Defiance - Challenging attitude

Last two days i was totally free and watched 5 movies. I didn't spend time with friends and decided to watch movies. Out of five movies, Defiance was one of them. This is totally dealt with 'challenging attitude'. I really liked it and would like to share it here.

When I saw that "Defiance" is a movie directed by Edward Zwick, the maker of some flicks like "Glory," "The Last Samurai" and "Blood Diamond," I couldn't resist picking it up. Here's the story, not that I am the best person for story telling but I hope you'll be kind enough to still read on.

In 1941, in an area that we now know as Belarus, Jews are being persecuted mercilessly by the Hiter regime. Tuvia Bielski (starring Daniel Craig) is believed to have saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews by keeping them safe in the woods, which came to be christened as "Jerusalem in the woods." Tuvia's brothers are Asael, (starring Jamie Bell), Aron (starring George Mackay) and Zus (Liev Schreiber).

First, the brothers avenge the death of their parents who are killed ruthlessly by the Nazis. Later, they help to save many Jews who were hiding in the forest, not knowing where to go or where their next meal would come from. Even a drop of water is not there for all of them to drink. The brothers think through the hopeless situation and become leaders who take charge to do what is required to stay alive. They create a system whereby every Jew is assigned a task to do and a role to fulfill. They lay down a hard rule - no babies on the settlement because it is no decent place for a baby to grow up. Even here they are speaking about community group formation from this 1000 odd people. They pictured clearly about the starvation for food and emotions of being alone by losing loved ones. Awesome scenes of evoking resistance in people mind..!

The tensions between the brothers are played out very well by Craig and Schreiber because they are such opposites in attitude, passion and values.Their story is one of courage, not victimization. Typically, most real life stories on the Holocaust portrayed the horrors that the Jews went through and how they were victimized by it. This movie showed how a band of brothers became warriors, though they could have chosen to feel helpless and victimized by the turn of events around them. Somewhere, it seemed as though Zwick was getting lost in a melodrama of his own making, not necessarily that of the brothers.

Still, I 'd say that what the Bielski brothers did by saving and empowering so many Jews deserves to be remembered and documented. It tells us that even when we face the worst situations in life, we can deal with it by choosing a different route of action, one in which we don't prepare ourselves to be victims.

Defiance - Must watch movie..!

~Sudhan.

And the winner is .. Octopus 'superstition' Paul

Superstition is more popular than Science. This is precisely what had happened in the Octopus Paul phenomenon .One thing is for sure. After Germany have come third in this World Cup and Spain are crowned the champions. Apart from this tournament will be remembered by will not be any spectacular goal, a player's magic(obviously we have only flop stars this time except few) or a controversial refereeing decision. Paul the Octopus, which has until now correctly predicted the outcomes of seven German games in a row, is set to be bigger than any star, depending on the results of the last two matches.

Social media have helped spread Paul's popularity. What started off as a sideshow somehow threatened to become bigger than France's early exit or Ghana's amazing run. Almost every Thai newspaper had Paul on the front page on Friday and Saturday whereas twitterers awaited anxiously his two final predictions. Time magazine has written an article about Paul, whose photos also featured on the homepage of The Guardian's football site. The craze was understandable, but where it will lead us to is a bit unimaginable.

Paul's rivals have started to emerge. In Singapore, a crowd of football fans gathered around Mani, the island nation's World Cup-forecasting paraot, at the weekend. He crept out of his small wooden cage and, choosing between two cards, picked the one with the flag of the Netherlands. Mani would have steal fame from Paul in what will tantamount to robbery in broad daylight if holland were the winners. Meanwhile, Thailand's panda Lin Ping joined the fray on Saturday morning, picking a bowl of Spain "milk" as opposed to the one with Holland flag attached to it.

The emergence of Octopus Paul and Parrot Mani are a welcome addition to World Cup, whose power to invoke cultural charms has never been so obvious as in this tournament. South Africa, as has been editorialised by some, has shown the world how football should be celebrated. Now, the world's most popular tournament has exposed the superstitious side in us and may change the way we look at, say, villagers who worship trees in hopes of lottery jackpot numbers.

Superstitution and sport have long been bed-fellows. Many athletes are known to be very strict about wearing lucky clothing, carrying good-luck charms, eating a special meal before the game, or practicing crippling routines and rituals. Fans are no less superstitiously obsessive. Many will never change sitting positions when their teams are playing well, which also dictates that a toilet break is a no-no.(remember one of indian cricketer spent half day in toilet when sachin was batting)

Octopus Paul has just reminded the world that even the "most sophisticated" beings harbour this feeling inside that maybe we are powerless to change destiny. And come to think of it, Paul is not at all a phenomenon. The real phenomenon is the fact that many newspaper readers turn to the horoscope page the first thing in the morning, that "spot-on" fortune-tellers gain faster fame than emerging good writers, that "prophecy" has to be key part of most religions or cults.

Uruguay's national team coach vowed to put Octopus Paul to shame by having his players clinch the third spot, but that may have just served to amplify the world-wide hype after Uruguay lost 2-3 with a potential equalizer rattling against the bar in the very last second. Holland's players, when stepping onto the pitch for the championship match on Sunday, also faced a battle to change a destiny as laid down by an octopus. How Paul's predictions would weigh on Holland's players especially when, for example, the game went to two extra time allotment must have been known by now.

This World Cup has left unique memories. Not only do we have a brand-new champion, a national team that has never won it before, but we have had animals overshadow footballing stars on the front pages around the world. Good-bye South Africa and see you in the "Football Nation", Brazil, in 2014. How great will that be? In the meantime, a four-year break will allow all the zoos across the planet to perfect the art of sport prophecy among their star forecasters.

Anyway Octopus paul will not be there for Brazil 2014 since octopus's life span only three years. Paul already crossed 2.5 years. Let us see, who will be the next sports prophet in this world..?



~Sudhan.

PS : When i was writing this post today morning, i read news about another octopus in Australia who chosed the president for Australia before people cast their vote. (elections to be held in august).. Another political prophet in making...!!

I watched football with love than ever

I have to admit that for some strange reason (I'll go through possible reasons later), I've actually been following the World Cup this year way more than I did in past years. I know everybody in world goes crazy during World Cup (certainly a generalization, but let's say that a much larger amount of people pay attention to the event there compared to the average country), but I was always one of those people that would watch a few games here and there, but mostly for the social aspect of it (everybody was doing it) and I'd be cheering for the "other team".

This year it's somehow different. I find myself even going to work on a later bus to watch the first half of a game, or even considering rejecting doing a code review or report generation by managers because I would force me to possibly not watch a game until the end. And I'm not really watching the games with anybody else. Sometimes when I go to watch a game I walk around asking if there is anybody else that wants to watch the game, but I'd go even if nobody said "yes".

Why is it different, you might ask. Well, time is a matter of priorities. So for some reason my subconscious is considering that spending time watching a game is better than spending time doing other things. And I have a lot of other things to do! On weekends there are endless amount of stuff to do.

Also there is a social aspect to it. I'm expected to be following the games and I know that it's an expectation that I can easily fulfill.

Mind you, it's not that I don't like soccer - I actually really enjoy watching the games - it's just that never in my life watching games had that high of a priority. Am I becoming "normal"? Maybe next thing I know I'll start thinking about another bike ride with my buddies :)

By the way - Congratulations to Spain for wonderful victory.

~Sudhan.

Pay rise in salary of Indian MPs

Our Members of Parliament (MP) (and state legislators as well) want to be called honourable, though they do not eschew the things they supposed to do. They are covetous and not beyond robbing the state till. What else can you call the sanctioning for themselves 100% rise in their salaries. But first the facts.

MPs can look forward to a hefty hike in their salaries, which are likely to shoot up over an unprecedented 100 per cent. The current salary of a member, including perks, comes to about Rs.42,000 per month and the government is hiking it to a minimum of Rs.80,000.

Charandas Mahant, MP, who is heading a committee formed last year to go into MPs salaries and allowances, has discussed the proposal with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The Mahant committee has said since MPs’ positions are higher in protocol compared to government secretaries, they should get more pay than the latter. At present the secretary gets around Rs.80,000 besides 47 per cent Dearness Allowance which together come to Rs.1.2 lakh per month on average. The panel is said to have argued that the government should enhance the salaries of MPs to more than Rs.1.2 lakh or at least more than Rs.80,000 that the secretary gets without DA.

At present, a member gets a salary of Rs.16,000, Rs.20,000 as constituency allowance and Rs.6,000 towards stationary allowance. He/she also gets up to Rs.14,000 towards staff but this amount directly goes to the bank account of the staff. Other perks include free travel on both Indian Railway and business class by air, constituency allowance, daily allowance for signing the parliament roster, free electricity, phone etc. As regards travel, they can make 34 trips to Delhi from their constituencies apart from those for attending meetings. As regards train travel there is no restriction. They are entitled to travel on the highest class along with their spouse besides a companion who can travel second class AC.

The increase in salary amounts to robbing the state treasury because the MPs have voted it for themselves. For the babus the increase in salaries is recommended by periodically appointed pay commissions and are examined and decided by the government. There are two levels of checks and balances when salaries are decided for babus. In the case of MPs, they decide it for themselves This is bad in principle and gives a bad example for the rest of citizens.

Apart from the principle and example angles, MPs don’t deserve any rise if the work they do (or don’t do) is considered. As The Times of India editorially commented, “Our MPs clearly don’t deserve a salary hike. Any pay rise should be linked to performance. But the track record of Indian MPs in the recent past has been poor, to say the least. They have neglected one of their basic duties – crafting and debating legislation. The figures of business conducted in Parliament speak for themselves. The number of sittings of the Lok Sabha has come down from a yearly average of 124 in the first decade of 1952-61 to 81 between 1992-2001, a decline of 32 per cent. For the same period, the decline of Rajya Sabha was 20 per cent. This has had direct impact on the number of Bills passed by Parliament. The annual average of the number of Bills passed has come down from 68 in the first decade to 50 between 1992-2001. This hasn’t got any better in the past few sessions of Parliament. The government could only get six of the 27 planned Bills for the Budget session passed.”

I saw the latest news about Parliament suggestion to give 3G phones to all MPs at http://www.dinamalar.com/News_Detail.asp?Id=37280. What an idea sirji..? They can rise petrol and diesel prices and they can cover the ass of ambani's and mittals. Why should MPs think about that..? Their intention is all about how to fill their bank account with lump some money. Below are few things listed where our MPs aren't thinking about finding solution.

* Bhopal gas tragedy
* Naxalites problem
* Kashmir communal issues
* Coal mine problem in many states

Forget about MPs, think about the media and their duties. I am so happy about the behavior of fourth pillar of indian democracy - media last week. Why should they are caring about all above mentioned issues when they have high profile Dhoni's marriage coverage.? Why should they want to think about people issues. Their only aim is give coverage proportion to fill film stars interviews/cricketer's function. It was ashamed that Headlines Today put flash news about "I hate Love storys" review. Go to hell people..!

The subject is open to many views. What are yours? Over to you.

~Sudhan

Tamil Classical conference - Sheer waste of money and Time

What is Kalaignar? He is Semmozhi(classic). He is the mother of Semmozhi.He is the Rajarajan of our democratic times.

Poet Abdul Rahman, quite a respectable and honourable man generally, was lavishing extraordinary lines mentioned above and praise on the man who has made him Wakf board chief and heaped other awards on him.

It seems Abdul Rahman met the Tamil god and asked her for her address, and she said, ‘care of Kalaignar’!

Meanwhile, the CM, swimming in a sea of praise, has, it seems, asked poets and delegates to praise Tamil mother more and him less. But the so called poets are all asserting that they see Kalaignar as Tamil mother, Tamil father, and Tamil itself. Kalaignar is happy none the less.

In the sea of sycophancy, the heart is gone and one is deaf to the thundering pulse of the sufferings of the people.

There are times when poetry simply disappears in the arid deserts of self-interest.

A classical Tamil session featuring Tamil film lyricists was pity. Most film lyricists don’t have a voice even in their film lyrics! How can you expect them to voice anything meaningful in Tamil! One has to wait for the unputdownable Vali to come and announce, as he did once, that he is a puppy that wags its little tail at Kalaignar as if it were the redoubtable banner of His party!

A few politicians like CPI’s Raja spoke more sensibly "He said that rather than shout ‘engum thamizh, edhilum thamizh’ (Tamil everywhere) one should concentrate on developing thamizh in every domain, saying ‘ingum thamizh, idhulum thamizh’…thamizh in this field..and thamizh in this sphere.

A simple question to the organisers of a multicrore Tamil tamasha: Can a serious Tamil writer make a reasonable living writing only in Tamil?

It is a crying shame.

The Tamils are one of the most corrupt people. You only have to start to demolish an old house and build a new one to find out how far corruption extends. You have to see it to believe how corruption and nepotism rules all life. What happened to the colleges that were found charging huge capitation fees? If every budding engineer and doctor has to cough out lakhs to earn his seat, you can imagine their plan of action for the future.

The politicians should squarely take the blame for turning society into a cesspool of corruption. For, as they say, like king, like citizens.

It is not a question whether Tamil is classic or sick. It is a question of making it an instrument of culture as well as equitable growth. Tamil has stayed with us through thick and thin, and is bound to prosper….but whether self-respecting Tamil writers will be alive till then is the question.

A huge amount is spent, and something trickles down to some good works too. But does not the great and glorious Tamil deserve a more categorical push instead of Praising the family of Karunanidhi..? I don't think this will revive the language... when the day-to-day living in our country is questionable(consistent rise in food prices) who is going to give importance to language except the patriarchal thinker Mr. Karunanidhi...

I just hope these leaders will take steps to revive good Tamil...first they should train their party cadres to speak good Tamil in political meetings, then give their attention to schools.

~Sudhan