Detouring

Written on 14th october

I had been in Arupukottai for the last one week, if the name seems odd, the that is how it is. I recived a mail today, from one of my classmate in XL informing me about Williamson being awarded nobel prize.For a moment i was transported to a totally different space between four walls , where we , a batch of 14 for the class of Firms,Markets and Global Dynamics, and a batch of 20 odd for Industrial Economies, tried to deconstruct and reconstruct Williamson in different context and savoured the outcomes and the debates. At one time, asset specificity was used by me to explain every context in every discipline.

But what hit me the most was the fact that i couldn't remember the last time I really thought about Williamson since i have walked out of college. I have lazied at home for 2 months,and had the pleasure of staying at The Sonar for 10 days and finally toil hard in Tamilnadu heat for the last 4 months. And, i had been part and parcel of a model that Williamson had always tried to explain more accurately - The boundary of the firm, when does a firm outsource a part of its business and what are the trade offs. The Company-distributor relationship, The distributor-Salesman/hawker relation and the reasons and solutions for conflicts that arise between these parties. The basic arguments between these parties written down on a contract, might be the best of the live examples, I should admit that, over the last 4 months of work at ITC, though i had every opportunity probe Williamson, i never did so.

The point that MBAs are overrated might be reiterated here, as i couldnt apply, if not atleast remember the model. But i would like make it a point that the mistake mostly lies with student of MBA than the MBA course as such. I feel happy today to atleast be in a position to appreciate the applause that Williamson is recieving. So, MBA is definitely not overrated, may be the student is, and its alkways his responsibility to counter that opinion.

Apart from all this, i found myself blushing, as my friend reminded me of how interesting and fun were our economics classes. I was reminded of the period, where i flirted for a while with Economics, still the best of the times in whole of Education. Just puts me in a confusion, whether the touring i do now is a detour or was that a small detour when i fell in love with Economics.

Knowing the other half of truth

I finally found a film society and rushed to it in the right time for the screening of the taiwan movie 'Yi Yi - A one and a two' by Edward Yang.To be honest , the movie was too long for an audience brought up on Indian cinema. In retrospect, we find out that the length was one of the key ingredient of what the movie portrays - Life.

So, where do i start to explain a movie about life, that too when the director tells it in the simplest of ways, if i try to retell it, it will be more complex and spoil the fun. I shall only to refer to the points where the director's ghost seems to be wandering around the characters and makes his presence felt subtly but so strongly, that the dialogues would only become proverbs in your life.The indispensible character in the director's endeavour turns out be the 8 year old kid, who drops words of wisdom with sweet innocence, be it asking his father "Why do we always know half the truth, we can only see whats in the front, we cant see whats behind at the same time". The best piece though, that had a loud applause from the audience is when the kid hands over a photogragh to his Uncle,picturing the back of his head and when asked why is he giving it to him, he replies in a saintly manner, wrapping himself in towel, "You cant see it yourself, i am trying to help you". Moments like this are sprinkled all over the movie, just when you start to yawn at the boring rituals of life intertwined with the inevitable complexes of the characters , the director makes you sit up with these subtle charges of dialogue.

It seems as if the director literally possessed the character of the Ting-Ting's boyfriend when he is discussing movies and says "My uncle says that , with movies , we live our life three times over". Thats when half the audience will be woken up to the fact that their life also would seem the same if presented through flickering frames. A Grandmother in coma as a sounding board for the characters is such an original experiment to pull the audience towards the characters.

The character development is so well done that the audience is set at the centre of a circle that the characters traverse only to come back to where they started and realise the futility of their internal struggles with guilt and mournful retrospections of lost opprtunities.Husband reliving his youth and realising that he is still restricted by the same fears and apprehensions.And its an experience to see his life intercut with his daughter's first date.

All in all, the movie is the directors signature on every frame, that for me is one of the most important thing in any movie,because in cinema, one man's command on his art becomes fountainhead of creative excellence of a larger number, i.e the cast and the crew.

Yi Yi is a movie which you shouldnt expect to entertain you or for that matter make you feel sad or make you laugh, you are not supposed to like it or hate it or judge it in any extent when you are watching it, you are only supposed to live it with the director and it will stay with your memory for a longer time.

Stop Read and Watch

Watching Subramaniapuram is definitely a bloody good experience.Despite the language being my neighbours tongue, I had a consolatory detail to associate with, the heroine being from the coochy-coochy talk show that used to beam on the telugu channel.

Thats where i say that sometimes it really helps, when you stop and read about the movie and the creator and his accomplices who cast this spell on you.

The director, lets call him the creator, he earns that position with all justice, for he wrote, directed and produced the movie and ofcourse acted in it. This gesture often brings out a sympathy from the distributors and sometimes even the audience. Please keep your condolences to yourself. Such a gesture is nothing but a persons love for the art he dreamt about and his desperation to give it a shape in his OWN way.If you have a good sight, you can find that desperation in every frame.

The most important thing for me though is , Sasikumar quoting that he likes RGV. Now lets get that simple, when someone says that he likes RGV, dont try to ask him 'How Much', Because you either hate RGV to Death or love him for life. If you are one of the RGV fans like me, you will start hallucinating with the virtual umbilical cord that the movie has all over, most of which might just be unintended coincidences, but who told you so ;) . The simplest thing could be Sasikumar calling his banner - Company Productions- doesnt that seem to come out of the factory. And then you only find more when camera races after people being chased through narrow alleys.And when you a see a street fight starting for no reason - you cant help that 'gotcha' smile on your face.

So, you know the rule when you sit for a RGV like movie, - Dont fall in love with the characters, because they are going to die a ruthless death. It will seem as the ghost of RGV has sprung out of screen and killed them. If you think i am exaggarating, try watching Siva at the time when telugu cinema was accelarating to sink like Titanic, you wouldnt bother when Raghuvaran kidnaps nagarjuna's niece and threatens to kill. You would be telling yourself "Come on, who are you fooling, when did villians become so honest, that too about killing kids". And then you sit up in a seat. I know, some would say, hadnt he done too much of such things after that. Well, i would only say,its anyday better than, Sharukh dying for 2 hours in Kal ho na ho.

Anyway, you will have to break the rule yourself, because you will fall in love with the characters for their innocence in crime and haplessness in love. So, you only give up all hopes and sit there watching your characters falling in love and then betraying each other and getting hacked to death.

And, you see those drizzle of the new wave all over the screen, when the camera follows kasi steadily without cutting until he sits on milestone and reconcilliates what he has done. If you have forgotten how the old cinema or the so called Hi-Tech Cinema used to look, here it is, Flash on the screen-POV of Paraman : the sickle in hand rising high and coming down-Paraman screaming with blood oozing from a place where the sickle is least probable to strike-Flash again(with zzzzzzzzzzuk sound)-Kasi would be trying to pull out his hair- and then some infinite flashes with twice infinite sounds and the scene would have been benchmarked against the superhit daily serial.

Finally, there is something you will know when you only read about the flick that the lead protaganist and the creator are schoolmates, where the Music Director James Vasantham was Music teacher. Now there is one thing that teachers teach you very well, especially music teachers - How to say your prayers. Like a devotee touching the steps when entering a temple, like a dancer bowing to the stage before his performance, James Vasantham's first song that breaks out of the speakers is by Illayaraja and rest is bliss.

P.S: I have amazing fun when i read about these trivia regarding any movie i see.Subramaniapuram just turned out to be too much of it.

Poor Men

When Hamlet draws his last breath,When Othello draws his sword on to himself,When Macbeth shivers seeing the woods move, when Satya wriggles in his own blood at the doorstep of his beloved and when Paruthiveeran bites dust oozing blood painlessly, All i can visualise is the sweet grin on the face of creators of these characters who could etch a character so strong on a page or book and so seamlessly tranfer the imprint the same on to the mind of the audience and finally make it a point to put them through an experience that they cannot excuse themselves for.

Women in cinema had been invariably been pushed to played rosy,coochy coochy second fiddle, and an abberation that occured once in a while had always made a strong impact. Infact every actress now tries to make sure that she plays a strong female role once in her career,which is so because unfortunately, still as a majority,women are treated as a dependent second fiddle(let us not get into the 'discussion of the rise of the corporate women' now. For my own good, I am not in TCS anymore, i am in coimbatore trying to sell soaps to people who form a majority of what India is).

Anyway, the point of the article is that, if women roles were appreciated for being strong, Men in cinema or literature have made stronger and longer impressions in the mind of audience not when they played obvious hero who is invincible, but it is when they played the weak- the weak which every knows but treats it as a huge taboo to acknowledge openly. And some master minds had taken the simplest route to bring this to the forefront. Like they say in cooking shows on TV, 'Boil it with women and garnish it with crime".(Before i go further, this article is not to start a masculine movement or some bullshit like that, it is just my observation from some of my favorite pieces of art).

Othello was a character starngled by the thoughts of being naked to himself about the fact that he has turned vulnerable to the charms of a women who seemed to be manipulating him all the more. But the irony of his fate lay in the falsity of his own imagination which only sprouted from his weakness, that questioned his control over himself that seems to be shared now.

Macbeth struggled to figure out if it was his decision to aim for the throne by putting the king to sleep, or was he just a pawn in the whole plot written and directed by his wife,If not for which he wouldnt have accrued all the guilt.It is astonishing that a man who returned winning a battle had to succumb to words of a woman, well the question remains that he succumbed to the greed for power. I would say you do not need to question that, at the cost of stereotyping men, isnt that what men always sought.

The final frames of Satya still comeback to my mind, as i ponder that how a person who could plot to kill a dozen goons in the most manipulated manner and still escape the police, would walk into a building which he knows will only lock him up to death in a brutal manner.

There really isnt any point that i am trying to make through this article, except that i wish i could sleep well, after this, because, the last time i lost my sleep like this after watching a movie was after 'Requiem for a Dream'. I could survive One flew over cuckoos nest,7/G,Omkara, but Paruthiveeran for its sheer rawness and honesty in its brutality in questioning the heroics and recklessness of men powered and possessed by crime only to be challenged by a woman's undaunted love had a disturbing impact on my mind. The climax justifies itself in amatter of 15 minutes of what all the film was trying to make sense of in an atmosphere alien to most of the people who would watch the movie, but its the characters and their idiosyncracies(as wierd as cutting off a policeman's ear, for the fun of it, only tells you that he will pay for it the way it has to be). The movie stands out as how strongly it justifies its characters, which may be even Satya fails at a few points.

I will stop this piece here, as i have already taken off tangentially. Hope it makes half the sense i wanted it to be.

P.S: I am sure that whoever watched the movie would trash this article for supporting the male character, who technically had to pay for his crimes, while th female's role goes through the brutality for nothing but love. I would still keep the title of this article the same, as the guilt of realising that your previous actions had been the sole reason for your beloved's fate and the helplessness that stays with the character thereby is the worst punishment that anyone can get. Thus, my sincere condolences go to Poor Men

:)

Learning Thy Neighbours Language

And so arrive in the Tamil Nadu, ok, excuse me here, its Thamilll nadu to pronounce, and as per norms some britisher or god knows who chose to pass the dictum "From now on , Z followed by a H will be spelt as-" he addressed a huge crowd and tried to pronounce the way it is supposed to be , by dragging his tip of the tongue to the roof of his mouth and shouted "Lla".

Forget the English, they are a queer crowd for sure. Thats my first learning on my way to learn Tamil.

During one of my days of travelling to the countryside for my sales training with the salesman in coimbatore, i had no sense of my whereabouts as the milestone read only in Tamil, which was unlike any other place in India so far. So, i thought i will start with the basics-Buy a Slate and learn to read and write.

And surprise, there are only 30 alphabets, unlike 56 in telugu. I realised why my handwriting in telugu sucked so badly(not that i write beautifully in other languages)there are actually enough twists in telugu words as well that would break your slate pencil.And for all the northindians who hate the Tam crowd, the script seemed similar to hindi(though they wouldnt sound the same, e.g : the mirror image or Hindi Ae is Tamil Ra)

So,the second surprise comes in the form of free will the language offers to pronounce it the way you want it to be. For example, same letter is used to spell Pa,Ba and similarly for Tha/Dha and Cha/Sa. You should empathize with me when in my first days of learning, the only exercises i have are the name boards on retail shops, Ads on buses and the milestones, so i spell Chennai Silks as Chennai Chilks and then give myself an extra option as Sennai Silks, and like a curious kid checking for the answers, i find out its Chennai silks at my own discretion.

With this frustration for a day, I launched onto my salesman to write and spell 'bombay' and when he wrote something which would also spell like pompay, i asked the obvious question. He did the obvious, Laughed me off as an FOB and carried on with his work.

Thats when you realise, how queer are the english and is English. Wouldnt a kid be justified if he spells Coconut as Sosonut. With many such questions and pitfalls, i am enjoying my new learning, especially travelling by the countryside and a sneak peek into the last triad of the sale - Consumer-retailer-salesman.

And after 2 weeks of concentrated learning of the language, i had a relieved and entertaining session of watching a Tamil Movie. More on that next time.

The Globe is Golden

And so it is..

Rahaman wins the Golden Globe and he humbly thanks the billion people in India. Few months ago, my roomie woke me up and said India won a Gold at the Olympics, I turned around in my bed, pulled up my blanket  and said "So What, its just too much noise about too little a thing and it wouldnt make any difference". He disappointedly walked away saying to himself "Well, it definitely feels good, when its someone from your own country". I believe thats true. It might just be my lesser interest towards sports , or anger towards Indian attitude towards sports or it might just be my sleep.

I feel, elated, excited and more than anything proud for Rahman, for where he stands now, in the same room where Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsecee stands. Its unbelieveable to see the nominations being announced on the side of Hans Zimmer, and then giving the award to Rahaman. And it would be a mistake to expect anything more from Rahman than what he read out from a visting card sized note he got with him. He had been a Man of action or rather music than words. And let him be so.I am almost done with watching the press meet and he still doesnt seem to be the one to speak. He keeps his smile through out though, as he keeps ours.

Anyway, thanks to my membership of FLIX at XLRI and my exclusive access to bittorrents , that i could see most of the GG and Oscar Favourites. Wrestler as expected has earned a well deserved award for Mickey Rourke. I am yet to watch Reader, Doubt and Revolutionary Road. (Just that i had an overload of heavy movies, especially european cinema). I would surely like to sit through Kate Winslet's acting.(Funny that she mentions that she has the habit of not winning and wins two awards after some amazing performances in Finding Neverland and Titanic). Just, if you hadnt heard about it, Frost/Nixon is a good watch, it fails to live up to the build up in the climax, but its insight into the minds and motivations of two individuals is worth a watch and a thought.(Those who flocked to the theatres over and over to watch the interview scene between Arjun and Amrish Puri in Shankar's Mudhalvan/Oke Okkadu , Frost/Nixon might seem subdued).

I am waiting to watch much raved about -Waltz with Bashir. And the other foriegn movie "I've Loved you so long" . Well it still startles me that something so Indian,but not 'by' an Indian, a Britisher (as it seems to be always , like it was with Richard Attenbourgh's Gandhi. I guess Tagore would scoff at me for my so called "Nationalism",the Gandhian way) , has gone on to beat movies like Curious Case and Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road. Funny that, Jai ho wouldnt feature in Rahman's top 100 songs of his career, but it goes on to win the Golden Globe. I also wondered why and how, you will understand, when you watch the movie, when the Titles appear with 'O Saya' in the background , with Slum Kids playing cricket in the backyard of the Airport , and the police chasing the kids through the narrow gullies of the slum and thats when you introduce Rahman. And the man gives his best. And then you give it away to the cameraman to take over the slums(Cameraman is Danish , talk of globalisation), and he cuts three shots into a zoom out aerial view of the Dharavi slums, and the kids keep running, with such an uninhibited smile through what represents the Third World, you are sure to get goose bumps and yes a few votes for sure from the (if i may say so) First World.

Well that was more of an aside, but the point stays that movie making is the best marriage that one would ever experience, pioneers of science and art had been pouring in their contributions and appreciating each other with so much warmth that it continues to be my favourite. :P

Of Curious Cases and Slumdogs

I screened the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at my college. It was nice to see a few friends turn up. It definitely ate up 6 hrs of my time in a day as i watched it twice. We were pulling each others leg that how about a "Curious case of Benjamin Felix Rajkumar", coincidentally one of my friends who was watching the film. So what would be "The Curious Case of Kartheek Kanumuru" be.

"My name is Kartheek Kanumuru, I live unusually in usual circumstances, I do not see the light of the day and i eat once in a day and sleep well, really well" So much for my mini auto-biography.

I had been reading up a lot on movies these days, as usual, not very focussed reading but hopping from one interview to the other, one review to the other. So, thought its high time i writre something.

Firstly, The curious case of the slumdog, while all of Bollywood is busy making films based out of Florida,Canada, New York, and all other places where streaks of sunlight lit up sky scrapers and women can just help being beautiful and tantalizing, and world is all a paradise untill an indian family sings and dances for 2hrs 45 mins and then realises that they need to have a climax, A british Film maker had to come to Indian Slums and direct an movie based on an Indian Book and so we now we have the whole of India looking forward to see an oscar nomination for the film.

A fortnight from now, when Oscar nominations are announced, Indian media will rave about the movie and the portrayal of Indian Poverty and its slums and applaud the ensemble cast of slum kids who are the spirit of the movie. Teenagers will discuss that its a great film and in hushed voice say, about/from India. As they try to mince words like Yudhishtar did in Mahabharat, India will continue to suffer from its strangled creativity and insipid cinema.

Well, the truth is , as Anurag Kashyap wrote in his blog, even UTV and Reliance rejected to produce the movie when it was independent(Though i still like UTV for the way its promoting good movies through Spotboy). And to take a note on the poverty portrayed in the movie, Danny Boyle in an interview said that, they put the slum kids in school and paid for their education till they are 16. They even paid the rickshaw puller to take them to school till 16. (It really doesnt seem to work out, does it ?). Well, one thing that will still be indian for now is A.R. Rahman's soundtrack for the movie might just go on to get the Oscar Nomination. Check out the interview with Darren Aronofsky and Danny Boyle on how they made Wrestler and Slumdog respectively.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button itself is a case of David Fincher, starting with Se7en (probably the movie which i have narrated the maximum number of times, i remember literally holding my friend to sit down and listen to the story), fight club, panic room, zodiac and this one is nowhere in that genre, but an amazing concept borrowed from fitzergald's short story of 1920s. One should appreciate the amount of work that had gone into the movie for all the digital mastering and make up. It will pretty much go down at the box office, because its like going to watch ManiRatnam's Amruta after he made Sakhi with Madhavan.Complete mismatch of expectations over an otherwise beautiful movie, actually one of his best. 

I am yet to complete darren aronofsky's wrestler. I am half way through it. This time he resorts to following the actor with his camera. Its really interesting how a director visualises the scene, it is so irritating for the first 15 minutes that you dont see the actor at all and then you actually realise that you are following him yourself. These are people who will continue to be mavericks and the nourishers of creativity.I am still waiting to tie up the camera to one of the actors(if i ever make a short again) and do a scene similar to that of Requiem for a Dream.

So, cut back to the blog of Anurag Kashyap, he is coming out with this movie 'DevD' , which has the rib tickling song about heart break and which is obviously now the heart throb of all the guys. Emosanal Atyaachaar. I just hope this goes on to be AKs big one and its time for the box office to make way for Abhay Deol. Its amazing that an actor had had such a clean record of films, Socha Na Tha, Manorama(An absolute respect to Roman Polanski's Chinatown, but not at all a copy), Ek Chaalis, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. People like him , Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak are finally having their space in the midst of a lot of crass acting(Come on , whats Hard Core Anti Family man, who would write such a dialogue and shoot it in prague, venice and waste so much money, i hope it doesnt come under GDP or GNP).

I am trying to dig into world cinema, will have to buy a TB HD and download as many movies as possible. I still coudnt figure out a single foriegn movie of AKs blog. All that will have to wait :( . I have placements coming up(are they really?). I will have to get back to some studying and move my ass. 

As for my movie plans, i have given up on making one more for now. I have sadly resigned to my laziness, (ok, this seems too sad, so let me rephrase). I think i am better at writing scripts than executing, though my anateur adventures on directing (if i could call it so, had been ok). But i still like my dialogues for sure. Ok, enough of the screeching trumpet sound.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaahoooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I finally posted on my blog :)

Quiz

"These guys are probably the ones with the worst hand writing i have ever seen." Thats how My Team Mate and I were called onto the stage for the El Dorado, Quiz at Ensemble '08 , Conducted by Barry O'Brein. No prizes for guessing, whose writing was it on the paper.

I wish i had written this post some 7-8 years ago. While I watched atleast hundred episodes of BQC and always wished i was there , and watched some hundred other quizzes of different types, i never realised what actually will take me there.

Well, it seems to me now, i finally discovered the key to step into the arena from the audience. One- Persistence, Two-Reading.

Actually speaking, i am not really good at either of these. One thing that is churning its results almost after years after is my ability to sit through all the quizzes even after not getting through preliminary rounds.

Ok, wait, this really seems like an underdog story, i dont really mean it to be so, because i ended anyway 5th out of the 6 teams in the finals. (Excuse the dull tone - its 7 in the morning with no sleep)

Yeah, the second part, i am absolutely bad at reading, the amount of literature i have read is zilch. I have no idea of 99.9999% of the authors that exist on this planet. And my current affairs suck. Thanks to my peer group at XLRI and ofcourse lots of free time in the second year, i have finally started to read the sacred newspaper everyday. I have started to read Economist,TIME, Newsweek(makes one look sophisticated, but indian mags are equally good, Economist scores a bit high though). One of the reasons i never did this earlier is i always used to take the excuse that there is no big deal about it, how does it really help , etc, etc. 

Just from my quizzing experiences over the last 3 months, i kind of have an idea , how it helps.

I traced few of the answers that i knew or got right and how i gotto know them.

1)Identifying Mf.Hussain's Painting : Heard of the controversy around saraswati's painting on anews channel, while surfing channel.

2)Watson's Quote on Sherlock Holmes : Having done merchant of venice in 10th, i had to miss Hound of Bhaskarvilles, only to be bugged by the story in +2 hostel for 2 years, that finally made me read a bit of sherlock holmes.

3)Identifying D.V.Subbarao : Yeah, the gult connection of him following Y.V Reddy, but going through hazaar articles on subprime crisis and its effect on India, you cant help it. This part of reading up on subprime crisis helped me in atleast 5-6 questions.

4)Identifying Movie Alam Ara : Of all the long lectures from my father about being disciplined etc, he also discussed in some rare moments about one of the firsts of Indian Cinema.I should remember it for sure.

5)Identifying You Tube Founders : Setting a quiz in TCS quiz club, i made the same question.

6)Identifying Sound Track of My Best Friends Wedding : It was my direct question in a Movie Quiz which i couldnt answer, so better answer it now.This time , it was a pass question.

7)Identifying Singer of Jab We met Song as Mohit Chauhan: As I Scout for every damn interview of Rahman on the net, he mentioned in one of his interviews that he had been listening to 'Mohit Chauhan's  song over and over. If its rahmans favourite, you shouldnt forget it.

8)Identifying but not recollecting the name: Sulljja Firodia Motwani : Read an inspiring article about 3-4 years back on how a lady turned around an ailing Kinetic Motors. But the name was too long to remember and she was too beautiful to go beyonsd the photo after that.

9)Identifying the couple who won the Raman Magasassay award, but forgetting their names : Reading the middle pages of The Hindu. Just starting, so should make the habit of recollecting names.

Ok, i really feel old, when i see how much time i have wasted without reading up a lot of stuff. I should be happy that i realised later than never. Well the point is, i had no clue that all these things i did, will come to help in this quizzing season.I believe there is more to come like this, if i keep up what i am doing.

The quiz part: We messed up in the buzzer round. It was the first time that i ever sat infront of the buzzer.

Our scoring went something like this:10,10,-5,-5,-5,-5,10,5,10,-5,5,10,5

One good experience : Answering 9/10 in a rapid fire round in a movie quiz , genre being Suspense/Thriller. I missed the name of Psycho :(

Thats it for now :)

Risk, Return and a Little Utility

The title is a hangover of the financial crisis and the numerous articles woven around it in the papers over the last month. Due to un-imaginable reasons i had been regular on papers and magazines , though my itinerary to the library had been messed up in the last week. To add to that , i had been reading editorials in Hindu (OK, i think i should stop blushing) . Yeah, whatever it is, one component that never changes in my daily life is 9 hrs sleep. :)

Now, the exercise of reading papers had been very interesting, one i had an underlying saddistic pleasure to see the markets go down - not because i am anti-capitalist(which i am not) - may be a bit because the arrogance of (a few) I-bankers is reduced to zilch if not humility, and more importantly, it had been an amazing story of postponing the effects of mediocrity under the disguise of sophistication (which is only a worked up form of arrogance). Anyway, my knowledge of the subject is only limited by the spate of opinions in the news papers, so cant really give authentic comments. But the fuzzy calculations of Risk and Return has just undermined the basic thing of the real value anyone gets out of it , which is nothing but the utility (i guess) . Utility till date is one of the most difficult items to quantify and just the point that it is so specific and different for each person in each action makes it an important discussion point for all the economists.

For now, my return(immediate) from reading the papers had been to come 2nd in the DRAC quiz based around the current affairs. It had been ages since i was in that position, thanks to my team mate who has a good run at quizzes. Well, i realised the real value when my team mate waived off a question saying 'I dont know this pa, this is all Fin based question'. Given that premise , i should be equally ignorant about it, however, my knowledge of that specific information left me with a nice feeling that nothing is so incomprehensible. Yeah, it is for sure very embarrassing to know that there was an east asian crisis in the late 90's while all i knew was world cup and my crush in school. But , i kinda realise now its never too late to start reading .(however for people like me, no habit is too steady to call it so, except for sleeping).

Classes had been kind of wierd this term. They atleast are not helping in giving any direction to the Mediocre But Arrogants (except for a few). Why would anyone learn ethics now? My inopportune doubt in class seemed to have irked the prof to earn me a sub-optimal grade(how is that for social experiment in ethics class). 

Scribbled a few lines in some class few days ago :

---------

One more moment of ignorance,

One more moment we delay;

One more moment of inaction,

is the moment of action.

---------

The dance of moonlight

from the nether world

seemed so still in water

until i touched it 

and a shock rippled through

---------

It had been long since i got back to writing these pieces, may be the boring classes will help. The following blog had been a great inspiration though.

http://irrationalrationalities.blogspot.com/2008/09/for-blue.html

P.S: earned myself a small unpaid job :)

Economics and Ethics

The only thing i didnt expect that i would be so interested in B-School is Economics. Now i regret that i might not specialise in it(doesnt make much difference though). Either way, i am still a long way to be a strong numbers guy, looking into projections of economy and interest rates. But what always interested me in economics is the way it accounts for all the interactions of man kind (loaded with their stupid idiosyncrasies) and how they all mess up into theories from an armchair economist. So, i am doing this subject called Strategic Game theory for managers and another one named Strategies of co-operation and one more - Managing Public Private Partnerships this term other than the marketing subjects and the compulsory course on Managerial Ethics(Many say that its an oxymoron).

Just in this context, there is a small anecdote, which i found very interesting , (its boring and predictable , but let me take the name of joker before i start ;) ) .

So, its like this, A well known economics prof from a premier B-School was forced to take up a course on ethics as the institute planned to introduce this course (To claim that they produce Valuable managers with values and blah blah blah) . Now the prof was absolutely not interested as he was strong on the principle that Ethics are more natural than learnt or taught. However the institute persisted. So he took the course the in all its spirit. At the end, he took an exam and he gave half the students a lot more than what they were expecting and the other half of students, extremely low compared to what they were expecting. As one would expect, all the students who scored low rushed to his office asking for explanation, while none from the higher half ever turned up. He documented the same and gave it to the Admin office to prove his point it seems.

Well, i remember one of my prof telling us, if you follow ethics, you will be in Tatanagar railway station. Though too harsh to believe it, i kind of started to believe in it. Sometime in childhood, a neighbour of mine used to practice astrology. he supposedly told my mother that, when i grow old, i will care for nothing but i want  (want = materialistic needs) . I am yet to comply to that, but i see that happening slowly . 

It happened , more than a few times that i expected a help in professional help based on a personal relationship or vice versa, however , it seems all that is just against the rules of the game. I think it also falls in place with the gyan of Shri krishna that when in a war, its a duty to fight anyone. Ok, i think its getting heavy i guess. 

So, as i stick to my timeline of sleeping in the morning and staying awake in the night. There is nothing much happening. Yeah, had been reading some hazaar versions of Sub-prime crisis. And good movie for this week : Nouvo Cinema Paradiso 

Social Experiment

I should admit it , i was being a fool.

Let me explain the game. You need to choose between 1 and 2 , so is the case with 37 people in the room, with whom you don't get to talk with. So if '0' students mark 1 , all the students who marked 2 get 100 each, if 1 student marks 1 then, he gets 5 while all else get 105, so on till 37. By the time you reach  37, if all mark 1, all the students who marked 1 shall get 185.

There are 10 rounds. You are supposed to maximise your payoff. So if everyone thinks the same, , everyone puts 2, you end up with 100 each which is relatively ok but not the best possible, similarly, if all mark 1 , you get 185 each, but if one guy defaults then he would get 280. So there is a high chance to default.

So, lets start, first 3 rounds have no discussion among the group, so everyone is marking randomly, or rather too obviously that wasn't totally rational or irrational. So everyone was marking 2 , some poor souls kept trying marking 1 and getting meager 10s and 20s. They were trying to think ahead or may be just think random.

Now after 3 rounds there was a chance to go and discuss. So i come up with this strategy that , half the group marks 1 and half the group marks 2 and then we keep alternating, so that we average out and decrease the difference among the group. Now there was another proposal that why dont we all keep marking 1s, i felt and said that even one persons default will create chaos in the group (we are saying that 97% perfection is not good). But technically speaking that was the best strategy. The other person who suggested asked for a voting , i think i was too fed up holding and being in elections that i said, we will be together. 

But No - Why?

1)Taking a decision among Peers(of presumably equal intellect) and expecting others to implement it without asking an acknowledgment is one stupid thing to do.

2)My logic itself as i said was a bit flawed. I was working out things in my Utopia rather than in everyone's utopia (which is an oxymoron).

3)People were not looking at the absolute maximum, so they was no incentive for junta to decrease their only advantage in the game, that is relative gain. And so, my scheme had no incentive for any of them, except for a few who were looking for an order.

4)The stupidest thing to do, I told first 2 rows to mark 1 and the next 2 rows to mark 2. I didntr even realise that i was in the second 2 rows that was going to get the maximum payoff in the first round, now i felt that its a rational calculation rather than a conspiracy. I didnt realise that someone in the crowd was smirking within himself and saying "Come on  dude, stop kidding and stop making an ass out of others".

Anyway, we went in, before that, i said that if , there are around 17 people who mark 1s then we are sure that we are together, then we keep alternating. Well i forgot to introduce a character here. My favourite as it will stay on to be forever. I do not know if i should give the credit to John Nash for his game theory or Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson for the creation of this character, or Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and Heath Ledger for giving him a life - Joker. So, you can assume a Joker standing within us and laughing at us every time we had our strategies (This is in no way referring to the prof, though he played the part perfectly well as needed in the game).

So, in the 4th round, there were 11 1s against the expected 18 , which i still believe is a very good number (which would have made Frodo of LOTR happy and confident of some good in the world). Anyway, but it didn't make a lot of them happy. So there on it tumbled, everyone was back to normal. I should admit that there were some good souls who kept to their word irrespective of the deviation and alternated their choices, there were 8 1s in the next round. (I was one of them :P , i have to say this as i was accused of conspiring) . Anyway, the next round was a waste, it had no rationale at all. So we get another break to discuss. As usual, i gave up and stayed silent and people said, we will all go for 2.

I felt this is accepting mediocracy due to lack of co-operation. But i went with the group and we cam with all but a few 2's in the next 2 rounds and the prof started stressing on the point of reaching the maximum obtainable payoffs. 

So, i kinda couldn't stick to the game. So, i said, "See, this isn't about getting marks, this is about proving that you can co-operate. So just do it."  thats never the way to play a game, Anti trust parties would have put me in Jail :D . But by then, people were already on the extremes, they were planning to smoke out the rats out of the hole. They wanted to ask the prof who were the defaulters. The prof gave the choice of penalising the defaulters. (My argument was Utopian or rather Gandhian(though i never liked it), that why are we fighting and giving power to an external person, after all its just a game, play it our way).

Funny that, prof asked for a leader, i wasnt ready to raise my hand because i wasnt with the argument of penalising people. And the Joker went a step ahead and asked , who of dont approve them and their proposals. I woke up late to raise my hand which anyway wouldnt have made a difference. Few rejected their proposals but majority accepted. Anyway, the prof penalised the defaulters by a deduction in the payoff, the results were obvious. 

The narration is open to discussion. But, there was something that kept running through my mind by the end of the game. It was this image of joker talking in "The Dark Knight" saying, "You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.... It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and uh, look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself.... You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all, part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! ...  I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair. " 

I believe there is a Joker in all of us. 

So much for the gyan. Something atlast finally made me write a good blog. If you didnt understand the game , dont bother, if you want to bother, make a table of the payoffs and work it out.

P.S : Finally some good movies : Welcome to Sajjanpur, Mumbai Meri Jaan, 13 Tzamite, In Bruges. Drona is for the demented :D

Sum of parts

Its not the first time i recollect this discussion with my friend, that can we actually behave the way we want to behave given the so called societal influences. It was very interesting how me and my friend behaved differently at different phases, say college, school, intermediate, work life. Though till 12 th  or even engineering , i was mostly (say 90%) driven by(or controlled and puppeted) by my surroundings, but the % of influence of external factors decreased over time. Everytime I change a place, i started to behave differently. All these , when i look back are different parts (like pieces of a pie chart :P ). 

Well, interesting thing is, i have started to change whenever there is a break also.. so.. itseems, the parts have become as small as a trimester. :) 

RGV is updating his blog like crazy and he is writing some really good stuff about his venture into movies. I guess he has planned to write his auto biography. 

Thats it for now :|

Where was/am I?

First, the exams are over, but not the term as there are some benefits of procrastination. I have been reading some of my classmates claiming that 4th term has supposedly been the most hard working term for them. That kinda injected a moment of guilt into me. How did i feel the exact opposite, was it because of my Electives - but i chose them because i was interested in them(Leave MACR out of it). Something got into me. Should work it out before it gets worse in the 5th and the 6th terms.

I am back home for 3 long weeks. Good that i registered for the internship, i get to spend some time at hyderabad, but i should have as well planned for some trip along with college junta. Laziness has its side-effects in such activities too. Met all the relatives for the year, yet to meet a few friends. That reminds me of the wedding bells ringing in my class of engineering. Nice to see classmates marrying each other, not something you would expect to happen when you step into JNTU. Someone asked me , when are you getting married, I suddenly frowned at it and then joked 'Dont i look too young for marriage'.

Movies : Well, finally managed to cover more of them. Wall-e, Rock-on, Wednesday, Dark Knight (IMAX) :DD , Ashta-Chamma(Telugu). Regular visits to Mutiplexes let me finish all of it in one week.Dark Knight stays on to be the best, especially in IMAX format, you are left gaping at the screen. And couldnt ask for a betetr seat than the centre seat in the top-most row :P .

The third week of the vacation had been like the last stage of the product life cycle. I had been sleeping inhumanly for 12 hrs a day. Only thing thats interesting but sad is the news. It puts the MBA's on the history map for passing out at one of the worst times. Its ironical and shocking to see your dream company sinking like a Titanic and within minutes , you come to know that its in-existent. The whole equation is going to change for sure. Well, all i could say now is the same as i said above, It is going to be interesting and sad.

U the Marketing People : This was the way, one of my profs used to address us. I have grown obsessive of finding the company behind every brand. The other day i realised that, i was checking the marketer of a floor cleaner brand while i was in the bathroom. Its funny how you try to apply Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning Funda into everything. Movies for example play a lot by this funda. That is one of the reason, Movies like Rock on are such a hit, they are targeted at the superset of population (People who think they are losers in life).

Funny thing was, while i was watching this movie, there was an Ad for R.S.Brothers(Local Saree Showroom), there was no way that the target audience for that showroom would turn up for that movie. But they played 90 second long painful ad. Not that they would have done media planning and STP, but it kinda tells us about the distance between planning and implementation.

So much for now. hope to write longer articles on my assignments before i write the next post.

:) (: :( ): :| |: :O O:

I accidentally happened to use this title as a status message  to inform people about the play we were hosting under the name , Shadows Within. It so turned out that , that Gtalk recognises the first one of the pair as a smiley and turns it to blue color, while the others stayed grey and the title Shadows within came after that. That happened to be one of the most creative works , i claim of. Its funny how things move beyond our observation to colour things. 

Its nice to come across such things once in a while. Its nice to be appreciated for my guesstimates in MR class and frax on some subjects simultaneously. Its nice to sleep 12 hrs a day and still manage to do well in an exam. Its nice to carry a smiling frown or a frowning smile. Its nice to be frank, or rather blatant i should say once in a while like you dont care and also make sure that no one would care about you after that.Its nice to stack up last 2.5 weeks of papers and sleep all over them ,expecting to read them all at once , but still manage to read Brand Equity on Wednesday, Hindu Friday Review on Friday and Hindu Magazine on Sunday. Its nice to appreciate some thing out of sheer interest in it rather than forcefully absorb everything out of insecurity. Its nice to listen to classic telugu songs , though it seems totally out of the place where i am.

So much for the ramblings, just another observation. I was sitting in mess and saw this random bhojpuri song playing on the TV, i could sense the rock bottom quality of the song both interms of music and visuals. I couldn't stop cursing it and instinctively attributing it to the taste of Jharkhand , Bihar and neighbouring states(Well, Jharkhand is where i am now) . So, as i was trying to slip into making more theories about Jharkhand and its population, the next song in the playlist came up. To my surprise, it was a telugu song, from the movie happy, by the name 'Ossa re Ossa Ossa re' , now to start with it doesnt actually mean anything.(I should confess that i have listened to this song at full volume, and for sometime , i actually enjoyed it.) Well but definitely not now, the song seemed like a scream by an actor who resembled a monkey with distorted face, (and god knows why) he was wearing goggles and multi-farious clothes, and his antics would resemble nothing but a donkey's mating call. the whole setup seemed Yuck. I could hear two of my friends talking to each other while they were watching it, 'What the fuck is he trying to do' 'How can someone direct such a sequence?' 'Shouldn't the cameraman be dead by now' 'Who on earth watched these things, what language is this'. I didnt know whether to laugh out loud or keep silence in disagreement. And within a minute, the next song came up, guess what was it, 'Adire' from Rajnikanth's Basha and i could already hear a few laughs around.

Well nothing more to discuss , its just the diversity of India and idiosyncracies of its people who continuously refuse to acknowledge them. Its still a wonder how everyone stays under one name of Indian. Something to be proud of.

Like Didier in Shantaram says "If it had been so many frenchman in one place, they would have killed each other by now and made themselves extinct".

-In the middle of exams, having an easy time.

-At home from 1st to 21st.

-thanks to inflation  , i am taking a train, long journey.

 

Hanged to the Top

'Hail, Hail, Hail '

Echoed the golden waters

dotted with icebergs of stone

shuttling streaks of light

the procession moved up the hill

as men marched in merry

and women sang in praise

He rose with carriage

One on each side, four in all

took him on their shoulders

the bugles were blown

and the drums were sounded

As he raised his hand,

It brought smiles with peace

and all the heads bowed 

and the floated in joy

And then Darkness grew

like a monster under the waters

it crawled like a sand slide

it raced up the hill

Fear followed gloom

and chaos sprouted in the crowd

He stood up and raised his hand

the crowd looked up with hope

Like a cloud of insects

the darkness crawled upto his feet

to everyone's awe

his one half turned to a shadow

He stalled the darkness

as it couldn't take him all

He looked straight into it

holding light in his pupil

'It came for him, but its taking us'

shouted someone from the crowd

Prick came the words, like an icicle

and he blinked

The dark power took over

and razed the golden deserts

to the eye's horizon

It screeched through with a shrill

'Give him away , we shall be saved'

the crowd cried aloud

He raised his hand,

but all in vain

the crowd climbed up the carriage

tied his hands to the back

and someone asked

'what do we do now'

A reply came

'take him to where he was,

that is where he shall be consumed,

so, hang him by the top'

At It Dude

-To the right, no , not that right, oh fuck,no, dont turn like that, 4 o clock, yeah , that one.

--oh,that one? bitch

---

-You know what is a freudian slip?

--Yes, But i don't know exactly.

---

-Every thing, i say, every thing is screwed up at this place.Tell me one thing that is right here, Tell me?

--Yeah, there is one - you- since you find a fault with everything else, the assumption should be that you are perfect.

---

-Reading, Studying, Learning, why does one have to create so many words?

--Good Question!! What do they mean ?

---

-Look Closely, what do you see, in the green lawns encircled with green tops.

--Oh, Shit, i am late for the class, i need to go. By the way, i see a dog shitting in the lawn.

--- 

-How many times will you blink in the next 5 minutes?

--zero, i am going to sleep.

---

-How dark is the night?

--Close your eyes and see.

Still Rain

1
Still Rain
Sleepy Eyes
Funnels of Light
Stranded Thoughts
Coloured Emotions
Droplets in Vain
Oval Mirrors
Intervals of Darkness
Loose Ends
Puppet Muscles

2
Yes for a No
Cold in veins
Blood Rush
A Truth Unsaid
Lie Uncontested

3
Blush
Grace
Lure
Grin
Cheer
Dazzle

4
Tap on the Ground
Spread Wide
Rise as a feather
And Take off

5
Yet Another Night
I swap with Sun
It gets to Job
I am off the Shift

Ridiculously Wonderful

I wanted to call this post "The Other Dark Knight" and put a photo with myself hanging upside down. Thats what my world looks like these days atleast in terms of time. I am in a fulfilling what my parents always wanted, to be awake by 6 Am. Unfortunately , i go to sleep at 8 or so and wake up at 2 , and there goes the day as i finish my lunch and check my mails and surf through the regular sites. As the day slips into a cozy evening, it feels like i woke up to sleep . And suddenly , like a true nocturne, i rejunevate myself by dinner time and thats when my actual day starts. So given that i am in a B-School, i need to do something , so i do that in this time, its funny how i look through my window at the campus lawn growing out of darkness, when i see students going to class, i pull the curtains, switch of the lights (if any) and push myself under the blanket.Yeah, i know, i attend the classes in day time, but every opportunity to sleep is utilised.

Few proceedings in the last one week,I didnt sleep the saturday night, (because i slept the whole of saturday), I went on this Bike Ride along 25 other friends to a nearby dam. Except that i miss my Pulsar, the trip was awesome , i just want to take a trip to that place all by myself and take time off (which i otherwise keep doing in my room). Best part of the trip i guess was when i got my hands on to a good cam and clicked some really good pictures. Driving in rain was one other experience.

So , as you can expect, i slept off through the day. Similar was the case with Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday night being Freshers night, i was there through out the night holding my camera. I sometimes regret me asking my father to buy a Video Camera. I call it a joint idiosyncracy of me and my father that we spend so much on White Goods. He didnt hesitate to buy me a Sony HDD Handycam. Why did i buy it, i thought i will be the next spielberg who used to shoot on 8mm camera that his dad brought him, i didn't realise that one shud be less lazy to become so. So laziness is punished with more useless work. I end up recording every minute of event on campus. I should atleast get to some useful and artistic Photography and Cinematography, otherwise, i will end up covering marriages and thats all i will do.Good part is, after some hours of shooting videos, i am now learning how to focus on objects. Hope the learning curve gets steeper. [More on Juniors Night later].

 So, after the juniors night, thats at 8:30 in the morning, i sleep and wake up at 5:30 in the evening. I had this Marketing Research Proposal to complete [These days, i presume myself to be good at this subject]. But, my brain refuses to start itself, it was still in its sleep hangover, so i sleep from 8-9:30 and finally get serious at the project at 12:30 in the night after a couple of meetings. So i work non-stop till 10 in the morning and submit right in time. I present in 12 Noon Class. Come back and sleep at 3 Pm. For some random reason, i woke up at 6 Pm, which counts to just 3 hrs sleep in the last 21 hrs. I had this exam next day at 8:30 in the morning, i dont start it, instead i screen two foriegn movies for which 10 discerning viewers turn up(I liked it that way actually) and i ended up watching 1.5 movies. By 3 in the night, i am yet to start studying the syllabus, i start and end right before the exam . Go to sleep at 11:30, wake up at 8:30 Pm. Finally i get to my senses by 11 Pm , i have a 3 and half hours meeting from 12 to 3:30. Should have slept off to throw myself out of the cycle. But, i sit to watch a movie from 5-630 and then go to regent for Breakfast, and i am here at 9 30 writing this blog before going to sleep.

Heard this line "Ridiculously Wonderful" from the movie Little Manhattan. It reminded me of these little pleasures we have when we go through some pain, especially when we do it for people we like. The other way of looking at it is my daily life cycle itself. There is nothing so wrong abt the whole thing, its just a little eccentric and it is good in some ways. And the final perspective struck me when i was working on the Juniors Nite, at some point , i messaged someone "There isnt enough Puke in this world, to beat some incidents i was witnessing" , but on the other side, there turns out to be a counterpart from the same set of people that one should appreciate.  After that event , the first thing i did was come back to my room and opened IMDB and read these lines from American Beauty, I had to watch the same on you tube as well. I believe , that is how i am surviving everyday.

Ridiculously Wonderful Lines

"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."

Off to sleep.

The Darkest Knight

Batman couldn't be better unless Christopher Nolan surprises himself. Here he is , yet again, with a power packed starcast, who strapped themselves in the back seat wearing the masks that their master provided them with , while he took his audience off to a thrilling ride.

It is difficult to stand out of the typical template of a superhero movie, but not for a Christopher Nolan, not for the one who redefined the rules of screenplay through Memento, challenged the intelligence of audience through Prestige , and turned Batman into what he is. (While i am yet to watch Insomnia, His first venture into film making 'Following' shot on a shoe-string budget on London Streets and at his friend's place is strikingly original for a thriller). One should appreciate the drive of this , who continues to guarantee what true cinema stands for and deserves - Artistic Intelligence.

What is it about Dark Knight?

Christian Bale plays the Caped Crusader, with his love interest being Rachel Dawes played by Maggie Gyllenhaal , a surprise and a wothy new entry , Aaron Eckhart(Remember the witty and canny lobbyist from Thank you for Smoking) plays Gotham's District Attorney Harvey Dent who fights against the mob crimes, Alfred the Butler , played by Michael Caine, Inspector Jim Gordon played by Gary Old man, and Lucious Fox by Morgan Freeman.

Even if i have a mental disorder or a pathetic memory, It is difficult to miss this, Dark Knight is about this one character -

The Joker

One of my friend commented , "A cheap make up and a crazy smear shall be remembered forever"Chris Nolan couldn't have left a better memorial for Heath Ledger.

Joker is Funny, he laughs on the face of every character, he makes a mockery of the shortcomings of human mind, he feeds on the weakness and makes it his strength. He is silly, he is arrogant, he is frightening, he is an idiot, or as he calls himself, he is a freak, he is a dog who chases chases cars but doesnt know what to do with them . He just does things.

He is called a clown, as he puts you to a tragic laugh, his antiques and make-up, a regular slurpy noise he makes, as he swipes his tongue across his cheek, his smirky grin, his voice thats Baritone, Squeaky and husky at the same time, his anecdotes of how he got to his victims,his rationality behind anarchy and philosophy of subconscious fear. In a huge starcast movie, where everyone is sharing a bit of screen space, he is everywhere, he is in the internal conflict of Batman, he is in the weakness of Harvey Dent, he is in the fear of Gotham.

Christopher Nolan needed a master on screen to run the show on his behalf, to move the characters, to make them run and Heath Ledger stood up to the job.

If i could borrow a blog from RGV's Blog, 'Any story is about Character Conflict' - The Dark Knight is the same, while Joker walks away with the credit of creating a conflict in Batman's character and turning him into The Dark Knight , Christian Bale as Batman walks away as the hero who outgrows the human shortcomings challenged by Joker and becomes the super hero that we would all fall in love with. Don't blink, while you watch the scene when these two meet in the Inspection Cell, you would hardly see a conversation so taut, where eyes shoot at eyes.(The last time i saw such a scene was from Drohi, between Kamal Hassan and Nasser)

Technically, I don't stand to evaluate Nolan(as i couldn't watch it in a theatre, which i surely will). He sticks to his trademark screenplay of continuously tricking the audience, though he saves us from time travel, one still needs to get his brains charged before watching it. The Nolan Brothers succeed to surpass themselves in the artistic quality after Prestige. The dialogues grow out of the best fit between the actors and the roles they donned, be it Michael Caine who says "Endure Master Wayne"  and when he adds his pun saying "Will they take me in for being your accomplice" , while Bale replies "Accomplice? I would say you are the one who planned it all". Aaron Eckhart saying "You either die as a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villian" , "I make my own luck" and of course yet again the Joker - "If you are good at something, never do it for free" and the trademark phrase "Why So Serious?"

Watch it, Watch it ASAP, WATCH IT ONLY IN THEATRES, watch it for the adrenalin rush, watch it for the fear, watch it for the thrill, watch it for the chill down your spine,watch it for the amazing visuals, watch it for the scary sound track while Joker threatens his victims, watch it for the so called Subtle Gadgets and Accessories, ranging from Bat Suit , Bat Pod and the Lamborgini.

Watch it for Cinema at its best.

If you couldnt watch it or didnt watch it, dont worry, 

The Joker will get to you.

Disclaimer : the above piece might be exaggarated due to my extreme respect and admiration towards Christopher Nolan :)

Write or Not Right

My hesitance to express what i think or feel had as usual got me low returns. As i stared at the Industrial Economics Paper for 45 minutes and contemplated on the validity of my answers.In the inability to come to a conclusive decision about the same, I gave half the paper blank. As i sow, so i reap. I score 6/15. I should realize that this score kind of applies to a lot of other aspects of my daily life.

And the other side of it was reading too much before the exam and questioning the preparation during the exam resulted in nothing but a waste of time and effort.

Either way, it seems to be a regular phenomena with me.

The other day, watched the parliamentary proceedings for a while. I couldn't help laughing at it, not for the madness of it, but for my faint acquaintance with such situations. 

Christopher Nolan continues to prove his class.(More on this soon)

Yet another good class of industrial economics.

"With great power comes great responsibility" - It is important to read this line the other way, because, not every one is a spiderman -> Full filling great responsibility gives you great power.

Off to sleep .. zzzzz