Month: December 2009

Weak God

What would anyone who has all the power in the world and outside the world would want to have?  Simple answer more power and more control right?  Well thats how a normal mortal mind things.

But God is different, His ways are not our ways.

God in all his power would want to become weak and vulnerable.  Why?  Because he is God.  For his weakness and vulnerability is much beyond what a normal man would encounter or grapple with with.  So He can talk about the length and breadth, height and depth of love for He knows it.

This is changes our thinking about God.  He is not the strong man who wants us to measure up to Him..  how liberating

Harvesting our Children by Rowan Moses

“Lord let me not be too rich that I might forget you, let me not be too poor that I might curse you but give me enough so that I might thank you”

This statement represents the aspiration of the middle-station of society, they “protect” themselves from real issues in life and live without posing any serious questions. They imbibe the “popular” morality of their day and age and glide through life. The world rewards them for their humble submission by fixing their goals and ideology.

Modern Indian culture is not a shadow of the past or maybe even an antithesis. The questions posed by our great fore-fathers are never posed today but we claim to be their children without having any inclination to know who we truly are. Modern India is 62 years old, we are not a 5000 yr old civilization that we claim to be.Ethnic culture, vernacular texts and traditions have been sacrificed in the alter of “national integration” . Now war, terror, catastrophes, cricket etc binds us all ( hence Pakistan is a necessity for a United India) such is our frivolous unity. This cultural vacuum is now filled with crude materialism, popular western culture (not the rich developments in the west), a revival of vague and shallow spirituality, rationalism of baseless superstitions, neo-racism etc etc. People have no inclination to study the rich history, philosophy and religions of our country instead they just cruse along without asking any serious questions. In my state in Tamil Nadu, the average man is not aware of The History of Jainism in Tamil Nadu, Savite bhakti movement, contribution of Dravidian culture to art, learning, ethics etc etc, it is a sad state of cultural decadence. This can be witnessed throughout the world but the magnitude is less severe than in India. This is the direct consequence of undue importance given to science in relation to capitalism and not mankind. Need to sensually interact and objectively understand has taken the place of love and pursuit of true wisdom.

The tragedy is that the west has witnessed this cultural decay and have done their part in “reviving” us by making our cities “the engines of growth”. I might not be the greatest fan of Mahatma Gandhi but I do agree with him when he said that India is a land of villages and developing villages would develop India, now we have displaced migrants from villages occupying our cities. The tragedy is our children will be the victims of this cultural backlash, the west are now harvesting our youth but soon they will harvest the hearts and minds of our children if we do not act on time.

My first day first show

My nocturnal habit, snap!!!, made me miss the first half of the conference and but then I went in midst of Dr Sunil Kothari’s, a noted dance scholar and critic, Plenary session..

Then came the action with Harikrishnan and Srividya Natarajan followed by Priyadarshini Govind. There is one aspect I understood, that there is a philosophy ( a well thought one) behind dance, and that I have missed it for 50 long years, crude me.  While Ram and me were chatting up after the the program, we were actually expressing our wonder, unfortunately we had very little words to express.

Each of were so articulate and confident in the talk too.  They were real wonderful people.  I must thank Ananda Shankar Jayant for the invitation..

I had no knowledge on what they were talking about..but I enjoyed it and will not miss the other days for whatever.

Designosaurus

‘Designosaurs’ A species, nearing extinction, of designers who refuse to use computers

Put this up as a facebook update and got some interesting comments.. let me give u few of them

Shabbir Hussain

That is a good thing my friend. Computers can produce work faster, but not better. Look at the modernist period of designers, Vignelli and Couwell.

Felix Chandran

It makes sense. Dinosaurs though extinct are still remembered and researched upon… In my opinion, extinction paves way for evolution.

Amuthan Sundar

“extinction paves way for evolution”-well in my opinion there is No ‘e’ and ‘v’ in “evolution” if the old guys(species) are “extinct”. Now from extinction if you take the first two letters e and v which makes all the difference, then in my opinion ‘e’ DEFINES the word “evolution” and ‘x’ is just dismantled and made into a ‘v'(by the new generation) which SHAPES the word “evolution” …But we need to remember that if those that are extinct(the so called Species) had not given their ‘e’s and ‘x’s then it would be……may be say if..’e’ is omitted and only ‘X’ is taken by the new generation without knowing the sequence of ‘e’ and ‘x’,Sometimes ‘e’ is just ignored, forgotten etc…they may terribly end up just dismantling the “X” and SHAPE two lls (‘l’ ‘l’) out of it and turn it into POLLUTION. So its healthy to avoid using phrases like “EXTINCT”…EXTINCTION… (Never Forget History. we may be forced to repeat it someday…)..:-)

Felix Chandran

Attitude is a state of mind backed by habit formation of tasks undertaken. woah. I hate getting so technical. It’s so dorky.

Great discussion thank you guys

What if stuffs

The Iphone has replaced the Marlboro pack.  I remember with envy the pockets that carried the Marlboro …that was ages ago…now its the IPhone that turns me green.   And going green is good afterall.

Was just thinking of some crazzzzy stuff for the future.

A gum like stuff that you pop into your mouth and chew and then stick to the roof of your mouth that becomes a telephone.. you chat chat and chat and they spit and disconnect…

Pathetic ice cream

I know its a effective stunt when this international ice cream brand said in the teaser advt said “Open only to International Passport Holders”.. They sure knew how to get some publicity,  sitting in Chennai I would not have known about this had it not been for my friend, Sarah Nathan, from Delhi who put up this livid post on the facebook  :

Haagen Dazs opens in New Delhi but guess what?? We can’t go. Open only to International Passport Holders!!!!! Back to the days of “No dogs and Indians allowed” eh? And the irony? The franchise holder is an Indian! I

The stunt is to get such virals and publicity and some smart people actually get ticked off.  Thats one of the reasons I do not want to use its name in my post. How  does not matter if the brand in question is an Indian brand or an International brand, and what they say is sweet or sour???… After both  the product and message, both, are a mere lifestyle gimmick..

The best response  would be to ignore it.  Or start a chain of Payasam joints other countries and throw it open to only Indian passport holders.

Old Times – Relived

The much awaited action in the MCCHS OBA meet up today was great fun…met some wonderful people… You guys need to look closely for the one who came from 1952 batch…. identify and respond you may become a proud winner of T shirt with the 175 yrs logo of the school…