Beyond bottom lines, share prices and quarterly non-performance, there is a human face to recession - a certain vulnerability or at the other extreme, a certain defiance. It is this human element that balloons into a Google or iPod or VOIP. Killer-apps,
killer-products and garage-model enterprises were born out of recession. Deprivation and desperation is the mother of innovation, of entrepreneurship and building anew. Here are some thoughts on letting the cycle of recession pass through.
A Japanese film critic Jun Edoki, was touring Singapore’s Little India. He stopped by a roadside shop to pick up some Indian movies. Topmost on the list, recommended by the shop assistant was the Tamil film Muthu. Back home in Tokyo, Edoki watched the film with his wife and was totally mesmerised. “It was absolutely fascinating, even without subtitles,” he recalls. “We became addicted to the point where we had to see at least part of the film everyday. The private audience for the film grew. More and more friends and friends’ friends huddled in Edoki’s apartment to watch the film. The grapevine buzzed with Muthu. A change ambassador had arrived in the recession hit Japan in 1996. The yen for Muthu was palpable. Japan was reeling under the financial crisis and for many Japanese, their currency didn’t fetch much, nor were the responses in the job market. This was the period when Japan had to break down completely to rise again, in a changed order. Change was happening and all that people could do was hold on to dreams while they reinvented themselves all over again. The change agent shows an escape route when people confront change.
Atsushi Ichikawa, a Japanese film distributor dubbed the film in Japanese and released it through his company, Xanadeux. Muthu Odoru Maharaja (Muthu - the Dancing Maharaja) starring South Indian film stars Rajnikanth and Meena became a runaway success, grossing US$3 million the most by any Indian film in Japan. The genre, of course, was comedy, with no psychiatric mumbo-jumbo attributed to it, yet…
When the Japanese financial market was badly hit, the film drove home the point that money was not everything. The younger generation was accused of enjoying the spoils of the hard work put in by the Japanese of the post-war era in building the economy, without contributing much. To them, Muthu was a dream that they could identify with, a rags to riches fantasy they could live with. A change had to happen and the change ambassador eased it in. Yajaman - the Dancing Maharaja II also eased itself into Japan to rake in the dollars!
When the Japanese financial market was badly hit, the film drove home the point that money was not everything. The younger generation was accused of enjoying the spoils of the hard work put in by the Japanese of the post-war era in building the economy, without contributing much. To them, Muthu was a dream that they could identify with, a rags to riches fantasy they could live with. A change had to happen and the change ambassador eased it in. Yajaman - the Dancing Maharaja II also eased itself into Japan to rake in the dollars!
When slum dog-underdog becomes dog-in-the-manor, yet another change ambassador is presented. The impact of the cross-over film, Slumdog Millionaire
was nothing short of colossal. The film adapted a story from an Indian book, produced and directed
by Brits,cast and shot in India with songs and dialogues, a medley of Hindi and English. This Indian film was surely a Western perspective of India complete with beggars, the Taj Mahal, Bombay and call-centres. (Apparently India has outgrown the snake charmers and men-in-turban image) In the final analysis, this is global integration at its best – to be able to reach out to an international audience and be acclaimed the best. To the West, and the US in particular, that is in the grip of a riches-to-rags spiral, Slumdog represents the light at the end of the tunnel. This fantasy is true in reel and real life as it catapulted several underdogs to the red carpet and world cynosure. When people in the US are fretting over homes they couldn’t afford, jobs they couldn’t keep, or assets that are worth only the paper they represent, here is a true-to-life story of an underdog turned millionaire, the reality of slum kids thrown in the limelight they never thought possible. Slumdog offers a light of hope and a message for rebuilding from scratch, and not the stamp of success from Oscar statuettes. Does the acceptance of a globally integrated film provide a cue for things to come in a world that is reshaping itself? Isn’t it time to free our minds to dream the impossible? What comes out clearly is the propensity to change – in tastes, in preferences, and subtly, a need to step out of myopic confines and explore out. For change to happen, the timing is important. It is also the will to change and choosing the opportunities presented. The music of A R Rahman was a change agent in mainstream music preferences. He brought home Mozart’s 25th Symphony to a billion Indians through the signature music for Titan Watches in the 80s-90s.
The advertisement and its music were voted the best by a survey. Mozart was always there, such music doesn’t have to be invented. What clicked was the alchemising to the Indian taste that was looking for change. This ability has provided him with living room presence world-wide. The age of world music had arrived a long time back; a plagiarised version of his Tamil song “Ottagathai Kattiko” was heard in a Chinese dialect in 1996! AR Rahman was popular among listener circles in ‘underground’ music world-wide, thanks to Youtube, lounge music, etc. But now his music is encroaching mainstream listening.
In the theme of a film or in the success of a music composer or a breakthrough with a certain audience segment - right in the depths of a breakdown, the ‘eureka moment’ is there, waiting to be chanced
upon. Seen in black and white, the recession-depression is an opportunity to break-up and rebuild again, the opportunity for something to emerge from the ashes.
On retrospection, history has several cycles of breaking up and building again. Post the industrial revolution a production-manufacturing era sprung
Azharuddin Mohammed and Rubina Ali
A scene from the film Slumdog Millionaire
up. A world at war propped up demand for the goods. The brick and mortar economy faced technological upheavals in the dotcom era. From the dotcom bubble-burst, a new technology-based order sprung up. Globalisation reared its head. Money worked around the world, capital floated around and the consumer era was established. When money stops working, something else has to work.
At every downturn comes a change ambassador of hope and the tables turn. A single frail man without any weapons could gather a nation to bring about freedom from colonial rule. A confused kid who dabbled with drugs could grow up to become a ‘messiah’-President of an ailing super-power nation. Highly populated poverty-stricken, third world countries could become huge consumer markets for the rest of the world. There are people who grab the hidden opportunity to latch on to the turning tables. AR Rahman is coveted in America.
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), a German film about a stasi agent was widely watched in Chennai and the rest of the world even before America honoured it. Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed rose from the slums of Mumbai to walk the red-carpet in Los Angeles.
The world is spinning to change.
The tables are turning fast and the apple cart has toppled. The apples need to be eaten and the cart put to new use. New ways of doing business are expected to emerge, new media marketing will surface; the world will converge and diverge on new paths.It is time to embrace the change ambassadors!
Book to broth
He is a casualty of the crash. He is using his skill of cooking the books in new ways. Now he cooks from the books !