Category: Flawsophy

  • Breaking news….

    Its not exactly breaking news that the media industry is looking at a phenomenal boom in the next few months.. and thats across the verticals – print, radio, television and so on..which raises the question of how much ‘news’ acually happens in the world on a daily basis.. is it so much that the existing entities are not enough to make sure that all of it reaches the world, and if not, then what justifies the mushrooming of more of their kind? which is, i guess, when we get into creation of news, sting operations and overall sensationalising of trivia.. when a malayala manorama in kerala would carry the ‘news’ that your neighbour’s cow broke its tether and damaged your fence, and NDTV would get its video footage and classify it as ‘Breaking news’.. you would be happy, so would your neighbour, since any publicity is good publicity.. but will i, sitting hundreds of kilometers away and not having any specific interest in bovine revolutionary tactics, be interested in the news? i guess not..
    the argument would be that ‘you dont like it, dont watch it’, but what if all the channels/publications think its worthy news, what option does that leave? nothing, and sadly we have only ourselves to blame, because we are less interested in reading/seeing Chidambaram’s fiscal policy than Nigar Khan’s physical policies…
    but what prompted me to think about this entire trip was manorama’s week long front page coverage of the death of a malayali in afghanistan.. isnt that exactly what the terrorist group would want? extensive media coverage and a sublimal building of fear in the citizens? on a parallel note, a murderer would get much more prominence in coverage than a guy who might have saved a life..
    by creating sensations out of every possible trivia that happens in every remote corner, isn’t the media encouraging a whole lot of wrong things? there is a thin line between right to information and right information, and it takes a lot of maturity to walk the line…and so it aint so strange after all that lives full of trivia would slowly but surely get converted into trivial lives, for who wouldnt want their 15 secondsof fame?

    until next time, what news??

  • Fix you…

    Once again, so what exactly is it that we would love to do.. while it is an interesting debate whether we would stop loving things if we began to get paid for it, are there still things that fall outside that set, and which we would love doing irrespective of anything else…
    I, for one, would love to sing for a living, not at concerts, but more of a wandering bard…would love to write a book, and be happy if 5 people read it, loved it and felt it had made a difference in their lives.. would love to have my own chat shows and crack the kind of PJs that would help create homicidal maniacs..:).. some of the above are stuff which i might be able to pull off, and some i might realise that i wasnt quite cut out for…maybe thats what living a full life is all about… doing all these and being able to say that i tried everything.. maybe thats what makes happiness…
    or maybe its about knowing exactly what is it that you can do and want to do.. and then setting about achieving it whatever be the odds…which is perhaps what makes alonso world champion at 24, or sachin a treat to watch after more than decade of watching him… or an amitabh bachchan a star twice over.. maybe thats what makes happiness….
    maybe its about finding love, and keeping it, and knowing that whatever else happens, that person will always be by your side.. maybe thats what makes happiness…
    and meanwhile we walk the paths, some common, some uncommon and hope that God is singing to us(instead of Coldplay)
    Lights will guide you home..
    and ignite your bones…
    and i will try and fix you…

    until next time, are we in a fix??

  • Twins

    After putting aside concepts like love and money, perhaps the two most important things in life would be the marriage and the career… and if you put a lil bit of thought to it, there are some striking similarities..
    Both are things that you get to hear about early in life, but get to experience only at a relatively later stage.. and you get to hear about it from anyone who’s remotely elder to you.. there are so many versions… and when its happening to you, everyone has an interest in it and an advice to give on it… and anything ‘different’ from the norm is usually met with a frown…
    in both cases, there are roughly two paths you can take – one that you want to do due to your desire and aspiration, and the other thats financially and socially seen as ‘safe’..in both the cases,the exceptions are also similar… you might want to be a doctor/engineer etc and you get to do exactly that.. and you happen to love a girl/guy who meets all the conditions and succeeds in all the parameters that are set out by those who are supposed to decide your fate – parents, relatives etc, and can therefore marry him/her without a problem.. whether the path has been by choice or forced on one, both perhaps require a certain amount of compromise.. you might end up liking the career you had no specific interest initially, and you might end up liking your arranged spouse..in both the cases, you might realise after a point of time, that it is no longer what you want, and there’s something or someone else that you really want to spend your time and energy on..and yes, getting fired in both cases, is a pain….
    you want to maintain that correct balance between both, and yes, most importantly, you expect both to be some kind of anchor in your life, and to derive some joy out of the experiences..and like everything else, you know that both have to end, at some point of time..
    until next time, identical or non identical??

  • Art of Live in

    Like i commented on Stone’s post sometime ago, the makers of Salaam Namaste indeed did some pathbreaking stuff,as they have (apparently) made an entire Bollywood movie about live in relationships..whether or not it is a good movie is not within the scope of this post, but what is within the scope are live in relationships…of course, it goes without saying that the views are personal..
    Without marriage there wouldnt be LIR (Live In Relationships, its a long phrase, cant keep typing it always).. the classification happened because of the institution called marriage.. Somewhere down the line, the wise men of the age recognised that society needs to be arranged in some patterns for it to survive, and the immediate higher unit after individual became the family, which (also)involved two individuals living together with the blessings of the law of the land…..
    we are now in an age where convenience is the mantra.. from credit cards to communication through handhelds and home deliveries to old age homes, its all about how easy it can be made.. and therefore an LIR fits the bill perfectly, because from sex to apartment rentals, most of everything gets convenient… and i do agree, but with one lil reservation about an antique thing that does not have much relevance today – emotions…
    we are perhaps seeing the first generation with an actual choice about relationships- live in or marriage.. i am wondering what a ‘no emotional strings attached’ relationship now would evolve into/result in, 30 years down the line when love and companionship might make a lot more sense… as with most other things in life, theres no second chance…
    until next time, do we pass on live in genes to the next generation??

  • Life Talkies

    Have not been watching a lot of movies recently, at least not as much as i am used to watching…. a part of it is because that there are not many good movies coming out, especially in the two languages that i watch,malayalam and hindi.. english has always been second priority.. read lots of english books and no books at all in the other two, so i guess it fits like a puzzle…
    it is something a lot of people have been lamenting upon – the drastic decrease in the quality of movies that are being churned out… though i do argue that some of the ‘Factory’ products as well as some of the ‘multiplex’ targeted movies in bollywood are good stuff.. but even thats not happening in the malayalam movie scene…
    have heard a lot of arguments on the movies’ influence on life, and vice versa, on which of these is actually true.. to cite a common example,are more people becoming part of the underworld because of the increasing number of movies being made on them, or is just a case of reel life being taken from real life…what i am wondering about is, can the lack of meaningful cinema be due to the fact that life per se has become less meaningful now.. if reel was copying real, then the superficiality of the current way of existence would automatically make movies frivolous and time pass, and nothing more deep than say, a face pack (oops, wrong example?).. on the other hand, if real was copying reel, then these movies would make us even more superficial than we are now… thankfully, movies aren’t all pervasive…

    until next time, screen yourself…