A peck on the cheek?

I just happened to watch the movie "A peck on the cheek" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312859/) more popularly known in tamil, the language in which it is shot, as "Kannathil Muthamittal". I never had the drive to watch a heavy movie on a sunday evening after a long work week that still ceases to end. But boy am I glad I watched this one. The movie is all about how humanity and relationships suffer during times of war. The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is just one instance of what Palestine, Chechenya, Zaire and many more regions go through every single day. The director through the character Harold Wickramasinghe, played by Prakash Raj, sums up the whole issue in these lines:

"With guerrilla warfare, nobody wins, nobody loses; it just keeps carrying on until there is nothing left to fight for."

Powerful lines! Awesome performance and great package overall. The first thought that came into my mind is why did this movie not create any ripple? I was in Chennai, India (the heart of tamil film industry) when this released and it was hardly spoken about in the media as a film as such. I did see some articles that primarily focussed on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka but nothing close to what this movie truly deserves. Part of the reason lies in the fact that the people of the sub-continent are constantly fed on a diet of glam, sham and skin centered movies that a movie like this one would be received as pure heresy. And if you read one of the reviews written by a gentleman by the name Rob Chester, you'll understand why this movie never got nominated for an oscar.

It's the age old divide between the hindi speaking part of India and the rest. This movie won the national award for "The best regional movie"! "Bullocks", I say. A good movie transcends all barriers of language and ethnicity and movie connoisseurs who look beyond what generally meets the eye will vouch for it. I am not trying to be a purist but all it takes is just some common sense - the cure of all. How do you like it when our Bollywood movies get nominated for "The best foreign language film"? Haven't you ever had a discussion with your friend as to why our celluloid sizzlers are never considered on par with the english movies made all over the world? Look no further "bhai" the answer lies right where we come from. How we dismiss non-hindi movies as "regional", Hollywood dismisses non-english movies as "foreign". Oh yeah, the next thought that comes to your mind that tries to defend our stance, "Oh even hollywood does it. We can't be quoted as doing anything wrong in branding non-hindi movies as regional." This is exactly why India was invaded over and over again by savages and money mongers! We never seem to have grown our tails off of our butts in trying to ape people like our primate ancestors. And FYI the movie that went in for oscar that year from India was "Devdas" [slaps head in utter disbelief!] . Devdas is a good entertainer but not even a zillion miles close to an oscar performance. The rest of the world thinks that Bollywood is all about colors, cheesy item numbers, cheap skin, over-the-roof dialogues etc. and we perfectly feed them more and more of it with our oscar nominations. If something sells we make more and more of it and stuff it in through people's noses until they puke out through their, ahem, mouth. This post ain't an angry rant but a call for some "common sense". I write what I like and believe in. There will be no lies here. I am always ready for a verbal joust without any prejudices.

Bless this food

Almost every culture in the world has a way of saying grace before a meal. It is a way of thanking the people and mother earth for providing us with food that sustains life. Agriculture and animal husbandry owe their origins to the first men that ever walked on the face of the earth. Over the many thousands of years we humans have perfected the art of producing food. But as with everything in the past century there is a disturbing trend of commercialization and mass production overtaking conventional wisdom handed down through countless generations. Just to get you started, here are a couple of very informative videos that basically tell you how your grain, vegetables and meat reach your plate.

Your Food - Part 1

Your Food - Part 2

There is no denial that "Money is the root of all evil". In a quest for generating more profits, the multi-million dollar corporations that control the world's most developed nation a.k.a the United States of America (this is worth a whole new blog entry all of its own) mess with some of nature's basic elements. And we as consumers, in an effort to save on a few bucks involuntarily support these organizations by patronizing. This is a problem that hits every one of us each day - You cannot remain indifferent. Hopefully the very few who stumble upon this blog that I seldom publicize would make the right choices.