Forum No.29

19th Oct 2019

COLLABORATION | TACKLES CHALLENGES

Forum_29_NN

SCHOOL OF ART & AESTHETICS, JNU

Shikha Jhingan

VENU EYE INSTITUTE

Dr. Tanuja Joshi

EDITOR, BUSINESS TODAY

Prosenjit Datta

MANAGING DIR., SCENARIO CONSULTING

Rajesh Lalwani

FOUNDER, TURMERIC DESIGN

Kriti Monga

SCHOOL OF ART & AESTHETICS, JNU

Shikha Jhingan

Shikha Jhingan, Associate Professor at the School of Art and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi, has many years of practice making documentary films on musicians and sound artists. Her present work focuses on the female voice in Hindi film songs.

Shikha shared her understanding on how people perceive the sound environment. She talked about the idea of ‘closed listening’ where the listener links sound to its source by understanding its meaning, and the concept of reduced listening when one pays very close attention to sound, gathering information beyond the perceptible audio spectrum.

Shikha expanded on how oral attention is generated in a movie where sound is made dominant by visual cues and select attenuation of audio elements, which require to be relegated to the background. According to Shika, the playback system is an illusion that is created, where sound and source are not from a single entity. Here, lipsync plays an important role in the simulation and perception. She presented a few examples of lipsync as prevalent in the Indian cinemas.

Shika highlighted the setups required in contemporary cinema and creation of sound design, such as a shift from lip sync to non-lip sync songs. Increasing importance is now given to ambient noise, integration of background sounds with songs, and creation of acoustic territory. Through examples, Shikha showed us how sequences are curated and designed with an oral ecology. Her emphasis is on creation of a sonic perspective while highlighting sounds from key elements of a sequence. This acoustical synergization, together with the camera creates a wholesome experience for the audience. 

Contemporary movies demand seamless integration of sound with the visuals with total porosity in music sequences. Shikha observed that the promiscuity of sound cannot be tamed and is left to the listeners discretion to perceive it as he/she hears. Her talk ended on the note of how sound in one’s ecosystem is trivialized. Further, she opened up the discussion on sound studies, aural practices, aural governmentality, and digital noise.

Written by Vinod Anthony Thomas

VENU EYE INSTITUTE

Dr. Tanuja Joshi

Managing Director of Venu Eye Institute since 25 years, Ms. Tanuja Joshi, was crucial in charting its vision in the right direction with her impeccable zeal, compassion, and leadership. As President of the Eye Bank Association of India in the period 2002-2006, Founder President of the Community Ophthalmology Society of India, and a member of the India Chapter of Vision 2020 ‘The Right to Sight’, Tanuja contributes on many levels to the field of community ophthalmology, both nationally and globally.

Tanuja’s met her lifelong guide and mentor, Dr R. K. Seth - the founding father of Venu Eye Institute when she started her career in a medical film studio. Dr.Seth was a technical guide for a film on Cataract, in which she was involved. In the 1970s, he set up Venu Eye Institute to reach people in rural areas by organizing screening camps at villages, where there was little access to healthcare facilities. Tanuja, who first joined the Institute in 1988 as Joint Director, has seen it grow to an ‘Institute of Excellence’, known for its 'care' to each who enter its portals.

The Institute aims to address the tragic state of today's visually impairment count in India - approximately 50 million cases, out of which around 80% is curable - 60% cases direct to cataract, and 19-20% require the dependence on spectacles. Over the years, the extent and depth of their compassionate work is truly inspiring, from setting up screening camps for visual impairments, to support for surgery and postoperative care. Today, the Institute is proud to have 250 eye screening camps across villages in India, identifying clear diagnostics with care, Primary Clinics and 5 fully working hospitals and 24-hour eye banks. They offer a good range of virtual doctors who offer tele-medicinal services to the patients and have extended their reach through Teaching Hospitals, wherein referral screenings for doctors and HR along with training optometrists and doctors take place. 

Ms. Joshi spoke about the state of the industry, and the current scenario of grants provided to Institutes such as theirs with the emergence of private sector companies entering eye care in India. Getting funds for Government eye care initiatives for Venu Eye Institute, which is geared towards social responsibility for rural masses, remains a continued struggle. International grants have become a challenge and there is a need to address concerns with continued efforts in innovative ways. Through the Institute’s initiative 'Bouquet of Sight', they present a gift of sight instead of materialistic presents to a loved one on any joyous occasion - such as a birthday or anniversary. The gifter pays Venu Eye Institute a certain amount for the bouquet, while sharing details of the recipient. The Institute is constantly reinventing ways of spreading their stories as beautiful messages to actively support its endeavours.
 
Other than the challenges of the private sector entering eye care system in India, Government sectors are empanelling private hospitals, which lead to higher pay opportunities for doctors with the same number of qualified professionals having degrees every year. With their central mission of serving the greater good, they need to maintain a balance between business and retaining doctors, without undermining their ethical and compassionate stance. They are also conscious of ensuring doctors with quality skill-sets and being updated on technology advances in the sector.

Ms. Joshi has not only steered the Institute in the right direction with her continued efforts, but has also shaped a greater role for its purpose in society. Being at its helm for over two decades, she is known as the ‘Face’ of Venu. She continues to guide the institute's future course successfully, to greater heights of Commitment and Care for all alike.

Written by Anwesha Mukherjee

EDITOR, BUSINESS TODAY

Prosenjit Datta

Prosenjit Dutta never thought of entering the field of journalism. With his knowledge of computers, he landed his first job at PCL (Pertech computers Limited). Interested in figuring out his capacity for journalism, he went for an entrance test to the Centre for Media Studies and got selected to study Business Journalism. The position also got him a stipend of Rs.700, which took care of his daily necessities of food and travel. Prosenjit career in the field started as a trainee journalist in the features section of The Economic Times. He then switched to Business Standard and spent seven years there. He was the Features Editor with overall responsibility for all the sections.

Later, when Prosenjit became the Editor of Business Today,  his focus on the magazine was to create a need, a hook to change behaviour and mindsets about how people conduct and view business. While others in the field increasingly focussed on delivering business information, BT focusses on disseminating business insights to help people survive and thrive in a changing competitive environment. As he emphasized, the aesthetic of the Newspaper or magazine plays a very impotent role in engaging with readers. There was a need to generate excitement and freshness around the new Business Today and the revised focus and presentation of the content and also to create a strong differentiation between Business Today and other business magazines.

In the discussions that ensued Prosenjit pointed out - if you look at the macroeconomic numbers, the past two years were among the worst in over a decade. If you looked at corporate results, you would find that the majority of companies reported a depressing picture of both revenue and profit growth. But if you really drilled deep into the corporate results database, you would find a handful of companies in different industries that had not slowed down at all. Indeed, many of them had accelerated their pace, both in terms of revenue as well as profit growth.

Prosenjit explains how it was so difficult earlier to research on any topic, and people had to go abroad to collect research papers from every institute. Now, it's so easy to get information in just one click. With this kind of access, he stresses all the more, how in business journalism, integrity is very important.

Written by Mohan Godwal

MANAGING DIR., SCENARIO CONSULTING

Rajesh Lalwani

CEO of Scenario Consulting, Rajesh S Lalwani helps global brands protect and enhance their brand value, reputation and sales while engaging the digitally connected consumer. Having assisted brands like Mahindra, Samsung and HP, among others, achieve their goals, he is a much sought-after entrepreneur. His passions beyond work include a love for golf, fragrance and horses. What a mix!

Rajesh spoke about 'Brand and Purpose Marketing - the apt and the ridiculous', bringing to light how brands are trying overly hard to portray themselves as operatives with a purpose. He spoke about how being purposeful and creating advertising and marketing has become a fad more than anything and how it is miles away from the true nature of the brand and its values. To explain further, he cited an example of a tobacco company trying to find its purpose. To throw light on brands living their true intent, he showed us some video clips of campaigns of influential brands like ‘Nike’ (the Colin Kapernick campaign) who are acing the domain and taking a firm stand against discrimination.

Next, Rajesh talked about the rise of individualism, how some brands have a greater audience connect. He believes it takes three generations for real change to surface. Continuing along this thread, Rajesh explained different paths are carved out for different brands. Some brand campaigns do not speak about the product at all, while some don’t need campaigns because they work on the ground.

The latter part of his talk shifted to the current economic situation of the country and the world: the slowdown and how it has affected everybody. A great takeaway from his talk was that how he thinks slowdowns are a good time to review and reflect, bringing a modicum of sanity back. Interestingly, Rajesg forecasts that 'nostalgia' would be the upcoming trend.

Written by Namita Jain

FOUNDER, TURMERIC DESIGN

Kriti Monga

Kriti Monga, founder of Turmeric Design is an avid traveller and type-enthusiast who spends her days exploring and creating letterforms in all possible spaces. If given a chance, Kriti would love to live in a museum, if only they let her. Her talk peaked interest right from the beginning as she distributed her travel journals in the audience. Each one of them were beautifully lettered with stories and quotes from her travels to fine diners, bathroom stalls and cafes. While making these, she noted how her dinner companions always felt that she was distracted; however, she was completely absorbed, caught up in the moment, noticing every little thing.

Kriti finds joy in any which way beauty can be brought to people’s lives. We all could see the passion she felt for letterforms, the way they spoke to her and how she kept redrawing them until they communicated perfectly. She started noticing forms as a young child, finding that Kissan’s brand of jam was more delicious than any other which came in her Army dad’s ration. She’s also been a number one fan of museums which don’t allow photography, because she can sketch there. As a solo traveller she says her advantage is that she can pick up languages very quickly.

Recently, Kriti started working on creating type interventions in public spaces by creating fresh forms using diverse media to attract people. For instance, she made a stencil of the word ‘Petrichor’ and then sprayed water inside so that it will stay on the pavement and then vanish after some time. Hauz Khas Fort has a lake next to it where she floated paper boats in formations to spell the words "HAUZ-E-KHAS", the older name of the monument. These pieces are very anti-graffiti, optimistic and happy but they are intentionally impermanent.

A firm believer that all of us have a capacity for art, she started Type camps where she introduced people to type. She calls Type design, the artiest of the sciences, noting that all of us react to type everyday. Posing the question to the audience ‘Why did we learn better as children?’, she steered the conversation towards how playfulness and joy were ways to learn better. ‘Children always ask what is this, and what can I do with it?’ reminds Kriti. In these camps she helped the attendees create type on a pavement with a wet mop, helping them to loosen up their body and not get conscious about technicalities.

Kriti’s creative journey inspired us all to look at type that we miss in everyday life, leaving us with the feeling that we can be whoever we want to be.

She developed these type installations in public spaces which she said were not Graffiti as they were happy and not permanent. They were not vandalism and also made people notice type in a normal public space.

Written by Nishita Karun

 

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