Saw a tamil movie called Ezhaam arivu. It is a sci-fi movie with as much commecialism as science. It was about a tamilian named Bodhi Dharma who was born in Kanchipuram and became a beacon of Mahayana Buddhism and martial arts in China and the far east. What he started in Shaolin became and innumerable number of styles that we see today in Chinese Kungfu. Kalari - the mother of kung fu is nowhere as popular as its child - lost mainly lost due to some short-sighted gurus witholding knowledge from his student, and a total ban on its practice during the british occupation. The movie though, ended with a tinge of despair - about our apathy towards history and the current identity crisis.
This post is less about the movie than the questions it raised. I was mainly interested in two things.
Why things happened the way it happened? Why did India lose out on the various scientific advances, mathematical, political, artistic, philosophical and spiritual progresses that we made when countries to our west and east were in their dark ages?
The second major question is - Bodhi dharma is but one page in the library of indian icons who had a world changing impact. There are way too many of them to be covered effectively by movies. I believe commercializing this movie diluted the amount of history that could have been imparted otherwise. Since a documentary is one genre which is unheard of in India, I believe blogs as the most viable means to disseminate information.
I am going to try and dig out real stars from ancient and medieval India who revolutionized various paths of life. Will try to gather inventions and discoveries associated with anonymous Indians and India. Hopefully this will lead to some learnings for myself and the readers of this blog. As always my source would be wikipedia and google. I would try to source evidence whenever possible.
Record keeping has not been a strength of ancient India. And considering that this is a country repeatedly invaded by people from the north-west, the Mughals, the british etc, existing treatises have not survived unchanged. What we possess, might vary from concrete information, to circumstantial evidence, to myths, to suppositions to my own vague theories.
While writing about history, I feel that to strive for accuracy is as important as stating facts and what could have been, and let the reader draw her/his own conclusions. Thats what I will try to do
Monday, October 31, 2011
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Contagion
Uffff long time.. being trying to get back to blogging but could not. Lot happening in life. Bit of reading, lot of work, and plenty of family keeping me busy. Movies going on at regular intervals.
Last movie I saw was the Contagion. Wasn't a bad movie and I would personally give it a 6 out of 10 unlike IMDB which off late has been providing inflated rating for every new movie. The screenplay and background score were good and the acting was also decent.
The story is about how a new viral strain causes flu like symptoms in humans and kills them with a gestation period of less than a week. It turns into a pandemic soon enough as it starts from one of the busiest ports world around. It is race of time - time taken to make and test a vaccine, scams around the world possible cures, fear and panic, kidnapping of UN personnel and coercion for vaccines, scarcity and people ravaging shops etc. A small % of the population seemed to be immune. There is an dissatisfied journalist who quits his job and takes to blogging - becomes an important character in shaping events of the story.
I have only two gripes
The climax is where I was expecting some major twists. Especially a doctor character who gives away his dose of vaccine to a small boy - never wears any protection against the virus - walks around very normal throughout the movie. I was looking for a huge conspiracy like a Sidney Sheldon novel, which did not happen.
On many notes the theme of the movie was obvious. When there is a disease, the fastest and only cure will be American. Supremacy of the American medical research, their self-righteous high-value system, using lots and birthdays to (slowly) distribute the much needed vaccine, people forming queues to receive it etc. With the rate of spread and 6 Billion global population, their rate of production and administration of the vaccine is never openly discussed. Saving the real world in this kind of a calamity can neither be this fast, nor this free.
Thankfully there was no conspiracy angle which would have turned this to a B-grade movie. Amazing cast and score, good screenplay and story, makes it a good one time watch. Unrealistic speeds of tackling and curtailing this disease reiterates that it only happens in a movie.
Last movie I saw was the Contagion. Wasn't a bad movie and I would personally give it a 6 out of 10 unlike IMDB which off late has been providing inflated rating for every new movie. The screenplay and background score were good and the acting was also decent.
The story is about how a new viral strain causes flu like symptoms in humans and kills them with a gestation period of less than a week. It turns into a pandemic soon enough as it starts from one of the busiest ports world around. It is race of time - time taken to make and test a vaccine, scams around the world possible cures, fear and panic, kidnapping of UN personnel and coercion for vaccines, scarcity and people ravaging shops etc. A small % of the population seemed to be immune. There is an dissatisfied journalist who quits his job and takes to blogging - becomes an important character in shaping events of the story.
I have only two gripes
The climax is where I was expecting some major twists. Especially a doctor character who gives away his dose of vaccine to a small boy - never wears any protection against the virus - walks around very normal throughout the movie. I was looking for a huge conspiracy like a Sidney Sheldon novel, which did not happen.
On many notes the theme of the movie was obvious. When there is a disease, the fastest and only cure will be American. Supremacy of the American medical research, their self-righteous high-value system, using lots and birthdays to (slowly) distribute the much needed vaccine, people forming queues to receive it etc. With the rate of spread and 6 Billion global population, their rate of production and administration of the vaccine is never openly discussed. Saving the real world in this kind of a calamity can neither be this fast, nor this free.
Thankfully there was no conspiracy angle which would have turned this to a B-grade movie. Amazing cast and score, good screenplay and story, makes it a good one time watch. Unrealistic speeds of tackling and curtailing this disease reiterates that it only happens in a movie.
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