Fate - As we call it

A routine set of events happening in my life have raised a lot of questions inside me and most times I myself try to give a justified answer to it. I succeed few times, but fail most of the times. You wake up every morning, drive to office and on the way in a busy signal see people asking for money. You ignore them 97 out of 100 times assuming they are not genuine, as in are victims of a trafficking mafia or the fact that they shouldn't be begging given their physique. You reach office, give you car keys to the guy who does the valet parking, which you know for sure is one of the most difficult jobs given the space and the number of cars. You see a lot other employees not treating him with the respect he deserves. You think about it for a few moments and then you are off to your workplace.

You take a tea break, and when you are having tea outside your office premises, you see a family of four with two children asking for money, or at least some food for the kids to eat. You think of helping them, but most often than not you do not help. It pricks your heart for few seconds. But then you are off with your work. If it is a lucky day, you leave office early. You reach home, sit in the balcony and have a cup of tea. You watch children in your apartment play. You see two groups of children playing. One group, belonging to the children of the flat owners and tenants and the other group, consisting of the children of the domestic helps. And when one of the latter tries to communicate with one of the former, a housewife from the second floor balcony shouts asking the former to keep away from the latter. You want to throw the tea along with the cup directly on the face of the lady who is shouting. Instead you watch, just watch like a dumb man who can not speak even if he wants to.

I can keep adding events after events happening in front of us everyday. But what is the point?
The point is, what right do I have to earn more than what my father is earning in my first job just after college? A boy born on the same date as mine but to a father who is a lorry driver would be lifting bricks in a construction site now. Money speaks more than words, I agree. But what is more important than money is the mutual respect between human beings irrespective of money. It is very easy to call the situation of the boy I mentioned above is due to fate. But is it really fate or is it known as fate but in truth is human intolerance to responding to other humans needs as they would respond to their family's needs?

Respect comes with money and if you are the money provider, you never need to respect anyone. A very simple example is how we treat our domestic helps. For a fact, we know, our day will halt if they are not IN on that day. They are so essential to us, they drive the whole day for us by completing all "maintenance and ops" allowing us to concentrate only on "development". But what is our mentality towards them? We bargain with them even for INR 50, but we would not mind paying the same amount as convenience charge for booking 3 tickets on bookmyshow. Why? Because bookmyshow is not dependent on you, but the helper is. The most important factor that we forget is INR 50 is something huge for the helper and it is not something huge for you. The downsides are of their erratic behaviour, using foul language, not doing work properly and stealing/theft etc. If we, in a so called civilized society, have no sense of mutual respect and dignity towards a fellow human being, how can we expect a poor helper to be civilized?

We read articles and watch news about atrocities in villages being committed against human kind. We feel bad about it, we crib them, we call them uncivilized. Do we think for a moment whether we are civilized? Civilization is directly proportional to the amount of respect and proudness one is able to feel and is made felt by others on whatever work someone does. If someone is collecting garbage from your house, he is helping you clean your house. He deserves respect for that, we can not treat him like garbage. Another instance that comes to my mind is when I was driving my car and there was a road crossing. I slowly stopped the vehicle. And a small girl crossed the road whose mother was on the other side and a domestic help, a small girl in her teens, was along with the young girl. There was zero chances of any accident. The domestic help saw the vehicle stop and then let the small girl cross the road. Soon after this happened, the mother slapped the domestic help in public scolding her for not taking care of the girl while she was crossing the road. I agree she is concerned, but would she slap if the girl was her husbands sister or her sister or her sisters friend? This is what I can fearlessly call modern slavery. What right does someone have to beat up a young girl in public when she should have actually made her go to school?

I frankly do not have much idea about what I am exactly trying to project and I don't have a theory and I don't think I am talking wholly about communism as communism is huge and to understand what it is you have to be well read about it. The word sends fear across the cash rich middle and rich classes and I can openly admit I too do not want to get deeper into the word as I fear I may end up hurting my close loved ones. I wanted to express what I felt very vaguely and I would not mind if this post is never read. All it will do is motivate me to be respectful with fellow human beings of this world irrespective of anything else other than the fact that they are no different from me. The current generation of people who are in mid 20's and early 30's are more inclined to this and hence the change is pretty evident.
I myself, am a selfish human being who can just write some crap and actually can not do much to influence others. I am not helpless, I am just selfish to put it plainly.
Bare minimum, if not with adults, I would dream to see a day when all children in a gated community happily play together irrespective of who their parents are.

Deiva Thirumagal Review

This is one of the best movies I have ever watched till date. I have this feeling of greatness when I walk out of a theatre from an emotional movie without shedding tears. I have cried lastly after watching Nayagan when I was 51/2 years old in DD in Pune. I have not cried after that in a theatre. I even escaped crying for 'Tare Zameen Par' as it was controllable for me. But Deiva Thirumagal was too emotional and I felt audience would not do justice if they do not shed atleast a tear drop watching this movie.


The heart of the movie is in a village called Avalanche near Ooty. Art direction and cinematography make it look like a village in Switzerland, hats off for that. And how much ever I talk about Vikram, it would not be enough. Krishna, the character played by him is so likeable that you just go nuts watching him on screen. Nila, played by Sara, is cute, beautiful and so admirable. I was thinking of Vishal bagging an award for Avan Ivan for his performance, but truly what Vikaram has done here will put a huge question mark on whether the former would be possible. Even Vishal would agree to that.







The other characters who hold the script together have been penned down so well that you don't feel irritated even with a single one of them. Anushka, Amala Paul, Bhaskar, his wife, Vikrams friends have all done an extra ordinary job. Santhanam, is his usual and fits in so well to make us laugh. The tea-coffee scene and the hotel room door knocking scene are worth mentioning. GV Parakash Kumar started to haunt me slowly and after the final court scene, moments before the father and daughter hug, a small bit of the BGM just sweeps you away. The innocence in "Kadha solla poren" song is so realistic that you never want that song to end.


Excluding the climax, the other scenes that just blew me away were the scene where Vikram and his friends buy shoes for Sara, the scene when the boy kisses Vikram after the poetry competition and the scene where Sara for the first time says Appa.


Director Vijay has given his best work till date. Adaptation from 'I am Sam' does not make me write this script off. Population of TN is around 10 crore and not everyone would love to watch 'I am Sam'. What Vijay has done is made everyone go back and call up their relatives and ask them to watch this movie. We, in the theatre gave him a standing ovation, I am sure everyone would have clapped after the movie.


Deiva Thirumagal is a feel good, emotional entertainer that would sweep you away and if you had forced someone to come with you to the theatre, I can definitely bet that someone would have thanked you for doing so.