What is Common between Sholay – the most popular movie in the Indian Film Industry and

eZdia - the first technology startup of its kind.

Experts and Freelancers

Ssshhhhhhhhhhh!!!! The train slowly stops and two young entrepreneurs, Jai and Veeru stepped out on the small dusty station of Ramgarh. They had spent their last two years honing their expertise in the government prison and had been hired by the Thakur as freelancers to do what no man had done before.

Their mission was to catch Gabbar, the ferocious dacoit who would kill anyone at his whim. Thakur was impressed by their skills and expertise in combat, deception, and loyalty after he had seen their work in action.

The story goes through some dramatic twists with Jai giving up his life to save Veeru and his fiancé but in the end expertise, and righteousness triumphs over evil. One of the most popular movies in the Indian Film industry teaches us a lot about people and how they solve their problems. It is not always necessary to hire the best or the largest organization to solve your issue but getting the right experts at the right price is the most effective way to go when you are looking at solution.

So, what is common with ezdia and Sholay?

Sholay talks about freelancers, using their expertise to solve a problem (Gabbar and his atrocities). While ezdia is an online platform where solution seekers like Thakur would check out freelancers like Jai, Veeru and hire them to solve the problem.

Thakur can go through the Knowledge Buckets of the two freelancers to check on their expertise and experience. The Knowledge Bucket would also show him the other associated experts which increases the choice and diversity. Imagine Thakur inviting Indiana Jones or Rambo to catch Gabbar and solve his issue.

Once satisfied with the initial research he can talk to them personally through chat or skype.

The process of selection and execution remains similar in concept but what has changed is the medium of transactions and the geographic limitations. You can now search through the worldwide database of experts, browse through their Knowledge Buckets for those little known evidence of hard to find skills, and hire them after due diligence. There is no such thing as Utopia but ezdia reduces your overheads while creating a trusted platform where you can get your solutions from the right experts at the right time at the right cost.

About Sholay: The Movies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholay

The story is about a retired police officer Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) living in a village that is being terrorized by Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Thakur recruits two small time crooks Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jaidev (Amitabh), whom he had encountered during his work in the force, to capture Gabbar. The film has various other sub-plots including a comedic love story between the funny romantic Veeru and the never-shuts-up local simpleton Basanti (Hema Malini), and a more serious one between Jaidev and widow and Thakur’s family member Radha (Jaya Bhaduri).

About eZdia: The Company

eZdia is an online Knowledge Platform where people start with associating content with their different areas of expertise. The various options allow users to highlight if they know everything in a particular area by associating as an expert or if they want to learn about a particular area, they can indicate their interest.

eZdia allows users to search by Content/ Knowledge or by Experts. The additional capability to talk to experts in real time to ask questions and get problems resolved provides a trusted and quality way to get answers anytime and anywhere.

Online Social Media is an interesting medium of communication which brings the people together regardless of where they are located geographically. It lets common people like us to communicate with each other our thoughts, ideas and learn from each other’s experiences.

We (Alok, Deepak, Rahul, Amit and me) have been toying with this concept over the last year or so and have been experimenting with this medium on how to improve our lives and at the same time reach out to billion of others like us who are in need of answers to questions in their daily lives.

While looking for mentors to guide us in this ruthless capitalistic world we came across Ashok Rao, who has had a long history of successfully building and transforming firms and businesses. It is from people like him that we (especially Alok and Deepak) got the inspiration and the courage to follow our dreams.

While we worked on our initiative, our mentor was working on his own dream of transforming history from books to reality through the imaginative and creative medium of movies. The first of his endeavors has just came out called “Before The Rains”.

Before the Rains is a visually soothing 2 hour long journey into history, time, and the interaction between human and nature. It is not just a simple fairytale or a simple story rather it embodies a conflict between different emotions known to man. There is the conflict between loyalty and righteousness, there is the conflict between skin and soul and all this has been vividly explores among the beautiful landscapes in the heartland of South India.

Before the Rains is not only a tribute to the frailty of the humans but it salutes the whole gamut of emotions which makes us humans as socially active. The concept of social media takes its roots in these very primitive emotions within people through which they interact with other people, yearn for lovers, pledge their loyalty and at the same time manipulate other people to achieve their ends and means.

Finally, this post is a homage to a man who has dared to follow his dreams and has found some success along the way to inspire young guns like us.

Ashok Rao, we eZdians salute you.

Regards,

Anand Vayuvegula

VP, Business Strategy

eZdia Inc.

http://www.ezdia.com

A Great Direction, superb drama, ultimate photography.

The cast selection is perfect. Specially I love the quiet torment and emotions of Rahul Bose. I have been Rahul’s fan for long time. Although I have not seen him in this kind of role before but I can not imagine any better Actor then Rahul for this role.
The best is real Kerala, the photography is absolutely stunning. The locales are full of magic and every shimmering dew drop, the frog jumping into the pond, the lush tea gardens(Reminded me my Munnar trip), the mist rising from the tree tops, are all magically captured .

The movie was so touching and vivid that for those 90 minutes I forgot that my wife was with me, UNTIL IT RAINS.

Without being biased that this is my Mentor’s movie I would rate it 9 out 10.

Congratulations Mr. Rao.

So today was my day (it was Deepak’s turn to baby sit my daughter Sania . By this time I’ve already heard quite about this movie from friends, including the story (unfortunately).

If you know the story, it rarely happens when you sit tight in a movie.. and “Before The Rains” is one of those exceptions. It well deserves to won “Best Picture” at the Worldfest film festival.

The sceneries are absolutely amazing. The lush green forests, mountains with clouds and stunning water fall all are spectacular. Certainly, director/photographer, Sivan did an outstanding job. Some of the very details, including “Dragon Fly” and “Bottle of Honey” are quite well done.

The performances/cast by all the actors is superb- Linus Roache and Rahul Bose’s acting “by expressions” gives a distinct touch to the story.. I wish, that Nandita could have lived little longer

I’ve no doubt this movie will do quite well in both worlds.

Congratulation & Good Luck Mr. Rao.