Oh Veera!

Dan dan dan dan dan danakka!

There are five dan’s in Raavanan’s dandanakka chanting. Raavanan is a roller coaster ride of emotions, of the audience who are feverishly trying to find out who is the real Raavanan. Mani is a beautiful essayer of People’s emotions. When it comes to putting it together visually through the actors, the light, set and the music, he is a master. Raavanan is exactly that and much more and some less.

MUCH MORE:

It is a story revolving around 3 powerful characters. Dev the cop, who doesn’t give up and who wants to “encounter” everything related to Veera. Veera, the tribal leader who has 10 screaming heads in him, that of good and bad (and also one head chanting dandanakka). Ragini the ‘classy’cal dancer who becomes the target of Veera and who begins to see the two men from different perspectives.

It moves from what we would normally perceive as a fight between good and evil and associate them to people. Dev being good and Veera being bad. But very soon as the story unfolds in the background of beautiful forest landscape, the perspective of the story gets tilted in favor of Veera. Veera’s life, his people, his family, their sufferings and the justice that he seeks for them against oppression. As the story moves towards the end, the line blurs and you won’t know what is good and what is bad and who is good and who is bad. Everything merges and what you see is just events happening like a chain reaction.

The visuals and art work are stunning. Perhaps Mani’s best picturisation till date. Vikram rocks as Veera. It stopped me from even considering to watch the Hindi version, as I really doubted whether Abi could match his performance. (It seems to be so, as I am seeing bad reviews of the Hindi Raavan) Prithviraj’s Dev was quite a surprise. His portrayal of a cold blooded cop reaches its heights when he smiles as he shoots Veera and his brother. Aish was beautiful as a daring woman with growing softness for Veera and reaches her peak when she fights Veera in a slow background of “Kattusirukki”.

SOME LESS:

Beyond these three characters, Karthik as Hanuman and Prabhu as Kumbakarna seem to have been wasted a little bit, although they did their part well. In my opinion I feel Karthik needed a much more screen time to assert the role of Hanuman. There were some loose ends and abrupt moments in the screenplay when Karthik appears as a surprise where Aish is being Hidden by Veera and when Aish just stops the train and walks out in search of Veera, easily giving away the prize money to Dev. It was difficult to digest them in an otherwise tightly written script.

Raavanan is a treat to Mani’s fans. But I really wished Mani could have made just Raavanan and focused on it alone. We are missing “the Mani” ever since he started putting one foot in Bolly and one foot in Kolly. Perhaps this is the reason for the few minor discrepancies that I had described. I am not an expert to say this though.

Also, for god sakes, please begin putting OST like Hollywood. The background score is just awesome, too bad I can’t have them in my iPod. Is someone listening to this? Do you feel they should do this?

Alright that’s it, let me stop my buk buk buk buk buk!

iPhone 10G

Steve walks into the team room.

“Folks, now that we have announced iPhone 4G, it is now outdated. Completely archaic, vintage stuff. For all practical purposes, it is irrelevant for the team.”

He goes on to dictate the requirements for iPhone 10G.

“Here ye Developers, for iPhone 10G bringeth world peace and harmoney, I mean harmony.”

1. We build this completely from the ground up. The entire case is going to be made of glass. In fact everything will be glass, the chipset, the circuit board, even the package, everything will be glass. We have a phone that is classy now, and this way we can market it as “Classy and Glassy”.

2. No one needs to care about what is inside the phone, but we have to build it in such a way that is mind blowingly unimaginable. The processor must be like a mini human brain. Pea size is more than enough, because that is the most of the brain we use anyway, even though we have a whole cauliflower stuffed inside our skull.

3. The display must be completely revamped. It must be a resolution of 19800 by 12000 by wowowowow! Sharp, Sharp, so sharp that it should cut through our eyes like hot knife through butter. We will call this our “Cutting edge technology”.

4. With iPhone 9G we will drop our touch screen input. We don’t need it anymore. It is so old and I always hated why people held on to it for such a long time. Gosh! They are so attached to old stuff, it’s like they wouldn’t let go off of their floppy disks! All inputs will be driven by thoughts. Yes, it will be the first to feature a thought driven interface. You think and it will make a call. No more touching the screen and stuff, my fingers are so tired.

5. Let’s have a camera wrap. This wrapping camera will be wrapped all around the iPhone and every single point in the device will be a camera. It will capture 360 degree 3D HD video and you can make 3D virtual phone calls. Sort of like Star wars, you will be projected life size and you talk.

6. And please please please, Let’s have a Jet pack in this atleast, I have been asking for it for the past 10 iterations!

7. I understand the technology is limited now, so we will skip Teleportation until 11G.

One of the Team member says “But Steve, for making this happen we will atleast need several years for technology to develop.”

Steve says “I know. I am just making sure you have enough to work on, until I die, go to heaven, reincarnate and become Apple CEO again!”

All in fun, Steve! The world loves what you bring out. It keeps us thinking and having fun at the same time.

Price of Spirituality

How much would you like to pay for getting Spirituality?

This question is completely stupid and yet has to be answered.

When it comes to spirituality, you have only one thing to offer – Sincerity. That’s it. Nothing else is useful.

If you take the example of Ramana Maharishi, he didn’t go to any organization for learning some kind of meditation. He just took five rupees from his house, left the place and went to Tiruvannamalai, tore off his clothes and sat in meditation until he got realized. After all this the Maharishi describes enlightenment as

“Now nothing can disturb me anymore”

Yes, no talk of any form of God or any promise of nice comfortable Heaven. Tell me, if any of us can be like what he was? If someone spits on you, would you be quiet? Ramana not only stayed quiet but he forgave the one who did it. He just did absolutely nothing. That’s enlightenment and you cannot act enlightenment.

If you really have that inner call to seek, that enthusiasm then with all sincerity you can sit and do any form of Beginner’s meditation. The internet is full of simple instructions to begin meditation, like Zazen, Vipassana, Mindfulness. The point is if you have that sincerity, you can pick any of these and just sit in Meditation.

After a while when you need to go higher up, you will be automatically guided to a form of meditation that suits you well. Definitely, wait for that to happen, wait for all indications to point in that direction. Some people don’t even need that. They are gifted and they get the guidance directly from inside, just like how Ramana did.

Now to learn that specific form of Meditation, you have to pay a little bit for the effort that they have taken to travel to where you live and facilitate it for you. It is exactly like training yourself into a technique. It is like going to an institute to learn Java in order to Program. You pay the fees, you learn and then you get out. That’s it. But Programming itself is more of Problem solving than just putting together some Java syntaxes. All those who know Java are not great Programmers, Great Programmers are never restricted by one Language.

With whatever limited tools you have, you bring out unlimited possibilities. The fees is only for the technique learned that’s it. After that the only acceptable form of fees is “Sincerity” to your “Self”.

Eat Right, but how?

We confuse ourselves when someone says Eat Right. The common misunderstanding is:

1. Be Vegetarian.

2. Count the calories of what you eat and burn the excess on treadmill. Some even use scale to exactly calculate the calories.

3. Eat less and less and less.

4. Eat whatever dish made out of healthy food items even though they don’t taste at all and look really obscure. Maintain this list of healthy food and be obsessed with only eating that, resulting in more paranoia.

And probably a lot more that I cannot think of right now.

The spirit of eating right is in the eating.

While what you eat is equally important, it is useless if you don’t know how well to eat it.

So let’s clear the misconception and let’s try to eat right, the right way.

1. Be a Vegetarian by choice and not by force. Vegetarianism is born out of compassion towards other living beings. Until you feel that naturally, do not be so.

2. Eat at the speed of the body and not hog at the speed of the mind. Chew nicely and when you do that, you will eat at the speed of the body. You will listen to the body and naturally eat less. No need to count calories, because the body will tell you what it needs now when you listen. You will notice, you will be filling your plate with less food as you go.

3. Time table eating can bore the heck out of you. Eat normally, what you wish, at the speed of the body, 3 times a day. Fasting can purify your body and senses, but don’t be obsessed with it, do it only if you can.

4. Do not drink water atleast 30 minutes before you eat, while you eat and atleast 30 minutes after you eat. Water douses the digestive fire and can affect digestion. But don’t forget to drink water the other times to flush out the toxins.

5. Eat what you feel is tasty. Because the digestive fire is induced more with tasty and nice aromatic food.

6. Do not eat/cook emotionally. You will attach all that emotions and thoughts to the food and affect your digestion. Not only that, but it can also affect your thoughts, character and personality. Don’t ask me how, but they do. So Eat/Cook the food in silence.

7. Eat Consciously. By this I mean, that watch what you are eating without judging the food or yourself. Because at some point we get carried away and do what everyone does, “Top up” with more food. If we watch then we will refrain from doing that. This will leave a gap in the stomach which is good as it will be easy to rotate and digest the food.

8. If you believe in God, then offer the food to God and eat it. Just do it mentally with a loving heart, don’t need to place the food at the altar every time. This particular point needs deeper understanding, beyond just the rules of dogmatic religion.

These are just simple guidelines for normal people who lead normal lives.

Food is the best medicine for your body. Eat less and you will be  sick, Eat more you will still be sick.

The Car that should be a Steering Wheel

Ego is just an instrument called Steering wheel. But Ego thinks of itself as the Car and makes one believe that this Car is special and there is nothing beyond the needs and fancies of the Car that is better.

Ego is devastating when you don’t watch it, But Ego is so funny and weak when you begin watching it.

Begin watching your Ego and see how Funny and weak it is.

Ego is a tiny little force that you use to move around this universe in this life.

Ego grows and identifies itself with a person’s desires and needs – of wealth, of hunger, of sex (male or female), of creativity, of religion, of profession and in fact everything down to what underwear you are wearing at the physical level and to the thoughts and emotions at the mental level.

Funny thing is if you say I don’t have ego, your ego grows by saying that.

If you remain identified with your ego, you will be pulled wherever your ego wants to pull you working through your senses. This is the only way the ego can feel alive and strong, by fulfilling its desires.

Now let’s say you have concluded that ego is bad and you can kill it and control it by suppressing your desires and shall we say “skillfully letting it go”. Ego doesn’t go away. Ego now plots different other ways to make itself feel strong and wanted.

Ego tries the negative way. It uses anger, jealousy, lust and emotions to keep its identity (People who say are on a diet, are usually vulnerable to such emotions). Because once it begins to bring out the negativity in you, you begin to feel guilty and that guilt is so strong an imprint that Ego will hold on to you using that force. You feel horrible while the Ego feels awesome because now it is revived in a different way.

Everything conjured by the mind as thoughts is the work of Ego, just to keep itself as the master.

Don’t do anything. Just be yourself. Begin watching the Ego. When someone glorifies you, see that your ego is getting massaged. When someone hurts you, see that your ego is getting hurt. The beautiful thing is that if you just remain and identify yourself as that witness, you will see that the ego is the one that needs all of it. It needs praises to grow, it also needs hurts to grow. Ego doesn’t care whether it is praises or hurts. It will use anything currently available for the sake of its growth.

But once you become the pure witness, completely detached from the ego, you will see that the ego will slowly let go off its hold on you. Ego will bow down and just become the instrument called steering wheel. You are no longer elated by praises and hurt by emotions. But beware, ego will try to use your weakest moments to come back up and gain its strength. But as long as you know that it is just your weakest moment (like you are feeling sleepy) then you will awake inside.

All you have to do now is find out the driver and request that to take hold of your car and live life in love.

Ego’s job was to just write this. The essence does not belong to it.

The White Wall

Ananda is a student of class 10 in his village. He paints very well. He wants to learn to paint from a great painter from his village Shiva. But Shiva was no ordinary painter and he doesn’t teach painting for money, which is an advantage for Ananda since he cannot afford the money. But Shiva only teaches to the one who passes his test.

On a nice sunny morning, after breakfast Ananda walks to Shiva’s house situated in a nice green farm. It was a simple hut with only the basic necessities. Shiva grew all that is needed for himself to eat. He only painted for others, there was not a single painting in his house.

Ananda knocks the door. Shiva opens it and greets him with a friendly smile, as if he knew he was coming.

Ananda politely bows down and asks “I am a school boy, I am interested in painting and I come here in humility to learn more in painting.”

Shiva let him in and spoke “This is the test my boy. Here is a white wall. You have as much time as you like. If you paint the most beautiful thing that you can think of, then I will accept you as my student.”

Ananda was very hopeful that he can paint his best.

Ananda was very good in painting nature.

On the first day he began painting mountains, rocks and houses around them. He sat there looking at it intensely for the whole day. He did not leave home. Seeing the boy’s dedication Shiva offered him some food and water. He ate and remained watching it unmoved, adjusting the painting, as the night fell.

Shiva said “My dear boy, I keep the door open. You can leave home and come back next day when you feel like”, as he slept.

Ananda was staring at the wall for too long and he forgot he had to leave home. He slept there on the floor.

He woke up the next day and with a flash of inspiration, began painting a river on this painting. It needed a water body. He continued to stay there and work on the painting.

On the third day, he added a nice orange shade to the subjects on the painting to show the light from the sunrise in his painting.

On the fourth day, he added some flying leaves, flower petals, and flowing hair and clothes of men and women to show the presence of a light breeze.

On the fifth day, he felt his painting was not complete. He wasn’t sure if it was the most beautiful. He sat there contemplating. He stopped painting now.

On the sixth day, he began to think there are too many things in his painting. He began erasing them one by one and continued to do so.

Shiva began to smile now, as if he knew what was happening in his mind and where he was going to get.

At the end of seventh day, Ananda erased the whole painting and turned to Shiva and bowed down to his feet.

Shiva calmly asked “What happened? Why did you erase all that you did for 7 days?”

Ananda got up with tears in his eyes “O master of masters! The most beautiful painting in the world, does not come from me. It is the white wall itself that is beautiful and only that can bring out a perfect painting from me! I do not know anything!”

Shiva held him up with tears of joy in his eyes.

“My boy, you have passed the test. I will teach you the art of listening to the beautiful white wall, which alone can tell you what to paint on it.”

Teacher and his Teachings

There was once a teacher living in a small village. His teachings were simple:

Love and be Joyful

People had deep respect for him and adored him very much. The village had transformed into a heaven under his moral guidance. People helped each other, treated each other with equality and respect. There was brotherhood all around.

One day …

The teacher died. His time was over, his body was no longer suitable to live and he left. People were sad. They were depressed and hurt by his demise.

They took a vow to celebrate such a great man’s birthday every year with a holiday.

Years passed. The man who kept the thread of fraternity was no more available to keep that thread alive. People forgot the thread. They forgot love. They forgot equality. They forgot respect. They forgot Joyfulness.

But they didn’t forget the teacher. They promptly celebrated his birthday every year. They even made sure every organization and school declares holiday during his birthday.

They love the Teacher every year during his birthday. But they forget the teachings to love the person right next to them.

Who is important? The Teacher or his Teachings? It can’t be both.