Idiots of Us All

I don't know about other third world refugee camps, but Trichy does not have good cinema halls. I discovered this fact a few weeks ago, when pestilential friends of mine beleaguered me into acquiescence to a ridiculous suggestion involving an air-tight claustrophobic nightmare that called itself a cinema hall and 3 Idiots, making me board a rickety bus that galloped its way across the obstruction course that connected our campus in the middle of nowhere to the ghetto of Tiruchirapalli. Ignoring the dull tipsiness that blanketed our heads, we got down the bus in front of a dilapidated pile of rubble made to resemble a building. Now that we reached the cinema hall, we arrived at the conclusion that we had little left to do other than walking in and try giving the much hyped adaptation of the stale soup of literature that Chetan Bhagat spewed into the society in the form of the written word a shot. I had the misfortune of sitting through the movie 3 Idiots, with all it's ballyhoo, lock, stock and barrel. The film, contrary to my initial expectations, was terrible, it really was. Every film is spawned by a central theme, an idea it tries to convey. In this film, it was the oppressively pungent atmosphere of an engineering college, amusingly christened, the Imperial College of Engineering. Not a very bad central idea, quite a good one and will make a brilliant movie, if only it was executed properly. It was this execution, unfortunately, that made this movie so intolerably abysmal. For starters, it was a heinous idealisation of an engineering college, with the stereotypical absent-minded professor who is also, incidentally, a ruthless jerk, running the place. Ironically, he was the only lovable character in a world of over-acting self-righteous pin heads the movie seems to be a part of. The other characters were just around to nod their heads to the all perfect Aamir Khan, who has it all figured that education is all about getting drunk and marking territory in teachers' houses, feline style, and if the professor gets angry because a drunken idiot is passing water in his hallway, he's a tyrant. Besides such fallacies and moral inconsistencies, the film has little to offer apart from Aamir Khan ranting on about why he's right and everyone else is wrong. The humour, something I've heard is rib-tickling, is actually stale, recycled and let's face it, it's simply not funny if you know the punchline even before it is crassly delivered by first-rate actors who for some unseen reason chose to parody themselves instead. The acting was a celebration of mediocrity; an unfortunate turn of events because even after a star studded cast and a sky high budget, wooden expressions on Aamir Khan's face is not the expected outcome. All he ever did was act like he was on dope, with a floating far away expression on his face, something to make Orlando Bloom proud. Most of the scenes were awfully artificial, it was almost like the director got his actors sloshed, let the cameras roll and simply hoped for the best. The script was shoddy, unplanned and plot twists included in the last minute for convenience were jarringly apparent. The ending was as far-fetched as Bollywood could make it and it was insulting to the viewer's intelligence that those scenes were actually intended to be taken seriously. At the end of the day, the film was unfinished, half-baked and incomplete, it was an idea that would have been more appealing if left an idea. Frankly, aall was not vell.

Art

I was pondering the other day, what exactly is art? Is it the depiction, in any chosen medium, of any moment? An idea? Perhaps it is the act of palpating whatever the artist was inspired from? We will never have a concrete idea of what exactly art is. It is a hydra, whose nine heads grow into nine more heads every time one head is cut off. It is constant, it is ever changing, it evolves with the human mind, it is tangible because it is abstract. It is the most incomprehensible achievement of mankind, where a world of energy is put into something completely unnecessary, at least from an evolutionary point of view. It is not needed for survival, yet how did it become what it is today? It has grown with mankind, it has personalities of it's own; personalities shaped and chiselled by minds, millions of them, into what pleases something so mundane and physical as the senses we possess. Be it the subtle notes of Lacrimosa that melts a stone to tears or the magnetic attraction of the Mona Lisa, virtually nothing, in it's basest form, and somehow fascinates the human imagination into seeing a woman smile; just a very normal day-to-day affair, a mere smile, and it has captured millions of eyes, hearts and most importantly, the enigmatic fascination and attraction of brilliant minds. We try to make sense of the world around us. We can't live without this marvellous trait, so necessary for survival, that we have it hard-wired into our brains. This is simply the only way in which we can see our surroundings; we need the world to make sense, we want order, a pattern we can relate to, a pattern that we need to find, or invent, the case is purely subjective, and applaud ourselves for looking at things that never possibly are. We crave the satisfaction of understanding or recognising something as familiar; we bask in the happiness of the known, one of the prime reasons for this particular habit of the human race. So, a mere sheet of canvas with organic pigment dabbed on it strategically finds itself ogled at by thousands who never seem to get enough of it because it resembles something we know, something like a woman smile, a scenery of lush wilderness, a sight that invokes feelings of tranquility in us. This is art. It can never be explained in a sentence. The more we try to define this, the more abstract it gets. It is an institution that relies solely on how one can look at things. It is the only aspect if the human mind where everyone is right, everyone is wrong. It encompasses everyting our mind can conjure, a fully formed kinesthetic in one's own head to the most intangible swirl of colours that show nothing and yet make you feel the subject inside you rather than show. We have made art grow with us, from the simple cave drawings to today's impressionist abstractism, art matured under the nurturing care of the human mind. It blossomed, grew into a butterfly but never cocooned, it was always on the upper trend, purely because we call it upper trend. Art has no direction, no depictions of the woolly mammoth in the caves of Europe are bested by the Last Supper, considered the pinnacle of refined, "civilised" renaissance art. We call ourselves as most evolved, we call an oddly shaped rock aesthetic; we are, because the world is, which in turn is because we are. Similarly art is, because we are, we are because world is, art is because world is and we are because art is. Art can never exist on it's own, it needs us, we need art, as it is the only medium of interaction with our environment. But then, it is only in our head that we communicate with our universe. Objectively, the universe is nothing but fragments of a one-time explosion, we, nothing but a mere accident. But through the lenses of art, we see a different world, a world that nurtures us, cherishes our existence, where we matter, where we are not just insignificant clots of space junk stuck in a moderate planet. This is because we see ourselves that way. This is the way we create art, that is the way we are created. We adore ourselves, we need art to adore ourselves, we adoreart. We are art.

The Lost Book

I inflicted a certain book by a certain author upon yours truly. Said book was The Lost Symbol by the lost Dan Brown. I understand completely that he has done lots of research before writing a piece of fiction as fit to hold water as Labsman Filter Paper TM, whose review is under serious consideration and may feature in consequent posts, but frankly, I'd be more delighted reading those research papers as they were, rather than reading it with a bunch of colourless characters appended as footnotes, shamelessly parading themselves openly inviting Mexican-born Hollywood directors to make a flimsier movie out of it. The book pans out to a five hundred odd pages, every chapter ending with cliched cliff-hangers that made no sense, much like the science that backed his research. The plot revolves around the unrealistic Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist who's perfect in everyway, thank you very much. He's a stud, with eidetic memory, a perfect physique, a deep rich voice and is also (Drum roll), a professor(Tada! Applause). Give him a pair of wings and X-Ray vision and voila, Superman's second cousin stepped out of his closet and is out to save the world from evil villains trying to take over the world with the help of a pyramid and objects of similar consequence. The other characters are equally idealised, and I've noticed this with every single book of his, there's always a female, single, eligible and voluptuous, (did I mention superhumanly qualified in their respective fields?) and always around Langdon, dewy and wide-eyed, as he lectures her on abstract symbols and answering questions no one asked. The plot in itself is tiringly predictable, with Langdon and his trusted femme-fatale side-kick running from the security agency of whichever country they step on, an old trusted friend of Langdon thrown in to answer a bunch of more questions and also briefly provide sanctuary for these fugitives even though the charges against them make no sense. The whole running from the government routine, I trust, is a cheap ploy to make the story seem racy and fast-paced. It was interesting in the first book, little so in the second, and downright annoying now. One can't hope to come up with a new novel by just changing the locations and the names of the bad guys. The only change between his previous works involving Langdon and this one is that there's no insane plot twist at the end that would make you go rolling your eyes saying, "Not again". Anyway, Brown delves in the world of the Freemasons, a deeply secretive and childish little club that no one cares about, other than deluded conspiracy theorists who love glorifying small tunneling mammals to mountains. The book also dabbles with Noetic science, as mainstream as alchemy and astrology, among other things. It also talks about providing concrete answers to the most fundamental of questions that have plagued humanity since he started walking upright, ending the book providing vague metaphorical references and rhetoric, something we already know.(Hello? 42 is more definite an answer to life, the universe and everything). I don't blame him for not knowing the ultimate truth, but the least he can do is not jump around claiming to know everything.(By the way, if the secret answer is coded so well that only the best and the brightest can decipher, how did Dan Brown do it?). In the end, The Lost Symbol is just literary evangelism trying earnestly to portray religion as a scientific method, fooling no one whose I.Q is greater than that of a dying jellyfish. On the whole, it's just another hollywood style suspense thriller manufactured by people whose only talent is cheap showmanship aimed at wooing the obese, gullible Joe American.

Annual Melancholy

Ah.. Another year just whooshes out of our hands, as we gear up to face the heat of another one, hopefully not as forgettable(purely subjective) as this one. Being the much celebrated fan of desultory lists that I am, I propose to lay down a certain set of events that have shaped my attitude on life, the universe and everything, whipping me up as a more concrete and credible cynic than I was previously. Let's begin, at the beginning.

* The most unmemorable New year's eve honked my nose and poked me in the eye on 31's December 2008. After politely severing myself from the tripe of a new year's party that the clods in my block of flats put together, with as much courtesy as I could feign, I braced myself to face the fateful evening with literally nothing to do. Being the heart and soul of any party that I am (to be read in a scathingly sarcastic tone), this predicament made me take a sharp breath in and snort at the possibility of not being tormented by dunces who prance around with a full bladder, claiming that's their move, and keep asking me why I don't smile often or laugh at their lifeless punchlines at the end of inane drivel they call jokes. Anyway, even though I was away from such high-spirited magical pony-riding clotheads, my spirits did little to lift itself as I morosely gazed out to Chennai's lifeless skyline from my terrace.

* As I convinced myself that the next semester would be better than the previous, my tactics of self-delusion were shattered as a certain gentleman(name not divulged for obvious reasons;actually if you're in my department, you'll know anyway) strutted into our classroom. Apart from staying married to a 70's style projector and pointing fingers at it strategically to impede ideal viewing, he(or she? in tone with said teacher's anonymity, the gender has been marginally obscured, if you're smart, you'll figure it out, if not, you'll figure it out anyway) did nothing to lift our spirits. His classes were ideal for solving crossword puzzles, something I would regret doing a few months later, June, to be precise, and general birdwatching from the vantage point my seat in class offered. The classes were more or less the reason I began to love life as much as I do now (this too, to be read in a scathingly sarcastic tone)

* As that term ended, I promised myself that the ensuing summer would be most idyllic and uneventful. Well, you want one, but you get another. I was coerced into a project at IIT, and shuttling between here and there was a most harrowing experience. Not because, the commute was long, not because we had to work, but because it was like rubbing in the fact that I could have got into this place if only I studied harder. Moreover, I hated to be reminded of the fact that how a campus can be if it's located at the right place. With spotted deer grazing on one side and huge trees dotting the landscape, it was a stark contrast to my campus with dusty heatwaves, prickly semi-arid flora and a unique assortment of blood-thirsty cattle. As much as cows are revered in Hinduism and held in high regard, as far as I'm concerned, cows reek. They are on the top of my list of pests to be exterminated when I take over the world followed by the afore-mentioned professor and a couple more, just for kicks. It wasn't all bad either. Trips to IIT spawned a great deal of ingenious ideas like sniping sitting on an elephant in IIT, and many more. Acquaintance with a professor who wasn't mid-bogglingly dense was an added perk, a rare phenomenon on this side of the world. This made me realise you don't get what you want, hell, you never do. Life stinks.

* A new term, a new hostel, a new room, the same old idiots. This was the running tagline of the new term. My room number being 42 did little to lift my spirits, the hostel building grimly reminded us all of Auschwitz. Barely in the campus, I unscrupulously skived off classes for apparently no reason at all, was at home more than I was in the college. With the swine-flu scares and what-not, it turned out to be quite eventful, as teachers mercilessly appended an endless list of 'a's against my name in the attendance register. As the term drew to a close, I was frequently spotted hitting myself in the head for my past indulgences, dreading the inevitable. Anyway, at the end of the day, the inevitable never happened(irony noted). Moral of the story: My actions have no consequences, I'm that unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

* After pestering my parents for nearly a year, I finally got myself a laptop that wouldn't fry itself trying to add two and two. Noting that my previous laptop was an elaborate contraption involving a glorified calculator and a broken typewriter, it was a giant leap forward. But I still found reason to be unhappy, the reason being, laptop: too little, too late. With hardly a week to spare before my exams, a laptop was the first thing on my list of artifacts designed to wreck my grades. With a great deal of abstinence, I denied myself the temporal pleasures of gaming by stripping my laptop completely of all things worthwhile having. Bereft of entertainment and biting my fingers off for want of a better job to do, I truly appreciated the meaning of the phrase, 'A slip between the cup and the lip'.

Finally, as this year draws to a close, I again find myself with nothing to do, the same old terrace, same old skyline. The same old apes in my block have organised another celebration of mediocrity, cheap street music and second rate events to please no one.

P.S: If I have missed anymore depressing events, feel free to remind me in the comments section as we celebrate another year in the era of utter pointlessness.