Aayirathil Oruvan: Hellhole on Screen

If you haven’t already watched Aayirathil Oruvan(in Tamil) or Yuganikki Okkadu(in Telugu), take my advice, STAY AWAY. Some people tried telling me that. But I watched it wondering how worse could a movie get and spent 3 hours of a precious Sunday through a gut-quishing experience.

This movie is not meant for

1. The weak-hearted (Trust me. It’s pointless being egoistic. Read further for details)
2. A date
3. ABSOLUTELY NOT RECOMMENDED for kids. Not applicable to parents who want to be blamed for giving their children a disturbing childhood. Or parents who are ready to answer uncomfortable questions.

I don’t abhor the film because it reminds me of Tomb Raider, Titanic, 300, Braveheart, Prison Break and a bunch of other movie/sitcoms I may not know. I am not even berating it for it’s crudeness of dialogues or the scenes. The movie was simply one of the most disturbing experiences ever.

Reasons? Three hours of Bloodshed, limbs flying, horrificly intricately ornamented face of cannibals, tribal men chopping off their own heads, slimy snakes, people eating a camel raw, an extremely dark cave-like place filled with thousands of thin, coal-black, savage-looking, raw flesh-eating men, women and children, big fat man hitting prisoners with a big iron ball, horrificly rubbery and wrinkly old man shown in close-up, more bloodshed, more limbs flying…

There were a couple of places the movie did make me LOL:

1. Oh Eesa song’s video (which closely resembled a Marilyn Manson video)I thought was brilliantly pulled off with eerie faces, smudged make-up, suggestive dances and all.  But that was till the part where the actors wear Saffron shirts with Om written all over them (which closely resembles Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai) and  start singing Govinda Govinda (at which point it’s hard not recalling the Bhajans played at home)
2. Reema Sen and her uncle (who are apparently heirs of the Pandians) fight a battle against the Cholas. Reema Sen and Uncle are dressed in Pandian clothes: kingly adorns with armour, swords and other archaic war paraphernelia. And Surprise Surprise! They are flanked by task force men dressed in regular army camouflage clothes. (Now we may question why Task Force men are interested in fighting against Cholas who Reema Sen and her uncle have a problem with). The most RIB-TICKLING part is where the Pandian Uncle (remember! He is wearing an ancient warrior costume) shouts to his army, “Take position! Fire!”

I am surprised this movie is getting favourable reviews. But if a majority thinks what I am thinking, I hope the director Selvaraghavan has a back-up plan cos I’m sure the censored version of the movie can’t run even for 45 minutes if any channels decides to screen it as an”Indiya tholaikaatchigalil mudal muraiaaga“(First time on Indian Television) product.

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Final Part)

Please read part 1 and part 2 before you proceeed

So day in and day out, for the next 96 hours, I kept giving Muthu a combination of pills, testing his blood and ensuring he was stable. In between taking care of Muthu, I spent time with Jyothi. She would take me around the village and show me off to her friends. “This is the doctor saar who is treating Muthu. He is my hero”, she used to tell her friends.

My friends riled me for my sudden change. One of my seniors warned me that I was taking the case too personally. I told him, “Most problems in this world arise when people assume what is good for them is good for everyone”. He told me, “There are two kinds of people in the world- people who learn from their mistakes and people who learn from other’s mistakes. The latter are the smarter.” I told him, “Maybe I am dumb”.

I didn’t understand why people always came in between me and my passion. When I was a kid I was dissuaded from running because that wasn’t a lucrative enough to make a career. That week in Nazipet I didn’t care for my grades. I didn’t care about using this experience to write a paper. All I cared about was making sure that the kid goes home safe to his sister and I had become the butt of everyone’s joke. The truth was after years, there was someone who believed in me. I wanted to make everything alright for Jyothi. I wanted her brother to return back safe to her. I wanted it to be a happy ending.

That night Muthu passed away. I don’t remember anything from that night. Except that I ran.

I ran because I was scared. I ran because I felt helpless. I ran because I wanted to forget everything. I ran because I needed the high that I know marijuana can’t give me tonight. I ran because I didn’t have the guts to face Jyothi. I got reminded of the days I ran through Doom’s Alley. It’s been 14 years and I still hadn’t learnt to confront my fears.

As I ran, I kept thinking. Funny, life isn’t after all the race that Mr. Saamy, my school principal said it was. Nor is it the marathon as my seniors referred to it was when we worked 3 shifts straight. Life is a relay. We are just lonely runners – running our part of the race and passing the baton to someone. That someone is sometimes a person we know, but more often it is a nameless person or destiny. And then all we can do look is stare at the runner going in front – hoping that he would reach the finish line. When we win, there’s something to rejoice. When we lose, all we can take home is the pain in the knees and a sweaty t-shirt to tell ourselves that we did the best and put ourselves to sleep.

I kept running till I passed out.

The end

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Part 2)

Please read part one of the story before you read this.

So I got into Med-school. Most of my first year went off in remorse and cigarettes. In between that there were classes, labs, vivas and exams. Not that I cared. But they became a part of my life. Running was not a part of that life. But I now knew the names of tendons that used to pain after a good running session.. Ah the past.. one more cigarette.. Days were only as long as a pack of cigarettes.

Second year was a progress. I started experimenting with weed and days were now as long as two packs of cigarettes. That summer, we were taken to an infection-struck village called Nazipet. A big company had polluted the water supplies of the town and over thousand people suffered from various ailments. There were people from several organizations around the country. I hated those social service organizations. On the face, they all tried to look like Mother Teresa’s reincarnation. But deep down I always thought they looked at the victims thinking “Sucks to be you”. Well, I wasn’t one of those hypocrites. I wasn’t there because I pretended to care. I was there as a part of my course. And as always, I had planned to do just as much was required to scrape me through the semester.

That evening, I got bored and I wanted a quick fix. I explored around the village to find a quiet place for just me and my joint. I found a shallow desiccated well. I got into it and ensconced myself against its wall. I was delighted to be away from the squalor and noise.

Lost I was in hallucination, when I heard her speak. She was a little girl, probably 8 or 9 years old. “Doctor, can you help me?” she asked. “My brother has symptoms of the flu but all the other doctors seem busy. I followed you to ask you for your help”. I wanted to say I was also busy. I wanted her to leave me alone. I wanted to tell her I was a phony doctor in a white lab coat. Instead I said, “Let’s go have a look at him”.

We entered her house. Her brother, who looked as old as her, was writhing on the floor in pain. She comforted her brother saying, “Don’t worry Muthu, doctor saar here knows everything to cure you.” I ran some basic tests (Yeah, even for the rookie I was, I knew to how to use a stethoscope and check pupils) and it was an affirmative. In fact, an advanced form of flu. I told the girl that she would now have to take the help of the senior doctors in the medical camp and got up to leave. “Can you please take us there?” she asked. I looked around the house there were no signs of any grownups except a short wiry eighty-ish looking woman.

After we managed to get the young Muthu admitted, the little girl told me, “When I grow up I want to become a brave and smart doctor like you”. I swore not to fall for the adulation I didn’t deserve. She went on, “Honestly doctor saar, I am scared. I wish I could do something. Would Muthu be alright?” I wanted to give her some sort of an assurance but I didn’t know anything about the flu myself. So I opened my laptop and decided to distract her with some medical mumbo-jumbo. I showed her a cross-sectional view of the gland that usually was vulnerable to flu attacks. As I read about it and explained to her, I began to understand more about the flu myself. I began to think Muthu’s case probably wasn’t as bad as it looked. There was scope for treatment after all. I took some of his blood samples and began to study. The little girl whose name by then I had discovered was Jyothi was observing me. After two hours of tests and analysis, I had just understood how to treat Muthu. I told Jyothi, “Muthu is going to be alright”.

to be continued and completed

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

The tranquillity of a warm Sunday afternoon shook when the crowd applauded.  “The hero of the evening deserves a louder applause!”, yelled Mr. Saamy on the old rusted microphone. The crowd applauded cacophonously at his order.  “Ajit Kumar, please come to the dais.” I stood up to walk to the dais. My legs felt heavy. As I dragged myself I heard people say, “How modest he looks”, “His parents must be so proud”, “Take him as an example and follow his footsteps.” Sadly in the whole crowd, I was the only one who knew I was the unhappiest person there.

When I was 6 years old, there was to be this eerie dark street called Doom’s Alley that I had to walk through every day on my way back home from school. I was scared of the dark and I used to run the length of Doom’s Alley with my eyes tightly shut. Running through Doom’s Alley became a habit and one day I remember crossing it in under 60 seconds. A proud I sat on my father’s lap that evening and told him about my feat. But he didn’t share my enthusiasm. He said, “The brave don’t run away from their fears. They confront them.” I didn’t understand what he meant. I ignored it and continued my sprint through the spooky Alley every day.

What started off as a way of handling my fears slowly became a hobby and then a passion. By the time I was 12 years old, running became a profound experience. When I ran, the whole world was invisible to me. My friends used to tell me that my legs and arms moved involuntarily in perfect synchronization like I was some kind of a machine.  They used to tell me that the fairest girls in the class cheered for me. They used to tell me how nail-biting an experience it was to see my competitors grunt and cuss to take over me. I never remembered any of that. For me, the only proof of running remained the butterfly-shaped patch of sweat at the back of my t-shirt and the pain in my joints. It was the first time I experienced pleasure in pain – yes, running gave me a high – and nothing else mattered.

Encouraged by my friends and empowered by my confidence, I dreamt of becoming an athlete. I spent most of my school days either running for my school or my district or lost in the reverie of representing my country in the Olympics. Then came class 11 – the threshold of career our principal Mr.Saamy referred to it. The predictable happened. My dad asked me to quit running and concentrate on getting admission into a med-school. I told him about my desire to go to a sports college. He protested. I raised my voice. My dad raised his. My mom shrieked. My sister cried. My dad won. My dreams of going to a sports college and running for the country crumpled. “Trust me, Ajit. I have been a doctor for 20 years and I haven’t it regretted even once.” he said.  Most problems in this world arise when people assume what is good for them is good for everyone.

So I started studying. I used to sit by the window and gaze at other kids running around the playground. But I forced myself to flake the rust off my brain and study. My grades improved. My parents were happy. I was not. I had an urge to run. So one day I took off. I didn’t just run around the school playground. I ran miles and miles, to the next district where they were having a state-level competition. Who wants to be a doctor and look at sick people all day? I am going to win this race, take home a trophy and tell my parents running is where my heart is. If running through Doom’s Alley was because of my inability to confront my fear, this run I thought was the way of showing my dad that I was brave to stand for what I believed in. My limbs worked fine despite all the months of inactivity. I ran the race to my heart’s content and won. I would never forget the look on my parents’ faces that evening when I returned back home with my trophy –morbid faces that did not show a speck of happiness or encouragement.

I looked at my parents today. Their eyes were gleaming. They sat with their heads held high – contented and proud. Mr.Saamy, the showman of the day spoke on the mike, “For years I have trained my students into understanding that life is race. I tell them, ‘If you sleep for an extra hour, the rivals who are awake would have overtaken you by a few hundred ranks.’ Only a few understand it, follow it and get a good admission. Ajit Kumar here is one such obedient student. Let’s applaud for him on his success of getting into the country’s most premier medical college!!”

The tranquillity of the warm Sunday afternoon shook when the crowd applauded.  “The hero of the evening deserves a louder applause!”, yelled Mr. Saamy on the old rusted microphone. The crowd applauded cacophonously at his order.  “Ajit Kumar, please come to the dais.” I stood up to walk to the dais. My legs felt heavy. As I dragged myself I heard people say, “How modest he looks”, “His parents must be so proud”, “Take him as an example and follow his footsteps.” Sadly in the whole crowd, I was the only one who knew I was the unhappiest person there. And worse, it was only I (besides Mr.Saamy and my parents )who knew that it wasn’t hours of cramming biological names, physics laws or chemistry equations that got me into med-school. It was my passion for running, a certificate for winning the state-level race and the country’s damned sports quota.

to be continued and completed

Title Courtesy: Iron Maiden

Unpublished posts

Posts that didn’t get published this year:

1. Is the world fair or unfair?
2. The one with the woman walking in a stormy night to confront the ghosts of the past.
3. The one about blogging.
4. Someone’s got that job
5. The last part of the Beacon of Nazipet.

I don’t know if I will complete them. But here they are on my blog to remind me now.

Recurring Thoughts of the Month

• Why are fashionable things the most uncomfortable too? I mean, think of skinny jeans, womanly bags, stilettoes and saree. Either they are extremely delicate or extremely uncomfortable. And/Or they need a lot of practice. It’s like having to be a whole different person to carry oneself well in those. I think it’s a conspiracy by people in the fashion industry to design stuff that others can’t easily wear/have. That way they would always be fashionably above the commoners.
• I am re-reading Ayn Rand’s Foutainhead and it makes a lot of sense today than the time I read it as college-goer.  I’ve read only 30 pages and I am not able to stop myself from noticing the similarities between the protagonist Howard Roark and Steve Jobs. The place where Roark says, ” Say I have 60 years to live. And most of what’ll be spent working. If I find no joy in it, I’m only condemning myself to 60 years of torture” reminds me so much of Steve Job’s Standford speech.
• And Oh God! Archie is marrying Veronica Lodge! I know that’s a late reaction but the gravity of the information never can be undermined. Who would have expected the guy you grew up with to marry an arrogant and fickle woman dumping the sensible and sweet one? Some say it’s logical because Ronnie has more money but that’s so insensitive to Betty.
• And lastly, the epiphany of the month “seekers find”.

Innocence Manipulated

I was watching this girl called Afsa Musani on youtube. She is a 5-year old kid who chatters her way through auditions of a reality show. I hate reality shows. But I loved the boldness of this kid to face a camera and speak. Like there’s a part where she says “Main actor banna chahati hoon. Actor banke Shah Rukh ke saath act karoongi. Shah Rukh ke paas bahut paise hota hai. Unke paas (wide-eyed and an exaggerated)  DUS HAZAAR hai. TV mein dekha hai” (I want to become an actor. I would act with Shah Rukj when I become one. Shah Rukh is extremely wealthy. He has TEN THOUSAND Rupees.) The kid also naively questions reality TV exaggerated music and asks “Waise yeh gaana kyon bajaaya jaa raha tha.” (BTW, Why were they playing this music?)

With expectation for more such innocence,  I checked youtube for more Afsa Musani videos but was disappointed to find only episodes where the kid delivers corny and affected dialogues, thanks to the artless script-writers of the show. To add to the trauma, there are scenes of  Afsa’s mom crying on national TV, of her birthday celebrated with her singing a cliched family song dedicated to her “beloved” parents. Now this is the reason I hate TV. Agreed, they have TRPs to raise. But do they think manipulating the very nature of a kid brings amusement to their audience?

While those questions can never be answered, there’s another manipulation of innocence that I admire. That’s the tool used movie-makers, writers and cartoonists who mask themselves as a kid and speak their mind. Like take the creators of Southpark. They can rile, ridicule and embarrass the world in the name of Cartman. Or take Bill Waterson for proposing profound complexities or imagining whacky fantasies in the name of Calvin and Hobbes. Or Harper Lee for giving life to the fearless and innocent Jean Louise “Scout” Finch who reminds us of the kid in us that died,  in her book “To kill a mockingbird”. They all seem to have clearly understood that when a kid asks a questions it’s innocence whereas when an adults asks the same question, it’s stupidity.

To be honest, I am scared of kids because they speak the truth. I wonder where they muster up all their guts from to tell you on your face that  you have dark-circles or that your clothes are funny.

But more than all that, I wonder why we grown ups lose the audacity that we were born with? Or are we all conciously hiding ourselves in the masks of an adult to avoid being called stupid?

2012

Heard about the year 2012? Seems the world is gonna come to an end because of meteors, floods, global-warming blah blah. Says Nostradamous, Hindu calendar and Mayan scriptures.  If you think i’m kidding, you HAVE TO check the trailer of a movie named 2012. It might remind you of Noah’s Ark but it’s worth checking for John Cusack and some AMAZING effects.

I have been discussing this 2012 thing with a few friends and their responses have been interesting. Here are a few

• Wow! I wanna be there when the world is coming to an end.
• Shoot. You should have told me a week back. I just invested on a 10-year insurance plan.
• If it’s true, I wouldn’t wanna be trying so hard too get into IIM.

My reaction to the 2012 story was mixed. Anyway, I thought it would be meaningful making a list of things to do by 2012. To-do lists are funny reminders of how lame you were a few days/months/years back. So here I am making another list so that I would laugh at myself a few months later.

My list of 12 things by 2012 are:

1. Watch an eclipse.
2. Go to 2012 London Olympics.
3. Believe and loyally support a sports team.
4. Participate in a hunger strike.
5. Learn to drive a car.
6. Go to Goa.
7. Visit Kerala.
8. Complete reading ‘A Brief History of Time’
9. Visit Kolkata.
10. Adopt a dog.
11. Go to the concert of a rock band I know.
12. Start and complete ‘Moby Dick’. (filler)

Why the world needs spoilsports

I am lying in bed with my eyes wide open. I can’t sleep. I am glowing with excitement thinking about the fun I would be having tomorrow. Tomorrow is Holi and I just can’t stop counting the minutes to day break.

Yeah, I know. It’s not a big deal for an adult like you who is reading this. But I am just a kid and I can’t wait to wallow in the puddle of mud we would be making tomorrow. But more than all that, this is going to be a great Holi. Credits <tadaaaa> to Mannu.

Mannu is a guy in school and. I hate him. I can use all the synonyms of hate that I know and still not be able to convey the magnitude of wrath I have for him.

Reason being, he has never missed first rank in academics since kindergarten. The next rank would always be at least 50 marks away. There is not one question Mannu doesn’t shout out the answer for. Plus he is a good singer, a tennis player and the school’s star orator. Also, he is a gentleman in front of the teachers. You know- well-behaved, soft-spoken, obsequious and all that. I just can’t stand it when he says “May I carry those books for you, Ma’am?” and gets his hair ruffled by every teacher in the school”

Come on. Don’t look at me all wide-eyed and accuse me of being jealous. I am not the only one who despises him. My whole class does. Nobody talks to him. He also doesn’t talk to us. He just sits alone in the first bench, shouts out answers, scores straight A’s and leaves.

We all know he is weird. But the day that gets even more obvious is Holi. He comes to school in drab clothes. He doesn’t bring colours and he doesn’t participate in any of our Holi celebrations. He is a kabab mein haddi even here. He makes a big fuss about anybody applying colour on him and runs around the school asking teachers to save him from us. Thanks to the prerogative to hooliganism on Holi, we have never been reprimanded by our teacher.s But we have never been able to forgive Mannu for being such a spoilsport.

But this Holi is going to be sweet. Mannu has left school and there is nothing that’s going to hinder our celebrations. We don’t have to tolerate his whims. We don’t have to listen to our teachers saying, “Look how mature Mannu is”. We don’t have to waste our time and colours on him. We are going to be ourselves and we are going to have fun our way.

The day broke. Our classes got over by noon and we were given the whole of the afternoon- complete 4 hours for playing with colours. Once the Holi celebrations started, we didn’t have to fervently run around to apply colours. Everybody just went to each other and got themselves smeared with colours. In less than 30 minutes, we all got bored and stopped playing.

“Dude, Holi is so lame”, declared Rocky, the class punk. “Yeah, let’s all go home and play something on the internet”, agreed many. We all dunked our colours, eggs and other weapons of our Holi arsenal into the trashcan and walked home.

Although I sported a i’m-too-cool-for-Holi face, my mind began to boggle. How can this be the most disappointing Holi ever? I mean, with the spoilsport not around, it can’t be more perfect. And still here I am, feeling disappointed.Though it’s hard to accept, I think I miss Mannu. All the running and chasing when he was around was more fun than a sullen Holi where everybody simply did the same things as others.

It made me think even deeper. So, all the rules that we bitch about, all the people who compete with us, all the people who we hate for not agreeing with us are in a way helping us feel contented with life?

Gosh! Imagine a world that had no rules, no expectations from individuals, no role models and no examples set for the right behaviour. Given a perfect world, where all of us thrived entirely by our free will and all of us got everything we wanted, would we even survive for a day?

Gosh! Baffling are the enigmas of life!

P.S. Due to a technical error in the title as pointed out by a  person who knows better Hindi than I do, I have changed the title from ‘Why kakabs should have bones’ to ‘Why the world needs spoilsports’.

Recurring Thoughts of the Week

• I am completing a year in Hyderabad today. Not that it’s a big feat but I am generally happy I have started liking the city. The city is good cos it’s a balanced place -cosmopolitan and still not fake. Also it’s not as expensive as Bangalore or as sweaty as Chennai.
• It’s preposterous worrying why you are not worried about the same things that worries others, isn’t it?
• I am seeing kids becoming cynics in thier teens. I mean how much have they seen the world to lose their innocence so early in life. Is it worth losing out on the good things in life by becoming a cynic so early?
• Dreams can be so haunting sometimes. They expose me to my deeply hidden expectations, anticipations and fears. They kind of make me see my true self .
• Is ‘healthy snack’ an oxymoron? I have recently discovered a tasty combinations of sundal (sauted boiled lenthils) and sutta milagu appalam(roasted masala papad) and am proud of it.
• I’m close to finishing scrubs. I am going to miss them a lot. It’s amazing how every character in scrubs somehow relates to me. JD is like me when he is day-dreaming, Elliot is like me when she starts speaking about herself, I also identify myself with Dr.Cox and Ted(poor him, he doesn’t have a page on wiki) sometimes. Is it normal? Does everybody do that?
• The backstreet boys and britney spears that i grew up on suddenly sound very corny to me.
• I am addicted to WordPress stats and that’s the reason I make it a point to update my blog frequently.