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My reading choice depends on my state of mind. So i am right now reading

A legend passes away, with him a way of life

I am in mourning. Though, much fun was had when i immensely irritated my punjabi roommate by insisting on watching Annavaru on a buffalo, singing those immortal lines " Yamme ninage saati illa". But the death of a legend and the violence that unnecessarily erupted in Bangalore is no laughing matter.

I have never been a Rajkumar fan (except some of his movies, which i liked), but the man was a legend, for the sheer amount of love and respect he generated among millions. He belonged to an era of true blood kannadiga, which is a fast vanishing species.

Kannadigas are by nature docile and laid back. Kannadiga of yore worked in a 9-6 job, was honest, hardworking, decent and never over the top. Nightlife meant lisneting to Bhimsen joshi or Subbalakshmi on radio or watching girish karnad plays and reading kuvempu/shivaramkarnath poems/novels.

But at the turn of the decade IT came and changed a way of life. Lot of young people from neighbouring states started entering looking for oppurtunities and the Bangalore city became cosmopoliton (which is good).Too much money was seen too fast.

So my generation of Kannadigas became pub hopping,beer guzzling, english/hindi speaking (which is good again), over the top and showy bunch of individuals. Slowly the kannada identity was lost and the only link to the old and the new was Dr Raj. He was link for the new generation of youth to a bygone innocent world of humility and decency. Kannadigas could forget anything but not Dr Raj and what he represented.

Alas the link is now broken. So what kannadigas are feeling now is just not a loss of a loved actor but a loss of an identity. Rest in peace Annavare.

Old politics comes back to haunt new economics

Arjun Singh is an old bozo.At a time when our nation is finally on the brink of realizing hidden potential, the last thing you need is an old bozo at such an important cabinet portfolio.

Education will be the single most important measure according to me that will decide whether our nation will become a developed country by 2020. Education is a great empowerer. It demolishes such aliens like ignorance and poverty at once. We have over the past constantly neglected this vital area and continue to do so. Not only our percentage spending on education insufficient, the implementation methods are woefully inadequate. New money and new ideas are needed to correct this great anomoly. But alas we have an old bozo with his old poltics at the helm bringing back the ghost of reservations.

Nobody will dispute the fact that certain sections of our society are discriminated against and need help. I myself am from upper caste and at some level seen this discrimination. But you dont correct this decades of inequality by a top down, quick fix approach. What is even the point of giving reservations at IIMs when half of the population who are eligible for reservations drop out of school.

But old politics dont work on logic or common sense. Old politics works on appeasement and electorial dividend. I just hope that 10 years of new economics(inadequate though) has prepared even the poorest of poor people to call the bluff of old politics.

Joy of writing

I have always been an reader, but never a writer. Except for three hours in exams (even there i didnt write much), i dont remember me writing at all. I was too lazy to write a diary and suchlike, until i was introduced to the fascinating world of blogs about a year ago.

I am kind of a guy who has detested almost everything i have done till now. I detested most of what i studied, i detested work after work and still do. I cant remember anything that i did for the love of it. At some level i hated what i did because i wasnt doing anything for myself and didnt have the courage to find and do what i loved, until blogging happened.

I am not even good at this. My style of writing is bland at best, humor is non existent and spellings and punctuations are pathetic, but i dont give a damn. I dont give a damn, because it gives me satisfaction, joy and happiness that comes from doing things for yourself and loving it. So i will write, not for anyone else but for myself. Who knows i may even one day get better at it.

Being Cyrus

I caught up with Being Cyrus a couple of days back. Its a cliche in Bollywood to say its different, but this cliche fits well with Being Cyrus. Everything about the movie is refreshingly different. The format of story telling is more literary than cinematic. I felt like i was reading a short story not watching a movie.The cinematograhy and music add more layes of mood to an already moody plot and the cast is terrific.

But the movie is a bit all over the place and jumps genre every half an hour. You just cant place what the movie is about, is it charecter driven plot or a story driven plot?, is it a comedy or a murder mystery?, there is no way you can know. As i said its all of them and all over the place. Homi the director and the writers never dig into the charecters deeply. Yes there are flashbacks showing Cyrus's childhood trauma and a dream sequence showing his present nightmare, but its just that nothing more. Many more charecters are simply unexplained. I guess its intentional. Homi lays out the charecters in the first 10-15 min of his movie and tells us these are crazy eccentric people. And if they are crazy and eccentric their life should be all over the place , hence i think the movie is delibretely all over the place.

But ulitamately its an extremely satisfying movie, because its an immensly clever movie. Go watch it