CAT changes in times of COVID

The mother of all MBA Entrance tests - the CAT announces a change in the structure of the exam to be held in nov 2020, under the dark clouds of COVID infections this time around. 

It was an odd feeling not having said for five years now that - "CAT changed colours yet again". Because, the earlier average number of years was three when IIMs would announce (unannounced before RTI) changes in the structure of the test.

So this change in structure brought about a sigh of relief. I can now smile and tell you that CAT has changed colours yet again. Here is a quick rundown for you on what to expect. 

First the brass tacks 

1. it remains a three section timed test. 
2. The overall test time reduced from Three hours to Two. 
3. Three sections of 40 minutes each compared to three sections of 60 min each previously.

That's all. It seems the idea is not to surprise the test takers by jolting them out of their practiced regularity of mock tests. Rather it is just to ensure that they are able to manage the same number of test takers in the same infrastructure but ensuring social distancing norms - by conducting three slots a day instead of two a day.

Incidentally this isn't a new structure - this was the format of test back then in late 1990s and early 2000s when it was paper based test. It used to be a three section two hour test without any sectional time limits. Only one out to many such tests had sectional time limit of 40 minutes each section.  

So what different to expect !?

Not much really. On the whole the CAT and its test taking experience remains exactly the same but compressed to 66.66% of the time available. It may mean nothing and it may mean a lot of small little things for you.
 
Let us try do a "back of the palm" listing of small differences it can make

1. Less time per section means higher probability of messing up  time management and ever smaller window for recovery. However, I think there is no need to change your strategy but to reduce the time by 1/3rd for each part of your strategy. 
2. In the verbal Abiiity Section it can mean fewer Reading Comprehension passages (two less may be). Smile - but remember it also means lesser choice of what you are comfortable reading. Choose passages with more fact based and direct questioning and ones with more questions overall.
3. We may expect cases in DI-LR section that are slightly lower on toughness levels than usual, which may mean return of the more traditional variety of Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning cases. My suggestion would be look for standard tabular, tick-cross, relationships and vein diagram based sets and finish them off first. Also look for DI sets where questions offer less/no additional data.
   
4. In the Quantitative section speed is expected to be more critical now - an ability to quickly structure the data in questions and an ability to solve mentally will be the key. So - if you are a CHEM student you may relate well to the need of consolidating the ABC strategy of choosing questions as well as the importance of solving A type questions in your mind.
5. Using onscreen calculators will proportionately be more time wasting. So someone with keen sense for calculation will have an edge - my suggestion is to use calculator only for questions where options are very close or decimals matter.
   
6. In this pattern one may see return of some old variety VA which hasn't seen much presence in the last half decade - specially the Error identification type questions of the English Usage variety. In days when the test had similar format - the test used to carry vocabulary based questions - focused on different contextual usage of the same word.
   
7. One good thing about a two hour test is - it will become more a test of your energy rather than of stamina. Which means - deeper concentration for lesser time. This goes more in line with the behaviour of the millennial generation. 

The nut and shell of it is that nothing much has changed. Every time I write about the changes in CAT - I eventually have to end them with the phrase "old wine in new bottle". Yup - true of CAT-2020 as well.

So if you are good at the subject nothing really changes for you, except that you may want to rethink time distribution among sets of DI/LR or among RC passages once you get to know the actual number of questions/passages/sets etc. The only thing that will start mattering more is right selection of questions/sets/passages as time is at higher premium now. 

Let me end this one by adding a tip. Sit for your mock test with your face mask on. Because at the real test you will have to wear the mask for entire duration and you will not be allowed to take it off. 

Cheers and Continue with your good work. 

Accept an Error, Emperor

Finally the lock down has been opened/relaxed (in the name of Lock down 5.0 although). This is a step in the right direction as I have been arguing for some time now.

You may start receiving whats app forwards and social media posts that Lock down was meant to educate people about safety norms (social distancing and sanitizing) and it achieved that goal.This is poppycock similar to Jaitleyji's claim post demonetisation - shifting the goal post to cashless India.

On 24th evening in his address the PM clearly asked for JUST 21 days to (a) break the chain of infections (b) for central and state governments to setup health infrastructure.

Lock down was partially successful in achieving the first part - the rate of infection did slow down but failed to decisively flatten the curve. The rate of infections is growing at an increased pace and the unfortunate and completely unanticipated migrant workers crisis has increased the probability of community infection reaching the farthest of villages in India.

In a recent post I tried to build a case that COVID while highly infectious is not even a huge killer (re-plug here if interested to read)

On the second front - the government preparations are still to be tested as we progress towards the peak infection levels in our country. Already, in Mumbai the availability of hospital beds was turning into a nightmare and the government changed the norms for hospitalization by allowing patients not requiring oxygen support, to recuperate at home. Mumbai and Delhi are exceptional cases - but if infrastructure in the rest of the country delivers we should consider that decent achievement. The jury on that is still out.

There is a third front - Economy - on which the Government doesn't look like even focused at, forget prepared to deal with the imminent recession facing us.More on that in a day or two.

So, stop believing posts and forwards that will convince you that lock down was required to educate people of safety norms.

The fact is lock down was a limited success but it left us with huge economic cost to deal with in the coming months/years. In the words of the PM himself in his address to the nation on 24th March

"If we are not able to adhere to this lockdown sincerely for 21 days, believe me, India will go back 21 years.”

Like always, modiji was in hyperbole mode even here - but the modest fact is that the sixty plus days of lock down has probably pulled down the economy this a couple of years back.

The problem is not that we locked down. We took the decision in a certain period of time - the good thing was a decision was taken.

The problem is the feeling that the emperor cannot be accepted to have gone wrong.

A true leader will come out and say we decided on a lock down - it did not work out the way we had envisaged - we may have over reacted committed to too harsh a lock down, too early. However, we have learnt and here is how it will unroll now.

But no, a leader whose characteristic style is to spring a surprise at 8 PM on entire TV/Radio network - will chicken out facing the public when announcing that it did not go the way he thought. Instead will write a letter to the nation on twitter and will still count his achievements in an increasingly less popular "mann ki baat". On the other hand his entire cabinet will write opeds and take press conferences to show him as the Prism collecting VIBGOYR to create laser sharp white light that killed the CORONA. (image source : TOI)

That, ladies and gentlemen is the irony of Indian voters.

This is not the first time he has chickened out like this — remember demonetisation — after that rhetorical “just give me 15 days” he passed the baton to Jaitley to try and prove press conference after press conference that Demo was a success. He has already moved away from J&K. No one from his government now talks about situation in the valley where 4G connectivity has not been restored even after all these months.

On china he does not roar in the public anymore and we the citizens of India do not know whether or not China has acquired additional territory and whether and how India is dealing with the situation. No !! I understand they can’t be so transparent about a developing situation but why not come at 8PM on TV and assure us the citizens that he is taking care of it.

He has steadfastly kept away from commenting on the the migrant workers crisis. When the pressure built up his Railway minister Piyush Goyal took charge of blaming state governments.

Remember his last 8 PM address on the TV — he announced the figure of a stimulus package of 20 Lakh crores and passed the baton to his Finance Minister N Sitharaman. Over five days of press conference she unveiled a bundle of already implemented initiatives, RBIs measures, loan offers and refunds which even the most ardent followers of the PM struggled to defend as a stimulus package.

And then came the lock down which right after version 2.0 he had passed on to the state governments which otherwise was calibrated every step under his tight control.

In short it appears that he would grab at any opportunity that seems like improving his political popularity and would shy away immediately once it starts turning into a political liability.

The question that faces Indians is whether we, for the sake of sanity in Indian public life, will stop forwarding /posting nonsense on whats app whether it claims that 24 hour public curfew will kill the CORONA, or it be the fact the Government has readied Hospital Trains to support Corona patients (BTW if they did build these trains - Mumbai and Delhi needs them badly) or that the government has given you a Twenty lakh crores relief package to deal with COVID crisis. or that already China has backed out from the position it took on the border (which of course it has not) or that terrorism has now been destroyed in J&K.

Instead

• focus on our professions and work hard to revive the economy because there is much pain ahead of us.
• And start asking genuine questions to the invincible hulk - so that the balloon deflates a bit.

Lets open up aggressively and follow basic safety norms.

Wake up and Move On

As on 15th May morning - the total reported corona infected in India crossed 80,000 (1,06,482 cases by late night of 20th May according to worldometer data) cases, despite a total lock down across the country for close to 40 days and then a couple of weeks of partial opening. This is success or failure, depending on which side of the political divide you look at this data from. 

A look at the graph of total infections in India shows it is steadily growing, though not exponentially. A standalone look at this graph isn't a pleasant viewing. In fact, the COV-IND-19 study group had predicted on Mar 22, that In the absence of any intervention, cumulative number of cases in India on March 31 should be 379, on Apr 15, 4836, and on May 15 - 58643. Even with intervention, there were almost 6,000 cases on April 9 itself and on the 15th we were way ahead of that assessment - 82,000 cases. 

On April 27 in a center state meeting on the pandemic - the Government had projected a figure of 65,000 by May 15 - the real figure is at 120% of this projection.

Am I am building a case to prove that the Government has been a failure in managing the COVID crisis.Not yet ! Let's look at some more data. Attached is the number of days India took to add every next 10,000 new cases. We are now adding 10,000 cases every 2 days. And we took almost 90 days to reach that speed.

If we compare this data to some of the worst affected countries -

• the US  took 40 days to reach first ten thousand cases and since then it adds another 10 every two days initially, then every day and now it adds between 30 K  and 50 K new cases every day.
• UK took 35 days to reach first 10K cases, 5 more days to add the next 10K and then has settled to approx 2 days for every 10K new cases.
• Germany did marginally better taking 50 days to reach the first 10,000 cases and took another 10 days to settle at 2 days for 10000 new cases. 

The COV-IND-19 group study also suggests that without the lock down we should have had close to 1.25 Lakh infected cases by now. 

So the rate of growth of infections in India has surely slowed down by the lock down. And the government may have used this delay to do some ground work to fight the onslaught of the pandemic. 

A total of 855 Dedicated COVID Hospitals have been identified across the country with 1,65,723 Beds (1,47,128 Isolation Beds & rest ICU Beds); 1,984 Dedicated COVID Health Centres with 1,31,352 Beds (1,21,403 Isolation Beds + 9,949 ICU Beds) 343 government laboratories and 129 private laboratory chains. The testing capacity has also been ramped up in both, and as on date, around 95,000 tests can be conducted every day.

So far so good. 

Not out of the Woods

The next graph also points out to the fact that India has definitely been better than many advanced countries on account of slowing down the growth of infection but at the same time our flattening of curve has been at best average. There are countries that achieved similar or better performance with much less harsh measures. 

Active cases still rising: yet to flatten the curve  1) US, UK, Brazil, Russia, India 2) Iran: after months of strong recovery, their active cases are rising ominously since last 10 days consistently.Add caption

Stark questions stare us in the face bluntly in very near future. 

Was the near total freeze of life across the nation necessary to achieve this not so major flattening of curve. could we have done with more targeted lock downs & strict implementation of social distancing norms. Did we over commit on lock down as a measure without a thorough cost benefit analysis.

Is it so scary, Really !?

I have been under the impression that Corona virus is a killer - if infected it may lead to millions of deaths, before I looked at this data, that is. Here is a dispassionate look at data of death rates of a selection of countries (which may sound insensitive to few emotionally inclined readers). What this data reveals is educating. 

It so appears that a fear psychosis got built up which may not be justified by the data that unfolded. Comparatively, the COVID deaths as a percentage of total annual deaths for all reasons appear to be pretty low. Classic case of getting scared by absolute numbers and failing to see the big picture?
Stated bluntly - India witnesses close to a crore deaths every year and the first quarter deaths due to COVID-19 is just 3000 plus. That is a minuscule 0.0002% of it population. The USA which seems to be rattled by a near one lakh deaths - has lost 0.0278% of its population to COVID, which is just about 3% of annual deaths in the USA. 

That's not all. Look at the broad groups that countries have been divided into. Europe seems to have higher percentage of deaths - while the Americas seem to have the mid range. Asia's percentage of covid deaths are surprisingly minuscule percentage of total deaths annually, till now. For India, that number is  negligible - a 0.03%. Somehow - Asian countries seem to be doing better in resisting the virus. This may in part be explained by the relatively younger population in the Asian subcontinent as is visible in higher percentage of overall deaths in Europe and America being in the 65 plus year group. We now have data that shows that close to 75% COVID deaths in New York happened in the age group of 65+ years.

Even if we annualise the COVID death rate - it does not look scary and hence the pertinent question to ask is whether such a sweeping close down actually benefited us more or the resulting economic impact may harm us more.

What can rock this argument is the fact that - the flattening of curve due to the lock down has delayed the peak infections by a month or two for India. Hence this percentage deaths will most definitely rise higher. 

However, the regional trend is unmistakably strong. Also countries with peak COVID related mortality have started showing declining trend. Thus European numbers can be considered the cap for the rise. 

It looks plausible then that by maintaing social distancing norms and by ensuring selective lock outs and  targeted administrative controls - we could have saved ourselves a huge cost. Countries like Brazil and Sweden took the expert advice and so did not rock their economies the way we ended up doing.

The Social Cost

The sudden and sweeping implementation of a very strict lock down, took the country by surprise and the failure to anticipate the plight of daily wage migrant workers led to an unprecedented migrant worker crisis that has seen the largest migration of people post independence. To just guage the sheer size of this crisis - almost a month late government ran special trains to transport these workers and already 21.5 Lakh people have travelled home in 19 days and the Government is now doubling the number of trains. There is no count of migrant workers travelling in trucks, small tempos, on two wheelers and yes on foot across the country - violating all social distancing norms and facing hunger, heat and tiredness. Hundreds of anecdotes of people migrating is like a photo essay of human misery and pain. 

Migrants Workers faced Inhuman conditions to reach back home

The deaths in this humanitarian crisis is not being tracked - nor will the deaths due to economic recession/depression that may result due to after effects of lock down will be tracked. 

On a gut one can feel that we may end up killing more people due to the humanitarian and economic crisis that we may have trapped ourselves into. 

The Migrant movement in India now is a full blown humanitarian crisis.

The Economic Cost is Yet to be realised

The cost of this lock down is unimaginably high - not many, me included, are able to figure it out objectively. However, to understand the gravity of situation let us emphasize that the economy was in a free fall for the fiscal 2019-20 much before the Corona crisis happened. Here are some high frequency indicators showing the abject rut the economy was in (source - India’s economy was in a rut even before Covid-19 struck - Newslaundry - vivek kaul)

• Car sales down by 24%
• Two Wheeler Sales down by 18%
• Tractor Sales down by 14%
• Commercial Vehicle Sales down by 29%
• Revenue earning rail freight and finished steel consumption was flat 
• Non food credit grew by just 6% lowest in 25 years
• Gross tax revenue of the government was also flat with a % decline

Short of aggregate data and estimates - I try and collect some sporadic figures to suggest the intensity of impact of lock down on the economy.

• India Ratings & Research estimates a collective revenue loss of Rs. 971 billion for 21 major states for April 2020 alone, due to the lockdown.
• Services PMI fell to 5.4 in April from 49.3 in March (90% drop)
  
• Manufacturing PMI fell to 27.4 in April from 51.8 in March (43% drop). This is the sharpest contraction survey's lifetime of 15 years .
• Composite PMI (both manufacturing & services) fell to 7.2 in April from 50.6 in March (86% drop) (and we do not have April figures yet because the real lock down happened in the months of April-May)

  

  A comparison of PMI globally shows Indian drop is quite stark

According to data from CMIE : 

• Unemployment rate (formal plus informal) has risen sharply from around 7.5% in early March to 23.6% on April 20th 
• Labor force participation rate has declined sharply from 42.8% to 35.9%.
  

Most estimates put the loss of GDP over a 45 day lock down to about 10% of the GDP. If we were to recover the loss over the next 10 months - we will need to grow at 12 plus percentage. This is an impossibility - in short, Indian GDP will shrink - negative growth rate - this year. This story is still unfolding. 

We may have been fooled into believing that COVID-19 was a juggernaut that was the next big thing after the ice age. In words of eminent journalist editor Shekhar Gupta. Among all the countries hit by the pandemic, India has had the toughest and most decisive action administratively, through a long, complete lock-down. It has also had so far the feeblest, economic response. And the most indecisive. Short of ideas, intent, muhurat?

Well !! the economic response to tackle the COVID crisis is another story - another post - another time.  For now, Let's just accept that we overreacted and simply open up the economy with restricted travel and strict norms for social distancing. Wake and Move on India. Those of you who may disagree do check - in the name of Lock-down 3.0 and now 4.0 the government is actually opening up the lock down. 

Time for a Rethink

As on 30th April India has reported 34,863 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections and 1,154 COVID related deaths.

Let's look at some reported numbers from other countries too
America :
The USA - 33,840 infections & 509 deaths on mar 22
Canada - 33,383 infection & 1,470 deaths on Apr 18

Europe
The UK - 33,718 cases & 3,747 deaths on Apr 2
Italy - 31,506 cases & 2,503 deaths on Mar 17
France - 32,964 cases & 1,995 deaths on Mar 27
Germany - 32,991 cases & 159 deaths on Mar 24

Asia (all as of today by Apr 30)
Indonesia - 10,118 cases & 792 deaths
Pakistan - 16,817 cases & 385 deaths
Bangladesh - 7,667 cases & 168 deaths
Malaysia - 6002 cases & 102 deaths

India again - 34,863 cases & 1,154 deaths
(All data source - worldometers.info)

Most Asian economies are tiny countries and most European and American countries reacted late. So one to one comparison who did how well may not make much sense. However, there is unmistakable direction in the data. More than one month of lock down has resulted only in some incremental gains till now for India and most Asian countries seem to be doing similarly better. So if there is something in our geography that leads to virus being less virulent then the gains achieved from lock down are further limited.

A report by COV-IND-19 Study Group dated 22/3 had predicted "In the absence of any intervention,India can expect to see an exponential growth...predicted cumulative cases on 31/3 is 379,on 15/4 is 4836 & 15/5 is 58643." Even with intervention, there were almost 6,000 cases on April 9 itself - however data seems to be broadly following the same contours even now. - going by current rate we can end up reaching close to 60000 by 15th May.

On the other hand - the Corona crisis will take a very heavy toll on the Economy which was already on a downward spiral for last one year before the Corona crisis erupted.

As the attached graphic shows, almost across the board all known experts have been brutally slashing their GDP growth estimates. The more recent the estimate the more decimated it is. Also I reckon that many of them have not yet been able to assess and incorporate the effect of almost a total freeze on the economy due to lock down.

Just to get a feel of impact let me quote a recent study " just a 25% fall in incomes could send as many as 354 million Indians below the poverty line". The ILO has already given an estimate that 400 million people in the country could slip into poverty. These are mind boggling numbers and we may end up squandering the gains of last two decades. Our demographic dividend was anyways fast being squandered in half baked, slow and lazy economic reforms.

There is some talk of opening up lock down in the cities that fall in the "green zone". Just remember that the cities in the green zone accounts for just 20% of the Indian economy and it will be a case of too little - hopefully not too late.

In fact the process of reigniting the economy is also expected to be slow and longish process because it is only yesterday that the government has woken up to the ordeal of migrant workers who have been walking in thousands for thousands of kms to reach back their homes. The government now will offer the special trains to reach back home. Bringing them back to their workplace and making them start earning a living will be a tough process as the experience of L&T at IIT Hyderabad has shown.

Is it time to accept that Lock down as a strategy has had limited upside and may actually turn out to be costlier than the toll it will have on lives due to economic misery and related socio-psychological impact. Between the dilemmatic choice of lives and livelihood - choosing lives is emotionally more preferable and politically more popular - but there are times when doing the right thing in the long run should be more important than winning elections or forming governments.

Forget the war we haven't even won a battle

Since the Corona driven lockdown happened in India - I have been writing small notes as "The lockdown diary" on the FB. This is the fourth one in the series and while I started to write this one too on the FB but then it built into a little more detailed post. So thought of adding it to my blog here. But before that proof that we participated in the light show last night on the 5th of April, just so that "bhataks" may also read this entire post. Just kidding.

You may want to read the first few entries of the diary here (only the first one is relevant here though)
The Lockdown diary - I
The lockdown diary - II
The lockdown diary - III

On last count, India had total 4067 confirmed COVID19 cases reported till now; an additional 693 new cases reported since yesterday. Total 109 deaths reported; 30 additional deaths have been reported since yesterday. 291 persons have recovered. (6th April Morning - data source Hotline)

According to another report, The world average of Corona infection is 155 per ten lakh of population (which is 0.0155%). In India this average is just 2.5 per 10 Lakh people. For the sake of how bad it could have gone - The US has an average of 945, Spain 2677. Italy 2069 and Germany & France has an average of 1000+ per 10 Lakh of population. (figures for 4th April, Data Source : Hotline)

This of course is pretty good show by India and so we can breathe easy for some time. In fact you may have received an IT cell forward already about how India under its able leadership has been able to arrest the growth of the Corona virus effectively. However the jury on that conclusion is still out.

There is a catch. This data hides something critical - we aren't testing deep or wide enough in India. Here is some interesting data compiled by ourworldindata.org

Total tests conducted by various countries show that the number of tests have just started to take off in India currently. Even this graph will be misleading because it may look ok if not seen in conjunction with the population
of the country.

One must note that the countries reporting most infected cases are also those who conducted highest number of tests. But as I said this is misleading unless seen in conjunction with the size of population we are dealing with. So here is another graphic.

Indian testing data look more pathetic when compared as fraction of population tested. As I suggested we aren't simply testing enough people get the real understanding of how infected we maybe.

What is important to note is that those countries reporting maximum cases of infection are conducting wide testing even as a proportion of their population. This in the long run should help them control the virus more effectively. The next question to ask is whether we are gradually increasing the tests conducted - so that we can try and utilise the lockdown period to identify most of those infected.

So it is possible that we may look good because unlike the list of developed nations above we may have more untested cases hidden in their houses. The lockdown may have just helped us ensure that these cases do not spread the infection at the rate that would have happened in regular times. Look at this graphic.

Till now India has been unable to even increase daily testing substantially leading to the unfortunate conclusion that we may be frittering away the lockdown period in not doing much.

Once again the countries that have reported most cases have consistently increased their aggressiveness to test. That is the reason for them reporting such huge numbers.

The big and short of this data is that our good looking performance about low number of infection may be misleading and cannot be corroborated unless we increase the numbers and width of testing in our country. Now I know the argument for why our testing is fewer in numbers - we are poor country and we do not have enough resources etc. - if so, I agree our testing levels will remain low - but then (a) Stop glorifying modiji because of low reported numbers and wait for a couple of months to pass a judegement on efficacy of the measures taken by GOI. (b) Ask the Government to take measures to restart the economic engine - because if the lockdown fails (which is more probable than success) in arresting the virus then India will face double whammy - deaths due to the virus and also due to the economic recession if not depression. (c) Understand that without aggressive testing - lock down is insufficient measure in the war against corona. BTW I am not saying that our good performance is necessarily false. It may be true because we did take proactive steps and lockdown has been by and large successful. I pray and genuinely wish that this data is maintained and improves further. I am simply warning against premature feeling that we have done well, Also the PM cares fund has generated liberal donations from all walks of life. This money should be utilised for wide and deep testing and isolation process. Also government has used the lockdown period to create more isolation and treatment facilites - these are good positive signals Here is a more balanced way of looking at the data

What this graph does is adjusts the spread of infection by treating the date at which first corona infection was reported in each country as the origin (it helps because India is lagging behind a few weeks in spread as well as control measures taken). What this data shows is that we are trending lower than europe and usa but higher than Japan. So not out of the woods yet. This data is little old - updated till 31st March but it will hold true because as the first graphic of this post shows we have been increasing the reported cases of infection at an increasing rate. The silver lining is that the effect of the lockdown should start kicking in from this week and if it does - we may actually start showing better trends. So hold your horses for a couple more weeks.

Some more issues for your to ponder 1. In every country the corona infection grew because it travelled from other countries in the country and then a some trigger action in which many of these foreigners participated. There was one particular super carrier in Korea (hence no trigger event so was managed much better), In Malaysia one congregation, In Italy the " Hug a Chinese" campaign and so in India was probably the tablighi jamat where a large number of people from foreign countries accumulated. For all we know the trigger points could have been the Rangpanchmi ger (cancelled but happened in large numbers) in Indore, or the Ayidhya pooja in UP or simply the festive celebration of the Thaali bajao event. To target a community for the trigger event is as foolish as we can get. But then one is not betting much on our collective intelligence. 2. Spreading positivity through the sound and light events of 22nd March and 5th April is all fine but lets desist from generating false conviction in people that we are decidedly winning the war against corona. The fact probably is it is going to be a long drawn out war and people should build a war chest to fight their personal battles too.. I know there is a long due post on economic impact as well - but as I start to write down - I feel it is not the write time to spread more of what the "bhataks will call "negativity". So enjoy your positivity till the Big Boss throws the next task to you. BTW here is the proof that we did our task as per the instructions of the Big Boss. Enjoy your cage, relax and take care all of your out there.

Movie Review - थप्पड़

In a 1986 multi starer movie Karma - The jailor played by Dilip Kumar saheb slaps the villain Dr. Dang played by Anupam Kher. Dr. Dang then delivers the timeless dialogue that still rings in the minds of the movie buffs "इस थप्पड़ की गूंज सुनी तुमने..इस गूंज की गूंज तुम्हें सुनाई देगी...पूरी ज़िंदगी सुनाई देगी"
Director writer Anubhav Sinha tries to deliver this message, this time to his audience in his latest drama - "thappad". He is kind of  almost successful in echoing the sound of that slap metaphorically in the minds of the audience as they leave the theater brooding over the two hours of steady and thoughtfully crafted movie.

Amrita is a typical young educated, bubbly, dedicated housewife happily married to a typical young educated, ambitious, go-getter and successful guy who is about to take a big leap in his career. Both are happy and in love with each other, or at least that's what both of them think, dreaming to move to London as the big leap in his career approaches. And then something happens - that metaphorical Thappad which changes the environment completely for Amrita. The movie is a sensitively and craftily done tale of Amrita's dealing with her disappointment, anger and frustration that follows and in the process identifying herself as a person dealing with the innumerable stereotypes and deep seated notions and bias in the society. 

Sounds boring !? It is actually not that simple. There are other stories woven in this one, by peeking into the private spaces of multiple couples with varied backgrounds right from that of a chawl of a housemaid to the bedroom of a elite, successful, upwardly mobile lawyer all having a common thread - the dilemma that Amrita faces. She becomes the quintessential example case for women of this world to discuss and decide what they want from their lives. And there is the caring mother who in her anxiety to see her daughter settled forgets that even she is a women who sacrificed her ambition to manage her family.

There is that father of a darling daughter who is the quiet strength behind her steely resolve. There is a brother who is unwittingly exposed to his own manly biases in being protective of his sister. There is that not so commonly available mother in law who feels the pain of her daughter in law but is helpless in her own web of relationships - and responsibilities of keeping the nest together. There is this successful lawyer husband who lives in his father's world of "हम तो शहंशाह है - तुम क्या चीज़ हो" world. On the other extreme is the husband who routinely hits his wife believing that is how to keep her going while the wife probably has always been believing that its his love for him. Then there is a Bhabhi who is able to empathise with the protagonist and is more blunt and stronger than Amrita herself. You also meet a lady who is on the verge of exploring relationships outside her marriage to release herself from the suffocation of maintaining a good marriage. And yes not to forget a divorcee friend who is also a liberal single parent of a intelligent teenager who is quietly behind Amrita offering her strength. All in all its a intricate world of human emotions, paradoxes and complex relational challenges none of which have easy answers. And believe me I haven't listed them all.

The film is successful in helping the male mind among the audience take a pause and think about their own male biases - even for those who are the liberal types - like yours truly. It may actually be difficult to digest for whom these biases sound like mother nature. To that extent the movie will probably find more audience among the middle class housewife - even if just to comment later that the wife in the movie was being unfair and was creating a mountain of a molehill, The irony of the twists in the tale is that Amrita is able to sketch this powerful persona because of a quiet, firm, wise and loving male character - her father.

After a series of forgettable movies from Director-Write Anubhav sinha - he came into his own with the "Gulab Gang" since then he has already delivered "mulk" and "Article 15" - movies with powerful messages effectively delivered. These were probably not designed to be commercial successes but are movies that are ahead of times and will influence shaping up of future generations. In that sense these movies are close to yash chopra's "kabhi-kabhi" and "Lamhe". I will add "thappad" to this list. The movie compels you to think on a very sensitive, if not controversial, subject of male domination in a marriage. It treats the subject with empathy, sensitivity and yet firmness that it deserves. It brings out many shades of male domination in marriage so deep seated that some of them appear to us naturally correct - unquestioned even by women themselves. The film is able to bring out the difficulty of choice for women because in the Indian context she is married not just to a man - but to a family and a web of responsibilities that come with that fact. It awakens the society, the husband and amazingly even the wife to the reality that she is the "far granted" constant in a complex equation assumed to be available with known value.

Taapsee Pannu churns out another admirable performance in Thappad. She is one of the best in her generation who is both beautiful and can act in a variety of roles right from breezy light commercial singing-dancing-looking sexy roles like that of "Judwa", to the powerful, independent, individual characters like those in "Badla", "Pink", "Naam Shabana" or "Baby" and finally to the understated, quiet and exploratory characters like that in "Saand ki Aankh", the unpopular "Game Over" and now in "Thappad". She looks happy go lucky, bubbly. devoted and obedient at the start. Then she turns into vulnerable, undecided, hurt, angry and determined in the later half. She almost flawlessly depicts the journey from the vulnerable to the determined and self assured as the character deals with her insecurities. She is turning out to be the female version of Ayushman Khurana - experimenting with roles and themes and is certainly doing a better job of being a smita patil of her generation than Ayushman being the sanjeev kumar of the same generation.

Most of the star cast Pavail Gulati, Ratna Pathak Shah, kumud mishra, Tanvi Azami, Dia Mirza, Ram Kapoor, Gracy, Naila  are perfect in their roles and does a great job but this is a Taapsee Punnu and Anubhav Sinha film.

Most movies with such powerful themes do not know where and how to end the movie and so the climax in this one to appeared to be lost and fails to surprise. Thankfully however it is kept real and solidly with the message of the movie. For me the real bonus of the movie are two songs which will not be noted because the focus of its marketing lies elsewhere. Both "एक टुकड़ा धूप का अंदर अंदर नाम सा है" and "थोड़ी सी मै ऐसी हूँ, थोड़ी सी मै वैसी हूँ" are lyrically delectable and are sung very well by Ragav Chaitanya and Sharvi Yadav respectively.

Thappad has to credit its efficacy to good script and crisp dialogues. Some of them ring in for long after the movie is over
"Just a slap पर नहीं मार सकता"
"कई बार सही करने का result happy नहीं होता"
"All marriages are deals. A contract between two people. ताकि शादी के लिए प्यार mandatory न रह जाये"
"उस एक थप्पड़ से मुझे वो सारी unfair चीजे साफ साफ दिखने लगी जिसको मै अनदेखा करके move on करते जा रही थी"
"तुम्हें क्या लगता है दुनिया की सारी शादियाँ प्यार से चलती है? Its an unfair deal of some sense of dignity and security."

थप्पड़ has a must watch recommendation from me. Warning - its a difficult movie, its slow, low on entertainment and it will leave unanswered questions. But what the heck we should watch a few movies for intellectual stimulation and growth too. Go watch it. 

Movie Review - Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (SMZS) by its name appeared to be a sequel to a 2017 light, nice, breezy, hilarious Ayushmaan Khurana - Bhoomi pednekar flick "Shubh Mangal Saavdhan" (SMS). And one wondered, what more can a story writer stir up in a story of a couple who had a performance anxiety problem. It was clear in the first fifteen minutes of the two hour long movie that - except for a brief scene with bhoomi, probably just to remind one of SMS, there was no connection, thankfully.

Ayushmaan is now firmly established in the public perception as someone who will take a new challenge entering an uncharted territory with each of his movie. Right from the role of a sperm donor in his first movie "vicky donor" to the to the balding young insecure middle class guy in "Bala" - he has executed most offbeat characters with elan and conviction. In SMZS SMZS lives up to that reputation. He plays a gay - with confidence, not entirely convincingly but quite endearingly. A gay relationship will probably be commercially less risky thing to weave around two female characters - but this movie goes ahead and tells you a tale of two male characters madly in love with each other.

The unique thing is, there is hardly any parallel in the history to compare this movie with and so you sit through an original trying hard to see the inspiration in some old classic, all time hit and finding none. The only other recent effort towards making gays more acceptable to the society was the Sonam Kapoor effort in "ek ladki ko dekha" - however this movie does not even touch that one from a distance. So you are promised to keep guessing what comes next and I promise you most of your guesses will fail. You are kept surprised in almost every sequence (and the "almost" is a conscious insertion to ensure that I am not trolled if you are able to guess one odd sequence).

What is the easiest way to make something awkward almost taboo - acceptable to the audience !? Answer is comedy. SMZS uses incessant comedy to treat a sensitive, almost untouchable subject in a lower middle class society. In fact the movie is nonchalant about the gayness of its protagonists - to the extent that at times it turns that feature into a caricature, sometimes even mocking it.  To that extent, it does some disservice to the cause of making gay relationships acceptable - but then compensates it with being equally derisive of the orthodox father, cynical society and the illogical social norms that treats the subject with unnecessary embarrassment.

So the movie starts with two gay colleagues struggling in their jobs - happy loving & living with each other - the middle class family of one of whom has planned a nuptial match for him (for want of a better pronoun). He wasn't planning to go and attend his cousin's marriage but for his partner's insistence, joined the "baarat" of the lady (yes the logic in the movie is quite much turned upside down), gets caught by his father in the act on the moving train and then gradually the entire family and society gets involved. So starts a sinusoidal wave of confusions, insecurities, anger, frustration, and fights creating a fumny, laugh riot that makes you giggle through out and you are surprised at why you are laughing at so much stupidity. The only other parallels I can draw with are the 90's govinda flicks.

So did I like the movie? in most parts yes !! - Its a laugh a minute non-stop nonsense. If comedy is about timing - most sequences get it right. Crisp dialogues make even cheesy lines acceptable even while watching it in a family setup. I really liked the bluntness and clear matter of fact way of having said some quite scandalous almost blasphemous statements. The pace is fast - before you recover from one sequence other pops up and so audience is kept on the run always. Casting seems perfect - most characters are played as if were naturally made for them. The best thing was, movie did not stereotype the gays by making them pronounce the female behaviours with male structure of the protagonists. The movie consciously keeps away from sermonizing or preaching on the subject of how society treats the gays. Which by the way also happens to its weakness - most powerful messages have been reduced to a crisp line in order to avoid the preachy tone - thus the messages fail to either sting or to stick with the audience. Still a few that I wish people remember - "आपने कब decide किया की आप gay नहीं बनोगे" or "किसी ने कभी पूछा है जैक से की वो किस के साथ जाना चाहता है जिल के साथ या जॉनी के साथ" or "आपका oxytocin प्यार और मेरा oxytocin बीमारी"|

And now because I talk of weaknesses - the flow isn't smooth. The film bumps from one sequence to the other. Most Ayushman films suffer from one common problem - they do not have a powerful story - they are just based on an offbeat theme. That is why most of them fail to become a milestone movie despite having a different theme. Despite having a potential theme SMZS is neither a "Lamhe" nor an "Angoor" (which for the younger crowd, is neither "milestone path breaking" nor "all time classic comedy"). The movie has a commercial Happy Ending - all was well thereafter kind and hence fails to live an imprint of message that it tried to convey - Pyaar to Pyaar hota hai. One does not even understand why the long introductory sequence featuring Bhoomi was even required.

Both leads - Ayushmaan and Jitendra are just OK. I feel Ayushmaan is unable to bring the variety in his acting that should live up to the variety that he gets in his roles. For the kind of dynamic roles he has got - he should have been the "Sanjeev Kumar" of his generation of actors which he certainly is not by a huge distance. I am told that Jitendra - an IIT grad is quite an internet sensation with his "Kota Factory" videos. If so, as an actor, he disappoints. He fails to convey either the gay love for his partner or the bottled up frustration of a gay who gives into the societal pressures to accept a "normal" marriage. That is probably why the movie is so weak on messaging.

The real soul of the movie are Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao. They are just so natural as the Elder brother and Bhabhi of the quintessential middle class Indian family in the UP that you fall in love with them specially if you have also seen them in "Badhai Ho". Three other actors deserve a rich mention - Manvi Gagroo who has featured in a web series on OTT platforms was in good form in the movie - she is able to make completely stupid statements appea natural and funny at the same time. In the role of half wit obedient and respectful younger brother manu rishi chaddha was
flawless - I was reminded of Manoj Pahwa in Mulk. He was ably supported by sunita rajwar as his wife. All in all the group created a delectably funny and cute joint family.

The movie is great funny watch - just don't take your brains with you in the hall and don't go expecting a sensitively or finely crafted piece on a contemporary subject.