Khuda Ke Liye

image from http://www.thelatestone.com/

Watched Shoaib Mansoor's "Khuda ke liye". This was the movie made in Hindi (or Urdu) by Pakistani independent film maker in collaboration with a Pakistani TV. This is the first  Pakistani movie I have watched.  

Without doubt, it is the best 9/11 movie I have seen from an Asian Muslim perspective. Compared to all Indian Hindi movies about 9/11 (My name is Khan, New york, Kurbaan etc), this movie stands apart, deep and moving.

The movie should be translated into English as "In the name of Islam and Allah" (not "In the name of God" as originally subtitled in English). The movie is all about the intense debate and drama between the religious fundamentalists (who want Islam to remain unaltered in its philosophy, interpretation, culture, laws, rules and customs even after 1400 years, even after spreading to almost every nation in the world, even in the age of scientific and technological advances, and even in the age of  democracy) and people who are modern (marry non-Muslims, live-in-together without the bond of marriage, drink alcohol, sing and worship music, live a rich life style etc), but yet consider themselves as Muslims.

The movie revolves around three Muslim youths, two Pakistanis and one Brit-Asian, two men and one woman, and runs in three countries, i.e, Pakistan, England and USA. All three choose different paths, but in the name of Islam and Allah their lives are completely ruined forever. The movie digs deep into the relevance of Islam in modern world.

One brother chooses to go backwards believing in every word of Islamic fundamentalist, and the other goes to the world's most liberated country in search of music. The Brit-Asian (her father is a Pakistani and mother Brit-white) girl is forced into Islam, because her father thinks this is the only way of repentance for all his misdeeds (marrying a non-Muslim, drinking alcohol etc). 

At the end, all three fail to accomplish their goals and dreams. The one, who turns into fundamentalist, realizes the horror of being a fundamentalist, but too late. The other, who is the USA, is tortured till he loses all his mental capacity, because democratic liberated world cannot believe one can be Muslim and be democratic at the same time. The woman, forced to live the life of medieval century, although gets legal justice, loses all her dreams she dreamt in the UK.

The whole movie subtly depicts how the young Muslim generation's life is ruined in the name of Islam and Allah, whether you chose to be a fundamentalist or want to live a progressive life; no, it does not matter, although the movie ends with an optimistic note , which I beleive is the artist's dream of building a new world for Muslims, starting from a scratch (symbolically shown as Mary starts sweeping the floor - the change in Islam has to start from woman, who can sweep all the past and start afresh).

The Islamic issues about music and women rights are discussed in a documentary way to portray that Islam was never against music, and always upheld the rights of women. The movie even tries to differentiate religion from culture, but at the same time shows their confusion between religion and nation (e.g., we ruled India for 1000 years, we ruled Spain for 800 years). The 10 minute Naseeruddin Shah's insight into Islam reminds me of Indian or Buddhist philosophy to summarise the essence of every religious pathway (not religious practice) is the same, "look inwards".

Naseeruddin Shah's words are philosophical, beyond any religion for that matter. When Mary taunts him that namaz is a mere exercise, he replies ‘meri ibaadat ko exercise kahne wali ya to bahut pahunchi hui hai ya bahut dukhi hai‘ (The one who describes my worship as exercise is either spiritually very elevated or is very sad). He tells in court ‘deen me dadhi hai, dadhi me deen nahi‘ (In religion there is beard, not other way round).

There are plenty of short comings as in every good movie. The plot is manipulative (which is essential to convey what the director wants to say). The message, towards the end of the movie, is too simplistic for such a complex issue, "I don't hate USA because few of them are bad. Don't label all Muslims as terrorists as few of them are..".I will not go into further details of short comings as they are best left to movie critics and juries.

I would strongly recommend it as a 'must watch'. It will stir you. 

ನೀಲು ೪೯

ನಲ್ಲ, 
ನೀ ಕೈಕೊಟ್ಟಾಗ
ಬಿಕ್ಕಿ ಬಿಕ್ಕಿ ಅತ್ತೆ, ನಿಜ!
ಅಳುವೆಲ್ಲ ಮುಗಿದ ಮೇಲೆ
ಕುಣಿದು ಕುಪ್ಪಳಿಸಿದೆ,
ಅದೂ ನಿಜ!!

The Japanese Wife

One thing which I could not understand was
what Aparna Sen wanted to say with the movie, ‘Japanese Wife’.

Courtsey: IBNlive

The pace is slow and uniform, the photography is wonderful. But that is where the best part of the movie ends!

English is not Aparna Sen’s mother tongue. A Bengali makes a movie in English, based on a Bengali English writer Kunal basu. Everything about this movie is extremely artificial.

The hero of the movie, a primary/ secondary school teacher, is a Bengali too. His written English is as good as, or as bad as, a sixth grade student. His spoken English is as good as a third grade English student.

The heroine is a Japanese, whose written and spoken English is worse than our hero. The man cannot speak woman’s language, and the woman cannot speak man’s language.

Accidentally, they become pen-pals, while writing in English. They fall in love through their English letters. Here comes the most awkward part of their personalities! They even get married through letters!

They hardly speak to each other. Telephone calls are very expensive to make one from India. The hero does not have a land-line or mobile, and decides not to have one for 15 years! Most importantly, when they speak to each other in English, he cannot understand her, and she cannot understand him, because their accents are so different!

They struggle to express day-to-day happenings in English. Both characters behave as if their IQ is less than 80. Both are introverts. Both speak less. Both don’t read any literature, watch any movies, write poetry. Their love is, hence, is not palpable on the screen. This is the most unromantic movie ever made!

They remain faithful to each other for good 15 years. It might be possible for the Japanese girl, because she is suffering from a cancer (which cancer?), but what about our hero? He belongs to one of the few respected professions of Indian villages - a teacher; he is is handsome; he has his own house; he has got a mother who keep insisting to get him married. But still our hero decides to remain bachelor (i.e., married to her virtual wife).

Unfortunately, the film never gets deep. The kite festival takes a big portion of the movie, but it remains disconnected from the main content of the film. Apart from the hero masturbating in a lonely boat, and having enormous feeling towards the widow, the film never deals with digs into complexities of human life. The content and style of the letters never rises beyond 6th grade, even after 15 years!  The same can be applied to the film too.

The film would have been a beautiful ode about the married people who live away from each other for years. The film would have been a complex portray of struggle of an introvert, who finds solace in his virtual life. But the film is just wasted in repeating telegraphic English.

There is one line of poetry though: The film ends when two widows, attached to the same man, meet.

The reluctant fundamentalist

I read Mohsin Hamid's, "The reluctant fundamentalist", primarily because of the title, and his interview when he visited India.

Courtsey: http://thathideousman.blogspot.com/

Changez loves America and Erica. Changez waits for America and Erica to love him, only to understand America's self-centeredness, and Erica's obsessive love for her dead lover. Chengez realizes both of them can never love him, because both of them are deeply mad and buried in their colonial past.

The story revolves around where the writer has lived in the past - Lahore, Princeton and New York. There is detailed description of how a corporate capitalistic world works, and how it tries to control the third world (Chengez was sent to Philippines and South America). There is no mention of democracy in the narration. Possibly, Hamid indirectly wants to say there is no difference between capitalism and democracy.

The best of the Christian boys were captured and forcefully trained by Ottoman empire to fight against their own people in 14th century. The best of the Muslim boys choose to study and live in America, where their mentality is converted indirectly to fight against their own religion in 21st century. Chengez, a hard-working, intelligent, American educated Muslim, although a deep lover of America, unwillingly decides to return to his country, Pakistan, to become a fundamentalist (not a fascist).

But what Hamid completely fails to explain is how this is affecting Islam, although there is glimpse of explanation how American capitalism is trying to kill the cultures across the world. But the narrator often mistakes his culture for religion, and religion for his culture. 

Hamid completely fails to build the tension between India and Pakistan. From an Indian point of view (I was in India at the time of the novel's period), the media or we the people, never discussed about the possibility of a war between India and Pakistan after Kargil war. But the fear from Pakistan's point of view might be real, but again, Chengez's explanation sounds too artificial and unreal.

Changez talks about twin towers, Sep 11, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, but Hamid fails to make emotional link with Chengez's background or current status. Love and loss of Erica looks more real than his anger towards America's capitalism and foreign policy. The young man's change from capitalist to fundamentalist is too predictive, but extremely unconvincing. 

Despite being superficial, the novel does provoke some thoughts about American capitalism and foreign policy, and also about the mindset of a Pakistani youth who tries to find fault in India and America for its current state.

ನೀಲು ೪೮

ನನಗೆ ಬಡವರನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ಹೆದರಿಕೆಯಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು;
ಅದೊಂದು ದಿನ
ಭಾಷೆ ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲದ ದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ
ನನ್ನ ಪರ್ಸು, ಮೊಬೈಲು, ಪಾಸುಪೋರ್ಟು ಇರುವ ಬ್ಯಾಗು
ಕಳೆದು ಹೋಗುವವರೆಗೂ

Photo from www.walkthroughindia.com

Where does Google + stand between twitter and facebook?

Facebook has nearly killed Orkut. Google Buzz died. I have been using Google+ for a few months now.

Facebook has connected innumerable long lost friends and classmates, although various social networking sites tried to achieve the same in the past and failed. Facebook succeeded; call it a hard work, vision or luck, it succeeded. People hate to use more than one service for the same purpose. If G+ is trying is pull people out of Facebook and join G+ in bulk, they are most likely to fail miserably. I am trying to guess that this is not the intention of the G+ team.

Twitter is all about catching the news around the world in one liners. Its also about time-pass chats (whats up twitter world? etc), gossiping (Shahrukh Khan slapgate etc), pulling legs of each other, and joking at life.


G+ platform is interesting. It is trying to connect REAL people who may or may not know each other, but share common interests. 

G+ is full of circles. Building your circle and posting in that circle makes more sense than posting everything in public.For example, as a radiologist, I do not want to post something related to radiology in 'public', but post it in 'radiology circle' to have a more meaningful closed communication. All my Kannada related thoughts will be posted only to 'Kannadigaru' cirlce. 

But we need a large number of active people who carefully select what to talk where? What to share where? 

Will G+ succeed? So far, my experience is not that good. Very few people are active on G+. 

ಕ್ಷಮಿಸಿ

ಈಗ್ಗೆ ಸುಮಾರು ವರುಷಗಳಿಂದ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಪ್ರೋತ್ಸಾಹಿಸಿದ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರೇ,

ಕ್ಷಮಿಸಿ...


ಏಕೆಂದರೆ


ನನ್ನ ಬ್ಲಾಗುಗಳನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಜೋಡಿಸಿಬಿಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇನೆ. 


ಅಂದರೆ ಇನ್ನು ಮೇಲೆ ನನ್ನ  ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್ ಬರಹಗಳೂ  ಈ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನಲ್ಲೇ ಬರಲಿವೆ. 


ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನಲ್ಲು ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷು ಸೇರಲಿದೆ, ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನನ್ನ so called ಫೋಟೋಗ್ರಾಫಿಗಳೂ!


ಅದಕ್ಕೆಂದೇ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು ಬದಲಿಸಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಆದರೆ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನ URL ಅನ್ನು ಬದಲಿಸಿಲ್ಲ!


ಚದುರಿ ಹೋಗಿದ್ದ ನನ್ನ ಮೂರೂ ಬ್ಲಾಗುಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸಿ, ಇನ್ನು ಮುಂದೆ ಇದೊಂದೇ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯಲು ರೆಡಿಯಾಗಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಹೊಸ ವರುಷದ ಹೊಸ ಹುಚ್ಚುತನ!


ಮೊದಲು ನನ್ನ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನಿಂದ ಕೆಲವು ಬರಹಗಳನ್ನು ಇಂಪೋರ್ಟ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನನ್ನ ಫೋಟೋ ಬ್ಲಾಗಿನಿಂದ ಕೂಡ.


ಮುಂದಿನ ಬರಹಗಳು ಕನ್ನಡ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್ ಎರಡೂ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುತ್ತವೆ. 


ಇಂಟರ್ನೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ, ಮೊಬೈಲುಗಳಿಗೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ನನ್ನ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆಗಳಿ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷಿನಲ್ಲಿರುತ್ತವೆ. ಹಾಗೆಯೆ ಕೆಲವು ಸಿನೆಮಾ ಮತ್ತು ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳ ಬರಹಗಳು ಕೂಡ.


ಕಾಳಿಗಿಂತ ಜೊಳ್ಳೇ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಆದರೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಬರೆಯುವ ಹುಚ್ಚು ಸಾಹಸಕ್ಕೆ ಕೈಹಾಕಲಿದ್ದೇನೆ.


ಕ್ಷಮಿಸಿ...

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

( ಮರಾಠಿ ಕವಿ ಬರೆದ " ದೂರ ದೇಶಿ ಗೇಲಾ ಬಾಬಾ" ದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಅವತರಣಿಕೆ - ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮ ಮಾಧವ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು)

ದೂರ ದೇಶಕ್ಕ ಹೊಗ್ಯಾನ ಅಪ್ಪಾ

ನೌಕರಿಗೆ ಹೊಗ್ಯಾಳ ಅವ್ವಾ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಕಣ್ಣೀರು ಕಪಾಳ ದಾಟಿ ತುಟಿಗೆ ಬಂದಾವ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಗುಬ್ಬಿಯಂಥ ಜೀವಾ

ಒದ್ದ್ಯಾಡಿ ಹಾರಾಡಿ ಸುಸ್ತಾದರೂ

"ಸಾಕು , ಮಲಕೋ ಪುಟ್ಟಾ"

ಅಂತ ಹೇಳೋರೂ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಎದಕೋ ಏನೋ ಯಾರಿಗೆ ಗೊತ್ತು

ಕೊಡತಾರ ಯಾಕ ಸಾಲಿಗಿ ಸುಟ್ಟಿ

ಮಾತಾಡ್ಲಿಕ್ಕೂ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ನನಗ ನಾನ ಹೇಳೀನಿ ಕತಿ ಕಟ್ಟೀ

ಆಟಗಿ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಹಚ್ಚಿಟ್ಟೀನಿ

ಆಡವರೂ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಹೊರಗಿನ ಜಗಾ ಕಿಡಿಕ್ಯಾಗಿಂದ

ಕಾಣಸ್ತದ ಭಾಳ ಛಂದ

ಬಾಗಲಾ ತಗದು ಹೊರಹೋಗಬೇಕಂದ್ರ

ನನ್ನ ಮುಷ್ಟ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರದೂ ಬೆರಳಿಲ್ಲಾ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಕಣ್ಣೀರು ಕಪಾಳ ದಾಟಿ ತುಟಿಗೆ ಬಂದಾವ

ಮನ್ಯಾಗ ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ

ಕೊಲವೇರಿ ಸಾಂಗ್ - ಕನ್ನಡ - ಸ್ಕೂಲ್ ಬಾಯ್ಸ್ ವರ್ಷನ್

ಕೊಲವೇರಿ ಹಾಡು ಎಷ್ಟು ಜನಪ್ರಿಯವಾಗಿದೆ ಎನ್ನುವುದನ್ನು ಹೇಳುವ ಅವಷ್ಯಕತೆ ಇಲ್ಲ ಎಂದು ಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ನನ್ನ ಮಗ, ಕೃಷ್ಣ, ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ (ಐ ಮೀನ್ ಕಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್) ನಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಡಿ ಕುಣಿದಿದ್ದಾನೆ. ನಾನದಕ್ಕೆ school boys version ಎಂದು ಹೆಸರಿಟ್ಟಿದ್ದೇನೆ.

ನೋಡಿ, ಆನಂದಿಸಿ. ಇಷ್ಟವಾದರೆ ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಗೆಳೆಯರೊಂದಿಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಿ.

ನೀಲು ೪೭

ಕೋರ್ಟು ಡೈವೋರ್ಸಿಗೆ ಒಪ್ಪಿದ ದಿನ


ಕೊನೆಯದಾಗಿ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಕಳೆದ


ಆ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ


ಮೊದಲ ಮಿಲನದ


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