Inner demons

Birdman (2014)

This is regarded as one of the best films of 2014. It is also celebrated as Michael Keaton's comeback film after Batman and his series of disappointments that followed.

Here, he takes on the role of a down-and-out stage actor who has seen better days when he was famous for playing 'Birman' in a television series.

Now he must confront his inner demons, including auditory hallucinations and his alter ego, represented by his fictitious Birdman character that brought him fame. He continues to search for that one theatrical production that could catapult him back to the dizzying heights of stardom. At the same workplace, his daughter, a reformed junkie, works alongside him. They grapple with issues, as Keaton did not spend enough time with her during her childhood. Meanwhile, his ex-wife is moving forward in life with a role on Broadway.

He has a girlfriend who claims she is pregnant, and a casual actor brought in to fill a role tries to steal the limelight from him. From a theatrical viewpoint, the story and characters are layered, providing richness and depth to the film. The slightly different cinematography creates the illusion of long takes and penning, making the viewing experience interesting, as if one is observing the entire theatre from the actors' perspective rather than that of the audience.

People of India Photographed Over 150 Years

By ADITI MALHOTRA

Oct. 28, 2014
http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-IRTB-27062
When British photographer Bertrum Edwin Ebenezer Scott disembarked from the train in Karachi in the days following the partition of India and Pakistan, he took a picture that would mark the end of nearly 150 years spent by six generations of his family in the subcontinent.
“The Last Breakfast in Karachi,” taken before Mr. Scott boarded a ship in the port city of newly created Pakistan and set sail for England, is part of a collection of images he shot in India that are now on display at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry in the United Kingdom.


Bert Scott

The People of India,” also includes photographs taken by Mr. Scott’s grandson, Jason Scott Tilley, who put together the exhibition that spans more than a century of India’s history.
Mr. Scott grew up in southern Indian city of Bangalore with his grandparents – Edwin Ebenezer Scott and Emily Good Andre — before India gained independence from the British. His grandfather was the Assistant Commissioner of Salt for southern India.
Mr. Scott became a press photographer for The Times of India before moving to head the Indian Army’s photography unit stationed in Burma during the Second World War.
His work forms a valuable photographic account of India in the pre-independence era but many of his photographs have remained in his grandson’s closet until now.
About 40 of Mr. Scott’s photographs are currently on display combined with more than 50 portraits of Indians taken in India by his grandson between 1999 and 2009.
This photograph below, was taken by Mr. Scott in 1937, while Mahatma Gandhi, known as the father of independent India, walked on Juhu beach in Bombay, now Mumbai.
Bert Scott

The image below is of a farewell ceremony held in New Delhi for Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India who was made the first Governor General of the independent country before leaving on Aug. 15, 1947, India’s independence day.
Bert Scott

This 1934 photograph is described by Mr. Scott Tilley as the ‘Selfie of the 1930s’, and shows his grandfather standing on the rooftop of the building belonging to The Times of India office in Bombay.
Bert Scott

Mr. Scott Tilley first came to India in 1999 accompanying his grandfather whom he says “was desperate to go back to the country he loved.” In the photograph below of the Indian Army’s photo team in Burma, Mr. Scott is on the far left.

Bert Scott

Mr. Scott Tilley says his photographs, divided by almost 50 years from his grandfather’s pictures of the country, reflect a “new India”.
When he shot his first set of portraits while traveling with grandfather in the late 1990s, Mr. Scott Tilley said he “could see tragedy on the corner of every street” reminiscent of the stories of partition narrated to him by his grandparents.
He took this photograph of a man in a safari suit and a helmet paddling at the beach in Chennai in 2003. When asked why he was wearing a helmet at the beach, Mr. Scott Tilley says he remembers the man raising his visor and responding simply, “Because I came here on my motor-cycle.”

Jason Scott Tilley

A third set of photographs in the exhibition come from a photographic project also called “The People of India” put together by the Library of Birmingham and spanning 1868 to 1875. The project was the outcome of the then “British government’s desire to create a visual record of ‘typical’ physical attributes and characteristics of Indian people to help them understand the population of the newly-acquired colony,” said Mr. Scott Tilley.
This photograph from the collection is of a man from the Dooranee (Durrani) empire, which covered Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indian administered Kashmir, as they exist today. It was taken in Kabul, now in Afghanistan. In a description accompanying the photograph, the subject is described as having curly hair and “a thickly quilted cap with a muslin turban folded around it.”
This is described as “characteristic of the lower orders of Dooranees.” Strict followers of the Sunni Muslim religion, they identified as “brave, frank and often hospitable.”
The Library of Birmingham

The photograph below is of a member of a wedding band and was taken by Mr. Scott Tilley in the winter of 2004 in Delhi’s Paharganj area. “What you can’t tell by the photograph is that behind me there are about twenty of his band members yelling at him to straighten himself up and stand to attention,” he wrote in a blogpost about the portrait.

Jason Scott Tilley

Mr. Scott Tilley calls this one, below, “The Buffalow Girl.” He took it in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi.

Jason Scott Tilleypi

Outlet valve...

After 26 years, comrades of the same ship pursuing the same paper qualification met up recently. Many things happened in their lives, the good, bad and ugly. Definitely, they had all matured gracefully. They were no more the shy inhibited individuals as before. Hard knocks of life have made them approachable and humble.

Each attendee was given the opportunity to narrate their career journey. One thing that I noticed is that everyone had their own outlet to unwind from the demands of their daily dealings. Two cruise along the country road on their Harley Davidson bikes, one spend precious time of solitude in an orchard tugged far from human activity. One continue collecting diplomas and paper qualifications. One immerse himself in the pixels world of photography. Yet one runs marathons and away from his shadow. Quite a number surrender themselves to philanthropy. 

Of all of the interesting extracurricular activities that I heard that evening, one insists that she chose archery as a sport that sharpened her mind. She finds that her mental acuity is sharpened by pulling the bow to aim the arrow at the bullseye.

Is it worth it?

American Sniper (2014)
Produced and Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Normally I do not fancy American military propaganda films but decided to give a go as it was directed by Dirty Harry himself. The academy also plays an important role of stirring national pride and international justifications by nominating these films in loads of categories.
This particular movie was no different except that if you notice carefully, the story kind of mocks the double standards of Americans practise in dealing with international affairs. When children all over the occupied territories are wailing day and night with hunger, homelessness and loss of piece of mind, the protagonist gets all riled up when his crying neonate is not attended to by the nurses in the nursery.
Just because of a piece of cloth and ideologies that supposedly save mankind but does not mean a thing to the man on the street, young men go to zones that they are not familiar with and probably not heard of before in their entire lives. They fight for glory for nation and race and for their efforts, they return in body bags, with post traumatic stress disorder or in a totally different state of mind for the society and family to put up with, as if the fold of flag that is handed to their next of kin, the state funeral, the 21 gun salute and financial help is going to replace their loss.
Of course, in this movie, Chris Kyle, a SEAL sniper, is reputed to have made quite a killing in his 4 tours of duty in Iraq, returns home a broken man. He pulls through his mental twist only to succumb to a bullet from a fellow disturbed veteran during one of his sessions at the shooting range.
Is all these worth it? Some corporations make mountains of cash trying to monger war and sell arms for lesser beings to kill themselves silly. And their own boys also the bear the brunt of their actions. I suppose the high standards of living that their own community has comes with a price!

The halo could be just your fat ego!

So you think you are just. You have done enough suffering in this lifetime and now you want a reprieve. You think you deserve a break. You seek your outlet through divine path. You feel it is your duty to serve Him after being tortured all these while. You realise your days on Earth are numbered and you want to cajole Him to catapult you up the ladder of rebirth. This is the impression I get after hearing about all the prayers in which you are right in front to conduct, the special sacred functions that you wriggle to be present to collect your brownie points for the after-life. You sing hymns over hymns of devotional chants to be blessed. And you feel that you are exemplary to how a human should live. You feel that you are kind and follow the path of righteousness.

Unfortunately, all your actions do not translate to zen in real life. The perception that people around you have is one that is so negative. You paint a picture of someone who is conceited and self-centred. You are interested in your leisurely chores which all relate to divinity.

What is the point when the needy ones around you wrestle with themselves to fulfil their basic functions of life. True, they may have wronged you in the past but you sure chose a fine time for vengeance. Was it Mother Theresa who said that she saw God in the face of the poor and downtrodden?

Are you sure you are doing the right thing by hurting all the people around you? Do you expect special privilege when you finally have the audience with your Maker or his proxies? What if, just what if you are wrong? That divinity is synonymous with humanity, charity and empathy... I hope not to be around to tell you, "I told you so...!"

Old Historic photos

Thanks SK for invaluable contribution.

The earliest photo of Abraham Lincoln. [1840]

The first photo of The Beatles with Ringo Starr as the drummer. [August 22, 1962]

The first McDonald'srestaurant in San Bernardino. [1948]

The first public Jewish religious service in Germany since the advent of Hitler held by American troops during the battle of Aachen. [1944]

Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar for the first time. [1967]

Jim Henson creating his first Kermit puppet. [1950s]

The Wright brothers' first flight. The photo was taken so that people would believe them. [1903]

Glenn Burkes and Dusty Baker, of the LA Dodgers, perform what it believed to be the first high-five. [2 October, 1977]

Henry Ford poses on the first car he built, the Ford Quadricycle. [1896]

Hannah Stilley, born 1746, photographed in 1840. She is the earliest born individual captured on film.

Leola N. King, America's first female traffic cop. [1918]

The world's first underwater photo. [1893]

Sally Halterman, the first woman granted a license to operate a motorcycle in Washington, D.C. [1937]

The first photo taken from space. A V2 rocket was launched straight up, with the film protected in a steel case. [1946]

Howard Carter flanked by assistants as they view the sarcophagus of Egyptian King Tutankhamen for the first time in thousands of years, Egypt. [3 January, 1924]

The first known photograph of a Presidential inauguration, taken in 1857 at the swearing in of James Buchanan.

Recipient of the world's first human heart transplant, Louis Washkansky, in Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, three days after the surgery. [6 December 1967]

Minneapolis women lining up to vote for the first time in a presidential election. [1920]

The first and only picture taken from the surface of Venus. [1982]

The first team photo in baseball history. [1858]

Madam C.J. Walker. The first woman in America to become a millionaire by her own endeavors in "black" cosmetics.

The first photograph ever taken. It shows the view outside of a window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. [1826]

Photographs of the first modern Olympic Games, Athens. [1896]

The first public showing of the bikini, Paris. [1946]

Otto Lilienthal becoming the first person to make a successful glider flight. [1894]

Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel on her 63rd birthday. [1901]

Construction of the worlds first Ferris wheel for the Chicago world's fair. [1893]

ENIAC, the worlds first computer. [1940]

Installing the first neon sign on the Las Vegas Strip. [1941]

Sputnik 1, the first satellite, being launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. [1957]

The first riders of New York City's first subway. [1904]

Bertha Benz, with the help of her two sons, became the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance - 66 miles. [5 August, 1888]

Queen Elizabeth II giving her first televised Christmas address. [1957]

Ruby Bridges becomes the first African American to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. She was followed everywhere by US Marshals because of threats on her life. [1960]

The very first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. [1931]

The first bananas arrive in Norway. [1905]

The first wheelie ever photographed. [1936]