Assortment of Quotations

Some quotations I had landed upon or collected:

The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. - Orkut 'Today's fortune'.

Never let your sense of morality stop you from doing what is right. - Orkut 'Today's fortune'.

... with everything that happens to you, with every pperson you meet who is important to you, you either die a little bit or are born. - 'The River' (film by Jean Renoir).

The tears we shed in our sleep are the only genuine tears we shed in our lives. The waking tears are self pity. - From 'The Golden Notebook', by Doris Lessing.

"My dear Anna, your attitude to art is so aristocratic that you write, when you do, for yourself only."

"And so do all the others, " I heard myself muttering.

"What others?"

"The others, all over the world, who are writing away in secret books, because they are afraid of what they are thinking."

- From 'The Golden Notebook', by Dorris Lessing.

... words are like the wind that blows ripples on the water's surface. The river itself blows beneath, unseen and unheard. - From 'The Hungry Tide', by Amitava Ghosh. (Interpretation: Words one manages to utter only touch the surface of the deepest expressions, the true meaning and feeling lies underneath.)

... the whole world is asleep - everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to - ... only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement. - 'Joe Vs The Volcano' (film).

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. - DH Lawrence (discovered from the movie 'The Debaters').

For whatsoever from one place doth fall,

Is with the tide unto another brought:

For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

- Edmund Spencer (discovered from the movie 'Sense and Sensibility').

What is wisdom, but metamorphosised fear?

Living in a perpetual state of false hope is better than living with no hopes at all. Because, at least,all through the time while the hope lasted, you would have truly lived.

India wakes up to Passive Euthanasia

I just read in the papers about Indian Supreme Court permitting passive euthanasia for a person in persistent vegitative state. That is, medical treatments and artificial life support means can be withheld - leading to death.

It reminded me of the Terri Schiavo case of about 6 years ago, when a similar situation and public debate had ensued in California, and the court there, despite strong oppositions and public opinions, had ruled in favour of euthanasia. (One of the factors affecting this decision had been the consideration that the patient would have wanted the same.)

It took six additional years for India to arrive at the same state of practical (and moral) sanity!

A Saner Democratic Model

Major decisions cannot be democratic. The general mass is not intellectually able or equipped to decide on important matters. It is atrocious to let 'majority' decide on important matters. The majority is not always right.

The current system of legislative bodies making the decisions through the representative heads is even worse. Neither do these representatives posses any superior intellectual ability, nor do they really ensure the will of majority. Once elected, it can become their individual will, not that of the people who elected him. And our electoral process does not really mandate a 'majority' for becoming MP/MLAs - the one having greatest number of votes gets the post. He might be representing as low as 20% of the population.

We next have the different cabinets who often consists of specialists. But again, the will of say 15-20 specialists deciding a country's fate is unjustified.

So we have two problems at hand. One - ensuring that the true mass population gets to play some part in decision making process, second - ensuring that the final decision making is done by minds capable of such an action.

Capitalising on the infrastructure of electronics and telecommunications, a solution model can be proposed. Of course, this is model presently not feasible in India due to lack of electronic penetration and illiteracy in sub-urbs, but in more developed nations, this could be a reality.

For any decision, the decision would come directly from a vote taken from the entire population, and not just the representative heads. The voting would be done through some electronic device like mobile phones or through internet.

Now, how would it be ensured that only able minds make decisions? The voting system would have a system of forwarding (handing over) your vote to any other voter. This would mean, your vote would cast the same choice as that of the person you have forwarded it to. The forwarding can happen upto any level. That is, A can forward his vote to B, B can forward to C and so on. In this case, C's choice would become that of A and B. Under such a system, if you are unsure of a particular thing, you can just choose someone in a better position to make the decision for you.

Of course, this assumes the basic moral sincerity and willingness on the part of a voter to forward his vote to someone more suitable, in case he is unsure. This mentality will get cultivated only with proper education - which as mentioned before, still has not happened in India.

However, this system can immediately be tried and tested at a micro level in smaller premises where a democratic system is wanted. Colleges or educational institutions can be a very good testing ground since both educational maturity and electronic penetration is expected to be adequately available in such premises.

Love Sex aur Dhokha: A fresh experience

Today I watched Love Sex aur Dhokha.

Not paying much attention to the latest Bollywood stuff these days, I knew nothing about this movie. In fact, I had not even heard its name until yesterday when one of my flatmates had shouted to me, as I was having my bath, whether I would like to go for it. I had then agreed to it basically in want of any fitter occupation on the lazy Sunday.

But the movie was different. It was a very fresh experience in terms of what Bollywood usually churns out. And for a change, it did not make me feel like 'why did they have to make the second half' or 'why did they have to solve the mystery', at the end of the movie, as had often been the case these days!

It had three different stories having a coincidental conjuncture - showing us parts of lives captured in different cameras - being narrated to us mostly through those cameras. In a way, the cameras are more the protagonists of the story than the principal human characters.

The first tale involves a camera of a student of a film institute trying to create a masala movie - and falling for the actress in the process, and what follows thereafter. Most of the scenes shown to us are from his camera - as he shoots - or progresses through his movie making - keeping his camera rolling most of the time.

The second tale is that of a security camera of a departmental store - showing us its part and involvement in a voyeuristic endeavour of capturing and selling 'real' footages having sexual undertones (or proper sex), involving the male-female regulars (staff, customer, etc.) of the store.

The third tale is that of a revenge sting operation orchestrated by a debutante against a popular pop star, in attempt to implicate him by exposing his methods of demanding sexual favours in return for providing the 'launch' to debutantes.

The three stories are connected by a thin line - coincidental, yet very distinctly portrayed, mainly serving the purpose of continuity, such that the audience finally feels the three plots to be part of the same larger landscape, instead of them being discreet experiences.

The entire film employed a very honest and direct mode of expression making some practically unrealistic sequences comes across as real and normal. The director had been able pull the audience very successfully into the realm of the movie. The characters, their dialogues, all seem very real - the entire cast had done a very good job in their roles - portraying just the characters they were expected to portray, falling very smugly into the places.

Technically, the movie uses the kinds of shots and angles that would appear natural to sting cameras, security cameras, hand-held digicams, and such - truly the shots from the cameras which seem to be telling the story. Yet, all this is done in a masterful way - keeping the storytelling and the impacts alive.

The movie also very successfully keeps the audience laughing all through, sometimes with its use of bold profane words in the exact same style as they are really used among friends, sometimes with its satirical humorous takes, and sometimes, as in the first tale, with simple direct portrayal of our own imitation styles of Bollywood emotional sequences.

Overall, it is a good movie, a fresh experience, and a recommended watch. It seems modern Bollywood is finally shaking off its fears and coming of age.

Movie Quotes

Some quotations I loved, and remember, from Movies:

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned."
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"BEND low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest.
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.
Bend low, O dusky Night!"
- Nowhere in Africa (poem is by Louis Chandler Moulton)

"He who never speaks badly of women, does not love them.
Because to understand them and love them, you must suffer for them.
So then, and only then, can you find happiness on the lips of your beloved."
- Il Casanova di Federico Fellini

Mar Adentro: A Film about the Right to Die

Yesterday, I watched Mar Adentro (Spanish, translates as 'Sea of Life'). The film was about a physically disabled man wanting to die. The film was masterfully done. It won the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2004. I should have been able to experience its substance to the fullest. But I could not.

Because, something I had read years ago, something once pointed out to me by someone, which kept coming back to me.

It was during a sort of debate I have had on an earlier post 'The Right to Die'. I had then read of a particular judicial case of whether or not to administer death to Terri Schiavo - a person in persistent vegetative state. She had become brain dead, and after long years of judicial debate, the court had ruled in favour of administering death, considering it to be what Terri Schiavo herself would have wanted, and respecting her wish. I had agreed, and wrote an article against people who seems to be denying us the 'Right to Die'. The debate had then ensued on the blog when another one questioned this logic, and we continued for quiet a while researching the case of Terri Schiavo over the internet.

In the course of this debate, I was once pointed out a link to an article, which did have quiet an effect on me, though it did not derail me from my belief that the right to die is as much mine as the right to live. A phrase from that article which struck me most was: "... I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead." Do we glorify death for such cases because we ourselves are afraid of being in those states? Would extremely disabled people see life and death in the same way as we do? If they choose to die at all, would it be out of not being able to lead what we call a 'proper life', or just to get rid of unbearable pain or suffering? The article had more an effect on me than I had then thought, as I realise today, from its coming back to me while watching this beautiful movie. Anyway, that debate ended when logic was finally challenged with faith - and as always, no logic could ever counter faith, no matter how strong the logic be. Basically, we both jumped onto faith - me leaping into faith in logic (for the case), my opposition leaping onto faith in life and the sacredness of its continuity.

Coming back to Mar Adentro, it is a beautifully done movie, recommended for any movie lover.

I Love To See You Cry...

<< Promoted from my paper diary... >>

That relationship in which there is no tears is no relationship at all. The intensity of feelings, of sadness should cross all barriers - of anger, of rationality, of determination, of poise, of self-respect - all the barriers which stands against the sublimation of the innocent soul in love, in complete surrender.

These moments of pain will bound the souls together in a bond stronger than any other.

On such bonds, on such depths of foundations, can lofty mansions be built elevating man to absolute clarity, truth and beauty.

Without pain there can be no happiness.

Without tears there can be no rapture.

I love to see you cry. Because your tears stand as the strongest and truest testimony that you feel.

P.S. (added later): Are tears the price women have to pay for the insecurities of men? If she knew it all, will she willingly pay the price?