Theory of Everything - Movie Review

This is an adaptation from the memoir (another book!) "Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen" written by Jane Wilde Hawking (on her life with her ex-husband Stephen Hawking). The story starts at Cambridge where Stephen is studying astrophysics and Jane is studying literature. That's when Stephen's motor neuron disease is discovered and he is given two years to live as his body atrophies. Jane decides to marry Stephen despite the disease and the death sentence. Within a year, they have a child.

Stephen Hawking's disease gets progressively worse but he continues to make great strides as a scientist with support from Jane. They have two more children - the third child causes some speculation as Jane gets a music teacher Jonathan to help her and tongues start wagging. Stephen meanwhile gets involved with his nurse Elaine. Jane leaves Stephen and marries Jonathan. Stephen marries Elaine.

You get an idea of the way such a brilliant mind coped with life and its limitations. Eddie Redmayne won the Academy Award for best actor and deservedly so. But Felicity Jones as Jane is a revelation. The scenes when she displays her intense love for Stephen, her strength, come through powerfully.

Stephen Hawking continues to live at 73 - which should give much hope to all those patients who are given death sentences and statistics on how long they may survive. Don't buy into someone else's statistics - you could always be the exception. Interestingly Stephen refuses knighthood.

Jane Wilde's immense love and commitment is the kind of stuff that epic love stories are built on. 

Still Alice - Movie Review

Julianne Moore won the Best Actress at the Academy Awards for this role. She plays Dr. Alice Howland, a linguistics Professor who discovers she has familial Alzheimer's disease. At first she forgets one word in a conference first (that one black moment - happens), then gets lost in the campus while on a run. Her neurologist confirms her disease and she has to break the news to her husband and three grown up children. When the doctor gives her a test you can sense everyone in the audience takes the test too - and I wonder how many get it all right. Anyway the doctor tells her that good exercise and plenty of water to keep her memory good (thanks doc!).

The disease grows worse and she forgets things more rapidly. She has a few questions which she keeps on her phone reminder to check her deterioration. She also makes a plan to commit suicide when she gets to a stage where she cannot remember a thing (as a file in her computer). More words are forgotten, she forgets the way to the bathroom once, forgets people she has met before, and on and on until she forgets her own children and has to be reminded who they are. As her condition gets really bad we see her youngest daughter, the only one who does not have a steady career choice and perhaps the one who never got along with her, choose to come and stay with her mother.

Moore does a fine job. It's a movie that wakes you up to the disease. It's based on a book by Lisa Genova - same name. Nice, slow and linear. 

Love in the Afternoon - Movie Review

It's a 1957 movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper. She is a young cello player living with her widowed father, a well-known private investigator specialising in investigating domestic issues. One such case finds him discovering his client's wife meeting the rich American tycoon Flannagan at a hotel every afternoon. The client wants to go to the hotel, catch them red handed (the pictures are not conclusive) and shoot Flannagan. Ariane (cello player) is aghast and tries to alert the police. The police tell her to contact them after the murder is committed.

Ariane goes to the hotel to warn the playboy. When the husband arrives, the wife is hidden and Flannagan and Ariane pretend that they are together. Husband leaves. No murder is committed. But Ariane also finds Flannagan interesting. On his next visit to Paris she meets him again, and tells him stories of how they are both alike and how she also has a long list of lovers (stuff she borrows from her father's files). Though initially amused Flannagan cannot help but fall in love with her. Driven to desperation and jealousy by her list of boyfriends and her lack of interest in him he seeks help from the best detective in town - her father. The detective takes less than a day to figure out that its his daughter, finds out her game and tells the playboy to leave her.

The last scene is at the railways station. Train is leaving with Flannagan. Ariane is running beside it telling him how unconcerned she is about him. Until he sweeps her off the platform and into the train.

Charming little movie. Flannagan's style of having a live band play while he romances is brilliant. The band comes on time, takes positions and starts playing. Flannagan dances, picnics wherever he goes the band is there. Even on the day he gets drunk when he is upset by Ariane the band is there playing sad music, and drinking along with him. Lovely piece of work as they push the bar cabinet with wheels to one another and gets drunk. Audrey Hepburn is brilliant in her role of an intelligent young girl who knocks the rich playboy down. Her father is equally charming as the detective. Lovely movie. Compares with the Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Book Launch - Chanakya in You

Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai studied Chanakya's 'Arthashastra' as a young man in a gurukul fashion from a master. In many ways he applied his knowledge of Chanakya's principles in his life and has devoted himself to spreading this knowledge through his books, writings, workshops and speeches. After writing two bestsellers 'Corporate Chanakya' and 'Chanakya's 7 Secrets of Leadership' he has now launched his first work of fiction 'Chanakya in You'.

I was invited to speak with him on the occasion of the launch at Hyderabad at Landmark Bookstore, Somajiguda, May 23, 2015, 6 pm. Radha is a young man of 40, full of energy and fun, a large infectious smile, many easy anecdotes and a transparent demeanour. The moment I met him I asked him - how do you write a bestseller? He smiled and gave me an answer that he gave in his book - I first write the book and then make it a bestseller.

Hyderabad launch 2015

'How do you make it a bestseller?' I persisted.
'I do activities around it,' he said.

I really got what he was saying when he said this while interacting with the audience.

'I am doing 100 events,' he said. 'This is my fourth. I will be speaking in colleges, corporates and other audiences.' Wow! And I did two!

That apart Radha backs his marketing effort. Book launches, talks, workshops - he seizes every opportunity to market the book. 'I spent a long time deciding on the book cover,' he said. 'We looked at over 350 designs before deciding on this one.'

Chanakya Series and 50 Not Out

Radha spoke eloquently on why he wrote the book, why he thinks it can reach out and influence many people, how much of this book s about wealth creation and many more aspects of his writing. To my question on whether he was the leading expert on Chanakya this is what he said. 'Many say I am the expert on Chanakya but obviously there are many more much better than me,' he said. 'The gurus who taught me are far more knowledgeable.'

The audience and the press

'We Indians feel guilty about having money. It is not a bad thing.'

'It's also wonderful to see how many Indian writers we have these days. Everyone should write a book.'

'Chanakya has been misunderstood. It's a work full of principles to live our life well.' 

Aqua Magica - A Day Trip

This time in Pune, Anjali and I decided to get done with Imagica, the entertainment park built at Khopoli by the Adlabs group. Anjali was keen to go. Somewhere along the way the idea changed to Aqua Magica, Imagica's twin sister, which is a water park and adjacent to Imagica. That was fine by me. Water in May sounds good. To watch. I'm not much for parks etc.

The Imagica rides from the parking lot

Booked tickets online. Imagica tickets are priced at some 1500 bucks a person (what?). Aqua Magica is priced lower at 950 bucks. All rides are free though some have age and height restrictions. Also the dress code is given on the web site (saves us some ghastly sights). Anyway we booked online, got some idea about how to go there and set off in our Brio (thanks to Malay who generously let me borrow it). There was the three of us and Anu and Pooja. Right at the start I stopped to fill air in the spare and the suspicious looking character tells me that one of the tyres looks flat. Check it I said. He got to work on it and picked out 6 punctures in one tyre!

A huge funnel where rafts are flushed into

One or two did seem genuine but I felt he simply kept poking and removing stuff that was not there. I told him I never saw a single tyre have six punctures. He charged me a princely 700 bucks! Anyway, he did not look at any other tyre after that and we set off.

The Expressway is crazy. People zoom by from all sides at speeds in excess of 140 kms. After those 6 punctures I did not dare do more than 80 kmph which is the prescribed speed limit. But on the expressway it appears that they consider it the minimum speed. Why they don't have a speed gun there is what I cannot understand. I mus confess that if there is one road on which I feel unsafe its the Pune-Mumbai expressway with its bullying traffic. Anyway we stopped at the toll booth near Khopoli, partook of some nice morning breakfast - sabudana vada, vada pav, buttermilk etc.

The restaurant where we sat for hours and hours

Then we went past the toll and turned off onto to a road which had no boards. We just had to keep on asking and hoping we were in the right direction. Come on Aqua Magica guys, why cannot you have more boards? After seeking directions from some twenty people we landed up at this huge entertainment park. Turns out that Imagica and Aqua Magica are in the same premises - only separated.

Imagica rides at 6 in the evening

Anyway we found a huge parking lot and looked on in amazement at some huge rides in Imagica. Scary stuff. People were already screaming etc and I was glad I was nowhere near that place. We got checked by security, went to the next check point, were told to go back to the ticket counter and get new tickets and wristbands, went back, waited, got new tickets, got bands, went back to the counter, were told to keep bands carefully, waited for bus, got on, got off and finally went into the park. Inside the entrance there were shops selling swim suits and stuff like that, on one side there were lockers to keep your stuff. All those who were to hit the water changed while Anu and I stayed back. There was constant friction between Anjali and me for my refusal to enter the water.

Pirates!

It was rather hot so we found a restaurant and drank some stuff. Then the three riders went away. Anu and I sat around chatting and eating and drinking. There are some 22 rides, some pools, rafts etc. Some rides are pretty challenging and some were simple. There were two restaurants. And there was a rain dance place where everyone danced like crazy.

Pooja describing a ride

Lunch time. Pizzas, pasta and stuff. Had a nice experience there. The queues were as usual not marked clearly, so everyone stood wherever and the restaurant guys served whoever they pleased. While we were in the queue two kids, perhaps 12 years old, went into the next queue and got ahead. I let the boy go ahead with his order. But his sister made him come back. She must have been 14. She was like - you were there before us so please go ahead and order. Rare. I told her it was okay and for just being thoughtful enough, I'd not mind if they went ahead.

Couple of water rides from the restaurant

More rides. More eating, more drinking. It shut off at 6 pm. We got down to the car, drove back, stopped at the eating joint at Khopoli and picked up some stuff, played some nice music and went straight home to some Chinese food.

Pune Diaries - Traffic and Personal Leadership

In Pune recently I was surprised to see how much the culture had changed over the past twenty years. What was a peaceful law abiding town then has now turned into something vastly different. (I am basing my observations solely from the viewpoint that the traffic of the town mirrors its culture - here Hyderabad has cornered a unique place for itself!). According to my new observations, the moment a red signal comes on its almost as if someone has given a signal to go. Motorists, scooterists and all else rush through the red signal like a bull that has seen a red signal. Wrong side riding and other similar maladies were on show too.

Deep anguish.

I expressed my regret to all those in the car in my usual fashion. How can they do this? What's wrong etc? They listened patiently. What to do?

And then I saw an incident which I thought was the limit.

One side of the road was clogged with traffic. In such situations its normal to see some enterprising youngsters go on the wrong side in the empty road and catch up with the others in the front at the signal. Its their way of being smart. Now on my empty road I find two bikes stopped near the median - a lady and her scooter pointing in the right direction but only that she had one leg on the median and was talking with a young, well-built Sikh who was on his bike with a leg on the median too but on the wrong side. A love story in the middle of traffic, on the median? What the..?

And then as I passed them I realised what was happening. The lady (she must have been middle aged) was counselling the boy who was on the wrong side to go back, take  U turn, and join the right side. The boy was clearly resisting. She stopped her bike right in front and would not let him go any further. He did not know what to do.

I could see in my rear view mirror that she made him turn back and and join the traffic on the right side.

Now that is what I should be doing or what all of us should be doing if we have a problem with the world. Set it right. Not crib about it. It's a great story about personal leadership, about taking responsibility. If we cannot do anything about it, I think we should shut up and save ourselves and all around the trouble.

But if you really want to change something, take inspiration from the old lady.

Stillness Speaks - Eckhart Tolle

I rate Eckhart Tolle’s ‘Power of Now’ as one of the books thought that opened my mind up to viewing life differently. That book have had profound impact on keeping me grounded in the present. I read ‘Stillness Speaks’ after that and have been reading it on and off. The last vacation in Pune gave me an opportunity to read it again and mull on some of the thoughts it presents.

Those thoughts that made me think again, I noted down. The book has ten chapters.

      1. Silence and Stillness

"Stillness is our essential nature. When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself."

"The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise of thinking."

"Only through stillness can you be aware of silence. When you become aware of silence, you are present."

"Whenever you accept the moment as it is, you are still. Pay attention to the gaps."

"Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found. Wisdom comes with the ability to be still."

The Now is where we are present, where there is no pain. To be in the Now we must be still. To be still, accept the moment as it is. To know that we are still, we must be aware of silence. Then we can access creativity, solutions and wisdom.

      2. Beyond the thinking Mind

"Don’t take your thoughts too seriously."

"Wisdom arises through the act of giving your full attention. Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness."

"The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp."

"The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought (not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought)."

"Feel the energy in your body in every cell. Your body becomes the doorway to a deeper sense of aliveness."

"Become at ease with the state of ‘not knowing’. Go beyond the mind."

"Mastery in every field implies that the thinking mind is not involved or is taking second place. There is no decision making process anymore. Spontaneous right action happens."

"Danger can give you a taste of the present."

Go beyond thought and into awareness. Feel the energy in every cell of your body. Give in to spontaneous action. Be present fully.

3. The Egoic Self

"When you give more attention to the 'doing' than the 'future result', you could break the egoic conditioning. Every ego contains an element of ‘victim identity’ (resentment and grievance form an essential part of their sense of self)."

"Become aware of your compulsion to think and talk about your victim story. When you live through the ego you reduce the present moment as a means to the end."

"Complaining and reactivity are favourite mind patterns. Egos identity depends on comparison. Egoic sense of self needs conflict – its sense of separation gets strengthened."

"Your unhappiness arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind."

"You say you want happiness but are addicted to your unhappiness."

"Set goals but know that arriving is not all that important."

The mind draws you away from the present moment. To break its cycle, give attention to the doing  and not the future result. Do not be identified with your victim story. Do not complain and react.

4. The Now

"Life is only one moment – Now. There is no escape from Now – so welcome it. When you make friends with the present moment you feel at home wherever you are." 

"The only reality is Now. You are not taking responsibility for life until you take responsibility for the Now."

"When you say Yes to what is, you become aligned with the power and intelligence of life itself. Only then can you become an agent for positive change in the world."

"I am not the content of my life. I am life."

You are only responsible for one moment – Now. By saying Yes to the present moment you are aligned with life. To live is to say Yes and be present to the Now.

5. Who you truly are

"You are the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens."

"Joy is vibrantly alive peace."

"Most lives are run by desire and fear."

You are awareness.

6. Acceptance and surrender

"Be. Do not label."

"NO strengthens the ego. YES weakens it."

"How total are you in what you are doing? This is what determines your success in life, not how much effort you make."

"If you detect ‘not wanting’ to doing something, drop it and be total in what you do."

"Do one thing at a time – its the essence of Zen."

"By letting go of inner resistance, you often find circumstances change for the better."

"Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world."

"Surrender is giving up trying to understand, comfortable with not knowing."

Your complete attention to what you are doing takes you into the present. It gives you success. It is also about letting go of inner resistance.

7. Nature

"Nature shows us the way home." 

"When humans become still they go beyond thought."

8 Relationships

"Don’t label. Don’t judge."

"Meet people with full attention."

Let things be. There is no right or wrong.

9. Death of the external

"Opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal."

"Learn to accept and welcome endings in your life. By learning to die a little, you open yourself to life."

When we accept death we live.

10. Suffering and end of suffering

"True freedom is living in such a way as if you had completely whatever you feel or experience this moment."

"Suffering is necessary until you realise it is unnecessary."

"Remove time from unhappiness."

"Just allow a feeling to be."

"When suffering, unhappy, stay in the now."

"Don’t name things. Let be. Completely accept the now."

"Resist not evil is one of the highest truths of humanity."

"Accept non-acceptance."

"When you suffer consciously, physical pain can quickly burn up the ego in you, since ego consists largely of resistance."

Let things be as they are. Accept the now.