English classic - Vanity Fair (1847-48)

A classic book by William Makepeace Thackeray, a satire about society in Victorian times, around the time of Napoleon, and contrasts the tale of 2 women, one of whom will do anything to get what she wants, and the other one, who is honest, believing, and trusts people even when they are not to be trusted.
A review of this book (link to article):

The title of the book, Vanity Fear, is taken from an earlier work, John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, published long before in 1678, and supposed to represent a place called Vanity, where there is a ongoing fair that is meant to represent man's attachment to worldly things, and supposed to represent the sin of man. The book was seen as a bitter satire of society, as showcased in the quest of one of the anti-hero (or anti-heroine, to be more accurate), who is cunning, and uses all her qualities to work her way up in life.

Book: Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1993)

Isaac Asimov wrote a huge amount of science fiction over the years, and is known for many of his books such as the Empire Series, and most famously for the Foundation Series. The 3 main Foundation books were the 'Foundation', 'Foundation and Empire', and 'Second Foundation'. It was later, in order to try and fill more details, that Asimov wrote more books for the Foundation, that include books that were both prequels and sequels. The last such book that he wrote was called 'Forward the Foundation', and was released in 1993, a year after Asimov died. Forward the Foundation was a sequel to 'Prelude to Foundation', carrying on with the story of Seldon's search for how to develop the story of psycho-history.



Read more at the following location (link)

Hindi Film - Gharonda (1977) - A wonderful but sad story

Gharonda (link to complete article) was a movie released in 1977, and starring Amol Palekar, Zarina Wahab, and Shreeram Lagoo. It had a storyline that caught the despair of human relations, for the quest for getting one's own house, and what all people can do to get what they want. In the end, the situation turns out different from what one initially plans, and then you accept what life has handed.
The movie had some excellent music by Jaidev, with lyrics by Gulzar, and singing by 2 singers who are not so widely known - Bhupinder and Runa Laila. Songs such as 'ek akela is shahar mein' and 'do deewane is shahar mein' were incredible songs.

Hindi Serial - Na Aana Iss Des Ladoo - Ammaji gets a reprieve from the court

It seemed like Ammaji would rise higher and higher, ensuring that her writ runs in the whole village, and nobody could oppose her. She got the middle son, Avtaar re-married even though his wife Chanda had delivered 2 daughters, and even though everybody was surprised when the police came to investigate, Ammaji managed to get the marriage through by deceiving the police.
And then it seemed that Ammaji was in the most trouble that she had ever seen. She was actually put in jail by the police (after quite a bit of opposition from her family and from other people in the village), on the complaint of Sunita who claimed that Ammaji was behind her beating and torture. The other women in the household were very happy, and it seemed that finally the serial was moving towards some sort of justice.
However, this was not to be. Raghav, in order to help his mother, made a plan to get Sunita murdered before she showed up in court; Sia and the others managed to hide the injured Sunita, but finally, just before she managed to enter the court, she was murdered, and Ammaji was out free.
The bigger question is now about whether in the future, Raghav will become a good guy, away from being the villain that he is now. Sia hates him, and the viewers also hate him.

Book: Emma by Jane Austen (1815)

Jane Austen wrote many books, with her most famous books being Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Mansfield Park (1814). Emma came after these 3, and has taken its time to become famous. Further, since Jane Austen chose to write her books anonymously, her books started becoming famous long after her death, with a biography by her nephew, written more than 50 years after her death, that awoke more interest in her. It was only in the early half of the 20th century that she started being acknowledged as a classical writer, and now her works are very famous. Jane Austen remained unmarried, dying at the relatively young age of 42, from an affliction that was not particularly known at that time, but which is now suspected to be Addison's disease or Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Like her other works, Emma was also a critique of the society of that time, where a woman's standing was supposed to be based on marriage, and it would be this marriage that would decide her economic and social security; even though her works have a strong touch of comedy to them.



Emma is essentially a novel that describes the life of a 21 year old girl called 'Emma Woodhouse'. She is not worried about finances, being comfortably off; however, she starts to believe that she is good at match-making and guiding who should marry whom, something that causes a lot of temporary changes in the lives of people around her; in the end, however, everybody settles down happily, including her. There are a number of characters in the novel, and you will need to read carefully to ensure that you don't miss any of the turns and twists of the story.
Emma lives with her father, and has just returned from the marriage of her former governess Miss Taylor, and since she had introduced Miss Taylor to her husband, Emma feels that she has a gift for match-making. One of her closest friends is a person called George Knightley, who is from the neighboring estate, as well as the brother of her sister Isabelle's husband. He is perhaps the only one who is able to criticize actions taken by Emma when he feels that she is wrong. Who is the first person on whom Emma tries out this ability of hers ? It is her new friend, the 17 year old Harriet Smith, who is very sweet, but not very bright.
And here starts the main story. Harriet has got a proposal from a rich farmer called Mr. Martin, but Emma has decided that Mr. Martin is not good enough for Harriet, she would be more suited to the local vicar, Mr. Elton. And then, the unthinkable as per Emma happens - Mr. Elton realizes that Emma is a better catch, and proposes to Emma. Her friends had realized that this would happen, but not Emma. When Emma tries to direct Mr. Elton to Harriet, Mr. Elton makes it plain that he considers Harriet below him, and leaves the place for a while.
The story introduces more characters, and spins around the lives and marriages of these folks, and is fairly interesting.

Book: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847)

Wuthering Heights is a classic of the Victorian Era, written by Emily Bronte (and released in 1847). This was the only work of fiction by Emily, although her more famous sister, Charlotte Bronte wrote many more works of fiction (including the very famous Jane Eyre). Wuthering Heights was released not under the name of Emily, but under a pseudonym of Ellis Bell (because there was a prejudice in society that time directed at female writers, and Charlotte was also writing under a different name). Emily died the next year, in 1848, and a second edition was released later in 1850, edited by Charlotte. Emily had a relatively short life, and lived only from 1818 to 1848, dying after contracting tuberculosis.
Wuthering Heights was not a great hit when it came out, given that depiction of relationships and am over-riding sense of revenge and cruelty ran through the book. However, over the years, the book has come to become much more respected, and is now considered a literary classic, with many considering it superior to Jane Eyre.



The narrative is essentially about how emotions can guide the behavior of a person, with feelings of rejection and hatred making a person spend his entire life in revenge, tormenting people, seeking to get revenge. It is also a tale of unrequited love, with the passionate love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw (a love that had a tragic ending) causing Heathcliff to spend his entire life in how to get revenge. The narrative jumps a bit between the present and past, and is presented by 2 characters - Mr. Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean, with the main setting of the novel starting in the year 1801.
The novel starts with Heathcliff, a young homeless orphan is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, and raised like another son. Heathcliff makes very close friends with the daughter, Catherine, although her brother, Hindley, does not like Heathcliff and mistreats him. After the death of Earnshaw, Hindley takes over as owner of Wuthering Heights, and badly treats Heathcliff. In the meanwhile, Catherine becomes close to a neighbor, Edgar Linton, something that Heathcliff does not like. He dislikes Linton.
Hindley's wife dies, and Hindley is in despair, taking on heavy drinking; around this time, Catherine decides to marry Linton, something that will profoundly affect Heathcliff. When Heathcliff leaves after feeling that Catherine considers it degrading to marry him, Catherine is struck by a fever, and Edgar Linton takes care of her, and in a couple of years, they get married. And then Heathcliff returns, having suddenly turned very wealthy, and intent on taking revenge on all those who prevented him from being with his love. He lends to Hindley, and then takes over Wuthering Heights after Hindley dies; further, he elopes with Linton's sister, Isabella, all for revenge. However, soon after, Catherine dies, with her and Heathcliff being reconciled just before her death.
Heathcliff becomes more angry, and hate prone, carrying on his hate onto the various children, Hindley's son Hareton, his own son Linton, and Catherine's and Edgar's daughter, also called Catherine. What will happen next, since eventually Isabella and Edgar Linton also die, leaving the various children at Heathcliff's mercy.

Movie: 300 (Released in 2007) - Historical battle and valour

The ancient world was replete with fights and wars. Armies travelled long distances to fight, and warfare was often with massive casualties. One of the most famous kings of the ancient times was Xerxes The Great (Xerxes 1 of Persia), and he was involved with one of the most famous battles of historic times. This was the Battle of Thermopylae (wikipedia), where a much smaller contingent of Greek troops led by the King Leonidas I of Sparta fought till the end to hold off a much larger contingent (in the millions) of Persian troops led by King Xerxes. This was a battle that is part of modern strategy because of the use of terrain planning to level the odds of superior armed forces. King Leonidas was also fighting a rear-guard battle with his Spartan council to get them to support him over this battle, and he wanted to shame them with his valiant sacrifice to take action. In the end, he was betrayed by a traitor (Ephialtes) from within the Greek citizenry who revealed a small path that allowed the Persians to outflank the small Greek army.



The movie is a copy of a graphic comic-book style novel by Frank Miller (with the novel having the same name), and is not a re-telling of the actual battle. It is a heavily dramatized telling of the story, and hence also became controversial. In Iran, the movie was heavily criticized because the movie did not portray the Persian army and its King in a very positive light. The movie was directed by Zack Snyder. The movie was also shot in a novel way, with the characters acting against the background of bluescreens in a Studio (shot in a digital backlot technique). This was seen as very innovative and got a lot of publicity. The score of the movie was also controversial because after release, it started becoming clear that the score seemed to be heavily inspired from other movies, and was eventually acknowledged by Warner Bros. Pictures in an official statement.
The movie is about the conflict between King Leonidas of Sparta and the Persian Emperor Xerxes. Xerxes wants the Greeks to acknowledge their submission to him, something the proud Spartan king refuses to accept. Leonidas now anticipates war, and wants the support of the Council of Sparta and the priesthood (Ephor), but the Ephors do not support him (they have been bought over by the Persians). Without this support, Leonidas sets out with a small force to fight at a superior terrain where we can fight and hold off the numerically many times superior Persians. And hence the battle starts at Thermopylae. where Leonidas refuses riches by Xerxes and promises to make him bleed. The Spartans used their tight formations to defeat the many thrusts by the Persians, but look set for defeat when they are betrayed and a secret path is shown to the Persians.
In Sparta, the Queen is trying to rally support, and eventually manages to get the Council united in battle against the Persians. Eventually, the Spartans are beaten by the sheer force of the Persians, but by this time, the Greeks send in a force that has a much higher number of warriors. With memories of losses against 300 Spartans, the Persian army is low on morale, and eventually lose the final battle, the Battle of Plataea (Wikipedia).

English Movie - The Last Samurai (2003) - starring Tom Cruise~

The Last Samurai is set during tumultuous times in both the United States and Japan. The movie is set during the 1870's, a decade after the American Civil War, a time when the United States fought an intense internal war between the forces of the Union and the Confederates. Similarly, there were dramatic changes going on in Japanese society at that time. The 'samurai' (warrior class) that were a major elements in Japanese society were losing their position and influence, and a proper military was starting to form. This was the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1867-1868 (wikipedia).
The story of the movie is about an old warrior, named Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), who is a veteran of the Indian wars (where the United States Army fought the Native Indian tribes), and who is traumatized by his role in a massacre of Native Indians. He is wandering around pretty aimlessly, making a living by recounting his adventures in gun shows, something that earns him a living, but does nothing to enliven his life.



However, he is a perpetual drunk, and is finally fired from his job; now he has pretty much no options other than to accept an offer to train the Imperial Japanese army (part of the growing western influences in Japan post the Meiji Restoration). This offer is made to him by his former commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn). Algren pretty much blames Bagley for his transgressions during the war, and has no love lost for him. This offer from Bagley is made on behalf of a Japanese businessman who has stakes in the restoration, called Mr. Omura (Masato Harada).
Algren goes about this task, training peasants and farmers in how to handle rifles as part of this training. However, in their first conflict, they come into battle with a group of rebel samurai warriors, led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe); the army is unequal to the battle and gets defeated by the samurai. One of Algren's colleagues is killed in this attack, and Algren himself fights valiantly, defeating and killing the brother-in-law of the samurai leader. In this fight, he uses a spear with a flag of a white tiger, and Katsumoto believes that to be an omen, and spares Algren's life and takes him prisoner.
Algren is now prisoner at a remote village, living in the house of Hirotaro, whom he had killed. In this village, Algren finally starts to become more at peace him himself, and also starts to really learn the art of wielding the samurai sword as well as learn the Japanese language. In a fight with ninja assassins who had attacked the village, Algren fights along with the samurai, and manages to give a good account of himself even though the samurai take several losses.
With spring, Algren is now back in Tokyo, but now refuses to support Omura in his battle with the samurai, and at the same time, Katsumoto is arrested even after offering advice to the emperor. Algren manages to help Katsumoto regain his freedom, even though in this effort, Katsumoto's son, Nobutada (Shin Koyamada) is killed. After regaining his freedom, Katsumoto learns that a better equipped army unit is going to attack a much smaller samurai force, and it is there that Algren recalls the Battle of Thermopylae, where a much smaller force used better technology and the advantage of terrain to defeat a much larger army.
This comes true as the samurai are able to lead the larger army into a trap, however, soon the samurai realize that the army will get backup units, and another such battle will mean defeat. They resolve to make an attack of their own. However, they face canon fire, something that proves murderous, and then a second unit of infantry. In a battle, Algren kills Bagley when Bagley attacks Katsumoto; but then the second line of Gatling guns hit the samurai as they advance. The Japanese army, then ceases fire in respect of the samurai. Katsumoto ends his life.
In the end, as the emperor prepares to sign a deal with American ambassadors that would make the US as the exclusive dealers for firearms, Algren presents Katsumoto's sword to the emperor; the emperor understands the message and refuses to sign the deal, and also reduces Omura's powers and influence when he objects. Algren returns for the peace he finally found to the small Japanese village.

Track listing:
"A Way of Life"– 8:03
"Spectres in the Fog"– 4:07
"Taken"– 3:36
"A Hard Teacher"– 5:44
"To Know My Enemy"– 4:48
"Idyll's End"– 6:40
"Safe Passage"– 4:56
"Ronin"– 1:53
"Red Warrior"– 3:56
"The Way of the Sword"– 7:59
"A Small Measure of Peace"– 7:59

Book: Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan (1997)

Carl Sagan was a famous scientist, teacher, and writer of books and creator of the series Cosmos, creations that tried to popularize science and increase the concept of free and logical thinking. Carl Sagan died in 1996 of the disease myelodysplasia (Wikipedia), after a long medical treatment. This death was a great loss to science, given that Sagan died at the fairly young age of 62 (he probably had a number of books, lectures and television series still in him, something that would have done much more to popularize science). This book is composed of essays written by Carl Sagan on different subjects, and was published after his death by his widow Ann Druyan. The title of the book is a spoof on the term 'Billions and Billions', a term that was never uttered by Sagan, but which was used satirically in various ways including by TV standup comedians.



Chapters of the book:

Part I: The Power and Beauty of Quantification
1. Billions and Billions
2. The Persian Chessboard
3. Monday Night Hunters
4. The Gaze of God and the Dripping Faucet
5. Four Cosmic Questions
6. So Many Suns, So Many Worlds

Part II: What Are Conservatives Conserving?
7. The World That Came In The Mail
8. The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?
9. Croesus and Cassandra
10. A Piece of the Sky Is Missing
11. Ambush: The Warming of the World
12. Escape from Ambush
13. Religion and Science: An Alliance

Part III: Where Hearts and Minds Collide
14. The Common Enemy
15. Abortion: Is It Possible to Be Both "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice"
16. The Rules of the Game
17. Gettysburg and Now
18. The Twentieth Century
19. In the Valley of the Shadow

The book is worth reading for the essays.

Hindi Serial - Ladies Special on Sony TV - Story of 4 different ladies

Ladies Special is a show that started fairly recently on Sony TV (premiered on May 25, 2009). It is shown on weekdays, Monday - Thursday at the prime time of 9:30 PM. The name of the serial is based on the train service only for ladies, called 'Ladies Special'. The show takes 4 ladies from different age groups, and covers their daily challenges, problems, accomplishments. It is yet another quest to make a serial that is different from all the family drama that used to dominate serials earlier.
The serial tries to take an unromantic look at life, a theme that was started with Nukkad and has been shown in several other shows; the concept is still relevant if the shows are realistic and do not drag.



The 4 ladies that are the main characters of this show are (details at this link):
1. Neena Gupta (plays Shubha Joshi). Her life gets upset when she realized that her husband (Akash Khurana) had a second wife in Pune, and she decides to leave and move into a separate flat. She had left her job and left the Ladies Special, but now needs to find a job and resume travel on the train.
2. Shilpa Tulaskar (plays Nanda Shinde). Middle aged, mid 30's. Has 2 children, including a daughter in school (15 years old). Her life in the serial is geared towards meeting the challenges in her children's life, as well as forming a wonderful husband-wife pair.
3. Ashita Dhawan (plays Bubbly Chaddha). Is Bubbly like her name, works in a private company as a receptionist, and lives a life based on EMI's and installments. Always boasting about riches she does not have, her life is getting into a trap of money repayments and money problems.
4. Payal Sarkar (plays Pooja Singh). Newly married, Pooja is in the honeymoon like period of early marriage, but her marriage to Harsh Chhaya is slowly revealing that her husband is dominating, and abusive. She slowly gathers the courage to make an independent life.

Videos of Ladies Special on Sony (on Youtube)
Ladies Special 14 Jul 09 1:



Ladies Special 14 Jul 09 2



Ladies Special 14 Jul 09 3



Ladies Special 14 Jul 09 4



Ladies Special 14 Jul 09 5

Hindi Serials - Balika Vadhu on Colors - Sugna's marriage problems

Sugna seems to be the character used to symbolize many of the problems facing women. She was married off at a young age, and her 'Gauna' (sending off to the groom's (Pratap's) house), an occasion of great celebration and joy, turned dismal when her husband, Pratap was killed by dacoits during the course of a robbery. Her in-laws blamed her for the death of her husband, and as a result, it was quite clear that Sugna could not live in their house; she remained in her parents house, and adapted the lifestyle of a widow (living in a small room, eating simple food, not enjoying life). Soon, it was the presence of Farida Jalal who forced some changes in the way Sugna lived her life, getting her to go back to school, and start enjoying some of the more simple pleasures of life.
And then enters a new character, called Shyam, a young guy, who is actually the son of Madan, a neighbor from the village who has a long standing feud with Kalyani and her sons, and keeps fighting with them over many issues. Shyam likes Sugna and slowly gets more attracted to her (he also saves Jagdish's life once), and eventually proposes to her. Initially Kalyani is not happy over this, but she turns around over a period of time, since it also means that Sugna would get married again. There is a lot of issue about this, since Sugna used to meet Pratap before her Gauna and is pregnant with Pratap's child (even though Sugna was not supposed to have a physical relationship with Pratap before the Gauna, and this pregnancy horrifies Kalyani, given the social problems this would cause).
Eventually, Kalyani agrees for the marriage, and Shyam knows about the pregnancy, and is fine with it. Madanji is not told about the pregnancy since Shyam volunteers to share the information with his father. And soon, it is time for the marriage. However, Kalyani's hopes that the pregnancy would get hidden go for a toss when Sugna is not supposed to do the 7 pheras around the fire because of her pregnancy; and this is when it is realizes that Shyam has not told anyone about this pregnancy. Both his elder uncle and father object vehemently, and make the information (that was supposed to be kept a secret) public. Shyam so far has been not following his father's orders, and sticks to his stand that he has come to marry Sugna and will do so.

BALIKA VADHU 8th July PART-1


BALIKA VADHU 8th July PART-2


BALIKA VADHU 8th July PART-3


BALIKA VADHU 8th July PART-4


BALIKA VADHU 8th July PART-5

Bhagyavidhaata serial on Colors

Serials nowadays are trying to be more socially conscious, a number of them saw how the previously popular saas-bahu serials started losing attention, and then saw how a serial such as Ballika Vadhu that takes a social issue can become very popular, and so a number of serials have jumped onto the same league of having socially active serials. So there are serials dealing with child marriage, dealing with the condition of poor in society, dealing with caste differences, and so on.
So, Colors has very recently launched another serial called, "Sabki Jodi Wohi Banaata… Bhagyavidhaata", and the motif of the serial is about, how in Bihar's lopsided society, the difficulty of getting a poor and average looking girl married off is so difficult that people came up with the idea of getting their girls married off by force, through kidnapping the groom, and under the pressure of force, getting him married to their girl. It is not so however for the girl after that, since her in-laws would not readily accept her (after all, if they were looking for nice dowry, then they would feel cheated, and since it is assumed that the boy's side has an upper hand, getting the boy married by force would not appeal).



And so it is in the case of Bindiya, who is an educated girl with morals and values, but is from a not so well off family, and who is average looking. Her brother, using force, kidnaps a valued boy, and gets her married off to this boy, who is not able to forcefully resist because of the guns all around him. However, since he does not feel any relation to her, and because the rest of his household (except for his elder brother) do not like the situation other, they ill-treat her, making her do all the work in the house. Her elder sister-in-law (the elder bahu of the house), in fact, screams at her all the time and otherwise also makes her do all the work of the house. Even her father is not treated well when he comes to their house. However, what will happen now ? Will she ever get proper treatment from a household that feels that they were forced into doing something ?

Videos of Bhagyavidhata on Youtube

Bhagyavidhata 6 may 09 part 1:


Bhagyavidhata 6 may 09 part 2:


Bhagyavidhata 6 may 09 part 3

Indian Hindi Serials - Na Aana Iss Des Laado on Colors TV

As you see shows moving away from the Saas Bahu, a lot of the shows are moving towards stories based on social problems, whether they be about class differences such as in Uttaran, or about underage marriage as in Ballika Vadhu, or about female infanticide, such as in 'Na Aana Is Desh Ladoo' on Colors TV. The show deals with the concept of female infanticide and repression of women in a village. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprising), the repression of women is fully supported by another strong woman, Ammaji. Ammaji is the one who decides that a woman has asserted herself too much and needs to be pushed into a small closed and suffocating room, it is Ammaji who decrees that newly born girls would be killed by drowning them in milk, and many other such acts.



However, Ammaji is slowly starting to meet resistance. The daughter of a new doctor in the village, Sia, is slowly starting to rebel against the practices implemented by Ammaji that are very anti-women. In a twist, Sia falls in love with Ammaji's own son Raghav (who has also rebelled against the family - however, we were long speculating that Sia would in fact fall for one of Ammaji's family members and would have to withstand Ammaji's pressures and methods), and finally after some long thought and a lot of drama, decided that she would get married to Raghav.
Against all expectations, Ammaji seems to welcome the marriage, however, you cannot expect this welcome to continue, and so it would be. There will be happenings where Sia will come under a lot of pressure, and Ammaji would seem to gain the upper hand.

Video of Na Aana Is Desh Ladoo on 10 June 2009 on Youtube









More videos of Na Aana Iss Desh Ladoo on Youtube (click here)