Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty… For tonight, we dine in hell!

Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas, Spartans and Xerxes are the flavor of the season. Yours truly went last week to catch the movie on theatres and after less than 2 hours does have a few things about the movie and hence the banter. No, no this ain’t the countless reviews you have come across of the movie but of different variety. the movie though was full of cosmetic visual imagery, it was nothing short of a mammoth epic of the scale of Gladiator. Still the Gerald Butler starer has its share of positives. What stuck me apart from eloquent dialogues and stunning visual imagery was the scale of imagination of the team involved and the guts to base a movie on the exploits of 300 Spartan soldiers at the battle of Thermopylae. Well a novel attempt all the way round.

Few days later I came upon a cartoon in Gulf News and it showed Tony Blair as Leonidas and Ahamedinajad as Xerxes and it was so designed to echo the sailor crisis of Britain with Iran. It was thought provoking nevertheless to say except the roles had to be reversed!
The courage and valor of Spartans against Persians was so beautifully depicted. It reminded me of an earlier Hollywood attempt with regards to portray Alexander and the battle sequence with the Persians. There I think the person was Darius III. It also showed the ruthlessness of the Persian army. It made me wondering. so numbers don’t win battles after all!!! Possible.. strategies do!! possible. But why doesn’t the land that make these movies understand this. America has a sizable percentage of its forces spread all over Asia and still cant get the equation right in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, no not another rounding in America analysis but to cut a long story short, the movie 300 showed us how the insurgents work in Iraq and Afghanistan. What do you have is armed groups with catch phrase as in the top out to defeat the armies of the Xerxes’s of the world. Can anything stop it? It dint stop the Spartas and Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae against the Persians….will it so for the insurgents?

Sachin Tendulkar: Stubborn Sunset

Sachin: The name invokes passion, anger, madness, charm..name any emotion and it is there. Sachin is there exhibiting. There was a time when the very mention of the name used to inspire an Indian with the willow!! Tendulkar had the nation with him. He took us through an odyssey, unforgettable one..Whenever India wins he got the credit, lost still he was not there in the picture. Even 2007 World Cup wont be any different. How much Chappel tries, the master blaster gets away unhurt!! That’s the way our country is..We have the Mumbai lobby who can scuttle anything and everything. So what if Gavaskar bats days and days for 60 runs!! Are you bothered ? Tendulkar performs well against minnows and against when it matters he can get away with all the time. This man should have receded long time back and now as a cancer is still there!! What to do ? Cancer sometimes never goes…It takes you with it.
I am not a cricket analyst nor a commentator of the gentleman’s game. But, I certainly do know one thing. Its that the miserable state of affairs in our eam can be singularly attributed to many factors and one of the main ones in Tendulkar/ the inertia caused by his actions in the team. An year back when Ganguly was kicked around in the team nobody noticed the master political game that was being played in the background by Tendulkar. I have always believed that Tendulkar was never an unifying force in the team. He was uninspiring in his two stints as the captain. He was also weak in many ways…As he was plagued by injuries is greed for money was paramount. One incident that lost my opinion about him was the Ferrari incident. For him the customs duty was a small amount and was easil payable. When he asked for a rebate, the NDA government did not want to antagonise an cricket crazy India during election year, yielded.
In the present scenario this man will escape unscathed. We have lambs in the form of Chappel and Dravid!!

Real beauty

Real beauty campaign of Dove is attracting people to think differently. Now with this campaign its like more or less a level playing field. I have always wondered whenever we buy a cosmetic or any fashion apparel we see models who are picture perfect.. I have never ever felt like one after using a soap or a fairness cream or a shampoo…never till date. It was always like that and I never gave much respect or importance to this things. Because they are so unattainable. I always believed that beauty is natural and it should have no colour caste or creed. Advertisements most of the time show these bias. Ever noticed how the fairness cream adverts have only fair people in them. Looks like blackies don’t have a chance. Similarly soaps you have picture perfect, waxed models jumping here and there or with showpiece boyfriends in bed…Life is never like that!! But things are changing and the admission by Dove is commendable nevertheless to say….inspiring. The cosmetic market is one built on make belief. It required 5 Miss Worlds and 2 Miss Universe titles to make the world’s second largest democracy beauty conscious!! Still its all in the mind!!

Barack Obama and the Law of Infinite Growth and Hope

“We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential”

Well it was recently while I was glancing through the channels on my telly that I came upon this segment on Oprah Winfrey where for the first time in my life that I heard Barack Obama speak and boy he did blow me off royally.
Seldom, very seldom in one’s life span that you come across visionaries, nevertheless people with idea, hope for the future. I have seen people who do a lot of yak-yak in their life….too many but when it comes to practice never makes it. Well I pray Obama don’t belong to that category but of a different mould.
It was in the year 2000 that there was this election between the present incumbent George Bush and Al Gore. Well to be honest I was pretty much distressed with the way Clinton was functioning. Silly putting himself with a sex scandal, not solving the problems of Middle East, he seemed a strong president minus direction. Bush, I went through his profile while he served as the governor and I was sure he was the man (I still believe him to the man for the purpose) to solve the problems of the world and of America.
I dont subscribe to the people who believe that America should be bothered with its own business and not meddle where it is not called for. I believe America has a serious and most important role to play in our times as the reigning super power of the world to create a change and a huge change. When we look at old civilisations like Roman, Greek, British etc, I believe America has never ever behaved like any of them but the scrutiny it faces today shows that the country of infinite possibilities is on the right track. Bush fitted the bill and I know that in this world I will be among the few people who still believe in that man and his vision.
One cannot deny the fact that Bush’s agenda for change was altered by the events of 9/11. Today as many do question 9/11 events whether they happened so or by chance, I still believe that they had to happen…..period!!
Clinton never understood the way thing changed. In the early centuries specially towards the Renaissance period, Christian faith had to endure a lot of problems along with the emergence of Protestantism, Reformation and subsequent industrialisation. With due respect to the Muslim faith I believe that the Muslim world is also facing the same problem as you have educated people in the form of reformists questioning the faith and the conservationists trying to hold their sway. It’s a win-win situation as it helps the religion to grow and promotes better understanding as it did with Christianity.
I was one of the many people who were upset with what Pope Benedict XVI told about Prophet Muhammed (P.B.U.H). One of my colleagues as I worked in Zirku Island came to me complaining the naive reasoning of a person so reputed as the Pope. Well it was like shooting yourself in the leg. Today is the time where we need reasoning that comes with patience and in this fast moving world that is seldom the case. Obama with parents having distinct religions promises to infuse the right spirit that is needed at this time. We need is an understanding of the faiths in a better way. What we need is people of education, sense of knowledge running the affairs of the place. Obama well through his words pin-point to the right direction no doubt.
Analysing Bush’s presidency, I feel that man in-spite of having advisers like Cheney who had to shoot his best pal during hunting! has done a great deal through his endeavors. Today understanding among people regarding Islam is at an all time high. Previously closed societies of Arabia are growing at a staggering pace. It amused me to hear about elections in Arab countries, cartoon exhibitions in Saudi Arabia. Times are changing. We need is judicious change with customs intact…Growth will come naturally!! No doubt.
Mr Obama I am waiting for 2008. Maybe in this Age of Aquarius you are our man for the job!!