End of Life’s Meaning

It shouldn’t really take much time to realize that life has no meaning at all. The fact that people take so much of time to understand the same is the strange thing about it. Those who proclaim that they have found meaning in life are either living in a fool’s paradise, or are trying to make fools out of people. People should have at least understood the same after the floods or the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no real purpose, and we are just existing through this world of chaos because we were born, and are doomed for an inferno in advance before we get to see the real heaven or hell. We are now facing the third wave of a pandemic, and even the government do not want to impose a lockdown and stop the spread anymore. Everyone is indeed tired, and the vaccine is as useless as it can get.

There will always be those fake motivational speakers who will try to say otherwise. These people will come up with the examples of people who have fought against all odds and succeeded. But the truth is that this is not motivating, but depressing – the fact that even these people succeeded while you didn’t leads to the realization that you are worthless, and maybe it is the time to end your life. This leads to you stop searching for those so called motivational people and start searching for methods to commit suicide. Well, you just cannot get better through the inspiration provided by the lives of others, as no two people live the same life – maybe it is true in the case of celebrities who all seems to go through the same lifestyle.

Motivational speakers can talk about light in the dark, but darkness covers them all.

You cannot connect the celebrities to the meaning of life, as there is nothing that they will provide as a positive thing. It is still a wonder to see that we have so many people following the lives of these celebrities – can they be saying truth at any moment? Will people believe in the advertisements which they are part of? Is Boost really the secret of the energy of any cricketer from Sachin Tendulkar to Virat Kohli? Hasn’t their performances come down after beginning to appear in those advertisements? Does Amitabh Bachchan eat so many Cadbury’s Diary Milk chocolates at this age? Did Mahendra Singh Dhoni use that matrimony website to find the person to whom he got married? Is any Bollywood celebrity using the soaps which they are advertising?

These days, it is often about one celebrity child having a Youtube channel. It could have been tik-tok, but thankfully, that one was banned to get rid of some of the irritation. The son or daughter of the superstar who is going to be the next superstar will have a Youtube channel, and the person would talk about what happens at his house, what all plants and trees are there, how many cats and dogs are around, and how amazing the family is. Well, the fans are basically brainless, and they would want to watch all the rubbish which is provided by these people instead of looking for genuine people with content. There is always the easy way to glory, and it is achieved by birth – for everyone else, life doesn’t hold that many promises other than genuine absurdity.

Most of the paths are not to be trusted. They can have some bad effects on you.

The case of matrimonials has been strange for quite a long time. It has been more bourgeoisie than the celebrities themselves, as everyone belongs to the rich, aristocratic families which even seems to predate Jesus Christ. Everyone is fair, hardworking and god fearing, with the display pictures photoshopped with a certain amount of skill. One should not be confused about all these suicides and murders happening with husbands and wives, because they were never really meant to be together. They might have started an account at a matrimonial website before finding a random person there, or to avoid this, they might have eloped together. Well, nowadays there are more suicides in love marriages, and that trend has also started.

There are only a few people who can be really successful around here, if you have not studied a professional course. You need to somehow get a government job or jump into politics – both seems to be having more and more scope these days. The other chance for success is to get away from here – it seems that there are more people whom I know in Canada than around here. From the United States to the United Kingdom, and then from Australia to New Zealand, the new favourite place to go and settle down seems to be Canada. It might be easier to ask who is not in Canada these days. Well, where did the other countries go? Are they not interesting anymore?

Well, if I had to go somewhere, I would go to Sri Lanka, Bhutan or some other place which has the same amount of tranquility. I could choose one of the Eastern European countries – Romania, Estonia or the others. I find the busy world which is associated with those much loved countries to be something that will contribute to that absurdity. It is difficult to live in a world which focuses on the monetary benefits and swallows the happiness in return for such benefits. They say that this is a competitive world, but it is not the kind of world that I would appreciate. If you are rich, you can have a Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, a purely bourgeoisie concept, and otherwise, you can sit at home for most of the time, and hope for the expenses to come down. Lockdowns can do such favours, but the meaning of life is once again lost, as you journey towards the more meaningful death.

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***The images used on this blog post were taken by me on my Samsung mobile phone during one of the little journeys for the soul.

TeNy

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What Needs to be Remade

How much do we help of a person in need? Ranjith Sankar’s directorial debut talks about the same in the form the 2009 movie Passenger. He has brought the genre of social thrillers to full power into cinema, and he continued the same into the less efficient Arjunan Sakshi starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Ann Augustine. Even though that movie also brought a picture of the society and criticized the system from the government to the police and the other people in charge, and reiterated the common man’s need to take the responsibility for the society, it was nothing like Passenger.

He had also shown the problems faced by someone who wanted to start a new business venture in Kerala with Punyalan Agarbattis and a different perspective in Molly Aunty Rocks!. But each and every time we watch Passenger, we realize that none of them can be a match to this debut movie from the same director. It was there on television on the day before yesterday too, and one has to wonder how it manages to be so fresh even after being watched so many times. I have watched it more than twenty times myself, and it was the big reason why I watched Arjunan Sakshi on the first day itself.

In the life of modernity and tall concrete, what is it that we can do for the society?

The story has Sathyanathan (Sreenivasan), a common man who works in a private company as the major protagonist. He is one of those simple people who goes to work in the city and comes back to his place in the regular passenger train. He finds happiness in the simple things like the local temple festivals, talking about news with the friends and having a few cups of tea. There is nothing special going on in his uncomplicated, predictable life which goes on and on, as he follows the machanical procedure. But as he is the last among his friends to get to down, one day, he falls asleep and misses the station near his place.

On the day on which he falls asleep, he wakes up to find that he was sleeping for so long, and asks another person Nandan Menon (Dileep) about the present situation. After a few moments of humorous conversations, they get down at the Guruvayur railway station and separates. But as Nandan is suddenly kidnapped by a group of goons in a car, Sathyanathan wishes to help, but is caught in a situation in which he can do nothing. He decides to travel to the man’s place inform his people about the same. But it is about more than what meets the eye, as he is a lawyer fighting a case against the home minister, and his wife is a leading journalist looking into the same case.

The journey of life continues, but as we reach that end, what do we earn?

There are no songs in this movie, and there are no stereotypes either. But life of the common man caught in a strange situation is brought to light here in a realistic manner. There is nothing spectacular done by the protagonist, but simple acts, as he goes on to make a difference without trying to be the superhero. There is a certain amount of simplicity in the portrayal of the character by Sreenivasan as he perfectly fits the role of a common man, something which might not have been the case with a superstar added. It is the kind of role which suits him without anything special added to it.

Dileep also plays a role which has no heroism, despite the character consistently trying to bring a change in the society while fighting the powerful politicians and businessmen in a legal way. Meanwhile, Mamta Mohandas has played the role of a determined journalist hoping to bring change in the society, with a lot of strength. Jagathy Sreekumar plays the man who wants to hold on to the political power in any manner possible, and Nedumudi Venu plays the character who is a reluctant helper and he turns the man who realizes his duty as the story gets tougher and things get to the next level. I would love to have Irrfan Khan or Naseeruddin Shah in the lead.

Passenger is a movie which should have been remade in many other languages, and not something like Bodyguard. With its situations, Passenger asks a question to the common audience about why one should help a fellow human being when there is a chance. It asks the common man to understand that one simple help might mean many things, and may be this helping hand can bring a big change in the society. May be someone will think that he or she is not capable of that change, but it is the sincere attempt that makes all the difference in the end because none of us know what results it can bring despite we being the weaker ones. It needs go further like the original Drishyam to be remade like Drishyam in Bollywood.

***The images used in this blog post were taken by me at Aluva (Alwaye) on my Sony Cybershot Camera.

TeNy

Mili: An Introvert Queen

Mili is an upcoming movie about an unhappy girl, a not much loved Mili finding her way as she finds her path in a society which seems to have nothing for her. Disliked by her acquaintances and in her solitude, this introvert, a girl not loved or considered good for a company, will find direction and shall thrive. Our central character is a playschool teacher who chooses to be with children as the elder ones are always judgemental. Mili is not just another character, but one of the large number of people who are looked down upon for one reason. No, she is not a random nerd who changes when removing glasses. *These are only what I have figured out by reading about this movie.

Yes, that one reason should be for being an introvert, and what is derived from the same includes the inability to follow the society. There is the unruly world of hypocrites that we live in, which stops us from pursuing our dreams. Some people can say, that anyone can choose anything, but the real truth is that they can’t. Nobody can, in this world, and people who think so are also partial hypocrites. There are judges in the form of relatives who choose to be the Sword of Damocles and continue to be proud of being a bloody distraction.

The story of Mili should begin and end with everyone having a distinct personality.

There is a path set by these people, and those who travel through that path, and those people who say better lies will always be adored. But those who speak the truth, and chooses to live in their own world are considered second or third grade people. What you need to succeed in this world is a tongue and the ability to lie like a river running wild. In the world of fake smiles, and when people consider money as the first thing in rating others, what can you expect?

So, what I expect from Mili is to have a Queen-like protagonist in a heroine-centric character, and this time, our heroine will not just stand for women. She will stand for everyone who suffer due the disgusting narrow-minded nonsense that is injected by the society in the name of behaviour and style of talking. She will lighten the solitude that comes a partial result of the same, and Mili will take over and destroy the visages of vanity that surrounds us – this is that bloody vanity that demands bones from us after we are dead.

This movie should be the support for not just one Mili, but many others to be themselves without being judged by the society, surrounded by the relatives who try to control her like a puppet. Everybody needs the right to have one’s own choices, and when that is denied, one fears even to become an introvert. But your extended family can be like a demon from the depths of Tartarus, as it is mindless in its brain and clueless in its actions. Do we have love? No, we have only the kind of people who find awesomeness in devil’s favourite sin, vanity. Any idiot can give dumb advice, but only good people can support someone in need.

Mili will always be Mili. If you don’t like it, please have a sojourn at the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Get a job, get a job; says the relatives. Why do you want to study more, they ask. Be like that person who makes a lot of money. But do they realize the fact that most of their so called awesome people went to have a job because they were too lazy to study, and most of them have already made it clear that they don’t want to learn anymore. Some of them actually had to choose this option to get away from you people. My question is why should someone stop learning at any moment?

You have given birth to a group of people who don’t value learning, but only wishes to make money; congratulations, society. You shall suffer due to the same, sooner or later – teach your children more and more materialism and no values because that it the only thing you can do. Don’t force them to be Icarus – for life is not all about flying to the Sun. Have you even noticed their wings and for what it suits? It is all about letting people be themselves and go through their chosen path with confidence.

Here is the trailer for the movie with English subtitles. I am in no hope that this movie will change the attitude of people towards introverts or those who prefer to be a little weird. I don’t believe that this can change the society in just one day. But I have faith that this can be the beginning of something good, and respectable. May be this marks the beginning of a trend which makes sure that people don’t choose to be the same, but have individuality and separate personality – may be this movie can help in making one less of a robot and more human.

Hoping to watch Mili and stay motivated! 🙂 Mili comes to you on January 2nd as one of the first movies of the year. I hope for a certain amount of awesomeness with The Queen Mili and wish this movie and its leading actors Amala Paul and Nivin Pauly all the best. Check the Wikipedia link of the same at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mili_(2015_film) and the official Facebook page of the movie at https://www.facebook.com/milimovieofficial (the images used in this blog post are from here). I leave you all with the link to its promotional song.

Please do not compare your children with anyone. Everyone is special and born to follow their dreams. If it gets delayed, it doesn’t mean that there is the immediate need to get a job and be married. It is just your selfishness that makes you feel so, especially when you have different laws for your own children and somebody else’s kids. Kindly stop being a hypocrite. PS: Everybody needn’t be an engineer or doctor and everyone doesn’t need an MBA as ornament. Thank you.

TeNy

Chucky’s Tea Party

*All pictures used in this blog are from the official Chucky and Annabelle pages on Facebook. No dolls were murdered and no spirits defamed during this conversation which happened at the Grand Chucky Tea Party.

“So this is your idea of a grand tea party? There are only two of us” said Annabelle as she stared at the collection of tea pots.

“A few more were supposed to be here. But there was a tragedy” said Chucky as he juggled with the tea cups.

“What happened?” asked a concerned Annabelle.

“It is about Uncle Dracula. He is going through a stage of depression. The whole team is there at the hospital” said Chucky.

“What? How come nobody told me? What happened to him?” screamed Annabelle.

“It happened on this Halloween. He was trying to scare a family, but that didn’t turn out as he wanted. It is actually quite ridiculous. The people who knew about it were asked not to talk about it” said Chucky looking up.

“Can you please try not to look on the ceiling fan in a dramatic way while telling sad stories? After all, you are supposed to be a serial killer” said Annabelle was she stared at him.

Chucky and Annabelle: A doll match made in the spirit world 😀

“Yes, but this is rather scary stuff. Uncle Dracula was living as a paying guest with a family somewhere in India after he got tired of the Eastern European climate. He was hoping that he could scare the people in that house on this Halloween and leave for a new place”.

“I would think that he managed to haunt the house enough to inspire a movie. He is good at that. It is him and his minions that disguise themselves as ghosts and haunt houses regularly” remarked Annabelle.

“The family consisted of the old man and his wife, their son and his wife, and their two little children, a boy and a girl. The son was a doctor and his wife an engineer. The old couple had spent almost all their family inheritance and savings just to make his son a doctor, and then to marry him off to the daughter of one of the richest families of the land, or rather the family offered to buy the guy with such a large amount of money that the son immediately accepted. The son was well-educated, but wasn’t taught about how to be a good guy”.

“Dowry? Buying the groom? It still happens among the humans? In this century?” asked a shocked Annabelle.

“Yes, it does. The marriage lead to the domination of the new woman at the house who despised the old couple and began to create problems with them. Everyday, she created a new problem and kept telling her husband to send them to the old age home. He was blinded by her money and beauty and couldn’t resist much. This Halloween was the day on which he was sending them to the old age home”.

“The Shining” Chucky – he knows exactly what you are cooking 😀

“Evil humans. Can’t they at least learn from how well we care for our own, especially the old and weaker spirits? Shameless people. We will beat them up when they become spirits, but I wonder if they do have a soul” added Annabelle.

“It was the day of Halloween, and Uncle Dracula jumped upon them with all his glory, and couldn’t stand the tears of the old couple and how they were treated by even their grandchildren on the day were to be packed off to the old age home. Uncle saw the devil in them; it was like seeing Mephistopheles on a bad horn and hair day, and he fainted. He was taken to the Dead Man’s Vampire Infirmary where the Vampire Bat and the Vampire Owl has gone to make sure that he is fine; they should have reached by now. The rest are on their way to see him from different parts of the world. He should be okay; Igor is a well-trained doctor, and he has Victor Frankenstein’s notes to aid him”.

“These humans are demonic creatures aren’t they? It is difficult to watch even what they do to their own. And they make movies on us an portray us as evil, just because we are dolls and have souls. I hope he doesn’t read newspapers daily, its further injurious to the soul” said a frightened Annabelle.

“And then they will ask for the freedom to be such idiots. The only thing that the new generation will fight for is not according to the priority – they claim to stand and try to achieve stupid things, but is it what society needs the most? For the same, they will get rid of their values and integrity. They are selling their souls to the devil with such ease, aren’t they? Parents land at old age homes, and children are abandoned enough to create a worse next generation. Do you know that the humans are coming back to this house today?” asked Chucky.

“What? Then why did you plan this program here? Are you out of your little doll mind? asked a tensed Annabelle.

“I don’t know. Nobody is coming, and I thought it would be romantic to have tea with you alone in a house haunted by humans. It was to be an adventure for the life time” explained Chucky.

The tears that used to be Annabelle’s blood – cute romantic stuff 😛

“Seriously? No wonder humans make dumb movies on you” remarked Annabelle who walked out.

“Humans, the scourge of Earth” added Chucky while running after Annabelle.

“You know nothing, Chucky” Annabelle was screaming.

“Who am I? Jon Snow?” Chucky wondered while running.

*Meanwhile, the Vampire Cat delivered the message that Uncle Dracula is alright and is drinking Blood Shake with tablets while having potato chips. The Vampire Bat and the Vampire Owl have gone to the multiplex.

TeNy

Divergence: A Crime?

This is a question which I should have asked much earlier, but there is no limit for the time required for realization, I would say. I had the opportunity to watch the movie Divergent based on Veronica Roth’s debut novel with the same name. Yes, Shailene Woodley is a dashing young actress playing Beatrice Prior, but that is not the central thing about it, even as nobody can deny the fact that it helped to make sure that the movie was not missed. The comparisons to Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games is also relevant, but I would rather get into the main points now.

The divergence of Tris: So Beatrice a.k.a Tris is a divergent, not able to be grouped into any of the factions of the post-apocalyptic Chicago because she doesn’t possess the attributes for them. She was different from the others, but if the others were to realize the same, she would have no future of her own. Each person had to blend in somewhere and go on working with the faction, and her ability to be different was a case of panic. The world was set, and everyone had to fit in. The divergents were to be feared by the government for their brilliance and those ideas which could change the system.

Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior (photo from Divergent FB Page)

The present scenario: There is no real option to be a divergent in our world. There are people who start groups and try to make people agree to their new found rights or abuse people to get acceptance. No, I am not talking about any of them. I am talking about being different by one’s own, being someone else by thoughts and action and not joining just another group to become of a member of another team which itself ruins the idea of being divergent, further creating more and more divergence forming more factions.

A person can’t be grouped into a category. There is more than one skill that a person can exhibit and there is always more than one kind of thought that he or she can have. A person is beyond all divisions as an individual. He can’t act like someone else just because he is part of that society. You can’t expect a person to paint his house in the same colour just because someone else has that colour or most people choose that particular shade. You can’t tell someone to follow a behaviour, no people shouldn’t be predicted, as they are not playing game, they are living lives.

We have been plagued, almost all of us in this part of the world has been chosen to study Engineering or Medicine, and was there really a choice until the recession came up and suppressed the latter up-to an extent? Can people always conduct a marriage in a simple manner without showing the vanity and spend the rest of the money feeding the poor? Can we Catholics marry without taking that terrible compulsary pre-marital course which has absolutely no use for the life post-marital life as long as we can’t figure out love by ourselves? Do we need to stand on a stage, grinning for the video camera till the wedding function ends?

These should have been easy things to do, but considering the current scenario and the attitude of the people, I would think that it is more difficult than the crow flying upside down or having a beautiful world of goodness. Our chance at divergence is pretty low unless our parents give support or our relatives are that damn good. But usually there are no real choices, we either agree to get rid of our divergence or rather choose to live our life hiding it or taking it out to bring the omnipresence of the people around us.

Always be prepared to fight for divergence (photo from Divergent FB Page)

People will always ask what we are doing and why are we not doing a job. People will ask why we are not getting married. They are nice questions and thanks for asking. But we are divergents, and the elixir of divergence that runs through our veins might ask some question to you which you might not want to hear or answer. In Divergent, our heroine could see through the fake visages, and may be we will see through your questions and it certainly won’t do any good for you. So, better leave us divergents alone and keep yourself away from the list for the abhorrent.

TeNy

Vampires of the Soul

There is no other book that I loved more than Dracula, and I used to read many versions of the same in English and Malayalam during my childhood, and I have known Bram Stoker before I knew William Shakespeare. Count Dracula has been part of my early life more than anyone else and even inspired me to read more horror and made me watch my first horror movies, and my first horror movie in English to be watched on a VCR, John Carpenter’s Vampires. It would introduce me to the entity called “the vampire” which would never be redefined better than it did for me in this work.

Dracula was one person who never really scared me. But people around the world were worth being afraid of more than this one vampire. Some of them suck the life out of you, others money, and the worst of the suck the happiness out of you, and they are the vampires of the heart and soul. Most of them feel that they are the only people in the world, and the Earth no longer revolves around the sun, but instead exist for their own needs and all the people in the world are made for them to use. This one-human-centric universe have been sucking everything good out of our known world for centuries.

Consider the case of Count Dracula. He wanted to migrate to another country leaving his rural world behind. For the same, he leaves his old world behind and is ready to blend in with the so called urban people. But what does he get in the end? He is forced to keep running and in the end gets a stake through the end for trying to understand other cultures and mingle with them. He was a man of nature, blended with his natural environment and feared by the people of his land due to him being an introvert.

The beautiful Bran Castle, commonly known as the Dracula Castle (photo from wiki)

Now, there comes the problem of being introvert. There are many organizations for supporting even the dumbest things in the world saying that it is one’s personal life and there is the choice to be different. But being an introvert is rather too difficult, as the other take away or rather suck everything away, and bening terribly talkative has been becoming a need, and on the tip of the talks, there would be big lies which will help one to advance in life. The others who can’t lie or show off their vanity will suffer like Dracula.

Still, the society considers introverts and people who can’t use tell a beautiful lie every hour or so as not easily acceptable. Being talkative should be a choice, and when people are chosen according to the performances during a few minutes of interview, it is a case of losing the right person for the job and instead finding someone who can talk and justify all mistakes and atrocities. You can’t find the right person by talking for a few minutes, because lies are too easy to say for the new generation designed just to succeed. This is the world of fake smiles, and the season of faking love.

Dracula was undoubtedly an introvert and a man who couldn’t socialize easily, and the use of diaries, letters and logs in the work and making it an epistolary one means that it was rather the idea of a group of people from one side of the society, and even the ideas claimed to be of other people could have also been forged. May be he had some bad teeth, and it is also possible that he was too much addicted to wine – there goes the ideas about bad teeth and drinking the red fluid. He just belonged to another culture and it is usual to be afraid of the customs and traditions, plus he had his own special abilities.

Christopher Lee playing the Count, considered the common depiction (photo from wiki)

It is a usual misconception to related Dracula to the devil, and it is plain wrong. The vampire is surely not the devil, and beyond that, the Count has a personality which is far better than this plagued society which is not just affected by hatred towards other religion, caste, race and community, but also towards the random people who don’t know one’s idol or their most awesome person, a sportsperson, a movie star – any random celebrity. Yes, vampires have to look scary and not like a dumb teenager, but the story of the Count is debatable. Dracula was million times better than most of the vain humans of this age even on his worst day. Yes, the Indian cricket fans have already proved the same with their racist and sexist comments.

TeNy.