THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Here is a challenge for you; Find the place. Your time  starts  now!   Image Courtesy: Google Where in summer they always tell you there is no water left in the dams to produce enough electricity; Where they urge you to control your electricity usage, due to the above mentioned reason; Where they show ads with film stars and sportsmen, before and after the national news broadcast, about the necessity of saving electricity and controlling population growth; Where the bureaucracy that controls electricity has no limitation in using and misusing it; Where every individual pays more than he earns, on food; Where after every rain, the roads disappear into ponds and puddles, and every sewage overflows; Where every government employee is part of one or another political party and work for the benefit only of the members of the party; Where every politician holds the reputation of doing nothing remarkable to the development of the country, b...

Ranjini Image Courtesy: Google Miss . Ranjini Haridas, you are not alone. No, you are not, any more. There has been serious gossip mongering against Raniji Haridas, the TV anchor in Kerala. Although, media is a major culprit in bring about cultural changes, positive and negative, some symbols, or icons keep our minds engaged and give us food for talk. Always, a talk is positive act. The more we spend our time to talk during the power-cut time, the more our minds grow. By the way, did I mention to my international readers that in Kerala we have a standard power-cut half an hour each night and one hour during daytime? Almost like the District 12 in The Hunger Games . In this turmoil of lacks and shortcomings, Ranjini Haridas rose into conversations as a television anchor. She was the witch of Portobello in Kerala and many a cultural dictators fancies of burning her on a stake. Reason? She is ‘arrogant’. If someone says, Oprah Winfrey is arrogant on TV; one can only su...

Image Courtesy: Google Enabling anonymous comments in my blog was an attempt to bring people to talk about issues they feel near to them without disclosing their names and identities. Of course, it included the threat of spomments and spiteful bites. I realized lately that initiating a talk was worth the effort. So is the change.   Here is the result of this attempt. I received a wonderful comment, anonymously. Mr. Anonymous made this comment on the sports article titled “ S. Sreesanth will come out? ” Mr. Anonymous, you finally spared me the blame of commenting at my own posts anonymously. Here is the comment; don’t forget to put yours too. "I may agree with the conclusion and enjoyed the bitter satire also. But I have some differences with some ideas expressed, and also how Malayalies responded. Except Shashi Tharoor, and Srishanth's family, nobody openely or indirectly supported him during his bad days, because it is in the blood of malayalies to fee...

Image Courtesy: Google Yes ,  he is the one, who did the below mentioned. S. Sreesanth had undeniably inflamed my curiosity in news channels and the print media. I do not entertain browsing much through the internet merely because it is one large sea of fake information, well mostly. If you see a title like “Sreesanth; Is He the Guy?” you might expect a shrewd piece of investigative journalism on the screen, but apparently, what you find is only a below average, pathetic blog post. I am not talking about prejudices about news heading lines here. When such a matter is under scrutiny, as spot fixing in cricket, undoubtedly, this question comes alive, though. Who prejudiced you and me towards headlines? Such and such headline must be some sort of an investigation. Such and such headline would mean the person in the news has damned himself. Who did this to our semi-hypocritical sense of judgment? I have the answer. Satan. In fact, it is time for me to confess that I...

Image Courtesy: Guardian.co.uk Is it publicity that follow people of people follow publicity? In both cases, it seems publicity is a hard pet to keep. The latest controversy regarding betting in Indian cricket validates this assumption. Heavy betting! It is shocking how some of the unsuspecting faces appeared on the scene as quite unsuspecting souls and trapped themselves. The labyrinth of law is tightening its grip around their necks. This controversy is unsettling for most of the Keralites, because of the involvement of the fast bowler S. Sreesanth. Santakumaran Srisant, is born on 6 th February, 1983 in Kothamangalam, Kerala, South India. Even though, Sreesanth was involved in cases of emotional outbursts in the field, including showing aggressive gestures to senior players, for every Keralite, he was a next-door young man, with a slightly twisted mentality. Prodigal sons do return home, don’t they? However, when the noose of the law tightened, we felt it was i...

Image Courtesy: Google Much like a woodpecker, I was on my incessant attempt to penetrate the outer bark of reality and to reach into the soul of the Cosmos. It was a sunny day and I was in the city. Something in the mind and a tickling sensation on my skin was undoubtedly the signs indicating the presence of a portal opening into the world of Awareness. The usual process to tackle such a sensation is to walk aimlessly, which in turn is the best way to locate the portal to Awareness as well. As I was taking the left turn on the road to the Beach of Solace, a familiar face greeted me. On the right side of the road, there was a shawarma shop. He was standing in front of it. Not eating, of course, but having a chat with someone in the shop. Subhashin, has a lot of friends in the city, both cooks and eaters. It is not always that I meet Subhashin on the road. Perhaps, the opening of the portal and the psychomotor impulses I felt had some relation with the appearance of S...

Kristen Stewart Image Courtesy: Google Which one the new queen Snow White would choose as her groom, William or Eric, the huntsman? Snow White and the Huntsman ends and I ask this question myself. Eric and Snow White Image Courtesy: Google Beautiful people, beautiful story, beautiful graphics, beautiful screenplay and beautiful performance. This is an entertaining movie. Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, and Hossein Amini worked in the writing department. They do not experiment too much with anything, but a slight twist in the Snow White’s story by making her a warrior queen. Released in 2012, the movie shows the Snow White story, in the Brothers Grimm collection, for the younger generation, with our very own Bella Swan, Kristen Stewart as Snow White, the daughter of King Magnus. Charlize Theron Image Courtesy: Google Charlize Theron adorns the negative role of Queen Ravenna, with her beauty and skills. Chris Hemsworth is Eric the Huntsman, a resurrection...

Image Courtesy: Paulo Coelho The Fifth Mountain was the first book that came to me from a local library, written by Paulo Coelho. I do believe that we do not choose books, but they choose us. The Fifth Mountain came to me with a purpose—it told me that it is not a shameful thing to be afraid of something. Fear is just a part of life, like courage and laughter. The preface of the book had a quote from Paulo Coelho’s legendary work, The Alchemist . It said, “If you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve your desire.” I was awestruck by the possibility of this statement and it was so authentic that believing in it came naturally. It was a new world, I invented through Paulo Coelho. I did not know until then, that writing could be so simple and direct. Magic was another world that opened its doors in front of me, through Paulo’s works. His books opened me to the possibility of how a human being can communicate with the entire universe and le...

Image Courtesy: Google Blogging might be a very personal and individual affair. However, with its impact, it is not. Every word one writes and sends out to the world to judge, caress, feel and hope from, holds an unavoidable energy, a spirit, be these words in the form of blog posts or Facebook comments or a printed book. A writer’s first duty is to be respectful towards this state of being. The cosmos works the way. I consider myself fortunate for having you here, reading with your eyes and mind, these words I typed down so affectionately and carefully. This holds me responsible for the impact of each word I write about, by default. Whenever, I cross my path across an irresponsible blog post or comment, I think about this stand I myself took and consider myself lucky of being able to keep it in mind, all the way here. Where is the threshold of responsibility? A lie is not relative, unlike what they teach in Universities. Holding on to a position that the writer kno...

Image Courtesy: Google The ‘Kerala Model of Development’ was a very famous example of development in India , but this was before Narendra Modi hired his public relations company. The contemporary model is the ‘Gujarat Model’. At present, the old Kerala model, contests hopelessly with this new model—one hypocrisy in its endless duel with another.   In Kerala, recently a new airport plan is commissioned. It means, the people in power decided to build an airport. The land acquisition is in contestable grounds, because the chosen the place is rich with diverse flora and fauna, as usual. Who knows if it is not purposeful that each time a development project pops us, it is dumped in some delicate landscape just to ravish the nature, so that some multi-national billionaire can build swimming pools there? Thus, the context of assessment of the important uses of the airport has been triangulated. What?? Plainly, due to the above mentioned reasons, we must look into th...

Image Courtesy: Google Tony Stark has a story to tell. Unlike the two previous installments of Iron Man , the 3 rd one is narrated by a character in the movie. And we instantly recognize the narrator from his voice. It’s Mr. Stark Junior, the narcissistic, individualistic American zillionaire scientist, who believes that development and creativity can truly help shape the world into a better one. Of course, he is considerate of the ‘future’, not just his own, but of the whole world’s too. This does seem a paradox from a self centered man of Tony Stark’s reputation. But it is evident in the ending of the movie that he is indeed looking forward into the future. The Mandarin becomes an imminent threat to the world and in the US powerful people are thinking and plotting against this baddie. Ben Kingsley performs as Mandarin. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) is a scientist who is the founder of Advanced Idea Mechanics. He turns out to be the real problem for Iron Man and the US , la...

Image Courtesy: Google Of course, read The Castle and you know that you are in a similar place, much like Joseph K; wherever your geographical location is. And you face a similar fate or feeling of such a fate approaching, the moment you enter in a law enforcement office. This is not just true about Kerala or India , or about Texas or the US . Power, with its octopus hands is squeezing individuals out of their shits everywhere. Look at my language, people; got a bit street-type. I blame the System that leaves no options for people like us, poor, ordinary fellas whose medical bills exceed ten times their earnings, but to express our discontentment and frustration in the basest of languages. One thing is true; with this article we are not trying to bring in balance to what is already a mess of injustice, murder, treachery and treason. We are just mourning or so to speak, humouring ourselves. Image Courtesy: Google John Grisham’s latest bestselling novel The Racketeer ,...

Image Courtesy: Google “Helluva job.” (366) The Racketeer  (published in 2012) can be hailed in a one-liner. But this work of fiction is more than conclusive in a single line of exclamatory phrase. John Grisham, in his latest novel pulled off a smart job as a writer of thrillers. The Racketeer is an ideal suspense thriller, with none in elegance and ingenuity to follow. In Grisham’s own words, which he notes at the ‘Author’s Note’ section of the book; “This is a work of fiction and more so than usual…Almost nothing in the previous 340 pages is based on reality….Long paragraphs of fiction were used to avoid looking up facts.” As controversial and audacious a statement this is, this attitude of the author invites criticisms as well. The Racketeer received mixed reviews and most of the negative ones are tending to whack the author on the wrist for either supplying an entirely fictional background for the story, or shying away from painstaking research, which is, as so...