Nikita's Scribbles

Random thoughts — favorite music, movies, tv shows, books, quotes — latest obsessions, shopping, travelling, many pictures of New York, some pictures of me and some umm, smithereens of wisdom.

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Women We Admire: Bettina Sherick

Sherick is the founder of Be.InTouch Advisors and former Senior Vice President of 20th Century Fox International. She is “fascinated by the impactful ways that digital continues to change the way people connect, communicate, and consume.” Sherick is a risk-taker, a woman who is intensely passionate about what she does—winning, leadership qualities we applaud and find extremely inspirational.

She was honored as Internationalist of the Year in 2010, and is the recipient of the 2011 iMedia Visionary Entertainment Marketer Award. Sherick also authored a chapter on digital history in  the book Digital State: How the Internet is Changing Everything. A passionate speaker about international digital marketing, she was a featured presenter at the 2010 IAA World Congress in Moscow. She holds an MBA from Claremont Graduate University and a degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Sherick launched her first marketing and e-commerce shopping site in 1997 while serving as marketing manager at Strouds, Inc. She then worked as director of e-commerce marketing for Warner Bros Studio Store. From there, she moved on to Fox. In her 14 years there, she pioneered Digital Marketing and ensured the company’s position at the forefront of innovative marketing. She managed international digital marketing campaigns for over 100 films, including Avatar, The Fault in Our Stars, Life of Pi, Rio, the entire X-Men franchise, Ice Age franchise and The Simpsons Movie.

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For the longest time, I have had a total of 23 friends on Snapchat. And while it's great to have that kind of privacy, I'm more active on Snapchat than anywhere else, and it makes sense to share it with all of you! Add me on Snapchat if you're interested in... well, me and my everyday life. I take a lot of pictures/videos of things I'm doing, where I'm going, what I'm eating (duh), and who I'm hanging out with! There will be a lot of pictures of the streets, the parks, tiny dogs, the water (Hudson River or East River), impressive buildings, NYC life, my computer screen (sneak peeks into what I'm writing), you'll know what movies/TV shows I'm watching, what music I'm listening to and all that. I also complain a lot about my life/life in general. (I don't mean it, I'm just someone who likes to complain sometimes.) So if you're into that kinda thing, add me! If you'd rather add me by username, it's singh_nikita 😁😛💞🐣

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After All This Time . . .

Thanks so much you guys for all your wishes for my new book. I'm grateful for the love you have shown me, today and always. I hope that with "After All This Time" I repay some of that. This is a book very close to my heart. It's about finding love in the most unexpected of places, at the most unexpected time. It's about being strong, hopeful and well, un-selfish at times—thinking about someone else before thinking about ourselves. Writing it was quite an experience. I really really hope you enjoy reading it.

In the coming days we will have several contests and such, and I'll be sharing more about the book, so keep an eye out for that.

Until then, keep writing to me. :)

PS: You know where to book your copy. Amazon—http://amzn.to/1GYTYlJ Flipkart—http://bit.ly/1E22Bd2 Rediff—http://bit.ly/1zVLzCs Infibeam—http://bit.ly/1E22E8M

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What happens when the thing you're running from becomes the thing you're running to?

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It’s here, After All This Time . . . 

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So about the new book . . . It's up for pre-order now! :)

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Tyrion Lannister says it best. 

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Aamir Khan on AIB: Hypocrisy

I watched Aamir Khan speak about AIB Knockout. I liked how he defended their freedom of speech and at the same time said that it wasn’t his kind of a show so he didn’t watch it. (Which is how it should be—if it's not your cup of tea, don't watch it.) I also agree that while we cannot ban something because we do not like it, with freedom of expression, creative people also have a responsibility. And then he added that when he made Delhi Belly, he advertised that it had adult content and got an “A” certificate for the movie. That’s where I have a problem.

AIB also had a disclaimer and just like in case of Delhi Belly, anyone who watched a small clip/advertisement would know that it is for adult audiences.

Secondly, Aamir said he found the content to be too violent. The same man who "earned" crores by making Ghajini.

Third, as far as responsibility is concerned, there’s a song called “Bhag Bhag D K Bose” that was accessible not only to adults, but also kids that sang it happily without knowing what it meant.

Fourth, PK was not certified A, it was U/A which means it required parental guidance. Which means that kids can go to the movie with their parents, watch the “dancing cars” and ask their parents what that was about.

What AIB did—providing a platform to successful actors to laugh at themselves and not take themselves too seriously—was refreshing. Maybe it could’ve been better without the expletives and some unwarranted jokes on sensitive issues, but that was their decision. I don’t think they broke any laws. But like Aamir said, if they did, it’s for the judge to decide.

In my opinion, more than good, what Aamir said is going to do bad for AIB. Which is a shame. People listen to that man, they look up to him, and his opinion truly matters. I was disappointed on finding hypocrisy in his words.

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Let's Get Offended Less

I posted my opinions on the public reaction to AIB Roast. Some of you agree, and some of you obviously don't—which is fine. I cannot respond to individual comments; I've said what I needed to say in the post itself.

The one thing I want to add is—every time a writer writes something and has to pause, think, go back and delete it because he is afraid of the heat he is going to face about it, it's just wrong.

It's one thing to rethink and edit your book/script for the readers/audience, because it's ultimately going to become a product that they are going to pay for and the writer wants to ensure they get good content. It's something very different when a writer has to remove what he wants to say because he is afraid of facing the outrage it could possibly cause because some people might not accept his point of view, but would refuse to let him keep his freedom of speech and expression, which is his fundamental right. It's just wrong.

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Leave AIB Alone

I did not say anything about the AIB roast before, assuming enough was being said and the guys were being supported by everyone other than the losers talking shit about them and/or suing them. But I just stumbled across a news article about someone filing a police case against Ranveer for kissing Deepika in public. It wasn't the news report that shocked me as much as the comments on the thread. Random people cursing the AIB guys and the stars that were a part of that panel for being "class-less" and "vulgar" and what not and talking about how we should put them all in jail and ban them for life from making anymore movies because they don't deserve to speak or something. There's a public interest litigation filed in the Bombay High Court to take strict actions against AIB because the content of the roast was 'unbearable for any cultured and civilised person'.

This is just ridiculous. While it's okay for you to not like the show--I mean, of course, you get to have an opinion about that--but how can you take somebody's freedom of expression away? We live in a democracy, where everyone gets a right to speak. If you do not like something, you have a right to say so, but it's like, "I only watch cricket, rugby is too violent for me, let's get rugby banned."

A roast is a form of "insult-comedy" and it's been around for decades. Just because this is the first time someone was bold enough to bring this to India, AIB is now facing a new threats every minute?

Before it was pulled off YouTube, I watched some of it. I enjoyed the first part, the second felt repetitive so I skipped it and the third one was ruined somewhat by Arjun Kapoor's red face and the high pitch of his voice (he had clearly taken some of the insults too seriously) but the show was overall funny. Which was the point. I could've done without those expletives, but I didn't find their presence extremely jarring either.

Point is, you can't just ban everything you don't like. There are much bigger issues in the world that need to be addressed, that could use all this time and effort. They're doing something, using a disclaimer to do it, and people are watching it. And it wasn't like they were insulting just the stars. Everyone insulted everyone else on the panel. If you don't like something, don't watch it.

We, as a country, need to stop getting offended so easily and taking things to heart. AIB has made some really powerful video in the past, and I'm sure they'll make more if they're not "banned for life" or whatever. Nobody has a right to stop them from speaking their mind.

Defend free speech.

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I'm not a poet. This is something I wrote last year, a couple days before 2014 started. Now, a year later, an hour into 2015, I don't know why I find myself looking for this note on my phone.

Each year we promise (fool?) ourselves that the coming year would be better. Does anything really change, though?

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Welcome 2015

Happy New Year, you guys. If 2014 sucked for you, I hope 2015 is better. If 2014 was good, I hope 2015 is even better.  I don't know how I feel about New Year resolutions though. I mean, of course, there are the regular ones like—try to make lesser mistakes, do less (or more?) stupid things, workout more, meet more people, read more, worry less, respond to more texts, try to control the jerk inside and be good to those you care about us—but who are we kidding? By the end of 2015, we probably wouldn't have even started any of these things.  I refuse to start the year lying to myself and making plans of being a better person in the coming here. Never happens.

Anyway, you have a good year. Peace!

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Best vine I've seen in a while. This is totally gonna be me when I'm old. 😂

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This Needs To Be Said

It wasn't till I colored my hair (I colored the tips of my hair red around the Halloween time, and people thought it was temporary, but it is permanent) that I realized a lot of people out there have a problem with others coloring their hair, get body parts pierced or tattooed or you know, do anything that is not "natural" or whatever other term they choose to use. 

To these people, let me start with telling you what you should already know by now -- you have NO say in what others do to their bodies. It's their lives. 

Social networks provide us a platform where passing a comment on others is 5 seconds and a click away. What we do not realize is the person on the other side is going to read it. You should see these comments on YouTube videos, people have mean things to say about everything. It is okay to not like something, and it is okay to express your feelings, but there is a (lot of) difference between criticism and cyber-bullying. The person sitting on the other side is a person. 

The other day, someone commented on one of my pictures on Instagram that my nose looks like a pig's snout. (I could tell you what the guy who commented that looked like, but that defeats the purpose of this post.) My thoughts were -- am I not even a person anymore? Do people simply assume that I'm not going to read the comments? I was born with this nose. What do you expect me to do, get a nose-job because some guy on the internet doesn't like it?

And hair color? It's been around for decades. It's not even something new that people have trouble digesting. 

I know people who've got their lips plumped (is that what it's called?) and got all sorts of cosmetic surgeries, and I don't recall commenting on any of that. It's their body, their money, their life, their decisions. They're the ones going to live with it. Why do you think you have the right to make their lives difficult? Seriously guys, not cool. 

Mahatma Gandhi once said "live and let live". Let's listen, please?