Unemployment in Tamil Cinema ~ Interview scene and banned Q on past employment salary !!

The Protagonist is an angry man – well-qualified, searches for jobs, gets frustrated on seeing ‘no vacancy’ boards, gets regret letters. In the interview when asked questions, would give angry reposte seeking how they are related to a job!.. but then how would the Employer evaluate prospective employee, check his credentials, capability, agility, understanding, language and communication skills and above all attitude !

.. .. How tough is  an interview ?  – Management experts would suggest tips on getting prepared, neatly dressed for the occasion, body language, learning current affairs and more .. .. remember in my interview for GIC Typists,  I was asked ‘Engel’s law’ – in cinema it would be :

Q :  where is Nicaragua ?   A:  I cannot see !

Q:What is the height of LIC ? A:none has invented a scale long enough  to measure it

Q : How many steps did you walk up the stairs to get into this room ?  A:  the same no. of steps that I would be walking down.

~ that way, the interview scene of Thillu Mullu, Rajni – Thengai Srinivasan was quite hilarious.

The Grapes of Wrath is a 1940 American drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.  The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search of work and opportunities for the family members. The film is widely considered to be one of the greatest American films of all time. In 1989, it was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

In modern World, just as it is difficult getting good job, most Companies do struggle in recruiting candidates, with high attrition rate bane of every industry.  The typical interview would wind with Qs like :  - Tell something about yourself; what is your amibition ?; if selected, when can you join and how long would you stay ? ; why did you leave your previous employment; what was your previous CTC ? – and what is your salary expectation ? – routine, innocuous Qs one may think !

Much water has flown under the bridge – when we grew up in late 1970s, unemployment was the theme of many a movies.  For the 1980 Deepavali, two movies were to hit the screen – one by Balachander and other by Barathiraja – a friend of mine quipped that on the eve, Braja telephoned anxiously stating that both had filmed on the same subject and their films were to get released on the same occasion – Deepavali.  He went on describing that Balachandr responded stating that their styles were different and hence there would be no problem !!

Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu starring Sridevi & Kamal, directed by Balanchader   was simultaneously shot in Telugu as Aakali Rajyam, released later. In Hindi it was Zara Si Zindagi – it sought to portray the  struggles of youth and their disillusionment.  Kamal, Dilip and S Ve Shekher would reside in a room in the Capital of the Nation [there was a song with such a negative overtone too !]   Nizhalgal, starring Ravi, Chandrasekar catapulted into fame with great songs of maestro Illayaraja.  The film revolved around a group of youngsters and their struggles to overcome the challenges faced by them in society. Though a commercial failure, the film was screened at the "Indian Panorama" section of the International Film Festival of India in 1981.

.. .. away read this interesting article in NY Times titled ‘ where women rule the headlines’ written by  Kristin Wong,  author of “Get Money: Live the Life You Want, Not Just the Life You Can Afford.” This would seek to redefine the interview though the place, law and attitude could be far different than what we experience here !! (some excerpts)

“Employers should be hiring and paying potential employees for the experience and qualifications they have.” — New Jersey Senator Loretta Weinberg, discussing a recently passed wage equity law that bans employers in her state from asking prospective employees about their salary history. 

“How much did you make in your last job?”

When an employer asked me this question during a job interview early in my career, I paused. I didn’t want to lie, but my last job barely paid above minimum wage, and I was hoping to earn much more than that in a new position.

Why did my past income even matter? I thought.

Still, I told the truth. When I received a lower offer than I expected, I wondered whether I should have been so honest.

Now asking job seekers about their salary history during employment interviews is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Massachusetts became the first state to ban employers from posing this question to job candidates back in 2016. Since then, 17 other states and as many local jurisdictions have passed versions of the ban, including New Jersey, whose law will go into effect in January; Illinois, which took effect last month; and Kansas City, Mo., where a ban will go into effect next week. The new laws are designed to protect job seekers — like former me — from receiving starting salaries that are tied to low past salaries. This is mostly aimed at women, and many of the bills directly address equal pay and the gender wage gap. The idea is that if a woman is paid less from the get-go, and then limited by her past salary at each subsequent job, it may be impossible for her to catch up.

 “This bill provides a means of narrowing the wage gap by making it less likely for employers to unintentionally perpetuate the gap by basing salary offers for new hires on their previous salary,” New Jersey Assembly woman Joann Downey said of her state’s bill, which she sponsored. She added that the practice had a disproportionate effect on women. Some states have passed bans that won’t go into effect until 2020 or later. For example, Colorado signed the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act into law earlier this year, but it won’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2021. The new laws may prove difficult to enforce. Even if they’re not permitted to, hiring managers might ask you about your past salary anyway. If this happens, negotiation experts recommend diplomatically deflecting the question with a response like, “My desired salary is more in line with market research and the details of what this current job entails,” or “I’d be happy to talk more about salary once an offer is in place.” !

If you remember the question posed to me .. .. .. Engel's law is an observation in economics stating that as income rises, the proportion of income spent on food falls, even if absolute expenditure on food rises.  The law was named after the statistician Ernst Engel (1821–1896).  Engel's law does not imply that food spending remains unchanged as income increases: It suggests that consumers increase their expenditures for food products in percentage terms less than their increases in income.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

23^rd Oct 2019.

Xiaomi CC9 Pro with 108 MP camera - my 3.2 MP Konica Minolta Dimage camera

In this exponential World, things are often complicated – you have mind blowing variations and too much of information – in the end unable to comprehend some simple things … long long ago ! ~ photography was an art, only Masters could excel.  Photo studios were thriving – remember that for my marriage in 1992, 4 roll of photos were taken [ 4 x 36 ! +/-] .. .. some had Yashicas, could take photos and in the lab say ‘ogp’ (only good prints !) – was stumped to read a post this morning of a new Xiaomi phone with 108 MP camera !

About 2 decades ago, I was presented a Minota Dimage digital camera that came with a 3.2 MP !!  ~ it was slightly odd looking, powered by   four AA batteries and stored images on SD/MMC cards. It had a unique LCD monitor and came with a 16MB memory card !!  - it was too precious and I would take it out may be once a month or  .. .. that way digital photography changed the way, photos were taken on rolls – now there would be no caution, besides the greatest advantage of instantaneous look of the photos taken .. .. Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors to capture images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The captured images are digitized and stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing. Until the advent of this  technology, photographs were made by exposing light sensitive photographic film and paper, which was processed in liquid chemical solutions to develop and stabilize the image.

                                                        Photo taken with Konica Minolta Dimage

The first consumer digital cameras were marketed in the late 1990s. Professionals gravitated to digital slowly !   some leading Camera / film roll manufacturers went out of business as they failed to change with the tides.  At the dawn of the present century, cell phones started having cameras initially VGA cameras.   Slowly, those mobiles with higher MP cameras were doing brisk business – MPs became the cutting edge !!

A megapixel, often shortened to MP, is equal to 1 million pixels. A pixel is an individual element of a digital image. The number of megapixels determines the resolution of an image, and a digital image with more megapixels has more resolution. A higher resolution is certainly desirable in a digital photograph, as it means the camera uses more pixels to create the image, which should allow for greater accuracy. On a digital camera, the image sensor records the photograph. An image sensor is a computer chip that measures the amount of light that travels through the lens and strikes the chip. 

 The image sensors contain tiny receptors, which are called pixels. Each of these receptors can measure the light that strikes the chip, registering the intensity of the light.

However,  .. .. … ….  Logically a camera with 24 megapixels should yield better image quality than a camera that records 8 megapixels,  not necessarily 3 times and sometimes not always too.  The physical size of the image sensor plays a more significant role in determining the image quality of a particular camera. A larger image sensor in physical size that contains 24 MP will have larger individual light receptors on it, while a small image sensor in physical size that contains 30MP will have very small individual light receptors.  

A larger light receptor, or pixel, will be able to more accurately measure the light entering the lens from the scene than a smaller light receptor. Because of the inaccuracies in measuring light with a small pixel, you will end up with more errors in measurements, resulting in "noise" in the image. Noise in photo jargon  are pixels that don't appear to be the correct colour in the photograph.  A high number of megapixels matters most when zooming in or cropping a photo. For example, some phones let users "zoom in" without losing quality, without an optical zoom lens. They do this by simply cropping an 4-megapixel photo from the centre of the original 24-megapixel image captured by the camera.  Photos with more megapixels are larger in file size, and therefore can take longer to transfer or send, and take up more storage space.  To adjust this, most equipments [camera and mobile phones] have the option of taking photos at lower resolution, if so desired. 

Moving away, Xiaomi introduced the Mi CC9 series some months ago. So far the company has launched two smartphones under the series - Mi CC9 and Mi CC9e. On Monday, the company officially confirmed to launch another smartphone under the Mi Cc9 series called the Mi CC9 Pro. Xiaomi took to Weibo -- the Chinese microblogging site -- to announce the launch timeline of the Mi CC9 Pro. The company has officially confirmed that the Mi CC9 Pro will launch on November 5 in Beijing.  Alongside confirming the launch date of the Mi CC9 Pro the company also revealed the key highlight of the smartphone. Xiaomi revealed that the Mi CC9 Pro will come with 108MP main rear camera. This is the first Xiaomi phone to use 108MP camera sensor. The Mi CC9 Pro will likely use the Samsung 108MP camera sensor as that is the only one available right now.

The post also offers a loser look at the Mi CC9 Pro's rear camera setup. It reveals that the Mi CC9 will come with five cameras on the back panel where the primary camera will use 108MP image sensor. The smartphone will also offer 5X optical zoom. In the same post Xiaomi said that on November 5 the company will launch a new watch and also a TV alongside the Mi CC9 Pro.  Rumours and leaks suggest that the Mi CC9 Pro will come with a 4000mAh with 20W+ charging support inside the box.

Xiaomi is yet to confirm the official price of the Mi CC9 Pro but rumours suggest that the smartphone will be priced around 2599 Yuan that roughly translates to Rs 26,000.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

29^th Oct 2019.

traders shun Palm oil from Malaysia for its support to Pakistan

To the pig-tailed macaque, there's nothing better than sweet fruit plucked from a sprawling palm oil plantation. Except maybe fresh rat ! (that smells a rat !!). That's good eating too, apparently.  Researchers have found that far from being a pest themselves, monkeys could be welcome guests at Malaysian palm oil plantations, more than making up for the few fruit they steal by keeping down the numbers of a far more serious threat in the form of rodents. For the past six years, scientists from Malaysia and Germany have kept a close eye on two populations of southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in Malaysia's Segari Melintang Forest Reserve. Naturally, the monkeys spent a good deal of time chilling in the palm oil plantation that surrounded the reserve, which made up roughly a third of their home range. Farmers might not be happy with the intrusion, but for the macaque, the palms were the equivalent of a shopping mall - an ugly monoculture intruding on beautiful surrounds, but with cheap food. The macaques were spending several hours a day in the plantations, a period that made up nearly half of their overall feeding time. It didn't come as much of a surprise that they were busy stuffing their faces with fruit from the palm trees. What was a bit of a shock was the main course – a whole bunch of rats.

Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms, primarily the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis, and to a lesser extent from the American oil palm Elaeis oleifera and the maripa palm Attalea maripa.  Palm oil is naturally reddish in color because of a high beta-carotene content. Along with coconut oil, palm oil is one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats and is semisolid at room temperature.  Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil.

In India, we have a different one – the ‘palmolein’.  The fad for this oil was so high a couple of decades ago, that the Govt. was importing them in bulk tankers and redistributing to households, who were using this oil moving away from dalda vanaspathi, groundnut oil, gingelly oil, bran oil and other cooking oils. Now refined oils like sunflower, olive, safflower, avocado have all taken over.  There were concerns that at any point time, the palmolein available in the market  could far exceed the quantity of oil that had been imported, hinting that there was heavy adulteration in this brand. 

Palm oil and palm olein originate from the same plant, a palm species known as E. Guineesis. Palmolein has different characteristics than the palm oil, most notably that it remains completely liquid at room temperature. It is highly heat resistant, similar to palm oil, and it also resists the formation of breakdown products during frying and increases the shelf life of many products. The Palm Olein Import Scam refers to the alleged irregularities in the import of palmolein by the K. Karunakaran-led United Democratic Front government of the state of Kerala,  through the Power and Energy Limited Company. The Kerala government selected Power and Energy Limited arbitrarily without inviting tenders, allegedly at an inflated price and at an excessive service charge and in violation of central and state government procedure and this scam was first brought to light officially by a report of the Accountant-General of Kerala in July 1993, a Comptroller and Auditor General report in February 1994, and subsequently by a report of the Public Undertakings Committee of the Kerala Legislative Assembly in March 1996.

Although palm oil and palm olein are produced from the same plant and share many similar properties, the main difference between them is their chemical state at room temperature. Lliquid palmolein is considered the "gold standard" and is the most widely used oil for frying in the world.  Now comes the news that Palm oil is to be removed from all own-label food sold by Iceland amid concerns over its impact on wildlife. The oil is used in a huge number of products on supermarket shelves ranging from bread to soap.

Now read this interesting news from TOI and other media.. .. and the response of TN Congress !!  .. .. the news title screamed – ‘Traders shun palm oil from Malaysia, Govt denies curbs’

Indian traders have stopped importing palm oil from Malaysia in retaliation to the latter joining Pakistan’s criticism of the Modi government’s decisions on Jammu & Kashmir. “In your own interest as well as a mark of solidarity with our nation, we should avoid purchases from Malaysia for the time being. We trust you would heed our advice,” a statement issued by the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA), a body of vegetable oil industry and trade, said, adding that traders were angry with Malaysia.  Traders also said they were not entering into new contracts. “There is uncertainty among traders and as a precaution, we have told them not to go for new contracts till there is clarity,” B V Mehta, executive director of SEA, said, adding that the decision to issue the advisory was also in national interest. “J&K is our internal matter,” he said.

Significantly, while the association said the initiative was prompted by traders’ sensitivity to the stand taken by the government which has made plain its annoyance with Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad’s criticism of the decision to end special status for J&K, commerce minister Piyush Goyal distanced the Modi dispensation from the move.  Importers of Malaysian palm oil, however, were forthright in stating that they were aware of the Government’s well-known annoyance with Malaysia. “Our government has not taken kindly to unprovoked pronouncements by the Malaysian PM and is contemplating some retaliatory action. It would be in the fitness of things, as a responsible Indian vegetable oil industry, if we avoid purchasing palm oil from Malaysia till such time clarity on the way forward emerges from the government,” SEA said.

Malaysian minister Teresa Kok’s statement asking SEA not to take “unilateral action” of banning Malaysian palm oil could be the first blink in the spat between the two countries. A senior industry expert hinted that a Malaysian delegation is expected to land in Delhi “sooner than expected”. On Tuesday, talking to reporters at the Palm Oil Supply and Demand Outlook Conference, Kok had said, “I urge the Solvent Extractors’ Association not to take unilateral action and allow our respective governments to resolve the current situation.” India imports about 15 million tonnes of palm oil annually, out of which 6.5 million tonnes come from Indonesia and about 3 million tonnes from Malaysia, according to Mehta. The move by Indian importers is likely to significantly hurt Malaysia, traders said.

Mehta said the commerce minister’s comments in Stockholm would help bring some clarity as the government was not contemplating any official curbs on imports from Malaysia. He said traders were still angry about Malaysia’s interference in India’s internal matters. “Kashmir is an internal issue,” he said.

Amidst the call by an Indian trade association for importers to shun palm oil from Malaysia, a political body in South India has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi government not to reduce palm oil imports from Malaysia. The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) said any reduction of palm oil imports from Malaysia by India will hit hard the migrant workers from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu currently employed in Malaysia. TNCC president K.S. Alagiri said that at least 500,000 people from Tamil Nadu are working in the Information Technology sector and restaurants in Malaysia.  .. .. Congress party / TNCC not thinking of the national interest perhaps is nothing new ! given the dynamics of politics.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

25^th Oct 2019.

imagine a cart drawn by Zebra on the busy roads of metropolis !!

Remembering Crazy Mohan ~ he once wrote dialogue for a comedy drama ’36 Beerangi lane’ parody of – ‘36 Chowringhee Lane’ film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by Shashi Kapoor. It marked the directorial debut of Sen, who had until then been known as a leading actress of Bengali cinema.

Visitors to Kolkatta would never want to miss the large marble building – ‘Victoria Memorial’ built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) and is now a museum under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.  The memorial lies on the  bank of the Hooghly River, near Jawaharlal Nehru Road (better known as Chowringhee Road).  Chowringhee road is considered to be one  of the first roads in the city;  prior to the coming of the British, the road used to link the villages of Kalighat and Chowringhee. The village of Chowringhee,  named  after a saint Chowranginath of the Nath sect. There would be so many horse-drawn carriages !! nearer the Victoria memorial.

With stripes across the body, they look like having a barcode and at a glance all in the herd might look alike – they say that their stripe patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints are in man. Scientists can identify individual zebras by comparing patterns, stripe widths, colour and scars but to us they would look alike apart from their size – big and small.  Not as majestic as the Horse, Zebra is a specie of African equids, live in the wild and have never been domesticated. 

Before you make any comment on the stripes, Scientists in Japan have found that if cows have zebra-style stripes painted on them, they are bitten less by the aptly named ‘biting flies’ - pests that are estimated to cost US farmers around $2,211 million per year in productivity.  Despite sounding like something out of a cartoon, the study in Aichi prefecture, which was published in the journal PLOS One, was based on previous research that suggests one of the functions of zebra’s stripes is to avoid being bitten.

More Zebra news - a runaway zebra has been shot dead in Germany after it escaped from a circus and fled onto a motorway, causing a traffic accident, police say.  Police in the northern city of Rostock said the animal disrupted traffic, damaged cars and caused an accident on the A20 motorway on Wednesday before being shot dead by officers. A second zebra that escaped from the circus was captured. It is not yet clear how the two animals escaped from the circus in northern Germany on Tuesday evening.  Police on Wednesday morning issued a warning on Twitter that one of the escaped zebras was disrupting traffic on the A20 highway and had caused an accident.

In a later statement, they said no one was injured in the collision, which occurred when one car braked to avoid the animal, causing another to crash into it. The animal also damaged vehicles and forced the temporary closure of the highway, they said,  Zebra – on the road ! ~ funny, you thought ? – read more !

Pathuriaghata is a neighbourhood in North Calcutta, in West Bengal. It is one of the oldest residential areas in what was Sutanuti. Once the abode of the Bengali rich, the neighbourhood and its surrounding areas are now dominated by Marwaris. Even in the 21^st  century the area is replete with colonnaded mansions.

Amongst the oldest and most renowned residents of the neighbourhood were the Tagores. Joyram Tagore, who amassed a large fortune as a merchant and as Dewan to the French government at Chandannagar, shifted from Gobindapur to Pathuriaghata, when the British constructed new Fort William in the mid-eighteenth century. There is a road named after his son, Darpanarayan Tagore considered by many as the founder of the Tagore family. It is between Maharshi Debendra Road and Jadulal Mullick Road in Ward 21 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.  Tagore castle was a prominent residence.  Jatindramohan Tagore  made a departure in the way of building residences in India. He modelled the building on that of an English castle. It even had a 100 feet (30 m) high centre tower in the fashion of Windsor Castle in England. There was a clock imported from England, reminiscent of Big Ben. He even had permission to fly the Union Jack.

Next to the turrets of Tagore Castle on Prasanna Kumar Tagore Street is the house of the Mullick family topped by classical statuary. Jadulal Mullick (1844-1894) had numerous contributions in social and law spheres. At one time he donated enormously to the Oriental Seminary.  Jadulal Mullick has a road named after him in the area. His son, Manmathanath Mullick,  reportedly bought a pair of zebras from Alipore Zoological Gardens to pull his carriage through the streets of Kolkata. He had nine types of carriages and a stable full of horses. One of the grandsons of Jadulal Mullick, Prodyunno Kumar Mullick had 35 cars, out of which 10 were Rolls Royce. The Mullicks have contributed enormously for charitable purposes.  The zebras on road pulling carriage could have been a weird attraction – and to show that the stripes were not painted one, they reportedly were bathed frequently !

Other than Zebra fame,  Mullicks did play a very significant role in shaping and preserving the Gaudiya Treasures of Bengal.   The Mullicks originally belonged to the gold mercantile community (suvarna baniks) and traditionally had been rich businessmen.  Sri Uddharana Datta Thakura and A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada are the foremost of the great suvarna baniks to have graced our parampara (Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya). Surrendering his life unto the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda, Sri Uddharana, who had hailed from a very opulent gold mercantile family, subsequently renounced his wealth, fame, prestige and accepted the robes of a mendicant to further the cause of Krishna consciousness.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

29^th Oct 2019.

Thanks : my friend Sridhar Joshi whose Quiz had this Q on Zebra carriage !

https://www.thegaudiyatreasuresofbengal.com/2018/01/13/pious-mullicks-bengal/