Statham struts his stuff!

Thanks to the friendly neighbourhood DVD peddler (now he is nicely housed in an air-conditioned 'everyday low prices' local mart), we have the opportunity to view plethora of genres of movie at the comfort of our home without having to wait for it to be screened at our local cinemas. Some of it may not even make it to our silver screen as it may not appeal to the masses, hence not profitable to its owners!
One of my current action heroes, Jason Statham - the broody sour faced TNT packed sculptured body with martial skills to complement who has a string of followers after the Transporters trilogy and many other action packed movie where he did many of his own stunts - starred in a new action killer cops and cop killer flick called 'Blitz'. You cannot expect a highly cerebral charged storyline in this action flick but is an outlet to be awed of the whiteman's tenacity and skills in stupefying his audience (should it not be spectators as we are impressed with the visual imagery even though we are watching in an enclosed building?) and unwind after a hard day's work. Of course, critics would assert that all these overwhelming life like action, gore, profanity and violence just numbs your soul and body to become a blob of feelingless piece of amorphous meat.
This movie that I had the privilege of watching even before it made it to the local theatres is a British effort with scenes taken in the streets of London. (Statham is a Britisher himself). It is probably not suitable for the prim and proper whose day of senseless violence is the sight of a dead lizard. The characters find comfort in expressing themselves better with the F word as a prefix, suffix and when and where as they like to emphasize their point and ventilate their feelings. The F word must have been uttered only slightly less than used in 'Raging Bull'. If I remember well, 'Raging Bull' still holds the record with 272 times the F word being uttered in the unedited version. And the level of violence is not for the 'touch me nots', with many scenes with the cricket bat (being British), hits on crotch, knees and flying kicks on face (as if you do not see these in Ghajini and many Kollywood and Bollywood shows, just that it does not appear so fake). Hey, Jason Statham actually laughs in this movie!
Still what the hell, it is just a movie! But isn't the subtle messages slowly going to creep into your psyche and influence your thinking away the path of righteousness?....

The speech that never was!

As part of the temples' master plan to encourage more youngsters to throng the temple, a small faction of its young and radical minded committee members introduced a weekly speech session. The speeches to be given by various individuals and professionals (not from the religious fraternity) on their individual perspective of Hinduism or life.It was going on well with various learned speakers (ehm...) took to the rostrum. I only knew that they were some many qualified individuals among the congregation during the introduction before their speech -CEOs, dentists etc.
Like I was saying, everything was going well until they had their annual general meeting. A group of elderly people of the community who were the sort of the founding fathers of the temple, (they were there during the inception of temple), voiced out the displeasure over the turn of events. It seems that it was against the tradition (paramapara) of conducting talks by theologically challenged individuals in a foreign language. So that was that, the speeches died as quickly as it started.
Anyway, here is the transcript of the speech that never was, unless the powers that be decide to reverse the earlier decision...
When my children heard that I was going to speak in front of the congregation of  a temple, the first thing that they told me is not to be cynic. How can one be critical of anything when you are not the most knowledgeable person in the crowd!
A famous poet once said, "Life is a journey but unfortunately, in this journey of life, there is no direction, path or GPS for us to follow but the destination will finally reach when this journey comes to an abrupt end. Along the way, we all try to find the correct path with the help and guidance of those who have seen it and been there. Which better individual to emulate than to scrutinize some of the sayings and acts of the man whom the Nobel Prize winning physicist, Albert Einstein, described, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as [Gandhi] ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth?" -Karamchand Mohandas Gandhi.
Of course, there will always be two sides of the story with people telling us that he was not as good a father as he was a politician. After all, he is human and we can learn from the good things that he left behind.
Highlighted by most movies on Gandhi, we understand that his last words were "Hey, Ram!". Even in times of severe pain and agony, he uttered the sweet name of the Lord, unlike most people these days who find it more comfortable and trendy to lace profanity in their daily conversations at the drop of a hat and to emphasis their facts.
I remember when I was young, I remember hearing a story. I was told that, in times in trouble when you exclaim "Maa!", Sakthi Mataji will come to your aid and Lord Shiva if you yell "Paa!"; if you say "Aiyoh!" nobody will be there to help you!
In this present day world, there is so much of violence, anger and revenge. Even our television series are not helping (especially the tele-serials), where there is so much of bad blood and animosity. Perhaps, we have forgotten one of Gandhi's most famous saying, "An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind". If everyone adheres to this simple dictum, there will not be 9-11 and bombing of Afghanistan. We should also try his other quotation, "Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
We always complain that world has changed, this is no good and that is no good. Just like how Michael Jackson said that the change starts with the man in the mirror, Gandhi told us that we should "Be the change that you want to see in the world". 
It is easy to tell others to be like this and to do like that. He should lead by example as "As ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching".
We always try to segregate and differentiate amongst fellow human beings along many differentiating lines. From a religious viewpoint, when a reporter asked him about his religious belief, he said, "I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you."

Salt March

Gandhi lived a simple life but on his principles. It is hard to get angry with his old man. The British were up in arms with Gandhi with his Salt March and boycott British fabric policy. Buy British last did leave a dent on the jobs of the mill workers in Manchester and Lancashire.When Gandhiji visited a cotton mill in Lancashire (the same workers his protests hurt), he received nothing but a tearful rousing welcome! It was reported in the British newspapers in 1931, 
"...Gandhi was received with sympathy and affection by the Lancashire cotton workers, even though they were the ones hit hardest by the boycott.  It was a sympathy and affection that he returned...."

He also left his words of wisdom for the business community to emulate. He reiterated that "It is difficult, not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business" and we should not be serving a customer as a burden as they are the reason for the existence of one's business!

Many of us are aware that Gandhiji was a fruitarian who stopped consuming cow's milk but consumed goat's milk instead. This is not for any medicinal reason but rather due to how cruel people were to milk the cow of its milk. In spite of placing the cow as sacrilegious animal, their treatment of the animal was much to be desired.
Gandhi was also known to hold steadfast to his believes. Coming from a conservative Gujarati family, his mother was worried that he would join the masses and abandon his life long traditional practice of abstaining from meat during his tenure in the UK for law studies. He did not only did not succumb to herd mentality but instead help to cultivate the Vegetarian Society there! The lesson to learn here is that one must set his priorities right and work towards that direction without bowing to external influences.

Gandhi and Kasturba

He also led a simple life, preferring to show up in his home spun dhoti even during his visit to Buckingham Palace in the British winter cold !
Another invaluable lesson that Gandhiji has impressed upon us the virtue and sacrifices made by our respective spouses. Following him without fuss, she cleaned latrines, lived simple lives,stayed in ashrams and was imprisoned many times until she finally succumbed to her illnesses in prison.

In short, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi may not be us today but his sayings and simple way of life can teach us all many valuable lessons, from Martin Luther King Jr to many more generations to come!

We all live on the assumption of...

Today is Assumption Day, the day Mother Mary (no, not the one that comes to you in times of trouble in 'Let it be', but the real one) is assumed to have ascended to heaven. How do I know this? Well, a mother who was in active labour was hoping against hope to postpone her delivery to today for obvious reasons!
Talking about heaven, the hell gates are open now, according to the Chinese folklore and the ghosts are out to play. Hence, throughout the 'Hungry Ghost Month' (Phor Thor), many distractions are given to these ghosts so that they would be sitting down watching the Chinese opera, the scantily clad singing girls and feeding on the food stuff left at the road side during prayers. The distractions are meant to divert their attention from their daytime duty of haunting the living!
Talking about that month of the year, the middle of July to mid August is the inauspicious month for the Hindus. Most important events in life are postponed if possible. Agreements, moving into a new premises, births (by prohibiting intimacies 9 months previously), buying of properties, marriage and engagement ceremonies are postponed till after the Aadi month is over. The temples used to be void of activities and the time was used to spruce the temples and conduct repairs and what not. That was in those days, when I was growing up. Now, many activities (even religious ones) are happening. Aadi Puram which seem to be a low key fare then is a celebration of sorts lasting many days with chariot procession to follow. The snake goddess also has join in the foray. Guess, the temple had to fatten its coffers.
Talking about hell, heaven and spiritualism, an icon of songs he used to lip-sync to and I had to bear the brunt of listening to it day and night when I was desperately trying to cramp my facts in RRF kicked the bucket recently. The Bollywood film fraternity moan and wail that his death is an irreplaceable loss even though he has out of acting for decades! Nah, I do not think they miss him. They are just telling that as they know that the media people are out with their memo pads! Shammi Kapoor, the chubby crazy sometimes monkey-like dance-moving star of the 6os passed on at 79 due to renal failure. All the songs from Andaz, Junglee, Love in Tokyo which were the background score of me studying for SPM still reverberates in my ear drums... Ironically, India celebrates its Independence on 15th August in the month of Aadi. I wonder why? Did not any learned holy men try to postpone the handing of  self rule from the British? Guess they could not wait! Perhaps then, they could be less mayhem than there is now, and I wonder...

MTV, an old concept.

1st August 1981 boasts of the day a revolution of sorts occurring in the Western music industry with the birth of MTV (Music television). The world felicitated the industry for the ingenuity of their brainchild. What everybody failed to realize is that this concept of songs, music, dance and story had been churned out time and again from the time the first Indian talkies (movies) were churned out of their studios in 1936. In fact the Indian own 'MTV type of  songs' also impart good values, advice and facts of life. And we all know how MGR's songs were political propaganda tool in a state which was drowning in hero worship. MTV, you were a wee bit too late...but happy 30th anniversary anyway. But no thank you for creating the MTV and the 'Y' generation and their promiscuous and revealing dressing and behaviour (when Madonna made it totally acceptable to parade around in laced bodice)... It also must have given many great moments to many blue bearded dirty old men and socially challenged geek some self gratifying times. It takes all kinds to make the world go around

This is what MGR has to say to growing children about facts of life and positive values in life. Nowadays, we would say in a paternalistic way!

In the late 1960s when Westernization of Indian values and de'sacred'ization of highly esteemed Eastern way of living and thinking was at its height, many a movie, in Tamil and Hindi, which ridicule 'modern cultured living'were box office hits across the sub continent and beyond like this one by Manoj Kumar!