Fear - Life of Pi

I am currently reading the fiction "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and I read an excellent and intriguing chapter on fear. It is just brilliant. So thought of sharing the excerpt.
Here goes:

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."

Slumdog millionaire

Amitabh Bachchan has criticized Slum Dog Millionaire. He says India is not all about slums and dogs. There is more to the country.
In his words, ""If SM (Slumdog Millionaire) projects India as [a] Third World dirty underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations."

I have not seen the movie and definitely cant comment on it but there is a lobby of people here who seem offended. Well, when the theme of the story is about a boy in Dharavi, Dharavi is what you will see in the movie. Why would the director be bothered about what portrait of India is being shown to the world? This is not a documentary on India and hopefully westerners see that. The director's goal was to rake in big moolah and man, has he done that!

But an interesting observation here. When the West takes out its telescope and zooms in on the East, what it expects to see is countries full of slums and poor people struggling hard for their next meal. Stories about poverty sell. This is a fact. They have this "Frog in the well" mentality and in a way they are reassuring themselves that their life is blessed.

But, we have to also understand that the countries in the Asian continent had to see so many invasions and wars. Something from which the western world has been relatively shielded. We have so many internal problems that threaten our very being. We are still finding our foothold in the world arena. So, poverty will definitely be a part of our countries as is with other "developed" nations. But what the West should also recognize is that being a poor country doesnt really take away from the beauty and the culture that each of these countries possess. There is nobody superior here and coming from a particular country or having a certain skin color doesnt really bestow upon you the happiness or the "blessings" that we all strive for. The truth is that We are all just a species named "homo sapiens" lucky enough to get favourable conditions to survive on a small planet that we call the "Earth" in a big galaxy that again, we have named the "Milky Way". What is beyond that, nobody knows and nobody understands.

Hmmm...I think my train of thoughts is moving faster than what I am writing. Started with a movie and ended with something else! Been a long and tiring day. Time to sign off.

Political hungama!

There is a lot of nautanki going on in Indian politics....A new drama is unfolding every time you tune into some news channel....

First we had our honorary BJP leader LK Advani accusing our PM, Manmohan Singh of being a "Madame" ka ghulaam....That he runs to "Madame" Sonia Gandhi for every small decision....

We had Manmohan Singh reciprocating the love saying that all that happened during Advani's reign was some riot....

Advani fumes and challenges Sonia Gandhi to a live TV debate to which Sonia Gandhia "politely" refuses..Manmohan Singh is challenged next and he refuses too!

Advani fumes some more and mocks at the Congress saying that they were a "weak" party and lacked the guts for a live discussion ( why do i feel that if there really is a debate, nobody will be heard because everybody will be yelling at the top of their voice at the same time!)

Elsewhere we have our "maanneeya BJP netha" Varun Gandhi giving anti-muslim speeches which seems to have caught the media's attention big time! In a second he is everywhere on the TV (the new poster boy! ) and his speech is aired a zillion times so much that I now know the speech word to word...Congress jumps onto the bandwagon and accuses BJP some more..Varun Gandhi is arrested and his supporters create a big hungaama and there is a mini riot..Police fires at the crowd...there is some bloodshed..there are 3-4 FIRs against Varun Gandhi, one being that of attempted murder! ( Murder!!?? where did that come from?Is he really being framed?Poor chap was just starting off his fledgling political career!)

Maneka Gandhi makes an appearance saying that her son is being lynched and this is a big Congress conspiracy...She says that people from the other religion were responsible for the riot and Varun is being outrightly framed..(Hmmm...kahaani me twist...)

Like father, like son, some smart alec's are quipping on the news channel....Priyanka Gandhi says she is disappointed with Varun...( there definitely is no khaandhaani pyaar there...)

So between all this Congress Vs BJP war, you wonder kab iss jhagde ka "The End" hoga and kab we all will live happily ever after..!!!! You really dont need to watch the daily rone dhone waale soaps any more! just tune into a news channel, grab some popcorns & well, "Lights, Camera, action"!!!!!!

The face in the mirror - A poem

THE FACE IN THE MIRROR
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There are times in life
When it cuts like a knife

You feel the pain
Everything seems to be in vain

"Why me?" you cry
Deafening silence but no reply

In times like these
When hope seems to cease

A helping hand is a must
And a somebody you can trust!

She has been with you
when you were feeling blue

At your jokes, she laughed
While others had scoffed

She stayed with you, be it day or night
Like a string attached to a runaway kite

She is your hero, your only hope
If you find yourself at the end of the rope

You know her not?!
Oh, it’s a pity!
Fret not
She lives in the same city!

Just look at the mirror
There's no escaping her!
Well, but it’s a known face I see
Staring back at me!
Oh, now I see!
The hero lies in me!!!!

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