Confrontation: Is It a Bliss or Curse?

Yeah is it this something which most of us try to avoid as much as we can?

So, what is confrontation? We all know that we are not perfect, but for some reason we try to ignore that fact and see ourselves as flawless creatures; the epitome of awesomeness. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, one should be proud of him or herself. However, sometimes it is very good to accept our imperfections. On the contrary, people tend to run away from it and live a peaceful life of self denial. So, when these people see their actual reflection in the mirror of confrontation they seriously freak out.

Now, confrontations can be bliss in the ideal world. People will appreciate the one person who confronted him or her. Lets take an example, remind you, this is ideal world experience: A guy walked to his friend put his hand on his shoulder and suggested him to use a deodorant, or advised him not to eat beans at lunch in order to spare other people around him. The friend will hug the person and remember the advice next time, and in the ideal world they would become best friends since that day. One more? Okay lets take the example of a dating couple. No no no I am not talking about bedroom experience; dirty minds. I am talking about the general complaints the girls have with their boyfriends," you never listen to me." Isn't that sounds awful lot familiar? So again in the idealistic world the boyfriend will apologize right away, I told you earlier that this is the ideal world example. Coming back to the apology, he will say "I am sorry and from now on I will listen to everything you will say," and then they lived happily ever after.

So my question is, do we live in the ideal world? Do we? Lets take this two ideal world examples in the real world. The guy confronts his friend with his body odor issue or bad gas issue in real world. Now, his friend will get mad at him if he is lucky else things might get bad from worse. People are very cautious about these two issues. In real world this confrontation will cost the confrontationist his friend. Second case, the guys answer to the girlfriend's usual question, " you never listen to me," would be, "yes, I do listen and I don't know why you bring up these stupid issues." Thus, we wonder why so many people end up single at the end.

Confrontations can be bliss and curse at the same time. It also depends on how people face their fears? Nobody wants to be told what to do and how to do things, and confrontation might also make one feels like being attacked or patronized. Honestly, ideally it is good to be confronted with my fears and imperfections but realistically I don't know if I have that much caliber to handle it. I think keeping open mind helps a lot. So , I will like to mention this cool concepts I saw in the movie 2012 ; they showed Dalai Lama in the movie talking with one of his disciples. The disciple had some doubts and as a result of it, he was not very sure with the outcome. Dalai Lama starts poring tea in his disciple's cup, the cup started to fill to the brim, however Dalai Lama didn't stop, on the other hand, he keeps on pouring and pouring, thus the tea started spilling all over. Then he smiles and says keep your cup of knowledge always empty because once you think its filled then you cannot fit more valuable knowledge into it. So, if we see it from this angle I think confrontations are worth the pain :D.

Cheers
MS

Hollywood Classics:North By North West

I am starting this section here Hollywood Classics.

So, past week we ordered 'North by North West' on Netflix. This Hitchcock's flick is considered one of the Hollywood classics. From time to time I have seen many renditions and heard referenced about the "Air plane shooting" scene from this movie. Carry Grant in the main lead was also one of the factors why I wanted to watch the movie. We have decided to watch movie on Sunday afternoon when there is not a lot going on and we wanted to just lay back and relax. However, it was not that much relaxing as we were expecting it to be, the DVD was stopping horribly in the beginning. I took it out then washed it under the tap water and for our surprise it was working fine.

The movie starts with Carry Grant dictating letter to his secretary in an elevator . Followed by his abduction after few minutes in the movie. His character was Roger Thornhill, Add men from Madison Avenue.n His performance was great as usual. The plot takes time to buildup but when it is build up it gets more interesting. Although, being a suspense thriller, it has a lot of jokes which also work in the favor of plot.

I will recommend this movie to be on the "to-watch" list. All in all great script, direction wise unbeatable, entertainment wise awesome. Few things might look dated however rest of the movie is very relevant to these times.

Cheers
MS

Paranormal Activity!!!!

So, we saw the paranormal activity and thought of just ridiculing it...here is what we got.

Guns Vs Gays: Are you serious?

People always keep me wondering about these two issues: guns and gays. So, if you are suffering from severe homophobia or you are running away from confrontations your entire life, I suggest you not read this article.

Recently, the law of gay marriage was rejected in the beautiful state of Maine. Plus, I found out in an article that 31 other states have also rejected (including the liberal state, a.k.a. California) the concept of two people of the same sex going in any matrimonial union. I have a question for the government: what are you thinking and what are you trying to accomplish by these self contradictory laws? The logic behind this escapes my mind. If we take a closer look I think the government is trying to play the divide and rule game among liberal and conservatives. First, the state governments declared same-sex marriage legal just to lure the homosexual community and for that matter the whole liberal vote bank . So, when they think that the liberals are happy now, it is time to please the conservatives. So, they go for a public vote on this law. Obviously most of the states' majority consists of straight populations and this is a very big deciding factor while handling this issue. Therefore, the majority wins. However, is it justifiable to discriminate somebody's right because he or she is gay?

Now, lets talk about guns. Yes, it is our birthright to own a gun , but come on, think about it: in the last 24 hours there were two shootings in two different states. Yes, I heard this argument several times, ' People kill people, guns don't.' But guns make it easy. Now people have another argument that is, if there are no guns then the killers will find some other weapons. I agree , but what would that weapon be - knife, stone, or may be a baseball bat. So, in order to use any of these alternative weapons one needs a lot of strength to actually kill a person. One more benefit is since it requires a lot of power and hard work, people will have to actually come up with a plan instead of just walking and shooting. Moreover, the impact, by impact I mean body count, will not be as high as when guns are involved.

Gun owners always claim that it is their right as per second amendment, to lawfully own a gun. So, why do we have a right to own a gun but not a right to marry whomever we choose?I find it kind of strange that it is okay to own killing machine but it is not okay for people in love to get married and spread the love. I personally think if people are allowed to carry guns then two people who love each other should be allowed to get married irrespective of their orientation.

Cheers
MS.

P.S. Please pass this around and help in generating awareness.

Believe "IT" or not: The Mystery of Evil Clown

The clowns are suppose to make kids giggle with their cool tricks; they are suppose to be funny and friendly to children. However, in Stephen King's IT the clown is depicted as evil and demonic creature .Since, it was Halloween, my girlfriend and I decided to watch some horror flicks. We have been hearing about IT a lot, plus I was not sure, how people can be scared of clowns.?So we ordered screen adaptation of IT, i.e a mini series which was aired in 1990, to see it for ourselves.

Plot:

It all starts with kids getting killed mysteriously in Derry, ME. Nobody knows who is killing the children of the town, except one guy who knows "IT" is back. He and his friends have defeated that demonic evil clown 30 years ago however, now it is again haunting the little town of Derry. This whole story is about seven friends, who are living their lives separately but get back together after 30 years to finish "IT."
Overall, the whole series is interesting and very well done for a show aired in 90s. Tim Curry was brilliant being IT a.k.a. Pennywise. The child actors were great too and one interesting fact: Seth Green still looks the same. The grownup actors were alright; not that great. However IT was good enough to keep us hooked for three and half hours.

We liked the series but not very pleased with the ending. The director, Tommy Lee Wallace, was very good in keeping the suspense till the very end. But the climax didn't work out great. It felt like the whole thing was buildup for nothing. The first half is obviously better then the second half, no doubt. However,there is always room for improvement. I will also say that seeing IT in these day n age does make the effects look poorly done, but you know it was very well suited for 90s and IT is considered as one of the horror classics. Therefore, I will say "IT" is good.

The Film Club: Review

The word film always excites me . Since I was five, I've always enjoyed watching movies. Even though, growing up we were not allowed to watch a lot of movies. My love for cinema increased with age. English not being my first language kept me away from watching English films till the age of seventeen; since then I have watched a lot of English movies, including classics. So, a book about film naturally grabs my attention, but I was very reluctant to get hooked to another book when I have a lot to accomplish. My girlfriend also wanted to read the same book , so we got a copy of 'the Film Club' from the local library. She read it first and after completing it she told me that this is one book which I would really appreciate. I was very apprehensive about reading it, but I started reading anyways. A couple pages later I said," I am hooked on this book."

To say it in one sentence: this is a story about a father and son who watched a lot of films together. It sounds boring, doesn't it? I felt the same way, I said to my self ," why do I need to know what movies they watched together? However, after reading a few pages, I realized it is a story about a father and son. Both of them are in different stages of life. Son is sixteen years old and he is dealing with all the teenage issues like hating to go to school and girls. The father is dealing with his own life along with being a dad to a sixteen year old. This story also depicts how they see the world and how their relationship evolves.

David Gilmour, is the author of the book "The Film Club". It is based on true story ; his life. It also covers a lot of classics and little juicy bits about the movies which avid movie fans will like to know. The writing style is very creative ; the author made sure that he is doing justice to the story along with movies. Plus it is not very hard to read, very entertaining and keeps you hooked.

Cheers
Mragendra

Village WITCHES : Consequence of superstitoon and illiteracy

It is Halloween time, so discussion about witches and witchcraft will sounds commonplace.However, recently five women were tortured for allegedly being witches in India. The details can be seen on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8315980.stm

It is so horrendous that people in third world countries still believe in ghosts, witches and all sort of superstitions. I blame the the illiteracy as the contributing factor towards this kind of behavior. This is neither the first case that ever happened nor that last case that we will see. This incidences are very common in the rural India.

India is one of the fastest developing countries. When people talk about IT , economics , and for that matter, any thing ; India will always be mentioned. India is competing with developed countries in all the aspects, head to head;shoulder to shoulder. People love Indian cuisine, Bollywood is one of the biggest movie industry of the world; they make more movies per year than Hollywood. However, apart from this developed side there is one aspect of India which negates the entire achievement of it as a country. The underdevelopment of Indian villages.

Majorly people in rural India depend upon agriculture as occupation. However, farming in India is not the most coveted profession and farmers are not the rich people. Most farmers in India live below poverty line. They have not enough money to feed their families. The whole family work hard to get the bare minimum to survive. Generally these villages are deprived with the basic necessities like electricity and water supply. In some villages ladies have to walk ten miles to get a gallon of water, everyday.

Generally education is not very popular concept among the villagers. Government of India, spends million of dollars to create awareness in rural areas about literacy; but it is not impacting the masses.Corruption also have a part in it ,but that is another can of worms.However, the school enrollment among the kids in villages is increasing day by day. Though, it doesn't change the fact that there are still uneducated superstitious people living in the villages; who believe in ghost, and witches.

The lack of education also stops people to think rationally. Although,Social evils like discrimination on the basis of Caste, Child Marriage, and Dowry are illegal ;they are still being practiced in the villages. Yes, in this day and age. If you are unfamiliar with these words I will suggest to google them. I mean discrimination on the basis of caste not only exist in smaller villages but also in big cities. Several, ladies are still being burnt alive because of dowry all over the country. Every once in a while there is news of child marriage in the news paper.

So, when I saw this news I was not shocked actually; however, felt sad about the situation. I think I was fortunate not to be born in any of those conditions and be able to get education so that I will be able to distinguish between right and wrong. These, villages needs awareness so that people living in villages encourage their kids to go to school and help in eradicating the whole concept of superstition.

Cheers

P.S. If you loved this or you hated it to the core or you are in middle somewhere please leave a comment and let me know how you feel about it.