Sacrifice

SACRIFICE. The word which inspires, evokes reverence, brings compassion, warms your heart, and sometimes wets your eyes. The feeling of being larger than life; of being useful; of doing greatness.

But does it really exist?

Every human being has a set of thoughts and believes. She acquires it over the meandering course of her life. She starts assigning weightages to different parameters which affect her decisions. Some params are old, some are new. The weightages change. Any decision, at that moment of time, is governed by the current set of parameters and their weightages. Much like a cold-blooded foreign exchange transaction.

There come moments when, apparently, we have options to choose between. Deciding moments which will define the universe we will experience. They shape the fate which shall be cursed or thanked. And then arises the notion of sacrifice.

A set of humans put in that situation would generally choose a common option. Its their parameters, which will be mostly be same and have similar weightages, making a choice which is "popular". Yet, there will come along a person who would choose the Road Less Travelled. Disregarding the popular parameters, she goes ahead and picks the abhorred option. The generations to come, the peers who are dumbstruck, the texts which are hungry for ideals; get the rendition of a sacrifice.

The Sacrificer knows, she knows. The truth. She had no options. There didn't exist the popular option for her. Its pseudo-existence was nullified by her personal parameters being weighted differently. Her believes and thoughts could never have made her choose the popular option.

The constraints under which she is operating is different from what a set of people usually experience when they faced that situation. Was she larger than life then? She reached at that juncture influenced by uncountable earlier decisions. The priorities had already been set. The choices had narrowed down. And she chose that.

Should this be called Sacrifice? An act done because she could not have done anything else. It maybe a difficult path ahead down her choice, but she is helpless. Her governing factors leave her no choice. Its a camouflaged helplessness; created by her own value systems and preferences.

Sacrifice is an act which all of us do daily, every moment. We choose what we really believe in. There is no other way. On the contrary, when we (if ever) choose something which we dont believe in, it should be called Sacrifice. We call it Cowardice, though.

Let that act not become larger than life. Let not people forget that they chose something because of their own constraints. And we can't judge whether the Sacrificer has a superior set of constraints and weightages. She is what she is. Her act is hers. A sacrifice is nothing but a choice; acknowledging one's own helplessness.

Movies from books..

One of my favourite pet peeves - a bad film translation of a book.

If the movie is admittedly 'loosely' based on a book, and the filmmaker takes the liberty of tweaking the actual story line, either by, say changing some broad events or simply adding some characters, and I'm mentally prepared to see just another movie without the expectations of seeing the film of the book, then the peeve factor doesn't arise. Like for example, the recent adaptation of Great Expectation where Ethan Hawke played Pip and Uma Thurman played Estella - it played the Victorian storyline but it was set in contemporary America. Or, Baz Luhrmann's outrageous but brilliant Romeo and Juliet, which had the original Shakespearean dialogue, but was again, set in modern times (and had Baz Luhrmann's eccentric and colourful style written all over it).

My peeve is more with filmmakers supposedly making or trying to make an original adaptation, but ending up murdering the book. Mira Nair made a fairly bold attempt at trying to recreate Vanity Fair, but made a mess of it. Not a big mess, but a mess nonetheless. Gosh, Becky from the movie was anything but like Becky from the book! Oh, and my favourite duckie - Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas. This movie was a complete joke, and Bhansali had stabbed the original novel 46 times in the chest and back. I mean, compared to Devdas, Vanity Fair was excellent. I had given in to the hype surrounding Devdas and had taken a lot of trouble to ensure that I offered myself a great cinematic experience from a film that was made by a filmmaker who also made a very pleasing Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Didn't go to the theatre when I was offered a free ticket from somewhere, instead, took pains to read the fat novel first to double the pleasure. Then I finally shoved my way through a packed cinema in extreme heat, alone, after buying a ticket from a huge queue - and all i ended up getting was the worst filmic experience of my life, coupled with insect bites all over my feet (nah, not those multiplexes..I went to a normal desi cinema hall). While both Nair and Bhansali failed to capture the original essence of the respective books they filmed, Nair still did a commendable job in catching an overall feel of society of that time. The art direction was excellent, and visual experience great. I give her 9 out of 10 on that count. However, the least said about Devdas, the better. Was Bengali society like how Bhansali showed? Heck, no. The dude got confused a bit, and he North-Indianised Bengali society. The overal value of his production was no better than those dime a dozen bad attempts at opulent saas-bahu soap operas, set in mahals and all.

Besides catching up on Devdas-the-book before going to watch Devdas the movie, I'd repeated this drill many times on other books and films as well, and more often than not, got disappointed by the lack of condensation between the two.

I'd like to mention here, whilst I disdainfully deigned all these bad book translations to movie, much of it sprang from partial ignorance. My views of good and bad were a bit too simplistic, without much insight or appreciation of the nuances of filmmaking and scriptwriting. Besides, my views were one-tracked - if a movie messed with the original flavour of the book, the movie was bad as far as I was concerned. Period.

It was while reading up Shyam Benegal's views the other day in an editorial that I became more congnizant of the nuances and restrictions that filmmakers face while converting books, and actually began to think somewhat objectively about the matter. In a summation, he opines that books which are deep rooted in literalism are difficult to film, and putting audio visual perceptions into metaphors and symbolisms is tough. Film tools and fiction tools being different, its difficult to coalesce a sense of uniformity into the two. E.g, potboilers, and other fiction with a high content of descriptive events are easier to film. Hence we have so many John Grisham, Robert Ludlum and Charles Dickens movies, while a Marquez, Rushdie or Joyce book, which feature intellectual debate, internal struggles, metaphors, consciousness and ephiphanies would be extremly difficult to put on screen. I'd just disagree with him on one point - he finds Death of Venice a brilliant adaptation of the book, while I don't personally, and this I am saying using his own logic and insight.

One great movie adaptation over the top of my head from what I consider to be a difficult book to film is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. The loosely related choppy pieces of timeline are distracting in the movie, fragments halt at one point and picks up somewhere else - in another era, due to which the flow of association gets somewhat disturbed, but they all come together at the end, interwoven with the bombing of Dresden event as a central recurrent theme. The movie evokes the same thoughts and black humour the book does, and anyone who has read the book and chuckled, would surely love the movie too.

But all said and done, a bad movie is a bad movie - it would still peeve me. While Slaughterhouse Five was great, Vonnegut's other book that was filmed, Breakfast of Champions was a complete disaster. And I couldn't have been more bored than when I was watching Battlefield Earth, the sci-fi novel by the founder of Scientology (forgetting his name).

I'll conclude with a book translation that is flashing in my mind most strongly at the moment. To kill a Mocking Bird. Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch continues to haunt me for putting flesh and bone to a very remarkable character. His character, other complex semi-protagonists, the main themes - hatred, innocence, innocence lost and compassion, each needed to come out through the childish perceptions of a little girl. Easier said than done from a cinematic angle, but done seamlessly here. The filmmakers presented the essence of the book through the eyes of the child more eloquently than the writer Harper lee had done himself with words and metaphors. Needless to mention since you must have guessed already, this is one of my favourite movies of all times! :)

ps: most of the above examples were those that
randomly came to my head at that particular point
of writing. Not necessarily my best and worst lists.

I'm recycling one of my favourite email forwards

Email forwards are inherently bad, a social menace - spammers make silly forwards and asks you to forward them, and as you keep forwarding, your email ids get embedded in them - and one day, when that chain mail falls in the hands of a spammer, he gets hold of all the email ids embedded in it. Then, he sells it to cheesy sellers who try to sell a plethora of cheesy products by spamming all these emails with the hope that 10-15 of the thousands spammed will buy them. I never forward the stuff I get, since I would only end up doing a disservice to myself and my email box if I did. I know gmail and all is 1 GB and things are not as bad as the old days of 2 MB hotmail where spams would mean you'd miss your important email, but still, I dont want to be spammed, so I dont forward forwards.

However, I'll make an exception with this forward. I'll forward it to everyone I know. I'll also post it here. When I read this, it absolutely made my day! :) Here goes..

Generation Gap

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokeys' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them.

Continue!

We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits. We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other parents. We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friend's homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening...and yet it might put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983 ...they are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.

They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. And Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days, repeating again all the fun you have experienced together.
7. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting older and still rocking away to the 80's music!

So the Matrix hero turned Harry Potter reviewer and made it to a Newspaper column.

Neo's Harry Potter Review post from this blog has made it to a newspaper, thanks to my paindoo journalist fraaind Mehmal.

<- yeah, this is pinched from BDs blog.

FAO Neo.

Neo Anderson,

When I told you to let it all go, I meant let go of your Fear, Doubt, and Disbelief. I didn't mean that you should let go of your own self and presence from Zion (ie, this blog). I mean, I know you *are* here, but not often enough. Ya' know, I get stiff backs once in a while, and those blasted Agents are getting peskier by the day. I can't hold fort by myself all the time. Only yesterday I was lurking around at a coffee shop, and an Agent stole my coffee cup from right under my nose and ran away. I watched helplessly, coughed, pretended nothing had happened and coolly ordered for another coffee (I had money for only one). What's worse, as I was trying to tiptoe out of the shop and flee the yet-to-be-paid cafe owner, the dude chased me down on his mule, and roped my waist - cowboy ishtyle. All this, in bhare bazaar. How insulting! Imagine, there was a time when I could dodge bullets! And look at me today. I'm losing my edge! Sigh!

On a more important note, Zion stands defenceless to the whims of the Machines at the moment. The other day, an Agent pinched 2 human kids and whisked off right from our backyard. These kids shall be moved to the Energy Harvester, and their (kids) brains be sucked out to power their (machines') darned batteries. Anti Child labour campaigners here at Zion are stepping up pressure on the senile Councillor Harmaan to own moral responsibility of the incident and step down, while the Oracle is of the opinion that some more kids will be pinched soon. Since the resistance is too conked at the moment to beef up its ranks, I was hoping that we could delay Oracle's prophesy by an alternate technique - by giving Zion a cosmetic makeoever. We'll completely renovate the way Zion looks. Machines, being dumb as they are, will fool themselves to think that this different looking place is some other city, Lyon or something, and pass us. Of course, this is a temporary arrangement, and them machines will surely get back to Zion to pinch some more kids sooner or later. See if you like this or this as prospective get-ups. Or tell me, do we even need a cosmetic makeover? Can we manage without it?

Secondly, get your ass back to work here at Zion. I dunno whats keeping you away - has the obsession with chasing a wild cat given way to chasing Trinitys? Or have you gone back to your Dream World and job as a programmer? Or has your mind has got trapped in that dreadful computer netherworld, the Train Station*? Wake up Neo! Zion was hoping that you would come back to chowkidaari asap, and especially start that new section about your reviews of links - links that you constantly dig out from the web and forward as emails (Besides of course performing your other usual duty of long posts). A few links once in a while are necessary, they also make Zion a safer place - trespassers, bots, Agents and other machines would inadvertantly put foot on these links, and these booby traps would fling them away from the Zion to another website, webserver or whatever.

And lastly, fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. I'm having to send you this missive through a machine - a computer! And I'll have to flash it right on the enemy's mouthpiece - blogger dot com! But this is only one way to save our city. Neo. Yes, You. Wake up! The Real world awaits your service!

While I go and get a shower. The bloody mule licked me when the coffee shop owner had me all tied up.

Your friend,

Morphy.


*Train station is a strange construct stuck between the Matrix, the machine mainframe, and the real world. It's a way station used to ferry programs between The Matrix and the machine mainframes. Effectively, he's stuck in limbo (source: some website). In the 'Matrix Revolutions', Neo's mind gets stuck in the Train Station. Morpheus believes that saving Neo's trapped mind from the Train Station is the only way to safe Zion.

George Best 22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Had Charles Dickens been around in the 1960s, he would have definitely rephrased that opening line from his French Revolution tale.

Berlin Wall, Kennedy, Vietnam, Napalm, M.L.King, Beatles, Dylan, Woodstock, Surrealism, Rock and Roll, Sophia Loren, Pele, Audio Cassette. A decade of turbulence, shifting identities and alliances, which took the human thought to unchartered frontiers, and even the Moon. An era of unrest and uproar - an era of love, hate and hash.

And in the midst all these exciting turmoil and shifts, a flawed genius dribbled his way to be one of the best footballers the world has ever seen. A true icon of all times, and especially of the swinging sixties.

George Best.

The fifth Beatle, the Magician at the Theatre of Dreams. Although he never could play at the world cups because he was from Northern Ireland, he stole every possible heart due to his mesmerising and glamorous stint at Manchester United. Pele reportedly saw him at the 1968 Euro final against Eusebio's Benfica and called him the greatest footballer he had ever seen.

George Best lived a life of a famous star, with chicks, cars and champagne. He made as much news from outside the field, as he made on it. His riotous lifestyle eventually gave way to bankruptcy, countless near death encounters, and a very painful liver transplant. But once a star, always a star. He never amended, and after a long fight, his health and life gave up on him yesterday.

He will live on in our memories as the most joyous of players. George Best zindabad.

My Inner European'

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. Who's Your Inner European?

I'm tagging this Quiz to BD, Aloka, Ayesha, Divya and Oook. It's fairly simple to take - just 6 questions. I would have liked to tag a few more people (including my pardner Neo), but I'd also like to spare myself the ignominy of snooty refusals.

If you are reading this page, and want to be tagged, here's an open invitation - feel free to go ahead and tag yourself from here. Like every other tag, you'll have to link this page with a 'I've been tagged by Morpheus' on your page. (and your tagees would have to link you, and so on)

Let the Tournament begin

I went ahead to watch the Friday Night show of "The Goblet of Fire". Expected it to be a visual treat of sorts. And it had some truly stunning moments. The mood was ominously dark in the beginning and the end. The slithering snake coming out of a stack of skulls - a grotesque image - in the very first scene has rightfully earned the movie a PG-13. Even the usually chiming "Harry Potter Theme" with cymbals and treble et al, has been transformed to a more haunting note. The graveyard/Riddle house opening sequence is on the lines of popular thriller flicks/shows like Jurassic Park or X-Files. The house-keeper gets a Avada Kedavra and we snap to Quidditch World Cup.

Next 15 minutes move really fast, sometimes jerkily and discordant. For that brief period, I was having a sinking feeling that the rest of the movie would be a fiasco. But, the director and editor have spared the 100 minutes to follow. We have a rushed sequence of going to Quidditch World Cup grounds, a view of the stadium and appearance of Death Eaters. This part is really weak; it hardly captures the lurking danger emphasized by the appearance of the Dark Mark.

Surprise. The plot takes a divergence from movie here. The role of Winky, the house-elf, has been purged off. And with that, the irritating-yet-useful, Dobby meets the same fate. Perhaps, we can be critical. But the volume of the book could not have been fixed in the movie otherwise.

Without much of an announcement (and somewhat ruefully in the spirit of teenage flicks), we are introduced to the French girls and Hungarian boys, Fleur and Krum. Mad-Eye makes an appearance simultaneously. Its a short sequence, probably done to justify the TriWizard Tournament. The challenges, as expected, have provided the directot to showcase some wonderful SFX. In his zeal to capitalize on the same, the dragon sequence has been overdone. No doubt it has been well-picturized, but we could have done more with "the Dark Side" of things than witnessing a reluctant Harry doing all the oomphs and aahs.

Rita skeeter serves as the perfunctory to-be-hated-comedian. The role has been well executed, but again, it takes up valuable minutes of screen time.

Ron's jealousy, Hermoine's anguish, Harry's drooling for Cho - all the twists which identify the leading characters' adolescence - have been dealt with reasonable justice. They also serve the comic platter (even Hagrid accosting Madam Maxime). Moaning Martyle gets more than her share of "peek-a-boo" at an all-wet-and-naked Harry. I wonder how did this scene get Rowling's approval and how do parents react to such explicit display.

The Yule Ball is a beautiful scene. If for nothing, at least for -
1) A stunningly beautiful Hermoine
2) Subcontinental influence in British society (Parvati and Padma Patil).

The underwater sequence with Merpeople is probably a better fare than the dragon fight. A message of sportsmanship is brought out when Harry receives extra points for a show of strength of character. Here again, the Gillyweed is supplied by Mad Eye himself rather than Dobby stealing it from Snape's cupboard.

There are two give-away scenes here and quite blatant too. Mad-eye providing the Gillyweed and then Mad-Eye confronting Barty Couch with a peculiar mannerism of tongue movement give away the suspense (if-any). I guess the director hasn't bothered much on that, especially as the story would be know to all the Potter fans.

The film goes back to the dark mood from the time the Maze challenge begins. Its all misty and grey; perhaps cold too (I was watching this at 0000hrs and the theatre's ACs were on song). Finally, the Portkey leads to the most awaited sequence. The Dark Lord rises.

Am I disappointed by the scene? In retrospect, I think not. But, my immediate reaction was, "It is happening too fast" (much to the contrary of the mood of my companion's "Sahi hai" take on that). Yet, Ralph Fiennes has delivered a powerful performance. Wormtail has appeared little too brave, Lucios Malfoy would have deserved a better charade (perhaps Darth Vader would have done that properly). What I missed - Voldemort should have had red eyes. What I liked - bald head, the serpent nostrils and the flowing black robes.

The film has two disappointing aspects - both in the same breadth. They are the character portrayal of Dumbledore and Voldemort. 2 powerful characters, they deserved a better appearance. They have way too much body movement, much more verbose than they should be, much less threatening than they actually are. Dumbledore is part of some unrequired humour (Filch firing cannons before the countdown and Madam Maxime dancing with Dumbledore). He appears so much shaken and unnecessarily grumpy to hear Harry's name come out of Goblet. Even the voices are so tawny. Voldemort gets dealt with same grace; the saving part is that he doesn't get any humour played on him.

My ratings for the movie - 3.0 out of 5.0. Had it been for a stronger and composed Dumbledore, some scenes could have done better.

Its a 3 hour affair. But, not long or tiring for ardent Potter fans. Let the magic continue.

P.S. : Where can I get Voldy's robes. Neo, Vader, Voldy... all get cool black get-ups!!!

scowls and howls

In college, we were clearly divided as far as the vote for the scariest Ogre was concerned. Martin Keown was the undisputed winner almost always, and Stefan Effenberg a creditable second, often in nail biting finishes. Roy Keane used to muster a few sporadic votes from here and there, mostly from the Manchester United coterie, but after his bust up with Effenberg where one scowl from the formidable Teutonic Goth almost made the Irishman pee in his pants, they dared not vote for Keane again.

Life as a minority in any form of social setup is most often than not, extremely tough - there are some things that you simply can't do freely without getting criticised, exorcised, berated, labelled a traitor, sometimes hanged, or as in this case - getting ridiculed and mocked at. Hence minority people often end up suppressing their true voice and reluctantly succumb to the whims of the majority, and pretend that everythings fine, rather than pressing for a crusade. Same thing with the poor Manchester supporters. Being in the minority, life itself was difficult, and hence, these chaps didn't want to complicate their lives any further by voting for Keane the Sissy as the scariest ogre and subjecting themselves as sitting ducks to the sarcasm of us nasty majority, who absolutely hated Man.U. (and still do). I mean, they had to survive college, and if you have ever been in college you'll know how difficult life can become once you get labelled something that is totally uncool. So these chaps not only succumbed to social pressure and voted for other ogres like Keown or Effenberg against their natural wish, but additionally had to pretend that they were doing that willingly. If someone was a fresher in college cum Man. U. supporter, then he also had to go through the additional embarassment of having to announce loudly in some public place or social hall or toilet room that Keane was a Sissy.

My votes went to neither Effenberg nor Keown. They were reserved for Paolo Montero, the scraggy pahelwan from Turin. Being a Juve player, Paolo Montero was outside the petty Man Utd - anti Man Utd. skirmish spectrum, and although a few eyebrows were raised initially, and some of the girls even found him handsome, people eventually adjusted themselves to this choice I had made, without making an issue out of it or fishing for an opportunity to pull my leg. Imho, Paolo Montero looked non-ogreish when he used to walk out to the pitch, but moments before the whistle, his expressions used to change totally. From then on, he looked positively doped, coupled with a bloodthirsty face that used to transform to hideous scowls each time the ball was on his feet, or an opponent forward was nearby. He was pretty useful too - won many Serie A medals with Juve, and had World Cup caps for Uruguay. He should have won some more World Cup caps, but the other day, the Aussies pipped them for the final berth, which means that Uruguay and all its fine players - Recoba, Forlan and especially the doped ogre Montero won't be seen in Germany. Montero is quite old, so he'll definitely not play in the next edition either.

I'm not optimistic about the ogre scene of the future, and I really worry about what the college kids must be discussing today. I mean, I definitely hope that they don't discuss who's the biggest metrosexual out there after David Beckham. Not that I blame them entirely - the tradition of ogres is badly on the fall from the hey days of the 90s - Valderrama, Effenberg, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Paolo Motero, Stig Tofting, Oliver Kahn etc etc. These guys set high standards - they were not only great players, but one frown from them could send shudders down many a feeble heart. With the likes of Wayne Rooney as probable flag bearers, the future indeed is VERY bleak.


Note - the phrase 'Scary Ogre' is not to be confused with 'ugly' at all.

Note 2 - this is unrelated, since Christian Karembeu isn't exactly an ogre, nor a fine player - but he's an extremely lucky guy because his wife is the ravishing Adriana Sklenarikova. Lucky bastid, you!

The Angel

Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs. - Francis De Sales, St.

Did I say I'd be busy for some time? Well, I forgot about the Diwali weekend, it seems. :-)

As I sit to blog again, this time to write about Chelsea football club, the Angel on the wall catches my attention (yes, I CAN see it!). I think I shall write a short note of appreciation for the Angel instead, who selflessly stood by me through those hours of agony, held my hand and walked me out of the creepy maze I had gotten into. (held my hand metaphorically of course, NOT literally)

The events took place a coupla months back, at the height of the flood situation. As the flood raged down the adjacent river, the Insects Confederation of the area declared an emergency baithak. Their boss announced, "We won't be able to live here for much longer, our homes are going to get flooded. Let's shift from here to Morpheus' house on the 7th floor. I heard from a source that he's terribly scared of us. With numbers on our side, we might even be able to scare Morpheus out of his home and keep his apartment all for ourselves."

And thus began the exodus. As the river level slowly arose, tens of hundreds of creepy crawlies marched up the wall into my apartment. I was petrified! I bought and sprayed one can of insect killers after another, but to no avail. I couldn't eat, walk, sit, or even bathe in peace. I would keep the windows and doors fastened, but still they'd come in from some nook or cranny. For a moment, I did contemplate running away from the apartment, but that's when the Angels came and rescued me out of my misery and predicament.

Like silent warriors, these angels took on the insects, and crushed their resistance. With Hitlerish sureness, they sniffed out every single insect, devoured them, and wiped their sorry asses away for good. Today my room is back to being just like it used to be in the days of yore - a tad (tad?) dirty, but completely insect free. :-)

Dear Angel and all your angel pals, I can't give you a hug, but I really owe you one...

Neo Speaketh

Couldn't resist myself to get heard in the deluge of posts by Morpheus. Looks like the downpour on Southern India has gathered its contents from the bright crevices in the Bong's cranium. Even Playboy's yearly calendars will be bedazzled with the versatility and "openness" of the contents this blog page has been hosting in recent times.

My feline obsession is pre-ordained to be not long lived. Will be getting on the joy-ride in a short while. I thank the visitors on this page to have held the perseverance and patient to digest what we post. Like Morph, I am also wondering whether we are the only ones who read our stuff. Hoping somebody will shine a Morse Code form the nearby Andromeda neighborhood declaring their acknowledgement of these chronicles of representative Homo Sapiens from the lands of Bharat-varsh. For the rest of the earthlings, keep reading and as Steve Jobs would have said "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Aloha!!

Neo seems to be caught up at the crossroads of his career and with a certain feline obsession ;), so he hasn't been posting for some time. Or perhaps, I've been posting too often, I dunno. As I glance through the 'edit posts' page, I notice that an opposite trend took place some months back - when Neo had a dozen posts back to back, and I was completely out of the radar. Well, I'd be taking a mini break myself and though I'll try to post sometimes, I really can't say how far I'll be successful.

I thought I'd damaged something in my left hamstring area, I hobbled back from the jog early today and couldn't move the darn leg. Had to stay indoors, and took up some catfights on Orkut. And then I slept for the rest of the day, all the way till midnight. Now I'm awake like an Owl at 2.18 AM, and as I can see, only some miracle or divine conjuration can get me to fall asleep again anytime soon.

Staying up all night means that I'll be feeling groggy throughout the day tomorrow. Damn! *&@#()((*@#**;$*@#$&

Oh and by the way, the legs fine. All those who check our blog (I have a hunch sometimes that Neo and me are the only readers of our blog :-) ) please come back from time to time, and read old posts. :-P

Hastalavista for the moment.

The muteness of the environment was broken by the pyrrhic verses of the battling arthropods. The underdog seemed half dead, and his much swifter and stronger nemesis was striking him with regular and near fatal precision. He was a spent force physically, but his will power flickered on. Against all odds, he chalked a momentous resurgence to sum up his little muscles to prepare for one final strike at the behemoth enemy.

*shmack*

If the bodily impact of this strike didn't overwhelm the behemoth, the shock and awe of it surely did. While he was happily beating the crap out of the half dead underdog, not once did the unimaginable thought of the beaten crip arising back from his half-death cross his mind. And as the shocked behemoth increasingly found himself being dragged into the tempest of his imminent ill-fate, the underdog crip's adrenalin inspired him to gather his energies for yet another strike.

*paff*

Knock out. The behemoth fell flat on his nose, never to rise again. A pyrrhic victory for the little one.

However, I must admit, I couldn't exactly admire the idea of two creepy insects engaging in warfare 2 feet away from me. Neither did I feel like swatting them/it with my textbook. So I pushed them away from the round terra firma structure I was sitting on outside the Nandan, and got myself a cup of chai. After the momentary diversion of the insect fight, my mind wandered back to the labyrinth it was in.

The world turned mute once again, and I couldnt hear or feel anything. That moment, the chai didnt have a taste, the cute tushy of the girl standing in front didn't light up a braincell, the red buses that moved around seemed like large grey bricks moving haphazardly around my eyeballs, the hustling pedestrians turned into a grey hazy nebula...

Shuttling between blur and focus, my mind touched the next focus after 5 minutes with the gonging of the shrill cellphone ringtone. The caller ID didn't have that familiar number. I shut it. I covered my somewhat-watery eyes with my hands, and lamented 'oh crap, I screwed up'.

The SaMoSa factory

A couple of days back, I went to this coffee shoppee. I'm not a great coffee aficionado, but the place has a HUGE plasma television which almost invariably always plays a sports channel. So that's the best incentive. While catching up on a World Cup Qualifier game, our inconsequential discourses turned to SMSes. While we were discussing nuances of how much time people have on their hands (heh! look who's talking) to be inspired enough to write and forward all those silly SMSes and the grave proportions of this psychological addiction, the bloke who was sipping his kenyan coffee at the table to the left joined in our convo. (I made out that the coffee was Kenyan since they serve it in mugs that are 2.5 times larger than the usual ones)

Claiming to be an ex-copywriter for a private advertising firm, that didn't actually do much advertising business, but instead was owned by a secret consortium of all the cellular phone services to do just their stuff (what? oh just read on!), he gave some amazing insights on the whole issue. After graduating from a leading advertising institute, he was hired by this so-called advertising firm for a cool-paying copywriter's job, that required him to pen thousands of silly and inane SMSes, replete with sardarji scenarios and sexual entendres and what not. As he explained, these SMSes were then put up on servers for free download to cellphones, on some more servers for not so free download, and manually distributed to a few cellphones from where they spread like wildfire all over the place. The jokes spread exponentially - 1 bloke forwards to another, then the 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to 32, 32 to 64, 64 to 128...128 eventually to millions, and so on. Parallely as they spread, the circumference of Revenue pie charts of the cellular firms keep adding fat, while the share of revenue from SMS jokes on that pie chart keeps bulging in tandem. As he said, at the end of the day, the net share of revenue from these SMSes (manufactured at his old workplace, ie the SMS factory) turns out to be HUGE.

Wow. Brilliant. I made a desperate attempt to get my brain to multitask - on one hand, continue in the conversation, and on the other, make a rough estimate of all the money that got fleeced from me through my lifetime quota of SMS forwards, by this elaborate corporate conspiracy that played against the gullible human mind. However, the task of getting to a plausible estimate turned fruitless after a while - I simply lost count of the mind-addition of a myriad phone bills, and gave up. Suddenly, Frank Lampard scored, and our inane conversation came to a halt. England won the game and qualified for the world cup. Yippee! That meant that I just won the bet I had made months back with a friend on England's qualifying for the World Cup (he said nay, i said aye) . I quickly SMSed him to remind him of the beer and beeriyani that he owed me. I really should have bet Money, rather than khana-pina, dammit.

**

Harold Pinter, the leftist playwright surprisingly won the Nobel for literature, pipping the widely expected Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Seriously, I didn't even know that he was in the race, and I still don't know for which work in particular he won it. I caught up with 3 pre-nobel analyses on the newscast, but can't remember even seeing him there. I've read just a couple of his political essays, where he called Bush and Blair 'idiots' - and I didn't enjoy them. I think he's the bloke who wrote the Monty Python series, but I'm not totally sure, I'll have to confirm from google or something very soon.

Please Spread Firefox. #

The Voice

'Free me' - The Voice hollered at me.

'Uh oh, I shan't, and dude, please keep your beaks shut for some time. I'm in NO mood to talk to you right now. Don't you see that I am trying to negotiate some horrible traffic?'. This was my annoyed riposte.

'You won't?'

'No, I shant. get lost!'

'But it is God's will that I be freed, and this is how the script has been, since time immemorial.'

'God's will?!' Where did that come from? 'Bah!' I said. 'God is merely an extension of our imagination. Don't try to play these mind games with me.'

Seriously, I am no Pol Pot or Hitleresque Oligarch. I would allow freedom to the voice, but impetuosity and cheekiness aren't somethings that I let get rubbed on my face. Besides, there is a time and place for everything, even freedom. I decided to be obstinate and tough. But the voice of the detainee was upto the challenge. More mental games followed.

'God maybe metaphysical, but He's like the Emperor's New Clothes. You need brains to figure him out. You need brains to understand whats written in the Gita, or the Quran, or the Bib'le. And if you understand what is written in these holy books, you will realise the existence of God.'

Hang on a darn second! The whole discussion on God was a tangent, to annoy me - why else would it butt in? And anyway, this discussion could have no practical consequence under the circumstances. I chose to ignore the voice. 'Hah, holy books. Read them to find the existence of God, and then say God wrote the holy books. What orbicular logic! Well, whatever, who cares.' These were the words I wanted to say, but didn't care enough to deliver out in our little telepathic conversation.

'Even if you don't free me, you do know I can free myself if I really wanted to, and when I'd be running free, you do realise that you wouldn't be able to stop me or even touch me, right?' this was the Voice's next jab at me.

A sweatdrop the size of a pea toppled down my left forehead, hit my glasses, split into two, and fell on two spots on my shirt and lap respectively. I was kinda cognizant of what the Voice was capable of doing, and I knew inside me that if he wanted to free himself, I couldn't do much, except be a helpless pokerface spectator, and mutely watch him run riot.

As much as the Voice was desperate for freedom, I was desperate for a smart riposte that would outwit him to stop muttering, and more importantly, give him the impression that I had far from wilted in this mental battle. But somehow any bright spark eluded me. In the meantime, the traffic freed up, and I got a nice stretch of road ahead of me.

'I'm not letting you free, and THAT'S IT!'. This was exactly what I didn't want to say, but did. The situation required me to say something with subtlety, something that wouldn't hurt the Voice's feelings and make him escape or something, but the fool that I am, I couldn't blurt out anything better. 'Shut the fuck up and get lost!' I added, arrogantly.

Noticeably, the tides turned in my favour. The Voice seemed to have simmered down at my overbearing haughtiness, and didn't pop out his evil head for a coupla minutes.

And when he did, he was a milksop submissive beggar - 'Will you puhleeeeeze let me free'?, he begged, sounding exactly like a 6 year old girl with freckles on the cheek. I had clearly won the mental war, and was in no mood or obligation to give a straight reply to my mere vanquished adversary, this pesky bete noire of a Voice, that had been irritating me for so long.

'hmmm, lets see, I'll think about it once I get home.' (This was part lie, for as I said earlier, I always intended to free him. I ain't no oligarch or cruel despot.)

I reached my apartment block. Parked the car, but didn't feel like checking the letterbox. The fight with the voice left me mentally and physically weary. Wasted no time to take the elevator straight up to the 7th floor, enter home, and open my shoes. Darted to the bathroom, undressed, and perched myself (my backside, rather) on the commode (potty). Right then, I was absolutely elated to be truly and literally on top of things, and in a whiff of chivalry, declared to the Voice with the emphatic air of a victorious general speaking to his demoralised and defeated counterpart - 'I free thee.'

I must admit, I did a great job at masquerading my vulnerabilities and fears behind all that chivalry. The Voice did screw me up physically and mentally for a while.

The Voice was gone, and I never heard from him again. Unlike all those moments before that when I was sooo desperate to hold him back at any cost, that moment, I felt the exact reverse. I was awefully pleased to not hold the Voice back anymore. In fact, a HUUGE surge of relief flowed through my body, mind and system because the Voice was gone. At that moment of relieved state, I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath as a physical affirmation of my relief.

High Flier

I picked up Volleyball as my favorite sport. The need for camouflaging my ineptness at the national religion, read Cricket, was pressing. And the diameter of the ball in this sport ensured that my hand-eye co-ordination will enable the proverbial 'contact'.

As the years passed and the Net became a phenomena, almost simultaneously the Volleyball net became my proving benchmark. Yeah, a pathetic pun, but bear it.
Stopping the striker on the opposite side dead in his tracks gave super-duper kick. The high flying ball, setup by the team-mate, eyed by the striker, to be hit at bullet-speed across the net; its a clockwork precision. To intercept that, Godlike.

There the realization dawned that I like being in air. Just that. Jumping. Feeling weightless. Escaping gravity for that brief millisecond. Its a freedom and elation I had not known before.

Later, I got introduced to the arena of Unreal Tournament. This game never gained any substantial fan-base when compared to Quake3. Yet, the deathmatch had one particular map which will go on to occupy my time-slots of endless nights. Its the "Morpheus" arena. Coincidentally, the id of my fellow blogger. But my preference to this arena has no bearings or indications for any alleged 'preference' to Comrade Morpheus.

View Morpheus

The arena has 3 buildings which rise high above the earth. The physics (and some bit of creativity) set the rule that the roof-tops are low gravity zones. Add a pair of anti-grav boots to this gameplay. And you get a thrill ride of jumps and flying across buildings. Hours of playing this arena left me feeling flying across the 3D world around me.

The effect allowed to fulfill my pleasure trip. Played Morpheus for about an hour at high difficulty settings just before going to sleep. The dreams which followed would have me flying and gliding in air. I have actually felt that the world is fleeting under my feet. I could glide as if on hovercraft-boots as well as cruise at high speeds la Superman style. While this sounds crazy, because the dream was so vivid and probably I wanted desperately to get the feel, it seemed all real. Makes me wonder the power of perception can blur the boundaries of reality and imagination.

Some other media where I got to live my imagination:
1. Superman
2. Matrix (Neo doing the superman thingy)
3. Watching astronauts on their jetpacks.
4. The oriental martial arts movies (Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger)

What happened to the fearless little man, who stood up against injustice and defied the might of an oppressive army with just a shopping bag in hand? No one really knows, but its anyone's guess that the subject of one of the most profound photographs ever taken in the history of mankind was executed. In the words of the photographer Charlie Cole, 'People were executed at that time for far less than what he did.'

The rest of the first hand account from the photographer who snapped this iconic image at Tiananmen Square is here.

Finally..

The post below was posted via email. So I've finally figured the head and tail of this contraption.

Namak Halal

I prepared the marinade by combining the marinade ingridients in the medium bowl. I followed Raaj's advice literally to the tee - took great pains to arrange for a set of small, medium and large bowl to aid in cooking, at the cost of making the kitchen table look like it was straight out from the Bear household where Goldilocks had entered in some fairy tale.

Then I grilled the chicken at high broil. Yippee!! Some moments later, It was ready. I opened the little Black Label souvenir bottle to pour the remnants into one of my mothers most expensive drinking glass. Ah!the joy of a broiled chicken in the company of some smooth drink!

I lifted the lid of the pirex bowl to do some visual and olfactorial basking (is olfactorial even a word?). As I bent down and got my face close, the little moisture fog that was trapped inside the bowl breathed out to haze my glasses. I wiped the cloud off my glasses and put it back on my nose. I pressed a chicken piece a bit - 'twas optimally soft. The thing looked ok, it smelt great. I wasn't complaining about the looks part at all. I've never been that shallow a person. ;-)

Finally, the moment of truth. I took a chicken piece on one hand, and the glass on another. Switched on TV. Took a small sip of the drink. Took a bite of the chicken.

Aaargh!!

Holy fuck! I forgot to add salt..!!!

(*^!$#$%$^$%^#&^@!#*)(@#*@(#*^@!*&^#

Disturbing.

Chelsea is sitting pretty at the top of the premier league with 7 wins out of 7. Their defence is almost impenetrable, and their forward line performing with mechanical efficiency.

Chelsea isn't supposed to do that. Chelsea is supposed to be a fashionable football club where star players are supposed to play a brand of extremely entertaining yet maverick football. Chelsea is supposed to be a ball club which puts flair ahead of results, and Chelsea is supposed to lurk somewhere in the upper half of the table, towards the top, but not quite there. Chelsea is supposed to be the Hollywood bevy, and not the Honda Robot assortment. Richie Rich Roman Abrahamovic and gaffer Mourinho unfortunately had other ideas. Culture killers!

On the other hand, Arsenal, which is playing as attractive a brand of football as ever, isn't winning enough, and is lingering somewhere mid table. Arsenal isn't supossed to do that either! They are supposed to win with clinical precision, stay at the top of the table, and one fine day, surpass Manchester United and win the league.

Strange things going on at the EPL. Disturbing. :|

**
Chelsea VS Arsenal Poster, 1938. (click picture to enlarge)

A Brief History of Lovers

Bah! I'm so Bored

Like all good things come to an end, so did Rock Star INXS. I had missed the penultimate episode, and had somehow managed to goofup the fact that the grand finale was in the offing. Just like I always do, I came back home and started sifting through the cable TV landscape. I don't exactly hit the + or - programme button dumbly to ascend or descend the 0-99 whole number range till I come back to square one, ie, the channel where I had started out. That is too much hard work. I just check out the 10 odd channels that I find remotely bearable, and half of this(the better half) includes sports channels, while the other half includes some music, movie and news channels, and last but not the least, star world, if I don't stumble upon something else in the previous 9. All of this, usually in a 5 to 10 minute drill.

Thanks to an extreme bit of good luck, the other channels couldn't keep me attracted for more than a few seconds each. ESPN was showing some equestrian competition, where a poor horse made an extremely ungainly jump over a hurdle, causing the jockey to fly off from his saddle, stay in the air for a moment too long, and land back with a thud. My (extremely depraved) initial reaction was to laugh at the incident, that the commentator described simply in one word, 'Ouch'. One moment later, I realised the moral repercussions of my mistake, stopped laughing, and switched over to the next channel. Same jhol here, and pretty much everywhere else - nothing interesting enough. The new kids on the block, Ten sports and Zee sports are flooded with action from the lesser european leagues - portuguese, bundesliga and what not - they are fun for a while, but not for too long. Ten sports shows Serie A too, but it wasn't on at that time. They were showing the Sania Mirza match where she was mauled by the lesser ranked european girl. Watching the game was such a pain in the eye - the lights at the Netaji Indoor Stadium shined brightly on the courts when seen from the 30 degree camera angle, and this made the ball totally invisible on television. And the bloody broadcasters kept pursuing that camera angle.

I moved on - landed on Star world, and bingo! The finale of Rock Star INXS just started, with the credits still rolling in the foreground, and camera slowly moving around the stage, while catching a fleeting glimpse of Brooke Burke's leggy frame.

Marty, J.D. and Mig kicked off the 3 way grand finale with individual solos. Mig was up first, and sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. His effort was technically correct, but sadly, he couldn't fire up the stage, and lingering recollections of Suzie doing a much better effort on the same song some episodes back didn't help. I was disappointed - for I had held higher expectations from this aussie bloke, perhaps even considered him my favourite at one time. JD went next, and made a superb effort with 'you cant always get what you want'. Marty went last and sang 'wish you were here'. This guy's similitude with Mick Jagger was glaring - especially in the way they looked (skinny frame) and moved, though not in the way they sang. To cut a long story short, after Round 1 and deliberation of the judges, Mig was chucked, and after Round 2, where the judges (ie, the INXS band) hit the floor and performed with both JD and Marty, they came to the decision that JD was king. JD has good vocal talent to back him up, and his performances on stage had been electrifying, powerful, yet touching shades of vulnerability. I wasn't amazed at him being selected. In fact, right after he sang 'you cant always', it almost became self evident that he would get selected, and the rest of the show seemed somewhat pointless. It held me till the end only because of other reasons of a personal kind - Namely, this was a somewhat favourite show, and after today's darned episode, there wouldn't be one more. The INXS band raised a toast to him, and the show ended with Tim or someone saying 'tonight INXS becomes a band again', and a performance of a new track from their soon to be released album with their new lead singer. Bored, I went channelsurfing once again, this time halting at more stopovers on the cable tv landscape than I usually stop over at. Nah! Nothing interesting enough anywhere. Switched off the idiot box, and went off to check detailed reports of the scary rollercoaster helltrips of the stock market on the internet.

Real Life Mr. Incredible

Sex and Morality, the Morpheus Way

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............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯/
........('(...´(..´......,~/'...')
.........\.................\/..../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
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I pronounce with pride that I live in my own self made moral universe. I am the king, and the slave out here. Stay Away!! :-)

Before logging out of Blogger for the day (and possibly, the month), yours truly turns on winamp, and kills himself by drowning in the mellow Stash concert for the next 50 minutes, where a 256 kbps mp3 file will slowly make him lose cognizance of his temporal physicality, and carry his incorporeal senses far away to another realm, where they'll coalesce with the rhythm of the acousticwaves.

Sex and Morality, the Indian Way

A new reality show is making waves in India. Personally I have no idea how such tasteless broadcast can make waves - I'm simply taking the words of the producers and gizmo promotions at face value. The theme of the show is quite simple - about a dozen young adults stay together in a swanky house, while competing in a music competition, for a coveted contract with a music company.

This show is a brilliant advertisement of our great Indian Parampara. The contestants touch the feet of their gurus and teachers after every 3 minutes, make a poker face and ask for the ashirvaad of the 'elders' from across the nation after every performance, and they have quickly made brothers and sisters out of each other. Any kind of sleaze is out of the question - this is an Indian show, and sleaze is blasphemy in India.

The same production company that produces this show runs another popular show all over the world, called 'Big Brother'. Like the Indian show, this too is a show of young adults staying together in a house. Another similarity this show shares with the Indian one - the contestants vote out one member every week.

But this is where the similarity ends, and that too, quite egregiously. Unlike the wonderfully puritanical Indian show, Big Brother is a show of decadence where the young adults (housemates), unlike their prudish Indian counterparts, are constantly indulging in kinky orgies, taking skinny dippings and doing other such wild things, on national television.

What is it about us Indians that we have to be so coy about sex? Why is sex such a tabu in India, of all places? On a larger context, why are we Indians and our societies are so desperately lacking even a semblance of openmindedness, and are buried in double standards, hypocrisy and a funny way of looking at women?

I really don't have the answer myself. Historically speaking, at best, I can assume that Islamisation has to do something with it, since in the good old days of the ancient world, it was our society that was the most advanced in the world, besides being wonderfully openminded (how ironic!). It was here that Kama Sutra was written, the bible of love and sex. Our epics are replete with such references of impropriety that they, put in context today and judged against our present moral standards, would bring heart attacks to many (including my uncool mom).

Some examples over the top of my head:

Karna is born to Kunti from an act of lovemaking between her and Surya, while she was still a maiden. After she marries Pandu (who was technically impotent), they decide that Kunti should bed the best of sperm donors that were on offer to get sons. So each of Kunti's 5 sons were the result of lovemaking between her and superhuman demigods. (Poor Pandu was technically impotent since he was under a curse that he would die the moment he had sex.) Moving on, the heroine of the epic, Draupadi, is polyandrous - married to all the five pandavas. Even imagining an analogous situation in our society today is impossible. The exquisitely beautiful Ahalya, married to the sage Gautama, grants sexual favours to Indra because she was bored of her old hag of a husband. While being plyed on a boat by Satyavati, the sage Parasurama is overpowered by a desire to make love to her. Realising that she had no way out of the situation, she consents to him, but on certain conditions : that her son would be assured of greatness, her stink (she was a fishergirl) would be gone, and a fog would shroud their lovemaking, so that no one could see them.

If we changed the names of the characters and demigods to present scenarios and asked people what they thought of it, I bet everyone and sundry would find them morally despicable. Change back the names to the demigods, and everyone's opinion would change in a flash. From an open minded perspective, the above mythological accounts are great exemplars of feminism, feminine empowerment, feminine sexuality, and equality in society. These ancient characters were veritable 21st century superwomen!!

Islam's dogmatic mandate not only brought a change in the existing easy going Indian social fibre, but a handful muslim conquerors destroyed art and culture brutally. Sufism did bring back some liberal thoughts, but it wasn't enough to replace the damage that took place to the free-thinking hindu and buddhist culture under the Islamic sword. Over a period of time, we had turned wonderfully incurious and numb, and the damage was irreversible to such an extent, that it has stood the test of time.

***

The other day, Rectors of some Indian Universities passed some wonderfully clever laws. At the Anna, Bombay and Orissa Universities, its been announced that women should not wear miniskirts, jeans, or any kind of western outfit (sort of forgotten at the moment which outfit was banned where) since not allowing these would bring in “more discipline and a sense of unity” among the students. (paraphrasing them). And, reduce chances of women getting molested and raped.

Excellent. So what's next? Because there is a terrorism threat, should we all give off our bikes and start moving in military tanks? Wear helmets and armours to go to the grocery?

By holding accountable the dress as opposed to the provocation, these moral policemen are only damaging the situation, and glorifying exactly the notion that needs to be driven out from our sensibilities. They can only believe that the dress is at fault, because at the back (and front) of their perverted mind runs the underlying notion and assumption that 'women are pieces of flesh'. And if these 'pieces of flesh' overdress, everything will be alright. bah! Why should the dress pay the price when clearly the problem lies somewhere else? These clever gentlemen don't realise that rape, molestation etc have nothing to do with the dress, while it has everything to do with the mindset of the people doing it. Bloody Motherfucking Idiots!

Blogging via e-mail

I am exploring the feature of posting a blog using e-mail. This is a test mail.

 

The ‘Subject’ of the mail becomes the Title of the post.

The ‘Body’ of the mail becomes the content of the post.

 

If it works, is quite a useful feature. I will recommend to all my friends who procrastinate from blogging on the pretext of not having “net connectivity”.

 

-- Neo_Loaded

Tromso and Ushuaia

Tromsø and Ushuaia.

Two cities at two ends of the world. One is probably the northernmost city on earth, and the latter, the southernmost. What struck me about the two cities is that both are picture perfect in the same sort of way - mountains in the background, sea in front, and are breathtakingly pretty. Tromso is a Norwegian city above the Arctic Circle, and has 6 months day and 6 months night (midnight sun), while Ushuaia is at the southernmost tip of the South American continent.

My interest in these two places began the other day, when I saw Tromso on Michael Palin's 'Pole to Pole' series. Michael Palin travelled from North Pole to South Pole in 1992, in this award winning television series for the BBC. (the official site of Pole to Pole is here) Then the day after that, I saw Ushuaia in a Football Mundial show on Argentinian soccer.

Both these places have since hopped up high on my 'must visit' wishlist. I think I'll try to travel to these places sometimes. Probably take a leisurely (and VERY expensive :-P) cruise or something. heh heh. :-)

Some pictures of Tromso and Ushuaia that I managed to gather from the net (click thumbnails for larger pic) :

Tromso

Ushuaia

Twinkle Twinkle Li'll Star

The other day... well... night, exactly.... I was on roof-top for couple of hours. It was a clear sky and relatively slow breeze. I chanced to see several fast moving objects in the sky. They were specks of light just like stars. But were moving very steadily and very, very rapidly. The altitude (they were just a speck) and the speed of movement ruled them out to be air-planes. Neither were they shooting stars.

For a moment, the movie buff in me had a adrenalin rush thinking that I have spotted several UFOs. Yeah, I wish!! On a less romantic/adventurous note, I realised that I was seeing the movement of several low-orbit satellites.

I was witnessing this for the first time. And this made me think whether Hubble Space Telescope, Mir and International Space Station are also visible by naked eye. If they do, they will appear brighter and slower.

Found these links:-
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970414f.html
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970505h.html

Try seeing this event. Its fun!!!

Liverpool Ole!

Before I came back to blogging after a short sabbatical, I thought I'd change the template of the blog. I didn't venture to do with the entire template making from scratch this time - just chose one of the readymade blogger templates, and planned to tweak that [colours, font, etc]. Last week met my blogging pardner in Bangalore, and one of the foremost issues we discussed was about changing the old template.

***

The other day, Liverpool became champions of Europe. They literally snatched the title from AC Milan's pockets. Milan was leading 3-0 at half time, Kaka was toying with the much vaunted Liverpool defence, and almost all pundits [including yours truly] had written off Liverpool.

Incidentally, this was the back-to-back Champs League final that I've watched alone. Champs League used to be a festival in college. The finals, or even a group 1 match featuring two big clubs, would mean party time. A get together with friends, food, and drinks. Of course, the drinks part was totally contingent upon someone's father (someone: the person at whose place we were staying back) lurking around in the TV room because he failed to resist the temptation of silky smooth midnight football, or that someone's mom lurking around in the TV room, pretending to knit woollens at 2 am. While we completely appreciated this someone's dad's appreciation for the beautiful game, we toally failed to grasp why someone's mom would want to pretend to knit woollens at 2 am. What was it that she was trying to 'notice' in a bunch of boys watching football and having fun? One theory goes that she was trying to check up whether we actually gang up to watch football, or something else ( porn?). Another goes that she probably was trying to check whether we were gays. And so on and so forth.

An extremely fun night was the Man United Bayern final some years back. I was grinning with sadistic delight at the sight of United slowly moved towards an honourable loss. But alas! a few moments of last minute madness gave them the game, and the trophy. Much to the maddening delight of the United supporters around me. While I was feeling completely sick.

This year, I was really hoping for a Milan Chelsea finale from the beginning, and I was one game away from fulfilling my hope. But a superb semi final aggregate victory against Chelsea took Liverpool back to the elite European Trophy final after a 2 decade gap or so. Amazingly, in both games, Steven Gerrard completely nullifed the omnipotent Frank Lampard in midfield. In the other semi, Milan scraped past a resilient Eindhoven. Milan almost lost, but then, in the end, didn't quite. I gave a wry smile after seeing Milan almost peeing in the pants after being bullied by a few pint sized Koreans.

The final line-up of Liverpool-Milan did leave me somewhat irritated because I feared the game would be a defensive masterpiece and would end in a heroic 0-0. Thankfully, my needless fears didn't materialise (but the wrong prediction did, damn!). It turned out to be an amazing game by the end of 120 minutes - not the best I've seen, but definitely one of the best.

The next day, most of the cliched 'Liverpool Ole' type news articles came up with this interesting historical titbit:

in 1981, Liverpool beat Real Madrid - Prince Charles got married in 1981, and again in 2005.

in 1978, Liverpool beat FC Brugges - the pope died that year, and again in 2005.

Tribute to a legend : Star Wars

Episode 3 : Revenge of the Sith is premiering today, 19th May, in India. I haven't seen any of the episodes, but the legendary cult of Star Wars has not gone amiss to me.

The current episode, I hope, will not be a wholesome viewing without having the idea of plot summary of the whole series. Thought of Googling away to my nirvana. Unfortunately, none of the sites on the Web, that I could find, had a concise yet complete summary of all the episodes.

After making lots of searches and compiling the plot summaries of all the episodes (courtesy: Wikipedia), here goes the post for all of them.

Spoiler Warning : The plot summaries may have spoilers.

Episode IV : A New Hope
Episode V : The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VI : Return of the Jedi

Episode I : The Phantom Menace
Episode II : Attack of the Clones
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars (Episode III) : Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars (Episode III) : Revenge of the Sith

War! The Republic is crumbling
under attacks by the ruthless
Sith Lord, Count Dooku.
There are heroes on both sides.
Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the
fiendish droid leader General
Grievous has swept into the
Republic capital and kidnapped
Chancellor Palpatine, leader of
the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army
attempts to flee the besieged
capital with their valuable
hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a
desperate mission to rescue the
captive Chancellor....

The Galactic Republic is crumbling in the midst of an epic war with the Confederacy of Independent Systems under the leadership of the Sith Lord, Count Dooku. The Confederate droid military leader General Grievous has swept into Coruscant and captured Chancellor Palpatine (as seen in the microseries Star Wars: Clone Wars and the James Luceno novel Labyrinth of Evil).

As the droid army attempts to escape Coruscant, a huge space battle erupts with Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi leading a mission to rescue the Chancellor. The Jedi fight through the Separatist armada. In the process, Obi-Wan’s ship is damaged and the two Jedi crash into the hangar of the Trade Federation Cruiser The Invisible Hand, the flagship of the Confederacy.

Anakin and Obi-Wan make their way through the Federation Cruiser, fighting through an army of droids. They reach the room where Chancellor Palpatine is being held captive by Count Dooku. A lightsaber battle ensues, with the two Jedi teaming up against Dooku. During the battle, Obi-Wan is rendered unconscious. Anakin continues the battle, gaining the upper hand and cutting off Dooku’s arms. With Dooku on his knees, Anakin holds his lightsaber to Dooku’s neck. With encouragement from Palpatine, Anakin beheads the helpless Count.

The Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer Guarlara launches a final cannonade that mortally wounded the ship, and it begins to descend uncontrolled into Coruscant. Anakin carries the unconscious Obi-Wan on his back, and maneuvers through the ship with Palpatine. Obi-Wan later regains consciousness.

The three are captured by General Grievous. R2-D2 creates a distraction, allowing the Jedi to retrieve their lightsabers and break free. However, Grievous manages to escape, as well as release all the remaining escape pods. As the ship descends in a free-fall into Coruscant, Anakin takes the controls and pilots the ship into a hard landing.

On Coruscant, Anakin is praised for his heroics. He meets secretly with Padmé Amidala, and they share kisses in the shadows, keeping their love secret. She reveals to him that she is pregnant with twins.

Later, Anakin awakens in a panic, covered in sweat. He reveals to Padmé that he has been dreaming about her dying in childbirth, and he vows not to let this dream come true.

Chancellor Palpatine requests Anakin’s presence, and they meet in the Chancellor’s Coruscant apartment. The Senate has granted the Chancellor further emergency war powers, giving him direct control of the Jedi Council. Palpatine confides to Anakin his fear, distrust, and contempt of the Jedi. He appoints Anakin to be his personal representative on the Jedi Council.

The Jedi Council accepts Anakin’s appointment, but does not grant him the rank of Master. Anakin reacts angrily, insisting he is more powerful than anyone else on the council. The council goes on to discuss matters concerning the war. It is decided that Anakin will be assigned to protect the Chancellor, and Yoda will take a battalion of clones to reinforce the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. Anakin is angry and disappointed.

Obi-Wan later tells Anakin that the Jedi Council wants Anakin to report on all the Chancellor’s dealings, essentially spying on him. Anakin is outraged, but accepts the mission.

At the Galaxies Opera House in Coruscant, Anakin joins Palpatine in watching the Mon Calamari Ballet performing “Squid Lake”. Palpatine continues to seduce Anakin to the dark side, making him mistrust the Jedi. He also tells him of Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord that used the Force to save people from death, but whose apprentice (Darth Sidious) killed him in his sleep. Palpatine says the ability to save people from death is not something that can be learned from a Jedi.

The Jedi Council receives word from Palpatine that General Grievous is on the planet of Utapau. They decide to send Obi-Wan to Utapau. Anakin is upset that he was not chosen instead.

Obi-Wan arrives on Utapau and searches for General Grievous, riding a lizard-like creature called “Boga”. He finds Grievous and the two erupt in battle, with Grievous using four lightsabers at once. Grievous attempts to flee on a Wheel Scooter, and Obi-Wan pursues aboard Boga. During the chase, Obi-Wan drops his lightsaber.

On Coruscant, Anakin tells Palpatine that General Grievous has been found by Obi-Wan on Utapau. Anakin insists he should be on Utapau as well. Their conversation shifts to Palpatine’s knowledge of the force, and it is revealed that he is the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Upon realizing this, Anakin ignites his lightsaber and threatens to kill Palpatine, but then decides to expose him to the Jedi Council.

Obi-Wan continues to chase General Grievous on Utapau. He catches up with the general, and the two engage in melee combat. Obi-Wan manages to grab and rip off General Grievous’ loose stomachplate, exposing the guts in his chest. Obi-Wan retrieves the droid’s blaster. Obi-Wan shoots the general in the stomach, causing him to explode from the inside-out, killing him.

Anakin tells Mace Windu that Chancellor Palapatine is the Sith Lord they had been looking for. Anakin offers to help in Palpatine’s arrest, but Windu urges him to stay out of it.

Remembering Palpatine’s promise of stopping death and the dreams of Padme dying in childbirth, Anakin rushes to Palpatine.

Mace Windu and three other Jedi Masters arrive at Chancellor Palpatine’s office to have the Chancellor arrested. Palpatine pulls a lightsaber out of his sleeve and lunges, quickly striking down three Jedi. Palpatine and Mace continue to fight down the hallway and into the main office area. Meanwhile, Anakin arrives at the scene and watches the duel. During the duel, the Sith Lord’s Force lightning is deflected back onto him by Mace Windu, distorting Palpatine’s face. Just as Mace is about to finish Palpatine, Anakin cuts off Mace’s hand. Mace is caught off guard and hit by the full blast of Palpatine’s Force lightning. He is flung out the window and falls hundreds of stories to his death.

Anakin is distraught with what he has done, and confides in Palpatine. Palpatine takes Anakin as his Sith apprentice. Anakin kneels before Palpatine, and Palpatine bestows him with the Sith name “Darth Vader”. The Senate holds a meeting where Palpatine tells them of the “plot of the Jedi to overthrow the Senate”. Amidst thunderous applause, he announces that the Republic will be reorganized as the first Galactic Empire.

Darth Sidious gives the order to all Clone Stormtroopers of the Army of the Republic around the galaxy to execute Order 66; while Anakin/Vader is given his first assignment: the destruction of the Jedi Temple – the Great Jedi Purge, the start of the Galactic Civil War. Across the Galaxy, the Clone Stormtroopers turn against their Jedi masters. Obi-Wan on Utapau and Yoda on Kashyyyk barely manage to escape.

At night, Anakin marches to the Jedi Temple with a battalion of Clone Stormtroopers. Anakin moves through the temple, striking down all the Jedi he comes across, including the younglings.

Later, Anakin goes to Padme, who sees the smoke rising from the Jedi Temple but does not know what is happening. He tells her the Jedi have tried to take over the Republic, and there are traitors in the Senate. He tells her that he will go to the Mustafar system, where the remaining Confederate Separatists have gathered, and he will end the war.

Obi-Wan and Yoda go to the Jedi Temple, avoiding Clone Troopers and walking in disbelief through the carnage. They send a signal warning all Jedi to keep away from the temple. At the temple’s control center, Obi-Wan looks into the security recordings. In disbelief, he sees Anakin slaughtering the Jedi. Yoda says they have no choice but to destroy the Sith – and Anakin Skywalker.

On Mustafar, Anakin slaughters the Confederate Separatist leaders in cold blood.

Obi-Wan goes to Padme’s apartment, looking for Anakin. He meets Padme and tells her that Anakin has turned to the dark side and killed the younglings in the Jedi Temple. But Padme will not reveal where Anakin has gone, as he is the father of her children and her husband.

Later, Padme leaves Coruscant in her Naboo Skiff, departing to Mustafar to see Anakin. Unknown to her, Obi-Wan secretly boarded the ship just before it took off.

The Naboo Skiff lands on Mustafar. Anakin and Padme embrace. Anakin tells Padme that he has brought peace to the Republic, and he can overthrow Palpatine so he and Padme can rule the galaxy together. Padme tells him he is going down a path she cannot follow.

Anakin sees Obi-Wan emerge from the Naboo Skiff. Enraged, he uses the Force to choke Padme, thinking she led him there. She loses consciousness and Anakin releases his grip on her. Obi-Wan and Anakin break out into a ferocious, lengthy lightsaber duel.

In the Senate building, Yoda confronts Darth Sidious. They engage in a fast and furious battle using their Force abilities. The duel brings them to the deserted main area of the Senate chamber. Sidious hurls senate pods at Yoda, knocking him to the floor. With Bail Organa’s help, Yoda manages to escape.

The epic lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin brings them to many locations on Mustafar. Eventually, Obi-Wan gains the upper-hand and in the blink of an eye he cuts off both of Anakin’s legs at the knees, as well as Anakin’s left arm. Anakin tumbles down the embankment and rolls to the stop at the edge of the lava. His clothing blows into the lava and ignites. Anakin suddenly bursts into flames and screams.

Obi-Wan takes Anakin’s lightsaber and leaves with the badly-injured Padme and the droids on the Naboo Skiff.

Darth Sidious arrives at Mustafar with a battalion of Clone Stormtroopers. They rescue Anakin Skywalker from the edge of death.

Obi-Wan arrives at Polis Massa and Padme is brought to medical assistance. She is dying, but they work to save her babies—she has twins. A boy and a girl are born. In her dying breath, Padme gives them the names “Luke” and “Leia”.

Occurring simultaneously with the birth of his children, Anakin completes his transformation into Darth Vader. On Coruscant, Anakin is given new legs and a new arm. He is dressed in black armor, a face mask is sealed tightly, and his helmet is fitted. Darth Vader begins to breathe.

With Padme’s last breath, she says there is still good in Anakin. Padme Amidala dies.

Darth Vader regains consciousness. He asks what happened to Padme. Darth Sidious tells him "you killed her, don't you remember?". Vader unleashes a massive scream and unleashes his Force powers in a rage that distorts and destroys the room -- so powerful is this outburst that Darth Sidious actually must struggle to protect himself.

On the Tantive IV cruiser, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa sit at a conference table. They agree to keep the children safe and hidden. Luke and Leia would be split up in hopes that the Sith would not sense their presence. Leia will be adopted by Bail Organa. Luke would be sent to his family on Tatooine. Obi-Wan and Yoda will watch and wait until the time is ready for the Skywalker children to do their part. Yoda tells Obi-Wan to study the technique Qui-Gon learned to achieve immortality.

Bail Organa leaves R2-D2 and C-3PO in the care of Captain Antilles of the Tantive IV. He orders a memory wipe of the protocol droid.

On Naboo, Padme’s funeral takes place in a solemn ceremony.

Yoda heads to Dagobah to begin his self-imposed exile.

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer, Emperor Palpatine and Governor Tarkin are joined by Darth Vader, watching the beginning of the construction of the first Death Star.

On Alderaan, the infant Leia is brought by Bail Organa to his wife, the Queen of Alderaan. She takes her and rocks her.

On Tatooine, Obi-Wan brings the baby Luke Skywalker to his new family: Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. They look out to the horizon and watch the setting of Tatooine’s twin suns.

Star Wars (Episode II) : Attack of the Clones

Star Wars (Episode II) : Attack of the Clones

There is unrest in the Galactic
Senate. Several thousand solar
systems have declared their
intentions to leave the Republic.
This separatist movement,
under the leadership of the
mysterious Count Dooku, has
made it difficult for the limited
number of Jedi Knights to
maintain peace and order in
the galaxy.
Senator Amidala, the former
Queen of Naboo, is returning
to the Galactic Senate to vote
on the critical issue of creating
an ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
to assist the overwhelmed
Jedi...

The republic is in crisis. A separatist movement lead by former Jedi Count Dooku has threatened the peace of the Republic. Senator Amidala, former queen of Naboo, is on her way back to Senate to vote on creation of Army of the Republic, as there is not enough Jedi to maintain peace and order in the galaxy. On her way back, she survived an assassination attempt but her decoy was killed. To protect her, Chancellor Palpatine requested Jedi protection for Senator Amidala. Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were assigned to protect her. That night, a novice bounty hunter was assigned by a veteran bounty hunter to assassinate Senator Amidala again but she fails again. She was then caught by Obi Wan and Anakin after a long chase but was killed by the veteran bounty hunter before she can spilled out who is the mastermind behind the assassination. The next day, Obi Wan and Anakin reported the incident to the Jedi Council. Obi Wan was then assigned to find out the identity of the veteran bounty hunter while Anakin shall continue to protect Senator Amidala. Knowing that Senator Amidala will reject this idea, Mace Windu told Anakin to seek help from Chancellor to ask Amidala to return to Naboo. Before she left, Jar Jar Binks was assigned to take over Amidala’s duty and responsibility as a senator temporary while she is on leave. Anakin then escort Senator Amidala back to Naboo while Obi Wan investigates who is the bounty hunter. During the investigation, Obi Wan could not find a planet that was believed to be the hiding place of the veteran bounty hunter. He consulted Yoda and he gets his answer. He then traveled all the way to the planet to carry on his investigation. He traveled to the planet of the cloners and found out that there is a secret development of a clone army, ordered ten years ago on the Republic’s behalf by a Former Jedi. A bounty hunter called Jango Fett was recruited as the template for the clone army. Obi Wan was then brought to the lab to see the development of the clone army. Although Jango Fett was the template of the clone army, but he makes a special request: he wants a clone that is not genetically modified and undergoes natural growth. Obi Wan then requested to see Jango Fett. Obi Wan then found out that Jango Fett is the bounty hunter he is looking for. Obi Wan tries to capture Jango but Jango escaped. However, Obi Wan attached a tracking device on Jango’s ship and followed Jango to Geonosis. Obi Wan then found out that Count Dooku is the leader of the separatist movement, is in league with the Trade Federation, it was the Trade Federation who asked for the assassination of Senator Amidala and the separatist is building up a droid army. Obi Wan then tries to contact the Jedi Council about this but his radar was damaged and therefore he recorded a message, send it to Anakin for transfer to the Jedi Council but he was caught by Count Dooku’s droid soon after that. During the journey, Anakin and Amidala gets closer and fall in love with one another but Amidala refused to change the current status quo as she do not wish to affect both parties future. One day, Anakin sensed that his mother is in danger and returned with Amidala to Tatooine. In Tatooine, Anakin found out that his mother has married but was kidnapped by Sand people. Anakin then traveled to the place where the Sand people lived to rescue his mother but he was too late, his mother was dead. Out of fury, he slaughtered the whole village of Sand people. Back at Coruscant, Yoda sensed that something terrible has happened to Anakin. Then, Anakin returned with his mother’s body to where she lives and buried her. Anakin’s emotion was fairly unstable after his mother’s death. Then, R2-D2 came out of the ship and informed Amidala and Anakin that there is a message for them. After transmitting the message to the Jedi Council, mace Windu brought some Jedis to rescue Obi Wan while Anakin was told to protect Amidala. Amidala then asked Anakin to follow her to Geonosis to rescue Obi Wan as well. The senate at this point of time, led by Jar Jar Binks, called for the chancellor be given emergency power with which he can calls the clone army into battle. Meanwhile, Count Dooku caught Obi Wan and Count Dooku is trying to persuade Obi Wan to join him. He also warns Obi Wan that a dark lord is now in control of the senate. Amidala and Anakin soon arrived. However, they are caught soon after entering the complex of Count Dooku. Amidala, Anakin and Obi Wan were then ready to be executed soon after that by 3 galactic monsters but they managed to escape death. Soon, the Jedis arrived and a furious battle was fought between Jango with his droids against Windu with his Jedis. In the battle, Windu killed Jango. Soon, the Jedis are outnumbered by the droids and were almost on the brink of death when Yoda and the clone army arrive to save them. The battle then broke out between the droids and the clones. Count Dooku tries to escape but Obi Wan and Anakin chased after him and engaged him in a battle. In the battle, Obi Wan was hurt while Anakin has his right hand cut off by Count Dooku. Soon, Yoda arrives. Yoda fought against Count Dooku. Then Count Dooku tries to kill Obi Wan and Anakin by using the force to topple a pillar but Yoda uses the force to stop the pillar while at the same time, Count Dooku escaped. Count Dooku then went to meet his master, Darth Sidious and his master was pleased that the war has begun. Meanwhile, Obi Wan conveyed to Windu and Yoda that Dooku spoke about that a dark lord is in control of the senate. Yoda says that the war has just begun and also states that the dark side is capable of creating fear and mistrust while Windu say that they should nevertheless monitor the senate. At the same time, Anakin, after being fixed with a mechanical hand, held a secret wedding with Amidala in Naboo, with only C3-PO and R2-D2 as witnesses.