Rashomon...

You just need to watch Rashomon to understand why Akira Kurosawa is considered one of the finest directors in world cinema. For most of the viewers, it is an unsolved crime told in an interesting yet different fashion, and he/she can try to arrange the puzzles to form a solution. For movie freaks, it is much more than that; in addition to being a fine work of art, it conveys beautifully a simple message through a complex movie.

One can easily gather from the movie, that the main idea conveyed was that there is no absolute truth. We see 4 different people narrating a story, in completely different ways. While each of them tells their version of the story, the idea expressed is simply how much one’s perspective can distort reality. Or in the deeper sense, that there is no absolute reality. Reality is relative. We could relate it to the story of the blind men and an elephant, where 6 different blind men touch different parts of an elephant and each of them assume, interpret and argue that elephant looks like the part they touched.

Now, probably to what was mainly conveyed through the movie - the rationale behind the different stories. None of them were lying to protect themselves, as one can notice from the bandit’s and the lady’s story, they say they might have killed the samurai. Obviously, protection from law is not what mattered. In the bandit’s story, he glorified himself; he portrayed himself as a brave and a great warrior, who easily lures the lady. In the lady’s story, she portrayed herself as a helpless victim, trying to stand in dignity. In the samurai’s version, he was portrayed as being noble, brave, and the best thing he could do was committing suicide. In the woodcutter’s version, he is portraying each of the 3 characters equally culpable, which makes his act of stealing the dagger a trivial one. Even though, we tend to go with the woodcutter’s story because he is a neutral person, we cannot believe his as well, as he was the only person who admitted that he was lying (earlier).

In each of the version, we see that the person is glorifying themselves. It is not protection from law that mattered, but protecting one’s own ego. In every one’s story, we see the story-teller polishing his character so as to suit his ego. It portrays the insecurity in humans, the fact that no humans can survive without lying to themselves and creating a make-belief world where they seem to be a better person than they actually are. A simple message that no human is completely honest with himself!

All said, probably, the movie also conveys the message that no man is truly evil. One of the important character in the movie, the priest, keeps on saying about his faith in mankind, and in the climax, we see that it is restored. Probably, a subtle message that being a liar or a thief is not the lone way to judge one's character is also included.

Other than the message conveyed in the movie, the way in which the movie unfolds, the way the characters are molded, the way the 3 characters differ in the different versions, the acting, the sensuality of the woman, all plays a great role in shaping the movie into a masterpiece. For instance, the initial scene in which the woodcutter walks through the forest till he finds the dead body is breathtaking. We walk with him, and when he stands still seeing the body, we also freeze. Even such a trivial scene, shot with amazing beauty and intelligence, is what makes Kurosawa one among the best!

Usually, when a movie ends without a climax, or when no solutions are provided to the crime, I end up a bit frustrated (exception being Nolan’s inception). Have to admit though, this one left me fascinated!

Interpreting RuN LoLa rUn..

I prefer to call a movie intelligent, if it keeps us glued till its end, as well as if it keeps us thinking after. With a running time of just over 75 minutes, Run Lola Run accomplishes exactly that! I will not go into the plot here, rather try to point out what I interpreted from the movie.

You meet people in your life, whose life you have no influence on. You rarely matter in their life, and what happens to them is not at all related to your interaction with them. This is portrayed by at least 2 characters Lola meets in the movie, the lady with the baby, and the cyclist. In each of the 3 run’s, the story of the lady (shown as snapshots), and the story of the cyclist is different, and bears no relation to her interaction with them. No matter what our interaction with the person, their life is not influenced by us!

You meet people in your life, whom you certainly have a lot of influence on. The watchman in the bank is set as a classic example. In the 1^st run, he teases Lola initially, and later on he is shown as a person with a good heart, when he says everyone has a bad day. In the 3^rd run, after Lola’s stare, he suffers a cardiac arrest, and while in the ambulance, when the doctors try to restore his heartbeat, she gets in, and she could help it make normal. Lola’s father is set as another example, as in each of the run, his interaction with her is different, and is influenced by what she does to him.

Now, to the two main themes covered, first one, the importance of chaos and random events in daily life. One such example is what happens to Meier in the 3 runs. In the 1^st run, because he turns and looks Lola, he is a bit slow, and his car is being hit by another car. In the 2^nd run, he does not look at Lola, and the other car comes and hit his car. In the 3^rd run, he sees the running person is Lola, and he asks her if anything is wrong. Because of that delay, no accident takes place at that point, however, later in the movie; there is another accident which turns out to be fatal for Meier. Another character who is shown affected by random event is the man who takes the bag from the train. In the 1^st 2 runs, he takes the bag and goes away. In the 3^rd run, he buys the cycle, but Manni meets him in his bicycle, confronts him and takes the bag back. There are many more events in the movie attributed to chaos, like Lola spotting the casino, Manni seeing the homeless man on cycle etc etc.

Now, to what I think was the main message behind the movie. The movie deals about how we can control the chaos or randomness that happens in our life. It illustrates that if we have enough motivating factors (here, it is love), we can, at least up to an extent, control what is going to happen. There are scenes in the movie where Lola asks Manni if he really loves her, and Manni asks what she will do if he is dead. They both want to be with each other, and when they realize that, they change their approaches, and decide to change what happens to them. The 3^rd run, which ends on a happy note, is after both of them are shown realizing that they love each other, and after they decide to control what happens to them.

On a lighter note, you can even think that the movie talks about relations, when Lola is ready to do anything to save her boyfriend; her parents are involved in extramarital relations. Ideally, it is a movie, left to the viewer’s interpretation like any other. Watch it and see it for yourself.

The Indian “economic” system

India is believed to be one of the major growing economies today, and one with a very positive outlook. A country with “Mission 2020”, dreams soaring really high, and huge expectations of turning to a superpower. A small introspection:

What we (middle/ rich class) talk about:

Most of the topics that interest us are concentrated in the entertainment domain. Movies and Cricket contribute for a huge chunk of the small talks, and majority of the debates. The next spot is occupied by fashion, a hot topic particularly among the ladies, and nowadays among men too.

Now, when the fuel prices are up, we start talking about inflation. We draw up comparisons with the previous few years’ prices, and also with the neighboring countries’ prices. Depending on the different levels of income, the different topics discussed in this context will be vegetables, fuel and gold.

Once, or twice in a year, we turn extremely patriotic, and that is when we talk about corruption. The hot topics here will be Anna Hazare and Commonwealth games, closely followed by Baba Ramdev, 2G scam and numerous other scams which the Indian government is very generous to provide us with.

What the media reports:

Most of the daily headlines has something to do with politicians (rather than politics), and is usually about him criticizing his old party/ally or the opposition party.

Whenever there is a hunger strike, the headlines report about corruption, Jan Lokpal, the activists behind it, the celebrity supporters for it, and so on. It is important to note that, even if media plays a good role reporting the scams and corruption, only the major (huge amount) ones get considerable attention.

The rest of the topics that attracts media attention are sports, bollywood and economics. In sports, the main news will be about Cricket, once in a while a comparison of the Olympics team’s achievement with the “huge population” perspective to it. In Bollywood, it is usually the male and female cat fights, and in economics, falling rupee and inflation takes the top spot.

What the government talks about:

During the “corruption season”, the government ensures that all steps will be taken to combat it, and even if Lokpal bill may not be passed, it promises that there will be no more scams, and the system will be cleaned slowly.

During every fuel price rise, inflation will be deeply considered by the finance ministry, and due importance will be given to prevent the downslide of rupee.

The government congratulates the achievements of the Indian cricket team, the Olympics and Commonwealth contingent, appoints different celebrities in the government.   

P.S: The above points are with respect to a usual day. Now, when something unusual happens, like a terrorist/ regional/religious attacks, focus of the 3 groups shift to it. Government talks about Pakistan hands in it, media talks about the failure of Indian intelligence, and we talk about anything and everything related to it for 1-2 days.

The vicious circle

Government speaks about corruption, inflation, sometimes about entertainment. Media reports it, and we also talk about it. We discuss the problems, media reports it, and government solves or promises to solve it. The circle continues, and superficially, everything seems fine (assuming government solves the problems). 

Just that we are missing a “small” point here. All the above points, be it sports, movies, inflation, corruption (big scams), Jan Lokpal, it effectively applies to just around 20 percent of the total Indian population. The “we” formed by the middle and the rich class does not even form one quarter of Indian population.

What actually bothers the majority of Indians:

India is one of the highest producer and exporter of wheat and rice in the world. Agriculture is still the main contributor of Indian economy. Still,

1. 47% of Indian children are malnourished. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.
2. India is home to about 25% of the world's hungry poor.
3. More than half of all pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from anemia. 
4. On an average, 50 farmers commit suicide daily.

All this, despite India being a place where we have a Public Distribution System (PDS), started with an aim of maintaining food security, so that rice and wheat is available to the poorest of the poor at very low cost.

Where does it go wrong? The simplest answer that comes to my mind is corruption. Not the big scams, not the multi crore network /sports/coal scams, but the small ones in the PDS. Certain minor aspects like deserving people not getting the BPL card, and the undeserving possessing it. PDS being actively involved in black market and selling the food products at a higher price to other shops, PDS adulterating the remaining food items and selling it to the poor, food products reaching PDS very late due to inefficiency in the system, and huge stocks getting rotten year after year, poor people not being aware of the existence of such PDS systems. 

Neither the media, nor us, or the government, play a role in educating the poor about the system. No media reports about the small scams, no one talks about it. No debates are held by the middle class about hunger, no one wants to think about it. Even if everyone is aware of it, we just shut our mind away from it, all because we do not want to go out of our comfort zone. We do not want to think about it and get disturbed, media do not get any considerable profit from it, and the government is rarely bothered by it.

How much ever we progress economically, whatever is our GDP, if the majority of the people are hungry, and are deprived of the basic human necessities, then what use is it? I wonder if there will be a time when the national indicators are hunger, poverty and malnutrition, rather than GDP and per capita income. I wonder if there will be a time when the economic situation of a country is determined by the number of un-fed stomachs, rather than by the value of currency. A time when media concentrates on the real news troubling the majority of the population, rather than touching superficial matters. Above all, I wonder, if there will be people amongst us, willing to get rid of the comfort zone we are in, sacrifice our riches, and fight and strive for the basic rights of the poor. In my humble opinion, India can start its race to be a super power then.

Capital Punishment

There was a time when people were executed by boiling, crushing by elephants, devouring by alligators and crocodiles, tearing apart by horses, burning alive, removing skin from the body, decapitating, breaking back, and even cooking to death. Most, if not all of these executions were carried out by the then governments, and were in accordance to the laws that existed.

The various governments around the world establishes different fundamental rights, including the right to equality, education, freedom of speech, cultural rights, right against exploitation and many others. However, one cannot deny that the most fundamental of all rights is the right to live, or in other words, the right not to get killed. Interestingly, the importance of this right discussed in the context of capital punishment is rare, compared to those of euthanasia, abortion or wars. Is this because the "unconditional" right to life is just an illusion?

One question that I had asked myself for quite some time is what grants the government, the right to kill people. Is it a certain set of books which has a system of rules to regulate the behavior of countrymen that we call today as “law”? Or is it a tribunal presided over by people who have expertise in the so called regulating rules? Then, why is it that the killer cannot believe in his group of advisors, and his rule-books, which asks him to kill others! How come, it is “illegal” when an ordinary person kills and “legal” when the government does it? Isn’t the concept of law and legality relative?

Generally speaking, the principle that binds together human life is not law, but morality. If you consider the moral aspect of killing, you tend to observe that you are talking about matter in vacuum. There is absolutely no morality in killing, whoever the killer is, be it the person we tag as a criminal, or the system we refer to as the government.

The only argument which I had for supporting capital punishment is that it will be a deterrent for similar crimes in future. But again, if you think about it, do you think serial killers and rapists consider their potential demise via capital punishment? Do you think they are scared and their “psycho” mindset is bothered by capital punishment? Criminals, especially psychologically affected ones, operate with the belief that they never get caught. Now, coming to terrorists or religious fanatics, they are people who are ready to operate as suicide bombers. And you think capital punishment is going to change them from committing crimes or terror?

One thing which we all easily forget is that there is no “un-do” option in life. By killing the person who committed the crime, we are not “un-do”ing /cannot “un-do” the crimes committed by him. Of course, we can prevent him from committing future crimes, but that can be prevented by far better means than killing. Depending upon the level of crime, people think that retribution is the only option, and that is mostly because they are driven by emotions, rather than by logic. The very basic fact that most of us ignore is that killing one person is never “more right” than killing someone else.

After reading the methods of execution that existed earlier, we feel happy that the world has “evolved”. Decapitation, boiling and cooking has undergone “reforms” and are now replaced by quicker electrocution, lethal injection and hanging. However, on deeper analysis, we understand that there has been no significant change. We have just changed the method of execution, we might have reduced the torture associated with it, but execution as such still exists, and it will exist as long as there are like minded people supporting it.

Indeed, a male chauvinist world!

According to Captain Lakshmi, a society will be independent, only if it has achieved political, economic and social independence. Even after 60 years of political independence, social development, or rather social equality, i.e. equality of all, irrespective of religion, caste, gender, class, color, etc etc is one thing the Indian society is definitely lacking in. 

We live in a country, where the Woman’s Bill is tabled in the parliament, which if passed will ensure 33% of the seats for women in the Lower House of the Parliament. We live in an era where we have reservations for women in Post Graduation courses in some of the country’s best institutes.  We have separate compartments for women in train, separate seats in bus, even separate school buses. In spite of all this, have women achieved equality? Do women need reservation or do they need respect? Are we promoting respect and equality to women through reservation? And lastly, has the society degraded so much that respect for someone needs to be “promoted”?

One incident, which was in the limelight for a while (till the media manages to get TRP ratings for that), was the Park Street rape case in Kolkata. The victim, who was at a pub, was offered lift by a guy, following which she was gang raped at gun point.  Our thoughts are plagiarized in such a way that, whenever we hear of any such news, we start questioning the morality of the victim involved, as the victim is of the “weaker” sex. Questions arise from all corners, as why she was in the pub, why did an “Indian woman” consume alcohol, why did she accept a lift in the first place, and the conclusion “She deserved it” creeps naturally in our mind that we do not even think twice about it.

Forming these conclusions is made easier by the fact that most of the bureaucrats and politicians, whom we look up to, start questioning her morality (in some cases, publicly). There have been several instances where these “educated” officials attribute such cases to “indecent” behavior from the female’s part. For instance, the police officers for the Park Street rape case mocked her and used the fact that she was in the pub to (mis)judge her character. In spite of being raped, a situation in which no one could even imagine the physical and mental trauma associated, she has to suffer mockery and that too from the people responsible to find the culprits!

The Chief Minister of the state in the above case, a female herself, claimed that the case was fabricated to malign the government. How much more insensitive and ignorant can the leader of the state be! The recent story of the girl, who was molested in Guwahati, and many others, are not a bit different. No wonder, rapes are considered so casual, and the culprits walk scot free.

Now, these are the stories that reach the public. What about the countless other cases! We live in a society where females suffer more, after the physical rape. She tries her best by fighting against the sexual advances of the “stronger” counterpart, till she is beaten up, and forced upon. Regardless of this, after the incident, it is she who bears the brunt. And, in spite of her trauma, she will be forced to hush, not to react, and will be without any support or a shoulder to lean on.

We never think twice of our ability to judge anyone, especially females. We want her to follow a certain set of moral rules that we (males/society) created for our own benefits. Regardless of their comfort, we want her to be dressed fully, regardless of her taste, we want her not to consume alcohol, regardless of her career interest, we want her to sit at home and raise our kid, regardless of her love interest, we just want her to get married off to some guy from a “decent” family and the list just goes on. If she tries to break the rules, the whole society including the males and females, unite against her. If she does anything against the stereotyped rules, if she loves a guy, or if she gets raped (as if it is her fault), the cruelty that she has to face varies from isolating and ignoring her to honor killing.

Respect towards women is not something that comes easily, especially in our society. We (males) consider it “mission accomplished” when we touch the privates of a woman when she is in a bus. Why consider a bus, even in the queues inside a temple, where people stand to get “salvation”, this is quite common. Even the minor aspects, like whistling, or singing certain songs when women walk in front of us, have to be stopped. The portrayal of women in the media, movies, and all other entertainment sources should undergo a complete revamp. Her opinions have to be considered in making family decisions, and ultimately, every kid should be brought up in such a family, where women are not considered inferior, or for that matter even separate.

According to Morgan Freeman, the best way to get rid of racism is not to talk about it. Let our kids grow up in a society, where separate rights are not even talked about, a world where women and men are considered different only because of the physical aspects. That is the only way we can establish social equality, gender-wise.

P.S: Ashamedly I admit, I had been one among the overwhelming majority, thinking just like the ones I described above. However, now that my perspectives are changing, so are my thoughts and my approach.

Born naked...

Are we sure that babies are born naked in this world? Like the answer to any stupid question, the response for this also usually ranges from sarcasm to insult.

Ok, no babies are born with clothes, but on a second thought, we come across different ‘categories’ to which a physically and mentally sound baby is born into.

The first and the most obvious one is whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Of course, you need to distinguish the baby as a boy or as a girl. If the baby is a boy, everything appears fine. If a girl, we need to think about when to stop her education, get her married, when to start purchasing gold for her marriage, how to deal with her boyfriends and the list goes on and on and on.

Ok, now onto the region. The baby will be born in a particular district of a particular state of a particular country in any one of the seven continents.

Now, the next classification, religion. The baby is born to a Hindu/Christian/Muslim father and a Hindu/Christian/Muslim mother, who also gain their religion just because they were born to similar parents and the hierarchy just keeps on going higher, until you stop counting.

Now, that we have decided the religion, something more interesting comes up – the caste. The baby can be born as a SC, Varma, ST, Dalits, Menon, Ezhava, Nair, Brahmin, Roman Catholic, Latin Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Jacobite, Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim,  Wahhabi Muslim, Sufi Muslim and the list just keeps on growing bigger and bigger. There are again sub classifications for the caste, and I am not going so far!

As if none of this is enough, in many places, especially in India, you even decide the career for them. You want them to be a doctor/engineer/C.A or anything which you deem they will prosper with.

Even before you cut the umbilical cord off from the baby, you have planned out a majority of the kid’s life. You have decided whom all the kid should fear, who all can exploit him/her, who all can be friendly with him/her, which religions he/she should respect, which castes should he/she belong to and subsequently which all castes are different from his/hers. You have a whole list of things which identifies your kid different from other kids. Knowingly or unknowingly, you teach and preach inequality. 

Of course, the baby knows nothing when he/she is born, and it is important that we plan things out. The question lies in the rigidity, or more of flexibility in the above plans, as and when the kid grows up. Are we flexible enough to allow them to choose the religion they like to follow when they grow up? Are we flexible enough to allow an inter-religious/inter-caste/inter-country marriage? Will it be fine for us, if they decide a future for themselves, a future which they feel will be good for them? 

And when you ponder over the reason of rigidity, it all boils down to ‘society’ and ‘culture’. Ultimately, you feel that if your kid chooses to do something different from the “normal” practice, it is not according to what the society deems them to do. Your fear for the society, and respect for culture is more than your love for your kid. And, you just fail to understand that society and culture are nothing else, but human creations which have evolved over time, again and again. You ignore the fact that today’s “normal” practice was not normal long before, and there were changes that made it normal today.

And when we start accepting that only change is permanent, we start thinking differently. That is when we start evolving, start contributing to tomorrow’s society, a place where the future generations might think of the changed rules as another "rigid" set.

“Reasonable” Religion

More often than not, there have been questions asked about religion, if god exist or not, if he exists, what exactly does the invisible supernatural power do, and more importantly, if the religion proposed by him/her is reasonable or not. So, I just thought of writing something which proves how much reasonable religion is. Being an Indian, I see mainly Hindus, Christians and Muslims around me. So, let us ponder a bit about the origins of these religions here, and see how reasonable they are.

Let me start with a disclaimer note here. People who feel offensive need not read this, as the contents are definitely going to be offensive. The below content is my view point (clubbed with some other statements which I got from internet). Some of the facts stated might be wrong, but those are the stories I heard when I grew up.

As most of us know, the story of Christians started with god creating man on the sixth day of the 7-day long process. After a while, he created woman from a part of his body. Reasonable indeed, creation of universe in 7 days, and woman from a part of man’s body. Now, comes the funnier part. These 2 nudists, took dietary advice from a talking snake, had sex, blamed the snake for the sex, leading god to curse the snake, so that it loses it legs (along with its vocabulary skills), explaining why it crawls now, just making the “hiss” sound. Charles Darwin must be stunned to see his theory of evolution travelling on a reverse gear!

Now, coming to the origin of Islam, one of the youngest religions. Some say, Islam took off from Christianity, and for them the above story might suffice. Some others believe that God forgave Adam and Eve, and sent them down from heaven to earth (may be to have more sex). Wow, that makes life interesting right, another place (so called “heaven”), other than earth to have sex! And according to the majority, God existed before Prophet Mohammed did, and prophet was just a literal translator of what the god said. So, god gave this book to the angel Gabriel, who travelled from heaven to earth (in the reverse direction), and gave this to Prophet Mohammed, who just noted down the points in Arabic. Quite reasonable!

Being brought up (not born, but brought up) as a Hindu, I have countless similar “reasonable” stories about Hinduism as well. However, I will focus on some of the important stories. In one scripture, you have this young girl who wanted to have a child at any cost. Imagine who all made this happen! First in the queue was none other than “Sun”. Yeah, what we call today as a star filled with Hydrogen and Helium apparently was not filled with the same gases those days. I hope you noticed it, Mr. Galilieo, Copernicus and Kepler! Now, the next members up in the queue to do the same “stuff” were “death”, “wind” and so on. There are other scriptures in which another god steps on a stone, turning it to a beautiful lady, another one where god disguises, comes to earth as fish, tortoise, a kid who stamps on an emperor to send him deep beneath the earth, and what not! Again, very very reasonable! 

Most of us in the present generation, when we grow old enough, do not believe these stories. However, most of us believe that god exists, and religions are good enough. But just think of what all happened because of the so called religion. Christian crusades, honor killing, human and animal sacrifices,  Spanish colonization of Latin America and slaughtering their tribes and tearing down temples to build churches, attempted annihilation of the Jews by Hitler, the war between Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, suicide bombings, circumcision of little boys, to state a few!

I will conclude with a statement which I saw in internet yesterday. Know “how to think” rather than “what to think”. For the same reason, I am stopping this here abruptly, go ahead and think!