Hello everyone, I am Deeksha Jhaian and I secured the 22nd Rankin Civil Services Examination 2018 with English Literature as my optional. In this video, I will be discussing Paper 2 of the optional as it came in the CSE 2018. The paper pattern in question number in Paper 2 is similar to Paper A in the sense that question number 1 and question number 5 are compulsory. Apart from that, you have to do 3 more questions in which one has to be from each section and one you can do according to your choice. So, it is usually either you do 2 from Section A or 2 from Section B and 1 from either of the sections. Now, we will talk about the first question which is a compulsory question and in the first question in Paper 2, we have quotations from the poetry that is there in the syllabus and you have to analyze these lines and comment on them within a space of 10 marks which is basically 2 sides of sheets. So, question number 1A, in the nightmare of the dark all the dogs of Europe bark and the living nations wait each sequestered in its head. So, here it is although it is not necessary to mention which poem these lines have been taken from but it is still good because then it shows that you know exactly where these lines are coming from. In this case is these lines have been taken from September 1, 1939 by W.H. Odin. So, since you have to critically comment now if you were to do these lines it would basically these lines this poem has been written at the sort of beginning of World War II. So, it is a criticism of European society and the degeneration that it has faced and for example, the lines and the living nations wait each sequestered in its head. It is talking about how nations are only looking at their personal interest and their personal hatreds. They are you know plotting against each other and they are not looking at the common good of humanity. You can even connect these lines with other lines from the same poem or other ideas of Odin because this critical view of modern life and of the period between World War I and World War II is very central to Odin's poetry. So, if you can show interconnectedness between different poems or different lines of the same poem it will also fetch you more marks and you can also comment on you know the nightmare of the dark as a symbol of the darkness of European society and of darkness of the times in which nations are moving towards war. So, you can explore these symbols you can comment on the general theme of the poem and you can talk about the general poetry of that author and how his own philosophy is reflected in these lines. So, B is within alien people clutching their gods I should be glad of another death. So, these lines have been taken from the journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot. The background of this poem is that T.S. Eliot himself he converted to Christianity to Catholicism and his journey of religious conversion was a very personal and powerful aspect of his life and this poem also talks about the journey of these three Magi who travel somewhere from the Orient from different from a place with a different religion than Christianity. So, here clutching their goddess actually refers to other pagan religions for example and when they reach the place of the birth of Jesus and when they are initiated into Christianity their lives transform it is like an epiphanic movement for them. So, these two lines are basically exploring the magnanimity of the moment of spiritual activation or spiritual enlightenment of these people and also of T.S. Eliot in that sense. And here you can also look at I should be glad of another death. So, it is basically looking at you know that before these people were initiated into Christianity or they witnessed the birth of Jesus which relates to the older myth about these three saints who travel from far and they went to they were they came just in time for the birth of Jesus. So, it is like when they are initiated into Christianity it is like a rebirth for them. So, this poem is very religious and very spiritual and you can explore these aspects of this poem. Question number one C the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. These lines have been taken from the second coming by W.B. Yates. Now, the second coming is a poem in which obviously there is a criticism of modern society and the way it has become destructive and it has you know lost its rootedness in culture, religion etc. But apart from that it is also an apocalyptic poem because basically what Yates is saying is that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. It is a common to modern life that the people who are speaking the loudest are the ones who are who have hatred within them or who are who don't have the right intentions who are not working towards a better society and while the ones who are actually who who are right in their convictions they are keeping silent and the silence according to him is also a violation of integrity. It is not right for the people who are who are on the right path to remain silent and to just watch the world unfold in the way it is unfolding. You can also link this to the apocalyptic imagery that is there in later in the poem about the second coming where a monster like creature is writing is rising from the deserts of Bethlehem.  And so this age is like basically an age of degeneration and that is the central theme of these lines. So number D is, yet they leave us holding wretched stalks of disappointment for though nothing box each big approach leaning with brass work print each rope distinct. So these lines have been taken from Philip Larkin's next please. The poem basically talks about how human beings are always waiting for happiness in terms of promises in terms of dreams that they have and actually they don't realize that everything is transitory in life and anything there is a famous quote that no sooner is it than it comes to past than it turns to past. So basically what these lines are saying is that we keep waiting for our promises what the poem calls the amada of promises we keep waiting for our dreams and for our successes but when they come they don't give us the same satisfaction. So here wretched stalks is basically the wretched stalks of disappointment because the happiness we thought that we will get we are actually disappointed with what actually happens in life. So it's sort of Philip Larkin's poetry is also about in a sense that a lack of meaning in life a lack of the central you know faith in the meaning of life of humanity but at the same time there is a lot of acceptance that even though life is like this if we recognize that life is transitory that life is that life may not have an overarching grand agenda it is a much better and a senior way to live life. So you can explore that philosophy that Larkin has in these lines. The next poem is obituri by A.K. Ramanujan and it reads and he left us a changed mother and more than one annual ritual. So this is obituri is basically an obituri on his father's death so he's talking about his father's death. The interesting thing about these lines is these lines say that and he left us a changed mother and more than one ritual in a year. So it seems to say as if the narrator has not been affected by his father's death the only effect in his life is that the mother has been really affected and that he has to perform that ritual on the death anniversary of a person but if you have read the poem then later in the poems there are very powerful lines where the narrator is looking at newspapers everywhere just looking for that obituri of his father. So what these lines show is that even though the narrator is putting up a facade of being very cold and you know sort of like heartless and not very connected with his father there is that you know deep root of connection that is there and you can explore that sort of that dual meaning that these lines have in that respect. Okay now let us move to question number two. This is obviously not a compulsory question. A reads, Odin's The Shield of Achilles is a critique of contemporary culture, elitidate. This is it is one of my favorite poems and so The Shield of Achilles is a poem where the myth of the creation of shield of Achilles by Hephaestus who was a Greek god is equated with the degeneration of modern society because The Shield was supposed to be very beautiful it was supposed to have gardens and pastures and people dancing and on the other hand when Thetis looks at The Shield there are images of modernity which is basically barbed wires, war, people being hands, young children partaking in acts of violence. So what the poem does is that it puts these two images against each other that where there should have been pastors and fields there there are scenes of war, there are also scenes of regimentality. This poem is basically a critique of contemporary culture because then it always it juxtaposes the contemporary degeneration with something and ideal which was supposed to be there in the past. So here you can use a lot of examples for example there are lines about men standing in a row and nobody knows what they are doing but they are just you know moving mechanically so it's about mechanization of life. A person is being hanged but the people are just you know lazily sitting there so it is talking about how modern man has become immune to violence they don't feel anything if anybody else is getting hurt. Even there are lines about children where it is said that if that girls raped and one person killed another was usual for young children to hear it was not a time where promises were one could weep if another wept. So these are the values of modern life that are being criticized by Odin in this poem by juxtaposing them with the past so you can discuss that in this answer. B says comment on the ending of look back in anger does it look like being where we started or is there indeed a hopeful no. So here of course everybody each one of you can have your own interpretation as to whether the novel has started has ended right where it started and nothing has changed or something has changed. My perspective on it is that the central character Jimmy Porter has not changed to a great extent he was shouting he was you know sort of venting his anger he was being violent in his ways whether it was with his wife or with you know the other girl who comes in and that remains he is not really changed as an as a character except that he seems to be little tired of his rant in the end because everybody has left him and then his wife comes back but what I believe has changed in the course of it is the the character of his wife undergoes a change and there is a change in the relationship a relationship which seemed not to have so much heart where you know both the people have become immune like Jimmy used to keep shouting and Alison would not respond she would just you know keep mechanically doing what she was doing so there seems to be a greater level of understanding. So you can talk about how the relationship progresses that despite the world being the world being without opportunities for Jimmy despite the anger being there there is a way that the two find to live in each other's company there is a greater understanding between the two characters and in a way you know they are somehow more compatible than they are in the beginning. At the same time I would you know like my understanding is also that Jimmy Porter in on the whole does not change only thing is that and that is something that is valorized about this play also. So in the answer what you can do is that you can look at how the play starts out and what how is Jimmy's character how are you know the other characters in the end another change is that you know the other characters leave the scene and only Jimmy and his wife are left on the stage so that is also you know sort of a change from the beginning to the end. So you can look at these small small aspects and the major aspects in terms of character transformations in the text. Two C says the love song of J Alfred Proofrock epitomizes the frustrations and inertia of the modern era justify the statement. So this poem this is what the poem actually is doing throughout. So you will have a lack of points or lack of evidence in this you have to talk about how it epitomizes the frustrations and inertia of modern man. So in frustrations firstly you can talk about the personality of Proofrock that he is so self-conscious that he is not able to do anything that he's full of inertia throughout the poem he keeps saying that I will ask the question and the question is to be asked and the matter of the question but ultimately he does not ask the question and he just says would it have been worth it after all. So it is basically that extreme self-consciousness and inertia of modern man it is seen in other things also there is extreme fragmentation Proofrock says that you know that I could have been claws cuddling on the floors of silences. So it is that absolute alienation and frustration with life that man is reduced to something as fragmented as just cuddling claws on the floors of silences. The frustration is also there in social critique like he keeps mentioning that and the women come and go speaking of Michael Angelo. So it is a frustration with the modern life as well the regimental quality of modern life and he says that I'll measure my life with coffee spoons. So you can use all these evidences and you can like you know present beautiful answer on Proofrock because it is about the central theme of the poem. Question number three A says, explicate the significance of symbols used by Yeats with reference to the poems Eastern 1916 the second coming and Byzantium. So Yeats poetry Yeats's poetry is famous for its heavy symbolism and the symbols help us in understanding Yeats's philosophy his stand on things and they sort of also beautify his poetry. So it is like you introduce talking about symbolism in Yeats's poetry and then you can come towards discussing specific examples from these poems. For example in Eastern 1916 if I were to discuss certain examples so for example there is a line too long a struggle can turn make a stone of the heart. So the symbol of heart turned into stone and the stone is a recurring symbol in the entire poem. What does it signify? On the one hand it talks about you know the hardening of hearts because of the nationalist struggle which is not actually leading to freedom. Hardening of hearts because so much blood has been lost and so many leaders have been lost and people have been struggling again for their independence. But the stone is also symbol of rigidity that when too long a sacrifice if there is if people keep sacrificing for too long then they become immune to violence and Yeats was not a supporter of violent movement for the independence of Ireland. So it is talking about the positive and the somber aspects of the nationalist struggle as well as the rigidity of the nationalist struggle of which Yeats was not very he was not okay with. The second coming again we have discussed this earlier in the short notes. Second coming the symbol of the Antichrist which comes in the end of the poem. He is symbolic of the degeneration of the present times of the critique of the world wars and the degeneration of modern life which has lost its root and culture and which has become very regimental. So again symbolism is there in Byzantium. Byzantium becomes a symbol of the lost world and lost glory which Yeats wants to go to but at the same time he realizes that it you can't just simply go to the past and that cannot be without pain. So the symbol of that dolphin torn and gong tormented sea that's a recurring symbol in Byzantium. So you can discuss all of those symbols and more if you have space in the answer. Bees says Larkin combines wistful sadness amusement respect for the common place and a deep compassion discussed with reference to some of his poems. So the idea would be to take examples from almost all the poems which are there in the course and you have to justify each aspect. So if you're talking about sadness you can talk about that poem in which there is the prostitute is raped and it is sort of trying to recreate that experience of extreme agony. Even Mr. Blini's small room evokes so much sadness or the lives of the parents who are you know very they are so lifeless in afternoons where you know their life has become so regimented. There are aspects of amusement as well whether it is in Mr. Blini where the narrator is sitting and he is trying to sort of understand that what kind of life Mr. Blini must have had his radio and his relationship with his landlady. Amusement in terms of the way children come to play amusement in terms of this you know this understanding of life in terms of how you know the ship of life comes and goes of promises the armada of promises and all that and respect for the common place and deep compassion I think this is mostly like you know most starkly evident in Mr. Blini because at the end of the poem after judging Mr. Blini's existence as you know of somebody who has been reduced to just one room there is a deep understanding of Mr. Blini's relationships real relationships that he had that he could go on a holiday with his sister that he had a relationship with his landlady and the narrator who is even more alienated than Mr. Blini living in the same room he can't even claim to have that so there is a deep compassion for human existence in whatever flawed form it is there so while the understanding is there that life can be meaningless but there is also compassion for it and respect for humanity okay and question number three see the central weakness of modernism is that in its pursuit of more complex sense of reality it fails in coherence do you agree justify your answer with some illustrations from the 20th century poetry and drama so modernism which is also a background topic for this paper has many characteristics and it is there is a lot of alienation from earlier ideas of religion from time coherence in plot even the narrator who used to be such a trustworthy figure in earlier novels like Victorian novels becomes like a shifty person for example Marlowe and Lodgem so there are a lot of belief systems which are getting questioned in modernism so you can give a definition of modernism and what modern literature how was modern literature different from earlier literature and why it is talking about a fragmented reality so what the statement is that in trying to capture this fragmented reality does modern literature lose its coherence and we have to give examples from poetry and drama so you can give example for example if you look at TS Eliot's poetry so it is extremely fragmented because of if you look at proof rock he it is like a dramatic monologue then he will suddenly shift from one place to another the emotions keep changing social commentary keeps changing so there is a sense of lack of coherence if you look at waiting for Godot it doesn't seem to have a plot it seems like the first act in the second act are almost similar and you know people keep doing nonsensical things and Godot never comes they keep waiting for Godot but my understanding is not in agreement with this that in you know trying to portray this complex reality it loses coherence the beauty of modern literature is that it is not trying to be coherent in the traditional sense earlier if they wrote novel they would show a clear you know development of the character but life is not like that many times you know a character will develop and it will go back it will go towards happiness and come back to sadness it will decide and then it again it will become undecided modern literature was trying to capture the ethos of the time which was a very complex time there were two world wars ideas of religion faith humanity time Darwinism everything was changing so in its fragmented form modern literature somehow captures the ethos of that time so there is I don't think there is a need for coherence in such a literature so that is my stand you are of course please ponder over the question and come to your own conclusions because that is what the literature paper demands of you okay so coming to question number 4a Beckett called waiting for Godot or tragic comedy do you agree with this classification if not how would you classify the play so personally I agree with this classification yes it is tragic comedy so we have to sort of justify why it is a tragic comedy it's very simple you can start with a general introduction about waiting for Godot it's plot and how it is a tragic comedy first you can then look at the aspects of tragedy so aspects of tragedy are what that man's existence has been reduced to just waiting for death that there is no grand idea there is disillusionment with any kind of belief system which would earlier give faith to people there are two people estragon and Vladimir who keep waiting for Godot who never comes tragedy is also there in Pozzo and Lucky you know who have degenerated Lucky has lost all sense of all sense of coherence and Pozzo slowly loses his sense of arrogance sense of time so that is the tragedy of modern man and at the same time what is Beckett trying to say Beckett is trying to say yes there is no grand design in this world that may be man's existence is actually you know not towards a greater ideal it is just there the idea is that yes we are all waiting for Godot but what we do while waiting becomes important and the comic element is there comedy comes in how Vladimir and Estragon pass their time so Vladimir and Estragon what they do is that they play games they talk to each other they argue with each other the way you know Lucky speeches so incoherent at the same time so meaningful comedy comes with the so Beckett was really impressed with silent films and the likes of Charlie Chaplin so the comedy is there in the actions of Vladimir and Estragon and so this is why you know I do believe that this is a tragic comedy and you can add more points to this as you develop your own understanding of the text moving on to question number 4b it is the synthesis of Ramanujan's perception of the external world with the world of his inner imaginative response which lends an extraordinary meaning to his poems discussed with reference to poems prescribed for study um so basically Ramanujan's poetry is very uh it's ironical it is very tight it is a little bit dry also it is not very expressive but we have to look at how Ramanujan's inner perception of his reality and the images that he uses in his poems how he reflects his own inner being in his poems and in the perception of the external world so you can use evidences from the poems for example a river which talks about Vagari and Madurai and how you know literature has degenerated and how Ramanujan himself is trying to revive it so you can look at the look at the inner imaginative response to the literary culture by Ramanujan when he talks about you know the two cows and the pregnant mother and two babies and how he wants to revive literature by talking about the things that are important and not the things which have been traditionally spoken about so in a repetitive manner people keep writing about the same things also like when he writes about his mother you can talk about how his emotional attachment and that you know with his mother is reflected in the images of how his mother you know would come through the rain and the diamonds of her earrings or even you know the kind of attachment that the young baby has with the mother so all these things are like his inner response but they are creating the outer world of the poem there are other poems also like the action of a swing of a girl who is looking back at her own childhood from a more mature consciousness thinking about her own sexuality and it is Ramanujan's response to it also his imagination of you know the flowering of a girl's sexuality or the way one becomes nostalgic for one's childhood and the images that he uses of a red fig tree etc so you can sort of combine all these images and talk about Ramanujan's interpretation and his understanding of his external world through the prism of his own symbols and his inner being okay and now we'll move on to question number C do you find angry young man Jimmy Potter's attitude towards society credible is it fully worked out and resolved in the drama give reasons for your answer you can start with generally talking about this angry young man figure which Jimmy Potter and John Osborne brought into the English stage the angry young man is angry with everything what the government is doing the lack of employment opportunities the frustration of the youth who has been educated but does not have adequate and satisfying jobs to do about his anger is about the media which is trying to satisfy people with superficial news and not talking about the real things the anger is also about the lost power of countries like Britain because no longer does it enjoy the prosperity and the importance that it had in the international scene so the question is is this anger credible I would say yes the anger is credible and that is why this play resonated so much with the audience of the time because that anger was palpable in the society all these issues were issues that were going on in the society despite educational reforms employment was a problem there was a huge you know generation of youth which were extremely frustrated with their lives and religion was coming into question and all the aspects of society were coming into question so yes the anger is credible I would say is it fully worked out and resolved in the drama I wouldn't say that because the anger Jimmy's anger Jimmy Porter is not able to do anything about his anger he keeps shouting he keeps ranting out of his window but he never goes out into the society and does something he turns his angering on to his wife his friends he's very violent he's very emotional but that anger is important and a critic has said that what starts as a drama of social criticism ends up as a drama of social despair it is despair because this anger does not culminate into anything it just it is reduced to you know anger and a lot of misogyny so I would say that yes it does not you know there is no culmination to this anger so you can again also have your own opinion about the text but I think that this is my opinion let us now move to question number five which is again a compulsory question so there are short notes on the novels in this paper okay so question number five a says the repetition and evolution of the symbol of echo in a passage to India so the echo is the echo of the Malabar caves and how what does the first thing that you can talk about in this is what does the echo signify in the text so people can have different understandings there have been various interpretation about what the echo actually means my particular interpretation was that echo as the at on the one hand echo as a symbol of the inner misgivings and the inner fears that the colonial that the colonial people had the native countries because they were ruling over a people and they were not really interacting with them so there were certain misgivings and these misgivings were sort of you know repeated to them in the form of an echo so when Adela quested goes into the cave she is very you know enthusiastic that she wants to see the real India and all that but when she goes to the cave she is confronted with her own deepest fears about the native people and you know what she thinks are assumptions about the native people that you know whether that she feels that she has been molested or things like that the echo could also be the if you look at it from the psycho analytical point of view it could be the deep unconscious which is the in Freudian terms is called the aid which sort of you know which is very difficult to understand but that is what often drives many of our actions and our subconscious behavior so echo you can say that when we confront our unconscious that could be in the form of the echo of the Malabar caves so there are different you know interpretations you can look at it from the postcolonial perspective also and from the psycho analytical perspective also now the repetition and evolution of the echo repetition of the echo I think it sort of works as a structural device in which which keeps on emphasizing the theme of the novel of you know this continuous distance and discomfort between the two races or you know the Indians and the Anglo Indian people who are saying that and so repetition is also about the central theme of the novel the psycho analytical part of it and any other understanding of the repetition that you may have evolution of the echo I think is it starts as something incomprehensible it evolves into some sort of meaning when you know Adela quest it comes to her senses it also sort of you know it is also a symbol of the incomprehensibility that you know how the colonials cannot understand the natives in a complete fashion so sort of as the novel progresses it sort of shows that so long as there are unequal relationships or between the Indians and the colonial masters there will be no real understanding so I also see it as you know the evolution of the echo that the echo is accepted as something which is not understandable at this point of time so you may have different interpretations of the echo but you can include as many interpretations as you want in this particular answer question 5 b says the significance of dreams in a portrait of the artist as a young man so the portrait of the artist as a young man is like a moderns bildungsroman it is written in the stream of consciousness format it follows the journey of you know uh deadless right from when he is a baby till he attains a sort of consciousness as an writer as a individual a youth who wants to become a writer and an artist and dreams play a very big role in this in this evolution of the artist number one dreams are a means of exploration of his own sexuality he has dreams about women and he sort of tries to balance religion and sexuality religion and the material world and this struggle is also seen in his dreams dreams are also a source of creativity because the images that he has in his dreams can also be reflected in the literature that he writes and basically dreams serve as a window to the unconscious and the subconscious of deadless as he evolves as a character in the novel okay question number five c is the relationship between paul morrell and his father and sons and lovers this is a pretty straightforward question in the novel at least according to my understanding they do have a strained relationship in some ways paul morrell you know this laurence has said that sons and lovers was his colliery novel and the actual collier in the novel is paul morrell's father but there is some sort of understanding about the labor that his father gives and you know the kind of hard life that he has but the relationship of paul morrell who is an artist and who is more close to his mother is strained with his father reasons are many there is the violence that you know his father afflicts on his mother there are scenes of domestic violence scenes of arguments there is also distance because his father is working class while he is moving to the middle class his values are more middle class than working class so that aspect of the relationship is there and the relationship as that you know physically evolves in the beginning there is some sort of you know playfulness there in the relationship but as paul morrell grows he keeps moving away from his father and even after his mother dies his father sort of you know lives alone and morrell moves to the city you know he is going to explore new frontiers so like I would say that the relationship is more about growing up and moving apart and it signifies a difference when a young child who is born into a working class family grows up in middle class values and with an aspiration of moving away from his class that also reflects in the distance between the son and the father because both now belong to different classes question 5d is the theme of alienation and isolation in lord jim so here alienation and isolation should not just be seen of course the central character lord jim shows these qualities he is alienated with the world he keeps moving from one place to the other just because he has this idea of glory and this idea of how people should see him as you know as a person who has a lot of honor and he feels that he has lost that honor so he is alienated from the world or isolation also because he keeps isolating himself from people so they are there in lord jim as a character but this is a theme which is there throughout the novel this alienation can be seen in the judge who commits suicide a few days after the judgment passing judgment on lord jim it can be seen in the person who loses his consciousness and marlo goes to meet him to get an account of what really happened on board of the ship which gets read and alienation and isolation also when lord jim moves to the partisan and his isolation from the people there is also there so it is there in the narrator's narration who sees this theme as permeating throughout the modern society so i think you can look at it as alienation and isolation as a theme of the modern world which is also reflected in the novel in many aspects of the novel a question number 5e the significance of the different houses in a house for mr biswas so firstly the symbol of the house in mr biswas has is multi-dimensional it is a physical house because a person who moved to a new land as an indentured labor has no identity there they live in you know mud huts and there is no sense of you know that this is where i was born and this is where i have grown up because everything is flat mud is washed away and there is no sense of identity the house gives mr biswas that sense of identity that is why in his entire life he keeps aiming to have a house of his own and you know as from coming from an Indian society it is very relatable because in developing countries owning your own house is such a big deal it gives you that sense of identity and rootedness in life another thing about the house is that the different houses that mr biswas has they show different emotions and different phases of growth for example when he tries to build the house in the sugarcane area he's unable to complete it it sort of shows that mr biswas's character has not developed as much as it has to before he can actually own a house when he gives a toy house to his daughter savi and you know it is smashed by his wife so it sort of shows the conflict that is there in mr biswas who's dependent on his wife's family for everything even the final house that mr biswas gets is not perfect because he's still under heavy loan the walls are crooked there are certain you know problems with the house but even then at the end of it i think there is a sense of satisfaction that finally mr biswas has a sense of identity so these different houses show different aspects of his life and you know the novel ultimately talks about the sense of identity that a house can give a person and also the sense of void which can never be filled however many houses you build so both aspects are there in this answer now we move to question number six a examine the relationship between war and madness as represented in virginia volz mrs dalovey so both madness and war are the central themes of this novel in terms of war we have there are many representations there are people who have maimed they don't have hands or legs they're moving in you know the london's cape there is septimus who is a war veteran and who has returned from war and he has gone mad he's slowly slowly he's losing his senses there are people like mrs dalovey herself who thinks that you know she feels that she's going mad she feels that she's not affected by the war but the world around her has changed to a great extent how and the novel also talks about madness specifically through the character of septimus smith in terms of one madness in the sense that he's losing his touch with reality he imagines things where they are not there madness also in the sense that madness in a good way in a way that madness gives him that space that he can think more clearly than people who think that they are sane septimus when he's mad talks about peace communication saving trees love and he talks about these values and these values seem to be missing in a world which is obsessed with war the society which is sane like you know mr bratshaw or the all the elite people of the government who are in ways preparing for the second world war who are okay with the idea of war so virginia wolf is really asking the question that who is really mad is septimus who appears to be mad but is more you know sane philosophically then these people is he mad or are these people who think that war is okay that the loss of life and you know the lack of love in the society is alright or are these people mad so there is this constant conflict between what madness really constitutes you can also talk about virginia wolf herself the author because she had suffered a lot of mental illnesses and she ultimately committed suicide and you know she has a very beautiful letter that she wrote before she committed suicide to her husband so in a way you know it is coming from very a person who understands how she was also a person like who lost relatives and people in the war so she's a person like she understands the pain of war as well as what madness can feel like so both of these things are really interrelated in the text question number six b how far is it correct to claim that the theme of sands and lovers is the growth of individual beings in a working class environment so i've spoken about this earlier also dh laurence called sands and lovers is colliery novel because he had himself come from colliery background his father was a collier and his individual story was also of a person who moved from a working class background to create his own individual identity as an artist and as a novelist the novel also talks about this you know the growth of the individual the central character of the novel is pearl morel and he despite being from a working class background he receives an education his mother is a petty bourgeois so he has certain middle class values the focus of the novel is not about how the working class on the whole can improve it is not a working class novel into the extent that it is going to talk about you know developing the working class improving their working conditions talking about the health issues that the working class has it refers to those issues very obliquely but what it talks about is that despite circumstances despite the social scenario that surrounds us how can an individual move beyond the circumstances to carve out his own identity in the world what paul morel does is that despite being poor despite having all these constraints he carves his own identity as a painter and he also educates himself and finally he moves to the city the novel ends with the image of paul morel clutching his fist and walking very you know purposefully towards the city so that is a symbol of him finding his own identity of leaving his working class background behind so you can explore this answer on these lines using evidences from the text question number six c is is kanthapura more concerned with the reform in our dominant religion and culture than with political protest against the colonial domination explained from the perspective of colonialism and post colonialism so my understanding of this answer is this that the colonial perspective would see Indian freedom struggle as something which is not clear in its objective do we want religious reform or do we want national you know independence are we really focused in our purpose and it is you know they might also look at the struggle as being you know nonviolence as being a weakness but how I see it from a postcolonial perspective and how I try to understand this text is that it is a wrong you know it is a sort of a limited view of the national struggle and of the scenario which is there in kanthapura to look at it only from one you know from one lens that it is a text of religious reform or it is a text of national independence or the struggle for national independence actually the indian independence struggle always took these two things together we always took social reform religious reform and national independence to be you know going hand in hand because unless we improve our own old society we improve our own social structures we won't really able to be a strong and coherent society even if the people who are ruling over us leave then will we be a society worth you know saving so it was important that is why gandhi ji always focused that women empowerment religious reform you know he was against casteism also and that is how the text also goes it takes both religious reform and national struggle in the same way and it sees both as attaining the same objective so this is how i understood the text you can use textual evidences to substantiate this viewpoint let us now move to question number seven a a house for mr biswas is a building's roman with the difference discuss firstly what is a building's roman a building's roman traditionally was a story of the growth of a character from childhood to a stage where usually in a stage in youth from where the character would you know attain a certain sort of settlement would be settled would be married you know things like that traditionally that was a building's roman so how is house for mr biswas a building's roman with a difference difference is in that yes it starts with mr biswas as a child and it follows his journey as he grows but it does not stop at his youth it follows mr biswas's journey right till his death the other major difference is that while in a traditional building's roman the character would be settled and would get married at the end of the novel would have certain sense of would finish his education what the novel shows that after finishing his education after getting married there is a sense of unsettledness in mr biswas's life he keeps feeling that void throughout his life so in a way what the novel is doing is that it is stretching out the building's roman it is not stopping at the youth it is exploring not just the you know the good side of the youth but it is exploring the sinister sides as well and it is doing it throughout the life of the character another like you know the final point that this building's roman with a distance with a difference makes is that who can have a proper building's roman if it is the novel is actually about the story of a displaced people the indentured labor which went from india to other countries and there they settled in a new society they are trying to create a sense of identity which is lacking in themselves so in a way the novel is saying that they these people cannot have a traditional building's roman because they don't have a traditional sense of rooted identity their entire life is concerned with that sense of identity and that is why the building's roman it does not stop with the youth is the exploration of this psychosis of you know lack of identity of this non-rootedness throughout the life so i think that is what building's roman with a difference means in this context question number seven b says what are the ways in which steven prepares himself for life as an artist how is the process related to joist's view of the role of an artist in society it's pretty straightforward and related to the prop how does steven prepare himself for the life as an artist i think one way in which he does this is by exploring different extremes of life at one point of time when he goes to school he is like a very self-conscious child and then he goes into a very he starts exploring his sexuality with his dreams he goes to prostitutes also in between and then he becomes extremely religious so he goes to the other end and you know he tries to find meaning in faith but it is in this contrast and in the self-exploration that he realizes that that is not the life which will give him happiness it is that epiphany where he sees that girl in the water that he realizes that he wants to become an artist and that is so one part of it is by experiencing these two extremes he prepares himself as an artist and after that as a student steven continuously tries to evolve his own theory of art so there is a section where he talks about claritas and the three are other two as there are three aspects of art according to him so he's trying to understand what his art will be like towards the end steven deadless's idea of an artist and what art is is focused a lot on independence he says that i don't belong to a nation i don't belong to people i have no identity except that which i give myself and that is related to how joy is viewed the artist's responsibility the artist is an objective observer of society an artist who you know does not have any baggage of nationality or of you know belonging to a particular class or of belonging to any religion the artist is being a free bird so when steven deadless moves out you know moves out from college and out there exploring the world so he's experiencing that freedom and that is how he wants his art to be he wants his art to be free so you can talk about that growth of character in that development of an artist the title of the novel itself is ported of an artist as a young man so the novel explores how an artist grows right from when he's a baby right to you know when he realizes his ambition of becoming an artist question number seven c a man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea to what extent could stein's comment on lot lot jim be taken as a final assessment of the character of lot jim here falling into a dream in like my interpretation is dream here i think refers to all the belief systems that we have and lot jim in this particular instance he has a lot of belief systems of how ideally a man should behave the idea of glory that he has of you know being brave and this fear that he has of social ostracization and of disrespect in the society which is why he keeps roaming from one place to another it is in his death that you know when he finally goes and voluntarily gives up his life that he's very proud of himself because he feels that he has reached that ideal but when stein says that a man is born and falls into a dream like a man who drowns in the sea so basically what it is saying is that these ideas of glory of conduct of you know being the bigger man are all false notions because ultimately in the modern scenario life does not conform to these grand designs which were believed in victorian era in victorian era there was a lot of emphasis on morals and proper conduct and bravery but in modern era people realize that you know if it is only superficial it is not really bravery because if you can even look at it in the colonial context that these people everybody knows that basically the author is supposed to be one of the authors who critiques colonialism so what he's also saying is that if you are a colonial person you're going to the other country you're subjugating other people and you think that you're being brave then it is actually an illusion so in a way what you know what stein is also saying is that it is an illusion that colonizers have created for themselves that you know we are being brave by conquering all these places but in fact what we are doing is we are actually serving our own personal interest that is to earn money and to you know sort of become wealthy which is all colonialism was about so yes to lot jim it does apply to a certain extent because of his idea of valor and bravery but also in the larger extent to the colonial enterprise as a whole so let us now move to question number eight a generally the indian characters in a passage of india are less convincingly portrayed than the english characters do you agree give reasons for your answer i agree with this to some extent yes there are very endearing indian characters like azeez or actually mainly azeez but what happens is that this book it is a critique of the colonial enterprise and the way the anglo indians behave in india a behavior which will actually not be condoned if they were behaving like that in their own country but they are you know arrogant and they don't they behave with such hotness when they are in india because they feel that sense of superiority the criticism of that is very good in the novel even the character of azeez is very endearing the character of mr fielding is very well carved out because he has a certain understanding of what is right and wrong and he is really brave in supporting azeez against the other anglo indians in the novel but what i feel is that the indian characters in general have been you know painted with a very broad brush for example like even azeez despite you know being a doctor despite being very competent he's supposed to be a person who is very emotional who cannot get control over his emotions who can be manipulated by other people now this is also one of the stereotypes about indians that you know that indians are too emotional they are not rational enough to understand and they are very you know manipulative and all that even if you look at the character of godbole now godbole is supposed to be a brahmin but the way he's described you know he wears funny clothes he's always you know talking about the other world he's very vague in his answers and all that so it is sort of you know that is also a kind of stereotyping because we never really know about godbole's intentions his personal life you're just told that he's sort of like a mystical man so that doesn't really you know it does not show a well-defined character another would be that pankha wala because pankha wala is a representation of the lower caste and the you know the absolute destitute and the poor of the country and the pankha wala does not get a single line he's just mute he's you know moving the pankha his body is being objectified he's being viewed by the author and you know he's representing the subjugation and the poverty of the country but there is no voice that he is given so to that extent i feel that yes the indian characters are characters are less convincingly portrayed than the english characters question number eight b says raja rao was greatly influenced by what the irish politician daniel o'connell said nothing is politically right which is morally wrong and this was supported by gandhi how far is it correct to read kanthapura in the light of this statement in the previous answer that we discussed we talked about how the indian national struggle and the world of kanthapura the ganjan struggle of kanthapura is about social reform religious reform along with the political reform so here also what raja rao portrays in the novel is that if a society is morally wrong in terms of the caste system being morally wrong the gender disparity the way you know women are not educated child marriage and all these problems are there so long as these moral problems are there in our society it is pointless to fight for political independence so the political struggle has to be along with the moral struggle and to that extent raja rao's novel shows that so you can use various evidences from the text to support this argument question number eight c says mrs dial away has no conventional plot or action it conveys to us only some moments of psychological illumination discussed i agree that the lack of conventional plot because you can introduce it by saying that you know mrs dial away is a stream of consciousness novel so it does not have dialogues it moves from one person's thoughts to to the other person's thought and that is how the entire story is woven the plot is also not conventional to the extent that it does not form a linear narrative from past to present it keeps on going from you know past to present as the minds of people and the memories of people are triggered and yes it does convey moments of psychological illumination whether it is you know in those christlike illuminated talks of septimus when he says that we should not destroy it we should save trees we should there should be more communication and they should be universal love or whether you know there is illumination and mrs dial away herself you know when she sort of looks at herself and there is this acute sense of sadness because this whole image that she has created of herself as you know a social eye too is very good at organizing parties and within herself she is extremely sad so yes there are these moments of psychological illumination but i don't think that it is an incoherent plot it is just a different plot it is not a conventional plot but it is trying to come to terms with a very complex reality in its own very innovative way so i think that apart from giving moments of psychological illumination i think that these moments actually give meaning to the entire novel and sort of give a shape to the plot of the novel so that was my answer to this question and you can also look at this answers in other dimensions as you will analyze the text on your own and one more thing that i would like to add is that the paper too is much more vague and complex but it gives much more room for self-interpretation so you can take a lot of liberty in terms of psychoanalytical analysis exploring multiple dimensions of symbolism which is heavily used in paper too so you can have many interpretations of the same text thank you


Now, we're moving on to a very interesting segment, one that many of you have been waiting eagerly for. 2020 has been an unforgettable year for the Indian media industry and we all do agree, right, that what does this year, it's been really difficult and what this new year has in store for us, we all would love to know. We believe one man has all the answers and we can't wait to hear so let's invite Mr. Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO of Madison Media and OOH at Madison World for a fireside chat with the man who knows it all, Mr. Uday Shankar, Entrepreneur and Fiki President. Believe me, this is going to be a really interesting session. Do join in our online conversation using the hashtag PMAR2021 and here I would like to invite Mr. Vikram Sakhuja on screen to take this conversation forward. Thank you so much Khayati. Okay guys, it makes the person that you're going to be bringing in front of you, he's broken the glass ceiling for all journalists to not only head a news channel, but he's also gone on then to most famously and brilliantly lead India's largest sports and entertainment network. And from there, of course, he went on to become the 21st century Fox's APEC head and then as a transition to a Disney company he was leading that. Now he's pivoted into a completely interesting and exciting new area of being an entrepreneur and of course he is our current Fiki President. He's an absolute visionary, an iconoclast, one of the boldest decision makers that I know and a chap who definitely calls a spade a spade. It's an absolute pleasure and privilege to welcome him on this entire dais, Uday Shankar. Hi Uday, I can see you've got a Fiki branding behind you. Anything for some free advertising? I've learned it from you and sample Sarah Vikram. Okay, we've got a lot to cover, so I'm going to dive right in and really, really looking forward to the session. Okay, let's start big picture. I think you're the first media professional to lead Fiki. What do you think can be advertising and media's role in shaping the entire commerce and industry? It's a great question, very interesting one, Vikram. And first of all, thank you very much for having me here. Delighted to be part of this conversation and always a great experience to get into a conversation with you, whether it is formal or informal. I've always enjoyed our serious exchange of views, we both believe in what we say. So thank you for having me, even though I've exited media as an executive and professional. But to answer your question, I think we have somehow punched under our weight in media and entertainment as far as the larger role in in in making economic contribution to the country is concerned. Also, in terms of playing a role in building the brand India, media and entertainment can play a big role. And I think we have not and I'm not blaming media. I think the country as a whole needs to be aware of that country as a whole needs to to to understand how to leverage the power of that. I mean, if you look at brand US, just imagine the role that Hollywood has played before, you know, I think it'll be tough to describe that what, you know, what went global first, the American way of life, or the Hollywood way of life and Hollywood content without Hollywood, it is anybody's guess, whether we would have internalized as much of America and accepted it as seamlessly as we have today in in in, you know, across the world from the developed part of the underdeveloped part from democracy to totalitarian regime, the one thing which everybody has internalized is this American way, we may disagree with politics, we may disagree with a lot of American issues, but the American way of life. And I think that that's the role that media and entertainment can play in building brand India. And that comes with massive economic upside for the sector and for the country, because there are very few countries who have the strengths potential strengths that we have in India, in terms of our heritage of storytelling, rich cultural tapestry, the diversity nuances of our culture, and our ability to tell great stories traditionally. On top of that, today, as the world has gone is getting disrupted by technology. We also have, you know, one of the strongest and most sort of broad based technological infrastructure in the country are engineering talent or capability to, you know, visualize globally, Indian engineering talent is what is powering the technological advances. We should be able to do that here. But unfortunately, we haven't done that so far. But I think there is there is a huge opportunity for us to do that. Great. So today's forum is one of actually talking the addicts in advertising. Now, specifically, the advertising and marketing sector for the longest time has been hovering at is about 0.3% of the GDP for developed countries. I mean, of course, you took the Hollywood example, but purely from an advertising standpoint, why do you think that has been the case out here? And what does it take to really stimulate addicts as a share of GDP? Again, it's a it's a very good question. The answers are not easy to come by, but I'll tell you what my view on this is that first and foremost, we are still in early stages of building the culture of advertising, advertising as a as an intrinsic part of a business enterprise.  It's also there is a little bit of understanding in traditional entrepreneurs minds that it is it's a bit of a vanity play. It's not seen yet by large across the board, you know, from big corporates, of course, it's very established, but as you go down the pop startup of business, you know, it's still not seen as something that's an essential tool of your business of, you know, building your brand is is a is a strategic labor of creating value and getting getting market share, getting creating a premium, premium share of the segment. Those things are still not widely established. And I think we as media professionals across the buy and sell side, we haven't done a great job of of evangelizing, you know, if you look at the number of brands that advertise in India, that that number is still really, really small. It's become it's grown dramatically because of digital penetration that has come in. But if you look at traditional media, TV, print and radio, etc, that number is really small for a country of the size and diversity of India. Until you do that, and until we all go, you know, just selling inventory and buying inventory is certainly not the best way of participating in the economic value creation that's going on. I think media can play a much, much deeper and larger role. The problem is that it's my community and, you know, whatever I am today, I owe it to the, you know, to the community of media and media persons. So with full gratitude, if I can say, we have, we have taken, you know, we've been somewhat short-sighted. We have, we have undersold ourselves that, you know, we have run our businesses. We are extremely competitive within our own narrow set, you know, even to the extent of destroying value for one another. But we haven't, you know, we haven't gone ahead and painted a larger vision for, for the world and created essential space for the community of media and entertainment in that larger world, in that larger vision. And that is where the big problem is. I completely agree. Now, as we are seeing, and you, you mentioned that some of the growth, a number of advertisers are coming through digital. Over the times years, we've seen that print used to have roughly about two lakh advertisers, two to three lakh digital also has about three, four lakh TVs and maybe 10 to 15,000 range and so on and so forth. Now these are the kind of numbers that we're talking. The growth momentum, of course, is right now all behind TV and digital. At this point, do you believe that this sort of momentum or this kind of trend is going to continue? And will some of these other mediums like print and maybe print radio will out of home, probably not, but will these really die out as we see in some of the other markets? Or do you see a sustaining power to them? Look, I think these are tough days ahead for a lot of, you know, a lot of segments like print and out of form and radio, etc. They've been devastated during COVID. I don't read too much into that devastation.  But I think that will pass. But I have always believed that each crisis just, you know, manifests itself on individuals and businesses and only brings out the latent strengths and weaknesses during the crisis. The crisis is the best sort of spotlight for the latent weaknesses and strengths. And I think what we see with print is, of course, distribution of papers was disrupted and there was no advertising happening. So you see those contractions. However, it was already a trend that just got amplified dramatically. And if you're not seeing the bounce back as dramatic as you're seeing in, you know, something like, let's say TV, and I have view on TV. But if you see that, it's primarily because the businesses, you know, I mean, the newspaper business in this country has been built entirely on the back of advertising. That is a suicidal way to build a business. If you have two streams of revenue, why would you go and kill one stream of revenue? Just imagine a three-year-old could tell you it's not an act of genius. And for 30 years in this country, we hail those entrepreneurs and managers who pushed that line of strategy as amazing visionaries. Because in the short term, it worked for them. In the long term, everybody is dead. So this is, this is, this is really, really, I don't understand this. I, that's that's a great segue you're giving me. So I'll come to your subscription versus advertising bit in a second. But you also said you had a view on TV. Let's hear that. So again, the same on, you know, the view about TV, TV has done in the last 20 years, it has done better than most of the segments. And I think TV has created a national market for content and more than that for advertising that that's pretty commendable. I have to say that Star played a key role in that. But the other television networks are the bigger ones in particular. And some of the, you know, some of the stronger regional networks have played a very big role in that. However, TV has two problems. You know, I think the first problem is television creativity has, has a lot of ground to catch up. You cannot have shows that premiered, you know, reality or game shows that premiered 20 years ago. Still, if they're still leading shows on your network, there is a problem. That it's just a simple problem of inadequate creativity.  You know, foreigners not being welcome. But a lot of segments have been just kept alive because of those restrictions. If, if it was full flesh global competition that we see in many other sectors of many sectors of media would have died. You know, I don't even understand what happens in radio. You know, why it just, there are literally times when the same song is playing across multiple stations, you keep switching, you don't listen to the song, you keep switching and you keep getting the same song. And when you, you know, it's not because it's probably the best song or the, or, or, or, you know, a song that the whole nation was listened to, it's because it's the song that's available cheapest, if not free. Now, there is a serious creativity problem or content problem in media in general, in TV, in print, in radio, et cetera, et cetera. The other problem is that we still, you know, we are still not very, you know, we're not building brands, again, the same issues that, you know, there is not enough distinction that we are creating between channel A and channel B. There are, there are sectors where it's automatically happening because like sports, you know, it's available exclusively on one channel, but by and large, there is, there is a huge problem of that. And now, the third thing is that when you're getting, you know, the world has moved, the world of content has moved from being just a creative business. And I think, as I told you that I believe that our creative, you know, agenda needs to step up, but the world has moved from, the world of media has moved from being just a creative business to a business of creativity and technology. And by and large, media companies, no offense, my friend, but by and large media companies think changing a bulb is the climax of technological skills. We have, you know, we set up a business that's the last time we want to see an engineer or a technology guy come and set up my sets, put the lights on, make sure that in TV teleprompter works, the rotary machine works and get the hell out of my life. That's not working.  And if you do that, and I'm not saying that technology just even in building, you know, look at the amount of technology that goes in creating visual content, it can scale up a great deal. And if you do that, it's a great business model. You can open up new markets, smaller countries like Korea, like Turkey, they are exporting content globally and creating a sustainable economic model through that. And a country like India is not able to, you know, our content does not generally travel even from one state to another. So let's take the TV point to a logical conclusion. So today, let's say there are about 880 million people watching TV, you've got about maybe 450 million people watching YouTube, and then you've got maybe about 120 million watching the other OTT platforms are now in a complicated way. Assuming that there is more creativity and tech happening in both YouTube and all the OTTs, are you saying that this number will dwindle for TV in favor of the other platforms? You know, look, you must understand one thing. One of the great advantages TV has is that it's also supplying a lot of content to streaming services. So there is, you know, that, and that because you're creating that content and monetizing it across two screens, it creates a certain advantage. But I think we are coming to, you know, and the other big advantage that television has is that it's really cheap, you know, I think to get a whole suite of entertainment, sports, movie and news channels for anything from 150 to 250 rupees in this country is still possible. And that gets you the basic content. So that, that I think is a huge advantage. And that also keeps the pressure artificially high on streaming services, because you know, when you're pricing content for subscribers, you have to keep in mind the competitive environment. And if TV is so cheap, streaming services can only be so expensive, you know, so that is an advantage that TV has. But I don't see how it will be sustainable forever. So unless we change the creative game and really bring in high quality talent, make the right investments and create content that travels beyond our immediate geography that we create content for, there is a problem. And then there's this whole issue of building brands, you know, whether everybody, I mean, you know, whether it is the production house as a brand, you know, Hollywood is as much known for its celebrity talent as it is known for its celebrity or well-known production studios. So we have an opportunity to do all that. If we don't do that, I think we will, we will struggle. Okay. Now, on the other part that you're talking about between advertising versus subscription, what exactly is your, you've done the consumers pretty well. Are they going to, how much are they willing to pay for content, if anything? I mean, we, of course, print is horribly subsidized. We'd love to see them, but how much is the capacity of a consumer to pay for a newspaper, then pay for a TV subscription and then, or a DTH or a cable subscription and so on and so forth and the OTTs and all the other platforms. So, Vikram, I think, what would be your sort of advice that you would give to how a person would actually spend his money, the consumer would spend his money, how can monetize subscription? So first of all, look, we are in mass media and both the words are equally important, media as well as the mass. So you need to have a proposition that allows you to be attractive to the largest section of people. I totally get that. However, everything doesn't need to be sold to everyone. By definition, Mercedes sells much less than a Maruti, but a Mercedes makes money on each car that it sells and so does Maruti. Some people play the volume game, some people play the premium game and we should be able to do that as well. I think not doing that is a mistake. So everyone just going after everybody, as a result of that, your capacity or your desire to pay or openness to pay for content is very different from somebody who doesn't have the same background. So I totally get it that people who are just coming into the formal media consumer groups, only recently from small towns, villages, etc., people with limited income and limited exposure, you should create cheaper products for them that they can afford. But there has to be an agenda, almost continuous agenda to get everybody up the value cycle. This is how everybody succeeds in business, that you bring in new consumers and you continuously get, you know, sort of upgrade that consumer in terms of their ability to pay. And they will pay, consumers are willing to pay a great deal. In fact, often in my experience, consumers go an inch more or stretch a little bit more in order to pay for what they originally set out to pay. Provided and it's a big provided, they see a value proposition. But as I told you that, you know, the content that by and large, you see across our TV channels or in our newspapers or on our radio channels, there's really no, you know, not that much more Sorry, correct. There's a lot of sameness to it and it's about time. You know, Asian consumers, I've seen across the board from, you know, across my during my experience of running Asia Pacific, I've seen Asian consumers to be very value conscious. I can't talk about consumers in other market, but here, but value conscious doesn't mean that they're reluctant to pay. They want value for money. And we are, you know, we've not done enough in doing that. Got it. Now just I want to move to measurement before I do that. On the language front, there was a time when mass media or media and India, especially TV, and even print for that matter was driven by, well, print was driven by English at one point in time. And then of course, then of course, Hindi was what the TV part was. But increasingly, the regional play has sort of taken hold. In fact, you've had a huge role to play as you started the regionalization of star a decade back or close to. And if tomorrow, you're going to be coming out with some platform or media could get into any content or platform, which language would you bet on? Look, I'm a big believer in local languages or local languages. Why would you just because we were ruled for 200 years by the British, why this fascination to create a business model that is dependent on English, I don't understand. Those days are gone. And you know, look, I came to start. I did my bit in driving it into regional markets. But stars philosophy was very clear, you know, Fox, which was their new score was very clear that they came in as a premium English content provider. But very quickly, they pivoted and they went into Hindi, because that was the most attractive language by the size of population. And it worked really well launch of star plus. But it's a so I think, you know, you're in that position in India, where you can go pick up really any language and create a massive business. But the question is, can you go and disrupt these status quo in that business in that in that market? And that is where the problem if you're going to be offering the same kind of content, the same proposition that six other players have had, then what's the point? Then you're not going to be able to create my so, you know, we I can give you one example that we went and you know, my first acquisition in star was this small channel in a small market called Kerala. And the channel was called Asian it.   And it has given us an ability to to compete and win in most markets in South India. So it's not about what you which market you go to, I mean, you know, the the joy of 135 per hour population is that you could find enough number of people interested in any business that you create. Question is, can you create a great business in the area that you've chosen to? Great. Okay, now, I want to talk briefly on measurement, because I don't know whether you caught Sam's piece towards the end, when he's giving advice to advertisers. And we've clearly 2020 has been, we moved two steps back when it's come to TV measurement, it's come to print measurement, it's been a complete halt. And of course, digital measurement continues to not have any industry sort of sort of measurement kind of thing. What would be your demand, both as Fikki president and as Uday Shankar on this entire aspect of measurement and would the two be same demands be same or would they be different? Look, as Fikki president, I am not sure what the demand should be, but I think they won't be different. You know, one thing about me that I do not speak in different voices, what you what I believe as an individual is what I believe as in my official capacity. So I'll tell you what, first of all, you know, it was really heartening to see Sam say, a GRP is not a GRP or a CPRP is not a CPR. We finally, you know, I think my job in media has been done, because I was I said, I kept saying this for 15, 20 years. And the fact that Vikram Sakuja and Sam Balsara have come around to that view, and it's being officially blessed at Pitch Madison Report and we is a matter of great satisfaction, because a GRP or a CPRP is not just a CPRP. There are CPRPs and there are CPRPs. Number one. I mean, you managed to get an inflation in a deflationary year, you got inflation on an IPL rate to well over 11 lakhs for 10 seconds. That tells you that consumers rather advertiser see a GRP is not a GRP. Exactly my point, you know, they are not, but you have to create a proposition. If people were star for content, IPL was bound to be great. And I have to say that, you know, my erstwhile company and my colleagues in star sports, they did a absolutely outstanding job of producing the IPL. So there was consumer satisfaction. And I think we charged a lot of money. And advertisers paid and I'm delighted that we were we were able to deliver on whatever they paid. So a GRP is not a GRP. But most important thing is that a sample based measurement Vikram was always a suboptimal solution. And it was limited by the technology available in the time. Today, when there is it is possible to accurately measure the whole universe and not just a sample. Why would you not do that? And if you are not doing that, there is always you're leaving yourself exposed to you're leaving yourself exposed to all kinds of distortions. That's that's the real issue. There was a time when you could not get real time data, etc.  The world was a different place before that, people maintained a diary or what they watched, it was as, you know, as basic as that. But today, you should be able to measure the whole universe. The second thing that I have, and it's a controversial point, and I'm not sure I, you know, whether Fikki would like would would would endorse this point. So I'm making this in my personal capacity. Why do we need a community rating system, this tribal behavior of measuring content is is really totally, you know, again, is a legacy of the past. When it was so complicated, complicated, complicated to measure data, etc. that we all went and said to somebody, okay, you come and measure the data for all of us, and we'll pay you someone. Why do we need to do it today? If none of the digital technology, I mean, digital services are subscribing to third-party data, and they are telling you that they have as many subscribers. If you know, if I could come and tell you that I have as many subscribers as whatever I had at Hotstar, and you would believe that, and if I gave you the data about their consumption behavior, and you would believe that, and you would buy advertising and inventory based on that, why would you not do, why would I not do that for TV? I don't get it. The reason is because today, you have three different, at least on digital, we've got three different data sources, they all give you different numbers for the same reading. So, I mean, arguably, an OTG platform will give me a certain number, MOT will give me another number, and a third party will give me a third number, which number should I go by? You should go by my number. It is my proprietary information. You should go by my number. If you can accept the number that you get from the others, why would you not accept the number that you get from there? So, I'm not in favor. You know my position on this. I've never been in favor of this third-party measurement structure, because we have look at the kind of distortion anomalies that we have created in this country. It's almost alarming, if not dangerous. What is happening in the name of data? This whole current controversy, without going too far into that, everything that's happened has happened. The whole degradation that we are seeing, whether it is in news or whether it is other controversy is on account of our unhealthy obsession with ratings. Ratings are an important tool, but they're a business tool. They're a business tool for engagement between Udesh Shankar as the media executive and Vikram Sakuja as media buyer. You and I need a currency so that you know what you're getting for what I'm selling. But now, suddenly over the years, we turned this into a measurement of our machismo. We turned this into a measurement of our successful data. The market share became the end all and beyond. Not of your business existence, but your entire existence. And that's unhealthy. And that has led to inadequate focus on, you know, that has led to too much focus on tactical, sometimes distorted, sometimes outright corrupt practices and inadequate focus on long-term health and strategy of the business. So two corollaries from what you're seeing. One is, yes, there needs to be a currency, which is why probably if you go to each channel or each platform and use their data, you may not get that currency. The second thing is that if the currency has to be there, do you think it's better that there is a system which is funded maybe as a percent of billings and managed by agencies and advertisers and media owners are kept out of it? So broadcasters are kept out of it. Would it be more healthy? To be honest with you, I'm indifferent to that. The basic assumption here that you're making, and I disagree with that assumption Vikram, is that if media, if broadcasters are involved in that, they will corrupt it. And advertisers and agencies will not corrupt it. I think the proclivity to for that measurement system and that whole thing to be distorted or corrupted remains the same either ways. Who owns it is totally, you know, I'm totally indifferent to that. You know that I am full confession. I played a key role in bringing down TAM and setting up BARC. And I think BARC has been a huge let down. But I don't think it's been a let down because broadcasters and advertisers and agencies were stakeholders in this. I think it's been a let down because we did not create a 21st century. We did not have a vision that was in tune with the possibilities in 21st century. So for a moment if you have to say moving forward from learning from the past, do you think it would be better to again reprioritize? If you have to have a currency, you may say that it's still private, right? Right now it is, it's still, there's a joint industry body which is sponsoring it. But do you think in earlier, of course, it was a completely private company like TAM, do you think it's better? I think just for the controversy that involvement in BARC has created for broadcasters, they should just get out of there. Okay. It's not worth it. Okay. And it's not worth all the suggestions of impropriety, questions of integrity that the broadcasters have faced. Because I think by and large, broadcasters are clean business people and they have done a good job. They have serviced the consumer's interest well and to tar them with the same brush, just because there are some issues with BARC. The issues with BARC are intrinsic to the structure and management and capabilities within BARC. It's not that there was this grand conspiracy of broadcasters coming in to say, let's just do this. And the unsavory fallout is one good reason for broadcasters to get out of BARC. And just closing on the last point on that one, we've already seen that whatever 22, 25,000 crores is the TV ad-ex. There's another 5,000 crores of video coming through YouTube and all the OTTs. Probably that might grow. There has been this call for the longest time to have audio-visual ratings also coming out through the same sort of rating system. Now in the past, that entire stalemate between measuring ads and content led to a certain impasse. How do you think we should now tackle that same issue? Because there's still, it's probably the same place where it was when you were maybe debating it. Yes, it is still very much there. And I have no reason to believe that now that I have no authority, I would be able to make a difference. But look, my view is very clear on that. You know my position, I've taken this position as the leader of Star and Disney. That if everybody is participating, only then Star would participate. Simply because we were the only company that had a substantial stake in streaming and a substantial share of television. And if some of the big streaming giants were not participating in that, Star should not participate. Just because of Star's origins in TV, Star should not just do what the TV people do because if its streaming service is not competing with TV, it's competing with its streaming peers. And if Netflix does not participate and if Amazon Prime is not participating, why should Hotstar participate? That position remains the same. I think, you know, the world has moved beyond this concentrated one company measuring data for everybody. This, you know, the world is moving, we've come towards disintermediation. And I am fundamentally opposed to creating any kind of intermediaries because intermediaries are usually brought in and Bach is a great example of that. Are usually brought in with good intentions and then the intermediaries start serving only themselves. They don't serve either of the two parties that they're supposed to intermediate between. Fantastic. Okay, closing last two questions. You closely observed the entire advertising and marketing ecosystem and you've seen how advertisers, agencies and media owners behave. In this very vibrant and fast-growing ad market, which of the three stakeholders have dharm on their sides? Is everybody, do you find, you've dealt with all of them? Do you think everybody is doing equally righteous job or are some people doing it more than others? No, I think it would be, I think they're all, by and large, I find there may be individual aberrations, but by and large as community, it's one of the more honorable communities that I have seen. And I see that now across the board in my capacity because I'm involved with businesses beyond media now. I see that and I have to tell you that I find, my criticism of people in advertising on the agency side or in broadcasting on content side, my criticism of them is of not having bold enough vision, sometimes too fixated on the past being too tactical, but I don't think as a community, it's a dishonorable community. Actually, I think they have done more for this country than they get recognized for and that's one of the disappointments that I have. I think we have undersold ourselves, this is something that I started with. I think we do not see the role that we have played in this country. If Unilever is a big company and so successful in this country, of course, its products are the reason why they're successful. And I'm just taking an example. It's not about Unilever as you can imagine, but to say that those people who manage the advertising for Unilever, media buys and the channels on which Unilever products were advertised, let me just imagine if there was no television channel, the biggest product would not find a platform to convey its message day after day with consistency and accuracy and build a national proposition or a brand. So I think media has played a really, really positive, constructive role in this country. And because we are not mindful of the deep contribution we make, and we ourselves sometimes largely get distracted by, oh, we are entertainment, we are glamour and we are all of that. We don't take ourselves seriously enough, so the world doesn't take us seriously enough. I think it's a great community and this country, there are many things wrong with media, but this country would have been a much worse country to live in without media. That's a very, very telling statement. Thank you, that's very good, very heartening. So we can't let you leave without you just telling us a little bit more about what your partnership with James Murdoch is and what can we look one of us look forward to in 2021. So as you know, Vikram, I take a long time to think about things and then I figure out something and then I stick with it until I make it work. I'm in the first phase. I'm still taking a lot of time to think about things, but broadly both James and I are really sort of excited about the potential of technology and I have a very high level thesis which I will share with you and with our audience today. My whole thesis is that all the mass consumption services in this country, services and products, were not designed to meet the aspirations of 135 crore people, whether it is media. Just imagine 25 years ago or playback 25, 30 years ago, why private media came up, not because somebody invited or not because it was part of a government policy, private media came up because there was an unmet need, which the official providers were not able to meet, whether it is the DAVP, whether it is Dur Darshan, whether it is AIR, whether it is whatever. So entrepreneurship came in to bridge the gap and today we have created a massive industry around that. I think it's the same with and that aspiration is growing. Today with more people owning mobile handsets and devices, the desire for consuming more content is just growing and the current structures are grossly inadequate. You can only serve this by using technology in a very, very deep fundamental way because that's the only way you can create consistent outcomes which are satisfying and which are at scale without bringing down the bank. Similarly, I think areas like education and healthcare, the same thing. Education in this country was created, formal education system was created by Macaulay, not for the benefit of this country, but to create a small class of clerks for the British empire. And after independence, honestly, with commitment, the successive political establishments have built on that, but the foundation has remained the same. Today, the one thing that's common is that everybody in this country, even a beggar, I'm just using this as an example, but even a poor beggar wants his child to be educated because they are very convinced that if their child has to have a better destiny, education is one essential tool. Same for healthcare. Healthcare wasn't built.  So you have this widening gap between aspiration and possibility of supply with the best of intent. The one thing that we have with us is technology, which can, not everybody needs to go to a school to learn, not everybody needs to go to a hospital. COVID has told us that you can be at home and do a lot of things, including get yourself treated. Most doctors were not available, but we got ourselves treated in using technology. And even though we were not ready for it, just imagine the power of technology. If you have this strategy, you're ready for it and you build that. So for the rest of my life, I want to just give it a shot. You harness the power of technology to meet the needs of people who are being badly or underserved right now. I come from that part of the world. As you know, I come from Bihar. I have some exposure to what the underserved populations, aspirations are and what are the challenges that they are facing. Hopefully, I'll be able to do something towards that. Uday Shankar, thank you so much. As always, you've delivered all that you promised. It was uplifting. It was provocative. It was differently thought provoking, maybe controversial also, but very, very uplifting. Thank you ever so much for this lovely conversation. Thank you Vikram. Delighted to be having, as I told you that I have packed my bags and I didn't want to talk about media, but you are one of the oldest friends that I have in media. So it was a pleasure to talk to you. Pleasure. Thank you. Over to you, Kathy. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Shankar and Mr. Sakuja.