close your ears and open your mind

Ah. A Ted video after a long time. I will have to go back to reading and listening a bit more. Some of that has taken a back seat for the moment. The cliché goes that we are so busy doing what is urgent that we forget to do what is important. Thats one has rung true for so long and for so many people and almost everywhere I see, especially in corporate life. I am actually tired of chasing these crazy things we do all the while, and hence I am trying  little bit, bit by bit to reclaim my life. It’s not going to be an easy thing to do. But I see an opportunity to do so for the next few months if things play right. Focus on basics, improve your mind, expand it, read, experiment and learn.

The reason I like this particular video is that the rock star Hans Rosling and his son make some very interesting points. Yes there is tons of ignorance in this world. People feed of it and spread the disease of ignorance.  The problem is not ignorance itself but the ignorance of ignorance. One thing for sure I have learnt by reading like crazy – is that we are all ignorant. Nobody knows anything really. There are only angles and more angles. In our quest for science we have expanded the frontiers of knowledge but they are only theories. I learnt that even Newton’s laws which we hold so sacrosanct in school don’t really hold up and hence required Einstein to help us around. I was telling a friend the other day – in fact I tell almost any one who would care to listen; that after readings o much, I have turned a cynic, an atheist or an agnostic who possibly questions everything. Nothing is taken for granted, no knowledge is taken for sure, everyone has motives and nothing is held to be pure. There is no pure emotion and there is no pure instinct. Everything has layers and is influenced by almost everything around it. I think the best way to describe life is using Shrek – life is like an onion – it has many layers.

I try and remove biases from my life, thought and action all the time but I still fail. I fail miserably but hell, I try. Knowing that I have these biases makes me a cynic. A complete cynic cannot love, learn and live and be happy, but I am a turncoat. I am a cynic but I shut it off to live happy. I love being loved and I happily bask in it while I stop myself from seeing the cynicism in it. It’s like a reality check that keeps it in line. Hans Rosling the video says that biasis come thanks to three things – one – personal bias. Of course this is something that we all have, it defines who we are and how we interact with everyone. The challenge is to see everything through this lens – the fact that we know what we know is immediately a bias. This is what we must fight everyday. Just because we have had this experience then we shouldn’t be sure of it. Like I say – your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. That is the bias in our life.

Second outdated facts – that’s a simple one. we stopped reading after school and hence – bad facts! Its worse than a personal bias. Here we believe so much in the fact but forget one single fact – the time value of this fact!

Third – news bias – this is especially dangerous as mass hysteria is a result of this stupidity. As mark twain (or whoever) said – if you don’t read the news you are uninformed but if you do, you are misinformed. News today is even more dangerous as it takes the form of entertainment and those on TV are seen as credible. And there starts all the crazy idea formation. If you control propaganda you control people’s mind – it is not by accident that amongst the most powerful people in the Nazi government was the minister of Propaganda - Joseph Goebbels.

Listen to a few pearls of wisdom from his mouth -

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”

“Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

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Now the next time you watch news or entertainment or anything else – close your ears and open your mind!

movie memories

Sadashiv Amrapurkar was an actor in Bollywood. Recently he passed away. He was a fine actor. My first brush with him was in his debut film Ardh Satya as the principal villain. I remember watching it with my parents and I remember idle conversations in which my mom said: the movie is not Ardh satya (half truth) but Full Satya. I remember talking intelligently to my friends in the same tone – you should see Ardh Satya – it’s the whole truth or something like that.

My next big brush with him was his really most memorable role in the movie – Sadak. He plays the role of the villain - Maharani – a eunuch who controls the flesh trade in the city.

 This movie was on many levels an interesting one for me. A lot of my childhood was spent on stuff that my brother and sister liked. Right from fashion to music – it was what they heard and liked – and that became the norm for me. Those days it was the time of Sanjay Dutt. My brother loved him. The big guy with long hair, big body and Mahesh Bhatt films. My brother was pretty enamored by his films. Both Mahesh Bhatt and Sanjay Dutt. He liked them both and would spend hours discussing them with me. He even harbored notions of being a big movie producer. His dream was to make a movie with no money at all. All the people would bring in their own monies or work free just to be a part of the movie. He would pride himself on having innovative twists to the plot. In between he would ask me to throw him plot challenges and he would figure the solution. Like how would the hero react to situation etc. Once I decided to really throw him off course. The premise was thus – a hero was entering a town and all the guys with guns are on the rooftops and around and are waiting for him to come in and shoot him. How does the hero come into town and escape? Hah! Obviously we have been highly influenced by too many spaghetti westerns. Think Clint Eastwood. Many years later I realized these were the ‘spaghetti westerns’ as they were financed by the Italians as they loved these western themed movies. The best part was of course the sound – the horse riding and the whistling tune for the theme music. In fact it seems Sholay was inspired by exactly this. They then set the same thing in an Indian context. On a side note – there was another similar movie released before Sholay – khotte sikkey – a similar story of misfit criminals turning vigilantes. So coming back – I thought now I have him. This is an impossible plot – he protested. I stuck to my ground. I remember he later thought about it and came back. His solution – the hero rides into town on a horse and then all the town folk pump all their bullets into him only to realize in the end that it’s only a dummy. They finished ALL their bullets on the dummy and then he walks in fully armed to knock everyone out with ease. I didn’t admit to him but yes, I thought that was pretty cool. Remember these are spaghetti western inspired moves. Everything, especially incredulous is especially possible.

So now we had a Mahesh Bhatt movie with Sanjay Dutt. He had two other movies we loved – Naam and Kabzaa. All his movies had very strong villains. All the support roles were pretty strong as well. There are two scenes which my brother drilled into me as epic. In Naam – the hero walks into a subway to be accosted waiting to kill him. He responds with amazing chutzpah. He tells them that all of them together can kill him but he will not spare the first guy who attacks him. This immobilizes the gang and the hero walks away unharmed. Was this naam or was this Kabzaa – I don’t really know. The second scene is definitely from Kabzaa where Alok Nath is to be killed by two henchmen. He is to be killed in the garden while he takes his morning walk. As they are about to accost him, one guy trips and Alok helps him. Then the henchmen remove the guns. Alok Nath – a Gandhian is not scared and breaks off into a lecture of kindness or something and one of the henchman loses his nerve. The other guy urges him to pull trigger – blah blah – BOOMBOOM…

So when Sadak came in – the posters did raise a lot of hype. The arch villain is a eunuch. I remember watching this movie in Ambernath. We were in a NCC camp there and we asked for an evening off. The CO okayed it and we went in for a movie. The movie was – Sadak. A Sanjay Dutt starrer with Mahesh Bhatt direction. And with an over the top villain – it was the perfect potboiler for high testosterone NCC cadets. There was nothing much about the movie but I remember liking it then. Full action and drama. I think Mahesh Bhatt was well past his prime but all we needed was action and drama. In fact I clearly remember one scene where the hero goes to a red light district. In that district – just in a the scene as extras – there are a bunch of navy uniform clad extras. The whole contingent who was there rose in laughter. That was fun.

So that’s my connection with the gentleman who passed away. Memories...

Bonus - soundtrack of the good bad and ugly

badlav!

Can people change? Fundamentally – can they change?

Well that’s a yes and a no. I am not sure. Now that I am 39 I see myself in many situations where I am advising those younger to me on various issues – parental opposition to love, spouse relationships, boyfriend issues, parenting issues etc. no I am not the oracle or the amazing agony aunt with the power to solve every issue, but I believe that most of the times, a simple ear is enough. I had read this book “if you meet Buddha on the road, shoot him”. It left a huge impact on my life, especially when dealing with these agony issues.

It is a bit humbling to know that, really, I don’t have an impact on other people’s lives. I can impact mine (if at all), and that in itself is a big thing. If at all, people have to take whatever lessons they can take from me and see how it impacts their life. Lessons come in both fashion – thing sthey could do like me or things they shouldn’t do like me. Both are lessons. Here I really miss my dad. I think my dad was awesome. And there was a wealth of experience that died with him. Stuff I could learn about in life. I think if he was alive, we would have fought like hell till I would have been around 30, and then we both would have settled down to an easy truce. We would have found the space for each other and lived it. Sigh… So this blog is my insurance against a vacuum in Jispa’s growth in case she goes far or in case she refuses to talk to me or incase I am unavailable.

So do people change? I have come to the conclusion that yes, people can change. Its difficult for me to say so. Because true nature at the core, in my belief cannot. But it can get layers. Two types of layers – one is a simple channelizing. I have always been aggressive. That is my true nature but I can change from outward aggression to inward aggression. Like the case of this one meeting we had at the gymkhana. There some issues regarding the coach that who had left. A faction was up in arms. It was a tough situation. I remember going in thinking – no point losing temper. We will address every issue that will be brought up. We aren’t doing any wrong and fundamentally, we are ok to resign and give the gauntlet to another one if required. I don’t really need to be working for the swimming pool, if the members don’t want me. So with that I went in and I was happy, I did not lose friends or my temper and the meetings went through a bit of fire but then soon passed over. That was fine. But make no mistake – while I did not shout even once – there was a mad aggressive streak in what I did. Really tough.

The second is the layer of experience. Experience teaches you a lot. It can teach you that your nature is going to screw you in the end and if you don’t change you are in trouble. I guess that’s evolution. And with enough experience everyone knows what works for them and what doesn’t. some idiots will never learn but a vast majority – they always get smarter.

But then Jispa is now trying a third way – genuine trying way. The last six months were hell for all of us. Jasmine, Jispa and I would just not get along on anything. Anything that Jispa did or did not would create mayhem in the house. We wouldn’t know how to deal with it. She would be upset and them I would be upset and Jasmine would be completely frustrated and generally the mood would get really gloomy. Really painful. We tried explaining to het many times, scolding her, arguing with her, sweetly talking to her – everything. There are times when wavelengths just don’t match. But did not give up and neither did she. This time, I had one more chat with her. I explained to her how it is critical to change and how she must. If she wants to do the things that she wants to then she has to do the things we want her to. Oiling her hair before swimming, putting cream on dry skin, getting up in time, eating her food, getting ready on time – everything. Generally being a  good girl. This time she said – sure. Will try to be so.

But I think something inside her changed and she made a huge effort this time around. I had told her – give me 21 days to good behavior. Let’s try it. I read it somewhere that it takes just 21 days of regular behavior to change ones habit. Jispa showed me that a 12 year old can have determination to change and can change. I have changed so much in the 39 years of my life. I can say for sure that 5 years ago I was different from what I am today but it came as a lovely surprise to me that even a child aged 12 can change. All one requires is a determination to do so.

Now she makes a genuine attempt to do what we tell her and in return she gets little more leeway from us. And a lot more love.

People change – they can. 12 or 39. It doesn’t matter. What matters is a genuine desire to do so. I guess if you change and if you like what you get in return for your change – then you will keep the changed behavior. A bit of reward is required. I guess it’s a carrot and stick approach. But change is a must an dit possible.

Bonus – something Jasmine likes to say - Samaj samaj kar samaj ko samjho ye samajhna ek samajh hai, aur samajh samajh ke bhi jo na samjhe, meri samajh me wo nasamajh hai