Media Trends in 2016

We all love stories!

The last few years has seen a major shift in storytelling. The trends and themes that have dominated the silver screen have been big blockbusters with heroes and large budgets that require larger returns to break even. The 100 crore film was made popular. If you weren’t a 100 crore Actor/ Director no one paid attention to you. The stories didn’t matter and there was no logic in the screenplay!

And then suddenly we had films like Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Hate Story 2, Talvar, Mary Kom and even Tanu Weds Manu and the equation changed.

Storytelling was back! Scripts were back. And great quality cinema was given a push.

In 2016 we will see many more women oriented stories where the heroines aren’t just there for item numbers or the heroes’ love interest. Bollywood will be ruled by dramas, biopics and thrillers. While the big blockbusters may remain, the trend will be towards smaller budget films with good quality content. The success of a film will lie in the timing. The mood of the generation will also help or hinder the film’s box office. The producers however will still bank on the larger pictures and new directors might not have so much support.

With ads we saw a shift from ads reaching out to the middle class, to a younger generation that had the power to spend. The stories became about family and transformation. Ads that tugged at the heart strings. Ads that had bigger budgets to show who we were and what we should be.

In 2016 we will see more ads with stories. The trend of 2015 will continue but it will be more celeb oriented unfortunately, since we are a Bollywood driven society. Sometimes the celeb over powers the story. People only remember how pretty or good looking the celeb was who is paid crores for the ad and the quality of the ad suffers since no one remembers the brand!

A great trend that may happen in 2016 will be new digital series and ads that are integrated for stories on the internet. There will be entertainment for the internet generation. A generation that’s on the move. As we saw with the YRF series TVF Pitchers there will be many more shows that will have brands integrated as a part of their story telling but not take away from the fun. This trend will help brands since ads are now fast forwarded on recorded TV!

Directors will move from making films to producing digital series and actors will move from TV ads to featuring in films. The combination and amalgamation will be an exciting new trend for 2016 where we will get to see more of our favourite stars and directors and watch interesting stories.

A fantastic new trend of 2016 will be books being converted for the digital series and films. Books are stories that have already got the approval of a market and have connected with a section of society. Filmmakers would be wise to develop screenplays from already existing books. 

Also printed in the Pioneer Paper December 12, 2015 : http://www.dailypioneer.com/vivacity/a-new-beginning.html

5 Ways to Be Un-Lonely During the Holidays!

“What are you doing for the holidays?”

That can seem as the most annoying and pressurizing line of the season! It pushes us to be social. We feel the need to put those fun pics up on social media and share how cool we are for doing something interesting. So with all the pressure it’s no wonder that we get lonely. Here are 5 ways to beat the holiday blues.

1.     Throw a Party – If you’re not invited to any party, throw a party. It will keep you busy while preparing and will be something memorable for later. Even if a few people show up, you can play some songs and dance around with a close group. You can even host a party for friends who you’ve not met for a long time or complete strangers from office you wanted to know better.

2.     Join a Travel Group – If you have vacation time, join a group that likes to travel. Spend a little money on yourself going with a bunch of strangers to a place you’ve never been to.  It can be exhilarating to open up to strangers and completely unwind away from home.

3.     Start a Training Program – While everyone is eating and becoming fat you’re getting a head start on being fit. You won’t need to make those diet and exercise resolutions on 1^st January because you’re already achieving your goals from now. Read up on what you need to do to get fitter. Write your goals, feelings and achievements down. It’s a solo journey to the top. Understand it and appreciate why you’ve been chosen to be alone right now. Go conquer it!

4.     Attend Group Activities – Attend a seminar, lecture, film club, theatre workshop, a language session or just volunteering at the church, orphanage or old age home. Loneliness stems from feeling that you have no one in your life. But if you realise there are so many people who you have not let into your life, it could give you a new perspective to who else you could spend time!

5.     App it Up! – You may not meet your soul mate at this time of the year but it would help if you found someone who had similar tastes and was free during the holidays. Get on that app and go have a cup of coffee with someone interesting. You could find someone who just makes you laugh. Keep your expectations low and your positivity high. Who knows what you may find?!

Any holiday season forces us to believe we are alone and have no one in our life to share our good times with. But loneliness is a powerful emotion. If you have been chosen to be lonely, use it to understand yourself better. Your friends and family might not always be there for you and it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. It just means that this solitude you have is pushing you to think of what else you can do with your life and time, instead of giving in to the media pressure of doing things with people you meet every day anyway!

Maybe the best line to “What are you doing during the holidays” is replying back, “I’m going to surprise myself and do something I wouldn’t want to share with anyone!”

10 New Year Resolutions Every Woman Should Keep

Every woman repeat after me! 

I promise to…

1.     Read more of the Time magazine and less of the girly magazines. We women are so addicted to celebs, thin women and beautifully decorated houses that we forget there is a larger world out there. Our brains are pleading with us to read a financial paper and not the page 3 gossip! It is the year to expand your outlook and you can only accomplish that by subscribing to a magazine that doesn’t have a celeb telling you how she became thin or where she got ornaments for her house!

2.     Go On A Vacation That I Want – Women always go along with their husbands and families on vacations because it’s the only time they get and they feel it’s good enough. Plan a vacation with your girlfriends or solo and go on a short sojourn alone. Discover something new about yourself this year. Your family will manage without you.

3.     Earn Money – Start a business, join a job, make a hobby into a profession, or take tuitions. There are too many women in this country who are relying on other people to financially support them. It doesn’t matter if the idea is too small or too grand. Just do it! Your family will be fine. Do something that you truly love and earn something that you’ll save for yourself.

4.     Visit the Doctor – You’ve neglected your health and haven’t taken those blood tests and done a full gynaecologist check-up. This is the year where you do that medical check and show it to a doctor. If you’re low on Vitamin D, B12, iron, calcium, etc, consult a doctor and start looking after your health better!

5.     Stop Obsessing Over Every Little Thing That Is Wrong – We’re fat. We’re broke. Our husbands don’t pay attention to us. Our children are not doing well. Our bosses hate us. Our colleagues are doing better than us. Our parents are not supporting us. Stop! Take a deep breath and learn to exhale the worries out. Do your best. The rest won’t matter.

6.     Get off WhatsApp Groups that Don’t Matter – We are so worried that people won’t like us if we exit a group. We hold on to people, thinking that one day they will help us. We are polite with people who have helped us in the past and we waste too much energy in keeping up with appearances on WhatsApp groups. Politely excuse yourself. Remember that true friends and family will always be there when you need them even if you haven’t given them good morning messages every day!

7.     Find closure – Divorces, toxic relationships, bad jobs, misunderstandings, ego issues. Enough. 2016 is about finding closure. Either you make peace with these people or let them be. You need to release yourself from constantly fighting. Forgive and move on!

8.     Take the Plunge – There is no right or wrong reason to make a commitment to someone. Get married. Get engaged. Say I love you. You may be shot down but at least it’s off your head and you can figure out the next step!

9.     Stop Criticizing – We are jealous creatures. We think we’re well-meaning and play devil’s advocate by saying things like, “Oh you’ve put on weight.” Or “You shouldn’t have said that.” Or “I don’t know but I’m not like that at all!” Your words hurt others and they’ll hurt you too. Karma comes back. And if you don’t believe in that then believe that every positive thing you say or don’t say helps in cleaning your soul, your aura and your life. Smile more at others. Be genuine. Stop commenting on every little thing others do!

10.  Do Something More With Social Media – How many selfies are you going to post? Do people really care about our new haircut, or our new dress or where we went for a vacation? Are we just posting things to make people jealous or are we posting things to prove a point? Think about who you want to be, what you want to be remembered as, and start working on what defines you. That’s what you need to post!

Happy 2016. Stay healthy and happy always!

Also on my CNN-IBN blog:
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/buzz/10-new-year-resolutions-every-woman-should-make-this-year-1185073.html

5 Wacky Ways to Lose Weight

1.     Be envious – Seeing someone thin motivates us to become like them. And everyone is partying, travelling and putting up photos on social media. You will find someone thinner than you. Save that photo – print it and put it up. She is real. She has lost it. You need to be thinner than her! Do not put up a photo of a celeb who is thin. Ultimately your brain will say she gets paid to be thin so what’s the point and you’ll reach towards that cake! Check out your friend’s pic. Be motivated from that.  

2.     Stalk someone – You hit the gym and you’re bored already. Same weights. Same faces. Monotony. So while you’re there you probably faff around with some people showing off your wit, and drink plenty of water. What you need to do is find a person who comes regularly and compete with him. If he’s doing x number of sit-ups, you do more. If he’s using x number of weights, you do the same. It might be stalking but seriously watch how you will train harder. Also, do run fast if he ever catches you stalking at him.

3.     Kid Mania – Children have tremendous energy and you’re exhausted doing chores around them. Take the kids to a park and tell them to run while you catch them. Race with the children. Play soccer. Do jumping jacks. Skip rope. With younger kids, put them in a stroller and walk around in a park. Just remember, if you don’t have children you should ask permission from other parents if you want to play with their kids. Otherwise just going and asking a child to play is creepy!

4.     Jiggle It Up – Some days you can swim. Other days you can go to the gym. Some days you can dance at home. Everything burns calories as long as you’re not drinking and dancing. Or eating and swimming. Please take permission to dance in other people’s houses. If you’re landing up at someone’s fine sit down dinner party they might not appreciate you putting on your iPod and jumping around.  

5.     Death to Dieting – Everyone talks about a good diet. Don’t eat high calorie food, do not indulge in fats, restrict carbs, and don’t mix proteins. The list goes on. It’s bloody annoying. When you ask Google “Ways to Lose Weight,” there are about 39,900,000 results. My advice is to eat one small thing you like every day. Two bites of it. That’s it. So today, have two bites of that pizza, tomorrow have two bites of that cake and day after have two bites of that mithai. But remember, you’re not jaws! Take a bite and enjoy it. Not stuff your mouth and look like an ogre.

All the best to keeping that weight off during the holiday season! Look sexy. Feel confident. Be happy! 

Also on my CNN-IBN blog.
http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/buzz/madhuri-banerjee/5-wacky-ways-to-lose-weight-during-the-holidays-14274-1183336.html

Idiots of India

“Tis the season for touring India. And with it you’ll find several people who truly represent our rich and diverse culture – the Idiots of India. Here are a few:

1.     The Staring Idiots – Pretty girls beware. There will be men and women who will stare at you and they won’t do it slyly from the corner of their eye. It will be a full blown, jaw open, wide eyed stare as if they’re seeing a wonder of the world for the first time. It will make you feel uncomfortable at first but you can react two ways – ignore them and move away, or stare back and wave them away with your hand.

2.     The Driving Idiots – Driving in India has nothing to do with how well you can drive or even if you have a drivers’ license. It’s all about how big your car is or how big your ego is. Even a tempo driver can come from the wrong side of the road and try to overtake three trucks and a fleet of cars because he believes he can do it! Small bikes will cut in to the other side of the road because they know they can squeeze in anywhere and get away. It will cause traffic jams but the idiots don’t care, they’ve got away!

3.     The Buffet Idiots – A gaggle of people have come to a hotel together and they believe they own it. They’ve spent money on the cheapest rooms and they want the best service and a right to the buffet first! Forget the queue or lines. Forget speaking in softer voices because it might disturb others and it’s the polite way to be in public places. The idiots demand attention and the buffet now!

4.     The Flying Idiots – These idiots will push and shove to get into the line to board a plane even though in India the seats are assigned and the flight attendant is starting boarding from the back five rows! They’ll speak loudly in the plane mostly about themselves and demand the airhostesses give them free things. They’ll also get up as soon as the plane lands to get their overhead luggage even though the plane is still cruising. They’ll push you to get into a bus and shove you to get to the baggage claim first. And the idiots will probably actually be the last to leave the airport!

5.     The Official Idiot – Ever noticed how there are several people at large department stores to help you pick out things you don’t need in your life? And when you’ve decided to finally buy something and end up at the cashier there’s only one window open for billing and that person seems to be a trainee who doesn’t know how to bill anything. And when after two hours of waiting in line to pay for one shirt, your turn comes and the register conks off and the manager needs to be called? Yup, you’re the official idiot for even getting into that sale, for thinking you should travel, for even driving a car during this season!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year my fellow idiots J  

Also written for CNN-IBN blog - Chastity Belt.

http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/buzz/madhuri-banerjee/5-kinds-of-idiots-you-could-easily-find-in-india-14274-1181827.html

The Bollywood-isation of Lit Fests: Coming soon to your city!

Once upon a time a Lit Fest was about writers and authors who met and discussed words that inspired and writings that roused thought. It was about discussions and debates between writers who were published and those that wanted to be. It was about chats and conferences that were enchanting and made you feel you were in the presence of something great.

There was a magic all around that flooded your very being and made you understand that the daily rut of life was not all there was. There was a Lit Fest -  a meeting of brilliant minds.

I remember I stood in line at the Jaipur Lit Fest many years ago to get an autograph from an author who had moved me with his novel when I was an adolescent. His words had transformed me to the person I wanted to be. And I wanted to be an author too.

Today, the Lit Fests seem to be about celebs and page 3 individuals who speak well and may have written one novel and a column or two. Literature has truly been extinguished in the name of drawing crowds.

Today everything is about a number. How many copies did the book sell? How much money did you spend on the PR? How many people came for the Lit Fest? How much coverage did the fest get? How many sponsors did they have? No one truly asks  - how many books were sold?!

If everyone is going to a Lit Fest to watch a TV celeb, a Bollywood actress or a filmmaker, who are the people who are buying books to read?

Where has the Literature gone?

Why is the craze today so much about glamour rather than substance? It’s wonderful that so many new celebs are writing. The writing process should never die. And creativity should always be encouraged from everyone. 

But Lit Fests should be about real authors who write for passion, not money, for inspiring, not publicity, for breaking the norms, for encouraging debate, and for challenging themselves as writers, not so they can do something different with their lives!

Most authors are a shy bunch of people, preferring to stay in their small worlds writing furiously because the art of creating something brings them tremendous peace and hopefully moves people to think, feel and reflect. But today every author wants to be “commercially successful” rather than poignantly remembered.

Lit Fests have become about money, businesses, glamour and products – of authors and their books.

I would love to attend a Lit Fest that had lesser known commercially successful Indian authors mingling with well-known Japanese ones. Have a clash of discussion on societies, traditions, and the process of writing, ideas, inspiration and struggle. Instead we’ve become a nation that wants to watch only glamorous people entertaining us.

Please do attend Lit Fests but not just to see a Bollywood star, but to pick up a book you never thought you would read, to recognise the power of regional writers, to ask for tips on writing from someone you have never read and listen to a panel that may not interest you and above all to be around people who believe in the power of words, not numbers! 

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: A Review

Big Magic Review

I remember when I read Eat Pray Love. It changed my life. As it did for many others. The book that made Elizabeth Gilbert famous sold over 13 million copies worldwide. And like most others I wondered how as a writer she would triumph that. 

In Big Magic she teaches us how sometimes it’s okay not to triumph anything but to pursue on in the light of creativity. In any field this would give you great solace to know that sometimes your biggest success may never be repeated. But that doesn’t mean you stop creating. Big Magic is a non fiction book written to help you develop your creative ideas to the best of your abilities.

Gilbert has pearls of wisdom for all those who want to do something creative but were never able to take that first step. From overcoming your fear in beginning a task to being relaxed enough to be open to ideas that she so vehemently believes are galloping towards us but we are too lazy to recognise or capture, to working with a stubbornness even when people want to `stick you into boxes.’

Big Magic is the coming together of ideas and intention, of overcoming fear and enveloping enchantment, of persevering and trusting yourself, the Universe and finding perspective, of not being daunted by people and finishing a creative product you started.

As Gilbert writes, creative living can be anything from ice skating to writing, to painting to doing something that you’ve always wanted to do but never thought you could because it didn’t make sense. She speaks of how creativity should never be equated with money or success. And that it requires great sacrifice while keeping a safety net of a bank balance in mind.

Big Magic is the kind of book that helps you start when you don’t know how and what to say to people when they think you’re crazy for starting it. As a nonfiction self-help book, Big Magic pushes people to wonder more and quit less.

But I wonder if Elizabeth had not had the success of Eat Pray Love (a title used on the cover of this book to probably make it sell more copies) would she write on trusting the faith of creativity. There are too many struggling, creative people in the world who do capture ideas, and never give up and yet haven’t found the success that she did. 

It is easy to say not to strive for it once you have it. Would she have written this book before Eat Pray Love sold thirteen million copies?

And then I wonder if this book would be picked up by people who have already chosen non- creative fields and are happy in their worlds. It’s a fantastic read for an author like me who has Writer’s Block occasionally. 

But then I realise that this book is not just for the already creative, it’s Gilbert’s way of making everyone creative. And that’s the triumph and success of this book. 

As she says, “We all need an activity that is beyond the mundane and that takes us out of our established and limiting roles in society. By absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are.”

Buy it here and give it a read if you're looking to be inspired and move out of your dead zones! http://www.flipkart.com/big-magic-creative-living-beyond-fear-english/p/itme4jbezjkghg69?pid=9789384898991&ref=L%3A4852034096097345743