Wednesday, November 05, 2008

USA Ba(rra)ck to monarchy!

I always have a different view of events around me. Sometimes the view is a pretty nasty one, sometimes its crap. I was waiting up to 1 AM this morning to follow the events around the US elections. Will Obama Barrack win? By now everyone knows, actually most of us knew even before the results.

People always work their questions against India and keep comparing India to some of the western nations. I wrote an email once to a group of friends requesting them to compare India with US. I think they have many common things. (will write about that another day) I think India - the largest democracy has followed a much better path of democracy - there may be a lot of blips but things happened in India at a different level. India had PMs, Presidents from minority community, represented by the opposite sex and still the representation continues. Western countries that talk about equality and human values, rights actually have not followed.

"America was a democracy in name only," "It's only since the mid-1960s that we've had this experiment in a multicultural and multiracial democracy." - Click here to see the views.

When i see the emotions, the expectations its all just on one person - Obama? How many people know him personally? really how many people really understand what he stands for - he may be a good orator, but how different is it from Monarchy? A man/woman from queen's family who is well trained (or at the minimum, grown-up in the climate) in the game of politics would lead the country, it didn't matter if he/she was a good, righteous person or not. This man he kept flaming the colour and displayed qualities of a leader; cried at the correct moment - well enacted to the path of victory. Can he deliver? Time will answer...

But if i look at the mob frenzy, i could only conclude that this madness is no different from Monarchy except people choose their leader. Will we have a day where no one leads and people just live?

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Lifestyle East vs West vs West - are you having fun?

I used to say to my Indian friends that all whites are not whites! (not in a racist sense). Generally in east, any white man is considered English i.e. Brit. This confuses a lot of people who step out for the first time to either US, UK or Europe. Nature has made some differences in the human race, though we all have commonalities. Go east or west, the animalistic behaviour is same... Every one has both Yin-Yang in them.

Last week one of my family friends had been here from US, on an official trip. We met after long time - should be a few years. As it happens the topic turned over to US vs UK vs India. I mentioned in my opening statement about a confusion which people normally have. At a point in my life, I had that too. Fortunately or not, I lived in US for a considerable period of time and i moved to UK. I had this assumption, that whites are whites and continued my lifestyle as i would do in US. Later i understood the people dynamics of UK and things look different to me. I was chasing all along up to that point, then stopped for a brief period, started thinking! - I am a think tank :). I still chase, but do it smartly. That's what UK has done to me and i immensely thank them. Part of journey, some people realise there is a window to world only when the journey is about to end. In my case, I am very happy that i have found the window quite early. This is my earnest attempt to people around the world to stop them and think for a while... Its not about which is better, but about why are we here (in the Planet Earth) and what is better?

The question is, should we as an animal, enjoy as well as earn bread or should we work hard and yearn to enjoy?

In US to be a part of mainstream is a still a dream for many though the country by itself is termed as 'land of immigrants'. Where as UK has worked well in this particular aspect where irrespective of race, the polity is present (remember Yin-Yang is everywhere in UK as well). Having said that, i have observed that if your mind-set blocks you cannot be part of mainstream anywhere in the world, even in your own home turf. Raised in an Indian conservative background, turning into a liberal through experience, I can vouch for Britain's multi-cultural-ism, albeit they work hard to preserve the native culture and traditions as well.

When people talk about the US, they talk about rule of law and freedom of thought as fundamental constitutional cornerstones. How does it apply to a common man is a question one need to answer. Calling itself a secular, democratic and capitalistic country, US questions Obama's religions. Why/How does it matter if he is a half-Muslim? But the largest democracy India has got itself elected a Woman prime minister, president and a president, a prime minister from religious minority... US intervenes in Ports authority and such deals, but calls itself truly capitalistic. On the other hand UK has sold its key energy component to EDF (French), Water, airports etc have also been taken up by non-UK companies. These policies have impact on common man as it gives him price differences and quality of service.

Today people have forgotten some fundamental principles of politics and what it means to be a socialist, a communist, democrat or a conservative...

As i normally do, it would look that I have digressed from the topic of lifestyle. No, there is a subtle and strong link to the principles of governing party and the subjects of that government... coz' 'As the King So the People'. In terms of lifestyle i feel and think that UK has got a few fundamental things pretty much correctly and the US has got those on the wrong end. Especially medical benefits, benefits from national insurance/social security, holidays and lifestyle. (these views are subjective but will turn into objective as you go up the chain of philosophy).

Sometime back in FT i read how George W Bush spends one-fifth of an year in vacation and his subjects take just 3-4% of an year as vacation and in UK it is little tilted, the subjects take 25-30 days an year and the Prime Minister spends 40 days an year. India up to the 1970s followed some key aspects of British culture, now trots a lot on American footsteps... Work hard 5 days and spend the rest 2 days crazy... as things changed in US lifestyle rather work-style, work all 7 days, little family time etc, same followed here, Importantly Indians from software background have started following the trend.

End of the day we have forgotten that our base is from animal and some of the animal instincts take a beating and turns evil into the society and an increase of animal behaviour in the society... It all comes to our mindset, be where ever you are, stop for a moment and think, ask yourself are you having fun and enjoying in planet earth?

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Happy Diwali To All

India is most often referred by western world as a package of surprises and puzzles. We have many things that are rich in value which we ourselves don't know. Before i continue further, let me wish all readers a happy and prosperous Diwali. Across India and world people celebrate Diwali day for quite a few reasons. Some call it New Year, some say it as Narak-Asura's demise day and a day for celebration of good winning the evil etc. North of India celebrates Diwali on the New-Moon Day and it's a start new year. For South it's tomorrow or the 14th day of the lunar cycle. Unity in diversity.

Some of Indian festivals have many reasons for celebration, but the common underlying theme is to celebrate and share with others. One such in South of India is observed during the full moon of summer - April and it's referred in our literature as a festival organised by the then Pandya king to revive the economy. What a simple but fantastic lesson for the economic sector today. The literature's notes that he ruled with Madurai as his Capital and the economy was in bad shape; so he came up with ingenious idea of organising a festival during the summer full moon - 'Chithra Purnima'. All newly wed couples were meet in the river bed of Vaigai and spend the evening with all fun & frolic. Obviously newly weds, so would spend a lot money in meeting the demands from their spouses... So a way to channel money out!

Diwali is a time when money rolls literally rolls in India out of all sections of Indian society. If your ignore all the religious reasons, this one reason is indeed a great reason to go out and have fun. I will pick up this thought to another blog one day.

Today it's more of Diwali. I spent this evening with a few friends and we talked about our Diwali celebrations when we were Kids. Traditionally on the day of Diwali, we used to wake up early hours around 2:30 to 3:30 and the whole family would place all the sweets, savouries, new clothes, fireworks and a spicy Diwali medicine called 'Legiyam'. This is a mixture prepared out of different spices and ghee. Since it's festival time, we would obviously eat a lot and will get into gastric related problems. The aforementioned 'legiyam' is a medicinal mixture which will cure the gastric problems. Given that all the sweets and savouries have a lot of sugar, ghee and other saturated fats, you are sure to get a bit of Indigestion at the very minimum.

Anyways once all the items are placed before God, then the parents would smear a bit of oil , turmeric, sandal and kumkum on the family members; When the mother smears the oil, she would say 'ashvthama, balih:, chirnjeevi' - its a way of wishing good health and prosperity to the person who gets smeared. Then the head of family lits the first firework to start the celebration.

Then everyone takes a good oil bath followed by a steamy hot water bath, and a powder from Shika-kai is used to wash the oil and cleanse. After such a steamy bath, we would all get dressed up in new clothes and dash off to burst fireworks and crackers. The whole thing would take an hour or two before starting of firework celebration. So we would get up at 2-3AM. These celebrations include sharing of sweets, playing fireworks together etc. We would see which house has burst the most number of fireworks, by checking the amount of cracked papers and rubbish from fireworks leftovers. We had fireworks such as the 'Train', Lakshmi, Bijili, Elephant, Country, rockets, 100 wallas, 200 wallas, 1000 wallas (these are for the upper middle class), sparklers, chakras, flowerpots and many many types of fireworks. This whole fireworks may bring a lot of noise and air pollution - but a sizable number of families lived coz' of this economic activity.

The celebrations went on for 2-3 days as a matter of fact, even starts a week early. Schools, colleges, parks, where ever people met, they talk about Diwali. Ladies would chat about the silk saris they would have bought, Men talked about the wallets that lost the rupees, still proudly mention the cost spent in fireworks or the special sweets their missus made. Children would talk in lenght about the new type of firework that would have introduced just that year etc etc. For more than a fortnight people talked just Diwali.

In a decade if i read/say this to my son, who is just about to be one year, he would say i am just lying! Coz' if you go in today to a Indian city, people wake up around 7, just crib about oil bath and smear a bit, would have bought sweets the day before, new dresses did not make a conversation - coz' people buy new dresses just for any occasion - a decade back, new dresses were just for a special occasion like Diwali or Pongal. So people take a quick shower with Pantene or 'Head and shoulders' shampoo, dress up, make a big fuss about diet and still have a plate full of sweets and savouries; Switch on TV and watch the shows whole day, do a firework just as a mark of formality. That's it... Call up people on phone and wish (or their ties would be less sought after and may be considered a liberal or a rebel)... Who cares about economics or the reason behind Diwali. So in 10 years down the line, if it becomes much more a Diwali in virtual world i won't be surprised.


Changes are always constant... But i still haven't lost the fun and frolic, even though I am home alone, i have taken enough pains to go out and carry out the celebrations - I wish my type of fun carries over and the next generation shares it as well. So Happy Diwali, Have a safe firework.


Friday, October 24, 2008

Baji Renamed

I renamed myself to a new Avatar - same qualities nothing change; I strongly believe that one has to chisel himself before he/she reaches the age of 21 - after that you seldom change. From today i am calling myself as "Think Tanker". Inspirations are from one of the blogs that i follow... Look at my blog site heading"Thoughts displayed here are not just mine some may be plagiaristic" - it's just not only thoughts, but could also be some ideas.

In an office off site team day i came up with an idea of getting electricity from space using satellites - i swear the idea came to me straight from my head - i never thought about this earlier or have even read about it. My team mates liked it and gave a pat for out of box thinking. Then i came home to search google patents - what i found out was one gentleman by name Charles.E. Davis had already registered one such patent in 1977!!!!!! that's a surprise.... Sometimes these happen... Is it a mere coincidence?

Btw the reason i mentioned it, is just to affirm that there is no original thought

Friday, October 17, 2008

Months of Rollercoaster

Usually the last quarter months of October-November-December are of huge importance for all cultures, ages, religions, artists; in short for everyone. Hindus celebrate Navratri, Diwali and other significant festivals. Muslims celebrate Ramadan, Christians celebrate birth of Jesus; Nobel prizes are awarded in this time of the year, Booker prizes to novels; Children celebrate the festivals mentioned above and winter sets in... A cycle that never tires most of us, but makes us work hard for the fun and frolic that culminates in the last quarter of an year.

Year 2008 will be remembered and quoted most often in History for one single reason - not that we had the CDH reactor testing or failing to test the Big Bang theory, not for the reason that Olympics was a great show, but for one single reason - the 'Credit Crunch'; As we talk about 1930 great depression and 2000 dot com busts today, we would talk about the brink of economic disasters in 2008 and how the world leaders got together(?) to 're-solve '(?) the crunch. The question mark is obvious in its placement as whether they really got together and who solved it? Actually did they solve it? Often i quip about project managers that they create an issue in first place and then they painstakingly solve it later to get the name and fame... Its a similar case here.

Greed breeds greed is a simple quote often repeated in many literatures. We seldom learn lessons and that's including me! Anyways that's a simple and foremost reason of 2008 problems. I also would blame it on IT. yeah CDS and sub-prime were all possible coz' of IT and if it were not to do with the power of IT services, the traders and analysts would have not come up with so many complex algorithms to trade and different products to trade as well. If that had not happened we would have not landed ourselves into Credit Crunch... I am just ridiculing IT that's it and not seriously mean IT as the problem for all the mess. People say you could use science for good and bad, religion for good and bad. I say the same - you can use IT to help you or land you in trouble as well. All these are tools which could be used in either the way...

Personally i am in a rollercoaster as well; I am home alone with my family off to India for a month's break and i would join them in a few weeks, but at the moment I miss my family - very odd statement given that i have been a family man only for 8 months... yes i miss them. Sleepless nights, winter setting in all adds to my woes... I plan to go enjoy my photography and other hobbies that i would like to persue in this time of anonymity.

The roller coaster continues...

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Ram + Ayan - Path of Rama.

I have been very busy on all counts - family, official, personal... I have often observed that when i am busy on one facet of life, somehow it spreads to other facets and keeps me occupied... blogging is an activity that needs some special time... I just can't blog with no clear thoughts... i.e. don't want to blog crap things; one might read mine and say well you have got enough craps, why not add more?

A few things in the last couple of weeks - the financial markets, bomb blasts in my home country, debacle of labour leadership in my adopted country etc etc. People have blogged all over about these things and today my favorite topic is about my mother tongue - Tamil. My parents are here visiting their grandson and i have been re-living some of our past time moments and one fine evening i played Pulavar Keeran's kamba ramayanam (Click here to know more about it) discourse. I was born and brought up in Neyveli, TN, India - a planned city that meets prime % of India's power needs using lignite based combustion technology. Wiki talks about the culture of neyveli - a multi-cultural one.

During 1980s Tamil Nadu was facing anti-Hindi and anit-brahaminical, atheistic fanaticism. People who were in those buckets had to hide their backgrounds. Brahmins were attacked and their hair do (Kudumi) was cut off in aggressive attacks, and the fanatics bashed all hindi/sanskrit speaking people... Life was such and i was 4 or 5 then and hearing those scary stories was pastime. Anyways in such a climate Pulvar keeran stood tall for his pro-theist discourses and those were in Tamil. His oration on Kamba ramayanam was the best of all. Day before, we listened to one of his discourses on kamba ramayanam. That's the one that brought back the memories! Pleasant memories - every year summer holidays were usefully spent on listening to his discourses on various Hindu epics. The speeches were interlaced with academic references to tamil poetic and prose rules/grammar etc. an example - 'asathi aadal' is a subject area within a classification - 'samayam' i.e. Under the topic of 'Religion' this particular 'asathi aadal' is a style of writing the writers use to express his/her pleasure/displeasure to God as he would do it to a friend that too in a mocking manner! As and when possible ,he would relate such academic references and imparted knowledge to the youngsters like me, hence our Tamil flourished.

On the contrary, the fanatics who adopted aggressive anti-hindi positions spoke rubbish tamil interlaced with uncultured and un-parliamentary words. But children like us who listened to Keeran's speeches have our tamil living in very good states. That's true - my tamil is better than most of the tamilians around and its just not in speech, but in vocabulary, capability in understanding very difficult proses etc. Though Pulavar keeran is not with us today, I am proud to say his works have inspired and instilled some of the good things that i have today. (also to mention that during his discourse he presented prizes to kids who answered his questions correctly - i got one of his books signed by him in one such occasion and I still have it proudly)

I need to put down some of my thoughts on Ramayanam... Two key things from the epic. I believe Ram existed and he stood up for Monogamy in the times when polygamy was prevalent and was not frowned upon. In fact, his father the King who ruled from Ayodhi was said to have 60,000 wives and situation were so bad those days, that Rama had to stand up and live faithfully in conditions where one could have so many chances to be an infidel. He was the prince and a son of the powerful king, where no one could question him and he could have ignored Sita and led a 'happy' life; but he stood up for Monogamy and went in search of his wife.

In his search he had to cross the sea and he had a bridge to move into Srilanka. (Ram Setu aka Adams Bridge). In his times, the sea division between India and Srilanka could have been very less and he could have very easily built a bridge and one such floating stone is still found in a north Indian temple, where the record says the stone was brought over from Ram Setu when they returned to Ayodhi. This stone still floats in water and is living proof of Ram Setu. I recently saw this in TV. The bridge is a memoir for us to remind ourselves to be faithful to our marriage life. In the day of AIDS and other VDs, we should think about our lessons from Epics and make a point to ourselves.

Then i come to my second point - Ramayan means - The path of Rama - Ram + Ayan = Ramaayan. Ayan means path in Sanskrit. So we got to remind ourselves the path of Ram and the key message is to be in one marriage. In fact Ram was known for his three 'ones' - One Word, One Arrow and One Wife. He sticks to his word; Just needs one arrow to bring his enemy down; People would come up with this question why did he doubt his wife - Sita, when she returned from Ravana's captive. Rama's to that question are very much in detail. To keep a house at its best, one could sacrifice a member of the family and to keep a county at its best, a house could be sacrificed and to keep a state at its best, one can sacrifice a county and it goes on to a country as well. In this case Rama who stood for virtuous life heard a fisherman foul mouthing Sita as she was in Ravana's captive. Rama was taken aback and he had to keep his wife away to be an example to his state subjects. To do so, he thinks for quite a long and this though process is well documented in some forms of Ramayan. People who would like to understand these can well read those. So this was not a mere excuse for Rama to exile Sita, but a well thought and painful decision.

Two key messages from the epic - one to be a faithful husband at any cost and what all hardship he went through and the second much more insightful as to why he had to exile his loving wife and the one he loved so much! Contrasting but very meaningful messages... Could we think of any such acts in the world history?

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Have you heard "book cricket"?

After 1983 - the year when 'Underdogs' - Cricket team of India won the coveted world cup under Kapil Dev; cricket zoomed into the gullies of Indian cities, towns and villages. Most of the kids where playing cricket even in their sleep - when one was asked to go buy a packet of cookery item, he would catch the money, hit a six and walk to the shop, defend a short pitch or hook it as Kapil supposedly had done it in the famous Zimbabwe win (175*). That was one another topic which most of us talked. Unfortunately that one day match wasn't on telecast schedule and i hear there aren't many videos around the world.

So one could imagine the cricket fantasy of 1980's/90's and not to mention, after the advent of Tendulkar into cricket arena, the crazy wave hasn't set still. Given the cricket passion and fervour, all our minds were set on cricket. So we started playing cricket even in our classrooms but in a canny way. We used our textbooks to play cricket - which is unofficially known as 'Book Cricket'. We chose teams that we liked best and mostly all of us wanted to choose - India; no surprise yeah? The second obvious choice was West Indies, then England and other teams. So we had to first toss a coin to choose our teams, then toss again to find who played first. The rules were simple - a kid had to choose the team and if won the toss, then he would have to turn the pages of textbook, then look onto the left hand side of the book to score his run. If the page number ended in 2,4,6 then those were his runs, if it was 8 - a no ball and if it was '0' then the player was called out! If you took a couple of pages with no clarity in counting the run, it was called a dead ball! Interesting yeah?

We chose our own teams, we used to shuffle Gavaskar a opening player to 3rd or 4th if the opener got out cheaply; Sometimes the very final pair used to score double hundreds, of course never or very rarely happens in real cricket. Hat-tricks were sometimes happening too often, Middle order rarely stayed together - a cricket of whole different type but played with books! Teachers did sniff the mischief and severely warned us and sometimes had landed us in punishments as well. Like any other school student, we continued to play. The biggest asset of the game: at times you are bored and don't have a companion ? no worries, you could play on your own. A eleven man game played by single boy in fact for both teams, a thing which can never happen in reality. When we played in lunch intervals, the kid - so called the player would also provide an interesting running commentary as he flipped through the book's pages. A commentary of completely different kind; when games were stopped and restarted, either for the reason that a teacher caught us or for other 'genuine' reason, the commentary would resume with a reference that crowd got wild, hence the officials had to postpone for sometime etc etc. The imagination was there in each and every aspect of book cricket!

Interestingly after many years today i played a match in Pakistan (and hence the blog)- Ind vs Pak; India all out for 184 and Pak 78 all out. There was a intermittent delay owing to crowd reactions :) hey you need to keep the child in you amused yeah?!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Life in the UK!

I had to appear for the Life in the UK exams and pass to move on to next stage of immigration upgrade. This is a 24 question exam with 18 to pass; Years back when i lived in US, i had to appear for a driving test which was of similar pass requirement and i failed in the first attempt due to my over-confident approach - i basically failed coz' of naivety on 'the drinks' %. I had quite a few questions testing on the knowledge of alcohol percentages such as how many of wine equals how many beers etc... I am still not up to date on that section...anyways in this exam i did not want to take any chances - so i quickly did some copy paste to highlight the important points into pdfs and left it for last minute prep. Banking on my general knowledge, i took some five-six tests on the net and i got couple of them passed and failed in a few! You should now know, how i would have felt about the exams.

Most of my friends around knew i was going to take the exams - so that added a bit of pressure as well. Aha what a man who claims to be an IT architect right there worrying about an exam. But the approach i took to the exams rightly asserted my approach to any problem and resolving them - an architect approach - did a quick summary of all facts into a let's call it a 'notebook' and from there took an aerial view to see what's the 80/20 rule and where to concentrate...

On the test day my GPS - SatNav very aptly conked off! so obstacle no 1 - how do i master the roads in UK to navigate into Hounslow east? more of a challenge i need to be mastering if i were to live in UK - so i took the choice of 'Phone - a - friend' - called my friend who was learning his drive in the UK; remembering that i switched off the call to him and rang his wife for the road name - i wasn't sure if it was Huxley road or Kingsley road; Anyways 'Phone-a-friend' worked out; Then somehow managed my life in the uk knowledge drove to Hounslow east. Given the traffic conditions on a Saturday morning the traffic was slow, with both me & my wife calming ourselves, suddenly spotted the Kingsley road! - there goes my right indicator, a quick view on right mirror and make a hasty turn to right. Racing against the time, i parked in a lot and ran to the test centre to confirm the venue, then back to the parking lot to tell my wife and took care of the little one. Now i was more nervous than her - not coz' of the test but how do i take care of this young man? Apart from a few nervy moments - he was okay, only thing he was adamant that i carried him all along!! Also he poo-ed (i did keep saying that he will do that right after my wife left for the test). She quickly answered, reviewed and passed it.

Now it was my turn. out of 7 attendees, 5 of us from India, 1 from japan, 1 from Malaysia. The Japanese girl had applied some great efforts in studying for the test - i looked over her shoulder to find the whole book marked with pens, stickers etc etc. I then realised how tough it could be for a lot of people. One thing what i noticed was all the Indians were chill-out and quite clearly coz' the constitution and political system such as speaker's role, whips's role, cabinet, Parliament elections all are very similar to India's one (actually the reverse). But for people who are not that close to these things might be finding the exam quite challenging. I whizzed through the test in less then 5 minutes and got the pass mark!

If you need the notes - let me know :)

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Argumentative Minds

Recently a visitor had left a comment about argumentation and my thoughts on them. My first reaction was not to react i.e. an argument has a place only when there is a response. Something that the Hindu epic Geetha propounds: "An action results in a reaction and an inaction as well results in reaction". Let me explain, an accident has happened, you are a passer by. If you act and try to rescue the victim in a way that leads to death, are you responsible? or if you call the emergency and get the victim assisted and his life saved, are you responsible? Let's say you did not act (inaction) and just stood by which results in death, are you responsible?

From this diverging thought, let me come to arguments; Socrates use to argue each and everything. In fact when the Oracle was asked 'is there a man wiser than Socrates' - it answered NO! When this was conveyed to Socrates, he did not agree to that and he started questioning and arguing about that. He finally summarised that he doesn't know everything in the world and since he was aware that knowledge is of no use and this awareness is what Oracle would have quoted that NO man is wise and Socrates is just one among them.

If you noticed i strongly pronounced the word 'questioning' in the previous para. I have seen many (including me) who sometimes argue for the sake of it. The argument makes/enriches when one questions himself and this can lead to a tremendous change. This can make your head shine! {people today refer it as Baldness:) }. People should question first themselves and this can lead to a yogic mind. The next time you have an argument with your friend/partner/relative, quickly for a moment just see why you argue; is it to prove your point or is it to assert your superiority? or is it say something genuinely positive? For a moment on every such occasion if you silenced your mind (for just a minute, but continue the argument), in a few years you might enjoy your state of mind. Answer this: When you drive a car or seated in a train or on your own - do you enjoy silence? I bet anyone who enjoys silence is less argumentative and anyone who can't stand a silent environment for more than 5 minutes will tend to be more argumentative. By argumentative it just not arguing with anyone, it could be well you arguing with yourself!

Think for a minute in between your arguments - let me know!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The trend is to go green

The latest trend is to be green! Right from government down to Chan, Dick or Hari everyone wants to be green and they wear T-shirts made of 70% polyester with a green fluorescent wording, or banner behind their 4x4 'Save trees, Save earth'. Government wants to cut down emission by 2012 and if not there is going to be official channels of emissions trading, sale of emission allowance certificates to control energy spend. Ex-Vice Presidents are right now doing Ads, awaken the society through out the world (by flying left to right), but their governments wouldn't sign the protocol on cutting emissions! Media flash those fantastic services by such Statesmen, by streaming across timezones who preach about cutting down energy consumption and recommend world's top prizes and awards for their service.

Even in sports football players who play in the floodlights of 1000s of energy efficient bulbs (one game results in 125 tCO2 emissions: 75% from lighting 15% from the stadium, and 10% from lodging etc) also have banners advising to reduce energy footprint. We have football, American football, the latest form of rugby - T20 (a type of cricket - search for IPL), and many other versions of 'sports' that suck energy and spit co2. This has a spiral effect on TV viewers, travel, etc etc. But not to worry lots of governments are right on top to control energy based pollution.

What about individuals? we talk a lot about this bars, offices, but to avoid bad breadth - as soon as we get-up we use energy powered toothbrushes (don't worry the those companies are busy compensating the co2 by sending money to emerging countries like India, Brazil, Argentina to plant trees), we use powered shavers/razors that need overnight charging, use lifts even if its just two floors to climb; so lets all speak about energy and co2 reduction - not to worry government is bringing strict rules. Though nature has given us teeth, lets grind the fruits to make a smoothie in the morning to discuss this problem with full voice!

Send Money to somewhere to Grow Trees (Don't worry about the scams), Save Earth!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Dasathavatharam Review Part II

A fore note - In my previous blog - i meant 'switched off' as a mode where one is less indulged in the pleasures of an entertainment, but rather the one who reviews it in a 'lower indulgence' mode. Before i go any further, let me say these comments are a reflection what i saw on the movie; i clarify this because, people form their own opinion and view, from the same set of words.

In this case i review it from the angle that Kamal has taken a subject of science and religion to portray both brings evil with it, whether we like it or not. This is such a turning stand from him, given his afflictions to narrow atheist views. I don't mean turning to a theist's view but a balanced view that he tries to find himself as well as try to put it across to the audience. To get the argument across, he has used his acting skills in 10 dimensions, so he could leave a stamp on Filmworld's history. So his personal aim in some sense has clouded his argument - that's where he has failed to deliver or may be succeeded ! - I will come to this point in the end.

Kamal's 11th role is quite underplayed, but that's the important role that we should be reviewing. That's his role in Story, Screenplay and Dialogue. Some subtle dialogues clearly portray the viewpoint- He starts with a chaos theory view and mentions a religious war in India in 12th century and rubs in a line - 'a time when no Islam or Christian gods were there to war, the locals warred using Indian Gods' I think this is such an important quote to reflect - religious hatred existed/exists irrespective of which religion you follow - (Hinduism like to identify themselves as peace loving - note: i consider Buddhism as part of Hinduism) So he has chosen an intra-Hindu religious aggression to convey that point and moves onto science and its menace. As he moves on, another line is thrown in - why did one Hindu god allow its follower to kill and the other Hindu God let its supporter to die in spite of fighting for the God's cause?

Now moving onto Science and its problems - actually science in its own conceptual world is not a problem, the scientists or the people again are the problem-doers! But he well mixes it with the people like the Dalit, the Muslim family, the 95-year old grandma to show humanitarian sides as well.
All in all, he has attempted very well to put a holistic view that People are just different and problems or happines is all self-created! Finally, he quips 'It would be nice, if Gods existed' - the theist heroine who's supposed to marry him is happy that he has reconciled his stand about Gods without understanding what he actually meant!

So goes back to my question - has he failed or succeeded?

If i say he has succeeded, then its indeed a success, coz' i treat it so; but a failure because many others don't agree or do not find the arguments shared similar to my review?

If i say he has failed, coz' he has clouded the argument with his personal aspiration of ten roles and the screenplay defects, then its indeed a failure; but in a way he has succeeded in his argument that it's - inherent human nature to be flawed!

A finishing comment: So if our human nature is inherently flawed - could a scientific solution actually solve it or a religious awakening acknowledge it and move on?

Monday, June 16, 2008

DA 'SATHA' AVATHARAM - Review Part I

A movie by a Tamil director KV Ravikumar and the Universally controversial Hero of Tamil film world Kamal Haasan. I need to review this movie twice as a Tamil film fan and then once on a switched off mode - (not as Kamal fan).

Some background on title (especially for people who do not know what dasavatharam means). Simply the word means ten avatars of God. Dasam = Ten + Avatar = Reincarnation. The Hindus believe Lord Vishnu has taken nine different avatars to establish righteousness and reset the karmic cycle. The tenth is officially yet to happen. First to nine in order: Fish, Tortoise, Boar, half-man/lion, 3feet-human, angry man, a tiller, multi-faceted man, a self-contained man. The final one is the destroyer of everything basically reboot mode in Microsoft speak ! A quick think of the above order may construe your thoughts to biological evolution.

Ok back to review... Kamal has done 11 different roles actually - 10 acts and the 11th - as a Story, Screenplay and Dialogue. Most of his fans claim thats world record, but as early as in 1950s veteran tamil actor M N Nambiar had donned 11 roles in Digambara Samiyar! That's just to set facts straight.

Sorry back to review...
  1. With just 3 crap songs and 1 okay song, why the hell did they spend so much in getting Jackie Chan to town and so much hulla-bullah for nothing? GOK! I can't even treat it as a means to hype the movie...
  2. Such bad graphics in the climax, people were hyped so much about the scene of Tsunami and for viewers like me (who have seen Titanic 2, just as an example to pick-out from a well known movie), this is not even kids stuff!
  3. Why the hell spend so much on Make-ups that are not needed - GW Bush - just his back and ask a mimicry artist to dub! American Ex-CIA & Japanese Martial artist - again someone could have done a better role - movie costs could have come down.

So many logical loopholes and so many unnecessary scenes... The song sequence of avatar singh, try throwing a 20 kg metallic statue to a thayir saatham girl who is btw rope-walking - she catches with not even a single jerk, tsunami hits everyone except the two avatars and the heroine, but kills one Hero and the same time saves kids and the villains who float in the same zone of tsunami, police assigns a one man army to spy the biological terrorist, scenes suddenly in the climax jump 200 miles (from Chidambaram to Chennai)...

i am not on my switched off mode - I speak as a regular movie watcher... the next blog i intend to speak as a critique on the message of movie.

btw - i have quoted the movie in my blog title as DA 'SATHA' Avatharam - meaning an ordinary reincarnation!

Moneycracy...

My previous post was about reforming the democratic governance with a capitalistic addition. India's charismatic Modi thinks in a similar line but challenges the congress lead coalition Indian government with his speech today in a different form "Modi has been playing political rhetoric again in recent days. At a function in Vadodara last week, he said Gujarat gives Rs 40,000 crore as taxes to the Centre and receives only 2.5 per cent of it in return. He asked the government to stop collecting taxes from Gujarat and also stop aid to the state." But the actual challenge is these sort of thoughts cannot be shoo-ed away.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Democracy a way forward?

Is democracy still a meaningful concept in the 21st Century? Thats my question. Most of the democratic governments, the voting numbers have gone done. The only other concepts of governance are dictatorship and communism. Clearly communism has failed. Dictatorship can never be the right answer. So that leaves us the option with democracy. I have not seen much thought leadership in the area of political governance that can promise a better structure that provides a better governance.

I am right now reading a book about 'Writing on the wall and the West in 21st Century'. This book delves into the history of chinese governance. I think thats much needed to find a good way of governance and making sure the world shares the risks, effects as a society together. I seriously think democracy is also loosing its sheen and in another 15-20 years, this concept will also be questioned like the communist concept.

The key point is people are loosing interest in governments and are working in a self-centered manner. So how can a governor provide a good rule, when the subjects aren't really bothered or why should he/she actually care to provide an impartial rule for such subjects. Recently a candidate in the US election has a different view of involving everyone into the senate and the view is if citizens aren't interested in law making, why should the state care about them? Its not a great idea but a start. When so many people involve in decision making, a decision can never be reached.

I have been thinking about this for long and an idea - may be this has its own pros/cons as every system would do. But its for the netizens to debate. The idea is every country should lay out some guidelines etc on State matters and devlove rest of powers to utmost the local council level and effectively all taxes should also go to the councils. e.g. In a local town of 1000 people, if 600 of them earn, their income taxes go to the local council which administers the town and they should be empowered to make all decisions except the State related one. I admit its similar to democracy, but devloving power can be the only way to bring the interest back. (I can see such flavours already existing in UK, France etc - but not fully implemented - the locals don't participate in council elections) Bring Money & Justice to local level which can put the interest back to people.


My knowledge in this area is limited, I encourage netizens to participate which will be a good start....


What Indians Shun, World takes it forward...

Recently one of my friends pointed a fact that a school in London compulsorily teaches Sanskrit and has published a separate link to clarify the reasons. Just by fanning fervour about using mother-tongue, many dravidian states in India have ousted Sanskrit out of the curriculm. The Indian government in an attempt to appease minorities, in the name of secularism (read pseudo) has long forgotten what the roots of a its society and just concentrates in running the coalition with no clear aims. Many indians who normally accept views when proposed by western world, would they wake up and pick this one as well?

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Spam Count

I am just fed-up by the spams that keep clogging my emails... This is the same story with Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. The frustrating thing is they keep referring to their fantastic anit-spam features... though the features work to some degree, i still have to manually despam a lot from my inbox... I hence decided to host a new section in my blog - to count the no. of spam mails. :))