Why should we read Chetan Bhagat?

If you don’t want to read him…. that is just fine… but you can recommend him to somebody who is in the first lap of a readathon. 

He doesn’t belong to the genre of literature but is an inspiration to anyone who wants to be a writer in India.

He sells – (his books are sold like hot appams and sweetened coconut milk) – Anyone who is interested in doing a research about his phenomenal growth can do a market study and publish a paper which can be titled as – ‘The Chetan Bhagat Enigma’

 If you want to criticize Chetan Bhagat, it is ethical to read him and do it with some elan.

‘To be simple is not a simple thing’ says the Malaysian poet Ee Tiang Hong, Chetan Bhagat is simple – his language and his thoughts. 

 A perfect companion for getting the reading block out of the way. 

A perfect companion when you travel, when you wait outside the American Library for the security check in or even in the loo.

 Free-wheeling reading sessions – not need to underline any lofty thoughts or hard words.

Perfect anti-dote for the clout of intelligentsia. 

Chetan Bhagat knows the pulse of India

What it takes to be a pro?

 

In this highly competitive world, one way to stay on the top is by becoming a professional. The word signifies quality and has been applied in different fields like photography, arts and Human Resources. This blog briefly explores the question - What it takes to be a pro? 

 

There are many epithets for defining a pro - intellient and smart, atheletic built, career oriented and ruthless when it comes to making a decision. Professionals tend to be more rational than emotional. They don’t mix personal with their professional life. Even they do that it will be done in a discreet way. The always try to update themselves with the latest trends in technology and the best practices in HR. 

 

Eventhough we treat professionalism as a positive trait, it can contain streaks of negativity also. To stay ahead in the race, professionals tend to dwell in negativity. They do things not because they want to do it but are forced to do it. They have something sinister in their outllook since they are always vying for the topmost position. They may have a Macbethian temper which propels their dreams and ambitions which vaults over the permissible limits. Do they always give value to the four golden principles of human interaction - Respect, Integrity, Ethics and Honesty. 

 

Professionalism is a great force and the only way to make it positive for the indivdual and those around him is to channelize it and make it a highly personal force. A true professional fights his war not with the outside world but with himself. 

The world around us...

It is important that our eyes and ears are open to the world outside. There is the need for using the discretionary powers to select the news and views that we want. 

Listening to the iPlayer app in my phone is a new joy that I have discovered. I admire the rich content that the app offers especially the BBC World Service programmes. This morning, as I listened to the World News from the app I realized that the team behind BBC are full of energy and the energy is not something forced out of them but it just flows naturally and without any hindrances. 

The documentary which I listened to after the news was an interview with Angelina Jolie. The interviewer was Yalda Hakim. The interview was based on the book 'They Killed My Father' written by a survivor of the Khymer Rouge genocide. Angelina Jolie has made a new movie based on this book. She was in conversation with Yelda Hakim, who herself is a survivor of the Afghan- Russian War. She is a Afghan, her family is settled in Australia and she is living in London. 

Looking at this picture, I feel the peace and calmness of two women who are discussing a horrfic past. Angie, as she is populary known in Cambodia talks about how she adopted her first child from Cambodia. She also talks about how important is for the leader not to lose his calm in front of his team. 

I was born innocent..technology spoiled me...

Image source: Google

Like a thief creeping in from behind...Undetected and Unannounced - Technology has overtaken our lives. This blog is not a commentary on the physical effects of using technology but the way it effects our mind. I do agree that technology has immense potentialities but it is good to consider the following before we lie prostrate before the techno-god.

Some of the major effects are:

1) Distractions abound: One of the greatest challenges today is to keep your phone locked for a considerable amount of time. Like a thriller novel, the phone has become 'unputdownable'. It is interesting to note that the phones itself have become a tool for focusing on the task at hand. I am using this app called Forest to stay in track. 

Image Source: Premjith Mathew

2)  Less human contact:  The urge to see eye to eye for a warm conversation has disappeared. I am
     reminded of the catchphrase of a popular cafe -  A lot can happen over a cup of coffee. Today, the
     only thing that can happen over a cup is forwarding whatsapp messages and liking some
     Instagram pictures.

3)  Creates a feeling of being self-sufficient: Technology empowers you to be somebody or    
     something. It provides you with a feeling of pride and self-sufficiency. It is a pseudo feeling, I
     can vouchsafe for that. Technology is not a substitute        for hard work and persistence. It may
     help you but it can never make you think independently.

4) Mind is transformed with techno-gibberish:  The human mind should be cultivated with good         thoughts and nice memories or it is like this today's  good thoughts will become tomorrow's good 
    memories. The bomardment of the human mind with  images and words takes a toll on the      
    thinking process and creativity. You just become the receiver  and few things are thought about or 
    created. 

5) Addiction:The time has come for the governments and policy making bodies to establish de-      
    addiction centres for techno-addicts. The awareness campaign should start from the early stage  
    of schooling and continue to a level where the target audience understand the wholistic
    implications of technology.
   

Personal Recommendations to Detechnologize yourself:

1) Mindfulness 

2) Make some Sacrifice and go with the bare minimum 

3) Read the book Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer  

4) Read Focus by Daniel Goleman

5) Kill Technology with Technology 

The Pain of Religion

Image from Google

 

I had this conversation with my colleague about religion and how mankind positions itself in relation to religion. Being a Mathematics teacher, he used the example of a graph to demonstrate the connection between Man and GOD. He said that God is the Y axis in a graph - always standing firm and straight like a lighthouse and Man is the X axis always full of mistakes and wrongs. In times of happiness and prosperity, man always moves away from God and when calamity strikes Man moves towards the God seeking comfort and solace. This definition of the Human and the Divine serves as the right opening for this blog. 

This blog examines the relationship between Pain and Religion. There is an element of masochism and sadism invloved in this relationship. Marx said that the religion is the opium of the people ( Wikipedia) I have identifed three stages of self inflicted addiction to religion. 

Members of any established religion advocates the importance of a controlled self which again invloves some kind of agony and suffering. I am writiing this blog seated in my office in Bahrain - a place which is known as the Tourism capital of the Middle East. The main visitors are from Saudi Arabia and other neigbouring GCC's. The main activity for them, like any other toursit destinations is to sqaunder their oil wealth on women and drinks. It is in the month of Holy Ramadan that really brings out the level of self control in these tourists. All sorts of vices are prohibited in Baharain for that one month. Even smoking is banned. There should be some element of pain involved in this self controlled state. The Holy month thus becomes a time of purgation and cleansing. 

The same is true about Christianity where the followers are exhorted to observe lent for 50 days before Easter Sunday. This too invloves self control for the Christian community as they are used to act of consuming more flesh on other days. Again an act of self control. The same is the case with the 41 days fast or 'vritham' which is part of the Hindu piligrimage to temple in South Kerala. The guidelines are strict like shunning all social activies, celibacy, not applying oil on the hair or body and always carries with them a tulsi leaf to ward off evil and temptations. The pilgrim sleeps on the bed and uses no footwear to protect his feet. ( inputs from sabarimalaaayyappan.com) 

The second stage in this examination of religion and pain are the acts involoving more physical exertions and labour. In Isalm, the pilgrims undertake the Hajj to Mecca. In earlier days, the passage to Mecca was through the scorching desert. These days travel arrangements have improved but still there are risks involved due to the inclement weather conditions of Saudi Arabia. Most of the pilgrims who perform Hajj are old. They are so fragile and weak that they don't have the stamina to withstand the harshness of the event. They are ready to meet their creator and if that meeting happens in the Holy Land, they believe that it is the ultimate gift from above. The pilgrims take part in circumambulation which is one of the key elements of the Hajj rituals. It is is not just about taking a walk around the Ka'ba but it also involves other rituals which are quite tough for the elderly. The weather and the journey and the lack of food makes Hajj a difficult religious event. 

In the Christain tradition, there is the ritual of the Way of the Cross. It is a kind of re-enactment of the journey that Christ made on his way to Crucifixation. Most of the pilgrimage centres would be difficult to access. Either they will be on top of a hill or deep inside the forest. There is one chruch in Kerala which is situated on a hilltop - Malayatoor Shrine. Malayattor pilgrimage is done as a vow in reparation of sins. Some pilgrims carry wooden crosses, some carry stones on their head and place them near the shrine. Women, sometimes, carry brooms, praying for the abundance of physical and spiritual well-being. (Source: Wikipedia) 

In the Hindu tradition, the act of rolling on the ground seeking spiritual blessing is one act which mixes pain and suffering. Most of the time the pathway on which the devotees roll are not covered from the harshness of the sun, is dirty and is made of cement. There is also another strange custom which involves devotees rolling over the plaintain leaves which contain the left overs of the food. This practice is said to relieve the devotees of health issues and help them get healthier ( Source: indiatimes.com) The act of tonsuring your head is also another example where the devotee inflict some kind of physical harm on his body. The devotees sometimes burn camphor which is kept on the palm of their hands as an offering to God. ( Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) 

The third stage is the harshest one where the body is subjected to harsher treatments. The case of Shia Muslims during the annaul festival of Muharram. They use blades on chains inflict injuries on themselves. The self-flagellations are intended to atone for the sins committed by their forefathers. This is done alomost for one full week. It is indeed a horrifying scene to see all the worshippers moving through the streets with blood covered bodies and shouting religious slogans. 

Mortification of the flesh is practiced in Christianity include flagellation in imitation of Jesus of Nazareth's suffreing and death by crucifixation (Source: Wikipedia) Pope John Paul II, who died un 2005, regularly used to whip himself according to the Polish nun who looked after him.  In Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, for instance, the murderous albino monk, Silas, is depicted flagellating himself while praying. (Source: Daily Mail)

In Hinduism, there are cases where metal rods driven through the tongues of the devotees to purify their souls. The ritual sometimes also include the insertion of iron hooks into the skin, free falling from high platforms and hanging upside down over fiery pots to frenzied drum beats. (Source: www.independent.co.uk) Another act of pain found in Hinduism is Thimti in which devotees walk on a fire pit which is prepared the night before and kept red throughout the day. It is found that this and similiar rituals can result in feelings of euphoria for participants. (Source: Wikipedia) 

This blog is an attempt to chronicle the acts of inflicting pain, disfiguration, and agony on the human body in the context of religion. These illustrations clearly shows that the religion which is supposed to be a path of peace of love uses violence and pain as a means to make the followers find the true essence of God. 

Impressions from the yesterdays...

The time has come to convert the impressions that I gathered during the past few months.
Need to organize myself before I start my verbal jaunt.
From today onwards there is something private about this blog...

Positivity - Barbara L Fredrickson.

If I don't empty my mind, I will go mad

Unlock the power of positive emotions. Positive emotions are essential for happiness. The power of positive thoughts has been underestimated for a long time. Everyone can attain the required positivity ratio. For every negative thought or energy there can be three positive thoughts. You should write down your positive thoughts.
**1**
The power of positive emotions has been underestimated for a long time. The power of negative emotions like fear was so predominant in the lives of ancestors that psychologists turned their attention to these negative emotions. It is only recently that the scientists decided to look at the positive emotions like love, gratefulness, pride or hope that they realized the importance of these feelings and how they can make our lives more happier and comfortable.
**2**
There is the need to develop a positive general attitude towards life. Everyone is born is with this attitude but sometimes happenings around us makes us slip into the negative general attitude. Positive general attitude leads to optimism and happiness. These kind of people see the world in a positive way and in a much more open way. Two groups of people were used for an experimentation. The first group was given lots of positive stimuli like music, paintings and the latter group was given nothing. It was proved that the first group exhibited far more positive attitude towards life than the second group. It is essential that we fill our lives with these positive emotions and stimuli.
**3**
Positive emotions does three things:
1) Broaden our perspective
2) Open up sense of playfulness
3) Broaden our vision
It is noted that the young hussar monkeys leap from one branch to another when they play and this childhood habit of playfulness help them to escape from predators.
The emotion of joy is something important in our feeling of positivity. To be joyful is a great thing.
This emotion can open up our perspective and make us more tolerant about strangers by opening up the common factors that we have with others.
In another experiment people who were happy were asked to look at slide show and it was found that they were able to look at things which others totally missed like the details of the images that was shown in the margins.
**4**
The emotion ratio is another way to be aware of the amount of positive emotions that one need to survive in this world. The negative emotions as mentioned earlier is strong and thus leads to a downward spiral in our emotions. The positivity ratio recommended is 3:1, i.e. for one negative emotion there should be three positive emotion. It is difficult to achieve this ratio but it is worth giving a try.
**5**
There is nothing to worry about this downward spiral that happens because of too much negative emotions. There is always a way to combat these failures that happen when the positivity ratio takes a dip. One fundamental technique is to create good habits that trigger positive emotions and overshadow the negative emotions. Some of the activities recommended in the book are
1) Writing a gratitude letter to someone.
2) Reminding oneself of the accomplishments
3) Talking to someone
4) Going out for a walk
5) Treating yourself to your fav food
I would like to add the following to the list
1) Listening to music ( like what I am doing now)
2) Reading a book or a blink or a magazine
3) Watching a movie
4) Drawing a mindfulness art
5) Going out for a walk
6) Watching a TED session
7) Dance to some tunes
These good habits will eventually help one to overthrow the negative emotions and make the downward spiral into a upward spiral of exuberance of joy and personal growth. You will cultivate the trait of resilience which will help you to combat the negativity that is around you.
**6**
One of the time tested way to cultivate a garden of positivity around you is to watch the emotions that you have. It is recommended that you observe the emotions when you wake up and as you progress through the day. It will help in the analysis of mood swings and accumulation of negative emotions. One of the method that is recommended is to keep a gratitude journal. Certain actions can trigger some kind of emotions. Like talking to your grandmother can trigger the memories about your childhood. Photos, old tickets can serve positive emotional boosters.
**7**
Mindfulness means consciously perceiving and enjoying every moment of your life by willfully focussing on the positive aspects of everything you experience. It also means being aware of all the negative feelings that you experience. These reality helps you to be more evaluative of the negative emotions.
If this doesn’t work then you can try distracting yourself.
Another strategy is to re-evaluate the negative, and try to find something good about it. What can we learn from this situation.
**8**
Mediation is one way to bring in more mindfulness and attention to our lives. Mediation is an ancient Buddhist practice which aims to improve the spirit and the soul by practicing concentration on the present moment.
This heightened awareness is one proven way to reach the 3:1 positivity ratio. Meditation reduces pain, stress and anxiety. Its not just a placebo. It reduces the activity in the regions of the brain that involve negative emotions and increase activity in the parts of the brain’s left hemisphere involved in positive emotions.
The benefits of meditation can be seen if you do it just five minutes a day.
Action advice from the book is:
Keep a gratitude journal
Meditate for five minutes either when you wake up or before going to bed

A Blog about another blog...

I decided to make this Friday more productive by reading and doing what I dream about doing during the weekdays. I read this blog in Medium which  is an app, that curates and presents the best blogs from around the world. The title of the blog is something which got my attention. It read like this: 'This is what I do before 8AM' and the blogger was Jon Westenberg. The tone of the writer is definitely non-preachy and it exhorts the reader to find his own footing when it comes to life and everyday planning. The last line of the blog echoes this idea "You need to live your own fucking life on your own terms". 

Jon's daily routine is something based on the universal truth that everyone of us lead our life with a 'sense of organized chaos'. He says that he wakes up at 6 A.M with a feeling of hate. He just hates everything about life in that hour of waking up. He just waits for the 'hate fog' to drift away. He recommends making a list of ideas and things that will make waking up an exciting event. He thinks about Fugazi's new album and the books that he is reading. Atleast three times a week he tries to jog which is usually followed by a 10 minute meditation session.  He talks about the 'sutra' he received from his counsellor who recommended to place every thought to that occurs on a leaf and watch it float away down a stream. Another tactic that he has developed is to away from the phone and the Internet. He says he has greatly enjoyed this 'offline moments in his life'

He concludes by saying that at the end it all boils down to the positive changes/choices that one makes in his life. It is like fighting a battle against my worst nature. It is quite normal to lose that battle a couple of days everyweek. 

The Great Indian Wedding

Recently I attended the wedding of one my closest relative and this gave me a chance to do two things, 

1) To get a bird's eye of the view of the wedding extravaganza. 

2) To get some ideas for writing a blog. 

**Shopping** 

The first taste, we got off the charged up wedding atmosphere was when we found ourselves in a shopping spree. This shopping was unlike any other shopping that we have done. There was a clear cut agenda about  the time and when we will wear the dresses. Importance was given to the price and the embellishments. After the hunt in three shops, we finally made our selection. In fact, the shopping spree never ended with the first day. It continued for five days. I realized the importance of colors and patterns and did a learn few things about color sync. We were also part of the so called mega shopping schedule of the bride and bridegroom. The location was a famous jewelry shop in the town and some souls were engaged in the act of making the right choices and giving fabulous opinions about the chosen jewelry item. The shopping sessions went on until the shops closed for the day. 

**The Church**

The church and its spiritual operatives were seen as necessary evils. The priests and his coterie were there to bring in the so called 'holiness factor'. The level of involvement and participation was limited but timely. The whole mechanism ran on the size of cash deposit made at the church counter and how well you are aligned with the church committee. This decided the amount of spirituality that will be showered upon. I felt that the simple and elegant prayers said by the elderly members of the family was much more soothing and meaningful. The church also had its own rules and regulations when it came to conduct of the wedding service. The priest had the same attitude of a teacher who enjoyed the act of admonishing  his students for late arrival and the improper behavior inside the church. 

**The Wedding Planners**

The wedding is an event for the elders in the family to take the main role and perform the duties without being asked. The main participants took up their position much ahead of the main event and started the work of coordinating and organizing. The final outcome that the public sees at the end is a result of all these planning and co-ordination. I was able to have a detached look at the events and make some significant remarks about this team work. There was a dedicated transport manager, an entertainment manager (who brought in fire crackers) there was a health and safety inspector (he took precautions to prevent a forest fire), who doubled as the official to herald the wedding events. We also had the finance department, team which looked into the settlements of bills. All these different departments worked like a well oiled machine so that two individuals could start their life as one. 

**Church mediated dating**

Earlier the bride and the bride groom were seen as two individuals. In this technology driven era they start exchanging messages and calls once the families agree upon the wedding date and other details. They also attend the pre-marital counseling session together. This gives them a chance to be together and get to know each other (not that they have a choice to chance to make a diffrent choice). This is a healthy practice and I feel that the church should mediate and take the lead to find common slots for the two parties involved to make the real decision regarding their life. This will save many marriages from hitting rock bottom. 

**United we stood**

The great Indian family is always united but there are deeply entrenched factors that play a part in a family get-together like this. Wedding becomes a venure for some to snub others for their short comings. There are cases when some are frowned upon by the so called masters of the universe. To illustrate this point there was a family who had totally shunned their son and his family. The issues as usual were related to money. The wedding was an occasion for the family to just get on with their lives. I don't think that the two parties ever met during the gala event. They seemed to have buried their hatchet and went about with a forced smile on their faces as if nothing is wrong with their families.  

It is a Christian family, but the members are from different parts of the state. Some of them belonged to a particular sub sect of the Christianity and there are others who are from the same sect but from different corners of the state. These sub groups always try to assert themselves in a wedding. Each one trying to bring in their ritualistic practices. I could sense there was some friction in terms of the rituals and it is not the first time that I was a witness to  this. Anyway,the issues were settled quite amicably and the event was not marred by these petty squabbles. 

**The Lumeiere's & the Jomon T John's**

The real heroes of a wedding are the bridegroom and the bride. They are just the official version of the story, but the ones who really control the scene are the motley crowd of photographers. Right from day one, the wedding planning is based on their arrival and departure. They kind of do an act of appropriation of the groom and whisks him away to some exotic location and starts clicking away in glory. The techniques, angles and the shots are time tested and the army of shutter bugs move about with such an alacrity that there is always a group of people standing around the camera crew with their mouth wide open. It was interesting to see how the job of a photographer is made easier by technology. 

**Meeting Point** 

The wedding event is a great time for people to meet, especially the ones who are Non-Resident Indians. Many relatives came up to me and quizzed me about their whereabouts. I was careful not to divulge the real feelings that I had within me didn't give a straightaanswer. I took a diplomatic stand and sought the help of my partner who is endowed with a razor sharp memory. It is a strange feeling to meet people for the first time after so many years. The people flowed in incessantly and there was never ending queue of cars and buses which were used to ferry people from one location to another. Weddings are the only occasion for some house wives and retired individuals to be active. They delve themselves into the duties and responsibilities associated with a wedding and make themselves the custodians of the eve. t.The gathered population is also keen on inspecting the home and the immediate environment of the bride and the bridegroom and starts the work of free publicity laced with the usual ingredients of gossip. 

The Indian wedding is indeed a colorful affair and the nature of the wedding and the rituals will vary from rich to poor, religion to religion,and from South to North.The spirit remains the same. 

Sughandhi Enna Andal Devnayiki - T D Ramakrishnan - A review

Personal Touches: 

I heard about this work for the first time from the author T D Ramakrishnan himself when he attended the Bahrain Keralayee Samajam book festival in the year 2014.. He spoke at length about the island country of Sri Lanka and how as Malayalees we had a dispassionate look at the whole thing. The same feelings are reiterated in the prologue to the book when he says that it is the sea area between India and Sri Lanka that prevented Indians from knowing the horrendous happenings in Lanka. TDR is heavily influenced by the Tamil culture and he has to his credit some translations from Tamil literature. He has lived and worked in Chennai for sometime and has a peculiar fascination for the Tamil culture. 

A celebration of Womanhood

The novel is a celebration of womanhood. The immediate target of any war or civil disturbances are the women. The novel also celebrates the fact that woman can be good at bed and good at the throne. The main feminine characters are portaryed as combinations of beauty and brain. The titular character, Devanayiki, the high profile Manju act as lietrary testimonies to this fact. The novel is an act of profiling of three distinct individuals. 1) Andal Devanyiki 2) Sughandi / Meenakshi Rajaratinam and 3) Rajini Thiranagama. What the novel establishes is the fact that no system is perfect and either you have to live along with that reality or do something to change the system.The book talks about people who were ready to change the system and the price they had to pay for it. The work strongly supports the rebirth myth and even alludes to the cliched concept of the phoenix bird.

Research and the concept of Historical Novel:

The amount of research that has gone into the making of this book is simply astounding. The brahminical roots of TDR could have helped him to read some of the texts in their original form. The research objectives for him was three- folded. The first one was to research about the classical Tamil literature. Secondly, dig into the past life of the Chola, Chera Kingdoms. Thirdly, look at the immediate history of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka itself has two histories - one belonging to the Tamil migrants and the other one belonging to the Sinhalese people. While reading the book, I had to take many  digressions to do some web research about the history of some places and do some check on some personalities. Like his earlier book Francis Itty Cora, Sughandi enna Andal Devanayiki borrows heavily from history and it serves the purpose of a literary canvass.  The novely is built around the character of Andal Devanayiki. He examines the biographical details of this character and finds parallels between her life and the struggle for liberation in Sri Lanka. The novel can very well be treated as a historical novel like the novels of Elizabeth Kostova. The novel portrays the anguish of an age and kind of connects with the Arab uprising and fight against the Fascist forces around the world. The novel also chronicles the rise and fall of an idealogy. The Liberation of Tamil Tigers Elam had some flaws in the system and the same applies to the Sinhalese idealogy of 'Srilanka for Sinhalese'. 

Political Stand

The novel navigates cleverly through the cultural, social and political tapestry of the island country. It talks about the rivalries that existed among the Kings of the ancient times and the same is juxtaposed with the civil war that divided a nation. There are attempts made to make the local universal by referring to the Arab spring and the fight against fascist forces all around the world. The author is quite careful not to take a stand when it comes to the political scenario. Instead of overtly getting involved in the scenario,he blames both the parties. He concludes with the realistic picture that the war is far from over and the concept of integration promulgated by the Sinhalese government has not reached a satisfactory level. The author sees the presence of Budhha Bala Sena is a threat to this smooth transistion.  He warns of the millions of the LTTE sympathizers in countries like Canada, France and United Kingdom who are still nursing the old civil war wounds but are working like the Resistance army during the time of Nazi occupation of France.

As an Indian, TDS has taken a neutral stand by making just one mention about the atrocities committed by the IPKF. Maybe he was worried about the anti-national branding that is quite common these days with the student's agitation at JNU seen as a terrorist act. He has portrayed the role of  US/CIA as agencies that worked in close association with the rebels cause of toppling the Sinhalese government. There is no mention about the Norway’s role as an mediator. A closer examination of the literary landscape of the novel may lead us to the assumption that the author is supporting the cause of the Tamils. His sympathies are with the Tamils and he ends the novel with the two powerful descriptions. One about the new generation Tamil sympathizers being tortured in the prison camp. The second is the image about the huge shape of Andal Devanayiki taking  giant strides. 

The Feminine Power of the Narrative:

The words have their limit to bring in or stir up the right emotions. The author has tried to pull the right heart strings by making the narrative overtly sexual and graphic. This is one book which needs some kind of Parental Guidance. There are vivid description about the intimate scenes between the King and his consorts. The sexual acts reaches a level of experimentation employing Tantric sex and the use of other guides on the art. The culmination of these experiements makes the titular character achieve a level of consciousness that is akin to the state reached in the movie Lucy played by Scarlett Johansson and the evil Nazi officer in the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull. Maybe it is the authors literary ambition to elevate his character to a level of omnipotence and omnipresence which is quite striking in the concluding part of the novel.

There is clearly a sense of the novel being written from a feminine perspective. The feminine personality is seen as a great buffer to all the pain and the grief in this world. The acronym of the title of the novel will read as SAD which stands for Sughandi Enna Andal Devanayiki. The lines that gets repeated throughout the novel is: 

I am sad,sad, sad

I am mad,mad, mad

Fuck me

Fuck me

Fuck me

The novel is a strong attempt to chronicle the lives of the women who were involved in the cause of the Tamil freedom. The novel is a dedication to all the lives lost and to one individual - Rajini Thiranagama. It is this personality that  prompted TDR to embark on this grand literary journey to bring to the forefront the physical and mental pain that a group of people, who are Indians, not Tamils, had to suffer at the hands of a government. The International Red Cross has used these words to describe the situation ‘unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe’ This is no critique of the system known as LTTE but a careful chronicling of some lives involved.

After reading the novel, I feel the urge to visit this country and see some of the places mentioned in the narrative like Sigiriya, Jaffana, and Mullaitivu. I read about the plans by the ICRTC to conduct Ramayana Yatra to cover some of the religious significant spots in Srilanka which is again a calculated move to project the glossiness of the island nation. There should be educational trips and discussions about the true history of this land where battles were fought over ethnicity and fascistic ideologies. 

Summary of Writing without Fear - Using Life writing to free the writer within you - Christopher Mitchell

Recently I did course in Skillshare. As I attended the course which spanned for three days, I made some notes and jottings. This blog summarizes the notes that I created.  

The course at the outset tries to answer one pertinet question - Why do we need life writing?

1) Personal experience provide great material.

2) No need for research or outside consultation

3) You are the expert and it is all about writing what you know and it is better to avoid any upsetting memories.

Writing memoir is all about self awareness, introspection, joyful/sad/life moments. The intention of this course is to create memories which can be passed on to the future generations. The five stages of the writing process 1) pre-writing, 2) drafting, 3) revision, 4) editing and 5) Publishing

Pre-writing is all about digging around in the dirt. This is time to discover the big idea which will in turn will become the focus of the memoir. In this stage we write without judgement and we learn to leash the monster. You should exercise the writing muscles everyday, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, or a journal entry. Creating a daily regimen that allows us to make great strides in our craft. We should learn to love the process. The three pre-writing tools: are brain storming , clustering refers to the act of mapping and free writing is always raw, uninhabited passages, no punctuation and grammar. It is focused on putting ideas to the paper. Afterwards one can highlight the words as paragraphs that surprised you. Brain storming can be described as ideas that came in short bursts. The act of grouping and organizing is known as clustering. The first draft will always be sloppy and need not be perfect. ‘Free writing helps to loosen your memory’- meaningful ideas that come up in free-writing will be used later for draft. When you write the first draft you are not striving for perfection 

The five senses to make your memoir more tangible are, hearing, touch, smell, taste and sight.  The events should be arranged in the chronological order like Harper Lee's - To Kill a Mocking Bird which contains a series of flashbacks, a pinch of local color and flavour of regionalism. Harper Lee places her charcters in the familair literary terrain of the American Deep South. 

Looking at the brain stormed ideas and search for that word or idea that will give you the spark to start writing. Opening line/the hook which will intrigue the readers.The feeling that the opening idea or line is something which I can live with. The second paragraph can be quite realistic in the sense that you can talk about the setting and introduce some characters. Experiences portrayed should be unique and there will never be any place for over-inflated language. The balance between objectivity and subjectivity is also of prime importance.

Revision is the stage when you make your writing strong. The writing after the pre-writing is like a rough piece of cut wood. Revision allows the writer to ‘re-see’ the draft for clarity, cohesion and ‘consistency'. There are four ways to do revision - expanding underlining -  highlighting passages or sentences and details to make passages more vivid, cutting - removing some words, reorganizing - make passages more coherent, and replacing - language choices - replace cliche’s with unique expressions - overused words. Revision is also the stage where you emotionally connect with your reader.

Editing - The act of cleaning grammar and spelling. It is also the stage where you start cleaning up the draft for typographical errors and grammatical errors. It is good to read the memoir aloud. find your voice - writing intricacies, hear awkward phrases, slow the reading speed enough to catch mistakes as you read - focus on each word and phrase.

Certain things that can be worked upon in the editing stage are: needless repetition, grammar mistakes, typographical errors, and spelling problems. b

Certain books that can help in your journey through the beautiful world of words are The Little Brown Handbook and The Elements of Style. The web resources that can referred to are ‘OWL - Purdue Online Writing Lab’ - owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ and www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers

Publishing - It is the final act of your writing procedure. It is all about sharing the final work,maybe in a blog,or a website or even a book. The following acts of publishing can be done through the following acts like share your work with a loved one, publish in a website or a personal blog and create a project gallery of your writings. 

The course illustrates some instructions on writing and life. The main reason for the writer’s frustration are writer’s block, the fear of the blank page, and the urge to be perfect on the first day. Another feeling that haunts the writer is the  'inablility to say what I want to say and how I want to say it'. The writer is also afraid and he is plagued by the thought 'I am nervous about what I might say'

One example of perfectionism quoted in the book is about the 47 endings written by Ernest Hemingway for his novel - Farewell To Arms - just to get the correct order of words. The focus should be to write the beginning, the middle and the end. You should not aim for perfection when you write the first draft but rather you should aim to make it elegant. Memoir writing demands that the writing is truthful, authentic to oneself and the memories. It is important that the fear is conquered and it is put on a tight leash. We should always free oneself so that we can write without fear.

Writing process is always recursive and it helps when you always visit the stages that you have completed.

The course explains the classic guide and the steps in writing non-fiction, develop a routine, sit in a comfortable place with a hot beverage and hour or so. 

The Revenant - Movie Review

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough. 

( In a station of the metro - Ezra Pound)

The title means a person who returns as a spirit after death, a ghost. The movie is a meditative attempt to portray human condition. It is spread out on a soild canvass of natural beauty and human beastiality. As I read in one of the reviews in IMDB, the movie is 'visual poetry' ( The movie has found the 127th spot in the 250 movies regarded as the best movies of all time). 

The narrartive is interspersed with various dichotomies. The dark landscape is contrasted against the purity of the mind. The white snow is picthed against the dark shapes that wander about. There is the dichotomy between modern weaponary and the traditional ones. The natives  asking the French colonists for guns in exchange of pelts illustratates this. The contrast between the good and the evil is portrayed through the different characters. The traditional wisdom of the natives is contrasted with the new found knowledge of the west. 

The plot tells us how the west was won by the marauding conquerers. Looting and plundering the resources to gain control over the land and nature was   seen as a divine birthright. Natives were displaced and killed and their customes and traditions were eroded and destroyed. The character played by Caprio is in a critical juntcure of history. Born as white skin, his heart is with the natives and he and his son often becomes the butt of ridicule for his bonding with the natives. He has delivered one of his finest performances and he is sure to win many laurels for his effort. 

What is most striking about the movie is the ambiance. The music, the photography and the sound design helps the audience to get into the snow laden woods and the frozen lakes and rivers. The peaceful landscape is often punctuated with scenes of violence and gore. The most intense scenes in the movie involves Glass. The way he traps fish and eats them raw made the Bahraini audience shudder. The intensity level increased when Glass after removing the insides was shown sleeping inside a dead horse. The third scene portarying Glass eating raw bison flesh was the one which really made the audience cower. 

     

This movie is a result of the collaboration between three men, a French director, a Japanese composer and an American actor. I was able to see some parallels between the 1990 Malayalam movie - Thazhvaram ( The Valley) and The Revenant. The poster of Thazhvaram  had an interesting one liner - 

The land without mercy and unvanquished barbarians. This is another way to describe the dark and brooding cinematic creation titled - The Revenant.

Lessons from Farming Simulator 2016

Games are an integral part of my life. They are the perfect zones for relaxation and unwinding. You are transported to a different world and maybe I am hooked on to them ibecause of the escapism element that it provides. I love the art that is embedded in the games. There are hundreds of artists and illustartors who create the world. The world they create is not far removed from the world that we live in. In the game - The Last of Us which is one of the most popular titles in Playstation gaming platform, the game world is so accurate and life like. 

There are varied opinions regarding the act of playing games. Some are of the opinion that it affects the mental growth of the user. There are others who  blabber about the anti-social traits that a gamer can pick up. A research based on the internet proves that games can in fact boost memory and other cognitive skills. A team comprised of cognitive neuroscientists and gaming technology experts created a game with potential therapeutic applications, as part of an ongoing research effort at the University of Texas, Dallas ( quoted from the Huffigton Post article titled - Why these neuroscientists are prescribing video games - Huffigtonpost - Carolyn Gregoire). Researchers have found that some of the large and hugely popular online video games – although condemned by many as time-gobbling, people-isolating monsters – actually have socially redeeming qualities (quoted from www.news.illinois.edu - University of Illinois - Andrea Lyn). Atleast one fact emerges from the finding of these researchers, that games cannot be treated as games. They are, I think they are monumental examples of human creativity and aesthetic sense. 

This blog is based on my experience of playing Farming Simulator on PS Vita. I found the game to be quite immersive and challenging. The ideas below will summarise my thoughts about the game. 

1) The game encourages the players to practice discipline in life. There is a place and space for each farming equipment. 

2) There is a sense of success through the act of buying and upgrading the farming equipment.

3) The game is always punctuated by achievable short term goals and the player can set himself some long term goals.

4) The game offers valuable lessons in planning and execution.

5) There is the scope for vocabulary enrichment through farming vocabulary. 

Lines in memory of a stroll...

Meandering conversations plastered to the palate

Thoughts and words hurled out from the glottal faucet 

Sliding and moving against each other in the Brownian motion 

Lexis and lexicon engaged in an act of mutual completion 

Reclusive and pensive figure caught in a moment which will soon fade

The table well spread with the passion for knowledge uncertified 

The curves and contours of a well shaped maid

Slender extensions bookmarking the page last read

Ravenous being's eager to devour their own flesh

The cup of life toasted for an act that is unselfish 

The overflowing gift box holds pearls of prosperity

Conversations handled precariously and with much alacrity 

The estranged soul caught in a narcissistic routine

Scanning the sylvan horizon for an enticing figurine 

The hooded figures flow in and remains standstill 

Their presence blurred and the ocular orbs ready for the kill. 

The fading of the time and knell of the hourly bell

Fleeting images and senses gathered in a magical spell 

Transformed into a praxis form of verbiage

The end ushers in a new beginning out of the linguistic foliage 

 

Lisbeth Salander 0.4

                                                                    

2013 was the year when I completed the three books by Stieg Larsson which later on became popular as the Millennium series. The books followed the tale of Lisbeth  Salander. The Girl in the Spider's Web is set against a larger literary canvas. Some characters are new and the old characters are explored and examined in a closer manner.  The fourth installment is indeed a bold attempt by the author - David Lagercrantz to create a story without tampering have with the original tale. This is a sequel which does not spoil the beauty of the the millennium trilogy.  

The story is essentially the tale of some individuals who are trapped in a lonely world. The main representatives being Blomqvist - a journalist who is leading a lonely life enduring many setbacks in his writing career. He is in the lookout for something fresh and new. His superior is Berger who doesn't have any qualms of sharing physical space with get lawfully wedded husband and Blomqvist. The main protagonist, Salander is caught up in the act of romancing the machines and keeping a protective eye on the lives of people whom she care about. The police officer Bublanski is always seeking spiritual solace from his Rabbi. 

The fourth installment pitches Salander against her twin sister Camila and she takes care of August - the child prodigy. The sinking publishing house Millennium in a way represents the old school publishing style and Salander with her super-hacking skills represents the new age technology driven style of publishing. 

I enjoyed reading this title both on my iPad mini, iPhone and Kindle paper white. I was enchanted with the voice of Simon and Vance and downloaded the audiobook. I am sure that listening to the audio version would help me to understand the story and the place names in a better way. I would rate the printed book as 3 out of 5 and I hope that the re-reading of the book using the audio version will be a better experience. 

The protean nature of Twitter in the context of the Chennai floods...

Dedicated to Dr K. Elango - My inspiration and guiding light. (Sir, You are always there in my mind even if we haven’t seen and met for a long time. I would like to make a special mention of the collaborative work which we did when you were leading the training team in Loyola, Chennai. It was about Disaster Management and the ESL tasks that we can create from it. The blog below is one way or the other is inspired by that article which got published in The Hindu)

The city of Chennai is something that is close to my heart. A city that has immensely contributed to my development as a person and as a teacher. It was shocking to see the familiar roads and streets inundated with water. It was as if the whole city was getting a thorough natural cleansing. The city as I know it was on the brink of a collapse. The government system failed and for a few days there were no official announcements. There was an eerie official silence and Chennaites were clueless about the future. Like the many pictures that were circulated online of people trapped on the rooftops of their own houses, the only thing that they could do was wait.

Living a life away from all this scenario made me make use of the only social window that I love - Twitter. I was constantly following up the updates which appeared under the hashtag #chennaifloods. As I was monitoring the Twitter timeline, I could notice the protean nature of the tweets.

In the first stage, there was utter confusion as the tweets were showing the pictures of mass destruction and the screenshots of weather forecast which warned of greater damage and destruction. There was panic all around and people were trying to reach out to their loved ones. I could sense a feeling of virtual camaraderie shaping up and it extended beyond the affected zone. The closure of the airport and the suspension of the train services got a special mention in the tweets. There were many instances of photoshopped images misinforming the public about escaped crocodiles from the park.

In the second stage, the tweetrati was busy offering help and relief materials. By this time, even the government agencies woke up to the grim reality of the flood. The mobile companies offered free talktime and data packages to assist the flood victims. There was an uproar regarding the way Amma devotees were forcibly sticking Amma posters on the relief materials. There were co-ordinated attempts from different corners of the world to lend a helping hand to the victims. Twitter timeline was filled with posters like - Save Chennai,Pray for Chennai. Since Chennai is regarded as the home of South Indian cinema, there were many stars who chipped in with their contributions and help.

The third stage, Twitter was alive with instructions and advices for a post-flood situation. It included ways to stop the spread of epidemics and issues regarding personal hygiene and sanitation. It was interesting to see how the timeline was alive with suggestions on how to take care of the cars and electronic devices that were submerged in the water.

It is unequivocal that it is easy to comment upon a situation from a far away place. I will never know the true hardships that my friends and well wishers had for a time window of two weeks. I hope they are all safe and sound.

God bless them all...

Spectre - A 5 point review

The world is sceptical about Bond movies. They say that the Bond played by Daniel Craig is too old. They complain about the story line. There is also this issue about exhausting Ian Fleming's collection of Bond tales. Nothing of the above deterred me from watching this 24th Bond movie and here are my impressions about the movie: 

1) The movie can be termed as a tetralogy. The fourth in the series which began with

    Casino Royale followed by Quantum of Solace and Sky Fall. 

2) For a die-hard Bond fan, the movie offers momentary trips down the memory lane.

    The music and the gadgets never fails to hold the attention and the fascination. 

3)  The personal and the other side of agent 007 is revealed in this movie or the first time the viewer is shown the living quarters of Bond and you will be astonished to see it as cluttered and unorganized. The conversation between Money Penny. The movie also reveals how lonely Bond is.

     James Bond: [over the phone] Who was that?

     Moneypenny: He's just a friend.

     James Bond: At this hour of the night?

     Moneypenny: It's called life, James. You should try it some time.

4) Bond movies are famous for their one-liners. The one which will stay with us long after we     leave the theater is - You're a kite dancing in a hurricane Mr.Bond. 

5) The villians in the Bond movies sometimes overshadow the titular hero himself. Most of          the times these villians are well crafted and are endowed with an one-liner like this one          in Spectre - Blofeld: [to Bond] Cuckoo! 

Now waiting for the 25th......

10 things I liked about - The Opposite of Loneliness by Merina Keegan

The Opposite of Loneliness

• The writing style seems to border on the occasional flashes of wisdom and orginal thinking. The style can be termed as 'felt writing’.

• The formats employed for the writing is ingenious and is quite refreshing. ‘The Emerald City’ set in the context of the war on terror, develops through the exchange of letters and shows gradual progression especially in terms of the protagonist’s transformation into a ‘jihadi'.
  
• The author is a quite accomplished person. She did her internships at the Paris Review and the New Yorker. She also was a research assistant with Harold Bloom. I read a review of the book in the Goodreads app which said that the only reason why the book was a success was because of the pre-mature death of the author. I have reasons to differ with the reviewer. The reviewer comfortably ignores the fact that she is a prodigy. In her writings, she has reiterated the fact that there is always the possibility of doing something in this world. 

  “Maybe I’m ignorant and idealistic but i just feel like we can do something really cool to this world"

    The Guardian reviewer clearly states that 

  "she never had the chance to lose her youthful idealism". 

• The idea or concept of the 'cinematic gaze’ was something that had always enthralled me. As tourists roaming around the capital city of Delhi, we have come across the xenophobic tendencies of my country men. We overheard Chinese being ridiculed as Chinese Manchurian and the white skinned ladies being stalked by teenagers begging for a selfie. This anti-social traits is one of the spin-off effects of technology. The non-fiction piece titled ’The Art of Observation’ talks about this 'gaze upon the foreigners’ from the POV of Merina and her friend when they visited India. Her moral stand in this regard is 

  "If it made them happy,after all,why not play along?"

• The way the reader is introduced to the Toyota car in ‘Stability in Motion’ is quite innovative and fresh. She was able to develop the idea of a car into a well-composed non-fiction piece. She describes the car ‘as a vehicle crowded’ with ‘physical manifestations’ of her high school memories. 
• Some of her writings carries a foreboding the pre-mature death. The story ‘Winter Break’ has this sense and it also has the words ‘Don’t worry, I’m driving - the message conveyed to her mother. To borrow the esoteric construction from 'The Guardian’ - ‘

  "sentences written light heartedly are piercingly loud reminders of what will never be"

  
  
• One of the personal themes that I was able to read into the book was - Live happily and when you know that you are going to die, have a frame of mind of calmness and no-regrets. 
• I  need to comment on the presence of death in her writing. There is this sense of doom that permeates in her writing. We all tend to get emotional about death. To quote The Guardian ‘ her finite body of work inextricably and forever after bound up in the tragedy of her death, lending an understandable poignancy to much of the writing. It is the same feeling that we get when we watch - Fast and Furious 7 sans Paul Walker and The Dark Knight sans Heath Ledger. 
• The legacy of Merina Keegan - What she has left for a reader like me and others is something that should be documented. She had a short but meaningful stay on this earth. A productive and well-lived 22 years. She was quite optimistic about life. She wrote in her final essay for the Yale Daily News, the opposite of loneliness - 

  "We’re so young, We’re twenty two years old. We have so much time"

  This is the temperament that she has left for us. Two poetic expression that appear in my mind are,  
  
  Rabi Ben Ezra - Robert Browning 
  Grow old along with me!
  The best is yet to be,
  The last of life, for which the first was made:
  Our times are in His hand
  Who saith "A whole I planned,
  Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

Dylan Thomas - Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

The following themes in the books appealed to me: 

• The bug killer and the human side of a menial job.
• The trapped sailors in the submarine.
• The U.S marine and his emails to his girl.
• The girl who was allergic to gluten.
• The sense of loss after death of a love one.
• The sense of loss after the death of loved ones.
• The train journey through the Indian heartland 
• The 'elegiac essay’ about the first car.
• The child who was the Jesus under study for a Christmas  
      event.
• The placement test and the employability patterns at Yale    
      University.
  
  The themes are varied and are drawn from different sources. This gives me the idea that it is not a book or a movie that should serve as the prompt for me to write. It should be the life that I see around me. As writers around the world are engaged in NANOWRIMO, this is the thought that should take me forward. 

10 lessons from The Martian

10 lessons from The Martian

1. Always find some ingenious ways to survive adversities.
2. There is nothing like quitting, keep trying.
3. Always do the right calculations before taking the big leap.
4. Try to maintain a healthy and emotional bonding with your team.
5. Maintain your emotional equilibrium with some cool songs.
6. Make a timeline for the actvities that you undergo, however insignificant they may seem to you.
7. Talk to yourself, write to yourself and record your thoughts.
8. Discover what is important and just do it
9. Spend some quality time reflecting on your life and activities.
10. Don’t lose hope.

The online course and me

For the first time in my life i enrolled for an online course and I found the following to be the exciting features of the same.

•  It is important that the participant is quite honest about the
      course and the completion of course content.
•  I did have a doubt about the programme managers ??? who
      may steal valuable personal information plus the ideas  
      shared in the course may violate the intellectual property  
      rights.
• The participant should be committed and ready for the
      course. He should introspect and find the most convienent    
      time and space for himself.
• It is interesting to see eager students from around the world.
     They defintely will inspire and make us work better. 
• The presentation structure is quite lucid and clear. 
• The course also proves the point that real learning happens
      even in the absence of the real teacher. 
• The teaching style is interspersed with tasks and videos.