• Empire

    We’d planned on Kubay, but got there pretty late, thanks to a torturous Mallu movie that dragged on forever. By the time we got there, it was beyond 10. It was crowded even then, and we were told we’d have to wait for 25 minutes. Since we were quite famished by then, we played inky pinky ponky and agreed upon Empire, perhaps to reinforce the flagging Mallu spirit. When you’re coming from Indiranagar towards Koramangala, take the first right turn (that leads to Jyoti Nivas College/ Casa Picola/William Penn). You’ll find Empire on your left. Parking is not a problem for two wheelers, you might have to walk a bit if you have a four wheeler.

    Empire has a fast food section/snacks/ice cream section on the roadside, a/c and non a/c sections inside and a terrace section where they also serve Arabian food. Though not exactly fine dining experience, Empire guarantees good food. It also saves me from giving explanations of unpronounceable dishes 😉

    Since we were too hungry to do multiple courses, we ordered a couple of Kerala Porottas, an onion dosa, a chilly fish, a brain masala (quarter plate) and a butter chicken (half). One of the great things about Empire is the speed with which the food is served, I’ve never had to wait impatiently. And it was fortunate this time, since we were inching towards 11.30 – the time when we would be spared the effort of walking out and nice cops would escort/throw us out. The cops really believe in ‘The Dark Night’ here. Ok, sorry 😀

    The onion dosa was pretty thick,a nd though I had my own apprehensions on how it would go with the side dishes, it was actually pretty good. The brain masala was really good, and though had some giant green chillies, turned out to be just right and not too spicy. But alas, I made the mistake of using that learning for the chillies in the Chilly Fish, and was in for a nasty surprise. But I still liked the dish. The butter chicken was the odd one out. A bit too salty, a bit too much of color and a strange metallic flavor. The Porotta was not as soft as it usually is, but still quite okay. All of the above cost us just over Rs.300. That’s the best part of empire – value for money. You can stuff yourself and you’ll still get a reasonable bill.

    We had a Maghai Meetha Paan outside. Damn thing costs Rs.10 now, used to be Rs.5. Only the prices are inflated, the paan size remains the same. The Empire Strikes Back 🙁

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • Its just getting bigger…

    A big news earlier this week was the launch of Big TV, with 20 channels to be launched – music, movie, lifestyle, regional..according to this article from some time ago.  (via medianama) Right at the bottom of the article is a paragraph on their internet plans. I, for one, am always intrigued by the BIG plans, since Reliance has a way of upsetting the entire setup, irrespective of the category, and using it to their advantage – whether its through scale, pricing or whatever disruptive means they can think up. This article says that a budget of Rs.100 crore has been earmarked for the marketing and communication of this entity, and also gives the pricing. With that budget, they can afford the tagline “Ho to Big Ho” 🙂

    I remember writing a BIG post, quite a while back touching upon the synergy that could be derived out of all the BIG entities – FM, Adlabs, BigFlix, Mobile, Music, Adda, and I had mentioned DTH too. With existing providers scampering about to announce who got a matrimonial tie up faster, reliance, with their content and distribution options could really muscle their way in. Adlabs and Big Adda, for example, are working quite well together, by promoting new movies with a Big Adda site. But what I missed out in that post was the stuff I’m more interested in now – BIG’s IPTV venture, in partnership with Microsoft, about which I’ve been hearing about for quite sometime now. Coincidentally, I also read this article today, which talks about the government approval for IPTV being on the way. For those who are wobbly on IPTV (like me), I’d suggest reading up here and here, though the latter is a bit dated.

    As is always the case when I think BIG, my thoughts end up usually on the potential synergy. IPTV brings all the content that you’ve traditionally on TV, but with an interactive and customised aspect. And its not just TV, but also Video On Demand (Tata Sky Showcase). How well BigFlix and Adlabs could be made to work in tandem here. Move over, all those silly games that are showcased on DTH, how about playing some Zapak based cool MMORPG s. Maybe they can even use Big Adda to create a social networking generation of Indian housewives, who’d be gosipping online while watching their favourite saans and bahus. (Tell me when I go overboard) And if their websites have some online shopping options, with the improved targeting  and context that the Internet offers, they could make a killing. I just saw a Big Adda TVC promoting social networking on mobile, so even a ‘quadruple play’ mentioned in the IPTV wiki article might be possible. Also in context, Adlabs-> Reliance Big Pictures -> Big Cinemas.

    So, in essence, all the current developments are just about to make BIG bigger.

    Meanwhile, a tangential big news is Yahoo’s tie up with Intel to launch an interactive TV channel. Read a good post on it here. And if you thought all of that was big, spend the weekend contemplating these futuristic interfaces.

    until next time, just the biginning 😉

    BIG update: The TVC is out, and check out the synergy in ‘Rock On’ – Big Pictures, FM, Music, Adda. Now we’re talking!!

  • Parent Traps

    And Abhinav Bindra got India an individual gold in the Olympics. Old story already, but what made me mention him was his simple yet profound act of thanking his parents. What about that? Well, good parenting. His dad knew that shooting was not exactly on the same level as cricket, Bollywood or politics, but spent a crore on an Olympic standard-fully air conditioned shooting range for his son. How many would do that, even if they were millionaires?

    Most parents (let’s forget unborn children and abortion for the moment) want the best for their children, and put in a lot of effort in getting it for them. But I think that in most cases, the good intentions are misplaced. After all, parents are just human beings whose objectivity might be clouded not just by the societal pressure that they have to handle as individuals, but also because of their own inner demons.

    Which perhaps is why I see a lot of kids around who, move around groggily from karate classes to music lessons to tuition classes, and simultaneously use pester power to get what they want, but sometimes, reveal their childhood innocence too. It makes me realise that there is perhaps a huge difference between doing the best for your child and doing what’s best for the child.

    The difference is Abhinav Bindra winning the gold and thanking his parents, and Abhinav Bindra winning the gold, but saying that was never what he wanted to do in life.

    until next time, not child’s play

  • Organisational Chats

    There was a very interesting post over at WATBlog, on whether Indian companies should provide employees the freedom to engage online. The advice to organisations is to at least listen to the conversations happening about them, since these conversations will happen anyway. The solution the post offers is to use prolific users of social media as brand evangelists. It reminded me of an earlier post on the evolution of the brand manager. And I agree almost completely to the WAT post.

    Almost, because, I lean quite a bit towards extreme transparency, and am of the opinion that it’s not just the evangelists who should be online and doing their bit, it should be the whole damn system.  Why not only the evangelists? Evangelists, to me are slightly utopian styled creatures, who love transparency, and organisations, which are just giving this whole conversation idea a customary spin, might have a problem dealing with it. There are two options then – the evangelist gets ‘corrupted’,  (I’d hate compromised use of social media) or he refuses to conform. In the second scenario, the organisation will strive for ‘control’, and the evangelist will be sacked, but what if the whole system is doing it? Which is one of the reasons why I think organisations will fight this thought. But there might be hope yet, check out Unilever’s efforts in this direction.

    There’s a great argument here on candour at the workplace, it also gives some interesting links. That last link looks at a ‘getting to know you’ level before complete transparency. The article calls this tact, and I have a problem with that too. It is precisely these kinds of convenient gray areas that led to white lies, which in turn spawned the complete opacity that we see around now.

    Meanwhile, there’s something else that might be forcing organisations- Users/Customers. Because once the conversation about the organisations, which will happen with or without their assistance, reaches a deafening pitch, it might force them to listen. To quote from this neat post on Enterprise 2.0, “when the irresistible force of social media hits the immovable force of a traditional enterprise, it makes a loud noise”. The last part of this post also throws light on this.

    And hey, its not any favor that the organisation is doing. In the long run, this will only help the organisation’s equity from an HR and Brand perspective. As talent sourcing becomes even more difficult, this might be the edge that an organisation can get.

    The earlier generation of organisations did not  ban the water cooler though it was reputed to be the source of a lot of conversations. Lets hope today’s organisations can look at the internet in a similar way, recognise that their employees are simultaneously part of not just their workplace, but a larger world outside, in which reside the organisation’s stakeholders and think carefully on how it makes sense to let their employees talk to the world at large.

    until next time, break the walls down

  • User Generated Contentment

    People!! While I thank all those of you who gave me their feedback (and it helped), I did not get much feedback on the content.  The other person to thank is the one who first used the smart phrase used in the title. So, assuming all’s well, am planning a couple of tiny changes to the entire flow.

    I’m shifting the Manuscrypts Monday post to Tuesday, since 2 posts on one day is a bit too much, even by my ‘prolific’ standards. Which means that there will be posts on all days except Saturday.

    Monday – Brants

    Tuesday – Manuscrypts

    Wednesday – Brants

    Thursday – Manuscrypts

    Friday – Brants

    Sunday – Restorants

    No, I don’t expect you to mug it up nor am I doing this because of a misplaced sense of self importance 😀

    Its only because the blogs used to have different audiences, and now all the content is in one place. Like a reader said, because I attempt so much of wordplay in all the posts, it might be difficult for readers to figure out which category the post belongs to. So, I’m hoping the above serves as a kind of indicator.

    The second change is to do with the Brants content. I have noticed a disconcerting habit of rambling, so I’m going to attempt a more brevity-led approach from Friday.

    until next time,koi shaq ya sawaal? 😀

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