Staged magic

I watched a play on mythical Hindu Gods and Goddesses.It is impossible to portray Gods. Gods are perfect Humans are not. The play was much appreciated and I would probably write a review of it highlighting its success with the audience, but here i will record how men failed in appearing like Gods.
1. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, had a slightly manly voice.
2. The actor portraying the all powerful Narayana, was plump.
3. The Rain God, the Wind God and the Fire God had common features and were so obviously men in their twenties.
4. Hiranyakashipu, the mighty villain, was a handsome young man, who should have been at least ten years older,
5. Thilottama, the celestial temptress, famed for her beauty was obese, although she danced quite well.
6. For some unfathomable reason, the mask of the lion faced God was a bright white. The actor had the structure of a short teddy bear, This was the strangest looking Narasimha that  have ever seen.

 Hard, isn't it? for humans to look godly? However, some veteran actors bring out the divine through their acting skills, although they look far from perfect. Tamil actor, Shivaji Ganesan for instance, could portray any God or king , young or old , very convincingly, although he had a typical short statured, broad shouldered, plump structure typical of the majority of average looking people.

lack of logic is -----eccentric

One of my old students called me an eccentric...He is a young person and my middle aged line of thinking must have appeared crazy to him. But when I come to think of it, there are some things i do, which others don't and can be called , yes, "Eccentric"
1. I prefer to stay and work in dark places. When I was a kid, my mom used to yell at me for sittinginside a dark room, near the door, and reading with the lights from another room. The other members of my family constantly tell me to switch on the lights when i work in the kitchen.
2, There are pictures of me on facebook. But thats it. I took them because i was enamoured with it when i saw the cell phone which could also take photos, for the first time. There are no other pictures of me in my house. I dont keep photographs safe. When i am photographed on public occassions, i just dont collect these pictures.Exceptions are photos of me on a visit abroad and my daughter's wedding.
3. I dislike dressing up. I am often underdressed because I dislike the ritual so much.

Anyway this turned out to be a boring topic. As I took the trouble and time to write it, am gonna post it anyway.
BTW the pic of me on blogger was my experimental first picture on a laptop.

Arun came to see me today. If any of my students read this, they would see a different Arun each, because every batch has an Arun. In fact, one of the batches with just fifteen students had five aruns.This one was a baker and was in charge of a bakery in a well known restaurant. A tall skinny young person in his early twenties, with an army hair cut and moustache. He was from a village and told me that he had gained admission in college in the U.K. This was in 2009. So he wanted to speak in English.
As we got to know each other, he told me that he had paid an exorbitant sum to his consultant in Mumbai. I asked to see his admission letter. It was a photo copy of an admission letter for a diploma course. He told me that his consultant would get him into the country and that he would get him a job, and that he really did not plan to attend college. I saw the hope in his eyes but did not hesitate to tell him that I suspected a scam there. Educational consultants do not charge such fees, as the universities pay them.There was a remote possibility that someone would smuggle bakers into U.K in an organized way. But it was most probably a scam.
He then told me that his consultant was postponing the process everymonth. We wrote several mails to the consultant.
Arun had got his sister married, but she was sent home by her family, as he could not give her the promised dowry. She was now nursing a baby and he was intent on working abroad and paying the dowry, so that his sister would be united with her family.The young man was miserable. I was sure he had been cheated. His progress in English was tolerable.Then one day he stopped coming. I did not hear from him till today.
He told me that he was now working in the U.S base in Russia.He also told me that he had got his money back from consultant. His story went like this. He had  chanced to meet an Underworld dada from Mumbai, in his native village at a wedding ceremony. He and his friend had shared their woes with him. The dada had invited them to Mumbai. They had stayed with him for a month, working in his theatre, issuing tickets. Finally, the dada had found time to investigate his case. He took them to a lawyer, who had contacts in a telephone network. they found where the consultant lived. Abducted him. Had the police inspector threaten him.At first the villain had refused to pay up. Then when he came to know that his wife had also been abducted, he gave in and paid the two young villagers.
 Arun had stayed on in Mumbai and attended several interviews before he got the job in Mumbai.What a delightful story i got to hear today, because i would often think of Arun and wonder what had happened to him. I never imagined even once that his story would have a happy ending. He's flying back to Russia at the end of his vacation this friday! God Speed!

When you have a vision....

I read somewhere that having a very high goal is a great motivator. True! It can make all the difference. We can  easily identify a person who has set his heart on the skies. The way he moves about, the way he walks, talks, looks, makes him stand apart from his peers. He does not get bored or frustrated easily, for in his mind , he sees not just the drab physical reality around him, but the superior vision, which provides him with a psychological reality, that goads him forward.His vision helps him in two ways. First, he keeps moving forward, despite the odds, because he is not discouraged. Secondly, he solves his everyday issues better than his peers, and because of this attitude and reduces , however marginally, the drabness of his circumstances.

I also read somewhere (bad acknowledgement again) that people have problems with goals because they think goals are boring work oriented things and dreams are unattainable fun fantasies. But goals and dreams are one and the same. I totally agree with this.

Why I miss the rain....

Summer 2012 was strange because it almost forgot to visit my city, Madurai. We almost didn't experience summer because dark thick stacks of clouds covered the blue of the sky and it rained and poured on, till the second week of May. It still leaves me dissatisfied and I miss the rain because of all this.
a. There's water water everywhere, everything getting a great wash.
b. The temperature is pleasantly low before, during and after the rain.
c. The spectacular audio-visual enhancements such as the lightning, thunder, the various water sounds such as pitter patter, splash, swoosh, pounding, drumming, and dripping. I miss that.
d. The trees and plants are no longer covered in dust and sprout bunches of leaves.
e. The smell that fills the air when it starts to rain.
f. Walking in the rain and racing someone.
g. Riding a bike in the rain through the busy city roads, with your eyes crinkled and getting drenched to the bone. If you screamed or sang aloud no one would hear. Awesome.
h. Rain brings memories of college, which always opened in the rainy season. Transports me to my youth instantly.
We also feel re assured that this year we will enjoy good water supply and that farmers wont complain.

Praise the Rain!
 

Some one read my blog and mailed me saying that it was funny. This was not the comment I had expected to get about my random insights.

So I re-read my posts to see if I had written anything funny. My posts are a chaotic mess.I guess i don't like being predictable. So in order to write about unexpected things, I take the risk of writing in a disorganized way. There are a few funny lines here and there. But the blog is funny only to the extent life is, or only to the extent we stop to laugh at it, in middle of our other obsessions and observations. I hope this commentator had really read the blog. 

It’s kind of a funny story

The above given title is not my comment on the film. It’s the title of the film. Attractive title. Kinda funny seems interesting as well as funny. This would not be the case if the title had just been It’s a funny story or a very funny story.

The first scene is from the dream a boy has recurrently. He is going to commit suicide. His parents try to stop him. He jumps off and falls and wakes up. But this time he falls into water. The visual effect/ graphics in this scene made an impression on me.

Receptionist: WHAT DO YOU WANT

boy : i want to kill myself

receptionist: ok fill this form

It’s an ironic remark on how psychiatric treatment, which was taboo in certain times and places, which is scarecely available and is considered a mysterious mumbo jumbo in some others, is considered as being matter of fact and common these days, in some places. The boy displays intelligence of the highest order. He is intuitive when speaking to other inmates, changes track three moves before things go wrong . Very mature. The highly activated imagination, an inevitable aspect of an insane mind is portrayed in this film. For instance, the boy draws a city in the drawing class and each student interprets it in a different way. Then, he is transported into a hi-tech auditorium in his mind, when he sings in the music class. All the inmates appear in flashy heavy metal make up and costumes

There’s one punch line too…the moral of the story- “If you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.” Personally, I know a third kind too…those who are busy going in circles.