Friday, October 19, 2007

Beauty

Ok, this will be a quick one , but can be a long one. The post might turn a bit disturbing as you read through , so take ur call and click on the top right most button on your window if you cant handle reality.I know thats not the right thing to say to a person who had taken the effort to type thekartheek.blogspot.com and come to this window , but that works in Marketing :)

OK, this post is not about Marketing , its not about beauty that you would be thinking about.

I just finished watching American Beauty , Absolutely great film. I was one of those who dissected its poster when it won the Best Film award in 2000, but didnt bother to watch it as it didnt have any relation to gladiator.

The point is why dont we make such movies. Some one would say , "we are perfect , we have a strong tradition and culture that we have been abiding by since ages " . Well if i can borrow some thing from the British to answer that - i would say "Bollocks"

We are a bunch of hypocrites like any one in the world. The fact that we dont accept that, takes us to a different level . My perception of the USA was always through movies, the slightest temptation i had to go to the states, was to cross check my perceptions. To me , America was a Land of opportunities , where people rampantly carried guns (and had a great style in using), its a place where the people below poverty line own a car , a place of different cultures, out of which none can be claimed as thier own, a place where its wierd if you just married once in your life , its so wierd that you will be the most liked character in the movie , unfortunately 90% of the audience have been divorced atlest once.Its a place where all the business is , all the technology is , all the army is . Its where corporates are supposed to ruthlessley loot the third world countries , and they have a great number of ways of doing those , like they are sucking the countries through some pipes laid under the pacific and atlantic, Hollywood is fortunate
enough to have lot of stories to make movies about. And , Its a place where i think , one can find the most number of psycho-killers, drug addicts (this need not be true, this is just my perception based on the movies). And you can find people like Will Hunting too (Hope i find one person like that).

Oh ya, i forgot to mention , its a place where there are fair enough chances for anyone who had landed from even the jungles of africa or some god-forsaken place of the world - to get laid within a week.

Now, that is America . The movie American Beauty started off giving me an impression that it was portraying all the psychological dysfunctionalities that exist in their world. But the best part is , it daringly does all that and surprisingly manages to say "Chill dude ! This is reality".

Ok, now, just click and hold the left button on your mouse on the globe that google earth shows, move sideways from USA to India. When Mohan Bhargav dared to counter the village head's preposterous presumption that India is a great nation that has a tradition since ages, i said to myself "Wow". As i said , the worst thing with us is that we dont accept even the bad thing. Now , i am not suggesting anyone to keep whining about our problems and insecurities everyday, but we thwart anyone who comes out to say " We too do wierd things" . No one dares to mention the penchant that Gandhi had for sex even at the age of 13-14 . For every one person who tries to be a non-conformist , there are atleast ten faceless organisations who are ready to wash them away along with their footprints.Watch Parzania for some daring effort.

We have one of the stupidest notion of society absolutely obsessed with the notion of "relative grading". Its like saying "My individuality is defined on the basis of my neighbours individuality". "Excuse me, did i hear individuality". Parents do everything for their child so that they are better than our neighbhours . Some lakhs of students take competitive exams in india for whom the basic reason is "someone else is taking it" My friend mentioned this to me- Pavan Verma mentions in his book The great Indian middle class that India is the only country where the number of people taking an exam increases with the difficulty in passing that exam.I dont need to answer why. We think that there are no extra-marital affairs in our country , everyone loves everone , no drugs , nothing.

Imagine this , suddenly , you wake up one day and the whole society vanishes , you are all alone by yourself . Then you will feel as good as dead , because you dont have anyone above to whine about and no one below to brag about yourself. We have enough number of insecurities, we hide them within us and go through a torture that we hypocritically call patience. And this patience is irrationally linked to the traditions and so generations are tied together to follow the trend.
We have more number of cultures than America and we claim to be our own and still we end up hating each other. We seek identity by tring to eliminate diversity , but still we hold up the big bill board "Unity in Diversity" .We have the wierdest crimes and factions that are sensationalised in the media.

Well i have lost track of what i wanted to write.I will end it here.Let me bring down the intensity with P.S . These mite be long as well.
P.S 1: The post was not meant to say that we are screwed up, but the point we over dramatise and under-act on any of our troubles is because we refuse to acknowldge them.
P.S 2: When i have read such writings, first things that popped up in my mind were , "Whats this guys problem in life ? " . Well, I just got inspired by the movie, thats all.
P.S 3: Just as a diversion from serious things , Was awake for one whole night and then went to classes next day, God, TAS form took so long. One of my friend answered for the question "What is your short term goal" - "to earn lots of money", thats to prove that there is some honesty left in this place beyond all the gas.
P.S 4: We managed to get away with the least scoldings in MCN class. (Will blog about it later)P.S 5: There were some posts earlier on my blog which i realised later that it was a too daring an act for me to have it on my blog. I deleted one post by myself and my friend convinced me that the other post was worth to be there on the blog. In other words , he said "stop being a hypocrite".
P.S 6:I would like to end it with some quotes from American Beauty - Oh! Before that , Long Live Kevin Spacey.
P.S 7 :Quote1- "Its a great thing when you discover that you have the ability to surprise yourself , makes u wonder what else you could do that you have forgotten about."
P.S 8: This dialogue comes as a voice over after kevin spacey dies , oops! , i spilled out the plot, dont worry , he tells it in the first dialogue that he is going to die. Thats the beauty of screen play. Ok, the dialogue " I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined my street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty
in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."
"P.S9 : Glossary : Janie- his daughter , carolyn - his wife . And if you dont know who Mohan Bhargav is , Go to hell , but watch Swadesh before going.
P.S10 : To those who have taken trouble to read this line - Thank You and thats all folks.

3 comments:

Krishna Chaitanya said...

i think its abt time u wrote a blog about post scripts.!!!!

Mrunalini said...

very well written post but you diluted it with the post scripts and disclaimers for the sake of reducing its intensity- there lies the quintessential Indian in you - you dont want to be heard saying , "dude..we are fucked"
And being an Indian myself, I would say - pardon me for the foul language :)

Imperator said...

@chaitanya : I realised that i have gone too far on P.S later.

@Athena : rightly pointed out the hidden fact :)