Who Be Ye!!!

February 21, 2012

Far Far Away in the year 1888. Prince, an unemployed youth is ecstatic. He just succeeded in making what might be the world’s first motion camera. Using it, he creates a picture that moves. He is extremely pleased with himself and wants to show it to others. He tries to find a theater to screen this picture, but couldn’t find any as most of the theaters were reserved for plays and the owners refused to lend it for some experiment.

All he could find was a small shed. There, he sets up his equipments and gets ready. He himself roams around telling people how better movies (that’s what he started calling them) are compared to plays. The people loves it, and by the end of the week long queues are formed outside the shed. Seeing this success, theater owners come to him with an offer to show his movie in their bigger and better theaters. The “film” become a huge success.

This time, theater and plays dominated the entertainment industry. The stories were of poor quality and there were rarely anything interesting that they had to offer. But because people had nothing else to do, they were forced to go for the plays. So plays were still making money. But the invent of cinema changed all these. The number of viewers for theater reduced drastically. The TDA (Theater Dramatics Association) got together and discussed the new turn of events. They all went for the movie to find out exactly what it had that their plays didn’t have.

But they were dumbstruck. The film was just a 5 minutes long, it had no story, the acting was poor, the people didn’t look at all real, there was no sound, it was too hot inside the room and it was straining to the eyes to look at the screen for long. They couldn’t realize why other people liked it. They decided that people are too poor to make judgements for themselves and didn’t know the difference between art and mockery. If some fool came with something different, even if it had absolutely no quality, people would rush to watch that. They decided that they should make some rules to prohibit the exhibition of cinemas that is deteriorating the quality of the audience.

They talked to the dictator-king of Far Far Away and made a law preventing the screening of motion-pictures.

But Prince had began to love film-making so much so that he just couldn’t stop it. He escapes with the camera to another country called Near Horizon. There he made films and screened it. The local people loved it and it grew very popular. With a new medium came new themes and fresh ideas and the film industry thrived.

But Far Far Away had a totally different story to tell. The year is now 1930 and people still watch plays. They are bored by the repetitive themes and stories, but alas they have nothing else to do.

In 1932, a theater actor from Far Far Away got lost on his way to Near Far Far Away and accidentally reached Near Horizon. There, he saw a cinema and was amazed by its quality. The dictator’s tyranny in Far Far Away was over and now there was a government and people had rights. He took back some films back to Far Far Away and screened them there. The people loved them. Soon a film industry developed here, but alas they were beginners and the films weren’t that great. But they carried on making films. Slowly they were catching up with the standard of films made in Near Horizon.

The year is now 1955. Far-far-away, having excellent film-makers now make good films and are not that far behind Near Horizon. At around that time, a scientist there creates a camera that can capture color. He, being ignorant of the techniques of film making, makes a short video of a horse running. He started screening it in a theater. People loved seeing color on screen and rushed to watch that.

As usual the ADFFFA (Association for Development of Films in Far Far Away) met to discuss this turn of events and went to watch the film. They couldn’t believe it. It looked like some 50 year old movie with color. There was no story, acting was below par, the images weren’t clear, it was difficult to make out a person. They felt that people were losing their artistic sense. They realised they should do something to make people understand the difference between good movies and mockery. One of them knew a top official in the government. They bribed him and a new rule was approved by the government preventing the screening of color-films. The police were also asked to destroy any such color camera if found.

The scientist who had spent a lot of effort on making the camera couldn’t bear to see it getting destroyed. He ran away with his camera to Near Horizon. There, he started showing the local people his colour films. They loves it.

The year is 2010. Far-far-away people still watch black-and-white films and the repetition and lack of innovation were making them bored. But lately they have been hearing rumors of more realistic and life like films being made in some distant country. It wasn’t the old hoax about full length color cinema. Now its something about the things in screen being so real that if you wear some magical glass, you feel they are coming towards you.

Shashi Tharoor removes his own posters

May 16, 2009

Shashi Tharoor


“This is a beautiful town, and I don’t want politics to disfigure it.” These words come from Sashi Tharoor, a candidate for the Lok Sabha seat from Thirvuvananthapuram.

He came out to the streets of TVM yesterday to remove his posters from the street walls. A very welcoming deed. Kerala state is usually in a pathetic state after the elections with political posters on each and every walls and street sides. Even the roads will have the party names painted on them. The cleanliness of the towns and cities have never been a concern for any political parties.

Another disgusting fact is that these posters are never removed after elections. They remain there till the next elections, when fresh posters are pasted again.

It’s in such a scenario that Shashi Tharoor has set himself a role model for all other politicians.Here is a deed by a politician, we can be proud of. A very rare thing indeed! I wish him all the very best for the elections.


September 1, 2008

Kerala Govt. under the rule of V.S.Achuthananthan is proving to be yet another of the useless governments for Kerala, like the one’s we usually have.(Of course there had been a decision to introduce GNU/Linux at schools instead of Windows which is a great move indeed.) I don’t remember Kerala ever having a Govt of which the people were proud of. The present Govt.’s main fall have been in the educational field. M A Baby, Education Minister, has made too many changes in this field of which none were in the positive direction as far as I can make out.

The very first year M.A.Baby came to power, the results which came out was quite magnificent. The pass percentage was way over the usual. All channels were filled with our honorable educational minister telling how he changed the whole ‘setup’ of education to increase the results. But the secrets couldn’t been hidden for long. Soon it began leaking out. There were clear orders given from the educational dept to increase the marks of each student however bad they have written the exams. I personally know a teacher who went to correct the paper. She said that it was a very difficult scenario. They got to give marks to the students but can’t find a single praiseworthy word in the whole paper. The actual marks of the students would be the one they got minus about 20%. I also remember about one of my neighbour who, on the day before results, was dreading it cause he/she might fail in it. After the results came he/she was very sad cause the marks were only 80%. This happened in the coming years too. I remember seeing a letter written by someone to a newspaper which can be roughly translated as, “I am unlucky to not have been able to study during this golden period of education. I was forced to quit studies after I failed in my 10th 15 years back. Had M.A.Baby been the minister then, I could even have got a Ph.D.”

Then on the year when my entrance exams took place(2007), there were all kinds of problems with the management colleges which delayed our admission. The govt. was against the Management colleges because they were asking for higher fees. The govt remained strong against the management but in the end they succumbed to it. After a press conference, a news reported asked our honorable minister, what was the use of this fight against the management and was there any use of it? The Minister got angry and said, “The management has signed with us to give 50% of their seats at low fees”. He then walked out. Please remember that till then the management had been giving 50% seats at low fees itself. I don’t know whether they had signed it or not. But after all its the no.of seats on govt. fees that matter, not any signatures.

Now comes the most interesting decision. M A Baby has decided to discontinue the Onam exams. While I was in school Onam exams, christmas exams and final exams were the three main exams that were there. These exams made us revise the topics we learned. And after the hard work during the exam time, the vacation was very enjoyable. I must admit I don’t know the reason for stopping Onam exams. But whatever they are, I am sure they are not enough to challenge the positives of it.

And this weekend I saw on paper that M.A.Baby is going to punish all the schools where exams were held prior to Onam. Conducting an exam is not at all easy. It requires hard work from students part and also the teachers part. Setting the paper, finishing portions, conducting exams and correcting the answer paper. If a school is ready to conduct an exam without compulsion, I feel its a thing which should be appreciated, not punished.

I think the only reason for this punishment would be that the honorable Educational Minister has decided to pass all the students this year. So studying or sample exams will be most unnecessary. “Come see the questions of which the answers you don’t know, write something you know and pass all exams” – looks like this is the present educational motto for our government.


August 15, 2008




They say patriotism is something which declined over years. They say people then had the sense of patriotism running through their veins and that now people are more interested in money, movies and careers to care about things like patriotism. They sometimes even say that there are people now who know not that August 15th is our Independence Day. This can be the truth. Anyways who am I to say yes or no to this.

There can be such people somewhere. But in my case and in that of most around me it’s not like that. There maybe people who say Independence Day should be celebrated in sample Quit India movements or Boycott movement and even by going to a beach and ‘manufacturing’ salt. But I am not for that, so is not most of my generation. I have always felt that those indulging in the above said activities got to be called politicians than Indians. When Mahatma Gandhi did those, there was an aim in front of him. It was to drive the British out of here and to free us from the foreign rule. He succeeded and we are now free. What’s the aim of these politicians in doing these? There can be a lot of things that can be done for people now. But they prefer doing these ‘sample’ things which can never go wrong and can never do anything good.

I know what I say is a bit too much. These people may be doing this to make us remind what struggles our Freedom Fighters took at those days. But I would hate to call Gandhi our National Father if he had came in a car with police protection to the Dhandi beach and went near a stage with a stove. I would never had been proud of him had he just lit the stove with a lighter. That’s how the politicians show us how Dhandi march was. I don’t believe this show can do anything good for us mainly because this is not what happened. Gandhiji didn’t come in any AC car. He came walking a LONG way. He too had police protection. That was not to protect him from the mob but to prevent him from coming there. There were many to help him but I know he would have declined their help and did things alone and set an example to those following him. Else why would they call him the Mahatma?

I have managed to get the patriotic sense even without going to these processions. I have always felt the sense of patriotism on Independence Day by going to the school for the Flag Hoisting Ceremony and by watching those patriotic movies on TV. I still remember how thrilled we used to on this day at the Independence Day celebrations at school. I often get reminded of those patriotic songs, long speeches that somehow managed to be not boring and at times even interesting, flag hoisting and then the Flag Salute. There used to be sweets distribution which made us nostalgic cause the sweets given looked to be bought at sometime around 1947. I wouldn’t have been surprised had someone told me that those sweets were actually bought by Gandhi himself.

Today, on the Independence Day, we have a lot to be proud of. One of our fellow Indian, Abhinav Bindra has given us the first gold medal in Olympics in an individual event for India. This year’s Olympics can be called the best Olympics but I prefer to call it the worst yet. Indian team failed to qualify for the Olympics in Hockey. Hockey was always ours in the old times. I have read about the great Dhyan Chand and how he used to dominate every single game. Somewhere we let other countries overcome us.

Abhinav has certainly made us all proud. But do think, China the largest country has around 35 medals with 22 gold medals. We the second largest country are stuttering somewhere in the below with just one gold. India is the most diverse country and the one from where most results can be expected had there been enough facilities for the sportsmen. Corruption stops development. A lot of money has been spent on sports already. But most of it went to the pockets of the politicians and officials and very little was used properly. This is just one reason. Laziness is also another reason. I personally don’t enjoy getting up early in the morning and running. I can never say no to a cozy bed in the morning even if I know running is good to health. I have at times felt there is another reason which is lack of status in the society for sportsmen. We do give extra ordinary support to those who succeeded. Success stories are always beautiful. But there ought to be failures too. Failures should don’t be considered bad. Atleast they tried. That means they are better than us. We should also be proud of them and should support them. We always see many examples for sports people who are neglected. Saying one is a sportsman is not a fashion anymore. These are a few reasons I felt was obvious. There can be many more.

Here is another Independence Day and this shall be over in another 24 hours. But this one should be made different. We should decide to change ourselves for the better. This is a statement which all say but till now have never produced any effect. Even if we can’t change the whole setup as it is, we should try to change atleast our attitude. That can make a big difference. Especially on this Independence Day, when the whole country is on a festive mood also due to the first individual gold medal in Olympics, we should come up to improve the sports and games in our country. Each one of us can do a bit for the cause. If we could encourage someone interested in sports, it’s the best we can do. I do sincerely hope the Independence day of 2012 shall be celebrated on even larger spirit with India on top of the Olympics points table. Happy Independence Day to all.



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