aahh

sometimes, before the fog clears, we do miss out best friend

Dollop of shameless self brag

read here


Full text:

PokerGuru Feature: Heads-up With S%%%%%% Se%

Back

32 years old S^^^^^ is a Research and Development geophysicist by day in one of the biggest energy companies in the world and an online HU cash game player most nights. He has played HU No-limit and PLO almost exclusively since the middle of 2010. In 2010 and 2011 he was one of the top 10 winners across all table sizes for 100nl on PokerStars and in the top 15 for 200nl on Pokerstars in 2011, as per PokerTable Ratings. He has been coached at various times by Nick Frame (TcfromUB on PokerStars), but his basic game is modeled after a well-known HU nit Markuis on Full Tilt Poker.

First off the bat, you have had a downswing recently and April was a negative sum month for you. This was surprisingly your first such month. MTT-ers have downswings all the time but they know a huge score maybe around the corner and they will recover. As a HU cash regular, how are you dealing with it, considering it will take some time and effort to replace the losses?

It is not that big of a deal really as long as you are properly rolled for most of your games.  

I got crushed in a couple of 4 tabling grudge matches, dropping 20 buy-ins and 15 buy-ins in successive sessions.  But that’s poker, shit happens.  You just need to man up and play through it.  Most important thing is not to lose confidence and end up tweaking your game too much.  When I do feel I am losing confidence I stop sitting my higher limits and instead focus on small goals like I’ll start adding the higher limits only after I have made 20 buy-ins at a lower limit. This works pretty well for me. Also having played a boatload of HU hands, I know my limitations very well.  For example, I have a nasty mental block that I play extremely bad, irrespective of the villain, if I don’t have 100buyins+ for any particular limit.  So I am quick to adjust and move down in limits when needed.

There are a lot of upcoming poker players in India and who are harboring thoughts of going professional. You could have gone professional yourself but haven't done it yet. Your thoughts on this and any tips to young players just starting out.

For those looking to be MTT pros, just the variance pretty much guarantees that unless you are Shaundeeb or Seabeast or Selbst your life is going to be as shitty, unhealthy and depressing as possible. Add to that being married to a computer for countless nights and hours pretty much flipping a 65-35 biased coin at best for a living, your potential lifestyle doesn’t look like a joyride.  So before taking the MTT plunge maybe one should consider how long one can sustain this lifestyle. If somehow your answer is greater than five years then you are pretty much kidding yourself.   I can name hundreds of MTT Gods all of whom have come and gone since I started following poker and only a select few have had the stick-ability to last for more than 3-5 years and still show decent earnings. 

Now if you look at some of these elite players who were able to stick around, and consider the players right in the middle of this pack and then see their OPR and Hendonmob then you’ll find that these guys, over a period of 8-9 years, have made about a million in online profits and cashed around 1-1.5milly live. Since most MTT guys are backed, that gives them 500k in online earnings and giving them a super high 70% live ROI and generous 50-50 deals adds another 500k in live winnings. Factor in costs of travelling the circuit and the general “I am poker-player-balla” lifestyle and the very best haven’t made more than 100-150k a year.  Now I guarantee you that if you are living in the US or Canada or the more affluent European countries a 100k gross income with no benefits and perks doesn’t go a huge distance.

Online cash games are obviously better than MTTs, but at this moment I don’t know of a single online Indian cash player who has even a semi decent extensive database and track record of any note, so I wont even talk about online cash.  Now the live circuit or home game circuit in India could be your thing. If it is, then all the power to you.  I don’t know how the Indian casinos or the home games look like, but if someone asked to me go to Vegas and make a living grinding 15h/hour playing with a group whose vocab is dominated by “everything is sick” and that too for atleast a few years, I might as well end the agony by slitting my wrists before I board that Vegas flight.

Me, personally, I have never thought of going pro. It is just too hard and stressful to make 150k+ for years playing poker and without that money I wont be able to sustain my lifestyle.  I will say this though, that I’d quit my job and start playing online cash as a pro the day I have a seven figure portfolio invested in some other things I am interested in.  

There has been a lot of debate in the poker forums about Game Theory and playing Game Theory Optimal. Have you studied this and tried to employ it or can you give your thoughts on it?

What learning tool (coaching/video series/books/forums etc) would you say has given the sharpest jump in your learning curve and what is your current skill improvement tool (going over HH in Pokertracker / coaching / watching videos)?

Well right of the bat let it be clear that NO-ONE knows what GTO (Game Theory Optimal) play for NLHE/PLO is. Instead what the advanced “GTO players” tend to do is to incorporate some approximate GTO based dominating strategies (nemesis strategies in GTO terminology) into their standard exploitative strategy and try and play a overall “balanced” strategy.  When you are trying to figure out your nemesis- strategy, you are trying to develop a set of empirical +EV lines for a wide variety of situations that you frequently run into. There are a few ways of doing that.

First is to study solvable toy games that one can map into actual poker situations that can be used to provide some empirical framework and understanding of how GTO is applicable to poker. For example one of the simplest toy game is the Limit AKQ high-card-wins game where I hold a K (bluff-catcher), villain holds a Q (bluff-hand) or A (value-hand) with equal probability and there is an initial $1 ante ($2 in the pot). Villain can either bet $1 or check and I can call or fold. If I don’t fold there is a showdown.  GTO play for villain here is to bet all his As and bet his Qs one-third of the time while my corresponding GTO strategy pair is to call one-third of the time. Mapping of this strategy gives you a basic insight into the world of “frequencies”.

There are many advanced versions of the AKQ game where in betting amount, pot-size, hand distributions are all variables (moving from the limit realm to NL realm) and this further gives you an insight on how or if your bluff-catching or bluffing frequency distributions depend on things like the pot size, bet size, card-removal, villain’s perceived hand distribution etc.  One of the important results worth mentioning is that in a variable stack size and pot size AKQ game if villain’s hand distribution is skewed (divergence from a polarized range). i.e he has a 60-40 or better nut-air distribution then the correct GTO play for us is to fold 100% irrespective of villain’s bet sizing.

The second step is to start getting your hands dirty.  Start fiddling with software like Cardrunners-EV (CRev) and Flopzilla to run rough simplified GTO simulations of game situations and develop the so called approximate “nemesis strategy”.  I myself have been using these a lot recently and found them extremely enlightening. For example, say we hold backdoors facing a c-r on a K82r board (something like 67s), and villain has a high c-r frequency on dry boards. If we go through a CRev poker game tree or just plain flopzilla then we will see the most plus EV play in the entire game tree is to float flop and jam any turn card where we pick up equity, when villain’s c-r percentage is around a certain thresh-hold. You can play around with this and tweak your hand slightly and make it 9Ts giving us backdoors plus two overs to second pair or change the board to something like K84r and give ourselves some weak bottom pair and then try and figure out if you are looking to fight in this spot what line is most +EV.in the game tree.

So you can use these tools to develop your fallback strategies for a variety of tough spots. The goal is to have a solid preparation for a lot of spots that you are likely to encounter and thus have a lot of the in-game decisions be automatic.  As the online games get tougher by the day tools like CRev and Flopzilla will become a must-know, must-have to maintain/improve your win rate. Of course if you are playing primarily whale-infested games then you shouldn’t really care.

As for videos I haven’t seen one HU video, which is of any worth released in the past 2 years. I don’t know about MTTs, but people I know who are advanced 6-max players feel the same for 6-max videos. For those who are maybe looking to get a start into HU cash, before they play a single hand they must rote to memory everything from the DogisHeadsUp series on DeucesCracked.

You have funds stuck in Lock Poker? What is the latest on that? Has that caused you to play lower limits than you would have played?

Its kind of a bummer as Lock is almost surely insolvent. They have given a June 1^st informal deadline when they will supposedly give clarifications on steps they have taken to improve cashouts. But I aint holding my breath. Right now ROW (rest of the world) players are pretty much in the same boat as US players as cashouts requested from even December of 2012 have not cleared for a majority of us. Plus I have the added issue that the initial amount was deposited as a player transfer, which creates a boatload of hassles at the moment. I have mentally parted with the Lock money and whatever I get is a bonus at this point. It’s a double bummer for me actually as I lost decent 5 figures last year when an Entraction skin Purple Lounge went under water.

You have played HU cash on almost on all poker networks. Which network has given you the most joy - considering everything rakeback, reg to fish ratio, cashouts?

Ipoker is pretty much the nut worst site at the moment as nobody will play anybody with even quarter of a brain or a Pokertable rating that is even $10 in the positive. Plus their software is a compete joke and second only to Partypoker in terms of being as user unfriendly and buggy as possible. Pretty much the same deal with 888. I get tilted just looking at 888’s table layouts.  I have been playing exclusively on Pokerstars and Full Tilt most of this year and with Full Tilt coming up with their Black Card program; I am trying to rake up as many points as possible.

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker came out with a lot of new games. Any game you see has the potential to becoming more than just a passing fad?

All the games they introduced are fads. Traffic for Irish NL on FTP has dropped drastically after the first few weeks and I haven’t seen more than 1 table running at 100 or 200 over the last month. Over on PokerStars, none of the PLO regs are interested in the 5-card PLO and Crouchevel and without a reg-pool supporting those games they are pretty much dead as a dodo.

Any set goals for 2013? If yes, how far are you from them? 

I had plans to work on my 6-max game, but that needs to take the backseat for now, as a ton of work needs to be done on my HU game, most of it involves CRev and Flopzilla.  Also I don’t really have monetary goals, but have some volume goals. Getting Black card on FTP and 300k VPPs on PokerStars again would be nice. A lot of this will depend on my work schedule and since I am travelling a fair bit this year, both goals would be hard to achieve.

Thank you S^^^^^^ for taking the time to answer our questions and we wish you all the best for all your poker endeavours.

Compiled By: Vinay Suchede

Polybus and Merope

A complex root

Le Shaved

She? Wasnt

Terminator: sexcapade

When the machines rise up against the humans, just pray to your God that you're nowhere near a dildo factory.

Its alive

It = He

Word

There is no greater hater than the one who has truly loved.

Ewwwwww

Remaking Ray greatest film, looks cringeworthy as of now

NFL: week 14 picks

Like:

BRONCOS -3.5 over Bears
Giants +4.5 over COWBOYS
Colts +16.5 over RAVENS
BENGALS -2.5 over Texans
TITANS +3.5 over Saints

If forced to choose:

Bucs -3 over JAGUARS
Niners -4 over CARDINALS
Falcons -3 over PANTHERS
LIONS -10 over Vikings
Bills +7 over CHARGERS
Patriots -7.5 over REDSKINS
Eagles +3 over DOLPHINS
SEAHAWKS -10.5 over Rams
Raiders +11.5 over PACKERS
JETS -10.5 over Chiefs
Browns +14 over STEELERS

End of an era?

All over?

The Stats:

College: Tennessee
NFL Draft: 1998 / Round: 1 / Pick: 1
Debuted in 1998 for the Indianapolis Colts
Career history
Indianapolis Colts (1998–present)
Roster status: Active
Career highlights and awards
11× Pro Bowl selection (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) 5× First-team All-Pro selection (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009) 3× Second-team All-Pro selection (1999, 2000, 2006) 4× AP NFL MVP (2003, 2004, 2008, 2009) 6× AFC Player of the Year (1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009) Indianapolis Colts All-time leader (Career Wins, Passing Touchdowns , Pass Attempts, Pass Completions and Passing Yards) Pro Bowl MVP (2005) Super Bowl Champion (XLI) Super Bowl MVP (XLI) 2× AFC Champion (2006, 2009) Fastest ever to reach 50,000 yards passing Fastest to 4,000 completions NFL 2000s All-Decade Team Other awards and honors
Career NFL statistics as of Week 5, 2011
Pass attempts	7,210
Pass completions	4,682
Percentage	64.9
TD-INT	399–198
Passing yards	54,828
Passer rating	94.9

Loltastic Novermber hand, Bayou city trip

Playing the devil's game aka Pot-Limit-Omaha on the Merge network, $2/$4 with antes about 180bb deep


PL Omaha $4(BB) Replayer
SB ($404)
BB ($1,018)
CO ($727)
Hero ($1,003)

BB antes $0.80
CO antes $0.80
Hero antes $0.80
SB antes $0.80

Dealt to Hero T 4 T 3


CO raises to $12, Hero raises to $24, fold, fold, CO calls $12







FLOP ($57.20) 8 T 2



CO checks, Hero bets $40, CO raises to $175, Hero raises to $580, CO raises to $702 (AI), Hero calls $121





TURN ($1,462) 8 T 2 A





RIVER ($1,462) 8 T 2 A 5





CO shows J A 4 A
(Pre 69%, Flop 32.0%, Turn 90.0%)

Hero shows T 4 T 3
(Pre 31%, Flop 68.0%, Turn 10.0%)



Hero wins $1,460

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Off to new orleans the next two weekends , to play the Bayou poker challenge, schedule:

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Harrahs Theatre at Harrah's New Orleans

The WSOP is back at Harrah's New Orleans with the 2011 Bayou Poker Challenge! See below for booking info and tournament schedule.
HOTEL ROOMS & RATES @ HILTON
$84.00 SNGL/DBL
1-800-445-8667 RESERVATIONS
ROOM RESERVATIONS DUE BY 11/22/11
FOR DISCOUNTED RATE. CODE: HWR

Tournament Schedule
THURSDAY	8-Dec 12PM (STS) SINGLE TABLE SATELLITES BEGIN SINGLES $45 $65 $125 $240 $540 $1,025 6PM $200 + $30 MEGA (WIN BUY-IN CHIPS)
FRIDAY*	9-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 POT LIMIT OMAHA 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SATURDAY*	10-Dec 1PM* $500 + $50 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SUNDAY*	11-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
MONDAY*	12-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
TUESDAY*	13-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 PLO w/$100 REBUY 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
WEDNESDAY*	14-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
THURSDAY*	15-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 PLO FREEZEOUT 6PM $300 + $40 MEGA MAIN EVENT 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
FRIDAY	16-Dec 1PM $150+$25 MEGA FREEZEOUT 4PM $100+$25 W/$50 REBUYS MEGA 6PM TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (7 MAIN EVENT SEATS) 7PM $300 + $40 MEGA FREEZEOUT 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 9PM $100+$25 W/$50 REBUYS MEGA
SATURDAY	17-Dec 1PM $1500 + $100 NLH MAIN EVENT 3PM $200 + $30 LAST CHANCE NLH 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SUNDAY	18-Dec 12PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM (LADIES) 12PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM (SENIORS) 50+ 1PM RESTART MAIN EVENT

Will be playing most of the weekend biggies and of course the main event, houston peeps any off you want to drive/fly together DM/PM by tom afternoon.

Hopefully wife doesnt go croc-catching again like last time ;)

Pretty cool

Wonderful shadowgraphy with Calcutta

Still love this one

Happy 30th

Happy 30th birthday to the girl who made being a catholic schoolgirl fun all over again.



In other news finally getting BBC world service documentary radio, wooooohooooooo

Nut best street musician

I do spend a lot of time listening to guys like this, still remember a couple of dudes jamming and improvising like hell on smells like teen spirit at a tunnel in OKcity bricktown.

Unfortunately I and majority of the populace usually spend little time noticing these, case in point : One of the premier violin players in the world Joshua Bell playing in the subway for 45 minutes, 1097 people passing by and only 7 stopped to listen. He collected $32.17 (excluding $20 from one, the only, person who recognized him)

Trivia : the violin he is playing is worth 3M !!!!

Peekaboo

COMING SOON

YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

BOOM: The true story of the rise of online poker

Trailor of "BOOM" chronicling the rise of online poker and how it has touched the lives of millions of people.

I could be a facebook noob, BUT ..

Once abhored now adored(?)

An excellent piece in Tehelka on the enigma that is Ekta Kapoor, she of the kyonki saans variety and she also of the Ragini MMs variety

Ekta Kapoor will see you now

It’s not surprising that the saas-bahu girl is now making edgy movies about dirty weekends, argues Nisha Susan

Photo: The Times Of India Group © BCCL

THE INTERN is sniffy. When she was hired, she’d thought Ekta ma’m was going to ask her for ‘creative inputs’ into the TV shows. She isn’t at Balaji Telefilms to do “just this”, she gestures vaguely at the office around her with Facebook-weary hands. Does she watch the shows? No! She is horrified. “I keep telling my sister. How can you come home from work and watch them? These shows are for aunties.” What does she watch? Roadies. Reality shows.

A little later, two young TV writers enter the common room. For the next two hours, the plainly dressed men earnestly discuss how to establish a new character’s attributes without making her too simplistic. They’re speaking in Hindi, writing in a mix of Hindi and English, stroking their chins, looking limpid. There’s none of the cynicism that makes the average non-viewer smirk about saas-bahu shows — that enormous meteor shower that Ekta Kapoor created before she turned 25. Those shows changed television, fashion, weddings and claimed a giant space in our popculture history.

Related Aces Of Maces And Pretty Faces Still Showing You The Money What’s a girl like her doing in a place like this?

To those who haven’t met her, Ekta is a parody — just like her shows are to those who haven’t watched them. Her multiplying rings with soaring gemstones, her many gods, her easy success, her sexual orientation, her cell phoneflinging tantrums, her obsession with astrology and the letter K, her jogging with a phone-toting retinue — everything has become as legendary as her show’s aesthetics. In the vast plains of online fan forums, viewers address complaints directly to an omniscient Ekta — “Ekta, I didn’t understand this part. Why did the vampire bite Pia?”

Wedged between a huge executive desk and a wide sideboard blurred by god paraphernalia, Ekta says, “I used to be a human being. Now I am folklore.” At 35, she combines her infamous bluntness with a kittenish voice. A few years ago, she took to wearing a gemstone that she says helped with her temper. Before you can start wondering if any male producer in Bollywood ever worried about his temper, she adds with a grin, “It helped only 40 percent though.”

Ekta is the face of the production house she runs with her mother Shobhaa Kapoor. She’s been at it for 17 years now. But since 2008, there’s been a new regime of streamlined budgets at Balaji under Puneet Kinra, the group CEO. Ekta herself has welcomed the iron shoes Kinra wears to prevent Balaji from floating off in a swirl of zardozi. Just as importantly, there is now more senior management to ease Ekta’s burden, if she so wishes — which is still a matter of debate inside Balaji — of signing off on every last detail on every last show.

‘All astrologers try to meet me. They think I’ll fall for anything. I’m not so stupid. But in the astrology world, I am Mallika Sherawat,’ says Ekta

The old habits are interesting to watch. The entire seven-storey building is galvanised from the ground up when Shobhaa Kapoor’s car is spotted down the street. Whiteboards listing the week’s tasks also list ‘Jeetuji’s trip to Hyderabad’. Ekta’s movie star father Jeetendra is promoting the group’s next film Ragini MMS. When writers talk of Balaji investing in their writers, of Balaji refusing to change scripts to please the channel suits, they gesture unconsciously in the direction of Ekta’s office. “You will know when she is here,” the intern says wanly.

THIS IS the room where underconfident writers come to die. Kapoor’s meetings are often protracted and chatty. Working with her requires you to recognise when she shifts gear, and then business is suddenly concluded in a concentrated 10 minutes because she knows what she wants. Ekta’s nose for what viewers will like is formidable. Smriti Irani, star of Balaji’s flagship Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, remembers the 25- year-old Ekta Kapoor insisting on casting her in the face of much opposition, saying, “This is my Tulsi.” And later agreeing with Irani that she should cry as she wanted — face-distorting, ugly tears — not the glycerine prettiness the director wanted.

Her intuition is partly shaman. It is partly an endless interest in details. Althea Kaushal, writer of Balaji’s hit vampire teen show Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahani, says, “The thing about Ekta is this. You throw her a plotline and she gives you inputs. A month later if you haven’t incorporated her inputs, she’ll spot it right away. She’ll remember exactly what she told you in spite of having meetings all day long. That’s scary!” This is the same Ekta who jokes about how she was once an undereducated couch potato. She’s somehow turned the two traits of a TV addict — a fragmented attention span and obsessiveness — into a creative dynamo.

When media critics first caught sight of the young woman making those shows that appalled them, they must have paled more. Her orange-tikka’d religiosity was going to take the country back into the Dark Ages, they warned. Ekta has always been unapologetic and amused by this nervousness. A nervousness her parents share. “They are religious, not spiritual,” says Ekta. “They do pujas and all but they worry about me. They keep saying, you are so young. Why do you go to temples?” She adds, “Astrologers keep trying to meet me, they think I’ll fall for anything. I’m not stupid, I think through things. [But] in the astrology world, I am Mallika Sherawat.”

Walls have eyes A still from Balaji’s Ragini MMS Photo:Deepak Salvi

Ekta talks with delicious, sensual enjoyment about alternately seeking passion and calm on her pilgrimages, saying things like: “Tirupati Balaji and I have a bond. When I go to suprabhatam, I get sucked in by his aura. I love him.” Or “Kamakhya is wonderful.” Or “Ajmer Sharif is very calming. Soothing. I prefer the Sufi saints to the Hindu ones.” She speaks with the same thick relish about everything. Of her favourite goddess Kali, she says, “She rides a wild boar because it’s the wildest animal. She feels a little remorse only when she has her foot on a man’s head.” She adds with a smirk, “So she is feminine too.”

Her parents may not get this desire for spiritual uppers and downers but they are, by all reports, workaholics like her. Milan Luthria, director of Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, admires Ekta for being the rare producer who’ll pitch in when the director is alone and beleaguered. He talks fondly of Ekta and her parents for being able to do long hours, endless trips and casual stopovers in small towns. All three combine enormous drive with a gift for being relaxed. “They are happy. It’s rare,” he says.

Which perhaps explains why Ekta never tries to present a picture of Happy Families to the public. She and her mother have raucous fights at work, knowing that when they get home the fight will have to be (and can be) dealt with. Some years ago, she moved out but ended up moving back home in a few months, saying she was too dependent on her mother to run her own household. Ekta says candidly that she and her actor brother Tusshar Kapoor give each other a wide berth to keep their relationship stable.

ONCE, 35 of the top 50 shows on air were Balaji Telefilms creations. Then in 2008, everything went pearshaped. Star Plus, the network that had bought all her shows, decided to take Ekta’s iconic Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi off air. An outraged Ekta sued the channel unsuccessfully and the show’s eight-year glory run — 1,800 episodes — ended in a hiccup.

Ekta had adored the idea of producing a Mahabharat that focussed on Draupadi’s dealings with the Pandavas as modern relationships. Her Mahabharat on 9X had perfect bodies and a colloquial idiom, but some audiences mumbled it was too realistic and not BR Chopra, others complained it wasn’t realistic and not HBO. It failed, along with the channel.

Meanwhile, audiences were spurning saas-bahu shows for the charms of reality TV and shows about rural girlhood. Balaji was reduced to having just four shows on air in 2008. The new flock of shows like Balika Vadhu that came then frankly surprised Ekta, who says about them, “Forget getting into them, I didn’t get them. Child marriage and women beating their daughters-in-law. I’d never seen anything like it.” Balaji announced a net loss of Rs 14 crore for the quarter ended March 2009. It was as if the evil vamp had wormed her way into the heart of the family and thrown Ekta out.

The channels who didn’t anticipate this new wave condemned them as regressive, but Ekta is humbler and says, “I felt it was a gap in my experience that this rural reality was not something I knew anything about.” And suddenly it clicks. However anachronistic, those zardozi family dramas were, in the end, urban. They were about urban joint families that Ekta had watched as a stealthy outsider. They were as urban as the young people for whom Balaji is making movies today.

And as TV will teach you, you can’t keep a good woman down. Balaji is now more professionally run — and profitable again. Today, it has four shows on air — all youth-centred with an individualistic ethos. Pavitra Rishta is the top show in the country, while Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahani has the highest ratings on Star One. The TV business is chugging along, but Ekta says she’s more energised now by her films division.

Above the heads of the restless intern and the earnest writers, Balaji’s films division is a place of efficient people with thin, gentle smiles and hair in thin, gentle spikes. Balaji Motion Pictures produces stylish mainstream aspirants like Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Shor in the City. More interestingly, the films division’s ALT brand is gathering attention for edgy films like Dibakar Banerjee’s Love, Sex Aur Dhokha, this week’s Ragini MMS (a horror date film) and soon Dirty Picture (a biopic about Silk Smitha).

This is not the wild swing in taste that Ekta watchers claim it to be. It is, in fact, consistent with her focus on urban storytelling. Ekta has added up two facts since 2008: 1) Young urban viewers do less and less appointment TV viewing and prefer to download shows or set aside weekends for movies. 2) There is urban life outside Mumbai. She recounts her happy surprise at attending cool house parties in Chandigarh and meeting articulate young people in Guwahati.

PhD theses and newspaper columns keep condemning TV shows as regressive and anti-women. They don’t get the radical appeal to viewers in their making women protagonists central, even if in slo-mo. Ekta has made no secret that the men on her shows are merely eye candy. In a 2007 episode of Koffee With Karan, she fake-leered her way through a description of casting cherubic Hiten Tejwani and the suave Ram Kapoor for different age groups of her women viewers. “Indian women are not worrying about ‘Why’d you say that to me at dinner?’” she told Johar. “They’re worrying about their in-laws.” The critical contempt hasn’t been towards Ekta’s shows, it’s been towards the minutiae of women’s domestic lives.

She laughs at silly allegations that her films are all about sex. “Today, no one needs to go to the movies to watch sex. You can download any amount of porn for free. Movies need to talk about young people’s lives in the language they use. About relationships. Money. Sex.”

The culture has changed in the 17 years Ekta has been at work. We are equally at ease with mata ki chowkis and dirty weekends. She observes with pleasure how, increasingly, Indians are now more comfortable in their skin. In the end, this is what is most attractive about Ekta — her desire to live in multiple worlds and let others do the same.

Nisha Susan is an Assistant Editor with Tehelka