A long weekend of my life

Sometimes there is a moment in life when the things start spinning around you. You start seeing something. People are walking, doing their stuff and you have just had a moment. You know something and see something. You dont need a verification. You see it in your mid's eye. All is going on on its own. And the definition of what you see what you believe in and what all is has just received a major overhaul. I dont want to call it a name. The moment I talk about it it starts to seem different to me.

Its something like a concept in quatum mechanics. What the thing is - an electron for example - its existence - changes depending on its observer. Where are YOU when you observe it? Its not the thing - its the thing and the observer - the system between them. So this blog post which you are reading right now, may, may have a different effect on different people on different times that they read(I mean the reading 2 days from the first time that you read it). Just like AR Rahman's music has a different effect and good films have different effect on multiple viewing. This is the biggest funda in life and it applies not just in science.

It happened to me because I read. If it had happened to me sometime earlier it may not have had the same effect. Thoughts grew to that point and when I read a few sentences I had a smile on my face. I was a little delirious.

I had a lot of time on my hands. The school had Annual Day function on Thursday and Friday, so I had four big days. What did I do? I am not going to reveal all that I did but some of that I spent reading and thinking and writing. And this activity sent me into a little jolts of depression - depending on what I read and also a moment about which i mentioned in the beginning.

I want to do here is to give an incomplete description of what I feel and enlist all the resources from which I read, the books the blogs and quotes. It is my ambition to get published someday. And all these are endeavors in that direction.

Long time ago I read this blog post and it set in motion my thoughts about work and purpose in a more focused way. Here is the essay by Hardy. The most important notion I feel is similar to the quantum mechanics thing is that talking about the work you do changes your purpose and your work. Then will the work of your life keep changing once you ask questions and you mind seeks new horizons to explore?

Paul Auster's Invention of solitude sent me into depression for a day. Then brought me back. He showed me the images in Pinochchio. Images from my life and the thoughts about my father were swimming in front of my eyes and it gave me a certain freedom. It showed me how fragile life is. More quotes from this book, here.

Reading Catcher in the Rye the second time wasnt as entertaining. but you see a lot more. you can see past the words. A line struck me, as it happens again and again, I started seeing things.

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad."

J.D. Salinger has this rambling way of making Holden Caulfield tell you a story, full with 50s American slang and style, these gems are embedded in the middle of loneliness and aimlessness. I thought its been a decade that I have been struggling with guilt. Even when something good happens I am guilty about it. Why? Because there is this feeling that I dont deserve it. Maybe as the only child I got things, all the things I wanted very easily. So if its heads I'm guilty and if its tails I'm guilty. I love guilt and I wallow in it. This saves you from doing something - anything to get ahead in life.You like being that victim and you persecute yourself. Persecute! Cut to -

Dom Cobb: I know what's real Mal.

Mal: No creeping doubts? Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by annonymous corporations and police forces, the way the projections persecute the dreamer? Admit it, you don't believe in one reality anymore. So choose, choose to be here, choose me.

I love Inception not for what it is, but for what it means to me. Its not what the movie or anything in life is – it’s the projection that is there in your head that matters. We love to cuddle some projections in our minds. They persecute us, we let them. The game goes on for years! The game will consume your life if you let it. First be aware that all this is there. Then conquer it.

"Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing." - Germaine Greer

I visualize that projections in my head are like bubbles or soft cushions from which I constantly keep bouncing off my actions and decisions. These bubbles you create reactively for yourself. What you need to create for yourself are powerful projections for execution, creation, development and growth of skills. You invent these and they in turn will invent your character. As the above quote says - you have the right to invent yourself. Immediately picture in my brain is that of a mad scientist that is me in my lab, putting projections together - they are chemicals red, blue bright silver and they mix and i start the engines and they rn wild and explode and i control them. I invent a new me. This notion I find very powerful. Dont accept others' opinions without questioning. Protect the projections from getting adulterated.

I get the freedom to let it out spell it out and say yes - it is true. I admit and then comes along another thing that gives me strength to admit the fuck ups.

I was in the book shop and browsing I chance upon two books, completely unrelated and the situation mentioned in the beginning of this post presented itself. i didnt have to open the books, the blurbs gave me the breakthrough.

First I saw House of Cards, it’s a book about the big financial crisis. Written in bold letters was “We all F***ed up!” I said to myself if Nobel prize winners in Economists, Harvard an other Ivy league business and management gurus sat and watched the fuck ups then I think I am allowed to fail. And I said “yes, I admit I wasted my parents’ money doing an MBA that did not amount to anything much. The teachers didn’t teach me anything in Information Systems and I didn’t learn anything. More than anything I am the one to blame. I shouldn’t have taken up the job. I should have taken marketing. I shouldn’t have taken MBA if I didn’t want it. I shouldn’t have taken MSC (Hons) in Chemistry if I didn’t want it. I should have stuck to Medical if that was my passion. Only I am to be blamed if I fucked up. I admit. So there. The truth as it is. So I say if these big guys can get away with billion dollar fuck ups and thousands of job losses, if politicians can swallow crores without burping, if thousands’ deaths can be justified in the name of race, religion and blasphemy then I sure can be given a second chance for the fuck ups of my life.

Then I found a book and got the second jolt. The blurb on a book called Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse reads as follows:

The unhappiness that I need and long for, is of the kind that will let me suffer with eagerness and die with lust. That is the unhappiness or happiness that I am waiting for.

I had to stop doing anything and sit down for this to sink in. This made me write and write and write. All which I cant put up here.

I spent considerable time writing, not just this weekend but the Christmas vacation as well, as I mentioned in my last post. It has given me so much space in my mind. You explore new meaning in life by writing. Its essential for a good memory to write. Meaning of things and purpose crystallizes by writing. You see things more clearly and plan things well. One must devote time for writing, reading what you have written and plan accordingly. At a level of ideas, your mind is muddled, you have this incomplete definition of things and for me this definition is completed by writing.

In the course of last 9 months teaching communicative English at a school in Kochi I have had tremendous change in my confidence. I have gained this love for my voice and I know for sure that I want to teach. I remember this video lecture by Larry Lessig and it reminds me that there is such power in good presentation. I want to be able to do that. That is my aspiration.

I have no qualms telling that I am quite a socially underdeveloped individual. For a major portion of my life I was and probably still am pampered and cared for as the only child. I never had to wash my own clothes and do other things like that. I have spent a lot of time in my childhood being alone, and having nothing to do. It may sound a bit obvious and simplistic but the biggest problem of children is the lack of activity. I see in the school LOTS of children spend HOURS in the school doing absolutely nothing. This is sureshot recipe for all kinds of trouble, bad habits, low self esteem and zero skills just to name a few. I am prone to jealousy, guilt, anxiety, nervousness, little depression maybe (I don’t know), very reactive. I realize the pattern of things happening in my life. Writing helped me find my way of dealing with my persecutions. Films helped my find my way out of the lack of social skills. My friends like Monica, Jammy, Piyush, Jassi, cousins, Ameya dada, Sneha, Sonal, Babbu, Chonki, Appu, Priyanka, Sapna, Hrishikesh, all, just by being there have given my such a support. And after writing I started doing the necessary. Step by step. I stumble, get up, go back, make mistakes again, go down then get up again.

In the Christmas holidays I read Doris Lessing’s autobiography Under my skin. Most important thing I learnt was you don’t need education to teach you life lessons. Her and Ray Bradbury’s lives bear testimony that you learn by finding you own way. Education from books is not even half the learning. That being said, I find once people start working they cant go back to books. They seek answers in self help books because they seem to give instant answers. Never go for short cuts. One needs eye for brave writing, different from mollycoddling inspirational self help, mind open to ideas and comprehension of all kinds of writing. In real life one gets disillusioned by events, nothing seems to make sense. One needs to synchronize book knowledge, principles, opinions with the real life.

And as I teach in school I learn that telling is useless – showing and taking a person through a process is most important.

From Lessing’s life another fact that strikes the most is health – the connection of the mind with the body – the confidence that one derives by the strength of the organs, muscles, by being close to nature one tunes into the rhythm. The sun, the rain, I think I have tuned off from these.

I found that asking the question “what is life? What does it mean?” is futile. Jumping in is the best way. Make mistakes, read, ask questions and listen. There is nothing right or wrong. Once you get some answers you have to live in circumstances, do the deeds, make things work, trial and error to see the meaning of the answers. There is no use knowing. You have to see it in action and I then see the beauty of life. It can’t be described. It’s just to full of chaos and uncertainty and colors and sparks. Everything can be turned on its head and it’ll still be true.

I will conclude by quoting Ray Bradbury. He tells me that each day has these infinite possibilities waiting. Nothing is impossible. Every moment there is the next level of awareness to be achieved.

I get out of bed every morning and explode.

PS: I have told a lot of things in this rambling post. Telling never works for people. Note to self: Even after this you may go down but you know how to get up again. Dont worry if nobody reads your blog and if they do then find it bland and repetitive. We knew this all along Nik whats so great about all this? The usual inspiration crap....... Telling never works.

They threw me out of the coffee shop.

so the christmas in Oberon Mall of Cochin looks pretty neat. This is the the first time I have seen Christmas celebrations.
So I sat in the coffee shop on a Monday afternoon because it was a Christmas holiday. I had a Mocha and the coffee shop guys should take it as a compliment that theirs is one of the best brews I have ever had. And I wrote in my notebook. I had a good time writing. Amazing. Awesome. Terrific. So good that I wrote for three hours.

And then they kicked me out. He said something in Mallu but I got the gist.

I walked back home. I said it looks very barren and bleak and dull and hot and suck-your-life outta-you urban. So I said take photos of this

scene and put it up online. Take all your anger ou

t.

in life good things are very rare. Interestingly they can be abundant too. It depends on your point of view. The thing is life is full of uncertainties. I believe in that. The chaos, the absence of rules, the improbability, randomness and sometimes unfair and ruthlessness of life and nature. its scary. and its unavoidable. It is so scary and every decision we take we stare at darkness and wonder if we can have faith in something..... something. our gut instincts, god, parents, friends. So randomly we stumble on good and bad things. I recently had a feeling after watching Band Baaja Baarat(BBB) that there is this abundant amount of happiness and love and joy and energy in store in life. Its all out there. Its such a delicate matter. Even as i type this my perspective is walking along a very thin edge. I say its matter of perspective. To be happy and find contentment. Once we have that point of view we can see the abundance.

.. but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst..

Was Lester Burnham or the writer Alan Ball from American Beauty talking about this? this very same feeling that i got when I saw a particular scene in BBB? perhaps...
Nikhilesh you take movies too seriously. They are just movies- thats all and nothing more. but nothing seems real. nothing lasts and nothing is worth keeping faith in. real people are as dramatic as filmi characters and just as unpredictable. so whats the harm in deriving pleasure from the film characters? its all maya. (You seriously lack social interaction niks.)
So I love this movie. in a way that i have never loved a hindi movie before. not even dev d which i cut open and it cut my brain open. This one left me with a little pain. I felt sad, i dont know how to describe this feeling. A little miserable. shruti kakkar and bittu sharma had so much life to them that the movie did not seem to contain it. maybe the pain had something to do with loss of innocence. it had for me elements of friendship, cuteness .... things that have nothing to do with sex. but when the story took the turn towards the conflict, it kills me. there is something raw about them when they fight. the rustic delhi style is of course delicious("Aur bhai Bittoo!?") but that probably has given me the pain i was talking about.
ok i seriously feel there was so much more to the relationship of bittu and shruti. director maneesh sharma showed tremendous promise with the first half but somehow wrapped up pretty quickly in the second half.the song dum dum wasnt even half as good as avain avain. again its painful to see anushka wearing that dress. the end was an anticlimax. i hoped we could see them working together in love - they never do that in the film - they re either working as friends or as rivals but never as a couple in love. what i wouldnt give to see that. maybe maneesh sharma wanted to show how the girl helped shape an aimless loafer like bittoo. in the end again its what bittoo wants - she shouldnt marry chetan because bittoo loves her. but why didnt bittoo apologise in the first place.i wish we could see shruti hurting more than what was depicted. after the break up the characters become caricatures. they are not themselves anymore. anushka had a good scene with the mirror - that was the pivotal scene of the film and kudos to her for that. she has amazing acting talent - we may have in her a comedienne too. a rarity in bollywood.
ok i cant write anymore

HP 7.1

I watched the social network last week. HP 7.1 the day before yesterday. I will write in detail about the social network experience shortly but right now about HP 7.1. I really wasn’t much looking forward to it. It has been widely acknowledged that the HP movies have been disappointing. The trend which started since prisoner of Azkaban has been disrupted only in goblet of fire. I think movies 3, 5 and 6 have been terribly disappointing. I wish someone did to HP films what Jason reitman did for up in the air. Characters seem soulless. They all seem to be following a trajectory dictated probably by the producers or movie studios. There seemed to be magic in the script only to amuse the 6 year olds.
But 7.1 finally has a bit of soul. Not all. It was the very first film with a really soulful beginning. And I took it seriously. After looking at all three of main characters reminiscing in their homes, I became hopeful and it promised to be a good film. In the film David Yates used handheld camera for close ups, sepecially for Daniel radcliffe giving a really nice and intimate connection to that character. Or so it felt to me. Now most important reason why hp movies succeed or fail is how they are written. And the movie is faithful to the book. What set this fil apart from others is the photography. I am sure everyone was looking forward to how the three would be picturised in the wilderness. I was hoping for more green, dark, damp and mountainous woods. But that’s just me. The job done in open areas here is admirable too. It looks beautiful. The director succeeds in depicting the void among the friends. He has succeeded in inducing realism in this fantasy movie.
I was begging in my mind, please tell us the story of the three brothers. And they did. By Hermione no less. Her voice is amazing I really enjoyed the little animated sequence. The pace is a tad slow. Using a slow pace he has succeeded in making it realistinc but it just climbed a couple of notches for me. Insead they sacrificed detailed accounts of e Gregorovich and the elder wand. Most of the viewers were obviously baffled by such subplots. In the ministry of magic they did not show how ron solved the raining problem in the minister’s office. The movie could have been more dense and detailed and yet slow in the places where it needed to be. It deserved to e slow when they are in the woods. Now audience will always crave for more screen presence of many beloved characters. Director and writer cant always fulfill such wishes but they do have to work hard. We know its hard to squeeze in more time for ginny, snape, bellatrix, draco, lupin and his wife. But you have to! Just look at aaron sorkin’s beautiful work in the social network. All the characters are not only well developed but also deliver a coherent account of the story. Each adds a dimension which is unique. Each has a color and flavour. But we have ginny just asking to zip her dress and snogging. Off you go. Snape with his measured quivers of lips and dead straight eyes delivers two dialogues. Draco reluctant of the dark side is simple terrified to open his mouth. Lupin is in the “save Harry Potter” party hardly speaks apart from shoving want in people’s faces to detect imposters.
Writing j k rowling’s books into 2 hour movie is a tough task. But they signed up for it and they got paid too. So we the fans should be angry for such a shallow job.
One line I liked the most was by ron. The three are preparing to gulp polyjuice potion
“this is barking mad”
“absolutely mad”
Ron: “the whole world’s gone mad….”

A very observation which should resonate in muggle world too. Things hitherto considered crazy are happening daily and that has nothing to do with magic. A very wise quip made me happy.

Glengarry Glen Ross ... one of those films

who knows what salesmen really are? what kinda work they do and what they go through?I have immense respect for them. For the good ones i mean. i am in awe of them. but i cant be one. it was not like i gave up, i just made a choice, albeit one year in to the job.
long time ago i saw the trailers of the film rocket singh salesmen of the year, and i thought these guys have no idea what salesmen do. real salesmen would watch it and laugh. i guess the diro of tis movie is the same as that of chak de india and i have seen neither of the 2 movies. he should see glengarry glen ross. that film was made way back in 1992 and it was about real estate salesmen. life of a salesman aint fun. by now i shouldve learnt movies dont depict life. its so much more complex than that. but check out al pacino and jack lemmon in gleengarry and it ll blow your mind. interestingly both glengarry and rocket werent financial rockets. its a mystery, what works for films. if rocket singh didnt work because it didnt portray the life of a salesman accurately then glengarry didnt work because it was too honest in its portrayal and in turn it became too bleak (and for audiences like indian too much of a headache )to be enjoyed. pursuit of happyness on the other hand was not so much about salesmanship as it was about hope and perseverence. the two things are required for salesmanship but the portrayal of salesman's qualities itself was a small parrt of that film. but i believe somewhere the film (happyness) transcended real life and took us to places of joy and hope and achievement and thus it succeds.
glengarry is rare coz of many reasons - in a matter of less than 24 hours it takes you through lives of salesmen, small glimpses reveal just the fraction of what salesmen deal with day in and day out. its fascinating. the "moral hazards" and personally the fact that its all good ..... there is nothing right or wrong, nothing good or bad. just the targets that count. either you get them or you dont.
me on the other hand just dont wanna play the game.
all these things about morality are on a bigger scale, philosophical or something, but at little scale of moments between people, tricks and unnamed glances exchanged between wolves - thats the beauty of this film. all the gems are there especially al pacino and lemmon. watch it here

a paragraph from Alice in wonderland, full of loneliness (in my opinion)

`Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. `But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!


first pointed out by Bibliophile

saw beauty and the beast. and i thought how these film makers can have such a sense of uniiversality of stories. how come in the final sequence of the story, when gaston attacks the enchanted castle and tries to kill the beast, he has been given a bow and arrow. a bow n arrow!! how unusual i thought. and guess who's known to use bow n arrows among hindus??
and i thought, man, beauty and the beast is the story of ramayana turned upside down. and of course the gigantic way in which details of ramayana and its sub plots are another issue. but from a simplistic plot of a ove triangle the two stories are anologous.
am i the only one who thinks like this? coz im still pretty baffled by the ingenius gesture by disney of giving gaston the bow n arrow.

PS: the instances of subliminal imagery in Disney movies have made me paranoid, sort of. so every time u see disney, you wanna look for some chinks.

i try to breathe.... just breathe as the song ends

.....some day i'll be an old lady
with a big dress and an apron
a babushka and bare feet
i'll be out in my garden
on my hands and knees
and i'll be singing a song
that is really sad and sweet

mommy and daddy your baby is grown
and the smell of the cold, wet dirt reminds me home

from Chemistry written and sung by Kimya Dawson

who knows what salesmen really are? what kinda work they do and what they go through?I have immense respect for them. For the good ones i mean. i am in awe of them. but i cant be one. it was not like i gave up, i just made a choice, albeit one year in to the job.
long time ago i saw the trailers of the film rocket singh salesmen of the year, and i thought these guys have no idea what salesmen do. real salesmen would watch it and laugh. i guess the diro of tis movie is the same as that of chak de india and i have seen neither of the 2 movies. he should see glengarry glen ross. that film was made way back in 1992 and it was about real estate salesmen. life of a salesman aint fun. by now i shouldve learnt movies dont depict life. its so much more complex than that. but check out al pacino and jack lemmon in gleengarry and it ll blow your mind. interestingly both glengarry and rocket werent financial rockets. its a mystery, what works for films. if rocket singh didnt work because it didnt portray the life of a salesman accurately then glengarry didnt work because it was too honest in its portrayal and in turn it became too bleak (and for audiences like indian too much of a headache )to be enjoyed. pursuit of happyness on the other hand was not so much about salesmanship as it was about hope and perseverence. the two things are required for salesmanship but the portrayal of salesman's qualities itself was a small parrt of that film. but i believe somewhere the film (happyness) transcended real life and took us to places of joy and hope and achievement and thus it succeds.
glengarry is rare coz of many reasons - in a matter of less than 24 hours it takes you through lives of salesmen, small glimpses reveal just the fraction of what salesmen deal with day in and day out. its fascinating. the "moral hazards" and personally the fact that its all good ..... there is nothing right or wrong, nothing good or bad. just the targets that count. either you get them or you dont.
me on the other hand just dont wanna play the game.
all these things about morality are on a bigger scale, philosophical or something, but at little scale of moments between people, tricks and unnamed glances exchanged between wolves - thats the beauty of this film. all the gems are there especially al pacino and lemmon. watch it here

Detective Somerset: Gentlemen, gentlemen... All these books, a world of knowledge at your fingertips, and you play poker all night.

- Seven (1995)
made by David Fincher
written by Andrew Kevin Walker

never a break

my favourite part of rab ne bana di jodi is the one which does not feature any of the leading actors of the movie. nothing is happening in that part. maybe no one gets excited by it. since it was a yash raj super starrer everyone was excited for obvious reasons. but what stays with me to this day is the first minute of the movie. the first minute shows the land of punjab, rural landscape, yellow mornings, sandy eyed dirty linen clad rustics. i can go on and on. the north indian rural landscape is my sweetheart. i hated it first. but back then i was a child. i had a craving for cleaner, greener and better smelling places to live. but things come around and their meaning for us changes.
i stumbled on jai arjun's review and it brought back all the memories. he makes very good observations about the movie. very fine acting by shahrukh occasionally. the film has some rare gems by shahrukh. which makes me think highly of aditya chopra. but that thought last only a while. you feel, how is it that someone who has all the financial backing of a legendary movie studio, sharp insight into the indian psyche and good movie making skills fall prey to song and dance frivolity. you need to have at least one meaningless multi starrer belly shaking, cleavage plunging, pelvis jerking dance number. we do have some good things about our movie but that wont sell the movie. the song does.
what else sells in india? religion. i was bleeding from my ear every time i heard the word "rab" in every possible context from love to vegetables. interestingly the word rab is used in different religions for god. and i believe the tendency of people of relating most aspects of life with god has been exploited. lot have criticised the movie for plot loopholes but they did enjoy it. because its amusing - songs, jokes, gags, style. our movies are focused on maintaining the size of brain of indian masses, especially the youth, at the size of a pea. that is true for more than half of bollywood. but what is interesting is this movie is non elitist, gives victory to the geek and yet is hit coz of reasons same as any other masala flick.

of death and noodle salad

i have never seen anyone die. i did lose my grandfather in 2000. i realized how much i loved him and respected him long after we lost him. in small things his memory crops up.
in 2000 he had gone to dubai and didnt return. and back then i dont remember how i was. maybe i was arrogant. i didnt love people as passionately as i do now. and i have never experienced loss. when we lost him i didnt feel any stabbing pain or loss. i am 25 years old and i feel time is volatile. the most mysterious thing. things get closer and move farther away in a swift way, like they are dancing and its meaningless.
if i were to see a dead person i knew what would i feel? i have read about people who died of no reason. millions die for no reason. millions for a higher cause, a divine cause. but what will i feel if i were to see a dead person? all the life behind is gone. love sorrow grief thrills money sins.

"Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good."

We have stories of the past. boats, trees, cool breeze, sunshine and noodle salads. dark corners of our loved homes. faces of loved ones as they change, wrinkles and lumpy skin and flesh and hair ignored. surfaces, tears and edges of living things. colours shine and weights of objects. gravels and specks of dust. green grass on heavy rains. i remember. some judge them to never consider them. i have grown to love all of them. and on a dead man's face their life would all be lost.

Travel of the idea

John Nash had the idea first which he worked hard on. Imagine his times in classrooms racking his brains and talking to his colleagues. Then he wrote thesis and much more of which i am not precisely sure of. forgive me to be so flippant right now i am not so motivated.
so he dazzled the math world. struggled with his own mind, walked through the world as a mad man.
sylvia nasser wrote a book on his life. the book is a stupendous work and won the pulitzer prize.
Akiva Goldsman wrote a screenplay based on that book and won an oscar for it.
the creative geniuses ron howard and russell crowe portray the story on screen. the film is a huge success.
Since then economics professors use the movie as a tool to explain game theory.
back to where the idea began from - the classroom.

the turning point of the travel is akiva goldsman. he is the one who removed the complexity and brought it to the palate of the layman and made slots for the creativity of ron howard and russell crowe to fit in. in that sense i will say akiva goldsman's contribution is a penny more than that of sylvia nasser.
i am sure if you google and search into economics lectures you will find many professors giving lectures with the help of the scene in a beautiful mind. again i apologise for being so flippant, there are also some who say ron howard made fun of audiences' intelligence because he did not really get nash equilibrium and the portrayal in the movie is wrong.
but my point is - it is the movie makers who have more than monetary gain on their mind - who value creative achievement (and i believe this movie was made in that spirit) who contribute to society by portraying the obscure in a simple way.
even if nash equilibrium was wrongly portrayed in the film, then what is the right explanation? and you will find yourself flipping the pages of the economics text book, and believe me - the movie made you do that. and hence i salute these people - ron howard, akiva goldsman and russell crowe.
(I am not insane to be watching so many movies! that too again and again! - some good thought comes every now n then and i m sure there is more to this, even more, which maybe i will learn someday.)

on a similar note
I go to a shop in the neighborhood and buy butter, he charges me 20, i see mrp on it as 19.
"You cant charge more than the MRP, its against the law"
"it needs refrigeration so we charge 1 re extra"
"i can go to consumer court"
"i dont know my boss asked me to charge, so i do"

why is honesty the best policy?
next time i wont buy butter from him, the shop next door sell on mrp. whats more i ll also buy cola drink from the honest one.
there is something called the opportunity cost He lost on the sales he would have made in the future because he made the decision to earn an extra rupee today. we dont know the name opportunity cost, but a small shop owner in a village too can ask himself this question "will he come to me the next time? I am i losing out on future opportunities by making more profit today?"
given huge population in india losing out on one customer in mom n pop stores is not a big deal, he eventually makes same amount of money each month. but there is no such way of thinking which makes him realise the amount of money or faster rate of growth he would have made if he were honest.
one needs time to see economics in life, when its taught in mba classes its lost in the pile of assignments.
or even worse i just talk about it in an obscure blog post.

Wake up

I HAVE been living under a cave. I confess, i realized it so late in my life, but i guess its never TOO late.
I realized that policemen dont have any honour. its another job, like that of a autorickshaw driver. On the pre-paid auto-rickshaw stand on MG Road,Bnagalore, you will observe the racket of the rick drivers and road traffic policeman. both make sure they earn their money for the day.
I confess i dont have a voter's ID and neither do i give a damn about the country's elections.
I read The white tiger, and watched Delhi 6, Gulaal (the most excoriating one)to start looking at my environment and my past in a new light. and see the darkness.
links - arvind adiga's interview

Last movie I saw: Gulaal

i could write a lot about it, but then.....

Book i'm reading: The Terminal Man, Michael Crichton


i could write a lot about it, but then.....

Music on my mind:



colour on my mind: the rajeev ravi red (also seen in the above video)

The Sluts meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"Everything is true, only the opposite is true too; you must believe both equally or be damned." – Robert Louis Stevenson

“Works with obvious meanings cease to be art” – Edgar Allan Poe

Yet again. It was a coincidence that I read “Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” after the previous post.
And also I had forgotten to talk something about Dev D which had confused me. I was praising it too much and was very much in love with Chanda / Leni. What I didn’t understand back then was what role did sex play in the story? And peculiarly towards the end I thought how can dev fall out of love from paro? Or accept to himself that he never did. Because I believe when you think you are in love with someone or are infatuated with someone and ask yourself “is it real? Do I really love him/her”, you feel guilty. You cannot give it up. I may be wrong. But I said there are two separate things here, dev realizes –
1. I don’t love her
2. I m wasting my life / money

Both can’t come simultaneously.
I got my answerers, I remembered that there is a scene when both Dev & Chanda are in towels while C talks about her past and gets support from D. I interpret sex is there for the namesake, and the towels are its evidence yet there is no more allusion to it. Just one more; where after a disagreement C shuts the door on D saying “Goodnight!”(keeping him away for the night) In the span of less than 8 minutes I suppose AK has depicted lot of things in a subtle way which I think was too subtle. D makes an inquiry into C’s life(her past hurt and how she came to be a prostitute). D sympathizes with C. C falls in love with D. C realizes D is beyond repair. D holds the ring(meant for Paro) in a wonder. Now this is a turning point because this is where he asks the question to himself about which I talked earlier “Do I really love paro?” Yet it lasts very few seconds, hence I think it was too subtle. I guess a little projection would have helped. After that I am not sure what happened, D left, which is a dialog less part between D and C. Please go see.
This style of a narrative heavily dependent on dialog less performances and music has been challenging and sometimes its impossible to know what’s really going on. So it has taken more than few views of the movie for me to write this.
Ok, but that’s not my point. Since I realized sex has been relegated to background, then what’s in the foreground? And a subtle fabric, something I had never experienced, revealed. All along that I had been drooling over the smile of C, her “Tum boss ho” and “ye tum mere liye laye the na?” Oh! It had been sitting in front of my eyes.

C is a prostitute, sex is her job. She falls in love with D. she finally unloads burdens of past and showers love.
P a village girl is the childhood sweetheart of D. Guess what, she has carnal cravings. She is boisterous.
As it turns out, the perceived images of C and P have been reversed. Nothing is what it seems. We would like to see paro in the age old mask of a coochie-cooing cutie pie whose love flourishes in the hills of Switzerland when two flowers kiss each others’ petals. Or better still she will dance with a diya in the longing for love. No touchin no nothing.
No wonder Dev D is gaining popularity from ladies; in the theater there was a row full of women next to me, all working in same company maybe.
After P washes clothes and cleans room for D, few minutes later you see C caressing his hair and taking his shoes off. More an image of “Dev” of both women, I don’t think he ever was “Das” to either women (I change my stance from the previous post). I said that the clothes washing scene between P n D is terrific because she calls him, she comes to the dingy hotel, she cleans for him. She really loved him; those were the last gestures of love for him until she pushed him away and moved on. Dev doesn’t look keen as she calls him. And the twisted logic of this dialogue should make the audience doubt the authenticity of Dev’s love –
P: “ye kya haal bana rakha hai, nahaye kabse nahin?” (Since when have you not taken bath?)
D:“Bahut pyaar karta hun tumse” (I love you a lot)
But that’s how we sluts do stuff, not so twisted in our minds. “I made a wreck of myself in your love!...Or for that matter because of any other injustice that happened to me.”
Because what is visible is opposite to what he is saying. This contradiction of what seems and what really is has been brought out by AK and it seems its been million years since something like this tried to adorn 70 mm in India. This is the point at which I find Jekyll and Hyde and dev d similar.

All this I brought together after I read TSC of Dr.J & Mr. H. The whole conversation of identity and struggle is beautiful. Thanks to Dr. Jekyll’s narrative and mulling over it the above interpretation of Dev D was churned out.

What made me love the novella was something different than the split persona. . An eerie feeling was gripping me. There were scarcely any female characters, only two women that too in servant roles. Looking back the image of a hypocrite housemaid secretly celebrating the news that her master Hyde is police’s suspect freaks me out.
Middle aged men spending lonely evenings. Its even more eerie if they spend their life like this without complaints. And on the penultimate page, he talks about growing up holding his father’s finger. That clinched it. I was speechless. This can’t be just a matter of chance. And I firmly believe this is an allegory for homosexuality. By not mentioning particular evil deeds of Hyde, its wide open for interpretation.
Quite frankly it disappointed me a bit to find out nothing in there, in the evil of Hyde. The reason for a murder he committed isn’t even clear. That probably is such an arbitrary event to shape the story, which disappoints me.
But it being the first literary feat popularizing multiple personality (and me being the zillionth person to interpret this allegory) I guess its laudable for the beauty of the prose. Thanks to which I get Goosebumps thinking of a dank and gloomy world devoid of any women where two middle aged fellows go for a stroll down a decrepit street; just as much as it makes me delighted to see a movie like Dev D which is also multi layered and poetic and has gained success from the masses.

PS: I respect films like American Beauty and Taxi Driver more than Dev D, then how come I never got to talking about them? Maybe it’s overwhelming. Just to begin would have me embarking on a project or something. I also feel like a small truant, throwing labels at them, they are sacred. Maybe some day.

PPS: I asked AK on his blog a question and he replied! In the last bar from where Dev gets kicked out, the protagonist of Gulaal, AK’s next film, was sitting in front of Dev. AK confirmed my hunch. Scroll down for comment no. 140. :D My first communication with a celebrity! Yippie!

The Sluts

I never knew there was a word “shajar” in hindi. Anyway, your highness, the true nature of the crime of the accused Mr. Devender Singh Dillon, aka Dev. D. is illustrated with the sequence in which things happened. He started smoking before he had any love problems. And as it turned out it was not love, just a lot of hot air, which was this time coming out of smoking marijuana. He desperately wanted his head to float. Morals, responsibilities and tomorrow can go to hell.
You can find dev in your neighbourhood maybe. He doesn’t respect elders, lacks decision making skills, doesn’t accept his mistakes, makes fun of others, unpredictable with his tongue, sexed up, unsophisticated, generally immature, hairy packs and all that. What needs attention is that his process of wasting life by smoking and drinking had already started, love or the lack of it was just an excuse.
With all due respect to the unfairness happened to Anurag Kashyap, I wish he always remains disappointed. If Anurag becomes content I’m afraid he will lose his fire which has fueled every inebriated scene of Dev. D. The Indian film industry will grow and evolve thanks to movies made by such people. Our society will get to see its scum, not just from films made by British directors released in India by Hollywood studios.
Devdas here too plays both master and slave to both Chanda and Paro, living up to his name.
I would like to interpret the presence of Devdas visuals through the movie not as a tribute but something sinister and more interesting. This movie interpretation of the novel is in a contemporary setting of the society. Characters are younger – they are immature. It’s set in rural Punjab and goes on to Delhi. When real people face dilemmas similar to those faced by characters in the novel, they are terrified. They don’t have poems to describe their state. They give in to addictions, are shameless and gutless in front of elders. They are too terrified to handle emotions, responsibilities of relationships and can’t make the right decisions. Songs and visuals from the movie Devdas made by Sanjay Leela Bhansali sit on the sidelines as ornaments when real people struggle. When chanda has nowhere to go she prefers blows of air outside the window on her face rather than getting amused by “dola re dola”. Gyrations of Madhuri Dixit inspire CSWs and Shahrukh’s handsome suit welcomes drunkards to the lairs. Characters from that film are pretty, handsome, red and embroidered, loved by masses just like Anjalis and Poojas which don cleavages and melodramatic sequences on costly sets in filmistan studios.

Most beautiful story is that of chanda. Her character gave an opportunity to the writers to uncover the urban route of a teenager to prostitution. The scenario that a girl could be studying in Delhi College and be working as a sex worker was never known to me. How quickly her intro became nightmarish. Kalki Koechlin made a great debut. I liked the way she delivered “Tum boss ho.” to Dev. It was not a punch line of a prostitute but a genuine quip to a friend. The audience squirms when anurag talks about randis, touching yourself, drugs, sex, and much more. Some move out of the hall. They would rather live in a happy world. It’s human. But there is no reason why any board should keep us from unpretentious depiction of scum, as it happened in case of Paanch and Black Friday. Anurag had no release in seven years. I found chanda a very touching character, especially in the end my heart goes out to her. Acting by all three was very good. Just that there weren’t as many aspects to paro’s role as there were to the other two. There isn’t much depth to the mind of dev. Which is new to us bollywood audience because we would naturally want the central character to talk a lot of meaningful, powerful and inspiring stuff. So Abhay deol has done one hell of a job portraying a character which wastes his life under the pretence of lost love and pain but is actually shallow.

The film is beautifully littered with instances of dark humour, irony and ridicule.
1. Chanda is on a grey Hero Honda and Chunni, the pimp, on a Pink car.

2. After his father’s death the driver who is taking him back to Delhi is named Satpal – same name as his father’s. Satpal is with him, and Satpal just died. He is still on his path of self destruction. Goes on drinking, touring places, unaffected.

3. When paro is getting married dev drinks and falls down in front of celebrating crowd. The song emotional atyachar, is plainly directed at mocking him. When audience watches two elvis look-alikes blare this tacky song – “Ho gayi dil ke saath, tragedy!” its hard to sympathise with dev.

4. the sweetest irony - chanda asks dev about the ring “yeh tum mere liye laye the na?”
I wished the film was tauter in the second half. Sometimes I required patience with the drinking capers. And it did get once on my nerves when he carried the carton of liquor and I had no idea what might be on his mind. The three guys didn’t help with the story, apart from the dances which were superb. Especially when dev leaves chanda, instead of getting a clear reason we get close ups of long faces of three men singing “Areyaooo”; irritating.

Soundtrack HAD to be brilliant, there weren’t dialogues. Excellent acting coupled with music conveyed the situation and audience were free to make interpretations. The narrative has cycles of wordless musical depiction and some brilliant conversations. The music by Amit Trivedi is a feast. I think his is the best debut after A.R. Rehman’s and that is saying something. This is because of the range of compositions. There are 18 songs and each is very different genre. Bhangra, girly romantic number, rock, jazz, Hindustani classical, and for the first time in hindi cinema – the brass number – emotional atyachar.
Add to great music flamboyant cinematography, it makes you dizzy, romantic, disgusted, numb at the right times. At certain moments in the movie audience is like looking into their lives from a camera placed on their rooftops or walls in the room. I love movies that stage that level of life-like authenticity. And when the story is so much “in your face”, it stings.

The two women in his life loved him, he never loved anyone. This was brilliantly showed in the scene where paro come to his hotel room. You have to watch it to believe it. Maybe you’ll have to watch it once more to really get it. I know I had to.
Looking at the end which the movie directed dev to I believe it’s a movie about realization of a young man. How did Dev the slut come into being? He was a teenager calling his father “Sattu” so he sent him to London to live. He returned as you see him now. I don’t think there is anymore to it than that. Let’s just stop here and not point fingers.
What will we do with sluts like Chanda and Dev, your honour? Send them to jail? Beat the hell out of them, which will infuse sense in them? (“Mera agar tumhare jaisa beta hota to main uski maar maar ke akal thikane laga deti”), Chop them into pieces and bury them (“Kaaat ke zameen mein gaad dete hain”)?
Only they themselves can take control of their life. Nothing external works. Maybe youth not as rich, addicted and messed up as Dev who waste money on food films music books etc. will identify with him and learn a lesson.
This is one of the most well crafted and socially relevant films to have come in the recent times.

Dev D. rocks. Period.

Three

Three


Some lucky two know certainly what bonds them.
Two hearts won’t even need words between them.
But three is a treacherous crowd.


Ignored, third may sit in between or on the sides.
The two play games in his head.
His head, so cynical of the wordless that divides.


“Scheming for goodies…their gang conspires in whispers!
Can't stay here.Can't run.
They are two and I'm one.”


- Nikhilesh

I request you to read the poem above fully before even looking below.












The making of “Three”
A moment in Slumdog Millionaire inspired the poem, “Three”.


Jamal let latika in without salim’s approval. Brothers lost their mother in riots and now Latika forms bonds of friendship with Jamal.

The moment slipped me by because all I kept thinking of was Latika, making circles in rainy mud. And the moment that hardly lasted showed the birth of a way of thinking that guided Salim's actions. I kept looking at the snapshot I took from the movie. I kept looking and let feelings flood and wrote what came out. First I thought I would write a descriptive something, like I did earlier for Yeh Rishta.
I thought I could write a poem.

Three lines per stanza came all by themselves. I was more focused on the sentiment of alienation. When for the first time I consciously assessed what I had written I found four stanzas of three lines each, none rhymed. Only one stanza, the first one, had a slight possibility of two rhyming lines. I saw three lines in the stanzas and I had a eureka moment. I compressed emotions and changed words more than jillion times to fit constraints and rhymes. It’s the same what Carly Fiorina says in
this lecture which is funny because she’s a “businesswoman”. But I was very happy with the idea, almost giddy. And I realized how I can represent the same emotions in far less words, conform to self imposed constraints or rules. (I wonder if I can write Haiku) I felt the urge of keeping the rhyming two of the same length, which I still think is an unnecessary far stretch of the original idea but I still managed it. I was apprehensive if I was compromising on the delivery of the original message. I did lose it, but then I brought it back by changing words.
On a different one I think Salim is the best kept secret of the Slumdog hoopla. A jealous Muslim boy keeps the lovebirds apart. In the end he gives in, sacrifices his life so that they can meet. In current scenario this is a pertinent message.


Cotton Swabs


I wass returning from the movie theatre after watching slumdog(to listen to ARR with good sound) and i was sitting in autorickshaw at the signal. Now such situations attract me or i attract them - a street urchin asks me to buy cotton ear cleaning swabs. I shook my head to refuse. In the afternoon heat of Bangalore she put her forehead on my knees. Normally I would be repulsed but this time around I was blank. Would it make sense to you or help in any way if I said that she was in despair, and she was almost fearless in connecting with me by doing what she did? You would say "It’s just you, nike, you saw the movie and got senti." But I bought the pack for 10 bucks.