A Remarkable Man

Any average television viewer would recognize the face of this man. He has survived extremes of temperatures, stood in hostile environments, followed almost all the animal species in the world and talked about almost everything that constitutes life in the ecosystem. Sir David Attenborough, the eminent naturalist and popular television personality exudes a boyish enthusiasm that quickly captures the attention of the viewers, as he takes them on a journey that reveals many fascinating and unknown aspects of the natural world.
He was awarded the Special Recognition Award on October 2006 at the National Television Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. The video shows clippings from some of his works and has a few personalities talking about his commitment and interest in the field.

His works are spectacular not only in their videography but also in the way it showcases the life on earth in a new dimension that commands respects for it from the viewers. The main reason he captures the interest of the viewers is due to his realistic presentation. Unlike the stoic narrations found in most of the wildlife videos in which the narrator just lends his voice from behind the camera in an impassive way, Sir Attenborough explores the natural world with a boyish enthusiasm that any other person would feel when witnessing a marvel of the natural world, thus making himself endeared to the viewer.
Update: If the above video captures your interest, do see the second part of the Awards and this magnificent moment from one of his episodes, rated as one of his all time best moments.

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Why does the media waste time 'reporting' these clichés.
I seriously doubt that any level-headed Indian bothers about the media reporting this or not, as everyone knows for sure the veracity of these claims by our 'beloved' neighbors. I think the same story has been reported zillion times till today, only difference being that the different permutations and combinations in the coining of words each time.
So why waste resources and time? Instead, the page could have been given up for some advertisement. At least they will make some money out of it.

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Why Shankar should be kicked..

He had the project of a lifetime on his hands for which he took one full year. Yet Shankar managed to make a mess out of it.

I have seen Sivaji atleast 5 times so far, good enough to 'analyze' the movie scene by scene. I spotted many discontinuities and plain mistakes. I chose to show this one, as it is really funny. The picture on the left is the Green Card shown by Rajini to prove that he is MGR. It says "Residence since: 21/05/10". First lapse is the grammar, which has gone for a six. Rajini is supposedly a US resident from 2010, which makes no sense at all. Moreover, it says the card expires on 21/05/07 which makes it all the more crazier. And finally, US follows the month/date/year format and not the day/month/year as shown in the card (an error which is negligible considering the magnitude of the other two).

The second photo is that of the credit card shown by Rajini. The card has only three important fields: 'Name', 'valid since' and 'valid thru'. Shankar obviously thought that Rajini being the macho guy he is, can wield even outdated cards (2002 expiry date in this case) and get away with it.

Our TN police commissioner (or whoever he is) to whom Rajini shows these cards, does not possess the basic education to verify the print on these cards. Shankar probably thought that die-hard fans of Rajini would be as dumb as the man who plays the commissioner and will just close their eyes to everything else but Rajini in all the frames. These cards are just flashed across the screen during the movie and not even shown for a second. But seriously did Shankar think because of this nobody would spot it? Maybe he has not heard of an option called 'pause'.

Pathetic. Maybe he could try really 'directing' a few films instead of focusing on grandiose sets and song sequences. I have a spotted a dozen such lapses in the movie which I can attribute to no one else but Shankar and the editing team. If I could spot so many lapses, surely he should be. Either he is incompetent or he is callous enough to assume that Tamil Cinema audience do not focus on the subtleties in a movie.

AVM should seriously consider asking Shankar to return half of the pay he got for this project. And as we say in Tamil, "Shankar'a thonga vittu adikanum"!

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Victory and its aftermath

How can someone be made to feel surfeited about a hard earned and much yearned victory? But the BCCI, the obnoxious State Governments and the media (which just needs a bandwagon to always jump into) have proved it is possible.

So for once we had a good team that won. What if we had lost. I am sure there would have been excuses like 'new format', 'inexperienced', and more. Do not those terms still apply? For all the great win the team fashioned, it is after all a new format of game for which none of the teams have special strategies for. And they are inexperienced! To have an entire nation go crazy because the team won 4 matches in a row is ridiculous. Had the team been through several months of high quality performances, its members deserve honors. Praising the team and awarding them for every series win and then stoning the player's homes for every loss is happening much too frequently nowadays, so much so that people and the BCCI have lost a sense of proportion.

Praise them, yes. But do not flood them. After the World Cup debacle, the Advertisement value of the Indian team reached a nadir and subsequent good performances in England did not increase the face value much. The BCCI, which can easily fund two African nations even if no cricket matches were staged for the next two years, were obviously not happy with the reduced inflow to their coffers. And they saw in this victory the right moment to rekindle the interests of the public in Indian cricket and increase the team's revenue potential. Needless to say, this entailed reactions like 30km rally, felicitations at the Wankhede Stadium, $2million prize money, a crore and a 911 porsche to Yuvraj Singh from the BCCI. And the tax payers of Haryana want Joginder to be gifted Rs.21 lakhs because he took one crucial wicket.

Instead of making any socialistic statements on how these and much more ill spent money from the exchequers of the Government and the BCCI could have been rerouted for more 'noble' purposes, I will just say that these reactions make me feel blasé towards the game itself.

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Proving the mettle

What a day for Indian cricket! I have always been a big fan of Dhoni, but his performance in this T20 World cup as a captain has been amazing. He has been so cool about everything. Even when the bowler is jumping up and down after a wicket, Dhoni walks smiling as if its just the end of an over. He has proven enough as of now that is not just a stop-gap arrangement for captaincy. See this interview to get a glimpse of his thinking.

Sachin, Ganguly and Dravid are going to have a hell of a time once they are back in the ODI squad with every single failure of theirs causing people to bay for their blood as Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Karthik will be in the sidelines.

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Of believing and discerning

A sudden bout of spiritualism forced me to go to the temple yesterday and it coincided with Sankatahara Chathurthi. The very thought of going to the temple on this day filled me with a sense of fulfillment that I had done something good after a long time, though I had no idea of what the occasion means. An effort at 'googling' for the explanation did not make me any the wiser except for the fact that its a monthly event. So I stuck to the ritualistic praying for well-being.

I was wondering about the meaning of some mantras and it set me off on a tangent that eventually ended with me questioning about the rationality in believing the existence of God. All the slokams and mantras I know unequivocally praise the God. If God does exist, does He wish to us to spend a considerable part of our time praising Him? (or Her, lest I am branded as a male chauvinist) I mean if He really is God what is the point in Him expecting us to praise Him.

If the above line of thought is considered blasphemy, then one would succumb to the ideas of living in Kali Yuga wherein the human race is supposed to be most distanced from God. Atleast the scriptures say so! But then how much veracity can one attach to the scriptures. To be fair, its difficult to believe in miracles. And to believe something that has been written and passed over generations, describing incidents that happened hundreds of years ago as to the deeds of the Gods is tough. After all truth distorts over time and historians were not in much abundance in the earlier days so as to give an accurate recounting of things that happen. For example, what if they all started off as eulogistic narrations of the deeds of Kings and then got modified over generations, with the subsequent additions of unearthly powers to the deities. It is possible.

When one goes to some places that have spiritual connections it makes us feel exhilarated. Is that because one truly feels the divine power or is it the subconscious mind that tells us we are in a place that has some spiritual significance and makes us feel something inexplicable? I visited many South Indian temples last year and I started off by thinking that it should be interesting as I would see new places. But when I went to places like the Thanjavur Kovil, the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Kovil or the Chidambaram Kovil, I felt a heaviness which overwhelmed my senses. They mad(k)e me believe that there is an aura about these places that have reasons beyond plain architecture and massiveness. I suppose same should be the case with Kailash and places like Badrinath, Kasi etc.,

But, sometimes I tend to believe that the concept of Religions were created to bring about a sense of orderliness in man's life. Being the only creature endowed with the power to think, we have spent a lot of our time in trying to find out the reason for our existence. Some people answer that spiritually and attribute man's existence to God and some answer that scientifically citing evolution, the primordial soup, etc., I suppose our ancestors predominantly would have belonged to the former group. The fact that misdoings and improper conduct would invoke the wrath of some supernatural power would serve as a deterrent to many people from straying in their lives. And over a period of years, these would have coalesced into a coherent set of stories that gave way to the myths (or the epics as we would have it). One need not be astute to perceive the regional based differences in the stories of Gods. Even epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana have parts that are narrated in different ways in different places. And same is the case with the Old and the New Testaments. When someone like Mother Teresa who has been an embodiment of devout worshipers, says that her life has been devoid of the influence of God, then 'lesser' beings are bound to relapse into self doubts.

Having said all this, it leaves me in a confused state of mind. To believe in the existence of God and devote a part of my time to prayers or to be a heretic. As the questions remain unanswered, I guess I have no other option but to tread the path of several skeptic-believers and continue to believe in God with the occasional doubts rearing its head. After all as many people say, it is better to err on the side of safety.

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Happy Birthday!

Its Madras day! Madras was found on August 22, 1639. That makes this the 368th year.
Talk about history!

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Noble Performances

I chanced upon this video last night in YouTube. Looks like Rihanna has performed in the Noble Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2006.

It was damn funny imagining the Noble peace prize Awardee sitting with fellow nominees and hearing (and seeing) Rihanna perform her two 'jewels', especially the Unfaithful song. Those people sit at the concert after they have been commended for striving for peace. This female comes along singing about how she ditched her lover, is now going out with someone, how her lover feels sad about this and how she is sympathizing for her lover and would rather kill him than put him through his sorrows! Perfect setting to sing this if you ask me. It is a good thing Mother Teresa got her award long back and did not have to sit through such nonsense.
I am not complaining about the song per se but the selection of the songs for the occasion. In the first place are such extravaganzas needed? I am sure Alfred Nobel must be turning in his grave.

On an off note do take a look at this 'exquisite' performance by Rihanna. Her expressions (squirming and twisting) as she sings the song with 'emotion' is enjoyable to say the least.

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Dark thoughts

He was day dreaming again. The voice of his friends were distant as he began staring at an imaginary point in space. He was going through another bout of depression. The weather was not doing anything to alleviate the mood. It was a beautiful day though. It had rained a bit and the temperature was bordering on the comfortable. But it was overcast just like his mind was. His friends were discussing the virtues of the chocolate cake. When under a spell of depression his mind shuts out all conversations irrespective of whether he is a part of it or not. At times like these he lends the speaker what they think is a patient hearing, though not a word of what they say registers in his mind.

The coffee was warm and he liked it that way. He took his first sip of it. Out of the corner of his eyes he spotted a couple walking towards them and occupying the table to his right side. He did not look at them directly. But he had gathered enough during the disinterested sideways glance that it was an Indian guy with an American girlfriend and the girlfriend was latched onto the arms of the guy. Personally he does not hold out anything against Indian males having American girlfriends. All these American born Indians do tend to have a number of them.

Opinions are not formed very easily when one is in a pensive mood. But when is disturbed during one of those preoccupations, then opinions form of their own and often tend to be jaundiced against the one who halts the train of thoughts. This was how he began to detest the new entrant. The voices of his friends were interrupted by the new comer who posed a rather intriguing question to them. "Are you guys Indians?". The pensive mood to which I have alluded before, tends to view such interruptions under poor light. Especially interruptions bordering on absurdity. It is absurd enough to be queried by a fellow Indian as to one's nationality. It is even more absurd when the query is made with an American accent. He can understand the difficulty faced by an American in differentiating between an Indian and an Indonesian. But it is far fetched to say that one cannot recognize his own countrymen. He decided it was to impress his Girlfriend who probably has seen as much Indians in her life as one gets to see Dodos. He did not bother turning around to answer the question though. His enthusiastic friends already affirmed in unison as to their true nationality. The new comer having been convinced that he is not addressing a set of Russians passing under the guise of Indians came up with another question as to the parts of India they were from. One friend took it upon himself to list out the different states which each represented.

When a stranger barges in during a conversation quite unexpectedly, the outcome will be a silence on the part of the conversationists, as each will debate within themselves as to whether they should get back to the topic of interest or exhibit courtesy by questioning the stranger in return. The group was in such a stage when the new comer posed another question as to the Departments and the Degrees they were pursuing. One of his friends replied quite earnestly to that. Her eyes displayed great emotion while answering. The new comer was excited at this and said that it is great. For him this was the last straw. He was convinced that this American turned Indian was looking at them as if they were objects of interest and something that he has never come upon in his life before. After all you get to see thousands of Indians in the US. What is the fascination in seeing four Indians from different states sitting together.

During all this, he did not even bother to turn around and the new comer probably sensed the the intrusion has not found favour with all the members of the group and so he began the customary concluding remarks. The new comer stated his happiness on having met them and also added that they were the first Indians he was conversing to in months.

He lost his equanimity and turned around to look at the guy fully in face for the first time. The only visible portions of the new comers face were his rather flashy sunglasses and a wide, stupid grin. His glare at the new comer did not seem to unnerve him. Rather it made him extend his grin. His girlfriend was looking at them with a grin too. Condescending looks, he thought.

The new comer stood up and said it was a pleasure talking to them and turned around. In the process he hit his knee on a chair next to him. He did not bother to look down and felt its back rest and pushed it out of his way. The girlfriend immediately rushed up to him and got hold of his extended hands and started leading him out of the cafe. The new comer reached out into his pockets and brought out a stick and with a wave of his hands made it unfold to thrice its original length. He went with the girl leading him by the hand and tapping the stick on the floor.

The warm coffee tasted rather bland and his preoccupation deepened as it began to rain outside.

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Hocking Hills

I went with friends to Hocking Hills on June 30, 2007. Its a huge forest reserve in Hocking county with lots of tourist attractions like lakes, river, caves and waterfalls. It is a very famous camping spot too.
We first went to the Old Man's Cave. The cave is formed by a monstrous rock overhanging from a cliff. There were a couple of waterfalls and some streams. Tunnels were carved through some rocks to provide passage. The fresh air coupled with the greenery was exhilarating.We next stopped at Nelsonville, a small town. We went on a tourist train which took us 11 miles to the north of Nelsonville and then turned back and took us to a recreated village called Robbins Crossing, a few miles south of Nelsonville. People were indulging in activities like real villagers did back in the 1800s.
Our final halt for the day was for canoeing. If someone asks me what is the wildest thing I have done so far, this is it. I agree this is nothing compared to a white water ride or bungee jumping, but this has been my first experience in the realms of adventure sport. I went in a canoe with 1 guy. 3 were in another canoe. We started at about 8 PM. The water was on an average 2 feet deep in the river and on some stretches were 4 to 5 feet deep, but no more than that. We were first going in circles unable to control the canoe. Often we ran aground on the banks or rammed onto protruding rocks or fallen trees. After half an hour we got the hang of it.
Soon we were paddling past many people, most of whom were couples enjoying the moonlight. No such luck for me though. Soon it was pitch dark and we were not able to see anything and we were a bit afraid but soon got over it. After rowing for 5 miles we reached our final post. The canoe owners had lit a bonfire and served us marshmallows and different wines.
It was a memorable experience on the whole.

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