FLU AAJKAL

After watching the movie, I got confused, which one is a hit?? Swine Flu or Luv Aajkal!! Thought for 5 minutes… then preferred listening to umpteen numbers of people surrounding me. There were around 30 % janta discussing about Saif and Deepika, but there were rest who were discussing a pandemic. My god!!! Suddenly, I thought what if, there comes a movie.FLU AAJKAL where in hero and heroine both are standing close to each other wearing a mask.

I must say everything to me, has started relating to swine flu, and you must also notice the same. I just thought when my parents said why you don't buy out a mask for you as well. I asked them a question: "Don't you think papa when I will wear a mask and roam around here and there, it would be my friends and people surrounding me who would be suspecting me as one of the swine flu victim and start running away from me." He was speechless, ended his phone saying, "but do take proper precautions and care."

Hehe coming back to humorous part, swine Flu has affected many new releases: kaminey suffers a lot due to Flu, similar goes the story for others as well. Hey think , how couples will survive, a romantic scene would be much more comic and the entire focus would be on the masks, there would be lot much work left for fashion industry, there would be lot many advertisements and many variants of masks available for users, the best part : JUST IMAGINE : you getting out of Bschool and marketers are hired to sell Masks, operations grads hired for optimizing the logistics, finance guys doing the risks analysis and deriving new costs structures and SMART beautiful HRs given task for hiring SWINE Flu Free individual.

I would love to do branding of SWINE FLU: let's say… SWINE FLU T shirts, Gadgets, Watches, stickers, helmets, goggles, masks and what not.

My first AD goes like this for children and people, who watch mythological serials, but these things are lot much questionable in indian society, So I guess I could become a celebrity by this, hitting sentiments of many.GUD na!!! Quick way to become celebrity.

Then I thought, what will happen to school books, let's say how the photo of MONA LISA would be? Gr8 na? Everything will change!! World would be new!! Faculties will come to class rooms with a mask and will prefer what they are required to do and move out asap without troubling students, most probably, students would be asked to remain silent and class participation marks would be given to geniuses like me who prefer to remain silent during class (I mean what they call healthy class room discussion between teachers and students).

All stage shows, fashion world would be hilarious. JUST Imagine..Glamorous models wearing just masks!!! Lolz.

Think about a stage show for school kids, I am sad, how bad it would be, JUsT ImagINe

And song plays: " Karo daya haath aage, karo daya haath peeche, karo daya haath upar karo ab upar neeche"( a BOOGIE WOOGIE SONG related to aerobics)

Just ImAGine: A Pig coming to you and asking?? PIGS are dangerous or Humans???

Then I thought, Why not to go ahead and make a movie:

FLU AAJKAL. What an IDEA Sir Ji.

I remember just as soon I put the topic on facebook, got many replies from friends on chat, what are the kinds of roles available. I recalled the ONE LINER, I am bound to hear the most " MAiN KYA BOLU" i.e. what shall I say!! But soon a virgin idea came to me, how about the characters such as khasi, jhukam, dama, dard, haddi, bhukar, kamjori etc commonly known by educated people as chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort.

But to my amusement, when one of my friend wanted a role of villain, I thought, the roles that I decided till now all were of VILLAIN ONLY, ohh my goodness, a movie which has only villains..MY MY… what to do!!! I need some SHAKTI MANs and SUPER MANs…so entered my super heroes "Relenza and Tamiflu".

All in all, one thing which I wanted to address, aren't we ailing something??

The matter of fact is that whether it is swine flu which attacks irrespective of socio-economic background or the likes of malaria, dengue and encephalitis, it is imperative for the government to accept that private initiatives will have to be given its due importance and without that, India's healthcare system would not improve. The reason for the same is simple. It has been observed that in most of the sectors wherever India has excelled, those have been private initiatives that have really played a critical role in bringing a paradigm shift in that sector. Whether in the telecom industry or in the aviation, insurance, consumer durables or pharmaceuticals industry, private players have played a critical role in bringing back resurgence. I wonder how many of the critical drugs that we generally use are from Indian government-owned pharma companies. If intense competition in telecom, insurance and consumer durables has been successful in bringing down the prices and in making products affordable for the poor, then one wonders why the same cannot be applied in the case of healthcare too. In this respect, what is important to note is that the upper middle class and the rich have stopped going to government hospitals a long time back, thanks to pathetic treatment, indifference and lack of basic hygiene.
It is for this reason that private participation is imperative in a big way in health care. And it is not that we do not have examples within the nation. The pioneering initiatives by renowned cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty with respect to affordable healthcare in Karnataka have been extremely successful and have shown that it is possible to have health insurance for something as low as Rs 5 – much like the chhota recharge concept in telecom. Just as the microfinance concept of Md. Younus has been revolutionizing rural business where conventional banking has relatively failed, the concept of micro health insurance has a similar ability to fuel a major change in the way healthcare is taken care of in India (This becomes all the more important, especially because of the fact that India's standing is a dismal 128 in the Human development Index, a poor reflection of the state of things in rural India). No doubt, such innovations would originate only from entrepreneurs and not from government hospitals. Nevertheless, these need to be nurtured. Unfortunately, here too everything comes to a knot as it seems that not only is there a considerable lot of resistance by the bureaucracy but there is also a tendency to not let the leash or control of things go out of hand.

In the given environment, it is not just swine flu that needs to be arrested, but even the flu that ails the entire health infrastructure, i.e. the political mindset, needs to be corrected simultaneously. My urge to all B-School grads to think seriously in this direction!!!