The bicycle thief , Satyajit Ray and Simplicity

I started watching Satyajit Ray's movies a month ago. When someone says, "Hey, U must try his movies, he's a great director", "Hey she's real hot, must watch dude", "He's the ultimate best" kinda comments or suggestions we get to evaluate them basing on the credit we give to that person. If we like them a lot we'll try our best to do it and just because that particular person suggested us and not any other.
It applies to everything. Some drink Coke, only because Aamir Khan told them to do so. Only AXE told women will be around with that spray. Sachin told similar thing about Boost.

Satyajit Ray

Apu

In one situation or the other every acclaimed director of the Hollywood told he was highly influenced by Satyajit Ray's taking. So I downloaded The Apu Trilogy. Saw it. Then after no words to describe Ray. By any standard he is a genius. The themes of his movie, the taking, background score, narration are very simple and yet have a profound and lasting effect on the audience. There were no huge sets or acclaimed actors to get the initial recognition. Each and every frame has its importance and a significant role in the movie on the whole. The point common to every great film is that it makes the audience an integral part of the film and yet there is no role to play except a witness to those incidents narrated. Ray did it with finesse. With amateur technicians he created magic on the screen. When I went through Ray's biography he quoted The Bicycle Thief as the movie that inspired him to take movie making.

I downloaded The Bicycle Thief  Mr. Ray told it is a career deciding movie for him. In simple words the whole story is that of a poor husband who needs a bicycle for certain job in order to feed his wife and two kids. His bicycle is stolen and he goes on days hunt for it and ultimately..................................
He didn't get his bicycle back...
Sooo very simple eh, but it is not so. Importance of things varies in proportion to the value they hold to us. For him his bicycle and for us? It varies. A pen lost while I am in elementary has the same effect if I lose my mobile now. But the emotional strain and haste to get it back has not changed. It takes intense observation to make a movie with such simple theme and get credit as the Sight and Sound's all time second best movie.Sitting here I can make no guess what all they did to get such simple and everlasting effect. But all they did was to narrate a story very simply inspite of the great complexities the characters hold.

I don't want to know more people*

Every day in the morning I go to office, the first and foremost task is to greet everyone a Good morning.
It seems such a bad formality to me, and people too pause working for a while just to greet even though they really don't mean it. It is ok when I see them for the first time for that particular day.

This is not the end of it people!! Now every time I bump into that person again I say "Hey, How you doing!", raising my eyebrows, like I'm feeling very pleasant to see them. Some times by their nicknames "hey Kingfisher", "hey mallu", "hey sambar", "used the washroom, huh!!", turning back and asking "toilet papers out of stock? Your hand is wet!!" (Bullshit, unnecessary bothering about someone's wet hands )...

Oh my god .. This is not over. I have to greet them every time I bump into them.

To add some spice to my irritation, I received a mail from my admin dept in office saying we have to greet our foreign bosses in their own language. They also attached a file saying how to pronounce Good Morning in that language and the posture we have to follow while greeting them. I saw people greeting them in that posture. Its very theatrical to our Indian standards.

The mail also had a P.S. saying your bosses "Will feel happy" if you do so. I decided that day I am definitely not going to do so. I have solid reasons (that I state to myself only).
First of all, I am not there to keep my boss happy. Happy is what I may try to keep my parents/wife/kids/friends.
Secondly. I am paid to do the job, not to keep bosses happy.
It is ok and good to greet once a day and that too few people around me. But the whole lot!! Its another job. A part-time one for which I won't be paid. It ruins the thought or job that I am carrying at that time or the least it disturbs.
Then I decided not to get introduced to too many people unless inevitable. Let it be friend's friends, colleagues, bosses etc., I obviously know that I won't be meeting him/her again after I quit this job (coz quitting is for the reason I don't want to work there anymore).

*Conditions Apply

Best things have an easy access!

All the while I think of posting something important, rather I feel so, something that makes a strong point about something.
This post is just a small observation of me and others.
The best in food like salads, fresh vegetables we get them anywhere and everywhere and I didn't see any crowd at those places. I didn't observe the craving for those things. Since we have an easy access to those we don't like them. But look at the crowding at any wine shop. People tend to care a lot for that, anxiously waiting for their turn of the order. Yelling at the staff for attention. 


I have the remote in my hand and I can see Discovery, NatGeo etc., that explains our habitat and things around us so wonderfully but I still wait for long hours in queue to watch a Telugu movie(horrible no!!!)


Similar is the case with every other thing. Its in us strongly embedded feeling to crave for something that is not in our easy reach. We can't get out of it nor close to it too.. 

Venkata Narayana

This guy has tortured me in my B.tech. till i left the college. I would like him to read this particular post and comment too... That sounds real cool to me. 

One of the finest and classic ACEHOLE (I coin this term for the best of a**holes). I would give a brief description of this guy.

Name: P Venkata Narayana.
Age: ICEAGE.
Appearance: Changes. The only standard feature of this specimen is a nice n shiny bald head. Sports different styles of moustache.
Profession: Asst. Professor in EEE Dept. Designation doesn't match deeds.
Description: One post not enough honestly speaking. Thing is, I don't wanna waste much time thinking about him. He generally thinks of himself as a monk of the The Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa order. A smile that has loads of sheepishness. Speaks about meditation sometimes, takes extra hours for this nonsense. The whole point in his lecture is that he wanna establish himself as a holy man, full of ideals and ideologies, incarnation of Sarvepalli RadhaKrishna, loads of knowledge in technical subjects. 


The feeling of proud about self is indeed needed to achieve something coz that instills some confidence. But for doing nothing it is not necessary though. All the while during his lectures we were forced to know how he missed the bus to United States, how he ended up here instead of a chance to be a software engineer, how he cooks sambar at home, how to pronounce his name (veynkata). Never ever i learned one technical thing from him. He used to teach occasionally but that was like a concert in which he reads of the contents of the textbook. Every now and then he gives a pause to crack a joke(he's the only one laughing at them and few others fearing him or just to encourage the poor sucker).


This Ace has a supporting staff too. Things about them are much more interesting/annoying/funny.
Makes me laugh like anything when i wish him good morning and he throws back a gesture of puking out.
Everyone has their own set of experiences with him. 


In one incident I was to give my practical exam in Microprocessors. Luckily I got a simple one: Hexadecimal addition on 8051. I did it and called him to check. He took a paper and wrote down the numbers i gave as inputs and did some math and declared that my program is wrong. I saw uttermost joy in his eye when he declared so. Coz the previous night i was caught smoking in my room ( in university hostel, he was deputy warden that time). I saw that math and told he did decimal addition instead of hexa. He don't wanna check again. So i did the math and showed him hexa addition. His face became red. His ego was hurt. For a while there was frustration in his look, appearance and everything. Blurted out something " You might be a good programmer but I'm not that a**hole". It feels good when others realize some facts about them even if we don't mention that. 
From the next day onwards he was after me pointing something wrong out of whatever I did, whatever I wore.... 


Awarded pass marks to me. Hey Veynkata Narayana I can never ever excuse you for that, for I deserve much more. Hey god gimme a chance to be an Asst professor in my next life where this specimen will remain my student , forever..

Almost forgot to tell ya, he fondly calls me Subbuu betaa...

Try these.!!!!!

Try observing these things in TV or in movies...

-- Mute the audio for any telugu movie song and start saying 1,2: 1,2,3,4: 1,2: 1,2,3,4.. ( you wil come in sync with the background score)

-- In any telugu faction movie, you can see the villain gang chasing hero or anyone in a lorry and they will be swinging their swords all through the chase.. My(along with my batch) question  every time is.. how long will they go on swinging them like that(practically hey)..

-- Whatever be the theme of the movie, the movie poster will show the lead character facing the navel of the heroine(doing something)..

-- The cast and crew of any movie celebrating a film's utter failure.. And still wishing the film a grand success(even though released and declared a failure)..

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-- still more to come..

Hey tollywood.. Fuck you!!

Why you care so much about other's OPINION!!!

Ystd RGV released his autobiography(can call it so, though i'm sure it won't be in a conventional format).
There was an interview in Ntv after that. It was the same situation over and over again. Varma making fools of the interviewers with his fundamentalism. The interviewers repeatedly trying to humiliate, looking for every possible opportunity to irritate or win over Varma's opinion on some issue.

I observed that this is everywhere. A person trying to decide or bias other's opinion. In the fundamental vantage point, according to a person/constituition, an individual has right to express his opinion. Varma is availing and enjoying the same. When Varma said he loves to see a woman as a sex symbol, the interviewer(say XX, frm now on) was agitated to peak most levels. Stating that this opinion of a celebrity like Varma will have a negative effect on youth. While Varma opining that youth are more matured than himself and XX to be effected by their words. That indeed is 100 p.c. true.

If youth are that vulnerable to what a celebrity talks or opines, then our country must have been a powerful one in all aspects in view of the speeches/books or otherwise delivered by Abdul kalam/Gandhi/Tata/Mother Theresa/Chiranjeevi(last one sounds funny eh!!). Or our nation might have gone to dogs with the influence of baddies(still dunno what is meant by goodie and a baddie).

Here, XX or , for that matter, anyone should fundamentally accept others opinion. Opinion in itself is something related to self. What is there for an opinion to be in terms with others opinion. An opinion is something that has formed to a person on another based on his knowledge about the other. His knowledge is limited by his experience or observation of the other.

Such a situation happened to me at my work place.
Our team happened to attend one training program. At the last there was a feedback session. The question asked was "Who is satisfied with this program?"
I chose the answer No.!!! The trainer (colleague only, senior to me) asked me to come to him and was bullshitting. "What is not there in the program that you are not satisfied? Shall I complain regarding you to the higher authorities? Now, after this , will you complain about me to the Head?" I was looking at him out of shock, anger, disgust and ofcourse he seemed silly to me. He asked me an opinion, I expressed mine. Thats all , thats the end of it. What is the dying need that everyone's opinion should accord with his?

This is the case with everyone who had spent time with such people around for a good deal of time. Varma's opinion about his opinion is the same. "I'm expressing my opinion, I can enjoy that within the limits of the constitution. Whether you are influenced by it or not is entirely your concern".Still many XXs ask the same question time and again to just prove forever that they are never influenced(or perhaps listened to) by what Varma or anyone has repeatedly expressed their opinion about the same thing!!!

Raavan .. Pak pak pak pak pak pak

Watched Raavan yesterday. Mani is not the same director as before. This is no positive compliment. Poor editing , lack of clarity in the portrayal of characters ,bad narration and other factors... BGM was not soo very impressive too.. except for cinematography.

Scenes in the starting where Aishwarya jumps off the cliff, that , i felt i saw the same thousand times in the movie. Slow motion footage of she raising up from water was like a photoshoot for a super model. Abhishek seemed like manipulating and convincing the audience that Beera is a ten headed, ten faceted person. No naturality in action as can be expected of a Mani ratnam movie.

Govinda's role wasn't appreciable. Whether it was the best way to deal that kinda concept or the initially , seemingly wonderful script ended like that after complete shoot and post production.

Funny, some people who have high regard for Mani Ratnam saying , "U dunno how to watch a Mani Ratnam movie" :-)

Thing is whatever be the movie every audien leaves theatre with some kinda feeling: Happy, sad, anger , disgust, inspiration , screw the film, waste of time and money like that. I felt nothing. Dev shooting Beera, Beera dead, thats all thats it. Now audience, movie's over you can leave now.