CA 04: Slumdog Millionaire - Truth Hurts

I am really getting annoyed by the criticisms on Slumdog Milllionaire, particularly in India. I am actually not surprised that the likes of Shiv Sena, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty criticizing, but well-informed movie makers? Come on. Give me a break. I saw the movie and liked it for the movie.

It is not new that the slums are being shown in a movie. There are hundreds of movies made each year which portray slums and its dwellers. For example, take the two Oscar nominated short documentaries this year, "Smile Pinky" and "The Final Inch". Both these show India, not in an exotic or a romantic way. You get to see the slums. Please do not deny that slums are highly sanitized green rooms.

These people who criticize were fricking sleeping all the time and wake up all of a sudden when the movie becomes a hit. Who wouldn't want to take a piece of the publicity pie. These people behave is as if the people of the world were thinking that India is a rich, developed, uncorrupted and a highly moral society. Please.

Another sideshow are the claims that the kids were exploited and that the parents were demanding more money. The justification - Now that the movie is making more money why don't you share your profits. Yeah right - Now the movie makers are the devil not sharing the profits when they had signed a profit-sharing contract with royalties and copyrights to the kids' parents. Talk about exploitation!

First of all, the movie is not about the slums, it is about a person who is a slum dweller, that too only in the intial part of the movie. The movie starts in the Mumbai slums of the 80s and 90s goes on to depict how Mumbaikars have been improving. There is clearly a scene that shows that the slums do not exist anymore, instead high rise bulidings are built in that area.

The anger that is being vented is not because India is being shown wrongfully in a bad light, but because of bringing it out to the open the actual filth that exists, that too in a subtle way.

If a kid jumps in a pile of shit, it is the creative freedom that the director enjoys and does not say that every Indian would jump in a pile of shit for a movie star.

If the movie shows kids kidnapped/bought, eys removed/hands/leg amputated, for the sole purpose of making money out of begging, it is an absolute fact. If you deny that such things do not exit, then you are doing nothing but burying your head in the sand and pretending that the world doesn't exist.

If it is shown that there are people who swindle money from tourists by acting as a fake guide and that a parked car has its parts removed, it is the truth that is being told. How many times have you parked your vehicle in a place to find the vehicle itself missing, forget about its parts. Do not tell me that no one does that in India. If you stll tell me that it is not so, you are nothing but an ignorant twit and I don't have anymore patience to explain it to you.

If you thik that you are voicing your concern on a falsehood, and think that you are expressing your patroitism, my opinion is, you are not. You are just exhibiting your callowness.

In short, truth hurts. So stop being in denial, accept the harsh facts, try to deny the opportunity for future filmmakers by making things better. And yes, finally, move on and get a life. After all it is a fictitious movie and enjoy it for what it is and don't take it personally.

CORE 07: Dilli 6 - At It Again...

No wonder I am still a great fan of Rahman. His sheer genius proved once more in Dilli 6 or Delhi 6, the new movie to be released soon, starring Abhishek Bachan. You cannot expect anything but praise, so here is a rundown on the songs.

Masakali
The first time I heard this song, it was on Youtube and to say that I was disappointed is quite an understatement. Listening to the high quality songs, this song does grow on you. The Accordion on this is by the Maestro. The "Thampattai" in the middle of the song would definitely surprise you. The Violin going at the back reminds me of the 80s.Singing a laid back song, actually should sound lame, instead it brings a coolness factor to it. One of my favorites.

Singers: Mohit Chauhan

Arziyan
This one has the feels of Sufism and Ghazal to it. A nice melodious song, might not stick to everyone right away, but has the potential to become one. No surprises on this track.

Singers: Javed Ali, Kailash Kher

Dilli-6
The title track is small in length, running for less than 4 minutes. This one is to become a sure-fire hit. AR's harmony is at it again. The surprise of this song is the Spanish lyrics by Tanvi who did it for Sivaji as well. A very slow song, but with the correct rhythm, this song has a huge electronic flavour to it.

Singers: Blaaze; Benny Dayal; Vivinenne Pocha; Tanvi; Claire

Rehna Tu
A slow song with a mild and silky flavour to it, sung by the Maestro. One of my favourites. This songs grows on you and trust me, if you listen to it a few times, you will fall in love with this song. No great arrangements, but yet it sounds great. This surprise of this song is the featuring a new instrument that Rahman introduced during his concerts - The Continuum. This is a synthesizer used with a MIDI source. The beauty of this fingerboard is the variations it can produce unlike a traditional keyboard. Perfect for Indian classical, AR learnt to play this difficult instrument and comes up with a piece in the end and plays it himself. It is a surprise to hear an electronic version :)

Singers: A. R. Rahman; Benny Dayal; Tanvi

Hey Kaala Bandhar
The weirdest lyrics one can get. Karthik proves why he is touted to be the next SPB. The song starts in a . The English lyrics, is by Yogi B of Azhagiya Thamizh Magan 's Ponmagal fame. This song changes so much that it will leave you confused where it is going but will come back, so you get to enjoy as well.

Singers: Karthik; Srinivas; Naresh; Bony Chakravarthy

Dil Gira Dafatan
Ash King's rendition of this song is divine. Though the song starts like any other average number, the better part starts after the initial humming. Another excellent melody. A soothing song. The surprise comes after two and a half minutes, where he infuses a Irish sounding piece. He is at it again.

Singers: Ash King; Chinmayee

Genda Phool
This song is an adapted North Indian folk. The rhythm makes it extremely likable. The surprises are all over the place on this song. Listen to enjoy. Another laid back song, but will make listen to it over and over again.

Singers: Rekha Bharadwaj; Shraddha Pandit; Sujata Majumdar

Bhor Bhaye
This one is recorded over Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's voice as if Shreya Goshal is learning from his recorded songs. A pure Hindustani classical. No surprises on this one though. One of my friends listened to all the tracks and she picked this one as her most favourite.

Singers: Shreya Ghosal; Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan; Gujri Todi

Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein)
A typcal devotional song, or as they call it, an aarthi song. Rahman might make this devotional song a hit by rendering it in a movie and releasing it as a part of the album. The decision to include it in the album resides partially on the composer as well. This might become popular like "Ik Onkar"

Singers: Rekha Bharadwaj; Shraddha Pandit; Sujata Majumdar; Kishori Gowariker

Noor
This is a poem recital where Big B lends his voice. This reminded me of the work that AR did for Vairamuthu. I have to admit that I was not able to appreciate this one due to the lack of my As my Hindi skills.

Poem Recital: Amitabh Bachchan

Final Verdict: Rahman is at it again, so go get this one and add it to your collection.

CA 03: 26/11 - Just Another Date?

DISCLAIMER: I have tried to limit name calling and psycho-babbling. Still, take this blog post with a grain of salt.

At this moment in time, 26/11 is a date that has been gaining popularity among the world. Not going into what happened, I am going to ramble on the post-26/11 ramifications, from different perspectives.

Increasing Intolerance
Despite the numerous criticisms on Mr. Manmohan Singh that he has been soft on terror, the truth remains that Indians' intolerance is on the rise. Almost all reactions has been based on an emotional basis rather than on a rational basis. The day the carnage was brought to an end, the famous Shobha De came on air and started lambasting everyone around saying the NDTV's very famous theme during the coverage - "Enough is enough". Though her anger was valid and understandable, as are those who are angry about the whole situation, most of them fail to understand that it is a multi-pronged issue.

In the very same programme, there were other folks like Arun Shourie and other representatives of parties like Jayanthi Natarajan from Congress and from BJP. While Ms. De was continuing with her "Enough is enough" backed by the Channel which took it as its theme, there were visble discontent on the receiving end. Her "Enoughs" were both on the Domestic front as well as on the dealing with terrorism. Saying that decisive action needs to be taken and folks who were responsible for the failure should step down taking moral responsibility. I agree, but failure to understand the root cause will result in all these becoming short-term solutions than long-term ones. That is of course the effect of decisions taken in a state of anger. Of course, there are a bunch of folks to substantiate what Shobha did, like here. So folks, my request is be angry, but not intolerant; be rational and not emotional.

I do not want to get this issue to be discussed beyond a single post.

The Debate
Each individual was saying a few points. There were lots of reasons thrown out there, most of them were good, but what disturbed were the following. Each person was trying to downplay the other's solutions saying that it is not the real solution and went on to talk about their solutions. Even the host didn't help much. What I felt was that all points were valid and the solution should be nothing less than an all-of-the-above approach.

Soft on Terror
Even though I do not like Manmohan Singh's style of administration, I am going to give him the credit. Anybody who accused him of being soft on terror need to understand one thing. He is an economist, so much to say, he is considered the father of financial reforms in India. Without him, BJP would not have had the framework to continue with the growth that we saw. True, we were exposed to Globalization and we are affected now because of it. We do need to understand that with a beautiful seaview house comes the risk of Tsunamis. As any economist would say, any war would put a strain on the economy. Without a strong economy it is going to be difficult to support a full fledged war.

In my opinion, first, we still do not have the economic might to engage in an another war and still be resilient. The second reason is what Ms. Natarajan responded to Ms. De "Has Shobha heard about 'Actionable intelligence'?". I agree there. You cannot do anything with intelligence reports in the likes of Nostradamus predictions. CIA is one of the world's best. They were contemplating many terror scenarios including attack on the WTC and Pentagon by ramming planes. Yet it happened. The intelligence failure was the main reason why it happened and not inaction on the part of the Government.

Internal Strengthening (Playing Defense)
The Government's failure was not its inaction but the failure to address the weakness in forces. There are still flks who believe that the Indian intelligence is second to none and start their usual basking in glory of something that happenned so long ago, nobody knew how long ago. This is not going to be an easy task. The Government would have to step up to the plate and give serious consideraton to improving the capabilities. Police forces at the ground level are nothing but a corrupt lot. At least, spend mre money for those critical folks who work in the intelligence establishment. Procure more infrastructure for the defense forces. Provide importance to RAW and IB. When an ex-RAW officer writes about the corruption, instead of taking steps, they sue him??!! Rather than attack folks who provide constructive criticisms, they need to rope in people who can hel eliminate it.

In this sense, rhetorics are not going to make things done. Action on the part of the Government and the corrupt politicians. Let them get kickbacks but not on matters of National Security. Let the forces be free of politics and the usual corruption. Otherwise, we are going to see more of these happening and like 13/12 gave way to 26/11, 26/11 will give way for something else and becoming just another date.

CD 01 - Addition To History

Lewis Hamilton becomes the World Champion and Barack Obama becomes the President of the United States.

DISCALIMER: I rooted for Felipe and John. Bad luck guys. You did well.

UPDATE 1: My congratulations to the MSM, for without their support, this would have never happened. We drink anything that is offered for free - Even if it is "Phenoyl". We are all boneheaded and without the MSM, the eyes of millions that were closed because of ignorance, would have never been opened. We are indebted to you for opening so many eyes. I can now declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

UPDATE 2: Now that it is over, the banner goes down.

CORE 06: Obama's Economics - The Depressing Hilarity

I read this in the comments section of a Obama's ex-speechwriter blog. This was extremely hilarious and sad but true. He goes on to quote, which by the way is my philosophy too.

'For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.'

And now here for the welfare, (oops, I mean the tax-cut) that Obama offers, here is a story that a Professor of Economics at University of Georgia (Dr. David R. Kamerschen) had to say. Trust me, this was exactly what I was thinking when I heard about the underlying details. That is why he is a professor and I am a blogger. Now to the story.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18..

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59..

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes and so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20" declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $9!"

"Yeah, that's right" exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got nine times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $9 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" 

"Wait a minute" yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor."

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.