Neil, Lalit, Varun and Gopi

It’s almost a month since I blogged. Time I shun away my laziness. It’s time we act, play our tiny roles that we choose. Lots of things happened in the last few weeks. First to mention: Geetha George, the reason I started this blog, my inspiration to blogging delivered her best blog, a baby boy. I am happy for Eddie, Geetha and the new addition to their family, Neil Arnav George. Having a baby is a whole new life thing. Let them enjoy the pleasure of getting fathered, mothered and soned .

IPL Shifting outside:

It is neither a shame, nor is it a pleasure. It is just unfortunate, but still ok. I would rather have a peaceful election, rather than having this as a reason for a security failure. Cricket matches will be a soft target for the terrorists, so its better if it happens fine outside during elections as long as it is safe.

The new poster boy of saffron party:

@$hole: I believed that things in this country will change with time as the youth will be matured enough to drop all the burden of past and walk towards a new future.  But this man is a killer of that hope. India can do well without this man. I hope he gets defeated both in election and the case and stays in jail for not less than 3 years for the crimes. It is not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty of it, that will stop the crime.  But BJP has done this before in Gujarat, they are used to polarizing the people and cash-in with votes.  Hope they don’t get away with this one.

Ray of Hope

Hope, though wounded, still survives. People are looking forward to a change; they hope there will be someone to rescue them from this mess. Politics is not just dust that can be swept away, it’s a gutter filled with mud and water, dirt and rotten, stinking and sick, it’s not possible to clean it without getting your hand dirty. True, but, why don’t we flush them out. The flush button is there on the polling machine (EVM). Let us all vote them out... I am sure the question would be: whom we will vote for? Are we going to vote the better of the worst? Yeah... we have been settling for something lesser than what we deserve. But do a few things to get this straight.

1.       Get your Vote registered.
2.       Understand your candidates
3.       Ensure you poll your vote as per your conscience.

Our collective conscience is the key to success. Don’t mind which party your

 representative belongs to. If your choice is an independent, that is even better.

 I read Times of India yesterday and I am very keen on looking into the profile of Capt Gopinath from my constituency: Bangalore South. I don’t know much about this man apart from the part that ‘he once owned airdeccan’.  But his words connected with me and so I choose to probe further.

 

Slumdog Millionaire – (Re)Viewed

We had this movie on our computer for at least 6 weeks now. But I and my wife never had the time to watch. She was particular about me watching the movie with her, so I kept my calendar busy. After the Oscars, we decided to block some time out of our lazy calendars to watch this movie this weekend; my mom accompanied us for the first half. I probably expected too much from this movie, so it obviously didn’t meet my expectations. After the movie I never felt that I saw 8-Oscars won movie. It was Good, but I have seen better, so it’s not the best.

Movie was well directed, Background score was brilliant, and kids had acted really well. But throughout the movie, I felt like I was nude standing in front of a gallery full of people with every eye probing on me. I felt this way because my country was projected from the perspective of a foreigner for the rest of the world. I am worried that the Oscar would give the movie a lot more publicity and this perspective would be projected across the cinema halls around the globe. Oh my (non-existent) God!! I am worried as if I am going to stand like this in front of several thousand galleries after this one. Religious violence, orphan kids, mafia sending kids to begging and prostitution, cheating, arrogant police force, gangsters killing at will, slum state etc., etc., the India I know off, is a lot better than this. But the India Danny Boyle knew was just this. Half way thru the movie we decided to take a break for Dinner, and my mind was restless but my thoughts were stabilizing. I was just hoping for some confidence.

As we settled after dinner, during some discussion, my mom expressed her anger against the movie, with my stabilized thoughts, I said “Whether you like it or not, what they said in the movie is true. It’s unfortunate that every foreigner is going to watch this part of the truth, but the fact that even these realities are the components of Indian society should be accepted. We need to find out how we can fix it, rather than blaming the producers of the movie.”  How can a girl say “it’s not my fault that my skirt slipped, but the neighbour shouldn’t have laughed at me for this”?  Isn’t it her responsibility to tie the skirt properly?

I remember a proverb my friend quoted sometime back, “When you are getting raped, and if you can’t escape, the best thing to do is to lie down and enjoy” It is one way of looking at this movie. I continued to watch the rest of the movie. It had love, and Jamal turned to be good, he kept winning, and the end, they lived happily ever after. It was not so painful now, but still painful enough to make me think.

Why is India like this, totally uncontrollable, yet exceedingly beautiful? Is it population, is it corruption, is it politicians, is it the people or their mindset, or their patriotism or the lack of it, what can fix this country and make us feel proud of it once again. I know I forced myself to enjoy the movie this time, but it may not be easy once more, even if it wins several Oscars. I can’t continue to picture mother India to be a porn star again. I feel I should do something to correct this place, not sure where to start, but soon I will.