The Prestidigitator

There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to think that the reason it matters to care so passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.                                              

                      -Susan Orlean, Adaptation(2002)

Alright, I love comic books as do some of my friends (maybe that’s why they’re my friends). I’m not ashamed of the fact that I enjoy colorful books in which characters have conversations through bubbles. I’ve been ridiculed for this particular interest of mine by both family and friends and over the years I have grown tired trying my best to justify this medium of art/literature. Every time I’m about to say something about a comic book, I use the term ‘graphic novel’ in order to be taken more seriously but cunning as the average human is, I’m met with nothing but smirks and guffaws.

A couple of days back I was at Landmark going through the graphic novels section. A huge amount of my time is spent here as I’m not in a position to actually BUY any books owing to my present financial situation. So as I was browsing through a copy of Hellboy, a guy (about 40 years old) comes to me and asks for my opinion on the books he’s picked out for his 12 year old kid. Sin City:That Yellow Bastard and an issue of Y:The Last Man. Any comic book fan would know that well…these are not exactly kid-friendly books. They have mature content (graphic violence and nudity), so I open the book and tell him that he might as well pick something up from another section. I was expecting a polite thank you but what he did was the opposite. He threw the books at me and suddenly went on a tirade against the current youth and our degrading moral values. Up until now, comics have been ridiculed as a childish past time but now…one of the reasons why our country is in the pits is also due to comic books. Note the point.

I’m tired of trying to explain to people that some of these comic books have an amazingly profound literary aspect to them. I mean, who would expect the following lines to be straight out of a comic book?

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

   Was Rorschach.

                                         -Alan Moore’s Watchmen

And as long as stores in India are going to stack them along with the likes of Amar Chitra Katha or Archie, a lot of people are going to miss out on some great titles and a lot of unwitting kids are going to grow up early!

So what’s more likely? That an all-powerful, mysterious God created the Universe, and decided not to give any proof of his existence? Or, that He simply doesn’t exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn’t have to feel so small and alone?                                                        -Eleanor Arroway (Contact)

Almost 6 years back, I went through a sort of spiritual/scientific awakening phase. I drifted between agnosticism and atheism not sure what I really believed in. I read a lot in an attempt to expand my horizons and I guess what I’m today is because of what I went through back then. Carl Sagan’s works had and continues to have a profound effect on me. For the first time, it made me question things that people took for granted. You could say it changed my life, cliched as it is.

I used to be a science fiction fan what with having grown up on a staple diet of X Files and alien movies but somehow they always were incredulous. Then I happened to read Contact by Carl Sagan and boy was I stoked! Carl Sagan, for the uninitiated was an American atheist, astronomer, thinker, futurist and humanist. He is widely regarded as one of the finest astronomers ever. He popularised science through the widely watched Cosmos TV seies and won a Pulitzer for the book of the same name.

Contact was turned into a film by Robert Zemeckis and I tried my best to avoid it because I felt that no matter how hard anyone tried, the ideas of the book could never be put on film.So reluctantly, I watched the film last night. All those emotions I went through when I read the book for the first time came back. Contact is a flawed but powerful film. Yes, it has been adjusted to hollywood sensitivities and has been dumbed down for a wide audience but nonetheless, the essence of the book still remains.

Eleanor Arroway (Jodie Foster) is an obsessive scientist who works on the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project and recieves a signal from outer space. Cut to the chase, the signal has layers; a signal to get our attention (a TV broadcast of Hitler opening the Olympics), a primer and the message itself. The message is an elaborate instruction set to build a machine of some sort. What follows is the political and religious fallout.

The film (and the book) is sort of a meditation on the importance of the human race and our never ending quest for meaning in the universe. Sagan, though an atheist held the human spirit in high regard and this is showcased here.  Beautiful and sometimes painful; the film probes our insignificance in the cosmos and how sometimes we try to delude ourselves using religion, spirituality and the likes.

This is a science fiction film like no other; no malevolent aliens, no autopsies and no action whatsoever. It’s a journey into the mysteries that lie at the core of the human mind as well as the universe.People are bound to complain about the movie being long and plodding but I feel the celluloid version has done justice to the book and to an extent, the ideas of Sagan.

It’s not everyday that you read or watch something that stays with you for a while and makes you look at things from a different perspective.

The film has a beutiful opening sequence.Makes you feel small. 

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.
                              -Albert Camus

That makes me feel so much better now!

Oh my God, I’m getting pulled over. Everyone, just… pretend to be normal.

I love little films. I saw this one shortly after I watched the truly incredible The Squid and the Whale and I realised I love stories about dysfunctional families. However, this film is no American Beauty but it is enchantingly likeable in it’s own way.

The story follows the Hoovers, a dysfunctional family with so many colorful characters that it truly is a proverbial clown car of sorts. Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) is a high strung motivational speaker who is unsuccesful to say the least inspite of his irritating ’winner’ attitiude. Sheryl, his wife is an over worked, ciggarette addicted and constantly depressed mother. The film however belongs to Abigail Breslin who plays Olive Hoover, the little girl whose one dream is to win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Add to that, characters layed by Steve Carrell (a gay Proust scholar), Alan Arkin (the very enlightened/perverted grandfather) and my favorite, Paul Dano who plays Dwayne; an embittered, angst-ridden and Nietzsche-reading teenager, who has taken a vow of silence until he becomes a test pilot for the Air Force.

All of them embark on a hilarious road trip to California to enroll Olive in the beauty pageant. On the way, the family comes apart at the seams. Tragedy lurks around every corner but inspite of having such dark undertones, the movie is very funny.

The film is very small in magnitude and does not pretend to be an important film in any way. Maybe that’s what makes it so loveable. The scenes are beautifully shot in the true spirit of Independent cinema but it’s the actors that truly take this show on the road! No pun intended.

Abigail Breslin is an amazing child actress; the film truly belongs to her. The scene in which she listens to the answering machine…incredible! Steve Carrell does a fine job playing a suicidal gay academic. Somehow, he is the most sane character. The rest of the cast is excellent, to say the least.

There is something about this film that I can’t quite put my finger on. Something that makes it a joy to watch. Maybe it’s all these flaws that keep getting played out on film that make it so…relateable. The characters are beautifully etched out, the acting is marvellous and there are little moments in the film that can make you introspect.

One of my favorite films from 2006. 9/10. Believe the hype!

“What is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?”                                              -Louis Mackey (Waking Life)

Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television.

                                                                     -David Letterman

Disclaimer: I implore ‘people in love’ to not take the following rant personally. I mean you no harm. Please take it as coming from a guy who has a case of the ’sour grapes’.

I thought I’d never write about stuff like this but now that the season’s here, I can’t seem to help myself. People who know me would tell you that I’m a cynic of epic proportions who loves trivialising thngs like love, puppy dogs and sunshine. What they wouldn’t tell you is that I like nay, love Notting Hill and sometimes I get goosepimples watching the crappiest of romantic comedies. All that aside, I somehow feel I need to write on what I think ‘love’ is or why I feel it is way too overrated.

Now, being all of 22 1/2 years old, I can’t really tell you I’m an expert on the subject but I still have reason to believe that the whole idea of ‘love’ has been blown out of proportion. Anybody my age would be able to agree (if not admit) that they have fancied a number of people growing up and so the entire idea of a ’soul mate‘ is absurd if not total bullcrap! Besides ‘love’ always has a number of highly noticeable stages or phases:

1. You start talking and realise that he/she is really smart and that you have a lot in common. Who you kidding!? 
2. Undeniable attraction
3. Uncontrollable attraction
4. Telling each other how he/she changed your perspective on life using phrases like ‘You make me feel like it’s OK to be me’, ‘You complete me’, ‘You’ve changed my life’, ‘You bring meaning’ and other such cheesy lines.
5. Promises of ‘forever’. Statements like ‘I want to grow old with you’, ‘I want to die before you do’ and of course the ever popular ‘I promise to love you forever’ get thrown around pretty often.
6. More promises. ‘I love you’, ‘No, I love you more’ , ‘No I love you even more’ etc…
7. You don’t see each other for a minute and say ‘I miss you’ ten times.
8. Then, you slowly start to calm down. The initial outburst wears off. You become comfortable being with him/her.
9. You realise you have nothing new to talk about and so, start talking about other people. There are times these talks are a wee bit judgemental. Amazing that people in love spend so much of their time talking about others.
10. Conversations die down and you start saying that you guys are so comfortable wth each other and that now, even ‘the silences are comfortable’. Priceless!
11. You slowly start getting a little peeved when he/she wants to know everything about you. You wish you had a little more space.
12. You know each other too well and there are no more surprises. Things feel far too predictable.
13. You have small arguments and sometimes big fights.
14. You break up or get married.
15. Repeat.

Sometimes I really think Love is really just  Lust disguised. A plot invented by nature so that our gene pool is preserved. An ingenuine method to make sure that a species does not wipe itself off the planet. Maybe it’s just a way of feeding our insecurities, making us feel we are better people than we really are.

Well, I kind of see love as, uh, this escape for two people who don’t know how to be alone, you know? Or, I mean, you know, it’s funny. People always talk about how love is totally unselfish, giving thing, but if you think about it, there’s nothing more selfish.

                                                          Before Sunrise

Maybe that’s all it is. Maybe not.

I sit staring blankly at my computer screen. Starting to blur. My eyes hurt. Refresh my Inbox 10 times in two minutes. No mail.

I open my bag and fish out a copy of PC World. ‘Don’t Get Left Behind: Make the switch to Linux’. Think about penguins. Think about the movie Madagascar. Smile. Close magazine.

Turn back to my computer. 2 new mails. Stupid forwards.

Take printout on desk. SAP Implemetation. ‘The implementation of SAP software, such as SAP R/3 is almost always a massive operation that…’ Mutter curse.

Open bag and take out the copy of The Fountainhead. 704 pages. Keep it back.

Check time. 2:31 pm. Crap.

Take out notebook and glance at ‘Things to do list’.

1. Call up GRE consultants again.
2. Return DVDs at National Market.
3. Buy new socks.
4. Mail Payroll.
5. Fill up Medical reimbursement form.
6. Submit House Rental slip.
7. Go to ——-’s house to transfer stuff on to laptop.
8. Call up ——–.
9. Call up ——–.
10. Call up ——–.
11. Call up ——–.
12. Book tickets to Delhi.
13. Cancel leave requests for February.

Scribble ’shit’ on the notebook. Close book. Close eyes. Take deep breath. Open eyes. Put on headphones.

Open browser and type in www.wordpress.com.

…….

Disclaimer: Pointless rant follows…Inspired by a conversation with relatives who think I earn truck loads of money. 

The man who said “I’d rather be lucky than good” saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how a great part of life is dependent on luck. It’s scary to think so much is out of one’s control. There are moments in a tennis match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn’t and you lose.

                                                     -Match Point (2005)

For a long while, I believed that we were responsible for everything that happened to us. Good or Bad. I liked the the idea that we were in control. The concept of free will was so alluring simply because it asserted that we could do whatever we wanted to.

The last few months have turned all those ideas upside down. Everything is so random that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, no matter how determined we are, the possibility of failure/loss can never be ruled out.  Luck plays a huge role, especially in the Software Industry as I’m sure many will agree. Luck. The devout refer to it as fate, purpose, destiny or providence but it’s difficult to see a divine hand behind everything that happens to a person.

The Indian Software Industry, if you’ve noticed is on a recruiting spree. Every other engineering graduate is being hired to add to the already humongous workforce. The Tier 1 companies alone have close to 4.5 lac employees. Now with such a workforce, I’ve wondered how they turn up huge profits.

That’s where wealth creation and cost cutting come into action. An employee working offshore is billed at say, 35$ an hour. Mind you, that’s the billing rate for an entry level professional. A 10 hour day would guarantee him/her 350$, roughly 15,400 INR! Amazingly that’s what he/she gets paid in a month. Implies the company makes a net profit of around 3,23,400 INR per employee!

Now, once somebody is employed, he/she after undergoing a sorry execuse for training has to ‘wait’ till a project specific to his/her ‘skillset’ arrives. I’ve seen friends lose their minds because of this ‘wait’. People with huge potential and intelligence are forced to while away time (sometimes up to 10 months) with no productive output whatsoever to speak of. Meanwhile, a few get randomly selected from a ‘talent pool’ (in some companies, this pool has over 4000 ‘human resources’!). This is where luck comes in to play. People are asked to learn and un-learn new technologies and are seldom/never given a chance to pursue their interests. Everybody finally ends up in a mad scramble to either get married OR go onsite. The entire process is absurd.

So why inspite of all this, does every other jackass in the country want to be part of the Software Engineer brigade? Is the pay that good? No. Is it the glamour? No. Is it the satisfaction? No.

Delusions, Mr. Anderson. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existense that is without meaning or purpose!All of it as artificial as the Matr…nevermind.

Listening to I’m Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage