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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Soaring spirits

September 24th circa 2014 is a date to be chiselled in gold for India .
The land of snake charmers and rope walkers ,the land of myths and legends ,the land where over the years men had invaded and plundered attracted by its culture ,artistic sophistication spiritual superiority when the rest of the world had savages roaming its forests ,


They had come in hordes one after the other and inculcated inoculated and subjugated the people of this country to their way of lives but India absorbed assimilated and melded them as its own ,
it was a cauldron of religions , a potpourri of thoughts , a meltdown of beliefs where the final product was its Indianess .
With  freedom from the British yoke it saw poverty to the level of abjection
 it saw crass political chicanery at its worst
it saw unrest communal and casteist conflagrations nurtured by its greedy leaders who behaved worser than the colonists who had ruled it over the ages .
Mediocrity lorded over it as it stood secluded from the progress of other countries by its backward inward looking policies which constipated its thoughts and action to a loveless populace who plodded through their dreary lives while the rare few  used deceit and cheating and violence to haul riches .
but during all this time there was always that group of people who believed in honesty hard work dedication and patriotism ,
the Tatas Birlas and Ambanis may have had different formulas to achieve success but they all showed what Indians could achieve .
there was great brain drain from the talented who felt mediocrity was only recognised in their sad country and had to fly to far shores to realise their potentials but they harboured a great love in their hardened souls for their beloved country
With time the Indian diaspora was becoming well known as they conquered several pinnacles of success in commerce ,information technology medicine ,entertainment and science
The youth of the country started dreaming big ignited by a great scientist statesman who was its president Sri Abdul Kalam Sir ,though several pockets in the country succumbed to the ill temptations of luring conmen called politicians
Even literate states like Kerala found their youth astray led by these pied pipers who took them to doom while badlands like Bihar succumbed to violence and gang wars and caste killings
 states like Uttar Pradesh were positioned off by its notorious political pawn masters who played men against men and collected their loot
these wretched politicians have always been the curse of this blessed land .


In those halcyon days when India was stigmatised and shunned by a hypocritical world for blasting its nuclear bomb in 1974 its scientists had to depend on their own meagre resources and knowledge they were primitive attempts in space technology then  but the men of those days like Vikram Sarabhai ,Abdul Kalam and Satish Dawan were men made of Vivekanda swamijis muscles of steel and nerves of iron for they produced as if by magic slow and steady progress as they built their rockets and missiles all by themselves .
like any other skilled in this country things were done at low cost compared to other countries who gloated over  their costly successes .
Slowly and steadily the Indian elephant has woken up with excellent support by its political masters specially the people with higher realms of power and the sincerity and hard work of these men and women were realised to reach heights of success unrivalled .
A country where more than 300 million people live on less than one dollar a day could launch 10 satellites in a go beating the Russians who could only do with eight this was just done a few days back and many of us including me never knew of this ,
a country which knows every other run of Sachin Tendulkar in minute details never comes to know of such facts for the media never highlights the achievements of its scientists or its defence personnel who have more heroic tales to tell than all the Khans in Bollywood can tell together !


ISRO has even been accused of spending crores of rupees  when the countries poor has no food to eat accused some
 but for every dollar spent it could  earn two ,
ISRO budget was  less than one billion a year compared to NASAs 17 billion
 For its singular achievement of placing Mangalyaan in the Maritian orbit today it spent 78 million dollars while the makes of the Hollywood movie Gravity spent 200 million!
Today India has satellites floating over our heads that can count the number of soldiers marching in a regiment anywhere on the earth ,it is in a premier position to grab the 140 billion satellite launch market and its now getting into line with big boys of the space industry by catching up in their won game and how !
Indian satellite cartostat viewing from high above 600km can even distinguish an object as small as a car !
with plans to shoot off Mangalyaan to the moon next it plans to carry instruments of other countries like Sweden free of cost while countries like China or Japan only carry their own .
Loka Samasta Sukhino  Bhava has always been the soul phrase of India .


Dr G Madhavan Nair chairman of ISRO succinctly puts it as twenty years from now when space travel is likely to become mundane like air travel today we don't want Indians to buy tickets on other peoples space vehicles !
Mangalyaan has reached its destination with clockwork precision its engines fired from the great distance as it hid behind the huge planet Mars and it worked like a trained commando or ballet dancer with its moves so perfect and graceful astounding the world at one tenth the cost of similar flights .


We are eternally grateful and proud of the men and women who by their sheer determination hard work and sharp  intellect took our country soaring into the skies
yes SOARING INTO THE SKIES


 (I acknowledge my thanks to the article by Mr.Pallava Bhagla for some facts used in this blogpost )

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Hundred feet journey ..film review

Some films are known as feel good movies
such movies do not fall into genres like action ,horror, romantic,or tragic they are just there and one watches them and feels good !
one such delightful film I saw recently on the big screen was the hundred foot journey .
directed by Lasse Hallstorm based on best selling novel written by Richard C Morais .
It has Om Puri in a central role with Manish Dayal as his son .
Music by A.R Rehman

Its about an Indian family of restaurant owners who after a personal tragedy lose the mother and the whole family migrate to U.K. where they manage to start a Tandoor restaurant near Heathrow Airport but right on the flight path with dangerously flying planes swishing over their tandoori concoctions and upsetting their applecart ,OmPuri the father with his three grown up children and two smaller ones decides to try his luck in France which was said to have a more saner climate and manages to get past immigration and land up in a small village by quirk of destiny where he takes a huge dilapidated ex hotel to start his Maison De Mumbai ,only problem is just across the road is a French Michelin starred gourmet restaurant owned by Madam Mallory and the initial half is about the war of competition between the two hotels with radically different cuisines
Om Puri has a disdain to French cuisine and considers it as relatively underdeveloped in finesse when compared to Indian cuisine which has over the ages evolved and matured into a highly complex art while the French chefs across considers his curries as crass incidentally this exited me a lot as I share a lot of Om Puris thoughts too .
Amongst his children who are also excellent chefs the elder son Kadham is a genius and learns French cuisine with the help of one of the junior chefs in the French restaurant on whom he also develops a romantic interest ,to make the story short Khadam goes on to work n the French restaurant later becomes famous and is spirited away to Paris where he becomes a celebrity chef while the French and Indian restaureres become close in the village and become like one happy family Khadam returns back from all the limelight to the village and start working in the French Restaurant and thus back to his girl too
Watching the film is a pleasant experience one gets no surprises but one enjoys the visuals the music and the gentleness of life
watch it please
 
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