Aatma - Feel the fun around you

Aatma, to put simply, is about a single parent (Bipasha as Maya) who lives with her five year old daughter (Niya) after getting separated from her violent and abusive husband (Nawazuddin as Abhay). A quick flashback reveals Abhay's accident and the reason why Niya  never gets to see her father. Abhay, the possessive father that he used to be, returns from death only to take revenge on Maya and take their daughter away with him to the world of dead.

Aatma is a mediocre film with hardly any scary scenes that it promised for its genre except for a couple of sound effects here and there. In fact, you might actually end up laughing over a few scenes like the one where Abhay comes to possess Niya, or the climax scene where Maya's mother comes to see her off etc..

Music is probably the only thing that could haunt you for a while after coming out of the theatre. All in all, an effort not worth it. I would have pinched myself thrice at the least after reading a statement from the director that he foresees Bipasha winning a National award for this movie. Hence, a more apt tagline for the movie - Feel the fun around you. :)

 My rating for this film - **
(* You will shoot me
** Waste of time
*** Can sit through
**** Worth watching once
***** Must watch)

Pitching against Stars

It's quite amusing to come across articles which describe sun signs and decide how best you can make friends with other sun signs. If zodiac X and zodiac Y can ever be friends. If X would ever be able to put up with Y and vice-versa. What such articles and their writers probably fail to understand is that you do not calculate odds before getting into a relation. I make friends with someone if I like their (his/her) company, if I like them the way they are, but not because they belong to a certain zodiac which supposedly suits mine. These are the factors that strike a chord initially. And then, over a period of time, you gain each other's trust, get emotionally bonded and nurture a relation that lasts for a lifetime. You may dislike tens of things in that person but your strong liking for them makes you ignore all of it. It's as good as pitching against stars and winning hands down. May be that's the reason why people say that friendship is the only relation where you look beyond and probably do not even consider a person's social, economic, religious and cultural upbringing or views.

Plausible Power Politics?

Our politicians are never tired of getting despised for all the reasons they know. Point in case, the justification given by Union Minister Vayalar Ravi and Ghulam Nabi Azad to some Congress ministers hailing from Seemandhra. The reason behind the firm support by Congress High command (as they call it) for separation of Telangana is the high probability of Congress getting close to 16 seats from Telangana state in future. They feel that the Seemandhra ministers have failed to lobby enough to keep the state together and more importantly failed miserably in ensuring seats in the next state elections. Looks like YSR Congress will have the last laugh amidst all this. Plausible Power Politics, eh? Definitely not. Fingers crossed. I wouldn't appreciate this geographical division for sure.

Happy New Year

I know it is coming a tad too late. But, to be frank there was no reason for me to feel happy about or celebrate a new year when so many others were fighting for a cause to bring about change. I am writing this post and wishing everybody a new year now because I feel we need something to change about ourselves and something positive to give back to ourselves. And, this is the reason for it.

"Humanity has died in the society we bred among us. It sends shivers down my heart when I hear that nobody even bothered to help or at least cover the victims of that night in Delhi and that they were left to suffer naked in the cold in pain both by the Common man and the Police. I hope all of them are sulking in one corner of their houses by now out of shame & guilt.

If there is one RESOLUTION we all need to take ahead of many more years to come, it is 'To keep the Lamp of Humanity burning'."

Numbness Continues

I don't think amending laws will make much difference to any of this. Law comes into picture only when an incident of deserving proportion takes place and there is no practical way in which we can stop incidents, small or big, from occurring. It is not easy to keep track of every woman and every lane she passes by. I don't even think it's easy to change what has been instilled for ages in this society. It is not easy to change the mindset of people, men and women alike. Why talk about society as a separate entity, when I hear similar thoughts expressed by people around me - people I have known for decades - and there is nothing I can do to convince them into accepting the fact that there is a need to change the way people think and behave. It is because we, the people, make the society and the system. Nothing else. 

Numb

When I saw Facebook asking me "How are you feeling, Indu?" in its Update Status box today, I felt like screaming to the loudest I can that I feel depressed, angry, frustrated and a lot more. And, this is just a wee bit of what I want to vent.

"It took a death for the nation to awaken, for people to think about change in society, for the Legislation to amend laws and for everything else that needed to change in this country. All this because of the death of a woman we have never met in our lives. The whole nation took this tragedy personally so much so that everybody across the country stood united as brothers and sisters for that one woman we don't even know the name of. But, I thank God for taking her into his arms to protect her for eternity. There is nothing left to be given to her now. There is no point in living half paralyzed and crumpled for the rest of her life. Before you try to judge my morals, I want to admit that I feel the loss too. I feel like I have lost somebody I admire. I feel like I have lost myself, in this country of injustice, inequality, corruption, casteism and now RAPE. Yes, this is the country I live in and this is my country. Sadly, there ain't any pride left now to make this statement.

It is not about this one incident. I was shocked to read statistics which say that a woman is raped every 22 minutes in India. Out of which, most of them go unnoticed, unreported. In most of the cases, women hesitate to approach police for fear of further harassment or most of them drop out in the middle for the same reason. All of this happening in the same country and the same society which proclaims worship of women as its culture.

Disparity, insensitivity and a thousand more adjectives to name. Yes, this is my country and this is the country I live in. And these are the people I breathe along with."

Numb out of no suffering. Period.

Beat the Blues

I wrote the first stanza and the interlude sometime last year and then I didn't know what else to write and how to complete it, because I never experienced physical violence - not a bit of it. I also did not care to step into someone else's shoes to witness it like I usually do for some of my other writings. But, when I read about what a certain girl was put through, 1500 KM away from here, I did not have to think. The words just came by. I experienced trauma. I experienced violence for the first time in my life. I felt like I was in a state of agitation; I still am. I cried. I cried because I felt helpless. I cried because I am a woman too. And, I cried because there was nothing I could do.

This is how this writing was born and done to death, thereupon.

You manipulated me, exerted me

Constructed your alter ego
You construed my silence
And projected me as helpless

Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me
Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me

You depressed my spirit
Unleashed wrath against my wit
You turned my pain into pleasure
Shook me up and left me to wither

Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me
Again…
Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me

The anger, the madness
Is all gone now
There is some quietness
With the ripples I feel now
There’s no dread no more
I scream no more
The whispers too
Will die down with time

Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me
Again…
Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me
I say…
One more time
Beat me, Beat me
Beat the blues out of me

Helloo

Hello, if there's anybody reading this. One year of inactivity. That's too much! I still remember my password to Blogger. :D
May be I should make a silent comeback sometime :) 

Juggling Numbers - Breeding Education?

During some of my free time, a couple of weeks ago, I happened to read about the recent additions to the most prestigious technical and business schools in India - the IITs and IIMs respectively. What baffled me though, was the long list of juggling numbers. What used to be 7 and 6 earlier, was now 16 and 13! The newbies being,

IIM Shillong, Meghalaya
IIM Ranchi, Jharkhand
IIM Rohtak, Haryana
IIM Raipur, Chhattisgarh
IIM Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu
IIM Udaipur, Rajasthan
IIM Kashipur, Uttarakhand

IIT Ropar, Punjab
IIT Bhubaneswar, Orissa
IIT Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat
IIT Patna, Bihar
IIT Jodhpur, Rajasthan
IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
IIT Indore, Madhya Pradesh
IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

This takes the total count of IITs and IIMs to 16 and 13 respectively. This initiative from the Eleventh Five Year Plan, may help in churning out more number of graduates, but the catch here is whether this number can match in quality - something these institutes are famous for. Ironically, IIM Ranchi has the highest CAT cut-off percentage at 99.66. Students gaining admissions to the new % of seats may not be the best breed but could yet prove better than the thousands of graduates coming from the lower tier institutes across the country.

No-Go for a Separate State - II

I had posted my previous article on separation of Telanagana in a public domain, which drew many a comment. I am copy pasting the ones which spoke against my views here - comments from others in Italic and mine in normal font.
______________________________________________________________

Indu, I am in complete disagreement with your comments above on the Telangana Movement, If people STILL don't understand the prime motive behind the seperate Telangana then I feel they seriously lack basics behind Telanga Movement.
There are thousands of reasons why telangana people are aksing for seperate state and how seperate state can benefit Telangana people, first please understand them and think on the shoes of Telangana people.

Now the movement is not driven by any political parties, it is in the hands of people (workers, lawyers, students, doctors etc), it came to a situation where it is imperative to devide the state.
The early Center Govt takes the decision, the early the life's gets better in Andhra Pradesh

I ask Center govt only one question, after the anouncement of Telangana on 9th of Dec as Sonia Gandhi's birthday gift, the agitation of Samaikyandhra went for 14 days and govt lean down to issue another statement of concensus on Telangana, first of all I feel shame on central govt going down from what they annouced stating that as mistake and why do they take 65years to respond PRO to Telangana than 14 days to Samaikyandhra?
I feel Samaikyandhra Agitation should last atleast for 10-15years (atleast not like telangana 60-65 years) before central govt came back.

I go clueless when people say Samaikyandhra, can you give us a single reason why people are claiming Samaikyandra?
If Telanganites deliberately want Telangana state, stopping them with Samaikyandhra doesn't feel appropriate.
______________________________________________________________

I am not sure if you are a staunch supporter of Telangana, but the Telangana movement made sense when it was started in the 50s. But, why do people need to live separately now when everybody across the length and breadth of the country are at least trying to live together in harmony. Case in point, people in Andhra Pradesh today are not divided based on religion and language. All divisions, if any, are due to political reasons only. Seeking separation because of something done by tens/ hundreds of Andhra people in power is sad. What bad did the lakhs of common people from Andhra do that you want to separate from them?

Coming to the facts, the 1952 agitation was against the mulkis (non-locals) when Andhra came as a Madras province. But, after creation of states on linguistic lines, all Telugu speaking people got united. Talking about the present statistics in A.P., appx. Revenue generation comes from
Telangana: 61.47%
Central government contribution: 19.86%
Andhra: 14.71%
Rayalaseema: 3.90% (most economically backward)

Allocation to irrigation:
74.25%, to the Coastal Andhra
18.20% to Telangana
7.55% to Rayalaseema (again backward) etc….

Agreed that Telanagana was always second to Andhra region when we see statistics. In that case, Rayalseema being the most neglected region in A.P., should we have a third state as well? Is this a sensible solution? Telangana agitation was always powered by the student associations. If we leave the 1960s and 70s, and talk about today,
1. Education is based on merit and nobody is snatching seats from Telanaga students. If someone is meritorious over the other, it’s not a fault
2. Local quotas in education are still prevalent in every region in A.P., but again a student should at least intend to study for an exam sincerely and not expect to merely depend on reservations to grow in life
3. If we talk about jobs, I don’t think private jobs favor regions. Latest statistics say that more than 3lakh government employees supported the Telangana movement. It means these many Telangana people are already employed in government jobs. What else is expected? Do they expect to get admissions into colleges without even having to study and get into jobs without having to try for them?
4. Securing admissions into colleges is not based on merit. Merit does not come to you because you are from a certain region

People who are getting on to the roads and behaving vehemently are not sensible. People who destroy public property which comes out of all tax paying pockets. Creating a loss of more than 8cr to the government on a daily basis is not sensibility. The real educated won’t do that because they understand the terms GDP and per capita income. All these are just driven by emotions and materialistic offers. I don’t deny the fact that there could be some genuine supporters (very few again) from common people, who witnessed the movement during its inception. But, all the youngsters who are getting involved in the destruction of public property and monuments of historic value now, do not even know the value and the real intensity of the Telangana movement of the 50s. They are just a provoked lot. Everybody involved see their own benefits from it.

All these students who bunk classes and exams and who are not letting even others study are not real students who seek genuine education. A person who is not serious about his career and life is not deemed to be called a student. There are only these reasons I see for students in agitation.
1. Looking to settle down easily without much competition in the state of Telangana
2. Money/ Liquor
3. Unhealthy zeal to grow as youth leaders in politics

A student who is confident, can study and gain admission in any part of India, not just Telangana. If they are economically backward, then it’s a different issue. May be then they can be provided with some reservations but otherwise I don’t think it’s necessary. People should learn to live on what they gain for themselves and not on what is promised to be given or given by others.

Will KCR be happy if Telangana is given but he and his family are not brought to power? I am dead sure he won’t be. No politician will ever sacrifice power for the sake of common man. Those golden days are gone! People have become selfish now. Today, we can hardly count politicians who can live and die for people. Politics are so filthy that even the ruling parties, central and state alike, are not taking a stance just because they fear losing potential vote banks in AP in either case. Are politics not playing with our sensitive imbalances?

There are even more number of people who want to live together even though they don’t get any benefit from it. They want to live together because they don’t like getting separated from fellow beings of their own state, and whom they never considered different or separate in any measure in these days of modern day India.

Just thought of adding one last but relevant point here. I was born and brought up in Hyderabad. So, I am a Telangana native? But, I don’t support division and separation anywhere in India. I believe in unity. May be the compelling patriot in me thinks that way.

I don't dislike Telangana people. I am one of them. I dislike being separated. My morals never fall prey to communal segregations. I am a rationale being. :)