55th National Film Awards, India: Malayalam sweeps!

I had just written about Keralam and Malayalam movies positively and negatively. And now, Malayalam sweeps 55th National awards:

1.  7th National Award for Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Best director for "Nalu Pennungal").
2. Editing: B.Ajith ("Nalu Pennungal").
3. 3rd one for Shyamaprasad (Best regional film for "Ore Kadal").
4. Best music director: Ouseppachan ("Ore Kadal").
5. Best make-up: Pattanam Rasheed ("Paradesi").
6. Best non-fiction award goes to Jayaraj's "Vellappokkathil" (Malayalam).
7. Best cinema book award to M.F. Thomas (Malayalam).
8. Best film critic: V.K. Thomas (Malayalam).

Besides, prominent personalities in Malayalam movies bagged awards for their works in other languages also:

1. South Indian actor Prakash Raj bags the Best Actor award through Priyadarshan's Tamil movie "Kanchivaram".
2. Best feature film "Kanchivaram".
3. Best art direction for Sabu Cyril ("Om Shanti Om" -Hindi)

Is this to disprove my negative comments? Any way, Malayalis can be proud once again and celebrate!

Me, around me and my perspectives

An article from my website. How is it?

Me, around me and my perspectives:

The Agenda

Recently, after having gone through a number of personal and academic websites and blogs, and maintained my own blog for some time, I have started thinking about the ideology of blogs and personal websites. The major question is why a person should have a personal website or maintain a personal (not travel, professional, or so) blog? Well, I have not reached a conclusion yet though developed some hypotheses which I reserve for the time being. Having thought all these, when I launch a personal webpage, I must have some specific intentions in mind: this webpage is just to introduce who I am, what I think about my life, times and surroundings, and, in general, what my perspectives are; this page is not to boast about my character, intelligence, achievements, professional and personal skills, my education, my fortunate childhood, social status or travels I have made. They are out of my agenda because I frown upon those aspects of a person, whoever it be, as banal. While explaining my perspectives I surely do not intend to hurt anyone's feelings. If someone finds something objectionable in this page, it is completely unintended, and please be kind enough to point out it to me. Needless to say, all views expressed in this page are mine, and they have nothing to do with the institute--Indian Institute of Technology Madras--that hosts this webpage. Let me also make it clear that the above stated agenda pertains, however, only to this very page, and not to my blogs or any other pages under my website.

Having stated the agenda, I anticipate some questions: why should I write about my perspectives? who cares about them? what is so special about me for someone to understand my perspective? or rather, why me? Well, I am a nobody, or everybody. I don't expect anyone to care either. Still, I express myself because I believe that "I express therefore I am", "in expressing myself, I express man" and "every truth is a perspective truth" (thanks to those three great thinkers for providing me with settings to say these).

My Motherland

I hail from Kozhikode, a district in Kerala state, India. My mothertongue is Malayalam, which is the language spoken throughout Kerala. Kerala lies in the most southern end of India. Kerala is known for its distinct culture, art forms like Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, etc., its own form of martial arts Kalarippayattu, left-leaning politics, a variety of cuisines, back water tourism, etc.. I am very much emotionally attached with most of them. Our literature and films are also very much acclaimed internationally. My favourite writers in my language include Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, O.V. Vijayan, N.S. Madhavan, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, M. Mukundan and Madhavikkutty (Kamala Surayya). We are fortunate to have the great singer ("gana-gandharvan") Yesudas, who has been enchanting every Malayali (Malayalam speaking person, or Keralite) almost for the last four decades with his magnificent voice par excellence; I am a fan of his. Among my people, there is an age old debate as to whether Mammootty or Mohanlal is the best actor (I don't care about it--afterall, how can one compare rose with lily?) Both are internationally acclaimed actors and Padma Shri recipients. Mammootty, a very disciplined and meticulous actor, is better known internationally for his portrayal of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in Jabar Pattel's movie Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar (English/Hindi) besides his other sterling performances in Malayalam films like Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha, Vidheyan, Bhoothakkannadi, Danny, Mathilukal, Mrigaya, etc.. On the other hand, Mohanlal, so natural, vibrant and instinctual an actor, is well known for his breathtaking performances in a large number of movies including Vanaprastham, Bharatham, Kireedam, Manichithrathazhu (all Malayalam), Compnay (Hindi) and Iruvar (Tamil). In Indian movies, I can think only of a few other actors--in this, I admit that I am a bit biased--who are comparable with them (despite the fact that we have a number of stars); Kamal Hassan, Nassruddin Shah, Nana Patekar, Thilakan, Murali are few of them. Murali also has showcased a number of excellent performances in movies like Venkalam, Neythukaran (National Award for Best Actor), etc.. Coming to our actresses, my all time favourite is Shobhana, who is also a classical dancer. Her performance in Manichithrathazhu grabbed her the National Award for Best Actress in 1994. Speaking about our directors, we have Adoor Gopalakrishnan, T.V. Chandran, Bharathan, Padmarajan, Late Lohitadas, Priyanandanan, to name a few. These are all my favourites.

In India, my beloved Nation, peoples with diverse cultures coexists; interestingly, there are more than hunderd spoken languages in the country. In my view, India is not a country or land--it is a feeling, a feeling of oneness and a great culture! It is my wish to travel and mingle with other cultures in my country. But, I have only been to two of my neighbourhood states: Karnataka, where the language is Kannada, and Tamil Nadu, where the language is Tamil. Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil along with Telugu and a few other languages fall in the Dravidian language category. Hence, if one knows one of them well, then he or she can easily get hold of the others languages, of course, with some effort. Malayalam and Tamil are very close, Malayalam is considered to be the daughter of Tamil and Sanskrit. Tamil is the oldest Dravidian language, and Malayalam the youngest. I have found that Kannada is also very much related to Malayalam. I am able to understand Kannada to an extend, and Tamil better. However, Telugu appears to be slightly different. Other major languages spoken in India are Hindi, Marathi, Gujarathi, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Urudu, Bengali and so on. Though I talked about oneness above, sadly, I also understand that there are internal conflicts between the peoples in the country. Despite this, history shows that we have always been able to move ahead together as one people.

My Interests and Perspectives

My most favourite activity is reading. I read novels and general books. I am always bewitched by diverse ideas and imagination. I don't have a good opinion about my taste in Science, Engineering and Mathematics. I like literature more, not to mention politics and culture. My most favourite novels are Sartre's Nausea, Kundera's Joke and Eco's The Name of the Rose. I can say that my life is divided into two periods: before reading Nausea and after reading Nausea! That novel influenced me tremendously; I was very much carried away by existentialism. Reading The name of the rose was very much enjoyable. I started reading it many times and stopped because I found it very difficult. On a train journey, while I had nothing else to do, or rather I could not do anything else, I forced myself to read the novel. To my surprise, the difficulty was only through the first ten or twenty pages. Then,... the actual story begins! I was unable stop now; it was painful when the co-travellers wanted to switch of the lights in the night! I would read the novel without stopping in the coming days, and this is the longest novel I read while in the shortest duration.

Another influential book in my life was Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, which helped me understand myself and, moreover, affirm myself. His Thus Spoke Zarasutra is a book which can always be found on my table. By nature, I am a skeptic and, hence, a non-believer (I have no problem in accepting believers, but some of them have problems in accepting me: they always wants to argue--that they are right!). As Einstein wrote, one who has no faith is not fit for life. Hence, a non-believer is faced with a void, a big void. It is Nietzsche who helped my to fill this void by telling me that "art is the only justification for life" --Nietzsche, Friedrich in Beyond Good and Evil. I at once understood the true importance of arts, and gave up all speculations regarding the meaning of life. To this end, Terry Eagleton's Meaning of Life was also quite influential. As time went by and I read more and more, I derived a philosophy, or rather a personal outlook of life: "when you live, just live, that's all". With this, I reject the concepts of self-awareness, mindfulness, know-thyself-philosophy, positive thinking, etc.. I believe that these are just to confuse a man and destroy his individuality and capacity to think independently. As Zen Buddhism asserts, self-awareness comes by nature. One just has to live his life, without unnecessary interpretations, expectations, prejudice and concepts. Face it as it is! Encounter every experience unconditionally, this develops insight. This is the way to mind: the highest form of all forms. Buddha, who taught mankind a philosophy that considered the problems exclusively conerned with life on earth without referring to an almighty, is my hero, of course, not spiritually, but politically and personally! The immediate question will be: "is Marx my hero?" Well! I don't know. Notwithstanding that I have sided with the left perspectives in politics quite often than not, my knowledge of Marxism is very poor. Rather, Marxism is too big a concept for me yet. Therefore, I evade the current question without answering for now.

There are no other passions or hobbies for me as strong as reading, discussed earlier. One of my dreams is to write. But, I don't know what! Stories? Novels? Poetry? I don't know. Believe me, I have not tried anything yet. Music and films are my interests, especially, semi-classical music and art-house movies. Music has no language, yet I love Malayalam film music more! I have attended a few film festivals, including the 12th and 13th International Film Festivals of Kerala (IFFK). Presently, I don't venture into writing about my favourite movies though I would really love doing it. It requires more time, energy and effort since they are many movies I have to talk about.

Coming to the matters regarding my profession, I have only to talk about Signal Processing because it is the only engineering subject of my interest. It is the one subject which attracted me back to engineering, and the reason that I still pursue my studies and wish to pursue a career that will contribute to that subject. My enthusiasm towards this subject was developed initially because of a single motivation: to understand the Fourier transforms--what it is; why it gives frequency domain interpretation, and not something else; and how it works. If I speak about how I understood it and share what I understood, I'm afraid I would violate the agenda of this page I explained in the beginning. Better I would talk about it in a technical note. However, for completeness, I must say this: the proper way to understand it is through Linear Algebra. Believe me, once you start learning Linear Algebra, then there is no coming back. This subject is utterly seductive. For me, this is my "Name of the Rose" in Mathematics. I was introduced to this subject by a great teacher Prof. Ashok Rao who was formerly with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and currently working elsewhere. Yet another mathematical discipline you will need to do more signal processing is Probability, Random Processes and Statistics. In fact, there are other topics also like Algebra, Algebraic Geometry, Number Theory, etc., but, most of the applications demands only Linear Algebra and Statistics. Once you start understanding these subjects, especially from a Signal Processing perspective (please don't scold me for my perspective that constrains these important and vast mathematical disciplines to Signal Processing alone; it is the matter of my "bread and butter"), then there is no sopt! Today, it is constantly heard that "Signal Processing has saturated" or even "dead". But, you can verify that they (the ignorants) had been saying this for the last three decades. It will never die because it is so ubiquitous a tool that many a time one will be unaware that one is using it; one may be thinking that one is working in Wireless Communication, Soft Computing, Pattern Recognition or Data Analysis, but you can see Signal Processing all over there, possibly hidden! Of course, this does not mean that everything is Signal Processing, but everything uses Signal Processing every now and then.

Conclusion

Is there a need to conclude? After all, what to conclude?

--Sandeep Palakkal.
Sunday, Sep. 6, 2009,
IIT Madras, Chennai.

On Keralam: My View as an Outsider

Till I left Kerala, my beloved motherland, for my postgraduate studies in 2005, I thought that it was the most wonderful land on earth, and that Malayalis constitute the most wonderful community on earth; what an immature thought it was! Of course, everyone has the same or similar feelings about his own birthplace. But, this proves to be wrong when you start observe other communities and cultures objectively. Every community has its own strengths and weaknesses. I'm aware of the general weaknesses of Mayalalis. However, the object of this note is not to elaborate them, but, on the contrary, to elaborate its most important strength, the negative effects of it, and what I feel about the contemporary life in Kerala. I must hastily add that I've no intentions to be exhaustive, or sound like an expert. I just scribble down some of my personal observations, that's all. And, since I'm still living outside, and do not continuously follow every news coming from there, my views are that of an outsider.

The strength of Malayalis: The foremost strength of Malayalis is their general awareness: political, social, cultural, national and international. I am sure that people of no other state can claim this. It comes because of education: Kerala theoretically has 100% literacy rate; truly this must be 99%. Almost all malayalis read newspapers everyday. They are aware of every political issues in Kerala, India and outside. You can hear people talking about "globalization", "free markets" etc. even in small tea shops; this is a clear mark of distinction of Malayalis from any other people in India. In other states, in my experiences and interactions, even the well educated does not know that he is living in a particular economy called capitalism, let alone about globalization!

But..., this is a big but, everything has its negative effects also. Since Malayalis have better general awareness, they are too lazy too. They don't want to produce the necessary things in their own land; they want Telugus to provide them brown-rice (without brown-rice, Malayalis can't live!), and Kannadigas and Tamilans to provide vegetables and fruits. Even a number of spices like red chillies are imported from the neighbourhood states. Onam is Malayalis' most prestigious festival; they decorate homes with flowers on this special day. They want flowers to be imported from Tamil Nadu. Even though water is abundant in the state Malayalis need to buy electricity from the central government and Tamil Nadu. This shows the lack of efficiency of governance and efforts from the Malayali community as a whole to improve living conditions in the state!

My View on Contemporary Life in Kerala:

Work/Business: Agriculture was strong at a time in Kerala. But, as time went by, they got more and more educated, became aware about the system, and learned how to earn more with less effort. Then they gave up agriculture, and started concentrating on consumer based business and services. This is the reason why they have to wait for the Andhra truck to come to eat their favourite brown-rice, or for Tamil truck for vegetables. This is a negative effect of social awareness. And, the technically educated youth relies only upon the IT industry. Now, they want such industries in the state also; they blame the political parties for lack of enthusiasm. Where is the enthusiasm of the people to produce something of their own, at least food?

Politics (the left-wing): The left movements have always influenced political events in Kerala. Even the right-wing Congress party is left in Kerala. Until recently, the competitions between these two major political forces had contributed to the state tremendously, but sadly, no more! Now, left seems to have become more right! And, they seem to offer no more competition! These are my observation as an outsider, hence open to challenge by any one. The recent tussle between the two "groups" inside the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has caused to lose peoples confidence in that party, and the left-wing in general. I don't know where it is going, whether they can overcome this situation and regain the faith of the people. I'm worried about the left-wing because of its influence on me; I always side with the left-wing, if not a left party!

Political Activism: Kerala has always witnessed various political struggles. In the past media as well as the political parties took interest to educate people regarding various issues. Malayalis were at least considered to be highly reactive. Now also they are active: active to get more and more comforts, to drink more and more alcoholic products, to celebrate every banal occasions, but not for improving the situation they are in. If you go to Kozhikode (my own place) most of the roads are in a bad shape. While Malayalis are worried about lack of shopping centers and IT parks, they do nothing to improve the roads, for example. They believe everything will be done by the government. Who is the government? You! the people. There are no strikes to improve the roads, education, etc.

Media (News): Another problem I am concerned about is regarding the media. The media in the state had been very proactive in the recent past, but, again, no more! The mainstream, and most serious Malayalam news paper is "Mathrubhumi". Nowadays, this news paper is only interested in the so called back-door affairs of politics in the state. Whether the news they give is correct or not is another issue. But, why should they be so much concerned with all these junk? It no longer covers most of the national and international issues, why? The visual media is too ugly to talk about! They produce news every single minute and broadcast. People are bombarded with so many unnecessary information every minute so intensively that they are unable to distinguish between what is news and what is not. Most important issues are clumsily dealt with, and most banal are exaggerated. They start by addressing important issues, turn them into gossips and speculation, make them just meaningless debates between the political parties, and, finally, reduce them into nothing---this is called reduction ad absurdum. Every news becomes an absurdity and create, eventually, no effect!

Media (entertainment): Again, regarding audio/visual media: they are sneaking into our life spaces more and more. Most of us are interested in movies and songs. But, why should we always think about them? Well, this is what our media needs presently. In FM radios, in reality and other kind of TV shows, the topic is movies and songs! Your favourite (is it?) VJ or DJ or whoever talks at length about the movies in the past, the new movies released recently, or the future movie projects and educate you the whole day. For them every movie is lovely, beautifully taken, well directed, contains sterling performances! Of course, if you watch those movies you would start crying thinking that you could have better spend that money in a hotel, at least your appetite could have been satisfied. And, we have songs---the movie songs. Why should we listen to them, however lovely they are, for twenty four hours a day? Or, why should we listen to our favourite music 500 times a day? This repetition kills your time and ability to savour it in the back of your mind: it kills your creativity and imagination. Summarizing, entertainments and the need for them take over your time and life, work has become less important, only a means to gather money to spend for entertainments!

Movies: The contemporary movies competes to imitate those movies from the other prominent industries of South India like Tamil and Telugu as well as the Bollywood. I am not talking about plagiarism. That's OK as long as you adapt the story to the Kerala setting; and other languages have copied Malayalam movies many more times than the other way around! I am talking about the imitation of style of direction, technology, action, songs, and visual effects. Why do the contemporary directors want to make the Malayalam movies look and feel like a Tamil/Telugu/Hindi movies? One will imitate the other only if one has no innate character. The Malayalam film industry has proved in the past that it has its own character and originality. Since the beginning they had good movies which were remarkably distinct from other states. Where is the talent going? They say they have to satisfy the audience. This is the direct insult of the audience; they mean that the taste of the audience is mediocre or becoming mediocre. Take good, original movies; the taste will follow! Modern vs old movies: I don't believe that the past was glorious and the present is bad. Rather it is evolutionary. Present life is much better than the past in many ways. However, most of the present movies lack originality and quality compared to some of the the past ones at least in case of Malayalam movies; that is, number of good movies is larger in the past compared to the present. Recently, in an interview, the great actor Mammootty said, he enjoys everything contemporary and new rather than old. At least in case of movies and their quality, I have to disagree with him despite my great admiration to the actor. And, I believe that this temptation to imitate is also a part of the "globalisation"; rather, this is a "local globalisation"!

A remark I must add here is this: recently I read a Malayalam movie critic saying that Tamil movies are becoming better and better compared to Malayalam movies, and Malayalam film makers should learn from Tamil. He cited "Subramaniapuram": this is a proof that we are lacking talented film critics also. Subramaniapuram was a good film compared to many other Tamil movies, but compare it with "Amaram", "Venkalam", "Bharatham" or "Oru Vadakkan Veeraghatha", or at least with "Palunku", "Kazhcha" or "Bhramaram". I believe, in terms of artistic quality, Tamil movies are yet to become comparable with Malayalam movies despite the fact that Malayalam movies are degrading. Tamil movies are ahead Malayalam movies in terms of technical perfection and variety. Malayalis can argue that the audience and market is smaller compared to Tamil, and, hence, budget is smaller, which forces the film makers to rely less on technical perfection.

Law and order: Last week the high-court of Kerala observed that the goons and gangs have become so powerful in the state and criticized the government and the police for lack of effective action. One does not have to know the high-court's observation to understand this; just look into the recent news. Every day, a case of hacking by goons, or the so called "quotation" is coming out of the state, particularly, from the south. The north was infamous for this, and those were, by and large, part of political fights, between the party members, although they used goons for this. However, the recent cases are quite disturbing. They are aimed at common people. Of course, many a time, these "common people" have some political affiliations, too. But, the recent cases include assigning goons and gangs for inflicting violence and vengeance. One peculiar case was a mother settled in Australia, arranging goons to kidnap her daughter who got married without the mother's consent! There are similar cases; just read the news paper. The most prominent case, which the media has focused on, and which they seem to reduce to absurdity is the recent case of the murder of Paul Muthoot. The police, according to the media reports, has some nexus with the goons as some politicians have. This will also reduce the credibility of the police force in the state. Again, there are no strikes to improve these situations; there are some political show-offs every day, that's all!

Conclusion: I just pointed out what I observe about my state in the recent past. And, I have been critical and negative in doing so; I am also responsible for what Kerala is now. Maybe, my short summary would be like this: Malayalis are facing a lot of challenges from within and outside, from social degradation to destructive influence of the entertainment media on the individual; by this I mean destruction of individuality and creativity, not of morality---that is a different matter, which I am too immature to deal with. My suggestion for a solution to Malayalis will be to stand up to these challenges boldly, criticize ourselves affirmatively, and make changes, rather than idly sitting watching the TV the whole day, or reading some junk "arogya masika" (health magazine), which only make you a moron. It may seem impossible, but it is possible.

These are my views, and my views only about Kerala. This is not a comparative study because I don't know much about the situations in the other states; maybe they are even worse, or maybe they are better!

Sandeep Palakkal

On limits of life

Many a time, when I reread what I've written in the past, I feel that I was an idiot then. One of my friends had confessed to me that he also used to feel the same. This time, I feel that it was so foolish of me to have connected my limitations with my academic life in the previous blog! There I have been wondering if I was encountering a lot of my limitations because I was doing PhD. However, later, I was reminded that life itself is limited. It does not matter what life---within academic circles or not---you are living, you can't live forever. Life is limited! What a simple idea! Any school boy knows that. But I did not take this into consideration while I was thinking about life's limitations in general. Many of my hypotheses had been wrong. Finally, this one wins: everything in the world is limited, and has limitations! Limits are real.