Enough with the music. Let's talk about some real issues here.

-- This just came in from a friend of (y)ours, and he writes..... --

Watching Taare Zameen Par, I was thinking to myself: why doesn't Bollywood make more movies like this? Why don't I see more movies like Kabul Express and Chakde India?
I am talking about big stars, big production houses backing them, and storylines which go beyond "woman 'n man, girl and boy", into the realm of "feel the pain, feel the joy."

The success of Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Chakde India is an indicator enough that audiences at home and abroad are ready for unconventional subjects with redeeming social values.

I have absolutely nothing against unabashed entertainment fiestas full of color and far-fetched fantasies – I really don't! I am a big fan!
All I am saying is that if cinema finds itself in the envious position of being able to hold the attention of the masses, why not tell them some real stories as well?

Cinema is a great means to communicate ideas and call attention to problems that need attention in an attention deficit world.
Indian movies have typically been mere extensions of reality, and I think our audiences are now ready(and waiting) for movies that are honest reflections of reality.

On the other hand, K.Express, Chakde, and TZP are all recent productions. So maybe Bollywood is already onto social cinema. But I hear there are 800 productions in Bollywood every year.
So three social films in 800?

Hm.

So yes, I was saying that while 'Watching Taare Zameen Par, I was thinking to myself..'

'Kaushik Roy' vs. 'Aamir Khan'

No more than a couple of months ago, first-time director Kaushik Roy made his foray into independent cinema with "Apna Aasman"- a real-life tale of an autistic child.
It was very well received and while the film didn't have a lot of box-office success(of course it didn't..after all, who's Kaushik Roy?!), it definitely made an impact, however small.

Last night, one of our team-mates reported back to me about "Taare Zameen Par"- a similarly constructed tale...only this time, the plot centers around dyslexia.

I know of Kaushik Roy personally, and I love Aamir Khan. But I don't see why "Taare Zameen Par" pulls heartstrings, and "Apna Aasman" has to worry about being commercially responsible.
While Aamir's brand value as a director and an actor carries 'dyslexia' across, does Roy's lack of brand value necessitate the relative insignificance of 'autism'?

That Indian mass markets are drive by hits and brand value is no surprise- what IS a surprise is that Mr. Roy is shocked at the lack of backing for independent cinema and double standards in the industry.

I write this post in the fervent hope that it reaches Mr. Roy and hundreds of other independent film-makers across India who are trying to make films that sing to the masses.

I say to you:
"Please don't sing to the masses! Please make the masses sing to you. You have brilliant ideas, and you are covering issues that need to be covered.
We are here to help you monetize your work. We will show you a mass market you wouldn't ever have dreamed of.
We are India. We welcome you."

More Bollywood? And another Box?!!

I thought startups these days (especially the Internet ones) knew that boxing things up, especially for Internet services, isn't a fun thing to do any more.

The Media Center, Akimbo, Dave Networks' XPORT.....they've all failed miserably, burning through millions and millions of dollars, so I was a little frazzled to read about Tinselvision heading down the same path.

Anyway, the gentleman mentioned towards the end of the article probably sums up my perspective on "Bollywood Abroad on Demand".....I'm bored of talking about it. People have too many places to find Bollywood content and you have to be doing something really different with your service to compete with the likes of Rajshri.com.

I guess my big dilemma about Bollywood on demand is this: an average Bollywood film is about 1.5 times the length of a Hollywood film. That's a good 1.5GB per file. Compress that really well, and you could get away with a 1.2GB file. On an average download speed of 500 Kbps in the US(and I'm being very generous here), that's a 60 minute download. That's like a drive to the local video rental store and back, with groceries in between.
How is that "on demand"?

And I know CDNs are expensive, so am sure hoping Tinselvision has its profitability map worked out, because if you're serving 1600 full length downloads a day........on a CDN....whew. Lots of luck, gentlemen.

Aah! We are India.

It'd be fair to say that we're all very excited about WeareIndia.TV

The name means a lot to us. We are a representation of India's evolution....a portrayal of the depth and diversity of our culture. We are a democracy in action. We are India.

We'll be doing things a little differently here.

For starters, we're going to compromise on glamour, to achieve simplicity. We've looked and looked, and then looked some more at Indian media sites and yes, some are actually artistic, but then they're all either too cluttered (making it HARD to find what we want on a page), or they're not intuitive (making us wonder if we've actually arrived at the right page!). So we're going to solve that problem upfront and entertain our viewers- without further complicating their lives.

Then- as you can tell, we're getting very preachy with democracy. It's not that we like to preach- matter of fact, we positively dislike preachers. The point we're trying to make is that we're very interested in what you, dear viewers, have to say.
'We are India' isn't about shoving things down your throat- it's about you biting on whatever you find to be tasty. And if you don't find anything to your taste, let us know and we'll get off our chairs and do something about it.

Finally, we want to build up a space that people are actually happy to come back to. Not for our unique service, but because we actually enjoy your company. We value meaningful relationships, and your participation will not only enrich the site, but bring back to you personal(ized) experiences that will introduce you a new world of Internet video.

Welcome!

- The WeAreIndia team.