Is Growth about Wanting more or Needing less?

Lately, formation of rural 'economies' is a trending matter and the sad fact is amidst this trend, disguised under the name of growth, Rural India actually seems to be falling off the ever widening gap between people's primary expectations and what they're being delivered - either by means of government undertakings or their newfound proxies - corporate business houses.

This article in BM dated 20th March 2011, refers to a statement made by RBI governor attributing rising inflation to the increase in rural consumption - evidently implying either that increasing village consumerism is bad or that increasing inflation figures are good for the national economy!

With this as background, such relation of rural consumption to rising national inflation comes across as an accusation on the rural peoples and nothing else. But it is interesting to note occasions when the same governments taking pride in terming such rural consumption as 'development' and staking large claims of playing an active enabling role behind such 'developments'. What is not plainly apparent though is the fact that our governments seem to have struck a process of delegating development works to private business houses either under the CSR tag (Corporate Social Responsibility) or in the guise of PPP (Public Private Partnership) models. Now when things appear to be firing back with increased, inflationary and uncontrollable consumption patterns among rural areas, the same governments seem to be pulling back with such allegations as the one above made by the RBI governor. This is primarily because the supply chain created by the private partners is unable to source enough content that the market now demands - a failure on the part of this govt-market alliance.

To cite examples from the article: there is coke (soft drink) available in almost every corner of every street in some villages, but pure drinking water is a scarce commodity even today; there are cars and all kinds of vehicles being bought in these villages, but there's hardly a stretch of good road to drive them. There are cosmetic stores in most big villages, but women of the same village have to travel 30 kilometers (on those bad roads) to reach a hospital.

Are we forgetting our primary needs in the rush to reap modern day benefits, the ones that are created by corporate houses keeping no particular human being's benefit in mind? Are we, without our knowledge getting swept away by this tsunami of wants, uprooting and disconnecting us from our needs? Now, are we to call this a need-deficit, or a want-surplus?

(To be continued...)

A Dubbed audience and the suspicion around Dubbing

One interesting pattern that I find among people opposing dubbing of movies into Kannada is that they seem to be thinking more about welfare of the industry (KFI i.e.) not valuing their own expectation from the industry as customers. Talking in pure market terms, this anti-dubbing camp appears to be advocating for demanding the betterment of the supplier at the cost of the customer himself!


For a moment, if we all pause to visualize this scene from a different perspective - the perspective of a customer - we'll realize that with regards to this dubbing episode, we'd be better off thinking about the Kannada Film Market and not the Kannada Film Industry instead. The difference between these two is key to understanding why Dubbing, while not being an essential ingredient, can still be one way in which the Kannada Film Market can attract a much higher percentage of its audience to watching movies in the Kannada Medium itself.

Today a substantial mass of the Kannadiga audience is getting 'leaked' to movies from across the border(s) only because movies made in-land are, apparently, 'not enough' both in quality and quantity. There's also a historical factor of in-confidence among Kannadigas about Kannada movies, especially in the urban markets which drives them away towards more glamorous and 'not essentially' better movie markets. So this phenomenon of Kannadiga audiences leaking towards other language movies is a loss to the Kannadiga audience, and to the Kannada Film Market in essence.

Now if we were to think about the Kannada Film Market as an entity that needs to be enriched with good Kannada entertainment, whether the movie is originally a Kannada made film, or a film of another language, dubbed into Kannada, or re-made in Kannada, the end-beneficiary is in fact the Kannada film-goer him/her-self. This makes the Kannada Film Market richer.

As Dr Rajkumar always said, it is us (the Kannada movie audience) that he lived for, acted for, and prayed for. In the same way, the Kannada movie audience needs to be at the core of all planning that happens in the Kannada Film Market.

The industry (or industries) that drive entertainment & happiness into the homes & theaters of Kannada movie audience is just incidental. Does one care if a pack of biscuits one buys is manufactured by a Kannada industry or not? All you need is a good enjoyable pack of biscuits. Likewise all you need is a good enjoyable Kannada movie. Why care about the 'industry' at the cost of your own entertainment experience? Why care so much to get influenced by some tricky words with vested interests? 


A good Kannada movie is what we want. If one can get that only in a dubbed Kannada movie today, it need not mean a good Kannadiga son will not be born tomorrow to make a better movie originally in Kannada. In fact it only further increases the chance of such movies in future. It only increases the chance of more Puttanna Kanagals in the future of Kannada Film Market.

Lets stop talking about an industry, and start talking about the market. Be it Dubbing or Remaking or Swa-making, without the permission of us (the audience) no son-of-a-gun from across the borders can loot the Kannada Film Market. We are the ones that'll certify the success of a movie. We need not fear about the industry, we need fear only about our market.


(Essence of this post featured here on this Facebook thread.)