Philosophy vs Human Nature

   We all have been exposed to philosophy in some form or the other. How many of us have actually lived by it. Most often we are completely disconnected from when we engage ourselves in day to day activities. For eg., we know that we are to do our duty and don't expect any results, but we always do that. We should never have any emotions, but that is the first thing that we do and if we don't react in the expected manner and appear indifferent then the society has a blast with it by labelling us, rumour mongering etc. We are supposed to be content with what we have, and if we ever say that we are labelled as having no ambition, worthless, incapable and hence hiding our inability in this philosophical attitude and so on.
    The society is not the only one to blame, we also very much have our part in this blame. We become consumed with materialistic things, we like to have more of everything. We feel bad when we don't get that great hike or the much wanted promotion. We are longing for power, money and fame all the time.
    This causes a big rift in me and I don't know which way to go. Some of you might even think that I have lost it with such thoughts or even worse. But this I am sure is not a dilemma just for me but for most of us. How do you people deal with it? Will you do anything to succeed or follow the philosophical path (does not mean that we will not succeed? With this how and on what attributes should we measure success? Any enlightened ones out there to shed some light on this?

Simpler Times and Simpler Expectations

The one thing that I have noticed time and again is that I yearn for simpler times and simpler expectations. Life is getting so damn complex, hectic, competitive and unforgiving. These days even the minutest of mistakes are never forgiven or people find that they can ill afford to forgive. Sometimes I see the postman or the road repair worker and I cant but help myself to want to be them. When I see a period movie then I just want to rewind.
Technology and innovations/inventions are supposedly there to improve quality of life, make life simpler and give more time to relax. Look at the inventions in the earlier days like bicycles, electricity, or processes such as pasteurization or the polio vaccine. All these inventions/innovations improved life but did not make it complex. Things nowadays are anything but this.
Overall this leads to the Hindu principle of dont expect anything and just do your duty comes to mind. It looks like either I am expecting life to lot simpler and I should not expect this and just do my duty or the world is expecting a lot from everyone. Which one is it?

Civilization before any other

Once again it has been quite a long time since I blogged. But I think this post will make up for the long hiatus since the content of this is a documentary which links mythology with history, culture and literature to the same time period(though this seems quite obvious, it is not so) and falsification of the theory of growth of a civilization for political gains.
I think you must have already guessed that I am referring to the Indian Subcontinent. There are new evidences that the civilization was thriving during the last ice age and the survivors of the last ice age were the forefathers of the current civilization. Additionally, the Vedas though currently thought to be written about 1500BC is slowly being proven false and is said to be much older by atleast another 4500 years and finally that the Aryan Invasion theory is absolute nonsense and was propounded by the British historians so as to remove any pride associated with the Indian Culture and prove themselves to be superior to us.
Kindly see this documentary (in 5 parts) which is really interesting. The theory is not completely accepted yet as the pigheaded Historians are still unwilling to accept any civilization before the Mesopotemia and Egyptian as then they will be proven wrong and all their hypothesis will be annulled and the world history will have to rewritten. So ego and pride come in the way of truth.

Part 1 -


Part 2 -


Part 3 -


Part 4 -


Part 5 -

Aayirathil Oruvan - Movie Review

   After a pretty long hiatus, I am back with yet another movie review. This time it is the Selvaraghavan movie Aayirathil Oruvan. Remember your history books Cholas & Pandyas. If you don't, then this movie will definitely remind you of them as the movie is based on them. This movie is definitely a new genre in tamil movies and something that no one has attempted before. You also need to have a mindset and a penchant for history, especially south indian history.
   The move is defnitely not the greatest movie or even the best movie. There are a few illogical scenes and I really wish that they would have explained a few things more.
From the limited knowledge I have I am listing out what is best portrayed here are from history
1) A king who is ruling a waste land and his mind set. Parthiban is great as such a king.
2) A country which has fallen from its greatness
3) The battle techniques of the Cholas
4) The liberal mindset of the people (Paganism) 
5) The pedastal position the eunuchs had in Indian soceity
6) True loyalty, respect for a king in Indian history before the Moghuls
7) The resourcefulness, ingenuity and knowldge of the Indians in fields such as in medicine to cure most diseases
8) Get an idea of the extent to which the Britishers destroyed our education, culture, beliefs, knowledge in order to rule. This provides a way for us to identify ourselves.
9) The tamizh from the time of the Cholas

The things that have not been portrayed well from history are
1) I don't think we had barbarianism in our culture to have acts of gladiators
2) Some of the rituals, especially the dances, considering that art and culture flourished during times of the Cholas
3) Why were the Cholas shown so dark? Is it to show them as Dravidians. Then they are falling to the lie about the Aryan invasion theory
4) The architecture of one of the temples in the ruins that look more like that from North Indian Rajputs/Marathas etc rather than from the Cholas.
   There are a few more but my limited knowledge of history limits me from listing them.

Regarding the movie, this is definitely not a historical movie but is deeply tied to history even though it is fiction. The people have acted well and Reema Sen has got a very strong role where she gets to battle and she does a fairly decent job but there is absolutely no synchronization of the tamizh she speaks as usual. Karthi is great as the low class labourer (gets into the character itself). Andrea has got a good role too, but the best is Parthiban (no sarcasm, but he did not have to dance). Some scenes are illogical like how did an Indian army battalion get to Vietnam so easily, how can an iphone work as a satellite phone, where did the communication specialist go. Most of us in the theatre did not understand a lot of the tamizh as it was the thamizh from ancient Cholas/Pandyas period. That is an admirable effort. There was a lot of blood and violence but I guess it was needed as part of the movie. There has been a lot of research gone into making this movie and Selvaraghavan has brought his touch by displaying the human emotions well in the characters. But the characters of Reema Sen and Andrea have been made to be so cold and I think this was something he got inspired by Hollywood movies, though you could relate to why Reema Sen is like that.

It is a long movie, but I liked it a lot and now I am more enthused to actually catch up on my history (not the one the Britishers taught us, but the actual one) . I am not sure if you would like it, but still I would encourage you to see the movie.

Hinduism

Back after a long hiatus. This time I thought I would like to share my thoughts on Hinduism.
Hinduism is defined in Wikipedia as
"Hinduism does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in declaration of faith or a creed", but is rather an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena originating and based on the Vedic Traditions."
Why did I choose to talk on this now of all? Well, the reason being that whenever we speak of Hinduism, the first thought that crosses their mind are the castes and untouchability. But Hinduism is more than that and I want to try to dispel this lopsided notion.
I guess you would have already heard that Hinduism is not really a religion but it is a way of life.
It is one religion where in a person can be an Aethist and yet be a Hindu. Criticism and debate is part of the religion from possibly the iron age. The concept of worshiping a God that we have visualized, which practically implies that God does not have a form, is very much Hinduism. Everyone is entitled to practice the religion as it fits their style.
It is one religion that has learned to evolve with times such as the abolishment of Sati and Polygamy (possibly even Polyandry) as early as the 19-20th Century. Ofcourse there are people who will call this a social reform rather than a religious reform but that is the beauty. This is because the laws of Hinduism are there to govern the life in a community, soceity. That is how the caste system came into being, to demarcate the roles for each of the 4 pillars of a soceity which are leadership, knowledge, entrepreneurs and the labour force. To draw parallels to todays soceity is legislative, judiciary and law & order as one, academecians, corporates and the all important labour force.
The laws governing Hinduism are written in something called Smritis and they also state that these laws are to change as time evolves. The laws are something that have infact evolved over time themselves.
The scholars incorporated religious rituals which are infact activities to instill discipline, cleanliness,respect and a lot more.
Ofcourse, I do agree that the religion did degenerate over a few centuries, but it is now back in revival with untouchability abolished by law and almost eliminated in most places in India. There is still a long way to go but it is coming back in all its glory. The reason is that the people of India are longing for a identity and Hinduism gives them one. Infact this is not only for Hindus but also people of other religions who reside in the Indian Subcontinent.
This is just a start and there are a lot more interesting facts about Hinduism which I shall write going forward as I find more about it.

Hinduism and Devils

A few days ago I was watching a vampire movie and suddenly I started thinking about the concept of devils, daemons and the undead in Hinduism. To my knowledge there is no concept of the undead in hinduism. Daemons are a tricky subject. If we say there is no concept of Devils or Daemons in hinduism people will immediately ask about Asuras.
Well according to the Rig Veda, there were 2 different Gods. One for the natural elements while the other for the social elements. For the natural elements Devas were the Gods while Asuras were revered as Gods of the social elements. But as time passed Hinduism took two different paths wherein one sect regarded Asuras as the Good while Devas were the evil (they belong to Zorastrianism) while the other sect regarded Devas as the good with Asuras as the evil. This concept stuck and all other vedas regarded this as fact.
This can largely be associated with the influence from the outsiders.

Source :- Internet and wikipedia