Is God punishing us

You may be thinking this Covid, war etc are Gods way us punishing us. 

Punishing us since we dint go by the moral values, we were greedy and just plain sinners. 

If you can view this topic objectively it seems that it has flaws. 

If humans are the highest evolved speices God has wasted several millions of years since it took that much time for humans to surface. 

Dinosaurs are the most successful species they have lived for 100s of millions of years and have always been a good animal (lived the life of being an animal to the fullest)

Yet God punished them right? they evaporated rather very abruptly. 

Why should "a just God" punish animals, animals are doing what they were supposed to do right?

Please don't live in guilt, shame. 

We are just "fireflies in a night" in the whole scheme of time and evolution. 

If God exists, we are either too irrelevant to Him or He should be rather benevolent to allow earth to exist till now. 

Volcano happens, earthquake happens, human created issues like pollution, war happens. 

They just happen you can consider the following to interpret the results

1. all is random

2. God is punishing me

3. Hmm...... this is the card I'm dealt with now. What should I do to make it better for me and my fellow being. God or the benevolent universe will sure help me  

You can take any of these interpretations and when you view it through any of the interpretation you can see a majority of things being correct according to the framework but some are incorrect like holes in the illusion 

None of the interpretation is the truth but you can use a framework which will empower and improve you and make you a more positive person and can make it a beautiful experience for you 

Choose your version of framework and you also are choosing your God!!

5 year commitment

You cannot dabble and think of attaining mastery

Any skill needs deliberate practice for a long time. 

You have to be at it even after the thing lost its initial sheen. 

You want to learn table tennis you need 5 year commitment to get to a good level. 

May be in year 1 you would have achieved the proficiency of low hanging fruits but the mastery is made in the incremental improvement of nuances.  

Even for being a decent amateur in say guitar you need at least 5 year commitment. 

So don't have a lot of hobbies have just a few and start with only one and may be post the 1st year you can add another, since the 1st one would have stabilized

Time bound learning and life long improvements

Lets speak about any course (product) or sessions(service), they both are time bound and will end. The only way you can have a sustained improvement in your life and at least maintain the gains or insights that you got from the timebound practice is "reflection and course correction" as part of the routine.

Lets say you learned something and you want to make it as a habit to improve your life. The trap of habit is a habit without a  score card or a review and feedback may be mechanical and may not give the benefit associated with conscious intentional action. 

You need to know why you do what you do, did you did that well, did doing that improved your life. Do you need to increase the intensity or totally drop it and try some other thing. For this we need data points and reflection time. 

Entropy kicks-in if we don't supply external energy, so be vigilant, track it, reflect on it and course correct it. Does not take a lot of time but gives you immense benefit. 

Almost any self-help product is good we keep on scouting for the next product because of 2 reasons. 

The first reason is we lacked the discipline of tracking and reviewing our progress. For example every new mediation we stop doing it after few weeks and after several months we go back to another meditation from another guru. In this way we will never get the long term benefit and remember self-help is like a marathon a very long term game. So trying something and throwing it and trying something else in random way serves nothing. 

The second reason is that product is not for you, but here again if you track you can realize that you are leaving it not because of laziness but because of compatibility. 

Some gurus especially the "spiritual ones" will say don't think just do it with faith

My take is no need to have faith, you are rational enough to understand that any change needs sustainable action. But if you don't see any benefit after a month I think you can call it off isn't it?

What we need to understand is some higher level practice will not work for a person in lower level. A person cannot understand calculus if he does not know simple arithmetic. 

May be the course that you joined is having a very high benefit if you are in certain level , if you are in a low level you may have to take another path and you may never know you can come back to the original product later when you are ready.

We are not saying this product is inferior, we are just saying not compatible to me right now 

self-help guru's trap

There are people whose full time career is training people in self development. 

Since its their career they want to keep on improving their training material and also increase their revenue.

Any Self-help guru alive is either working on improving his existing product or creating a new product. 

What I will say is if you have the money to invest on yourself please try subscribing to their product try them. If a new product entices you and if you can afford it just give a go ahead. 

Don't analyze if it will be good or great or bad just try it. 

No harm in jumping from one product to another. You can keep on trying for even say 3 years and then you will have more pattern to realize the trap.

The trap is called new product trap. They will say the "5 things to change your life", the " 6 things to avoid" etc.

An universal solution trap which does not take into account about who you are and what will work for you.

The problem is self-help is a service industry but we are trying to make it a product industry. 

We need a guru who knows various tools and can look at a person and see what needs to be done and gives him a customized solution  

This guru will not be like the 'celebrity' self-help product guru, but he is the one you need to solve your self-help issues. 

Please do read the self-help book and also subscribe to any courses there are places for them in your self-improvement journey. 

But what you need for total transformation is a customized actionable solution for you which can be either  done by a psychotherapist or a coach as you can see that's a service rather than a product and its going to cost you more than buying a mass consumption product but you are not trying to do the thing which is cheap but the goal is efficiency.

My Experience with cult.fit

I have tried various fitness regime for many number  of times like Gym, Taichi, Karate, Yoga class, Quad Bootcamp also many free apps and youtube videos. 

I also did many DIY regiment like doing Tabada and many other things nothing worked for me. 

Why?

I lacked the Motivation

I was never able to push myself hard. I hate exercise.  I realized that if I had to stay healthy I need an environment which can support me. 

I was thinking of joining Gym or going back to Quad Bootcamp but then I saw cult.fit group class near my place and took the plunge and its now 15 days and I hope this journey continues. 

What I like about cult.fit is the sheer variety we have HRX, S&C, Yoga, Dance, Boxing etc and even if you got for only one class regularly like HRX they mix it up so each session is different and you don't get bored. 

HRX is just a strength and mobility training, it can be called in any name but let Hrithik Roshan get some royalty 

The next variety in cult.fit is the timing you can go to any class there are many slots in the morning and also in the evening

Also they have AC and ventilation so even if you sweat you dont end up drenching yourself. 

In Quad Bootcamp we do exercise in the open and we have to deal with heat and mosquitos and a tough concrete floor (it was a parking lot)

The next advantage of the cult.fit is the music. Like Tabada counting with a music is good

There are many  trainers for the same session. So you can see 2 different trainers for S&C under a fortnight which adds more variety. 

Also the technology is good you have to book the session and you cannot do bulk booking on the go and forget, every other day you have to look at what session is available when and book it

If you booked and you have a no show you are penalized by subtracting 1 day from your subscription. But there is an option to cancel your booking before the class. 

The cons are:

One trainer for many people and even though he does his level best its superficial you may end up getting hurt if you made a wrong move. 

In Quad Bootcamp there were many trainers and lot of training was given on how to lift weight etc which was not seen here in Cult.fit and you may get hurt if you pushed yourself or incorrect posture

Also in  Quad Bootcamp, there will be a progress you can start from 8kg Kettlebell and end up going upto 24 or more kg. 

Here in cult.fit the oneness is on you to make progress, the trainer assumes that there are beginners in the group and so he will focus on asking people to take weights but he will not be able to remember what weight you lifted yesterday etc 

So cult.fit is more for people who want to stay heathy and do exercise regularly and that was my goal so it fit nicely. 

A magic happens when you go to a place with other people and you do exercise together, you do more than what you do alone and that's a win for me. 

But generally here is my observation

1. Humans are social animal you align with the group and you can make progress provided there is alignment of the goals between the individual and group 

2. Don't beat yourself if you are not motivated and you are not able to do it alone, its not a weakness to ask for a professional help or go for a subscription. What is important is how you improve your quality of life. Whether its by doing it all yourself or going for a paid membership

3. Paying for a service is good: 

MOOC is good but the completion rate is not great, a paid subscription for an online class even if the quality is lower than that of  a popular MOOC may help you in completing the course. Your motivation is not wasting the money and not actually learning but its ok. You are smart enough to create a system to make you learn which is great!!

4. Standalone bootcamp is not for everyone

Everybody has gone for a 3 month bootcamp and 6 months Yoga session and after 1 year you don't even do half of the sessions yourself. Sustained practice is required so choose the product carefully

5. Dont be in analysis Paralysis

You are not married to a Product or subscription. Don't spend endless time in reviews many of the reviews are biased (like a one off negative experience or a bait by the product to influencers so they get paid for a good review)

Also what works for one person may not work for others . More specifically what worked for you 6 months ago may not work for you now. 

You can always cut loss and move on so just take a dip and if you enjoy it good else at least you know what it is like

I tried a one on one fitness coaching and it was too tiring and I did not like it, but I know in my skin that I did not like it so its a good experience. 

Beauty, Healthy, Vitality, longevity is my aim. I want to age gracefully and be functional and independent and have a good quality of life. 

May be I may leave cult.fit but I hope I find some other thing to keep me healthy. The end goal is to be  a healthy person and the means right now is cult.fit. 

Its not surrender but trust

In spiritual vocabulary there is this word called Surrender. 

Surrender to God! Let thy will be done etc

I think Surrender is a wrong word. 

You have your intellect, emotion and have this physical body and also a Will. You don't have to surrender these things and be passive. 

You need to Trust that there is a benevolent universe. Trust that it cares about you (and also cares about bigger things also)

You have to play the game with this universe not competition but cooperation. Since you know the Universe is on your side.

Play the game with gusto. If result is not what you anticipated, see if you get the signal from universe. 

Try to understand and trust the universe, either change your goal post or your strategy and play again with gusto. 

Since what matters is how we respond to life, how we show up everyday, how we grow and contribute. 

Let your brief stay here be a good experience for you and people near you. Play courageously and with trust. If you do that the play itself will be very fulfilling   

Don't be a commentator be a strategist

 If you are saying things are not going good. You are just saying what is happening now. Like a commentator or a newsreader. You reading out the news aloud does not going to change the situation. 

Accept that the situation is not helping your highest vision but then don't blabber about it on and on blaming yourself or others. 

Try becoming a strategist what is good right now, is this is a lesson to learn, at least you know that this is not serving you. 

Paint a vision on what you want to be or how you want the situation to be in the future. Be a strategist and not a commentator. 

And as soon as you have a vague steps to take. Immediately take the first step

How to get permanent change with external force

Very interesting to see Taliban taking over Afghan even after several years of being dormant. They were in sideline when US came and the moment US left they are back. 

So this external force is a wasted time, we are unable to bring change after applying external force for such a long time.

There is a science experiment about creating permanent and temporary magnet

There is a way to create permanent magnet and I think it makes sense to apply a high external energy to get a permanent change. 

We can definitely supply some external energy for temporary magnet but even there we need to make the temporary magnet more productive with less external energy as the time progresses. 

Why we are not able to solve this Afghan problem permanently?

But lets look at our lives and the lives we can influence. What we should do so that we have permanent changes without the need to supply a lot of external energy. 

How we can have an amplified return to the energy we put for reaching an outcome. 

I deleted youtube app in my phone

Yes I did it and feel super awesome!

I used to burn sometime everyday looking at my subscription and the never ending list of suggested videos from youtube in my mobile its a distraction. 

I still have youtube in my smart tv and that's ok. Because its a planned downtime when I sit in front of my TV. But with my mobile since its handy and when I feel I needed to look for something interesting it kills the time 3 mins becomes 13 mins just like that!!

Anyway if I want to access youtube in my mobile I can still use browser and since it requires some effort I don't end up doing it and this helps me save hours every week. 

You don't need willpower to overcome addiction to distraction. You just need to setup your environment which benefits you and that's a smart way to becoming productive

Stocks vs Mutual Funds for people in high tax slab

 With the recent taxation for Dividents in India people who are in high tax bracket may end up choosing Mutual Fund (MF) vs stocks here are the reasons why you are better off with MF

1. You get taxed for Dividents and lets say you diligently try to reinvest you have to still pay brokerage and other taxes as part of buying you dont need to do that in MF

2. Its very difficult to track your investments may be you have several lakhs invested in many companies do you think you can do a rational choice when something goes up or down 

3. If you invest in MF you can do a predefined amount but the same thing is difficult in Stocks you need to get the exact amount which could be less or higher than your desired amount

4. Even lets say you were able to diligently invest in stocks how do you do portfolio rebalancing how  you are sure your stocks are in the right weightage when you have to book profit or loss tactically

5. All the above mentioned in #4 may have tax implications and that's bypassed in MF you don't have to pay tax 

6. Also MF with its volume may get better deal in rates then you as an individual 

Agreed that for a given investment you  are paying regular fees in MFs and if you can do all the investment yourself you may end up saving that cost but is that what you need to spend time on. 

If your regular job is not in stock market and something else will you not rather spend time on upgrading your skill and having good life experience, spending time with your family or will you be looking at stock market. 

You may have got 300% return in a stock investment but how much you invested say 1 Lakh!

Is that enough for your future expenses and retirement?

Do you have the guys to exit that investment and put all the money in the next stock (else compounding will not happen)

Mutual Fund is a passive investment for you and you are never going to be rich just by investing in MF. 

The critical part of any investment is the amount you invest and if you can manage your active part of earning good money taking care of yourself and your loved ones then you end up increasing the amount invested in good quality MFs and this will make you rich. 

Aim for 10% XIRR in MF equity and manage your life style and skill development and live well below your means. 

Have an aggressive % of investment target like 40-50% of your salary and that will make you rich in a tax efficient way. 

Legacy Planning - what should happen when you die

 

There was a scene in a film where the villain asks the hero, “tell me how you want to die”

The hero replies, “as an old man”

That’s our wish right we want to die as an old man but when we die is not in our control.

We should definitely try to form good habits and take care of our health but death just happens sometimes and mostly when we are not ready for it

 

Some of my colleagues died due to COVID leaving  young dependent children behind… and that got me thinking

 

 

When we leave our family unexpectedly we have to let them know what they have to do.

There are 2 aspects

1. inheritance of wealth
2. inheritance of memories

 

Since we are in digital age lets speak about the above 2 only from the digital point of view since I feel that’s going to be very difficult.

 

If you have physical document about your investment in a suitcase your family know exactly where to look but with digital investments how many demat account, MF Folios you have .. you may yourself may not know.

 

With ease of paperwork in digital you would have tried zillions of investment products and even though you have placed a nominee in each of the account the nominee needs to know about them then only they can act on it.

 

So please think about this… do you want to create a will or at least print out the consolidated investment statement once a year and keep it somewhere so your family can see. Please plan this and discuss with your family

 

Next comes inheritance of memories, nowadays we don’t take print of our photos and also not even copying it in a cd and its all in some cloud platform say google.

There are ways to make these assets /memories to be transferred to your dear ones on your demise.

Please read this article

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/personal-finance-news/how-to-bequeath-your-gmail-facebook-other-digital-accounts-to-your-family-heirs/articleshow/58548246.cms?from=mdr

 

We cannot afford to think about legacy planning at our 60s. Legacy planning is an ongoing process and we have to start very early and keep on updating them as things change over years.

 

Invitation for Mastermind

 I was curious about starting a mastermind and I ended up starting mastermind not with a group but as a one on one sessionss. 

There are many programs for self development, you can join an online class or read a book. But there is something about a peer to peer connect. A Magic that happens in the "we" space. 

There is a customized recipe that we discover with being in a mastermind and I think its a important tool for personal development and it can co-elevate our community

Here is a snippet of what I use for sending invite for mastermind. 

********************************************************

Hi <name>

I was thinking of starting a mastermind group. You would have heard of a master mind group in some books. Its about few ppl get together and discussing their problems and come up with solution A peer to peer mentoring group. Its also an accountability group. You go to the group and say this is what I want to achieve and the ppl will be your accountability partner and check whether you are making progress.

We are so productive in office since we have some goals for the project and we meet frequently with our peers and boss and give report of the progress and we are held accountable. But we don’t have the same system for personal development.

Very successful ppl are part of some mastermind groups and they usually charge very high amount and it’s a very private group no one speaks about it and its not open to public.

When you look about general friendship calls that ppl have its generally shallow we discuss about politics or movies or something like that and we don’t go deep about our personal aspiration and problems and we don’t say about our goals to anyone and so there is no tracking of the goal and we end up living well below our potential.

 

Anyway ppl in mastermind group should have known each other so I thought why can’t we start with our friends

Are you interested in creating a mastermind group. I cannot think of anyone other than you, me,<friends name> if you think you want to have a mastermind group but don’t want any of these ppl let me know. We can have it between just the 2 of us.

 

We can  discuss about the rules etc . We can have some calls say 30 mins once a week or whenever we want and we need to go very deep and speak about our things openly with trust and be open to being vulnerable and getting feedback.

********************************************************

For me inspiration for mastermind came from lifebook, mondvalley and books like think and grow rich

10 minute rule - overcome distraction

 Got this idea from the Mindvalley content - Being Indistractable  by Nir Eyal

Distraction is anything that takes away from your traction or planned work. 

Distraction could be useful work but its a distraction since it is not scheduled

If you have no schedule then distraction does not make sense. Distraction should be against a schedule so rule number 1 is schedule your day then only you will know how much you are distracted. 

10 Minute Rule:

If you have an urge for distraction like checking facebook just set a 10 min alarm. You are delaying the urge by 10 minutes. Observe how you feel. Its perfectly ok to go to your urge after 10 mins but most probably will not. 

Character and Success

Ridiculouly terrible people are successful 

Pleasing people are successeeful 

Pleasing people are poor so are terrible people

Pleasing people who are poor are happy so does rich pleasing people 

Conversly terrible people tend to be terrible both rich or poor 

So what is happening here. What is the attitude which we have to keep to be successful it seems you can be successful and rich and still feel terrible and be a grumpy guy. 

There are 2 major themes of energy the way of the light and the way of dark both are powerful. 

The way of light is the satvic way of growing, creating values to others making life better for everyone and by that process generating wealth

The way of dark is about trying to be smart and thinking all other people are dump and trying to extract money from those dump people, getting the last blood of the fellow person, jealousy,  etc

In both ways you can get wealth and similarly in both ways you may end up losing wealth, 

Lets explain the loosing wealth aspect 

You are grumpy jealous and you may end up bumping to a person worse than you (another dark worker) and end up loosing money or the light workers and neutral persons avoid you and seek others (both dark and light workers) leaving you grumpy with poverty

Related to light worker, you have not built a personal ego boundary which can save you. You have no boundary which will result in no personal ambition for material wealth you just want to serve and be happy this will result in both not getting rich and if at all you get rich by some accident you may end up loosing it with this attitude. 

Ego less state or  communion with the universe/ god is a very good state which will recharge you but you need not stay in that state permanently. You have to have an inner sanctity with the communion but have to go back to a good ego state 

If you want to be pleasing or in other words if you want to be a light worker and still create material wealth or for that matter any kinds of wealth like health. You need to develop a healthy good ego which will act as a boundary for your living energy. 

A sense of  Iness is needed for your progress

MindValley All Access - cost saving subscription options

 Mindvalley introduced all access say couple of years ago and have introduced monthly all access few months ago.

The monthly access is $100 per month and the yearly is $599. 

So as you can see if you subscribe for monthly and even if you continue for  6 months the yearly subscription looks cheaper. 

But there are couple other alternative 

You can subscribe in your mobile (google/ iphone) - > and anyway you have access to that subscription even in website

Google gives monthly subscription for $59 per month and Amazon says Rs4999 which is $67 per month

Both the Google and iphone option looks like traditional subscription offer of pay every month  or pay for 10 months and get 2 months free.

As Vishen Lakhani says Mindvalley is not a personal development streaming network. With connections app and live interaction All Access is getting awesome and you should try it out. 

The MindValley customer service people are generous  and kind but I feel they are slow. 

It takes a good amount of time to get response 

And here is the killer if you subscribe to the website monthly access they even allow 15 day refund. 

A 15 day refund for a 30 month subscription is insane but they do that. 

Anyway long story short you have to try the 1 month subscription and decide for yourself if its worth it for you. 

And the monthly subscription from the apps(google/ iphone) does not hurt your pocket 

No Universal Prescription Please

 There is no silver bullet which can solve all the problems. 

Prescription has to be customized. 

Lets take investment as an example someone will say if you are this age  you have put X amount in Equity and Y amount in Debt that could be more of a guideline not a prescription. 

You need to consider the person's financial goal, career stability and many other things like his aptitude for risk etc and give him a customized solution. 

Similarly to spiritual path 

A guru comes and says follow my path and he has a big event having 10k people where he teaches Kriya

After few months how may people will be doing the Kriya and also even if they do it, does that really add vale to their life. 

A guru, let me call him a coach since that seems to be a better term. 

The spiritual coach (or for that matter any coach like finance/ health/ career coach) should first understand his capability to guide and should know the level the disciple is and give a training program at that level and he may have to calibrate the training program based on the progress. 

But if this is not possible, then the aspirant can look for gurus learn from them, also get blessings from them if  he can (since its believed that you need the blessings from Gurus for spiritual progress)

Basically most of the time you may not be able to afford a coach (in many areas of life since they may be costly and you may have to be in a level and then only you can start affording a coach)

So you can be your own coach attend some online classes or workshop and review and reflect and recalibrate. 

May be you meet some gurus in some of your training and after sampling you may decide to go to them for help. 

If they are a good guru they may not give an universal prescription for you, it should be a customized solution. 

Whether the Guru can do that or not is not in your control. 

But you can create your own customized solution and recalibrate. 

Dont surrender to your Guru. 

Your aim is progress and it need not be a blind surrender. 

I bless you have the energy and intellect and grace to find your current customized solution for various aspects for your life. 

With that you can have progress. 

Remember for deliberate practice you need to measure, review, report and reflect 

The greatest Pain

When you love someone, you will be happy when they reciprocate it. Do you feel sad when they hate you? Or is there another act which that person can do for you, which will inflict pain.

Lets take an example, say you show your report card to your father. If he is happy for you - good, if he gets sad and worried about you then it’s kind of ok. What if he doesn’t even care he just signs it and gives it back to you.

Indifference is the greatest pain! It’s the huge insult which can be given by a person to another. We can all talk about doing an act which will make you happy.  Even if you are doing an act socially you are doing it to make yourself happy. So we may say that it doesn’t matter if someone is indifferent.

But it’s not really practical! We may be happy doing the act but when we learn about the indifference of the consumer of the act are we still happy?

But doesn’t a loving mother do a lot of selfless acts for her child, even if that child is indifferent.

Yes, but its an exception because the mother is seeing the child ‘as a part of’ her.

Act of love doesn’t really mean your act towards someone. Act of love also means doing something that you love. It can even be a piece of art; it can be your everyday job. Whatever you do, you touch other’s life and if you put your heart into it and still you get indifference from the other side. Then?

You end up doing nothing at all. If you open your heart into something (or someone), there is a chance that it will be broken, broken by an act of indifference.

How do we handle this?

 First things first, we should not stop our acts. Because if you stop doing what you love, then you don’t exist. Second, we should accept that external things will not change- people may continue to be indifferent. Third, become a karma yogi.

Karma Yogi could be a high concept. But nothing wrong in working towards that if it guarantees less pain.

We should dedicate our work to God, believing that He loves and cares for us. He takes time to see what we have been doing.

 But how could He have time?

 Because He is timeless.

But how can I dedicate an act of love to somebody to God?

It’s basically still karma, still some action. Even if you are thinking about someone now, it’s technically an act, a mental act

It still doesn’t make sense I do something for someone or on something. This is totally unrelated to God?

Everything is God. Both you and that someone and that something ‘is part of’ Him. If you take out God nothing remains.

Does God really exist?

That’s out of topic, we are talking about belief which doesn’t require proof.

If a belief makes you happy, it’s good enough. If you can continue your act of love and can still smile on the face of indifference, then it’s good.

And one more thing act like God.

Be sensitive. When you suspect someone doing something: an act of love, a piece of act, a mundane work which he thinks he has done well. Acknowledge it, tell him.

Now take a moment and reflect on this. God has created this wonderful universe, this is a piece of art from him. It’s so magnificent that we may never able to fathom it. But we are indifferent! Isn’t it? 

Actors Physical suffering - The Sorry state of Tamil Cinema

Wow Suryva developed Six Pack for '7am Arivu'

Vishal displays squint eyes in 'Avan Ivan'

My name is Shaam and I did not sleep for 6 days so that I get a puffy eyes, why 6 days. Hey the movies name is 6!

My name is Arya I did not comb my hair for 6 months. I did the Sirasasanam, which a yoga instructor said that it will take 2 years, but I did in 3 months.

"I mean look how dedicated I'm", the actors shout at you, "See how I suffer and how much I am committed"

It seems Bala had said, "See Arya suffered a lot. I think he needs to be awarded"

This is defeatism., you have technology in place to do a lot of things for you.Why you suffer, is it really justified that a person should go through a hell lot of physical suffering to do the act? All these sufferings are market gimmicks.

Did Shivaji Ganesan took any physical suffering. Did he said that I will do a six pack for Raja Raja Cholan?
Shivaji is considered a master actor, he put his heart and soul into acting.
He would have done his home work on the characters that he need to portray  But I dont think he altered himself physically.
Inspite of him not physically representing the character, he still made us feel that he is the Character. Thats acting!


You can always buy some accessories in those days and can use technology now to get the physical appearance of that character but please don't focus on the physical strain of the actor as the selling  point! This is outright silly!

If A.R Murugadoss made some effort in putting a decent story in 7am Arivu instead of asking Surya to develop six pack. It would have been good for Tamil Cinema.
7am Arivu ended as an one dimensional Tamil Patriotic movie. I am a Tamilian and I was not at all proud watching this movie. I was worried if Chinese sees this movie and declare a war on us!



Focus on the content and on acting and don't make people alter their physique, ask them to work on their diction, mannerism that's acting.

If you want a person with some physique go and look for him,don't ask an actor to alter himself.
If you want a person to play handicap in a movie, will you make him handicap!

It seemed Vikram worked hard for the Blind character in Kasi, but unfortunately it boomed in the Box office.
What was more unfortunate was Vikram's eyes became weak and he had to wear spectacles!

The Actor's life is extremely fragile. Cinema is an extremely unreliable field. He can be a star today and then he is part of several movies which becomes flop and then no one gives him even a guest role and he need to maintain his status. He cannot just come back to the streets.

Lets use the Actors wisely and lets put content first and do meaningful movie. Let the movie speak for itself don't promote it on an actors suffering. Use technology and accessories wisely.

The Passion of Christ is considered to be an authentic portrait of the last days of Jesus Christ. The Lead actor who played Jesus was not asked to grow a beard!
The makeup man did the job!

Share Auto

Once I was travelling in a share auto from Saidapet to Ullagaram, it was around 8 P.M. I was sitting in the back seat, two passengers were on the either side of me. The auto was full: meaning the driver seat is also shared by a fellow passenger.

A middle aged woman who was seated in the corner asked the Auto sto stop when we were between NGO Colony and Mount. That was a place wherein you will not get bus at this time of night and the possibility to get a space in auto is also remote.

The woman said, “Look there is standing a girl. How can she get an auto at this point of time! Let her come on this auto.”, she called the girl and said, “come and sit in my lap.”

The girl was in her late teens and she initially was reluctant but on the persistence of this woman sat in her lap. She got down at Mount.

The auto stated moving but it stopped on seeing another girl (of about the same age). The girl looked inside the auto and noticed that it was full and doubtfully looked at the driver for asking her to get in.

“Sit in the woman’s lap”, said the auto driver.

“How dare you say this”, remarked the woman, “I let that girl sit on my lap because the place where she was waiting, she will never get an auto and she looked like my child. And now you are asking this girl to sit in my lap so that you get extra person and extra money? What kind of man are you?”

The girl did not enter the auto and the auto started moving. The girl would have definitely got another share auto in less than a minute. The rest of the journey the woman near me was talking to me about the behavior of this auto driver.

I did not look at the driver’s face but I presume it would have had a smug smile when he had asked the girl from Mount to sit on this woman’s lap.

Let’s take another look at this incident.

This is a share auto driven by a selfish, sarcastic, uncivilized man. There was this woman who opened her heart for a girl (may be because she identified the girl as her child) and did a (small) sacrifice by asking her to sit on her lap. The woman had to pay the price immediately because the selfish driver wanted to take advantage of the situation.

There was also I, one of the passenger, a mere spectator, but had already internalized the belief that your heart should be stone. I had seen several incidents from which I inferred that it makes no sense to be kind and should not do any selfless acts, because there are vultures wandering around just to prey on you.

Looking back at the incident after several years, I’ve come to realize ‘at least in paper’, that it makes sense to do selfless act and suffer rather than acting smart by being a stone. Because, if you do a selfless act and suffer you are at least alive, but if you are tricking yourself to be an insulator then you are just existing. 

The Tragedy about the Tragedy

Cinema, fiction are very different from our real life. Real life has a lot of irrational things. But fiction, cinema are technically rational, these mediums present the ‘edit’ version of real life.
2 characters meet and they speak about a point and they speak so that the reader/ viewer understand sthe context. This can never happen in real life.
Take this example
“Do you really have to go?”, asks the mother
“Yes amma. This is educational tour and we are going to Udhagamandalam to study the tribes life”, replied the daughter
Do you see how crystal clear the dialogue is? But can you be sure that this is how the incidents happen in real life? The woman and her daughter would’ve spoken the same things, but it would have been lengthy exchange and could’ve happened over a period of week. But for the sake of Fiction/ cinema the creator has given the distilled information.
Now there is this craze in Tamil Cinema to take a rustic story with a tragic end. But what is tragic in this tragic cinema is the tragedy is irrational!
Take for example ‘Vennila Kabadikulu’, the movie goes for a smooth finish, but the director decides that he needs a tragedy. Nothing works like tragedy, the sympathetic wave of the crowd is extremely important.
So the hero dies accidently. Yes! Accident happens in real life too! Life is so irrational that suddenly a person dies in an accident. But in cinema you cannot do it. You should be as rational as possible.
It’s ok if a character dies of an accident and then the story can be how the people around come terms of what happened. The story can provide space for how rationally the characters react. But abruptly ending a story with a tragedy is a ‘tragedy’ of creativity.
In ‘Valmiki’ the hero is a thief and he finally turns a new leaf and all of a sudden someone snatches the gold chain from the heroine and she gets cut in her neck and she dies. Come on! Be creative, it’s easy to make people cry but it’s difficult to make the tragedy rational. And it’s the duty of the creator to make it rational.