In rebellion with God!

A recent conversation or a tete-a-tete with a colleague prompted me to revisit my priorities on the question of belief in God and the philosophical stand that I conceived from my past experiences.

It all started with the question of “Swachanda Mrityu”. I was joking that since we do not have any say over our birth, we should at least be given the freedom to decide when to die. I am not referring to suicide in the conventional sense here, but an ability for living things when to call it a day by the most natural means! I am aware that this is by no means any new topic. Rather, it is an age-old tradition for Hindoos to debate the question of death, starting with Nachiketa!

Though, in my pristine youth, I did not realize the beauty of the concept of “Swachanda Mrityu” (remember Bhishma?), I am now intellectually interested in that concept. Perhaps, even in those days people must have been wondering if ever there was a normal way to sign off from the burden of living a full life leading to the concept of “Swachanda Mrityu” ! After all can we blame a person if he wants to resign early or apply for a VRS from life!

This is my first contention with GOD! How dare he not provide us with this choice to exit honorably? I know that many of us have heard stories about how some of our great great grandfathers / great great uncles predicted the exact date/time of their exit. But, not many stories are heard about deciding for themselves the right time for the exit.

This infatuation with Swachanda Mrityu need not be arising out of despair but could be out of a feeling of contentment, the feeling that what needs to be achieved in life has been achieved. Or even out of a feeling that nothing more needs to be experienced in life…

To be continued….

The stale sense of what is right and what is wrong!

The other day I was chatting up with Shyamaprasad, generally about movies and in particular about his last movie, Ritu, a tale of friendship pangs. I was telling him that though I loved the movie and could relate to the lifestyle as well as the thoughts of the main characters in the movie, the typical malayali could never take to it. Inside the theatre, even those in the balcony seats were not comfortable with the characters conversing in English. Yes, I agree with Shyam that those sitting in the balcony are not necessarily the ones who should be sitting there! But that fact aside, why does an average malayali get uncomfortable when the characters in the movies converse in English? For them the lifestyle of an IT professional is still unacceptable, even though Technopark and Info park with their multitude of ITES firms are a reality!

Another significant factor is the Malayali’s taste for heavy emotions, or melodrama that they are so used to. A film is not worth watching if nothing drastic or tragic occurs to the hero and the hero finally avenges that! If there is a series of such tragedies befelling the hero, the more acceptable it is ! I am not surprised that the audience failed to relate to the friendship pangs portrayed in Ritu.

Shyam’s earlier work “Ore Kadal” based on the Bengali novel Hirak Deepthi caught the interest of the audience for two reasons: one being the presence of Mammooty and the other one being the subject matter handled. Here again, we, malayalies were quick to object, coz the implications of the movie did not unfortunately agree with their sense of “righteousness” !

In the final analysis, I could not but fully agree with Shyam when he said ” one should be doing films only for the sahridays, who would share the world and vision of the director”

Men Vs Women in Kerala -the social psyche

I know I am embarking on a controversial subject here. But I couldnt resist putting down my thoughts here after going through my friend Abhi’s blog (abhilifelapazzo.blogspot.com). Though a Malayali, he was raised in Nagpur and he is at times confused by some of our social practices. He has rasied some pertinent questions in his latest post.

One of the questions he raised deals with the seats reserved for ladies in our public transports. This must have been instituted with the best of the intentions, may be as a welfare measure to ensure a minimum number of seats for the less agile amongst us. But it needs to be said that without attacking the basic premise, it only serves to widen the gender difference perception. I agree that this law needs to be read in connotation with the growing instances of atrocities and abuses against women who rely solely on our public transport system.

I remember my school days. Those were the days when boys and girls were asked to sit in different groups even in lower classes. Any healthy interaction between a boy and girl were observed as suspicious both by the students as well as the teachers! Among the boys, it was standard practice to ostracise a friend who was seen talking to a class mate of the other sex. Now, I believe that this kind of an attitude helps only to bring in a perverted curiosity to know more about members of the other sex. This attitude, fortunately is not seen once you get to college. But I feel that the damage is already done by then. Nowadays, things may have changed for better at least in private schools. Lets hope that the new generation would at least have a healthy mindset.

I read somewhere that the atrocities performed in the buses and other public transport are often the handiwork of men in their early forties and fifties….. do we see a connection here? Could one of the root causes be the separation they had to practise at a young age?

And now here is an other related scenario. Apart from the reserved seats, a woman can sit in the general seats too in public transports. But what if there is a single lady in a two seater in the general quota? Though, law permits a man to occupy the second seat, not all dare to do it.. for to do it, most often you have to survive the dirty looks aka "how dare you sit next to me ?" looks from the lady who has already occupied one of the seats!

The saga of the burned toast

Thanks to Asianet Dataline, my Laptop is now like a badly burned breakfast toast.

Day before yesterday, around evening 8′ 0 clock there was a major power influx and the whole area of Kakkanad was immerserd in darkness. There was an acrid smell like something being burned badly in the kitchen. But soon I realised that it was not from the kitchen but something within my room… It was pitch dark and making a guess, I went for the lap top. I could sense that something was very wrong but could not put my finger to it. I switched off all the power outlets and waited patiently for the power to come back. It came back two hours later and I could estimate the damage…

The modem provided by the Asianet guys had burned together with the cable provided by them to connect to the laptop… And the laptop.. was sleeping peacefully… attempts to wake him up failed. I checked the port and found that it was charred. The RJ socket had burned.

I checked the power outlets and they were all working fine. In fact, the mobile charger plugged on to the second outlet was still working. No damage. It was pretty clear that there was some other source of power .. and then I realised that the power must have come through the internet cable into the modem and from the modem to the laptop!

I dutifully called the customer care yesterday morning and reported the complaint. They sent a person late in the afternoon to my house. He called from home and mentioned that he had rectified the problem… he said he is replacing the modem and the cable to the laptop. But what about my laptop? And more improtantly what according to him is the cause for the damage? No Answer! I said I wanted a service report from him.. he said it is not Asianet’s procedure to give a copy of the service report to the customer! A verbal war ensued, he stuck to his ground saying that he will not give a report and I was pretty sure that I did not want a modem replaced without identifying the root cause of the problem.
Finally I asked him to leave the situation as it was. Knowing the way Asianet guys work, I am pretty sure they would call me next month for the monthly payment! And thats when the world verbal War – II would be launched!

I will soon update this post with pictures of the actual damage… Stay Tuned!! Meanwhile here is another irate customer :
http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Asianet_Dataline_Cable_Internet-131253-1.html

British Films – Peter Howitt, Frank Oz etc

For the record, I am no great movie buff who can talk volumes on world cinema. But I do watch movies quite a lot. I would not call myself a serious movie watcher and I know that I dont have enough background knowledge to acquire a taste for quality films

It started with a search for british movies. I was watching Johnny English again just to see if I would get the kicks again and then it led me to other Peter Howitt movies.  And I got hooked with British comedy!

The search led me to other black comedies like Keeping mum by Niall Johnson and movies of Peter Howitt – Sliding doors and Dangerous parking.

By far, the best, to quote from Sliding Doors: ” Women do not often say what they really want, but they still reserve the right to be pissed off when they dont get it!” 

Another movie that had me in splits was “Death at a funeral”. I plan to catch up with more movies by Frank Oz like The score, Bowfinger and The Indian in the cupboard

 
I will be happy to recieve suggestions from my friends on more British movies to add to my “Must see” list!