Atticus Finch !

If you are familiar with this character from Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird", i can tell you that you know a lot about me. Like any other individual, i have evolved with experience too. I am really amazed to see the way i have transformed from a short-tempered college student into a "highly" tolerant...err...college student! The transformation phase is almost 8 years old now...

Scout: "It's ok to hate Hitler?"(given that he is a dictator and is ruthless)
Atticus: "It is not. It's not ok to hate anybody"

Scout is Atticus' 9 year old daughter and that's the kind of advice Atticus keeps offering Scout and her elder brother Jem, throughout the book. I think my character(for the past few months) is one that is very similar to Atticus'. To me, it's more than a coincidence that i read this novel only now! Just as i realized what kind of a person I was, Harper Lee's book reassured my realization.

Yes. I find it so hard to hate people, of late. When someone tells me something wrong about someone else, i try to defend that person. I guess, it's because i have started believing that there is no one particular way to do "anything". If i can be right, the other person can also be right. Maybe, i am contradicting myself here. For example, X tells me that Y is bad. I say Y needn't be bad and start defending Y. What i essentially do here is, saying that X is wrong in assuming that Y is bad. So, i am depriving X of his right to express what he thinks(which can be right too)! It's some kind of a puzzle that i am still trying to decipher, myself.

On second thoughts, i dont contradict something arbitrarily. It's only when people say wrong things about someone that I get into defense mode. And more often than not, only after making sure that they dont have enough evidence to back their statements. I think I live by a simple rule- "Dont hate anyone".

One of my friends remarked that I shud be a saint to live the way i live. Is this true? Is it so "unhumanlike" to not hate people? i dont know. I have been able to do it with considerable success(yes- there's the odd one here n there hinting that i am a possible hypocrite!) for some time now and am really happy to live life this way. It gives me a sense of satisfaction. Isnt that what people yearn for? Satisfaction in life...

Jeans

I saw the movie for the zillionth time last night. I just adore the movie. This is one of those movies which i love and know that others have valid reasons to hate! For a neutral movie watcher, the movie shud qualify as a "one-time" watch. But, i know a lot of people who just hate the movie...

The storyline is a lot better than most crappy movies in Tamil. The music is amazing(i guess all critics wud agree on that). I guess it's the histrionics of the cast that fails to live upto the expectations of these "haters". If Aishwarya's acting is amateurish, Prashanth's is ridiculous. Lakshmi, S V Shekar, Nasser and above all Radhika steal the limelight. But, unfortunately the "hero" and the "heroine" are pathetic. Is this reason enuf to "hate" a movie? i dont know and dont wanna try justifying it either.

I saw this movie 8 times in theatre when i was in college. With every extra time, my love for the movie increased. At one point in time, i knew the dialogues and BGMs byheart that i started uttering them in the theatre even as the movie was running. A lady who sat in the seat in front of me got upset and turned back and gave me a stare! Even that cudn't stop me. We(me n my friends) just started laughing at the whole scenario.

So...what made me see the movie 8 times in theatre? U'll be brutally wrong if u guessed it's bcos of Aishwarya's presence in the cast! Yes...that was a reason. But, not the only one. I thought she was her best in this movie(until i saw Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam). The first few times i went to see the movie was bcos of her. As i said earlier, everytime i saw the movie, i started liking something about it. The music, Shankar's handling of the plot, the graphics, the craze for America and a lot more caught my interest. To add to it, the fact that i had a reason to cut class! If being in college was fun, being outside college with college friends was more fun! I can never forget the good times we had outside of college and "Jeans" played a big part in helping us do that!

kudos to Jeans. i adore thee!!

Valentine's Day

ok....me being me, i had to write something today!! Let me not get into the history of why Valentine's day is being celebrated today. It's supposedly the day when lovers(and dear ones too) express their feelings for one another and also supposedly the sales of greeting cards and flowers are at their peak!- on retrospect, maybe Christmas is an exception...

What is my opinion on celebrating V-Day? i think it's good to have such a day. For that matter, i am a fan of having special days for friends, mom, dad and so on. Sure, it doesnt mean that u love them or admire them just on that one single day...but in the fast-paced world we live in, it's always good to have reminders. We forget our friends' birthdays, anniversaries and so on. The online reminders are a boon. Similarly, this is a chance to tell our dear ones that we love them and care for them wherever we are and however busy we might be!

I have never proposed my love to any girl on a Valentine's day...26 of them gone now, in all! I think it'd be quite romantic to do so ;). But then again, it'll also be so artificial if i actually waited till that date in the event of me deciding that it's time for me to propose in december itself!

One of my friends from UC is getting married today...infact he must've gotten married by now. He came here with me, graduated, got a job here, worked for a few months and went back to India for good with a job in GE...now he's married to the girl he loved! *sigh*. Feb 13th, 2005 marked my parents' 27th wedding anniversary. It also meant that it's been 2 years since i visited India(the last time i went there was on feb 10th, 2003- only my sis knew that i was coming...i planned it so that i cud be there for my parents' 25th anniversary!).

Time's flying fast...hope i settle down soon!

Dearth?

i had a lot of time to pass today and i thought i'd blog! i tried to think of things i wanted to write about...guess what? i cudnt think of any! the situation is now like the "nothing" episode of "Seinfeld". am writing about...yes u got it-"Nothing".

What are my passions? cricket...and a few personalities who make some of the arts adorable and worthy to follow! i can write about them forever, but those will most likely be biased statements to a neutral observer.

I try to be very neutral these days except on things that are already my passions! I am not opinionated at all...even if the topic of discussion is "God". Instead, i observed that i am being "against" blindly passionate(read heavily opinionated) people these days. The ones who use foul language and foul means to establish that what they think is right. I think this new role of mine is very easy to play compared to defending my passions!

so, is it after all good for me to not be passionate? i dont think so. i am supposed to be a passionate guy and i respect others' passions. it's only when they argue(and use foul language) that what they say is the right thing without giving proper evidence, that i play the mocking role(with no feelings whatsoever- i dont worry about what i said when i goto bed- best thing about this whole issue!).

I strongly believe that there's no right or wrong thing in this world for a lot of things. the secret is to silently follow what we think is right without hurting the ones following what we think is wrong. "Tolerance" is the need of the hour...again, this is right according to me- may not be according to u!

why the hell is this blog named "dearth"? was i talking about a dearth of topics here...lol!

Love Story

At last, i read it! "Love Story" by Erich Segal. It's been almost three years since i read his "Doctors" and i became an instant fan of his ever since. Segal's wordplay and characterization did not disappoint me this time around too. Neither did the screenplay(or whatever the corresponding term is for books!). What came down as a disappointment to me was the story(as how it applies to the current era(a year can be an era too!))!, an integral part of the title...

This is the story- a wealthy college lad meets a middle-class college girl and falls in love with her almost instantly! The guy's dad doesnt approve it and so he leaves home and marries her with full support from her dad. They struggle initially and after some hardships, lead a happy life. She wants him to get back to his dad and to come to talking terms with his family. He wouldn't. Then one fine day, he learns that she has leukemia and is dying. He tries to please her in all possible ways. Then, she too learns from the doc that she is dying and then there's some senti. One day, she dies and then he hugs his father(who arrives at the scene) and cries and thus the story comes to an end!

I can understand this as being a novel story in the 70s(maybe not, actually). Rich guy-poor girl, family problems, one of them die....usual masala! But what comes to me as a surprise is the fact that people who are of my age(am 25 now) list this as their alltime favorite book! I am sure they know similar fictitious or real-life stories that are very similar to "Love Story". There are a handful of movies that have a similar plot! The only thing that can convince me is if "Love Story" was the first of it's kind...which i think is not quite likely.

If this book is an alltime favorite to someone who was born after the 1970s, i think Erich Segal's vocabulary and screenplay(duh!) deserve all the credit...the story? sorry Mr.Segal- i dont think so!