Ode to 26/11

The screams of terror echoed not only in the vicinity of the Leopold Café, Taj Mahal Hotel and the nine other places that were bombed by the ruthless Islamist terrorists but in the hearts of their families, their city, their country and the world. Exactly four years ago, the hustle bustle of Bombay’s busy life was interrupted when the first gun was fired and the first person was shot. Thus began the start of the worst terrorist attack India had ever seen. Phone lines were jammed with worried and restless relatives and friends calling their kin to see if they were alright. Tears escaped the eyes of many as the news showed the every growing casualties hoping for the ones they knew and praying for the ones they didn’t. Anger seethed through the veins of the people who saw what they did on the television and knew they couldn’t do anything to stop it. Every time a bomb blasted, the cries of a million people were heard with it. Every time a gun was shot, a family lost a father, a mother a daughter or a son and in some cases all at the same time.

Vexation coursing through people’s blood, anyone they could put the blame on was hated. Anyone. Just someone who could explain why. Why this was happening to innocent lives and why they were being lost. The media criticized the politicians who criticized the police who went back to the media. A vicious cycle from where no answer was emerging. But it stopped, eventually.

The country had come to a standstill for those three days but now it was moving again. Yes, the hearts that had been broken, the families that had been torn apart and the city that had fallen to its knees, would take time to heal and stand again. But it would happen. And it did.

Even now, four years later, we have not forgotten. The scars remain, etched in our hearts forever. Every year, on this day we will remember you Bombay, for you are India’s shining symbol of pride that has risen from the ashes of the dark devastating monster that we call terrorism. 

Life of Pi- Movie Review

It is difficult to change a mind which has a block on it. Especially one that is as stubborn as mine. And when I left my house to see Life of Pi which I had just learnt we were to be watching in 3D, my mind block became even stronger. However, two hours and eighteen minutes later gone was the block, any negative feelings I had towards putting those dirty glasses on my bridge of  my nose and watching a movie about the path of spirituality and believing in God. They had vanished. They had been replaced by the vivid imagery of green phosphorescence lighting up the sae, a whale leaping out of that glowing paradise, a horde of meerkats twittering away on the screen and an elegant Royal Bengal Tiger stealing the show away.

From the second it started to the minute the credits started to roll, I was held by the spell the movie cast. Mind-blown would probably describe the situation best. A simple story, told in the form of narration through an older version of the main character to a young writer, it describes the journey of an adolescent boy cast away at sea who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck that kills the rest of his family and their zoo animals and leaves him on a wooden life boat with a ferocious tiger for company.

The movie tackles different themes of human emotions, the growing relationship between a beast and a man, the broken faith of man in God, and the strength and mindfulness exhibited by the human race in times of trouble.

However the most defining trait of this movie is the level of special effects that have been used. With every scene given the utmost importance with not a pixel out of place, Life of Pi is only comparable to James Cameron’s Avatar, a worldwide box office hit that defined the start of a new era of impeccably evolved CGI. From the sinking of the freighter, to the clouds thundering above and waves lashing against the sides of the boat, there is nothing that makes you realize at any given point of time that you are not a part of the movie. You are meant to be there, experiencing the pain of loss with Pi, the anger with Richard Parker, the name of the tiger (given due to a clerical error) and the disbelief with the writer.

Based on the book written by Yann Martel of the same name, something that everyone thought was impossible to convert into a movie, not only has Life of Pi done justice to it, but it has surpassed every expectation anyone could ever have possessed. It can be described as nothing less than magic. Magic has the power to make people believe in the impossible and Life of Pi made me believe.

Hats off to you Ang Lee, you really have outdone yourself. 

Can Money Buy Happiness?

Note: This article is only looking at a small aspect of this widely debated topic and the exclusive point of view that it has been written in has been done on purpose, to keep it from eventually turning into a novel.

What is a country? It is the people of a nation. Who are its people? They are the rich and poor, dark and fair, smart and foolish, happy and sad individuals that inhabit the nation. The country defines the people and the people define the country. When we look at the development of any country, we look at the development of its people. And when we measure that development, we measure it based on one main universal aspect. Its income. The income is a tell all. How much the firms are paying their employees, how much the latter are spending, what are the standards of their living and all related questions. The income is the money. Having more money and being able to afford things leads to living in a virtuous cycle, while being financially unstable is an easy way to spiral downwards and end up being caught in a debt trap and thus, in a vicious cycle. It’s basic economics. More money = Happiness. Less money = Sadness.

The phrase “can money buy happiness” is one that we are all familiar with. The humanitarians of the world believe that this is not true. For them the love, freedom and equality possessed by people is what is most important. However, if we look at it from a different point of view where the use of money has brought an everlasting smile on the faces of people, we’ll find a lot of evidence pointing to the contrary.

Good Charlotte’s song; Girls and Boys, is a pure reflection of the way “love” works in the 21^st century. ‘Girls don’t like boys, girls like cars and money’ just says it all. Rather than at the old knight in shining armour who used their charm rather than wallets, girls’ eyes now glitter at the sight of the pretty presents that adorn their rooms on their birthdays.

How many times have we heard that people who have committed crimes have been let off because of possessing the ability to pay off an extravagant bail? How many times have politicians risen to the top because they are rich? However, these are just the negative aspects. Donations and funds raised to help countries overcome famines and natural disasters are done with money. Credit given to farmers to help them increase their agricultural input is done with money. The reason everyone reading this is living in a house with running water, electricity, a maid and cars is because they have money. Money is the source of a lot of power and one of those powers is undeniably the power to make people smile.

A wise man once said, “If I had to be sad, I’d rather be sad in a Ferrari than be sad in a Nano.”

When I Grew Up

Many a times during different points in your life, people ask you about the one incident after the occurrence of which, you realized that you’d grown up. The mind works furiously as you try to think of that one incident, finally coming to stop between going on the metro alone or picking your class 11 subjects without any help and for less independent minds, reading Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi’ and understanding it.

My take on that question is a little different. The way I was brought up was different from most other people in my class. Freedom was given, not earned. There were definitive boundaries but I was still freer than most others. So “the first time I got freedom” is not my incident.

Others may say that that they grew up after their first real relationship. I have had that, but the change I felt after it was over wasn’t the feeling of growing up.

There are so many times in life when people say that they promised to do something (or stop doing it) and they change. They grow up. This, I can agree with. Because I had tried promising myself a countless number of things, commitments I would honour, promises I would keep and changes I would make. However all this heartfelt proclamations would disappear from sight and mind just a week after they were made. But then one day, I realized that I messed up. I realized that if I did not fix that mess not tomorrow, but right now, I would forever be stuck in the same cycle, of there being a next time. Next time I mess up, next time I break a promise, next time I don’t honour a commitment. And at that point, when I decided to leave “next time” behind forever, that was the point where I grew up.

Rejection

A tear escaped my eyelid as I read the first line of the letter. It was a gateway for a torrent of escapees until it felt like there was nothing left. A sense of failure settled into the deepest niches of my mind and I cried, emitting no sound but feeling the pain driving deep into my heart. Regret, anger, sadness, disappointment, terror and pure self-hatred coursed through my veins and clouded my thoughts. It was regret at not listening to my parents and wasting my time. It was anger at the misleading thought I’d always had; that it would all work out in the end. Sadness, that I had let my parents and everyone else who believed in me down. Disappointment in myself, the lack of effort I had put and the sheer amount of talent that I had let go to waste. Terror at the thought that I had no where to go while my friends had started building the blocks to a successful and perfect life. Self hatred, because I could’ve had the same thing but I didn't have that choice anymore.

I remembered the days where I would postpone everything from an hour to a day to a week. Time flew. Assignments were given in on the last day and though I put in effort, I didn't do my best. When I could’ve been exceptional, I was merely mediocre. I remembered class 10 so well, when I thought that doing well in English was the only thing required do become successful in the fields I aspired to be in. I attributed my bad grades to math and Sanskrit. “I’m not taking those subjects next year. And they suck. It’s really difficult to do well in a language I don’t understand and math is something I just can’t do.” No questions asked. People warned me to change, to take control of my life before it was too late. I listened to them and my heart agreed but my mind remained adamant and after trying to make a difference for a few days I sidled back into my laid back lifestyle. One of my key personality traits were strong headedness; unless I internally decided on something, no external factor could actually induce any change. This did not work in my favor here.

I tried to make a difference in class 11 and 12. Looking at my 80 percentile in the board results, I realized that this wasn't enough. My attitude had come in the way of my success. My dreams lay shattered before me, my parents hard earned money lay waiting, not worth it and my existence on this planet seemed frivolous. I had never felt so worthless in my life. So helpless and tiny. It seemed like the entire world was growing around me and I sat in my deprecated state, growing steadily smaller. What probably made it worse was that this whole thing was my fault. There was no one who could help me, even out of pity because there was no way out. I had had everything at my disposal. There was no scope for the blame to be put on anything or one other than myself. They had warned me about this. But I had never really believed them. It wasn’t possible I had thought. I had time. I would change. I would prove them wrong. I would smile and feel liberated when I opened those acceptance letters. I would party and rejoice with my friends as we compared the ranks of colleges we had gotten into. I would be proud of myself as I saw the happiness in my parents’ eyes as they realized that their life’s work had been worth it. I would hold my head high.

How naïve I was…

My eye few open before my mind could complete that thought. It all felt so real. The emotions, the feelings, the ideas. I sat breathing deeply for a couple of minutes before turning my head on my pillow and staring into space.

Cockiness

“I was probably being a little cocky, which I do when I feel that I don't know what I'm talking about.”

-         -  Daniel Okrent

It is often that a child in school gets reprimanded by a teacher for answering back or acting too ‘cocky’.  However, it is not only teachers that the juniors (ages 7 to 12) are cocky to; it is their seniors as well. It is apparent by the conversations had with them that our juniors have slowly from the age of five onwards, built a little bubble around themselves inside which they are superior to all around them. They do this by acting cocky, resulting in angering people; which then pushes me to write an article about it. Psychologists attribute children’s cockiness to the environment in which they have grown up and trials it offers. We however perceive it as them having an attitude problem or something along the lines of that. The answer could be the former, the latter, or both. The quote given above is yet another way to assess the situation. It’s paraphrased to mean that a person is cocky due to the fact that he doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about, and hence to avoid embarrassment , he puts up an image of being too above the conversation or too smart for it. This could be termed as apt reasoning for a person being cocky because when he starts off a conversation on a smart note and then steadily progresses on a direct decline to the lower levels of stupidity, he is bound to try and save himself from acute embarrassment, thus using cockiness to help him break the fall.

Now that it’s all said and done and the reasons for our junior’s cocky given, I must say I do feel a lot more at peace. They say that reading something someone else has written answer your questions but it has dawned upon me that sometimes the answers actually lie within. All you have to do is write them down.