineteenth century and Latin America in the twentieth century. We are going to see more people live in rural areas than any other middle-income country in the world.
A typical rural village is also a place with relatively lowincome inequality. Because almost everyone is poor no one is “poor”. However, in Rurban areas, there will be significant income inequality and there is the very real likelihood of a new category or Rurban poor that will live in Rurban slums. Through the Jat and Gujjar agitations, we have already seen a glimpse of what will happen if that income inequality rises. Combine that with poor access to social services and a weak law and order structure and we can have a potentially disastrous situation on our hands.
The rural consumer has more money in his hands also thanks to various government schemes including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Scheme, agri-credit programmes and so on.
The real income of this sector too has been rising. A report by McKinsey Global Institute has forecast that the annual real income per household in rural India will rise to 3.6 per cent by 2025, from 2.8 per cent in the last 20 years. This is a huge leap by any standards
What is interesting is that consumption patterns in rural areas are increasingly beginning to resemble that of urban areas.The fastest change, analysts say, is being witnessed in rural and semi-urban areas close to metro and large cities. One study by People’s Research on Indian Consumer Economy (PRICE) observed that the “characteristics of these households would be predominantly rural but with a generous dollop of urban sensibilities. Given their proximity to the large metros or boom towns, these households are fast catching up on 21 developmental indicators from Census 2011—including demographic, basic amenities, financial inclusion and consumer durable ownership.”
An Accenture Research report says “businesses in India are optimistic about growth of the country's rural consumer markets, which is expected to be faster than urban consumer markets. The report highlights the better networking among rural consumers and their tendency to proactively seek information via multitude sources to be better informed while making purchase decisions. Importantly, the wider reach of media and telecommunication services has provided information to India’s rural consumers and is influencing their purchase decisions.[Masters of Rural Markets: From Touchpoints to Trustpoints - Winning over India’s Aspiring Rural Consumers].”
The report also points out that the “monthly per capita spending among rural consumers has increased 17 per cent between FY10 and FY12, higher than the 12 per cent rise among urban consumers
Disposable incomes have gone up and fuelled aspirations, thus, resulting in a change in buying preferences. Spending on non-food items rose from 40 per cent of the total spend in FY2005 to more than 50 per cent in FY12.”
Three additional factors that have greatly aided this transformation is the increased electrification of rural and small town India, the massive jump in ease and availability of mobile communications, and the impact of television on aspirations
Matters will only accelerate now that that the Government of India has resolved to electrify all un-electrified villages in the country, build 223,000 kilometres of rural roads in one year alone and encourage local industries and businesses. All this is helping e-commerce players like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Infibeam and Amazon to penetrate Rurban markets
Businesses that can tune into Rurban needs can earn a fortune in these changing times. The first to catch on were twowheeler makers who realised that the poor condition of Rurban roads required small, rugged vehicles and not cars. The choice of transport in Rurban India has proved to be the two-wheeler. Trends reported by SIAM indicate that two-wheeler sales have grown at 7.5% in 2014-15 over the previous year and a whopping 26.5% during the 2010-11 to 2014-15 period.
Companies clearly need to develop products and services that address the specific needs of Rurban consumers as well as address regional differences in needs, tastes and aspirations.
Rurban consumers are no longer the semi-literate stereotypes of yesteryears satisfied by crumbs offered by manufacturers. Today’s Rurban consumer is quality conscious, willing to pay extra for branded products and are aware of product quality.
As Internet penetration increases and the younger generation and women play an increasing role in purchase decisions the Rurban market will further evolve. The dust may take many more years to settle but much before that Rurban India would have been radically transformed.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in his book The Argumentative Indian wrote about India’s tradition of debate and argument. Indians indeed are noisy, disputative and opinionated. They love to flaunt their views and share their thoughts. No small wonder then that the maximum number of Facebook users are Indians - about 195 million compared to 191 million Americans, who form the second largestcountry group.
The only caveat here is that these often loud and assertive Indians almost invariably belong to the middle classes. The majority of Indians, on the other hand, neither have access to Facebook nor to newspaper columns. They are in many ways India’s silent majority, argumentative perhaps, who knows, but certainly unheard
The irony is that when it comes to politics it is not the decibel of opinions that count but the silent views of the toiling masses for whom democracy is not just an argument but a means to betterment.
Mainstream media which reflect middleclass views and sentiments have of late often been getting election predictions wrong despite undertaking massive surveys and spending crores on Gallup type polls. The reason is analysis tainted with middle-class prejudice.
The middle class assumes it knows how the country thinks and behaves. But increasingly the middle-class version is divorced from reality and fast diverging from the political heartbeat of the country.
The recent de-monetisation move by the Central Government sparked off scathing criticism in Social Media circles and middleclass drawing rooms. The government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was condemned and obituaries written about its future.
Living in the suburbs in the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, I got a very different sense of things from working class people. They reacted to de-monetisation with a smile and a shrug and said very little.
I encountered similar sentiment in Chhattisgarh and rural Haryana. When I talked about this, my middle-class friends denounced me as a BJP agent and member of the unholy gang of Bhakts who are apparently preparing the country for a fascist rule.
Right wing intolerance in this country is a growing problem but so is the huge inequality between the affluent and the working classes. Hundreds of thousands of middle-class Indians spend on one dinner at a restaurant as much as they pay their drivers for an entire month. There is no outrage on this count.
What is worse perhaps is the Indian middle class increasingly does not put its vote where its mouth is. Voting statistics across the country show abysmal levels of voting in middle-class bastions in cities and towns.
In contrast, slum dwellers and villagers vote in large numbers. Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal quickly realised where his votes are likely to come from and completely switched focus from middle class to working class priorities.
Not surprisingly, Delhi’s middle class have come to detest Kejriwal while the city’s majority continue to support him.
Kejriwal is one of the few politicians of middle-class descent who has been able to succeed in mass politics in recent times. In general, middle-class recruitment into fulltime politics has been on the decline
Yet, politics in India was traditionally a middle-class bastion beginning with the freedom movement in colonial times which was entirely led by the middle class. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had stepped into Indian politics at a time when the middle-class leadership of the freedom movement was getting nowhere. The middleclass leadership was hollering about ideological values, notions of liberty and so on which made little sense to the average Indian peasant or mill worker.
Gandhi was hugely successful because he stepped out of the middle-class paradigm. In Chapra, Bihar, he for the first time articulated what could be called a “mass line”. He linked the end of colonial rule with the end of enforced cultivation of Indigo which was the ruination of the local peasantry. This link between choice in cultivation and the need to end colonial rule immediately struck a chord. The freedom movement was transformed from a middle class to a mass movement.
Despite Gandhi’s politics, politicians themselves mostly came from the middle classes and this trend continued during the first few decades after Independence
Then started the slow but inexorable influx of the underprivileged. Many of these politicians from the lower rungs were to muscle their way into India’s exclusive political club often using dodgy even criminal means. Not surprisingly, today an estimated third of Indian lawmakers are reported to have criminal records or are accused of criminal offences.
Corruption, criminality and brute power have conspired to keep the idealists among the middle classes from entering politics, leaving the fray to more and more of the strongmen variety.
Ironically, despite the lowered standards of probity amongst India’s political class, politics in many ways is much more democratic than it used to be. It is the aspirations of the poor, underprivileged silent minority that matters more today than middle-class opinions
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Mr Narendra Modi is India’s first prime minister who is not from a middle class or landowning family.Every other prime minister has been of middle or upper-class origin.
One reason for Mr Modi’s remarkable success is his ability to see beyond middleclass aspirations and opinions. His first biggest success was in snatching the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the hands of a middle-class oligarchy; his second was in relating to grassroots aspirations.
While the rising power of India’s underprivileged is a good thing, the decline of middle-class clout is not altogether welcome. For, traditionally the middle class has been society’s conscience keeper and ethical touchstone. A polity entirely bereft of dissent, conflicting ideologies and debate is a recipe for catastrophe
The middle classes in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, appear to have realised this as they watched their splendid city decay in front of their eyes under the rule of parochial populists. In the recent municipal polls, thousands of middle-class Mumbaikars came out to vote for the first time, flaunting their turnout on social media. It is quite possible that the middleclass vote had a significant impact on the municipal poll outcome. This hopefully is the beginning of a nationwide trend and the beginning of the return of the middle class to national politics.
Spread over around 69 acres (3 million square feet) the Bollywood ParksTM Dubai promises to be a colossal structure.
Bollywood has a global fan base of over three billion people. Here guests can live, learn, and immerse themselves in the delightful fantasy that they get to experience on the silver screen. But before you enter and get lost in the Bollywoods, you can, in fact, get your dose of Hollywood in an adjoining park called motiongate Dubai theme park and if you want to have a fun time with legos then there is the LEGOLAND Dubai too. All the three parks are connected through Riverland Dubai, the grand entrance plaza and the Lapita Hotel, a Polynesian-themed resort.
MOTIONGATETM Dubai is the largest Hollywood-inspired theme park in the Middle East where the most popular cinematic adventures are brought to life and packed with action, fun and innovation. From Studio Central to the Sony Pictures Studio and DreamWorks, guests are in for a blast of entertainment. Let’s take a quick peek at what’s on offer:
Columbia Pictures
Step into the adventurous world of Columbia Pictures. Hang on tight as you embark on a high-speed chase, Green Hornet style. Join the Ghostbusters in a paranormal battle to save New York City. Or take on the Lycans with vampire warrior Selene in the supernatural universe of Underworld. Experience an action-packed land with 7 attractions, including a family water ride, coasters and interactive shows where ghosts roam, zombies rule and meatballs fall from the sky.
DreamWorks
Immerse yourself in the world of DreamWorks. Have you ever wanted to soar through the skies with Toothless? What about joining the Furious Five on an epic martial arts escapade?
You can, at this movie theme park! Explore four unique lands based on the blockbuster classics Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Madagascar, and Shrek – all entirely indoors!
Play the hero and save the day with 12 mind-blowing attractions. Experience roller coasters, thrilling family rides, multimedia theatre shows and interactive play zones that you’ll never forget!
Gabbar Singh! Mein aa raha hoon...
Thakur Baldev Singh’s voice reverberated among the ravines in the all-time classic western Sholay, the cry for vengeance that climaxed with the killing of the dreaded dacoit. In the Rustic Ravine, you too can play-act the hunting down of Gabbar Singh.
Studio Central
Begin your journey into the world of film. Your journey starts by stepping into Studio Central. Get transported into the Golden Age of Hollywood at the real life movie sets of New York City. Go behind the scenes and discover the illusion of filmmaking, theatrical opening shows and the characteristic executive offices of a working movie studio. You’ve already seen the five popular movies in the series (who can forget where Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan first got together?) but you’ve never seen Step Up like this before.
They’re offering film fans a look at how they’re making their Step Up Dubai, All In! attraction, which involves an insane amount of choreography from the industry's top professionals.
Dancers from around the world are going through some amazing choreography to ensure they bring the best show ever to the park.
And then there is the biggest of all Bs – the Bollywood ParksTM; the first theme park in the world dedicated to all things Bollywood!
Action, adventure, romance, comedy, music, dance, flavour and emotion; all in Bollywood style. For the first time ever, you will live, learn and experience the kaleidoscopic world of Mumbai’s famous film industry, in the world’s first Bollywood themed park covering 1.7million square feet and spread across five zones.
So it’s easy to see why so much effort has been put into making the park the greatest it can be, and that includes flying out the stars themselves to help make some of the top attractions. Think the Khans of Bollywood i.e. Shahrukh from Don and Ra.One, Salman from Dabangg and Aamir from Lagaan. Hrithik Roshan from Krrish and Farhan Akhtar in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara also got involved to created 3D and 4D cinematic rides.
The five zones making up the park include Bollywood Boulevard, Royal Plaza, Rustic Ravine, Mumbai Chowk and Bollywood Film Studios featuring Hall of Heroes. Two hundred performers will be part of the various routines across five stages and in the first Broadway-style Bollywood Musical to the region at the Rajmahal Theatre.
An annual pass costs AED 755, with over 16 rides and attractions plus 20 daily live shows, spread across 1.7 million sqft. Tickets cost AED245 for a single and AED430 for multi parks.
Spread across five zones - Bollywood Boulevard, Mumbai Chowk, Rustic Ravine, Royal Plaza and Bollywood Film Studios featuring Hall of Heroes - the experiences are based on Rock On!!, Don, Lagaan, Sholay, Dabangg, Mughal-e-Azam, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, RA.One and Krrish.
The Hunt for Gabbar Singh
Set in the Rustic Ravine Zone, this 3D interactive dark ride arms you with laser guns to shoot the dacoits who are led by the terrifying villain Gabbar Singh from the hit movie Sholay. You have to compete with your friends to score the most hits. Hang around and treat yourself to some mangoes as your compete with your gang to see who has the best aim in hitting the fruits off the trees (Reminder of the famous VeeruBasanti romance in the mango orchard).
You can even soar through the skies across the multihued landscape of India with your personal escort - the superhero Krrish. This 4D flying theatre ride gives you panoramic views of India's spectacular landmarks and a front row seat to the battle to save Earth from an alien invasion.
Mumbai Chowk
Take a stroll down the streets of Mumbai with its famous food, shopping and party spirit. To add some thrill; join the mafia boss Don on a chase through the streets of Dubai
Rustic Ravine
The spirit of rural India comes to life in a picturesque setting. Be part of never-ending adventures as played out in Dabangg, Lagaan and Sholay.
Royal Plaza
Experience visual splendour like never before at the Rajmahal Theatre, the home of the region’s first Broadway-style Bollywood musical.
Bollywood Film Studios
Learn how to create a blockbuster like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and meet your favourite Bollywood superheroes, such as Krrish and RA.One at the exciting Bollywood theme park.
And then there are the live shows set along Bollywood lines – with dollops of drama, emotion, tragedy and of course action.
Taking place at the Rajmahal Theatre inside Bollywood ParksTM Dubai, the Jaan-e Jigar show is about brothers Jaan and Jigar and a “classic story of good vs evil.”
As you would expect from all things Bollywood, there will be plenty of colourful drama, singing and dancing (with impressive acrobatics too). Each day, the park will have up to 20 live shows across five stages: Rock On!!, Crossroads, Mumbai Express, Rangmanch and Stars on Steps.
The musical isn’t the only thing to look forward to at the Dubai Parks and Resorts location - inside the area is a stunning 850seat arena which has taken design inspiration from beautiful palaces (even the Taj Mahal) and the “intricate architectural designs of India.”
Bollywood ParksTM has also brought the cream of talent over from India to entertain the millions of guests that are soon to throng this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Besides these separately ticketed performances, there will be plenty more attractions based on musical-themed movies that are included in the price of the admission ticket.
So get ready to take the ride of your life in Dubai’s amazing theme parks with family and friends. Much like the Disney World, these parks will keep both the child and adult in you enthralled, and for those real children, the unfolding of an unreal world for real. And when you finally enter the park itself, the illusion is complete. Surrounding the rides, elaborate landscaping ensures that nothing spoils the illusion in this artificial world. Everything looks like jumping out of the screens in a cinema to be touched, felt, experienced – even though it’s all just skillfully constructed film-set scenery.
When it comes to the smaller stuff, the attention to detail is equally impressive.
Sometimes the boundary between reality and illusion becomes unclear.
It was the nervous Nineties in the communist world. The Berlin Wall had been breached and the Soviet Union as the Father of the Great Communist Bloc was cracking and would soon crumble. But the little island nation of Cuba despite the overbearing capitalist/imperialist America hovering above it like a Giant Grizzly, it remained defiantly Communist. And the man who defied not only the US but the world was none other than the Revolutionary of all revolutions, Commandante Fidel Castro. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro were the ultimate heroes of a young boy growing up in Communist Bengal’s capital Calcutta. And I was no exception. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a real fan-boy moment shaking hands with the towering man in his green fatigues at Havana’s Palace of the Revolution on a cold January night in 1991. The man spoke for four hours without a pause. And the one line that kept buzzing in my head for days and now years is his conviction when he kept repeating, “A dream never dies…”
Havana in the Nineties was very different. I still remember driving from the airport in the middle of the night and getting confused seeing so many people on the road to my hotel on the Malecon or the waterfront. In fact, there were couples locked in an embrace in every corner and the Malecon seemed liked a heap of bodies. Only to find out later that due to small living quarters young people had to make do with the outdoors for a little bit of romance. A housing issue, much like ours, the only difference being Cubans could happily frolic outdoors all night with no fear of crime.
Souvenirs of the high life during the Batista rule still remain – casinos and nightclubs with their blingy boards. Havana was the playground of rich Americans before Castro and his band of men took control on New Year’s Day in 1959. The Malecon was lined with palatial facades with the insides empty as a reminder of the past but not used by the revolutionaries. Strapping young boys bare-bodied played along the Riviera, catching fish or just sunning their tanned bodies. Health and education were a priority but there were queues at the bread shops which were not well-stocked.
Foreigners got a little glimpse of the Cuban world except for the splendid Cadillacs and Pontiacs from another era driving around as cabs as visitors were not allowed to carry local currency and had to restrict themselves to what was known to be Dollar Shops and separate restaurants. Girls at the hotel lobby would die to be taken shopping at the Dollar Shops. And our minder who would escort us everywhere asked for a fan as a parting gift, which for him was a luxury. That was Cuba in the nineties. A lot has changed since.
Few Cubans alive today can remember a time without Fidel Castro. In his day, he was one of the most influential, most provocative figures in the Western Hemisphere.
Yet the Cuba in which Castro died is a very different Cuba from the one he ruled for nearly half a century, and the impact of his death will also be very different.
New diplomatic and commercial relations with the United States, unimaginable during much of Castro’s reign, are now in place, thanks to the pragmatism of his successor, brother Raul, and of former US President Barack Obama.
Castro, who stepped down as head of the government in 2008, had largely faded from the spotlight in recent years, making occasional appearances at a university, on the dais of a Communist Party meeting or in photographs showing him greeting a visiting dignitary. He looked frail and gaunt, almost always in an exercise suit.
It was probably by government design, easing Castro from view as a way to ease the transition and solidify his brother’s grip on power.
Castro today represents a bygone era. Cuba’s “new chapter” opened before Castro’s death.
In terms of governance, little is likely to change. The uncertainty that would have accompanied a handover of power is greatly lessened. Raul Castro is in charge.
Yoani Sanchez, a world-known Cuban blogger, was touring Havana’s picturesque Malecon or seafront boulevard the morning after Castro died to gauge the reaction of the mostly young people gathered there.
“Some are saying goodbye with pain, others with relief,” Sanchez said via Twitter. “The great majority with a certain touch of indifference.”
As Fidel Castro faded, Raul consolidated and shifted. He slightly loosened socialist restrictions on the economy while budging hardly at all on political freedoms.
He allowed, for the first time, a measure of private enterprise, where ordinary Cubans could run small businesses, from restaurants to beauty salons to mechanics’ shops. It made a big difference for many Cubans.
Even more significant, Raul Castro lifted a requirement that Cubans obtain a special permit to travel off the island. Suddenly even dissidents, like Sanchez, could get passports, travel abroad and return home.
A visitor recalls how he noticed remarkable changes between his first and second visits to Cuba.
On his first trip to Havana in 2009, he was pursued by Cubans begging him to buy them food or diapers. Not two years later, they were selling food and diapers, handcrafted knickknacks and just about anything else an imagination could scrape together.
At the same time, other forces were at work. A young Cuban generation was growing increasingly savvy about voicing dissent, even though generally denied access to the Internet. They could complain, grouse and disagree with the government, but cloak it in music, painting, dance and other artistic expressions.
As Cuba’s famous novelist Leonardo Padura put it: “Risks and censorship can also be a challenge to the imagination."
Somehow, the dissent of artists and youth was less of a threat to the government. Overt dissent — such as the Ladies in White, the wives and mothers of imprisoned political activists — continued to be dealt with harshly, with progovernment demonstrators harassing their weekly marches, and state security agents routinely beating or arresting them, however briefly.
Omar Sayut is one of the artists, both proud and open in his criticism of the government, effusive in his posting of hiphop videos on YouTube. And willing to do the occasional quick stint in jail.
“This is how I speak out,” says Sayut, in his early 30s.
Separately, and secretly, another force was at work. Judging that 50 years of embargo and isolation had failed to substantially weaken Castro’s rule, the Obama administration embarked on behind-the-scene talks, with the help of, among others, Pope Francis.
It took about two years, but in December 2014, Obama and Raul Castro made dramatic, simultaneous televised announcements to their respective nations. Diplomatic ties were being renewed after half a century.
Over the year that followed, embassies were reopened, airlines were flying, and, slowly, trade deals were being made.
It culminated with the remarkable trip by Obama to Havana in March, the first sitting US President to visit in about 90 years.
Other changes are slowly transforming the island. Dollar-spending tourists are flooding Cuba, with the pros and cons that influx suggests. Many, though not all dilapidated homes and buildings that populated most Havana neighbourhoods have gotten a coat of paint. On occasion, more food is available at markets.
Would this progress, however, tempered and limited it might be, have taken place if it were still Fidel, not Raul Castro, running things the last few years?
It’s hard to say but not likely.
Raul certainly was more realistic and willing to acknowledge failings than Fidel, the ideologue, ever was. By acknowledging something was not working, Raul could allow at least a few tweaks, though he insists that socialism remains Cuba’s system.
Ultimately, more than a single policy or politician’s good will, it was the weight of time that brought change to the island.
For all the vicious, threatening and sexist trolls, she has stood her ground. Besides, for an ex-cricketer and a flamboyant bat whom we all loved (Virender Sehwag), a talented Bollywood actor (Randeep Hooda), and a junior minister in the Centre who is routinely putting his foot in his mouth to prove his Hindutva credentials to the powers that be (Kiren Rijiju), a 20-year-old girl can never have a mind of her own. Period. So who is “polluting” her mind, they are asking?
They seem to be unanimous that she has no capability of exercising her independent opinion. So, why is she a “political pawn” — the Haryana actor, macho as ever, is asking, as self-righteous as a man can be. One gentleman has threatened to ‘rape her’ on her Facebook wall, according to media reports, adding graphic descriptions about his perverse fantasy.
So how and why is it that a young girl is incapable of thinking through her own mind and why is she subjected to such vehemence and condemnation? What makes the collective of male machismo to be so obsessive about her being manipulated, her mind polluted, and being used as a political pawn, whereas all she is doing is expressing her honest, strong and authentic opinion, as a young woman and a thinking, intelligent, sensitive student? So what is wrong with that, and even if you disagree, why do you mock her, degrade her and threaten her? In response, she has simply tweeted: “Political pawn? I can think. I don't support violence perpetuated on students? Is that so wrong?”
What is it about this nation, and its macho manhood, which glorifies India as a nation of the young, and claims to worship women as ‘goddesses’ etc., and, yet, repeatedly chooses to crush the independence of the young, especially girls and women, their kaleidoscopic schools of thought, their music, theatre, cinema, seminars, books and literary festivals, their freedoms and individualities, and even a simple status picture with a placard.
We have seen how a young and talented actress from ‘Dangal’ was recently hounded and condemned, for no rhyme or reason. We are all witnessing how the young female filmmaker of ‘Lipstick under my Burkha’ is being hounded by the same man who made life miserable for the filmmakers of Udta Punjab? Earlier, we know too well how Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’ and ‘Fire’ were blocked, violently, and by whom, and so was ‘Parzania’ in Gujarat, and ‘My Name is Khan’, among other films.
Surely, being on this side of the fence with fanatics, the censor board chief, a favourite of the Sangh Parivar, is now being joined by fundamentalists from the other camp too. Mirror mirror, they behave the same, don’t they? The film, as a creative medium, can go damned; and so can the adult audience, who can make their own choices, can’t they?
Even the Supreme Court has chosen to shift its paradigm on the national anthem. But, who can change the khap panchayats stalking the male consciousness across the mainstream dominant discourse and citadels of power?
Clearly, Gurmehar Kaur is no Leftist. Even if she is a Leftist, what is wrong with her being one – and there is no one shade of Leftism in the world anymore, it’s as much a rainbow as a rainbow in a twilight zone can be. Often, invisible in a dusty sunset. Leftists are part of the secular, pluralist, constitutional democracy called India, isn’t it? You can be Right, Left or Centre, as long as you don’t brutalise violently other people’s spaces to argue, think, disagree and debate. As long as you are not Ku Klux Klan, White supremacists, or jihadi terrorists bombing Sufi dargahs in Pakistan, or, beheading journalists.
If you don’t like the other’s ideas, in good or bad faith, celebrate your own; why indulge in violence in the name of pseudo nationalism, like the Nazis burnt the books, or sent everyone to the gas chambers? Lies and propaganda don’t hold for long; you can keep branding everyone ‘anti-national’, or ‘seditious’, or accuse them of trying to break the nation, without any evidence, whatsoever. It can sell and jell for a while, it can become a part of a dubious rhetoric, but is as fake as fake news, as post as post-truth, and is as much doctored as the doctored videos which were proved to be doctored in the JNU controversy in February last year. And, why lie, when you can fight with truth? Why make Goebbels and Hitler your role model?
Nowhere has Gurmehar, now a student in an eminent college in Delhi University claimed to be holding a brief for any ideology. She stands for peaceful and open debate and discussions, without violence. She stands for peace between nations, and not war, despite her personal tragedy and that of her family. Her father was an army officer who died in the Kargil war. Earlier, her silent anti-war video had found hundreds of thousands of supporters (15 lakh views and multiplying), going viral in 2016, in which she simply said: “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him.”
After the one-dimensional violence unleashed on a peaceful seminar at Ramjas College by AVPV storm-troopers on Feb 21/22, 2017, in which professors and students were brutally assaulted – they were no clashes — she put up a post with a placard: “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. Students against ABVP.”
The post went viral, across the campuses of India, from Punjab to Mumbai University. Thousands of students used the same message and posted their pictures. Her status message also, reportedly, said: … It was not an attack on protestors, but an attack on every notion of democracy that is dear to every Indian’s heart. It is an attack on ideals, morals, freedom and rights of every person born in this nation. The stones that you pelt hit our bodies, but fail to bruise our ideas…”
“People have been threatening me with violence on Facebook and calling me antinational. One man… posted a comment on my profile picture and gave a detailed description of how he would rape me. I think this is very scary. Rape threats to women of your own country in the name of nationalism is not correct,” Gurmehar told NDTV.
There was a great American-German film called ‘The Book Thief’ made by Brian Percival, based on a book by Australian author, Markus Zusak. It’s a film about the whole society turning Nazi in a quiet lane in an idyllic small town in Germany, with many becoming bloodthirsty informers. In this little lane, called ‘Heaven Street’, which is bombed later, a German family gave shelter to a young Jewish man in the basement. In this home, comes a little girl, a stranger, whose mother too seems to have disappeared in the war against Hitler’s holocaust. The young Jew teaches her new words, as she reads for him from a book.
The words, like Gurmehar’s placard, become ephemeral butterflies, colourful rainbows, shining rivers and soft petals of truth, flying against violence and brutality, to restore sanity, imagination, beauty and humanism. When they burn the books and sing a robust war song of Nazi nationalism, she waits and picks up a book on the sly, a burning book, because she loves stories, new flights of imagination, magical dreams.
In her innocence, she is no ‘political pawn’. She knows the value of hope, peace and knowledge, in the times of war and death. Like Gurmehar Kaur, young, independent, authentic, brave. Telling the truth, in the face of lies and war cry!
For a country in the throes of a discourse which uses kabristans and shamshans as electoral trump cards, and which blocks films, seminars, books and theatre, Gurmehar is the moment of great and infinite hope. A revelation! Her India, is the India of her dreams. Because, she, like her eclectic generation, carries no baggage of hate politics. Because she is the new scaffolding of the nation-state and India should be proud of her. Like, she said, her father would be, always.
And in millions of such Gurmehars reside the idea of Hope eternal and a democracy that will survive these narrow walls and a nation that will always awake in that heaven of freedom.
HE’S HIGH ON the list of India’s most successful people and practically became UN secretary general. Shashi Tharoor, the most popular Member of Parliament, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi (at least on Twitter) delivers almost the same speech from almost every platform, in describing “his” India.
“India,” the core of the address goes, “is no longer the nationalism of ethnicity or language or religion, because we have every ethnicity known to mankind, practically; we’ve every religion known to mankind… We have 23 official languages that are recognised in our constitution... We don’t even have geography uniting us because the natural geography of the subcontinent framed by the mountains and the sea was hacked by the partition with Pakistan in 1947. Even the name ‘India’ comes from a river, the Indus, which flows in Pakistan.
“But the whole point,” he continues (these words come from a TEDIndia talk from a few years ago), “is that India is the nationalism of an idea. It’s the idea of an ever-ever-land, emerging from an ancient civilisation, united by a shared history, but sustained, above all, by pluralist democracy. That is a 21stcentury story, as well as an ancient one.
But apart from India and nationalism, something that truly went viral after his Oxford Union speech last year was that Britain owed India reparations for its 400-year-rule over the ‘colony.’
Shashi Tharoor’s energetic debate speech was in speaking for the motion, “Britain Owes Reparations to Her Former Colonies,” and launched into a brilliantly argued, no-holds-barred nationalist roar against former colonial masters.
The video of the speech coursed through the cyber community Tharoor tells us in his book, over 3 million times. Cyber nationalists, Hindutva patriots, Modi bhakts who had mercilessly trolled Tharoor for his secular views, now hailed him as a hero for giving voice to their aggressive nationalism. A speech that echoed the views of the nationalist school of history writing begun as far back as the late 19th century had found a new millennial constituency.
Tharoor has now converted that ‘viral’ Oxford union speech into a new book, ‘An Era of Darkness’ (Aleph) in which he expands his theme of the evil, heartless, greedy and racist British mercilessly exploiting India, impoverishing its people, stealing its riches, destroying its social fabric and leaving it with a ruined economy, dysfunctional democracy and confused modernity, with even the so-called gains of colonialism like the English language and the railway network being only very mixed blessings. But while Tharoor’s speech was fluent drama, the book at times reads like a politician’s rant. While the speech was punchy and riveting, the book does at times feel like a re-run of the nationalist historiography of the 19th and early twentieth century.
Tharoor, 58, a member of the Indian National Congress Party, is high up on every list of India’s best and brightest. He’s written 14 bestselling books in English, including a collection of short stories and three novels, notably “The Great Indian Novel” (1989). He’s also published a biography of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, seven nonfiction works, plus two books of photographs, about his country. Until he entered politics in 2009, he wrote a weekly column, “India Reawakening,” that was syndicated in 80 newspapers worldwide.
Shashi Tharoor was born in London to an Indian family; he has two sisters. His father, originally from Kerala, a state in south-west India, was the group advertising manager for the Indian newspaper The Statesman. When Shashi was two, the family returned to India. He attended various schools in Mumbai, Calcutta and finally university in Delhi, obtaining an undergraduate degree in art and history. At age 19, he went to the United States to obtain an M.A. in international relations, at Tufts University.
Politically, Tharoor is a salient member of the leftliberal camp. He believes in economic competition and government-encouraged small businesses and believes that India’s future depends on its ability to open up to the world. He is keen on freedom of the press and an avid advocate of governmental transparency. He was the first elected representative in the history of India to publish annual reports about his work and his expenses and urged other politicians to do likewise.
Tharoor spent 30 years with the United Nations, beginning in the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, and working his way up in the organisation. In 2001, he was appointed undersecretary-general for communications and public Information, where he learned much about image presentation and about using various means to get messages across – skills that would boost his popularity later.
In 2006, he was nominated by the Indian government for the post of UN secretary general, becoming the first Indian to compete for the position. He and Ban Ki-moon, from South Korea, led all the other candidates. In the end, Tharoor received two fewer votes than Ban. Tharoor congratulated him, declined his offer to serve as his deputy, and left the UN.
At the age of 52, two years after that defeat and 33 years after leaving India, Tharoor returned to his country, famous and popular. “I feel as if I have never left India,” he says, adding, “I’m an Indian who happens to live in New York or work in Switzerland. Geography for me is a circumstance, not an identity.”
‘An Era of Darkness’ is thus not a book of new historical research but a racily written essay cum argument which takes up the hoary nationalist baton and races around spiritedly over welltrodden ground. Yet Tharoor is a well-regarded author, whose work India: From Midnight to Millenium was studied by none other than then US President Bill Clinton when preparing to visit India in 2000. So notwithstanding its familiar theme, Tharoor’s evocative prose makes known facts refreshingly relevant and interesting for the 21st-century reader.
Tharoor’s book is also important in the current political climate where the contribution of some prominent freedom fighters is being systematically erased from school syllabus. The present government’s drive to erase any version of history that doesn’t align with their wilful retelling is similar to how the British doctored the narrative in their favour while making themselves appear like saviours.
The Bollywood media, obsessed with box office stats, has keenly followed, blow by blow, the battle between Shahrukh Khan’s Raees and Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil. The two highly anticipated films arrived in the multiplexes on January 25 (a Wednesday, not a Friday, the shift of date aimed at cashing in on the R-Day weekend) and sparked a fierce clash between the two Bollywood superstars. The repercussions, a lot of which bordered on the distasteful, were felt well beyond the cash registers.
Raees, keeping its nose consistently ahead in the race, inched steadily towards the Rs 200-crore mark. Just as importantly, the retro-styled crime drama was also talked about for the way its lead actor, a romantic hero with a phenomenal fan following, went where he had never gone before.
Raees has the Badshah of Bollywood in the garb of a larger-than-life 1980s MuslimGujarati crime lord who not only wears his religious faith on his sleeves but also famously talks up the virtues of the “daring” of a “miyanbhai”. To rub it in, the film includes a spectacular Muharram sequence in which the superstar bloodies his torso in ritualistic self-flagellation.
That was a red rag to the Hindu supremacists avowedly ill at ease with the long, unbroken reign that Bollywood’s Khan triumvirate has had over the Hindi film industry. Such is the threesome’s clout that they have neatly sliced up the three major festival ‘windows’ on the release calendar among themselves. Salman has Eid, SRK Diwali and Aamir Christmas. All the other A-list stars, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn included, have to work their release strategies keeping those dates out of their plans.
Any talk of communal polarisation in the context of Mumbai moviedom sounds utterly incongruous because the Indian film business has stayed largely uninfected by the poison of religious sectarianism. But of late, in a climate of bigotry and prejudice, the Muslim megastars of Mumbai have sadly found themselves repeatedly having to prove that they are Indians first.
Not that SRK has never played a Khan on the screen before. He was women’s hockey coach Kabir Khan in Chak De India and the specially-abled Rizwan Khan in My Name is Khan. More recently, he was the shrink/life coach Jehangir Khan in Dear Zindagi and Tahir Khan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Raees is, in fact, SRK’s third successive release in which he plays a Muslim character.
But Raees is different from all the other times that SRK has opted to don the fictional guise of a Muslim man. In Dear Zindagi and ADHM, his religious identity had no narrative centrality. Certainly not in the way it does in Raees.
Not only has the film come at a time when the political environment in the country is defined by vitriol and distrust, but it is also clearly a telling and assertive political statement from a powerful Hindi movie star – a far cry from the days when Yusuf Khan had to become Dilip Kumar to make a career in the industry.
It is not insignificant that the communal polarisation pot in a traditionally secular film industry was first sought to be stirred when Hrithik’s first film, Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai was released more than a decade and a half ago. Politically motivated elements in and outside Bollywood projected him as “a Hindu superstar”.
That odious campaign died a quick death because the rightwing dispensation in Delhi at the time did not bear the sort of RSS imprint that the present central government does. But those that had orchestrated the Chinese whispers at the turn of the millennium are still around. They have resurfaced, emboldened manifold and, therefore, infinitely more brazen.
BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya does not feel the need anymore to couch his language in social niceties. He uses his Twitter handle to blatantly exhort people to boycott a Raees “who is not of his country” and support “a Kaabil patriot”. On cue, an army of Muslim-baiters unleashed many a conspiracy theory about Raees, via snide social media posts, angry tweets and vile WhatsApp messages.
This campaign of calumny would have us believe that Raees is anti-national because its cast is led by three Muslim actors – Shahrukh, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mahira Khan – and the film is designed to glorify a criminal (1980s Gujarat bootlegger Abdul Latif) who had links with one of India’s biggest enemies, Dawood Ibrahim. It has mattered not a whit that director Rahul Dholakia has gone blue in the face insisting that Raees tells a fictional tale.
Not very long ago, a sadhvi of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had appealed to her supporters to deface posters of films featuring the three Khans. So, SRK is by no means the only one at the receiving end of the ire of hate-mongers. They are Khans and they are soft targets.
SRK has never shied away from publicly and eloquently discussing his identity as a Muslim Indian, but he has always exercised restraint and civility in articulating his thoughts on what rampant majoritarian tendencies do to the psyche of members of minority communities.
He is a movie star and what better method could he have employed to assert himself in this fractious Hindu-Muslim dynamics. His character in Raees, an underworld figure who toys with the law with impunity until he runs into an upright (Hindu) cop who vows to bring him to book, upholds the basic principles of humanity even when the chips are down.
Apart from intoning that “ammijaan kehti thhi koi dhanda chhota nahi hota aur dhande se bada koi dharm nahi hota,” Raees dreams of using his power and affluence to construct a colony – aptly called Apni Duniya – where he hopes hatred, poverty and hunger would be non-existent.
Late in the film, Raees declares: “Main dharm ka dhanda nahi karta”. He clinches it with a firm ‘no’ when an associate suggests that, in order to stabilise his finances, he should close down a riot relief camp in a Hindu-dominated locality. He shoots back: Did we worry about who is Muslim and who is Hindu when we began our business? Why should we do so now?”
Aamir Khan, too, has a history of bitter run-ins with haters going back to the time he played Kashmiri insurgent Rehaan Khan in Fanaa (2006).
In the lead-up to the release of that film, the star had spoken out against the Gujarat government, which was then headed by today’s Prime Minister. The state instantly was placed out of bounds for Fanaa. Not that it made any dent in the film’s fortunes. It raked in big bucks in the rest of the world.
More recently, Aamir stuck his neck out and said he and his wife felt unsafe in the current climate of intolerance that obtains in India. The rightwing social media stormtroopers came out in full force and trolled the actor. They called him names and advised him to migrate to Pakistan.
He obviously didn’t. Instead, in 2014, he delivered PK, a lively anti-superstition satire that his detractors saw as an attack on Hindu shibboleths. Again, a shrill call went out for a mass boycott of the film. In one incident, the VHP and Bajrang Dal demonstrated against its screening in Hyderabad, forcing the cinema hall owner to stop a show until the law enforcers stepped in and restored ordered.
When Dangal arrived, it was clear that the lunatic fringe does not forget and forgive easily. They again sought to make Aamir pay for his ‘intransigence’. A ‘boycott Dangal’ hashtag trended for a while, but it only helped the cause of the film, giving it a lot of free publicity. Incidentally, Dangal and PK are currently the two most commercially successful films in the history of Hindi cinema.
The title that comes in third on Bollywood’s all-time list of biggest moneyspinners, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, has had its own slew of troubles with Hindutva warriors running amok these days. This, despite the fact that leading man Salman Khan portrays a Lord Hanuman bhakt in the film.
Audiotapes were put in circulation to warn people that Bajrangi Bhaijaan promotes ‘love jihad’. It was argued that the film has a Muslim actor ‘marrying’ a Hindu actress (Kareena Kapoor, who plays a Brahmin girl). In real life, Kareena is married to Saif Ali Khan and the name they chose for their firstborn (Taimur) whipped up a recent Twitter storm. But that is another story.
The anti-Bajrangi Bhaijaan tapes went to the extent of alleging that the film’s director Kabir Khan had received funds from Arab countries to push the agenda of the Indian votaries of love jihad.
These ridiculous charges would have been dismissed as a sick joke had the impact of the utter madness not been so serious and deleterious. The recent assault on Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Rajasthan during the filming of Padmavati is the latest in the line of desperate acts by fringe groups driven to despair by the continuing success of the Khans.
It is rather rich of the Khan-bashers to think that Raees is going to be the last film that will seek to set the cat among the pigeons and watch the latter fly helter-skelter. For this is not only about fighting on the side of sanity, but also to save the soul of Bollywood; one of the glues that hold India together.
Satish Bala Malhotra is the Chairperson of the MBD Group. She has been a pillar of strength for her entire family. She has always chosen to stay away from the limelight and has silently supported her husband and daughters in all their endeavours. Whether it was the initial days of MBD Group or the successful venture of the group in various business verticals, Shri Ashok Kumar Malhotra the founder of MBD Group always saw in her a life partner from whom he got the immense strength to realise his dreams. Today MBD Group is India’s largest Education Company with over six decades of experience.
The MBD Group under the futuristic vision of the Founder of the Group Ashok Kumar Malhotra has diversified into various industries including, e-learning, Hospitality, Real Estate, Mall Development and management, eco-friendly notebooks and Paper Manufacturing.
Now under the guidance of Satish Bala Malhotra Chairperson MBD Group, the dynamic duo of Ms Monica Malhotra Kandhari and Ms Sonica Malhotra Kandhari, Directors of MBD Group is following the footsteps of their father and creating new benchmarks for the MBD Group.
As a mother, she has always ensured that her daughters are brought up to be strong individuals with independent thinking and grounded. The way in which both her daughters are taking the MBD legacy forward speaks a lot about the values inculcated by Mrs Malhotra.
An avid painter Malhotra’s works adorn the interiors of the Radisson Blu MBD Hotel Noida and The Radisson Blu Hotel MBD Ludhiana. Her paintings have also been displayed at various art exhibitions. A lady of very few words she prefers to express herself through her brush strokes. With her extensive travel experience, she provides valuable contributions to the service standards and interiors of the hospitality ventures of the group.
Satish Bala Malhotra has committed herself to the philanthropic initiatives of her husband. She has been the driving force behind the Shri Ashok Kumar Malhotra charitable trust which has been instrumental in taking initiatives for the welfare of children. Whether it is through the distribution of free stationary or giving out scholarships to deserving children, she ensures that MBD Group reaches out to as many needy people as possible.
Satish Bala Malhotra guides the MBD Group efficiently and equips the company to meet professional challenges successfully. With its quality services, the company has become a name to reckon with in all its business verticals. Mrs Malhotra played a key role in each aspect to the extent that a few of the colonial paintings you see at the Privé floor, have been done by her to make the appearance timeless and eclectic. Not only did we focus on the architecture, we made sure each furniture piece is bespoke and fits perfectly with the elegance of the elaborately designed rooms.”
Guest rooms in the MBD Privé Collection are the finest and one of the city’s most revered hospitality benchmarks. The MBD Privé Collection has become a favourite residence for those travelling for business and pleasure. It comes as no surprise as we offer an unprecedented level of luxury and hospitality experience for our guests.
The Collection, to begin with, emulates the fashion and impeccable interiors of rococo style while staying true to its Indian roots by blending it with heavy lush embroidery and authentic ‘dabka’ work on draperies and cushions. Overall, it presents a scheme that lends a definite peaceful touch and is also stylish in the best Venetian and French traditions. Its decorative scheme slides between centuries with styles alternating between those from the rococo and Victorian to the most contemporary, which makes its appearance timeless and eclectic.
Quintessentially, the design features include rich fabrics, high beds with footstool, elegant bathroom fittings, modern amenities and neoclassical carpets.
In this setting, imagine yourself entering a calm space with pistachio green but these are just a prelude to what lies within.
The serpentine queues at banks and ATMs, post demonetisation, have ended by now. And no one is posting pictures of the new 500 rupee note as if it’s a trophy straight out of the ATM or what makes the pink of Rs 2,000 bleed. Like most news, this one has died down as well.
What remains however is the fact that a debate on demonitisation remains an interesting topic at social gatherings. It is fascinating to see how well it goes with a red wine, a working lunch or simply a perfect time killer at the airports.
Little surprise then that the Union budget this month is one of the most awaited ones. For most expect it to a balm of sorts for their frayed financial nerves. Interestingly the sops doled out by Arun Jaitley could also be the mood changer for the four Indian states going to elections in February-March. Who better than Arun Jaitley then, the go-to man for the government to interface with a variety of constituencies, from the media to the corporate sector to global.
In fact our ‘Budget and economy’ section as well as ‘Platform’ looks at the politics of demonitisation with a magnifying lens of sorts.
And if all of that sounds too much of serious reading, turn to our engaging interaction with M S Dhoni. The legendary cricketer might have stepped down as ODI captain but the fact that he was India’s most successful captain and is still a powerful player, always makes one want to hear him talk on cricket and more.
Another legend on our pages is the making of Dangal, a movie that seems to be going strong. The highest grossing Hindi film domestically is a powerful story that seems to be ruling our hearts and minds.
Talking of hearts and minds, for the ones who’ve been able to stick to their new year resolutions of getting fit or are looking at it anytime soon, our technology section looks at fitness apps as personal trainers.
So go on savor our varied platter of the interesting line up. After all variety is the spice of life!