2d-life;

Buddha told us about the existence of suffering, the cause of suffering and the path to liberation from suffering through his four noble truths. I feel that hidden in a famous comedy scene from the film " Vettam " is another noble truth about the nature of suffering. The volley of dialogues is as follows Hero: According to my horoscope, I have bad times till I am 20. Heroine: And, after that...? Hero: He said I will get used to it. This is a truth about the nature of suffering I have realised time and again. Namely, We get used to suffering. When I started having neck pain, I used to find it unbearable. After several years, now I can easily manage. I can even ignore it most of the time. Similarly, I have an artificial aortic valve. The clock-like sound it makes used to disturb me a lot initially. I used to find it difficult to sleep. Now, I cannot hear it unless I concentrate. In the famous book "Oru deshathinte katha ", S.K. Pottekatt portrays t...

It was a holiday for me, but not for my father. He had very few holidays. He was preparing to leave. As usual, I rushed to open the gates for him. While opening the gates, the gate slid over my toe and took my thumbnail off. It was extremely painful. As there was a meeting my father had to attend, he left to his office. However, he returned home soon after the meeting. After coming back, he read out Lee Falk's Phantom for me. I was not old enough to read on my own. I still remember the story he read out to me, the story of Hanta witch. Absorbed in the story I soon forgot my pain. That was when I realised that you can forget pain by distracting yourself. Years passed by. I have suffered much greater pains. And, this trick saved me almost every time. Along with a strong disbelief in an inherent purpose for life, this experience made distractions from life the sole purpose of life. Ironic, isn't it. By "Phantom, The #12". Grand Comics Database ...

Naruto is an anime with many lessons - both direct and indirect. Among the direct lessons, namely advice, my favourite is Ino's advice to Sakura. Simple yet powerful. And of great significance in our society. People are often ashamed about some of their attributes - colour, build, hair, etc. And they try to hide them. In this process, they often get ridiculed even more. Why? Becuase, you are implicitly telling that you are ashamed of it. You are giving them the stick to beat you. Afraid that people will tease her, Sakura hides her big forehead. Ino advises sakura to stop this. She urges her to proudly display her forehead instead and gifts a ribbon to do so. And, Sakura (cherry blossoms) starts to bloom.

Humans tend to seek causal link between events that always or generally occur together.  "Correlation is not causation" or "correlation does not imply causation"  is a phrase in statistics or science, in general, to warn against this fallacy.  Even smart people tend to make this mistake.  Hence, this phrase has gained importance. Due to its importance, people have come up with various examples illustrating the mistake.  Surprisingly, among all the examples I have seen, a movie dialogue did the best job, at least in my opinion.  This is a dialogue from one of the many brilliant comedy scenes from the Malayalam film Punjabi house. In the film, one of the characters says "I do not eat chapati and hence I do not know Hindi".  Eating chapati and knowing Hindi is certainly correlated.  Chapati is predominantly a food of North India and Hindi is a language of North India.  However, as is obvious to all of us, there is no causal link. ...

-----SPOILER ALERT----- Arrival was an amazing experience. Firstly, it is the first alien film I have seen, in which they are not here to kill us.  That itself is a breath of fresh air.  Given that it is not about killing each other, we need to communicate. This leads to several interesting ideas.  Would we be able to communicate with an alien species?  Many linguists believe that communication between people speaking different languages on earth was possible because there are a lot of basic similarities between any two languages.  Some also believe that this "Universal grammar" is wired in the brain.  Now a sentient species from another planet might have a very different brain.  So, it does not seem obvious that we might be able to communicate with each other.  In the movie, however, different the language might have looked, followed a "Universal grammar" similar to languages on earth.  Notice that the book written by Louise (...

Godavari is one of the first few Telugu movies I watched and I enjoyed it a lot. I think it is one of the best romantic movies. The love is so mutual. Most love stories are one sided. The guy or the girl is perfect (at least in the other person's eyes) and it is this perfection that they fall in love with. So much so that they are afraid to compare their loved ones with the moon, as even the moon is tainted! I think the use of "Shwetambara dhare devi" in the Malayalam movie Thattathin marayathu is the peak. In this film Godavari , neither are perfect. However, they fit each other well. Moreover, there is very little importance for the physical attraction between the two. The love develops slowly. I mean, as slow as possible in a film. And the film ends where their love story begins. So, it is a unique love story. The setting of the movie is even better. Most of the story happens during a pilgrimage on the Godavari from Rajahmundry to Bhadrachalam. And this...

For me, the saddest death in Naruto, is undoubtedly, Yashamaru's death. Let me say a few words about why I think so. For me death by itself is not sad. I would in fact say that death is a blessing for the one who is dying. It is sad for those who are left behind. From that perspective I think Yashamaru's death is the saddest. Yashamaru was the only comforting figure in the life of Gaara. The moment it is revealed that the assassin who tried to kill him was that same Yashamaru was heart breaking. The way Gaara cries "Yashamaru.." still resonates in my mind. Loneliness is one of the central themes of the anime. And, that scene captures it so magnificently. One of the most touching moments in the anime. There are several other deaths for which I shed a lot of tears. Like the deaths of Haku or Zabuza or Jiraiya or Obito. But they truly shine through their deaths. As Jiraiya himself says "The true measure of a shinobi is not how he lives but how h...