LUNCHBOX – A meal for the soul

LUNCHBOX – A meal for the soul

Irrfan- Film schools will be teaching students in the years to come that just like Mahatma Gandhi walked on Indian soil for independence, there was an actor by the name of Irrfan who walked for the sake of promoting art. Please go see the film for his sheer talent. Irrfan will surprise you with his understated elegance and simplicity.

Ritesh Batra- This kind of craft for a first feature film is hard to imagine, this is called research , development and execution all in one. Let’s all pause and give a standing ovation to the man in our living rooms or wherever this blog reaches you.

Nimrat Kaur-The lady is outstanding, she has been around doing advertisements and you can catch her eating chocolate at a traffic signal in a recent ad(ok, let's not go there), but here she turns around , dons a salwar kameez with her eyebrows not done and all focus on making the hubby happy with the dabba. She should not be labelled as the new Smita Patil, but should be left alone to carve her own niche in the film industry. Her expressions match Irrfan’s stroke by stroke.

Nawazzudin- he is fantastic as the support cast and I think as soon as he steps out of the shoes of a leading man and into the shoes of a support actor, he moves to a different level, like Leander Paes in doubles tennis. Nawazzudin has been given a small but significant role, which he essays to perfection.

What Kahaani did for Kolkata, The Lunchbox does for Mumbai as it captures the daily life of Mumbai in the background of the story. The chemistry between Nimrat and her neighbour , Nimrat and her mother, Irrfan and Nawazzudin is something which needs to be taught in film/acting schools as a subject.

A big thank you to Anuraag Kashyap, Guneet Monga and Arun Rangachari for producing a tale of romance, struggle, little joys and life.

 

90 % of Students in IIM’s are Engineers- Diversity claims go for a toss

90 % of Students in IIM’s are Engineers- Diversity claims go for a toss

Compared to an average of 35-40%  in global institutes like Harvard and Stanford, who emphasise on diversification, in India the scenario is grim despite of the tall diversity claims.

You know these engineers , most of them have never scored less than 90 % in their lives, in fact the only reason why I wanted to score a 90% was to get a complementary triple sundae ice cream from nirulas.

The engineers they top school, IIT and land at the CAT centre, even the CAT paper is afraid of them.  I believe that IIT’s are the most honest institution in the country at least they claim that they are an institute of technology, whereas the IIM claim that they are the an institute of management when most of the admissions (almost 90%) go to the tech grads, ideally they should be renamed as IIMTS –Indian institute of management for technology students.

Then they begin their 2 year management program and start studying economics and accounts in year 1,  when the teachers were telling these chaps to opt for commerce with maths, then it was all about winning a Nobel and now after 6 years of science you are back to economics and accounts.

After two years of rigorous Management education, the interviews happen, most of these bright minds line up for the two GOLDMINE sectors BANKING and CONSULTING, when you are changing your stream from engineering to accounts in 6 years then the solid advice that you can give to a prospective client would be “ Sir, this is a great project for you, we have a 5 year vision for the project, if this does not work out we always have a plan –B ready for you, that’s what we have done ourselves too”.

Those who opt for BANKING are the best as they make use of their tech studies in the day to day banking jobs, the kind of application of chemical engineering that goes in selling credit cards, application of electronics engineering that helps in scanning documents in the operations department and the wonderful application of software engineering that helps them in making PPT for the senior management.

So all the non-engineering graduates who want to go for a B-School degree, your probability of getting into an Ivy league is much more than an IIM or should I say IIMTS.