The Rabbit gets victimized by the Snake and is out of the game early, no matter what its intentions were. These animals are good administrators, but are the worst politicians. They don’t understand the first rule of arguments: self-interest.

The Snake is cunning. It is the master of the game and knows what it wants: power. These animals are an asset to any political party, but god save us if they become the administrators.

Lastly, there is the Bear. It doesn’t hunt down the Rabbit, but it can calmly throw the Snake away, without harming the Snake. It understands politics, and has what it takes to be a Snake, and how to take it down, but chooses to live and let live.

Between these three animals and the others, there is a middle-man. The Monkey. This has control of the media. The Monkey’s purported aim is to take down the snake and save the rabbit, but really, what it wants it to do is go up the ladder itself.

Next, we have the Vulture, which is the industry and lobbies. They admit openly that they’re in the game for the flesh, and they can get much more of it if they have the Rabbit, Bear, Snake, and Monkey, all on their side.

Finally, we have the people, who are Hyenas. They believe they’re smart, but really they aren’t. They only see what everyone else wants them to see. The Snake poses as a Rabbit and makes the Hyena believe that the real Snake is the Rabbit, and tries to make them believe the bear is a Snake too.

And here’s the thing about the Hyenas which is a governing reason for the evolution of the system into its present state: they’re ungrateful bastards.

Some men gave their lives to a cause, and receive mere applause, after which they’re forgotten. Others shirk duty and use the system for their own benefit. They’re chastised and reinstated.

A police officer who ran away from a bomb-blast site isn’t stripped of everything he has and brought to the streets. He’s suspended and then shoved to a less important position. Another officer who lost his life fighting a rioting mob or terrorists, receives a posthumous medal and his family receives a few years salary as compensation. His kids will now grow up without a father and will have to fend for their own college education, if they ever manage to make it that far. The people aren’t going to help his family. They’ll post his photo on facebook which will receive a few hundred likes and shares and comments. And what good did that do to anyone anyway?

The media personalities who went into investigative journalism and got killed days before their evidence was published. They receive a few minutes of screen-time and their murderers are the subject of a few strong words. Compare that with the news-channels and newspapers which create news and successfully increase TRPs. They roll in money and live risk free, because the Snake is the Monkey’s best friend. Papers like The Indian Express will go bankrupt if they don’t step up to the level of Times of India. And we have ourselves to blame for that. I’m as much of a masala news junkie as the next guy.

If the Snake can tell the Monkey what to tell the people about itself as well as the Vulture, all three get their share of the flesh.

In today’s jungle, a moral high ground or short term recognition is nothing compared to raw, bloody flesh. A cunning animal will take a beating after stealing its pound of flesh, because trickery and deceit are in the very roots of the trees which make up the jungle. You can fight the animal, but you cannot fight the jungle.

The confused hyenas have a number of choices. They can either move to a new jungle, where the very life giving air produced by the trees isn’t infected with the poison that makes us Snakes and Vultures, they can stay back and live their days accepting the unwritten laws of the land, or try to fight in their own small enclosures of the forest. These are the ones who turn into one of the other five animals.

To the latter I say, be warned. It isn’t worth fighting for the Hyenas. They hunt with the Snake and eat with the Vulture. Fight instead, for the trees. And be a bear.

Prakash Jha has takes copious amounts of inspiration from Hindu mythology, Indian politicians, and Francis Ford Coppola . The latter being a source of inspiration for countless others, too.

I have to admit just figuring out who is who in the movie was exhausting. I’m pretty sure many of you will have the same problem while watching it so I’ll provide a list here.

Ramnath Rai: Erstwhile CM of Madhya Pradesh and father of Bharti Rai.

Bharti Rai: Mother of Sooraj who is Bhaskar Sanyal (Naseruddin Shah)’s son, Prithviraj Pratap (Rampal) and Samar Pratap (Ranbir) who are fathered by her husband Bhanu Pratap, sister of Brij Gopal Rai (Nana Patekar).

Chandra Pratap: Bharti’s husband’s older brother, who was the president of the Rashtrawadi Party until a stroke forced him to hand over the reins to his younger brother.

Virendra Pratap: Chandra Pratap’s son who considers himself the party’s heir apparent.

If you’re from a family which was even slightly rooted in the Hindu ethos, it’s very hard for you to miss the Mahabharat connections in the movie. Nana Patekar is Krishna, who is the mediator and mentor to the Bhanu Pratap family (direct correlation to the Pandavas), Arjun Rampal is the hot-headed Bhima, and Ranbir Kapoor is the cold and calculative Arjuna. Ajay Devgan is Karna, born from an illicit relationship (as opposed to receiving her son as a wish from the sun god), and is aptly named after this mythological character’s father, Sooraj. Virendra Pratap is Duryodhana, the Kaurava who is forever plotting the downfall of his cousins. Bharti is Kunti of course.

As advertised, this movie gives you a modern day Mahabharat which is completely believable. Being on the other end of the time spectrum from the Satyo yuga, Jha presents to us an epic story set in the Kali yuga. There is absolutely no honour among men, and there is no one you can like by the end of the movie. The movie doesn’t take sides or tell you that good triumphs over evil. It tells you that in politics, winning is the only thing that counts. Ethics are a thing of a past, trust is non-existent and promises are meant to be broken.

And to show you the murkiness of the Kali yuga, Jha has fictionalized details of real people too. One can also draw parallels with the Indian National Congress family when one looks at the Pratap family. Prithvi is Sanjay Gandhi’s character, an impulsive and head-strong man who gets dirt on the family name from time to time due to his bad decisions. By stretching things a little bit, one can say that Samar is like Rajiv Gandhi, and Katrina Kaif is atleast partly inspired by Sonia Gandhi.

Like many movies I’ve watched off late, a minor character seems to outshine the star cast in a few minutes of screen time. Vinay Apte was that guy (I won’t talk about Nana, because he’s in a level of his own), with his portrayal as the obnoxious Babulal.

Ranbir was a close second best. Just the look in his eyes when he was making his next big plan was proof enough that this guy has arrived. An upbringing in a family deeply rooted in cinema has given this guy a huge head start over his peers.

Certain scenes stand out for being straight from The Godfather, such as the Policeman slapping Ranbir Kapoor, and the car bomb. But that is is no way a bad thing, because there is The Godfather, and then there are movies.

My favourite scene by far is the climax, when the Mahabharat battlefield plays itself out in the 21st century.

Sooraj’s SUV (Karna’s chariot) falls into a ravine (gets stuck in the mud) and he struggles to get out. Samar (Arjuna) ponders aloud the moral dilemma of killing someone who is unarmed and weak, and Brij Gopal (Krishna) extricates Samar from this situation by reminding him of the lack of ethics on his adversary’s part (recites the Bhagawad Gita, thus giving a subcontinent the morality they followed for millenia). Samar shoots (fires an arrow) Sooraj, and they leave the scene where his half-brother and cousin lie dying and dead, respectively.

That scene is something I’m showing my grand kids.

The post-worthy celebrity here is Chetan Bhagat. I’d call him the Justin Bieber of the Indian literary world. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Bieber, and there definitely isn’t anything wrong with Chetan. They know their target groups and cater to them. It’s just that they receive too much admiration outside of this group, and that can get on the nerves of people like me who feel that they’re eating away the spotlight of better men.

If you haven’t already watched these clips, do watch them before you read the rest of my post.

Chetan was my hero after five point someone for a while. Having read it right after my standard 10 board exams in a train from Delhi to Chennai, I found his brand of Indian literature refreshing after the heavy stuff we usually come by. His description of the lubricants project undertaken by Hari, Ryan and Alok got me to actually look up basic material in fluid mechanics, and one thing led to another. I’m currently pursuing a Master’s in Aerodynamics and Fluid Dynamics at North Carolina State University, which might not have happened had I not read a paperback novel when I was 15. For that reason, I cannot hate Chetan as much as Roshini does.

But Chetan did not remain consistent. “One night at the call centre” was a sellout. All he wanted was for his books to sell, and he wrote a book which seemed more like a B-grade Bollywood movie. My respect for him dropped a few notches.

With “3 mistakes of my life”, he hit rock bottom. It was more clear than ever that he was only interested in numbers. Formulaic crap which was sure to hit a chord with the moral posing-liberal youngsters. But I grudgingly admitted that his tactic of pricing his book at less than INR 100 was a brilliant move to tackle literary piracy. And the first edition of 3 mistakes did sell 6,00,000 copies in India alone.  That’s a -number most Indian authors hit after 3-4 years sales around the world.

This was the point when I felt Chetan was insulting his own intelligence more than anyone else’s. A man with the dream credentials of IIT-IIM owes more to himself than this. One doesn’t become a writer because of bottom-lines; this is one of those hobby-turned-professions which most people would kill for. He got there and screwed it up for himself. His excuse of “Admiration passes, love endures” wasn’t convincing.

Sure, he did make drivers, carpenters, and Madhya Pradeshi boys who studied in Hindi-medium schools all their lives pick up English novels. Thank you Chetan; only you could have done that.

But why call him a youth icon among the urban crowd then? A Bhojpuri movie is meant to be ghaati and is made for people who like ghaati stuff. There isn’t anything pretentious about it, and the urbane crowd knows to stay away from them. How are his books any different for us? I feel sad for the boys from Besant Nagar, Greater Kailash and South Bombay who claim that 3 mistakes or one night were good reads. WTF guys?

Luckily, he redeemed himself slightly with “Two States”. Not much intellectual value here either, but it was a good read. Funny, but a little preachy to the point of being annoying. It did seem like it was written by the author of Five Point Someone though. I’ll call two states a time pass book which one can read for hilarity during a bus or train journey. I won’t judge Chetan for this book because I feel he wrote it from his heart, and didn’t feel disconnected like his previous rubbish.

To conclude, I’ll say that being preachy is just him. There’s a hypocrite, a wannabe, and a judgmental prick in all of us, so why not in him?

I did read his short story about the Indian education system and found that annoying because a man with his credentials doesn’t have the right to tell us to settle for second-tier institutions. I have not read “Revolution 2020″ so far, but I might.

That said, kudos to Roshini. I couldn’t have defended my opinion that well when taken by surprise by two seasoned celebrities on TV. Arjun Rampal did make you look like a bitch and Chetan was a patronizing, holier-than-thou douche bag when he said you haven’t found love in your life. He used Satyagraha against you later and that will help him sell more books. Good for him. But don’t be too hard on yourself, you were magnificent for someone who (I’m assuming) was taken by surprise and has never been on TV. If you’re reading this Roshini, do send me an email or at least comment here. I’d love to talk to you.

I’ve found my peace with Chetan; it’s just that he’s been blown out of proportion, and that’s our own fault. He is masturbation when it comes to Indian literature. You have to go through him before you get to Kiran Desai or Salman Rushdie. Just don’t masturbate all your life, because that is just sad.

hoping that you’ll emerge victorious.

My family brought me up singing your praises,

just short of placing you in our sanctum sanctorum.

I questioned if you were always right,

but never questioned if you were the best.

Your detractors didn’t have a place in my heart,

Adulation brought them up a few notches.

But with one sweeping motion of a hand,

Oh lotus, your weak roots were uprooted.

What remains now is an infection,

which strives to kill you from the inside.

In this country where vote by default is the hand,

one finger moving towards five fingers.

you created an alternative,

but failed to do much more than that.

Known for your discipline, you currently lack just that.

Filled with ideologues, you are now confused.

You are upheld in the heart of India,

but don’t supply blood to the head and feet.

Places which are red get it from the ideological left

and not from your anatomical left.

Dreams of a uniform civil code and abrogation of special status,

are as far fetched as Kasab being your new face.

Wake up Lotus, or your slumber shall turn into a coma.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,600 times in 2010. That’s about 13 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 36 posts.

The busiest day of the year was March 15th with 73 views. The most popular post that day was Communism tends to Capitalism.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, en.wordpress.com, google.com, search.aol.com, and ceaselesscriticism.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for capitalism, capitalism pictures, gokarna beach, pictures of capitalism, and pulsar 550.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Communism tends to Capitalism April 2009
31 comments

The poonal poem April 2009
15 comments

Twin spark, fuel injection and Transformers April 2009
4 comments

Wall post March 2009
8 comments

Of oppositions, atheism, agraharams and atyachar April 2009
8 comments

JAnthony: Julian. I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and theprotection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange: If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

Sorry, but do you realize what you’re saying? You read the entire statement but blatantly refuse to answer it. If Anthony could have said what he wanted to in a singular question, don’t u think he would have save himself of writing the editorial? If it is of any relevance, there some other questions of approximately the same length which you did answer.
Julian, if you think the information you’ve released deserves to see the light of day, it is your duty to answer reasonable questions no matter where they come from. Else you’re just another reactionary.
I appreciate your efforts, Julian, and you might be the harbinger of a more open world. But you seem to be misusing the public support mobilized by the tapes. I’m sure you don’t want to be the lone man against governments, media, as well as the general public.
Don’t screw it up.

–Anirudh Ramachandran

Still here? Well, I guess it’s your time and you can do whatever you want with it. I’d suggest you go get laid though.

Anyway, it was on the fateful day of August 4th 2010 that I decided I was going to give the Graduate Records Examinations(there, you’ve learnt something new already). I called a friend who had already given the exam, and cut her a deal saying if she booked my date for me with her credit card, I’d pay her a fee of $190. Incidentally, that’s how much the GRE exam costs, so I guess she was severely lacking in business acumen.

I booked an exam appointment for October 18th 2010 as that would give me over 2 months of study time and ensure an excuse to hang up every time my parents called me(I’m a sneaky bastard).

Some additional information you might need: You gotta have a passport to write the GRE. If you don’t, get one now before you even think of writing it. Else, you can remain in this third world country all your life(though I hear the borders at Nepal and Bangladesh are highly porous. There’s hope for you after all).

Some more info: If you’re a south Indian, you might wanna reconsider changing your printed name on the passport from A Vazhapazham to Vazhapazham Azhigipochu. Uncle Sam doesn’t take very lightly to Thambis who don’t have last names. In fact, don’t think about writing GRE before you address this issue as well.

Oh and the GRE changes it’s pattern in November 2011, so if you’re planning on giving yours after that, this post is obsolete.

Next comes the part where you actually study for the GRE. Now if you’ve got through this far, I’m issuing a warning in public interest; don’t read on unless you’re actually planning on giving the GRE.

But I’m sure some of you unemployed lot are going to continue reading, so suit yourself(consider my advice about getting laid though).

The GRE consists of 3 sections: The Verbal reasoning, Quantitative writing, and Analytical Writing abilities respectively.

Verbal Reasoning:

The Verbal reasoning is by far the toughest section in this exam, and you can’t hope to excel in it without rigorous preparation unless your childhood hobby was to devour literary tomes and editorial sections in newspapers, look up all the words you didn’t know in advanced dictionaries and learn to use them in real life. Even if you have done all these things, you have the reading comprehension section which requires you to read at paces which can shame Usain Bolt, and answer questions based on them which require superior surmising and inference skills.

Well maybe it isn’t that bad, but it’s no cake walk. The first thing you have to do is download a great dictionary(I prefer WordWeb and Oxford) to both your computer as well as your mobile. Especially your mobile as you’ll keep recollecting words and not having access to their meanings otherwise. This handy device is of great use for increasing your vocab faster.

To do well in this section, I’d say you start doing the entire editorial thing a good 6 months before the exam. If you do it from a good newspaper(I used The Hindu) and moreover do it religiously, I can guarantee you would’ve learnt a minimum of 1000 words at the end of it. It might seem like a waste of time as you can learn the Barron’s 3500 words in a span of 2-3 weeks, but this kind of learning is way more efficient.

Your next step should be to improve reading skills. Practice reading long passages(the editorial articles can serve this dual purpose) as fast as you can, and see how much you understand. Improve on both speed as well as comprehension ad infinitum. This is the one section which screwed me as well as a lot of my peers this year

If you’re confident about the above mentioned, you can start working on the Barron’s(that’s a book which is a must buy for GRE aspirants) exercises. Normally, people would tell you to finish all 50 word lists given, and I did the same, but in hindsight, I’d say give the word lists a skip and go to the word roots section for now. Memorise the list of prefixes and suffixes(given just after the word lists section) so you can guess words meaning when you read them. Once you’re done with this section, go to the word lists.

When you start working on the word lists, you’ll be very tempted to write every word you don’t know along with it’s meaning in a separate notebook, but I’d advice you not to as it takes up too much time. Instead, what you can do is sully your Barron’s as well as newspapers with a lot of ink-stains, tick marks and scratches. It makes you(or atleast me) feel like you’ve actually worked when you look at your marred copy a few weeks later.

More than the meaning which is given in 2-3 words, concentrate on it’s usage in a sentence. Barron’s is filled with mistakes when it comes to meanings, but they make up for it by perfect usage in context. This again, aids better memory. Try associating the meanings with words in your native tongue, or better yet, with synonyms in the English language. If you learn by synonyms, you learn 2 words in the time it takes to learn one.

Whenever possible, learn words by etymology(word root). You’ll never forget a word if you remember it’s etymology. One word I remembered this way was “pariah.” The Oxford Dictionary says that the word’s root is in the south Indian language of Tamil(my native tongue) and it refers to a social outcast. It is a highly derogatory word and Tamilians will probably find my usage of this word in a public forum offensive. I apologise if I hurt sentiments, but the connotations of this word are very different in English compared to Tamil, even though the root is same. The reason I expounded this particular example was that I probably wouldn’t have been able to remember this word easily if I hadn’t read the root. This won’t work for every word but try it wherever possible.

Once the word lists are fnally over, make sure you revise atleast 5 word lists a day(hey, I never said it was going to be easy). You should’ve finished them a minimum of 3 times before you sit for the exam. Also, whatever you do, MAKE SURE YOU’RE COMPLETELY THOROUGH WITH THE BARRON’S HIGH FREQUENCY LIST OF 333 WORDS.

If you followed what I said so far, congratulations. The worst is over. Now you get to use all the words you learnt in analogies, antonyms and sentence completion.

In analogies, you’re given 2 words which have some form of relationship, and you’re made to choose one of 5 choices which shares a similar relationship.

An example would be(lifted straight from Barron’s):

EMBROIDER : FABRIC

a) fret : wood

b) spin: yarn

c) refine:ore

d) sculpt:chisel

e) glaze:glass

Most people would pick spin:yarn at first sight as it shares something with embroidery. But the correct answer is fret:wood. This is because embroidery is decoration of fabric, and to fret wood is to shape wood in some decorative form. Nothing else shares a similar relationship. There are a fixed number of analogy types and you’d do well to go through them.

You’ll find similar such trickery in Antonyms and Sentence completion questions. These 3 together account more for reasoning than knowledge. While knowledge of the word meanings is required to understand the questions, a high level of reasoning skills is required when it comes to choosing answers.

Once you’ve had enough practice with all of the above mentioned, start taking practice adaptive tests. You’ll find it really hard finishing 3 reading comprehensions(each around 120 lines), around 8-12 questions based on the same, 4-6 questions each on analogies, antonyms and sentence completion.There’s a total of 30 questions in 28 minutes.

The main reason I lost out in this section was because of bad judgement towards the fag and of the exam. After question 18, I found I had 12 questions to complete in 8 minutes(4 of which turned out to be from a 120 line RC about a relationship between bees and wasps). I panicked and skimmed through the passage, picking the answer which seemed most plausible. I then moved on to find 3 analogies and 2 antonym questions consisting of words I never came across in either Barron’s, editorials, or any of the novels I’ve read all my life! The GRE had officially screwed me. I did some intelligent guessing from context and finished the exam with 3 minutes to spare. I heard a traitor sitting in my head, telling me I might as well have read through the passage, but as they say, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. I ended up with a decent score but I still have restless moments about what I might have scored if I read through that RC.

There’s more to come about the quant and Analytical section in the next post(hopefully I’ll be done writing in the next few days).

Happy studying.

As a Guy Ritchie fan, I’ll be honest when I say this is another of his masterpieces, but I was somewhat sad that he made a parody of one of the most famed characters in fictional history. It’s another of his slick movies with awesome people using cool stuff. If you had the movie reel in hand, you’ll have a very hard time pointing out the frames where the sleuth is actually performing the famed deductions he’s loved for. Sherlock has become the new old Salman by appearing shirtless in almost half the movie!

Robert Downey Jr. succumbed to Ritchie’s needs and performed fellatio to him with his depiction of Holmes. Jude Law on the other hand seemed more orthodox Watson and yet, managed to blend in with the surrounding. There’s no dispute as to who’s the better actor of the two, with the latter trouncing his colleague by a huge margin. Also, Downey was very Jack Sparrow reminiscent with his anti-hero characteristics (you have a scene where he wakes up naked, handcuffed to the bedposts. Not something you’d expect in a Holmes movie).

The high part was as usual, the screenplay, which is to be expected from Guy. I loved the way the plot unravels itself, and the climax, though predictable, is worth a watch for the sheer brilliance in narration.

Indian filmmakers (excluding Mani Ratnam) could figuratively take a frame out of this reel and learn how a real period movie is made. The sets are simply brilliant, and my untrained mind couldn’t find anachronism with respect to the artifacts used.

Popping off the minor characters midway was only an excuse to provide the Sherlock with some real chin scratching deductions, and served no meaningful purpose.

The humour was subtle and witty most of the time, but unnecessary in a few places. I somehow feel Hollywood has to tone down a little on sarcasm and dry wit.

Coming to the action sequences which the  script writers are so much in love with, there’s an overdose of slow-fast-slow scenes(which Indian cinema has recently started emulating), and in the crescendo, you only want it to end because it’s become so monotonous.

In the end, you’ll love it if you’re a action freak, more so if you’re a Ritchie fan. Purists too, can’t deny that it’s a really entertaining movie.

The result of Ritchie’s obsession with editing every scene in the movie is pure, unabashed entertainment. But it’s not something you can watch more than once.

Rating: 6.5/10

But none of them seem to know that a superior technology called the whistle exists. Not the private buses atleast. How then do they inform the driver it’s time to take their hapless passengers through the state roads which “rock”(pun intended) ?

Stand outside the vehicle, hit the body of the bus repeatedly, and yell “rates ratche, rate, rape, race” or something to that effect. I’m still not sure if its a euphemism for saying “right, my friend, its time we moved on,” or if it’s a Kannada word that I’m not aware of. Yours truly and a couple of friends tried yelling “Rape rape rape” in a stationary bus, and the conductor almost did the same to us.

What pains me most is the fact that our Thalaivar Rajnikanth must have done the same thing at some point of time, even though he blows one heck of a whistle in all his movies.