Demonic Hero (Genre - Life and Living)

Who is a hero and how do you identify one ??
Now since its subjective I would limit the scope of the blog to our Indian movies. Here too there are some very unique individuals who are beyond the laws of physics ... like one "Thalaiyva" - he would be termed above hero and close to God !! Lets talk about the more mortal ones.

The definition that I always liked was "Heroes are ordinary men who do extraordinary things in extraordinary times" - this was the tagline for the movie U-571.

The dictionary would probably describe it as follows...,
he·ro   [heer-oh]  noun, plural -roes; for also -ros.
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.
4. Classical Mythology .
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.

That was what I thought till a week ago. Then it changed !!

Happened to see a couple of movies in hindi, tamil and a blockbuster telugu one. The gory set of fights the mindless killing in the name of bashing up the goons - butchering people in the most horrific manner which would probably put the most brutal murders of our times to shame !! I was left wondering if the protagonist even has a conscience ??  He seemed more like the villian when it came to killing people with least hesitation - almost a serial killer. Where is the nobility and righteousness associated with a hero ??

It seemed like the rise of the Demonic Hero - a sweet looking, romantic loverboy turned to a devilish schizophrenic mass murderer !!

To top it I was appalled with the whistling men, swooning and crooning teenage belles, family folks calling him a superstar. It made me feel sick. Do people even realize that in the name of promoting a macho image they are promoting such senseless violence and more importantly justifying split personalities and calling them heros ??
This again translates on the streets to silly and needless machismo by teenagers keen on impressing their equally mesmerised femme-fatal s !!
At this rate and considering the level of ignorance about mental disorders - such personalities would be considered normal even a hero - albeit a demonic one !!
Will the real hero please stand up ?? !!

GPS Lessons (Genre - Life and Living)

One day not too far in the future we will be ruled by the machines and we wouldn't mind it. 

Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 - Judgement Day : "Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice."

We planned for a long drive this summer we were confident about the road to take as we were sure about our GPS Navigator. We had a bad start with the fuse in the car blowing out and we were without power for the GPS. So we planned to ride half way through to the next major city and fix it which we were confident of finding our way.And the teaching started...,
Once we diverted from the main highway trouble started with all the confusion, different directions, multiple directions you name it and we were a little frustrated with our navigation skills and tempers flared. Until we fixed the fuse and our Navigation God appeared to guide us and lead us to all the destinations we planned without a hitch.
Sitting in the co-drivers seat I often stared at this piece of square screen which blurted out directions in as polite way as possible. The above dialogue from Terminator ran through my head the moment I started thinking about the sanity in choosing a machine to lead our lives.
Some points which came to me, would probably put to shame the famed gurus of our times who seem to waver as soon as they open their so called godly mouths. Still worth pondering about.


1. Let your ego aside !! The biggest and most alluring aspect about the GPS and a lesson for us is to deal with our egos. How often we shout at people who don't listen to what we have to say !! Our ego and superiority complex kicks in. But a GPS would not mind if you decide not to listen to its instructions, its not programmed that way ... so why are we ??
2. Don't be rude !! A GPS will never be rude to you if you don't listen to it. It will pause for a moment of silence and then politely asks you to take an alternative route and it will do that in an equally polite way as many times as required .....and as long as its required to reach the destination. It will always correct itself rather than expecting others to listen to it. In the end our ego is satisfied and the GPS has achieved its objective.The only person we can control is our self, if we can mend our-self to the winding road of life, sailing through without friction would be a breeze.
3. Plan and Organize !! Once fed with the destination, it will not only show the shortest way, it will tell you what routes to avoid and all the pit stops required for the journey including food and fuel. I was fascinated as a child as to how accurate it was and how well organized the program was. Out of curiosity I set it multiple tests to figure our places of interest to check its accuracy - the GPS came trumps every time.I feel in life too if we are sure about our destinations and the pit stops required it would be a breeze to reach where we are headed.
4.Build Trust !! With its accuracy and attitude we reposed immense faith on it. It grew on us to an extent that we trusted it blindly to take us to our destination. As a person we should probably try to build the same kind of ethics and integrity for people to trust us. This one is tough ...but not impossible.

If a machine is measuring up to such high standards of living, then I am sure that we the people who built it are capable of doing it too.Hope we will continue to rule them rather than letting them teach us lessons we taught them.