Dead Poets Society

I happen to see two movies surprisingly similar in theme but worlds apart in the story and the style of narration. While one was about an elephant who wouldn’t stuck to his belief that the world has more to it than just what we see and the other was about a group of boys who try to break out of convention with the help of their English teacher. Yes, I am talking about Horton Hears a Who and Dead Poets Society.

Horton believes that he heard a sound from a speck proving to him that there is a small world inside that speck. From there on, he faces all the problems that someone who is right, yet in the minority come to face. But finally, he does save whoville, the world in the speck. If you want to explain to a ten year old that what you are told is not always right and what you see is not always the only thing, this movie is the best choice. Of course, those who prefer a much profound and soul stirring method to achieve these ends without having to watch elephants, kangaroos and vultures, there is Dead Poet’s society.

What an amazing movie!!! Its voice should be heard loud and clear against the collective din of conformity and tradition that spills out of every school, college and university. Above all, it’s a movie that has aimed to make us all rethink the way we look at life and the way we live. It defined why we do need poetry and all beauty in our lives and on a personal level explained why a I still feel like biting into a piece of watermelon on a hot day, when recollecting the few lines of poetry that I read long ago.

In the end, I couldn’t grudge Neil his choice of freedom as much as I couldn’t grudge Horton his moment of fame.

If you cant Marvel...

I watched the movie 'Iron Man' yesterday (those of you who are itching to ask me, "why the hell is a smart and intelligent woman watching a movie like Iron man?" Go away. This post is not for you. And I do have my dumb moments). The movie was a MARVELOUS one, just like all MARVEL ones. But unfortunately, I laughed instead of my usual open mouthed awestruck gapping exercise. So finally, I the great sage Yavanshi, has outgrown Marvel comics.

Once upon a time, we had a Panthom who stalked the jungles, protecting his teritory of Bangala, in a sexy mysterious suit. Panthom told a lot of ten-year-olds that protecting nature is heroic. Then there was Batman, who taught rich kids that incase they don't know what to do with all their money, they along with their butlers can spend it on saving cities like Gauthom from mad jokers with stupid ideas. Even superman, despite his obsession with his adopted country flag, had his moments as he went about saving bus full of kids. I even liked spidey until he started acting demented in his last movie. But I must admit, none of these ordinary super heores, nor the incredibles, electra, cat woman, the fantastics and the X-men combined can ever beat 'Iron Man'.

Yes, the Iron Man is the guy who teaches the perfect lession all children must know. That weapons are cool, but only if they kill people other than Americans, that bad guys are almost always people who suspiciously look like Muslims from somewhere like Afghanistan, that if there is by chance a bad guy from America, then he is definetly smarter than the muslim 'terrorists'. And that when the terrorist buggers who look like muslims kill their own folks the hero of America is the one who saves them.

And ofcourse, some of the minor lessons are 'bad physics works, unbearably sweaty metal suits are good to fly alongside bombers, always hire a secretary smarter than you and a friend dumber than you, popoye green drinks makes you strong (spinach is really good, right?)...."
Well, the rest you will learn as you watch the movie. With such lessons I think there should be statuaory warning that says "Children, listen when Iron Man says weapons are bad and then shut your mind while watching, so as to avoid mental damage due to prejudice."

On Being an Atheist

While I was reading Richard Dawkin's 'The God Delusion', I came across a horrifying story of a pastor who killed a doctor who performed abortions. The pastor after that happily walked to the electric chair thinking that heaven awaited him. (Someone told me St. Peter had strict rules against murder) While he did it because he had a mountain load of hate that would have stank all the way to the Arctic, the reason for the hate was the most scary one I have heard. He did it because he thought it was un-christian. (Eh, when did Christ talk about abortion?)
Coming from a country that follows a thousand Gods, I have seen a number of mob murders done in the name of religion. But whats chillingly different in the case of the pastor is that he was an individual who was uncannily calm and rational (unlike people in a mob) when he did it. I personally cannot relate to this kind of hate. In my environment, religion does not figure in the scheme of things. Even when religion becomes a topic of discussion it's more like talking about the weather.
"I am christian, I pray to God when I have trouble, I am sure he will listen and help. What about you?"
"Oh, I don't believe in God, I am an atheist."
"Oh, okay. One of the Darwin types eh?"

"I went to the temple today."
"oh, the last time I went to a temple was seven years ago."
"oh, maybe you can come along next time when I go. It's fun."
"Yeah, sure."

"Dad, I don't believe in God"
"Don't say that"
"why?"
"Hum, you wont get a groom"

All these days, I was thinking that people don't like me being an atheist. Now I realize the true extent to which 'don't like' can mean. Now I know that folks back home are just being benignly surprised by my response. For that matter, people here frown on the so called immoral behaviour's that you may exhibit, but that's all they do. A woman who goes for an abortion, a man or a woman who is a homosexual, an atheist; all warrant a frown and at the max, gossip. But that is all. If you can forget to hear the disapproving murmurs in the background, you are guaranteed a pretty much normal life.
I just hope things remain that way here forever. But then again, the wheels of change turn slowly in India.

Poetry and Pumpkins

Finding Love

Why is it so hard to find?

why is it I never stop to mind?

The sun is down and the wind is cold

When the ocean sings, I still am looking
Why is it I never give up?

Why is it so hard to make up?

Even when the sands run through

My hands clutch at hope though
Why is it the price so high?

why is the bargain so bad?

Coz what I found was a pumpkin

That just won't spell any magic

Hehehe! this is what happens when you try poetry after 15 years :-)

Dragons, Spirits and Pricesses

Last Sunday, finally, I was able to watch Princess Mononoke. And what a treat it turned out to be. Some people can imagine magic, while some can see it. There are only a few masters who can make it and Miyazaki is the wisest wizard of the lot. While enough has been said about his hard hitting environmental messages, I am drawn to the characterisation in the movie. In Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away for that matter characters take a suprisingly human form; neither overtly good nor completely bad. No character is judged upon, just made out in beautiful colours and forms set on a landscape that never once reminds you that its all make-believe.

Thanks to such movies, we get to fly with the dragons, walk the extinct jungles and meet brave prince and princesses who despite their courage, touch us by their humanity.

Apple juice

Apples are my favourite fruit. I eat them in any colour or size. And I can eat more than three at one go. But something of a mystry was the fact that I was never that much in love with apple juice. Finally, a few days ago the mystry has been solved.

The problem with apple juice is they taste the same. I was never able to tell juice from one bottle apart from another. But each apple always tastes unique. There is a brief second of wonder when I take a bite of an apple and my brain compares the taste with all the other apples I have had and then finally files the taste away in memory.

Neat isnt it :-). I should try it with all other fruits. :-)

Gods and Tales

A friend lent me an interesting book called, 'the God delusion.' I just read the first few pages so far and am already nodding my head in agreement several times. I always found God an interesting myth, an enigma whose evolution has been consistent across the world regardless of religion. I am saying this because regardless of the name given to this God, people always have so much of faith in him/her, so much so that they keep waging wars and murdering each other in his name. Such loyalty is seldom bestowed on men and women who actually do, what most people expect God to.

I started out as a deeply religious, or as deeply religious a 6-year-old can be, but gave up when I realized that every time I do something that’s been dictated in the name of God, I felt guilty. From then on, I became a very curious kid who wondered why trees grew and why birds sang and why water flowed rather than take it for granted that God made them so. And after years of having my head in the so called cloud, I am still fascinated and curious to know more about this world. I am not saying God had anything to do with it but a lack of a poor chap who can be blamed with everything under and beyond the Sun did help.

God is supposed to save us if we pray, which is nothing but wishing really hard in a manner acceptable to ourselves and others. Save us from what? Life? Why do people believe in the afterlife, the judgment day, the paramathma and so many other things that if not so old would be dubbed as fantasy. Maybe, a few more centuries from now people will be praying to today's myths. Rambo will become the war God, Harry will be the God of magic, Hermione will be the God of intelligence and by that time, Harry would be a handsome yet benign looking guy with lightning in his hand and Hermione will be an extraordinarily beautiful Goddess surrounded my cute little house elves.

One of my teachers in school long ago said that God is in real a creation of man to keep the not-so-strong-in-virtue in line. I can understand what she meant now but there is more to it. Man seeks boundaries; he wants a home with a fence that gives security; and the more people who share his faith in the strength of that fence, the more safe he feels. It gives a sense of belonging and a reason to fight when the fence is trying to be breached at the sometime absolved all the guilt that comes with it.

While most see God as the default answer to any and many questions, some choose to reason it as a lame excuse and try to cross the fence. Beyond the fence are a lot of space and a lot of freedom to roam free, to see, to observe, and to learn to make new homes.

It doesn't come easy but these homes that are worth a few stones thrown at us.

Values and the Individual

A subject of discussion that comes up quiet often when I talk to people is the so called "degradation on values". I finally got down to thinking about it, only to realize that I still haven't defined 'values'. Its easy to define values when you place yourself in a group, but as an individual, its tougher that you think.
Do not kill, do not steal, do not hurt others, do not laze around are all social values that still retain their relevance to an extent but have slowly streamed out and got localized to a much more trivial level where they include "listen to your parents, do not dress different from everyone else, do not talk back, do not fall in love with someone society doesnt approve of, do not see 'evil' (have you watched "chole ke pechae kya hai" with elders around?), no one wants to give their daughters their due in marriage (dowry) and so on. The list is endless. But how much of it is really worthy of being accepted as values. Values, like the Ganges have started as the purest guides to out lives, but without the help of reason have aquired enough dirt to stink even before it reaches the mind of individuals. And so becomes more an excuse to fall in line than draw your own.
So what do we do? Do we ignore social values or do we follow them. Well, I think we need values but you got to mix reason before you dish it out. And what cant be dished out after mixing reason are not worthy values. But most of all, instead of following a socially accepted set of values, I suppose each individual needs his values.
This is the age of the individual, people are more and more isolated as ever. Gadgets have made our life so much safer and better that we no longer have the need to hunt in packs. But ironically, this is also the age where men as thinkers refuse to surface out of the collective murk of society. What is society but the majority and the majority seems to hold power more than ever simply because more people that ever refuse to differ. If social values say killing is wrong, why is the world playing along with the powerful few who kill for oil? If tolerance is value, why is Gods name slandered in the name of holy war? Are values merely a matter of convenience?
I don't care for these values, because they dont give me the satisfaction I should get in following them. Instead, all I get is a guilt that refuses to drown despite the sea of social knowledghement. I know that no amount of "you did the right thing" will put my soul to rest if I accept a groom who asked for dowry. No amount of "you are a good girl" will equal the fun of making a choice to wear cloths I am comfortable in. My values are my own. Whatever we tell ourselves, we are survivors first and only then social animals. If you must kill for survival, won't you? My first value is to survive. The rest are what I set to make my survival as guiltless and as enjoyable as possible. But like everything else in life, values too have a cost. You can kill to survive but you also have to answer to "at what cost?" If I do choose the wrong things as my values, or dont set the cost, then I always have karma to face. Afterall, those who are ready to kill, must be ready to be killed right?

Philosophy in the rain

"Its surprising that it should rain so much in Chennai in March". As soon as I said this, I chided myself for falling into the trap of preconceived notion. Why shouldn't it rain in March just because it had never happened before. As I sat and watched the rain, I realized that how much ever I try, I always step into that puddle of memory and the notions I derive from it. Are we just a sum of all our experiences stashed away in memory and is our future always linked to the past. Is my past in real a definition of myself?

While I can still safely avoid rum and raisin while buying ice cream (after all they usually taste the same where ever you buy it) I, for all my rebellion against prejudices, am still committing the worst of the crime, namely avoiding people based on past experiences. I still am afraid to trust people because of past scars, I still avoid a certain group of people because I was betrayed by one of them, and i am still friendly to all auto drivers because one of them helped me a long time ago. I have always believed that the past should have no bearing on the future, that people react to situations more that habit and a thief needn't necessarily steal again, just the same as a honest man needn't remain honest always.

But what will happen if I really do become aprejudiced. I would have to look at everything in a fresh light, which is not only tiresome but also unsafe. In other words, I would loose the capacity to 'learn from past mistakes'. Is it really stupid to expect better coconut from a tree that yielded bad ones last season? Or is it better to blame it on the fertilizer, get a better fertilizer and now expect a better yield?

I guess I was wrong. I needn't be so prejudiced against prejudice. Prejudices are a direct result of judicious observation of the past. But then I need be prejudiced against the right things for the right reasons.

Okay, I have rambled enough. Thinking is a tiresome job. I am tired of contemplating the past and the future for a while. I will just sit and watch the rain hoping that, at least for a while, it will just wash away the restless thoughts that keep crashing my skull.

What Sita had done?

Being born in a country of immense history and myth is an awful burden to live with. Even before you are born, you are tied to a stone weighing ages of tradition and culture that no matter how old, never loose their weight.
I hate her, I hate Sita. If only she hadn’t jumped into the fire at the whim and fancy of her husband, there will be one less argument when a woman refuses to take s*** from her husband. And before you tell me Ram did that to clear his wife’s name, let me tell you that if he really loved his wife, he wouldn’t care a foot about what others thought of her. Why didn’t they give Sita some character? Everything in her life was conveniently written to avoid her making a decision. Ever wondered what would have happened if Ram didn’t break the bow. Would Sita have walked down the aisle and boldly refused to marry anyone, bow breaker or not, except Ram? Would Ram have valiantly decided that he fell in love with Sita and not the bow and married her anyway? Why the hell didn’t she even think of attempting an escape from Lanka, instead of passively waiting for her husband to do the rescue?
For that matter, Draupathi had some character. She juggled five husbands beautifully and was clever enough to know who would do what for her. She also knew what they wouldn’t do for her and asked the right person (never mind it was Krishna and not on of her husbands who had pawned her) for help when desperately in need. But she doesn’t figure much in the ‘guide to Indian womanhood’.
What about Savithri? What about Kanagi? All these women gave the impression that their husbands were Gods and they themselves were nothing without them. Take Kanagi for example. She didn’t do much to stop her wayward husband, but she was docile enough to wait for him and take him back into her life when he came back a pauper. But when he got murdered by mistake, she became the mighty ‘pathni’ who burnt a city in his memory.
Passivity is such a glorified concept on Indian womanhood that women who put up with things are considered divine. While, women who are assertive and refuse to waste their lives at the foot of men are considered arrogant and manipulative. How many of the women in these legends did a honest days work (forget the ones they spent washing their father’s or husband’s feet and bearing children)? How many of them fought battles (Poor queen of Jansi, she did and still is fighting a lone battle), treated the sick, ran business empires, or plain protected their interests. I am sure there should be a few shining examples, but sadly, they not popular enough for a layman like me to know.
Indian women have evolved so much, we have come a long way from plain reproductive members of society to productive members of society, but still old myths are flung at our face whenever it suits society. While fathers and mothers are happy that their daughters are earning their keep, they resent it when their daughter’s make their life’s choices. While a man is happy with a woman’s efficiency at work, he goes back home and expects the same luxuriant dinner, his mother’s made for their fathers, from a wife who had worked just as hard as him the whole day. And when a woman grumbles about it, men (and women of the older generation) bring Sita into the picture.
Sita is a bad example, if Indian women follow her ideas fastidiously; we will have an even bigger population with even less money. But I must admit we will have more bonfires.

Chronicles of a Depressiac

Sometimes, it’s so dark that when you look into your heart there is nothing. Its one big empty void that is just empty of anything. Its times like these that make me wonder if its better to have the bright rage of hatred than this vacuum. And then there are times slightly better when you feel cold, so cold that its numb. Its times like these that I wonder if my emotions have frozen so much that they will crack if I try to disturb them.
Yeah, this is how I feel when I am depressed. Alone, scared, and worthless are the usual toppings that go with this not so unusual rich sundae. It’s a struggle to get back on my feet when it hits be, but like the unwavering sun that always rises, I always get up, dust myself and walk on until it hits be again. The fear that one day, I may not get up, took me to a shrink once.
Acute anxiety, depression and a refusal to deal with emotional problems of the past were some of the things that were repeatedly mentioned in her diagnosis. While I sat and listened, meekly wondering if I will ever make it into the ‘normal’ side of human society, I told myself that I would do better to get rid of these ailments. Six pills and 2 days later, I realized that depression was more fun than sleep walking zombism.
I still get depressed but when I finally get it under control and stop those shuddering torrents of tears, I smile a real smile that is reserved for those occasions when I think I have come clean after falling off the boat of Hades. It feels like I am God, the enigma that will always resurrect, no matter how many ever times it is burnt or buried. And I have faith that I will always come clean. I have uncluttered my life as much as possible to keep this faith undisturbed. I have made my own ideals to live by.
Alone, yes, alone gives me the freedom to walk the road I choose. Scared, yes, the more I am scared, the more I want to win. Worthless, never, someday when I know that I don’t have many sun rises left to watch, I will know that each minute I lived was worth it.Meanwhile, I have chocolates, icecreams, butterflies and rain to live for.

WYSIWYDG

I am taking the train quiet often now a days and though its not as packed as the buses, they are equally diverse when it comes to people. As usual people were sitting all over the place and that includes places where there is 100% chance of getting trampled over. A lady was standing (hanging for dear life) with bulging bags full of groseries from a super market. What caught my attention was the way she was bargaining for a packet of brinjals. The old woman who was selling it was asking for 5 rs and this lady was saying it was too much for seven brinjals.

I took a peak at her bag ( I am mannerless) and had a tough time holding back my sarcastic tongue. This woman had gone out of her way to a super market, bought exactly 3 slices of tomatoes, a handful of jeera, a few mint leaves and chopped onion (roughly 2 days old i guess) all packed beautifully on a plastic tray with a celophene sheet (not edible and so not worth a single paise while buying vegitables) for 30 rs. But she is hagling with an old woman over garden fresh brinjals for 5 rs.

Many people I know personally shop in these super markets and feel good about it too. They won't mind buying chopped vegitables at least a day old for the price of a kilo of the same vegitable in much better condition in the local market. My own dad buys watery flavoured yoghurt for 20 rs, while we have an Avin outlet, down the street that sells thicker and rich yoghurt for 8 rs. What makes educated smart people believe that packed vegitables and perishable goods are fresh in shops that have warehouses out of the state?

This is the age of marketing, quiet often what you see is not what you get. The dress I buy for 300 in pondy bazar is a better imitation of a designer salwar, that eats a months paycheck. When I said this truth to a peer, she said "Oh, its not branded and besides Pondy Bazar is too crowded." That set me wondering, when buying a dress, isn't the dress more important than the crowd or label?

Its not only true in case of merchendises but also in the way we work and live. How many of us have gone to the quiet zoo at Vadalur or the museum at Egmore, where there are things to see and feel pleasent about for a sum less that 50 rs. How many times have we all rushed into amusement parks paying 500 rs for just jumping from ride to ride. You will get a better and more thrilling ride if you take the guindy road ina share auto or bus.

In my own work, the quality of the content I write is not dependent on how effective the material was but on how many errors that were there. My collegues and I discovered that the best way to improve quality in such a set up is to write as less as possible. The less you write the less mistakes you can make. Logical isn't it?

Anyway, I got to buy lady's finger today, I hope I am lucky enough to catch up with the old woman in the train.