Tollywoodization

It was during those days, when single screen theaters were blushing with every new release. I bunked the NDA exam, yes NDA (National Defence Academy entrance exam) and decided to watch a film, i went to 'Sandhya' theater at RTC Cross Roads to watch 'Venky'. I was shocked to see the rush for tickets and was compelled to watch a ******* patriotic film in 'Sapthagiri'. I primarily remember this incident for couple of reasons.
1- For the first time in my life, i decided to bunk the exam and watch a film.
2- I had a passion to join in Armed Forces but even then i bunked the exam due to small intermediate trauma.

The rise of multiplexes, a polished face for our Hi-Tech cosmopolitan hyderabad. There was a fear that the days of single screens are numbered and the popular telugu cinema is gonna die, i was thrilled when i heard such discussions for my own reasons. Many friends did not miss their chance to take a sarcastic dig a UNpopular films, they said "Time has come for telugu film-goers to carry a torchlight when they enter the multiplex, as its hard to see critically acclaimed films"

Multiplexes did have an impact, many film lovers now have the chance to watch hollywood films on the same day of release as that of USA, animated movies made a positive impression, unearthed genres were introduced etc...,. but apart there are some other changes like buying a 5 rupees samosa for 30 rupees, boys are now more tormented with their girl friends as the size of popcorn buckets(yes, now we call buckets) are increased from some size to XXL or king size or whatever, seriously why do u need a popcorn while watching a film?. Now telugu families who visit multiplexes talk only in english with their kids even though they are well versed in telugu. The new gen  kids are now addicted to junk food and parents don't mind spending money even though its damn costly, as it is multiplex culture.

With the rise of internet users and multiplex culture, we have so called film critics and the mushroom growth of telugu websites on telugu cinema which constantly give us gyan and provide some masala stuff in parallel. The way in which fans of one hero abuse the other hero is a very common is social networking sites, they compare the hero introductory scenes, dialogues, etc.,. these make me laugh and i very much acknowledge the humor produced from these senseless altercations even though it is not intentional. Sometimes, the greatness of a film is measured by the highest amount spent for a black ticket on the first day.

So, how many film critics do we have? many of you might come out with a combined number of tata sumos used by B.Gopal and V.V.Vinayak in their films -- but i am asking for film critics who understands the art of film making, i would say the number would be less than the number of heroines in Telugu Film Industry who can speak normal telugu if not good telugu. There is a new trend emerging, its the business of film ratings. A good film may get a good rating from these popular websites, but there is not guarantee that a bad film will get a bad rating, it all depends on the ______, you know what i am talking about, you can fill the blank.

What do you think of a guy who comes with newspaper pieces stuffed in his pockets and throws them on the multiplex screen when the hero is introduced in the film? I always pondered about the excitement of such fans,   how can these guys go crazy and dance before cinema theaters?, why do they spend so much money for cut-outs of their film heros?, the huge garlands for those cut-outs? and what not. I never felt like doing these things, i do not shout or whistle in the theater, is this a defect in me? lack of tollywood harmones? Anyway, i do have my own idiosyncrasies, for example - Jessie wore 15 beautiful sarees in 'Ye Maya Chesave'.

Friedrich Nietzsche on Communism/Socialism

A man’s political inclination is based on a series of experiences and expectations from the society and the idea of political thought is an instant reaction from the brain to counter/support the arguments made on the particular situation. A man’s political philosophy cannot be limited to his personal good but it has to be extended to a society in which he has his own goals to achieve and make a political statement which has its implications beyond his reach and would impact other generation. The Next–Gen impact is not accidental to the political philosophy, but a conscious decision and decisive perception of the man who intends to spread it irrespective of time and geography.

The question of ‘morals and politics’, ‘ethics and politics’, ‘greed and politics’, ‘humanity and politics’, ‘Development and politics’ and ‘Barmecidal and Politics’ are sophomoric arguments in context of active players. Politics is almost a necessity of mankind. The power of Power in the political arena is underrated; it is the driving force behind frenzy political activity. Politics is a path for the quest for power and man’s ‘Will to Power’ should not be ignored in this process.

An anarchist’s propriety should be scrutinized in a society and his scorn for politics cannot be just based on his claims of evil in politics. The sacred texts, mythology and society has very much proven that anarchism is no less evil that bad politics but a greater evil than shoddy politics. Ayn Rand has edifying views about anarchism ….

“Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction. A society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy, even a society whose every member was fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy, it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government. “[1]

In a democracy and particularly in a developing country, the debate of the role of state is vehemently argued by Left, Right and Centre. The left has always presented its simple solution which goes smooth with its ideology, the Centre as always has never made a their stand clear and the Right has its own dilemma in having a rigid opinion about the role of state in the life of an individual and in society. Is it politically possible for an Authoritarian state with limited control? Can such a government exist in a democracy? Is it practically possible to accommodate such a scenario? Does it pass political Rectitude?

Friedrich Nietzsche was not in favor of Democracy. He equates Democracy with Christianity “The democratic movement is the heir to Christianity” [2] and waylays Socrates and Plato by asking , “How could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease? Did the wicked Socrates corrupt him after all? Could Socrates have been the corrupter of youth after all? And did he deserve his hemlock?” [3]

Sigmund Freud’s praise for Nietzsche is obvious in its recognition of Nietzsche’s philosophical finesse and Freud’s theories have often exposed the Marxist grotesqueness. Sigmund Freud declared that Nietzsche is “a philosopher whose guesses and intuitions often agree in the most astonishing way with the laborious findings of psychoanalysis.” I reference Sigmund Freud to make a strong base to support Nietzsche’s Political Philosophy which is often criticized for the lack of political-ness in it and it’s often said that Friedrich Nietzsche’s works do not reflect the true politics and it’s a misadventure, but his political philosophy has made me feel the other way and I am glad to say that he was one of best political philosopher and an underrated one.

It’s just not literary romanticism or a political manifestation or an antipathy towards a political class, it’s a view of an individual with his bionic grasp of society and man as it pivotal element in shaping the future of the society. As always, man is a superman – his strong belief that man is something has to be surpassed is not rhetoric, but an actual postulation of the animal instinct which is hidden deep inside a man.

“‘Why so hard?’ the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. ‘After all, are we not close kin?’
Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?” [4]

Friedrich Nietzsche on Communism/Socialism:- 

“When the exceptional man handles the mediocre man with more delicate fingers than he applies to himself or to his equals, this is not merely kindness of heart—it is simply his duty… . Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala, who undermine the workingman’s instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence—who make him envious and teach him revenge… . Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of “equal” rights… . What is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge. The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry… .”[5]

“A question of power, not justice. For men who always consider the higher usefulness of a matter, socialism, if it really is the uprising against their oppressors of people oppressed and kept down for thousands of years, poses no problem of justice (with the ludicrous, weak question: “How far should one yield to its demands?”), but only a problem of power ( “To what extent can one use its demands?”). So it is like a natural power-steam, for example-which is either forced by man, as a god of machines, into his service, or, when there are mistakes in the machine (that is, errors of human calculation in its construction), wrecks itself and the human with it. To solve that question of power, one must know how strong socialism is, and in which of its modifications it can still be used as a mighty lever within the current political power game; in some circumstances one would even have to do everything possible to strengthen it. With every great force (even the most dangerous), humanity must think how to make it into a tool of its own intentions.

Socialism gains a right only when the two powers, the representatives of the old and new, seem to have come to war, but then both parties prudently calculate how they may preserve themselves to best advantage, and this results in their desire for a treaty. No justice without a treaty. Until now, however, there has been neither war in the indicated territory, nor treaties, and thus no rights, and no “ought” either.”[6]     .

“Socialism in respect to its means. Socialism is the visionary younger brother of an almost decrepit despotism, whose heir it wants to be. Thus its efforts are reactionary in the deepest sense. For it desires a wealth of executive power, as only despotism had it; indeed, it outdoes everything in the past by striving for the downright destruction of the individual, which it sees as an unjustified luxury of nature, and which it intends to improve into an expedient organ of the community. Socialism crops up in the vicinity of all excessive displays of power because of its relation to it, like the typical old socialist Plato, at the court of the Sicilian tyrant;11 it desires (and in certain circumstances, furthers) the Caesarean power state of this century, because, as we said, it would like to be its heir. But even this inheritance would not suffice for its purposes; it needs the most submissive subjugation of all citizens to the absolute state, the like of which has never existed. And since it cannot even count any longer on the old religious piety towards the state, having rather always to work automatically to eliminate piety (because it works on the elimination of all existing states), it can only hope to exist here and there for short periods of time by means of the most extreme terrorism. Therefore, it secretly prepares for reigns of terror, and drives the word “justice” like a nail into the heads of the semi-educated masses, to rob them completely of their reason (after this reason has already suffered a great deal from its semieducation), and to give them a good conscience for the evil game that they are supposed to play. Socialism can serve as a rather brutal and forceful way to teach the danger of all accumulations of state power, and to that extent instill one with distrust of the state itself. When its rough voice chimes in with the battle cry “As much state as possible,” it will at first make the cry noisier than ever; but soon the opposite cry will be heard with strength the greater: ‘As little state as possible.’”[7]


“It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs. This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs. But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen. False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels.”[8]

“As little State as possible! All political and economic matters are not of such great value that they ought to be dealt with by the most talented minds: such a waste of intellect is at bottom worse than any state of distress. These matters are and ever will be the province of smaller minds and others than the smaller minds should not be at the service of this workshop: it would be better to let the machinery work itself to pieces again! Yet as matters stand at the present time when not only do all people believe that they must know all about it day by day but wish likewise to be always busy about it and in so doing neglect their own work. it is a great and ridiculous mistake. The price that has to be paid for the “public safety “is far too high and what is maddest of all we effect the very opposite of “public safety” a fact which our own dear century has undertaken to prove as if this had never been proved before! To make society secure against thieves and fire and to render it thoroughly fit for all kinds of trade and traffic and to transform the State in a good and evil sense into a kind of Providence—these aims are low mediocre and not by any means indispensable; and we should not seek to attain them by the aid of the highest means and instruments which exist—means which we should reserve precisely for our highest and rarest aims! Our age, however much it may chatter about economy is in fact wasteful: it wastes spirit the most precious thing of all.”[9]

“The stupidity — at bottom, the degeneration of instinct, which is today the cause of all stupidities — is that there is a labor question at all. Certain things one does not question: that is the first imperative of instinct. I simply cannot see what one proposes to do with the European worker now that one has made a question of him. He is far too well off not to ask for more and more, not to ask more immodestly. In the end, he has numbers on his side. The hope is gone forever that a modest and self-sufficient kind of man, a Chinese type, might here develop as a class: and there would have been reason in that, it would almost have been a necessity. But what was done? Everything to nip in the bud even the preconditions for this: the instincts by virtue of which the worker becomes possible as a class, possible in his own eyes, have been destroyed through and through with the most irresponsible thoughtlessness. The worker was qualified for military service, granted the right to organize and to vote: is it any wonder that the worker today experiences his own existence as distressing — morally speaking, as an injustice? But what is wanted? I ask once more. If one wants an end, one must also want the means: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool if one educates them to be masters.” [10]

References:
1. Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand.
2. Beyond Good and Evil
3. Twilight of the Idols
4. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
5. The Antichrist
6. Human, All Too Human
7. Human, All Too Human
8. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
9. The Dawn
10. Twilight of the Idols

Most of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche are in Public Domain.

Safety Valves of Left Liberals

Left Liberals are a hybrid product of slyness, fallacy and cockeyedness. These rare species deserve to be extinct, but somehow they still exist with the help of their usual gimmicks – Sometimes they do fall in the category of ‘Endangered Species’.‘Outlook’ magazine comes with a boring and spineless article on the Muslims of Gujarat ‘One side of the Divide’ and we have a comment by this famous talented lady.

“Some say Muslims must move on, but what choice did they have? People accept their fate though they didn’t get justice.” Mallika Sarabhai

The above quote strikes the chord with many, but one never tries to deconstruct such feckless quotes. The common man is addicted to the bad habit of satisfying with what he listens and what he sees without applying some strain on his cerebrum and accepts these baseless and goosy comments.

When people of a particular religion are involved in any wrong doing, we have to hear statements like “These people are devoid of basic education, society forces them to takes such steps”. After 26/11 Mumbai attacks and series of bomb blasts across the country, I find some left liberals whispering statements like “One needs to look into the root causes, instead of fuming hatred”.

Image Courtesy: The Economist

Does ‘Education’ solve everything; will it change the thinking of an individual? The faith of a particular religion? An individual’s perception towards other religions? There is an interesting graph done with the help of the data provided by UN and World Bank. The percentage of expenditure on Defence and Education. The graph throws some interesting points— Percentage of Budget spent on Defence by Pakistan is higher in comparison with India and Indonesia—Percentage of Budget spent on Education by Pakistan is lower in comparison with India and Indonesia. So, one would step ahead and say that Pakistan is facing a crisis of Terrorism & Religious Extremism because of lack of attention for education. Before jumping to the above conclusion let us explore more about the same graph. The percentage of spending on Defence by Indonesia is less in comparison with India and Pakistan and the percentage of spending on Education by Indonesia is higher in comparison with India and Pakistan. So, obvious conclusion from the above statement is that Indonesia is more progressive.

Unfortunately, the above two obvious conclusions contradict each other. Pakistan is the epicenter of Global terrorism, Shia-Sunni hatred, etc..,. Indonesia too gets a good rank when it comes to the degrees of terrorism; killing of Ahmadiyya’s to name few. So, I can safely say that less expenditure on Defence is really not a good option for good governance and more expenditure on Education doesn’t provide immunity from the problems of religious extremism.

To solve this puzzle, one should comprehend ‘Education’. Education given to children and literature fed to the young blood is the key. Countries which continuously inject hatred towards other religions as ‘knowledge’ and suicide for the cause of religion as ‘wisdom’ can never achieve peace even after spending 100% of budget on Education. It is an open secret that madrassas teaching is dubious and can be a security threat to the nation but the pseudo secular government has given the status of CBSE to the Madrasas. FYI- The terrorist group Indian Mujahideen, which claims responsibility for the various bomb blasts across the country, it has few senior software engineers working for them who were employees for multinational companies. Is the word ‘Education’ the satisfying answer?

Very often left liberals resort to their another lie—“Development is not equally distributed..A particular religion does not have equal opportunity…A particular religion is not included in building a society”. The above rhetoric is apt when it comes to expressing opinion in news channels and live debates. For example let us understand the complexities involved – A normal muslim does not have the freedom to trade like others communities because of their obligation with sharia law. Children in muslim families doesn’t have the liberty to pursue higher studies especially girls because of the stone age orthodox rules. A substantial percentage of muslim population still prefers the madrassa education to their children. The secular governments in our country are coming with solutions for these issues like the ‘Islamic Banking’ where the banking rules oblige with the sharia law. Religious Reservations are being introduced to encourage muslim students to pursue higher studies. Do the measures taken by secular governments help the marginalized community? YOU decide it.

Tehelka – The weekly independent magazine has a fantastic history. This independent magazine suspects that 26/11 Mumbai attacks were a conspiracy of Hindu Terrorists and it also feels that comic ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ can be used for killing innocent muslims. The quality and authenticity of the sting operations done by this fearless magazine is well known and expecting worthy articles from Tehleka is same like expecting a life time warranty on goods brought from China Bazaar. The below is a snapshot of ‘Tehelka’s’ Left Liberalism and the same left liberal rhetoric reply and justification given when asked for clarification.

Tehelka's tweet on Maoist attack...

Reply given when asked about that tweet.

Few weeks back I was browsing few Bangladeshi websites as they have jointly hosted the cricket world cup with the sub continent nations and I was curious to know the opinion of Bangladeshi people, opinion of the online community to be more precise – Accidentally I came across this blog.

Image Courtesy: www.shahidulnews.com

I have read some tweets where people show their sympathy for such pathetic situation and also take pun saying that 'some people complain about Insomina in A/C bed rooms but have a look at them.' The typical style adopted by many to squash away the real issue. Just think for few seconds, my questions might be harsh, prejudicial and rude, but think and try to get an answer. Does a garment worker need so many off-springs? Is he under any compulsion to produce so many children? Think and get an answer.

When the Left Liberals are asked genuine questions, they elude them with the same rhetoric, they open their safety valve to escape the pressure and eventually come with nonsense like ‘Root causes, lack of education, injustice, No equal opportunities, bullhshit, etc.., ’. These safety valves are now a common scene-- they help these left liberals to escape from facing the litmus test.

When a left liberal is asked straight questions, they desperately try to get out of the situation by repeating the same bullshit, if you force them with your logic, you end up being tagged as a Internet Hindu or be labeled as Hindutvawadi, let me tell you-being labeled as a right winger is the first level of success, your are bound to be discouraged with such attack but move ahead with a strong ego, press for more clear answers by asking them to close their safety valves. Your argument has morally won the battle when the left liberal has opened his/her safety valve.

Useful References

• Outlook's article on Gujarati Muslims.
• Madrasa education to be CBSE equivalent.
• Tehelka - 26/11 - Hindu Terrorists.
• Tehelka- 'Amar Chitra Katha' comic can be used to kill muslims.
• Indian Mujahideen member is a software engineer working for a MNC. 

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