Life in a black and white world!!!

“Don’t waste my time”

2011-11-13T00:15:00.001+05:30

I found the trailer to the movie ‘In Time’ quite interesting. It offered a new and original premise based on a literal interpretation of ‘Time is Money’ and a slightly left-leaning view of what’s wrong with a scarcity based economic model. This latter point piqued my interest even more.

Of late I have been reading about the Resource Based Economy (RBE); an idea proposed by Jacque Fresco, one which does not involve money for the distribution of resources. More on that later. I am now working on a series of posts on RBE. It sure does sounds utopian but it would be immature to come to that judgement without doing further research and asking more questions. That’s what I am aiming for from that series. However, all about that later.

Here, I’ll just post my review of the flick. As I was walking out of the movie hall I wasn’t disappointed. It was an hour and a half of well paced fun with my mind being taken to RBE on quite a few occasions. Some may pick on this distraction and say that it means the movie is not engrossing enough. True; but I like keeping my mind occupied and in this case since some of the dialogues were taking me to my blog series on RBE, I was enjoying the ride.

Soon after I got home I thought I would list out the movie’s good and bad. If I don’t like a movie I would rather not write about it than dissing about it publicly. Since I enjoyed the ride in the movie hall I thought I could write a positive review of this one. Oh well, was I disappointed? Here’s my list. First, I’ll start with the basic plot.

The premise

The concept behind the movie is interesting. It is set in a futuristic world where scientists have learnt to control the gene for aging. People are always 25 and can remain immortal if they remain vigilant and do not take undue physical risks. However, probably with the notion of controlling population growth, not everyone is given a stab at immortality.

Time is money here. Once you are 25 a clock starts ticking, one that you have to recharge if you want to live for more than a year. This ‘time’ is bartered among the populace in exchange for resources following the free market rules of supply and demand. In essence, replace today’s money with time and most of the math economists would have learnt in our world would still be valid.

And as in today’s world this ‘time’ is concentrated in the hands of a few who have millennia to live out their lives while the majority, the crux of society - the workforce, live on a day-to-day basis. Some of them struggle to make ends meet, time out and die. Now, time is an abundant resource whose scarcity has been artificially created so that the economic model can function and the earth remains sustainable. There is in fact enough for all. Everyone can have their aging genes turned off. But that is hardly sustainable. Hence, the oft repeated dialogue “For a few to remain immortal, many must die”. The ‘poor’ find this unfair.

Enter Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake) who is the future-day Robin Hood stealing time from the rich and distributing it to all. A bored daughter of a million-year -worth executive, Sylvia (played by Amanda Seyfried), joins hands with Will in bringing the system down.

The good

The movie is well paced with not more than a couple of dull moments when you think ‘just get on with it’ (like the scene where Will is running towards a timing-out Sylvia). Darn! I am already scratching my head on this one.

The bad

The plot is predictable (but that was expected anyway) and most characters are poorly developed, in particular Cilian Murphy’s role as the Time Keeper. Why is he so obsessed with arresting Will? Didn’t he escape from the ghetto as well, just like Will? What prompts him to say "I escaped but I can't allow them to" or something to that effect?

The next thing I would have changed about the movie is, in two words, Justin Timberlake. In spite of The Social Network I just can’t take him seriously as an actor.

I am being a little picky on this one, but I don’t also like how the movie is marketed as science-fiction. This movie has no details. There should have at least been a background at the start on how the aging control came about. Serious sci-fi watchers need this extra dimension. Without these details, it is a “fantasy” thriller at best.

The ugly

The writers were really lazy in some places and the screenplay is sloppy. Towards the end when the Salvation Army Guy is distributing some time from the million-year worth recharger to everyone, why didn’t anyone in the ghetto try to steal it (at least try) all for himself? You can say that the abundance of the resource (time in this case) negates the motivation for stealing. But a million is not really a lot. Considering an LA population of over 1 million, each person would get less than a year. Heck! You need to pay one year to get into the luxurious New Greenwich.

Then there is the case of Sylvia running 100s of yards wearing heels that are almost as tall as her. Then, in spite of biotechnology progressing forward it looks like communication technology has regressed. Welcome pay phones; bye-bye mobile devices. Finally, did the writers forget about the fact that Cilian Murphy was shot? He showed no signs of it the next day.

In short, the movie has an interesting premise but the execution may be called into question. It is worth a watch, once, but not in a theater. Wait for the DVD release or till it comes up on Netflix Instant. Have something on your mind to keep you distracted so that the flaws in the movie don’t bug you when you are watching it. That way you might just enjoy this flick. Why did I even write this review? I was happier before. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Mid-PhD Crisis

2011-09-20T15:06:00.002+05:30

Like a madman groping in a dark room

Seek the light to burn away the gloom

I’ve lost my mind but my feelings are true

Everything I do, I offer to you.

-- No Turn Un-Stoned (Shpongle)

I am now a mid-career PhD student. That was how my advisor described me during the first departmental meeting of this academic year while introducing his research group to the incoming batch of grad students. Then, I didn’t give much thought to the term he used; mid-career. However, listening to the above lyrics and considering my PhD progress - probably anyone’s for that matter - it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that truer words have never been spoken.

But then, Jorge Cham knew it all along. Nearing 40 in my ‘lab years’, this is probably the perfect time for a mid-‘lab’ life crisis. It seems to have struck me hard. Look at what I am doing right now. I should be working on my thesis. Instead I am procrastinating, penning down my thoughts. I can’t help it. Each time I stare at the word document of my would-be thesis, I can’t help myself getting distracted. On a positive note, though, this time has been a productive blogging period for me, what, with plenty of updates over the last month or so, both here and at Interstate 42.

Newton’s third law of graduation - "For every action towards graduation there is an equal and opposite distraction".

It wasn’t always like this. I got through the inevitable post-qualifiers slump that hit me last summer, obtained some good results and published a paper before this summer began. But now, summer is gone and I have nothing to show for it. I have been coding, compiling and debugging; but I am nowhere near simulating the thermal behavior around laser heated nanoparticles. Guess it happens; it is after all a mid-PhD slump.

Things should pick up soon, if not I should force it. It is time I took Cecilia’s resolve and started working full time on my candidacy report that would later become my thesis. Before my advisor loses his patience, I have to finish the report and take my candidacy examination. But, where are the freaking results? ~Long breath~

In the meantime, I came across a friend’s facebook status - “I TA for a professor whose Erdos Number is 1. Yes No.1 and no lesser. Despite that fact the amount of respect that he gives to other minions like me is amazing! The more I see these people, the smaller I feel in this world. Who said grad school was burden, it is an enlightening experience at every step”. He is a new grad student at RPI and all I can say is ‘enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts. It won’t be long before you end up like this'.

As for the rest, take care and have a blast.

PS: Take note of Jorge Cham’s disclaimer. If you are new to PhD Comics, then remember, ‘reading this entire archive can be hazardous to your research. Proceed with caution and use only in moderation.’

A matter of choice

2011-09-07T17:49:00.001+05:30

One harmless decision. One more a few minutes later. Then a series of small, seemingly inconsequential choices. Nothing more. Yet, in the end the damage was done. Ah, hindsight! Things look so simple in it. Turning back, connecting the dots, a pattern emerges.

I was tired. Working away in my tiny cubicle, I had kept sleep at bay for forty hours. No more. I had to get out, get back home. Never before had I longed so much to snuggle under my blankets. Never before had the thought of a warm bed comforted me more.

Before that, though, I had to satisfy the growing discomfort inside my stomach. I needed food. Cooking was not an option, not with my eyelids threatening to snap shut, the threat growing stronger every waking second. Thank god for the new diner just outside campus.

A collective ‘Welcome to Moe’s!’ greeting and a short queue later I was able to give my order - rice bowl with chicken and soybeans with a free pack of tortilla chips. To go; one harmless decision. After all, why take the risk of embarrassment, drooling over the table at the diner?

I got the chips in a paper bag. The cashier asked, “Do you want a bag for the rice bowl?” I shook my head in the negative. The second one, after all why waste paper? I put the bowl in the bag with the chips and headed out.

The pedestrian signal was red. “Home in ten minutes”, I thought as I waited. A minute later the signal changed and I was on my way. A little across I met a friend. He had just returned after hiking the Presidential Traverse. I could have just greeted him and walked past but I wanted to ask about the hike. A simple choice.

A few minutes later we said our goodbyes and I continued my journey home. As I reached the end of the block, the intersection between 15th and Sage, the pedestrian signal was red. I looked around. Across 15th I saw another friend of mine. He hadn’t seen me. I could have waited for a few more seconds, rushed across Sage and been on my way. A seemingly harmless choice later, I was on the opposite side of 15th. We exchanged pleasantries and started discussing about possible next hikes and camping trips. Fall was approaching and the views would be simply out of the world.

As we parted our ways, after a while, I could hear my stomach grumbling. I had to rush back home. I increased my speed, my hands swinging more violently. I was just a block away from home when I heard a tear. I looked down only to see the bag give away. Unbeknownst to me leaked gravy from the bowl was gradually weakening the bag’s integrity; and, now there I was staring in distress at my dinner on the sidewalk.

I cleaned up, deposited my dinner in the nearest garbage bin and walked home. Now I had to cook something. I am too lazy to do that on a regular day. Now I was too tired to even think about standing over the oven, stirring and waiting. As I reached home I made my last decision of the day. As soon as I saw the bed weariness overcame me. I would have to sleep in an empty stomach. “How would this decision come back to bite me?", I thought as I lay in bed quickly losing consciousness.

I learnt a simple lesson from all this, one of the simple truths of life. Your choice matters, every decision counts. Everything in life may not happen for a reason, but they definitely do because of one. There are no simple choices. As chaos theory goes, even the flutter of a butterfly can wreak havoc on the opposite side of the world. Every decision, thus, has to be weighted with care.

This is true more so for an entity like a nation. The choices of each of its individuals, however small and inconsequential they may seem, matter. Collectively they form the nation’s psyche.

Next time I’ll think twice before jumping a signal, bribing the police officer to escape the fine, buying movie tickets in black, traveling in a train or a bus without buying the ticket, and misrepresenting land costs to escape property tax. Any one of these acts by a single person may be small with respect to the working machinery of a nation, but it is not inconsequential. Things add up. Collectively they contribute to India’s corrupted psyche.

The many levels of corruption

2011-08-28T02:24:00.005+05:30

With the government having agreed to introduce the Jan Lokpal bill in the Parliament for discussion, along with other civil society versions; and Anna Hazare holding his fort lest the government stages another flip-flop, it would be reasonable to assume that sooner or later India will be having an ombudsman, rather a committee of them. It is still early to tell, however, to what extent their powers may pan out. Of course, the bill should have the tooth to monitor and fight corruption. Yet, it should maintain the sanctity of the Constitution’s basic structure lest the teeth evolve into fangs.

For the sake of this post let us assume that the basic principles of the Jan Lokpal bill (the version put forward by Team Anna) have been adhered to and the ambiguous bits have been amended as the bill is passed by both Houses.

Moving beyond, it wouldn’t be unwise to ponder about the effectiveness of a Lokpal in eliminating corruption and thus ushering India to a new level of social development. For the same purpose it is necessary to distinguish the different levels of corruption. This would have been done to death during the various meetings and debates of the different drafters of the bill(s); and may be considered again in the Parliament. However, it is always worth revisiting.

1) Corruption in state sponsored welfare schemes

Rajiv Gandhi famously estimated that only 15 cents of every dollar spent on the poor actually reached them [Source]. This figure was later revised down to 5% by commentators. The welfare schemes include poverty alleviation, employment generation schemes as well as development of urban and rural infrastructure.

Improved transparency through RTI, ability to file charges and initiate prosecution, through the Lokpal, against those who reroute part of the fund and whistleblower protection together may serve potent in ensuring maximum benefit for the target population. It would be extremely heartening if news like this became more commonplace. Even if 20% of the welfare fund is reassigned to run the Lokpal machine and other ‘feedback and monitoring’ mechanisms, 80% reaching the poor is still a better state of affairs than the fate that awaits majority of the fund currently.

2) Lobbying by private interests for public resources

Illegal mining contracts, the 2G spectrum scam and the like would fall in this category. The Lokpal, empowered to initiate prosecution in a special court, can be seen to play a role in keeping a check on vested business interests and favoritism. High-level corruption may be dealt with but society will still be held back.

Liberalization post 1991 has done wonders for many sections of the Indian population. With rapid growth and a burgeoning middle class, ideally it shouldn’t be long before its benefits percolate to every section of society. However, the marginalized are still stuck at the lower rungs of economic development and in some cases their positions have even regressed. Wouldn’t it be daft to believe that this is due to corruption alone and eliminating it would magically raise the under-privileged from the clutches of poverty? When governments along with private parties use dubious land acquisition laws [1] to violently [2] affect the lives of some sections of the population, in the name of development, it is not always illegal though questions can be raised of the ethics. This is just one example of how outdated laws still strangle society. Looking beyond the Lokpal, social and economic reforms are a must to have further and sustained socio-economic development in India.

3) Graft to escape red tape inconvenience

During the special session of the Parliament on 27th August, the leader of the opposition, Sushma Swaraj rightly pointed out that though corruption higher up the administrative chain angers the common man, it is the one that prevails in the lower bureaucracy that puts him under great distress. Delays in obtaining a passport, a ration card, a driving license or a voter ID is what affects him more than the 2G spectrum scam or the CWG scam. Thus, strong monitoring of the lower bureaucracy along with the implementation of a citizen’s charter in all government offices is of extreme importance. As mentioned in the Hindu editorial a grievance redressal system (along with a citizen’s charter) is “a progressive idea whose time has come.”

However, it is worth remembering that including the lower bureaucracy under the ambit of the Lokpal (along with the higher judiciary, elected representatives, the PM Office and other high-level bureaucrats) may result in a tremendous volume of work on the shoulders of one body. There is, thus, merit in the NCPRI argument that the CVC should be strengthened to deal with the lower bureaucracy [Source]. After all, decentralization may increase administrative efficiency.

4) Corruption for mutual benefit with no perceived third party loss

Not all corruption at the lower level is at the fault of the government servants. The common man in India today is more than willing to part with some of his hard-earned money to escape fines for parking, speeding and other traffic violations, to travel ticketless in buses and trains, to escape land and property tax, and to obtain an admission for his child in a reputed school/college in order to go one up on his neighbor’s son/daughter. At this level corruption is of mutual benefit and, in public perception, does not directly affect a third party. It is worth remembering that it is this mentality that legitimizes corruption at all levels. After all, government servants don’t fall from the sky. No anti-corruption agency can tackle this type of corruption; after all, who is going to complain? What is required is a change in public perception and a widespread mentality of civic sense. The movement led by Anna Hazare, for all its flaws, has managed to shake some out of their stupor. This is undoubtedly a good thing. Yet, there are many who do not consider this ‘harmless’ corruption to be a danger to society and it won’t take long for those awake to go back to sleep. With a sleeping public, corruption will eventually find a way to percolate into anti-graft machineries.

One of the problems of a successful movement is that the people may end up believing that they have done enough (not unlike what Slavoj Zizek says here, though in a different context) and settle back into their old ways. This mentality should not set in. Sustained public vigilance and further structural and economic reforms are, thus, important if India has to rise considerably in the Transparency International ranking.

[1] “People who argue that the act is draconian claim that a number of projects with no public purpose attached, as in the case of SEZs, usurped land from property owners, with the help of the Land Acquisition Act, at what is claimed as, well below the market value of these properties. It is argued that, even in the case of projects that are genuinely for public purposes, there is a considerable difference between the market value of the property and the value that the land acquisition officer pays the land owners. It is also argued that the relocation and rehabilitation of land owners displaced by the actions of the act, is not followed up adequately, and that this is not covered comprehensively in the framework of the act. A notable instance of opposition to land acquisition, through the land acquisition act, is the Nandigram violence incident.” - Wikipedia (Land Acquisition Act, 1894)

Land lost, Singur farmer said no to compensation, commits suicide - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/land-lost-singur-farmer-said-no-to-compensa/31930/

“Over 80 per cent of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) population works in the primary sector, with 45 per cent being cultivators and 37 per cent agricultural labourers. Land represents the most important source of livelihood, emotional attachment and social stability in tribal communities. The alienation of tribal land is the single most important cause of pauperisation of tribals, rendering their vulnerable economic situation more precarious.” - The weapon of empowerment, M. Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India (2010).

[2] “The Adivasis of Chhatisgarh - Victims of the Naxalite movement and Salwa Judum campaign”, Asian Center for Human Rights (2006).

Separation of powers vs. the Draft Jan Lokpall bill

2011-08-24T05:53:00.026+05:30

Based on certain clarifications I obtained elsewhere, I am making changes to the post (highlighted in black).

According to Wikipedia, “the separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model of governance of a state. Under this model, the state is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility so that no one branch has more power than the other branches. The normal division of branches is into an executive, legislature and judiciary.”

The conferment of power in a single body leads to absolutism. “Power corrupts and absolute Power tends to corrupt absolutely” is attributed to Lord Acton. Thus, the doctrine of separation of powers is considered important as a check against tyrannical rule. The purpose is to diffuse the authority of the State to prevent absolutism and to “allocate each function to the institution BEST suited to discharge it.” [Source]

It can be argued that this doctrine is not applicable to India in its strict sense. Separation of Powers, in its pure form, can only be seen in a presidential form of democracy. So, it’s quite evident from the Constitution that India, being a parliamentary democracy, does not follow an absolute separation. Instead, the democracy functions based upon a fusion of powers. Here, a close co-ordination among the three principal organs of the State is unavoidable. “Thus, every organ of the government is required to perform all the three types of functions. Also, each organ is, in some form or the other, dependent on the other organ which checks and balances it.” An example of this can be seen in how Cabinet ministers are part of both the executive and the legislature. [Source]

However this does not mean that the doctrine is not followed at all. Various Supreme Court rulings, most notably Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, have upheld that maintenance of the separation of powers is comprised in the basic structure of the constitution. In essence, the notion is that, in light of growing administrative challenges, though an organ of the State can delegate responsibilities to another, with regard to the basic constitutional functions of each of these organs the sanctity of the doctrine of separation of powers should be maintained. This keeps in mind the purpose of such a doctrine, where each function is allocated to the institution BEST suited to discharge it.

Keeping the above points in mind, I would like to highlight a few clauses in Version of 2.2 of the Jan Lokpal Bill, that seem to violate the constitution’s basic structure. I am no authority in this matter. So, please, correct me if I am wrong, and if the clauses I’ll mention in a while have been modified in the newer versions of the bill.

Proponents of the bill have said that it is important to bring the judiciary under the ambit of the Lokpal. No one is above the law. This I agree with, provided what Arvind Kejriwal says at the start of this interview is true. He mentions that the ONLY change from the current system that the bill envisions is the ability to file an FIR against any judge without prior approval of the CJI. This is important in a strong Lokpal bill. Similar points have also been made here.

It is also said that "the powers of Lokpal are limited to investigation, collection of evidence and prosecution. The Lokpal can bring a case to the court, and the judge will then decide on the basis of the presented evidence whether the person is guilty" [Source]. If this spirit was unambiguously spelt out in the bill, I believe it has all the makings of a strong yet democratic anti-corruption system.

Therein lies the problem. There seem to be a few contradictory clauses in the bill (Version 2.2). Take these instances. Again, correct me if I am wrong, and the following clauses have been modified in the newer versions of the bill.

1) Section 27.2

"...no proceedings or decision of the Lokpal shall be liable to be challenged, reviewed, quashed or called in question in any court of ordinary Civil Jurisdiction."

What decision is the bill talking about here? Can the Lokpal impose punishments? If so, however minor the punishment may be, this is akin to handing judicial powers to the Lokpal. That goes against the separation of powers envisioned in our Constitution.

Quasi-judicial powers akin to what policemen have (like imposing fines) and other administrative punitive measures may be handed to the Lokpal without affecting the integrity of the Constitution. This is in accordance with the 'delegated responsibility' argument. However, all the decisions of the Lokpal should be subject to judicial review in the High Courts and Supreme Court. It seems that "court of ordinary civil jurisdiction" in Section 27.2 refers to a lower court. This has to be further clarified.

2) Section 8.2

"The Lokpal, after getting such enquiries and investigations done as it deems fit, may take one or more of the following actions:

a. Close the case, if prima facie, the complaint is not made out, or

b. Initiate prosecution against public servants as well as those private entities, which are parties to the act.

c. Recommend imposition of appropriate penalties under the relevant Conduct Rules provided that if a government servant is finally convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the penalty of dismissal shall be recommended on such government servant.

d. Order cancellation or modification of a license or lease or permission or contract or agreement, which was the subject matter of investigation.

e. Blacklist the concerned firm or company or contractor or any other entity involved in that act of corruption."

What are (d) and (e) if not a form of punishment? Shouldn't that be the prerogative of the court? Or, does the Lokpal do this only AFTER the court has given a verdict? Or, can the court repeal this decision of the Lokpal if the accused is reprieved? (Section 27.2 (1, above) says that the court cannot quash a decision of the Lokpal).

Administrative punitive measures are fine. Executive bodies are allowed this within the Constitution, provided, they have no immunity from judicial review. Are (d) and (e) administrative punishments? That is debatable.

3) Section 8.5

"Orders made by Lokpal under sub-section (2)(c) of this section shall be binding on the government and the government shall implement it within a week of receipt of that order."

Again, if it is the court that gives the verdict, what Lokpal orders (when read in conjunction with (2)(c)) are being mentioned here?

Administrative punitive measures, again. But what exactly is meant by an administrative punitive measure should be included in the draft, in my opinion. As always, I am not competent enough to comment on matters of law and do correct me if I am wrong.

4) Section 10.2

"For the purpose of any such investigation (including the preliminary inquiry) the Lokpal shall have all the powers of a civil court while trying a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 , in respect of the following matters, namely:-

(a) Summoning and enforcing the attendance of any person and examining him on oath;"

Why would a non-judicial body examine someone under OATH? Can the CBI/Police do this?

5) Section 10.3

"Any proceeding before the Lokpal shall be deemed to be a judicial proceeding with in the meaning of section 193 of the Indian Penal Code."

What does that mean?

6) Section 13A

"Special Judges under section 4 of Prevention of Corruption Act:

(1) On an annual basis, the Lokpal shall make an assessment of the number of Special Judges required under section 4 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 in each area and the Government shall appoint such number of Judges within three months of the receipt of such recommendation.

Provided that the Lokpal shall recommend such number of Special Judges so that trial in each case under this Act is completed within a year.

2) Before making any fresh appointments, the Government shall consult the Lokpal on the procedure to be followed in selection to ensure the integrity of the candidates selected. The Government SHALL implement such recommendations.”

Doesn’t this in essence give the Lokpal complete authority in selecting the special judges? Doesn’t that sound like an encroachment into judicial powers?

Apologies. Here, it seems like I made a mistake. Here's a part of the clause again. "the Government shall consult the Lokpal on the PROCEDURE to be followed in selection to ensure the integrity of the candidates selected". I seem to have missed this in the verbosity of the draft. So the Lokpal can only recommend the number of judges in the special court and the procedure to select them. They can't recommend judges per se. Whether this too is an encroachment into judicial autonomy or not, is debatable.

One other thing, I don’t think it is the Government that appoints judges. According to the Constitution that is the prerogative of the President or the respective Governor. Correct me if I am wrong.

All-in-all, the bill does not clearly specify how the trials will be conducted. It is not clear if the Lokpal has absolutely no judicial powers. There are many more clauses like the above that warrant a healthy debate. This debate is essential before passing the bill and thus, the August 30th deadline is unreasonable (and undemocratic if it stifles this debate). There are some genuine concerns about the bill out there as well and, unfortunately many of these are getting lost in the posturing that these concerns are not "well-intentioned".

It is easy to dismiss all these as mere technicalities. Quoting Shashi Tharoor “we must do the right thing but we must do the thing right” [Source]. But, then again, as someone commented here, “it is not necessary to know all the technical details of the bill.” That’s half the problem with the way the movement is proceeding now.

I’ll conclude this piece by reiterating my sentiments.

Do I want a strong and independent Lokpal to fight corruption? A resounding, yes.

Do I want the toothless government version? No

Do I want the ambiguous and in some ways unconstitutional ‘civil society’ version? That’s a no, too.

What’s required is a healthy debate to introduce more clarity in the Jan Lokpal bill. Once there is an atmosphere for healthy debate, there no longer need to be the fear that the debate will go on indefinitely and necessary actions will be stalled. I still have faith in parliamentary democracy.

Thanks for your time.

PS: Of the clauses mentioned above, only point 4 remains in version 2.3 of the draft. Now that the Parliament has passed a resolution agreeing to the key demands of Anna Hazare and it is very likely that we would sooner or later have a Lokpal, here is a new post on the different levels of corruption.

The Lake Placid Fiasco

2011-06-24T13:43:00.005+05:30

I am time and today I am going to tell you a story. This is no ordinary story. This is a tale of four “great” men; four well educated, intelligent young blokes whose qualifications, put together, would place them at the top of any spectrum in the public eye. One is a post-doctoral research scholar and a respected author of scientific texts; another is a thought leader and a master in business administration; and yet another, an engineer, one whose expertise facilitates, without much ado, some of the comforts fellow human beings enjoy. This illustrious trio is accompanied by a doctoral student who aspires to be an established author of scientific and non-scientific texts. With no further introduction, I would like to take you to Troy, a beautiful Victorian town on the banks of the Hudson. Here, the protagonists are preparing for the misadventure of their lives.

(Intro style inspired by the Mahabharat series aired in Doordarshan (India) in the late 80s).

June 18th 2011

11:30 a.m.

It’s a beautiful Saturday. The Hudson sparkles in the late morning sunlight and showers downtown Troy with its warmth. Down by the banks the residents wallow in serenity, intoxicated as they are serenaded by the ebb and flow of the breeze through the leaves behind them. A little removed, up the hill, in the campus of Rensselaer the protagonists unaware of nature’s treat unfolding near the river banks decide to go somewhere; anywhere. They have been cooped up in this town for way too long.

Sid, Sandy, Raul and Kirk, [*] thus, set out for Lake Placid in Raul’s zebra striped Camaro. Lake Placid is a horseshoe shaped waterbody in the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York. Spanning approximately 2,170 acres (8.8 km²) with an average depth of about 50 feet, Lake Placid is one of the most prominent lakes in the New England area.

[*] The names have been changed for no particular reason, and with not even one ounce of creativity.

It’s a two hour drive on I-87 North. A hassle free journey takes them to the village of Lake Placid. It’s a little after 2. It’s about time they had some lunch. Nothing fancy. Subs would have to do. Kirk gets his regular footlong tuna. Within fifteen minutes, having filled their stomachs, they head out to the lake for a strenuous kayaking experience.

Alas, they were plagued by one small problem. There was only one shop renting kayaks known to most of the people around, and that was closed. It was nearing 3 and the protagonists were getting frustrated. They should probably have woken up earlier. They should have reached Lake Placid sooner. Would the long drive end up to be fruitless? I would have paused if I could, but then the universe would descend into chaos. However, the earth’s axial tilt was still in their favor. It’s nearing summer solstice and darkness engulfs the land no sooner than 9pm. Time was still in hand. I had given them a lifeline.

At quarter past 3 they find Eastern Mountain Sports. The protagonists head in. Yes, here EMS does rent kayaks. Kirk asks the lady behind the counter, “is there a dock nearby?” She replies, “We can set you up and you can get going from the one behind the shack.” They make no further enquiries. Raul and Kirk start off in a 12 foot regular kayak while Sid and Sandy are in the tandem. Sid hasn’t paddled before and it will take a while for him to be comfortable on water.

They head to a beach a quarter mile away. There are swimmers in lanes marked by buoys. Careful, they must be; not due the fear of hurting the swimmers but of toppling their own kayaks upon collision. Once on the beach Sandy and Kirk switch places and they head back out after a few minutes rest. They race to the diametrically opposite end of the lake roughly a mile away and hold a mid-water conference.

Sandy: Now, that didn’t seem so far.

Sid: It’s hardly deep too. Look, I can touch the bottom with this paddle.

Kirk: Come on, we are closer to the banks. What do you expect? It will be deeper further in. After all, this is Lake Placid.

Sid: I’ve heard they call this the Queen of Lakes**.

Sandy: Maybe it’s King George and his placid queen.

Raul: Ya, Lake George was huge. This looks more like a pool.

Kirk: A calm one nonetheless. Maybe this lake looks beautiful from atop the peaks. That could be the hype.

Raul: And, of course the winter olympics hoopla.

Sid: My friend was saying this lake is a must-see. Ya, right!!! Wait, did the 30-foot crocodile really live in this commode? ***

** Actually, Lake George is nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes.

*** Lake Placid is a 1999 American monster movie. Yes, it was filmed elsewhere.

They decide to paddle around till sunset. Anyway, they had paid for the kayaks and it looked like like they had most of the lake for themselves. “Where did everybody go? There were so many tourists on the streets.” These thoughts were shut out as the protagonists enjoyed the serenity that surrounded then.

At roughly half past 8 they head back to the EMS dock. Sid, Sandy and Raul return the gear and head into the shack to get their belongings. Kirk waits near the kayaks as an employee arrives for the routine inspection.

EMS Employee: So how was your day?

Kirk: It was great. Thank you.

EMS Employee: Did you carry your kayaks over to the horseshoe? It’s tougher to kayak there, you know, with the speedboats around.

Kirk: :-0

Kirk manages to hold a straight face trying very hard to hide his shock. He still catches a small glint in the employee’s eyes, the kind you get when you discover a new tale to share with your buddies; a tale of four “knowledgeable” dimwits. He heads back into the shack. “Guys, I have some bad news. This was not Lake Placid.”

Musings of a new AID volunteer

2011-06-10T03:59:00.004+05:30

I hail from Kerala, a small bitter-gourd shaped state on the west coast of the southern Indian peninsula. Kerala is considered to be a socially well-developed state with close to 100% percent literacy [1]. The common man is well read of the world around him and also well aware of the broader political consequences of his seemingly innocuous day-to-day decisions. He understands his part in the electoral process and is well placed in demanding his right from an answerable government. Whether he acts on the power that this awareness bestows upon him is another matter altogether, but the point is that the awareness is there. This much is evident from Kerala’s social development index [2].

Coming from such a background it was difficult for me to come to terms with the idea that political awareness, or rather the lack of it, is a major problem in India. I used to believe that most Indians are politically aware, but still are so stuck in their own cocoons and day-to-day battles that they do not really care about the long term consequences of their decisions. This, I attributed to our cultural tendency to not look beyond the low hanging fruit [3]. We work hard to satiate our immediate concerns and when it comes to the remaining even harder challenges, we give up too easy. I believed that the root of all problems in India is, thus, that of inbred human nature which cannot be changed over one lifetime [4].

And so, it wasn’t natural for me to accept that the realities were far harsher in other parts of India; there are sections of the population who would sell their votes for money, without a knowledge of what the long term consequences of their actions would be on their own lives, and without realizing how damaging bad leadership could turn out to be for the nation as a whole.

The obvious question, then, is whether a broad awareness campaign would be the solution or not? By focusing on the fundamental concerns of creating political awareness among the larger populace and spreading democracy at the grassroots, will the people of India truly be empowered? At an immediate glance that seems to be the case.

Some wonderful work has also been done by AID in this regard in the form of the Eureka SuperKidz campaign [5] in the state of Tamil Nadu. This is an interesting model. It starts with children’s education where learning centers are set up in multiple villages which offer after school tuition focusing on results/skills based teaching. The idea, however, is to expand into adult education, livelihood training and women empowerment [6] based on the foundation set up through the SuperKidz program, once at least 1000 centers are established. This seems to be a long term solution that is scalable and reproducible across different parts of the country.

However, the question persists. Is education the panacea to all problems [7]? Think about this. One can’t blame some marginalized sections of the population selling their votes for money. When you are struggling to have a proper day’s meal, it would be arrogant of other more fortunate sections to demand that you should be ready to suffer hunger in the short term to possibly have a rosier future. When the disadvantaged marginalized sections are thus suffering from a concern of their immediate survival, it is easy and also extremely haughty of others to just dismiss them with a wave of the hand or even blame it all on education, the lack thereof.

Then, there is also the issue of corruption, that deep-rooted malaise that plagues India’s democracy. When some corrupt state governments with passive support from the Center use dubious land acquisition laws [8] to violently [9] affect the lives of some sections of the population, in the name of development, it is difficult to ask these marginalized sections to trust democracy and follow the appropriate redressal mechanisms. How do you spread democracy at the grassroots in such a circumstance; education? There are way too many variables at act here. India is a complex nation. A one-size-fits-all solution can probably never be found.

These thoughts have been swirling around inside me for a long while now. However, it was at the AID 2011 [10] conference in Boston that the turbulent waters came to settle thus giving me a clearer picture; or, maybe not. There are still more questions than answers.

Why is there a general middle and upper class apathy towards the concerns of the marginalized? Is it because of the belief that there is a temporary price to pay for the nation’s development and as the GDP rises the effects will eventually trickle down? Or is it just willful ignorance, one where we just do not want to tackle the harder problems?

Will sustainable development balance the growth aspirations of the nation with concerns, both environmental and those of the marginalized; or is sustainable development an oxymoron?

Is civil activism a refuge of people who covet power sans responsibility; people who want the power to influence the lives of the “downtrodden” but do not want to take ownership of their actions? If so, shouldn’t concerned people try to effect change from within the political system? Will concerned, motivated and educated people entering the system be a solution or is the political system itself corrupt beyond repair?

These are tough questions to answer. As written earlier, there is probably no one-size-fits-all solution. Hence, an attempt has to be made to answer all these questions and more, simultaneously.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Kerala literacy statistics:

“The Kerala Paradox”, T. Venkatraman, George Mason University (2008).
“How almost everyone in Kerala learned to read”, N. Raman, The Christian Science Monitor (2005).
Wikipedia - Kerala.
Wikipedia - Kerala Model.
www.kerala.gov.in - Total Literacy.

[2] Kerala’s social development index:

“The Kerala Paradox”, T. Venkatraman, George Mason University (2008).
Wikipedia - Kerala Model.

[3] Borrowed from a comment made by Pawan (AID Boston).

[4] It is debatable whether cultural tendencies developed in a community over many years are passed over to subsequent generations genetically, but for the sake of effect I will stick to the word ‘inbred’ here.

[5] Eureka SuperKidz: http://eureka.aidindia.in/

[6] Women empowerment is important for broader political awareness among the civil population. Women’s political participation is a key component of democracy.

[7] Question asked by Alisha (AID Boston) in a casual conversation.

[8] “People who argue that the act is draconian claim that a number of projects with no public purpose attached, as in the case of SEZs, usurped land from property owners, with the help of the Land Acquisition Act, at what is claimed as, well below the market value of these properties. It is argued that, even in the case of projects that are genuinely for public purposes, there is a considerable difference between the market value of the property and the value that the land acquisition officer pays the land owners. It is also argued that the relocation and rehabilitation of land owners displaced by the actions of the act, is not followed up adequately, and that this is not covered comprehensively in the framework of the act. A notable instance of opposition to land acquisition, through the land acquisition act, is the Nandigram violence incident.” - Wikipedia (Land Acquisition Act, 1894)

Land lost, Singur farmer said no to compensation, commits suicide - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/land-lost-singur-farmer-said-no-to-compensa/31930/

[9] “The Adivasis of Chhatisgarh - Victims of the Naxalite movement and Salwa Judum campaign”, Asian Center for Human Rights (2006).

[10] Association for India’s Development: http://www.aidindia.org/main/

* http://xkcd.com/906/ ;)

Lessons from Africa

2010-10-24T09:56:00.009+05:30

I started writing this post sometime in August towards the end of my vacation in Tanzania. But somehow, I forgot about it and it was only a couple of days back I happened to open and read the half completed article on my computer. I seemed to be in a writing mood a few hours back and, here’s a new blog post.

I grew up in Tanzania, a country on the east coast of Africa. It was my home for most of my childhood; but I never bothered then, to know more about its political and economic history, let alone that of other countries in Africa. Maybe I was too young. Maybe I could hardly have been bothered by such weighty issues. But, more importantly, I had no easy access to the fourth estate to learn about the latest developments outside my own protected setting.

I was oblivious to every political and economic development or stagnation that happened around me. I missed the Rwandan genocide. I missed the Al-Qaeda bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. I hadn’t even heard of blood diamonds. I was too young to know about the significance of apartheid and of Nelson Mandela’s heroic role in its abolition. I hardly noticed the bad roads, the lack of water and the unrelenting power cuts. But I enjoyed cricket and soccer with my friends, the cartoons and of course the safaris. I was fascinated by the Masai Culture in East Africa and found their tribal dances mesmerizing to watch. I enjoyed my stay there with my friends and had lots of fun.

In hindsight, I guess that was a good thing. If that was the internet age and I had access to different articles on Africa, particularly in the western media, I too would have gained the impression that Africa is a failed continent that requires outsiders to save it, in spite of everything seeming so hunky-dory from my perch. After all, I was at a highly impressionable age then and any opinion that I formed would have stuck with me forever. So as I shifted back to India for my high school I only carried good memories about Africa in general.

Then, the world changed. Access to internet became more of a rule than an exception. I started, casually, reading about the political history of the continent, about Idi Amin and Mugabe, about the mass genocide in Rwanda and I was left wondering if my soft spot for the continent was misplaced. Then in early 2010 I found many articles about the up coming Rwandan elections and through the articles and the various comments following it, the general perception that one could gather was that Rwanda was a failed democracy, not very much unlike Idi Amin’s Uganda and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. It seemed that the incumbent President and his party were politically maneuvering to disbar candidates from opposition parties for the election. This was most disheartening considering that during my recent visit to the country I was most impressed by its development post-1994. That experience coupled with my soft spot for Africa had made me believe that African countries can develop by it’s own merit. Now, that belief was wavering.

Then, sometime in August 2010, a week or so after the Rwandan general elections (no surprises that Paul Kagame was re-elected by a huge margin), I happened to visit my relatives in the country for a few days and had reasonably lengthy conversations, albeit one sided, with my cousin about the ground realities in the country as opposed to the news doing rounds outside. That’s when an opinion started taking seed inside me, something that does not really hold the west in good stead in my mind and of course something that satiates my soft spot for Africa.

I am not going into the details of the conversation I had (to be honest I don’t really remember), but in essence it centered around how the ‘disbarred’ candidate that the western media was so ostentatiously flaunting was inherently playing ethnic politics in the pre-election campaign which in my opinion is detrimental to the interests of any country. (Just to clarify, the fact that this candidate could not contest the 2010 elections, supposedly, has nothing to do with the campaign; but the party just did not meet the deadline to submit election papers. Of course this can be interpreted in multiple ways and I am no expert about the politics of Africa and it would be pretentious on my part to delve into this further).

So, here is my only lesson from my latest visit to the continent during which unfortunately I could go on no safaris and could not enjoy the visual treat that Africa is.

Always take reports in the western media about Africa with a pinch of salt. The stereotype about the place is that of a failed continent that requires outsiders to save it. When any country breaks away from the norm and tries to grow by its own merit, the media prefers to crush it down, to find something to denigrate the success of Africa, whatever little it may have had.

Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 4

2010-08-11T17:58:00.004+05:30

... Contd. from “Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 3” ... If you want to see a dream again but this time control it to your liking, then go to sleep thinking about the dream along with a rough alternate storyline based on what you wish to see.

Now, I wanted to try that out asap. I thought of shooting and killing the whale, as I slowly drifted into the subconscious...

A deep fear fills me as I stand over an edge and look down the steep slope. I can’t ski down that. Yes, It’s not that far down, but I can’t go further with the skis on. What if I hurt myself? I can hardly do a “Green” slope without falling over even once. Should I find another way down? I turn left to look at the map and I see Bharath (a friend from NITC) coming down the slope behind me.

He jumps over the steep section but lands awkwardly. He loses balance as he falls over. He tumbles over the slope and finally rests face down just a couple of feet away from the edge of the cliff. He’s not moving. I can’t go down there to see if he is ok. I panic. I need to get help.

Out of the blue, my brother, on a snowboard, comes down over my left shoulder, negotiates the slope with ease and stops near Bharath like a pro. I shout out to him, “Call the paramedics. I will see if I can get help from up here.” (Apologies Bharath, if you are reading this. I don’t know if my subconscious wanted to hurt you or help you. No offense, please.)

I run off towards a hole in the wall on my left. As I go through, I hear the paramedics saying something. I only catch the words, “vision”, “problem”, “ glasses” and “power 2.5”. I reach the other side of the wall. I am on a corridor. It looks like the one in C-Hostel, NITC, the one near my old room (C-124). I reach the new section of the hostel and go towards the first open room. There are people inside. I shout out for help. Many people come out. I recognize Johnu and Dileep. I am trying to say something but it seems like they can’t hear me, or is it that they don’t care? I am surrounded now. I am frantically waving my hands in the air, trying to direct their attention to the wall I crossed to get here and also to find someone with power-2.5 glasses. (Actually, I have glasses of power 2.5). I recognize Pai in the crowd. He has a disinterested look on his face or rather he looks like he is pissed off at something I did. I look away from him as I black out ...

... I am standing on the snow capped slope. This time I am facing away from the steep section that earlier scared me. I have a machine gun in my hand and I am shooting up the slope. I am wearing military uniform and I seem to be in some kind of war. “I need to get away from here”, I think, as I run towards the wall with a hole. I go through the hole, hide on the other side of the wall and throw a bomb towards the slope. I think of “Napalm” while doing this. A group of 4-5 people also in military uniform, but those who felt like the enemy, run through the hole trying to escape the impending explosion.

The bomb goes off and I run back towards the slope. “I need to escape before they call the bluff and get back”, I think as I run on snow, covered with turmeric, towards the steep section. This time I just jump down, take a U-turn and start climbing a slope that runs parallel to the one I just came down from. I am halfway up when I meet 3 more people in uniform. I can’t recognize their faces but they are holding a map of India. One of them shows me where we currently are and that’s somewhere near Goa. We make a plan to keep running up the slope till we reach Gujarat. We start up the slope ...

... I am walking towards my lab. I think, “If you want to see a dream again but this time control it to your liking, then go to sleep thinking about the dream.” Ya, right! Only the shooting part came right. I stop at the photo-board outside the Rensselaer Nanotechnology center. My photo is not on it and one of the girls in my research group is wrongly listed as an undergrad. “That’s not possible. I am still in a dream.” I look around, make sure there’s no one and slap myself twice ...

Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 3

2010-08-11T17:54:00.001+05:30

It felt like home. There was the television on the far left corner and the dvd player below it. There was the blue colored divan on my right and the door to my grandmother’s room in front. My grandma was standing on my left and behind me was my uncle. At the same time something felt out of place.

I looked down and I was standing on a motorboat with a gun in my hand. Over to my left a giraffe’s head bobbed out of the water. My uncle started shooting at it with a shotgun but to no avail. Amidst all the gunfire, my grandma was talking to me. I couldn’t hear her completely but was able to make out the words “evil”, “giraffe”, “whale” and “terrorizing”.

Then I spot something moving fast under the boat. It was huge, a whale I presume. My uncle also seemed to have noticed it as he started shooting into the water. As soon as the boat reached the entrance to my grandma’s room, I jumped out onto solid ground and started shooting at the whale. 6 shots! Empty! I noticed I had another gun in my left hand. “ I have to conserve this. We have a long night ahead of us”, I thought as the boat sped away into the open sea.

I open my eyes. I am lying face down on a mattress on the floor of my grandma’s room. When did I fall asleep? Was I dreaming about the whale? No way, it has to be real. I look up and turn left. Ammoomma, a lady who has been helping out my grandma with the household chores since around the time I was born, is squatting on the floor next to the divan. She is saying something and gesturing with her hands but I can’t hear her. There is a loud noise in the background. “It’s something about the whale, I am sure. I must turn the noise off so that I can hear her”, I think as I crawl over into the living room. The noise is from the television set. There’s something in the dvd player. I press the pause button but before I could ask her about the whale, I black out.

I open my eyes and I am again on the mattress. It’s morning now. I can hear my grandma in the kitchen. I walk through the living room into the kitchen.I ask my grandma , “Athine kittiyo?” (Did we catch it?). She replies in the negative, “Evidennu!”. I walk back to the mattress. I see a bed beside it and my uncle is sleeping on it. I fall onto the mattress below and close my eyes.

The online alarm went off at 7, as usual. I woke up in my room in Troy, NY, logged in to my computer and shut the alarm. I didn’t feel like going back to sleep. I browsed Facebook for a while and checked the latest cricket scores. I remembered what I had read about dreams a couple of days back. If you want to see a dream again but this time control it to your liking, then go to sleep thinking about the dream along with a rough alternate storyline based on what you wish to see.

Now, I wanted to try that out asap. I thought of shooting and killing the whale, as I slowly drifted into the subconscious...

Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 2

2010-07-26T07:32:00.005+05:30

Read “Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 1” for a background on my 1st experience with a lucid dream.

I had just got back from a strenuous hike to Algonquin and Wright on the Adirondacks High peaks. These are definitely not the toughest of the High Peaks, but I still found them strenuous because the terrain of the trail was almost entirely rocky and in some stretches slippery as well. Slip, I did, plenty of times, but fortunately was always able to regain control before hurting myself.

In any case, I get back, watch a couple of movies including Shawshank Redemption, set the alarm on my phone for 7 a.m Sunday Morning, and drift off to sleep. The alarm goes off at 7 and as usual I switch it off and go back to sleep.

I am climbing a rocky face of a peak. It’s quite steep and I have to strain all the muscles in my body to pull myself up. There are two others with me. I can’t see their faces but just as in the previous dream, I don’t feel that they are strangers. I am trying to get to a building on top of the peak. I have this strange sense of impending danger and I seem to be on a mission to save someone who has been forcefully detained in the building. I don’t know who that someone is, but it must be someone I care for since I have this strong feeling of loss.

I am pulling myself up holding onto a protruding rock. One of my co-climbers is on the others side of the rock and I can see a waterfall beyond him. The second of my co-climbers is a little ahead of us and almost at the top of the peak. That’s when I slip. I hold onto the rock with just one hand, but I feel like my grip is loosening.

I suddenly find myself transported into the body of the climber who is almost at the top. I feel no sense of remorse for my friend who had just slipped. It was like the “new me” did not even know that two other climbers existed. (I would like to think of the three climbers to be the same person along different timelines in the same universe, each following a path based on the different decisions I could have made while climbing up the cliff. Just as I realized that my first timeline would result in my death, I had jumped into a different one. Of course, this may sound like a pile of bull but cut me some slack, this is after all, my dream and my journal).

In any case, I jump, hold onto a wooden fence, and pull myself onto the top of the peak and into the building. There I see my youngest cousin on my Mother’s side (Hari). I am not sure if it was him that I was trying to save, but I had no time to ponder about that. I had just seen the villain in the dream, someone I was feeling a great sense of revulsion to. (Strangely though, the “villain”, resembled the Malayalam movie star, Jayaram). I reach out and grab his throat. He doesn’t resist, but he mutters something I found very strange. “There is this old saying. A meow is always a meow, but an eliyah can be an eliyah or a puliyah.”

(What was that? Meow is easy to understand, but by eliyah and puliyah, if he meant eli(mouse in malayalam) and puli(tiger in malayalam), then where does the “-yah” come in? I must be becoming crazier by the day.)

I have this strange sense of deja vu as soon as I hear him say those words but I can’t recollect why. I suddenly feel something on my back and I find myself shirtless. I look over my shoulders I and see a rat clinging onto my back. It’s small claws were clamped onto my back and I was finding it difficult to pull it off. I start to panic. I call out “Hari, help me.”, only to find him transformed into a mouse. I was still gesturing towards it to fight off the “evil” rat on my back. Hari cringes and runs off to the corner of the room.

I somehow manage to pull the rat off my back. I am holding it in my hands as I ponder over what to do with it. (In the dream, I seem to go over three possibilities, one after the other.) First, I instinctively throw it away to a corner of the room and watch the rat scamper away. Then in an instance I am holding the rat again. This time I throw it over the cliff that I just climbed. It was still not done. This time, I walk to a corner of the room and throw the rat into the Falls. I think, “This time I have got rid of it permanently”, as I wake up.

Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 1

2010-07-26T07:07:00.005+05:30

It’s been almost a year since I last posted an article on this blog. Maybe I was too lazy to pen my thoughts or possibly I had no clue about what I should write on. In either case, I would like to think I kept myself busy over the last one year gaining new experiences so that one day something would strike that would rekindle the fire to write again.

Until it finally did after a small conversation with one of my room mates about dreams (actually part of a very long conversation about our mind and the universe) and my subsequent exposure to Inception, Donnie Darko, Being John Malkovich and Identity in one stretch. Maybe watching and later thinking about these movies have driven me crazy but on the plus side of things I finally get to write again. For the first time ever, over the last few days, I have started lucid dreaming.

And today it happened for the second time, and in both cases I was in the first stage of Dream Induced Lucid Dreaming, where I have no control over what is happening but still conscious that I am dreaming. That was when I started reading more about it and thought about making a dream journal. And so with that aim in mind, this post is the first part in a series of entries.

I am in a shower. The bathroom resembles the one in my current house in Troy. I remember that I have to hurry. I have a class at 8 in the morning. But wait, there are three others in the shower. I can’t see their faces but I don’t feel that they are strangers. I can see them,yes, but none of them seem to realize the existence of the others. All of them seem to be in their own unique universe.

I start thinking, did I suddenly get the power to view parallel universes? Or, are they characters from within my own subconscious, are they my own alternate identities? I had just watched Identity the previous night. Am I in some kind of medical treatment where my own identities are pitted against each other? I keep hoping it is the first of those options as I close my eyes in the shower.

I open them to find myself walking on a corridor towards a room. The corridor and the location of the room reminded me of my 5th Standard classroom in Indian School, Dar-es-Salaam. I open the door and I walk in. I see two people in the room. Their faces remind me of Abhijith and Sebastian (two people I knew in CVK and NITC respectively). They are already in the ISD uniform. I look at my watch. It is already a little past 8. They were waiting for me. I pack my bags and walk out again.

I find myself inside a cafe, which seems to a blend of two cafes in the RPI campus. I ask the lady at the counter for a coffee. I bend forward a little bit to take a look at all the goodies inside the shelf. I see a bagel and point at it while asking the lady to pack that too. She comes forward, opens a “door” to the shelf and mutters, “Do you really want me to do this?”, as she walks into a deep freeze that seems to have magically appeared in place of the shelf. I was a little disoriented by now and close my eyes again.

As I open my eyes, I am back in the room with Abhijith and Sebastian. They were still waiting for me but neither said a word. I take a look at my watch. It is 8.45 a.m. I think, we could, well, manage to slip into the classroom during the 9 a.m break in between the two hour class, and we walk out. We were walking through the ISD grounds when I suddenly start searching the pockets of my jeans. (Why am I not in uniform? I have no clue. I was wearing the blue jeans that I wear to lab and class in RPI almost every single day).

Wallet - check, keys - check , handkerchief - check, phone --- I feel a sudden sense of panic. I had left it on the table in the room. Wanting to confirm, I ask my friends to place a call to my cellphone. One of them does and replies that someone actually answered the call.

I turn back and run towards the room. I see a few younger ISD students in uniform running out of that room. Two of them I saw had cellphones in their hands. I look closely and see that one of them, a scrawny lad with a turban, had a phone that had a greenish fluorescent base. I run towards him. I call out the name Harjinder (To be honest, I have no idea why. The only Harjinder I know is a post doc in RPI. Though I did know one Harbinder in ISD, the boy I was chasing didn’t look like him). He doesn’t stop but I manage to catch up with him, land a nice solid punch on his face, take the phone from his hands and walk back.

Almost instantly I am confronted by a lad with thick black glasses. I have never seen that face before. But he wanted to take me to the Principal’s office. I heard him muttering words like fair and trial. As soon as I heard the word fair, I started mocking him and laughing hysterically till we found ourselves inside the staff-room. (It resembled the one in ISD but the Principal sitting in the desk in front looked like my school Principal from CVK). She starts talking, “Based on your history...”. I interrupt, with a weird smile on my face and a strange satisfaction inside me. “I am a Science Student. I don’t take History as a Course”. Then she says again with a serious, angry and disappointed look, “Based on the history of your grades, you rank in the bottom eight of the class”. I started laughing again. “ That’s not possible. I am surely in a dream”. Those were my last words as I continued laughing, thinking that since I am in a dream, I could do anything I wanted and get away with it.

I find myself on the corridor outside the staff-room. In front of me I can see the Principal and the spectacled boy discussing something. I continue laughing, mocking the two of them. I hear a rumble of footsteps from behind. I turn back to see students running out of classrooms into the corridor. I lose balance and fall as I finally wake up.

It’s a Friday morning in July. I am disoriented, yes, who wouldn’t be after jumping in and out of characters and locations spanning 15 years of his life, but I am also strangely happy. Maybe, the after effect of laughing for so long.

I had set the alarm on my phone for 6.30 a.m as always, and as usual I had gone back to sleep after switching it off. It’s summer break now and all I have to do is research. So I tend to sleep till 10 in the morning before getting up and going to the lab. Of late I had started cursing myself for wasting my time sleeping, but as I later read more about lucid dreaming, I realized it wouldn’t be too bad at all as long as I got something to write about. Studies strongly suggest that a nap a few hours after waking in the morning is the most common time to have a lucid dream. If that’s true, then I have 5 more weeks to experiment with dreams.

From the chronicles of my last month in India - June 24th 2009

2009-08-09T20:41:00.003+05:30

I had just got back from Chennai yesterday morning. I got the US F1 visa, yes, but what a hassle it was. The interview lasted just a couple of minutes and the whole process took just a little over an hour. That is quite fast considering the number of applicants I saw there that day. But the hassle was not on the interview day. It lasted for almost 2 weeks just before the D-Day. Owing to a paranoia that though I had already been offered a Graduate Assistantship it was better to get as many financial documents as possible (not fake by the way) even those that I had just a minimalistic probability of being asked for by the interviewer, we ran around different banks getting all the necessary statements. As it turned out, during the interview they asked for none of the documents I worked so hard to obtain.

Anyway I now find myself on Dennis's home turf in Kodagu. Just a little over 24 hours back I had only returned to Trichur after the visa interview in Chennai. After getting back home I had quickly repacked, had a bath and within a couple of hours I was all set in a bus to Calicut to join 19 friends from college. We had planned a trip to Dennis's home and we set out in two cars from NIT Calicut, a Santro and a Wagon R. Then later, Kiru's Santro and Shillu's i10 joined us from Wynad. I was in Sajju's Santro along with Frijo, PKV and Roney. I was sitting right behind Sajju who was in the driver's seat. It was a great road trip at night. It wasn't that eventful and all but
for some reason it just felt great. Three of the best moments during the trip were obviously the sighting of a lone elephant on the road through Wynad Wildlife Sanctuary, the sudden transition from a good road to a hopelessly atrocious one across the Kerala-Karnataka border and of course the Pitch Black effect.

It was a cloudy day and we were inside a thick forest. The only lighting in the path was that of the car headlights. You switch that off and you will really learn what it is like to be blind. It was the blackest darkness I had ever seen in my life. And what more! Sajju kept trying it out a few times each black out lasting for a couple of seconds. I must admit, that was fun even if it risked us getting trapped in front a lone elephant which we might suddenly see in our path just as the lights were turned on again.

However, we reached Dennis's home without incident by around 11.30 at night taking the less travelled road via Tholpetti and Kutta. It was a really bad road after the border, but it was fun too except maybe for the owners of each car who would have empathised with the car's suspensions having to deal with such brutality. We had dinner and we were off to bed...

"I am running. I look down at my watch. Great! I am late again. Oh god! More than 30 minutes late. I am now supposed to be sitting in my Economics Class. Fantastic! I already have over 8 bunks. I reach the class and with a long, sad face I try to get in. And of course the Sir shows me the way back out... The scene changes suddenly. I seem to be in an examination room. I look around. I see the Economics Sir coming towards me. He takes my answer sheet back and politely asks me to leave. I am not supposed to be writing the exam owing to attendance shortage, it seems. Attendance shortage! In final year! Excellent! A year lost, my MS-PhD admit gone, my job also thrown away, all because of one subject - Industrial Economics! Great! Distraught, I walk back not even being able to summon the resolve to cry my heart out. I keep walking and walking. I go past F hostel, I go past E Hostel but still I keep walking. Into the bushes I walk and still keep walking until..."

I find myself awake. Maybe it was a bump with the wall beyond E Hostel or maybe something had stirred me in the real world. Anyway I am fully conscious now. I look at my watch. It is 8 in the morning on June 24th 2009. I was up after a long swim in the depths of sub-consciousness. It was a strange dream, yes, but understandable considering that I am after almost a month, again in the company of NITC friends. It is of course possible that some of my worst fears of NITC life had come alive last night. But, now is high time I let it all go, it is time I relinquish my hold on all of those few painful NITC memories of the last semester. It is time that I start waiting in anticipation for my new life in the US.

From the chronicles of my last month in India - June 18th 2009

2009-08-09T20:39:00.003+05:30

I suddenly open my eyes. I don't know what woke me up, but now that I am awake i realise that my left cheek is wet. I am lying face down in a pool of drool. What I just had was the craziest dream ever. I can't recollect everything but oh boy was it crazy. It was about to get crazier still, but something woke me up, I have no idea what. Maybe a sudden swerve of the train on the rails, maybe someone brushed past my legs as they walked through the gap between the side berths and the main berths in the 2nd class sleeper, or maybe my sub conscience had already reached the pinnacle of madness.

Anyways, now I am up. Last thing I remember was running into a godown, stacked with cartons all round. It felt like I was in a drug smuggler's den, again I don't know why. I hear sounds coming from further inside the den. I panic. That's the last thing I remember about the dream. I am up now. Maybe it was the sudden shock in the dream that woke me up.

The grills of the train window reveal light outside. I lift my face from the drool and take a look at my watch. It shows 5.30. Too early for it to be bright outside, I thought for a second before I drowned into the drool again and went into my next phase of dreamy siesta. At around 6 I wake up again. I see mom standing near my berth and she remarks that we would be reaching Chennai Station any time soon. So I get off the upper berth and proceed towards the wash basin at the back of the compartment.

As I was brushing, I was still thinking of the dream I had had. I remember it clearly. That is unusual. Normally when I am fully awake, other than maybe patches of the dream I am never able to recall every scene in it's right sequence, but I can now. Moreover, I vividly remember dreaming in colour but I have no proof to argue with experts declaring that dreams are black and white.

"I am walking down a lane. The lane looks vaguely similar to the road that runs beside Westend Supermarket near my grand-mom's house in Trichur. I look back. I can see my Grand-mom and mother walking behind. Suddenly I hear a loud rumble coming from the front of me. Innumerable number of trucks carrying one elephant each were hurtling their way down the road at super fast speed. Fear gripped my mind as the trucks neared closer. The elephants were not securely chained at the back of the truck. A sudden swerve of the truck that was just beside me resulted in the elephant behind being flung over my head somersaulting as it landed a few feet away. My gaze shift to the other trucks in front of me. I could then see more elephants in the air. I turned back. My mom and grandma had already run through the gates of another compound to our left. I noticed a gate right in front of me. I flung the gates open and ran into the compound. I was again in the godown stacked with cartons all around. I hear sounds from inside. This time I didn't panic. I decided to take a look. I take few steps forward when I hear my mother calling me from behind. I quickly turn back and...", there I was lying face down in the pool of drool!

Safari to Selous game Reserve

2009-08-07T16:01:00.002+05:30

Part 3: Jungle Safari

Our alarm rang at 5.15 but neither I nor my brother had stirred in our sleep. Dad woke us up at 6.20. We were late. We were supposed to have breakfast at 6.30 and leave for the safari by 7. We quickly had our baths and went for breakfast at 7. We vacated at 7.30 and off we went into the Selous Game Reserve.

The first animal that greeted us into the Game Reserve was the Giraffe, the National Animal of Tanzania. It ran behind the trees as the vehicle approached and thus I could not a get a clear snap of the giraffe. No regrets though, for we would anyway run into more giraffes later. Moreover, I have understood that the best way to go about photography during a safari is to focus on any given animal on each trip into the jungle, for you need plenty of luck and patience to find the right creature at the right spot in the best pose possible. A good guide might be enough for you to spot the animals but a good snap is a different thing all together. If you focus on one animal per trip you get more time with the creature of your choice, which is once you find it, to test your patience to the limit with incessant clicks of your cam waiting for that elusive avant-garde pose.

But again, we can't do it that way. We have just one 5 hour trip into the jungle. So the only compromise is to try to get snaps of whatever creature we see and deem important enough to capture on a frame. Others we just spot and then ignore like we did with the photo calls of many birds and baboons. One thing about the Selous Game Reserve compared to the more famous National Parks in Tanzania like the Ngorongoro, Mikumi, etc. is that owing to a difficult road access, in spite of it being designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 due to its diversity of its wildlife and undisturbed nature, tourists are fewer and thus the animals are less accustomed to the low rumble of jeeps. Unlike in Ngorongoro where the animals practically pose for photographs, here they at the slightest disturbance run off into the bushes. That makes photography even more challenging.

Anyway, into the trip we ran into crocs, gazelles, more giraffes, zebras, antelopes, wild boars, the golden baboons, wildebeest, hippos and water birds, all of which we tried to get at least one snap of. We were unlucky with the African elephants though. We did spot two of them running into the foliage but could not get any snaps of them.

However, it was almost 10 and we still hadn't got a glimpse of the only animal of importance to anyone embarking on a safari in Africa, the elusive lions. It is easy to say "Follow the vultures, you will find the lions", but what if even vultures are hard to come by? I knew that the Canon in my hand had already made this trip more than worth it, but I still desperately wanted to catch the lions.

If I remember right, this was my sixth safari in Tanzania, though the first to Selous. In spite of five safaris I have been lucky to take back moments of awe only in my 1996 Safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. The other trips just don't easily come into my memory, which clearly depicts why luck is such a major factor in determining the long term nostalgic quotient of a safari. Back in 1996, since I was little and had no cam, I could not capture those precious moments as digitized information or even onto a film. But those moments are vividly etched into my mind. The best ones are undoubtedly a lioness licking the hands of a foreign tourist in a vehicle in front of ours and the sighting of a leopard on a branch right above our open top 4 wheeler. The latter was one spooky moment. The leopard could have jumped onto us if it wanted to. We didn't budge nor did the leopard. After a surreal half a minute of frisson the leopard was scampering away scared by an oncoming tractor.

Now, I wanted this trip to beat that in all respects and so in spite of great moments like witnessing the sublime athleticism and crisp muscle movement of the swift gazelles and even the ugly, yet strangely alluring writhing motion of the giraffes' necks while they scamper for cover, I wanted to spot a majestic lion making short work of its prey. But by 11 I had started accepting that "no lion" was not a loss. I had started resigning to the fact that we had already seen the best on offer.

That didn't bog our guide and driver down, did it? He desperately wanted to show us the lions and it was his undying persistence that finally got us to the elusive lion at 11.30, well technically, not exactly. We rather saw three lionesses still panting after making short work of their prey, a wildebeest. But will do. Something is better than nothing. The sighting of a majestic lion feeding on its prey probably will come true in some future safari of mine.

We were back at the Mtemere gate at 12 where we took a few photos and then once out of the reserve boundary we had lunch, courtesy the Mbega Camp where we stayed last night. They had packed for us lunch boxes. Nice chicken and sandwich. At 1 we started our return journey to Dar, where we were back by around 6.30 slowed slightly by the heavy traffic once in Mbagala.

The total cost of trip came to around 350$ per head. Considering that included the 5 hour ride to Selous and back, complimentary breakfast, great food and accommodation in Mbega Camp, a boat ride that gave me some of my best photos and a memorable 5 hour safari through the Game Reserve, I would say, worth it!!!

Safari to Selous Game Reserve

2009-08-07T15:57:00.002+05:30

Part 2: The Boat Trip

We had already paid in advance and thus there was not much delay at the reception. We were shown our way to tents 7 and 8, me and brother in tent 8. I don't know whether you will call it a "tent". It was a cloth covered raised platform with facilities inside resembling any hotel room, definitely not a five star hotel in a city but certainly the best you can get in a jungle.

As we went inside the first thing I checked was the toilet. Toilet paper!!! Nothing even remotely resembling a mug! It felt like the universe was conspiring to toilet train me before my 4 year stint in the US. Anyways, Rufiji River was in my sight from inside the tent. A few hippos were visible too. While we were waiting in the tent for lunch to get ready, dad spotted a baby croc beside the Rufiji River. As I got there with the camera, it had well, vanished back into the river's depths. We had lunch at 1. Fried chicken and French Fries! 4 other foreigners were also there. Not English. In tents 5 and 6! There was no one else in this camp. After lunch, we spent our time in the tent till 4 waiting in anticipation for the boat ride.

In the boat we met the 4 foreigners again. They were Dutch. Couldn't get their names properly though. The young lady in the group has a name Figo or something but isn't that a guy's name? Anyways she's quite good looking and her partner very tall. The other 2 are a relatively elderly couple. The elderly guy seems to be a good photographer. He had a DSLR with zoom lens. Apparently he has also been on safaris in Zimbabwe and all of them have been here at least for 3 days now. Anyways, Kaseem, the boat guy and guide was extremely helpful. Actually if it weren't for him the boat ride wouldn't have been that interesting. He gave us a 2 and half hour ride and gave us details about the water birds and the flora we saw and even narrated interesting anecdotes about life beside the Rufiji River. But the best thing was that he was adept at taking the boat as close to the birds as possible without scaring them which was what created opportunities to get some great snaps. The sunset was beautiful and the only regret I have about the boat ride is that I was not able to capture a heron in flight though I got 2 chances.

Anyway, there are a few villages beside the Rufiji River some distance away from the Game Reserve but still within a forested area. We saw people swimming in the river, though it is highly dangerous with the Great Nile Crocodiles that call this river home being the most ferocious of all the 4 kinds of crocs you find in Africa. Kaseem time and again repeated that though the game reserve had a marked boundary as far as the humans are concerned, free animals don't necessarily have any boundaries.

During the final return, there was a bump below the boat. I thought it was a hippo but couldn't have been. Kaseem explained that the canoe the villagers use was once overturned by a hippo and a guy eaten by a croc. But hippos are scared of the motor boat. So well, a hippo bumping our boat is one of the things that just couldn't be true, irrespective of how much I would like it to be.

It was dark by the time we were back in the tent. The generator in the camp is operated only between 6 in the evening and 10 pm. So that is the only time when there would be electricity supply and only time when we could recharge our cam batteries. So we had to ration the charger for mine and Arun's cam batteries. Fortunately there was no untimely die-off during the entire trip.

Anyways we went for dinner at 8. The process of taking the 1st step out of a small gap in the tent with only torchlight to show the way had a magical feeling to it. Don't know why and also tried it out twice. The dinner was sumptuous. Great soup and beef curry. Ended with fruit salad! Finally as I drifted off to sleep at 9 with the Apple singing in my ears, I felt strangely sanguine that though this day alone had made my trip, the next one was going to better it still.

Safari to Selous Game Reserve

2009-08-07T15:39:00.003+05:30

Part 1: The long drive to Selous (pronounced “Seloo”)

Saturday, August the First! The day I had been waiting for ever since I landed in Tanzania, for this would be my best opportunity to really experiment with my new camera, the Canon SX10IS. My watch read 6.20 am when we started off in a Toyota Prado just as the darkness was lifting off. There wasn't much traffic on the road this early in the day and we were moving pretty fast. Within 15 minutes we went past my brother's school. The road turning left to his campus is completely dirt laden. I remember thinking if it had ever been tarred. However we were on a pretty good stretch of a 4 lane road. Though once out of the outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam the road narrowed to 2 lanes, the road was good and we were covering a lot of distance in little time.

En-route to Mbagala, a nice photo opportunity arose - the rising sun, nice bright red in colour, half hidden behind a cloud rendering the sky around in a nice orange-ish shade. We were moving pretty fast and thus we were pretty late to react to it and couldn't ask the driver to stop. That would be pretty much the only regret I have in the first part of the trip, though the view of an even more beautiful sunset later in the day would more than make up for it. There was also plenty of mist around during the first hour of the ride with the visibility being less than 15 metres. Looking out of the left car window we could see a sea of mist thickly covering a low lying area revealing only the top of coconut trees. The temperature had also dropped to 21^oC. It was 25^oC back in Dar.

Anyway, we were moving at over 100kmph and the vehicle's suspension seemed to be a little soft. There were also some minor tuning problems with the engine. There was an obvious, though minor reluctance on the engine's part to rev up. Otherwise, it was a really smooth journey thus far. We pulled left into a Panpol petrol bunk at Mbagala. The driver Shabana, who has been in this job for over 14 years now remarked that this would be the cheapest bunk on this route.

We filled up full tank and hadn't gone for over a kilometer when there they were, the policemen! One officer was standing right in the middle of the road and waving frantically. There was no option but to stop or else we would have to run him over. This was one thing we were hoping to avoid. Very naive of us considering it was a Saturday morning. They first asked us for our passports in which everything was all hunky-dory. Still, would you believe it that they asked for 300$ and for no reason what-so-ever? We don't pay, we don't move an inch further, simple as that.

Corruption, rather official extortion is one thing any visitor to Tanzania who plans to embark on a drive must be prepared for. One thing to remember is that they are just shooting into the dark. If you keep looking into their eye, know a bit of Swahili and politely question them back, you could if you are lucky see another side of these officers. The officer in question in our case basically started begging, in whispers though. Based on my mother's and brother's translation he was asking for at least 10000tshs since Sunday was coming up and he needed a little loose change for booze. Would be visitors; keep one more thing in mind. Just because you now think you have the upper hand in argument and thus get away without even paying the 10k, then God Bless You. If you value your time and do not have a photo of you standing next to the Tanzanian President in your car, pay the 10k and leave. (Note: Around 1300tshs would correspond to 1$). As we reached Mkuranga, there was another police roadblock. This time it was Traffic. Traffic officers are comparatively less indulgent in official extortion and so they left us after asking a couple of questions.

Now, the foliage in Tanzania would remind anyone from Kerala of his home state. Beyond the road you could see plenty of plantains, coconut and mango trees. We had to reach Faribu, before the first visible signs of Africa in its Savanna like grasses started to appear. We had burgers at 8, complementary from the travel guys. After a while there were remnants of a dead animal on the road. If we were in the jungle, I would have said it was a hyena. It had the same colour, stripes and size.

By 8 in the morning we had already completed almost 150kms of the total 250km stretch to Selous. We had reached Kibiti by then, where we stopped for tea near a Gapco Petrol Bunk. As we restarted the journey at 8.30, I was sitting in the car and wondering why my father had said this would a 5 hour drive. We had already completed more than half the distance! That was when I was in for a big surprise as we veered right onto a dirt road with a signboard showing 94 kms to Selous. Well, great!!! At least we could start the drive-in-the-jungle experience earlier than expected.

We were leaving a heavy dust trail as we were still moving at around 80kmph though after we almost jumped off the road, the driver decelerated to a more decent 50. First signs of the wild were visible on the sides of the road. Though it were just monkeys that made the bumpy 3 hour ride worth it! We reached Mtemere Gate at 11.30 am where we finished the formalities for entering Selous Game Reserve and then signed in at the Mbega Camp where we would be spending our next 18 hours. A decent journey so far but in no way did I anticipate that the next 24 hours of my life would be one of my best.

Watchmen

2009-06-12T19:29:00.004+05:30

WATCHMEN
~~~~~~~~

Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Mathew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Carla Gugino
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

This is not the ordinary superhero comic adaptation. It is nothing like the high-on-action, special effects filled no-brainers that one is used to. It is darker and involves a greater level of scheming, but more importantly, it is not a classic superhero versus villain or good versus evil saga. In fact, there are no villains in the movie. It is rather a visual into the moral diversity of its superheroes, each flawed in different ways, allowing us to dwell in different ethical perspectives, at least intellectually, and witness their consequences.

It is not that the movie lacks action sequences or special effects (a movie after all with not one but eight or more superheroes won't have any dearth of action) but the movie, just as in the comic, goes beyond all that. Set in the time of the Cold War, with a great risk of an all-out nuclear war, a superhero, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, sets out to bring peace in the world. Nothing new about this concept except that he plans to do so by creating a major holocaust and then to use the fear of a larger, common enemy for mankind to forget all their petty in-fighting and thereby, he hopes to see peace reign even at the expense of a million or so lives. A million lives lost to save billion others, that's the twisted logic behind the superhero's thinking. Naturally a few superheroes, like the Comedian do not subscribe to his logic and they are found dead under mysterious circumstances. The whole movie is about a few other vigilante superheroes, Rorschach and Nite Owl II, who are ignorant of the "bigger-enemy" plan, trying to uncover the mystery behind the murders. Nothing too savvy, but still worth watching.

Amidst all these superheroes there is also the presence of a God like Dr. Manhattan who could if he wanted changed the world with a single move but also is incidentally detached from the suffering of mankind and thus does little to make the world a better place. His inaction is also presented from two different ethical perspectives, one the Comedian's perspective which justifies Dr. Manhattan and then Veidt's perspective of always wanting to do more to ensure that the world is a better place. Naturally, you don't get the gist of the different contexts of thought in one go. It takes the whole movie for the idea to sink in and then only on further reflection do you really get a grasp of the deeper ethical questions raised in the movie. And that is probably why this movie is not for everyone. You want mere high-octane action, then you will be disappointed with this one. If you are in the mood for some deeper reflection from different points of view then this is the first movie you should grab.

Zack Snyder's 300 style 3rd-person narration while the story unfolds from Rorschach's diary clearly gives the movie an interesting point of narration. Add to those scenes, the parts where Dr. Manhattan is introduced and his character sketch is defined, and you would expect to have a really fine movie.

But the movie falls apart in the sense that there were many scenes that do not fit the overall theme and could well have been avoided. The relationship between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II, who is also Dr. Manhattan's wife were given too much of screen time. That may have been meant to depict his increasingly detached relationship with mankind, finally making him leave the Earth to live in solitude in Mars reflecting upon human suffering and his role on Earth. His detachment from human suffering was needed in the plot for Veidt to execute his plans to the
full extent, for if any person could have stopped him that was Dr. Manhattan. But still, too much time was spent on the Owl-Spectre relationship. Even the development of Comedian's character sketch were in most cases not relevant to the theme. May be that time could have been used to develop the other characters even more. I felt that too less time was given to Veidt and thus we do not get enough time to really understand him and his logic.

But I may be wrong here. I watched an edited version of Watchmen in a theatre in Kerala where many scenes were simply edited out. I read later that Watchmen is a 3 hour movie, but what I saw was just a little over two hours. And that would certainly have taken the weight off many of the scenes that I could not see to its fully developed extent. However, if at all I find a flaw with the movie, it is this one - many scenes could well have been avoided, atleast to make the movie shorter if nothing else, then the proprietors in Kerala Movie theatres would not edit many scenes out just to save time.

3 stars out of five for the concept and Snyder's narration style, one less than what I would have like to give it, the penalty being for either the length of the movie or for scenes that do not fit the overall theme.

May 3rd: Corporation Stadium, Kozhikkode

2009-05-04T21:54:00.008+05:30

Benny Dayal,Breathe, Shankar Mahadevan, A.R Rahman + Hariharan + Chitra + Benny again + Javed Ali + Blaze + Many More, 4 concerts in a matter of 5 weeks, each one raising the benchmark of expectations for the next, all of them breathtaking, I just can't imagine a better climax to my life at NIT Calicut.

The first three were part of Ragam'09 towards the end of March where Shankar ruled the roost with his exhilarating performance from start to finish. There was not even one moment of slackness, not even one moment of weariness, an aggressive, fast and breathtaking show for two hours. Benny flagged off Ragam on Day one, a performance great for Day One, but nowhere as close to Shankar's on Day Two, but well, still worth it. While it was Shankar that set the tone of Ragam'09, Breathe didn't disappoint on Day Three and from there I moved on with a feeling that there was nothing else left to see. Oh boy, was I wrong!!!

Then came May the 3rd - A.R Rahman flagging off his Jai Ho World Tour from Kozhikkode. At first I was excited about it, but then came our end semester exam timetable with a packed first week of May. Till a week before the show I had almost decided to skip it; in hindsight, am I glad I didn't. If I had missed the show just because of exams, then May 4th would have been the longest and saddest day of my life. It was not a performance that blew me off my feet as was Shankar Mahadevan's, it was not a show that was packed with punch, but it was one that was more surreal and refined, one not meant just for the adrenaline heavy college crowd.

The concert was a perfect mix of soothing and exhilirating music, so well blended that you wouldn't know that three hours had passed and you wouldn't mind sitting there for another three listening to more Rahman magic. None of us were tired while leaving well actually none of us wanted to leave. The music was so soul stirring that rather than just blowing you off your feet, your mind is given wings to hover around near the stage and with each passing rendition giving them more and more aerodynamic lift to take you higher and higher. Personally, my best moment was one and a half hours into the show when Rahman and then Javed Ali gave back to back renditions of "Khwaja Mere Khwaja" and "MAula Maula" after which for some reason I felt lighter as though all pressures of the world were just lifted off me.

But it was not always like that. The start was pretty ordinary, with the sound systems making shrill music of its own in between and thus though A.R Rahman started off with "O Saya" something was missing in the feel. The same was true of the 2nd and 3rd songs, "Padakali" from Yodha and "Tu Muskura" from Yuvraaj, but then either the sound engineer managed to magically disguise the faults in the sound system or Hariharan was, in the 4th song, simply awesome enough to disguise the speakers' feeble attempts to outsmart the masters in their own game. After Hariharan's bilingual rendition of "Kadhal Rojave", in feel and sheer magic of the moment the intensity was always on the rise.

The first half ended with "Maula Maula" and then after a 15 minute break for the organisers to indulge in self congratulations on stage, the show was back on, but this time with nostalgia flowing in through his timeless hits of "Mustafa Mustafa" and more in ever increasing intensity upto the very end.

Add to that performances by Chitra capped by her rendition of "Jiya Jale" coupled with a well synchronised fire display in the foreground, Blaze's rap, the predictable ending with "Jai Ho" + "Vande Mataram" amidst fireworks, and yes, the awesome stage setting with doubly brilliant lighting and superbly synchronised graphics display on the on-stage screen, yes, if I had missed this show the regret would have stayed on the back of my mind forever.

Nostalgic Final Sem

2009-03-30T06:23:00.003+05:30

The following is the thought that crossed my mind while I was returning from Chennai after Saarang'09."It was when I was sitting at the wrong end of a train compartment, watching the world speeding past in front of me, that I realised I wanted to put my hands out, pull myself back through time and relive those few days that were undoubtedly the best days of my life. Thanks in tonnes to Johnu, GT and the dog that followed him, Ashwanth, Shilton, Sreehari, Sandeep, Mammen, Gayathri, Parvathy and Neethi for helping me have a great time, for making me laugh till I could no longer breathe, for making me enjoy myself in a way I never have in my whole life."

This final semester in NIT Calicut has been good to me. New Year's drive to the beach, Trip to Chembra Peak, Trip to Kunchan's Home, Saarang Trip, Trip to Bangalore for Aero India Show, each trip bearing moments that took my breath away. I just read George Carline's message which concluded with the quote, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away". If that's true, I have lived more in the last 3 months than I ever have in the 21 years preceding it.

And that's just the trips beyond NIT Calicut. The events that were organised here, the responsibilities I had - Ragam'09, New Year Celebrations, Council Inaguration, working as the deputy Speaker of SAC - the amount I was able to enjoy, the extent to which through the events and otherwise I was able to bond with people around me, make many new friends, strengthen old friendships; these are memories, memories I cherish, memories I value, and thus they will remain etched away in an easily accessible portion of my brain for me to access fast and go down the memory lane again and again.

Must Read Message from George Carline

2009-03-21T16:24:00.002+05:30

George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian. He was also an actor and author, and he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. Below is a small write up by him, which is quite soul stirring, something to really ponder on.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Dialogue that defines the movie - Serendipity

2008-12-10T07:08:00.005+05:30

This is a beautiful piece of writing, one that completely defines the tone of the movie. You need to actually watch the movie to understand its context, but inspite of that, I guess you can still gather the inherent philosophy, that is presented in a comical yet so strangely a poignant and serious note.

"Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiance. He was 35 years old. Softspoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic. But in the final days of his life he revealed an unknown side of psyche. This quasi-jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie like pursuit for his long reputed soul mate, the woman he only spent the few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure. Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly comes to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, ahah, but rather it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite sublime plan. Asked about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and executive editor of New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. Things were clear for him, Kansky noted. Ultimately Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients call fate or what we currently refer to as destiny."

"How can you heal if you can't even feel time?" - Memento.

2008-12-09T01:31:00.004+05:30

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Guy Perace, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Another one of Christopher Nolan's finely narrated thrillers, Memento, with its backward narration style is by no means a movie meant for those who just want to watch and enjoy a no-brainer. Your brain will be gnawing at your skull at all points trying to figure out what just happened. It's suspense filled till the climax, not until then, do you figure out what really happened, and only then will you be able to grasp the movie in its entirety. At the end of it there will be a distinct feeling of satisfaction,a feeling that you were challenged intellectually and you came out on top.

Well, that's how i felt while watching the movie, inspite of having watched the Tamil Blockbuster Ghajini, which is an Indian adaptation of Memento. So knowing the story meant that well, Memento was not as suspense packed to me as it should have been, but i liked it all the same, particularly because of its reverse narration style. Memento is about a person who suffers from short term memory loss trying to find the killer of his wife and the culprit for his condition, John G. So every now and then the protagonist is shaken up, not remembering what he was doing, not remembering what he is supposed to do next. Because of Nolan's narration style at no point do we really know more than what the protagonist knows or remembers from the notes he makes to supersede his failing memory. And by backward narration style this is what I mean - the beginning of the movie shows the protagonist killing John G and the climax shows how he got to finding this John G. Morever it ends with the movie open to interpretation. Either the protagonist himself could be the killer of his wife and he is trying to get over his remorse with the creation of a fictitious killer or maybe the person he finds as John G is the real killer.

This aspect of making your brain work is to a certain extent absent in Ghajini. I wouldn't call Ghajini a no-brainer but well the forward narration style that is followed takes off the sheen a little bit. There's also more masala introduced into the script, unrealistic stunts, unnecessary dance numbers, all of which click with the Indian audience, oh well, I guess this is what an adaptation means. The movie shouldn't bomb. There should be elements introduced into it to make it succeed with even the frill loving audience. That's a different school of thought, a different movie industry. So no point comparing Ghajini and Memento.

All the same Memento is a must watch if you are in a mood to think; otherwise, i would suggest, keep it for later.

The Lake House

2008-12-04T21:31:00.002+05:30

It's hypothetical, conceptual and completely unrealistic but nice all the same. Maybe it's the lack of that extra dose of reality that makes the movie so good to watch. There's actually not a moment in the movie "The Lake House" that makes you feel bored, not a moment that makes you feel enough is enough, unlike those so many movies bordered beyond the scope of reality.

But not this one. You know for sure that it is impossible, but you tend to romanticize, what if? You pretty much get the gist of what's going on half way through the movie and if you have watched many movies, you will also get a hint of the climax, but I can bet you will complete the movie, if not for the story, atleast for the serene music.

The music!!! That's one thing. So peaceful, so soothing. You tend to float with the melodious sound waves from the beginning of the movie to the end. The music caresses you through. Takes you to the end and even if the climax is just as you expected, you will like it all the same.

The movie's about a conversation through letters written between Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) living in 2004 and Kate Forrester (Sandra Bullock) living in 2006. Feels crazy, just writing that. Mind you - it's a "conversation" not a narration. They gradually fall in love and their desire to meet each other unfortunately results in the death of one. Though of course, knowledge of the future can be used to save lives, especially if you can talk to the past. That's expected and that's exactly how the movie ends when they both finally meet up, after a four year wait for Alex Wyler and a two year one for Dr. Forrester, on Valentine's Day 2008.

But ya, there's one paradox in the climax that the Director may have just ignored. Its actually the sight of a then unknown Alex Wyler's death in front of Dr. Forrester that made her go back to her happy old home, the lakehouse, and it was then that the beatiful converstaion got kicked off. But of course, if she saves Wyler from that death, then she wouldn't go back to the lake house, the conversation would never have happened and the love story couldn't exist in the first place. So they just can't be together at the end of the movie. But well time travel and its corresponding paradoxes is a whole lot of mumbo jumbo. Nothing ever seems to fit. So all the same, I am ready to ignore this paradox, for in the remaining 90 minutes I had a really good time.

I need to clarify this at least now!!!

2008-11-07T17:44:00.006+05:30

I haven't been blogging for quite some time now. I was busy with my MS applications. Something has been building up inside me for a few days now and I just had to write it down. I did that today afternoon and thus this post. Probably after this post I may once again go into blog hibernation, at least till mid January. Anyways, enjoy reading and post your comments.

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People have asked me, many times over, why am I a fan of Australia? They have asked me, when India plays Australia, who do I support? My answer, "Australia at times; India at times", stumps many and there are people who have called me unpatriotic. But honestly, I don't think so.

More than the fact that they win matches and have been a champion team for so long, the reason I like Australia is their sports system, not just cricket but any sport you want to play. Being a sportsman is not looked at as a silly ambition for a kid and the administration handling sporting talent is to a reasonable extent dedicated to that cause. Too much politics does not come into the picture. People like Gill (in Indian Hockey) are nowhere to be seen. And it is that trust in the sporting system that makes me support the nation's sporting endeavours, even outside cricket.

Coming to cricket, since the topic is hot now, given Gilly's contoversial autobiography and the current India Australia series, I don't expect Australia to win every series, every World Cup. I actually want Australia to lose the Nagpur Test and be humiliated in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008 with a 2-nil drubbing.

Because, now is a transition phase of Australian cricket. After a string of retirements, every team is unsettled and unbalanced and has to go for a phase of exprimentation for a couple of years or more, to regain that same composed and confident outlook in their team composition. What was happening for the last two series or so was that even with second string (compared to the erstwhile Oz outfit), experimental outfits they were winning matches, just because the opposition had an inherent fear of Australia and not completely on their on merit. Such a situation would lead to a complacent nature where-in you tend to believe you can win without working too hard, and Oz were in danger of tipping over. Well, till now anyway. Now there's India to humiliate them, to make them realise they need to keep experimenting.

It was such experimentation that gave them Geoff Marsh, Mark Taylor, Glenn Mc Grath, the Waugh brothers and the list goes on. To find champions you have to be bold enough to take risks. And you don't do that if there is no team out there challenging your supremacy. Every team has to go through such experimentation at some stage or another and many have succeeded. The only thing is that in the Australian system of sporting there is a greater guarantee that this phase of trial and error will not last forever.

It may not be the perfect system. They might not be able to get out of the current rut. But there is still a greater probability that things will work out just fine compared to the other alternative sports system, the one rooted in romanticism and though it has been successful in bringing out a few exceptional greats, plenty of heartbreaks have also gone unnoticed.

Yes, I am talking about India. India, the land of stories. We Indians love drama and when sportsmen rise from obscurity, challenging the environment around them, we adore them. Where was Dhoni five years back and where is he now? That's the most recent example of India's success in producing champions in a manner that Shakespeare would love to indulge upon. The only problem is that for a youngster dreaming of something other than cricket, heartbreak is what he more often sees. And for even those who dream about cricket, sometimes, societal pressure (and the insistence on an engineering education and IT jobs) tend to flush these dreams down the drain.

The method may keep succeeding, for it is rooted in human emotion and not rules and bylaws. This gives the people an uncanny power to dream, challenge all odds and when they come out successful, they will be people who can handle any kind of pressure that professional sport puts on them. Well, those who are baby fed tend to become whiners. But, I still think any youngster, hoping to make it big, would love to be groomed in Australia, for, hard work though it may be, societal pressure is one thing they wouldn't have to worry about. That is why I want the sports administration in India to develop into a suitable mix of the two systems and when it does, when it retains its charm but still becomes more dependable, then there's no team I would cheer for, irrespective of sport, but INDIA. So strictly speaking as of now, I want Australia to win at times, sometimes even against India, so that I can retain the belief that their system is successful, and I want India to win at times, so that I can enjoy the charm the rise of a sportstar here offers. How can that dream be unpatriotic?