On How Being "Cool" is Just Not Cool

The last three blogs of mine have been kind of heavy, preachy and long. So here is one that is light, short but still preachy.

One of my favorite pastimes is watching videos on youtube. I discovered Goodness Gracious Me, some good music and most recently, the American Talk show host Craig Ferguson. I find Craig Ferguson spontaneous, warm, great with expressions. More importantly, his brand of comedy is markedly different from the usual galaxy which includes Letterman, Leno, Colbert, Kimmel and many others.

Anyway, I happened to see an interview of Paris Hilton by Craig.

Paris looks stunning, the flowing blond hair, the red frock-ish outfit, just gorgeous. However, I really got irritated by the way she spoke. Let me clarify one thing. One has heard and read a lot about Paris. But I think she has potential. For one, I do think she can look like a heiress when she puts the effort. And I have seen videos in which she has tried different things. (Not those, you pervs!) But this interview put me off. I strongly disapprove of this "umm... yeah... I umm.. well, yeah" kind of talk. The body language is put-off-ish. The giggle comes across as artificial and disingenuous. The school girl giggle, few people like it on school girls, but on a woman it is just not nice at all.

Writing is indecent exposure and I guess what I am about to say also reveals something about me. Well, what the heck. My favorite women characters in American sitcom (in order) are Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine, Patricia Heaton's Debra and Cobie Smulder's Robin Scherbatsky. So, I looked at the video of Julia Louis-Dreyfus' interview with Craig.

She is a billionaire heiress too. But she starred in such a plain Jane role in Seinfeld and her bits for Saturday Night Live are also pretty good. Most importantly, since she is not being "cool", look at the folksiness, the ease with which Craig and Julia banter along. Must be the upbringing which makes all the difference.

The Bridge on the River Kwai and the Futility of Human Action

Watched Bridge on the River Kwai yesterday. I think it is 65 on the IMDB top 250 but I would rate in my top 10. Do watch the movie when in the mood for some food for thought. I have written about the movie in the first part, but if you have seen it you can jump to the second part where I have rambled on about my thoughts.

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The story is about the construction of a bridge across the river Kwai by British POWs. (Prisoners of War) The bridge has to be completed by a certain date and failing to do so would result in loss of face for the commanding officer of the camp Col. Saito. The British POWs are led by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) who is very particular about maintaining the dignity of the uniform. He is particular about rules and refuses to take prisoner like treatment. The Japanese Colonel Saito however has a different view. In his book, a true warrior would rather commit suicide than be taken prisoner.

During the first month little progress occurs on the construction of the bridge chiefly due to a dispute between the two colonels over the status of officers. Col. Nicholson points out that according to the Geneva Convention officers were not required to work, whereas Col. Saito believes that they have to bend to his will as they were prisoners. Col. Nicholson is thrown into solitary confinement in a shed called the oven but he refuses to budge. Seeing the intransigience of the British soldiers, Col. Saito lets the British officers command the soldiers and exempts them from hard labour. Much to his surprise, Col. Nicholson responds by deciding to build a fine bridge instead of the makeshift ones the Japanese are used to throwing together.

Unknown to Col. Nicholson, another party in the British HQ in Ceylon is planning to bomb the bridge. A key person in this mission is the American Commander Shears who just escaped the camp as Col. Nicholson's men marched in. The rest of the story is about how a fine bridge is built and finally it is blown up.

A notable scene in the movie is when the prisoners come marching in whistling the Colonel Bogey March. You can listen to it here and check out this link for the lyrics.

Hitler has only got one ball,
Goring has two but very small,
Himmler is somewhat sim'lar,
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.

A real blues beater!

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PG Wodehouse takes a dig at Russian writers in his golf story, The Clicking of Cuthbert. "Vladimir specialized in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened till page three hundred and eighty, when the moujik decided to commit suicide."

The weather yesterday felt like that.

You can therefore imagine the mood I would have been in after watching The Bridge on the River Kwai in that weather. Suffice to say I fell into a putrid pool of pessimism and started reflecting on the something that has always intrigued me - the seeming futility of human action.

Let us ask a question. Is it that a beggar's life* is less meaningful than that of an individual who has risen to the highest post of the land? (Note, it is not about worth. The assumption is that all human lives are of equal worth.)

If the answer is yes, then is it that a life of achievement is the only meaningful life? Then what of countless people who have tried earnestly and given up? Does not their life carry meaning? This is admittedly a defensive stance catering to the "losers".

This can be argued in another way. We can define achievement in terms of impact on other people. Therefore, the head of state's life is more meaningful since he/she made some positive difference as opposed to someone who did not. Alternatively, if as the head of state that individual caused more harm then that person's life is less meaningful than one who has done nothing.

But should this be the metric? What about people who may have affected just one person in a profound way? We are psychologically tuned to believing that "doing good" for others is a meaning of life. The chief flaw of this thinking is that it draws meaning from the suffering of others. What if there was no one who needed your help? Does it rob life of meaning then? Is not such a defintion of meaning fragile?

More importantly, it is often the case that this sort of thinking unleashes an army of do-gooders all set out to find "victims" to do good upon. What about some people who may conceptualize things without care for other's "good"? And in some cases, what is good?

What about the middle path then? ;) Is it that it is about trying your best and having been convinced of that end defines a meaningful life?

I prefer the view that there is no inherent meaning in life. It is what we define it to be or more usually what our environment defines it to be. We draw meaning from our environment and taken out of the environment the meaning may be different. There is no magical purpose for which God has created the unique snowflake that we may consider ourselves to be. We were born by a biological event and that event will run its course. In this interval we have to amuse ourselves.

But if one were to take this cynical stand, there is no incentive for action. We could all just dope ourselves away to death.

The answer to me often appears that we must pass through different stages of wilful cheating of ourselves. In the youth we must convince ourselves that achievement is the source of meaning. As time goes we must take different views on the meaning to life!

*No offense to beggars! Just hyperbole!

On Soaps of the television kind

What explains the popularity of soaps of the type aired on Sun TV or the Kabhi-Saans-bhi-something-something variety? It is all well to mock people for being hooked to them, but as students of marketing one has to take a different look it. What hidden need are these serials catering to that they hook people so strongly to them?

I used to see two serials quite regularly when I was in 9th and 10th. One was Marma Desam and I really used to enjoy that. My memory is very hazy but there was one "season" when people used to get killed mysteriously by lorries and the symbol of a dog used to occur frequently. There was also some nadi astrology fundaes. Overall it was a pretty engaging whodunnit. But that was only one year. The next edition was pretty boring, so I lost interest.

Another thing that I used to watch regularly was Dindigul I Leoni. For some reason, the name is etched in my memory. He used to draw most of his material from mocking the tamil songs of the day. But that got predictable after a while.

Another show of this type was Yugi Sethu's Naiyandi Durbar. The man was especially in form during election time. But after a point, the material got stale. (It is quite amazing then that Letterman, Colbert etc. keep their game up for so long.)

Chithi had actress Radhika in it. And I don't even know why I used to watch it. Maybe the slot was right during dinner time or just afterwards. I don't know, but I guess most families eat between 8:30 - 9:30 PM and that slot is very important. But the after slot of 9:30 - 10:30 will also be important because after eating, you want to relax and the relaxation after a heavy meal is one of life's greatest pleasures.

As an aside, I really miss those Sunday afternoon meals at Sri Krishna Kafe after L square. Typically, I would be at L square till 2-3 am and then crash till 1:30 - 2pm. (In Europe they don't use the AM/PM thing. It is the 24 hour clock. AM/PM is a redundancy if you ask me) I hope you can imagine my state then. Ravenously hungry, savage hunger would approximately describe my state. At that state, going and hogging away at the unlimited meal at SKC is the closest to orgasmic bliss that I have experienced.

In Finland too, we have parties that go really late, like friday night's. But as a vegetarian the possibility of eating to my heart's content is just not possible. For one, there are no proper Indian restaurants near the area I live. And secondly, it costs 7 euros for such a meal! The unlimited meal at SKC costs 1.4 Euros equivalent and that is itself costly if you ask me. One must not convert, but the cost structure in Scandinavia is so ... much! So much that yours truly has been forced to cook just to save on money... sigh!

Anyway, coming back to the topic of soaps, the one theory I can think of is that most of these soaps have strong women characters. Maybe, the sight of men grovelling before an ugly matriarch (there is usually a matriarch and she is hideous) may be the stuff of every woman's dreams. I don't know. It would be interesting to hear perspectives. Fire away please, for I am really curious.

As the thoughts flow...

Oops... again missed on following up a story. Mea Culpa! My hard disk crashed last week and the half written file bit the dust, much like the other files I had. I long for my old hard disk. But as the service center guy asked me if I wanted any data recovered, I realized that I really did not need any! I have always had bad luck with computers... okay okay, I just don't know why my computers get screwed so easily. The obvious answer would be that I mistreat my gadgets, but I really don't!

Maybe I got to do better research when I buy them, but that still does not explain the extent of the cups my gadgets fall into. sigh...

Anyway, as a result of years of bad luck with computers, I just backup my stuff on mail as an instinct. So I had the really really important stuff on gmail and did not need to spend money on recovering data. But even without that, got taken to the cleaners money wise. sigh again...

It is curious really... when I was interning I missed campus life with its supposed abandon and now that I am back at campus, I am actually missing work life. As the Tamil saying goes, Desire comes in waves and at a fundamental level I am just feeling so restless and have no idea as to why that is.

I really want to get obsessed with something to the exclusion of everything else. I am kind of bored of doing this middle class act where you are supposed to balance everything - do your duty to everybody - keep your mind under control and all that.

Someone once mentioned this tidbit which has always fascinated me. I don't even know how true it is or even if I remember it the right way, but this is what I carried out. I was told that the temple architects were required to undergo a fast certain number of days before they started working on their projects. This was so that they could condition their minds. The main sculptors who sculpted the magnificent garbagrihas were specially required to undergo rigorous fasts and during the period of the sculpting they were isolated from family to concentrate on their work.
And this discipline produced the great sculptures that have stood the test of time.

I really want to bury myself in an obsession like that, becoming oblivious to everything else. Of course, there is no point in waiting for things to happen and it is better to seize the day and all that I suppose.

But there are times when I do get doubts. All this obsession after money or achievement or fame is fine, but I have always believed complete obsession in an enchanting woman is the best form of obsession. Of course, it is certain to lead to ruin, but isn't such ruin worth attaining?

Actually, hitting the bottom may not be such a bad thing after all. I have always believed in the phrase Aham Brahmasmi and this life force resides in all of us. I interpret this statement to mean that there is a certain life force that keeps this cosmos running. Also, to experience this inner divinity, one must reach utter ruin. Why? Only when do you reach pit bottom, does your ego get completely shattered. When this ego is shattered there are two ways to respond to it. One way is to commit suicide and the other way is to search for the force which keeps us... human, the life force. This is a curious thing actually. All those people who go from temple to temple do it because their ego makes them feel superior, but this strengthening of ego actually pushes them away from experience the divinity in themselves.

Therefore, if you see there is no such thing as a bad thing in life!

Peace.