chaotic order

Musings on a Birthday . Alan Watts - an influential philosopher once commented " We are not born into this world; we are born out of it". Again Stephen Jay Gould - an eminent evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century wrote in the preface of his wonderful study of Burgess shale - "if one were to rewind the tape of evolution and play it; chances of any species even closely resembling a  human is as remote as a leaf growing on a twig on the branch of a tree" As a human race , we simple cannot accept the simple fact the existence is essentially meaningless. Our attempt throughout the ages has been to anthropomorphize life. The fiction that Charles Darwin erected in the eighteenth century that Human beings are the pinnacle of creation has steadily been eroded and reconstructed by every known scientific discipline since then . The more we push the frontiers of knowledge the less it seems probable that Man holds a special place in this universe. A collective human h

Talaash - an Exorcism Over the years, I have come to admire Amir khan not only for his talented acting but also the choice of his story lines. I liked his work in "Dhobhi Ghat", where I felt he transcended the traditional boundaries of film making and made an inward descent in exploring his psyche. All acclaimed actors and directors have expressed themselves through their films. The foreboding ma liciousness of a Roman Polanski; the twisted psyche of Hitchcock; the blood and gore of a Quentin Tarantino; the stark realism of a Kurosawa or satyajit ray - reveals the need of an inward fulfillment through their work. Amir khan belongs to that bracket. "Talaash" attempts to answer some fundamental questions of life : Can we live without the burden of the past; Could we had made choices that were more appropriate in a given circumference of circumstances; Do we have to live a meaningless existence to the point of alienating everything and everybody around us; and finally

Zen and the art of getting a driver's licence - a personal odyssey.  One can be enlightened in so many different ways. Here is an interesting example. Getting a driver's licence can be a pretty nerving wrecking experience in India if we dont got through a driving school. The last time i took a driving test was in 1991, when me instructor pushed a dilapidated ambassador car down a slope and I wa s issued a licence for twenty years :) with no effort on my part whatsoever. Luckily, I did learn to drive afterwards and to the best of my knowledge did not knock down anybody fatally. I stopped driving sometime in the late nineties for various reasons. It was a couple of months ago that I bought a car in Bangalore and found that my licence had expired in 2010. So began the arduous task of acquiring a new one. To cut a long story short, after having successfully crossed the hurdles of a Learner's licence , I landed today at at the test driving track to prove my abilities as an acco

To call "Skyfall" a disappointment would be an understatement. Half way down the movie I had the eerie feeling down the spine that I was watching an Akshay Kumar starrer sans a few scantily dressed damsels soaking up water in translucent (Transparent is vulgar :)) clothing. Daniel craig has this unusual talent of putting on a look of heightened constipation, when he has nothing better to do (whic h is for most in this film). Bereft of feminine companionship for most part of the film and a story line that borders on somnambulistic lullaby (what a turn of phrase :)) - I wonder what Ian fleming must be discussing with his creator about Skyfall. There was a ring of hushed silence among the packed audience; desperately trying to unravel the happenings on the screen. It is almost that their senses were betraying them. The exaggerated heights of expectations came tumbling down the precipice of reality banging into every conceivable protrusions along the way . This is not the Bond f

Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's children" - released in 1982 - despised and banned by Indira Gandhi - Won the Booker of Bookers. 15th September 2012 - I started reading the book and finished it in straight seven days. This fantastical tale told with mystical beauty ranks as one of the best works of allegorical fiction ever written. The literary flights of imagination seduced by a historical backd rop of an illusory freedom lifts one to those rarefied airs of pure delight and unadulterated joy. Over 650 odd pages , Rushdie holds the reader enthralled in a story that shuttles back and forth in time; almost a Beethovian symphony that moves from a high octave to a low note without a semblance of a break in continuity. The choice of words, the turn of phrase , a nonchalant touch of arrogance - reaches a spiraling climax that never ends, but merely pauses; before the next mercurial onslaught of words from a proverbial master. Book lovers - Read this. Its an effort worth a lif

"Jab Tak hai hum" - The final hurrah of Yash chopra. A bit of nostalgia seeped in as the movie ended. We have been entertained , titillated, and drawn into romantic fantasies of Yashji for nearly four decades now. His movies actualized the dormant desires inherent in the common man. Three hours of pure magic . Vibrant hues of nature mingled with variegated shades of romance and eroticism filled h is canvas. His heroines draped in sumptuous costumes, dancing in exotic locales, murmuring sultry platitudes - have redefined romance on the silver screen for ever. His story lines often brushed the edges of conservatism - probing into those areas of human relationships that have always been in the dark. Adultery, incest and all those taboos of society were presented to the audience with an empathy rarely achieved by an Indian director. An era has ended with this film but i am sure the soul of Yash chopra has left an indelible mark on Indian films and will continue to reverberate in

Life of Pi - Wonderful One of the most challenging and persistent existential question is this - What am I - stripped of my material comforts, emotional bootstrapping's; without belief,surviving with barely enough to assuage the pangs of physical needs, bereft of any kind of psychological anchor whatsoever in this whole wide world ? Do we really know ourselves?. What would happen to us if we a re uprooted from our comfort zones and bought to face complete annihilation of what we believe ourselves to be. Not many movies have attempted to answer this question at a very deep level. "Cast away" was one such film. The almost surreal performance of Tom hanks as an individual completely surrendering his identity, his persona - to merely stay alive and return to the world with a new perspective on life,living and priorities is a must-see for every youngster. In my opinion, it is one of the best movies that I have ever had the privilege to watch. "life of Pi" is a