3 IDIOTS review by Taran Adarsh ...

On the whole, 3 IDIOTS easily ranks amongst Aamir, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra's finest films. Do yourself and your family a favour: Watch 3 IDIOTS. It's emotional, it's entertaining, it's enlightening. The film has tremendous youth appeal and feel-good factor to work in a big way.

****1/2 (FOUR & HALF STARS) ... WOW!!

All those who read my 6 "E"s for script selection theory can understand the "E"s highlighted by Taran Adarsh as winning points for 3 Idiots.

A must watch and looking forward to watch it soon!

Perfection must be the Goal. Excellence can be tolerated

There is a powerful saying that "Perfection is the Goal, while Excellence will be tolerated". How many of us believe in this and operate in our life with this motto?

Today one of my business associate came to pick me up at Dubai to take me to some shopping complex. He parked his car in the parking bay and came to meet me. We both came out and then the fun started. He did not remember where he parked the car as the complex had three tier parking in each floor. I was astonished when he vaguely remembered where he parked the car and did not even note down the parking bay details, leave alone the floor where he parked. We both were walking around for 30 minutes to locate the car before he could remember it was parked near some under construction floor and then we located the car. I was damn tired and was cursing him openly on how he can do this, making me run around for 30 minutes. It was the most horrible act of how one can be imperfect on all accounts.

I have seen a film yesterday in the film festival, which has come from India (do not wish to name the film). It was a horrible quality beta tape, which was played with pixelated images, playing on such a wide screen in an International Film Festival theatre!!! The audio and video quality was so poor that no one could read the titles/credits also. Why people take it so easily and do what is expected of them so irresponsibly, lowering the image of our country and the industry?

Both these incidents made me to think how people take life so casually and compromise on minimum deliverable, which causes pain to others in every sphere of our life. If only each human being is little more perfect and responsible, the world will be a lot better is what I believe in strongly.

Why such a casual approach towards life? Why people take others for granted and do not attend to such small details? It is said, "God is in Details" in whichever work we do and why people do not attend to details. All that it was required was simple noting down in a piece of paper the floor and the bay number where the car was parked in the first incident. In the second case, all that it required was to get a proper quality tape to be played, which is the minimum deliverable for a film festival ...

Why people do not have a fall back option in the case of failure? When can we expect people to strive towards perfection so that at least they do things excellently, which will then become the benchmark for others? If they aim for the moon at least, they can land up on the roof top .. when will they do this?

I might sound to be too demanding with high expectations ... Of course I am. First with myself and then with others also. It is tough and painful at times when I notice such lower standards of work, causing me anxiety. But, there is no other choice as if I start accepting lower standards from others, over a period of time, my performance will also be of lower standard. Hence, I have to demand perfection from everyone (including myself in whatever work we do) so that we at least achieve excellence in our work to become a benchmark for others on deliverable ...

Life is a Tradeoff between the Choices

We must remember that life is a tradeoff between or among the choices we have. Tradeoff means, we need to lose something to gain something. Nothing comes free without attached challenges or issues.

We cannot achieve perfect health without willing to put in hard work for it in terms of daily exercises and right eating habits, living with less stress etc. Perfect health does not come with leisurely life and without effort.

In the same manner, Wealth cannot be achieved without the willingness to put in the hard work and sacrifices on several other worldly pleasures one can enjoy.

We cannot expect to achieve big career successes like others unless we are willing to put in the extra hours, which may come at the cost of family and personal life.

We cannot become a politician or a public figure unless we are willing to trade off our privacy, family life, peace and happiness etc.

We cannot achieve fame and wealth unless we are willing to pay the price of more hard work than others, superb networking, better relationship with everyone compared to others, more knowledge and wisdom and better creativity etc.

Each of our decisions comes with a price. Nothing comes easily and no one achieves the top without willing to trade off the choices. We can always live the life happily by working from 9 to 6 in a Government job and be contented with our progress and achievements. It is a choice we make. However, once we decide to lead such a life, we are also trading off the possible wealth and fame and accepting the lack of it as a price for it.

The conflict comes in our life, only when we are unable to accept this fact and always look for easy way out i.e. we wish to have perfect health without putting in the necessary hard work. We wish to have regular increase in salaries and career along with work-life balance, without putting in additional efforts to stand out among others. We wish to have fame, without compromising on personal life. Our best expectation from life is “Having the Cake and Eating it too”, which does not happen to any. When we are prepared for the trade offs and accept such tradeoffs and prepare others in our life also for such tradeoffs, life becomes a lot easier and stress free.

How Much We Value the Time in our Hand?

I live my life as if there is no tomorrow and try to do as many things as possible in one day. Many get astonished with my ability to multi-task and many complain about this frenzied activities and handling too many things as if stretching too far one's life. In fact, for many, who do not understand my ability to do multi-tasking and process the jobs in hand faster, my acts in a day seem to be "hasty" and I am constantly reminded that I am doing in haste, though I have considered various pros and cons before going ahead and doing what I have decided to do. The only difference is many a people, take longer time to complete their tasks in hand, which restricts their ability to handle too many things, while I finish the tasks in shorter time and hence have enough free time to think and do multi-tasks.

For me "Today" is a "Present" from God and must be utilized effectively to its fullest extent by doing everything possible during the day. There is a popular saying, "Yesterday is History", "Tomorrow is a Mystery" and "Today is a gift". That's why it's called the "Present"! I do not wish to have any regrets at the end of the day for not completing my tasks and wish to sleep happily having done my best in the present. I keep saying to my team that, when I go to sleep, I will have no mails or calls or jobs pending to be responded or acted upon, so even if I do not wake up next day, none of you would be left stranded for a reply.

However, the biggest challenge is to bring in the same understanding and work culture among everyone in the team, who believe that life has to be taken one step at a time and there is no need to show any urgency. They fail to realize that wasting a day of their life in postponing or delaying is actually an abuse of the "present" or gift from the God.

If each one believes today is a "Present" from God and go all out to make use of it effectively, the world will be a far better place with more productivity and progress. Just imagine, if you are told that you have only one more day to live by God, what will you do? How many things will you try to do in that day so that you leave the world with peace and happiness of having done your best? Will you do leisurely only a few things in such a scenario? You will go all out and stretch every bit of the minute to achieve as many things, make as many people happy in the time left. The same spirit is needed when we handle the "Present"/today.

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with Rs.86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every rupee? of course!!!!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with
86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's
deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR,
ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH,
ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE,
ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND,
ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND,
ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Remember that time waits for no one. The time in our hand is precious and let us not abuse it in wasteful things ...

Are We Adding Value to Others and to Us?

There is an opportunity to add value to others and to us, in every interaction we have and make such interactions memorable for both. Unfortunately, what I observe is most people take such interactions very lightly and miss it.

Let me give an example. For the FICCI-MEBC conclave at Chennai (on 18th & 19th Nov), I was invited by the CII team to be a part of the session on Radio Sector!! I have never studied that sector and was not sure how I can add value there. The final topic came to me was "How Radio Grows Cinema". Being a producer and marketer of films, I became confident and commenced preparing by going through various case studies on this topic. I also studied the Radio sector and its reach and growth in the last 10 years and put together a presentation for the audience.

On 19th, when I met the other panelists from the Radio industry, I was taken aback, when none of them came with any preparation. They were cool and were surprised when I stated that I wish to make a presentation on the topic. In fact, all of them said, I can commence the session and then they will join. However, I requested them to speak first, which they did, but to my surprise, their talk had little relevance to the topic and added limited value to the audience. I came in at the end and made my presentation and given various case studies and recommendations on how Radio can grow cinema further. Many have appreciated the presentation and sent messages to me. I felt happy that I added some value to the audience through this session.

This is one such example. I have witnessed several such incidents in my life where the person who is supposed to make a speech stating that he did not had time and hence is not fully prepared or he was invited at the last minute and hence could not prepare, to various other excuses. Excuses, Excuses and Excuses is what I listened to for lack of preparation from several people.

However, I did see a few people in life, who always come prepared for any meeting and add value to the audience. They are a delight to listened to and my inspiration. I follow their way of life religiously. I certainly want every meeting or a presentation of mine, whether it is to students, friends, associates, clients, prospects or to an audience, I add value to the people present, by doing my best. I always aim that, at the end of my session or meeting, they must feel that the time spent with me was worth. I should have added at least a little to their knowledge or they should have added a little to mine. Without that, such sessions are not worth.

I hate wasting time in chatting without any purpose and spending time with anyone, which does not value to any. If the time spent is purposeful and useful, it is certainly worth spending.

Am I being too demanding or tough on myself with this objective? Am I becoming too systematic or boring this way? May be I am. But I love this way as when we have limited time in life, it is better to spend it purposefully by adding value to others and to us...

Creative Producers Vs Financial Producers - a point of view

I have been observing two big film industries (Hindi & Tamil) in India for over a decade now and has strong views based on my interactions with leading Producers on the need to be a Creative Producer than being a Financial Producer to be reasonably successful.

Unfortunately, most Producers whom we see in the film industry are Financial Producers or Deal Makers, who put together a team and leave it to the Director to complete the project by giving them all financial and manpower support. They are at best aware of the "One Line of the Script" or the theme and have very limited idea about the final script and screenplay, leading to Director taking the liberty and doing what he feels like, which most of the times turn out to be average to bad, except a few.

After leaving the final script part to the Directors, the Financial Producers depend or trust so much on the Directors that many a times, they do not even see the double-positive (edit version) before the first copy is prepared, leading to the film coming out as just the Director's point of view, instead of a teamwork and its point of view. When the film's first copy is taken out or ready for first copy, many Producers realize that the film is not up to their expectations or meeting commercial viability. They then try to do desperately whatever they can do. But even at that stage, most Directors convince them (with examples of how such previous films succeeded) that it will do well and they need not worry. When the Producer trusting even at that stage, does the marketing and distribution of the film, he ends up with a dud at the box office. When the losses occur, they commence speaking ill about the Director and his film among friends and media.

I would squarely blame these Producers for all such failures. As the eminent Producer-Director Yash Chopra once said, it is not the films that fail, but the scripts and budgets, which fail. When the scripts and budgets go wrong, no film can be saved. Unless the Producers decide to work closely with Directors on the final script and the budget, the films will normally come out without any control on both these aspects, and more or less a failure in hand.

No Director is God who knows exactly what will work with the audience, since if that is the case, the film industries in every language will not be facing over 90% failures. Every Director is trying to state a point of view and it may or may not work with the audience. A Producer should be the person, who is able to understand the script better, get more views from other team members or experienced people before giving the go ahead to commence the work. He then, should work closely with the Director to fine tune the script and screenplay so that it meets the audience's expectations on 6 "E"s , we mentioned earlier (or whatever parameter he feels adequate) before finalizing the same.

The Director must be given the freedom to translate the final approved script into celluloid in his own way as each one has his own style and presentation and that is where the creativity comes in.The Director also must be given all the freedom to improve on the pre-approved screenplay-dialogues during the shoot. There the Producer cannot intervene as at the shooting spot, only the Director must be the captain. However, before getting into that stage, every Producer must play a strong role in working with the Director for as many days in finalizing the script and screenplay, which helps to save him later of all the troubles.

Being a Financial Producer is relatively easy as one needs to just put together a team and organize funds and leave the rest to the Director and the production team. However, being a Creative Producer is tough. He or she must be involved in every stage of script, screenplay and dialogues, finalize the composition of songs with the Director, finalize the casting, budgeting and actual production. Net, the Creative Producers must be "hands on" on the project, knowing each and every detail (including the dialogues and music of the film), so that they are a great support to the Director and a good team member. When the Producers behave like "Mudhalalis or Owners" of a film, they remain as "Financial Producers". When they are actively involved in every aspect of the film they become "Creative Producers" who have great control over the project.

Of course, Creative Producers are hated/disliked by the Directors who look for free hand in the film and wish to take all credit for the final outcome. But at the end of the day, it is the money of the Producer, which is at stake. Hence, my personal view is every Producer must be a Creative Producer to have great control over the films and also have total ownership for the final output. The Producers must treat the Directors as a team member and a team leader and give the respect due than treating him like a God before the film release and treat him like a Demon post the release and failure of a film.

This point of view can be corroborated with the success ratio of known Creative Producers like Yash Chopra, Karan Johar (in Hindi), R.B. Choudhry (Super Good films), AVM Studios, Kavithalaya banner (in Tamil) etc.

I will discuss in another blog the success ratio of Producer-cum-Directors Vs pure Directors.

Whatever Happens is for our own Good

Last week my car's gear box conked off and the repair work is taking more days since the parts have to be brought from Delhi. So, no choice other than using the public transport after a long long time. My daughter, who is used to go by Car to the college, for the first time has been forced to go by bus, which she was always resisting for months now. I who hated to travel by auto, has to wait and pick an auto to travel to my office and come back home.

Last one week's travel by auto and bus by both of us has made us realize some interesting things about life:

1. Once we get used to any pain or difficulty, it is no longer tough and we tend to accept such things and move ahead than keep worrying about it.
- In the beginning I was cribbing to myself about waiting to find an auto, the way he drives and the pain of sitting inside and the difficulty to take calls while travelling etc. But, after 4 to 5 days, it has become normal/routine and even this journey by auto is interesting and making me observe more the happenings around me than what I could do when I was traveling by car, driven by someone.
- Every pain or difficulty in life is tough only when we face it for the first time. Once we start accepting it, it becomes normal and a part of our life. Just check this with any one who lost his/her limbs or any one who lost anything in their life (it can be their loved ones or anything). They have all accepted it and moved on than keep crying about it. As they say, Life Moves On and the best way to face it is by being confident with the thought that "This Too Shall Pass". Mumbai moved on with 26/11/2008 experience and no longer worries about except the newspapers, who are giving such headlines.
2. Everything happens for our own Good. All these difficulties (small or big) also happen for our own good only.
- My daugher who never learnt how to travel by bus, now learnt the various bus routes/services and is able to go to her college and come back on her own, without any support from us. She will no longer require the car to drop her, which saves us from several planning hastles.
- I would no longer be dependent on my car for travel. I would be fine with both public transport or by my car and will enjoy both the rides.

This reminds of a beautiful story, I read few years back about "whatever happens is for our own good".

An old story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, “This is for our own good!”

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, “This is for our own good!” To which the king replied, “No, this is not good and I shall show you how” and proceeded to send his friend to jail and commenting lightly about the loss to the King.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake.

As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him way. As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. “You were right”, he said, “it was good that my thumb was blown off”. And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. “And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this.”

No, his friend replied, “This is also for our own good!” What do you mean, “This is for our own good?”” How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?”

The friend said, “If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you and would have become the perfect food for them.”

Remember, whatever happens, happens for our own good ...

6 "E"s for a Good Script

Last 3 years of my life have been fascinating as I could get the opportunity as the Head of Film Business, to read over 100 scripts in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam languages, which helped me to understand what a good script comprises of. Adding to this, is the knowledge and experience of watching hundreds of good, average and bad movies over the years in several languages. Based on this learning and knowledge, I could arrive at a set of requirments, for a good script to be. Though I cannot write a good script myself, the best thing is I am able to appreciate a good script or comment on a script with detailed points, has been time and again accepted by several new and established script writers in the last one year in many languages. In fact, some of them mentioned that I am a good Script Doctor!


I have written about this in one of the film magazines, which led to an invitation to speak at a leading Film Institute and explain this further. The students have lapped up the idea and appreciated the concept and in fact each of them did an empirical study on some 20 films released in the recent past and corraborated the concept itself on how worthy was these scripts.


To my mind, a good script must have 6 "E"s if it has to be commercially viable. Remember, if the objective is to make a film for awards or for some other purpose, it need not follow this concept. Films meant for "niche audience" can be a single person's point of view (writer and director), without worrying about the likes and dislikes of the audience. For a commercially viable film, the script must appeal to larger audience and hence must follow some pattern / set of requirements.


1. Entertaining: The film's paramount objective should be to entertain the audience. If the film script is not entertaining at least in parts (if not in full), it will fail to motivate the audience to see it again. The audience are coming to entertain themselves to a film and hence the script must first fulfil this requirement.


2. Emotionally Connecting: The audience must be able to emotionally connect with the film script. When the audience is able to connect with the film emotionally, they would speak about the film favorably leading to good word of mouth and repeat viewing. If there is no emotional connect, the film will not the hearts of the people.


3. Engaging: The film script must engage the audience in such a manner that they are not bored in between for long and or made to leave in between. Even if the script engages the audience from time to time, it has a better chance of appeal with the audience. If the script can engage the audience for 2 hours, at least for that sake, there will be one time viewing by most.


4. Educating / Enlightening: Take aways from the script/film is important. What does the film script intends to convey to the audience and how far it helps them to think, is the key. It cannot be a plain entertainment oriented film with mindless comedy/sequences as such a script will have only one time/instant appeal and not a long term appeal. Film, which are educating the audience on a new concept/theme, has better appeal. However, they must not be preachy ... the script must educate/enlighten in a subtle manner, appealing to the subconsicious mind.


5. Experimenting: Without using the conventional formula or masala stuff, how the script is different from the rest will make a better appeal. The script must stand out from the rest of the movies for it to have a better chance of success. If every script is going to be a conventional one (following standard formula of songs and scenes), why should the audience see this film?


6. Empowering: The script must leave the audience empowered at the end of the film. They should either learn or feel empowered with the script for the script to make a bigger impact. Empowering here must be seen more from the concept of whether the film made them feel great watching it, apart from entertaining them ... Films like A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Chak De, Lagaan etc. have all made common man feel empowered at the end of watching them.


No script can score on all the above 6 parameters. The best way to judge how a script fares on the above parameters is to assign a rating of 1 to 5 (1 for Least and 5 for the Best) for each of the 6 parameters for the script. Once the ratings are assigned, total the same for the entire script and plot it against the following table to know its fate:


Score 0 - 10: Never consider such scripts. Reject.

Score 11 - 15: Need improvements in the script. Rework and then review on the parameters to see whether it is worth considering again.

Score 16 - 20: Average script. Can be considered if done on a tight budget.

Score 21 - 25: Certainly worth considering and a Hit script

Score 25 and above: Perfect script and must not be missed.


I have plotted the above ratings and scale for several films and find it is working empirically. Why not you attempt the above for your set of film scripts also? ... A method to the madness of film making is this attempt. Hope u would make use of it.

The biggest challenge is studying the script in detail, evaluating them on the above parameters and then taking a decision. Most of the decisions on the script are taken instantly by the decision makers leading to huge failures. It is a classic case of "Instant Pleasure (of saying Yes to a script) and Long Term Pain (of losses)". One must time more time to select the Script before venturing into Production is my strong view.

Another key to apply the above concept is, the ratings must not be done only by one person as he or she can be biased on the parameters. At least 3 - 5 people who have read / listened to the script must evaluate the script on the above and the average of their ratings for each of the paramters must be used to arrive at the total score and the consequent decision.

We have started using it ... hope others would find it interesting to use this method.

Why I call myself God's own child?

I strongly believe that everyone is blessed with the same capabilities and capacity. However, only a few utilize them effectively to achieve their goals.

I am fascinated by a story I read two decades ago. It goes like this.

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned Lord. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me?"

The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child. I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, IT WAS THEN THAT I CARRIED YOU and WHAT YOU SEE IS MY FOOTPRINTS."

I have several examples in my own life of this experience, which made me believe that whenever I was in trouble, someone helped me to overcome them, that super natural power is nothing but Lord. It is not once or twice, I have experienced this several times in my life and hence I strongly believe that whatever I am today and whatever achievements I have today is all due to his blessings and hence call myself "God's Own Child" who need not worry about anything in the world, since afterall, I am God's own child and he will take care whenever I am in trouble.