Thursday, September 19, 2013

What we need to understand ?

 It was rumored that Amitabh Bachchan was signed for a 100 million deal for a season of 2012 KCB. Does this surprise anyone reading this or watching KBC for many years now, this year the prize money is raised to 70 million, before that it was 50 million. The year before that it was 20 million and when this show [ KBC ] had started in 1999 a franchise of ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ winning money was 10 million only.


There is new buzz in Bollywood with a ‘100 million club’ which has a direct relation with the box office result of any movie by any actor or director. Rohit Shetty is on top of the list with 200 corod for making the mark of straight two of his movies in shortest time. Taran Adarsh who is famous movie critic of the industry has posted that on his tweet. Salman leads as an actor with three straight movies back to back for making more than a 100 corod each. But before that there was a buzz in the industry that Salman Khan gets paid a whopping 10-12  corod for a movie, so does the Amir gets paid almost the same amount of money for the movies he does. The list goes on if I keep writing each by name.


It is said that Mr Bachchan makes almost 10 corod from his brand endorsement dealings only - its bit old news I mean more than a year old- every year. Likewise its speculated that Kareena, Priyanka and katrina makes almost 5-7 corod from their brand endorsements. Entertainment magazines and channels keep making buzz like this. Tom Hanks was paid 12 million dollar for his role in the Da Vinci Code. Julia Roberts used to get paid 15 million  dollar and now the news is doing that Jennifer Lopez is roped in for the news season of American Idol at 17.5 million dollar to return in the show.


Sheryl Sandberg second-in-command, Chief Operating Officer was with Google prior to her posing in Facebook's. She makes multi millions dollars not to mention she is also a celeb writer of a book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which made her rich by  91 million dollar. Although, its not disclosed her salary but everyone knows she gets paid very handsomely for the her current position.
 
Fifty Shade of Grey made the writer richer by 85 million pound in the year that hit the book stall. We also keep reading and watching Lance Armstrong used to make 75 million dollar a day during his heyday, which lost after he was barred from taking part in any competition due to his doping charges. Tiger wood used to make a billion dollar from endorsement signing amount only apart from his major championship in golf. All the star player makes good money in sports and music, movies, corporate houses, science and technology.
I have never ever heard in my life, here in my country that so and so person is paid this much for a movie, for a music record, for a book deal, for a top position in any company or name anything.  All those negotiations are a top most secret deal and it should never ever see the light of sun. It should remain in between the person and the company. Because, its so small figure that the one who signs the deal do not want the rest of the world to know it; because it has power to make the artist or creative brain feel small in front of pay they get.


At this very moment, I remember a line reading some where, you get what you pay for. But why is so. I keep reading in papers that Americans keep bragging about the pay they pay to get so and so person in their bandwagon, whether its movie, music records, TV shows or corporate hiring. They just brag like anything. Even Indian movies has started bragging and now the box office record is another meter to that brag point.


But this is not the same case here, pay to any one is not a reason to brag for, those rates are top secrets. The question is why ?


Couple of years ago, I have read one story about in a book confession of an advertising man by David Ogilvy about a Japanese doll, which was made in such a way that every big doll could fit inside it smaller dolls of the same shape and design. David Ogilvy the man behind the O&M advertising company have opined that, if hiring becomes this way, this only makes any company, a company of dwarf, which bars the growth of a company. To grow in life, one must hire a person who is brilliant, smarter and who can help make more money to company than squeeze a penny, until penny begs for mercy.


There is another story, which I remember at this very moment. This is a real story of about a man who lived in a village in Africa Kiribati island. I Read this in Reader's Digest many years ago. In this village like many in African culture, the family of groom normally gives cattle to the family of bride as a settlement deal. Therefore, this man was a matter of laughter in the whole village, for he paying about a dozen healthy cattle to the father of a girl he wanted to marry. Who was not even worth a cattle or two, that too sick or at least, that's what the villagers thought about her. Everyone laughed at him for so long; for he being fooled by the father to pay such number of cattle for his ‘invisible and unworthy’ daughter; and it had become the living legend of that village. But, all this did not affected in anyway to this man and he was happily settled with his wife. One day the writer of this story went on to see this man, he was surprised to see his confident, well poised wife who welcomed him at their house. She was full of self pride. That was so opposite of what he had heard about her when he had entered the village. She was not the girl anymore who was worth only a couple of dying cattle, instead she had become the woman with many dozen healthy cattle. The way she carried her told a lot about that deal, her poise and walk  with confidence and exude her self-esteem has a lot to teach us.


She is the living example of the saying that goes, you get; exactly what you pay for.

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