“The First’s”

The other day, while listening to radio and driving down to work, a thought popped-up….. Hypothetically, if I was to be a Radio Jockey, what would my first program be? After reviewing few options, I finally decided that my first show would cover the first songs released by various artists. The flow of thought was broken by loud honking traffic. As I started to write my first blog post, choosing the title turned out to be a mind boggling exercise. After a long deliberation, the thought of my radio show resurfaced, helping arrive at the title “The First’s”. Just a piece of warning, don’t jump into any conclusions just yet nor do you let your mind run wild on the contents of this post.

World financial crisis, Recessions, Job losses, Bail-Out packages all set the stage for a low key opening of 2009. New Year wishes had a genuine hope and wish for a better future. It was visible in India that most of us weren’t reacting any different than the rest of world. We had consciously or unconsciously started to curb our spending and divert funds to safer investments in order to weather the storm, but at the same time hoping that never do we get to see the day of the storm. People of my generation would agree when I say that as part of the earning class this is our First global crisis that we all are being a part off.

The first month of 2009 also made us witness one of the worst scandals in Indian Corporate world a First of its kind in “Satyam”. This raised various questions, how can & how did this happen? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? How many organizations are in a similar situation? Is the organization that I work for safe or is it sailing in the same boat? Our office lunch tables were filled with discussion and each one’s own assessments. Thanks to the media all of us had enough and varied inputs to these discussions. The news titles (“The Enron of India” or “The Biggest Scandal in Corporate India”) would easily become one of the topics for any debate competition. It was good to see the government getting into action and appoint a new board and trying to get things to normalcy.

By the time Satyam saga was moving down the priority list of the media a fresh one took over. After a long time, I got to see all news bulletins beginning with a joyous note. It was the news of jubilation of the movie Slumdog millionaire and its 4 Golden Globe win. As usual the media went overboard; every channel was either having an interview or a audience discussion with the slumdog brigade. In this entire jubilation one person name was standing out “The "Mozart of Madras" - A R Rahman. He is being raved as the best music director ever etc…, personally the first time I heard AR’s music (movie “Roja”) I loved his work and expected more great music from his future movies. But, as the years went by and after listening to his new numbers (most of them in Tamil), AR for me was turning out to be a good a sound engineer more than a composer. But, as an Indian, seeing a fellow countryman receive a Golden Globe for the very first time definitely makes me give him a standing ovation. Personally, the movie was good but it wasn’t worth the accolades. It made me wondering if it is getting all these reviews and recognition just because it is a British movie produced by the Big Hollywood Production Houses or was it because it fits with the notion of India in the minds of the western world or just because it is different from rest of the Hollywood Pack. Some of my friends didn’t like the movie because they felt very offended with the fact that the movie showcased India as a Poor and Dirty country (poverty & slum) all that I have to say is that every one is entitled to have their opinions. 10 Oscar nominations was quite a surprise but for the team of slumdog that definitely would be more than what they would have dreamt off.

The best “First’s” that the world witnessed, in the first month of the New Year, happened on Jan 20th ’09. The day history was made in US Politics. Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of USA. From civil rights movement to the presidency has definitely been a long hard journey for the Afro-American community. I have heard through the various stories of history that all great leaders have galvanized their people through their speeches. In my opinion, Obama did exactly just that. Looking back, the first time I heard of Obama was from the discussion of two Americans clients. At that time I thought Obama was an American Senator in his fifties or sixties with grey hair and fair skin. But, this image was soon erased, all thanks for having access to International media. The US media was no different from that of the Indian ones, all of them were just focused on color of his skin dominated rather than looking at him as a well educated lawyer. He is a Harvard Law School graduate where he was also the president of Harvard Law review and that he has served as a member of Illinois congress and the Senator from Illinois. With these great credentials the expectations on Obama and his team are really high but at the same time we need to acknowledge that they have ushered in a refreshing freshness and hope for US and the world. Hope you will join me in wishing them all the best.