In defense of not being different

'Think Different', the advertisement advises.
Those who do think differently (in the mode that the advertisement is hinting at) are considered to be cool, inspiring and worth emulating (ironically enough!)
Those who aren't different are denigrated, even if it is of their own volition. Their disgrace is in simply being a part of the crowd.

This is not unlike society in general. I find that this is a strange situation. Why is this the case? Why do people feel the need to be different? Alternately, why is it bad to be a part of the crowd, regardless of whether it is of free choice or not?

Now, I can understand the value proposition of being different, purely from a utilitarian perspective. Those who think differently can innovate and create value that did not exist before they thought differently. But, as is often the case with innovation, breaking an existing mould implies the creation of a new one. Of what use is the trailblazing leader without inspired followers? Do we not rely on a certain degree of sameness to enforce laws, to ensure order and economize and scale? It seems evidently true to me that any difference that adds value requires large amounts of sameness to achieve greatness.

So, to hell with the arrogance of the different. To hell with being different for the sake of it. If it is true (and seems to me that it is) that there is no purpose to life except that which we arbitrarily assign to it, why dogmatically assume that difference is inherently more valuable than sameness?

The impetus for writing this post was provided by this interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TthELqT30ps. Irfan interviews Varun Grover (whose work I greatly admire) in this video. Here, Varun Grover explains why he chose creative pursuits in spite of having a  conventionally stable/successful job. His logic was that he felt small by being same.

And then there were no numbers

Xanxsosi was a devout Lapelarian. He had taken Lapelar's name fifty times a day all through his life, just as the Toxoh had commanded. Now on his deathbed, he said 'Xi kom Lapelar' (Here I come Lapelar) softly to himself. Then he calmly turned to his wife and said, 'I'm ready, dear'. He had already said his good-byes to his family earlier, so there was no reason for more talk. His wife took Lapelar's name, turned off the respirator, wiped the tears from her eyes and walked out of the room.

Xanxsosi knew the science of what was about to happen to him. He had studied this well while preparing himself for his death. Being in the business of science himself, he was dispassionately able to assess the amount of pain and suffering he would have to endure if he went the way he was planning to go. 'A few minutes of extreme discomfort were worth eternity in Lapelar's kingdom', he had convinced himself and his family in the days and months prior. 'Besides', he reasoned, 'what was the point in living like a vegetable and causing extreme inconvenience and pain to others?'

Over time, he had formed a complete mental picture of how Lapelar's kingdom might be. He'd get to see his parents who had preceded him by thirty years. And Koxsisi, his brother who had died in a fiery car crash not too long ago. He especially was looking forward to meeting Kibsisa, his childhood sweetheart, who he had heard had passed away due to a heart attack several years ago and Pinso, his beloved German Shepherd. He was a tad afraid of meeting Lapelar. He knew he had disobeyed Lapelar on several occasions in his life and that there would be a price to pay once he got to Vaixuns. But he was ready to do his penance and begin eternal life.

Hypoxia set in between the second and fourth minutes after the respirator had stopped working on his behalf. Cardiac arrest followed soon after. Starved of fresh oxygen and unable to be replenished by fresh blood, his brain cells began playing out their endgame. A sudden flash of white light was followed by what felt like a few minutes of intense rain. Once the rain subsided, he clearly saw Vaixuns in the distance. 'Lapelar, xi kom, xi kom Lapelar', he said once more. He had never felt this way all his life. There was a certain lightness to his presence. Everything seemed a brilliant bright, as though the word had new meaning to him.

For reasons he was unable to fathom, though, he remembered at that instant an incident Xobise, his neighbor had recounted when he was rescued from drowning in the Xongo river. Xobise, a Kiskotist, had seen something eerily similar in the few minutes after drowning before being miraculously spotted by the rescuers and pulled out from the water. There was the same flash of white light, the rain. But Xobise had not seen Vaixuns as Xansosi now saw before him. Instead, the Kiskotist had been ushered in by the angels to the ethereal lake, where he had cleansed himself. And before he could experience anything more, the rescuers had resuscitated him back to life.

Xanxsosi felt a strange sense of insecurity grip him. He had suddenly realized that his religious belief and Xobise's had all but their respective Gods in common. They had each formed mental pictures of how their heavens would be and their brains had simply played these out by combining remnants of their memory with the vestiges of their consciousness in the last moments of their lives. The last moments of his life at any rate. Xobise had of course gone on to live a healthy and productive life after his tryst with Kiskotist heaven.

The sense of lightness Xanxsosi had felt just moments ago was replaced by intense pain, the exceptional effulgence by an all-pervading blackness.
'Black', he thought amusedly to himself - '0, 0, 0'. And then there were no numbers.

The Gun Debate

When watching episode 4 of season 1 of 'The West Wing' - 'Five votes down', I was struck by how the gun-control debate hasn't moved an inch in the last 14 years. The same polarization, the same fear of the NRA primary-ing Congressmen, the same talk of African-American youth being disproportionately affected by gun violence and so on. It's as though time has stopped when it comes to this issue.

And now there's talk of the NRA promising the fight of the century. Boy, these folks sure dig deep. The tyranny argument strikes me as fallacious. The weakest governments these days have firepower that can easily destroy reasonably-armed militia. I don't see how having ARs can protect people against governments turning tyrannical. Also, isn't voting-in a democratically elected government slightly besides the point when you mistrust them so much you need to sleep with a Bushmaster and a few thousand rounds of ammo close by just in case jackbooted government thugs decide to come by and pay you a visit? 

Fanboy

I finally bought a Macbook Pro after much debate with myself. On the lines of 'It's too expensive, you can buy two (shitty) W7 books for the price. But it's awesome...And you can work on a real Unix based system, that's much more robust and less prone to malware than the W. But then, why don't I buy a Linux book instead. Yeah, but the graphics in Linux are semi-good and well, it's got that open source feel to it...And yeah, Mac's too damn expensive. But dammit, it is awesome....' for days on end.
After a lifetime of criticizing Apple fanboys I've turned into one myself today. Not solely due to the quality of the product, but because using the damn thing is a constant reminder of what a difference passion and vision can make in our lives.

ZNMD, agreed, but...

So I watched Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara over the weekend. I found the movie to be average, unlike some of my friends who really liked the movie. Parts of the movie bored me and most scenes seemed like fillers between the more laugh-worthy scenes. Maybe watching a movie in a theater does that to you - the audience reaction is strongest when an actor cracks a good joke.
I also found the movie to be a gorgeous, three hour extended advertisement for Spain. The Spanish government will doubtless felicitate Zoya Akhtar for doing yeoman's service to the Spanish tourism industry in the days to come.
The endeavor seems cliched. We've all heard it, right, all the time? Carpe Diem, seize the day, live every moment as if it were your last, yada yada...
So we're made to feel that working too hard is pointless and a waste of one's lifetime because, well, it's just work. That it may also be one's passion incidentally comes across in the character of the artist and we immediately have a contradiction. Life, on the other hand, a truly meaningful life, apparently involves doing things like witnessing nature's beauty, facing one's demons and coming to terms with that imperfect relationship one is stuck in and having no regrets. Doing things to earn a living is run-of-the-mill but doing them for oneself is apparently what matters, is what we're indirectly told through couplets scattered throughout the movie and through the medium of the artist. Work is work, silly, not life. I don't know if you felt it too, but this vague sense of being talked down to pervaded the movie.
And so, despite all the spontaneity of Farhan Akhtar and the beautiful Spanish vistas and the wonderful music in the song, Jo bhi ho so ho, I found the movie to be just average.
And yeah, the lyrics of the song don't suit the chorus (or the other way around). So this dude feels his life has changed after this moment and now he doesn't give a f&^k about what happens, right? But he's supposed to, correct? Carpe Diem and all that jazz? Nitpicking, am I?

Father of the nation

Hehehe
'Mera baap chor hai', anyone?

South of the Border

Watched this documentary recently.
Seemed gushing and lacked equal depth, concentrating more on Chavez than other leaders.
But it is informative and provides an alternate perspective to the US MSM narrative of South American politics, leaning leftwards now more than ever before in the second half of the 20th century. It's difficult to get an unbiased viewpoint in these matters, but if you have two extreme viewpoints at opposite ends of the spectrum one can often assume that the truth sits uncomfortably in between.
I especially liked Stone's monologue towards the end in which he says something to this effect "...this interventionist capitalism must be replaced by a more benign capitalism..."
Amen to that.

Easily offended

'End all economic and political ties with Australia...', read a placard. A bunch of protesters held a hastily made cut-out of Goddess Lakshmi killing Mahishasura. In a classic demonstration of a blend of artistic imagination and timeliness, the demon was drawn wearing what looked like Australian cricket team colors. When reminded that it was Durga who killed the said demon, he replied, 'Barobare, tumhala bhavana pochlya na?'

After an hour of slogan chanting, when the press had disappeared, the 'activists' began to disperse. One protester was seen asking another, 'Photo-bito baghitlas ka?'
'Chya maayla, lai maal hote ki nahi...'

This headline may be misleading.

I'm sure this has happened to you. You're skimming through your regular newspaper/news website, reading all the headlines to make sure you don't miss anything interesting. And then it catches your eye. A headline that uses a clever play on words, perhaps. Or one that seems to pronounce judgement on a controversial topic. Or one that selectively quotes or interprets the contents of an interview. Or one that is polemic in nature. I've found that such headlines serve their intended purpose quite well. They make me stop and read through the corresponding article out of sheer curiosity, if not interest. Often times though, the article does not convey the message that the headline does, highlighting the dangers of paraphrasing in our age of 140 character messages. A case in point - this article.

The headline got my attention and I began reading the article with the mental image of another condescending columnist shining light on topics they 'know' nothing about. To my surprise, I found that the article was nicely written, not know-it-all in tone and was well intended, if somewhat obvious to a reasonably tolerant person. All good. What then is my point? Compare the headline with the concluding para in the article. While the headline itself conveys that the author somehow 'knows' how God thinks, the concluding para has a more careful, even wishful tone regarding God's thought process.

It's a tight rope to walk, keeping those headlines short, simple and yet conveying information on the one side and grabbing eyeballs without misinforming on the other.

Only you, TOI, only you...

If you ever suspected that Bollywood and the Pakistani defense establishment had links, then you must be congratulated for your intuition and uncanny ability to divine these things. TOI has finally unearthed these links and has reported them in this article.
Before TOI realizes that this is sensitive information and changes the text of the article, I must quote from it:

.....
In 2009, ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha attended an iftar dinner by Indian envoy to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal, which was seen to herald some kind of a thaw. Earlier, too, India had asked to engage the Pakistani army chief, but to little avail. The Pakistani army chief leads the strategic dialogue process with the US, which includes both civilian and military components in the talks. But India remains wedded to the civilian establishment, and has historically only engaged the Pakistani army chief after he has taken over power in a coup.

Kayani is a different kettle of fish. Having declared to be "India centric", the chain-smoking quiet Pakistani army chief has generally been seen to be the most hostile army leader.

Yash Raj Films will have a catalogue of 56 movies online, while Karan Johar is in the process of releasing his films on the internet for fans in the US.

There you go. Crystal clear, the link between the two, innit?

Here's wishing you a Happy....

....and Prosperous/Healthy New Year.

How many times have you heard that greeting already?
I wonder why people feel the need to include 'Healthy' and 'Prosperous' (notice the Caps) in addition to 'Happy'?
Doesn't 'Happy' cover all bases?
Can one be happy without being prosperous? (Maybe)
Without being healthy? (Don't think so)
Are they hinting, like I did a while back, that happiness may not be the most important thing?
Do I suffer from work-induced ADD?
Did Kennedy do Monroe?
Did Israel bug Natanz?
Can all questions be answered?
Should they be?

(Stuxnet link courtesy Ali P. via email)

An inapplicable dilemma (for the most part)

To be or not to be. Most times, that is never the question, is it?
We are.
For us lesser mortals, the pertinent question most often is how?.
How do we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and yet live to hope for a better day? How can we bear the whips and scorns of time and yet hope to heal?
How to be?.. so that we then are what we want ourselves to be. That, my friends is the question.

Probably the last post of a good year, blogically speaking.

On C.S.

Came across this article while browsing through the content on CNN.

I've had an on and off like-dislike relationship with C.S Lewis' body of work - and that includes the movies made on his books. Once, in a debate with a person defending Lewis , I called C.S. 'virulent', a charge I retracted later.

If I were asked to pick one passage/quote that I thought encapsulated his thoughts on Christ, I would pick this:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

The quote sums up what I like (and dislike) about Lewis. He seems brutally honest when he assesses the claims of the Nazarene. His personal faith in Christ does not stop him from critically examining Christ's reported claims (Though one might fault him for having given just one from a plethora of possible medically feasible options). Having made such a scathing analysis, he still takes the third option in his writings.

I sometimes wish the Godfather Trilogy was made in C.S's time. It would've convinced him that two great options are enough. You put in a poor (nay, pathetic and unnecessary) third where no more is required and you ruin the trilogy in average. On a more serious note, the dilemma, or trilemma as it were, seems unnecessarily psychological. One first needs to determine the veracity of the claims attributed to the Christ or if a historical Jesus actually existed and performed the miracles and quoted the quotes attributed to him. One can extend this requirement to other religious figures and it persists. In the absence of such proof, any claim of divinity/divine inspiration is hasty and speaks more of the person wanting to cling to the claim than the correctness of the claim itself.

Paanch

Paanch disappoints. Too long. Even gimmicky towards the end. Also, it doesn't seem to have it's heart in the right place. After two and a half hours, I didn't quite get the point of the film. Was it about why normal kids take to drugs, rock-n-roll and violence? Was it about trust and faith and how money trumps both. Was it another suspense thriller?
Clearly inspired by the Jakkal-Sutar-Jagtap-Shah trial, the movie could have been a lot more. Or a lot less, if it wasn't for a stellar performance by the cast. Seems to be the start of a pattern I see in all of Kashyap's films. IMHO, brilliant scenes are a necessary condition for a good film, but are insufficient by themselves.

Druth Gath

There's something about certain Tarantino movie scenes that reminds me of Hindustani music set-pieces. There's the languid beginning with painstaking attention to the smallest detail (bordering on boring at times but giving no indication of what is in store). Then there's the subsequent fascinating conversation between musical instruments and vocals on one hand and movie characters on the other, both brilliantly paced. The steady build-up is capped by an explosive ending that leaves you breathless. And needless to say, asking for more.

Flower in the crannied wall

On Chirkin

The song moTumasTer from uDaan has a line that goes thus:

Chirkin ka muse hai,
paryaavaraN hi loose hai.
uDne na dena isse,
DoomsDay ka fuse hai.

Googling Chirkin brought to my notice the interesting fact that Chirkin was an Urdu poet who had (for lack of a better phrase) a toilet fixation.
Apparently the man was pissed off (pun intended) with his fellow shayars for not giving him much attention. So he went about writing shitty poetry. How and why he made that leap of logic - 'people ignore me so I must anger them by making poetry about their excretory habits' - is unknown to me at the moment.
Unless there have been earlier Hindi songs that have mentioned him, credit must be given to Anurag Kashyap for bringing Chirkin to our notice.

It seems, from elementary web-investigation that Diwan-e-Chirkin is now out of print. What a waste...

The arbitrariness argument

Recently came across the Euthyphro dilemma while reading about the Ontological argument. While the essential question it raises is of course pertinent, it does so in the context of morality, the relativistic nature of which in a logical debate raises problems.
Assume therefore that the concept of morality in the Euthyphro dilemma and in the arbitrariness argument is replaced with physically measurable (or mathematically computable/derivable) quantities - e.g. the cosmological constant, or the gravitational constant or the speed of light. A common theistic argument, the Fine Tuning Argument or Anthropic Principle is that for life to exist as it does, these constants must be precisely what they are. Let's assume this to be true. Let us also, for the sake of argument assume that the quantities were chosen by God to be so.
God being omniscient and omnipotent (two common assumptions in theology) could well have chosen other numbers for the above constants and still make the universe work in exactly the same way as it does right now. But he chose to go with the numbers we now measure or calculate to be true. In picking some numbers over the others, God is being arbitrary since no number is inherently better than others (42 of course, is an exception...).
Alternately, there are parallel universes out there with all possible combinations of these constants.
The first argument goes to show that arbitrariness is a necessary attribute of God if we believe in the concept of numbers. The second lacks physical proof and suffers from the same drawback - an omniscient being could well have interchanged these combinations amongst the other universes.
Since arbitrariness is generally thought of as an undesirable quality - one cannot 'trust' someone who is arbitrary with making 'correct' (quotations added to reflect fuzziness of the words and their inappropriateness in a logical discussion) decisions - we must conclude that our otherwise perfect God has arbitrariness as an undesirable adjoint attribute (alliteration!!).
The arbitrariness does not magically disappear even if one chooses to believe that there is a perfect reason somewhere for this set of numbers to be chosen unless, of course one considers numbers as being too illogical to figure in a logical argument.

One could alternately view God as the benevolent creator who let things proceed as they did. The constants then are not a product of design, but turn up that way just coincidentally and that we run into problems when we try to justify things by sticking probes and measuring quantities by assigning numbers to them - a limitation of man as it were. The essential problem with such a view is that it lies outside the domain of logical discussion and one enters the domain of belief, where, suddenly (and magically), our logical devices and faculties cease to function.

uDaan

Positives:
Measured cinematography, exceptionally underplayed artwork that fits the setting, brilliant sound work, real acting (save the story telling bit), superlative lyrics.

Negatives:
Minor quibbles that might indicate that the negatives are more than the positives. That truly isn't the case. They should've hired locals/actors from the region to portray locals (students, father, uncle), they've gone with Ronit Roy (who does a pretty good job) for the father and Ram Kapoor for the uncle, and (what seems like) two Marathi actors (The senior and the old guy in the hospital). In this respect, I felt that authenticity was compromised. Naav suggests a fight back, but the ending seems like a cop-out. In general, the lyrics aren't perfectly suited for the screenplay (Getting it perfect must be a real bitch especially if the lyrics are so awesome). Some scenes don't fit: The car breaking scene indicating angst and frustration followed by incarceration. Highly unlikely - not the car-breaking by protagonist, but doing that in front of a cop risking incarceration - then again, I probably feel that way because I can't put myself in his shoes. The kids end up running the restaurant - again, fortuitous and artistic license must be given. Ditto for the end scene in which Rohan smuggles the kid away - just when his dad has gone to get the auto. The MoTumaster isn't that fat...

I think Rohan was his uncle's son, not his father's, both literally and figuratively. The dialog in which the uncle tells him that every father wants his kid to be just like him followed by the album scenes and uncle whispering into his ears indicates as much.

All said and done, very much worth the watch. If just 5% of the 1000 odd films made every year were qualitatively as close to this film...well it would be awesome wouldn't it?

In case my preference for local actors is somehow misconstrued as some sort of parochialism, I wish to clarify that isn't. I just like accents in a movie to be as authentic as possible.

Bi Got, these guys are awesome!!

Zaid Hamid and Glenn Beck. Two demagogues, different continents, same philosophy, similar styles. Similar audience. By and large, so far, similar results, thankfully.
I worry about the day these guys become influential enough to affect policy changes in their respective countries.
I also think (but I'm not putting my money on it) that 28-10-2010 is GB's political launch pad just as Takmeel-e-Pakistan was for ZH. But things look rosier for GB since he isn't in the kind of religious trouble ZH is in Pakistan.

Update: The good Neeraj Gaur has since brought it to my notice that Raj Thackeray belongs to the group too. True that. Other than the fact that he's already a politician, he's a good addition to the group. I'm sure GB and ZH would concur.