World conspires to teach the value of humility to all of us. We seem to ignore.

The Inevitable

It didn’t occur to me (when I wrote this in the recent past) the inevitable might be around the corner!

Life isn’t good!

Dearest Rajnikant,

There is a significant difference in the way I saw you when I was in my teens to the way I see you now. In those days, I enjoyed the way you smoked, the way you kicked baddies’ butts etc. But I stopped enjoying those in the same way as before. And I started to like the subtle performances of yours. As such performances stopped (as you aren’t doing any such movies anymore), I started yearning for the actor in you. Yes, I haven’t watched Shivaji. I stopped watching your movies close to the release date after watching Muthu.

Supremely egotistic, yet loving brother in Mullum Malarum..

The unwilling guardian of a business empire in Nallavanukku Nallavan.(Radhika too gave a sterling performance in that movie)..

Two loners who are diametrically opposite in Johnny..

The acid mouthed, but yet sophisticated and scheming husband in Avargal..

The innocent and mischievous youth in Thillu Mullu..

The normal husband to a blind wife in the middle of corrupt neighbors in Kai Kodukkum Kai..

The village brat in Murattu Kaalai..

The confused son-in-law in Moondru Mudichu..

The Alex Pandian of Moondru Mugam..

The old man with unlimited libido in Netri Kann..

I started yearning for the actor who did all these roles…who had the versatility and sincerity to become these characters. Where are you? Why don’t you act? (Heck!! I am not a Kamal fan…He can’t give me what Rajni gave purely in terms of acting performances – call it a bold statement or whatever, this is my statement.)

When I hear you request (in a function honoring K. Balachander) KB to make stage dramas and attest that you would act in it, I see the actor in you. But when I hear your fans say “He can’t act in such movies anymore, they won’t be accepted” to me, I find it sad. If you can put your reputation down the line and act on a stage drama, why can’t you act on good movies? Which is true?? Are you solely interested in the business of your movies? Or, Have you decided that your fans will only like your movie if it is in a formula?

With the advent of creative young film makers in Tamil movie field, I feel worse!! How refreshing and fulfilling it would be to see them direct you in new plots? Sigh!

I beg you not to underestimate your fans. I am one too.

With Respects,

~A.

Eduphistication

While taking part in a big wedding ceremony, I made an observation:

As I observed the bride, the groom and their parents/kins, I realized that a normal West-centric Indian Education adds some level of sophistication in various dimensions to oneself (to begin with). What I mean is, the first-generation that is educated gains a distinct sophistication over the rest of their family. Surprisingly, it seems to add nothing else. Being a normally educated Indian, I tend to like the sophistication that I have gained – thanks to the education and the life style it entailed. This (me liking it) is obvious because of my natural proclivity in this case – being one among them (normally educated Indian).

From an observer’s stand point, I wonder whether this sophistication is of any worth. Or, whether this is an expected result in our education system. Or, whether this is a mandatory step in ‘educating’.

By ‘normal West-centric education’, I refer to the lakhs of engineers. The not-high-quality-but-decent-enough types that we produce to cater to the so called globalized world.

Far ahead of its times

Came across a blog article discussing the possibility of some thoughts being far ahead of their time. I have read a book by Arthur Koestler which deals with the extremely slow/no progress in scientific understanding of astronomy from the ancient greeks to the modern astronomers like Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler (Note: This isn’t the subject of the book, but while dealing the subject this aspect is brought out – and it is annoyingly curious!).

That book talks about how advanced Aristarchus’ idea of solar system (helio-centric) was. It didn’t go any where for 2000 years (yeah!! 2000 god damn years!). Copernicus did something similar (though his method is extremely flawed) 2000 years later and Johan Kepler nailed it finally (probably 70 years after the death of Copernicus).

Koestler attributes this to a influence of Plato’s thinking in Western Europe. The book is remarkably insightful and interesting (apart from the subject, the way Arthur Koestler thinks/writes is very refreshing). If interested, you can buy from here or here (if you are in India).

On happiness (interesting)

Came across a discussion between CNN and Dan Gilbert on subject of “happiness”. Very interesting to read…Of late, I have been telling to some friends of mine (like this) about the non-uniqueness of feelings. It didn’t occur to me in terms of how each of us perceive happiness, rather it was more of an explanation on why some feel certain things (feelings) which aren’t perceived as applicable to others. I felt two things:

1. Such perception (some feelings aren’t applicable to others) is wrong.
2. That the MY-FEELINGS-ARE-UNIQUE property is the root cause of such perception.

This thought doesn’t imply the non-uniqueness of individuals. This just means that I can fully appreciate, empathize and feel some one else’s feelings (whether that person related to me or not is moot).

After all, I do yearn and wish for a couple in love, say in a movie, to be together forever!! Why?? I don’t know…but their (the couple’s) feeling isn’t alien to me, it isn’t something which I cannot feel and it isn’t something that I can ignore because it is just a movie. What I am trying to say is this: Accept the feelings, however insignificant it is. After all, such feelings make us what we are. There is nothing wrong in shedding a few drops of tears for someone else whom you don’t know or even hate. On the same vein, do share them – your feelings are not out of the world – they are perfectly understandable.

I never realized that this can be seen as a generic idea about an intriguing psychological phenomenon like “happiness”. After reading what Dan has to say, I am curious….Hopefully, some day, I’ll make a chance for myself to venture into these stuff and make something out of it.

PS: When I use the word ‘happiness’, I intend to convey both ‘happiness’ or ’sadness’. Like the photons which happily stay as a particle as well as a wave, lots of our feelings exhibit duality. We coin separate words for such feelings, but they are the same, aren’t they? 

Moving on..

Today is the last day in my current job role..Taking up a different role in 2007.

As I look forward to new challenges and learnings, there are going to be some hang overs…largely on the professional front and few personal. By personal, I mean the way I saw my work, the way I went about doing it, the way I cherished the importance of what I did – each of these are going to change. Unfortunately, I happen to view the personal hangovers as “losses” while I accept the professional ones as “changes“. This makes the whole thing a bit scary. To me, these differences (professional versus personal) aren’t well marked. After all, this profession is what  I do with all earnestness. Why isn’t that personal to me? This distinction is moot.

When I talk to others about this, they term this career move as ‘growth’ – and in this industry where promotions/new opportunities are in abundance, I tend to feel that ‘growth’ is far too easy -there’s very little to be happy about it or in other angle, ‘growth’ is used very loosely.

Hoping to do justice to my new role. A never ending turbulence isn’t something that nature likes…even my personal thoughts natural, aren’t they? I’ll leave the personal thoughts to take their own course and settle down as they usually do.

It has become a bully and a wood after all!

Came across an article in today’s The Hindu. It was triggered by the farcical treatment meted out to south indian movie technicians in the recently (and horribly) held IFFI Film Festival.

There were carefully chosen examples given…which conveys some sort of intolerance creeping in as years pass…From Dev Anand to Mahesh Bhat…While Dev is of the opinion “why not use a south indian in a movie….he is an indian!”, Mahesh is more hypocritical (well, Mahesh is self proclaimed guru of “being modern”) and less tolerant. There is another example of how a VJ (from ‘V’ TV, I think) conducted an interview….My belief that most of the VJs just know “names” and English is vindicated (pun intended!).

Anyways, now going to the “wood” part, I agree with what Chiranjeevi (and my colleague) says about the quality of movies coming out of Bollywood (pretty please, with sugar on top, do not mis-read this as “north indian” films…I am talking about the movies coming out of Mumbai studios/production houses). I agree with that in the last 15-20 years…Recently I happened to see the movies of media proclaimed geniuses – Mr. Aditya Chopra, Mr. Frahan Akthar, Mr. Sanjay L Bhansali (thank goodness, I didn’t see Mr. Karan Johar’s product!!). Out of these Mr. SLB’s is not a “bad” movie – it was plastic – yeah…but it wasn’t bad! The other two (Dhoom-2 and Don version 2) are pathetic! There is no way such films can come out of the studios…But they do come out, get hailed by media (and the stars get hailed by IFFI like orgs!), break “box-office” records and god knows what! Its as if a piece of wood being hailed as magical wand (with no intention of demeaning the value of a piece of wood!!!).

Well, Let something give sense to these media and other stupid folks who laud anything and everything!

Solution to lack of gustiness

Our Chinese friends should be requested to mass produce quality spines!

Bedim

The problem (in the notion of “foolishness”) is that we seek some change when nothing is worthwhile to be sought after. We think change is a progress! 

 Ambition/Aim/Target is a vicious circle, once it is achieved one realises that satisfaction isn’t achieved!! To add to the misery, one finds new ambition/aim/target to shoot for!

In the days when Microsoft looks lame and confused, life doesn’t look any different…Well, life never would have looked any different!!