Black revisited

Ok, I saw Black a few weeks ago. I tried to write a review once and just when I thought I had nailed it, Firefox crashed and I lost all that I wrote :(
This sunday, I was reading Deccan Herald and happened by this article -
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb272005/ac2.asp
I must say that this article conveys a lot of my feelings about this movie.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black is brave, passionate and well-crafted- a film that should be applauded for raising the bar for Bollywood films.
Yes, definitely it looks like a brave movie. At a time when Bollywood is still rehashing the same old stories and creating movies that are better classified as soft porn, this movie is a refreshing to see. It is good that a mainstream director whose last two movies were re-written love stories making a movie that has a different agenda than romance on the movie. It talks about the problems faced by the handicapped. The loneliness felt by the blind is their own and we could never be able to understand what it does to them. Psychologists say that sensory deprivation is very harmful to our mental health. It is for this reason that "terror" suspects are being treated like this. Anyway, back to movie, we see the struggles of Bachchan's character trying to teach the uncouth girl some manners and the relationship between words and what those words represent. It is heartening to see Bachchan in fabulous form, as he plays the character of the eccentric, devoted teacher fabulously. He is very convincing as that character.

But it is highly derivative, laden with excesses and at the core, somewhat dishonest and manipulative.
I agree with the reviewer here too. I think that the director does not hold any bars for the amount of emotions displayed on screen. While I could accept the dramatic nature of Bachchan's character, at times I felt that he was doing too much. And I felt that there was no reason for everyone in the movie to act in the same manner as Bachchan. The melodrama factor was far too great in quantity and there were scenes that seemed to have been created for the sole reason of manipulating the audience's emotions. The sibling rivalry thing looked very out of place and the entire portion of Bachchan's deteioration is added in but frankly, is needless if the movie was focussed on the problems of the deaf and blind.
The director seems to be fascinated with the colonial times. The setting of the movie is very colonial with colonial buildings and anglicanized main characters. By setting his characters in a period and setting alien to the audience, he has effectively isolated them by creating an unbridgeable gap between the audience and his central character. Thus, he has destroyed a good reason for making the movie - that of showing how the deaf and blind live amongst us and the difficulties they face due to the insentiveness of the physically normal people. Plus, the movie seems to suggest that handicapped people need to be the heirs of the wealthy to have any chance of getting a good education and that they would be dependent on their parents for a looooong time. So, in a sense, it rules out the possibility that the poor blind and deaf being able to live a life.
I also had trouble with the way he tried to depict the difficulties they face. For example, he uses the repeated failures in the exams as an example of the problems suggesting that handicapped people are so hindered by their handicaps that they could never be able to pass a BA in normal time. She takes 12 years in the movie to complete the course! wonder why he does not explore the possibility of oral exams like the interview for the admission to the college because as far as I know exams are a means of testing knowledge and not whether you can write so many words in a minute.

The scene where Michelle asks her teacher for a kiss may have been tackled with restraint but is designed ultimately to evoke pity for Michelle. Why does she have to think that no one is going to treat her like a woman and beg for a kiss?
This was something I hadn't thought of when I saw the movie. It think the reviewer is right here too. It is very sad that the depiction of the deaf and blind should be so. The movie seems to suggest that Michelle would never get the love of a man, not just in words (through her sister) but also in the duration of the movie. So, inspite of the fact that I would not have liked a stupid romantic angle, it would perhaps have been better to have shown a love interest. The scene mentioned above has been included for extracting audience pity, something that a dignified representation of the deaf and blind would have strived to avoid.

Bansali's direction is very flaky. It is sometimes exceptional but very often slips into unforgivable mediocricity. Unforgivable because it seems that he has not put enough thought process into the scene. The editing is sad but perhaps that is the best the editor could do given the shots that Bansali seems to have taken without any forethought.
The scene with the ball bouncing into the light is a great metaphor signifying the acceptance of the teacher by the child. But that is an isolated instance where Bansali does not seek to explain it. Very often, he uses a symbol and blatantly explains it to the audience in words, suggesting that the audience is incapable of understanding his "superior" ideas. It gets irritating at the very start of the movie.
Then there is the scene when Michelle's mother is told that her daughter is deaf and blind. The spartan set and the shot with the different images highlighted behind looked something out of a stage show. It was an effective shot as it was a very dramatic moment. I thought that Bansali could have used the same technique as a motif for other dramatic moments in the movie. There is a reappearance of the spartan set in the scene where Bachchan's character isolates the girl in a room so as to introduce her to a new thing everyday. But the scene is not shot in the same manner and the opportunity is lost. The spartan set again reappears in the form of the hospital room where Bachchan is chained to the bed. So, it seems that Bansali has tried to do something with these scenes (perhaps, connect them together) but the purpose is lost on me as he does not use the same technique in all the scenes. One does not get the feeling of a stage in these other scenes, so the connection is lost!

I am left with the conclusion that Bansali is a sloppy director who does not concentrate on all aspects of filmmaking. He would use beautiful sets but would forget that by doing so he creates a world of fantasy cut off from reality and thus, would further distance the audience from his characters. He would use lovely cinematography but would not concentrate on structuring his scenes properly.

All in all, the film is not an honest, sensitive portrayal of the handicapped. It goes further and is irresponsible! At the core, it is a commercial film. Bansali saw the subject could be milked for audience sympathy and that is what he has tried to do with this movie.

Bansali, you have lost a viewer!

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Bangalore and its traffic

Man, what a city. Well, it is more of a collection of villages. This view is given credence by the fact that there are a lot of places in bangalore that end with the suffix halli which in kanndada means village. The raods in this city remind me of the village roads of my hometown and if you get off the main roads and penetrate any area just a little bit, you will see why they are hallis.
I have been looking for a house for rent and my main concern has been connectivity by bus to the place I work, M G road. There was this one house that was beside a 4 meter wide road. I asked the fellow how far the main road was from the house. He replies that I am standing on it!! I was astonished. And despite my sceptism, it was true! The city has really grown tremendously due to the IT boom. It is overflowing with immigrants like myself who have come here for a slice of the IT cake. The city planners have been napping for so long and they are still napping. In delhi, I have seen construction of flyovers within a year. Here, there is a flyover whose construction has been goin on for several years and everyday, there is a major traffic jam there. I suppose the reason for the delay in the construction is the incredible traffic that flows though the streets. But that does not explain the fact that there is evidently little done to alleviate teh traffic condition. Yes, they have made a lot of "one ways" but that have just added to the problems than solved them. These days the IT industry seems to be headed a little out of Bangalore with ITPL in Whitefield. It is well outside the city and I suppose it will take some time for that area to be habitated.
I have had several tensions in this city so far. One of my main concerns have been the buses in this place. Unlike Delhi, where every second person owns some vehicle, the citizens of this place is heavily dependent on the bus network. There are a variety of buses, some old, some new, some standard size, and some high-capacity big-assed ones too, but they all seem somehow too little. Everyday travelling by bus is a havoc to my nervous system. I have to catch a bus to Majestic (the place where all the buses congregate for a cup of tea) and then to MG road. Both routes are heavily rushed and I have to become a lizard on the bus. It would be so cramped that I would be suffocated and tired by the time I reach my office. Plus the buses do not stop at the proper places and even when they stop, they do not halt for more than 10 seconds during which there is a mad rush to get into the bus. It is the most dangerous means of transportation here... I am getting a Scooty!!!

Job tensions

Well,
Here I am in Bangalore! Here to begin a new phase in life, I suppose. I am a "working man" now, though I have not done any work in the past 10 days!!! All I have done is learn a lot of jargon. It is not so bad now but my first day was full of abbreviations and ideas that I had never been introduced to before. imagine that on your first day, you are given an ebook that lists these abbreviations - JMI, JAT, JTI, JSP, J2EE, JNDI, RMI-IIOP, JAXP, JCA, JAVA IDL, JavaMail, JAAS (Of course, most of these are based on fundamentals taught to me during my years at K, so it was not all that hard to pick it up). Whew! my mind was whirling that day. All of these make your life easy if you know how to use them but till then they are like monoliths standing in my path to be a software engineer. But then that is just one aspect of software engineering, isnt it? Making web applications and deploying them in a application server is not all that great! In fact, it is downright boring. :(

The job as such is ok, I suppose. It pays well for a relatively easy task. Everyone (read, my relatives) say that I have done something great and I should be happy. Particularly my sister's mother-in-law said that there are some things that are very hard in life - getting a good education, a good job, and a good wife. "Good" is a relative term and what is good for me may not be good for you. But she was using this term in a generic, society-defined way and I felt that there is some truth to that. After all, illiteracy and unemployment are some of the major problems in India. So, I suppose I am better off than quite a lot of people my age (though I dont feel like that; because "good" IS a relative term).
I do not know about doing something great but I definitely feel that there is more to life than being happy with a software job. I have done some things that have helped me reach this state. Getting that "IIT" chaap has helped many of us get high-paying jobs so easily. We were discussing this in IIT and we had felt that IIT had become a much-hyped polytechnic institute that churned out software engineers. People get into the IITs because it is very easy to get a job after getting a degree there and the purpose of higher education is lost when that happens. But thats a different discussion.
After a long time, I am having black coffee regularly mainly because it is available to me in the cafeteria! Nothing like unadulterated caffiene to perk up your concentration. My father warns me of its harmful effects but today I read an article about how caffiene could prevent the occurence of a very common varient of liver cancer! "Everything has its pluses and minuses."

Why I am excited about Black!

Let me start by saying that I loathe the Bollywood fare; particularly, the Shah Rukh Khan films. That man has made it his agenda to create crap in the name of entertainment. Sad, considering that he showed considerable promise in Circus. I had the misfortune of watching some of his recent movies – Kal Ho Na Ho and one other whose name I have forgotten.
Sanjay Leela Bansali has created three movies so far - Khamoshi, Hum Dil..., and Devdas. Of these, I thought Khamoshi had promise and was an indicator of better films ahead. But it bombed at the box-office, which seems to be the fate all good movies in India. I think the failure of the film made him re-think his movie-making style and then he produced one of the worst films created. It was bad because of its script, actors, the stereotypes and all that stupidity that Salman Khan is capable of producing. But it did have good songs and was beautifully cinematographed. Interestingly and predictably, this movie was a huge success. He continued the same style when he created Devdas, which had in its lead role the actor that I have come to despise. I avoided the film like the plague and even when everybody praised it and was nominated to be the Indian entry to the Oscars, I did not watch it. But I could not avoid catching glimpses of it on TV. I had to admit that it looked technically brilliant.
So why am I excited about Black??? Because of three things –
1. It has two genuine actors, Rani Mukerjeee and Amitabh Bachchan, who have the potential to give a good performance.
2. The trailers suggest exceptional cinematography. It also seems to be a bleak movie, devoid of the gaudy multi-color imagery of his last two movies and thus, closer to his first movie which I liked. Plus, the name suggests something dark.
3. Well, he has established himself, hasn't he? Now he does not need to make formula movies for box-office success. So, he might make a movie that does not jar my sensibilities.
4. It does not have any songs, which is an essential part of a Bollywood movie. So, this movie might just be zara hatke (different).

But it just might turn to be a modern version of a V.Shantaram movie (well, you could his movies once but you should be a real masochist if you see them again). I certainly do not want to endure that but it is a risk that I am willing to take. After all, I will definitely enjoy the technical aspects of the movie. If the script takes that kind of a turn, I will just stop paying attention to the story and start thinking about the camerawork.

I think I will see it in Bangalore. I keep my fingers crossed...

Violence and man

Every day we hear about murders, bombing, beating, etc in the news but it is still only a very small percentage of the amount of violence that occurs all over the world daily. Whether it is a street fight, or a terrorist bombing, or a Falluja, violence stares right into eyes out of newspapers and TV. Violence rocks our world there is hardly any society in the world which is completely devoid of violence.
Is violence inherent in us? Well, it looks like it, doesn't it? If you believe in the theory of evolution given by Darwin, then violence is the struggle for existence which is the basic requirement for the struggle for existence. Herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores and scavengers feed on dead plants and animals. The acting of eating is an unavoidable requirement and is therefore not considered violent. But the act of procuring the food can be violent. For example, a lion hunts down a deer and eats it. It commits a murder so as to feed itself. Human beings eat animals too but killing them in an act of violence. Thus, violence is unavoidable!
So why do we talk about non-violence and peace? Well, though we have to kill other living beings to survive, there is a lot of violence in this world that is unnecessary. Like the Iraq war which was lobbied for with blatant lies and deception for the sole purpose of procuring the "black gold" and to make certain American companies richer. Why do we have to kill animals for their fur or leather in the name of fashion or for their tusks of ivory? Why are we compelled to kill each other in the name of God and moral justice? Why do we create boundaries and protect them with men armed with guns? Why do we have to deplete the earth of its resources for our own insatiable comfort requirements?
Sometimes I think that we need violence to sustain ourselves and we would die if we did not get our daily quota of violence. We have been brought up not to be violent but isn't it true that children in general are very cruel? Don't they catch fireflies and keep them bottles, cut off the wings of butterflies because it catches their fancy, or roast ants alive using a magnifying lens? As kids, we would get into fights and enjoy professional wrestling. Yes, violence entertains us. Don't we watch action movies for the thrills of the action sequences? In fact there is a channel dedicated to action! An indication of the popularity of violence is the number of shows that are aired on cable tv that show graphic footage of violent behaviour. Cops, Extreme Exposure, police chases, The most shocking moments caught on tape... the list is endless.

http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003147.html
A nice discussion...

"Violence And Disruption In Society: A Study Of The Early Buddhist Texts"
http://www.quangduc.com/English/psychology/02violence.html
Paticca samuppada opposes the human tendency to generalize and encourages analysis on the basis of empirical data and moral values applied to these. [27] It criticizes standpoints which use inappropriate categories through insufficient observation and dogmatic statements about right and wrong which do not take empirically observed facts into account.
To understand Early Buddhism's analysis of violence, this conditionality is important. When the Buddha speaks about the causes and the remedies of violence, his approach is dependent on the conditions prevalent in a particular situation.

I really like this page which discusses Buddha's teachings. It makes me want to research more on Buddhism. I love the fact that he understood the discrepancies in society. For example, "In another sermon handed down to us, two men are pointed out while the Buddha is talking to a headman, Pataliya. One of them is garlanded and well-groomed; the other is tightly bound, about to lose his head. We are told that the same deed has been committed by both. The difference is that the former has killed the foe of the king and has been rewarded for it, whilst the latter was the king's enemy. [8] Hence it is stressed that the laws of the state are not impartial: they can mete out punishment or patronage according to the wish of the king and his cravings for revenge or security."
He was definitely light years ahead of his time.

http://www.sirc.org/publik/foxviolence5.html
The real "causal" question here then is not why so many young males act so violently. This is digestion; it just happens as long as the appropriate stimuli (the analogs of food) are fed in (females, other males, resources).
.....
My only final words of advice – not probably very helpful to this audience – are to treat violent episodes as natural events: not to seek their elimination, but to observe carefully the escalation sequences that seem natural to them, and learn to control these by effective de-escalation through the sequence, or the circuit breakers.

I think the conclusion of this article is important because it is something that is true. Violence is not abnormal behaviour but quite normal going by the nature of things. Buddha recommends cleansing the mind of violence while the writer of this article says that what is really necessary is knowledge of de-escalation techniques as it is natural for violent incidents to happen.

Now the article makes another important observation. It is young males who act violently and that it is natural for them, almost suggesting that it is genetic. More support for this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/325chimp1.shtml
... Demonic Male Hypothesis, and it suggests that human and chimpanzee males share a capacity for violence because our common ancestor also had a genetic predisposition for violence.

Interestingly, there is a certain sect of feminists who believe that the world would be a peaceful place if it was handed over to them. Perhaps, it is true...

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Why I hate dogs...

Dogs are universally acclaimed to be 'man's best friend'. They are loyal and friendly, and are always there for your company. You provide them food, shelter and love, and they love you back, isn’t that true? They are great with children and are their best playmates. They are great watchdogs and keep your house safe from intruders. They can be trained to do a lot of tricks, much to the amusements of their owners and their friends. Overall, they can be a great pet and almost every 'ideal' family needs to have one! Who would not love these creatures?

I hate them. It is not so much as a hated towards an animal but it is a hatred of what they represent. They represent something that was abolished by Abraham Lincoln. Slavery is not a very difficult concept. You "rope in" some people, give them the barest of necessities, exploit them by making them work harder than they physically can, under-pay them, and kill them off when they protest because those ungrateful bastards deserve to be punished for their insolence. Isn’t that simple? The "white man's burden" was a very "noble" concept indeed. In Victorian novels, the ideal slave was very grateful to be in the service of the white man and yearned to be civilized by learning the language, manners, customs, clothing, religion, etc of the white man. Perhaps, one of the best example of this picture is in the book (and also in the movie) Gone with the Wind. The book and the movie have been criticized for this aspect for a long time.

For me, the concept of the dog as a pet has the same implications. In fact, a pet dog has an 'owner' to whom it is supposed to be loyal to. It is a 'dependant' much like the slave. Well, some might argue they are not human and therefore they cannot be equated to slave system of the 18th century (in the US, the discrimination did not end till the late 1960s). But then that was the beauty of the slave system, the black people were not regarded and hence, not treated as equals but as something sub-human and who could never be equals. A dog's relationship with a human being is never on the same level, no matter how well that person treats the dog as there is an inherent misbalance in the relationship between them as one of them is the "master" and the other is the "slave". They might be your "best friend" but they are unlike any other human best friends you might have had. It is quite interesting if you look at how dogs are treated. They are put on a leash when taken for a walk or to be tied to a post. They have extremely small dog houses/beds that are barely sufficient and sometimes all they get is a doormat to sleep on. They are castrated to prevent them from becoming aggressive due to high testosterone levels (I wonder what the dog's opinion on this would be).

In spite of all this hatred towards dogs in general, one of my pleasant childhood memories was that of a street dog named 'Johnny' by the neighbourhood. He was a free-spirited guy who roamed the streets of the place where I lived. He would be the first to notice a stranger in the area and would create a ruckus on spotting such a person. A watchdog who was loved by all. It was tragic the way he died though. He was hunted by a group of gypsies one day and it pained all who heard that our dear Johnny was dead. Of course, these are memories of a very young me and are highly likely to be exaggerated.

Do I hate all animals that are man's slaves? No. That is because most enslaved animals are represented as indifferent, mute labourers who do not show any loyalty to their owners. It is only the dog that is extremely glad to have an owner. It seems to conform to the perspective that man is the master of the world and all other beings should be grateful if man is nice to them! I think it is the Bible that says that God created man as the head of the planet. Noah, the guy who saved all those animals in his ark as ordained by God, is looked at as a great man.

The cat is a pet I like as it is its won master. A cat might have several names given to it by different people who live under the delusion that they "own" it. It is quite capable of foraging for itself - how many times have our moms cursed the stray cat that stealthily entered the kitchen to get a drink. And it is one animal that is a living proof of the fact that you do not have to big and strong to survive in this world nor do you have to be someone's slave just because you are weak. An apt example of the cat as a pet is the cartoon strip Garfield.

So, what are you? A cat lover or a dog lover?

Another one of the unanswerables

In our ancestral home, they have servants who do most of the work. Cooking, cleaning, washing and all other chores are done by a few pairs of hands. Most of them have their own homes and come thrice a week to earn their pay. But there is one who stays in the house permanently. She does most of the daily work including cooking the food for the residents. She was hired a few years when my grandfather became very sick and had great difficulty moving around the house. She comes from a small village near the town where my grandfather used to live and where he is buried now. She works hard and does most of her job quite well albeit a bit slowly. She is taciturn and rarely displays any emotion. Seems like a normal maid servant, doesn’t she? Well, not actually. She is mentally retarded. Now that doesn’t mean that she is crazy or anything. She behaves perfectly normally but has the mental capacity of a child and a well-mannered child at that too.
I always wondered about her life. What must it be like? She does not get paid, at least not in kind. For her services, she is given a home to live in and food to eat. She is not over-worked and she is treated humanely. She has a perfectly comfortable life. But is she really treated or perceived to be a human? I thought that she was. But I was wrong. The last time I visited the place, I happened to eavesdrop on a conversation about her between two of my elderly relatives. I heard them repeatedly refer to her as 'it'. That made me realize that she was may not be mistreated but she was being looked as something sub-human, like a pet dog at best. She does not deserve to be treated like that. She might be ok now but what about tomorrow when she gets older and unable to handle the job that she is given. Would they treat her like an old dog that is past its prime? People generally dismiss servants from their jobs once they have outlived their utility. People can be very cruel when they deal with their servants. Most servants are over-worked and under-paid. Most of them are abused and quite a few are beaten, especially children. It pains me to see old people working in dabaas or begging for their living. But what would she do if she is forced onto the streets in her old age?
She does not have any savings nor has she ever handled any money. If someone gives her money, she is sure to lose them to some fraud. There would be no one to look after her as she comes from a poor family and nobody would want her to be a dependent. Can there be anything done for her? When the time comes, I hope I would be able to help her.
Sometimes I think that there is a different aspect to her. Perhaps she is very intelligent and observant but prefers to keep everything to herself. Maybe she lives in a whole different world and does not really need anybody's help to live in this world as she is smart enough to do anything she wants. But who am I kidding...

See no evil?

Ah! One of the great dictums of the Mahatma! Blind yourselves to the evil so as not to be seduced by it, right? Perhaps, it can also be taken to mean that one should turn away from the ugliness and be happy with only the beauty of the world.
I have always disagreed with this dictum more than anything. One should not blind oneself to the wrongs done in the society but one should recognize them and help the human community and civilization by actively participating in the attempts to stamp it out. Yes, one could very well be seduced by it or be depressed about it but one must not let the fear of that to stop him/her from facing it. Many may argue that not all people are strong enough to face it and perhaps, that is why Gandhiji gave this famous dictum. Some may argue that the vast majority of people have their own problems to be depressed about, let alone worry about the evils in the external world. But none can tell you why everyone should turn away from it..
I have been vehemently against the Iraq war, which has turned into a personal anti-US war for me. Since before the beginning of the invasion, I have been writing against it. The blatant lies, the media-corporate-Bush nexus, the "smart" bombs that seem to smart enough to kill only "terrorists" and leave the civilians alone (even when it exploded in the middle of Baghdad), the self-righteous assertions of the pro-war, pro-"freedom" goons, etc, etc had disturbed me for quite a while. Every story I read seemed to be a reaffirmation of the US' guilt and every story made me slip into depressions of the futility of life. To top it all, the American elections was a sham. The Americans had no real alternative. Kerry was probably worse than Bush but if he had won, I could at least have calmed myself with the thought that they had rejected Bush's lies. But it was not to be, and their election process sickened me. So much so that, I unconsciously turned myself off to the Iraq stories. Sometime in the past, I do not know when, I stopped visiting commondreams.org. I had turned away from the evil! I was guilty of breaking my own rules...
It is times like these that some stories or articles wake up the real you and shows you the brutal reality of what you have done. I just happened to visit commondreams.org yesterday and I read a couple of articles just because I was bored and had nothing to read. But they opened my eyes to the darkness I had surrounded myself in by closing them. Just have a look at these articles -

Why the Children in Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0128-24.htm)

We've snuffed out innocent lives in numbers that insurgents and terrorists could only dream of. But we avert our eyes. We bury our heads in the sand and turn a blind eye to our moral cowardice, thus pulling off the amazing feat of being ostriches and chickens all at once. We owe this marvel of ornithology to the inexorable fragility of human illusions. To quote James Carroll, "we avert our eyes because the war is a moral abyss. If we dare to look, as Nietzsche said, the abyss stares back." George Bush, the philosopher, has updated Berkeley's riddle: Do Iraqi children scream when the bombs fall if there is no one in the White House to hear them?


What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0128-35.htm)

Would anybody in the United States be seeing this picture today? Would the United States ever see it, in fact? And if it is printed in the United States, will it also cross the country like wildfire and would people hear the unwritten story under it?

Reading the second story, I realized that I had not seen the picture. So, I was not any different from most Americans in that respect. That came as a rude shock to me and I thought about how easy it is to turn away from the "abyss" and the quote from Nietzsche seemed so appropriate. I realized that it requires real courage to stare into the abyss. I have always agreed with Gandhiji when he said that it takes extraordinary courage to be non-violent when under fire. Many of us think that our struggle was a non-violent one but the truth is that every movement started out in the non-violent mode but turned violent when the British (or Indians under the British garb) soldiers turned their lathis on the protestors. People talk of the Jalianwallah Bagh incident but people rarely talk about the violence that rocked Punjab in that period which had made the police declare curfew in the entire province. Yes, it takes real courage to face the truth. Then why did Gandhiji ask us to "see no evil"?

In Iraq, elections are being held today. The US says that it would bring democracy to that part of the world. I wonder when the US would bring democracy to itself, let alone to a country it has colonized. I wonder when US would start killing civilians in a distant country and calling it "infinite freedom". I wonder when it will realize that they have killed 20 times (or more) the number of people killed in the WTC attack in Iraq.
I think it is the duty of all the inhabitants of this earth to bring peace to earth. For that to happen, we need to face the truth and act accordingly.

Apurva Mathad

Is our society paranoid?

Recently, I had the unwelcome experience of waiting seven hours for a train in the Kanpur station. Initially the announcement said that the train was delayed by 4 hours. It did not make sense to me to go back to IIT and then come back as the one way journey from the station to IIT would have taken me about an hour. Plus, it was such a nice winter morning that I did not feel like leaving the station. It was during this wait that I noticed something that I had never ever given much attention to. It shocked me a little but it set me thinking about its implication.
Sitting on a bench on the platform, I was reading a novel and I occasionally gave attention to the announcements broadcast on the loudspeaker. It was usually that this train is on such platform and that train has been delayed by so many hours. But there was also this announcement that I am sure all of us have heard on the station. It warned the passengers to be wary of unclaimed bags, suitcases, toys, etc as it could be a 'bomb'. The first time I heard it, I did not react much. But then I noticed that this announcement was broadcast with an alarming regularity. You would hear it every fifteen minutes!
I tried to recall the last time I had heard that a 'lawaris' baggage had exploded or had been recognized to be a bomb. Remarkably, I could not think of any case at all. Is the reason for this lack of such bombings the continuous broadcast of warnings hurled at people in various forms (loudspeakers, billboards, TV ads, etc) or is there really no necessity for such a measure? Logically, this method of bombing would be very effective in our railway stations as there are usually no security checks nor is any effective policing done on the platform. I had always wondered at how easy it would be for a terrorist to attack at the New Delhi railway station. Any person could walk into the station and generally start shooting people around. The fact that these incidents did not happen was something that I had attributed to the effective Intelligence our protectors have. But that day on the station I wondered whether I was just being paranoid when thinking about such possibilities as a terrorist attack on the station...
Terrorism is a very real threat and I cannot call the terrorist attacks that have happened in the past - the attack on the parliament, the Red Fort incident - as state conspiracy to keep the populace paranoid and thankful for effective policing.
But I still wonder at the number of terrorist activities. Why aren't there more of these or at least more attempts (not that I am wishing for one). Comparatively, crime, in general, has always been at a very high level in India. Crime is NOT under control. But terrorism (outside of Kashmir) is! Perhaps, the objective of the terrorists is different. Perhaps, they want to wage their war in J&K and not anywhere else as that is the land that they want to 'liberate'.
So, is our society unnecessarily paranoid? The reason I ask this question is because of the fact that there is reason to believe that the American society is unnecessarily paranoid. Read Naom Chomsky's writing if you do not believe me ('Understanding power' is a good book to start off with). Are we being manipulated by the government into a false sense of insecurity that is being used by political parties to win elections? These doubts are not unfounded as the BJP does use the Muslim-paranoia and Pakistan-paranoia in their campaigns and manifestos.
I suppose there is a difference between a general sense of paranoia and a fear of a specific group of individuals/community/country. A general sense of paranoia is warranted by the high crime rate in the country. But a paranoia that a section of the society identified by a common religion will do harm is senseless.
A fear of terrorism is not unwarranted but are we overly afraid? If we are, is that a good thing as in it acts as a deterrent to terrorism or is it bad as it is needless and just doesn't allow us to be feel safe and thus, happy?

Sex, gender, and platonic friendship

Friendship is a cherished relationship. It is one that is not too close and not too distant, one which gives enough private space for the participants. There is affection and there is a yearning to be in the company of the other in a purely non-sexual way. One can expect a good friend to be always there for you when 'in need'. There is mutual understanding of each other's feelings and they instinctively know when something is amiss. The memories of a time well spent with a friend are valuable to us. Friendship is indeed a fun relationship that can last a lifetime.
We choose our friends very carefully. Even if we are friendly with many individuals, we are friends with only a few. There is a very careful distinction between friends and acquaintances. An acquaintance is someone with whom you have a basic relationship and is 'less intimate than friendship', like you may be acquainted with your liftman but you might not even know his name. The extrovert has several acquaintances but he is friends with only a few. The introvert cuts down on his degree and number of his acquaintance with his acquaintances but still has about the same number of friends as the extrovert. (note that this is just my theory and is not substantiated by any numbers). It is just a general observation and need not be true. But then thinking about it, I feel that there is some truth to this statement. You can only get close to people whom you trust. Now, trust is something we humans are very possessive about. We do not in general trust anyone. We rarely trust anyone completely and we are quick to suspicion. But of course, there are those who do trust more easily than others but in general, we are taught to be sparing with our trust. After all, 'it is a jungle out there'. In a completely random world where there is no such paranoia instilled in the minds of people, we would expect the distribution of 'trustfulness' (the ease with which a person would trust another) to be a normal one with all levels of 'trustfulness' existing in society in equal numbers. But in this 'dog-eat-dog-world', the distribution would be lop-sided with the more people of low trustfulness than high trustfulness. This is why I say that people tend to be friends with only a few.
We form friendships mostly on the basis of commonalities. There is usually some interest/idea/situation that you share with your friends. Even when opposites attract, the quality that they are differ in is something of importance for both. It makes for a good debate for the two. Thus, friends, and good friends particularly, do have something to talk about, something that they can posit their views on and communicate with each other. People who indulge in small talk might become good friends if they discover that there is something they value in each other. It is a mutual thing as they say, 'taali ek haath se nahin bajti' (you need two hands to clap).
Friendship is usually considered asexual, i.e., there is no sex involved at all. Of course, this raises the question whether there could be friendships formed on the common interest related to sex. I suppose. So, I am accepting the possibility of non-platonic friendship! That might be somewhat unheard of (at least for me)! Wait, that can't be right. I must be doing some mistake here.
Now, I thought platonic friendship is one where there is no sex involved at all. The word platonic means - 'free from physical desire', so it is lust rather than sex that defines what is platonic or not. More specifically, it is lust for the other which would be taboo in a platonic relationship. So, it is possible for two friends to have strong emotions for each other except lust for the physical pleasures of love. Hmm, that is very enlightening, isn't it? But in the real world, that is never possible as there is always the danger of misunderstanding the affection by one of the friends themselves or the society around them. For most people, their image in society is important and they will always try to keep their 'good name' intact. Plus, affection can so easily be misconstrued to be love. It is so difficult to tread the fine line which you must be careful not to overstep to avoid any confusion in the minds of anybody, most of all, your friend. So, it is rare to find two extremely close friends who would have been lovers if not for the absence of lust. Of course, one can argue that really close friends would 'know' there is no such emotion in the mind of the other and they just might choose to not show it publicly as other people tend to jump to conclusions too easily on the basis of the most insignificant gesture or word. I suppose there is that possibility.
I thought platonic to mean something that does not involve sex at all. I guess it comes from the notion of platonic conversations, where the aim is to further knowledge through discussions and debates. Take for example Plato's most famous book "The Republic". The book constructs a model society - call it a utopia - through discussions between Socrates and some youngsters. The dialogues in the book serve as models for what is known as platonic dialogue. Unlike Freud, for whom sex makes the world go round, platonic dialogue seemed to me to be free from sex completely. But then there could be a platonic dialogue about sex itself. I suppose I confused lust with sex in my interpretation of platonic dialogue.

Right then, now that we have the concepts of platonic friendship clear, let us move to the topic that I had in mind when I started this post. How is friendship affected by gender? Are same-sex friendships likely to be closer and better than cross-sex (not cross-gender) relationships?
Before we move any further, let me just clarify the terms I am using. There is a difference between gender and sexes - Gender referring to the terms, masculine and feminine, and sex referring to the biological differences that distinguish male and female.
No matter how much we talk of gender-equality, there exist certain unbridgeable differences between the sexes. Now, are these differences too wide for friendship to bridge? Certainly not! But the differences do serve as a barrier, albeit a scalable one, for two people of opposite sex to be friends. These differences are always there, in the background, even if the two friends become very close. For example, women generally tend to have a far bigger (volume-wise) personal space than men. This personal space is with respect to the opposite sex. If you are guy, you generally tend to keep a 'safe' distance, a distance that is greater than what you would use with a male friend, from your female friend. Because this is how Indian women have been brought up. They have been told to keep their distance from men. I do not blame them and it is easy to understand why by looking at the amount of crime that is committed against women. It is said that 90% of the rapes are committed by people known to the victim. So, it is actually safer for the women if they kept their distance from men. That reminds me of this story I read in a course by Dr. Mathur, Sultana's Dream which gives a compelling argument for why men should be kept under lock and key. The logic is that we keep the potential dangerous animals under supervision because they may harm people, so since it is men who could potentially harm women they are the ones who should not be allowed to roam the streets. Compelling argument, isn't it?
I still do not deny the possibility of two friends being very close without the sexual differences bothering them. But Freud would deny that possibility. He would say that there could be no platonic relationship between a man and a woman as 'sex' will always be on the agenda for the man in all their interactions. Perhaps, this is the reason why there are so many rapes by known persons. But on the behalf of myself, I say NO. I think that is a very shallow perspective of relationships and it is reinforced by modern depiction, in TV and movies, of men as people who always think with their 'dicks'. I think that Freud is wrong and psychology is not a science by any stretch of the imagination.
How does gender affect relationship? We do not deny that two masculine or feminine persons can be friends. We also will not deny the possibility of cross-gender friendship (with the exception of Freud and all his followers, I suppose). But my question is whether there is a possibility of a sexual relationship between two people of the same gender. This is not the same as asking whether gays/lesbians exist because even there the relationship usually depicted/reported is between a masculine person and a feminine person. For example, recently there was this news article about a lesbian couple who were being forced to separate by their families and the article included a picture of the couple and just by looking at their clothes I could tell that one of them had donned the garb of 'the man of the house' and the other was clearly the 'housewife'. This was further confirmed by their statements in the article. I do not recall the statements but I clearly recall that the gender difference clearly showed up. Are gay/lesbian relationships like this? I personally do not know any gay couples, so I cannot tell. And I will not believe the depiction of the standard gay couples in media! So, the question is left hanging in the air! :(

Ideally, we would like to have a society where we could mingle with people of all sexes/genders without any discrimination. But in the real world, it is not always possible. It is imperative to never forget these rules in your interactions with the world. Otherwise, you might end up in situations where you will not want to be. For example, if you accidentally invade the personal space of your friend and then there is this embarrassed moment, what do you do? Do you clam up and hope the moment passes or do you apologize and risk potentially embarrassing your friend further? Or perhaps you just hope that your friend understands you better and will let it pass... :((

Job hunt!!!

man, it is a jungle out here!
Finding a job is proving to be a health hazard. The anxiety created by the numerous options and HR delays is worse than anything I have endured. Can you believe that it takes over two weeks to process an application and reply to it!!! Plus the HR process slows down at this time of the year as the US stops working for a week starting today!
Anyway, I had a telephonic interview with trilogy last week (from whom I have not heard of yet :(( ) and have a written test + interview with Qwest and TS2 in the first week of jan. So, I am jobless till then (atleast I think so).
I met some of my friends this week in Bangalore. I went to a pub. It is fricking amazing! Great music, nice environment. I fell in love with the place. I think that it is going to be a hangout of mine if I get a job in bangalore!
The place also has a good number of book stores. I bought '75 short masterpieces' in The Landmark (in The Forum). So, I think I will spend most of my money on pubs and books if I come here :)
My only concern is the close proximity of too many relatives :(
btw, those wondering about my CAT result will have to wait some more as my admit card is in delhi and I cannot know if I got through till monday. I hope to get a call from somewhere but I would give it a slim chance as my score was just a little above the 'border'.

The last few weeks I have not doing any writing. I hope to resume as soon I am united with my beloved computer :)

Apurva

New Project

Started writing something. Hope to finish the first chapter by this weekend. Let us see if it turns out the way it looks in my mind.
So far, I have written about 300 words and I feel constipated. :(
I keep my fingers crossed :$

Last few days

I dont know the exact date I will leave IITK but I do know that the number is in single digits. Isnt it amazing that we spent four years here and time just flew by! The first time I came here, I thought to myself, "four years, thats a long time". Little did I know that time is such a dangerously slippery eel that one could never expect to hold on to.
My exam was on the first day of the end semester exam schedule. So, I had the privelge of having to finish my exams before anybody else! Now, I see people running around, mugging and I reflect on the days when I would miss all this... The last minute cramming that IIT Kanpur has inculcated in us is a practise we never did at school. for school exams, the last minute was earmarked for the fifth revision (or something like that). here, revision is something only a weirdo like Rahul Kumar would do (no offence to Rahul).

Goodbye, IIT Kanpur

That funny feeling in your stomach...

Spending the last few days in IIT Kanpur (again) is not such a great way to end the year. You reminisce all the good times and all the wonderful times you had in this place. Yes, you might wonder about the bad times too but you really do not want to think about it.

Yesterday, the msci guys left the wing on a trip to Delhi to write the dreaded AGRE. So, I was not woken up by Daddu's clandestine visit to my room to check mail. This semester wasnt so bad as I had Adi and George for company but I definitely missed all my ex-wingmates who are scatterred all over the globe...

Yes, this is the end of an era where friendship was the most cherished relation of all. Out of this place and into the cruel world of deadlines and arbit coding. Yes, it will be something that I may come to enjoy but I will definitely miss being a student in IIT Kanpur. Some might wonder why. To them, I cant really explain why... Where will I ever find a bunch of such fine guys and gals ever?

I hear the words of "Final Countdown" being played on some music system in Hall 1. It is as if my thoughts have gained some material form and have influenced some other guy out there. I am getting poetic and that is an indication of how I feel right now. There is a thin line between being sentimental and being maudlin, or is it a thick line? I dont know but I do know this, the guy lost the train of my thoughts and is now playing "brasil...."

We all want a place of our room, dont we? We all think that at some point in our life, we will find it and we will live thereon in the comfort of that cubicle. I have been optimistic all my life (and my preceptive friend recognises that) and for the past few years that optimistic frame of mind has mellowed a little and a bit of cynicism has crept in. So I believe that it wont be so bad out there and I go in with no hope.

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Bush wins :((

Just read the report on Bush winning the election narrowly. As it is I have increasingly given thought to whether Democracy is the best way of governance and this result only makes me tilt towards the viewpoint that democracy can work only with a responsible media and once the media is bought by one party, it can be really difficult unbalanced fight.
The recent General elections in India made me think that maybe democracy does work. But that is because that I interpreted the result as a vote against the ruling BJP party and NOT as a vote for Congress. I personally think that Congress has been as communal as the BJP but at a more subtle level. The congress has had its chance for 50 years and I think there has to be a shift in the approach to governance. Sadly, there is no responsible and popular leftist party in India. It is time for the leftists to organise themselves and fight for democracy.
Alrighty then, let me get back to the US elections. How dumb do you think the US electoral procedure is? If you win more votes than your opponent in a particular state, you win all the seats of that state! I learnt that today and frankly, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. George (my friend, not the US prez) agrees and he feels that he could not have conceived of a more stupider thing than that, even if he tried his best to. I wonder who thought it up? If that is the case, then there is no chance for an independent to affect the presedential elections at all! I wondered at the independent candidates (Thats right, there are independent candidates(!) and there were four this time) who stood for this elections and they didnt win a single seat because of this ridiculous electoral system. That means that they have no say at all. I personally feel that some of these independent candidates were better than both Bush and Kerry.

Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an activist who targets large American corporations on environmental and consumer rights issues. He is an independent candidate in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He also received the Reform Party endorsement. His running mate is Peter Camejo.
He was also the U.S. presidential candidate of the Green Party in 1996 and 2000.
In 1965 he released Unsafe at Any Speed, a study claiming many American automobiles, especially those of General Motors, to be structurally flawed. GM tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to investigate his past and attempt to trap him in a compromising situation, but the effort failed. Upon learning of this harassment, Nader then successfully sued the company for invasion of privacy, forced it to publicly apologize, and used the winnings to expand his consumer rights efforts. Hundreds of young activists, inspired by Nader's work, came to DC to help him with other projects. They came to be known as "Nader's Raiders" and, led by Nader, they investigated corruption throughout government, publishing dozens of books with their results.

Michael J. Badnarik (born August 1, 1954) is an American software engineer and political figure. He is the Libertarian Party (a third party) nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections.

David Keith Cobb (born 1963, San Leon, Texas) is an American lawyer and activist and the current presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS).

Maryland lawyer Michael Anthony Peroutka (born 1952) is the founder of The Institute on the Constitution and once held a position in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. He is the Constitution Party candidate for president of the United States in 2004. He is running on a platform of "God, Family, Republic", emphasizing the Bible, the traditional family, and the need for a more constitutional government in his campaign. His running mate is Baptist minister Chuck Baldwin.


Even though, I would never support three of these four for some of their views, I would still have preferred them over Bush or Kerry as they would not be corporate sellouts. The genius of the presedential elections is that the vote would be effectively split between Kerry and Bush, and the independents would not matter at all (well, they might affect the result due to Vote splitting but not in the long run as they will never have any say in the governance). Both the Democratic and republican parties have been known to be two parties with similar agenda and similar track record. They have always been corporate stooges who have helped their capitalistic friends more than the layman, and they have both been known to place Pax Americana ahead of the world. In many ways, it is true that US has really a one-party system.

I dont know how biased the US media was but all indications from past reports and statements from highly respected people there is that there definitely was a tilt towards Bush. Also, it would explain why there is practically no support for Bush anywhere in the world except in the US. If the elections were to be a worldwide event, Bush would not even be close! So why are the americans supporting Bush? The answer may lie with the media's role in influencing the voters. Consider this, a few days before the elections, two news reports are released.
1. A tape with Osama "looking healthy" threatening to make 9/11 look like a firecracker. Apparently, the tape was sent a long time ago but was released now as they were first verifying the "authencity" of the tape.
2. A sattelite picture of a "weapons" site in Iraq is released with two trucks parked outside it. The picture was allegedly taken two days before the invasion. Though the report said that there was no evidence that any weapons were moved, there was a clear indiaction that it could have been simply by the mention of the possibility! This is a mischevious report as it makes the viewers speculate about the possibility that the weapons were moved, not just at this site but at other places too. And it takes no genius to guess whom this report favours!
The Bush government, along with the Blair administration, have been shown to have misled and in many cases blatantly lied to justify the invasion of Iraq. WODs figure prominently in these lies. Bush has based his campaign on this fear of the "dirty bomb" and the Al-Qaeda. Isnt it very interesting that these two news reports, which would strenthen this fear, are released just before the elections...

I am tired of Bush and US. I have come to regard that country as a country of dumbfucks, who have benifited immensenly by the WWs, which brought the cream of the world to that country who contributed in making it the richest country in the world. How could any one want to live in a place where the media and the people dont make the sensible and logical choice and where the electoral processes are fishy is beyond me. I certainly do not want to go there. Shoot me if I do...

I am so out of shape!!!

I have been playing tennis with Adi, Tyash and Harsh these few days. I realised that I am in a real bad shape physically! Of course, an outside observer would say that I have been in bad shape for a long time. Yes, I have but I do not think that I have been in such poor condition ever. I mean, I was huffing and puffing within a few minutes! I used to be fit even though I was on the plumper side. But now, I cannot even reach balls that were hit just a couple of metres from me!

Of course, it had to be expected as I have been out of the playing field for a long time but today, I feel determined to get back in shape.

I got the tennis racket this sem to play but Adi being the lazy bug hasnt been cooperating with me to play. Of course, Harsh feels that we should play doubles as we are past our prime... :(

I blame the comps that has entered our lives. I usually spend the day in my room, doing something on the comp. Of course, it is also that I am extra jobless this sem and that gives me too much free time with nothing to do! Lately, I have envius of people with jobs as I feel that they have atleast something to do. Idle hands are a devil's workshop, right? I have not been doing anything bad but I have done nothing constructive either. I had decided that I would pursue my photography very religiously but I have not been true to that either. I have done some stuff at 4 am in the mornings but not much. We spend our lives trying to find out what we want to do with the rest of our lives but I am spending my life here dreaming and contemplating what to do next!!! This blogging is a good thing. Atleast it gives me some activity to do. Must do it more regularly.

My delusions have been cleared today and I feel extra concious of my physique and I want to be active again. Of course, I cannot depend on Adi to play everyday, so I need a new diversion. Jogging and exercises are too boring and I certainly do not have the motivation to do that. I will think of something...

Day for Night - A film by Francois Truffaut

Just saw this movie. It is directed by Truffaut, who is a master of making movies with minimalistic stories. You can describe the story of the movie in a single sentence - it is a movie which shows the joy of making movies.

The movie begins and ends in a movie set, where a french film called "Je vous presente Pamela", which is so obviously going to be a baaaad movie! It shows the fast-paced and stressed lives of the people involed in the film.

What I liked about the film was that it gave me some idea about the workings of a movie set. How they shoot a chaotic outdoor scene, the use of the "day for night" filter (its a filter that they use to shoot night scenes in broad daylight), sound recordings, the jugaad people do at the last moment, the creation of props, etc, etc. The problems of making movies is also shown. There is a cat which doesnt drink its milk and a complex scene has to be reshot as the labs messed up the previous take! Poeple are difficult too. Temperamental actors who have to brought out of their dressing rooms with country cheese or from the go-karting track... "Is is amazing how vulnerable we actors are". "No, it is normal. Nobody likes to be criticized and judged; many have fears about it being judged is so important in your profession, both in your work and outside your work."

Of course, it had the Truffaut touch that kept the film from becoming maudlin; all Truffaut movies have scripts that a second-rate director would have made into a greek tragedy.

The people involved in the movie are all in love with the process of movie making. The lead actor is always looking for an opportunity to go to the movies. "Little restaurants? You must be joking! Don't you know Nice has 37 movies? We can grab a sandwich." And there is the scripwriter who says, "I'd drop a guy for a film, I'd never drop a film for a guy." The fondness they all hold for making movies is revealed throughout the film. "People like us are only happy in our work."
The film ends with the end of the shooting of Pamela. "How strange our lives, huh? We come together, we were like a family, there is so much love and puff, we dont have time to pick up something to, puff, it disappeared."

The only aspect of the print I watched that I didnt like was the dubbing. It was atrocious. I would have preferred to watch the original french print with english subs, rather than watch the way the Americans butcher the foreign films with their dubbing.

I have watched two other Truffaut movies - Jules et Jim and The last metro, and I think that Jules et Jim was the best of these three. Day for night is very good movie to watch if you are enthralled by the art of movie making but just isnt as great as the other two.