Mdeii life

Tamil Cinema Flasafy

2010-11-22T18:20:00.003+05:30

There is a general fear among sound mixers in Tamil cinema that the dialogue track might not be intelligible unless it is significantly louder than anything else. This means subtlety and any sort of voice dynamic acting suffers.

I have a feeling that it is not just the lack of standards in theatre audio that is the problem.

Tamil cinema works this way:
Most people are averse to any kind of innovation be it technical or aesthetic.
Most films do not succeed.

Consequently a film's failure is attributed to that innovation and then is promptly killed. If on the other hand a film succeeds then that innovation becomes fashionable enough to become the new dogma.

If a very subtly mixed track happens to feature in a hit film... my future is made.

Privacy, innovation, the credit crunch, and free-speech, via Hirschman

2009-03-30T11:40:00.004+05:30

Chandrachoodan has has speculated that the clamour for privacy stifles innovation in web companies.

In many respects I agree with him that as a voluntary subscriber of a service, one does tacitly agree to the potential risks that come with an innovative product. What if they steal my credit card number? What if they know how large my penis is? Well, bulk ordering condoms online does have such risks attached, but it is so much more convenient no? And who ever asked these people to buy those houses?

Yet, there are certain things in his argument that don't cut it for me; and C being the nice chap he is had a brisk chat with me this morning so that I could clarify my arguments and write this here.

His primary case is for hitherto undiscovered and gloriously beneficial uses of mined data. Now come on, what if there is conclusive proof that those whose visits to the Savita Bhabhi website consistently lasts more than 7.5 minutes everyday have erectile dysfunction? A strategically placed advertisement could save many relationships.

Granted, mindless activism stifles innovation in the name of keeping the best interests of the consumer in mind. But dear Chandru comes up with an equally audacious Orwellian claim to highlight his point: "information about you is essential to safeguard you".

For being respectable proud Capitalists, we tend to be extremely vary of any and every Commie trick.

Unfortunatement!

The market is self correcting, the market is perfect, and the market is good... and that is where we fuck up. For all this to be true, one needs to do two things: have a defined idea of what 'the market' is, and believe that optimum solutions are best solutions. i.e. make a value judgement (always positive in case of Capitalists and negative if your persuasion is Commie) of the 'market product'.

In my continually evolving understanding, neither does the 'market' exist with finite definition, nor is it wise to call it 'good' (or bad). Any high-school nerd who reads Shaiva siddhantha via popular quantum mechanics will tell you that what we desire to understand just is... neither wave not particle. Well, the market is a process, an emergent process, and like the Shiva lingam... just is!

So to attribute values to the outcome of a market process is dubious, more dubious is to assume positive externalities and enforce our limited understanding of the Market/Shivam to define and conserve it.

As a result we believe that "information about you is essential to safeguard you". Why not? We did tell that guy who saw his bank taking up them securitized mortgages, "What on earth you complainin' about, you risk-averse commie nitwit? Don't you know this is the Market? If we sell a duff product, it is rejected. Plus look at what the credit agencies are saying?"

Albert O Hirschman spoke about ‘exit’ and ‘voice’. Basically, as a consumer when you have the option to exit you do. When you have the option to voice, likewise. When exiting is difficult you voice, and when voicing is difficult you bloody well try and exit.

In politics we call ‘voice’ free-speech. And that is because not all nations have open borders that somehow glorious market competition and consumer ‘exit’ will ensure freedom and justice. Unqualified free-speech is essential in the absence/limits of exit (or entry) options.

Therefore, dissent is very much part of that emergent market process. If we think that dissent kills innovation, we must also remember that if there is money to be made of an innovative product, at-least the next bloody inventor will tailor his product to minimise consumer resistance or opposition. Therefore you have innovation as well as safeguards. And products evolve until we get extremely interesting things such as securitized mortgages. This belated, and therefore harder market correction is going to make that innovative product just that bit better.

So it is not just wonky incentives, and copy-cat mentality that perpetuates stupid and risky products or web services. It is also the really dim understanding that Shivaroopam is Shivam. That if it looks like the Market, it is perfect and needs no correction. The Commie cannot kill Capitalism, but can surely thrive on its carcass! As a result you have more regulation, less innovation, and are well on your way on the road to serfdom.

Fundae putting and news roundup

2009-03-24T21:32:00.004+05:30

Q: What do we usually say when we sign off?
Ans: Tata

Q: What does Mork say when he signs off?
Ans: Nano Nano!

See, we are getting somewhere on this already. But wait, not yet done.

Q: What does Mork mean in Rhyming Slang?
Ans: Windy

Q: What is name of the wind god?
Ans: Vaayu

Stay with me... this is taking us somewhere proper.

Q: What is the name of Vaayu's son?
Ans: Hanuman

So there! That is Tata already telling Maruti, "Who's your daddy? I'm your daddy!"

Q: But who is the real father of Maruti?
Ans: Sanjay Gandhi

Which makes Varun Gandhi the half-brother of Hanuman, (who headed the "Ram Sena"). See... now that explains why Varun hates muslims. But hang on, there is more.

Q: Who else might be violating the model code of conduct, and why?
Ans: Tata, by releasing Nano (linkthanks Ravikiran)

Q: What else got Tata'd and Nano Nano'd out of India this week?
Ans: IPL

Objection milaad! எதிர் தரப்பு வக்கீல் சம்பந்தம் இல்லாத கேள்விகளை எழுப்பி சாட்சியை குழப்புகிறார். IPLக்கும் Model Codeக்கும் என்ன சம்பந்தம்?
சம்பந்தம் இருக்கு yuvar aaner!
Objection overruled. You may proceed!

Q: Who heads the IPL?
Ans: Modi

Q: What is common between hating muslims, Tata Nano, and the name of the IPL boss?
Ans: Modi

Wait a minute, that is cleverly avoiding first names...

Q: Would anything that points to a Modi success be construed as violating the model code?
Ans: Maybe

But that is a different Modi...

Q: Where is the IPL being moved to?
Ans: South Africa

Q: Who got Tata'd and Nano Nano'd out of South Africa this week?
Ans: The Dalai Lama

Q: Who else got Tata's and Nano Nano'd in South Africa in 1893?
Ans: Gandhi

Q: Who did not do Tata or Nano Nano to Dalai Lama in 1959?
Ans: Nehru

Q: What is the Nehru family called now?
Ans: Gandhi

Q: What is common between Modi and Gandhi?
Ans: There are two different Modis, and there were two different Gandhis, but all four are Gujjew names

Q: Talking about names, what is the Nano being called?
Ans: The people's car among other things

Q: Who else called what else the people's car?
Ans: (Answer hidden due to violation of Godwin's law)

Q: Who else hates the Dalai Lama?
Ans: The people's republic

Q: The Nano was originally supposed to be manufactured in?
Ans: The people's state of West Bengal

Q: What is the state of the people of West Bengal?
Ans: Pathetic (among other Ps)

Q: Does West Bengal have an IPL team?
Ans: The Kolkata Knight Riders

Q: Do the Gujjews have an IPL team?
Ans: The Baroda Bombers... no, they do not exist

Hmm, I see a pattern here. Having an IPL team means not having a car factory...

Q: Who co-owns the Kolkata Knight Riders?
Ans: Chawla

Q: What is the name of the election commissioner?
Ans: Chawla

Q: Who likes Chawla as election commissioner?
Ans: The people's daily of Chennai

Q: Which other Tam has a spat with the IPL?
Ans: Chidambaram

Q: Which other comedian is as irritating as Chidambaram?
Ans: Robin Williams

Q: Is Chawla a Gujjew name?
Ans: No, it is a Punjew name

Q: Do the Muslims hate the Jews?
Ans: Maybe

Q: Which Indian leader is compared to the most famous Jew hater of them all?
Ans: Boderline Godwin's law violation, but Modi

But wait, if Modi hates Muslims, and Hitler hated Jews, and Muslims hate Jews, does Modi hate Hitler?

It gets more complicated... If China hates the Dalai Lama and West Bengal loves China, but West Bengal lost Nano to Modi, and Hitler hated the Communists... do the the Communists hate Robin Williams?

If N Ram loves Chawla, but hates the Dalai Lama, do the Kolkata Knight Riders love South Africa?

If Chidambaram hates Modi, and Modi moves IPL, and Tata moves Nano factory, do the Punjews love Gandhi?

If there are two Modis, two Gandhis and two Chawlas, does this explain the name of Varun's book of poems?

As you can see, everything is connected... and as you ponder the profundity... it is time for me to say tata, nano nano!

On why only pompous gits might read The Hindu

2009-01-10T10:24:00.003+05:30

On the front page of today's Hindu is this classic headline:

"Order allowing plea challenging appointment of Ananth stayed" (link)

Now, unless you are Humphrey Appleby intent on throwing your interlocutor entirely out of the loop of understanding by unnecessarily, and by implication utterly callously employing a complicated syntax, thereby effacing your possibly deductible bias, while simultaneously projecting an air of informed formality and rigorous neutrality, obfuscating clarity by employing a redundant turn of phrase, and entirely out of the necessity of not creating unwanted non-negatives proving you are a pompous git, why would you write a headline such as that?

The Times of India on the other hand, spares our brains the gymnastics and says:
"HC backs Ananth as IIT-Madras head"

...

Can you think of other great headlines that can now be Hindufied? Here are a few. Add more in the comments.

Kurukshetra, 7th May 1040BC
Krishna clarifies stand on claims of his not referring to battle elephant while denying his lack of ignorance on the non-demise of Teacher's son

Jerusalem, 4th April 32
Pontius Pilate quashes rumours of his possible support to the alleged non-existence of the Judaen People's Front (J)

New Delhi, 30th January 1948
Paternal Parent of the Nation allegedly assaulted by possible man wielding projectile weapon resulting in no-uncertain termination of living functions of the former

Washinton DC, 20th July 1969
American President denies reports of him as not announcing possible lunar contact by humans

Benicio del காளை

2009-01-06T20:51:00.004+05:30

One of the charms of Indian politics is in observing the string of dead people one is allowed to invoke in posters and campaigns. I remember watching on TV a chap who put up posters for Velupillai Prabhakaran's birthday (fateful day that was). Interestingly enough, that birthday boy poster had pictures of EVR Periyar and Ambedkar in it!! I suppose anything goes in Tamil Nadu.

A few days later I happened to be in southern AP (colloquially, an extension of northern Madras) and not to be outdone, Chiranjeevi had inducted Mother Teresa into his pantheon of duotone thumbnail mugs.

But recently, what had me cracking up was this:

Meandering thoughts roughly guided by UCSD, Ibn Battuta, and others

2009-01-01T20:05:00.005+05:30

The University of California at San Diego runs this absolutely fascinating course called Making of the Modern World. Apart from a very interesting interdisciplinary (literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, political science, and the fine arts) approach to understanding the world and its history, it boasts of some utterly engrossing lectures by Prof. Matthew Herbst.

I first got to know of this when JK wrote about and linked to the MMW4 (fall semester) lectures that were being podcast. I promptly subscribed to the feed and was immediately hooked. Of course me being a slightly clumsy git, forgot to heed JK's warning, and only managed to get lectures 1 through 9 (plus 19 courtesy iTunes automation) before the podcast was killed and all its traces Stalinized. If anyone is reading this at all, I would be happy if you could help me get hold of the rest of the lectures. Thanks in advance.

The early lectures of MMW4 that I have listened to now have kindled my interest in the 13th century Islamic world. I now want to go to Morocco and follow Ibn Battuta's travels. Would even love to go take that course at Eleanor Roosevelt College if I could (Alas I need to earn my booah no?). Have been advised by the lovely Adrianna that I should go to Turkey at least. Though I think learning Arabic and smoking up with some Sufis might only be a remote possibility.

The other great history podcast I listen to is a vestige of my Radio 4 listening days in Bristol, In Our Time with Melvin Bragg. It is through this wonderful programme that I first got a deeper glance at the contributions of the medieval Islamic world. Heck, no Avicenna and Averroes, then no Thomas Aquinas, which means no Latin or Enlish Aristotle nor Plato, down to no Karl Popper even. So much so for western civilization Dr Pandey rightly calls it names! (OK that is a simplistic version of probable events, but you get the implications).

Recently I have been putting some gyan on the Satin mailing list about fractals and religion and state and law and ideas and Jefferson and Iannaccone. Once I clarify my thoughts I might even blog it, but I now have a better understanding of the 13th century Islamic world. Contrast it with how things are today, and it is sad indeed how history has turned out to be.

Meandering further on that thought, I recently finished reading William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal. The first thing that book taught me was a gentle questioning of Edward Said's critique of Orientalism, in the spirit I first encountered in Trautmann's Aryans and British India. Yet, the most important thing I took from Dalrymple's brilliant book was its Burkean warning about learning from history. And talking about books and history, Chapati Mystery has put together a mouth-watering list.

Now, trying to cleverly reconnect my bibliophilic detour back to Prof Herbst's lecture, here is an interesting book he refers to: Before European Hegemony by Janet L. Abu-Lughod. (psst, dont be put off by words like subaltern and hegemony, yes it gets quite irritating after undergrad in places like Loyola or DU, but an open mind is always good). For someone like me who likes to dabble in economics, trade, politics, and their history, this book should be a very good place to spend some time in.

...

(the curious punctuation above points to a general drought of any more clever ways of connecting the next random series of thoughts to the ones before)

Interestingly, today's lazy afternoon TV watching yielded via Dan Cruickshank the knowledge of a Hindu Temple in Azerbaijan. Wikipedia says that:

Quote

Inscriptions in the temple in Sanskrit (in Nagari Devanagari script) and Punjabi (in Gurmukhi script) identify the sanctity as a place of Hindu and Sikh worship. These inscriptions date from Samvat 1725 to Samvat 1873, which though unambiguous references to the Hindu calendar, cannot be precisely dated since there is more than one Samvat calendar. Samvat 1725 could thus be either c. 1646 CE or c. 1782 CE. However, "local records say that it was built by a prominent Hindu traders community living in Baku and its construction coincided with the fall of the dynasty of Shirwanshahs and annexation by Russian Empire following Russo-Iranian war [of 1722-1723]."

Unquote

Who would have thunk eh?

I guess all my knowledge-gathering reflected in this post is a desperate attempt to understand and appreciate the region before something dreadful happens. Somehow recent (and protracted ancient events) have left me with ugly premonitions of the whole shithouse from the Middle-East through Central-Asia to the Indian subcontinent going up in flames. Maybe I'm just projecting my own recent anxieties on a part of the world (probably falsely) considered to be always volatile. On that note, Happy New Year!

H Shridhar RIP

2008-12-03T19:43:00.003+05:30

Not a great thing to hear on your birthday. One of the first calls I received delivered the news that the man I look up to as a role model passed away.

Malfunctioning Technology, serendipity, and nostalgia

2008-11-13T21:39:00.005+05:30

My bloglines feedreader has started playing truant. Yet again. It suddenly threw up the last 200 posts from almost every blog on the list, then it has now done something crazier, bringing up 200 posts from 2004 and 2005.

Now that is something. Errant technology arbitrarily showing glimpses from the past, bringing back memories.

The tsunami blog was abuzz with activity, BBC news spoke of fans being in the wrong queues for the latest Star Wars film. The BBC's now closed Discovering Music podcast briefly was on again. Complete irony happened when bloglines also threw up a Boing Boing post from Nov 2004 about badly behaved RSS readers.

I was completely moved when it showed that Lalita Mukherjea's blog had new unread posts for me. Best of all was that the old Maanga came back alive, including a post from Sep 13 2006, which TON had personally addressed to me. I know you are reading this. I love you TON, and miss your writing!

Ancient History of Test Cricket

2008-11-07T21:50:00.002+05:30

Dr Pandey writes about the Ancient History of Test Cricket in his family blog.

What I learnt from Obama

2008-11-07T19:34:00.003+05:30

Actually what Toyota first taught, Obama has reaffirmed. A campaign and a product which understands and exploits current circumstances can destroy all myths about what a country will or will not accept and make popular. Now I'm even more confident of breaking into the American movie market. Hollywood is too caught up its complexities anyway.

Viva La Vida Reading

2008-07-04T21:07:00.003+05:30

Frankly all I know about Frida Kahlo is what Sharanya told me when she swapped my freaky fizzy drink for a shot of ginger ale. But I was already sold because Salma Hayek played her in the movie.

Venue: Madras War Cemetery, Nandambakkam, Chennai
Sunday, 6th July 2008 at 10 AM

RSVP:sharanya(dot)manivannan(at)gmail(dot)com
chandrachoodan(at)gmail(dot)com (98844 67463)

A Crisis of Faith

2008-06-13T19:49:00.002+05:30

Having convinced myself that everything has an explanation, I find myself in the unenviable position of both going through a lot of trouble, and being unable to explain it in any rational way.

Worse: Having convinced myself that since everything has an explanation, anything can be sorted out, was something I shouldn't have erroneously believed in!

Sometimes I suppose things are not just beyond your control, but beyond understanding, and that is when you should not try to 'fix it'!

Woe, and a quest for reasonable explanations

2008-05-26T10:19:00.003+05:30

Miracles don't happen, accepted. But what about coincidences, regression to the mean, blind luck, or generally positive randomness? You know, the stuff that makes people believe in miracles. What if they don't seem to be working as well? If things just happen to be one steep descent into the darkness, you think there is something really screwy and sinister, and this tends to make you believe in sabotage and conspiracies.

Now in my coldly moral scheme of things, imagined persecution and miracles both occupy roughly the same place. But somehow social reinforcement and a general optimism places miracles at a higher pedestal with a sincere incentive to believe in it.

That leaves me in a bit of trouble doesn't it? You would call that the optimists curse.

The relentless string of flops, disappointments, shocks, and hurdles would then have to be understood as being part of an even larger randomness, and that I have not given it sufficient time or space to even out. Or maybe, and it is quite possible, this rough patch (if it ever ends) is actually a long overdue 'correction' for all the 'miracles' that have happened before.

So, being a recipient of good fortune in the past comes back to bite as well. Shit!

One way is to not look at the 'fruits of labour' at all, and transform the optimism miracle-belief into a total surrender to its will. Vaishnavism is so damn tempting, just that it would involve Iyengars!

The other option would be to abandon optimism, and endure the great levelling with a Hobbesian resignation. I might be getting it wrong here, but I have a strong suspicion that this quasi-essentialist argument would combine with some amount of reasonable self-pity to drive me to eventually clamor for theothernilu's proposed Bastard Quota. That is way too off my taste, even in the worst of times.

For a self-proclaimed optimist, I do seem to be able to only divine rather nasty options for myself. Could just be the sign of the times. Or probably I just need to go get a life!

PS: Now wait! I might be getting the entire premise wrong. What if there is no 'great levelling'? What if the randomness is not Gaussian, yet not chaotically so, but exhibits a stable Paretian trend? Hmm... I think I need to think about that. Maybe optimism is not that bad after all. Now how do I go about measuring these things?

Crows

2008-05-13T21:01:00.003+05:30

We feed crows every morning, and every time I have set up to take pictures of them eating hot rice like good brahmin ancestors, they never turned up. Too smart to be seen on camera I suppose.

Miscellanea

2008-05-08T19:55:00.005+05:30

Priya Venkatesan has become the latest, and best ever to have scuttled another Mrs Pandey draft post. In fact she has absolutely rattled the poor old woman.

Chennai Super Kings are alright, but so far my favourite player has been Piyush Chawla.

I have been out in the sun (briefly) and it is not as hot as it could be. The evenings are splendid.

In three years time when the global film industry goes through another lull, I have an idea that could potentially rake in millions (no, not just betting on it to go through the said slump). BTW for those of you still interested, some of the latest FICCI figures for the Indian E&M industry do not add up, or are terrible typos, or both.

Since I am not into substance abuse, please tell me how else I could give my wit and spirit a 'shot-in-the-arm' that would last a few weeks at-least. I badly need it. Please do not suggest a holiday as I cannot immediately afford one. So whatever you suggest should be feasible within my current work schedule. Thanks.

Witchcraft

2008-04-07T22:37:00.004+05:30

Once in a while there comes along an interesting project brought to you by some very talented people. Here you can find a set of recordings I made of the very talented Sharanya Manivannan reading from her forthcoming book Witchcraft.

Flickr Pro

2008-04-07T22:13:00.004+05:30

I've finally decided to pay for something that's an online service. I've gone Pro on Flickr. Check out my pictures here. Having invested in a யானை of a camera, might as well get the அங்குசம்!

Oh! One of the advantages of working where I do is the facility to get pictures of things such as this.

Seemingly innocuous, retro cool even, but certainly, utterly, even meaninglessly fetishistic... a little piece of Tamil movie history. If interested I could actually get you a list of songs recorded on this machine, from the engineers who did most of the recordings.

RIP Minghella

2008-03-18T20:53:00.003+05:30

The one time I met 'Ant' was when I blagged my way into his masterclass at the Watershed at Brief Encounters 2005. He was scripting Breaking and Entering then. I greatly admire his work on The English Patient and Cold Mountain. Minghella was a close collaborator of my favourite movie geek Walter Murch.

The book I'm currently reading, Charles Koppelman's Behind the Seen is a fascinating look at how Murch worked on Cold Mountain, and provides lots of insights into Anthony Minghella's workings as well. Was also lining up a viewing of Breaking and Entering, DVD courtesy a dear cousin. I shall now read the rest of the book and watch the movie, with a little bit of regret.

Shocking

2008-03-16T20:18:00.003+05:30

In the absence of technology other than standard definition, static, normal-speed television cameras, when the field umpires refer things like small edges and LBWs to the third, then they are almost never given out.

Constructive Editing

2008-02-05T20:12:00.000+05:30

David Bordwell writes this very enlightening piece about the history and the practice of constructive editing, and aptly titles it “What happens between shots happens between your ears”. Well worth a read.

What are the Pakistanis on?

2008-02-03T11:34:00.000+05:30

I know little about self-reported happiness research, but this observation by Dani Rodrik is quite interesting and amusing.

Now what are the Pakistani's on? Bollywood again?

Comic book artists

2008-01-31T10:01:00.000+05:30

Not quite Goscinny & Uderzo yet, but Mihir and I are getting there. This piece at Mihir's excellent illustration blog is the result of a little workshop we attended with French artist François Dermaut. The story was something that came up at the event, and the two of us decided to team up to storyboard and illustrate it.

The picture at The Hindu's website has Mihir talking to Dermaut, and in the far right corner standing behind Mihir, you can see me (actually only the piece of chart I was holding) in my very last public appearance sporting long hair.

TATA Nano

2008-01-11T06:34:00.000+05:30

I do find the name a little boring, but that's an entirely different story.

What gets my goat is all these car-owning rich people who seem to be having ‘nightmares’ about all those irresponsible poor people who are suddenly now set to pollute the environment and clog up our streets.

I've come to demand an apology

2008-01-08T20:34:00.000+05:30

Uh what for?

I don't appreciate being called a bastard!

Fair enough!
(turns around to rest of team)
Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?

Now that's an idea for Brad Hogg!

The Battle of Hoth, papercraft style

2008-01-01T18:09:00.000+05:30

This New Year, (for whatever a change of date matters) I decided to finish last-year's unfinished business before resolving to take up anything new.

My papercraft AT-AT had been lying unfinished for a while now. Today, I decided to spend some quality time cutting and scoring and folding and pasting some limbs onto this baby.

For the full album including a picture of my own crumpled-t-shirted-in-messy-room-holidayness, visit my Facebook album Papercraft AT-AT.

Or if you drop in at my place, you can find me making funny ‘pew! pew! pew!’ laser sounds while manually articulating little paper gun-turrets.

You can find instructions and downloadable PDFs here. Yeah Yeah, the Japaneesu againu!

The deed is done

2007-12-19T23:45:00.000+05:30

Everyone needs a change once in a while!

Lost Purposes

2007-11-25T17:05:00.000+05:30

Eliezer Yudkowsky's piece Lost Purposes is another one of those thought-provoking things that he regularly churns out at Overcoming Bias.

He writes:
"As you read this, some young man or woman is sitting at a desk in a university, earnestly studying material they have no intention of ever using, and no interest in knowing for its own sake. They want a high-paying job, and the high-paying job requires a piece of paper, and the piece of paper requires a previous master's degree, and the master's degree requires a bachelor's degree, and the university that grants the bachelor's degree requires you to take a class in 12th-century knitting patterns to graduate. So they diligently study, intending to forget it all the moment the final exam is administered, but still seriously working away, because they want that piece of paper."

He continues to explore the intricacies of what is well spelt out in the title of his blog-post.

Take for example the case for a film school in Chennai. Going by the quote above, one should think that it would not get into the rut of producing graduates with paper diplomas because the 'industry' values performance more than paper. In fact, one would safely assume that since the industry is quite comfortable with its apprentice system of education, a film school would actually have to produce performers in order to stay alive.

Of course this might be quite true for the government run film-schools which anyway do not depend on the patronage of the industry to exist. I do not have the numbers to back up a claim that formal education is of no effect in the mainstream industry. It appears that I have to go by 'perception'. But maybe the general absence of any reputable organised private training institutes (considering the scope, scale, and age of the Indian film industry) could point to the irrelevance of formal organised training as far as the film industry is concerned? So taking up 'perception', barring 'technicians' there is generally very little respect for aesthetes out of film school.

So here the general conclusion would be that the idea of lost purposes would not apply to a private film school. This sounds too good to be true (not that this doubt is any cause to deny its correctness).

We need to see at what point in the evolution of the film industry does a formal film-school become relevant, and even possible? This considering the fact that the industry itself has somehow found an optimum in non-formal education. (I seriously doubt the other assumption that the government film-schools were sufficient).

Many hail the 'corporatisation' of the the film-industry as the big thing that is going to take the industry by storm. This necessarily involves a restructuring of 'employment' within the industry. Here is where a paper diploma becomes useful for its paper. And correspondingly, this has seen a sudden surge in the number of private film-schools.

OK, before I come across as a Gandhian champion of subsistence filmmaking, where everybody somehow seemed to have learnt with a 'purpose', I have to start rethinking what employment really means in the film industry.

Am I to assume that somehow everybody found their 'purpose' before blind corporatisation turned them into mindless and purposeless proletariats? No. Am I also to assume, in extension that corporatisation is going to suck creativity and accountability out of the system by getting rid of the close-knit information structures that helped recruitment in the past? No. Why not? Well, probably because for one, I am not a Gandhian romantic.

Even in subsistence-filmmaking, a job was still a job. If you got paid better climbing a ladder and holding onto a light, than sawing planks of wood and painting them pink, you would try to train yourself to climb heights. The sole 'purpose' is to get employed and make money not some romantic ideal of 'I would make a better grip or carpenter'. Smith, rather than Ricardo. Now this idea would be harder to reconcile when talking about other technicians or artists. “Surely, one does not become a Cinematographer just because it paid better, you need to have it in you”. But is this really true? Yes, you need to have it in you, but if you 'had' it, and then if it paid peanuts?

So even in the subsistence industry, employment and wages follow the same basic rules, but one other thing happens. The idea of 'purpose' gets romanticised. In a glamour industry where signalling plays a huge part in remuneration and status, connections and level at entry play a very important role. Ability, or qualification and ironically, ambition and 'purpose' have very little say.

This is probably the reason why formal education was disregarded, not because it was 'purposeless' but because qualification meant squat. I have already made the case why formal education is not something that is contradictory to informal teaching, but merely the evolution of how people skilled themselves.

Now if ambition and ability had nothing to do with how things were, how does this new 'corporate' culture with its 'lost purposes' fare any better? For one, in its 'ruthless' ways, the corporate would minimise the costs of 'signalling'. There will be those without purpose (as they always were) but the ones who will be more successful are the ones who can still find their own goals and work towards them. Julian Simon comes to mind. The corporate film industry is not ideal, but even less ideal is the feudal subsistence film industry. At-least in the former case, individual human enterprise is unleashed, and maybe even contemplate 'purpose'.

I ravvu de Japaneesu Part II

2007-11-19T20:32:00.000+05:30

(via)

A Delusion called the Free-Market (and gravity)

2007-11-15T14:24:00.000+05:30

This is the modified version of the letter I wrote to Amit Varma in response to his article in his web-log India Uncut, Changing the Law of Gravity, dated 15 November 2007.

Dear Mr Varma,

Apropos your piece entitled "Changing the Law of Gravity", Congressman Bill Sali makes a very valid point.

Every state is defined by its Constitution—a text which lays down the rules by which all actions within the nation can operate. Vaazhappazha had its Parashurama Sutra, England has its Magna Carta, and India and America have their own constitutions.

In America the law of the market and the law of gravity are specifically written down in their constitution. This is primarily a result of the era in which the American Founding Fathers lived, and their writing is a reflection of their belief system. Therefore America is where the market and gravity were said to exist (that is, until recently).

India, on the other hand is different. Since we were not founded on the principle of the free market and of gravity, but instead on socialism and the history of Hanuman having flown to Lanka, one cannot expect western values to be imposed on us. Unfortunately, the neo-liberals amongst us make the very mistake and point to the American constitution as an example.

In a curious development, Eastern (specifically Indian) historical texts have greatly influenced modern western ideas. In fact I would call most of it sheer plagiarism. Indian non-gravitational inventions such as the Pushpaka Vimana, and anti-gravitational ideas such as Hanuman flying up to the sun and Krishna lifting a mountain have all had a bearing on recent western thought and science.

The travel of Indian ideas to the rest of the world closely coincides with western non-gravitational inventions such as the aircraft and space-flight, and also non-gravitational concepts such as Superman and the Incredible Hulk. And if you notice carefully, all the things I have so far mentioned are in fact American.

Just as the legislation of the minimum wage and the New Deal came about as a result of market-failure, Superman and space-flight are a direct result of gravity-failure.

It is probably time for America to rethink its holy-cow constitution and come up with a text that recognises that far from the truth, the free market and gravity are both non-existent delusions. I am glad Congressman Sali has realised this, and I thank you for pointing our attention to this very uplifting piece of news.

Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Acharya Somuchidononanda Pandey
Hon. Director, Smirzkoff Centre for Historical Speculation in Pune, India
Director, Mehta-Vedic Sciences Project in London

Goethe and evolution

2007-11-13T22:02:00.000+05:30

Diegogarcity (there! I've used my new favourite word in a sentence) forced me to the Wikipedia entry on Goethe, and I quote from there:

"Goethe was also a cultural force, and by researching folk traditions, he created many of the norms for celebrating Christmas, and argued that the organic nature of the land moulded the people and their customs

"He argued that laws could not be created by pure rationalism, since geography and history shaped habits and patterns. This stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing Enlightenment view that reason was sufficient to create well-ordered societies and good laws.

"Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was a transition in European sensibilities, an increasing focus on sense, the indescribable, and the emotional. This is not to say that he was emotionalistic or excessive; on the contrary, he lauded personal restraint and felt that excess was a disease: “There is nothing worse than imagination without taste”. He argued in his scientific works that a “formative impulse”, which he said is operative in every organism, causes an organism to form itself according to its own distinct laws, and therefore rational laws or fiats could not be imposed at all from a higher, transcendent sphere; this placed him in direct opposition to those who attempted to form “enlightened” monarchies based on “rational” laws by, for example, Joseph II of Austria or, the subsequent Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. "

Now read about a Curious Inconsistency as written by Don Boudreaux. And from there go read about the Social Snowflakes as written by Steven Horwitz.

Ali Farka Touré

2007-11-02T20:38:00.000+05:30

Listened to some really trippy blues guitaring after a long time. I'm afraid it is only a matter of time before some Bollywood idiot steals the tunes (if it has not already happened).

One more elderly person for Alex Tabarrok's grandma to think about

2007-10-17T20:14:00.000+05:30

Apparently there lives in Coimbatore a certain Malayali gentleman who has a curious proposition to make. Said gentleman is single, has no ‘issue’, of reputedly very sound body, very very sound mind, and is 85 years old. But what makes his case interesting is the fact that he lives in a good part of town and owns what has been described by a reliable acquaintance as a rather neat, large flat.

This flat is said to be worth Rs. X Lakhs. Now, our nice man is ready to sell it for an incredible Rs. X-n Lakhs (n is also negotiable). Alas, to provide Navjot Singh Sidhu, who's conspicuously unemployed these days, some fodder, the octogenarian has an obligatory ‘but’.

"I shall generously chop off a few Lakhs from the contract and you pay me right away, but you can take possession of the house only when I have passed on.", says he.

This immediately struck me as an opening for a potentially absorbing tale. Sordid, maybe excruciatingly dense. Probably darkly comic, or thrilling even.

Briefly forgetting how he could draw up a legally valid contract for such an arrangement, think about this. Would you go in for this deal? If you do go for it, then what would be the terms of your contract? How would the two of you enforce it?

Also, help me here. I'm just incredibly curious as to what the hell a single old man wants to do with the Rs. X-n Lakhs he wants immediately.

The Spinning Girl

2007-10-16T12:15:00.000+05:30

Pre-empting XKCD

I ravvu de Japaneesu!

2007-10-04T19:43:00.000+05:30

Do not miss the commentators!

மக்கள் தீர்ப்பு

2007-10-02T21:38:00.000+05:30

"At the fast venue, DMK and alliance leaders were critical of the Supreme Court observations with one of them observing the court had ‘crossed its jurisdiction’.

"Bandh was a democratic form of protest and there was no constitutional breakdown, CPI leader D Raja said, adding that the majority of the government can be only tested on the floor of the legislature.

"Senior DMK leader and Union Minister TR Baalu wondered whether the courts were giving the right decisions. “Why would there be appeals or higher benches if every judge was right?”

— A bunch of idiots

Whereas

"For centuries efforts had been directed towards limiting the powers of government; and the gradual development of constitutions served no other purpose than this. Suddenly it was believed that the control of government by elected representatives of the majority made any other checks on the powers of government unnecessary, so that all the various constitutional safeguards which had been developed in the course of time could be dispensed with.

"Thus arose unlimited democracy — and it is unlimited democracy, not just democracy, which is the problem of today.

…

"The greatest and most important limitation upon the powers of democracy, which was swept away by the rise of an omnipotent representative assembly, was the principle of the ‘separation of powers’.

— F. A. Hayek, Whither Democracy?, 1978, The University of Chicago Press.

Of dying Elephants with names beginning in A

2007-10-02T13:23:00.000+05:30

Jumbo Arundhati to be put to sleep | Your Say

Aswattama, Arundhati... why is it always the elephants that have the misleading names. For a moment I was happy. Now I feel guilty for that!

Nothing new

2007-10-01T22:09:00.000+05:30

But it hurts a little to be repeatedly reminded that I voted to power some utter idiots! T R Baaaa(aa)lu is my MP... woe!

Sethusamudram and India's fortunes

2007-09-15T17:53:00.000+05:30

Even as I write this, the country is hotly debating the contentious Ramar-Sethu issue. On the one hand are government officials (since sacked) who have put on record their views that seem to purport that the entire stretch of the Sethu Bridge is not man made, and therefore by extension, and quite interestingly, the person who is believed to have organised its construction should have in fact been "man-made", so to say. On the other hand are groups of politically savvy religious zealots who would rather be comfortably ignorant of scientific opinion, and organise their belief system not on rationality, but on mythology (take the proponents of intelligent design in America for example).

Needless to explicitly state what side of the political, scientific and religious debate I find myself on, but nonetheless, rather than cloud the discussion with what could be my own prejudices and biases, and in the interest of the democratic political system we embrace, I would only like to bring some civility, rationality, and scientific facts to the table.

The ASI made certain uncalled-for comments in its deliberations, but the scientific and archaeological aspects of its findings are still valid. Those who oppose the destruction of the bridge, on the other hand, only use aspects of faith in their defence, and these would not stand up in a court of law.

It is quite ironic that there in fact exist a piece of scientific evidence to base their claims on, but the existence of which they are strangely not even aware of. This is actually a once renown, but now forgotten book that was published way back in 1894 by an even lesser known German Indologist Hans Schmertler. But in order to understand Schmertler's Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen we need to look further back in history.

William Tourniquette, the Al-Pais, and the bone-throwers of Rameshwaram
In the year 1754 under the direction of then governor of Madras Thomas Saunders, a delegation comprising of a Scottish Company accountant Ebenezer McCandy, an Armenian pearl trader Aram Achatourgian, an English geographer Andrew Handiwick and a Anglo-French scribe William Tourniquette travelled to the Sethu area to study the local economy. The aim was to establish a permanent pearl-trading zone along the Jaffna-Mannar area (currently in Sri Lanka) with direct links to the Rameshwaram-Pamban island outposts. While the prospectors studied the viability of their projects, Tourniquette made certain strange observations, which he recorded in his journals. These entries were published posthumously in Paris in the year 1767 after Tourniquette died after a he contracted venereal disease on an expedition to Egypt.

Tourniquette's Les Economie Curieux de Céthou contained detailed accounts of the religious practises of the Tamoul natives. Tourniquette observed that the fishermen on either side of the straights had the habit of depositing small amount of debris along the undersea formation everytime they caught fish in the area. While a meagre catch meant a few fishbones thrown in, an abundant catch sometimes resulted in mutton ribs, or sometimes (it has been said that Tourniquette was prone to exaggerate) even human hip bones, acquired from virgins who were sacrificed to the Tamil wave goddess Cadalai Devi (probably Kadal-alai Devi).

But what Tourniquette's strange observations does prove was that there was this almost obsessive preoccupation among the locals in preserving a physical geographic connection between Mannar and Rameshwaram. While the English dismissed this as merely superstition, and promptly suppressed the activity with the Fisherman's Bone-throwing (Prevention) Act of 1760, Tourniquette who dabbled with the occult could not be that easily convinced. The eternal ecologist in him would not rest until he found answers, and for which he travelled to Egypt where a similar custom had been observed amongst the then dwindling Al-Pais Bedouin tribe. The Al-Pais, whenever they encountered a rare oasis in the desert, would drink some water and in gratitude throw a lot of desert sand into the pool. While they were universally hated for this, and which also contributed to their dwindling numbers, Tourniquette suspected that their self-defeating belief system pointed to a probable maritime origin of the Al Pais. It is another story that he eventually took to them so much that he contracted syphilis in trying unsuccessfully to prevent their eventual extinction.

The case of the bone-throwers were forgotten by history until the arrival in India of Hans Schmertler in 1880. He was one of the first Europeans to extensively study the Parashurama Sutra of the Keralan Kingdom of Vaazhappazhaa. Schmertler immediately noticed how the Keralans were able to maintain a strangely high level of insularity despite the Malabar coast being on the crossroads of trade and civilization. While many attribute it to the compulsively closeted affinity-system of the Malayali (for example in Roshini Chinnappa's 1986 paper, The Keralan Republican Army (KRA) and its activities in Indian universities), Schmertler immediately identified other factors. The Political boundaries of Vaazahppazhaa were strictly defined by tenets laid down in the Prashurama Sutra.

Aagama Desha-Khanda Vaastu
Schmertler meticulously translated the difficult Sanskrit of the verses and travelled extensively in Bharatha Varsha to record his observations in Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen. He observed how the existence of hot deserts to the south and cold deserts to the north resulted in the volatile political situation of the frontier provinces west of the Punjab. The 15th Chapter of the Parasurama Sutra outlines the vedic science of Aagama Desha-Khanda Vaastu, or The Ritualistic Vaastu of the Nation.

Schmertler noted how the verse Uttharaantharam itham frigidam, dakshinaantram atham sijilam, gachathi atho gathi desham vayam, very accurately described the situation in the frontier lands. Also the geographic prescriptions regarding mountainous areas are very precise. Paschimadi shikharancha, ragalatham meghavarahahahahi ikistavaschiraanjalascha kesaram kabothukaam jalasam jambam, outlines the exact relationship between the height, foliage, directional orientation, cloud cover, and steepness of a western hill to the fertility of the women of a kingdom. By limiting their political boundaries to exact such points, the Kings of Vaazhappazha held a successful reign, until an unwise move in 1804 by the 17th Paasugandathil Thamburan to dredge a pond, resulted in complete annexation by the Therambikku Kozhiyachan of Travancore.

Schmertler then travelled to the Arakkan in the newly conquered British-Indian regions of Burma in 1887. There, he found texts quite similar to the Parashurama Sutra (probably originating from a Tibeto-Burman copy of the Sutra from the 4th Century). The Syaw Syaw Dok Than monastery had kept meticulous oral records of the Desan-Kan Vatu. Thebaw had not heeded his advisers request to move the capital to the south, and this had directly resulted in the British takeover. (It is said that the recent move of the Myanmarese Capital by its current rulers was indeed prompted by extensive belief in the Party of the teachings of the Desan-Kan Vatu)

Burma held immeasurable wealth, and Schmertler soon discovered that this was due to the geographic engineering carried out by its rulers in accordance with the Vatu verses. For example during the heights of the 4th Myaw Vyei Kingdom in the 12th century, an entire village was forced to dig up sea-bed silt from the south and carry it upland to create a new 13,4052nd hill at the very southern end of the Arakkan mountain chain. The hill was measured to be exactly 750meters high, and this by Vaastu standrads, placed at the Ishanya direction of the kingdom, helped immeasurably in the war against the Siamese aggression.

Geographic Engineering, and Desha-Vaastu in Europe
Having made this startling discovery, Schmertler had to hurriedly abandon his research as his estate near Zurich was under tremendous financial strain. As he went back to Europe to settle his affairs, he took with him several pages of handwritten transcripts of the Aagama Desha-Khanda Vaastu. It was in Zurich in 1889 that he met the French Occultist Francoise Finigrelesque. Finigrelesque introduced Hans Schmertler to Tourniquette's Les Economie Curieux de Céthou. Schmertler immediately and furiously began working on Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen. He concluded that the curious bone-throwing practice of the Tamil fishermen was in fact deeply connected to the political and economic continuity and prosperity of southern India. The maritime prescriptions in Aagama Desha-Khanda Vaastu stipulate the exact height of an underwater bridge with respect to tidal activity in a shallow sea region. This, Schmertler understood to be directly connected with wars and political freedoms of the nation under whose control these undersea formations happen to be in. Schmertler postulated in this text that any destruction of a feature such as Sethu would result in largescale economic calamity and wars.

This, is where the current debate becomes interesting. And before the anti-sethusamudram parties get hold of the Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen, I would like to preempt it by putting forward recent findings of my own that actually disagrees with Schmertler.

But before that I need to complete the curious history of the Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen. After its publication in 1894, Hans Schmertler disappeared from the records. Some say he went to live as hermit in the Alps while other say he became a pearldiver in Polynesia. One story even mentions him as having worked for a Belgian trading company in the Jungles of Congo. Nevertheless, the book itself became a cult artefact. Noted American Businessman Joseph Vanderbater purchased one of the only two known copies in 1911. The other copy was reputed to have been sold to English millionaire Lord Ernest Buttlechart who took it down with him when he drowned with the Titanic. The Vanderbater copy was donated by his widow to the Martha-Henry Constantine Museum in Boston in late 1922. This is where the story gets murkier with the book being lost amidst two alleged murders, erased records, and a marital scandal.

The Vanderbater resurfaced in Bonne in Germany in 1932. The Nazis were in fact so take in by Schmertler's transcripts of the Desha Vaastu texts, that Hitler personally authorised the secret Sophia project to study large-scale geographic engineering. The idea was to detonate nuclear bombs under ocean beds, mountain ranges, and woodlands in order to enhance the longevity of the Reich. Fortunately, the project ran out of funding as WWII protracted and after the fall of Germany, the book was brought to Moscow by the Red Army. This is where the reunion took place between the Parashurama Surta (the original source of the Aagama Desha-Khanda Vaastu), and the Vanderbater version of the Die großartigen Indischen Vermögen. Under my dear friend the late Prof. Varely Smirzkoff, the books were extensively studied, but unfortunately, the Soviet regime was dismissive of the scientific veracity of Desha Vaastu, and therefore did not fund the research really well.

My recent studies, and the Vedic Sciences Project
It was only in recent years have I had the good fortune of having done this very study. For this, thanks should go to the Vedic Sciences Project, instituted by noted British-Indian businessman Lord Kamlesh-Harilal 'Jack' Mehta.

Getting back to my findings, here is how I disagree with Schmertler, and prove that the destruction of the Sethu would not adversely affect India. In the 23rd Chapter of the Vanderbater, Ozeangeographie Vaaschtü, Schmertler mentions the Vaastu verse Karamatam kadalasya matsyaasti na vegam dumilam nikarathaha, and writes "Die Fishboneanordnung darf nicht für die Verhinderung des Unfalles gestört werden". Translated in English, "The fishbone (or coral) formation must not be disturbed for the prevention of disaster". He quotes the 42nd chapter of the Parashurama Sutra as the source.

Interestingly, Schmertler, when he wrote his book, was in Europe and did not have the original Vastu texts from the Sutra with him. He only had his handwritten transcripts to go by, and this is where a curious typo has affected his otherwise, very erudite analysis. The 42nd chapter of the Sutra actually reads thus: Karamatam kadalasya matsyaasti ana vegam dumilam nikarathaha. This means the whole meaning of the sentence is reversed. Also, there is another verse that says: Paschimam purvakam angalam krouranitha vikayatam dashaani vartam yudham nischayam. This makes an interesting cross-variable reference with regards to time of outbreak of war, coral orientation and direction (east or west). In fact there is grim empirical proof for these verses.

In 1954, the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka was defined by the "Sinhala Only Act". This can be said to be the real origin of the currently continuing civil war. In exactly 10 years, as mentioned in the verse, in 1964, the cyclone that hit Danushkodi submerged a substantial portion of the land thereby reducing the optimum height of the underwater formation. If the fish-bone-throwing practice had been continued, this effect of the cyclone would have been mitigated, but since that was not done, this spelt doom for the land to the "east". So, here we have proof that it is not India, but Sri Lanka which will be adversely affected by any damage to the Sethu formation. Ironically, India would actually prosper, especially because the kalasa paradigm outlined by Schmertler would take effect. The Kalasha effect, a yearly exponential increase in GDP, would be more pronounced in present day India, (Schmertler did not predict the partition of India). To India's west is in fact, a hostile nation, (yuddha jamakkalam) rather than Sunga surukkam (Persia/Iran). This accentuates the Kalsha effect. In fact the only way this favourable Vaastu can be broken is if the Himalayas were to become passable. This, I can confidently state will not happen as China has no such intentions. The People's Republic has even given oral commitment to respecting the northern territorial integrity of India, and we can trust them to keep their word.

In conclusion
As a researcher, a man of science, but also a man of conscience, it makes my situation quite unenviable. On one hand is a text such as the Vanderbater, which if it fell into the wrong hands would be wrongly read and become a stumbling block to the Sethu Samudram project, and also to the eventual super-wealth of India. On the other hand, is my conclusive investigation that though predicting considerable prosperity for India, spells disaster for Sri Lanka if the project is to go ahead.

I have laid out the facts for you my readers to absorb. Now it is up to those with the powers of decision, as well as discretion to do the needful, whatever that may be.

-- Dr. Acharya Somuchidononanda Pandey
PhD (corres.) M.A.S. University, Darjeeling

(The writer is Hon. Director, Smirzkoff Centre for Historical Speculation in Pune, India and Director, Mehta-Vedic Sciences Project in London. He lives with his wife Valentina Dimitrieva Pandey, and twenty two children in suburban St.Petersberg. He can be contacted at acsomuchval@pandey.ru)

Osama Bin Laden also calls for OBC reservation

2007-09-08T19:36:00.000+05:30

Well, OBL will ask for India to rethink the Indo-US Nuclear deal (but naturally), and by the looks of things will also demand the closure of all Reliance Fresh outlets in the country.

But Bin Laden will never get any support from us Tamils unless he also demands Cauvery water, and a statue of Thiruvalluvar in Bangalore!

Best, and the most depressing quote in a while

2007-09-07T21:51:00.000+05:30

Ajay Shah writes
"A deep flaw of the intellectual landscape in India is that if you picked one topic, it isn't easy to find six good quality authors to debate it."

Where Tyler Cowen thinks I'm worth investing in

2007-08-20T19:05:00.000+05:30

Now who would've thunk eh? I of all people to receive a merit-based gift from Tyler Cowen?

Well, I'm also quite happy that I can make a decent pitch. So now, I have one really compelling reason to find time to make a film.

I have not read Prof Cowen's new book yet, but just to see how incentives work, I've put up a flyer at work asking for short screenplays and promising the chosen writer money and full screenwriting credit. 1. I hardly get time to write my own stuff. 2. I have to get used to directing other people's writing. And 3. I teach people that more than one creative mind can actually enhance a film, and would like to see if I can come up with a first-hand example. Let me see if I can also come up with some mechanism to chose a decent crew as well.

So thank you Prof Cowen, and thanks Shruti for telling me to give it a shot.

The Chennai Metroblog

2007-08-06T20:55:00.000+05:30

Seriously, this place is a joke!

It used to be nice, and it used to have intelligent writers. Now most of the stuff on it seems to be written by utter idiots. It is quite embarrassing really, for these guys in some sense represent what Madras has to offer to the world. Also, sad to see something that had much promise decay and die right under your gaze.

And now Antonioni

2007-07-31T20:06:00.000+05:30

Just a day after Bergman, Antonioni has gone ahead and snuffed it! There's something that's killing 'em all off.

Bergman is dead

2007-07-30T18:32:00.000+05:30

Having given us some very good films, he also inspired many comics. Here is a link to The Dove, among the best Bergman parodies.

Update: Here is the full film from Google video (via)

The Boss

2007-06-22T22:17:00.000+05:30

It was ridiculousness and ridiculousity made flesh!
And when the film itself begs you to not take it seriously, you simply enjoy it.

I loved it!

Ideas for the 3rd front

2007-06-18T22:05:00.000+05:30

Campaign for Rajnikanth to be made president!

LOLTamz: Invisible Wrinkles

2007-06-08T21:35:00.000+05:30

Original nicked from IndiaGlitz

Sivaji - The Boss

2007-06-03T18:09:00.000+05:30

Almost everybody seems to think that Sivaji cannot fail. After all, there's Rajnikanth, Shankar, AR Rehman and lots of DI. But what if it does? Just trying to be contrarian, and for the superstitious among you, let me be damned.

If it were to succeed or fail, when would we know? Would we know at all? What is success? The film is expensive enough for box-office success to matter. And the fanboy crowd is large enough to take it through the initial few weeks without adverse word-of-mouth affecting it. In any case, I shall be watching this film closely. Should tell me a lot about how Tamil cinema economics works. And the things to watch out for are:

1. Do the projectionists/director/producers start making changes in the film, and if they do, when.

2. Are more prints going out of the labs? Or are some prints coming back in two weeks time?

3. At what point is it going to do the rounds of the second-rung NRI towns?

One thing is almost certain. It is impossible within the first two (or three) weeks to do any sane predictions on how the film will fare. I'm willing to start considering analyses that come after that.

What not to really worry about:

1. Random newspaper and magazine reviews.

2. Television spots and interviews with the likes of Antony.

3. Gossip about how much AVM sold such-and-such rights for.

4. Politicians like Ramdoss making some noise.

The thing that could potentially play spoilsport is the stupid price-ceiling the government introduced a while back. But I do have a lot of faith in our cinemas to circumvent that.

And because the grapes were sour

2007-05-25T21:13:00.001+05:30

Two areas of film practice where I believe I have demonstrable and transmissible skills are in location sound recording and production management. And as sod would have it, these are precisely the disciplines where the industry I work in chooses to display maximum inertia.

Let us take Synch-sound recording for example. There have been a few attempts at it, and it is precisely these so-called attempts that the nay-sayers use to show how impossible it is to practice proper synch-sound recording here. Here is my take on this. Location sound recording is a craft that needs to be practised by trained professionals. OK, so we import a few recordists, WTF? But here is the deal: just like every other craft in the films, this too does not work in isolation.

Who does your so very crucial clapper: Some random errand-boy assistant director, and not the same person everytime. The clapper is a crucial technical task best left to a technician. I prefer a member of the camera team do it. They know the lens and the cameraman.

Announcements: They are too random and not very clear with directors preferring to blare over the PA than give calm direct instructions. And please be advised, you are not saving any film stock by compromising on the announcement/clap. You're merely protracting post-production.

Reports and continuity notes: What goes on the board and what goes on the sheets are very crucial when it comes to synchronising the rushes and naming sub-clips. A script supervisor is not some guy who you reserve to do the prompting.

The attitude: Fixing it in the dub is fallacious and is the path to ruin. Also, when you do a recce, remember not to shoot 1890 period pieces next to PH road. Also remember that sound is half your movie.

With a system like this, no sound recordist or boom operator can make magic. Then the unreachable grapes... oh they are sour!

This news items contains triple-antigenic Zeolytes for optimal moisturation

2007-05-14T12:39:00.000+05:30

What the fuck are they talking about?
Morons

How do you know when to take that cigarette break during a film you've never seen?

2007-05-06T19:02:00.000+05:30

Paruthiveeran is quite a remarkable film. Ameer's command over his mise-en-scene is masterful and the film is best enjoyed in a packed hall.

The last time I met Ameer, he seemed quite piqued by the film certification/censorship system in India. I have little doubt that he would have had to fight his case hard with Paruthiveeran as well. Well, whatever we might have to say about the merits of the system, attending this screening has taught me a lot about the sheer worthlessness of film certification/pre-censorship in India.

This film with its recommended cuts and generous admissions has earned a U/A, the equivalent of a PG-13. Not that I entirely approve of a monolithic classification system but let's say I do so for arguments sake. This film should have got an A (15+) for general mature content, strong language, protracted graphic unarmed combat, violence with sharp objects, and a disturbing scene of rape. Since the film has outraged my morals, I can actually take the board to court for telling me that it is OK to take my family to this film.

But in reality, I do not think that any one person's system of rating actually works for everybody else. This means that I never really mind the Tamil movie audiences' penchant for bring little kids to watch people being killed. Now, if not me, somebody else might express moral outrage at such irresponsible parenting. Film pre-censorship wishes to do just that, and hopelessly fails. Not just because enforcement is lax, but because people (and parents) have already made informed choices and really don't bother about some silly piece of paper. So the next time you see a 6-yr-old sitting next to you enjoying that really raunchy item-number, it is quite possible that the parents are neither ignorant nor irresponsible, they might just be very liberal.

Let me digress a little. Arthur De Vany in his excellent book Hollywood Economics refers to a "turning point" during a film's run (he mentions 4 weeks after release) where the revenue curves for the hits and misses dramatically diverge. This might appear to be imitative herding, but De Vany explains that it is in fact a result of a word-of-mouth information sharing system among the (potential) audience members. Technically we all decide if a movie is a hit or not, but interestingly cannot predict how we're gonna decide.

It is easy for all us movie-goers to acknowledge the existence of word-of-mouth information, but it is remarkable to see how big a role it plays in a film's success or failure. Getting back to our film, Paruthiveeran is in its 11th week. We cannot empirically confirm the 4-week rule for Tamil cinema, but it is quite evident that the film is already a box-office success. The audience is pretty much already clued-in and know what to look forward to in the film.

Broad assumptions about media effects, and the influence of such a powerful medium as film on our poor audience, are significant bases for film pre-censorship in Indian law. To tell you the truth, Paruthiveeran is a disturbing film, it is a powerful film, it certainly is designed to elicit a loathing born out of frustration (all a la Straw Dogs), it also is meant to zap young men to spontaneously dance in the aisles during the folk song numbers.

A study of media effects should not merely stop at "does it or does it not". "What happens then" is where we should continue, and this is where ideas differ. I personally subscribe to the idea that "wilful suspension of disbelief" lasts until we walk out of the doors, or a minute and a half into the end credits, whichever happens first.

But what really matters is that even if people do get affected/influenced by films, they all do not react the same way, and more importantly, they use the same word-of-mouth information sharing system to temper/modify their reactions to the film. I do not know how many were repeat-audiences for this screening of Paruthiveeran, but about a 3rd of the hall emptied just before the beginning of the infamously disturbing rape scene. Yes, some people do not want to be disturbed by the film. But they make that informed decision and simply walk out at the exact right time.

It appears we are more knowledgeable and responsible than we would like to acknowledge we are. And the central board of film certification takes us for fools. Also, we really don't care what they think.

LOLtamz: I'm in UR heartlandz

2007-05-05T22:48:00.000+05:30

Original picture nicked from here

VR in UR macroz
makin' new memez!

The standard excuse for boring essays on blogs—Going Mainstream

2007-04-24T22:04:00.000+05:30

A Formal education in film

Education and training in the crafts required by the Tamil film industry have traditionally been informal. 'Informal' here does not mean some sort of flexible learning programme providing various choices to the student. It usually involves a young aspirant apprenticing under an established filmmaker. In such a system, film apprentices are expected to pick up technical, managerial, narrative and business skills from their mentors. More often than not, they also imbibe an aesthetic, social and political 'taste' from their 'gurus' as well.

Over time this mentor system has neatly evolved the efficiencies and standards of an effective proto-formal educational system. This is reflected in its ability to afford the 'student' the opportunity to build up a contacts-list and network within the industry—being a student of film (usually an assistant to a known filmmaker) is a terrific excuse to meet people (actors and producers). The mentor often provides the required references and appraisals to enable the apprentice to land that crucial 'break'. Just as educational institutions build up reputations over time, some filmmakers are also reputed to churn out quality filmmakers (while there have also been others who have not). 'Graduates' are provided with word-of-mouth qualification instead of certified sheets of paper.

The absence of decent centres of formal education in Tamil Nadu (for a while there has been one government-run film institute in Tharamani) and the relative success of such informal modes of education and training have reinforced our notions of what constitutes an education in the arts, crafts, sciences and businesses of filmmaking. But there are certain drawbacks to such a system that are slowly being recognised and addressed. For example, it would be fallacious to assume that all great filmmakers are great film mentors, or for that matter, the inverse about not very successful filmmakers as well. Since taking on apprentices is very closely linked to jobs at hand, jobs in the bag and filmmaking success, this is a crucial issue.

The ability to understand and teach filmmaking is completely different from an ability to make wonderful films. As always, there are bound to be exceptional cases, but just as is reflected in the very nature of the industry, a minuscule percentage of possibly huge success seems to be the only driving force behind a very large number of attempts and failures. While seemingly unviable, this is the truth behind the film industry as it has been until now—hardly a way to build careers, leave alone hopes and dreams.

Interestingly today, the industry is changing rapidly, both technically and as a trade. Audiences are also seeking wider choices with their changing lifestyles. The very hit-or-bust nature of the system that has hitherto propped its sustenance and evolution has itself hit an evolutionary steep-curve.

Reaction to change comes in a myriad of shapes. Some inside and outside the industry wrongly assume that formal education in film is an alien concept that has suddenly crept up on the Tamil film industry to shake it up and set new rules. But there are also those that agree that formalisation of film education is merely the process by which the industry itself deals with all the changes happening within and outside of it.

For one, informal education is not scalable, and second, there is only so much learning that a student can imbibe under a single mentor. Most importantly, a changing and growing industry needs trained specialists, and not the generalists a smaller scale might support. The changes in the technical, social, aesthetic, as well as the commercial and managerial aspects of filmmaking also require research, study and understanding that formal education can accomplish systematically. Informal education can only deal with such challenges with a series of potentially very expensive trials and errors.

We have produced some of our best filmmakers through the informal system, and it is a result of their education that things are being systematised and formalised today. For the evolution of film-education only mirrors the evolution of filmmaking itself. Tamil film has changed from being a romanticised small-scale cottage-craft involving huge risks (of course, this has not always been the case with early Tamil/South Indian cinema thriving under a robust studio system that later unravelled), to being a slightly better-organised industrial activity today. The industry eagerly seeks newer challenges and newer ways to define itself as a purveyor of entertainment while providing rewarding career options for aspiring film professionals in the arts, sciences, and business of film.

Informal education will continue to fill the gaps in expertise and genius that such a volatile industry thrives on, but for those seeking to build careers in the entertainment world, formal education is the better bet.

This thingy with various modifications (not by me) might grace a newspaper sometime soon. I also have to produce a Tamil translation by tomorrow!

Could be purely anecdotal...

2007-04-22T14:17:00.000+05:30

But, what I saw in Loyola earlier last week seemed quite revelatory. You see, things have moved on since when I studied there sometime last century. While my education was almost entirely subsidised by a UGC grant, there are a category of students today who pay fully for their courses. Loyola refers to them as the SS (self-supporting) stream.

Now since no respectable Indian educator would like to be seen to sell education, the government subsidised stream too continues to exists. I suppose Loyola has an interesting admission policy, but as an examiner, what I saw of the quality of the students was fairly appalling. As any old-boy is bound to bemoan, I lamented the shocking drop in standard in the more coveted regular stream—my successors.

Later I had a chance to meet the SS bunch. Now, these students are the ones who have paid for their seats, and as many teachers are bound to complain, are the ones who demand a degree simply because they have spent their money on it. The students of the 'subsidised class', on the other hand, are dutybound to gratefully accept their education. Also since they were choice candidates during admissions, the regular stream students are expected to perform well in their exams.

But guess who did better in my exams? I can only assume that those who paid for their education value it more than those who know they've got it cheap. Either that, or Loyola with its characteristic patronage dumps its rejects in the charity class.

Set fucking Max!

2007-04-16T19:35:00.000+05:30

When teams like Sri Lanka and Australia play, I'd like to watch some cricket please. I do not want to see Nathan Bracken's superb delivery take an edge and immediately have the pictures cut to Abhishek Bachchan shaking his head. When a commentator talks about Tom Moody's strategies, let him finish what he's saying. I do not want to see some fucking motorcycle ad now.

And are we stuck with these bastards for a few more world cups?

The Zimmers are talkin' about my gegege-neration!

2007-04-15T08:46:00.000+05:30

via Dave Barry

Joshua Bell performs on the DC Metro

2007-04-10T20:33:00.000+05:30

Life and work can be pretty frustrating. Especially if you live in a dusty, smelly, sweltering city. But every once in a while, there comes along something that suddenly makes life worth living; and yet painfully demonstrates how weary our city lives can get.

Even the web-stream of the full performance is haunting!

Kiwi Cup

2007-04-02T23:51:00.000+05:30

My money is on New Zealand!

To Protect the Child

2007-03-30T21:04:00.000+05:30

When I was a kid, there were consolation prizes in school contests. Until we understood the appallingly patronising semantics, we saw it as the legitimate last rung in the hierarchy of awards. Then there were middle-school debates that were sanctimoniously labelled "academic" (euphemism for "rigged at the time of deciding the topic") lest our sensitive minds be exposed to acrimony and disagreement.

Not too many years ago, kids versions of television contest (mostly singing talent shows) never announced winners—every participant took home the same crummy gift-hamper.

Now apparently, this Super Singer Junior reality show on Vijay TV has pictures of kids being rejected (they have candy I suppose), also of kids behaving like little spoilt divas, and also of kids singing really well and winning.

Then I came across this (via). Now I may not entirely agree with a dogmatic view about "good competition", but I do see in my line of work that a system of incentives (and disincentives) really produces results, if the system is deemed to be even nominally "just" by its members.

Kids, I have seen, have a terrific sense of morality, fairness and "right".

Ontraprenyear

2007-03-26T20:13:00.000+05:30

I could use some beer money!

As CC says, we are taking bookings. Price, sizes available etc. will be announced shortly.

Now let's enjoy some Cricket

2007-03-25T08:15:00.000+05:30

Now that India is well, almost out (and Woolmer's murder makes it difficult for a possible match-fixing syndicate to pay Bangladesh to lose) we can finally get to watch some real cricket featuring real cricket teams, real cricket players, and some real analysts and commentators.

Goodbye Mandira Bedi. Goodbye Charu Sharma. Goodbye 'Ritambara'. Goodbye terrible motorcycle adverts. Goodbye idiot journalists.

Update: India is out, so we can start looking at other debates rightaway.

Money and Sport

2007-03-20T21:28:00.000+05:30

Viviana Zelizer talks about why we want to believe that money and intimacy do not go together. It does not take much to extend the discussion to include questions on why we also think (note: not necessarily act on our beliefs) that glorious and "patriotic" activities like sports suffer when money is involved.

It was interesting to see quite a few people dissing India's incredibly inane performance against the Bangladeshis by referring to the "obscene" amounts of money our chaps make in endorsements. (On that thought, I'd like to see the UPA run the Indian Cricket team—should be so much fun).

We sometimes get bad cricket not because our chaps are well-paid, but because Cricket enjoys a rather screwy monopoly. Or rather, the Indian Cricket team enjoys a monopoly status. (click here for some sports-economics juvenilia) Should I stretch the argument to say that it is because of the money that Indian cricket has better talent (and therefore the monopoly) than say Indian Football?

It is therefore nice to read newsreports that go: (linkthanks my boss)

We in India tend to rush out with tri-colours and wrap the dutiful nationalistic sentiment around every sporting achievement and be coy about money matters. Step into Sagroli village, and you won't grudge sportsmen the money they earn. Now, parroting the patriotic theme is common to Sagroli too. Teenaged runners from this arid, non-descript village in the Nanded district of eastern Maharashtra will voice their desire to represent the country at the next Olympics, and even bring home the gold. Once on the beaten, narrow state highway though, these trainees of the Sagroli Sunrise Project line up at the starting grid, keeping paper-chits in their pockets, which bear the amount they will earn if they cross the target-timing to complete a 7 km-daily route. "Trophies, certificates are all fine they make you happy for a day or a week. We want to be realistic theres no better incentive than money," says project convener Deepak Kanegaokar, who hands out cash in multiples of thousand. (very sic)

Pock!

2007-03-17T22:21:00.000+05:30

Since when have the Irish relished cricket?
Meanwhile it's a good day to be a Bengali.
Also Mandira Bedi has been highly unimpressive this year.

Pock!

Notional

2007-03-16T22:04:00.000+05:30

A little education puts a lot of 'notions' into our heads. But pray tell me how can the screen accommodate anything other than pictures and sounds?

Can you define?

2007-03-05T22:28:00.000+05:30

Just to revive an old discussion (for which I cannot be bothered to dig up permalinks from the archives), what do you think are the differences between:
1. what a screenwriter does, and what a director does?
2. what a director does, and what a producer does?

Not too many people in 'the industry' seem to know the answers, especially those who think they do. And while on the topic of wholesome ignoramuses, please stop calling production managers, production designers. That does not sound cool, that is merely being stupid!

A desk-top I desperately need

2007-03-03T19:46:00.000+05:30

Seen something similar twice before: one a video of some Canadian (I think) college guys demonstrating a lab project, second in Spielberg's Minority Report.

Now, Brian Lam at Gizmodo might be right when he points to "the inverse relationship of proper ergonomics and proper viewing distance on such a setup", but in my line of work, this sort of a thing would be a godsend. So much for geeky wowdroolmultitouchwanking.

I spent a good part of last week snipping, labelling, taping, ordering, re-labelling, matching, tagging, checking, and arranging strips of paper to schedule 11-member crews (from a list of 29 persons) to work over three weeks to make 20 short films. Sometimes all that jugglery and anal attention to detail can be pretty fulfilling, Zen even; but most of the time you really feel that your desk could do with some 'memory', that you don't have to take down every little permutation down to cross-reference or reconstruct later.

Somebody please racially abuse me

2007-02-24T23:01:00.000+05:30

STEP 2: I can arrange for a film-crew to record it.
STEP 3: You can then threaten to kill me if that film is ever shown.
STEP 4: Priyaranjan Dasmunsi can arrange for the gruesome film of my victimisation to be screened in Parliament.
STEP 5: I may even be able to land some interesting jobs.
STEP 6: Maybe you can get a cut!

PS:Paappaan is not too far from poppadom!

No மீசை, No மண்

2007-02-23T18:58:00.000+05:30

You think it sucks; you think it is terrible? What if THAT *exactly* was what Sudhish had intended to do?

டேய், போன வாரந்தானே என் கிட்ட அடி வாங்கின?
அது போன வாரம்! நான் சொல்லுறது இந்த வாரம்.

The Masculine Fixation of the Heroic Villain—A Critical Review of Mani Ratnam's Greceo-Capitalistic, Anti-feministic Discourse, "Guru"

2007-02-20T19:26:00.000+05:30

I have many problems with Mani Ratnam's Guru. The least of its follies is that it is patently capitalistic, but its bigger message is what is hidden in its quasi-ontological implications. While on the topic of the general Greco-Capitalist mindset that pervades Indian mainstream thinking, the moral bankruptcy of Mani Ratnam in indicating that making profits is good, has made it very clear why he is in this business.

Coming from a country in which filmmakers like David Dhavan and Yash Chopra have spurned profits to veritably devote their lives to make meaningful cinema, Mani Ratnam shames their glorious names by proving that his aim includes making money, and in not letting cinema do its natural duty of enlightening and educating the masses. The poverty of the masters has been dealt a fiery blow with this film.

Getting to the more sinister aspects of Guru, we find that in his purveyance of capitalistic entertainment, Mani Ratnam's undercurrent gender stereotyping is only too obvious. Why is the protagonist male? Why cannot a woman or a gender minority have been named Gurukanth? In his denail of the non-male, Gurukanth can only naturally be male. And therefore an anti-feminine capitalist.

The Dutch-German feminist scholar Marta Nettrich-Kahn, in her seminal essay A Falsification of Progesterone (Fem-Sci, Vol 23, Issue 5, 1967) studies the phenomenon of maleness as that of being essentially non-female. Her essay also states that the fundamental male-female dialectic also produces a synthesis of the third androgyn, that evolves to encompass a phenomenology of rhetorical passivity. That is why, Nettrich-Kahn feels, the portrayal of the male in popular discourse often always entails the suppression of the female epistemen, while consciously isolating the non-congruation of the fifth transformation.

Mani Ratnam's Guru is a classic example of what Nettrich-Kahn goes on to describe as the profiteering phallic bourgeoisie. Almost all collectivist (female) syllogism are violently replaced by a domineering individualistic (male) gaze. The scene in which Gurukanth's wife is shown crying is a classic example of this. The train represents the phallus, and her journey on it represents her submission to the wills of the male guardian, who's discourse this entire film is based upon.

This capitalistic masculinity of the film also creates no space for the discussion of non-heterosexual phenomenology. The suppression of the female, and the left, and the south, is also extended to the suppression of the queer. By showing Gurukanth as being heterosexual, Ratnam also denies space for homosexual plasticism. In the initial scenes, an implication of a queer reading, scares Mani Ratnam into conventional right-wing narration, thereby proving his anti-gay tendencies.

The French enlightenment thinker Rene Chayreque defined the world of pictorial discourse as being of two types: The ones that move in the realm of the oppressed, and the others that move in the realm of the capitalist. The Chayreque Dialogue as it is more popularly known, defines the very foundations of motion picture in India. The capitalistic heterosexual masculinity of the total in its quest for shareholder maximisation, denies the emasculation of the female and the queer oppressed.

Noted Malayali film critic Kollam Kondozhi Kunnath in his description of TV Chandran's recent film Aadum Koothu, introduces the concept of the Madrasi Chickku in describing female actresses. The Madrasi Chickku is defined by over pigmentation and a general disfigurement of the countenance. Mani Ratnam's company is called Madras Talkies; therefore his depiction of the female conforms to these identified distortions. Further proving that Ratnam's decision to name his company so, is a deliberate attempt to bias his film output against the female. The film is also dangerously casteist in its refusal to showcase any non-brahmin characters. But that is to be expected of all of Ratnam's post Roja material, and therefore will not be dealt with in detail here.

If at-all there is one thing Guru is to be praised for, it is in its rightful portrayal of the character of Mallika Sherawat. The Turkish belly-dancer, is the only character that really stands up to the bourgeois trickery of the gambling male. But naturally, having introduced such a character, Ratnam, very quickly moves the action to India, as the Turkic revolutionary is too threatening to the fundamental morphology of the film, that deals with a status-quoist, middle-class, heterosexual urbanism.

Another place where Guru fails miserably is in its refusal to discuss, or even acknowledge the dangers of global warming. Since the recent UN report "unequivocally" recognises human causes for rise in sea levels, the film, which involves human characters and is set in Bombay, a coastal city, is only cynically cruel in its conscious avoidance of its moral obligation. Ratnam, is therefore naturally, a global-warming denier. Gramsci called the globe, The Mother, paving way for Gorky's book by the same name. Ratnam's refusal to deal with issues involving The Mother, is truly consistent with his depiction of the Madrasi Chiccku.

Overall, the film fails with its critically perverse notions of entertainment at the cost of moral purity. It is certain that the screening of this film would enrage anyone with a conscience. The Andolestic monastic Krishacharya was prophetic when he said that (the) right is always the wrong. Guru being rightwing Greco-Capitalistic, Anti-Female, Anti-Queer, Anti-Dalit, Anti Global-Warming and heartless, is certainly and emphatically "wrong"!

- Dr. (Mrs.) Valentina Dimitrieva Pandey
MA (lit.) MPhil (illit.) PhD(corres.) M.A.S. University, Darjeeling

(The writer is the Randal Zakuroff Chair of Gender Studies at the Department of Social Sciences, at the University of St Petersberg, Russia. She lives with her husband Acharya Somuchidononanda Pandey, and twenty two children in the Malyeshi suburb of St.Petersberg. She can be contacted at acsomuchval@pandey.ru)

Yet Another Request

2007-02-16T23:38:00.000+05:30

Got a link to this from Kaps' blog. Anyone bought anything through them? Or could you recommend a better store? Just that they seem to have almost everything I can currently think of—makes me too suspicious!

Best quote I've heard in a while

2007-02-11T22:38:00.000+05:30

"A market doesn't simply shut down when its goods become contraband, it just becomes more profitable for the people willing to operate in it"

This is from Michael Lewis's Book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and as featured in Russ Robert's EconTalk Podcast.

It suddenly become very clear how things operate in my own industry; especially the kind of incentive systems that it has evolved.

The podcast also discusses Lewis' Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.

Chó Guevara

2007-01-28T03:43:00.000+05:30

Place your Chó T-Shirt orders here. Available in S,L,M,XM,XXM.

Request

2007-01-23T21:51:00.000+05:30

Apparently, Dr. Pandey's article is terribly popular online. I usually stumble across these web pages through random Google searches for some of my invented names for rituals, places, people and events. I can only guess how much of the original is doing the rounds in the email-forwards business.

I know, I cannot get over it, and am terribly proud, but somehow I am also a little concerned at the lack of attribution (a bleeding link to the original). Ya ya, intellectual property etc. Would I not be more pleased if the traffic to my blog increased as a result of this?

What do I do? Plis to advise!

Sai Baba Embraces Atheism

2007-01-22T20:26:00.000+05:30

It appears that when it comes to serving the needs of the people, faith (or the lack of it) does not seem to bother our leaders. Today Tamil Nadu CM M.Karunanidhi shared the dais with prominent godman Sai Baba to inaugurate the lining of some water thingamajig for the thingy of the stuff.

When reporters questioned him about sharing public space with a renowned atheist, the saffron-robed, afro-sporting godman had this to say: "It is not serving god that counts, but to think if god exist at all!"

Many prominent commentators like Dr. Acharya 'Som' Pandey point out that this indicates a slow, but definite move towards the secularisation of god-worship. Dr. Pandey also quickly adds that since the Rig Veda talks extensively about a prevalent atheism even amongst the gods (also referred to by B.M.H. Bradley as "Deist Existentialism", in his seminal 1932 book, Rig Veda for Dummies), today's announcement by the Baba is only a reaffirming of the atheist core of Sanathana Dharma.

Of Barebreasted Hindu Goddesses

2007-01-21T22:14:00.000+05:30

...

"Hi, Jeremy."

"‘Lo, Suzy."

The Goddess Kali’s eyes flashed red with anger. "Don’t call me that!" Behind her, a whole pantheon wandered the aisles, looking for late-night snacks.

...

"I didn't know that you were a Hindu Rocker. I thought you were a Dark-Circled Vampire!"

...

Listen to Nightshift in the Automart by Andrew Gudgel at Escape Pod

Reminds me of the time when this severe looking Goth-chick, no older than 14, and with multiple piercings, walked up to the counter at Starbucks and ordered a creamy latte.

Ende mol Jade Kutty

2007-01-20T21:11:00.000+05:30

When white-guilt-ridden Britain disowns Jade, she need not fret. She just has to take up this offer. (The nice people of Kerala are also very forgiving. They first forgive the Congress, then they forgive the Communists, then the forgive the Congress, and then they forgive the Communists etc..)

Image source

When I first saw her, I thought Jade looked like a bad photoshop mashup of Dave Barry (or Ozzy Osbourne) with Shakila. But then Shoefie's post (also titlethanks) brought the whole scheme to light.

Late night Malayalam TV will never be the same yegain!

Magyar Magyar Magyar

2007-01-18T22:06:00.000+05:30

I am so utterly speechless!

Time to sue Dr. Pandey for breaking the exclusive contract he signed with me.

Update: This one's even better. It's got pictures of onions and Nehru.

Update 2: Art, you'll never really die!

Why Priyaranjan Dasmunsi should go fuck himself

2007-01-17T22:27:00.000+05:30

First for being an arsehole, second for being an idiot.

Talking Libertarianism to the Liberals

2007-01-15T23:19:00.000+05:30

Lawrence Lessig of Creative Commons talks to a bunch of liberals who would rather not have any copyright laws.

Warning: Video is a little long and also has dodgy synch!

Lessig comes across as a sensible liberal (yeah I know!) who understands a few things well. Some of his important points are:

1. Getting rid of copyright discourages creativity by reducing the incentive to benefit from the creation.

2. To make somebody abandon their right to enforce their copyright, and make them agree to a universal freedom-to-copy is basically anti-liberty (he calls it imperialistic).

3. Romanticising hacking (like romanticising terrorism) is not going to win the hearts of Americans/ordinary people, and is actually counter-productive, as all free-to-copy supporters are viewed as thieves.

Link via Boing Boing

Now the home-video boom starts in Chennai

2007-01-14T14:26:00.000+05:30

I mean the official version of the home-video boom. Currently, a very large part of the home video market, at-least in TN is hogged by the Thiruttu VCD 'pirates'. And I tell you, no matter how much I am supposed to hate them (for I am part of the industry that is purported to 'suffer' because of them), I can only blame the industry for not being shrewd enough to not cash in on consumer needs. A need that the bootleggers filled really well.

Maybe the industry is still nostalgic about theatrical, box-office collections (or of-late, satellite rights), or idiotic enough to not realise that the market is big enough to go low-price.

The word 'pirates' itself is fairly romantic and inaccurate. Their operations are in-fact as properly streamlined, and as tuned to demand-and-supply economics as any other industry. (They even have a long-tail—Bergman is very popular you see!). They have a very good distribution system, including young men selling DVD's in railway compartments along with peanuts and plantains.

The only problem is that they are doing something technically illegal, and therefore are subject to extortion from the anti-piracy squads. This cost, the pirates pass on to the consumer; but since the scale of operations is so huge, they can still beat the horribly expensive prices quoted by the 'official' vendors.

Now, the pirates obviously save on 'rights costs', but incur the comparable 'maamool' instead. So, if only somebody could make the 'official' duplication and distribution cheap.

Moser Baer proposes to do just that (warning! PDF link). And the prices they quote seem to be in line with my assumption about the 'rights costs'.

This is the way to beat piracy. Not by creating stupid regulations that line the pockets of inspectors. Bootleggers show up where consumers feel official vendors overprice; and piracy does not go away while they can bribe the inspectors, and yet give the consumer a good-deal. The money only comes back into the industry when piracy inspectors fund films.

The Hindu Economics

2007-01-11T21:25:00.000+05:30

There has been some confusion regarding the workings of a newspaper recently, so I thought I'd help clear things up.

However much I hate The Hindu, I know Mr. Ram is not stupid enough to think that he's doing his readers a favour by taking on advertising. Let's look at it this way. The Hindu discovers in a survey that a substantial number of its readers are not interested in the editorial (or otherwise) crap it produces, and even if they're willing to read it, they do so simply because of habit, while the cost of the newspaper is too insignificant to break the inertia. (Cheaper than mint is what Sudhish insinuates.)

Now if Ram were a true commie, he wouldn't mind the Tamil Nadu Government taking over the running of The Hindu so that it may carry on its "noble moral duty as part of the fourth estate".

If he were a protectionist, he would demand that the Tamil Nadu government buys up a definite number of copies of The Hindu everyday and distribute it in households for free. This in order to offset decreasing circulation, falling ad-revenue, and the paper's inability to "subsidise worthy news" for its readers; so that it may yet carry on its "noble moral duty as part of the fourth estate". Something like what is described here.

But Mr. Ram, we know is a proper Capitalist who researches, manufactures, and markets Communism. So he does the sensible thing, and discovers that the only way people will continue to buy his papers is if they actually make a profit (or break even, or at-least end up spending less than 50p net per copy) by getting good money from the recycling chap. So Ram decides to increase the number of pages in his paper. To offset costs, he takes on more advertising. This he can, by showing high-circulation rates (which is achieved as explained previously, and also as Sudhish explains so eloquently, by appealing to the "younger generation"). Every Austrian will appreciate the ingenuity free-markets breed in the businessman. Hell, I read Metro Plus everyday, and I'm glad The Hindu can afford to feature Calvin and Hobbes, rather than some crappy version of Kanni Theevu!

So let's go through this again. Newspapers make almost all their money by selling space to advertisers. So, newspapers are in the "space" business, not in the "news" business. The way they sell space to advertisers is by showing a large circulation. And the way they do that, is by making the paper as bulky as possible, and yet as inexpensive as possible; as interesting journalistically (did I make that word up?) as possible, yet as cheap journalistically as possible. All for the readers.

The Significance of the Vishnu Idol

2007-01-07T18:51:00.000+05:30

The discovery of an ancient Vishnu idol in an excavation in Russia only confirms certain ideas I have always had about our ancient and glorious land and culture.

The report says that the area in which the idol was found is called Staraya Maina. In the Rig Veda, there is a passage that goes, Itham ascati pasyat syantham, ekam mainam starayath kalam. This translates into Staraya Maina is the name of the land of the 45 rivers (on whose banks the noble Rishis conducted the famous Horse Sacrifices), where the sun god descends into one fifty two forty seven. While the first line identifies a location, the second line talks about the exact latitude and longitude at which the solar spectrum produces interference lines at one, fifty two, and forty seven.

The extreme precision of the calculations show the advanced science of the Vedic period, and also a thorough knowledge of SI units (it has been conclusively proven that French scientists stole the system from the Indians.

The discovery of the idol confirms the location in Russia, identified in the Rig Veda as rus soviath sapthamahanagaratham (the ancient and holy land of the 722 flying vehicles). The ancient connections between the Russians and the Indians has been unequivocally confirmed. In Russian orthodox Christianity, worship is conducted very much like in Vishnu temples. The Russians refer to the feast of Vizhnyir Ekoratsya Vikhunh, directly corresponding with Vaikhunda Ekhadasi.

The Russian language also owes a lot to Sanskrit, whose origins 50,000 years ago roughly correspond with the language of the people of the Smritzyi archaeological site, along the banks of the now-dried up Vernstokhlin (Varnasatyakhalini) river system.

It is common knowledge in the archaeological community that the Parashurama Sutra, the basis of all government policy in the erstwhile Kerala kingdom of Vaazhappazhaa, contains the lines Sthulyam Kaamyunishancha kalanam brighahaha. The links between the ancient Russians and Indians almost certainly aided by the 60,00 odd scholars of the University of Vexalate (Sk. Vekhshalatha, Ru. Vekholotsla), in modern-day Central Afghanistan, in the 17th Century BCE, is said to have transferred political ideas through the land of the Vanga (Ru. Vangnya) in modern-day West Bengal.

The Vishnu idol is depicted with a hammer in one left hand while the deconglated seventh arm on the right side holds a reticulated sickle. This hammer and sickle imagery is also found in the Parashurama Sutra, conclusively placing the origin of great and popular Russian political ideology in Vedic India.

The Bringdunthaladeena Upanishad also mentions Kaamyunishcham in its list of land sacrifices, where under the directions of the King, all the land in the country was donated to the performance of sacrifices where Brahmins continuously tickled horny silk-rats (Gandharvamooshicam) until they collapsed in orgiastic exhaustion. The text also clearly identifies a group of scholars referred to as the Paalita Buryam, who oversaw the functioning of the King.

For years, western historical study dominated by Greco-Capitalists, has sought to undermine the Vedic Indian contributions to what came to be 19th and 20th Century world politics. The Greco-Capitalists also attributed the ideology of Communism to the work done by Karl Marx, one of their own. It has been well documented that Marx indeed visited Kerala and West Bengal, and had thorough understanding of the Parashurama Sutra, a copy of which he picked up in the old-book-stall near the Cochin airport. Later on, as part of the larger Greco-centric Capitalist conspiracy, Marx took all the credit himself.

In 1952 in Soviet Russia, an archaeologist, Prof. Varely Smirzkoff of Odessa University found artefacts near the ancient Belarussian town of Kozhikodz. He was the first to speculate that the ruling political ideology of his country could well have had its origins in Vedic India rather than Modern Europe. Stalin funded Smirzkoff's research until Smirrzkoff was suddenly found to have stolen over 500,000 paper clips from work over the course of his tenure at Odessa University. He was sent to Siberia, and with him went almost all academic proof that would have certainly brought Russia and India closer together.

In one meeting with Nehru, Stalin is indeed said to have remarked, "Your land is ancient, and if you promise not to side with the Americans, I will buy onions from you, in recognition of the intellectual legacy India had left for my country". He did not elaborate on this as the Smirzkoff's research had not achieved much by then. But alas in just two-years time, Prof. Smirzkoff was shovelling permafrost dressed in grey overalls.

This recent discovery should resurrect the pioneering work started by Prof. Varely Smirzkoff, who died of Contracted Poloniumitis of the nose, in 1964.

-- Dr. Acharya Somuchidononanda Pandey
PhD (corres.) M.A.S. University, Darjeeling

(The write is Hon. Director, Smirzkoff Centre for Historical Speculation in Pune, India. He lives with his wife Valentina Dimitrieva Pandey, and twenty two children in suburban St.Petersberg. He can be contacted at acsomuchval@pandey.ru)

Everyone's favourite punching bag punches back

2007-01-06T21:33:00.000+05:30

I have many problems with this. I always have problems when anybody uses cinema as an excuse to get away with murder. Condescending to apportion only a 'part of the blame' to movies is as useless as a smiley-face. Also, masking your prejudice in nostalgia merely smacks of pessimism and an ugly elitism.

A possibly sane inquiry into media-effects is betrayed by an underlying puritanical prejudice. (A tendency also described here)

Blaming rationalist, libertine, non-religious, show-business, capitalists can give the self-righteous mind quite a bit of satiation and tranquillity. Paternalism is almost always selective and never entails any reflection.

At the end of a lip-smacking, misdirected witch-hunt, one usually has no energy or thinking-time left to see if the real causes have even been identified properly. As a result, shit happens again, and we very promptly reach the twisted conclusion that the last witch-hunt was only inadequate or not severe enough.

Interestingly, political correctness today somehow extends to 'do not call for censorship'. So we need to ferret around for interesting euphemisms like 'self-regulation'. Peer pressure (?) somehow extends to 'let's bring talk of market forces into this' (Egad!). Mate, what the heck do you mean by 'negative publicity'? Don't you know this is show business?

And before you patronisingly talk about 'warped titillation' conjured up by evil pimps and prostitutes to pollute 'impressionable minds', just ask yourself when you saw your first piece of porn, or when you first heard somebody say fuck (or equivalents), or how old were you when you first saw your parents fight. Kids have brains and common-sense, usually, a lot more than they end up with when they have grown old enough to start bullying their own children.

And to answer the question in your title, everybody knows that life is weirder than 'art', while movies try desperately, obviously, and in vain to go one-up on life; and every kid who watches films knows that too.

This Theatre is Certified with TN Agmark

2007-01-01T16:53:00.000+05:30

Who's worse than a Commie do-gooder? A politician who is always ready to listen to 'requests', and yet couch his policies as Commie do-gooder rhetoric. (link via Kaps)

This is what is at the root of most of our twisted & verbose laws and government-set standards & procedures. Every single lobbyist/humble request-seeker/vote bank has to be satiated proportionately.

And what the fuck's with the "seats at least 20 inch wide, a 41.5-inch gap between two rows" business? Just a couple of days ago, at work, we were mulling over a THX style certification system for cinemas in Chennai/South India. Now we have the government doing it for us. Interestingly, the environment lobby's not that big in TN (or the popcorn lobby, or the noisy-bastard-on-his-cellphone lobby), then they'll have the government looking at crossover networks, sound isolation, lamp brighness, amp wattage etc.

Egad!

To commemorate

2006-12-30T20:39:00.000+05:30

Today, the day we liquidate our enemies, here's Stewie furthering our foreign policy. But not before OBL's had his bit of fun.

Family Guy: Osama Bin Laden - video powered by Metacafe

Copious amounts of Shyte

2006-12-21T21:04:00.000+05:30

Story to be read as:

"Dear Sathyam cinemas, I am Mu Karunanidhi, and I hate the fact that people voluntarily pay you shitloads of money to watch interesting films in plush seats, while this poor asshole who lobbied with me is sure that more people would watch his crappy film if only it cost them very little, or nothing."

Also, look forward to:

"From Jan 1st 2008, the TN government will pay poor people Rs 50 a month to watch boring films in infested cinema halls. This will also help cinemas that have been hit by a slump in patronage. 1 stone 2 mangoes."

But never ever expect to read:

"The benevolent Karunanidhi government realises that poor people cannot advertise in The Hindu, so it imposes a ceiling on the ad rates N Ram can charge. 50cc space to be sold for no more than Rs.2/-, full-page spread thanking Kalaigner for his magnanimity to be sold for a maximum of Re.1.20Np ONLY."

Update: Here's some juice on how film producers could leverage variable pricing to their advantage, instead of getting all protectionist. Via Gilli

Internet in Trivandrum

2006-11-21T22:31:00.000+05:30

I will be in Trivandrum for the film festival. And for the ten days, I need good internet access. Anyone know of places where I can take my (wi-fi enabled) laptop to and get connected?

RIP, Milton Friedman

2006-11-17T07:26:00.000+05:30

Image courtesy BBC News

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Winning Cricket Teams

2006-11-09T23:38:00.000+05:30

After listening to this Econtalk podcast discussing economics and baseball, I came to some utterly obvious conclusions about Indian cricket.

First blanket assumption: there are the winning teams and there are the exciting teams, and they are different from each other. This is a useful assumption to make especially if you think an over-the-third-man-sixer gets more people cheering than a beautifully well-left outswinger that gets Brett Lee to wind it up and slightly alter the line for the next delivery. Also, more explanations later in this post.

Cricket teams and boards make money from ticket sales, broadcast rights, sponsorship deals etc. Prize money from winning tournaments probably constitutes a rather minuscule part of a cricket board's income. Therefore, rightaway, there is no direct pecuniary incentive to win.

Not to undervalue the "pride factor" as a positive incentive to win, one could argue that bad teams lose fans and pride, and therefore in the long run, a losing team will have to up its game if it needs to get its fans back. Fine, but the National cricket team is hardly under threat of losing its fans is it? We're a captive audience; also, certain peculiar circumstances have ensured that hockey, football, bull-fighting, gladiatorial combat and other potentially exciting spectator sports are not exciting enough in India to veer us away. The Indian cricket team has to be "just about exciting enough" to keep our interests and pride alive, and in the absence of any higher positive incentives to "win", you can hardly expect the world cup can you?

Let's now look at one aspect of a "winning" team—the players, or how the board picks a team. Since the board gets to make more money showcasing "potentially" exciting matches, a will-be-in-form-for-the-next-match Sehwag gets picked over a VVS Laxman. The board picks the players that potentially bring in the spectators. The inexplicable undervaluation of drawing-a-walk in baseball, as explained in the podcast, surely finds echoes in nerdy cricket commentators who talk about the match-winning benefits of "singles" and "frustrating the bowler". And remember, any single player is only one of many match-winning components in a team.

"But surely my stupid man", you would say. "Even if there exists this alleged dichotomy between excitement and winning, they surely are not mutually exclusive. I've seen so many winning teams that are exciting."

And this is where I differ. In the absence of any credible competition for attention, the excitement threshold for spectators is fairly low, and I suspect in this case, not high-enough to be equated with match-winning.

So, again, there is no positive incentive to winning matches. On the other hand, a significant amount of losses, increases the underdog status, and hence boosts excitement. Also, consistent winners are predictable and boring. Therefore, there is so much negative incentive to winning, (or positive incentive to losing, if you're half-full type).

OK OK, Surely, the BCCI is not hatching a sinister plan to keep us as losers? What about the team? They are not unpatriotic match-fixers. And I agree one hundred percent (Albeit with my tongue very firmly pressed against my cheek)! The fact is, the board does not even know that it is making us lose matches. They only go under the probably misguided assumption that exciting teams are the same as winning teams, and exciting players are the only components to a winning team. So the high price they pay for high-risk players is totally baseless. (By price I DO NOT mean the actually contracted "money" they pay, but the price in terms of the batting/bowling failures they are willing to tolerate.) And that is probably because they do not understand the basic economics of spectator sports.

So I will stop all that drivel about incentives and talk Adam Smith. The excitement that I keep talking about is the product that is to be procured for the spectator, the match-losses is the price the consumer is ready to tolerate for that product. High price for higher excitement, low price for low excitement is fairly straightforward. This is fine when there is a totally free market for spectator excitement, but that is not the case with spectator sports in India. Therefore, the market price for the product is higher than the natural price. Customers are therefore willing to tolerate a high level of match-losses to a certain level of excitement. Which means that the manufacturer is also willing to tolerate high price components of labour (including toleration of and acquiescence to Sehwag's shenanigans as long as he delivers sellable excitement), rent and profits.

So I come up with what else, but a rather predictable call to break the monopoly. If we have more choice in spectator sports, excitement will be more abundantly available, also more kinds of excitement (in orange, blue, mango, strawberry, soft, medium, wholemeal, etc.). "Quality" of excitement will go up, and consequently, the price (in losses) that the spectator is ready to bear will go down.

So, some or all the price components of labour (depending on the performance and consistency of players), the profits (of the board), and rent (selection process costs, team strategising costs, training and coaching) will have to be modified to save costs. Any good capitalist is willing to retain high profits, while paying moderate rent for manufacture and development of good quality product. So Laxman, who works for lower "wages" will replace Sehwag like cheap Chinese labour.

So we come to the fairly straightforward conclusion that in order to avoid breeding inconsistent cricketers, (also unreliable match strategies, coaching techniques etc.), we need more football in India!

When Al Qaeda sues for damages

2006-11-03T20:42:00.000+05:30

Angie-Jo is absolutely nuts; what with her adopting strange babies (she started it) and bringing "bad publicity to terrorist groups". I say Osama; sue her!

Very Bad Porn

2006-11-02T22:26:00.000+05:30

Got to this place through a link on Sepia Mutiny!

Boy, don't we love porn; especially when it is Very Bad Porn? Time to sing along folks!

Share Auto

2006-10-30T21:32:00.000+05:30

Share autos in Chennai are breaking waves (and having done away with the customary monsoon pun, we continue). For the first time in Chennai public transport history, unfamiliar men and women sit next to each other, often times pressed against each other. And all they want is to get to their bloody destination in time.

Screenwriting in Tamil

2006-10-23T21:05:00.000+05:30

Celtx is a very cool open-source screenwriting application, and since they invite you to localize it, I wanted to try doing something about it. The very patient Saravanan offered to help me, and am happy to announce that he has also integrated the TamilKey firefox extension with Celtx. Now I can use the Anjal keyboard I am so familiar with, to type in Tamil. Actual localization of Celtx will take as long as it takes to translate the menu items etc into Tamil. And that is supposed to be sappa matter!

Now when that gets done, it should prove invaluable to Tamil screenwriters. So once again, many thanks to Saravanan for helping out, and to Sidharth and Anon who also offered to help!

Immoral 'India Inc' gets shot in the arm

2006-10-21T11:23:00.000+05:30

These damn capitalists have no morals anyway.

Coding Tamil wanted

2006-10-13T23:15:00.000+05:30

My previous request resulted in some wise-cracks, and nothing much else. Now since you guys've been so readily unhelpful as regards my romantic pursuits, I only hope a request of a more professional nature would yield some proper results.

I am basically looking for a coder-type person/persons to Tamilify a very exciting and terribly useful open-source application. This might involve some serious and committed work, and I am not techy-enough to explain the time and effort it might take.

Bottom-line: Is there good money in it? Not with the project directly (The app is freely distributed and open-source - though the guys promise a T-shirt). But, apart from the obvious political mileage to be drawn from sindifying sweat, blood and other sundry bodily fluids for the sake of the mother-tongue, you will also receive the unqualified gratitude of a very powerful and reasonably "well-to-do" industry.

Apply herein!

Panagal Park population of Kali

2006-10-12T22:20:00.000+05:30

1. The cop're doing a terribly good job in de-constipating the Panagal Park junction.

Peeping out of the puLimoottai, sweat-smelling, elbowinyourface bus, I saw red day-glo men patrolling the road along the Brahmandamanasaravanastoremonstrosity, while sharp-voiced lady cop hurled abuses at errant drivers from atop her incredibly high perch on the island.

The bus slid through the tight-arse canal lined with high-resolution-pretty-Tamil-women-in-silks as if it were a graphite-lubricated eel sliding slickly along a vendaikka-coated vazhai thandu slope.

2. Whythefuckis everyplace so crowded? But, come to think of it, my very existence depends rather heavily on the existence of my parents, and my mother was the 8th of 9 children. I have nothing to complain about India's generous population, or my recently-late grandma's 'Hindu' duties.

3. And speaking of Hindu 'deities'. Here's why I'm yet a believer!

Kind residents of Madras

2006-10-07T22:29:00.000+05:30

I need your help in tracing somebody.

She was spotted near Coffee? (the place in RA Puram) this evening about 8. She got out of a Silver Honda City (so says CC, but he's not sure) with 3 other blokes (and that's the slightly worrisom part). She was dressed in a very lovely white printed skirt—the sort that not too many girls can carry off gracefully, and hence you don't see too much of these days. She also sported black heeled shoes, and a slightly crappy handbag. She speaks very clear unbroken Tamil.

My gaze was averted unfortunately when I got a call and had to rush elsewhere.

If you do know her, or if you are her, please get in touch with me. Information leading to positive identification, and positive identification leading to meaningful contact, will be rewarded.

Real and disturbing

2006-10-03T22:20:00.000+05:30

And that's what makes Benjamen Walker's podcasts so cool.

The latest is about evil landlords and their poor exploited tenants.

An Irish what?

2006-09-25T21:55:00.000+05:30

Apparently I am named after the Irish goddess of fertility, cattle, and prosperity, who is also known for comforting and teaching the dying (Wikipedia).

Cattle? What do they mean? I am not even Amit Varma.

The union mafia's film "bandh"

2006-09-23T20:50:00.000+05:30

Today the Tamil film industry has chosen to "honour their kalaigner". The umbrella union of film-workers (FEFSI-Film Employees Federation of South India) has effectively called for a two-day halt to all film activity.

This is technically not a bandh to filmmaking, but surely irritates us non-believers and non-sycophants. FEFSI card holders, even if they are full-time employees of private production houses, like ours, are compelled to not work. As a result we have to cancel and reschedule a whole bunch of shoots. Our own electricians and set-riggers are afraid to work, fearing union reprisals (கார்ட கிழிச்சிடுவாங்க ஸார்) The genny-operators we hired, are to lose two-days of 'bata'. Our reschedule is going to cost us four times over because we lose two more days next week to Gandhi Jayanthi and Aayutha Pujai.

If you want a fucking holiday, why the fuck are we paying for it? And who the fuck are you? Because we includes the worker who's losing two-days' wages.