The Beach Essay Example for Free

The Beach Essay On a hot summer day the best place to be is the Beach. Have you ever been so hot you could melt, and just want to play in the cold, salty ocean? I have! The best felling is the wet, grainy, sand between your toes. When you go to the beach all you see is the clear blue ocean, colorful umbrellas, and the silky white seagulls. But be careful, the seagulls will eat your food right out of your hands! Who doesn’t like the beach? If youre looking for a quiet relaxation at the beach, I dont think that will work out too well. Though out the day all you hear are the clear blue wave’s crash against the rough yellow sand, the loud motors of the boats, and the laughter of children everywhere. But in the morning or at night the beach could be quite relaxing. If you want to just relax and watch the beautiful sunrise, while the breeze blows your hair back the beach in the morning is perfect for you. The beach has many different interesting smells. There’s the smell of fruity coconut suntan lotion, the salty ocean, and the smell of delicious smores being roasted over the fire. At the beach you can also smell the dirty fish in the sea. With the bright sun shining down on you, you will forget all about the bad smelling fish. Other than the smell of fish all the other smells are really delightful. I love the beach! All of the smells, sights and felling of being at the beach are the best. The beach is a lot of fun. It is also a good place to go with your family and friends. As you can see there are a lot of good things about the beach. If you have never been to the beach you don’t know what you’re missing. Alexis Gonzalez

The Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean Strategy Indian bus service industry was extremely unorganized till recently before redBus emerged and took the industry by its neck and brought a sort of revolution never imagined for such an unorganized industry. This was primarily because the information flow and availability in this industry was very difficult and there was a lot of mismatch. The bus ticket industry was highly fragmented with small players active regionally. All these were small small agents competing against each other. Due to lack of any major player there was not much competition for redBus and hence it was able to create a marketspace for itself through entering the bus ticket industry online. By the time redBus entered the horizon there were settled names both in airline and railway ticket booking industry who were operating online. But even for them it was a huge task to enter bus ticketing industry due to the sheer complexity present in the industry and emulating the online model for bus ticketing industry was perc eived to be almost impossible even by these major players in e-commerce. This study deals with how a disruptive model can change the scenario of the complete industry. redBus which at the time of its inception was confined in a small flat of 2 rooms is now a 400 million company with over 400 employees and offices across India. Currently it is the only major player concentrating completely on bus ticketing industry with a market share of over 70%. In this research, I have tried to analyze the bus ticketing industry and how redBus identified the opportunities present in this segment and created a value chain which not only gave them a distinct product but also at competitive cost. It is a perfect example of Blue Ocean strategy where entry of redBus changed the entire landscape of the industry. It revolutionized the way the people buy bus tickets in India. One of the unique bus ticketing system of its kind in the entire world, competitors have leaped in this market but none has receive d success like redBus. This study further covers how redBus has sustained its competitive advantages and what are the challenges and growth opportunities going forward. CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION: Blue Ocean Strategy As the authors of the book Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Kim Chan and Renee Mauborgne say: Although the term blue ocean is new, their existence is not. They have been a part of business transformation in past as well as in present. If we look back in the past say a century ago, How many of todays industries were then known? The answer will be majority of todays industries were unknown in their current form. Many industries such as automobiles, aviation, health care, and management consulting were unknown or were just beginning to emerge. Now lets look at the industries 3 decades back. Again, multibillion-dollar industries like mutual funds, computers, mobile phones, smart phones, gas based power plants, discount retail, biotechnology, nanotechnology, express parcel delivery, coffee bars, video games, home videos, and CD player and many other such industries were all non-existent in a practical or popular way. Similarly, lets turn the clock forward a bit and try to look into the future. Lets say after 30 years or say 50 years how many of the now unknown industries will emerge and will exist. If history is any indicator of things to come in future, the answer is there will be many such industries that we cant even think of right now which will emerge. This is the reality; industries are dynamic. They never remain the same over a long period of time. They change continuously and evolve. The participants, the process, the market and the operations everything changes. Operations improve, markets evolve and grow, and non-customers become customers. History tells us that we have huge potential to change the existing industries and recreate them and not only that it teaches us that we underestimate our capability to create new ones. To have an idea of how dynamic things can get, the 50-year old Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, which was published by the U.S. Census, was substituted by the North America Industry Classification Standard (NAICS) system in 1997. The reason being the number of industry sectors that SIC covered were half the number of sectors that actually existed in 1997. The old SIC system covered only 10 industry sectors. The new NAICS system doubled it to twenty sectors to reflect the emergence of new-age industries. For example earlier the service sector included all that is now fragmented into different specialized industries like IT, healthcare, social assistance, etc. Given that these systems are made to ensure stability, continuity and for keeping standards, such a substitution shows the significance of growth of Blue Ocean industries. Yet the dominant emphasis of strategists has been on competitive strategies also known as red ocean strategies. Part of the explanation for this is that its roots in military strategy heavily influence corporate strategy. Strategy is about fighting different competitors over the same area of land that is constant and not unlimited. Unlike battles though, the history of industry tells us that the universe of market is unlimited and there is a place for everyone; rather, blue oceans have been always in existence. They have continuously been created. To believe and restrict oneself to red ocean is therefore to accept the constraints that are associated with war-limited piece of land and the need to fight and defeat an opponent to succeed-and to reject the unique strength of the business world: the capacity to create new market universe that is uncontested. Blue Ocean v/s Competitive Strategy (Red Ocean) Blue Ocean emphasises the importance of value innovation that can completely negate the competition replacing competitive advantage with value innovation as the firms primary goal thus highlighting the importance of creating demand and exploiting untapped maket rather than risking competition. There is a debate in the academia and research groups as to which strategy is better suited but all evidences are as case studies on different companies which is not enough to define any one of the two strategies as a clear winner. Rather the two strategies co-exist and should co-exist because a firm on the foundation of Blue Ocean strategy may ultimately have to face competition depending on the imitability of the business model and then before they have more value innovation to differentiate themselves and still remain cost competitive, they must also have a competitive strategy to ensure they do not fall behind of competition. Research results of researchers like Andrew Burke Andres van Stel and Roy Thurik suggest that the notion that blue ocean makes competition irrelevant may not be true. When combined, the two provide a more holistic and realistic depiction of economic performance. Thus, in real life the any strategy must be adopted after evaluating the business and market circumstances appropriately as these define the degree of scope for effectiveness of either Blue Ocean or competitive strategy. Furthermore, what emphasis and mix should be given to either form of strategy across short and long-term time horizons is apparent in most innovative companies competing in short term red oceans while significant time and resources are devoted to the long-term goal of developing innovation that creates consumer demand and new markets. Figure 1: Red Ocean v/s Blue Ocean Strategy Source: www.blueoceanstrategy.corporatestrategy.com Blue Ocean and White Space The term white space has been used in business parlance to mean uncharted territory or an underserved market. But as Mark W. Johnson perfectly writes in Seizing the White Space the term is the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the companys current business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit. White space is a subjective valuation: one companys white space may be another companys core. What matters is that it describes activities that lie far outside a firms usual way of working and presents a series of unique and perplexing challenges to that organization. Its an area where, relatively speaking, assumptions are high and knowledge is low, the opposite of conditions in the companys core space. The chance to seize a piece of white space presents a tantalizing opportunity. Success here can bring the transformational growth that so many business leaders seek. Yet understandably, a play for the white space feels risky, and often the numbers dont appear to add up. The market seems too foreign, or core capabilities wont apply. Some executives, having made one unsuccessful foray, just wont risk failing again. Figure 2: White Space Source: Seizing the White Space, Mark W. Johnson Blue Ocean Strategy and Applied Concepts The Strategy Canvas The strategy canvas is the central diagnostic and action framework for building a compelling blue ocean strategy. The horizontal axis captures the range of factors that the industry competes on and invests in, while the vertical axis captures the offering level that buyers receive across these entire key competing factors. There are two purposes that are served here: It captures the current state of play in known market space, which allows users to clearly see the factors that the industry competes on and where the competition currently invests. Then, it propels users to action by reorienting focus from competitors to alternatives and from customers to non-customers of the industry. The value curve is the basic component of the strategy canvas. It is a graphic depiction of a companys relative performance across its industrys factors of competition. A strong value curve has focus, divergence as well as a compelling tagline. Figure 3: The Strategy Canvas Four Action Framework This framework can also be referred to as the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid. To reconstruct buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve, we use the Four Actions Framework. As shown in the diagram, to break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, the framework poses four key questions to challenge an industrys strategic logic and business model. Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? Which factors should be reduced well below the industrys standard? Which factors should be raised well above the industrys standard? Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? Figure 4: Four Actions Framework By pursuing the first two questions managers gain insight into how to drop their cost structure vis-à  -vis competitors. Rarely do they systematically set out to eliminate and reduce their investments in factors that an industry competes on. The result is mounting cost structures and complex business models. The other questions provide insights into how to lift buyer value and create new demand. Collectively, they allow exploring how to reconstruct buyer value elements across alternative industries to offer buyers an entirely new experience, while simultaneously keeping your cost structure low. Eliminating and creating are vital as they push companies to go beyond value maximization exercises with existing factors of competition. They prompt companies to change the factors themselves, hence making the existing rules of competition irrelevant. Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) The PDCA Cycle is a checklist of the four stages, which one must go through to get from `problem-faced to `problem solved. This concept was developed by Walter Shewhart, the pioneering statistician who developed statistical process control in the Bell Laboratories in the US during the 1930s. It was taken up and promoted very effectively from the 1950s on by the famous Quality Management authority, W. Edwards Deming. Consequently, PDCA cycle is also commonly known as `the Shewhart Cycle and the Deming wheel. This cycle diagram can be applied in team meetings to take stock of what stage improvement initiatives are at, and to choose the appropriate tools to see each stage through to successful completion. Here is what we do in each stage: Plan to improve operations first by finding out what things are going wrong (that is identify the problems faced), and come up with ideas for solving these problems. Do changes designed to solve the problems on a small scale first. This minimizes disruption to routine activity while testing whether the changes will work or not. Check whether the small scale changes are achieving the desired result or not. Also, continuously Check nominated key activities (regardless of any experimentation going on) to know what the quality of the output is at all times to identify any new problems. Act to implement changes on a larger scale if its successful on small scale. Also Act to involve other persons (other departments, suppliers, or customers) affected by the changes and whose cooperation is needed to implement them on a larger scale. If the experiment was not successful, skip the Act stage and go back to the Plan stage to come up with some new ideas for solving the problem and go through the cycle again. Plan-Do-Check-Act describes the overall stages of improvement activity, but how is each stage carried out? This is where other specific quality management, or continuous improvement, tools and techniques come into play. The diagram below lists the tools and techniques that can be used to complete each stage of the PDCA Cycle. Figure 5: PDCA Cycle VRIO Framework VRIO is an acronym for Value, Rarity, Imitability and Organization. This is also a 4 questions framework where one asks about a resource or capability to ascertain its competitive potential: the question of Value, the question of Rarity, the question of Imitability (Ease/Difficulty to Imitate), and the question of Organization (ability to exploit the resource or capability). The Question of Value: Is the firm able to exploit an opportunity or neutralize an external threat with the resource/capability? The Question of Rarity: Is control of the resource/capability in the hands of a relative few? The Question of Imitability: Is it difficult to imitate, and will there be significant cost disadvantage to a firm trying to obtain, develop, or duplicate the resource/capability? The Question of Organization: Is the firm organized, ready, and able to exploit the resource/capability? The VRIO framework, in a wider scope, is part of a much larger strategic scheme of a firm. The basic strategic process that any firm goes through begins with a vision statement, and continues on through objectives, internal external analysis, strategic choices (both business-level and corporate-level), and strategic implementation. The firm will hope that this process results in a competitive advantage in the marketplace they operate in. VRIO falls into the internal analysis step of these procedures, but is used as a framework in evaluating just about all resources and capabilities of a firm, regardless of what phase of the strategic model it falls under. CHAPTER-2 LITERATURE REVIEW Paper 1: Blue Ocean Strategy versus Competitive Strategy: Theory and Evidence. Burke, Andrew, Andrà © van Stel, and Roy Thurik. ERIM Report Series Research in Management (May 2009) Theme: Empirical analysis of blue ocean strategy versus competitive strategies based on data assembled from 655 retail shops through 41 shop types in the retail industry in Holland. Summary: This paper addresses the debate surrounding Red Ocean (competitive strategy) v/s Blue Ocean (New Market) strategy. The authors note that Blue Ocean seeks to emphasise the importance of value innovation that can completely negate the competition replacing competitive advantage with value innovation as the firms primary goal thus highlighting the importance of creating demand and exploiting untapped maket rather than risking competition. This results in increased profitability in the industry. There is a debate in the academia and research groups as to which strategy is better suited but all evidences are as case studies on different companies which is not enough to define any one of the two strategies as a clear winner. Rather the two strategies co-exist and should co-exist because a firm on the foundation of Blue Ocean strategy may ultimately have to face competition depending on the imitability of the business model and then before they have more value innovation to differentiate themselves and still remain cost competitive, they must also have a competitive strategy to ensure they do not fall behind of competition. Research results in this paper suggest that the notion that blue ocean makes competition irrelevant may not be true. To test the superiority of either tools the authors looks at the two strategies from both long term and short term perspectives and outline a theoretical model which suggests that every market will experience new vendors arriving to share the profits that are there on the offering in the industry. Thus the composition of the pie chart of market share will continuously exhibit different set of players with some fading off while others entering the market but only until the saturation point is reached where everyone will break even. Looking at the industry an its players over a period of time in this manner will give us an understanding about whether the new market strategy or the competitive strategy is more viable for the industry. If companies succeed over a long period of time by creating value innovation (new market strategy) as the new companies entered, both the i ndustry profits as well as the firms profit will grow steadily and so will the number of vendors in the strategy. On the other hand, if the profitability of the blue ocean firm went down with increasing number of vendors in the industry, it would be an indication of the dominance of the firms that followed competitive strategy over the firms that followed new market (blue ocean) strategy. After studying the complete data from 1982-2000 of 655 retail shops over 41 shop types in the Dutch retail industry and after testing and analyzing the premise the authors concluded for half the shop types, the firm profits were directly proportional to the number of firms while the blue ocean strategy was dominant over a long term with number of vendors and firm profitability rising/falling together over all shop types in the whole period under consideration. The authors also concluded that in short term Red Ocean strategies were at work. The study highlights that the two strategies co-exist and cross each other throughout the industry life and there is no particular choice that any manager prefers. Paper 2: Synthesizing a Blue Ocean. Master Thesis. Vester, Daniel. Aalto University, 2012. Theme: Applicability of New Market strategy frameworks and techniques in the electronic musical instruments industry for innovating new products. Summary: In this paper, the author targets to show how value innovation could be used in case of an electronic musical instrument company to add value to their product and create new market space. To explain this, he choses to compare the traditional strategies like competitive strategy, Porters 5 forces strategy to the blue ocean strategy. Blue ocean strategy is eventually selected for the process of product development of ArturiaMiniBrute, an analogue synthesizer reason being 1) Its attention on constructing new uncontested market space and at the same time targeting lower cost and product differentiation as well; and 2) The ease with which the analytical tools and frameworks in a Blue Ocean strategy could be blended into the product development process and usability of the instrument thus developed. Blue ocean strategy tools such as the Strategy Canvas, Four Action Framework, Buyer Utility Map and Three Tiers of Noncustomers are applied after quantitative analysis of sales figures in the electronic musical instrument industry for identifying Arturias closest competitors in various synthesizer markets and to design the strategy for ArturiaMiniBrute. The authors observations and interpretations show that the Blue Ocean Strategy techniques and frameworks can aid electronic musical instrument firms add value to their instruments/products/offerings and create new market space. Subsequently, the author advocates that companies should shift focus from technical features of the musical instrument to the emotional appeal of the musical instrument, and urges that companies should get out of the traditional mindset, challenge established rules of the industry by eliminating factors that have been ignored and not given due importance but which may be of great value to the customer. Paper 3: The Impact of Blue Ocean Strategy in Low-cost Transport. Ã…Â  tverkovà ¡, Hana, Michal ÄŒervinka, and Vlasta Humlovà ¡. In 2012 International Conference on Traffic and Transportation Engineering. Belgrade, November 29-30, 2012. Theme: Applicability of blue ocean strategy theory to Ryanair (air transport industry) Summary: This paper illustrates how blue ocean strategy can be vital and have an important influence in the low cost aviation sector. The authors chose to analyze the low-cost air transport industry in the European Union. They report that the market is highly competitive and the regional players fight amongst themselves on the base of cost competitiveness. The authors show that a cordial relationship between regional airports and any carrier firm can enable budget airlines to provide distinguished value for airline passengers at a low cost to the companies. The authors also suggests using the case of Ryanair that infrastructure improvement for non-core activities at the smaller airports might be essential to facilitate such relationships between budget airlines and small regional airports. CHAPTER-3 EXAMPLES OF BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY Air Asia One of the major developments that the airline has experienced has been the evolution of the budget airlines. For instance, emergence of Air Asia in Malaysia is a classic example. Air Asia have avoided the competitive strategy or the red Ocean (competition against Malaysia Airline and other airlines like Tiger Air, Jet Air and other regional airlines) by considering factors that are important to customers but easily taken for granted by most of the other airlines. With the Four Actions Framework proposed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Air Asia have ensured they make Malaysia Airline, Tiger Air, Jet air and regional players irrelevant by implementing many important strategic moves explained below. STRATEGY Eliminate: 1) OTC booking 2) Seating Class booking arrangement 3) Free breakfast/lunch/dinner on the plane Reduce: 1) Number of attendants serving on the plane 2) Luxury facilities delivered 3) Quality of the seats Raise: 1) Increased flight hours for their aircrafts: frequency of flight 2) Selected key endpoints/destinations catered frequently Create: 1) Booking system became online 2) Travel system: point-to-point Through these strategic moves, Air Asia has been able to concentrate on factors that really matter for the customers like better booking channel, point-to-point travel system, etc. that makes customers lives simpler and adds value to them. This is a perfect example of Value Innovation, as not only does this help Air Asia increase the value to the customers but at the same time reduces cost for Air Asia significantly Value Innovation. This also allows Air Asia towards customers who were not traditionally target thus creating a new market space and targeting non-customers in the traditional airline industry. Current Airline Customers: 1) Corporates and business fraternity in Malaysia or ASEAN region. 2) Those individuals who can afford to buy expensive airline tickets from airlines like Malaysia Airline and other regional players. Non-Customers: 1) Officers from the government and other government staff 2) Those individuals who cannot afford to buy expensive tickets such as students or recent graduates or lower middle class and rural people. With effective execution of Blue Ocean strategy, Air Asia has furthered expanded their gamut and has ventured into other businesses like they started Tune Hotel and Tune Money. The model is again towards creating Blue Ocean market space. Crocs Inc. Company Snapshot Crocs Inc. is one of the major players in shoe industry who have been very successful. It designs, fabricates and markets bright-colored, comfy-branded footwear and accessories for all segments men, women and children. Blue Ocean Strategic Move Crocs Inc. with its distinctive lightweight clogs created a blue ocean market space in the shoe industry. These types of shoes gave customers a perfect combination of comfort and fashion at an affordable price point. Crocs shoes have mass appeal because not only are they branded but also in a way they are refreshing, they are different from traditional sandals and casual shoes and add a fun element as well as they come in a wide array of bright colors which provide a funky look. Combined with their new crocodile logo on their shoes it also gives them a bold look. Crocs have been a run-away success also because they provide customer what they never even thought of, they satisfy their customers by adding value to their customers usage by giving features like lightweight, waterproof, ergonomic comfort and anti-microbial and anti-skid. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¨Success Founded in 2002 as a new type of boat shoemaker initially, the company has grown into a global sensation in casual footwear industry with sales across the globe in over 90 countries and reaching 1 billion US dollars in 2011. Figure 6: Crocs Four Actions to create Value Innovation Source: Frontier Strategy, LLC Nintendos Wii The video game business has a huge market and is a multi-billion dollar industry. Video consoles, which form a big portion of this market, were very recently in the past controlled by two major players: PlayStations (PS12 and soon PS3) from Sony and Xbox (Xbox and Xbox360) from Microsoft. Nintendo, however, a distant third player created ripples in the market space with its launch of the Wii. This is an especially interesting case study from a strategy perspective since its a brilliant example of the so-called blue ocean strategy. The graphic below demonstrates Nintendos Wii strategy with the help of the strategy canvas and is quite clear. Figure 7: The Strategy Canvas of Nintendo Wii On giving a closer glance to the above graphic, one will notice that Nintendo is competing on a completely different strategic landscape as the attributes are completely differently focused for Nintendo in comparison with Sony and Microsoft. The Wii is not only affordable for general public, it has no Hard Disk, no DVD, no Dolby 5.1, weak connectivity and comparatively low processor speed, but enthralls the user by its innovative motion control stick. The stick is designed such that it integrates the movements of a player directly into the console of the video game, The user gets an interface where he gets a live feel of himself playing in the screen. With this feature Nintendo not only won the existing customers in the video game world but also brought in a completely new set of customers to the business. We can again think of the Four Actions Framework in all of the above descriptions of features. I will explain here with a couple of those features: Reduction in cost through elimination of some features like Hard Drive, DVD, Dolby 5.1 and low processor speed A raise in demand by creation of motion stick: strong value innovation for new gamers/customers. These 2 features disregard the traditional belief in competitive strategy of either going for cost leadership or product differentiation and not simultaneously for both. In other words, through this example we see that while Sony and Microsoft are fighting in the same old bloody Red Ocean of existent market, Nintendo created a new market space for itself in the form of Wii and is now sailing calmly in this Blue Ocean that it created for itself. CHAPTER-4 BOS: A Case Study on redBus Story of redBus One fine evening an electrical engineer in Bangalore planned to travel to Hyderabad to celebrate Diwali with his family but the answer he got from the agents when he reached at bus stands was that all tickets were sold out and he could inquire about the availability from some other agents. Although the person got frustrated but an appalling question was making rounds in his minds; why werent there other methods to get bus tickets booked rather than moving from one agent to another? He questioned why cant bus tickets be booked online like airlines and railway tickets? The person was Phanindra Sama and his frustration lead way to a revolution in Indian bus industry and redBus was born. Phani discussed the idea with his friends (Sudhakar Pasupunuri and Charan Padmaraju) and they started working on the idea. Initially they decided to develop an IT based inventory system for bus operators but the idea was dismissed by the operators and agents as the task seemed huge to them. Meanwhile they came in contact with the Bangalore chapter of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) which accepted their venture and mentored the team and guided them with various assignments pertaining to market surveys and market research. The TIE mentorship enabled redBus to get venture capitalist interested in them and a VC named Seedfund funded them with $500000. This is how redBus was born on 18th August 2006, Indias first online bus ticketing website, a concept which was in use for airline and railway booking but no one had realized that it could be feasible enough for the bus travel also. Exhibit 1 gives company details. Exhibit 1 The Team Major Milestones Exhibit 2 Company Details Bus Ticket Industry- Overview in India The Indian bus travel industry was highly fragmented with a large number of small operators and agents having very little orientation towards technology. Most of the operators were regional players having small fleets of ten buses where few were long route players having 100 or more fleets of buses. Exhibit 2 gives the details of the industry structure. Long route buses were known as contract carriages and their tickets were to be bought in advance whereas short haul buses known as stage carriers and their tickets were sold in the coach itself. The booking system was agent driven in which each agent had contract with three of four operators and tickets were allocated to them on the basis of quota system by the operators. Each agent used to sell its quota of tickets and all the unsold tickets were informed to the operator before some fixed time of bus departure. No centralized inventory was maintained by either the agents or by operators

Comparison of Monsson Wedding to Heat and Dust Essay -- essays res

Despite differing in form, the film â€Å"Monsoon Wedding,† directed by Mira Nair and the novel â€Å"Heat and Dust,† by Ruth Prawler Jhabvala, have many similarities. Both of these texts convey an Indian world and the people in it. â€Å"Monsoon Wedding† is a party arthouse, party Bollywood film which deals with the leadup to the wedding of two young people, Aditi and Hermant. It combines their story with that of Aditi’s father, Lalit, and his family responsibilities, as well as the events occurring in the lives of their servants, Dubey and Alice. This combining of multiple storylines into one cohesive narrative is one of the characteristics of Bollywood films. The title of the film refers to the monsoon, or rainy season, in India. The majority of the film is set in the buildup to the monsoon, when the oppressive heat is at its strongest. This is metaphorically linked to the buildup of tension and anxiety in the days leading up to the wedding. The monsoon itself, like the wedding, symbolises cleansing and renewal before a new start. One thing that sets this film apart from other Bollywood films is that it deals with taboo issues in its portrayal of Uncle Tej’s pedophilia. This is seen from the point of view of his pat victim, Ria. The audience is not told explicitly what is occurring, but through the use of shots of Ria appearing distressed followed by shots of Tej, it becomes apparent that something sinister is happening. This particular storyline climaxes with Ria’s public accusation...

Tibetan Medicine Essay -- Tibet Treatment History Illness Papers

Tibetan Medicine Tibetan medicine, developed over the course of over one thousand years in the isolated mountainous terrain of Tibet and preserved despite China’s decimation of Tibetan customs, views healing in a much different way than Western physicians. Tibetan medicine emphasizes science, faith, perception, spirituality, karma, and philosophy, whereas Western medicine is based almost entirely on science. In the West, religion and spirituality are believed to have absolutely nothing to do with healing and medical practice. Without looking at Tibetan medicine in depth, the Westerner could easily dismiss Tibetan medicine as superstitious and unscientific; however, Tibetan Medicine is often very successful at treating illness, and Tibetan physicians can often cure the root of the problem, rather than merely performing a quick fix to a localized part of the body as in the West. Tibetan doctors do not recommend simply popping a pill. Instead, they see illness as a manifestation of the body†™s imbalance and seek to correct this imbalance. In order to cure a disease, behavior, lifestyle, and one’s individual ‘humoral constitution’ (the three humors and the way in which they function in the body will be fully explained later) are all very important. In order to gain a fuller understanding of the Tibetan approach, as well as appreciate why it has remained so unknown to Westerners despite its lengthy existence, one must consider the Tibetan and Western medical traditions simultaneously. One is also inclined to consider if aspects or methods of diagnoses from the Tibetan tradition could be incorporated into Western medicine since each form of practice has own benefits – Western medicine has highly sophisticated technology and the... ...he Source, 131. [8] John Avedon, In Exile from the Land of Snows, 156. [9] Vaidya Dash, Tibetan Medicine, 86. [10] Vaidya Dash, Tibetan Medicine, 87. [11] Vaidya Dash, Tibetan Medicine, 89. [12] Dr. Yeshi Dhonden. Health Through Balance. (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1986), 142. [13] Dr. Dhoden, Health Through Balance, 148. [14] Dr. Dhonden, Healing from the Source, 129. [15] Christopher Hansard, The Tibetan Art of Living, (New York: Atria Books, 2001), 191. [16] Christopher Hansard, The Tibetan Art of Living, 193. [17] Christopher Hansard, The Tibetan Art of Living, 193. [18] Dr. Dhonden, Health Through Balance, 185. [19] Dr. Dhonden, Health Through Balance, 216. [20] Dr. Dhonden, Healing from the Source, 187. [21] Dr. Dhonden, Healing from the Source, 187. [22] John Avedon, In Exile from the Land of Snows, 155.

Iago’s Manipulation in Act One of Shakespeares Othello :: Othello essays

Iago’s Manipulation in Act One of Othello The events that occur in the first half of Act 1 are all in anticipation of the lead character Othello who we are not immediately introduced too. We learn Iago’s name in the second line of the play and Roderigo’s soon after, but Othello is not mentioned by his name once. Instead he is referred to as ‘he’, ‘him’ and is frequently described as ‘the moor’ (1.1.58) he is also described as having ‘thick lips’ (1.1.67) and later as being a ‘Barbary horse’ (1.1.111) is continuously described by his critics, mainly Iago, as a ‘moor’, demonstrating Iago’s frequently concerning nature of race and also portraying Othello as something of an alien. From this reference we are able to immediately understand Iago’s true feelings and motives for Othello. The audience at this point know nothing of Othello that is gained by their own opinion, instead we are lead to believe from Iago’s race related description that Othello is a threatening and evil moor, whose beastial sexual appetite, conveyed by Iago’s cries to Brabantio, telling him that ‘an old black ram is tupping’ his ‘white ewe’ (1.1.89), is something of a rapist. Iago’s coarse animal related language conveys Iago’s feelings against Othello’s marriage in a much more pronounced way. The image of an ‘old black ram’ gives the audience nothing but negative images of Othello, especially when this ‘old black ram’ is being associated with the innocence of a ‘white ewe’. Iago then associates Othello with the image of ‘the devil’ (1.1.92) because of Othello’s colour, Iago warns Brabantio that he has ‘lost half [his] soul’ now that Desdemona is married to Oth ello. Iago here emphasises the biracial nature of the marriage, already showing his ability to manipulate people, in this case he is manipulating Brabantio, to believe in Iago’s own opinions and in theory to eliminate all thoughts that Brabantio might of had of his own about the marriage. Despite the negative foregrounding of Othello’s character by Iago, our first impressions of Othello in Act 1 are of a noble and well-spoken man, his nobility is conveyed through his speech ‘most potent grave and reverend signiors’(1.3.76) to his future father-in-law Brabantio of Othello’s love for his daughter Desdemona in Act 1 Scene 3. This is a very different character to what we expect from Iago’s preparation for the introduction of Othello. Where we are expecting an angry and possibly violent character, we instead are met with something completely surprising, a quiet and calm man who dismisses Roderigo’s insult and even avoids the prospect of a conflict.

Clockwork Orange Essay

The decision to choose between good and evil is one simple choice that separates a human from being a machine. Being unable to choose from the two is â€Å"†¦like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside† (Burgess, 203). There comes a point in a man’s life where he stops being a machine and becomes something else entirely. In the book A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, the twenty-first chapter was excluded from the earlier publications, but then added to the latter ones; although the ending of chapter twenty provides beneficial lessons, the twenty-first chapter of A Clockwork Orange is a superior conclusion to the story as it shows character development and accomplishes the morals of the story. This story follows a fifteen-year-old boy named Alex, an immature adolescent who disregards the law and engages in rape and â€Å"ultraviolence†. Soon Alex is apprehended and sentenced to prison where he is a victim of a conditioning experiment known as the â€Å"Ludovico treatment† in order to rid him of all of his evil desires. The treatment ends up being a success as Alex is no longer able to participate in violence or rape at his own will. As the story continues, the government cures Alex of the condition under the agreement that he sides with the government. At the end of chapter twenty, Alex departs from the audience realizing â€Å"I was cured all right† (Burgess 192). Although the end of this chapter is not nearly as satisfying and powerful as the ending of chapter twenty-one, it still provides an important lesson that readers should recognize. We as readers learn about the inherent evil of the government as we watch the Ludovico treatment’s success in controlling Alex’s violence. There is importance in informing readers of immoral actions involving the government and challenging them to question what is ethical or not. â€Å"He [Burgess] has presented us with a stark image of evil, and perhaps of a greater evil in attempting to counteract it. He has warned us of a slippery slope† (Newman 68). In the book, the Ludovico experiment is intense  and disturbing even for readers who have been exposed to Alex’s extreme actions. Even though Alex is presented to us as a clear image of evil, Burgess’s readers can still recognize something that is not just immature. Burgess is successful in showing his readers that sometimes something that is supposed to be pristine can be corrupt. He shows us that a government that has the appearance of being good does not mean that it is good. Though this ending is powerful, it does not completely satisfy or give any development to its readers. â€Å"Burgess offers us no real answers, however. At the end of the 20th chapter, it is clear that Alex intends to resume his life of ultraviolence. Seemingly little thought is given to those he has killed, or those he is likely to kill† (Newman 68). The ending of chapter twenty shows its readers that Alex is aware that he is in fact cured and will continue to act the same as he once did at the introduction of the story. Earlier in the story, Alex kills two women before being sentenced to prison. Since these deaths were very brutal, readers expect remorse from Alex especially when he is unconditioned from the reclamation treatment. Because Alex is released from the torture of the Ludovico technique, we predict he will regret the actions that caused the torment. When Alex does not show any actions towards his past transgressions, we envision him to kill again. As a result, this conclusion gives the readers no sort of progress throughout the events before. Since Alex was forced into changing his immoral actions, he never made any improvement in his own power. Even though readers can recognize that the treatment is immoral, they can still see that Alex is not making any progress. He was forced into a direction to be a test subject of something that had the appearance of being good. Although he is now three years older from when he was first sentenced, Alex ends where he once started, a child. In order for him to grow as a person, he first must realize that his actions are wrong. In the added twenty-first chapter, Alex encounters one of his old â€Å"droogs† and becomes aware of his transgressions and reanalyzes where his priorities are. As a result, the conclusion of the story surrounds Alex’s character and the maturity he begins to embrace. â€Å"But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Ale x like groweth up, oh yes† (Burgess 204). As Alex starts to distinguish his developing maturity, he finds himself evaluating  what adulthood requires. â€Å"In chapter 21, Burgess presents a mellowing, increasingly reflective, eighteen-year-old Alex who is coming to see that this previous violent behavior was childishly perverse. He thinks of marriage, stability, and the son he one day hopes to have. He contemplates explaining to his son all his past crimes as an admonition† (Hong 34). As Alex begins to become bored with the violence and rape he had previously committed, he reaches a place in his life where he has never been to before. Before the Ludovico treatment, Alex was a criminal and a child who needed to be cured from the sickness that grew within him. Even though Alex rejoices saying he was â€Å"cured,† he was not cured from his real problem; his evil ways. In order for him to be truly cured of his old desires, he needs to choose for himself to turn from what he once was. Through his experience with the Ludovico technique, Alex reaches the realization that part of growing up is turning from what has prevented his progression. â€Å"Free to will and free to choose again, even if he wills to sin, Alex is capable of salvation. In the view of Burgess, all individuals, even these as violent as Alex, could reform and acquire the moral growth. The moral maturity comes with age† (Hong 34). Though Alex did not show any signs of remorse or regret, he showed the desire to improve to a higher level of maturity. Something that he was unable to do at the end of chapter twenty, Alex is no longer immune to salvation. Regardless of the intensity and degree of the crimes Alex has committed, he has a chance to repent and break free from what has been chaining him down his whole life. This provides improvement in Burgess’s main character, as Alex can finally choose for himself what he must accomplish in order to mature as a man. Character development is clearly necessary for Burgess as he expresses, â€Å"There is, in fact not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility or moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters† (Burgess 168). Through the ending of chapter twenty-one, Alex displays progression in his character. If the novel ends at chapter twenty, Alex is right where he began. Once Alex has decided to choose goodness and maturity, the story finally reaches what the readers have been striving to see. As Alex finally looks to turn to the next chapter in his life, the book comes to a point where hope  is finally achieved. â€Å"When man has reached a hopeless impasse in his savage quest for improvement, he must make the sensible moral choice. The individual is a ‘creature of growth and capable of sweetness’, as F. Alexander puts in his typescript, so he could be liberated or saved† (Hong 34). Liberation comes from someone who chooses to become saved from the thing that once was holding that person down. As he made this choice he matured as a character. If Alex were to not make this choice, the main theme would not be as impactful since he did not choose goodness. Alex once displayed his view on goodness in the novel stating, â€Å"They don’t go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that ’s because they like it, and I wouldn’t interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop† (Burgess 46). Alex shows us evil, just like goodness, is a choice when he refers it as â€Å"the other shop.† Again later in prison, the chaplain tells Alex, â€Å"goodness comes from within. Goodness is something chosen† (Burgess 93). This statement has no meaning to Alex unless he himself chooses goodness. Although Alex chose the Ludovico treatment, he did not choose goodness. The conditioning forced Alex into goodness rather than him choosing it for himself. The chaplain then goes on further to say, â€Å"when a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man† (Burgess 93). Burgess desires to indicate that it is not what a man chooses; it is the idea that he is able to choose. A man who is incapable of a moral choice can never attain redemption, but a man who admits his wrongdoings can choose to repent and reach salvation. Throughout the story, free will is displayed as the decision to choose something rather than being another subject or machine of the government. Although Alex ultimately seems as if he will begin to choose goodness, Burgess wants to make sure that goodness is something that must be chosen, rather than forced. In A Clockwork Orange Resucked, Burgess shows his readers that good and evil must both be equally offered. â€Å"†¦ by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange – meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil† (â€Å"ACO Resucked† 168). As Alex was once a toy wound up by the  appearance of pure goodness, readers soon find that evil was what turned the lever. At the beginning of the story, it appears that Alex is already â€Å"a clo ckwork orange† as he seems as though he can only perform evil acts with his henchman. As the end draws near, we find that Alex always had the choice of goodness, but never chose it until he had nothing but the choice of goodness. Burgess again expresses, â€Å"It is inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities† (â€Å"ACO Resucked†168). Without evil as a valid choice, the choice to be good becomes nothing more than an empty action. In the novel, Alex too refers to himself as one of those â€Å"malenky machines† at the end of chapter twenty-one, saying being young is like being one of those machines. He goes on and says that they cannot control where they are going and crash into things along the way. Alex comes to the realization that he does not want to be a toy anymore. Without the twenty-first chapter, Alex would still be a clockwork orange, leaving him as just another machine. Not only does the twenty-first chapter accomplish the morals of both maturity and goodness, it also resonates for readers as a symbolism for free will. The twenty-first chapter is necessary for Alex’s character development as well, and achieves greater emotional value for its readers. According to Burgess, the choice of either goodness or evil is something that everyone should be entitled to. Regardless of what someone chooses, goodness or evil should be chosen in order to remain a human. For a human who does not have a choice, â€Å"grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers† (Burgess 203). Works Cited Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. Ed. Andrew Biswell. Res. ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print. Burgess, Anthony. â€Å"A Clockwork Orange Resucked.† A Clockwork Orange – Authoritative Text Backgrounds And Contexts Criticism. Ed. Mark Rawlinson. Norton Critical. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. 166-70. Print. Hong, Liu. â€Å"The Perplexing Choice In Existence Predicament: An Existential Interpretation Of Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.† Studies In Literature & Language 1.8 (2010): 29-38. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. Newman, Bobby. â€Å"A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: Burgess and Behavioral Interventions.† Behavior and Social Issues 1.2 (1991): 61-69. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.

Survival of Pi

In the novel Life of Pi, Pi goes through an unexpected journey for 227 days that adjusts his morals and needs to survive. Pi depends on his survival by over looking his morals, having faith, and creating his own version of the situation rather than facing reality. The human mind will go to great lengths to escape itself out of traumatic real life situations. Survival is the state of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances. Pi is faced with a serious situation involving death of loved ones, and the need to survive.The actions humans do to survive seem extraordinary and unimaginable. Pi’s needs to survive alter his life style. To begin with, Pi grew up a vegetarian as well as his brother Ravi, and his mother. The whole journey, Pi was surrounded by food and water but unfortunately the water was salt water so it was undrinkable and Pi could not apprehend any fish nor wanted to eat any. Pi had to depend on fish and turtles to give him some nutrients for survival. Pi believed eating meat was morally wrong. In Pi’s second story, he was surviving on the boat with a young sailor, a cook, and his mother.The cook could no longer sustain his humanity and he turns to cannibalism because he considers it the last option. The whole journey, before Pi was stranded on the lifeboat he was given food, water, love, and all the essentials to survive. On the lifeboat Pi fended for himself and had to change his morals and lifestyle to survive. Once Pi survived his journey and was interviewed by Mr. Chiba and Mr. Okamoto, Pi informs them, with: â€Å"I know my survival is hard to believe. When I think back, I can hardly believe it myself. † (223) Pi was against all odds of his journey to live, and survived.Faith is an important factor of Pi’s survival. Furthermore, faith is a significant factor in Pi’s survival. Pi should have passed away several times but faith kept him remaining on his jour ney. Pi is unsure of what religion he believes in. He is Hinduism, Islam, and Christian. Pi believes all religions lead to the same God. Without faith, Pi would have given up multiple times but Pi knows his life has a meaning. Pi understands out loud, â€Å"Only fear can defeat life. † (161) This quote explains how Pi believes faith can keep you surviving as long as you have faith in yourself.After the ship sank, and Pi remarkably survived he verbally realized, â€Å"Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. † (108) The trauma Pi is going through is fierce and too much to tolerate. Pi lost all of his family, left his home and friends, and is now gone astray out at sea. He has lost everything and anything close to him. By believing in the three different religions, Pi shows that he is strong with a high spirit, which helps him survive out at sea. Pi had knowledge from three different religious groups, so he always had help and a solution to all of his probl ems.Faith is powerful. Faith gave Pi a reason to keep going and not to give up. Lastly, Pi created a ‘second story’ so he didn’t have to face the reality. People can often prepare a story to convince people and themselves that it actually happened, so they can escape reality and believe in this fantasy. Pi created Richard Parker so he didn’t feel alone; Richard Parker was a figment of Pi’s imagination. Richard Parker is the will inside Pi for survival. Richard Parker was Pi’s fighting source. Richard Parker killed the hyena after the hyena killed the zebra and orangutan in the second story.Richard Parker only comes out of hiding when Pi becomes angry after seeing his Mother (orangutan) and young sailor (zebra) be killed by the Chef (hyena), I think when Richard Parker comes out of hiding that demonstrates Pi’s fighting source coming out of his personality. Throughout the book, aspects of Richard Parker come out in Pi. For example, Pi s tarts eating meat even though it is against his morals and beliefs, his personality becomes strong like a tiger because he becomes in charge and doesn’t let Richard Parker take control.Pi created the second story and Richard Parker so he could escape reality. Pi would not have been able to survive without Richard Parker. Richard Parker killed the chef for Pi. Without each other, Pi and Richard Parker would have died. In retrospect, Pi survived under adverse and unusual circumstances. Pi would have not survived without overlooking his morals, having faith, and creating his own version of the daunting situation. The actions humans do to survive seem extraordinary and unimaginable. Pi’s needs to survive alter his life style.