oh GOD, what art thou?!

After a couple of movie reviews, I am back to my pet topic. what is life and who is God? This time around, I am going to make use of two busy, insightful years that I spent at one of the premier B schools of Tamilnadu getting intensively and extensively trained as a manager. And instead of making any use of the little shreds of common sense that I have, I would go on beating around the bush and come up with a four-by-four matrix to capture the definition of the Almighty Himself! And state just what you already know, with the expertise that you can find only in a management consultant, and successfully refrain from making you any wiser than you are right now! God help us all!!! ;)

Note: in this post, from now on, 'he' refers to the entity that has the potential to be God.

Before we begin on this great quest, we need decide on two coordinates that we would employ in the creation of the trap. To do that, we got to identify what he can do and why he does that. More often than not, we worry about what he can do. And tend to look over why he does what he does. Mind you, both these coordinates represent a continuum of two qualities - Ability and Intent: from the ability to do nothing (which I think cannot be clearly defined as the true zero as we have on kelvin scale) to everything and from utter selfishness to total absence of self whatsoever. Now, it is child's play. God is the one with ability to do everything for the betterment of everyone. Now you can go on and do the exercise of defining the Devil. If you feel this matrix is too simple, it is because of the genius who made it possible.





The root of problems with God, as we know it, is the personification of God. For me, God is the not the creator, He is the very process of creation, which can never cease. The problem is more lexical than ideological, for Gods of almost all our religions are qualitatively very similar. If we were to believe what we have been taught, they are there, with their omnipotent skills, to praise you for the good you do and reprimand you for your bads. More like a kindergarten teacher!

It is us who have 'accepted' God as "the one who created the world one fine day and then rested", which has been propagated over centuries for the convenience of a chosen few. That way, they can go on with their lives without really bothering about Him as well as us. In a rather convoluted way, this has helped us too. By banishing God to some place high and far away, we have given ourselves the comfort of thinking about Him only when we choose to. Can God be a thing of the past and the distant? God is always the present. For me, God is more of a quality rather than a person. Being God is being above Self.

All beautiful things are essentially simple. But can we keep our God simple? G O K!!!

Note:

My purpose would be defeated if you feel any wiser after reading this.

Heil My Führer!

Thanks to Pure Cinema by Satyam Cinemas, I was able to watch Der Untergang (The Downfall) directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, at Six Degrees, on a big screen with superb sound effects. But the announcement made just before the movie began really tested my patience. The voice of that female making the announcement made it sound even worse. "Those of you seen using your cellphones or heard having loud conversations during the movie would be asked by the management to leave the hall. Your tickets won't be refunded". I was expecting her to go on and ask us all to keep our fingers on our lips. Thank god!!! She didn't. And guess what, they repeated the announcement right after the interval too!!! Just in case any STML (Short Term Memory Loss) guys all of a sudden remembered their history lessons and decided to watch the downfall of Der Führer!

Unlike my previous reviews, I won't be able to rip apart this movie, for

1. those movies were of the kind that had no need for a really intelligent mind either from the audience or the creator

2. I severely lack the knowledge of WW II history (wonder how i passed out of my school!). All that I remember are some exaggerated stories from the comics that I read during my school days. One was about Himmler being a look-alike of Hitler and that there were even more Hitler look-alikes used to fool the Allies. Another was about the Allied Forces finding the art treasures supposedly hidden away by Himmler. And of course, I have even heard about a compilation of Hitler's romantic missives to many of his love interests across the country.

The whole movie revolves around the emotions of Hitler himself and those around him, as they get ready to face the end of their lives with the impending annihilation of Berlin by the Soviets. And with that, the ultimate downfall of the Third Reich. Faced with inevitable defeat and death, Hitler goes from heights of completely unjustified optimism in one moment to suicidal depression the next moment. Meanwhile, his ladylove, Eva Braun, tries to keep the spirits up by partying and dancing amidst the music of artillery explosions. And some Hitler loyalists, including the narrator, Traudl Junge, Hitler's personal secretary, decide to stay and die with Der Führer. And, Alexandra Maria Lara, who plays Traudl Junge, looks like an angel amidst all that dust, blood and death.

There is no dearth of emotions throughout the film from unflinching belief in Der Führer that the SS troops have to the betrayal by Himmler, the most trusted aide of Hitler. Ironically, in the end, I could not help feeling a strange kind of belonging with Der Führer, whom I know to have sanctioned the death of about 62 million people, including his own countrymen.

The film superbly brings out the human side of Der Führer and at times, leaves one wondering whether this man could really have done what we have heard he did.

"Hitlerae! neenga nallavaraa?... kettavaraa??"

Sappunu oru kadhal!

I watched SOK (sillunu oru kadhal), the day it got released, of course too expectant for a cool romance after so much of bloodletting by dada and gangster heroes in recent tamil films. The whole movie was way too dry, no jillu at all, in fact hot after the intermission, Damn it! they switched off the ac at Sangam (Probably they didn't see the need for ac when they were showing such a jill movie).

The film started on a promising note with Jo and her friends, who are totally against arranged marriage, planning to fall in love. I expected some interesting tussle between Jo and Surya, who get forcibly married to each other. But the director decides to play God and ignores my wishes; cut from the marriage scene to Mumbai, 6 years later, we see Jo and Surya along with their cute daughter happily whistling to each other busily right in the morning when the neighbours are tensely fighting on their way to their offices. How else on earth can you make the dumb audience understand that Jo and Surya are a happy family! On the way back home from office, in the metro, a gal just droools over Surya with Jo listening nearby. No comments. The director has had the good intentions of showing a happy family, but he overdoes it. Being the genius that I am, I devised a plan to deal with the boredom; I started counting the number of times Surya calls Jo as jillu. God! all the 18 years of my education proved to be of no help and I lost the count. Probably that explains the reason behind the title of the film - Jillunu oru kadhal, later changed to sillunu oru kadhal, thanks to tax cuts for tamil names (i think it is high time we had reservation and incentives for people with proper tamil names!) and a quick economic thinking.

Enakku oru unmai therinjaaganum saami... which girl in her right senses would do what Jo did in the film after reading Surya's diary? For just one sentence which was uttered by Surya in intense pain from the loss of his beloved? Isn't the six years of marriage supposed to have made Surya more mature? Is it like Mudhalvan and Azhagi repackaged?

With a good looking Surya and Bhoomika, we expect their love life in college to be really interesting. Something Mani Ratnam ishtyle. Never mind... that man is God. All that we get after so much promise of something like Kartik's performance in Mouna Ragam and Varusham 16 is just a beer drinking, rowdy Surya, whom Bhoomika falls for, when she had no reason to do so. Given the volume of beer that Surya gulps down in the movie, he is sure to lose quite a few moms and grandmas from his fanbase. Most often, you feel like you are watching the puppy love of a couple of school kids in their infatuation. In fact, school kids might kill me for saying that, as they woo their targets in much more style these days.

Krishna could have saved some time spent on choosing the wardrobe and spent it wisely on pepping up the movie with some interesting scenes. Santanam was the only relief. Especially, the "kaalaila antha tea kadaila vada saaptaen machi, paruppu ozhunga vegave illa" was too good.
Another one:
Surya: " enna vaandhi eduthuttanaa?"
Santanam: "illa ATM la irunthu panam edutha"

Vadivelu's comedy, if it can be called that, was too drab and did not even bring a smile. Contrastingly, the theatre was roaring with laughter towards the end when Jo wakes up from her nightmare - imagining Surya and a ravishing Bhoomika hitting the bed.

Some good music from ARR and a brilliant cinematography by RD Rajasekar would make sure that the songs especially Munbe vaa and New York nagaram very well become part of our lives for next few months. However, my personal favs are the jazzy title song and maja maja.

In the end, all that matters is money, no matter what jobless people like me who go and watch the film on the first day, feel and say. SOK is gonna see 100 days for sure!!! Wedding gift to Surya and Jo from the loving people of tamil fraternity!!!

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