This year’s elections have seen the maximum use of media that one could not have imagined previously. Apart from the usual means of propagation by the usual political parties, we have seen a rise in the number of new parties who claim to be different from the regular politicians. They claim to be different and promise to do things differently. One thing that is definitely in their favour is that most of these parties are formed by educated professionals, who believe in making a difference. Among the parties that I know in Andhra Pradesh is Loksatta. About their leader and party initiator:

Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan is a physician by training who went into the Indian Administrative Service in the aftermath of the Emergency and failure of the Janata Experiment. He was a topper in the IAS exam. During the 16 years of distinguished public service in various capacities, he acquired a formidable reputation in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

To read more about him, please check this link. 

For all these years, the educated middle class was never considered important by our politicians and it has come to this that the word politics is considered a dirty word. No one from respectable families, without any kind of political lineage would enter politics. You might be interested in changing the system and have tons of ideas in order to improvise the existing systems, but your voice was never considered so important, as to even give it a minute. NGOs and other voluntary organizations are and have done their bit, in spite of the discouragement and the apathy they face from the people in power – let me not call them Government.

If today there are movements like Jagore, which is doing its best to educate and bring this middle class to vote, especially the first time voters, then it is due to a bunch of passionate and educated people, who are working very hard for this. The recent globalization, exposure to the world at large post the liberalization era has done a great deal of good to our country, but we still have miles to go before we sleep. When I, as an Indian step out of India and see what people have achieved in their land through proper planning and most importantly a love for their motherland, it makes me wonder as to why we – Indians –

• the largest democracy in the world
• the nation which develops the best technical solutions for the world
• the country with the largest English speaking population

Cannot do good for itself. It is not because we cannot do it. The answer simply lies in the fact that either we do not love and take pride in our motherland or as we know it, corruption and sloth is so in grained from the license era that our politicians and babus cannot get themselves to work again.

A good case in example would be the Andhra Pradesh Government’s Chief Electoral Officer’s website that can be used by ordinary people to check if our names are part of the voting list. If you look at the site, it is not even of third rate standard for which I am sure the Government, oops, the exchequer that’s us, most have paid a ton of money. The search criteria by which one can find their names is based on one’s house number. I must enlighten you here that Hyderabad (am not aware of other places) is renowned for some of the most complex house numbers. An example would be: 12-4-149/B/L.  It is not something that one can remember very easily and having moved into a new apartment, I am not sure what could be the house number that the Government records would take for mine. I am totally lost here. Coming back to our website, when I went over to visit the office to submit my voter registration form, the place was extremely chaotic. The person who gave me this website, I could clearly make out, had never used a computer. There was another lady sitting in front of a system, but did not even know how to browse. I am not blaming the individuals, but just looking at the system made me feel so sad.

I am hoping to vote this time and yes – Loksatta is my choice. But I was doubtful till a few days back, if I could actually vote. The problem is the website never showed up anything when I tried to search and the helpline number I called, the folks were polite strangely, but I couldn’t get any info. Fortunately, my parents had registered my husband and my names sometime way back last year and it is due to that that our names are now in the voting list. The irony is that the same folks had visited our home again in October and took our photographs, but those never did make it to the list. I wonder what happened to those applications. My concern is that things need not be this disorganized. Agreed our population is huge. But, if some private company, lets say Infosys or Wipro or TCS were given the contract to take care of developing a robust site with a good search and made online application (which by the way is available in the site I mentioned, but never worked) workable, we could have achieved a lot more.

The Lead India campaign is another pertinent one and the questions they raise are so hard-hitting, that I hope this time on, the Governments do respond to some seriously good governance.

After all, if India is one of the youngest countries, then why on earth does it have the one of the world’s oldest parliaments?

The urban middle class forming an important chunk of voters in this year’s Lok Sabha polls, with 22% of 543 LS seats being in the urban areas, it is time each one of us votes. Every vote counts and it is one of our primary rights towards making a difference in the way our country works.

Jai Hind!

Having cleared that, let me get on with Billu. It is a run of the mill story with two long lost supposed friends. One becomes extremely rich and famous – Sahid Khan (or King Khan) and the other remains where he was – Billu, as barber, tied down with family responsibilities and difficulties. Their paths cross in a small village named Budbuda. The King Khan is there to shoot for his film (wonder why, when all he does there is some space setting and fights, nothing rural). Here starts the social networking bit. 

In today’s world, it is not enough to be well educated or well qualified to go up the ladder, it is all about whom do you know and hence what can you do. Social capital can be defined as:

• Recourses available in and through personal and business networks

                    o    Information, ideas, leads

                    o    Emotional support, goodwill, trust, cooperation, power, influence

• Potential resources inherent in an actor’s set of social ties 

Hence, coming back to the movie, Billu also reaps some advantages. Simply based on the rumour that Billu is the famous actor’s friend, things change drastically for him. Some of the changes are:

• Billu couldn’t pay the school fees for his children and now the school authorities come to his home to tell him that his children’s education would be funded till 12th standard – IF (there always is an ‘IF’) he brings the famous actor to the school function
•  Billu’s barber shop is in dire straits. He hasn’t been able to spruce it up like his competitor, but the man persists. With the “supposed” new ties, he has a line of unending customers to gain – Sahid Khan’s hairstyle and the village bigwig sponsors new equipment for his shop – Once again, IF Billu can introduce the village bigwig to the superstar
• Billu’s wife is now seen with envy and her social status is elevated over night. There are polite IFs, which require her to get a picture of the star or autograph or in one case, his handkerchief (I wonder if men today carry such a thing anymore)

So, the rise in Billu’s social status and the respect and advantages he is now able to enjoy is due to the “supposed” social connection that he has with this superstar. I wouldn’t want to tell what actually happens in the movie, but the climax dragged on and it was too obvious towards the end. All through, director Priyadarshan has maintained a light and funny script that has kept the audiences quite lively. 

I enjoyed the movie, primarily because I am a die-hard SRK fan and loved him on screen. Yes, it is for die-hard Shah Rukh fans! But then, it is definitely not one of his or Irfan Khan’s best performances. You really don’t have to see this movie. The reason this movie kept me interested is because of  this social networking connection that a lot of Bollywood movies sport.

It is not an observation out of blue that – “People who do better are somehow better connected” and yes, towards the end, it is left for us, the poor audience to understand that Billu’s life has changed, for the better, due to his – Social Network.

–Manasa Pamaraju is a freelance soft skills trainer in Hyderabad and likes to share her thoughts on the gamut of topics that life presents, through blogging. To read more of her posts, please visit Unravelling the Enamoured Enigma

Manasa Pamaraju is currently a freelance soft skills training consultant in Hyderabad. Manasa has completed a certificate course in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, USA and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from JNTU, Hyderabad. She worked in Infosys Technologies Ltd. for 5 years, planning and executing projects across clients in India, Singapore and Australia. Her primary interests include reading classics and contemporary books, music, traveling, fine arts and craft making, professional networking, blogging. She has her own personal blog here.

Satish Narayan is currently a Manager in the SMB department of HDFC Bank. Satish has completed his graduation in Commerce and Masters of Business Administration from Sri Sathya Sai University, one of the top B-schools in India. Satish’s primary interests include Finance, Economy, Stock markets, Badminton. He was also the university champion in Table tennis for more than 3 years.

Welcome, Manasa and Satish. The field is all yours.