Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Story of a young boy
This is a picture of a young boy sitting idle, while his mother sells handmade toys and jewellery to the tourists at Gateway of India.This is the India Shining.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
White: Krzysztof Kieslowski
The cover has this line on it : "There is nothing sweeter than revenge".
Well not if it is inflicted on the woman one loves more than anybody else. Not if it is directed at the person that you wish to be with most. Perhaps it is sweet if it brings you closer to your love. The film is liberating, this is my favorite word to describe a feeling of lightness that some movies pour into me. The movie is woven around this one character who is divorced by his lady because of his inability to fulfil his role as a "man". This was also a subject in one of the movies in Decalogue by Kieslowski, where this inability breeds infidelilty in the lady.
In this film it leads to divorce, but the male protagonist's undoubted love leads him to the riches of the world and finally to his lady. The path from separation to getting back together is a long winding road and that is what makes the story ingeniuos. Watch it ! ***1/2
Well not if it is inflicted on the woman one loves more than anybody else. Not if it is directed at the person that you wish to be with most. Perhaps it is sweet if it brings you closer to your love. The film is liberating, this is my favorite word to describe a feeling of lightness that some movies pour into me. The movie is woven around this one character who is divorced by his lady because of his inability to fulfil his role as a "man". This was also a subject in one of the movies in Decalogue by Kieslowski, where this inability breeds infidelilty in the lady.
In this film it leads to divorce, but the male protagonist's undoubted love leads him to the riches of the world and finally to his lady. The path from separation to getting back together is a long winding road and that is what makes the story ingeniuos. Watch it ! ***1/2
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Taare Zameen Par
Taare zameen par, if i say was a very honest film I wouldn't be adding anything new to the already existing compliments. It was indeed an honest film , the story was such that one can not portray it with anything but a full dose of the h word.
Now as an audience why am i not guilty of spending the amount of money i shelled out (which has increased 10 times since my kidhood) for it ? Well because it gave me a peep into my very own childhood, I wasn't a dyslexic. But then the movie is not about it. It is about the conflicts of a child, dyslexic or not dyslexic. It is about pursuing your hearts' desire and the consequences if you fail do so because of the pressures from all kinds of sources.
At the cost of sounding ignorant i would say that there is a little bit of dyslexia in everyone. And if one goes by the resilience of the protagonist and the confidence of his art teacher, dyslexia seems to have been brought into fashion. On a lighter note the movie wins heart in all of the departments be it music, dialogues, lyrics, story and performances. I believe the child actor should be pitted against other male actors in awarding the best male actor award with age being NO bar.
Amir Khan has proven yet again that his infrequent appearances on the 70mm screen atleast guarantees a blockbuster status for the few films that he does. And also that he is India's hope to achieve an Oscar nomination yet again. This film deserves ****1/2. Half point deducted to make it look realistic.
Now as an audience why am i not guilty of spending the amount of money i shelled out (which has increased 10 times since my kidhood) for it ? Well because it gave me a peep into my very own childhood, I wasn't a dyslexic. But then the movie is not about it. It is about the conflicts of a child, dyslexic or not dyslexic. It is about pursuing your hearts' desire and the consequences if you fail do so because of the pressures from all kinds of sources.
At the cost of sounding ignorant i would say that there is a little bit of dyslexia in everyone. And if one goes by the resilience of the protagonist and the confidence of his art teacher, dyslexia seems to have been brought into fashion. On a lighter note the movie wins heart in all of the departments be it music, dialogues, lyrics, story and performances. I believe the child actor should be pitted against other male actors in awarding the best male actor award with age being NO bar.
Amir Khan has proven yet again that his infrequent appearances on the 70mm screen atleast guarantees a blockbuster status for the few films that he does. And also that he is India's hope to achieve an Oscar nomination yet again. This film deserves ****1/2. Half point deducted to make it look realistic.
My Beautiful Laundrette
Deeply moving. Strongly recommended. Brave performances. Stupifying and thought provoking. ***
V-O-L-A-T-I-L-I-T-Y
Volatility has been associated with deviation of a stochastic process from the mean value. In simpler words it is the measure of tendency of a phenomenon to not result in the expected or result in the expected.It all seems to have been started by George Brown who noticed the motion of microscopic particles suspended in water. It was a factual behavior of particles in water until Albert Einstein described it mathematically and snowballed a whole new area in mathematics which has been contributed to by the 'n' (still counting) generations after him.
Again in describing the historical development of the concept of volatility i have cheated or rather failed to think deeper because of my specialist approach. I have narrowed my mind to thinking of volatility only in the context of oscillations at microscopic level and been impatient in describing it completely. I am trying to get to Brownian motion and its applications to physics and finance, where volatility has played an important role.
Consider the sport of archery, when a well practiced archer shoots the arrow his volatility (given the objective is to hit bulls eye) would be lower as compared to the not so trained one. Not every thing can be trained for instance, the stock prices may not be trained to go up or go down; or it could not be even trained to reveal where will it move next: up or down, unlike an archer who can get better with practice.
The greatest fallacy of man in the current age is his belief that he can control/predict all processes, man made or natural. What we know of volatility is only the volatility of the process in time and not in possibilities at a given point in time. We do not know what has not happened but only what has happened and looking back one can know what has been deviation over time. Now if one assumes that the different scenarios that have unfolded in past are the only possibilities then the quantified deviation from the average is an estimate of volatility and a pretty bad one.
What is a good estimate of volatility then ? Depends !
Buck in the muck !!
Corruption breeds poverty, inequalities, low productivity and in some cases where the municipal corporation is concerned it even breeds mosquitoes. Yet it lives on and feeds on the innocent (if there are any) common man. I shall talk in particular about India and it may be correct to project the scenario onto other developing countries; and some developed nations, if this distinction still holds.
India has suffered from various evils for a long time and yet the outlook that is portrayed (in the media) is one of utmost optimism and, at times, of nauseating preparedness. Preparedness to face the consequences of whatever ill is taking place in the nation. Hope is necessary but it may not be sufficient, turning a blind eye to machinery that doesn't work may not rectify it even if one keeps high hopes.
How can we curb corruption in the society ? How is it different in the developed nations than India ? Let us identify the points in the social chain where corruption is present. Well all of it - Education, Business, Politics and all probable concoctions of these. If i could borrow from an old proverb and form my own : To be corrupt is human and to be mute spectators to it is evil.
Let us take politics for instance, to reduce corruption we may have to revamp the bureaucracy, make politicians accountable of their actions, bring transparency in the official processes and juggle a lot of pins. Did I say "we" have to do this ? Who is "we"? We are the government , we are the politicians and we are the ones corrupt, why would we not want the extra bucks. The solution here is the problem, we are the problem. The change and rectification has to start from us. Let us keep up the hope. If we are hungry , hope will keep us alive...
India has suffered from various evils for a long time and yet the outlook that is portrayed (in the media) is one of utmost optimism and, at times, of nauseating preparedness. Preparedness to face the consequences of whatever ill is taking place in the nation. Hope is necessary but it may not be sufficient, turning a blind eye to machinery that doesn't work may not rectify it even if one keeps high hopes.
How can we curb corruption in the society ? How is it different in the developed nations than India ? Let us identify the points in the social chain where corruption is present. Well all of it - Education, Business, Politics and all probable concoctions of these. If i could borrow from an old proverb and form my own : To be corrupt is human and to be mute spectators to it is evil.
Let us take politics for instance, to reduce corruption we may have to revamp the bureaucracy, make politicians accountable of their actions, bring transparency in the official processes and juggle a lot of pins. Did I say "we" have to do this ? Who is "we"? We are the government , we are the politicians and we are the ones corrupt, why would we not want the extra bucks. The solution here is the problem, we are the problem. The change and rectification has to start from us. Let us keep up the hope. If we are hungry , hope will keep us alive...
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
The Art and Science of expression
Films, Newspaper, Recitations, Theatre, Television, SMS, Emails, Chats, Blogs, Novels, Paintings, Comic books, forms of Dances, Music and the good old snail mails. These are some of the ways a man expresses himself and understands his fellow beings.
Why is there a need to express oneself ? Why is freedom of expression so sacred ? Is the necessity of expression connected to the physical health ? Is it as basic as a good night sleep ? What is the significance of sound in the letters ? What do the letters with a particular sound signify ? What is the future of expression ? What is the evolution pattern in the modes of expression ? What has technology contributed to expression ? Which is the most effective form of expression, one that cuts through all cultural, racial and linguistic barriers ? What is distance one travels in going from "sant" to "saint" ?
Why is there a need to express oneself ? Why is freedom of expression so sacred ? Is the necessity of expression connected to the physical health ? Is it as basic as a good night sleep ? What is the significance of sound in the letters ? What do the letters with a particular sound signify ? What is the future of expression ? What is the evolution pattern in the modes of expression ? What has technology contributed to expression ? Which is the most effective form of expression, one that cuts through all cultural, racial and linguistic barriers ? What is distance one travels in going from "sant" to "saint" ?
LOLITA : Stanley Kubrick
A movie based on the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. It is a peek into the lives of people, people like us with longings, fears, love, anxiety and deceit -deliberate or accidental. The director seems to have fixed a window for the audience that just followed the characters through their everyday lives. The performances are very natural without any hint of exaggeration at all, which could have been one possible style of narration given the controversial story.
Sue Lyon as Lolita was bewitchingly beautiful and came out with a tremendous performance in her first film.
Sue Lyon as Lolita was bewitchingly beautiful and came out with a tremendous performance in her first film.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Morning Ragas
My grandfather noticing my late nights and late mornings had once come to me with a note with a very wise proverb " Early to bed ... ,wealthy and wise". I must have been 11 or 12 years old, thinking it was an invitation to his morning prayers, walks and exercises; I made a promise to myself to wake up early from the very next day onwards.
There i was walking around in the garden with him leading the way in the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't really tell if it was morning or still night, my mornings started when there was bright sunshine. Why should one wake up when the sun is still snoring ? Anyways i went on with him trying to copy his exercises, breathing in and out, stretching and walking briskly.
All this while he paid no attention to my antics and carried on with his routine. He went to his prayers with me following him to the sasang hall, i sat down behind him in meditation.
It was only half an hour later that i regained my consciousness, when he nudged my shoulder to wake me up from my "meditation".
I was rewarded with warm buttered toasts and tea and stories from the past. The horse carriages, the british collectors, our grand aunt, my grand uncles, my fathers childhood, the list of topics went on and on.
It has been six years since he passed away and in these years i have tried to practice his teachings with 100 percent sincerety but not with 100 percent success.
But even now if i follow his very simple-to-understand rule of waking up early, it has always proven to be a rule that ought to be followed.
There i was walking around in the garden with him leading the way in the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't really tell if it was morning or still night, my mornings started when there was bright sunshine. Why should one wake up when the sun is still snoring ? Anyways i went on with him trying to copy his exercises, breathing in and out, stretching and walking briskly.
All this while he paid no attention to my antics and carried on with his routine. He went to his prayers with me following him to the sasang hall, i sat down behind him in meditation.
It was only half an hour later that i regained my consciousness, when he nudged my shoulder to wake me up from my "meditation".
I was rewarded with warm buttered toasts and tea and stories from the past. The horse carriages, the british collectors, our grand aunt, my grand uncles, my fathers childhood, the list of topics went on and on.
It has been six years since he passed away and in these years i have tried to practice his teachings with 100 percent sincerety but not with 100 percent success.
But even now if i follow his very simple-to-understand rule of waking up early, it has always proven to be a rule that ought to be followed.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Chloe in the afternoon : Eric Rohmer
Another french movie with a climax that makes the movie linger on for a long time after "FIN". The protagonist's mind is in a conflict between true love and true passion. His obsession with women other than his wife and his need to be free from the clutches of marriage and commitment is amusing. The eventual realization of his fallacy following the almost successful seduction makes him run away from Chloe, a girl from his past. There is some sympathy that erupts for Chloe but only till the time he gets back home and confides in his wife, speaks out his heart expressing his deep love for her. He experiences the freedom that he so longed for, nowhere else but in his relationship with his wife.
The film's feel is comically seductive without "all that jazz" and ends on a very serious note with a deep moral lesson. I give this movie **** (this is not a curse word but my rating for the movie on a GPA of 5 *'s)
The film's feel is comically seductive without "all that jazz" and ends on a very serious note with a deep moral lesson. I give this movie **** (this is not a curse word but my rating for the movie on a GPA of 5 *'s)
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