God or no God?

All these years as I grew up, I have learnt to make some extremely confident decisions on certain things which were important to my life. Few proved to be right and few proved to be horrendous.Whatever were the consequences, I took them in my own stride. Even while expressing my opinions on certain issues like politics, sports, religion, youth, love etc., I will be candid in my reasoning with atmost clarity. If there is one thing that I do not have clarity even today, then it is my stand on god. I am so unsure about it such that I cannot even name it as Theism or Atheism. Because even today I chant 'Kandha Shashti Kavacham's, few Stotras on Sri Raghavendra Swami, Lord Ganesha, Venkataraman Swamy etc., but not regularly. But when I do them it is because I want certain things done which is not in my control, something which should happen by the virtue of it and I should chant all the above ones to increase my chance of luck.

I grew under an extremely theistic atmosphere where in every other thing happened around in my home was credited to god. May it be my dad's career growth, buying a home, a car, I doing well/not well in my school examinations everything was attributed to god. My parents hail from places called 'Mannargudi' and 'Kumbakonam' a deep interior town in the Tanjavur district of Tamilnadu . Both these places have got some of the famous temples of Tamilnadu. So naturally they had a great amount of clarity on understanding of god. So much clarity that I felt they were able to perfectly balance between the spiritual and material life. Right from my school days I was caught between the extreme material atmosphere at my school and other extreme of spiritual atmosphere at home. Whatever small or big I was achieving in school, there was a 'god' tag attached to it at home. On the other hand at school I was seeing my best friends who did not believe in god(but were too young to be called Atheists) and were doing much better than me in certain departments. So what kind of equation was this?

But all this really didn't matter to me until I joined my Intermediate(High School Diploma/11th standard). In my tenth grade I suddenly got energy from no where, to focus on my studies, extra-curriculars etc. So much focus that I decided to prepare for IIT-JEE. Little did I realize at that point of time that I am going to basically mess up my other Engineering entrances like EAMCET, TNPCEE etc. Few months into my coaching classes for JEE I began to get uncomfortable with spending time in the puja room since I weren't doing well in the weekly tests particularly Physics. But on the other hand I was able to grasp few concepts in Physics like rotational dynamics, optics, electricity . I was able to cope up with Maths and Chemistry syllabuses. The result of the two year mess was that I flunked the JEE, obtained a not so decent rank in EAMCET, my percentage in Intermediate was way below my score in the tenth grade(My graph fall began here). The only positive outcome of this entire 2 year episode was that I became strong in the fundamentals of Physics and Maths ofcourse. I entered my Engineering with one agenda in mind and that was to maintain an overall percentage of 80-85% and I was confident of this because of my prior coaching in JEE. My whole idea at that point of time was to identify my areas of interest in Electrical Engineering and parallely get into a job. And that was the whole idea of having a mindset to maintain a good percentage. All this meant that I wanted to work for about 2 years after my graduation, complete all my financial commitments and then set of into search for what I was passionate about. Though I was confident in performing in my semester exams I used visit the local Balaji temple regularly.

My biggest shock of my life came in the form of my 2nd year I sem. results. We had the practicals going on for the II semester on that day when we had received the transcripts. I looked at my transcripts and was in a state of shock for almost about 2 minutes. My friend beside me stopped looking into his transcript and began to look into mine and asked "Hey! Enti Ra Idhi"(Hey! What is this?). Few minutes later I forcibly digested what I had seen. I had hit the rock bottom in my life with an all time lowest score (56%). I immediately also realized that the ghost of my exam vows continued from where I left. So all this meant that I am not going to get a decent score in the II semester too, which really did happen again, and I was just thrown out of my track which I had planned for the next 4 years. The damage was already done and till today I am used to the mixed results that I achieve in anything. Though I realized that the damage was already done I began to find the reasons where I could have gone wrong and in the process I began to totally neglect praying/chanting/meditating in front of god. At one point of time I became totally convinced that it is me who has to respond to a certain situation and act accordingly and there is nothing that could be achieved by sitting infront of god. I maintained the same stand on god till I returned to Chennai from Bangalore(where I was working previously) to set out on my next goal. My mother immediately insisted me to get on track with regards to prayers and chants. I was still adamant until I started visiting some temples like 'Singaperumal Koil', 'Maangaadu', 'Amman Koil' in K.K.Nagar etc. which made me pull into some sort of focus, concentration, mind control you name whatever spiritual terminology you want to!!! My goal was achieved against whatever I was destined for and my faith in prayers were back again. I was infact happy for this, not for myself but for my parents. That is because whenever I used to not care about prayers, my parents were so disappointed with me that they started complaining that there was lot of change in my nature compared to what they have seen in me a few years back. Though I was strong enough outside to tell them that I was not worried about it, I infact started worrying about it at one point of time and even used to get upset particularly after witnessing some unpleasant things happened around me.

The whole point of the story is that I am still haunted by some unpleasant past which happened both in my academic and my personal life. All my successes, I was able to happily attribute it to the god but for all my failures(which were extremely crucial in deciding my future) even today arouses this confusion in me that is GOD OR NO GOD.

My take on SFT

Two dozen bomb blasts put together in Ahmadabad and Bangalore on two consecutive days! I am beginning to see this as a periodical event happening in the country rather than any kind of a rare terror attack. Alright! instead of focusing on the consequences of such attacks, my arguments are confined to analyzing the probable source of cause of such attacks. Whenever a bomb blast takes place in any part of India the series of events which follows immediately are 1) the Ruling Party condemns the attack, 2) the party in opposition will blame the ruling party for its failure in protecting the "integrity" as they will put it, 3) a day later one of the representatives of a terror agency , "spokesperson" in political language, will inform the media claiming the responsibility of the blast, 4) the media will telecast the reactions of the public who happened to witness the blast, for example, one of the leading news channels reports an eyewitness of today's blast who states , ' it sounded like a cracker burst' and then highlights it. 5) after few months when some other story takes the headlines the suspect of the blast is taken into custody and is interrogated for the crime , which never ends.6) This whole event of the 'suspect being interrogated' then becomes a stale story in the eyes of the media which will be concentrating on more important issues (pun intended) like a "bollywood"(Again I hate to use this word but thats how the media puts it) star being caught having an affair, some damn cat(Blue cross , no offense) being caught for several hours on an attic of a building under construction, an aging superstar starts feeling cold.....etc.
Now my argument is not biased towards targeting the media. I am concerned about the whole system. But before I go deeper into my thoughts about the system, I have few fundamental questions to ask regarding today's blast.
1) Why hasn't the center atleast condemned the blast even after several hours of the occurrence of the event?
2) Is the center still celebrating its confidence vote victory in the parliament on 22 July.
3) The media rephrases the term Bangalore as the IT hub in the event of the blast. Whenever such blasts occurs is it only the IT which gets affected and not the people who are not associated with it?
4) With several events taking headlines in the last few days, WHERE HAS THE ARUSHI TALWAR CASE DISSAPEARED which the media smartly used it as a tool to cash in on their TRPs?
5) What role does the Media has to play in the whole issue?

These sort of questions always run in my mind whenever such tragic events occur. Now is there any one single soul who can take the sole responsibility of organizing such blasts? In my opinion the whole system has to be questioned for its loopholes. Any organized crime cannot meet its dreadful ends without an internal support of the system. Let us touch basics. If there is a proffesional crime organization which plans all such attacks then such organizations need funds to buy arms, pay their group, need a temporary base in the country to execute the attack and more importantly need the support from the system to infiltrate their arms and ammunition into the target land. When there is short circuit the immediate safety act is to cut off the power source. With this analogy, in the context of crime the source should be cut off to avoid occurrence of such events. Again the argument is back to the square one, which is the source. I see it this way. The source is in the form of arousing a 'need' in the mind of the person at the helm of the system who wants to meet his/her greed ends. The only crime that makes the whole country to stand up and take notice is terrorism which I call it as the mother of all crimes. The 'need' materializes with the aid of the readymade crime organizations who have the ability to justify their actions even to a Gandhian . Does it all indicating politics? Is the nexus between politics and terrorism the key here? I have seen people abstaining themselves from voting during elections justifying their actions of not supporting the 'dirty' politics. Will this resolve the whole issue. This is a very tricky situation. Unlike other accidents the source here is the 'need' which is a thought and not a material. Thoughts are reflections of the pshycology of a human being. So am I seeing where the connection is. Is it between the loopholes of the system and pshycology of the human being inside the system? If that so can this be looked at as a pshycological disease? Every disease has a cure. Can this also has one? If not is there a prevention? If AIDS can be prevented by taking few safety measures why not this (tentatively I will call the disease as System Funded Terrorism(SFT)). Can we? Is terrorism fair in this interesting game of politics? Considering politics as a game can we set rules and clauses for this game just like Cricket or Soccer? Racial abuse was taken very seriously in the recent tour of India to Australia. In the same way can terrorism be taken seriously in the game of politics?


PS: Inspired by the famous quote from Mahatma Gandhi 'do not scream for the change, become the change' , I have began to make an attempt to become the change and am afraid that I will be in the attempting stage till my last breath.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na:

Sitting through 'Jaane Thu......' is like taking a walk and spending time in a rose garden along with your loved ones for about two hours accompanied with some breeze . If the roses were the characters , the breeze were the light moments which were plenty in the movie. 'Jaane thu....' actually is not those typical launch films of a star relative. The star of the film is its narration. When I was in my undergrad. the benchmark urban tale was 'Dil Chahta Hai'. Well, 'Jaane thu....' can actually become the 'Dil Chahtha Hai' for today's college going crowd. An almost authentic screenplay in its own sense 'Jaane Thu.....' is actually handled very delicately by Abbas Tyrewala, the writer& director of the film. I use the word delicate because of the reason that he introduces a lot many characters in the film including the main lead Jai Rathore(Imran Khan) and Aditi Mahant( Genelia D'souza) and yet has customized each one of them perfectly to narrate the story well. And wait.....how can I forget Sohail and Arbaaz Khan who play 'Bhageera' and 'Bhaloo' the modern day cow boys riding on horses even to go to a disco. They definitely have taught us an alternate way of going to a Disco especially in these days of skyrocketing gas charges. And Naseeruddin Shah always waiting to peep out of his frame to talk to his widow wife(Jai's mother) set the mood for a complete humour. 'Jaane Thu.....' was so refreshing that I cannot call it a typical romantic hindi film which are famous for its melodrama and twists. Not that there weren't movies involving such plots before. Audience familiar with Telugu films will relate this movie directly to the hit movie 'Nuvve Kavali' starring Tarun and Richa. But still 'Jaane Thu....' is a sincere effort from Abbas.Obviously the story revolves around friendship of Jai and Aditi in the first half and realization of love for each other in the second half. The story is entirely narrated by their friends at the Chatrapathi Sivaji International Airport, Mumbai to a new member in their gang. This part reminded me of the Shahrukh , Rani starrer 'Chalte Chalte'. The first two songs will take Jai, Aditi and their friends till the end of college graduation. This will take Jai closer to Aditi's family consisting of her super cool parents and younger brother(Amit) an absolute stud. Amit's character actually reminded me of one of my school friends and is one of the highlights of the film. He is always in his own world , a not so sociable guy but talks sense when it matters. He is also straight forward in expressing his opinions. For example he utters "ameer hone ka yehi faidha hai" to the then would be brother-in-law when asked what he does? Jai and Aditi immedietly declare themselves as friends contrary to the understandings of their friends and Aditi's parents who think they are ready to get married. This is when Meghna(Manjari Fadnis) enters the scene as Jai's love interest. Abbas must be complimented for the way he handled the romance of Jai and Meghna in a novel way. When Jai's relationship with Meghna is at its peak Aditi realizes her feelings towards Jai but still pairs up with Sushant Modi(Ayaz Khan) son of a family friend. The rest is all about how it converges back to Jai and Aditi. But this 'rest' I say is worth watching in Theatre and a complete paisa vasool for your tickets. As for the music A.R.Rahman keeps in touch with his peppy college numbers by composing music for a film like 'Jaane Thu.....' occasionally, offering some change out of his tracks for period/issue flicks.

MEET THE GANG:
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Rats(Imran), Meow(Genelia), Bombs, Rotlu, Jiggy and friends.

So that is about it. 'Jaane Thu.....' is a slam book or testimonials of all the above names.

SARKAR RAJ : MY REVIEW

After coming out of the cinema hall watching Ram Gopal Varma's 'Sarkar Raj' I was wondering if most of the assassinations that happen in the political circuit is due to the conspiracies plotted by the victim's own people? The speciality about 'Sarkar Raj' is that the entire two hour something saga rides on one platform that is 'a political conspiracy'. The way RGV tried to connect the characters to plot the conspiracy is excellent. I saw a complete 'Shiva', 'Satya' , 'Company' and 'Sarkar' put into 'Sarkar Raj'. Another point I noticed is that in a sequel where more than half of the characters are repeated including the actors it might tend to get predictable and thus get boring since they were already introduced to us(audience) before in its predecessor. But again RGV makes it totally unpredictable and thus makes it like any other fresh movie to watch. Though Amitabh Bacchan lasts till the end of the movie and eliminates all the thorns it is Abhishek whose performance will be remembered for a long time. He takes of as 'Shankar Nagre' the son of 'Subhash Nagre' and the successor of the throne of the Maharashtra's famous parallel government the 'SARKAR'. The 'SARKAR' is a well settled parallel government and the Nagres are the undoubted heroes of the public of Maharashtra. 'SARKAR' functions on just one simple but very important policy that is welfare of people of Maharashtra. Nothing is more important to the Nagres than the welfare of Maharashtra's people. Therefore to topple the 'SARKAR' it has to be something really really big which if not India atleast the whole Maharashtra can take notice. The conspiracy enters the Nagre parivar in the form of a Power Plant project. Here I have to talk about the people who plot the conspiracy. One of them is Govind Namdeo who plays Hassan Qazi. I don't know why RGV messed up with his looks. He looked more like a comedian than a dangerous man plotting SARKAR's downfall. His looks reminded me of M.R.Radha the yesteryear Tamil actor. Shinde who plays Kanga has this weird way of eating. The first half of the film entirely focuses on the power plant project and the second half entirely on the politics behind the project. Unlike in the first part 'SARKAR' where the Nagres successfully save themselves from falling prey to a well planned conspiracy, 'SARKAR RAJ' showcases how the conspiracy this time kills Shankar Nagre and his wife. RGV was brilliant in depicting both Shankar's and Avantika Nagre's assassinations. Few scenes have the RGV stamp. For example the press conference scene, where Shankar Nagre and Somji explain the support for each other, can be handled only by RGV(remember the Amol Shukla's press conference scene in 'SATYA'?). Though there are many such RGV stamp scenes in the movie, one scene stands apart is just brilliant. The scene where Rao Saab comes to Subhash's residence to express his condolences and what he finds there is ......oh my gaaawd......what a scene..... just for this scene my ***** to RGV. Couple of things which I couldn't digest was
1) Chander's downfall : How could a man who was so loyal to SARKAR can fall so cheap just because of a small misunderstanding with Shankar?
2) Ash's reign: The film ends with Ash ordering the famous 'chai' that Nagres usually have while listening to the plea of public. How could a London based businesswoman could quickly adapt to the Indian ways and that too Maharashtra and its social,political issues so as to handle people's issues? ofcourse we see Subhash Nagre asking to see his grandson Chickoo just before the climax. So this is a strong indication of Chickoo taking up the throne in what is tentatively called SARKAR-3.

So that is about it. 'SARKAR RAJ' is political fiction at its best.