Feet a Size too Large for my Shoes

The title means literally what it says. I bought a pair of shoes and my feet are too large for it, so I cut my feet so they fit in the shoes. In fact this is something we can see a lot in our every day life. A polite way of saying the same will be: Treating the symptoms instead of the disease, Quick Fix!

May be because it is too easy to do such a thing. Here are a couple of scenarios:

Reservation - This is one of the most perfect examples for this statement. We give preference to the "weaker" sections of the society for various positions instead of enabling them to compete on par with others. This is like saying someone needs to get only 10 marks of 100 in an examination while others need to get 60 out of 100. Just because the former is "under privileged". And we would like to keep them so, so they keep coming for that slice of bread we always throw at them. Instead of this why not enable them to get the required 60 marks. So they feel a sense of self satisfaction instead of feeling obliged to a benefactor.

While the advocates of reservation (affirmative action, in parliamentary terms) have an argument that this is to offset the wrongs done to these "under privileged" people for thousands of years (!). I am not saying that there is no truth in that they were oppressed for a period of time, but to say thousands of years will be taking it too far. Also, it makes instant heroes of our politicians who are so beautifully changing a trend which has been vogue for "thousands" of years. Someone taking time to study the entire period of written history will not be able to validate this claim. In the end it just happens to be an easy way to lure the naive voters.

Making Class X exams optional - Yet another beautiful example. Students get stressed in exams, so stop the exams. An easy way right? We do not need find why they are stressed, bother about how we manage the stress to make them more powerful, or what is so wrong with our education system. Remove the exams, quick, very quick. So, are we to believe that students who are afraid of Class X exams will suddenly turn bold in time for the next one at Class XII? Instead of find the root cause and handling it, we just treat the symptom: the stress of exams.

Personally, I wrote my Class X just like any other exam. Of course there was this little tension about filling the name and registration number properly in the answer book, but that was it. While this may not be a perfect example, there is just too much hype being given to this particular set of exams. And hype creates pressure and parents add to it but playing up the tension. What we need to tell the students is that they will be given scores based on what they write and not in comparison with others. The comparison comes into picture only for ranks, not for the marks. The competition is more among the parents than the students leading to excessive comparisons, which ruins the morale of the students.

Again, ignoring all this our politicians have their way: make exams optional. Who do they think will opt to write an optional exam. And anyway how much effort will they put into preparing the question papers for such an eye wash. By doing this we are depriving the students of the feeling of achievement they get when clearing the exams or securing a high grade.

It will further enable the cunning education factories which pass off as schools to churn out more of their products, untested and make more money.

I hope to add more to this list in future. Meanwhile, comments are welcome.

Mobile-o-philia: An addiction?...

Gadgets, Gadgets everywhere...This has been the state for the past two decades or so. However it has been growing more quickly in the last 10 years. With a number of new devices being introduced and being easily accessbile to all both due to lower prices and ease of purchase, they are really seen everywhere While it is good that all people are getting to use these gadgets it is also to be noted that it will lead to an increasing number of people being addicted to devices. And some of these people will be more vulnerable to this due to ignorance of the ill effects. The foremost among these gadgets is the Cell phone. If one goes out today and looks around, almost everyone has a cell phone: Cheap/costly, small/big, with different features, but omnipresent all the same. This leads to some interesting scenarios:

• Always on the phone folks: These people can be found everywhere. The most distinguishing quality of these guys being that it is difficult to get them to talk to someone in front of them. Not because they cannot, but because they hardly get off the phone for an hour a day.Talking in the phone late at night, early in the morning, in the noons. Anytime when there is even two or three minutes of available time, they whip up there phones and starting talking. Some of them wake up to phone calls everyday, possibly from the same person. And sleep while still on the phone. It becomes so habitual to others around that, you never answer to these people when they say something standing in front of you. This is because it might something they said to someone across the phone, talking on an invisible blue tooth headphone or a semivisible handsfree cord. So not answering is a way to save yourself from an embarassing situation when they stare at you with a "I was not talking to you" look.

• Walking Talkies: They are bit more difficult to come by but are definitely more interesting. They walk around on the roads talking to themselves, laughing by themselves oblivious to thing around them. From my childhood, I always thought that this was done by people we generally refer as being mad - the ones you find wearing torn dirty clothes and sitting by the side of busy roads and not so busy by lanes. And it was not considered a particularly respected state to be in. But suddenly it seems to have become fashionable to be "mad" minus the torn clothes (torn and worn out jeans excepted). They walk around as potential visitors for open manholes and in general as entertainment for people not affected by this "illness" as yet.
  

• Talk and Drive enthusiasts: They go around talking on their phones while driving bikes and cars, taxicabs and autorickshaws, trucks, buses, and what not, even bullock carts. They are more dangerous to an average layman than terrorists, by the sheer number of them among us. Recently, the driver of the cab which drops me back from work was caught on Chennai ECR by a cop. The guy was asked to pull over. The cop came running to tell the driver that it is not good drive while you talk (or errrr....talk while you drive). As usual after the pep talk from the cop, the driver paid him Rs. 50 as token of appreciation for allowing us to proceed on our homeward journey. This is just one case, there are many others driving around on the roads while being in a totally different dimension over the phone. And the most ridiculous as aspect of this is that the talk is not about saving india from pakistani insurgents or anything atleast of a minuscule importance to anyone. People share and solve riddles over the phone, talk about what they had/did not have for breakfast, lunch or dinner and why, and so on. Is this something which cannot wait until the journey is over?...More than anything else, it is another manifestation of the utter disregard we harbour for our fellow beings. "Don't drink and Drive" is only for the few who drink but "Don't Talk on phone while you drive" or rather "Don't drive while you are on the phone" is a slogan which is for almost everyone among us.

• In their own world: With cell phones doubling as mp3 players and FM radios, the overcrowded places which used to be socially active are now filled with pre occuppied people who hardly notice who is standing or sitting next to them. Buses, Waiting rooms, rail station, name any place we have people sitting or standing with ears plugged into a pair of headphones. It is but difficult to capture their attention for anything.
  

So much for the funny side. But is this something of a healthy trend? To me, it is nothing other than addiction. Very similar to the other addictions like for alcohol, tobacco, gambling, except that this is far more widespread and socially accepted. And anyway we have news about the microwave radiation from cell phones being harmful to our health. The time is not far when they will de addiction centers to treat people for this syndrome.

Connected: For what ?

Today I am India, typing in from a Internet Cafe in Thiruvanmiyur Chennai. Its long since I have had to do so much to get on the Internet: I walked about 1 km, had to show my id, have a photograph taken to get on the PC. By the way I had to hop two PC's to get one with a working Internet connection. Used to non stop wireless internet of US, this is quite a change. But this is where I started and coming back has this strange sense of nostalgia. To say the truth, I enjoyed walking so much to check mail.
It may sound odd, but sometimes it helps for life to be slow and unconnected. Many people were far more connected in the era of post and telegraph than in this ultra modern world of perpetual connectivity. There are fewer phones call and far fewer mails since you can call or mail at anytime. I remember the time when I used to walk to the nearby PCO to call my friends. No I have a wireless companion that roams around with me but I do not have same level of contact with those same friends. Sometimes, I like to leave my cell phone behind just so that no can interrupt what I am doing and I can fully concentrate on the present.
Also, this gives a strange happiness, too strange to explain
Let's see how far this goes and when I get tangled back into the web of connectedness that has so engulfed the world.

Change...But Why ?

We all would have heard this "Change is the only unchanging thing" or "Change is inevitable". While this is true to the core, what is not being addressed here is the direction of change and the reason for the change.

Some people might say that if the change is for the "good", the reason is not relevant. This might be true for situations but not for persons. And again "Good" is relative and my "Good" might be "Bad" for you and "The Worst" for a third person. So although it serves the political purpose of drawing attention or diverting attention, this kind of statement does not make a whole lot of sense.

This is very important for persons. If person changes or has to change, apart from the inherent reason(trigger) for change, there must be a logical reasoning for the change; Even if there is no logical reasoning the change may be effected. At a later point of time the change should be look out of place or unnecessary. Also it is said that we should not change ourselves to match up with each statement of "Good" and "Bad"; looking back after sometime you may not be able to recognize yourself and understand how you came from being you to this unknown person. As per me, this is the worst thing that can happen to a person. Again some of these "Bad" qualities is what makes You the real You. If there was an example of a Perfect Good Person and every person is pretty much a clone of this Perfecto person, then we need have a world or a society. Rather it will be like a set of machines who know only the right way of things. Also, there would be any Bad to contrast the Good against.

So I would say, for our own good, be yourself you can be what you are..instead of what someone else wants you to be...

Movie Review : Ore Kadal

I saw this movie couple of days ago...It's not a new movie (released somewhere in 2007), so I am just writing this because, of course, I felt like it. ;-)

I guess, this movie is all about love and its struggle with the materialistic reality of our society, measuring and judging everything by its monetary worth and shutting a already blind eye towards human mind and its many needs.

The protagonist Dr. Nath (Mammootty), is a social scientist and an accomplished author of many economics books. He say this is "I cannot be emotional, I cannot love, everything in this world is ruled by economics". He is in a research as part writing a book on the middle/low class indian people.

The story explores the emotional change in Dr. Nath through his interactions Deepthi (Meera Jasmine), a middle class married woman. The story is not the kind to be liked by the "custodians" of Indian culture, who says everything in India is/should be on the right side of the moral/immoral demarcation. It explores the kind of emotions and relationships long shunned/spoken against by this moral brigade.

As Nath, says good and bad is defined by the society for the sake of its own existence. I agree to a great extent. There is no absolute good or bad. It is relative, very relative. Whatever is common in a society is not considered bad. Then it becomes "a part of the game". The bad nomenclature is only for those who differ from the rest of the society or the professed rules therein. There is nothing much anyone gains by toeing the path drawn by the society; one step off the path and you are bad. While this is the case, Nath fails in understanding the emotional needs of his mind and that leads to his decline, accelerated by his reluctance to accept the reality even when it is in plain sight.

Overall, it was very stirring movie, worth a watch. Believe me, the director Shyamaprasad will have your mind swinging on the moral pendulum, through out the movie. The music by Ousepachchan is a very great plus point setting the mood right from the title songs, through the end.

This movie had me thinking in contradicting view points on the same topic, albeit in different sections of the movie. Initially I was totally with Nath, i.e. the good and bad as defined, in society is followed only by the middle class or the semi educated folks; rest all care only about their joys although it is by doing something considered "bad".

But in the later part of the movie which has Nath falling into the same emotions he so greatly opposed, it left me feeling very odd. It was like someone had taken me flying into a canyon of great depth and then left me for a free fall. But you really can't help accepting the new things being said. It ends with a intriguing sequence of events which are positive at the end

Well, any comments on the above text or the movie ?...

Far..Yet so Near ...yet so Far...

This is the changing feeling I have about life and things around me... They are so near you feel you can touch them had you just extended your hands by an inch more..yet when you actually do so, they disappear in a whiff, leaving you feeling an emptiness which is hard to define.

You know what had me thinking in this way: I just attended an Onam celebration event at a local Malayalee samajam. It was good, in fact very good. There was indeed a great amount of Onam mood created using traditional music and art events and the all too special Onam Sadya with 4 varieties of Payasam, Avial, Sambar and so on. A big gathering of people from kerala, people who have been in USA for 20 + years to people like me who are like seasonal migratory birds flying in and out periodically. For all the people who drove from varying distances to MGM Hall, Garland, TX the goal was to make up for a lost Onam "At Home". The goal did succeed to an extent, at least for me. I felt nostalgic memories of my early days in Kerala and then through years until my college days, after which I was pulled to wherever my job needed me to be, to beat the world in a competition which has milestones but no finish line.

Back to the event. The venue greeted people with panchvadyam to bring in the feeling of Onam. Ironically though, the artists wore jeans and t shirts instead of the regular dhoties. The events ranged from Bharathanatyam and Thiruvathirakali to Chenda Melam and dances to the latest Tamil songs. A great variety indeed.

After all the "festivities" when we started back, it was like a re-enactment of my first trip to the USA. Driving to Jefferson Park where I stay, and getting back to the reality. Here I am typing this, knowing fully well where I am but not knowing where my mind is. Yet a day later, I'll be back to work and so should my mind. There is no escaping the reality of this...But till then, Happy Onam.





The Hall...



Mahabali Of The Day



Chenda Melam...

Maveli with Thalapoli ladies in the backgound




Thiruvathirakali...

EVP - The way I see it

Just saw a movie called "White Noise". Built on the idea of EVP and communications from the dead, the movie more or less consists of a man recording static noise with a set of instruments and analyzing the recording to decipher human like voices. The voice "convey" messages from the dead people to the people who are still alive. And a lot of things predicted by them are shown to be happening in the movie. But how true is this phenomenon. How logical it is to record static noise and to put in time to analyze it to see if we can get some messages from it.

Also many of the things shown are very disputable. The static is shown producing pictures on a television screen. This makes the whole scenario all the more funny. Under normal circumstances the blurred pictures may be anything from a stray TV channel signal or a electronic appliance operating near by. And our brain is capable enough to imagine the display as some human face or something. I remember reading a story by O' Henry (William Sidney Porter) called "The face on the wall" school days in which a man imagines the stains on the wall to be forming a face which changes its expressions. I had a weird feeling for days after reading it and was actually trying see if any stains I find on walls do resemble human faces. And I did find a few - except that they never changed expressions. This film brings back those memories.

Apart from being able to bring a Halloween mood into the minds of people long before Halloween, these kind of movies don't seem to be of any value. May be they made a good collection at the box office..may be they had a good fan following. But according to me it is better if we don't get people thinking on these lines. We could use that time and money to work on something more useful for the human beings. May be we should have a restriction on movies made to propagate phenomena of questionable truthfulness. So much for a movie that took my Tuesday evening off...I had to write this and I knew it every minute while I watched the movie...