In Response to a Junior from Presidency College

Dear Junior,

The name Presidency College invokes a rather wide array of emotions in me. Even today as I walk through that gate or climb up those stairs, history whispers to me tales from a glorious past, a splendid heritage inspires reverence. I have been lucky to be taught by some of the best teachers at Presidency. That I could ever sit in a classroom, where the likes of Prof. Taraknath Sen and Prof. Bhabatosh Dutta ever taught, overwhelms me. Yes, I am a very proud Presidencian! Presi was my first citadel of freedom. Be it good or bad, whatever I am today has much to do with those two years I spent there.

Image Courtesy: IBN Live

I also know of another Presidency; a dim and dark dungeon where a girl, about your age was most thoroughly brainwashed. The thought of this Presidency makes me go numb in fear! Let me share her story with you. Once there was this inexperienced and foolish young girl who wanted to usher in positive changes overnight. Her restlessness made her vulnerable. Thus started a process to indoctrinate her with a dreadful ideology.  Her seniors (some of them are now in Police custody) whom she looked up to would give her left radical literature to read. She would be taken to Naxalite congregations. Her faculty for reasoning however had not totally subsided, she could still see through their insincerity, but she would be snubbed off every time she tried to voice her doubts. Her logics would be deemed as ‘inherent reactionary tendencies’. As it happens, after a point she gave in. She somehow stood convinced and even before she realized it herself; she was editing pamphlets for the PCAPA. That girl was I. When the chief minister in her imperfect English tries to put it across that frontal organizations of underground groups are active in the elite institutions of the city, she is speaking the truth and I know it from my experience.

Pune 52 - The Desi Film Noir?

May be its my love for it which makes me look every frame with the lens of Film Noir. I had a chance to look at the trailer and poster of "Pune 52", a Marathi film. At the first look, i felt that it was bold and the poster reminded me of the works of one of my favorite director Jean-Pierre Melville.

The poster was resembling the shot from one of Melville's film  "Le Doulos".

Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Doulos" - 1962.

The Film Noir genre is not something new, nor experimental, nor just a temporary fascination for Indian Cinema. There are many Indian films which can safely be placed in this genre, especially a bunch of Telugu films between 1950-1965 period. I hope to start the my pending post on Telugu Noir soon. Below are the poster and trailer of "Pune 52".

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Probably the best tribute to Raymond Chandler

The frames spoke with similitudes, I could sense nostalgic moments creeping into my mind, but couldn’t discover that it was trying to suggest a narrative style of a writer, with a comic touch.

It is Philip Marlowe, it was hard to read between the lines – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is probably the best tribute to detective fiction writer ‘Raymond Chandler’ who once said that halfwits could guess the suspects of Hercule Poirot’s cases and a rumor involving him which suggested that he called Alfred Hitchcok a ‘fat bastard’.

If you are a hardcore film noir fan like me, there is a possibility that you may have watched the classics like ‘Murder, My Sweet’, ‘Double Indemnity’, the confusing ‘The Big Sleep’ and the audacious ‘Lady in the Lake’. All these film noirs were perfect examples for novel narration of detective genre and they couldn’t have been possible without Raymond Chandler. The above classics were followed by Robert Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’ and the old Philip Marlowe played by Robert Mitchum in ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ but I could never find another Philip Marlowe.

Yes... he is Philip Marlowe, but never says that he is..

Harry Lockhart played by Robert Downey, Jr. in Shane Black's 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'is kind of an alter ego of Philip Marlowe. He is vulnerable, poor in English grammar and also poor at mathematics (when he unintentionally puts a bullet into a guy’s head) and says that there was 8% chance, he finds himself at wrong places at the right time and most importantly he is a detective (I mean…he bluffs that he is a detective).

You just can’t miss this Philip Marlowe. Watch it!

Cuss words of Indian Media

I am often compelled to think weather majority of us who have the instincts to react to the injustices and prejudices in society(via media) have ever pondered to deconstruct the truth behind the news and the malicious intention of the messenger. Lets us all (if not all, at least most of us) agree that we are lazy scumbags who take and agree what is given to us even though it is crap.

These days, we are being told that social media is irresponsible. The padma awardee journo is one of the protagonist of this movement, when the irresponsible social media was brainstorming the mainstream media over their silence on a CD, the padma awardee journo was quick to come with words like 'public interest, privacy, etc...'. I am again asking the same question again, what offense did Nityanada commit? why was he termed as 'Sex Swamy' by these media houses and journalists who carry morality, privacy and freedom on their shoulders?

On what categorization is Nityananda distinguished which forced our journalists to term him as sex swamy and throw mud on his privacy and under what interest did the media houses report and telecast the XXX tapes of him?. Doesn't Nityananda have the same privacy rights like others?. What national importance and public interest did the padma awardee journo discover in some xxx tapes and why did they fail to recognize the 'Right to Privacy' in those tapes and what made them enlightened in the recent xxx tapes?. Let me state my position on these tapes and such other issues - I am totally against anything which compromises the rights of an individual and which hurts his/her privacy, any act of such kind which suggests to be illegal should only be taken and discussed in court and no trial should be made by public and media.

Right To Education - RTE

Socialism is Evil.

I have said what i wanted to say in a nutshell in the first line, proceed and read to know the draconian 'Right To Education' bill, referred to other blog posts written by @realitycheckind on his blog and on CRI (Centre Right India)

and some gyan by Nietzsche on Education.

The entire system of higher education in Germany has lost what matters most: the end as well as the means to the end. That education, that Bildung, is itself an end — and not "the Reich" — and that educators are needed to that end, and not secondary-school teachers and university scholars — that has been forgotten. Educators are needed who have themselves been educated, superior, noble spirits, proved at every moment, proved by words and silence, representing culture which has grown ripe and sweet — not the learned louts whom secondary schools and universities today offer our youth as "higher wet nurses." Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions, the very first condition of education: hence the decline of German culture. One of this rarest of exceptions is my venerable friend, Jacob Burckhardt in Basel: it is primarily to him that Basel owes its pre-eminence in humaneness.

What the "higher schools" in Germany really achieve is a brutal training, designed to prepare huge numbers of young men, with as little loss of time as possible, to become usable, abusable, in government service. "Higher education" and huge numbers — that is a contradiction to start with. All higher education belongs only to the exception: one must be privileged to have a right to so high a privilege. All great, all beautiful things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum. What contributes to the decline of German culture? That "higher education" is no longer a privilege — the democratism of Bildung, which has become "common" — too common. Let it not be forgotten that military privileges really compel an all-too-great attendance in the higher schools, and thus their downfall.

In present-day Germany no one is any longer free to give his children a noble education: our "higher schools" are all set up for the most ambiguous mediocrity, with their teachers, curricula, and teaching aims. And everywhere an indecent haste prevails, as if something would be lost if the young man of twenty-three were not yet "finished," or if he did not yet know the answer to the "main question": which calling? A higher kind of human being, if I may say so, does not like "callings," precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes time, he does not even think of "finishing": at thirty one is, in the sense of high culture, a beginner, a child. Our overcrowded secondary schools, our overworked, stupefied secondary-school teachers, are a scandal: for one to defend such conditions, as the professors at Heidelberg did recently, there may perhaps be causes — reasons there are none.

~ Twilight of the Idols

శ్రీ వేంకటేశుని వైభవం

శ్రీ వేంకటేశుని వైభవం చూతము రారండి,
శ్రీనివాసుని పాదాభివందనం చేతము రండి.
నిత్యకల్యాణ నిజశోభ నెలవంకకైనా కలదా,
ఆ వేవేల రతనాల కాంతి మన స్వామిదే అవదా.

ఏంతో ఎత్తునున్న ఆ ఏడుకొండలవాడు,
జనులందరికి అండగా కొండపై నిలుచున్నాడు.
గోవర్థనమెత్తిన గోవర్ధనుడు ఈ గోవిందుడు,
ఉడత భక్తిని మెచ్చిన రాముడు ఈ రమణుడు.

కలిగించు నీపై భక్తి మా హ్రుదయాలలో,
కురిపించు నీ కరుణ మా లోగిళ్ళలో.
నిన్ను చేరాలనే తలుపు కలిగించు మా మనసులో,
చెర్చుకో నీ పాదాల చెంత హరి పాదరేణువులలో.

అహో ఆ శ్రీ వేంకటేశుని వైభవం,
చాలవు ఈ రెండు కళ్ళు,చాలదు నూరెళ్ళ ఈ జన్మ.
ఆహా ఆ కళ్యాణరాముని కరుణ,
పొందాలి అందరు ప్రతి జన్మలో, జన్మాంతరాలు ఇక లేకుండా.

-- మీ సాయి కార్తీక్