THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Warning: This movie is outrageously anti-gay and anti-Biblical, at the same time. Image Courtesy: Google What If someone puts a couple of twenty-first century nerds in the Neolithic Age, how would it all turn out to be? The answer is Year One . It is a movie about two Stone Age men, Zed (Jack Black), who is a hunter, and Oh (Michael Cera), who is a gatherer. The story is set in close proximity with the post-paradise life of the chosen ones. Zed and Oh are exiled from their tribe and in their quest to find another tribe, they meet Cain and Abel. From this moment onwards, the story takes place through some of the major Biblical events and portrays some of its powerful characters with a different approach. Humour is the main tool Year One has utilized to deal with the Biblical tales. Imagine Christopher Mintz-Plasse (the nerd in Superbad, and Rolemodels) as Isaac, the son of Abraham. What else can you expect other than hilarious riots of laughter. Although in Ye...

Image Courtesy: Google On 29 August 2013, I crossed a milestone in my teaching career. I planted a pea plant in the English class, literally. The idea behind this method that might seem an exaggeration is that the growth of the pea plant mirrors, somewhat closely, the steps involved in second-language acquisition. Preparing the soil [identifying the proper aptitude for language learning], Planting the seed [equipping the language learner with the basic laws of the second language], watering [reading on a daily basis, materials written in the language that is being learnt]. It was a challenging experience, just to set up the garden pot with a layer of rock at the bottom, then some soil, then some smooth sand, and then a mix of soil and cow dung. In order to give all the students in the class, a feel of how holding soil in one’s hand would be like, and prepare the space for planting the seed, I asked each one to take a fistful of soil and spread it in the pot. Once, thi...

Image Courtesy: Google It is often easy to say that we are stuck in the sea of negative energy. Having confined amidst hard times, one is often unable to perform his best in the commitments to the self as well as to others. However, in the post-relativity-theory world we should be extremely careful talking about good and bad. The evil upper hand the theory of relativity provided some of us is this imposing confusion. Is it actually a bad time for all of us? Or is it just our way of looking at things? If we are faltering in our commitments and personal goals, and hide behind the comforting reasons of it being a bad time for good things to happen, then we are making the most of it, no matter if it is good times or bad. We have to look at our reality, (talking about the physical reality here) with a perspective less tainted by parochial subjectivism. When we replace “I”, “me”, and “you” with “we” and “us” the resulting picture of the world is where we need to look for goo...

Image Courtesy: Google The Indian Commentator —it’s been five years, now. Often I do an introspective article on writing or the purpose of blogging. Once, again, I am at a juncture, where I had to write introspectively, reading and reporting my inner self’s states. I feel that otherwise, I would not be able to survive the atrocious influences I live with. By atrocious influences, I mean, those ideas and people that believe success is to conform oneself to their way of looking at the world. These people ask me to be this or that, and entirely ignore my real self. Yesterday, on 26 August 2013, I was thinking about page views on my blog. Whatever I was expecting, wasn’t shown at the counter. I felt depressed and lonely. It was a peculiar feeling that was close very much to the loneliness one suffers when left alone, bereft of all relatives and friend. Ah! I cannot explain. That very day, I had a busy class schedule and came back home tired and exhausted, much similar to this day...

Image Courtesy: Google A boy is dead in his college hostel. Everyone in the college, from hostel warden to Lecturers hates him, due to his rowdy nature. Who might have killed him? He was found hanging on a noose. Is it a suicide and murder is too farfetched an idea? Ruby Gupta’s novel A Degree in Death is set in Mussoorie, a beautiful hill station in the north-west of India. The events in the story unfold at the campus of MIST (The Modern Institute of Science and Technology), an apt name for any grand institution to harmonize itself with the misty landscape of Mussoorie. MIST is situated in the sleepy small town of Dehradun, in Mussoorie. Image Courtesy: Google A boy is murdered at the college hostel and A Degree in Death is about the events that follow this murder. A parallel investigation takes place under the head of the research department, Professor Shantanu, an intelligent teacher, and an avid researcher. Ruby Gupta is Professor and Head, Humanities, at a ...