Judgement

I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.

- Apocalypse Now['79]

Photos

I have uploaded some of my favourites here. Hope to develop photography as a hobby.

Stalker

Stalker, a Russian movie, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is a movie of metaphysical speculation, deep insights and intimate association of despondency with life. Characterised by cinematic brilliance the viewer just moves with the camera losing the self in extremely long takes with sounds such as rattling of wheels on rail tracks, sound of feet while walking etc.

I like particularly the open-ended nature of discussions throughout the movie from the writer's, the physicist's as well as the seemingly omniscient stalker's perspective.

दुनिया

सुरमई आखों के प्यालों की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
सतरंगी रंगों गुलालों की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
अलसाई सेजों की फूलों की दुनिया ओ दुनिया रे
अंगडाई तोड़े कबूतर की दुनिया ओ दुनिया रे
करवट ले सोयी हकीकत की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
दीवानी होती तबियत की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
ख्वाइश में लिपटी जरूरत की दुनिया ओ दुनिया रे
इंसान के सपनों की नियत की दुनिया ओ दुनिया

ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है??

ममता की दुखारी कहानी की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
बहनों की सिसकी जवानी की दुनिया ओ दुनिया
आदम की हवास रिश्तों की दुनिया ओ दुनिया रे
शायर के फीके लव्जों की दुनिया ओ दुनिया



This is a song from the movie Gulaal. People like Piyush Mishra and Anurag Kashyap sure are contributing with some fabulous offbeat movies; revolutionizing lyrics and dialogue writing.

Problem Solving

Click on the image for a clear view..

Nice guys

Here is an excerpt of a rant published in Wharton Undergraduate Journal. Nice guys out there will find it very true.

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

Time perspective

Philip Zimbardo talks about time perspective here. The talk contains mostly the things we all know unconsciously but which are vital regarding how we orient our life experiences into different time frames. He thinks "life is nothing but temptation". Optimizing the present, past and future oriented factors in a temptation can be the path to productive and efficient living. Overall, a nice talk and offers something to think about the ways to tackle temptations in life (maybe in a better way).

Creativity and beyond

There is an extraordinary evidence of human creativity and it is exhibited everywhere. No one has any idea what the future has in store for us. Future is always associated with unpredictability and education is the primary factor which guides us to the future. The kind of education system carves the future predominantly.

Children have extraordinary capacity for innovation and creative thinking. But these talents are being squandered ruthlessly. The present education systems around the world are mercilessly quelling this capacity. Nurturing creativity in education is as important as literacy.

Creative ventures are pursued if one is not afraid of being wrong. It does not,in any way, mean that being wrong is being creative. If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original. All children are born artists...the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.

We need to understand intelligence in a whole new way. Intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. Diverse; because we can think visually, in sound, in abstract terms etc. Dynamic; because there are numerous interactions going on in the human brain and it is nothing but interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things that leads to creativity.

Procrastination

What can be said about the psychological state of an individual who loves procrastination or is in a delusion of loving procrastination??

What if some work is left undone till the deadline because it doesn't interest him?? And, moreover, what if most of the things in the world seem to be of trivial value and uninteresting?

What if this piece of shitty silly writing, as you may have guessed, bores him and puts him off??

Women : An excerpt

It is hard to convince women of anything--they must be brought to a point where they will convince themselves. The means of supplying evidence by which they finish off their prejudices is highly original, and to get to know their dialectic one must rid the mind of all academic rules of logic. For example, the ordinary method is this:

This man loves me; but I am married; hence, I must not love him.

The feminine method is this:

I must not love him because I am married; but he loves me, and hence . . .

Here follows a pregnant pause, for reason is now dumb, and all the talking is mainly done by the tongue, eyes, and eventually the heart, if there is one.

What if these notes should fall into a woman's hands some day? "Slander!" she will cry indignantly.

- A Hero of Our Time
By Mikhail Lermontov