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.

Spiderman

This is something I wrote long ago after watching spiderman 3. I liked what I wrote and so, I am putting it here so I can read it whenever I want.

Who ever said spiderman 3 is not good has no idea of what entertainment is all about. When was the last time you laughed every time the hero cried? That kind of acting takes special skills and Toby is one of the special kind second only to Vijayakanth.

The amazing direction and wonderful acting makes this movie a treat to all. To say the story was dull is ridiculous. To start with you have a cute smart alien bug that hitches a ride on a meteorite, then you have the I-did-it-for-my-kid guy who by the way didn’t kill uncle Ben and then did and then didn’t (confused uh? So am I). Then you have the rival photographer who is waiting to be infected by the bug. And the best of all, the friend turned, foe turned, friend turned, foe turned, friend (let me take breather) Osbourn.

Which heroine confesses she is a pathetic actor? Mary Jane does. Which hero begs his arch rival to help him (as casually as asking for a lift)? Spidy does. And which director shamelessly assembles a crowd to weep and cheer for Spidy complete with the American flag? Spidy’s director does. Which friend waits patiently for his friend to die (forget the tamil ones)? Spidy does…

I am sure the bug will win the Oscar this year. It was the best performance by an alien bug so far.

PS: I have no intention of watching the another sequel of spidey, if the bug doesn’t act in it.

Mission accomplished!

It was one of the easier missions. Everything went as planned and contrary to my usual style, I finished my job and walked out with a few minutes to spare. All I had to do was leasurely sit in the pick up and get to the drop point roughly four kilometers away; after that I am as good as home and dry. I was dreaming of steaming hot sambar rice as I walked down the stairs (spies dont take lifts). But as I stepped out of the doors of the massive facade which hid the secret research lab, I was stunned. All dreams of sambar rice vanished in a wiff of the obnoxious fumes as I groaned in disappointment.

Something had gone wrong and now I have to wade through an army of enemy artillery, walk past thousands of soldiers and maybe hitch a ride on an enemy tanker to get to my drop point. My pick-up hasn't turned up and I have just the great sage yavanshi to help me get to the drop point on time.

I summoned all my courage and plunged into the sea of soldiers. if they were surprised to see a woman wading through them, they did not show it. Right in front of me was a bus full of unruly soldiers. It was a sight that could freeze any woman in fear but not me. I put on my best puppy dog face and asked for a lift. I few wide smiles later, I was sitting in a corner of the bus and trying my best to become invisible. The traffic was heavy and soldiers were running all around. Just as the bus started moving again, I noticed a few soldiers checking the vehicles behind us. Oh God! This is absolutely the wrong place to be caught.

Just as I was about to panic, the great sage Yavanshi came up with an idea. There was a dark alley that seemed to lead to a parallel road just a few feet in the front. As the bus rumbled a bit closer, I put on a dazzling smile and said that I got to go back as i had forgotten something. No one seemed to mind, so I hopped off and dashed into the alley.

For a minute I though I was being chased but then realized that though a lot of people were fretting, fuming and generally running in all directions, no one was following me. There are began the treacherous journey to my drop point. It was pitch black, there were a lot of land mines and I had to move at snails pace using my flash light. Once I crossed the alley the road was well lit but crowded. I pushed my way through the crowd and finally reached the railway station where my train home was already huffing and puffing. I ran as fast as I can and got one foot into the train before it pulled away angrily.

If not for such a wild imagination, I would have also fretted and fumed after getting stuck in the traffic for 2 hours. I walked to the station after abandoning the bus I was travelling in and this was the story that gave me the strength to walk four kilometers to the station.

Can someone invent these?

My current anime obsession is 'Getbackers'. One of those shows where you have very humane super humans. Its about a couple of guys who start a retrieval agency and all their friends and foes. As I watched the show I realized that it would really be fun and profitable (not to mention the service to mankind blah blah blah!) to actually mimic some of their powers in the real world. For example, Ginji's power to generate electricity. Of course we cannot generate electricity buy a shock producing glove that can be turned on at when needed should be great to fend of men and women who lean too closely to us with harmful intent. Dr. jackal's bloody sword could be a dangerous thing but his pesky little knives can keep muggers at bay. Himiko's monkey poison will come in handy when the neighborhood not-so-friendly thieves decide to pay a visit. And it would really be fun to use Ban's evil eye on nasty auto drivers who think people equal to bags of money that can be tossed around during the ride and fleeced after that.

In-fact we can create Ginji shields that provide an electromagnetic shield around our vehicles that will slow down other vehicles that speed in within a few feet. Imagine the number of accidents that can be averted (well, at least I think so).

hum, if only I was good in physics, I would at least know if these ideas were hare brained. Unfortunately, even today, I find it difficult to believe that I actually passed that subject in high school.

Mishaps and apologies

It was one of those moments I really wondered if that person sitting in a cloud upstairs and supposed to be watching over us is actually a sadist. In that crowded bus already half way through to my destination, I though that if there is a God he is a real mean sadist. That Saturday was special. It was the day I had decided to treat a dear friend of mine to a luxuriant lunch and a great day roaming around town. We had planned on a movie but we didn't get tickets for three weeks. So we gave up on that and decided to go on a pilgrimage to our favourite temple, the Landmark bookshop. I planned everything carefully down to the last minute and everything was going as planned until she called up and said that for some urgent reason she has to work.

She was kind enough to let me visit her anyway. She is one of those friends i never feel like screaming at (and I should say I am good enough to be a professional screamer), though I am sure if any other friend of mine had tried this, I would have visited them after buying a pick axe. I cursed all the way for half an hour until she called and said that we can go for an early lunch once I get there. I was still irritated that all my plans were foiled and even contemplated forgetting the whole episode and going back home. But I had gone too far for that, so I just went ahead.

Even as I stood at her door wondering if the flowers I brought where right and the chocolates have melted in the humid Chennai heat; when she opened the door, I forgot everything. There on I didn't worry about what i was doing. We just laughed and talked. We walked to a restaurant nearby which was not even pretending to be as good as the one I had planned on, then we went on for ice creams (my favourite part). I even made her eat a blue and pink ice cream which she wouldn't have dreamt of trying on her own. One thing we didn't have was time. So we said good bye in a hurry and I set on my long journey back home inside a sweltering bus crowded as usual.
Curiously though, I remembered how irritated I was in the morning and then realized I was actually feeling happy now. Hum, at least the whole mess of my plans wasn't that bad. Later my friend told me that she had a really nice time that day, and I knew she meant it. I have forgotten all the fun we didn't have that day, but I remember the fun we did have. A couple of days later when I was narrating the event to a friend, she asked, "didn't she even apologies?" For a minute there I was startled. She didn't and I didn't even notice, in fact I would have squirmed if she had. To be frank, I realized that neither of us actually apologies to each other and that's one of the reasons why I feel comfortable about our friendship. Who wants apologies when neither of us care about such things?

The mess after all wasn't a mess at all coz the most important things where in place. Sort of like how you can still recognize a kids scribbling as a human figure just by the sticks and the circles.