Ek Thi Daayan

I happened to be at Chennai and thought of going for a movie. Tried to get the ticket for Iron Man, but failed, returning from the cinema hall without watching a movie sounded more like returning from the battle field without fighting so I ended up watching the film ‘Ek Thi Daayan’

Logically it does not make any sense regarding the existence of spirits and ghosts. 99% I am convinced that these are products of imagination. But at night, especially after 12.00, I am not too sure about logic and my conviction. The remaining 1% becomes the risk factor, why to take a chance? And I end up avoiding going to haunted house at night.

There is a similarity between me and the hero of the film. The hero as a young boy reads and obsessed with books on Daayan, I too was obsessed with paranormal psychology once upon a time. It literally converted me from being rationalist into super-naturalist. Supernatural phenomenon invariably invokes fear, and one ends up doubting the reality. When a Dracula visited me to bite me, I woke up from that dream in terror. That was the day I decided to give up reading paranormal psychology and return to normal psychology.

Therefore I could identify the fear and terror experienced by the hero. But the similarity ends here; I did not date any Daayan like our hero.

The hero is afraid of Daayan, so he attracts the attention of Daayan, and marries the Daayan. At the end he kills the Daayan in order to save a boy. Daayan needs to sacrifice 12 year old boy to retain her youthfulness. Since the hero does not want to remain young forever, he thwarts the plan of Daayan. Then the boy and the hero live happily ever after.

The film highlights few points:

1. All women are not Daayans, but some are and you cannot differentiate who is Daayan and who is not. The safest way to protect yourself from the onslaught Daayan, is avoiding all women. In case you want to have girl friend, then follow the second point.

2. Beware of women with long hair, because the power and life of Daayan is in the hair. So regularly take your girl friend to a hair dresser.

3. If any lady maintains her beauty for long period of time, they may be Daayan (Hemamalini, Reka get qualified by this rule to be Daayan, we need not worry about this, it is Dharmendra’s trouble)

Apart from the points mentioned above, the movie offers nothing. Some people were frightened at some point of time. For me everything looked like comedy, I was trying to get frightened but I could not.

Listen

In the Chinese pictogram, the word listen is composed of three different characters (pictograms) – eye, heart and ear.

True listening is not merely using ears to here, but observing with eyes and keeping open the heart. Only when one listens in this manner a real change is possible in oneself

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Emotional disposition plays an important role in understanding. Without it every thing we hear and see will remain knowledge and information and they are powerless in bringing transformation in oneself.

Quantum physicist knows exactly what a mystic understands. But the mystic lives entirely in a different realm of existence, where as the physicist lives exactly like you and me.

We too can become a mystic provided we add two more steps along with hearing in our act of listening – keen observation and open heart. The problem in doing this is that we will become incapable of judging and gossiping about others, so we may end up sacrificing lot more fun in our life and start loving people and that is not much of a fun..

Children Vs. Adults

Children know the secret of handling any forthcoming disaster. They think about crossing the bridge only when they reach it. They do not sweat over and rudiment unnecessarily over the unavoidable problems and tragedies of life. No planning, no scheming, they just react. Just before the event of pain, they feel sad and shout and scream, even five minutes before they can laugh and enjoy the moment, it is all fun but for few moments of suffering.

Where as the grown ups, undergo tremendous amount of mental agony just thinking about the problem which will occur one year later. Those few moments of suffering and pain is lived for the entire year, we extent the period of suffering as long as possible. We imagine, grumble and curse thus transform any small negative event into a tragedy of the century.

As children our strategy of encountering problems was straight forward, simple and effective. We never allowed it to spill over into the realm of fun and joy. As grownups, we indulge in too much of planning and have become the schemers, and made life as miserable as possible.

Children’s style of facing the happy events is just opposite to their strategy of facing painful events. In case of joyful events, they anticipate and wait eagerly for it, thus they extent the joy and happiness and stretch it as long as possible. And the grownups rarely extent the happy moments, they think being happy is childish and being miserable is the sign of maturity.

Burma Bazaar, Chennai

Along with my friend I wend to Burma Bazar at Chennai. Actually I had no intention of buying anything, I was just an accomplice. But when I saw a shop selling mobile phones, I realized that I need to buy memory card for my mobile phone, and purchased it immediately. The shop keeper performed the task of inserting the card, and I took it without further checking whether it is working properly or not.

Then we moved to another shop that was located far away since my friend wanted to buy DVDs and he was busy seeing the collection. And I was checking my mobile and the memory card, and I was shocked to see that mobile was not recognizing the memory card. By then I could not remember the shop where I had purchased the card due to short term memory problem which I suffer occasionally.

And I requested another shop keeper to find out what is wrong with the memory card, he opened it and put it back and it started working perfectly. I thanked him, then started seeing the products he was selling, and ended buying head phone from that shop.

Now what I cannot understand is why on earth did I buy the head phone which I did not need? I have already two head phones and was thinking of getting rid on one.

May be because I was feeling obligated to him since he helped me to fix the phone. In order to reciprocate, I ended up buying a thing that I needed least. What a way to say thanks.

Gratitude out of guilt feeling is dangerous, it is suicidal. 

Intergroup sensitivity Effect

Sarah Esposo of the University of Queen land, asked the Australians to evaluate the Statement “Australians are intolerant towards indigenous people and immigrants”.

Some participants were told that the statement was made by natives Australians (in-group) and other participants were told that the statement comes from foreigners (out-group).

The statement was supported by one of the three arguments:

• A weak argument mainly giving opinions and hearsay.
• Very strong, arguments, quoting research studies and government's statements and policies.
• No arguments at all.

Now here is the findings, when the statement is attributed to native Australians (in-group), strong arguments indeed had convinced the participants more than the weak arguments. and they were expressing the need for changing the policies in favor of migrants and indigenous people. and they expressed solidarity with the migrants and indigenous.  But when the statement is attributed to a foreigner (out-group), whether the argument is strong or weak did not matter at all and the participants remained skeptical about the statement till the end.

Objectivity depends on who says it whether it comes from the friend or the enemy. The group to which we are associated influences our mind to greater extent. If a person is not clear about his or her individual values and convictions, he or she will be easily swayed by the statement coming from the in-group and closed and suspicious to the statements made by out-group.

Being part of a group, clan, caste, religion etc is witnessed from the ancient time. It has served well when we lived in dangerous times - providing safety and support in terms of shelter, food and mating companion. But in today’s context if we derive the personal identity only from the group to which we accidentally belong, we are at the verge of becoming a fanatic. Beware of any isms, including patriotism.

Interpretation Matters

Martin Seligman and Ed Diener wanted to decode the mystery of happiness. He and is research team identified group of people with high happiness index; they were basically happy people in their life style and in dealing with the world. And they selected other people who were anxious and depressed most of the time, means who were very low in the happiness index.

The research team observed for a longer period of time their life style and how do they deal with all things they come across. The research findings highlighted important findings:

•  Everyone experiences negative emotions: Both the groups experience more or less same number of negative events in their day today life. It is not that the happy people are surrounded with rosy things and the depressed ones are with dark cloud.

•  Different cognitive interpretations (pessimists vs. optimists): The important difference between the two groups was the ability to interpret the events either with hope or hopelessness. The first group when they encountered negative event, they were affected by it, but bounced back within no time. They saw them as transient and momentary; they coped with them and made it positive with a sense of humor  Where as the similar negative events were perceived by the second group as if they are permanent and they are always unlucky.

• Self-fulfilling prophecies: sooner than latter, the first group started seeing the problems as opportunities and their belief made it so eventually. The second group started ruminating and their fear become true due to the self fulfilling prophecy

How you interpret the events matters most. Even superficially and artificially try to find positive things in the negative situation, your mind eventually moves in that direction. It is all about training the mind.

Robert Kennedy

It is interesting to observe how inheritance takes place. Robert Kennedy’s father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, was a successful business man, but known for chasing every woman on the planet. John F Kennedy inherited it as his life’s mission, but Robert Kennedy his younger brother stayed away from women, and was very faithful to his wife. Even Marilyn Monroe failed to seduce him.

Where as Robert Kennedy’s son, Robert Kennedy Junior, was just opposite to his father, developed the hobby of winning over many women. His second wife, Mary Kennedy, who was suffering from borderline personality disorder – extremely creative and loving at times, and extremely dependent and aggressive at other times- reached the advanced state of disorder due to the junior Robert Kennedy’s extramarital affairs and committed suicide.

Parental figure plays vital role in shaping the character, but towards which direction is decided not by the parent but by the child. After all we are not 100% brain washed machines, there is an element of free will.

Life of Pi

This film explores the most difficult concept with the child like curiosity and succeeds completely. Everyone must watch it and reflect about it for some days if not for months. Watching it itself an experience of great importance.

Hero’s father is a rationalist, mother a devotee of Vishnu, and his elder brother is a normal guy. But he is a seeker of different realm. Hero’s original name is Piscine Molitor Patel, since friends in the school nick name him as pissing Patel, to avoid further humiliation and ridicule he renames him as Pi, and gives a convincing mathematical explanation. This act alone defines his character, not running away from the problem but encountering it with creative solution.

He is a real chip of his father. His dad avoids all religions, and he falls in love with all religions. The only way to experience the reality is either reject all believe system or embrace all. Wearing just one glass will make us color blind.

The real drama is displayed, when the ship wreck happens, Pi is the lone survivor, after the 227 days ordeal in the ocean. How did he survive is the main story of the film.

In fact, he narrates two stories to a writer. One is shown to the viewer, where he along with the tiger, spotted hyena, an injured zebra, and an orangutan. Hyena kills the zebra and orangutan, and the tiger kills the hyena. Finally he is left with tiger that is waiting to kill him for food, and he has to safe guard himself from the hungry tiger and the furious ocean. This is story of love, courage, intelligence, compassion and above all hope.

The second story, that he literally narrates and not shown as visual, takes place and gets over within 5 minutes. It is a normal ship wreck story where a decent human being learned to do the barbaric deeds for the sake of his survival, that is kill rather getting killed and consume the human flesh to continue to live. Four people are in the life boat – Pi, cook, sailor with broken leg, and Pi’s mother. The cook allows the sailor to die of injury, and then kills the mother when he tries to kill Pi, Pi accidentally kills the cook, then consumes for his survival.

Both stories have many things in common – there is a ship wreck, the hero loses all things and all his family members, suffers for 227 days and survives and both stories do not answer why the ship wreck took place.

After the narration of both stories, he asks the writer (also the viewer), which story do you want to believe? The writer answers that he like the first story, and the hero says that is the way to find god.

Events and facts are meaningless; it is the interpretation what matters. How do we see the life? Is it a story of love, compassion, courage, intelligence and hope or is it story of survival of fittest and dog eats dog narrative?

God lives in the interpretation and not in events and facts.

If you do not like the theological undercurrent of the film, do not worry, the visuals are breath taking, so you will not regret watching it.