THE BUSINESS OF EDUCATION - International Indian

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[ FAMILy ] and rolled, and her navy blue stockings were always bunched up around her ankles. However, despite her size, she didn’t put up with any nonsense. If larger children bothered her, she hit them. As parents, David and I were secretly pleased to find she could look after herself in the playground, but of course the hitting had to stop.” Rachita-Beth has also turned out to be a computer whiz and spends the largest part of each day talking to her friends on MSN. She too has completed school and now goes to college in France and admits it has not been smooth sailing: “Three months after I joined school, the bullying started. Two sisters who had problems with all foreigners started calling me names and pushing me. At first I didn’t say anything, but after a couple of weeks I told my parents, and when they spoke to the teacher, she just shrugged it off and said, ‘Ah yes, we had the same problem last year with other foreign girls. They even left because it got so bad.” Rachita-Beth realized she would have to stand up for herself. “I knew they hated me so I kept out of their way. At the end of the year I was first in class and spoke ‘fluent’ French. Since I was as smart as them, I think I intimidated them and the bullying was tremendous. But the year went by without any major problems.” What the young lady discovered was to be near-excellent in all her endeavours, after which here colleagues had to accept her whatever may have been their other reservations. Pratiksha-Kate the youngest and most energetic of the three – no wonder her father calls her cannonball! – is unable to keep still for a minute and so it is left to her mother Loralee to tell us about her. “Our third daughter has afforded us surprise after surprise. We thought we were adopting a three-year-old but she was only two. When we adopted her, we thought she had slight hearing problems, but subsequently she was classified as deaf. Pratiksha-Kate’s powers of observation are keen. She often surprises us by pointing out tiny details, patterns, light and shadow Her love of the natural world, especially animals, is exceptional. She is enraptured by everything from the tiniest flower to the largest dog. “The biggest surprise has been Pratiksha- Kate’s aptitude and love of music. I know of few other eight-year-olds who spend so Rachita-Beth with her father David John Lee and Pratiksha-Kate with mother Loralee Lee as they do a Scottish dance at the book launch in Bangalore much time playing the violin. I know of no other children her age who avidly listen to opera. She works hard to keep up with the native French speaking children with normal hearing. She works hard with her music. And she does all of this without complaining. “Pratiksha-Kate’s intensity and cheerfulness is surprising. When I play the violin with my daughter, I am delighted by her joy and surprised by her concentration and ability. The combination of a willingness to work hard and talent are the hallmarks of an artist.” The family came to Bangalore for a few weeks to release their book Three Indian Orphans Touched By Destiny which was launched by The Windsor on 30 July. It was an unusual book launch, and many hearts were stirred as each member of the family read out a portion from chapters they’d written in the book. To everybody’s delight, they did a Scottish dance which almost brought the house down, even as it showed the global merging of the human connection. During the Q&A session at the launch, when somebody from the audience asked them whether they ever planned to return to India on a permanent basis, each one had a different response: Pratiksha-Kate, the youngest, just nine years old, endeared herself to the audience when she said: “Of course I want to come back to India. I am going to become a famous violinist, marry a rich Indian man, and then come here and have babies.” Rachita-Beth, now all of 15, said she had not quite made up her mind. Bina-Ruth said with a quiet, shy smile, “I do not want to appear rude, but no, I would not like to live here. I would prefer to live in Canada with my mum’s family.” Their father David John Lee said there is nothing he would like better than to live in India, but looking at the way India is progressing economically, he doubted he would be able to afford it! All the three Indian children say that once they are settled in life they want to come back to India and adopt children themselves. In fact, during their visit to India, their most fulfilling day was a day spent in an orphanage with 149 children from abandoned and deprived backgrounds. The event was covered by CNN-ibn. Their entire visit was widely covered by the media, a fact that left them a little bewildered. “We’re just a normal family really,” were their parting words as they stepped into Bangalore’s new international airport to catch the return flight to France. Ingrid Albuquerque is the Content Editor and Website Manager of the Haggai Institute’s international website; and the Managing Director of Berean Bay Media House. She has edited many magazines and is an author of a few best-selling books. 72 THE INTERNATIONAL INDIAN
[ BRAND IMAGE ] The Big, Bad Brand of Bollywood “There is really nothing wrong with the brand Bollywood, except that the Indian film industry has become far more powerful and far-reaching than anything else like this in any other country of the world and even larger than Hollywood.” [ By NASEEM JAVED ] In hindsight, decades ago, who in the right frame of mind would have picked up a blatant sidekick named “Bollywood” as a cheap copy of “Hollywood”, a theme that has already been further diluted and abused by hundreds of other adventurous film industry brands all over Asia, from “Ollywood” to “Jollywood”, creating confusion and ripping away the original centrality of the true brand? There is only one Silicon Valley, one Eiffel Tower, one Disneyland, one Wall Street, one Times Square and only one Piccadilly Circus; the other sound and or look-alikes are just desperate copycats. What India needs today is an all out war on all fronts to tackle these copycat problems, and accept higher grounds with global leadership mandates to create brand new original world-class, global potential iconic identities. Today, Walt Disney is only dancing in heaven, after seeing how Disneyland has created hundreds of similar copycats from few mega sites to hundreds of single flywheels with two guys in gorilla outfits, jumping around in similar named theme parks. What’s wrong with people, and why they prefer to go “There is no country with a film industry, with the size and dynamics of current Bollywood, which on a global scale, not only attracts a larger audience and more attention than any other force in the marketplace, but also carries the most global influence. ” on their hands and knees, sneaking, picking, cutting and pasting from some one else’s well established original brand idea while patting themselves for their smartness and accepting this form of suicidal-branding, a kind of a self inflicting identity wound which never heals and never allows to becomes super icon. Surveys have proven that copying legendary icons only kills brilliant original ideas into obvious copies looking deadbeats and eventually ending up in oblivion. The black and white proof of this global phenomenon is already sitting on Google. Without a doubt, there is no country with a film industry, with the size and dynamics of current Bollywood, which on a global scale, not only attracts a larger audience and more attention than any other force in the marketplace, but also carries the most global influence. This six billion dollar industry will double again in size in few years, and is just trapped in a dumb brand identity with no direct connection to Mumbai, as the name Bombay is just passé. The real Hollywood on the other hand came about in 1887, when the founder Harvey Wilcox, Daeida’s husband, drew up a grid map for a town which he filed the county THE INTERNATIONAL INDIAN 73
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15th Year! THE INTERNATIONAL The Re
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