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Showing posts from September, 2016

Maxim Gorky's 'Mother': Still Undefeated, Still Relevant!!!!

At last year's book fair, I rounded exactly 191 shops to purchase a copy of Maxim Gorky's masterpiece 'Mother'. It was the very first book of my 18 purchases that i started to read. Almost 6 months down the line and it isn't finished yet....reason a simple one....it represents a hero of working class in a feudalistic environment led by Russian Tsars and thus basically champions the idea of socialism. Socialism is what I come to believe of is nothing but a shameless form of capitalism....I would call it thus, pseudo-capitalism...example is China and I wouldn't say much to gain your approval. I am writing this piece to celebrate the literary style of Maxim Gorky though. He was the most celebrated author of 20th century which boasted of pioneers such as G.B.Shaw, Antole France, Ibsen and not to leave the Russians, all of them a domineering force themselves, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgnev, Dostoyevsky and Gogol among many but Gorky eclipsed everyone of them with his sh

Revisiting Birdman: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014)

Continuing from my last post about 'Birdman', I want to add that this is the film that resembled the most with Rajat Kapoor's critically acclaimed film, 'Aankhon Dekhi' from Bollywood in terms of its depiction of 'Super-Realism'. In Birdman, Micheal Keaton tries to commit suicide on-stage out of sheer frustration for not being able to fulfill a promising acting prophecy whereas in Aankhon Dekhi, Sanjay Mishra does the exact opposite and in order to know the death up-close, he jumps from a cliff. Micheal Keaton hurts his nose instead and gets rave review for his 'super-real' performance. Sanjay Mishra, I believe, dies in Aankhon Dekhi (The ending of it is anybody's guess). Now talking about cast and crew of Birdman, Micheal Keaton headlines the roll credit while Naomi Watts, Zach Galifiankis, Edward Norton, Amy Ryan and Emma Stone play supporting cast. Micheal Keaton who lastly reminded us of his supreme acting talent back in 1989 with Tim Burto

Sorry Soldiers....You Martyred for Nothing!!!

Not this Government, nor any other Indian government can have my sympathy and ideological support until and unless it stops paying LIP SERVICE to the cause of our soldiers. Forget Kashmir or POK but the ones that are getting killed in our own internal periphery, say Chhatisgarh, Odisha, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, even their lives cannot be guaranteed. Here we are jettisoning 8-10 Billion Dollars Rafael Jets deal with France and there in Uri Sector, our soldiers are getting killed by Pakistani terrorists in lack of proper combat infrastructure. I have seen many Pakistanis trolling Indians on many FB pages here that you cannot do SHIT about us and now I have really started believing them. Their Foreign Minister goes on record saying Pakistan can NUKE us on any given day and knowing how secure their NUKES are (considering they share them with their so-called 'third-state actors, terrorists bhaijaans), they would definitely NUKE us one day. There is one more reason of their contemplatin

Srinivas Ramanujan: The Man Who Knew Infinity and Beyond

We have all had our share of Mathematics’ stories growing up. For 90% population out there in schools and colleges, it’s the biggest source of discouragement in continuing up of studies. I’m a Mathematics graduate myself and can speak of a proud mathematics tradition running in my family. I wasn’t an able torchbearer in the least of senses but I nevertheless tried my best. I never managed to master it, very few can boast of doing that but I was very respectful when it comes to scoring marks in it….always in the vicinity of 70% and never dropping below 60% throughout but this post isn’t about my tryst with Mathematics. It was someone else’s, a man who was said to be knowing ‘infinity’, a man who today is hailed as our national hero, a man who carried the name of Srinivas Ramanujan. Ramanujan died aged only 32. He lived in Cambridge for 5 years prior to his demise. During his time there, he formed one of the most productive and influential partnerships in recent history of Mathematics

Investigative Journalism and Films: Stories Exquisitely Told and Magnificently Portrayed

Very often, we tend to underappreciate the efforts (or not care at all) that go into structuring and writing a wonderful story for a renowned publication. I can speak for myself in this regard. I just love the write-ups of Jarrod Kimber, Bryan Coverdale, Andrew Fidel Fernando, Late Peter Roebuck, Simon Barnes, Ed Smith, David Hopps, Ramchandra Guha, Sharda Ugra, Firdose Munda and many others while going through ESPN Cricinfo for my daily dose of Cricket round-ups and not until couple of years ago, I started to really admire them and their precocious writing skills. As for the films that are based on the write-ups of such genius minds, I, first of all, came across 'All the President's Men' that was based on 'Watergate Scandal'. The two journalists who covered it for 'The Washington Post' were Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Richard Nixon, the then President of America, had to resign after the publication of their story. The second such film for me was 'C