Cannot have the cake and eat it?

Now that I am getting older, naturally, people think that the School of Hard Knocks would have knocked some wisdom in the thick skull of mine, and they approach me for advice.

One of the questions asked to him in my capacity as 'Dear Thelma' or 'Auntie Agony' is about an interpersonal relationship. Why is it difficult to achieve life ambitions? I have so many things that I want to attain in my lifetime, but family life is pulling me down. My partner does not share the same fire that I breathe. The offsprings wear me down, dragging me together into a cesspool of hopelessness. Is there no relief from all these, they ask me. 

I am no self-help guru by any imagination, so I try to dodge the question. "You know that is a very profound question. Philosophers for aeons have been trying to find that answer." 

In fact, during Adi Sankara's travels from Kerala to the four corners of India, he had various debates with sages of other schools of philosophy. Adi Shankara, who hails from the School of Non-Dualism (Advaitha Vedantha), liked to engage in intellectual discourses wherever he went. In one such travel, he had the privilege of debating with Vandana Mishra, a proponent of the ritualistic part of Veda (Purva Mimamsa School of Hindu Philosophy, and his wife, Ubhaya Bharathi in Mahismati, Bihar or maybe Madhya Pradesh. 

They had protracted month-long discussions about the superiority of knowledge over rituals in gaining an understanding of life. Shankara also believed that to understand life and attain liberation, one must be celibate, whereas Mandana and Ubhaya felt householder duties (i.e. conjugal obligations) needed to be also performed. Rituals can bring forth bliss.

Six Systems of Indian Philosophy 

Ubhaya was the Sankara's choice of the umpire in their debates. When her husband was defeated, she continued debating. Even though she started asking about sensual pleasure sensations and emotional intimacies, the brahmachari still managed to reply via his yogic powers. Both Mandana and Ubhaya became Shankara's followers.

It was agreed not everyone can attain moksha by leading a hermit's life. It only works for some. The others have to go through the whole gamut of trappings of life, its up and down, and to set motion the circle of life.

See around us. Some sacrifice certain pleasures to achieve other ambitions. As Peter's Principle dictates, we can scale only as high as our incompetence. We should know our limits. We cannot eat the cake and still enjoy staring at it.

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Dharma is doing what is necessary

Aaranya Kaandam (ஆரண்ய காண்டம், Tamil, Jungle Chapter; 2011)
Story and Direction: Thyagarajan Kumaraja

The Jungle Chapter refers to the third chapter in the epic Ramayana where Raavana deceptively uses a deer into tricking and kidnapping Sita. Here, the storyteller uses characters with animal names to symbolically represent our animal-like behaviours in a world that has jungle rules. 

It starts with a purported dialogue between Chanakya, the Mauryan master strategist, a kind of ancient Machiavelli, and a student in 400 BC.

Student: "What is dharma?"
Chanakya: "Dharma is doing what is necessary."

With that one line, I was hooked. The film is a gangster fare, but not the usual gory senseless machete-branding South Indian style. It is the characterisation and storytelling that kills. It is labelled as the first neo-noir Tamil film.

In life, we are faced with many obstacles. What is the determinant that decides the right course of action? Do we use society-determined code of conduct as the yardstick? Is it about survival and self-interest? As it is a noir movie where poetic justice takes a backseat, the story is quite revolutionary, and the ending is entirely unexpected.

People follow the rules not because it is a noble thing to do. They do it because of the shame of being caught. Given a choice, people want to be left to their own devices. Jungle law will take over. The mighty, the brave, the cunning and the heartless would prevail. This must be the hidden message behind the movie -the jungle as the title and how the character names resemble that of animals. (Singaperumal-lion, Pasupathy-cow, Gajendran-elephant, Subbu-fox, Sappai-rat, Kasturi-deer). Guilt is momentary and forgotten when they experience pleasure. The end-results justify the means.

The Lion and the Rat

The plot revolves around an insecure ageing don, Singaperumal (Jackie Shroff), whose erectile dysfunction is an open secret. His lieutenant, Pasupathy, is itching for a lucrative but dangerous cocaine deal despite the boss' disapproval. Don tries to trap him and kidnap his wife. In an error of chaos, the cocaine gets into the hand of a destitute and his precocious son. He tries to blackmail Don for the return of stash.

Don's abused young mistress has an affair with Don's helper boy whom everyone thinks is an idiot. In reality, he is bedding the mistress and plans to elope with her.

Things get really complicated with everybody killing everybody either through brute violence and through wit. There is no right or wrong. The correct thing to do seem to be one that benefits oneself at the point of reference. One cannot shed off the idea the director must be a Tarantino fan. Nobody else uses a piece of merry Spanish music as background score as two rivals rush towards each other brandishing machetes. Again in a pure noir finishing the characters engage in soliloquy and a femme fatale rides into the sunset as the final victor. In this film, Subbu turns up as the winner. She utters, "the best thing about being a woman is that it is a man's world." She had outwitted the dumb helper, killed him and was the final benefactor of the loot. The Don was shot dead by Sappai. In her last dialogue, she said, "Sappai was, after all, a man, and all men are Sapppai."

Sappai also could mean limp/impotent. Hence, denoting that Men, despite the machoism that they seem to portray, are actually weak and can be manipulated by the fairer sex with wit and their sexuality.

The film had to undergo 52 cuts for profanity and unPC jokes about Kamal Haasan and Rajnikanth.

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Me into me!

To the ignoramus, this YouTube clip would be a joke. Laced with a thick South Indian accent, impregnated with assertive gestures and complete with protruding eye movements for special effects, it has been making its rounds in many social media outlets many times over for hearty laughs and cynical smiles.

Added on with the fact that this holy man was once caught on a CCTV to be in close proximity with a disciple, this flick becomes more enticing. Because of his unholy conduct, in a single brush, all his seemingly profound sermons have come to nought.

If one were to listen to heart what Swami Nityananda is saying, depending on one’s understanding of life, its origin and purpose, it could not be denied that his speech carries a deeper meaning.

He is talking about the Atma (soul) that is within all of us that is part of the Brahman as mentioned in the Vedic scriptures. The souls of all beings are linked in a different realm. To quote a line from Beatles’ song ‘I am the Walrus’, ‘I am he as you are he as you are me. And we are all together’, we are all one.

Of course, he is talking about the Brahman which is in all of us. The Master Intellect that Avicenna propagates that is part and parcel of every living being. In essence, the reference is to that entity defined as 'Consciousness' that makes Man a thinking being; that something worry, ruminate, plan a future and develop evil thoughts! It is also the one that builds an ambition and thinks beyond the instant gratification. Unlike Pavlov's dog, Man does not merely salivate but ponder why the lunch is free.

In another clip, the Swami lectures about rocket propulsion energy and how ancient aliens with their understanding about centrifugal and centripetal forces flew the mythical Vimanas, the intergalactic flying vessel. In yet another, he introduces quantum physics. Quantum biology explains the rationale behind prana healing, faith healing and the idiopathic nature of some cases of infertility which deems untreatable by modern sciences but not by the men in saffron robes.

In the preacher's mind, he must be thinking of a quote from the Bible, "Don't speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words." To the uninitiated, it is a comedy. To the thinker, he finds sense in the gobbledegook.

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Equilibrium through destruction?

The Equalizer (2014)

Suddenly, somebody I knew blurted out, "Hey, Equalizer 2 will out soon!"

Not really remembering anything about the first Equalizer, I inquired, "Was it any good?" to which he babbled something to the effect of as if I had committed a cardinal sin. So I made it a point to view the film myself, and I am not impressed.

Appa used to be hooked to a TV series with the same name where a team of do-gooders went around helping desperate. I never went around watching it as I had many other pressing deadlines in my life then. Appa had a cult following for it, but I would not say he was a die-hard fan. Halfway through the episode, he would be in Slumberland, especially after his long hours spent in the bank working with other people's hard-earned money. So much for being an ardent fan!

The TV series

This 2014 movie based on the TV series defies logic. So many of the executed plans are too far-fetched and bends reality so much that it appears almost like a sphere. But, like many films that glorify the 'Don't mess with Pop' genre, it is a feel-good movie that gives men who over their prime a boost of self-confidence. Whether it would translate it anything concrete, that is a different question.

The story tells of a lone wolf fighting against the whole might of the mean Russian mafia. An unassuming man who works as a DIY Home Improvement store supervisor has all the know-how and contacts to track down and hunts down every single baddie who made life a living hell for the people he knew in the neighbourhood. Then, like Robin Hood, he distributes the loot from the thugs.

At a philosophical level, the take-home message seems to be working at a very high intellectual level (just a thought, though). To right a wrong, immense energy is required. Out of anarchy comes order. To maintain peace, one needs destruction. For peace to be in place, might is necessary. For Vishnu is take charge, the Destroyer's job of Shiva is essential. The order is maintained through the chaos.

I know I am going to give the sequel a miss.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Of concordance and schisms

Aryabhata (476-550 CE)

Mathematician/Astronomer.

The first person to say that Earth 

is spherical and revolves around 

the sun. The first to suggest that 

any number divided by 0 

gives infinity ∞. (pinterest)

Continuing in the quest to make sense of things around me, I stumbled into something quite thought-provoking. It has something to do with our idea of separating knowledge into the sciences and the arts.

It is interesting to note that the Ionians, of the Eastern part of the Greek civilisation, and the Hindu culture started learning things about the world we live in entirely independent of each other. It is incredible how quite similar their discoveries were, at least in the initial stages.

The pre-Socratic thinkers thought that there was a connection between the Universe and the world immediately around us. Thales tried to say that water is the essence of our existence. Democritus put forward the theory of Void and eternal, indivisible atoms that made up our physical world. Pythagoras and his cult members attempted very hard to a mathematical formula for everything in the Cosmos, including music. His equations, he later realised, could be irrational at times. A case in point is the irrationality of √2. The hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle with dimensions of 1 X 1 cannot be calculated probably made him abandon his idea. From that time onward, another branch of knowledge is said to have developed - natural philosophy. Later philosophers quit looking at the stars for the answers but instead started gazing inwardly. They abandoned the physical sciences to rhetorics. Their idea of problem-solving was people watching. This type of wisdom continued all through Plato and subsequent sages. As we know Plato's teachings metamorphosed into Neoplatonic ideas which greatly influenced the Abrahamic religions.

Attempts to revive sciences through the works of Kepler, Copernicus and Newton met a lot of resistance from the society so ingrained in a kind of a dogmatic belief. Some of the branches of the Abrahamism realised their loss of grip on the flock and decided to move with the times while some found content in spewing their 6th-century or maybe 12th-century slightly improved ideologies.

On the other side of the world, in the Indus Valley, things progressed slightly differently. Their perspective of life on Earth seems to one that was devoid of the outside realm but of one that incorporated all the celestial bodies in the Universe. Till today, they appreciate significant events of the heavens like the birth of the new moon, the glory of the full moon and specific planetary positioning. Modern science is slowly agreeing to many of their old age believed traditions about the Cosmos and its cyclical manner of doing things. People of the Indian sub-continent continue showing their appreciations to things which are taken for granted in life. A simple example is the festival of Thai Ponggal or Makara Sankranthi which is celebrated during the Indic solstice as the sun enters the 10th house of the Indian zodiac Makara or Capricorn.
As more and more new things are discovered, one cannot fathom but only stand in awe trying to come in terms with how these ancient civilisations, with their rudimentary tools, were able to find things that were literally out of this world.

Kepler-186f is an exoplanet about 550 light-years from the Earth. It is the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discovered in the habitable zone of another star. (Wiki) 

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