I am MOVING!!!

I know this is a bit too early to do this. But, I'm having issues using blogger.com and find it difficult to sort out. I had a good run with wordpress.com earlier with a pseudonym. So, I thought I'll move to suhailrasheed.wordpress.com

I apologise for any inconvenience caused by this change. Do not forget to update your bookmarks with the new link. Click here to visit the new blog. Meanwhile, all the old posts have been exported to the new site and your comments are intact. Thank you for staying tuned. Good Day, Good Night!!!

Revisiting Kannathil Muthamittal

Taking the newspaper in hand, this morning, the front page news gave me a chill. 58,000 Tamils fleeing. But, there was more to it. It was the photo that captured my attention. In 2002, Mani Ratnam directed a movie called "Kannathil Muthamittal" (A Peck on the Cheek). It was one of the most flawless movies I have ever watched. Other film directors have claimed that Kannathil Muthamittal should be every film director's reference work. The photo on the frontpage today sent me back to the movie. 

When the character played by Madhavan and his wife (played by Simran) reach the village of Mankulam (Sri Lanka) in a bid to find their adopted daughter's (played by P.S. Keerthana) biological mother, they find the whole village fleeing, with whatever it could take with it. An impending air strike forces the natives of Mankulam to leave the village they were born and brought up in. An aerial view pans and zooms in on the fleeing villagers as the protagonists try to find Shyama, the biological mother. Finding Shyama, they try to convince her that the girl is her daughter. Shyama breaks out into tears, all of a sudden: "Ithu en kolanthe alley." (This is not my daughter). They got the wrong Shyama. Shyama tells them, between tears, how she lost her daughter at a tender age to the military strikes. 

It is the migration scene that is imprinted in my mind, the most. The photos in today's papers were identical. The haunting vocals and A.R. Rahman's music during the migration scene, came back to me as I looked at the photograph. Kannathil Muthamittal was one masterpiece of a work. The plight of Sri Lankan Tamils was showcased well, in the story of a child's search for her biological parents. There wouldn't be a better time to revisit the movie. 

My impressions about the movie after watching it were: how could every one in the movie act so well? The "wrong" Shyama too looked amazing in a role that took less than 2 minutes of screen space. A suicide bomber who talks to the little girl from the park, exhibits amazing facial expressions while jumping towards a government vehicle. No wonder then that the film was lauded at many International Film Festivals. It won awards at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2003, the Los Angeles Indian Film Festival and the RiverRun International Film Festival, not to mention the 6 National Film Awards (India) it received.

If you haven't watched the movie, go watch it now. Mani Ratnam has a way for shooting emotions on screen. The final scene may fill your eyes with tears. But the movie holds a message and it is even valid for today. I hand over the newspaper to my wife and ask her, pointing at the front page photograph, "Remind you of something?" "Kannathil Muthamittal?" She asks.

[Edits: I received a request to publish the photo from the newspaper. My answer is,

Scanning and attaching a newspaper clipping to my blog is a violation of copyright. I don't want to do that. If you are interested in seeing the photos, search "Sri Lanka" or "Sri Lankan Tamils" in Google and you'll find lots of images showing the migration. One example is this link from Hindu. Click here]

Summer Slumber

What is it like to sleep in the summer? The heat takes out your shirt. The heat pulls down your trousers. You just want to get out of bed. But, you are too drained out to do so. Every now and then a gentle gust of wind from the fan touches your bare back and the cold sweat gives you the priceless chill. Then, it is gone.

You have umpteen things to do for the day. Your body is, but, tied to the bed. You just want to get out of bed. But, you are too drained out to do so. The bed covers get dirty with sweat and mosquito blood. Oh yeah, there are the mosquitoes. They don't leave you alone in summer. They come swarming at you from all angles, take your blood and make it their own. The pain in the neck and the pain in the back gets worse with the itch on the ass. Yuck! I wonder if this is the hottest place on earth. I grope in the darkness of the early morning to find my watch and with it, the time of the hour. Oh, it's five and you're late.

All my green values and eco-friendliness tries to stop me. But, I can't stop my arms from moving toward the remote control. I switch on the AC and in 10 minutes, I'm back to Switzerland in my dreams.

It's the exponential growth of global warming that I have no idea of stopping. Look at the above condition for example. Sleeping in summer is indeed, difficult with the summers getting hotter every year. I read in the newspaper some time in February, that the average temperature in Delhi during February had climbed 1 degree Celsius during the past year. Temperature is rising due to a lot of things. But, temperature is mainly rising due the rise in temperature. The amount of heat an air-conditioner lets out while working needs no imagination. You only need to stand near the outdoor unit to get the idea. As the summer heat rises, the use of air conditioners will rise as well. This cycle accelerates global warming, no doubt. The power consumption of ACs are reason for alarm as well.

I have a bad solution for this. I switch on the AC for some time and then switch it off. It's not the greatest solution but it works in my case. Last month, I also tried another method to reduce the heat. I got the whole roof painted white with slaked lime (Cost Rs.750/- total). Ah, it's quite different now. I can at least halve my power consumption for AC, now. These are quick-fix solutions. But, those who are building homes now can make a difference. Those who are planning to build new homes must stress on eco-friendliness rather than aesthetics, while meeting the Architect. Of course, you need aesthetics to show off. You need aesthetics to want to come back home from wherever you are. But if you don't have an eco-friendly home, only you suffer: none of those who appreciated the aesthetics of your home is going to come and sleep in your house. As a Civil Engineer, I have always had enquiries from friends, relatives on how to reduce the heat in their home. Most of the ways I suggest must be at the cost of aesthetics. But, they can't compromise with aesthetics.

As I tried to wake up this morning, this were the very thoughts on my mind. But, tired and famished, it took the rest of the morning to nourish me up. And, I could write only in the afternoon. It's so good to see you all visiting my blog. Thank You! Good Day, Good Night!!!

Pen is mightier than the Sword

When you look at the title, you feel, "Really? Is that so?" When I was just 10 or 11 and at school, our class was asked to prepare essays on famous proverbs. The proverb I was asked to elaborate was "Pen is mightier than the sword". Writing has come a long way since that proverb. I don't remember exactly what I wrote for the essay. In this age of internet and non-print media, one would really ask, "Is it? Is the pen really mightier than the sword?" 

What can a pen possibly do that a sword cannot? A sword can only instil fear. It cannot convince people of ideas. Pen brings ideas. It changes the course of a nation. If books like Mein Kampf (Hitler), Das Kapital (Marx) and The Origin of Species (Darwin) are examples, could we doubt the might of the pen? In fact, more books and writings have changed the course of history than wars. 

But, where do blogs figure? Blogs are relatively new and confined to the Internet. Yet, blogs can influence people. I have read blogs which some people read with religious determination. They give inspiration for living each day. Some blogs are heavily relied upon while we make financial decisions. Some blogs give us a different angle of the news we read or listen or watch everyday. Blogging, believe it or not, has become a powerful media taking in mind the number of people glued to it. It's an inexpensive media where you can write your ideas in brief and reach an audience that was otherwise inaccessible through books. Seth Godin says, 

"Blogs have eliminated the reason for most business books to exist. If you can say it in three blog posts and reach more people, then waiting a year and putting in all that effort seems sort of pointless." 

(Read Seth Godin's blog on the same topic here)

My thoughts were confirmed yesterday when I went through the BusinessWeek's list of India's Most Powerful People 2009 and found Amit Varma (founder of the blog India Uncut) in the list. The list of 50 places Amit Varma at 48. Amit Varma is in the list for keeping "readers hooked" and bringing a "particular libertarian point of view to his columns and blog items". I am impressed reading through his blog and wish to follow it regularly.

The idea of putting a blogger on the list of India's Most Powerful People has opened our eyes to the possibility of our next revolution coming through a blog page or social networking sites. Blogging is as powerful a media as television or newspaper, without all the expenses involved. So, I hope that with this tool we bring good thinking rather than evil. And, I hope you will stay by me throughout. Thank You. Good Day, Good Night!!!

Suhailspeak in Tweets

Lazy Sunday. Woke up little before 6 in the morning. Spent some time with wife, drinking tea and sharing thoughts. Spent some time reading. Then, spent some time playing with daughter when she woke up. Okay, spent some time having breakfast. Went to the beauty parlor. Got a hair cut. Got the beard trimmed. Came back home. Had a little almond milk shake. Took a cool bath. Read and re-read the newspaper. Played with the blog. Snapped some pictures of me. Thought it would look great on my blog header.  Had mutton biriyani for lunch. Played the rest of the afternoon with the blog. Changed the whole layout of the blog. Read a book. Still reading. Kept looking back at the blog to see if more readers had visited. Skipped a visit to the beach. Had tea, but no kadi. Back to looking at blog. Back to reading. Back to posting. Thinking whether people read blogs on Sundays. 

I am not a great Twitter fan. But, I find it effective to tell the world what you are doing every minute of your life. I don't use it for that, though. For the occasional announcements, I find it a good tool. For the readers who haven't tweeted as yet, visit twitter.com

It's fun. Those short statements above are what typical tweets look like. Follow me at twitter.com/suhailrasheed

Thank you for reading. Good Day, Good Night!!! (No serious posting for today)

On other blogs

Yesterday, my brother published his own blog and the first two posts. One of the posts was an introduction to himself. The other was his take on the breeding of violent youngsters with help from TV and media. Well, it's something I always wanted to write about. But, looking at the anger with which my brother presented it, I don't have anything more to write about it. His topic, I believe, is peeled from a chapter of his own life. His blog can be found at http://zishanharis.blogspot.com/

I also wish him the very best in blogging. Good Day, Good Night!!!

From Frustration to Anger to Peace

Pretty lazy day, today!!! So, I thought not to post anything serious for thought. It's weekend and as I am jobless, it normally does not mean much to me. Today, well, I have a wedding reception to attend and I'll be busy with that for the rest of the evening. My worries however, hover as I read about a person who is frustrated. I've lately gone through frustrations myself and knew what frustrations would result in.

Recession is a time for frustration for a lot of unlikely people in the most unlikely places. Friends who draw five-figure salaries are especially frustrated. The ones with families are most likely to break down under this pressure when frustration builds up. Being jobless or going through bad marriages cause most frustrations. But, the recession has brought together the both of these together. 

Example. A person, let's call him X, changed jobs last year. He's happy with the huge increment he received with the change. He thought, "well, i'll buy a new property and maybe a car. oh what the hell, how about a macbook as well?" X saves little, swipes his credit card to the limit and is positive he can pay the EMIs. Well, he received twice as much as he received the year before. SO, it's the natural thing to do. Recession hits a few months later. First, his pay is halved. "Take it or leave." It was a sign asking him to leave. But he had too much at stake. He stayed to pay off the EMIs. That's when his family started to lose its freedom. No dine-outs, no more internet shopping, no toys for the child and suddenly, he is working more hours than before. Reason. Some of his colleagues had left the half-paid job. 

Frustration starts showing up only a week into the new routine. Wife nags whenever X is back home. Boss shouts when he is at office. Bank intimidates when his payments are late. X doesn't want the shit-job. He was too dependent on the pay. Nothing satisfied him anymore. X quits the job and goes back to India because he read in a business magazine that the Indian boom story isn't over. While leaving Dubai, he defaults on all the EMI payments that were pending against him. X hunts for job in all the major cities in India. Nobody wanted him. He was too expensive to hire. X moves to tier-II cities.  No jobs there, either. Could he write to the business magazine for help? No, they won't help. What's he to do? He rushes home for some comfort. His wife, more frustrated than ever, shouts at him and demands some peace. Anger wells out. X shouts too. After all the spending he had done on her, how could she shout at him? 

I know it is tiring to read. But, I am not done yet. The marriage breaks and X is alone. What do you learn? There are lots of things that X had done, that any man would have done. But there is one thing he could have done to change everything and get his life back. The sanctity of marriage is not dependent on money or job. 

Frustration results from a lot of things. Recession and the current job scenario is just one example. We have living examples of how recession builds frustration. Frustration eventually leads to anger and anger leads to uncertainty. Some people recover from anger, while others can stop getting angry. A third kind says all the wrong things when they get angry. These things can never be eaten like the words I ate for breakfast on April 14. Recession cannot be controlled. Frustration cannot be contained. But, anger can be managed. We, collectively referring to all Indians, have a particular sense of achievement when we get angry. When two person are angry and are in an argument, it is believed that the angrier person or the one who swears the most wins the argument. We like to get angry show that we are tough. I need to stress this again: anger can be managed. It doesn't matter if you lost your job; it doesn't matter if your wife is mad at you; it doesn't matter if the car behind you is honking at your nerves; it doesn't even matter if the same car hits your bumper and it gets dented. If we can really manage anger, none of this matters. You can sort it out.

Experts in anger management give a lot of suggestions. Some say that when you get angry, you can count to ten or hundred or thousand until your anger subsides. Some others say that you can just try to relax by closing your eyes. Islamic principles say that you either take an ablution for prayer or if you still can't control the anger, that you observe two rakaat of prayer. All this might seem complicated when you are in the midst of an argument. But, it works. However, each of you may have a different idea for doing it. Well, that's where we part. Write to me at suhailrasheed@gmail.com (although I didn't get a single mail to date) about how you control your anger. And, to the person who was so frustrated this morning, I hope reading this article helps. Don't let it get you.