Julie & Julia (2009) Review

It’s after a long time I am watching a movie without reading reviews, checking ratings, actors and directors. It was almost 10 in the night; there was many other things to do but I was not in a mood to do anything else. Even for dinner I asked Akhil and Jithu to buy something for me.
It took a while to understand the story line. There were two stories going in parallel. One from past, in Paris and other in present US. Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is a tall housewife staying in Paris with her husband who is working in US embassy. She was fond of cooking and joined cooking class where tutor and rest of the students are males. She wanted to learn cooking and get a diploma to become a teacher.

Meanwhile in present New York, her hardcore fan Julie Powell (Amy Adams) stays with her husband. She also works as a back-office support personal. During Julie’s meetings with her friends she has hardly anything interesting to say. She wanted to do something in life, but afraid to start with anything. At the end of a rapid conversation with her husband, she realize that the one thing she is very good at and fond of is cooking. She along with her husband watches old shows of Julia. Finally Julie decides to start a project where she cooks all recipes (524) mentioned in Julias' cookbook in 365 days. With great anxiety and pressure, she starts the project and blog her experiences every day.

Meanwhile the movie take u back to Julia life on old Paris where she completes her cooking class and tries to publish a book about recipes. It’s very interesting to see the scenes where she interacts with street vendors, friends and her husband. After some initial rejections one publishing house finally agrees to publish Julia Child's book. Well, in NewYork, in present, Julie keep on completing the recipes one after the other and blog become a successful one.

I liked the movie; it's motivated me to write something today for my blog as well. This movie takes you through the anxieties of Julie, her break downs, her relationship with husband; Julia's witty and interesting conversations with vendors, her friends and intimate relation with her husband, a little of French culture and beautiful streets of old Paris. Even if you are not a foodie, this movie is a good one to watch.

Sajeev

Voyager - Messenger of Earth to Alien Species

At a time when we are bombarded with sad news like terror attacks, wild fires, cyclones, sexual harassments; this one came as ray of hope in otherwise black sky.

NASA's Voyager team successfully completed probe’s Trajectory Correction Maneuver(TCM) by firing back up thrusters. They are using these thrusters after a long 37 years; and yes, it worked. As per Voyager’s project manager, TCM will enable the probe to extend its life by two or three years.
Voyager 1 was launched 40 years back (Sep 5, 1977; after its twin Voyager 2). Voyager 2 explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Meanwhile Voyager 1 overtook all probes send before it (Voyager 2, Pioneer 11 and Pioneer 10) and entered interstellar space (by the way Voyager 2 is also heading towards interstellar space). Voyager 1 is expected to continue her communication with earth till 2025; till she run out of electric power to operate its instruments.

Voyager 1 is one of the finest accomplishments of humanity; born in the golden era of space exploration when the cold war rivalries of US and Soviets provided ample funding for space race and exploration of unknown. Even after 40 years, it is still able to communicate with earth and send data which enabled us to understand more about our outer and interstellar space.

By the way Voyager series contains the golden record - a gold plated audio-visual disc carrying photos of earth, our life forms, scientific information, greetings from top leaders, sounds of various life forms in earth, work of musicians like Mozart, Chuck Berry, Valya Balkanska, Johnson; eastern and western classics etc. In addition to this golden record also has greetings in 55 languages and some information on how to play it. If any intelligent life forms ever found these records, then they will get some comfort from the fact that there are friends in other side of universe.

It is sad to see that golden era of space is over. Now countries pump billions on new generation fighter planes, missile systems etc. New generation equipments are invented to kill more people faster; but hardly much investment is made to exploring the unknown. Hope that at some point of time, governments or private corporations, even if it is for their selfish interests, will pump more money to space exploration.

Sajeev

Forced to lick his own saliva, barber's nefarious condition possesses a question on India's social justice

During colonial era British used to consider Indians as low class people. It was visible in their value system and behavior. Indian judges were not allowed to decide on rape cases where victim is a British woman and accused is an Indian; during World War II life of Europeans become more import than that of Indians which resulted in the diversion of food Bengal to Europe). This of course resulted in tragic Bengal famine. What more, there were separate places for Europeans and Indians to watch movie in theatres.

Millions participated in independence movement, to escape from these inhuman conditions. They might have expected that independent India will be different. But no, see where we are now. When British left India's caste hierarchy just lost top layer; rest remained the same. New masters came and continued to treat those below as second class; those second-class people considered castes below them as third class... So, on and forth.

Consider these incidents,

a. Barber Forced To Lick His Saliva For Trying To Enter Sarpanch's House In Bihar. The barber's misery did not end there as he was then beaten by women with their slippers in full public view - NDTV

b. On 21 April 2010, 18 Dalit homes were torched and two Dalits—17-year old Suman and her 60-year old father Tara Chand—were burnt alive. The incident happened after a dog barked at Rajinder Pali, son of a Jat while he passing buy Balmiki colony at night on his bike - IndiaTimes

c. 11 July, 1996, 21 Dalits were slaughtered by Ranvir Sena militiamen in Bathani Tola, Bhojpur, Bihar. Among the dead were 1 man, 11 women, six children and three infants, who were deliberately singled out by the attackers. More than 60 members of Ranvir Sena, a private militia of Bhumihars in Bihar descended on the village and set 12 houses on fire.  The attack was reportedly in retaliation for the earlier killing of nine Bhumihars in Nandhi village, by the CPI(M-L) - IndiaTimes

d. In 1991, a young dalit graduate was beaten up  after his feet unintentionally touched a Reddy man in a Cinema hall. The dalits of Chundur village in Guntur district supported their youth. Irked by this, the dominant Reddys of the village massacred 13 dalits. - IndiaTimes

e. A dalit family was stripped naked on road including a woman by none other than police in Greater Noida near the Capital. - India Times

f. Hari Om Katheria, 35, his wife Meera and brother Shyam Sunder were thrashed by Chhotey Lal, an upper caste Thakur, for not greeting him with a ‘Ram Ram’ - HT

g. Group of youths belonging to the Dalit community who were skinning a dead cow were beaten up by cow vigilantes, alleging that they had killed the cow - The Hindu

h. EIGHTY DALIT families from Kadkol in Karnataka's Bijapur district, The Hindu reported last month, were "punished" by caste Hindus of the village with social and economic boycott for drawing drinking water from the village tank to which they had been denied access for decades - The Hindu

i. Since June 2013, Tamil Nadu has seen the murder of 80 young men and women who dared to marry or fall in love in violation of strict caste rules but not a single conviction - HT 

j. Bhanwari Devi is a dalit social-worker from Bhateri, Rajasthan, who was gang raped in 1992 by higher-caste men angered by her efforts to prevent an early marriage in their family. She was ill-treated by the police and the court acquitted the accused. A state MLA organised a victory rally in the state capital Jaipur for the five accused who were now declared not guilty, and the women’s wing of his political party attended the rally to call Bhanwari a liar. She was ostracised by members of her own caste and community and when her mother died, her brothers did not even allow her to participate in the funeral - FeminismInIndia

Problem with caste is, it's a birthmark, a kind of fingerprint. Being good or bad in life is not going to change that person's caste. It is to be remembered here that, victims of this caste hierarchy are also not above blame. Those in upper ladders of lower caste hierarchy treat those below in almost in the same way as upper caste treat them.

Unfortunately, this caste division is not going to end any time soon. Education can change it, but now-a-days education is a shortcut to become doctor or engineer; not for creating scientific temper or reasoning ability (other than the one required to pass exams).

What is required is a focused drive to empower the lowest layer in caste hierarchy by conducting workshops among them, reason with them, make them landowners, break the ghettos and give them a viable lasting job to meet day to day expenses. Conventional methods are not going to work with the speed we need. Those who want to see a model can study how Kerala - once notorious for caste divisions - broke the entire system by redistribution of land, universal education and mass social reforms organized and driven by passionate people. Let’s move away from conventional methods and do something different this time.

Sajeev

Padmavati, real or fiction?

Whoever watching Indian media outlets recently will have a feeling that the most imortant thing Indians are currently interested in is Padmavati - the bollywood movie by Sanjay Leela Bansali. Print and electronic media already spent considerable amount of time and resources in this, which not only give free publicity to movie but also for some finge elements. Numerous weeks passed by; still there isn't any sign of this news fading away. Politicians, fringe outlets from Rajasthan and many other groups poured as much oil as they could to keep the issue alive. Now, a parliamentary committee on IT called director of Padmavati to explains his views.

I was shocked to read this news. When was the last time our parliament was assembled? How much time our elected representative spends in Sansad Sadan to debate on core topics? How many mantains an attendence rate about 90%? How many bills are actually getting discussed before passed by the house? Well, the answer is disappointing. Still they found time to call Bansali.

Problem with the movie Padmavati is the allegation that there are some intimate scenes between movie characters - queen of Chittor Padmavati and then ruler of Delhi Sultanate Allavuddin Khalji. Opponents (whose opposition is not limited to vocal one) says movie is a distortion of history and an attack on Rajput honor. Problem with that argument is, story of Padmavati don't have good historical footing. 

What we know is Alauddin Khalji was then ruling Delhi. Here Delhi dooesn't simply means current New Delhi. His kingdom included current Pakistan, Northern and Western India, portions of central India and huge chunk of South Indian kingdoms were his tributaries. It is also try that he fought a battle in Chittor in 1303 AD and conquered the kingdom. There is some  historical evidence that king Ratnasimha was then ruling Chittor kingdom. What we don't know is whether Padmavati is real or not. Movie is based out, in fact the story of Padmavati is based on Malik Muhammad Jayasi's epic book Padmavat written in 1540 AD. Close to two and half centuries after the siege of Chittor. As per Wikipedia quote of historian Kishori Lal - "Ratnasimha had ascended the throne in 1301, and was defeated by Alauddin in 1303 whereas Padmavat claims that Ratnasimha spent 12 years in quest of Padmavati, and then 8 years in conflict with Alauddin".

Well, we don’t know whether the character Padmavati is real; we also don’t know whether there is any intimate sequence between the character Padmavati and Khilji in the movie.

By the way it is to be remembered here that, despite all cruelties attributed to Allavuddin Khalji, he is also the ruler who fought and successfully stopped Mongolian invasion of India and led charge to territories under Mongol control. He was also successful in conquering a major part of India and what is now as Pakistan.

Sajeev

Constitution Day of India

Just like any other day, Nov 26 also gone. Decades back on this very day, constituent assembly of India adopted the constitution of India. The foundation, from which executive, legislature and judiciary draws power and look for guidance. Our constitution is the biggest in the world and probably the one which underwent largest number of changes. 

It may not be perfect, but numerous sections in that very book empowered Indians to understand and demand for their rights. It is also true that, we often short circuit the book by introducing frequent changes to it and by adding several laws as part of 9th schedule. By the way, 9th schedule was not part of original constitution. This schedule was later added through 1st amendment. Governments over a period, added numerous laws to this section which otherwise won’t survive judicial scrutiny. The book also contains sections which split Indian society midway; like reservation etc. 

Still, constitution of India remains as the foundation of laws in India and guides Indian society. There were, and are, many groups which while enjoying the facilities guaranteed by constitution trying to suppress other’s rights. These forces are there in every country at all time. Hope that our constitution will remain as the guiding light for India in future. At the same time, our bulky constitution also needs to be fine-tuned from time to time without taking away the fundamental rights.

Sajeev