Sunday, August 9, 2009

From the chronicles of my last month in India - June 24th 2009

I had just got back from Chennai yesterday morning. I got the US F1 visa, yes, but what a hassle it was. The interview lasted just a couple of minutes and the whole process took just a little over an hour. That is quite fast considering the number of applicants I saw there that day. But the hassle was not on the interview day. It lasted for almost 2 weeks just before the D-Day. Owing to a paranoia that though I had already been offered a Graduate Assistantship it was better to get as many financial documents as possible (not fake by the way) even those that I had just a minimalistic probability of being asked for by the interviewer, we ran around different banks getting all the necessary statements. As it turned out, during the interview they asked for none of the documents I worked so hard to obtain.

Anyway I now find myself on Dennis's home turf in Kodagu. Just a little over 24 hours back I had only returned to Trichur after the visa interview in Chennai. After getting back home I had quickly repacked, had a bath and within a couple of hours I was all set in a bus to Calicut to join 19 friends from college. We had planned a trip to Dennis's home and we set out in two cars from NIT Calicut, a Santro and a Wagon R. Then later, Kiru's Santro and Shillu's i10 joined us from Wynad. I was in Sajju's Santro along with Frijo, PKV and Roney. I was sitting right behind Sajju who was in the driver's seat. It was a great road trip at night. It wasn't that eventful and all but
for some reason it just felt great. Three of the best moments during the trip were obviously the sighting of a lone elephant on the road through Wynad Wildlife Sanctuary, the sudden transition from a good road to a hopelessly atrocious one across the Kerala-Karnataka border and of course the Pitch Black effect.

It was a cloudy day and we were inside a thick forest. The only lighting in the path was that of the car headlights. You switch that off and you will really learn what it is like to be blind. It was the blackest darkness I had ever seen in my life. And what more! Sajju kept trying it out a few times each black out lasting for a couple of seconds. I must admit, that was fun even if it risked us getting trapped in front a lone elephant which we might suddenly see in our path just as the lights were turned on again.

However, we reached Dennis's home without incident by around 11.30 at night taking the less travelled road via Tholpetti and Kutta. It was a really bad road after the border, but it was fun too except maybe for the owners of each car who would have empathised with the car's suspensions having to deal with such brutality. We had dinner and we were off to bed...

"I am running. I look down at my watch. Great! I am late again. Oh god! More than 30 minutes late. I am now supposed to be sitting in my Economics Class. Fantastic! I already have over 8 bunks. I reach the class and with a long, sad face I try to get in. And of course the Sir shows me the way back out... The scene changes suddenly. I seem to be in an examination room. I look around. I see the Economics Sir coming towards me. He takes my answer sheet back and politely asks me to leave. I am not supposed to be writing the exam owing to attendance shortage, it seems. Attendance shortage! In final year! Excellent! A year lost, my MS-PhD admit gone, my job also thrown away, all because of one subject - Industrial Economics! Great! Distraught, I walk back not even being able to summon the resolve to cry my heart out. I keep walking and walking. I go past F hostel, I go past E Hostel but still I keep walking. Into the bushes I walk and still keep walking until..."

I find myself awake. Maybe it was a bump with the wall beyond E Hostel or maybe something had stirred me in the real world. Anyway I am fully conscious now. I look at my watch. It is 8 in the morning on June 24th 2009. I was up after a long swim in the depths of sub-consciousness. It was a strange dream, yes, but understandable considering that I am after almost a month, again in the company of NITC friends. It is of course possible that some of my worst fears of NITC life had come alive last night. But, now is high time I let it all go, it is time I relinquish my hold on all of those few painful NITC memories of the last semester. It is time that I start waiting in anticipation for my new life in the US.

Posted by Cyclops at 8:41 PM | 2 comments  

From the chronicles of my last month in India - June 18th 2009

I suddenly open my eyes. I don't know what woke me up, but now that I am awake i realise that my left cheek is wet. I am lying face down in a pool of drool. What I just had was the craziest dream ever. I can't recollect everything but oh boy was it crazy. It was about to get crazier still, but something woke me up, I have no idea what. Maybe a sudden swerve of the train on the rails, maybe someone brushed past my legs as they walked through the gap between the side berths and the main berths in the 2nd class sleeper, or maybe my sub conscience had already reached the pinnacle of madness.

Anyways, now I am up. Last thing I remember was running into a godown, stacked with cartons all round. It felt like I was in a drug smuggler's den, again I don't know why. I hear sounds coming from further inside the den. I panic. That's the last thing I remember about the dream. I am up now. Maybe it was the sudden shock in the dream that woke me up.

The grills of the train window reveal light outside. I lift my face from the drool and take a look at my watch. It shows 5.30. Too early for it to be bright outside, I thought for a second before I drowned into the drool again and went into my next phase of dreamy siesta. At around 6 I wake up again. I see mom standing near my berth and she remarks that we would be reaching Chennai Station any time soon. So I get off the upper berth and proceed towards the wash basin at the back of the compartment.

As I was brushing, I was still thinking of the dream I had had. I remember it clearly. That is unusual. Normally when I am fully awake, other than maybe patches of the dream I am never able to recall every scene in it's right sequence, but I can now. Moreover, I vividly remember dreaming in colour but I have no proof to argue with experts declaring that dreams are black and white.

"I am walking down a lane. The lane looks vaguely similar to the road that runs beside Westend Supermarket near my grand-mom's house in Trichur. I look back. I can see my Grand-mom and mother walking behind. Suddenly I hear a loud rumble coming from the front of me. Innumerable number of trucks carrying one elephant each was hurtling its way down the road at super fast speed. Fear gripped my mind as the trucks neared closer. The elephants were not securely chained at the back of the truck. A sudden swerve of the truck that was just beside me resulted in the elephant behind being flung over my head somersaulting as it landed a few feet away. My gaze shift to the other trucks in front of me. I could then see more elephants in the air. I turned back. My mom and grandma had already run through the gates of another compound to our left. I noticed a gate right in front of me. I flung the gates open and ran into the compound. I was again in the godown stacked with cartons all around. I hear sounds from inside. This time I didn't panic. I decided to take a look. I take few steps forward when I hear my mother calling me from behind. I quickly turn back and...", there I was lying face down in the pool of drool!

Posted by Cyclops at 8:39 PM | 0 comments  

Friday, August 7, 2009

Safari to Selous game Reserve

Part 3: Jungle Safari

Our alarm rang at 5.15 but neither I nor my brother had stirred in our sleep. Dad woke us up at 6.20. We were late. We were supposed to have breakfast at 6.30 and leave for the safari by 7. We quickly had our baths and went for breakfast at 7. We vacated at 7.30 and off we went into the Selous Game Reserve.

The first animal that greeted us into the Game Reserve was the Giraffe, the National Animal of Tanzania. It ran behind the trees as the vehicle approached and thus I could not a get a clear snap of the giraffe. No regrets though, for we would anyway run into more giraffes later. Moreover, I have understood that the best way to go about photography during a safari is to focus on any given animal on each trip into the jungle, for you need plenty of luck and patience to find the right creature at the right spot in the best pose possible. A good guide might be enough for you to spot the animals but a good snap is a different thing all together. If you focus on one animal per trip you get more time with the creature of your choice, which is once you find it, to test your patience to the limit with incessant clicks of your cam waiting for that elusive avant-garde pose.

But again, we can't do it that way. We have just one 5 hour trip into the jungle. So the only compromise is to try to get snaps of whatever creature we see and deem important enough to capture on a frame. Others we just spot and then ignore like we did with the photo calls of many birds and baboons. One thing about the Selous Game Reserve compared to the more famous National Parks in Tanzania like the Ngorongoro, Mikumi, etc. is that owing to a difficult road access, in spite of it being designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 due to its diversity of its wildlife and undisturbed nature, tourists are fewer and thus the animals are less accustomed to the low rumble of jeeps. Unlike in Ngorongoro where the animals practically pose for photographs, here they at the slightest disturbance run off into the bushes. That makes photography even more challenging.

Anyway, into the trip we ran into crocs, gazelles, more giraffes, zebras, antelopes, wild boars, the golden baboons, wildebeest, hippos and water birds, all of which we tried to get at least one snap of. We were unlucky with the African elephants though. We did spot two of them running into the foliage but could not get any snaps of them.

However, it was almost 10 and we still hadn't got a glimpse of the only animal of importance to anyone embarking on a safari in Africa, the elusive lions. It is easy to say "Follow the vultures, you will find the lions", but what if even vultures are hard to come by? I knew that the Canon in my hand had already made this trip more than worth it, but I still desperately wanted to catch the lions.

If I remember right, this was my sixth safari in Tanzania, though the first to Selous. In spite of five safaris I have been lucky to take back moments of awe only in my 1996 Safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. The other trips just don't easily come into my memory, which clearly depicts why luck is such a major factor in determining the long term nostalgic quotient of a safari. Back in 1996, since I was little and had no cam, I could not capture those precious moments as digitized information or even onto a film. But those moments are vividly etched into my mind. The best ones are undoubtedly a lioness licking the hands of a foreign tourist in a vehicle in front of ours and the sighting of a leopard on a branch right above our open top 4 wheeler. The latter was one spooky moment. The leopard could have jumped onto us if it wanted to. We didn't budge nor did the leopard. After a surreal half a minute of frisson the leopard was scampering away scared by an oncoming tractor.

Now, I wanted this trip to beat that in all respects and so in spite of great moments like witnessing the sublime athleticism and crisp muscle movement of the swift gazelles and even the ugly, yet strangely alluring writhing motion of the giraffes' necks while they scamper for cover, I wanted to spot a majestic lion making short work of its prey. But by 11 I had started accepting that "no lion" was not a loss. I had started resigning to the fact that we had already seen the best on offer.

That didn't bog our guide and driver down, did it? He desperately wanted to show us the lions and it was his undying persistence that finally got us to the elusive lion at 11.30, well technically, not exactly. We rather saw three lionesses still panting after making short work of their prey, a wildebeest. But will do. Something is better than nothing. The sighting of a majestic lion feeding on its prey probably will come true in some future safari of mine.

We were back at the Mtemere gate at 12 where we took a few photos and then once out of the reserve boundary we had lunch, courtesy the Mbega Camp where we stayed last night. They had packed for us lunch boxes. Nice chicken and sandwich. At 1 we started our return journey to Dar, where we were back by around 6.30 slowed slightly by the heavy traffic once in Mbagala.

The total cost of trip came to around 350$ per head. Considering that included the 5 hour ride to Selous and back, complimentary breakfast, great food and accommodation in Mbega Camp, a boat ride that gave me some of my best photos and a memorable 5 hour safari through the Game Reserve, I would say, worth it!!!

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Safari to Selous Game Reserve

Part 2: The Boat Trip

We had already paid in advance and thus there was not much delay at the reception. We were shown our way to tents 7 and 8, me and brother in tent 8. I don't know whether you will call it a "tent". It was a cloth covered raised platform with facilities inside resembling any hotel room, definitely not a five star hotel in a city but certainly the best you can get in a jungle.

As we went inside the first thing I checked was the toilet. Toilet paper!!! Nothing even remotely resembling a mug! It felt like the universe was conspiring to toilet train me before my 4 year stint in the US. Anyways, Rufiji River was in my sight from inside the tent. A few hippos were visible too. While we were waiting in the tent for lunch to get ready, dad spotted a baby croc beside the Rufiji River. As I got there with the camera, it had well, vanished back into the river's depths. We had lunch at 1. Fried chicken and French Fries! 4 other foreigners were also there. Not English. In tents 5 and 6! There was no one else in this camp. After lunch, we spent our time in the tent till 4 waiting in anticipation for the boat ride.

In the boat we met the 4 foreigners again. They were Dutch. Couldn't get their names properly though. The young lady in the group has a name Figo or something but isn't that a guy's name? Anyways she's quite good looking and her partner very tall. The other 2 are a relatively elderly couple. The elderly guy seems to be a good photographer. He had a DSLR with zoom lens. Apparently he has also been on safaris in Zimbabwe and all of them have been here at least for 3 days now. Anyways, Kaseem, the boat guy and guide was extremely helpful. Actually if it weren't for him the boat ride wouldn't have been that interesting. He gave us a 2 and half hour ride and gave us details about the water birds and the flora we saw and even narrated interesting anecdotes about life beside the Rufiji River. But the best thing was that he was adept at taking the boat as close to the birds as possible without scaring them which was what created opportunities to get some great snaps. The sunset was beautiful and the only regret I have about the boat ride is that I was not able to capture a heron in flight though I got 2 chances.

Anyway, there are a few villages beside the Rufiji River some distance away from the Game Reserve but still within a forested area. We saw people swimming in the river, though it is highly dangerous with the Great Nile Crocodiles that call this river home being the most ferocious of all the 4 kinds of crocs you find in Africa. Kaseem time and again repeated that though the game reserve had a marked boundary as far as the humans are concerned, free animals don't necessarily have any boundaries.

During the final return, there was a bump below the boat. I thought it was a hippo but couldn't have been. Kaseem explained that the canoe the villagers use was once overturned by a hippo and a guy eaten by a croc. But hippos are scared of the motor boat. So well, a hippo bumping our boat is one of the things that just couldn't be true, irrespective of how much I would like it to be.

It was dark by the time we were back in the tent. The generator in the camp is operated only between 6 in the evening and 10 pm. So that is the only time when there would be electricity supply and only time when we could recharge our cam batteries. So we had to ration the charger for mine and Arun's cam batteries. Fortunately there was no untimely die-off during the entire trip.

Anyways we went for dinner at 8. The process of taking the 1st step out of a small gap in the tent with only torchlight to show the way had a magical feeling to it. Don't know why and also tried it out twice. The dinner was sumptuous. Great soup and beef curry. Ended with fruit salad! Finally as I drifted off to sleep at 9 with the Apple singing in my ears, I felt strangely sanguine that though this day alone had made my trip, the next one was going to better it still.

Posted by Cyclops at 3:57 PM | 0 comments  
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Safari to Selous Game Reserve

Part 1: The long drive to Selous (pronounced “Seloo”)

Saturday, August the First! The day I had been waiting for ever since I landed in Tanzania, for this would be my best opportunity to really experiment with my new camera, the Canon SX10IS. My watch read 6.20 am when we started off in a Toyota Prado just as the darkness was lifting off. There wasn't much traffic on the road this early in the day and we were moving pretty fast. Within 15 minutes we went past my brother's school. The road turning left to his campus is completely dirt laden. I remember thinking if it had ever been tarred. However we were on a pretty good stretch of a 4 lane road. Though once out of the outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam the road narrowed to 2 lanes, the road was good and we were covering a lot of distance in little time.

En-route to Mbagala, a nice photo opportunity arose - the rising sun, nice bright red in colour, half hidden behind a cloud rendering the sky around in a nice orange-ish shade. We were moving pretty fast and thus we were pretty late to react to it and couldn't ask the driver to stop. That would be pretty much the only regret I have in the first part of the trip, though the view of an even more beautiful sunset later in the day would more than make up for it. There was also plenty of mist around during the first hour of the ride with the visibility being less than 15 metres. Looking out of the left car window we could see a sea of mist thickly covering a low lying area revealing only the top of coconut trees. The temperature had also dropped to 21oC. It was 25oC back in Dar.

Anyway, we were moving at over 100kmph and the vehicle's suspension seemed to be a little soft. There were also some minor tuning problems with the engine. There was an obvious, though minor reluctance on the engine's part to rev up. Otherwise, it was a really smooth journey thus far. We pulled left into a Panpol petrol bunk at Mbagala. The driver Shabana, who has been in this job for over 14 years now remarked that this would be the cheapest bunk on this route.

We filled up full tank and hadn't gone for over a kilometer when there they were, the policemen! One officer was standing right in the middle of the road and waving frantically. There was no option but to stop or else we would have to run him over. This was one thing we were hoping to avoid. Very naive of us considering it was a Saturday morning. They first asked us for our passports in which everything was all hunky-dory. Still, would you believe it that they asked for 300$ and for no reason what-so-ever? We don't pay, we don't move an inch further, simple as that.

Corruption, rather official extortion is one thing any visitor to Tanzania who plans to embark on a drive must be prepared for. One thing to remember is that they are just shooting into the dark. If you keep looking into their eye, know a bit of Swahili and politely question them back, you could if you are lucky see another side of these officers. The officer in question in our case basically started begging, in whispers though. Based on my mother's and brother's translation he was asking for at least 10000tshs since Sunday was coming up and he needed a little loose change for booze. Would be visitors; keep one more thing in mind. Just because you now think you have the upper hand in argument and thus get away without even paying the 10k, then God Bless You. If you value your time and do not have a photo of you standing next to the Tanzanian President in your car, pay the 10k and leave. (Note: Around 1300tshs would correspond to 1$). As we reached Mkuranga, there was another police roadblock. This time it was Traffic. Traffic officers are comparatively less indulgent in official extortion and so they left us after asking a couple of questions.

Now, the foliage in Tanzania would remind anyone from Kerala of his home state. Beyond the road you could see plenty of plantains, coconut and mango trees. We had to reach Faribu, before the first visible signs of Africa in its Savanna like grasses started to appear. We had burgers at 8, complementary from the travel guys. After a while there were remnants of a dead animal on the road. If we were in the jungle, I would have said it was a hyena. It had the same colour, stripes and size.

By 8 in the morning we had already completed almost 150kms of the total 250km stretch to Selous. We had reached Kibiti by then, where we stopped for tea near a Gapco Petrol Bunk. As we restarted the journey at 8.30, I was sitting in the car and wondering why my father had said this would a 5 hour drive. We had already completed more than half the distance! That was when I was in for a big surprise as we veered right onto a dirt road with a signboard showing 94 kms to Selous. Well, great!!! At least we could start the drive-in-the-jungle experience earlier than expected.

We were leaving a heavy dust trail as we were still moving at around 80kmph though after we almost jumped off the road, the driver decelerated to a more decent 50. First signs of the wild were visible on the sides of the road. Though it were just monkeys that made the bumpy 3 hour ride worth it! We reached Mtemere Gate at 11.30 am where we finished the formalities for entering Selous Game Reserve and then signed in at the Mbega Camp where we would be spending our next 18 hours. A decent journey so far but in no way did I anticipate that the next 24 hours of my life would be one of my best.

Posted by Cyclops at 3:39 PM | 0 comments  
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Friday, June 12, 2009

Watchmen

WATCHMEN
~~~~~~~~

Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Mathew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Carla Gugino
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

This is not the ordinary superhero comic adaptation. It is nothing like the high-on-action, special effects filled no-brainers that one is used to. It is darker and involves a greater level of scheming, but more importantly, it is not a classic superhero versus villain or good versus evil saga. In fact, there are no villains in the movie. It is rather a visual into the moral diversity of its superheroes, each flawed in different ways, allowing us to dwell in different ethical perspectives, at least intellectually, and witness their consequences.

It is not that the movie lacks action sequences or special effects (a movie after all with not one but eight or more superheroes won't have any dearth of action) but the movie, just as in the comic, goes beyond all that. Set in the time of the Cold War, with a great risk of an all-out nuclear war, a superhero, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, sets out to bring peace in the world. Nothing new about this concept except that he plans to do so by creating a major holocaust and then to use the fear of a larger, common enemy for mankind to forget all their petty in-fighting and thereby, he hopes to see peace reign even at the expense of a million or so lives. A million lives lost to save billion others, that's the twisted logic behind the superhero's thinking. Naturally a few superheroes, like the Comedian do not subscribe to his logic and they are found dead under mysterious circumstances. The whole movie is about a few other vigilante superheroes, Rorschach and Nite Owl II, who are ignorant of the "bigger-enemy" plan, trying to uncover the mystery behind the murders. Nothing too savvy, but still worth watching.

Amidst all these superheroes there is also the presence of a God like Dr. Manhattan who could if he wanted changed the world with a single move but also is incidentally detached from the suffering of mankind and thus does little to make the world a better place. His inaction is also presented from two different ethical perspectives, one the Comedian's perspective which justifies Dr. Manhattan and then Veidt's perspective of always wanting to do more to ensure that the world is a better place. Naturally, you don't get the gist of the different contexts of thought in one go. It takes the whole movie for the idea to sink in and then only on further reflection do you really get a grasp of the deeper ethical questions raised in the movie. And that is probably why this movie is not for everyone. You want mere high-octane action, then you will be disappointed with this one. If you are in the mood for some deeper reflection from different points of view then this is the first movie you should grab.

Zack Snyder's 300 style 3rd-person narration while the story unfolds from Rorschach's diary clearly gives the movie an interesting point of narration. Add to those scenes, the parts where Dr. Manhattan is introduced and his character sketch is defined, and you would expect to have a really fine movie.

But the movie falls apart in the sense that there were many scenes that do not fit the overall theme and could well have been avoided. The relationship between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II, who is also Dr. Manhattan's wife were given too much of screen time. That may have been meant to depict his increasingly detached relationship with mankind, finally making him leave the Earth to live in solitude in Mars reflecting upon human suffering and his role on Earth. His detachment from human suffering was needed in the plot for Veidt to execute his plans to the
full extent, for if any person could have stopped him that was Dr. Manhattan. But still, too much time was spent on the Owl-Spectre relationship. Even the development of Comedian's character sketch were in most cases not relevant to the theme. May be that time could have been used to develop the other characters even more. I felt that too less time was given to Veidt and thus we do not get enough time to really understand him and his logic.

But I may be wrong here. I watched an edited version of Watchmen in a theatre in Kerala where many scenes were simply edited out. I read later that Watchmen is a 3 hour movie, but what I saw was just a little over two hours. And that would certainly have taken the weight off many of the scenes that I could not see to its fully developed extent. However, if at all I find a flaw with the movie, it is this one - many scenes could well have been avoided, atleast to make the movie shorter if nothing else, then the proprietors in Kerala Movie theatres would not edit many scenes out just to save time.

3 stars out of five for the concept and Snyder's narration style, one less than what I would have like to give it, the penalty being for either the length of the movie or for scenes that do not fit the overall theme.

Posted by Cyclops at 7:29 PM | 0 comments  
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Monday, May 4, 2009

May 3rd: Corporation Stadium, Kozhikkode

Benny Dayal,Breathe, Shankar Mahadevan, A.R Rahman + Hariharan + Chitra + Benny again + Javed Ali + Blaze + Many More, 4 concerts in a matter of 5 weeks, each one raising the benchmark of expectations for the next, all of them breathtaking, I just can't imagine a better climax to my life at NIT Calicut.

The first three were part of Ragam'09 towards the end of March where Shankar ruled the roost with his exhilarating performance from start to finish. There was not even one moment of slackness, not even one moment of weariness, an aggressive, fast and breathtaking show for two hours. Benny flagged off Ragam on Day one, a performance great for Day One, but nowhere as close to Shankar's on Day Two, but well, still worth it. While it was Shankar that set the tone of Ragam'09, Breathe didn't disappoint on Day Three and from there I moved on with a feeling that there was nothing else left to see. Oh boy, was I wrong!!!

Then came May the 3rd - A.R Rahman flagging off his Jai Ho World Tour from Kozhikkode. At first I was excited about it, but then came our end semester exam timetable with a packed first week of May. Till a week before the show I had almost decided to skip it; in hindsight, am I glad I didn't. If I had missed the show just because of exams, then May 4th would have been the longest and saddest day of my life. It was not a performance that blew me off my feet as was Shankar Mahadevan's, it was not a show that was packed with punch, but it was one that was more surreal and refined, one not meant just for the adrenaline heavy college crowd.

The concert was a perfect mix of soothing and exhilirating music, so well blended that you wouldn't know that three hours had passed and you wouldn't mind sitting there for another three listening to more Rahman magic. None of us were tired while leaving well actually none of us wanted to leave. The music was so soul stirring that rather than just blowing you off your feet, your mind is given wings to hover around near the stage and with each passing rendition giving them more and more aerodynamic lift to take you higher and higher. Personally, my best moment was one and a half hours into the show when Rahman and then Javed Ali gave back to back renditions of "Khwaja Mere Khwaja" and "MAula Maula" after which for some reason I felt lighter as though all pressures of the world were just lifted off me.

But it was not always like that. The start was pretty ordinary, with the sound systems making shrill music of its own in between and thus though A.R Rahman started off with "O Saya" something was missing in the feel. The same was true of the 2nd and 3rd songs, "Padakali" from Yodha and "Tu Muskura" from Yuvraaj, but then either the sound engineer managed to magically disguise the faults in the sound system or Hariharan was, in the 4th song, simply awesome enough to disguise the speakers' feeble attempts to outsmart the masters in their own game. After Hariharan's bilingual rendition of "Kadhal Rojave", in feel and sheer magic of the moment the intensity was always on the rise.

The first half ended with "Maula Maula" and then after a 15 minute break for the organisers to indulge in self congratulations on stage, the show was back on, but this time with nostalgia flowing in through his timeless hits of "Mustafa Mustafa" and more in ever increasing intensity upto the very end.

Add to that performances by Chitra capped by her rendition of "Jiya Jale" coupled with a well synchronised fire display in the foreground, Blaze's rap, the predictable ending with "Jai Ho" + "Vande Mataram" amidst fireworks, and yes, the awesome stage setting with doubly brilliant lighting and superbly synchronised graphics display on the on-stage screen, yes, if I had missed this show the regret would have stayed on the back of my mind forever.

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Monday, March 30, 2009

Nostalgic Final Sem

The following is the thought that crossed my mind while I was returning from Chennai after Saarang'09."It was when I was sitting at the wrong end of a train compartment, watching the world speeding past in front of me, that I realised I wanted to put my hands out, pull myself back through time and relive those few days that were undoubtedly the best days of my life. Thanks in tonnes to Johnu, GT and the dog that followed him, Ashwanth, Shilton, Sreehari, Sandeep, Mammen, Gayathri, Parvathy and Neethi for helping me have a great time, for making me laugh till I could no longer breathe, for making me enjoy myself in a way I never have in my whole life."

This final semester in NIT Calicut has been good to me. New Year's drive to the beach, Trip to Chembra Peak, Trip to Kunchan's Home, Saarang Trip, Trip to Bangalore for Aero India Show, each trip bearing moments that took my breath away. I just read George Carline's message which concluded with the quote, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away". If that's true, I have lived more in the last 3 months than I ever have in the 21 years preceding it.

And that's just the trips beyond NIT Calicut. The events that were organised here, the responsibilities I had - Ragam'09, New Year Celebrations, Council Inaguration, working as the deputy Speaker of SAC - the amount I was able to enjoy, the extent to which through the events and otherwise I was able to bond with people around me, make many new friends, strengthen old friendships; these are memories, memories I cherish, memories I value, and thus they will remain etched away in an easily accessible portion of my brain for me to access fast and go down the memory lane again and again.

Posted by Cyclops at 6:23 AM | 4 comments  
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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Must Read Message from George Carline

George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian. He was also an actor and author, and he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. Below is a small write up by him, which is quite soul stirring, something to really ponder on.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Posted by Cyclops at 4:24 PM | 2 comments  
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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Dialogue that defines the movie - Serendipity

This is a beautiful piece of writing, one that completely defines the tone of the movie. You need to actually watch the movie to understand its context, but inspite of that, I guess you can still gather the inherent philosophy, that is presented in a comical yet so strangely a poignant and serious note.

"Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiance. He was 35 years old. Softspoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic. But in the final days of his life he revealed an unknown side of psyche. This quasi-jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie like pursuit for his long reputed soul mate, the woman he only spent the few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure. Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly comes to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, ahah, but rather it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite sublime plan. Asked about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and executive editor of New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. Things were clear for him, Kansky noted. Ultimately Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients call fate or what we currently refer to as destiny."

Posted by Cyclops at 7:08 AM | 1 comments  
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Tuesday, December 9, 2008

"How can you heal if can't even feel time?" - Memento.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Guy Perace, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Another one of Christopher Nolan's finely narrated thrillers, Memento, with its backward narration style is by no means a movie meant for those who just want to watch and enjoy a no-brainer. Your brain will be gnawing at your skull at all points trying to figure out what just happened. It's suspense filled till the climax, not until then, do you figure out what really happened, and only then will you be able to grasp the movie in its entirety. At the end of it there will be a distinct feeling of satisfaction,a feeling that you were challenged intellectually and you came out on top.

Well, that's how i felt while watching the movie, inspite of having watched the Tamil Blockbuster Ghajini, which is an Indian adaptation of Memento. So knowing the story meant that well, Memento was not as suspense packed to me as it should have been, but i liked it all the same, particularly because of its reverse narration style. Memento is about a person who suffers from short term memory loss trying to find the killer of his wife and the culprit for his condition, John G. So every now and then the protagonist is shaken up, not remembering what he was doing, not remembering what he is supposed to do next. Because of Nolan's narration style at no point do we really know more than what the protagonist knows or remembers from the notes he makes to supersede his failing memory. And by backward narration style this is what I mean - the beginning of the movie shows the protagonist killing John G and the climax shows how he got to finding this John G. Morever it ends with the movie open to interpretation. Either the protagonist himself could be the killer of his wife and he is trying to get over his remorse with the creation of a fictitious killer or maybe the person he finds as John G is the real killer.

This aspect of making your brain work is to a certain extent absent in Ghajini. I wouldn't call Ghajini a no-brainer but well the forward narration style that is followed takes off the sheen a little bit. There's also more masala introduced into the script, unrealistic stunts, unnecessary dance numbers, all of which click with the Indian audience, oh well, I guess this is what an adaptation means. The movie shouldn't bomb. There should be elements introduced into it to make it succeed with even the frill loving audience. That's a different school of thought, a different movie industry. So no point comparing Ghajini and Memento.

All the same Memento is a must watch if you are in a mood to think; otherwise, i would suggest, keep it for later.

Posted by Cyclops at 1:31 AM | 1 comments  
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Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Lake House

It's hypothetical, conceptual and completely unrealistic but nice all the same. Maybe it's the lack of that extra dose of reality that makes the movie so good to watch. There's actually not a moment in the movie "The Lake House" that makes you feel bored, not a moment that makes you feel enough is enough, unlike those so many movies bordered beyond the scope of reality.

But not this one. You know for sure that it is impossible, but you tend to romanticize, what if? You pretty much get the gist of what's going on half way through the movie and if you have watched many movies, you will also get a hint of the climax, but I can bet you will complete the movie, if not for the story, atleast for the serene music.

The music!!! That's one thing. So peaceful, so soothing. You tend to float with the melodious sound waves from the beginning of the movie to the end. The music caresses you through. Takes you to the end and even if the climax is just as you expected, you will like it all the same.

The movie's about a conversation through letters written between Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) living in 2004 and Kate Forrester (Sandra Bullock) living in 2006. Feels crazy, just writing that. Mind you - it's a "conversation" not a narration. They gradually fall in love and their desire to meet each other unfortunately results in the death of one. Though of course, knowledge of the future can be used to save lives, especially if you can talk to the past. That's expected and that's exactly how the movie ends when they both finally meet up, after a four year wait for Alex Wyler and a two year one for Dr. Forrester, on Valentine's Day 2008.

But ya, there's one paradox in the climax that the Director may have just ignored. Its actually the sight of a then unknown Alex Wyler's death in front of Dr. Forrester that made her go back to her happy old home, the lakehouse, and it was then that the beatiful converstaion got kicked off. But of course, if she saves Wyler from that death, then she wouldn't go back to the lake house, the conversation would never have happened and the love story couldn't exist in the first place. So they just can't be together at the end of the movie. But well time travel and its corresponding paradoxes is a whole lot of mumbo jumbo. Nothing ever seems to fit. So all the same, I am ready to ignore this paradox, for in the remaining 90 minutes I had a really good time.

Posted by Cyclops at 9:31 PM | 1 comments  
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Friday, November 7, 2008

I need to clarify this at least now!!!

I haven't been blogging for quite some time now. I was busy with my MS applications. Something has been building up inside me for a few days now and I just had to write it down. I did that today afternoon and thus this post. Probably after this post I may once again go into blog hibernation, at least till mid January. Anyways, enjoy reading and post your comments.

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People have asked me, many times over, why am I a fan of Australia? They have asked me, when India plays Australia, who do I support? My answer, "Australia at times; India at times", stumps many and there are people who have called me unpatriotic. But honestly, I don't think so.

More than the fact that they win matches and have been a champion team for so long, the reason I like Australia is their sports system, not just cricket but any sport you want to play. Being a sportsman is not looked at as a silly ambition for a kid and the administration handling sporting talent is to a reasonable extent dedicated to that cause. Too much politics does not come into the picture. People like Gill (in Indian Hockey) are nowhere to be seen. And it is that trust in the sporting system that makes me support the nation's sporting endeavours, even outside cricket.

Coming to cricket, since the topic is hot now, given Gilly's contoversial autobiography and the current India Australia series, I don't expect Australia to win every series, every World Cup. I actually want Australia to lose the Nagpur Test and be humiliated in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008 with a 2-nil drubbing.

Because, now is a transition phase of Australian cricket. After a string of retirements, every team is unsettled and unbalanced and has to go for a phase of exprimentation for a couple of years or more, to regain that same composed and confident outlook in their team composition. What was happening for the last two series or so was that even with second string (compared to the erstwhile Oz outfit), experimental outfits they were winning matches, just because the opposition had an inherent fear of Australia and not completely on their on merit. Such a situation would lead to a complacent nature where-in you tend to believe you can win without working too hard, and Oz were in danger of tipping over. Well, till now anyway. Now there's India to humiliate them, to make them realise they need to keep experimenting.

It was such experimentation that gave them Geoff Marsh, Mark Taylor, Glenn Mc Grath, the Waugh brothers and the list goes on. To find champions you have to be bold enough to take risks. And you don't do that if there is no team out there challenging your supremacy. Every team has to go through such experimentation at some stage or another and many have succeeded. The only thing is that in the Australian system of sporting there is a greater guarantee that this phase of trial and error will not last forever.

It may not be the perfect system. They might not be able to get out of the current rut. But there is still a greater probability that things will work out just fine compared to the other alternative sports system, the one rooted in romanticism and though it has been successful in bringing out a few exceptional greats, plenty of heartbreaks have also gone unnoticed.

Yes, I am talking about India. India, the land of stories. We Indians love drama and when sportsmen rise from obscurity, challenging the environment around them, we adore them. Where was Dhoni five years back and where is he now? That's the most recent example of India's success in producing champions in a manner that Shakespeare would love to indulge upon. The only problem is that for a youngster dreaming of something other than cricket, heartbreak is what he more often sees. And for even those who dream about cricket, sometimes, societal pressure (and the insistence on an engineering education and IT jobs) tend to flush these dreams down the drain.

The method may keep succeeding, for it is rooted in human emotion and not rules and bylaws. This gives the people an uncanny power to dream, challenge all odds and when they come out successful, they will be people who can handle any kind of pressure that professional sport puts on them. Well, those who are baby fed tend to become whiners. But, I still think any youngster, hoping to make it big, would love to be groomed in Australia, for, hard work though it may be, societal pressure is one thing they wouldn't have to worry about. That is why I want the sports administration in India to develop into a suitable mix of the two systems and when it does, when it retains its charm but still becomes more dependable, then there's no team I would cheer for, irrespective of sport, but INDIA. So strictly speaking as of now, I want Australia to win at times, sometimes even against India, so that I can retain the belief that their system is successful, and I want India to win at times, so that I can enjoy the charm the rise of a sportstar here offers. How can that dream be unpatriotic?

Posted by Cyclops at 5:44 PM | 3 comments  
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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Communism and the Bird's Nest Generation

The following are the excerpts from an NY Times Column on 31st August 2008 by Thomas Friedman. Enjoy reading but more importantly think where the Indian political parties (all parties including the communist parties) stand with regard to dynamism and their willingness to adapt.

"The problem for the ruling Communist Party is this: China can’t have a greener society without empowering citizens to become watchdogs and allowing them to sue local businesses and governments that pollute, and it can’t have a more knowledge-intensive innovation society without a freer flow of information and experimentation, for this requires bottom up control measures while power in China is top down as of now.

What surprised me is how much the party is thinking about all this. I actually came here at the invitation of Wang Yang, the Communist Party secretary, i.e. the boss of Guangdong Province. He had read one of my books on globalization in Chinese.

Wang is also a member of the Politburo in Beijing and is considered one of the most innovative thinkers in China’s leadership today. He has been given room to experiment and has begun advocating something he calls “mind liberation” — primarily an effort to change the culture of his bureaucracy and open it up to new ways of thinking. Right now he is focused on trying to shift dirty, low-wage manufacturing out of Guangzhou to the countryside, where jobs are still scarce. And he is trying to attract clean industries and services to the city. His goal, he said, was a more “low-carbon economy.”

“Please put it in your column that Party Secretary Wang Yang welcomes [Western] clean energy technology companies to come to Guangdong Province and use it as a laboratory to develop their products,” he told me. “We will be most willing to participate in the innovation and provide the services they need.”

So my postcard from Guangzhou would read like this: “Dear Mom and Dad, this place is so much more interesting than it looks from abroad. I met wind and solar companies eager for Western investment and Chinese college students who were organizing a boycott of an Indonesian paper company for despoiling their forest. An ‘Institute of Civil Society’ has quietly opened at the local Sun Yat-sen University. The Communist Party is trying to break the old mold without breaking its hold. It’s quite a drama. Can’t wait to come back next summer and see how they’re doing ...”"

Posted by Cyclops at 1:30 PM | 2 comments  
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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Critics!!!

"I am sometimes disillusioned with the critics of any literary work. Sometimes it seems they lack an inherent taste and are incapable of recognising beauty. Criticism is mostly surrounded around writing styles and formats and a good piece of writing according to this school, is expected to be a testament to the style that traditionalists endorse.

But shouldn't writing be all about freedom, freedom to nonchalantly express our deepest thoughts, in a tempest of emotions, in the seemingly unnoticeable corner of our hearts? Thus, it is only when the writer exudes the confidence to break the shackles that tradition adorns one with, can true beauty be associated with the literary work, a work that is coruscating with the resplendence of a timeless classic, for history shows that as far time is concerned there is nothing more fickle than tradition."

I felt so while reading a few reviews of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. There were even comments like through the book he has tried to convert a thesaurus into a literary piece. But come on give the guy a break. He wrote this book from prison. This was his way to experience freedom while being all locked up. So why care if he has used many rare English words, why care if the book has more melodrama making it novel-ish, contrary to claims that it is a real life story? Understand the context in which he is writing the book and you must be one heck of a perfectionist to claim that Shantaram is not a nice read.

Posted by Cyclops at 4:10 PM | 9 comments  
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