Then it becomes ugly!

The first question that people ask when they see the cute insert of my baby picture at the corner of the cover of my book is, "Oh, you look so cute as a baby." And the standard reply is "and we all grow ugly after that!"

We all see pictures of little children and videos of baby birthdays and such, we never fail to appreciate how cute our offsprings are and perhaps see how well or badly they have turned out eventually.

Babies are made small, helpless, cute and cuddly for a particular reason - survival! A small, visually pleasing object has a better chance of being protected in times of adversity than an ugly repulsive one!

That rule probably does not apply to his flesh and blood. For his mother, the maternal instinct would guarantee his safety no matter what - she would run into a burning building or jump into a lake even if she knows next to nothing about staying afloat. Like Amma used to say, "To a crow, her chick is still a golden chick."
P.S. The collective noun for crows is murder!

Correct gauge of happiness?

Dambulla Golden Temple

They say they had great powers and wisdom. Legend has it that one of their kings, Ravana, had literally brought Lord Shiva to his knees when the king had conquered the Indian subcontinent all the way to what they thought was edge of heaven - Mount Kailash. Only when the mighty Lord thumbed his big guy did he plead for clemency and hence was born the Shiva Thandava stotram which is still muttered by His devotees till today.

The island has so much of history and feats in engineering and architecture but what has it become? A third world country with chaotic traffic system filled by traffic etiquette wanting horn blaring drivers and three wheeler 'tut-tut' taxis who treat the road as a war zone where only the fittest and lion hearted survives!

A nation with such a long high culture is now wallowed in poverty and has to
play dance monkey to the tunes of tourists from supposedly developed nation to conjure out foreign exchange for their livelihood.

King of the Road?

Perhaps we are all looking at contentment of life all wrong. Their meaning and purpose of life which sustained their existence all these while took a turn at turn of the late 19th century with the new world order in global economics. Suddenly all their social equilibrium crumpled and could not keep up with the demand of the new world needs. Maybe their definition of bliss is far different from the 'modern' world.
Of course every now and then, a dynamic leader would spring from nowhere and take the nation to great heights and Sri Lanka too had their time in the limelight.

Even though Sri Lanka got a free hand to run their own affairs from their colonial masters almost a decade before Malaysia, the economic distribution seem patchy. Even tourists spots with drones of visitors with tourists dollars fail to show proportionate aesthestic change. In this religious land which encourages moderation in daily life, this kind of encouragement is just nice but what happens to the coffers is another question! You do not want too much of commercialisation, do you?
If you had a nation brimming with money worshipping individuals, they would monetise anything and everything worth or not worth showcasing to the world to propagate more economic activity.

Joy to fishes in the sea

     

    Negambo Hindu Temple;    Sigiriya Lion Cave;        Massive monolith;             Dutch canal

A treat of rare pictures from history

Thanks RS for his kind contribution.

Testing football helmets in 1912

The Titanic in dry dock 1912

Carl Akeley posed with the leopard he killed with his bare hands after it attacked him, 1896

The smallest shop in London – a shoe salesman with a 1.2 square meter shoe store, 1900.

A beggar running alongside King George V’s coach. England, c. 1920

Allied soldiers mock Hitler atop his balcony at the Reich Chancellery, by Fred Ramage, 1945

13 June 1944: An English brewery donates a sizable amount of fresh beer for the troops fighting in Normandy and a unique delivery method is created, strapping kegs to the underwings of Spitfires being shipped to forward airfields.Flying at 12 000 feet chills the brew to perfection

An aerial view of the WWI Loos-Hulluch trench system in France.    

British trenches are situated on the left of the photo, and German trenches

on the right – in the middle of the two is no man’s land. July 22, 1917

A man trying to sell his car after losing all in the Great Crash of 1929

Wedding rings from WW II concentration camps.
Each pair of rings represents a family, a marriage, a couple. 1945

Leonard Siffleet, captured Australian commando who fought in WWII,

moments prior to being beheaded by a member of the Imperial Japanese Navy. 1943

Iranian woman in the era before the Islamic revolution by Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran, 1960

A shot from atop Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning during game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

The Pirates defeated the Yankees with a walk off home run by Bill Mazeroski.

Photo was taken moments after the home run

The Muffin man in 1910 London

Animal Tamer Captain Jack Bonavita sitting down with some of his cats, ~1870s

1865: Hanging hooded bodies of the four Lincoln assassination conspirators

The morning after a long night awaiting a Viet Cong ambush that never came

40 miles East of Saigon, Vietnam, 1965

A man having his nose measured during Aryan race determination tests, 1940

Loggers in California with the felled giant ‘Mark Twain redwood’, 1892

The last Jew in Vinnitsa, 1941

US Government mockups of how Hitler could have disguised himself

NASA before Powerpoint

The end of WWII is celebrated in Moscow’s Red Square. May 9, 1945

Shame game

Over the last weekend, the family was deeply engaged in a debate on the appropriateness of a video clipping that went viral on the cyberspace. A thick in the middle kind of a middle aged man was filmed on a handphone whilst a girl, who may be the victim, went on a rampage accusing him of outraging her modesty while seated in a flight. He had apparently touched her after slipping his hands through the space between the seats.

The debate was whether what the victim did was right or the accused deserved such a shaming.

The victim who is from the generation who wishes that their mobile devices were attached to their body had the clarity of mind to record the whole event soon after the said crime was committed. She raised an alarm and drew fellow plane passengers to her seat as she started confronting the perpetrator with artillery of piercing questions. The accused on the receiving end sat slouched in shame covering his face. There is a second clip where the accused is in better spirits as he defends his actions.

In this digital age, it is becoming norm that  justice ala street justice is carried by social shaming. Sympathy is garnered by the number of likes. Almost everybody would agree and feel for the victim. The public would ask for blood. In a flash, all the job of judge, jury and executor would be even before natural justice takes its course. So much for someone being innocent until proven guilty.

All this may look benign but hitting the wrong button may prove fatal in the right predisposed individual. All the raw emotion hurled at the accused may just push him over the brink. Remember the nurse who spilled the beans over Kate Middleton's (Duchess of Cambridge, wife of Prince William) hospital admission in severe symptoms of early pregnancy - she took her own life. The pressure of guilt and accusation proved too much to stomach.
In this case, what if the gentleman who is accused of not being so gentle decides to take the path of least resistance away from all the shame? The accuser has blood in her hands or she could pat herself for justice had been served?

http://www.mid-day.com/articles/viral-video-girl-confronts-molester-on-flight-leaves-him-shame-faced/15958195

A curious case of a missing child

Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)

It is a decent attempt at a psychological thriller. Just like the 1960 film 'Psycho', they created excitement when they announced during the trailer that the cinema doors would be closed once the movie had started - no place for late comers, creating curiosity amongst movie-goers then.
The idea of newcomers to a new town, a missing child, a few goofy characters, a collection of lifeless dolls and mental illness is an excellent plot for a chilling drama. Unfortunately, the music and the melodrama components failed to bring in the scream factor. It, however, kept to its storyline without appearing ridiculous even though the finale was a little unbelievable for a person with schizophrenia to hide his disease so well.
The story starts when Ann leaves her daughter at a kindergarten on her first day. As she is in a hurry, she leaves her in the care of the school chef to be handed to the school teacher. When Ann returns in the afternoon to fetch her daughter, nobody seem to know of the whereabouts of the child, not even the existence of such a pupil. The police is called in. In comes the suave investigator in the form of Supt Newhouse (Laurence Olivier).

Zombies

Many things do not fit in the case making everyone even question the existence of such a kid! In rolls Ann's protective brother, the eccentric proprietor of the kindergarten, the dismissive teachers, the blue bearded drunk African masks loving landlord, the presence of non-existing childhood friends and the cat mouse race against time to prove the existence of the child!
Even though the plot is predictable, the offering still manages to grasp the attention of its viewers. The British invasion band 'Zombies' are shamelessly featured three times in this movie, starring the new trend of introducing new songs via films.

Capitalism the new religion?

Everybody wants to change everything!

Not everything changes for the better for everyone!

Just a century ago, life was simple. When things became complicated and hard to deal with, help usually came from the community. Various strata of people from the society with various expertise came forth to offer would contribute their 2 cents worth to solve it.
Slowly when problems became more abstract and less tangible, the snake oil salesmen and religious men filled in the gap.
When diseases were considered incurable and terminal, people started looking at it as God-sent to punish the non believers and those who strayed from the true teachings. Paradoxically, these ostracised victims were cared for individuals who had surrounded all their worldly freedom in the way of the Lord. These God's men even went as far as to educate natives to the marvel of culture of the Western civilisation with the fringe benefit of the words of the Lord thrown in for good measure.
It was a time when religion was really 'God sent'. The uncultured uncouth natives, through the eyes of the visitors were shown glimpses of the splendour of modern living. The downtrodden were given their dignity and a place in the sun for them to flourish or least to live as human.

At a time when ignorance was rife and information was the purview of the selected elite few, this arrangement worked just fine. Knowledge was sacred and cross examination was sacrilegious. With the advancement of science and technology and the Industrial Revolution, the secrets of the universe gradually unfolded. Now, nobody associated daily occurrences to divinity but just the way things were. Divinity took a back seat and has to pay for the follies of their predecessors.
Industries created consumerism. Commerce increased by leaps and bounds. Money which used to be a tool of trade soon began replacing and compensating for negative human traits. Class division is society crept in and ruled all facets of life. The monetary divide between the haves and have-nots started becoming a concern to all.
Akin to washing the sins that they started in the first place, capitalism, tried to write off its mischief through community social responsibility projects.
What religion used to do for the general public a century ago, condemning sinners and helping them pick up (the duality of man), beholders of the new religion- capitalism, i.e. financiers, their high priests, and lawyers, their executioners, appear in the sea of flash lights and cameras to appear to show empathy for the victims of their hoodwinked master plan and boasts all about in their another tool of their crime - the media!

Coming of age

Boyhood (2014)

The interesting thing about this film is that this movie was made over the span of 12 years using the same cast who met annually to make shots. This set-up seem especially important in this coming-of-age movie as the theme is about growing up and the protagonist was a child at the beginning of the movie and goes to college at the end. Over the years, we can also see the adults changing their appearances.
It is basically about a boy growing up through the years as his mother goes through 3 broken marriages and he deals with 3 different father figures. The mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette), becomes a teenage mother with a drifter. She becomes a single mother of two and steps again into 2 unfulfilling marriages. Olivia herself empowers herself through education and became a lecturer.
The boy, Mason, grows up discovering about life and his adulthood through his biological father who pops up every so often.

from 2002 to 2014