Chocolate, the newly released Malayalam movie with Prithviraj doing the prominent character. The film was well noticed for the novelty of the story it presented. It showed a deviation from contemporary cinemas.
Prithviraj playing the lead has utilised the chance he got for showcasing his talents. He has improved a lot from his past films. He really gives rays of hope for Malayalam film industry. The way he dance, fights etc has improved considerably. A kind of flexibility has arrived in his acting. Also he is maintaining a good physique.
Salim Kumar an actor of immense potential as he has proved through Samuel (Achan Urangatha Veedu) is not fully utilised here also. Still he conquers the viewers with his natural style of jokes.
Another thing we see in Roma back in action. She also has done well in the film making it a success.
Lalu Alex is presenting another important character in the film. It seems that he has been type casted to the role of a father who can under stand the mindset of the new generation. He played the same in Niram, Manjupoloru penkutty etc. Any way he can do it an unique way.
The film on the whole is an entertainer. It is a financial success pulling large crowds. It will continue in theaters of Kerala for at least one more month. But we have to ponder on the message given out. I don't see a much positive message from the film. The film underlines that comedy means Adults only. This has been the trend in the comedy industry for the last decade. In stage shows we have seen stories of royal families with the servant being the father of the prince. Liquor and women are the favourite topics of comedians. Is it not possible to make the audience laugh without these stuff? This is the plight of so-called family entertainers also. It is tolerable is small proportions but if only that is present... Where the level of appreciation of Malayalees stand? This will not give out a great message for the youth. Can we expect the comedies of the standard of Kilukkam and In harihar nagar to return?
The film projects the life style of its hero and heroine. Both of them enjoy a lot of freedom. They do whatever they want. The hero has many police cases and suspensions during his graduation. This may be the concept of hero in 21st Century. The heroine also is allowed to fight with college management and teachers. Her father once tells that he loves that kind of a behaviour. Both are not going to college to study. They just enjoy the life there. Will this suite an era of consumerism and disgrace?
As it is said that under democracy people of a region get the Government they deserve, so also the art will reflect the culture of the people. This gives us subject for serious thought.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Lights Off... Life On...
This is a title which I found in one of the news papers in Bangalore last month. Friends around me laughed when I read it aloud. I didn't go through the details but it kindled a thought in me.
I heard this idea from some great personality (as my other posts also are!), who exactly i can't recollect. He was talking to me about the problems in families of Kerala. They are problems pertaining to all families in cities. Kerala even though it doesn't have a big metro like Mumbai or Bangaluru, is evenly developed. You can't find kilometers of deserted land here as we see on our trip to Bangalore. Kerala has urbanised villages. So the problem is also relevant to almost all the families in Kerala.
He was talking to me about another news that stole the front pages of the dailies there. It was " The power-cut will be soon re-established : As a result of shortage of water in dams the Govt is forced to re-establish power-cut says the Minister of ........." This might be a news of dysphoria for anybody. I also felt the same when i read the news. But he put it in a different way. He was admiring the minister for his decision. He seemed to be very happy about it. It seemed very abnormal to me. And he explained...
Problems among family members are increasing. Parents don't know their children, They are not ready to open up, They cannot predict what their children would do when they deny something, The wedge between husband and wife seems to be increasing. The children also don't know why their parents ask them to do something, Why they are not grated their wishes...
So they turn against their parents. Many children taken to counseling feel that their parents don't love them. The parents if wealthy(in most cases), will be try to make them joyful in all the ways they can. In their busy schedule they may not be able to respond to the needs(not physical but mental) of their children. This widens the gap, Children go out of control of their parents, they even commit suicide for silly reasons!
The problem is lack of communication between family members. In this age of fast life they don't get enough time. When they come home they sit in front of the idiot-box and pretend to enjoy! And in this age of atomic families children don't have another person to share with. Marvelous were the days of power-cut. The moment the power goes, everybody ion the family stops whatever he is doing and assembles in the drawing room or at the door steps(Applicable only for those families who don't have generators and emergency lights!! Their fate is even horrible!!). They share their whole day during this half an hour. They don't find it difficult to spent that half an hour. They speak of their friends, their dreams, their needs, and anything beneath the sun... They become deeply bound, light-hearted. This is the best medicine available for the disease.
Without healthy families a healthy nation is not possible. Thanks to Electricity Board for their move in this direction.
I heard this idea from some great personality (as my other posts also are!), who exactly i can't recollect. He was talking to me about the problems in families of Kerala. They are problems pertaining to all families in cities. Kerala even though it doesn't have a big metro like Mumbai or Bangaluru, is evenly developed. You can't find kilometers of deserted land here as we see on our trip to Bangalore. Kerala has urbanised villages. So the problem is also relevant to almost all the families in Kerala.
He was talking to me about another news that stole the front pages of the dailies there. It was " The power-cut will be soon re-established : As a result of shortage of water in dams the Govt is forced to re-establish power-cut says the Minister of ........." This might be a news of dysphoria for anybody. I also felt the same when i read the news. But he put it in a different way. He was admiring the minister for his decision. He seemed to be very happy about it. It seemed very abnormal to me. And he explained...
Problems among family members are increasing. Parents don't know their children, They are not ready to open up, They cannot predict what their children would do when they deny something, The wedge between husband and wife seems to be increasing. The children also don't know why their parents ask them to do something, Why they are not grated their wishes...
So they turn against their parents. Many children taken to counseling feel that their parents don't love them. The parents if wealthy(in most cases), will be try to make them joyful in all the ways they can. In their busy schedule they may not be able to respond to the needs(not physical but mental) of their children. This widens the gap, Children go out of control of their parents, they even commit suicide for silly reasons!
The problem is lack of communication between family members. In this age of fast life they don't get enough time. When they come home they sit in front of the idiot-box and pretend to enjoy! And in this age of atomic families children don't have another person to share with. Marvelous were the days of power-cut. The moment the power goes, everybody ion the family stops whatever he is doing and assembles in the drawing room or at the door steps(Applicable only for those families who don't have generators and emergency lights!! Their fate is even horrible!!). They share their whole day during this half an hour. They don't find it difficult to spent that half an hour. They speak of their friends, their dreams, their needs, and anything beneath the sun... They become deeply bound, light-hearted. This is the best medicine available for the disease.
Without healthy families a healthy nation is not possible. Thanks to Electricity Board for their move in this direction.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Focuz...
Everybody has his own aspirations and dreams about life. That differs from person to person. But the success depends on how serious he is about his dreams... No pain no gain... He has to sacrifice something to achieve his goals.
Everyday we meet new new people, we get information about new new things, we hear about new new technologies. All these can have an impact on our dreams.
We should not be orthodox to stick on to what we had decided earlier, but ready to accept the newer challenges. We should be flexible enough to adapt to changes. We should never lose focus on our goal, our path, once we choose that. Many things, many incidents will pull our mind away from our goal. It might be something attractive conquering our senses, or something that put hurdles in our way. We have to fight both of them till we succeed.
We all have heard the story of Arjuna aiming a parrot's eye. While others saw the parrot, the tree.. he could see only the eye of the parrot. That sharp should be our focus on our goal. No other visuals, sounds or anything should be able to shift our focus. That made Arjuna different.
I remember another story from Ramayana, which can be cited as the best example for commitment towards the goal. It is also a well known story... Hanuman is jumping Lanka to meet Sita. On the way he meets different things which tries to shift his focus. He meets daemons who tries to block him. He uses different tactics to get rid of them. At times he uses his physical strength to win over such hurdles. We can also see him using his intelligence to make fool of them and move forward(He becomes very small and escapes from a rakshasi). We can also see the hill 'Mainaka' offering him rest, food and water. Hanuman refuses expressing his love and respect. Here he depicts how committed one should be on his goal. How he should fight with the hurdles on the way. How he should not go behind temporary gains losing focus. That was what happened to the rabbit in the old rabbit-tortoise story. Failure in focus at a small point of time shall result in the goal being never achieved at all...
So focus on your goals. Define them sharp and fine.Everyday we meet new new people, we get information about new new things, we hear about new new technologies. All these can have an impact on our dreams.
We should not be orthodox to stick on to what we had decided earlier, but ready to accept the newer challenges. We should be flexible enough to adapt to changes. We should never lose focus on our goal, our path, once we choose that. Many things, many incidents will pull our mind away from our goal. It might be something attractive conquering our senses, or something that put hurdles in our way. We have to fight both of them till we succeed.
We all have heard the story of Arjuna aiming a parrot's eye. While others saw the parrot, the tree.. he could see only the eye of the parrot. That sharp should be our focus on our goal. No other visuals, sounds or anything should be able to shift our focus. That made Arjuna different.
I remember another story from Ramayana, which can be cited as the best example for commitment towards the goal. It is also a well known story... Hanuman is jumping Lanka to meet Sita. On the way he meets different things which tries to shift his focus. He meets daemons who tries to block him. He uses different tactics to get rid of them. At times he uses his physical strength to win over such hurdles. We can also see him using his intelligence to make fool of them and move forward(He becomes very small and escapes from a rakshasi). We can also see the hill 'Mainaka' offering him rest, food and water. Hanuman refuses expressing his love and respect. Here he depicts how committed one should be on his goal. How he should fight with the hurdles on the way. How he should not go behind temporary gains losing focus. That was what happened to the rabbit in the old rabbit-tortoise story. Failure in focus at a small point of time shall result in the goal being never achieved at all...
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Rights... Duties...
Just after the Indian chakde at Wanderers and before the heroes reached back, our governments, BCCI etc announced awards as appraisal for the players. This irritated the hockey stars!! What a sad news was that to hear, that they r going to go for hunger strike... I salute the hockey stars, admire the job they did for Asia cup. But they must not have declared that "V r playing for money/recognition and not for the nation". Somebody else should have done that. That would have sent better signals to the citizens here and the world outside.
I do agree with all the arguments of the hockey coach. They don't get money as cricket people get. They also sweat, bring honour and pride to the nation. They are not seen at the screens in our drawing rooms during breaks... Their salary might be low...
Will they go to the different product companies and strike because they are not called to perform in advertisements? I again repeat that i respect their sentiments. In the previous post i had mentioned "The tournament has brought big profit for BCCI also, so its time for them to help other games also to come up...". So its for the Government to do something, the Sports council of India to look into the matter.
This incident will trigger lot of discussions regarding indian sports. The plight of football players, athlets, the recognition they r getting, the infrastructure provided for them etc. New questions will be thrown into the atmosphere. Should the govt feed the hugry or those with full stomatch?
My focus is not on the plight of Indian sports. I would like to depict the drift from our culture during this modern age. In earlier days when we read the epics, we find that there is no reference about RIGHTS. No matter it be a common man, a King, a govt servant, a saint, or a cobbler. Everybody spoke about duties. We may be familiar with 'Raja Dharma', 'Pitru dharma', 'Pitru Dharma', 'Praja Dharma' etc... the list goes on.... Everybody had their own dharma for each role they performed. A man may be a praja, son and a father at the same time. So he had to perform his dharma for each of the roles. Its not that nobody had any rights. The society co-existed in harmony in such a way that the rights of one are the dharmas of others. A boy has the right to study, he needs clothing, shelter, food... these were all dharmas of his parents and the government. Teachers bothered about teaching and making their students the most efficient. they never bothered about their fee. The students their parents and Govt took care of it.
There is a story narrated in the autobiography of Sri Rabindanath Tagore : " Tagore was born in one of the richest families of Bengal. When motor car came into existence. Tagore family decided to buy one. They got the best available car. One day they decided to go for a ride. The members of the family got into the car and moved. The cars of those days suffered from a problem that after moving for a while, it should be stopped and the engine should be cooled using water. After long journey, many times stopping, cooling and moving, they reached a <> village and the car stopped. No water was left to cool the engine. They were in a dilemma. Suddenly an old villager came running to see the new animal, which he had never seen. Tagore told him the problem. He went running and after some time turned up with some water in his hand. The problem was solved and the car got started. Tagore became very happy and gave the man a 100 Rupee note. He became very angry and asked "are you insulting me? is it not my duty to help a guest who got into trouble from my village?" and he walked away. Tagore was surprised by this and it touched him deep. " The story shows how conscious an illiterate, old villager was about his dharma. He was not rich enough to avoid 100 Rs which would have brought him many fortunes. During that period 100 Rs was not a small amount. This is not an incident that happened during the age of Rama. It shows that even during the British raj people were so conscious about their duties. What is the plight, attitude of our people after celebrating 60 years of independence?
I do agree with all the arguments of the hockey coach. They don't get money as cricket people get. They also sweat, bring honour and pride to the nation. They are not seen at the screens in our drawing rooms during breaks... Their salary might be low...
Will they go to the different product companies and strike because they are not called to perform in advertisements? I again repeat that i respect their sentiments. In the previous post i had mentioned "The tournament has brought big profit for BCCI also, so its time for them to help other games also to come up...". So its for the Government to do something, the Sports council of India to look into the matter.
This incident will trigger lot of discussions regarding indian sports. The plight of football players, athlets, the recognition they r getting, the infrastructure provided for them etc. New questions will be thrown into the atmosphere. Should the govt feed the hugry or those with full stomatch?
My focus is not on the plight of Indian sports. I would like to depict the drift from our culture during this modern age. In earlier days when we read the epics, we find that there is no reference about RIGHTS. No matter it be a common man, a King, a govt servant, a saint, or a cobbler. Everybody spoke about duties. We may be familiar with 'Raja Dharma', 'Pitru dharma', 'Pitru Dharma', 'Praja Dharma' etc... the list goes on.... Everybody had their own dharma for each role they performed. A man may be a praja, son and a father at the same time. So he had to perform his dharma for each of the roles. Its not that nobody had any rights. The society co-existed in harmony in such a way that the rights of one are the dharmas of others. A boy has the right to study, he needs clothing, shelter, food... these were all dharmas of his parents and the government. Teachers bothered about teaching and making their students the most efficient. they never bothered about their fee. The students their parents and Govt took care of it.
There is a story narrated in the autobiography of Sri Rabindanath Tagore : " Tagore was born in one of the richest families of Bengal. When motor car came into existence. Tagore family decided to buy one. They got the best available car. One day they decided to go for a ride. The members of the family got into the car and moved. The cars of those days suffered from a problem that after moving for a while, it should be stopped and the engine should be cooled using water. After long journey, many times stopping, cooling and moving, they reached a <> village and the car stopped. No water was left to cool the engine. They were in a dilemma. Suddenly an old villager came running to see the new animal, which he had never seen. Tagore told him the problem. He went running and after some time turned up with some water in his hand. The problem was solved and the car got started. Tagore became very happy and gave the man a 100 Rupee note. He became very angry and asked "are you insulting me? is it not my duty to help a guest who got into trouble from my village?" and he walked away. Tagore was surprised by this and it touched him deep. " The story shows how conscious an illiterate, old villager was about his dharma. He was not rich enough to avoid 100 Rs which would have brought him many fortunes. During that period 100 Rs was not a small amount. This is not an incident that happened during the age of Rama. It shows that even during the British raj people were so conscious about their duties. What is the plight, attitude of our people after celebrating 60 years of independence?
Monday, September 24, 2007
Twenty20 WorldCup
Thankz to ICC for giving such a kick start to the T20 matches. With that exciting final, as Ravi Shastri said " T20 will not get a better platform to be established". We can hope that as test cricket gave way to One dayers, gradually One dayers Will give way to T20. The new form of game gives much more vigour and excitement. Also it doesn't make people lazy, compel them to take leave from offices...
ICC has done all the repair of the loss they had in previous world cup, as India crushed out earlier. The victory of team India will do the repair work for the cricket in our country too...
BCCI, being the richest cricket board in the world can simply announce Millions for their players. Of course the effort of the players need appraisal. The tournament has brought big profit for BCCI also, so its time for them to help other games also to come up...
Any way the last half of the year has been incredible for us. May it be the Asia Cup, or WC T20, or through Pankaj Adwani. The rise in the stock market, the reduction in the rates of inflation, the $ being put below 40(this may cut short salary in IT industry still India shining!) everything has contributed to the feel good factor among the youth.
On the other hand Pakistan is flooded with problems. The comeback of Nawas Shareef and the attitude of Musharaf, the up coming polls, the cases going against the Gen. in Supreme Court, and lot more. In early days it was religion that brought about the unity among the people there, but now a days that is not working. Another thing for which they stand united is against India and cricket. They wont mind being kicked out of WC in the beginning itself, but they cant accept loosing to India, that too twice!! It is evident from the protests against the players going on there.
So from all angles, the environment is becoming favourable to us... Let us make use of this and avoid the slavish mentality towards Western Nations. The world has begun looking to East, Let India be the light house here.
Jai Hind
ICC has done all the repair of the loss they had in previous world cup, as India crushed out earlier. The victory of team India will do the repair work for the cricket in our country too...
BCCI, being the richest cricket board in the world can simply announce Millions for their players. Of course the effort of the players need appraisal. The tournament has brought big profit for BCCI also, so its time for them to help other games also to come up...
Any way the last half of the year has been incredible for us. May it be the Asia Cup, or WC T20, or through Pankaj Adwani. The rise in the stock market, the reduction in the rates of inflation, the $ being put below 40(this may cut short salary in IT industry still India shining!) everything has contributed to the feel good factor among the youth.
On the other hand Pakistan is flooded with problems. The comeback of Nawas Shareef and the attitude of Musharaf, the up coming polls, the cases going against the Gen. in Supreme Court, and lot more. In early days it was religion that brought about the unity among the people there, but now a days that is not working. Another thing for which they stand united is against India and cricket. They wont mind being kicked out of WC in the beginning itself, but they cant accept loosing to India, that too twice!! It is evident from the protests against the players going on there.
So from all angles, the environment is becoming favourable to us... Let us make use of this and avoid the slavish mentality towards Western Nations. The world has begun looking to East, Let India be the light house here.
Jai Hind
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