Nero's Guests

Very recently, I saw this documentary named "Nero's Guests" based on P Sainath's(Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu) journalism. I did not understand the title given my illiteracy in Roman history. Sainath himself explains what it is. Nero was a ruler of Rome from AD 54 to 68. Quoted by a great historian of that time, Tacitus, during his regime, "The Great Fire of Rome" erupted and lasted for 10 days. From history, it is not sure whether he was responsible for fire or not. But one of the worst things that happened during his rule was when Nero held the greatest party even seen in the ancient world to distract the cause of the fire accident. The emperor offered his gardens for the spectacle. Everybody who was anybody in Rome was there for this party. They had a problem, the problem of how to provide lighting to this huge garden when day light was not enough to illuminate the party. Nero had a solution. He brought prisoners to provide light for the party. They were doomed to the flames, thereby to provide the nightly illumination.

Nero was ruthless, insane and completely inhuman, but what were his guests? They were were people who knew something very bad was happening in front of them. They knew it was completely atrocious. But no one raised their arm, no one questioned such a deed. What kind of mindset you would have to drop a piece of grape in your mouth when another person is getting crucified in front of you? They just kept quiet and enjoyed the party. Sainath says,"For me the issue was never Nero. The issue was Neros' guests. Who are Nero's guests? After covering five and half years of farmer suicides, I think I have my answer. I think you have the answer, who Nero's guests were". The sheer comparison of the cruel historical event to the current reality of state of farmers in our country was so breathtakingly true that I started thinking about the mindset of Nero's guests.

But before that, let me try to put forward the facts stated by Saianth to justify the comparison. Fact 1, In India, 60% of the people are still dependent on agriculture. Fact 2, 836 million Indians live on less than INR 25 per day. Fact 3 nearly 200,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997, driven by debt and distress. Fact 4, Yet, the mainstream media hardly reflects this reality. Sainath says, " Let me simplify. what is this agrarian crisis? Five words. The Drive Towards Corporate Farming. How is this agrarian crisis operationalized? Five words. Predatory Commercialization Of The Countryside.What does it achieve? Five words. The Biggest Displacement in Indian History".

1990's was the first time in Indian history when the rate of growth of employment in government sector went below the rate of growth of population. Millions of villagers have left their villages due to this consequence to towns in search of jobs that are not there. Thousands of families have broken up. The per capita availability of food grains actually felt to a drastic extent during the reforms years. Yet, we export food grains, when supreme court accounted six states for hunger deaths for the first time after Bengal famine in 1940's. Who consumes the food grains we export?  The cattle in Europe, when our own people are dying of hunger. Sainath quotes a noted  reformist,"If you ask a farmer in Vidarbha what would he want to become in next life, he should probably say a cattle in Europe". Thousands of farmers commit suicides because they are not able to get INR 8000 as loan with decent interest rates. But the upper middle class/rich are called up by banks for loans at 6% interest without any collateral for purchasing a Mercedes Benz. What kind of social justice is that? What has grown in the era of reforms, not the IT sector, not the markets, it is the inequality that has grown out of proportion.

The government is functioning for the corporate, subsiding everything for them. It is shame to call it a subsidy, we should call it incentive. Subsidies are for poor, not for billionaires. When BSE crashed once in the last few years, the finance minster of this country took a private jet to reach Mumbai in 2 hours to console billionaires, but it took 10 years for the Prime minister of this country to visit crisis affected agricultural villages to console farmers and their families.

I would like every one of us to watch the documentary. Whatever is mentioned above is not my opinion, though I favor every point. These are excerpts from the documentary. My question to folks who are reading this is, I know I am one of Nero's guests(a citizen) and I am dead against what Nero(government and corporate) is doing. What do I do? Do I protest? Will I protest? Will I survive if I protest? Wouldn't Nero burn me along with the prisoners if I speak against him? So then, should we replace Nero? But how to replace him when I know his replacement is no different from him. The documentary point out very frankly, who Nero's guests are. But what can Neros' guests do or should have done has to be up for discussion. All we can do is get out of Nero's party and don't be his guest. Sainath says," We can differ on how to solve this problem, we can differ on how we do the analysis of the problem but we can take one starting point by agreeing that we are not Nero's guests".
Thoughts please?

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.

Engaged!!!

Srihari alias "Vadai" alias "Mr Responsible Number 1" alias "One of my close friends" got engaged on 27th Feb 2011 to Janani Ramakrishnan (we will add aliases for her once we start knowing her) in Coimbatore. The couple, food, mandapam and our short stay in Coimbatore was awesome, one because obviously, there was a function and two because we got to eat in some of our favorite restaurants and thattu kadais in the city.


Congrats to the couple.

Nadunisi Naigal - Movie Review

First of all, Gowtham Menon has to be appreciated for taking a new effort of movie making without BGM and just sound effetcs. How? By reading about the movie, its storyline, camera work etc, but never by watching it. After a very long time (I think in 2002 while watching Kadhalil Azhivadihllai), I felt that a one hour forty minute movie looked like a three hour movie.
I recomend everybody to not even thinking of watching this movie, not because it is boring but because it is irritating. The Apt title would have been "Verupethum Naigal" (Irrirating Dogs), that was what everyone associated on and off screen were doing. And because none of you are planning to watch the movie, I would give a small jist of the story line.

Samar is an eight year old kid whose mother is dead and whose father abuses him sexually. Their neighbour Meenakshi saves the kid and adopts him becoming his gaurdian. She names him Veera. He starts falling in love with her and one day his old memories gets back to him and he rapes her. She gets dejected and decides to marry an old friend of hers though forgiving Veera. After the marriage, Veera kills her husband and in that chaos, fire breaks out severely injuring Meenakshi, who is saved. Meenakshi is in hospital for eight months, gets discharged, gives a statement that her husband was the reason for all this, transfers all her wealth to Veera and they move to Chennai. Veera keeps killing women, Meenakshi insists him to do so and they collect their hair. Finally, it is reveiled that Meenakshi is actually dead and Veera becomes Samar sometimes and thinks Meenakshi is alive. He is sent to a hospital for treatment. Sameera is one of the girls in the whole story.

Negatives are very bad screenply, very painful story and to the core irritating sound. Even if a real life Veera watches this movie, he will get irritated. Positives are above average acting by everyone and camera work. Please do not watch this movie, wait for a week and it will be out of theatres. My irritation reached the limits when Menon tried to convery a message in the end.
Can this be comparable to the classic "Sivappu Rojakkal"? Never ever.

Verdict: "Meenakshi ammaa. Dhaivu seidhu theatre lendhu velila poidunga ammaa".

The night

The night was getting darker, just a gleam of light produced by ITO. Tempers were raising up and lowering down. One body, one heart, one sound and one silence. This wasn't a dream, am I sure?, but was it reality? I was not sure either. "What was my dinner last night?", I thought. A multi grain bread with paneer stuffing in Subway. But why was I eating in Subway in the first place. That is because I was in a mall. What mall? Why in a mall? "I am wasting time thinking of crap", I thought.

Why is it dark still? Is the night longer than 12 hours? Am I in Norway experiencing the polar night? I was not able to handle any more unanswerable questions. WAKE UP!!! I shouted to myself. This has to be a dream. Why should this be a dream? Aaargh, another question. I can not tolerate this anymore. Wait a second, Am I breathing?

I have to find the answer to this question. Yes I am breathing. Phew, what a relief. But, why am I breathing with my mouth and not nose? Please, this is torture, please never ever ask any more questions that have no answers. Think, think hard, real hard. This is the last question you may have to answer. Am I in water using oxygen cylinder and hence breathing through mouth. No. It is dark and me being inside water is irrelevant.

Let me go back to the mall. It seems to have some relevance. Before dinner, I am at Cream Stone, eating a 140 buck "Death By Chocolate" all by myself. Would any fool eat this all by himself? Why not? Ahchoo!!! The sneeze made me come back to my senses. It is 3 PM in the evening of a Monday. My laptop is nearby, screen saver running. My head is heavy, and I was relieved to realize this was all just the after effects of "Benadryl" and 2 dose of "Cold Acts". Would I ever catch up some sleep anymore today? I was again not sure. Your conscience is crazy, it creates magic. But how much of the magic someone can actually remember? Can you answer this?

Get together in "The Andamans" - Volume 3

Chapter 9 : "Adieu Havelock" and Sun Sea
Date : 28th Jan 2011
Day : 4
Sunrise is not a big friend of Radha Nagar beach as it is located in the west side of Havelock and the Sun has to come out of the woods containing very tall trees. So, we decided to give it a miss. Breakfast menu, that too complimentary one, all over Havelock is quite similar, but Barefoot's was definitely tastier. We took a set of group pics near the beach jumping in air and rest was taken care by Vijesh and Arun Raag. We checked out of the hotel at around 11 AM and booked a cab back to Havelock jetty. The return journey to Port Blair was quite boring and everybody slept. Arun Raag and Srihari were the only ones to check out the deck and the news was the sea was very rough and thus contributed to a lot of folks puking that day. For the record, none of us did.

We reached Port Blair at 4:30 PM and checked in Sun Sea Resort. I don't know why they gave this name as it was not a resort and the word "Sun Sea" had no relevance to the ambiance or location. But the hotel was in the heart of the city and very easily accessible. We decided to catch up the sound and light show in the cellular jail which was at 6:30 PM and luckily on just Fridays, the 6:30 PM show was in English to help everyone understand the show. The jail was around 3/4th of a km from the hotel and we took auto's to reach the place. Sound and light show was good, not excellent. Arun Raag was the highlight when he kept looking at me on the right and Santy on the left, every time they played a Hindi patriotic song. After 2-3 songs, he started guessing the timing of the song and said, "Paatu poda poraanga da, ayyo." Overall, I would say, the show was not bad. We walked back to the hotel room and had dinner on the way in a Pure Veg restaurant called Annapurna. Dosa's, Poori's and different varieties of idlis were served. Highlight was tomato soup, which tasted like 'sweet puliyankottai'(tamarind seed) and lemon fried idli which was supposed to be shared by two, but they advertised enormously to get rid of it by calling it tasty and asking others to taste.

Chapter 10 : Jolly Bouy and Kaalapaani

While having dinner, we had a voting session on which place to visit on the next day, Baratang or Jolly Buoy island. Baratang was around 135kms drive and required us to wake up by 4AM. Initial votes were very less for Baratang and then, after some convincing and under the table dealings, we had majority. Santy and Abi were very clear on their stance and they voted for Jolly Buoy. Luckily for them, Baratang tickets were sold out and we had to go to Jolly Bouy.

Day : 5
Date : 29th Jan 2010
We got ready by 7:30 and had buffet breakfast in Sun Sea; dosa, vada and toast. It was quite filling. Chinnaya, our cab driver was on time. He promised us that if we were back from Jolly Bouy boat before 3PM, he would drop us in Cellular Jail on time as the entry was restricted after 4PM. Jolly Bouy is around 30 kms from Port Blair and is a plastic free zone. We required permits and no one was allowed to stay back. We bought some bread and snacks for lunch since no food would be available there. We reached the entry point at 9AM and out boat started at 9:30AM. On the way, we played a very good game, which I would name as, "Kannu Adi Kandu Pudi", suggested by the Vijesh Abi couple. Again for rules, contact me offline. The game was hilarious and when we were done, we reached Jolly Buoy.

Jolly Buoy is famous for Snorkeling and corals. It is a INR 500 package that includes one snorkeling and one glass boat ride. The water was so clear that when a glass is the base for a boat, from the top we could see the sea life. Most of us went for snorkeling. The scuba certificate holder in Vijesh and Shruthi cautiously avoided it after trying out once or twice. I would rate the snorkeling experience from the perspective of how much marine life I saw as slightly better the the scuba one though the island is the one that makes the difference. We paid INR 200 extra for more snorkeling and me and Santy went twice for the paid one. When I returned, I heard a new tourist attraction had come up suddenly in the last 2 hours in Jolly Bouy. I came running to see what it was and what I saw there was that a Tamil guy was discussing the architecture of the castle built by our girls. It was good work by Shruthi and Aparna and while we were leaving back in the boat, we could see everyone taking snaps of it(no, not mana brandi, its true).

We were on time for the jail entry. The jail, called as kaala paani, was historic and the events were painful. A must see place, if you are in Port Blair. We hired two guides, one who speaks Hindi and the other, named Arun DK, who would translate the Hindi into Tamil. The guide morally cheated me by not giving any commission, but was forgiven. And for this act, the banyan tree saluted me. Why not, it has smelt the aroma of forgiveness for the first time in history inside the jail premises. I humbly bowed. We left the jail and split ourselves while walking back to the hotel.

After reaching the hotel, we decided to shop in a nearby gift store. Srihari, who was blossoming with the butterfly effect, desperately wanted to do shopping, not for him of course, and Abi and Shruthi helped him out. They spent around an hour in the shop without knowing the shopkeeper was a high BP patient. Srihari, with his bargaining skills made him reach the threshold and he started scolding everybody around. Me, Santy, Arun Raag and Gopal has gone to another shop and 3 of us got a tshirt which was very useful the next day photo shoot. When we came back, we watched the drama in the shop. It was very hilarious from a distance. Once the shop keeper cooled down and said one item cost INR 370, Srihari again asked, "350?". The shopkeeper lost his control again and when Vijesh asked if some item was unbreakable, he started throwing it away proving that it was indeed unbreakable. Somehow, they managed to pay the bill and come out of the shop. Dinner was good in Sun sea and we guys(only guys) spent some together after dinner.

Chapter 11 : A photo shoot called Ross
Day : 6
Date : 30th Jan 2011

We had our flight scheduled at 12:45 PM so all we could afford to do was start early and visit Ross island, the British headquarters in the Andamans. We finished breakfast, checked out from the rooms, kept the luggage in the reception and were off to Ross, just a km from the hotel in auto. After reaching there and purchasing the tickets, me and Shruthi had to go back to the hotel so see if, "where Shruthi thought her camera was" and "where it was truly" matched or not. God is great, it matched, and God is double great, the camera was not there in the store where we shopped yesterday. Ross island is a beautiful place, with ruins of the British colony. Ideal place for photo shoot and would we miss it. We took around 400 pictures if I am not wrong and every picture in that place has come up great. The place is famous for film shooting and the picture on the right side is the ruined church where "Kaaka Kaaka" movies "Uyirin Uyire" song was shot. Unfortunately we could not spend much time there and came back to catch the return ferry where Chinnaiya was waiting for us in a cab. We did not waste time, took the luggage and were off to airport.

Flight was on time. And we were exactly on time. On our return journey, we again had some very ok tasting dish(name was not worth remembering) in the flight. We were in Chennai at 2:45, collected the baggage at 3 and paid adieu to each other at 3:15. The trip is over; phew, what a trip, more than the place, the togetherness was what made it so special. Ran away fast, but not very fast too. Perfect number of days for a perfect holiday, one or two more would have been good too but not a second less.

I was sitting in the flight back to Hyderabad and remembered Srihari's email. As I said earlier, the email was worth millions, but the trip was priceless...

While I am penning down the last words of this post, I am watching a song from the movie "Samurai" in Sun Music, the movie for which we went together for the first time in July 2002. The journey has continued till now and I strongly hope it does continue forever.