Vintage Cartoons

I'm neck deep in work and I don't know how to swim out of it. It's going to be like this till this Friday. Hopefully, I should be back on track by Monday. Till then, TCP expressed some interest in flicking some cartoons. So these are exclusively for TCP to pinch. I got these as a forward and they were called "Vintage Cartoons."

Do you remember your childhood?

TCP is celebrating 100 postings of comics today. And that made me think about somethings in my childhood. Like these charts. Remember them?

So, I have suddenly found myself a new hobby. Yes, I am collecting them. They have a kitchy cool factor that I cannot get enough of.

<---This one is called "Safety First," I think.

Long time

Yes, it's been a while. My sincere apologies to all. This hiatus was a combination of having nothing to say and loads of work. Thanks all those who came by to debate the age-old debate of science vs religion, experiment vs faith. I knew it's a controversial topic and I can see both sides's points of view. I know what my reclusive friend had to say in response but he is not comfortable to put that down here.

Guest column: In defence of atheism

Vee had posted this forward about God. A friend of mine read it and has something to say. This is his reaction. When I asked him permission to post it, this is what he had to say, “Yeah, if you like to. I said forwards like this are an insult to atheists. We are not dumb you know. We have reasons not to believe in god.”

According to him, this forward should be read in the light of the following:

· The current Bush government in the US has approved studies of Creationism along with Evolution in some states. There is strong propaganda in US now against Evolution.
· Bush has claimed that God acts through him.
· Bush wants to keep his right wing political supporters (churches etc), all whom believe in creationism, happy.
· Creationism is taught in Dover area and Kansas state is propagating against teaching evolution in schools.

This is what he had to say:

Well lads and ladies, sorry to be the spoilsport here. After reading Nothings Aplenty's little "Note", I couldn't stop myself from saying this. Two things provoked me to do this,

1) The article itself: It was cleverly structured and highly manipulative and wants to look mighty intelligent. Though disguised as something happened, it is clearly a work of fiction.
2) The way you guys reacted to this manipulative junk. It is like watching bunch of people snorting chalk powder just because it looked like cocaine.

This is my counter point: The characterization of the story is flawless (If you think Adrian Lyne's movies have flawless characters, that is). The Student is level headed, a believer and a courageous guy (and Muslim in some versions and Christian in some other, sometimes it is Einstein himself). The Professor is arrogant, and an idiot.

The story kickstarts by establishing the professor first. He asks a string of questions in a rude manner. The Student on the other hand stays silent almost respectful. Before the student utters a word, I am sure we all have started hating professor for his arrogance. Then when student answers back writer uses phrases like, "The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events" and "There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre" to emphasise David's feat over Goliath. Then when he emerges victorious we have sentences like "The class is in uproar" and "The class breaks out into laughter" to decorate it. All is well if we are reading, "Who moved my faith?" in paperback. If the arguments are good I would have been impressed with the narration here, but here is where argument fails.

Argument: "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain."

This shows how ignorant the student is about science. Science doesn't confirm absence of something if you can't feel, touch or smell it... Science goes by inferences, the Professor can walk, talk, and read. This infers that professor does have brain. And if you still don't buy that, we can scan professor's head anytime. Can't we?

Argument: "Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?"

Same again, Evolution need not be seen to be proven, there are thousands of inferences - Fossil records and such. Evolution is by no means an opinion. There are thousands of scientific papers written on Evolution. And anyone is welcome to prove Evolution is wrong with logical scientific arguments. That's the beauty of science. Anyone can contribute, and can come up and say, "Hey, this is wrong". Every year new things are found and science is under constant change. It always will be a work in progress. Need I have to talk about about religions in this context?

Argument: "Science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one."

Science doesn't use electricity and magnetism, we use it in science and in every day life (Clearly writer wants to alienate the reader from science). Science explains electricity and magnetism, it gives mathematical formulae to help us understand them and use them.

Argument: "Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.""Sir. Darkness is the absence of something." (light)"Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it."

Did any one, even the professor in the story stated otherwise? This is a sermon like speech typical of religious preachers and proves nothing. To top it all, statements are all scientific.

Argument: "Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good god and a bad god. You are viewing the concept of god as something finite, something we can measure."

Well argument is - who created Evil if god is good and if he created everything? The Student clearly does not answer that. If he says working on "the premise of duality" does not explain god then what is the premise to explain god?

I don't have anything against faith. There are far more sensible arguments supporting faith out there. Electricity, computers, super-conductors, satellites - these are products of Science. Science is direct product of knowledge. Classical faith in religion and God are byproducts of lack of this scientific knowledge. No religion proposes convincing manifestation of god in the light of knowledge we possess about the universe today. Agnostics are in urgent need of redefining god (anyways Theists don’t). Forwards like this are more anti-science than pro-faith. It disturbs me when people take in all that they read. Of all that we eat, we only digest a bit and the rest is thrown out of the body. We are intelligent species. Why can’t we do the same with what we read?

My word cloud

Beth made hers and I just had to try it out! If you want to make your own word cloud, go here.

V day

To everyone who can read this: a very happy V day. It does not mean much to me otherwise. It is just like any other day. Except today, Zee surprised me with a beautiful deep orangish red sun flower! Thanks so much! Yesterday, when I went to Odyssey, the neighbourhood's most commercial "leisure store" (that's how they market themselves now: books, CDs, pens, pencils, posters, chocolates all in one breath). I went to get more postcards for the Postcrossing Project. There were red thermocol hearts pasted on the glass windows of the store and some pink and red stringy ribbons hanging from the walls. Not to forget the heart shaped red balloons! (And I thought love came in all shapes and sizes!) All in all an ugly effect. Imagine if Saint Valentine was taken to a a store like this? He would get a heart attack. (No pun intended!)

When radio confessions rule: Rang De Basanti

I saw RDB (that's what Rang De Basanti is called nowadays) about a week back but have been too lazy to put up a review. Vee beat me to it and that is okay. So let me attempt a Beth-style review.

*Warning: Spoilers ahead*

But before that here is the story: A young British woman Sue (Alice Patten, daughter of ex-governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten) comes to India following her dream of making a documentary about the freedom fighters. She is inspired by her grandfather's diary an old leathered book which she embraces from time to time. Her grandfather was one of the Police officers who saw the undaunting spirit of the freedom fighters first hand and sympathised (only in spirit) with them. But he is not like the others (read General Dyer and co) because he is only doing his duty much against his will. Anyways, after Sue's funds have been cut off rather ruthlessly, she comes to India to make her documentary anyway. Her friend and contact Sonia (Soha Ali Khan Pataudi) helps her to audition students for the role but it is all in vain. On a trip to meet Sonia's friends, Sue finds her screen freedoms fighters right within the friends group. And there begins a journey of filmmaking and discovery for the 5 friends. They find a voice, a purpose, a life, and one of them even finds love. But this utopian picture is rudely ruptured right after the interval as one of the jacket-wearing friends (Madhavan) gets killed while on duty as an Indian Air Force pilot because of the inexpensive and defective engine was bought from Russia. The Defence Minister (Dr. Mohan Agashe) covers his back by laying the blame on the efficiency of the pilot while the friends seethe in anger. On an impulse, they decide to kill the Defence Minister to get justice for their dear departed friend, influenced as they were by the actions of the freedom fighters. In the end, they realise their mistake but by then they are too late.

• One of the protagonists is 40 years old and almost looks it but plays a 25 year old and that is okay in Bollywood because he is one of the well known faces in the cast. Aamir himself was supposed to have raised some doubts about this incongrueity but he was waved off by the director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.
• The youthful camaderie is captured well all through the film. I felt almost like an invisible member of their group.
• The parallels drawn between the freedom fighters and these 5 misguided youth were unnecessary but the crux of the movie used to explain the motivations of the characters. I find it a poor device. No amount of desh bhakti can cancel out the fact that taking a life is all right. Which is why they have to be sacrificed in the end.
• The director knows this generation well and that comes through in this movie. However, I find it a bit incongrous that only the Muslim friend Aslam is shown as belonging to a lower middle class background whereas the rest seem to be quite well off.
• Soha Ali Khan finally has something to be proud off. She just wasn't fitting into the bikini-clad tenee wenee roles that were coming her way.
• However, Madhavan and Soha where like ebony and ivory. Their pair didn't gel that well like the other pair of Alice and Aamir.
• Alice Patten is one actor to look out for. She knows what to do in front of the camera. I'm not surprised to know that she has done theatre before. In the version that I saw, she was speaking English till she landed in India and then suddenly started thinking in Hindi (we know it thanks to the voice overs), which was slightly bizarre because no matter how many languages you learn, you don't start thinking in the respective language.
• Radio confessions make the airwaves since all other modes of communication are outmoded or just not convenient or quick enough. I would have thought TV would be apt but then I realised that radio is a better because of its reach and lack of visuals. While it was funny in Frasier, here it just turns tragic with the young guns (with guns) confess their righteous wrong to the entire country.
• Kiron Kher and Waheeda Rehman make some memorable cameos.
• The parallel plot with Lakshman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) and Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) was a necessary digression.
• Atul Kulkarni gets my vote as the best actor of the entire film. Yes, you have heard me right. Very few actors give me the goosebumps and he is one of them. The scene where he says sorry is one of the few scenes that I can remember without effort.
• Can one forget the songs? Entirely hummable and melodious. Hats off to A.R. Rehman! Apni toh Pathshala, Ru Ba Ru, the rap Pathshala by Blaaze were so well woven into the story that I didn't notice them at all. The score was almost perfect with songs that tugged at the heart strings. (How's my Bollywood language coming along?)
• The cinematography was ooh la la simply superb with intriguing angles and a fresh perspective.
• I will defintely credit RDB with bringing words like Pathshala back into vogue.
• About fighting the system, I didn't get what the message was. Was the message of the movie was "Go fight the sytem, but at your own risk" or "There is no comparison with our freedown fighters" or "Pick your battles" or "Fight your battles but don't look at the outcome"?

So, while RDB is no classic and has no intentions of being one, you can go watch it for complete wholesome entertainment. It is definetly better than most movies coming out of the Bollywood film mill. The only sore point? I didn't get to see Aamir Khan on a horse thanks to the animal rights controversy.

Nadira: Kabhi alvida na kehna

"I always wanted to be a great actress rather than a star, and never had that star thing even though I was treated like one. I never had the tantrums." – Nadira

Have you noticed how artists (especially actors) who have gone past their prime are relegated to the bottom shelf of memory? And the media digs them up for a one line news item for a day (or two if they are ailing), half a day or less, if it’s a website. Another actor passes on. Another day is born. No one cares. When this veteran actor of films like Shri 420, Pakeezah, Julie and Sagar was admitted to Tardeo’s Bhatia Hospital on Friday, she hadn’t eaten in two weeks.

So Nadiraji has left this world for a better place. After a struggle with an illness. But she remains immortal now thanks to the movies she made. Who doesn’t remember “Mudh mudh ke na dekh?” Many tributes are popping up over the Net. Some have called her a “sophisticated vamp.” But this trendsetter vamp was born in Israel as Florence Ezekiel. In fact, her only living relative her brother still lives there.

[Just thinking aloud: Why is it that Hindi cinema’s vamps back then, like Nadira and Helen, were all imported (Isreal graciously gave Nadira and Burma Helen) from outside India? Did India think that Indian women couldn’t be “bad” not even on screen?]

The Cartoon Controversy

I have been hearing about the Danish cartoon controversy for a long time now. But today I decided to check out what the controversy was about exactly. Why is it people are threatned by it?

This is why.

A picture a day 4

©JK

A picture a day 3

©JK

A picture a day 2

©JK

A picture a day 1

©JK

Strictly for film buffs

After Bicycle Thieves, I tried to to find some intelligent analyses of cinema. This is a site that I stumbled onto. It's called Strictly Film School. The films are listed alphabetically and there are intelligible write ups on the movies you are looking for. Very useful, if you are/want to be a future film critic or reviewer. Also useful if you want to get more than a surface-level knowledge of some of the best of world's cinema. The icing on the cake? Ritwik Ghatak, Govind Nihalani, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Mrinal Sen, and of course Satyajit Ray are also covered here.

How to tango with time

I don't know about the others but I have a very fluid concept of time. That means I am late for any meeting that requires me to be punctual. Usually because I get confused looking at the many different times around me. Ever since I have acquired a cell phone, I have given up wearing a watch. And my cell phone runs on work time (as seen at my workplace) which is like 10 minutes ahead. But when it comes to meeting AquaM, I am early.

At home, it is a tradition to keep all the clocks about 5 minutes ahead so that we are on time. Except that I know it is 5 minutes ahead and do the necessary calculations. So invariably, I am late despite everyone's best efforts. But it so happened that the 5 minutes which were meant to buffer the lateness got added so many times that at one point in time our main clock was running 20 minutes fast! Needless to say, I wasn't the least bit affected. Why? I told you. I did the mental substraction. Whenever I looked at the clock and actually believed the time I saw, I would come to a realisation that it is 20 minutes fast within about the next 20 seconds. The other effects were that guests would leave early. "It's already 9 o'clock!" they would exclaim and we have to tell them why it is not time yet. Of course, if the guests were unwanted, I don't need to tell you what we did. Later, we changed the 20 minutes-ahead thing. Usually this is done by my 6-foot-plus brother who can reach up to the clock and when I am not there. So that when I do get to know through some accident, it is too late!

One would think that all this mental subractions would make me an expert in Math. You cannot be more wrong than that. I'm really bad at Math. A fallout of having chosen to graduate in English where everything is subjective. And reactions are all that count. I love the uncertainty of it especially when it comes to books and movies. But in day-today life, it is best that 2 plus 2 is 4 and not whatever you want it to be.

Of late, I have taken my concept of fluid time to the blogosphere as well. Each post - a you know- is accompanied by time, date, and day slot. But I cannot cannot let even a date go by without saying something. Skipped dates hamper continuity. Or so I think. So I backdate many of my entries to keep the flow. Anyways, what's a day here or there? I'm sure many History professors would disagree. So today is Feb 6th according to the rest of the world but is Feb 2nd on my blog.

So as Bangaloreans love to say, Swalpa adjust madi (Please adjust)!

Backlog

My list of to-do reviews and books to be read are on the increase. I can't believe that I have still to do the reviews of:

Disgrace by J.M Coetzee
Mr. Summer's Story by Patrick Suskind
The Cat who Covered the World and her foreign correspondent Christopher S. Wren

And finish reading:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Tale of the Rose by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry
Bribery, Corruption Also by H.R.F Keating
Breaking and Entering by H.R.F Keating

And start reading:

Roverrandom by J.R.R Tolkien
My Garden (Book): by Jamaica Kincaid
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchestor

And all this is on hold because I am addicted to the Bartimaeus trilogy. Right now, I'm nose-deep in the third part Ptolemy's Gate. So that means another 3 books to review! Phew! And did you say there is no pressure in maintaining a blog?