Zero...Nothing....Zilch

Well, its been a while since I penned some random nonsense from my mind. Not that there was a sudden shortage of those but just that I decided to write something sensible...which I have realized is very difficult for someone as senile as moi!!!! A friend suggested that I write my perceptions about Beauty pagents to which my instant reaction was..its "nothing"!! how can i write about something which really doesn't have any value? I guess thats what engineering does to you. You always search for a cause and a consequence to every action and somehow Beauty pagents don't answer quench my search in either criteria. What is the cause of organizing the event? People dress up and parade and answer questions for which they have been trained. Do the participants really speak out what they feel? I understand the questions may be impromptu but their answers are surely based on a lot of practice and prior preparation. These are the same women who are so particular about their looks and attire but still maintain that Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and whats on the 'inside' really matters!!!

No disrespect to the pagents but i am not too comfortable with the platform and the criteria against which the women compete. The winner gets a huge cash award but also has to do social service for a period of one year mandatorily and then it is optional. Isn't contributing to the environment and mankind, a social responsibility? How many of the beauty queens actually do it with heartfelt commitment? There are always exceptions but when I look at the amount of funds invested into such events and calculate a ROI ( return on investment), I just don't feel the necessity to do so! In India, it is clearly considered as a stepping stone to Bollywood.

Moving outside the domain of Beauty Pagents, what got me thinking was basically ROI. A bunch of Astronomers gathered a few days ago to kick Pluto out fo the Solar System. What was the significance of that decision? The Israel still is at war with hezbollah, India still wakes up each day fearing a bomb blast in some corner, Osama Bin laden is still hiding and blah..blah...blah..
The time, energy and money spent in coming to this redundant conclusion about Pluto could have been thrusted elsewhere for gloabal development. The only solace I can seek is that the Pluto Fiasco wasn't funded heavily by the Indian Government!!!! I guess the same would go for Beauty Pagents... it does provide good entertainment and probably I am not against the system. But I feel the platform should be more sensible and challenging rather than just asking a few questions and askign them to parade in a swim suit!

As I find all this worthless, I guess, I shouldn't have wasted my grey cells writing this! And my apologise to those who wasted their time by reading this!! Just look around, there will be a bunch of stuff which can easily be called redundant to exist.

PS - Appreciate your time to scan through my words...

Finally the US is losing patience with Pakistan...or at least they are being forced to!

Interesting article..thought would share it with you all.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/07indpak.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Salut

Simba

When I close my eyes, I have to believe that the world is still there...

There comes a point in everyone's life where you just want to look back and reflect at the way things have gone. Usually you do find nuances which we would like to forget. I guess its very humane of an avergage mind to hook on to the negatives and conveniently discard the positive.
Simply put, you abuse/criticize someone negatively, they take it personally and don't care to think if it really matters but if you appreciate the same 'someone', you are thrusting a factor of doubt into his/her mind with regards to your intentions.

We all need mirrors to remind ourselves as to who we are....I'm no different!! As I was spending my usual Saturday in front fo the mirror before a shave, trying to forget my insane acts of the past, I..... don't know how to put it! I just wondered what if I am just a reflection of someone in the Mirror. i would not call myself an illusion as I wouldn't exist. What if I am just a repitition of someone else on the other side of the Mirror. I still would like to believe that a Mirror is a product of Science but how would i jsutify my act this way? Is it the gateway for me to realize that I am just a reflection and the earlier i realize it the better? At this point, i would like to clear that I am hallfway towards madness and not reached there yet...

My friend shared this concept of Snail's perception with me. It has been proved scientifically that a snail's response time is approximately 3-4 seconds (don't come behidn em with a knife;not sure of the number) . So if i place an object and remove it within 4 seconds, the snail would not even know that an object actually was placed there! So on a similar note, what would an average human's response time be? It would be interesting to know that...what if there does exist a parallel life or as I wonder, what if our whole life is just a reflection to reality which takes place on the other side of the mirror?

Being a science student, I know it is not difficuly to get 'techy' explanations but I really am not looking for those. After all, science by itself is a human invention to explain our questions! I guess its enough for the moment, after all maybe I am just reflecting what is happening on the other side of the mirror?

So to conclude, probably this question arises on both sides with either sides thinking either side is reflection of the other! That is enough of randomness for one day or i guess even a week.

- Ever Reflecting....Simba!

A Bedtime story never told before

Lady in the Water : A lot has already been said about this movie. It has been written off, controversy surrounds it due to the Disney-Shyamalan conflict and critics feel this is Shyamalan’s worst product ever. But I just want to take a step back and look at the director who made this and think of the movie from his perspective. Cinema is just like democracy. One has the freedom to make any kind of movie and express his/her views through it. It is pretty similar to voicing your opinion in a debate/public forum or through the media (newspapers to be more precise).

Not all filmmakers get into this profession for monetary reasons. Yes money and fame are key driving factors but to be successful and thrive in this competitive world just on those two factors would be stretching your luck too far! I think the biggest one would be passion for creativity, which obviously is defined differently by everyone. Lady in the water is all about that. It is supposed to be a bedtime story for his kids (again, which is amongst the scariest I have ever heard) and he has gone a step further and made a movie out of it. I would appreciate Shyamalan’s vision and his ability to recreate that vision on the screen and share it with a bazillion people worldwide.

The movie was completely fictional about this pool, a different world that existed under it and the key characters revolving around it. There isn’t much told about the Scrunt and I can’t say that the story made sense because there wasn’t anything like a story. It was just a bunch of scenes put together which portrayed nothing but genuine randomness. Add to it the time constraint of not making a long movie and I feel the dude has done a fair job! It wasn’t a movie with a message about god or aids or spirit of life etc…Nothing. The message from the movie was zilch and it was just 1.5 hr ride into Shyamalan’s mind of existential randomness. It is something which is present in all of us but a few have the courage to bring it out openly and share it with strangers!!

I don’t deny that he has been repetitive with his genre, dark, spooky stories revolving around the abnormal existence of life. But I would accolade him for his individuality which is something rare amongst people and especially Indian filmmakers barring a few exceptions! So for all those who enjoy the creativity of Lord of the Rings, the insanity of Karan Johar movies and the technical excellence of Matrix, I think this movie deserves its own space. It’s more fun to be a rotating planet than a stationary object. From the point of view of filmmaking, this isn’t a financial masterpiece as it didn’t get everyone too excited or engrossed but the director has done a brilliant job of sharing the randomness and confusion in his mind with the people and in turn forcing them to wonder about the movie…

Personally, I would categorize it as revolutionary cinema where the director just wants to share his story, ideologies, randomness, and perception etc with the people on the other side of the screen.