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Showing posts from September, 2018

The importance of unpleasant truths

In India many believe in the principle "Satyam bruyat, priyam bruyat, na bruyat satyam apriyam, priyam ca nanrutam bruyat esha dharmah sanatanah".  It can be translated as "Speak the truth.  Speak pleasantly.  Do not speak unpleasant truths.  Even though pleasant, don't lie".  However, I do not agree with this principle.  I will explain. In the movie Harikrishnans (a Malayalam movie), Juhi Chawla feeds Mohanlal and Mammootty (heroine feed the two heroes) food with too much chilly powder and salt. Believing this principle they didn't say anything and continued eating that food. But, it had a negative effect on her. She got extremely offended that they didn't take the freedom to tell her the truth. I would have felt the same. I like it when people tell me unpleasant truths (apriya sathyam). I have often wondered why.  I believe the following interaction from the movie Prestige gives us some insight: Alfred Borden: Everything's going to be all righ

Purpose of Marriage, for dummies

The caption for 2d-life's Facebook page reads "reflections on the silver screen". A reflection need not always show just the beautiful side in you. It will often show the ugly. This post is going to be like that. I will be venting out some pent-up frustration, anger and irritation. So, take everything I am going to say with a judicious amount of salt. These words certainly reflect my beliefs and thoughts, but my mind might be clouded on this issue. One of the many reasons why I like anime is the fact that they are more willing to accept certain things. I am going to talk about one such "truth" never expressed in such poetic words elsewhere. This truth is the purpose of marriage. At one point in my life, I was sincerely confused about whether to marry or not. To find an answer, I sought the purpose of marriage to my elders. After talking to many people, I had collected an extensive list of lofty reasons to get married. I want to stress that not o

Humanity as one piece

Japanese society appears to be very formal and they are known for their extremely polite manner of speech. However, if you have watched any shonen anime, you would notice the hero is nothing like that. The heroes generally speak in a very casual manner with no special reverence to anyone. This has always puzzled me. Firstly, how exactly do they pull it off? Secondly, how are the parents OK with showing such behaviour to teenage kids? As someone who received a lot of criticism during childhood for the way I behaved, I was always curious to know what is the secret towards being irreverent without being offensive. And I have always hoped I would find an answer in anime. And finally, I feel I have found a key to the answer in One piece. Needless to say at this point that I would actually be talking about a certain episode of One Piece. I assure you that people who have not seen One piece would very well be able to follow this post. But, if you are afraid of spoilers, you sh