"Bhima - Lone Warrior" Book Review

I recently finished reading this paperback 'Bhima - Lone Warrior', by M.T. Vasudevan Nair. The  book, which is an English translation of the author's original Malayalam masterpiece Rendamoolzham was originally published in the 1980's, so has been around for 30+ years as a matter of fact.  However, it was my first time reading it, one of the reasons being that I came to know that a blockbuster Kollywood flicker is in the works, based on this novel!

Anyways, the book was a superb read that I thought I should write a commentary about. The book itself is a rather simplistic retelling of the Mahabharata, as narrated solely from Bhima's standpoint. There is no epic-like flavor to the plot, or deification of characters, or mystification of events. A dry real-life drama style portrayal is all it really is. In such an earthly style of deliverance, however, the author portrays Bhima's unique perspective on personalities, even more so than events, in the Mahabharatha in a manner so subtle, yet so revealing, about those characters. Bhima's perception/evaluation of just about every character - Yudhishtra, Duryodhana, Karna, Arjuna, Draupadi, Kunti, Bhishma, Dhridhrashtra, Vidura as well as Krishna himself - is so unique and independent, and at times stunningly counter-intuitive to popular images a conventional reader of Mahabharatha may hold. The reader's image of Bhima himself is bound to change as a consequence of reading this book.

There are certain perspectives and insights offered in the book about the birth/origins of the Pandavas and their relationship with Vidhura, that is carried on almost with an element of suspense till the very end of the book, and one that I would rather not comment about here. While I am not exactly sure if that is all an author's interpretation or in fact a plausible truth, these are nevertheless sensational perspectives worth pondering, if one regards this book as a literary work of fiction rather than as a religious retelling of a popular ithihasa.

In summary, after reading this book, I actually wonder if there are or should be as many versions of the Mahabharata as there are characters in it. One does wonder if the original author, Veda Vyasa himself, not do adequate justice to these interpersonal perspectives between characters in the Mahabharatha that this author did. A must-read indeed. Will wait to see the silver-screen version if and when that comes out!

Sacramento and Kings - Save this marriage, please!

My dear Sacramento Kings are threatening to leave town! Reading about the Arena issue off and on for well over 5 years now, it would be an understatement to say things have escalated to full-fledged crisis mode right now. The iceberg tipped when the Maloofs filed (an extension) with the NBA this week to relocate.

To make a convoluted long story oversimplifiably short, you may say the Kings want a new arena, Sacramento wants the Kings, and it takes a new arena to keep the Kings in Sacramento. After several failed attempts - regardless whose blame it was - over the last 10+ years to get a new arena built in Sacramento, the Kings' owners Maloofs say they have had enough and have started looking down south towards Anaheim as a market they could move to. The City, led by Mayor Kevin Johnson, an ardent supporter of the Kings, has hired a top-notch developer group (Taylor/ICON group) to conduct a feasibility study to explore options to make an arena deal happen, but is just not in a position to make any guarantees at this time.

You may start to ask all kinds of technical questions here. Do the Kings just want a new arena, or do they really need a new arena? By the same token, does Sacramento just want to keep the Kings, or do they need to keep the Kings? If the Kings want/need a new arena, why don't they just go build it on their own? How would one justify a public-private partnership to build a sports and entertainment arena to save a sports franchise from relocation, when our governments have more pressing priorities - like say a frail economy, historically high unemployment, and home foreclosure crisis - to deal with? With all that asked, why is the City hitting panic mode today if they saw this day coming for some time now? Questions as basic as those remain convincingly unanswered this late in the day. The Kings say they will pony up some money proportionate to their use of the arena, but it makes no business sense for them to go build an arena all out of their pocket, especially when they can get a possibly better deal elsewhere. The City and the voting public say they just can not afford a public burden to pay for a $350 million arena, while among a host of other issues an outstanding City loan of $70 million is still pending settlement by the Kings.

Politics and economics aside, the intriguing point here is what the Kings mean to Sacramento and what Sacramento means to the Kings. After all, it was not too long ago that Arco Arena was seen as the home of the most rabid and loyal fan-base in the NBA and the toughest place for visiting teams to win in. And how our collective fortunes have changed in the blink of an eye? Yes, the naysaying general public could care less if the Kings leave town, and by the same token, the Kings will most-definitely find takers with a red-carpet elsewhere in the country. Neither will Sac remain the proverbial "cow town" forever, nor will the Kings play in an antiquated arena forever. Yes, when everything is said, done and forgotten, life will find a way to just move on. So that is not the point here. So what really is the problem? The problem is that Sacramento and Kings really love one and another, hate to lose each other because of this darn arena issue, but neither side is going to come out and admit that basic premise in this hour of crisis.

While both sides have some legitimate points to make, let us not forget that neither side is entirely not-at-fault here. The City lacked the proactive leadership and vision to make an arena deal happen when the economy was still doing good, while the Kings lacked the political savvy to explain why public dollars need to be invested in an arena deal.  What we need from the public right now, in this eleventh hour, is not the grandstanding by City politicians, the negativity from the skeptics, or the indifferent media rhetoric that is doing its rounds right now. What we need from the Kings right now is not their posturing and hard-ball stance to somehow get what they want by black-mailing the threat of leaving town. The emotional cat-calls and outpouring of support from those wretched Kings faithfuls, yes those beleagured fans, will not help salvage the situation either. What we really need here is an honest sit-down for heart-to-heart talks by ALL concerned parties, pushing their hitherto bruised egos to the back-seat for a change, and discuss to weed out the real issues and come up with a game-plan to make this arena deal work here in Sacramento somehow.  Engage with the Taylor group and give them one goddamn chance to come up with a magical solution. Yes, money is a problem, but let us make sure that it is our only problem. If at the end of the day, the arena money math does not pencil, then let us just part ways if that is what our destiny is. But just give staying here in Sacramento an honest chance! Just remember there will be no winners and only tears to shed on all sides if this thing falls apart.

So how's India different than North America?

I recently read this path-breaking landmark judgment rendered by the Indian Supreme Court (SC) on an appeal case that involved hearing on a matter of alleged injustice committed against an Adivasi individual, wherein the SC took a dramatically insightful look into the origin of Indian people itself.  Simply put, the SC basically declared that India, much like North America is today, should be regarded as a "land of immigrants".  The archives of The Hindu newspaper contain (non-case specific) extracts from the judgment (and a link to the full original text as well), check out http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article1081343.ece

Contrary to widely-held views of India being an ancient home-grown civilization that grew by and large "from within", this SC judgment propounds a new paradigm wherein one would begin to believe that India is also essentially a country of "external settlers" who upon their ancient immigration to India basically obliterated the original native aborgine inhabitants in due course of time, in a fashion perhaps not too dissimilar to how, say, Australia evolved as a nation.  While most of us are atleast partly familiar with this theory in the sense that the "Aryans" were regarded as the outsiders who colonized the "Dravidian" orginal inhabitants, the SC judgment elevates the older theory to a new level, wherein even the so-called Dravidians should be technically considered foreigners, leaving only the Adivasis as the original unadulterated native inhabitants of the land.

Firstly, you want to tip your hat to the SC judges who pronounced this judgment for the sheer depth of knowledge and courage of wisdom they chose to display in this case, that could well have far-reaching implications on how the identity and origin of all Indians is understood going forward.  If a historian or an archaeologist had made such pronouncements the nay-sayers would have readily poked fun and marginalized the theory, but who other than the SC to wake up our ordinary minds to a new dawn of possibility that we had hitherto thought improbable? After reading the judgment, which reads like a lesson that could find its way into our kids' history textbooks, I do have one question - Should we then conclude that North America today, at least in terms of the diversity of immigrant populus that constitutes its society, is more or less similar to what India was, say, some 2,500 years ago? So is there essentially no evolutionary difference between North American and Indian societies other than their age? Food for thought.

Endhiran raises the bar!

Wow, what'd be a better excuse to blog after a long hiatus than to have the occassion of a Rajni blockbuster hit the silverscreens? Watched Endhiran last night with family here in Sac, the first day of release at 3,000 theaters worldwide! For a late night show, my two girls (three if you add the wife) sat through more or less the entire movie, so the movie grabbed their attention you would presume. But isn't that what Rajni movies do to kids anyway?

In all honesty, regardless of how you see it, Endhiran is indeed one literally mind-blowing brain-teaser of an unadulterated entertainment experience. First of all kudos to Shankar for directing a sci-fi theme at a level of technical splendor hitherto unseen in Indian cinema. The man's diligence and creativity is evident in every frame of the movie, and he has definitiely succeeded in reaching out to a broad multi-lingual audience on an esoteric theme, without (for the most part) compromising the intelligence of those tech-savvy movie-goers pampered by the proverbial hollywood-quality sci-fi movies. Shankar is definitely India's answer to James Cameron.

The underlying plot itself is pretty ordinary, and hinges on this well-known Frankenstein's monster story of the created-out-to-destroy-the-creator, with Rajni, the Scientist's, brain-child of a creation - a look-alike human android robot, with its newly-trained "emotion" capability, wanting to pursue his creator's lady-love and ultimately turning in to a monstrous villain of an unfathomable kind. The intriguing part is that Robot Rajni is in fact the hero of the movie for all practical purposes, not the scientist! Even more thrilling is the fact that when the Robot, after the bad red-chip gets planted in it, actually turns into the villain as well, and it is in this villain part that you see Rajni unleashing his classic mass-enthralling style of punchy dialogues and the stupendous body language that propelled him to a Superstar status in the first place. Rajni seems surreally comfortable with his villain demeanor, almost reminscent of the days he debuted in Tamil movies over 30 years ago!

Of course, the movie has that inevitable indulgence with the desi masala ingredient with two dream duet songs just to get Rajni fans see their thalaivar dance with the ethereal beauty that is Mrs.Bacchan. Undeniably, some scenes seem like a slant imitation of older hollywood releases - Terminator (Judgment Day) keeps coming to mind in several instances. How the Robot is brought back to life after the scientist dumps it in the garbage is not really explained convincingly either. The Robot's emotion programming also seems more like movie fantasy, rather than based on any scientific reference regards to such possibility. Why is a sexless Robot getting emotionally trained to "fall in love" with a woman, not a man? If you were a smart scientist would you not program your Robot to fall in love with yourself? Last, but not the least, does it not seem like this Robot arrived a little late, by say some 20 years, in this day and age where we talk about human clones, stem cell research, and biological warfare? Such criticisms, however, are trivial, and when you weigh in the movies' visual special effects grandeur that legitimately rival hollywood calibre, Shankar's smaller digressions are readily forgiven.

A pat on the back goes to Rajni Sir, for the amount of physical hard-work he must have put his almost 61-year old body to, be it from those eye-popping stunt scenes in the moving train, to the robotic dance moves besides Aiswarya Rai, to those slick villainous robot stunts through the climax. Yes, you can make a 60-year old look like a 20-year old, courtesy of the make-up specialist, but to get a 60-year old run and dance like a 20-year old? Indeed remarkable.

Rai does seduce us with her out-of-the-world beauty, but needless to say, some age is showing up on her pretty face these days. ARR has done the music score, did not find songs particularly remarkable, but perhaps some credit should go to his sound re-recording effects to reinforce the robotic theme. With about 160 crores (thankfully in rupees not dollars) shelled out from his pocket, you would not think Sun Pictures' Kalanidhi Maran became any poorer with this stellar business venture of his, a foray all set to reap box-office revenues worldwide.

What really blew my mind was the climax special-effects showing havoc wrecked by the villainous robot Rajni. You see not just one or two Rajnis here, but a duplicated army of robots perpetuated by the Robo Rajni. The mass colony of robot soldiers gang up to form all kinds of monstrous combinations - from a rolling giant machine-ball to a vertical machine-ladder reaching out to copters flying in the sky to a behemoth robot of robots walking the streets! Talk about a special-effects feast...

In all, a level of movie-making that has raised the bar for Indian cinema in terms of technical wizardry. Congrats to all involved, and especially my man Shankar. This act may be a difficult one to emulate, but do keep such movies coming...

The Blackberry Un-social Syndrome

Just like that, I figured, I had been using my Blackberry device for well over three years now. Needless to say, this employer-sponsored aversion has been by-and-large a blessing for me for sure when it comes to all matters business-related. The e-mail and texting prowess of this machine seem unmatched, and the promptness with which this thing helps you respond to people (even to the ones you wanted to avoid!) gives true meaning to the adage "time is of the essence". What is pretty amazing to me is that the Blackberry addressbook feature is simply a front-end interface to a comprehensive remote database that sits on a secure server, so the data querying capability of this device seems essentially unlimited. You never seem not to have the contact information for the person you are looking to get a hold of. This device carries so many of my resources that these days I often refer it to as my "brain extension". The unit can be locked with a password, and you lose your Blackberry, you really lost nothing, just simply have to get a replacement unit.

But of late, I noticed my obvious "addiction" to this creature as well. After all it is a "smartphone" that does everything that a traditional phone was and was not supposed to do, and more. My 3G model supports a very reliable internet browser, and a handful of other useful applications - including maps, music, camera, camcorder, addressbook, calendar, facebook, and other proprietary stuff. I even downloaded a "text to speech" application that simply verbally reads out loud e-mails to you when you are on the road driving behind a wheel.  With so much slick power at your fingertips, it is only but natural that I cultivated a level of indulgence with this machine that I started suspecting if I was actually becoming un-social. The other day entering a restraurant, I was so immersed reading something on the device, that I did not open/yield the door to the elderly lady that was walking out from inside. Thankfully she understood and smiled me away, and I even pointed the finger at my blackberry and asked her to actually excuse the thing, not me. On a more recent occassion, I was caught indulging with the device at the Super-bowl party last weekend at a friend's place and leaving my hosts wondering if I was actually "on call" on some work-related matter. Somewhat embarrassed, I had to explain that this latest quirk of mine was more of a habit than anything else. I even helplessly cited that even Obama has the blackberry weakness that I do.

The larger point here is that digital indulgence seems to be a thing that is here to stay for most of us. If it is not a Blackberry, it is perhaps a laptop, or a cell phone, or an i-pod, or a big-screen TV, for most of us. Stats are coming out showing people spending more time with machines than with one and another. Whether one likes it or not, society's trend clearly seems to be headed in the "man+machine" direction when it comes to inter-personal interaction. It is no longer a question of whether one human being is better than another, it is fast-becoming a question of "are me and my machine better than you and your machine?" Hoping it all somehow stays good, we will wait and see what all our digital future has in store for us...

Telengana State? Kalaignar getting any ideas!?

The past few days indian news media headlines have been hogged by the Telengana state issue, precipitated by KCR's "fast unto death" saga. Our good old Congress govt. at the Centre buckled to pressure caused by the local politician's failing health on account of his 11-day unnavritham, and perhaps correctly decided that this age-old demand can not but keep getting shoved under the carpet time and time again, and forced itself to act. Nevertheless, I could not but help crack up when I read this morning one senior congressman, when asked about his party's "midnight" decision to yield to the telengana concept, asserting - "... the congress makes the right decision at the right time."

As a tamil, outside observer of AP politics, I started wondering what our tamil political dudes were thinking with regards to happenings in our neighboring state. Of course one may recall our good friend Kalignar was at least at one time a big fan of secessionist politics perpetuated by his mentor Anna and ideologue Periyar, back in the 1950's when they had put forth the DK/DMK demand for creation of "Dravida Nadu" out of India. Current state of affairs does not afford Kalaignar any need or opportunities to play such divisive politics. But here is an idea (or fear?), now that he is a CM waiting for the right moment to relinquish his office to his offsprings. What if Kalignar decides to get really creative and carves Tamil Nadu into two states - Northern Tamil Nadu with Stalin as CM, and Southern Tamil Nadu with Azhagiri as CM? This way his soul could rest in peace convinced that he has done both of his illustrious political sons equal justice. Oh, I forgot all about his daughter Kanimozhi, who may also cry foul and demand a third piece of the pie, perhaps a Western Tamil Nadu with Ooty as the capital? This would be a perfect set-up for equitable family inheritance of the CM's chair, wouldn't it? If Kalignar goes with this idea, would someone put in a word for me for a suggestor's commission? Or may be at least a free color TV?

SRK "detained"... so what?

I noticed I hadn't blogged for about 6 months now, and I was wondering how it can be, while this Shah Rukh Khan "detension" episode at Newark Airport yesterday (incidentally India's Independence Day) hit desi media headlines. While I did have several things to write about -including my trip to India and the Taj in April last - let me give the most honest excuse, I was plain lazy to catch up with this space. (I must admit I was otherwise active with my digital indulgence by signing up on facebook and twitter in the intervening timeframe.)

Needless to say, the SRK episode did not get a fraction of the coverage in US media that it got in desi media. If SRK is trully a "global" icon like some of us claim, why would this issue not find coverage here in the US or say even in a "neutral" country like Canada? After hearing a lot of the typical desi overreaction to such incidents, it was indeed refreshing to find a relatively more digestable editorial on the TOI blog site - http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/onefortheroad/entry/don-t-make-a-big

While such episodes are not unheard of - South Indian actors such as Mamooty, Sivakumar, etc. were treated in a similar fashion recently as well, not to mention our ex-President Kalam - what is intriguing to me is how the Indian media and mainstream public alike takes these things so personally these days. Yes, it does not speak much of the US immigration intelligence to do random security grilling on visitors based just on their muslim or muslim-sounding names. However, in this post 9-11 age, such profiling is a necessary evil and has to be taken on the stride as a necessary nuisance, and nothing more. (India does such random grilling on Pakistani visitors, by the way.) If say Tom Cruise stepped in at Mumbai immigration, what are the chances that the local immigration officer would recogonize him, let alone give him the "privileged" treatment that desis seem to be expecting for SRK? After all nobody is above the law (and the whims and fancies that law can manifest itself with) and the VIP worship culture that comes so naturally to us desis is not something that the international community is willing to entertain in this day and age dominated by terror anxiety. To paint the episode with race, religion and nationality bias, warranted as it may be to a limited extent, is just not appropriate in the larger context. The call by some desis for a tit-for-tat type retaliatory action by having US visitors to India be subjected to similar action is outright silly, classless and irresponsible.

There seems to be a pattern to the manner in which such things are seen in India these days. When a desi student in Australia gets attacked, our people go ga-ga without bothering to ask if that desi student did something wrong in the first place. When a West Indian umpire gives a couple of bad decisions on the field against Indian batsmen, the BCCI pressures ICC to sack him, and succeeds. If Dr. Kalam has to go thru routine security screening to board a Continental flight, our people cry foul. While such reactions are appropriate to some reasonable degree, this seems to be the symptom of a larger dynamic at work here - that India is now clearly displaying a changed body language when it comes to how she would like to be seen/treated by the rest of the world. To the extent the escalating superiority complex that Indians seem to flaunt these days is justifiable based on their economic standing as a reckoning superpower and the political maturity as a thriving democratic nation state, such nationalistic postures may be appreciated by the international community. But if this trend grows unabated beyond those limits of tolerance, India or Indians would very soon be seen as cocky, self-serving global citizens indifferent to the ground realities dominating international thought in the 21st century.