Inglourious Basterds

What a movie! Quentin Tarantino has done it again. I saw this movie twice in two days and still haven't had enough. Inglourious Basterds scores on so many fronts that its difficult to pinpoint why you like it so much.

Is it the engrossing and exciting World War 2 setting? Is it the amazing performances by each of the actors? (esp Col Hans Landa) Is it the joy of listening to so many different languages? Is it the funny american accent of Brad Pitt?

I think there are a few things that really stand this movie apart. One, although based on World War 2 it is not a war movie and is also fictional. This allows the director to take the story where he wants and the audience is not disappointed at the end like they were, say in Valkyrie. Second, a robinhood kindof group has always been the favorite of people and when it is fighting one of the most infamous men in history it is al the more popular. Third, a stunningly beautiful french girl courageously plans the death of all the Nazi top-brass. Now we all love beauties especially the ones with the brains, now don't we. :-)

The above strengthen the story line so much that even acerage presentation would have sufficed. Quentin Tarantino doesn't do average. People who have watched Pulp Fiction will vouch for that. The breakneck speed at which the movie progresses and the amazing - amazing scenes (my favorite is the one in the rendezvous restaurant) make this movie a delight to watch.

All in all, IB is an awesome movie. I am sure once will not be enough!

Cheers!

Generation Gap.

Amongst the many Indias living in India today, two are significantly distinct. India of the forty plus people and the younger India. I think this has something to do with how we progressed slowly in the 60s and 70s and also lived in the infamous 'licence raj'. Everything was controlled, regularised and monitored by the government then. We were in awe of the west which had ruled us in the not so distant past.

All this, for the 'new' India is a pre-historic era, about which we read in our history books, shake our heads and wonder how our ancestors lived in such unjust times. Most of us are unable to even imagine a time when a third country ruled India and we were "subjects" of a foriegn queen.

This difference has led to a completely different mindset and a different value system between young people and old. Now, this difference would be prevalent all accross the globe but not as pronounced in most parts as it is in India.

Take, for example, the debate on NDTV today morning about the High Court ruling legalising gay sex. Without exception the young members of the panel were more liberal and supportive of individual choices than the oldies who harped about control and acceptability. The older guys were worried about how the society feels about an issue which I am sure everybody would agree is a very personal one. I'll take a specific example. There was one Mr. Kakkar a former IPS officer on the panel. I was completely taken aback by the rigid and so obviously wrong stand he took while expressing his views and also the comfort level with which he expressed his views amidst strong opposition. Now, I am sure he is a very intelligent man with a lot of experience so he is able to analyse things rationally. Then theres only one explanation for him not being able to open up his mind to the idea of legalising something he has always believed to be wrong, it is the enviornament in which he grew up, that of the 60s and the 70s.

Without exception, the young panelists on any show on T.V are more liberal and individualistic than the older ones who have strong beliefs about society.

I wonder how will it be 30-40 years from now? When we will be the oldies. Will the young people then have a similar perception of us? Will we too over the years have become more rigid and less flexible about issues?

I think not, I hope not.

Criticism

Why do people assume that one has to be better than something to criticize it? I mean, everyone criticizes stuff all the time. A cricketer doesn't bat well. Everybody has an opinion. An actor doesn't act well, once again everybody takes his case. That doesn't mean we are better cricketers or actors than them.

But sometimes people think that one has to be better at something to be able to criticize others for not doing it right. This happens almost always when you correct someone's grammar. They get right back at you by pointing out the comma you missed or the trick spelling you spelled incorrectly.

Why are people so touchy when it comes to the english language?

Self-Confidence

This post is in reminesence of a speech I gave when I was in 6th standard. This was my first stage-experience and I still have the initial paras by heart. The topic was self-confidence, ofcourse. :-)

Self confidence is the real driving force which stirrs up our mental faculties and potentialities to give out the best under all climes and conditions. Without self-confidence a man is like a rolling pawn on the chess-board of life.

Self confidence is nothing concrete but its just a realization which is embeded in our entity. From the fields of inventions and discoveries to the battlefield without self-confidence a man is incapable of achieving any success..

.....

Bad Guys

So who are the bad guys? I mean there's fighting everywhere right? And from what we have learnt since the very outset, good guys and bad guys fight. But is that true really? Guys can be classified as good or bad depending on where we stand. Somebody's good guys are bad for others and vice versa. So all "bad" can be actually good if you change your frame of reference. So all "bad" is actually relative.

That drives one to think, if there is no "bad" in this world in absolute terms why is there so much conflict? Are people fighting for their respective points of view? Or do they, knowing fully well that what they are doing is wrong, continue to do it for some selfish ulterior motive. This question holds at all levels.

Consider nation states for example. A powerful nation often "exploits" a weaker one. Case in point, is the continued exploitation of almost all Latin American countries by the sole super power of time. This exploitation can often take horrific forms in which thousands of people are actually killed. What drives the people at helm of a powerful nation to take these decisions? Can just strategic gain be tonic enough for them to feed to their guilty conscience?

But strategic gain, if at all, is for the entire nation state. Why would people in charge( who are in office only for a short term) take such horrific decisions without them benefiting at all.

Here it would be prudent to explore what "benefits" actually imply. Sometimes we identify a community/society/city or even the country so closely with ourselves that a "gain" for the latter is perceived as a gain for oneself. But the ephemeral-ity of all this is far too evident to each one of us, why then people push themselves to extremes often fighting their own conscience to earn some rewards for the entity they associate themselves with?

I must admit that this line of thought suffers from a bias, that it is too individualistic. Established traditions tell us that civilized humans, in a variety of behavior, do not show absolute individualism at all. This is true for a soldier dying for his country or even a sportsperson risking his limbs for his team. But in a lot of cases doing what is "right" and "good" does not lead you to lose a game or a war. In spite of this, people continue to take very hard decisions for slight gains to entities they are only generally related to.

An example would be the Iraq war. The people who authorized it are not even in power any more. They have gone back to leading normal lives like normal people. But when in office they authorized the killing of thousands of innocent people for some geo-political gain to their country.

This is hard to understand. How do people knowingly do wrong(bad) and convince themselves that they are actually right(good)?

Maybe, its all about the money.

Varun Gandhi.

How stupid can we guys get ?

Imagine you are Varun Gandhi. A perfectly sane individual who has had the privilege of studying in 'elite' institutions and is modern and suave like the rest of us. You see a problem of anonymity in your life, know your surname holds a lot of weight in India and decide to correct the problem.

You call the press, gather a bunch of supporters (mostly paid) and make inflammatory statements. You rake up enough controversy to be mentioned in all the newspapers - most of which criticise you badly - but theres no such thing as bad publicity, now, is there ?

And suddenly everybody knows you. People have opinions about you, most liberal individuals hate you.

This con job is so pathetic, it would have been funny had it not been so sad. Varun Gandhi is actually an election issue in areas of UP and the drama he enacted and is now enacting has people believing firmly for or against him.

This leads one to wonder, how silly can the mass populace get! Why, as indiviudals we all show greater mental acumen but as a whole are susceptible to such tomfoolery? How, as chomsky refers to us as - the great beast - that is public opinion be fooled by such trivialities.

Most argue that max voters are not educated enough or informed enough to be capable of completely rational thought. I strongly disagree. Education or literacy is not a pre-requisite to common sense and we all know that. How then can a Varun Gandhi fool us, and that too repeatedly with other names and faces?

Je pense donc je suis

This phrase is not unknown to any of us. Its ubiquity is cheeky.

Especially in the status messages. Its funny that the french form is slightly lesser known than its latin counterpart 'Cogito ergo sum' or the english translation 'I think, therefore I am'. I say its funny because Discartes (the author) wrote this originally in french for the lay people. He usually wrote in latin, but the work which contains this part was written in french to keep it nearer to the masses. The lay people now remember the latin part more. Funny how things turn out.

Anyways, was reading some Descartes lately and found out more about this phrase. The author is trying to build a model for philosphy as it exists for mathematics. He wants to be able to reach to a truth the way mathematicians reach to a conclusion. He wants to build a process for this. He calls this process meditation.

It begins with rejecting all ideas, thoughts etc which are even slighlty doubtful. One doesn't even trust one's senses as one knows they can be deceived. Also it is assumed that theres an all powerful deceiver out there whose sole purpose is to deceive you. Any thought or idea, which is even slightly dubitable is rejected.

While rejecting all such ideas. Descartes reached finally to just one final truth. That he is thinking, and so he exists. Then he build a five stage model to further this thought, the next step of which asserts God exists and then continues towards the world.

Thus was born, Je pense donc je suis.