What is Beauty ?

When I realize while reading a book the reason why Author chose to write a sentence in this way and not some other.The order and the choice of certain words which he decided upon while writing to convey a certain meaning and not some other,and the fact that I got it; That is beauty.

When I see a guitarist performing on the stage, his head tilted down to see the fretboard ,his fingers moving faster and faster to reach other chord or node, he himself oblivious to the world around him leave alone the audience.When to him the whole world is reduced to his guitar.This picture of a man oblivious of the world,his head tilted, with a slightly bent knee to support the guitar; being in front of our eyes still in some other world.He might be a novice in his PR gimmicks so typical of rockstars, his other worldiness simply makes me gasp for breath.That is beauty.

When I sit on the stones beside the river in my hometown.I hear the sound of the flowing water, looking at the soothing green of the mountain forest in front of me.I can feel the coldness of the stones, an effect of being so near to the river and for so long.I look at the most beautiful blue of the sky and I shudder with my desire for somebody to be sitting beside me there at that very moment.It is neither the blue sky nor the soothing green of the forest, it is neither the clear water flowing beneath me and nor even that 'somebody', It is the plain and simple desire that I had at that moment..that is beauty.

The fact that everytime I try to grasp the meaning of beauty, decide upon something common between all the things beautiful,I fail miserably because I always find something,somebody beautiful in its own way ....that my dear friend is BEAUTY.

Stay Beautiful(I like orkut ;-) )

Munna Meets Mahatma

"I'm back" says our Desi Arni aka sanju baba aka Munnabhaai & guess what ?? Circuit is there too to take us all on a "journey of a lifetime"(fitting, despite of being such a cliche).
Last Saturday ,I finally watched Lagey Raho Munnabhai (LRM) & I admit I was late in doing so.Reason being no time and no tickets on weekends so typical of Bangalore(in Munnabhai lingo ,"Timeich nahin tha apun ke paas aur uper se Ticket ka much much).Lucky as I always am(no pun intended),I got a ticket for the 10 PM show.I was a little concerned about getting back home at such late hour after the movie..but anything for Munnabhai :-)

Now something abt the movie : wonderful script,brilliant direction,outstanding performances(Circuit still rulz !!) and overall an honest effort to make a good movie.Is it better than Munnabhai MBBS ??..well I guess any such comparisons will be unfair.They both are different movies ..wonderful in their own ways.Nonetheless both are result of dedicated ,genuine and honest hard work.

When you work hard and honest, it shows and when you pay fashion designer and stylists you end up with KANK(Can't hold my disgust over that piece of crap any longer).2006 has been a good year for Bollywood.Both in terms of revenues and in terms of good movies(mind you,there is no correlation between the two).So far we have seen movies like RDB,Omkara,"Krissh"(no eyebrow raising here, please ;-) ).I am not counting FANAA and KANK ,because they were hit more because of the pre-release hoopla they generated and less because of their being any good .Both movies were crappy and dull like a silver fish in an old book.I mean how many times do we have to bear SRK stuttering to say 'Sh**' before we die with frustration ?

Now after leaving all this 'critique'(big word..nahin ?) behind and forgiving me for a digression let me tell you honestly & loudly,I loved LRM.We laughed at Circuit and Munna's evergreen repartee,paid attention to meaningful(beautiful too) words of the old Mahatma, felt morose with the old men's troubles of the old age,felt cheered up with them when Muna came to their rescue and before we knew ..the show was over.It was magic.Magic of simplicity, honesty and of a benevolent desire to tell us something we don't want to know.LRM is a good movie ,but what makes it a great movie is its attempt to reincarnate Gandhian values.Gandhi is 'KOOL' again.Munna is again the Mr.Fix-it-all,but this time no ghoda(gun), no connmanship and no lies, just the good ol' values of love and truth.

All the solutions to our problems are very simple and staight in the face, it is our refusal to see them that makes them so complex.In the words of Rishikesh Mukherjee,"It is so simple to be difficult,but it is so difficult to be simple". Baapu just reiterates this simple truth to us in LRM.LRM doesn't preaches, it just reopens the age old debate of Violence v/s non'violence.It does not passes any verdict rather it tells a sweet story of a gold-hearted goon dabbling with gandhian values. But you learn something along the way, atleast feel that Gandhi wasn't as outdated as we like to think.

So simple are these values, you commit a mistake ,say sorry and MEAN IT.Speak the truth ,it is the real shortcut to whatever you want.Be Honest.Isn't that something we already know.But it is the hardships of growing up that made us oblivious to the goodness(or badness) of these values.Take it easy and sab chalta hai is our attitude.I guess we learnt very fast and unlearn these simple things even faster.

Gandhi is not outdated.It's us who have chosen the seemingly easier and wrong path.It is our inablity to withstand against the corruption that is very in'dated' but it is leading us all to a precarious situation. Even I am feeling a little guilty while writing these lines.Am I any more true to Gandhian values than you ?? Well...my mortified conscience won't be able to answer this embarrasing question.Still the answer is out there ...blowing in the wind.But I suspect if anybody else is in better situation than me .We are all the same and that's such a pity.

Does LRM serves any higher purpose than making money for its producer and tickling some of our funny bones ?? Maybe yes ,maybe no..but if it stimulates you enough to even read or to know more about Gandhi and his ideology....Then I bet it does.

I have seen the movie...and now I m looking forward to read a book called 'My experiments with truth " by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.I am certain now ..it will be worth it.

stay beautiful !! [Orkut.com's signature ..but I guess I can use it without any copyright issues...
:-) ]

PS:
On a lighter note,Vidya Balan looks like a million bucks as always.I couldn't help feeling a little lost when she was onscreen.

Ah ! the same old inexplicable mystique of female beauty (...sigh...)

Sing Song

Once upon a time, we used to sing a song ,
In the morning assembly, with the sound of a gong.

we hardly knew what it meant,and never did we care,
everybody sang it ,nobody was spared.

'Hail the motherland' it said, all that we knew.
nobody objected ,neither me nor you.

Some of us sang it,some simply stood,
we weren't bothered if it was for bad or for good.

when the assembly broke ,we ran for the game,
and again as usual we became all the same.

Nobody was applauded for the way he sang,
and everybody of us was just one simple gang.

I see it now ,we were such a fool,
That song wasn't a song but it was a tool.

it will tell us who love the country and how much is his love
and care not for a moment ,if it kills the white dove.

Travelling Thru'

This is a beautiful song written,composed and performed by Dolly Parton as an Original Soundtrack for the Movie "Transamerica".In the movie it symbolizes the journey of a Transsexual going through a Gender change in more than singular ways.But if you keep aside the movie for a while, it won't take much to realize that there is something for everybody in this song.

It befuddles me to see Dolly Parton(An architypal dumb looking blonde..that too with cosmetic surgery done all over her face), and then read this song ,with such depths of meanings.How she managed to write something sooooooooo GOOD ?? Well..Maybe Agent Smith was right when he said "Appearances can be deceiving at times ,Mr.Anderson" in "Matrix Reloaded".Lemme shut up now and just read on....

Travellin' Thru:

Well I can't tell you where I'm going, I'm not sure of where I've been
But I know I must keep travelin' till my road comes to an end
I'm out here on my journey, trying to make the most of it
I'm a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fit
Like a poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I'm just a weary pilgrim trying to find what feels like home
Where that is no one can tell me, am I doomed to ever roam
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' on

Questions I have many, answers but a few
But we're here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth
We've all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
And when I'm born again, you're gonna see a change in me

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus if you're listening, keep me ever close to you
As I'm stumblin', tumblin', wonderin', as I'm travelin' thru

I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru

Oh sometimes the road is rugged, and it's hard to travel on
But holdin' to each other, we don't have to walk alone
When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try
We can make a world of difference, if we want to we can fly

Goodbye little children, goodnight you handsome men
Farewell to all you ladies and to all who knew me when
And I hope I'll see you down the road, you meant more than I knew
As I was travelin', travelin', travelin', travelin', travelin' thru

I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin'
Drifting like a floating boat and roaming like the wind
Oh give me some direction lord, let me lean on you
As I'm travelin', travelin', travelin', thru

I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru
I'm just travelin', travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' thru

Like the poor wayfaring stranger that they speak about in song
I'm just a weary pilgrim trying to find my own way home
Oh sweet Jesus if you're out there, keep me ever close to you
As I'm travelin', travelin', travelin', as I'm travelin' thru

Education Ho !!

British left us almost 60 years ago.They gave us a lot of things, some good, some bad.The red tape culture of bureaucracy was bad,using meritocracy to select a bureaucrates was good.Giving us a judicial system which will take years to punish the guilty was bad but which will make sure that an innocent is never punished was good.It might be queTheir intentions of giving it to us might be questionable but the benefits that we Indians have reaped out of it are undeniable.

If an organization is an auotomobile, communication is the neccessary lubricant to make the ride smooth.Because of a significant English-speaking population, India has this lubricant in plenty and hence proved as an ideal answer for big organization's ever increasing human resources needs.Here the Macauley's system of education gave Indians a crucial edge over any other developing country.Macauley wanted Indians to learn english so that they can be employed effectively in Indian affairs of British administration.He understood that communication will be a crucial factor in governing India.He never speculated about how this will affect India--after independence, for the simple reason that 'Independent India' was to him an impossibility.

Education is instrumental for an individual to gain wealth and respect in Indian society.This reason made our parents to give education of their children utmost priority(here i am counting only those parents who had the means and enough sense to think about their child's welfare).When most of the world was busy producing managers, artists, fashion designers, musicians etc.Indian were busy teaching their kids Maths, Science and English as they believed it is the only way to get a prosperous and stable future.Getting into an IIT is like a dream coming true to any Indian student even today.

We invested a lot in having many institutes with particular stress on science and engineering colleges .Now every year we see lakhs of engineers coming out in the market.Their quality is not so consistent but what matters is that they all have dreams in their eyes and will do almost anything to make them come true.And what may seem to the world an underpaid job, in India, it still is somebody's dream coming true.

And finally all this investment and plans are paying off in India becoming World Brain mine.Indians are now considered a talent pool that is as smart as their western counterpart, if not better and at the same times, is ridiculously cheap and speaks the language of the world. So if i am business man, it makes a lot of sense to hire and train Indians if it is feasible.

So.. where do go from here ? where lies the future ? My best guess would be to say 'some place nice' but ONLY IF we plan today and face the challenges that need our immediate attention.The picture is still not as rosy as we all would like to believe.The fact that 3/4 th of the professionals we produce every year are coming from only 1/4 of the total population indicates that there is still lot to be desired from the present situation.Until ,unless we work for a better educational infrastructure ,making education accessible to every section of the society, the dream of India Shining will remain only a mirage to us.The good news is that, if we stick to the fundamentals we can do it.They may vary a little here and a little there but following points broadly sums them up( i hope so ) :

1.Invest more in primary and secondary education , providing compulsory education to underprivileged classes should be priority.More participation will only increase quality and quantity of the human reasource.It will also provide the social equality that provides any economy the political stability it requires to bloom.

2.Start paying your teachers more, make teaching a lucrative profession as a teacher may decide finally the fate of hundreds of our children.

3.India's core strength lies in teaching their kids Science and Maths ,stick to it .This world will require far more engineers than we will be able to produce.Quality higher education and enough infrastructure to meet industry demands needs to be the call of the time.

4.Increase the focus and funding for the R&D projects going in industry and educational institutions.It won't be reaping immediate benefits but research projects of today becomes outrageously successful product or technology of tommorow ,so essential for any stable and booming economy.

5.Increase the industry-academia participation, it will be a symbiotic relationship beneficial for both.

I admit it is always easier said than done, but a blog can only help you in putting forth your opinion.Rest is upto the people who read it and who wrote it in the first place.If we want to do something we will always find a way.But BEING AWARE is the first step for any worthy cause and I feel elated to say that we have taken that one CRUCIAL step.

Aufwiedersehen!! ( Until we meet again in german)