Beauty- The Outside Matters More

I'm sure we all know about the old, old adage, "True Beauty comes from the inside", and the one that usually follows it in a conversation, "Its whats on the inside that matters." Its been totted out to us ever since we were 5 years old and continues to be told to us by well meaning and pitying relatives, friends, colleagues and sometimes, embarrassingly, random strangers.

All of us, yes, even the stunningly beautiful ones, take some comfort and solace from these well meaning words. I mean, how can we not. We nurture a small hope in our foolish little human hearts that someday, sometime, people might actually start judging us for what we think rather than for how we look. And this my friends, is yet another example of how the human race manages to delude itself every single day, even if we do have large IQs and even larger brains.

Its actually been proven by several University studies that 74% of any first impression is based on looks. The nicer a person looks, the nicer the impression that forms in the mind of the other. If the person is drop dead gorgeous, or an extremely attractive and healthy specimen of mankind, then the whole impression may be very favourable, just based on that. The fact that the person may or may not be possessing a good personality is of no consequence until five minutes later. And usually, by that time, the damage is already done.

I mean, think about it objectively. If looks didn't matter, why would there be a thriving beauty and fashion industry? Earlier, looking good was limited to the physical attributes we were born with. If we had a bad nose, we would try to emphasize out nice eyes to draw attention away from it. Today, we'd walk into the nearest plastic surgeon's office and buy ourselves a new nose. Custom made. Its fantastic, I tell you. Now, we have the ability to design our faces...replace the minor flaws and sometimes correct the major ones.

Most of you reading this may relate this to relationships and romantic liaisons, but I'm talking about everything here. Absolutely everything. Looks matter when you walk into a board room, they matter when you attend social functions and they definitely matter when you are trying to seduce or entice someone.

When we go for interviews, we make sure we look our best. Guys shave carefully, and the hair is tames and combed back. Suits and ties are checked and shoes are polished. We all stand a little straighter, look a little cleaner and smile a little brighter. For the women, we all rush into the beauty parlour and aspire to conform to the idea of modern feminine beauty. We are waxed, primped, permed, exfoliated and frosted to an inch of our lives. We put on smart clothes that emphasize good physical attributes and hide the bad ones. And then, feeling confident, we walk into the interview room. The same can be said for people attending board meetings, meetings, or anything else business/ career related.

Its a basic need that we have inside us. The need to look good. We've inherited it from the oldest life forms on earth. Every organism has some way or primping and looking good. Even animals groom themselves and painstakingly maintain themselves. All to look good.

Basically, looking good matters. A lot. So all of you who think that it does not, stop deluding yourself and start doing something to look good. Its essential.

More than looking good, we need to look appealing. Yes, there is a difference between the two. Our outer looks need to appeal to other people. We cannot afford to repulse them. Our society is actually built around looking our very best. While in the company of exalted people, we feel the need to dress up. When an impression matters to us, we always make an effort. Always.

So all you people out there who think that you can get by with an amazing personality but not-very-appealing looks, wake up! Hit the gym, go to the parlour, use the myriad of beauty and skin care products available, go to a plastic surgeon and get some good clothes. If you want to survive, you're going to need it.

Reality TV- Just how real should television get?

Reality TV. Everyone's aware of the term now, right from the octogenarian with the walker to a three year old in kindergarten. I mean, who hasn't heard of American Idol (or any of the other miscellaneous nations Idols), So You Think You an Dance, Project Runway, Top Design, America's Next Top Model (and its other spin offs), yada yada yada..?

Everyone has, that's the answer. And while some shows are authentic and entertaining to watch, some are just plain ridiculous. Big Brother is one show that I just cannot seem to understand. What is the point in the whole thing? Sure, publicity for the contestants, but what do the people who watch it get? Utter Stupidity. Occasionally, some swearing and petty politics too.

That's what entertainment has come down to. Big Drama queens crying about how people are racists, while throwing some lovely racist jibes herself.

For some people, its a great platform, and I can respect that. For all the dancers, singers, actors, models, cooks and inventors out there, its a great opportunity. It gives them a platform to exhibit their talents, and maybe even get a chance of making it big in their chosen career. But even these shows are injected with doses of high drama which are absolutely unnecessary.

For some other shows, however, like the Biggest Loser series, or Big Brother, well..there is no point to it at all! people spend an hour of their lives, every week or every day, watching utter drivel when they could actually be watching something else that could make some sense.

Plus, these shows influence people so much that its sickening to watch. I've seen people act like the people they see on TV, and opinions and idea are shaped by it too. people stop thinking themselves, and start thinking like reality TV stars. Yes, it can be argued that regular TV and movies also have the same effect on people, but Reality TVs influence seems to be greater.

Lately, there's this show called Rakhi ka Swayamvar. A very controversial item girl, glorified actress, is choosing her groom through a reality TV show. People are actually competing in the farce, and even worse, people are watching it. Just today, I read that it had the highest ratings for on the network it ran in. And it beat some of the other programs in the other networks too. A woman, who's choosing her future husband from a bunch of petty games...on national television. It just cannot get any more pathetic that that, it simply can't.

Kids these days don;t know what documentaries are, unless they are forced to watch them at school. No one watches stuff like the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet anymore. Watching people bicker and fight is apparently way more interesting than learning about something constructive. Almost educative.

Not that I'm saying that's all you should watch, being a Movie junkie myself. Plus, watching Bold and the Beautiful is pretty dumb too. Life isn't ever as boring, or as complicated as that. And the acting often sucks.

Its basically seeing yourself. reality TV is based on people from real life. Its based on you. Its basically watching yourself doing things that you would normally do, or seeing the way you would react, but only on National Television. And, if there is a difference, we tend to take that trait and incorporate it into ourselves until we become a reality TV star's mental clone. Really.

When you have yourself, why turn to others? Its just not worth it at all.

But seriously, people, get some taste. Please look, really look, at what you watch. Is it stupid? Or is it genuinely worth your time? I mean, why do you want to under mime yourself by watching something that is totally not worth your time? Or the neurons?

Next time you watch reality TV, think about what you're watching. Dumbing yourself down for an hour to watch something stupid is absolutely not worth it.

Nothing is worth that.

WW2 Was A Man Eat Man Time. Literally.

When people think of Thomas Harris and Hannibal Lector, they seldom think of the circumstances that made Hannibal a cannibal. They think, instead, of the gruesome crimes he has committed, and the psychological, monstrous genius he had become. They think of The Red Dragon and the Silence of the Lambs, they think of the first noel, Hannibal.

But seldom do people actually look into the reasons behind which Hannibal was actually created. Thomas Harris did write a book explaining that too. he wrote Hannibal Rising, which showed the circumstances behind the transformation of an innocent boy into a monster.

I was watching the movie, Hannibal Rising today, that that showed me vividly how Thomas Harris meant the book to turn out. In most cases, books are often better than the movies, but this was a rare exception. While the story of a young boy and his sister ran through my head, I could not help but think about Cannibalism in general, and why it was carried out extensively during WW2.

WW2 was a bloody war. We had the Holocaust at the time, genocide and a million other atrocities to deal with. the allied powers tried, and to some degree, succeeded to curb the growing Nazi power, but they could not save the millions of civilians and soldier who lost their lives, their homes, their innocence and finally themselves in this terrible war.

Before I launch into the words that have been bothering me for the whole day, you ought to know about the cannibalism that took place. In some cases, it was the necessity to stay alive. In others, it was darker.

On the eastern Front, Cannibalism was carried out because people did not have enough food to eat. People began killing each other, and hiding food supplies just so they could keep their loved ones alive through the terrible havoc that was all around them. In Russia, parents killed each others' children just o their young ones could stay alive. Those were dark times, when people began to forget all about society, even humanity, just so they could survive the war.

With the Japanese, however, cannibalism had taken its darkest form. Japanese soldiers ate the flesh of their enemies to somehow impose their victory over them. Their bodies, instead of being honourably laid to rest, were being thrust inside their oppressor's body and then being excreted as the lowest form of defilement, human feces, before it returned to the dust from which it had been shaped.

Many bodies of the allied soldiers could be found on Japanese soil, with their arms, legs, buttocks, face and chest neatly carved out. Only the face and the feet remained uneaten by the Japanese. Even their own comrades turned to food if they perished in the warfare. Horror stories of entire villages being given human remains to sustain themselves were actually true.

Reports tell us of Japanese barracks that were found littered with the carved out bodies of enemy soldiers, and mess tins had been found filled with cooked, raw and dried human flesh, all used to nourish the Japaneses soldiers. One Indian soldier tell of how, when in the clutches of the Japanese, one man was chosen everyday to be slaughtered like a pig so that the Japanese captors could feast on his flesh. That terror still plagues him, to this very day.

There were other instances of cannibalism too, this time in Nazi concentration camps. Some of the crueler and darker Nazi oppressors encouraged cannibalism in their camps, using it both as a physical and psychological weapon. Jews were often slaughtered, their flesh was given to their family members as food. This was often done in families where there were small children. In desperation, the family would feed the children their mother's of their father's or their sibling's flesh, all to keep them alive.

Of course, there are other reports of cannibalism, but it was at its peak during WW2.

Now that you know all there is to know, perhaps the bare bones of the matter, I can say what I want to say. Express myself on this matter.

Cannibalism, for a very long time, has been the ultimate taboo. It is the ultimate taboo. It is beyond the boundaries of basic human decency to partake in the flesh of another human being, not matter what the circumstance.

But in WW2, for the Russians and the Jews, the circumstances were dire enough. they had to eat, or they would die. they had to feed their children, even if it meant killing others. Even babies were sometimes killed so that another child could be fed.

Many novels, documentaries, films, books and historic accounts have tried to give an account o all the horror that was unleashed upon the people during this time. Some accounts have tried to explain the circumstances, and justify the act of eating human flesh while the others have self righteously condemned it, and condemned the people who practiced it.

In the case of the Russians, and the Jews, not all, but the few who really were driven by necessity, I think that it was justified. All of us who sit at home now, and read about this can find it very easy to pass judgment on them. Now, we have a clear view of whats right and whats wrong. But in a war, nothing is right, and very often, everything is wrong. Boundaries are blurred, and only survival matters. When that happens, there are no more rules. Everything is free game.

What the Japanese did, however, was something atrocious. It wasn't necessity. They had food supplies. They weren't starved. Their act of cannibalism, in most cases, was born out of a need to fully overpower the enemy, and establish superiority. It was a way in which only the coldest human beings could behave, and those human beings were so cold that they were monsters They did not have a shred of humanity left in them. The war had taken away everything they had, and then some.

But that doesn't excuse them from the crimes they committed.

Those of you who are religious may believe that they will be punished in the afterlife. For people like me, who don't believe in God, all I can hope is that they lived with the guilt till the day they died. I hope they were able to actually feel guilt for all they had done, for all the live they had taken, and more importantly, for everyone they had eaten. They had despoiled the sanctity of the dead, and I hope they were plagued by the consequences of their actions for the rest of their life.

As for what took place in the German Concentration camps, making other people forcibly resort to cannibalism was actually worse than partaking in such a venture themselves. Just death wasn't enough for them.

I have a lot more to say, but, I guess it all boils down to how strongly I feel about this. I can;t find the words to express what I'm feeling, so I will leave it at this.

Adieu.

Slumdog Millionaire: Was it honestly that good?

Slumdog Millionaire has become the new global sensation. Come on, a heartwarming story about a boy from the slums who wins a million rupees AND gets the girl is irresistible. Danny Boyle certainly struck gold when he decided to work on this film.

While everyone around the world has appreciated this movie and places it among one of the best movies ever made, I feel some disquiet. Was it really that good? I don't think so. I'm an Indian, so the scenes I saw made a small, rather than large, impression on me. I knew how the system worked, and was a bit skeptical about the whole storyline.

Maybe it was because the story was just pushing it a bit. It was an all round happy ending, which let me tell you, is rare in India. While I'm not saying that the film is bad, I'm not saying that it was good either. I certainly don't think it deserved the Oscar for the best film.

There are Indians who vehemently oppose and ridicule this movie for no concrete reasons. Some people protest that Danny Boyle did not portray the good in India, that he did not show its beauty.

Well, to those people, I have only one thing to say: Wake UP!!! Whether or not Danny Boyle filmed beauty, he filmed the truth. What we see in the movies are all there in Mumbai, right from the slum to the brothels to the construction sites swarming with ruffians.

Personally, I think these film makers suddenly woke up and realized just how much of a potential the slums of Mumbai had, and were pissed off because they couldn't film it first.

Then there's another group of people who say that this film only got recognition because it was directed by a foreigner. Well, that is partly true. Danny Boyle did put our slums on the map, but after that, the film had to talk for itself. It did too. Sure, and Indian film maker might have been able to inject a little something 'special' in it, but the film would not have received the recognition it had either.

Then there are the people who say that Tare Zameen Par (TZP) was much better and deserved an Oscar. It was better, I agree, but it didn't deserve an Oscar. The concept of dyslexia in India may be new and unexplored in India, but its been explored outside. So for other people to see a child with dyslexia being helped would have been normal and nothing out of the ordinary.

Slumdog was a side of India the world had never seen, and I suppose much of the novelty came from that. India was known for its excellent holiday locales, culture and rigid value system. But no one had ever suggested that India be known for its slum. the fact wasn't hidden, it just wasn't acknowledged.

There were also some people who said that Madhur Bhandarkar's movies were an amazing depiction of urban life in Mumbai. Despite showing alcohol abuse, drug addiction, extreme nudity, child- prostitutes and homosexual relationships, people believed that they showed the beauty in Mumbai. Where is the beauty in all these issues?!

I'm a Madhur Bhandarkar fan, but there is no so called beauty in these. There is stark, brutal, gripping reality. But no one complains. Put a foreigner on the job and protests ring out from half the nation. My own countrymen disgust me sometimes.

I'll bring this long discourse to a close (yes, I can hear the sighs of relief now) with just one thing. Its time we Indians learned to credit other people with good work. Its also time the world began to realize that slums and money did not make for good cinema. Reverse ageing and wrestling have a large stake in the matter too.