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2009/5/6 RANN2009/5/4 My reactions to reactions1. My girl friend says you are a softie at heart. Ans: Hmmm! Well! Err! Am blushing… please tell her not to tell this to anyone and let my secret out please… 2. The Agyaat song has just 2 layers. It needs atleast 3 layers to complete it. Ans: Pardon me Sir but I have no knowledge of the layeral aspect of songs and neither do I wish to know, so I please request you to not jump forward to educate me on the same now. 3. I started enjoying you ridiculing even my own comments. Ans: Attaboy. That’s the point of life. My gyan to you is not to take anything seriously especially yourself. 4. Why do you keep tough faces for all your characters? Ans: Because I love tough guys. 5. The line you attributed to Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon” was from Zen Buddha’s scriptures. Ans: The point was not about the origin but about where I heard it. For all I know the Zen guy could have got it from his cook. 6. You are still a kid. Ans: If you say so, Uncle. 7. Do you find it paradoxical that sex which can be such a pleasure requires a woman who can be such a torture? Ans: Ahhhhh! You are telling meeeeeeee maaaaaaaaaan! 8. Why is it that you keep coming back to the same genre of movies? Ans: Atleast I keep returning to my roots. Most other filmmakers don’t even leave their roots. 9. Do write a scary story. Ans: Ok, here goes my one line scary story…. I am remaking Aag. 10. If you are happy about the movies you are making, you are making a fool of yourself. Ans: And if you think you are happy about you thinking I am happy about thinking what you are thinking of what I am thinking then you are making a double fool of yourself. 11. Your arrogance is revolting. Someone should beat you with a stick to tame you. Ans: My mom, my sister and my girlfriend think the same. 12. How do you manage time? Ans: By not wearing a watch. 13. The title of Rakta Charitra is not good. It does not have shock value. People won’t come to watch a movie with that title. Ans: Ok, Mr.Expert, how about blessing us with your creative genius and gift a title. 14. How do you balance between existentialist philosophies and material life which you are enjoying in a full fledge style? Ans: Like I said somewhere on this blog, I believe that we are born in the morning and die in the night. So thinking beyond the moment we are living, I think is a futile exercise. Vodka and sex are realities for me, and films and philosophies are dreams. 2009/5/1 My reactions to reactions1. When will you take me out for dinner?
Ans: If you are man I would rather have a vodka with you, and if you are a woman I would rather stay in with you. 2. How about casting Nana as Ravi?
Ans: How about keeping your suggestions to yourself? 3. Did you ever go to a temple?
Ans: Many times when I was kid along with my grandma. She used to give me 100 Rupees each time. 4. I am searching for an answer to this question. Who am I?
Ans: You already answered yourself, because only nobodies can have questions like that. 5. I am fed up of your lame background scores.
Ans: Stop listening. 6. I think Rakta Charitra will be successful.
Ans: Oh! Ok, Mr.Thinker. 7. This song sounds like Kahin Deep Jale.
Ans: That was the intent, Sir. 8. Why don’t you write a scary story for your blog?
Ans: I already did. It was titled “The Making of Aag”. 9. You should have come up with something more original than this song.
Ans: Waaaaah! What an original idea! Maan gaye Sir! Mind blowing. 10. Sorry but the song is bad. Ans: Thanks. 11. Awesome song.
Ans: Thanks. 12. I bet 2000$ this movie will not be a hit.
Ans: Then why not bet 2 million$? Why be so cheap even in your wishes? 13. I decided to watch Agyaat.
Ans: Can you please post your feet to my office so that I can touch them? 14. Use the words philosophize and philosophy correctly.
Ans: Where do I send the cheque for the English lesson, Sir? 15. I think you did not understand Satyendra. Ans: If this is how you think, you better think about yourself.
2009/4/30 Aaajaaaaareee……I was always fascinated with the haunting songs from yesteryear films like ‘Woh Kaun Thi’, ‘Gumnaam’, ‘Kohraa’ etc.
So inspite of AGYAAT not being really a Ghost film I just wanted to do a song on those lines. Since the basic point of the film is that you can’t see the Antagonist in the film I thought it will be an interesting idea to put forth that thought though the lyrics of this song.
The Music is by Bapi-Tutul Lyrics by Prashant Pandey Sung by Shweta Pandit
Also I am putting some shots from the film to go with the sound-track. This is neither a Trailer nor a Music Video. It is just some random shots taken from the film to go with the feel of the song.
AGYAAT - Sunn Saakte (Hindi) Sunn saakte toh.. bhaag sakte ho.. Iss darr ka na koi chehra…
Aayeega… jaan le jaayeega… Agyaat hai…
Zehreela… saaya… tadpayeega…
2009/4/28 My reactions to reactions
1. Who is going to play Suri? 2. How could you see Satyendra in class if you and he belonged to different branches? 3. Sure, some of us are influenced by what we read and who we meet but I think also some of us are born with a capability to think by themselves. 4. Is it only the result which differentiates between Guts and Stupidity? 5. Do you think philosophy will be best conveyed through a book rather than in a movie? 6. Could the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer have contributed to Satyendra’s frustration in life and negative effects? But if you can get another pint of milk you don’t need to philosophize. Philosophy primarily is a weapon of the incompetent. For example; Superman does not need philosophy. 7. Are you scared that you may not be able to do justice if you make a movie on Satyendra? 8. There is Satyendra in every one of us but only the degree differs. 9. I am assuming your thoughts on God are same as they were 27 years ago. 10. Do you know where Satyendra is and what he does? 2009/4/27 The search for Paritala RaviAfter thinking hard on every actor both known and unknown I have finally zeroed in on Vivek Oberoi as the most ideal choice to play Paritala Ravi. He has remarkable intensity in his eyes which I noticed in the making of Company, a voice which commands attention, an arrogance in his demeanour, an enormous power in his stance, and also a certain vulnerability which makes one instantly warm up to him, which is what is needed to fit in a role of Paritala Ravi’s profile. After a rough look-test done and when I saw the approximation of how Vivek could look like in different phases of Ravi’s life, from being a rebel in the jungles to a political strong-arm man, I was absolutely convinced that my search ended.      2009/4/25 My reactions to reactions1. Satyendra reminds me of a line from Friedrich Nietzsche “The higher you go, the smaller you look to the people who are still on the ground level.”
Ans: Though brilliantly said I don’t think that line was said by Nietzsche as it seems a little too tame by his normal standards of expression, though he said about himself in his autobiography ‘Ecce Homo’ “The whole phenomenon of humanity lies at an incalculable distance beneath me and my Zarathustra. What I say in one line others do not say in whole books.” 2. Did your thinking develop from the books you read and your associations with certain people?
Ans: Everybody’s thinking pretty much develops because of those same reasons, as the simple fact is that we are all born with a blank mind. 3. Can you tell us about a conversation you had with Satyendra?
Ans: One day as I was going out for shopping Satyendra handed me his chappal and asked me to get its broken strap repaired. I was pretty offended to which he said, “You wouldn’t have been offended if I asked you to get my glove or my hat repaired. The reason why you are actually offended is because you look down upon your own feet compared to your hands or your head due to certain programming which was done on you over the years. On the other hand if it is the dirt you are worried about, I want you to understand that there is more dirt in your body than on my chappal. Any way, what is dirt? Everything in this world is some combination or the other of the 102 elements and you would not look down upon any of these elements individually but in a certain combination in a certain context you develop negativism to them…..” At the end of a 15 minute lecture from him on the above lines I felt stupid and took his chappal along with me to get it repaired.
4. Is Satyendra your alter ego?
Ans: No, he was my ego crasher. 5. When it comes to reality people like Satyendra fail miserably.
Ans: Success and failure are too lame to be used in the context of a man like Satyendra. For you and me they are important because we measure ourselves from the stand point of how others perceive us. “That tree stands lonely there on the hills. It has grown up high above man and beast and when it speaks, there is no one tall enough to listen”. – Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra). 6. If you see negative effects of Satyendra’s brilliance, maybe you are negative in your perception of him.
Ans: Actually my intelligence was in realizing the negative effects of Satyendra because I do not have his brilliance to support me if I adapted to his thought process. If an ant truly realizes the size and strength of an elephant it will be smart of it to move away from the elephant rather than be around it. 7. Of what importance are ability, intelligence, genius etc without a meaningful outlet?
Ans: Meaningful to whom and with what motivation is the question. In Satyendra’s own words, “To measure success let’s imagine a case of people walking through a tunnel with an objective to reach its end. Now depending on who reached the end 1st, 2nd, 3rd, we can measure success. On the other hand if people are going through different tunnels where their condition of passages and their individual capacities are different, then how do you measure?” Satyendra is a man who choose never to enter any tunnel for reasons best known to himself as he never had a desire to achieve. He just wanted to absorb. That’s his choice and I respect that. 8. Why didn’t you give him a chance to stay with you instead of leaving him in a windowless room?
Ans: Hello, that was his choice and not mine. I already told in my article on him that he got bored with me. The greatest compliment he ever paid me was when he said, “I think you are just stupid whereas I don’t even know what to call the others.” 9. Why don’t you make a movie on Satyendra?
Ans: Can’t because he is a mind thing. 10. After reading your blog I think that you are as troubled a soul as me.
Ans: Think whatever makes you happy Mr.Spiritual. 11. How do you manage to live happily without disappointments?
Ans: By not having expectations and relishing every moment. 12. Is it really possible to know everything in the entire universe in one life to get bored to death?
Ans: It’s not about knowing everything but it’s about having a desire to know something you really want to know about. “The pursuit of truth and knowledge is not important. What is important is the pursuit of a specific truth and knowledge which helps you in reaching your goal provided you have one.” – Ayan Rand (The Romantic Manifesto) In Satyendra’s case he chose not to have a goal or he had goals I with my limited intelligence could not comprehend.
13. How come Satyendra was 2 years junior to you and yet you were with him for 4 years in Engg? Ans: I said he was 2 years younger to me… and I failed one year. Happy with the math? 2009/4/24 The one who influenced me the mostMany times people ask me on when exactly my thinking took a certain turn and the answer for that is when a guy called Satyendra came into my life who undoubtedly is the most intelligent and knowledgeable man I have ever met in my life. He was 2 years younger to me and my junior at Siddhartha Engineering College in Vijayawada. I was doing Civil engg. And he was in the Mechanical branch.
He was a voracious reader and after reading he used to analyze the book and the author with such intrinsic depth and detail that one would understand everything from what caused the author to write the book to its failings and what it would do to different individuals depending upon their individual sensibilities.
Not only the students but even the lecturers at the college used to be scared of his intelligence. I could literally see the tension on their faces whenever Satyendra raised his hand to ask a question.
He used to come to college in hawai chappals, sit in the last bench, borrow a paper torn from a fellow student’s book and scribble some points of the ongoing lecture. He used to leave the class abruptly once he felt he got the point of the lecture or if he felt that the lecturer was incapable of delivering it and he would rather read it in the relevant book.
I have seen him reading text books with as much ease as one would read a fiction novel. His interests were unimaginably varied and very intense. I used to feel that I knew a little about at least cinema but he knew and understood cinema many times more deeper than me and cinema was just one of his many many interests. He was the guy who introduced me to the teachings of the various philosophers starting from Plato, Emanuel Kant, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Ayan Rand and of-course Friedrich Nietzsche. He used to talk about those philosophers to me as if they were kids. I surely believed it at that time and believe that now too that Satyendra was more intelligent than all of them not necessarily because it was true but it’s because his understanding of them was far greater than mine and hence I couldn’t question Satyendra’s observations on them and their thoughts. So for all practical purposes he was higher than them for me.
He always used to see everything beyond the obvious. Both of us one day went to see a film called “Coma” based on a medical thriller written by Robin Cook. There was a scene in the film where the leading lady gets trapped in a cold storage with dead bodies hung in plastic sheets. Everybody who saw the film including me was terrified at the plight of the girl. But Satyendra talked about the dead bodies, on who they might have been as individuals. They would have laughed, cried and had their own dreams but now they are all reduced as mere props so as to invoke fear. So in reality he said the tragedy is more on the dead bodies than on the girl.
On another occasion we went to see a film called “Papillon” and in the interval we bumped into out college Principal. Satyendra told him he was watching the film for the 7th time. The Principal said that he didn’t find anything that great in the film to which Satyendra said that obviously he saw something in it which the Principal could not. To this the Principal said if he were so observant that he could see something no one else could see where is the need to see it 7 times, to which Satyendra replied “Why do you make love to your wife every day?”
Much later after his retirement that Principal wrote an article for a magazine “The one student I will never forget” based on his interactions with Satyendra.
When I was doing a project on building a residential colony for industrial personnel for my final year, I requested Satyendra to write a foreword for it. He just took a paper and pen started writing without thinking for a second. I still remember the first paragraph which goes something like this.
“Ever since the first quiverings of life animated a lifeless lump of clay it has been a biological imperative for every creature to seek shelter… shelter from the elements and shelter from the predators. Though in the animal world it remained more or less at an instinctive level, in humans it evolved into a complex form”.
Obviously my four years association with Satyendra and my understanding of him cannot be encompassed in this one article, not to forget I am still not sure whether I had or have the capacity to fully understand his brilliance. At best I could recognize it and I tried to feed on it.
After finishing college we were out of touch not by my choice but because he got bored with me. Years later when I was shooting for a film in his town, I tried to trace him as I came to know he left his home a few years earlier. I found him in a windowless room filled with all kinds of books. His eyes were filled with boredom which made me realize that he got saturated with knowledge and intelligence, and as a result there was no more excitement in his life
My relationship with him varied between admiration, awe and fear. I feared him mostly in the old times because I was insanely jealous of his brilliance and was angry that he could make me feel like a nobody.
Now I fear him because I have seen the negative effects of his brilliance. He is bored to death of everything and everyone in life and hence almost as good as dead. His eyes were unseeing when I met him last and I could see his mind was not responding as he cannot relate to any of the stuff that common people like me get excited about, and as a result he cut himself off from the world. The greatest thing that happened to my life was that he had a few conversations with me which changed my life, and the greatest fear he put in me is that, because of what happened with him, I realized that there can be actually such a thing as too much intelligence.
For all those who believe that Howard Roarks do no exist in the real world I want to tell them that “they do” and that I met and interacted with one. If Satyendra was Howard Roark in Fountainhead, I am not even a Peter Keating or Ellsworth Toohey. I am just a guy who tried to study and understand him… and I think I understood a little.
That’s about it.
2009/4/23 My reactions to reactions1. If you give such a shitty response to my request then we as an audience would rather not have you make that film and fuck it up.
Ans: Oh my! my! my! The baby got angry. Can somebody get a lollypop, please… 2. Why do you rely so much on shock value to tell a story?
Ans: It’s the most effective way of getting attention. 3. Am waiting anxiously to see Rakta Charitra.
Ans: I promise you that it will be worth the wait. 4. You bastard!
Ans: Thanks. 5. Thinking of so many characters, I think you missed your own character.
Ans: Now that’s a damn interesting observation. 6. Making a film on Paritala Ravi will have a negative impact on society.
Ans: Then why don’t you make a film on me making the film and neutralize it. Jokes apart just chill and wait till you atleast see the film before you let loose your valuable opinions. 7. Do you think of even such minor details like J.D looking at watch and Manoj referring to JD as Amita Vacchan?
Ans: Yeah, that’s the story of my life. I get into the minor details and miss out on the major ones. 8. Would you act if any role is offered to you?
Ans: I freeze even in front of a still camera. 9. Would you prefer a beautiful angel or a sexy devil?
Ans: I prefer a beautiful and sexy woman. 10. Do you use weird camera angles because you are bored of normal angles? Ans: The angles come from within the context of how I would like to see. Everything in the world is the same but it’s the way you choose to look at it which gives it a perspective. 11. How do you react when people call you eccentric?
Ans: I am basically a loner both in my thoughts and deeds and I understand that a loner is many times considered mad by most. “For them lonesomeness is the plight of the sick one and for me it is the flight from the sick ones” – Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra)
2009/4/18 My reactions to reactions1. Rakta Charitra sounds interesting. Just take care that you don’t use your weird camera angles and eerie music.
Ans: I am going to use even more weirder angles and even more eerier music. Do yourself a favour and don’t watch it. 2. Are you an introvert or extrovert?
Ans: Depends on who I am with. 3. Don’t loose grip on the screenplay.
Ans: Ok Sir. 4. Who is Mr.Pandey?
Ans: He wrote Sarkar Raj and now he is writing Rakta Charitra. 5. Why don’t you concentrate on a single project?
Ans : Why don’t you keep your advises to yourself? 6. God is like air around us but we feel it only when we switch on the fan?
Ans: Wouldn’t be knowing that. I use an Air Condtioner. 7. I heard it was your thought to shoot “Chaiya Chaiya” song on the top of a train?
Ans: Not guilty. 8. I have a script and if you don’t make it I will move to Hollywood.
Ans: Bye. 9. How can you shoot films so fast?
Ans: I am not fast. The others are slow. 10. What’s new in the story of Rakta Charitra? It’s been told so many times before.
Ans: Movies are never about stories, they are about telling a story. If it’s only about the story why do people make best selling novels into films. A best seller by definition means most people read it and hence know the story. It’s the process what people come to watch. Coming to Paritala Ravi’s story you or others might know the key incidents of his life. What I intend to show is the in-betweens which led to them. 11. Where are you going to set the story of Rakta Charitra? Won’t it be authentic to do it in Telugu?
Ans: Authenticity is not about the region. It’s about characters, the way they think, the way they act. A Godfather kind of a story can happen in a New York, a Mumbai and in Rayalaseema also. Faction feuds like in Rayalaseema happen in many parts of the country and the circumstances which give rise to a Ravi can happen anywhere else too. The idea of Rakta Charitra is not to do an authentic portrayal of Ravi and the faction wars of the region but it is to capture the spirit, the drama and the psychology behind them and to take it to a widest range of audience. 2009/4/14 Rakta Charitra : Writer's note“Nainam chindanti shastrani nainam dahtii pavaka…”
“The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire.”This shloka from the Bhagwat Gita Chapter 2 on the unchanging nature of being forms the core of Indian thought which gave birth to the great epics- Ramayana and Mahabharta. It can be argued that these epics encapsulate the whole philosophy and rationale of birth and death and the period in between which is commonly referred to as life. That is the reason there can never be bigger and better stories than these. Paritala Ravi’s saga echoes these mythical Indian epics not in a semblance of the story but in spirit of timelessness and universality, Rakta Charitra part one and two will be epic films with a vast emotional landscape of a saga spanning generations, the larger than life, crushing struggles and coming of age; the rise and fall of a legend. Raktcharitra one and two will tell the origins, cause and effects and the gigantic pull of two opposing powers, Ravi and Suri, how the cycle of time changes the hunted into the hunter and then again into the hunted. Rakta Charitra is about the life and times of men who unfalteringly walk into a deadly war that threatens to obliterate them and their families forever. Inspite of them being the last men standing and faced with just one choice – to kill or get killed, they keep rising from the ashes like a phoenix to defeat their enemies. There are no full stops in the world of Rakta Charitra as the end of one marks the beginning of another legend. Though inspired from true epic rise and fall of Paritala Ravi, Raktcharitra for me turned out to be really an adaptation of the extremely dramatic real life stories of the rural legends of not only the south but also of the north India and also all over the world. For me this story has played out and is unfolding every day every where every moment since thousands of years and will continue to do so. A true and first attempt at creating a contemporary Indian epic, an immensely intense social political and family drama, Rakta Charitra just by the sheer complexity of its narrative and the grandness of its story telling in a modern context can be truly called “aaj ke bharat kii mahabharat”. Prashant Pandey 2009/4/12 Rakta CharitraThis is the name of the film I am intending to make as my next after India 24/7. It’s inspired by the story of Paritala Ravi from Andhra Pradesh who got assassinated in January 2005. Even though the actual incidents of the story happened and the related characters existed in south India, I decided to make it in Hindi because I strongly felt that the sheer uniqueness of the story deserves to be told to a much wider audience.
Paritala Ravi was arguably the most feared individual ever in the history of the blood-ridden faction politics of South India. He was a prime accused in innumerable murder cases and also survived numerous assassination attempts, the most brutal of which happened on a quiet Friday afternoon in November 1997 when a road near Rama Naidu Studio in Hyderabad was turned into a death field by a bomb which killed 26 people but failed to get its intended target Ravi.
I, in the course of my life have read biographies of various people and have also come to know through various sources the life stories of many highly dangerous men including that of Velupalli Prabhakaran the LTTE Chief to Pablo Escobar the Columbian drug lord to our very own Dawood Ibrahim but all those stories pale in comparison to Ravi’s life story.
How Ravi, a soft-spoken shy guy under a force of certain circumstances retreated into the jungles, became a rebel and how he mounted a volcano of violence to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths and how in time he became a folklore legend and eventually a minister in N.T.Ramarao’s Cabinet reads more grippingly than any fiction writer anywhere in the world can ever imagine.
Ravi’s name sent shivers up the spines of not only his rivals but even the law enforcement agencies. He was a rebel, a feudal lord, a robin hood, a killer of hundreds and saviour of thousands till the day he was gunned down by a death squad allegedly put together by his arch rival Suri who wanted to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths, in a bizarre déjà vu.
I have been following Ravi’s rise to power since long, but I first heard of Suri only after the bomb explosion at Rama Naidu Studios. I was both amazed and chilled to see that even after being confined to a prison cell, how the fire of Suri’s vengeance continued to burn unabated for 7 long years till he finally succeeded, armed with nothing but a severe desire to kill Ravi as his one and only weapon.
In my research for the film I have met various associates of Paritala Ravi and Suri and also their family members. I have also met Suri who is presently lodged in Anantpur jail on trial for the killing of Ravi and what I finally managed to piece together from all the various police records and eye witness accounts is the most fascinating story I have ever heard or could hope to hear in my life. This is the story of a man’s phenomenal rise to power and a story of the most intense blood curdling conflict ever heard of between 2 individuals and it is also the ultimate statement on the oft heard disastrous consequences of a fatal mixture of caste, crime, family feuds and politics.
I decided to film this story at one stretch and release it in 2 parts about 3 months from each other, a first of its kind ever attempted in the history of Indian cinema. I want to call the films Rakta Charitra- I and Rakta Charitra-II. Why I want to make it in 2 parts is because, the sheer drama and content the story possesses is so incredibly rich and of such high magnitude that it is not possible to do justice to do it in a film which is lesser than 5 hours. Also Ravi’s life can be broadly divided into 2 parts from the time how circumstances created his rise to how he created circumstances that felled him.
I believe that Rakta Charitra is going to be the most defining film of my career not because of how well I will make it but sheerly because of the material I have at my hand. To put it simply I don’t have to work hard to make it well but I have to work hard to spoil it.
2009/4/6 My reactions on reactions1. Do you keep changing your directorial approach like for instance, post Naach till Sarkar Raj I see a difference?
Ans: Directorial approach largely depends on the theme of the film and the characters I am dealing with. 2. In Sarkar how were the killings of Selvar Mani, Vishram and Rashid countsructed?
Ans: In real life death comes as unexpected and as random as that. 3. I just hope youngsters don’t start believing in your theories and get carried away.
Ans: I hope they will as then they will get carried over. Anyway I think nobody believes in anything or anyone. They will just hold on to one belief system or the other at different stages and phases of their lives very much like a ship anchoring at different places in the course of its travel. “You say you found me, but until you find yourself you can’t find me, and the day you truly find yourself you will remain yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra)
4. How did Satya an engg student become a doctor?
Ans: I never said we were classmates or college mates in engineering. We were both in Siddhartha College at Vijayawada. She a student in Siddhartha Medical College and me in Siddhartha Engg. College and those days they both operated from the same compound. 5. Why do you think getting rid of conscience is godly?
Ans: I believe that our life is nothing but a conflict between wanting to and having to and in between lies the conscience. So if you get rid of your conscience you can live a life as pure as that of an animal. 6. Can you elaborate on the “dog dying in South Africa” (referring to Mohan Krishna’s mail on your blog)?
Ans: I will soon write a piece on that. 7. I have an idea for Sarkar III; how Subash Nagre started his life as an immigrant labourer and then became a union leader and then a political power. Abhishek can play the young Sarkar. What say? Ans: Nothing. 8. Do you look down on people who oppose your thoughts?
Ans: On the contrary I enjoy them as I am fascinated with the amazingly different point of views. 9. You said “I had a fear of rejection from Satya”. Did you have the same fear of rejection from the audience about your first film?
Ans: I never feared the audience as they are just nameless and faceless individuals whereas Satya is an individual I loved and hence feared. 10. Dumbo, if it’s just to impress Satya why didn’t you just write a cute love story?
Ans: Double dumbo, it’s because at that time love stories were around plenty and I thought this article will be unique. I just didn’t realize that there are people like you and Satya also in this world, and yes, that was my triple dumbness. 2009/4/2 My reactions to reactions1. What is death?
Ans: Will let you know as soon as I die. 2. Bastard you are really a genius.
Ans: Well. I wish Satya thought the same. 3. I think you are bored, lonely and just want to show off.
Ans: You are right on the third charge. 4. Do you really think that everything in the world is just an individual’s interpretation?
Ans: Yes, not only an individuals but every living beings interpretation. You will want to make love to a beautiful woman and a lion will want to eat her. 5. How come the language in the “God” essay and your other blogs is so different?
Ans: Dumbo, that’s because it’s written more than 2 decades back. 6. How come you gained so much knowledge in philosophy and yet so poor in studies?
Ans: Precisely because I was reading philosophy instead of text books. 7. What was the thought behind the dialogue in Satya when Chander says “Dekh bhagwaan bhi diyela hai”?
Ans: That was improvised by the actor. 8. Is this the place where you satisfy your ego?
Ans: Just one among many places. 9. Why did you mention Satya in your pre text of the article?
Ans: I just wanted to tell the truth behind my motivation to write it and I swear this on the mother of the guy who commented that I added that just for massala. 10. Instead of this essay why didn’t you just tell her one of your superb jokes?
Ans: Back then I used to be a super serious guy. 11. I can’t believe that Satya didn’t fall for an intelligent guy like you. Ans: Ahem! I didn’t make Satya. God did. If I made her, I would have made her better. 12. What do you think of yourself?
Ans: Too much. 13. Was Sridevi’s name in Kshana Kshanam a tribute to Satya?
Ans: Yes. 14. It’s amazing that people are more interested in your love story than the article itself.
Ans: Well that explains Yash Chopra. 15. When a lion is standing in front of you then you will want God to be with you.
Ans: Dumbo, I would rather want to be the lion. 16. How much did Ramoji Rao pay you for the “The Ideas That Killed 30 million People” article?
Ans: 95 Rupees. 17. My girl friend loves you. She is jealous that you have written so much for Satya.
Ans: Ahhhh! One of these days I think I will steal your girlfriend. 18. Good for Satya that she didn’t fall for you. If married to you she would have gone through torture.
Ans: Not torture but she would have been surely bored to death. 19. Can we call these essays “RGV ki Geetha”?
Ans: Yeah and I am sure many of you would want to burn it in “Aag”. 20. Do you think you are the same person since you wrote the article?
Ans: No. Back then I was a megalomaniac by instinct and now I am a megalomaniac through understanding. 21. For an atheist why did you think so much about God? Ans: Double dumbo, only because I thought about God I became an atheist na. 2009/4/1 Essay on God – Part 7 & My Comments on Yours CommentsEssay on God – Part 7.
My Nirvana
If god is the supreme power which creates everything, and has the capacity to destroy anything, and is the sole force responsible for every physical and emotional activity that takes place, then our own effort to reach god should be in direct proportion to the degree of power we wish to procure.
To explain this in a practical case, let us take the case of a man working as a clerk in a big firm. Let’s say the aim of this man is to one day become the general manager. Or, in other words, he wants to have the entire office in his power. So he works hard to win the approval of the seniors and in time, by the age of his retirement, let us suppose he has reached the post of an assistant manager. Originally he cherished to be the general manager of the firm; but he succeeded only in partial.
Now, suppose there is another clerk, who has reached the post of the assistant manager, not by means of hard work, but because of his knowledge of how to bribe or butter the right people. Here, how you get to the top should not be of concern in as the morality and legality of “HOW” is determined by the society for its own social motives. The only caution the clerk should have is of the power that will oppose his efforts.
Some people live for their work or what they believe in, and they will not value even their own life. Examples of these types of people are fanatics of religion, political parties, patriotism, people who love, hate etc. The very fact that they are ready to sacrifice their lives for what they want to achieve, shows that, to live is not their primary objective. But, if the objective is to live, then the sequence of wanting to experience a better and better quality of life follows, then my power theory of Nirvana applies. This is the real Nirvana because it benefits no external agents and can be realized only by oneself and ones own will.
Also, it is possible that even where a man who controls a great section of the society can himself be easily victimized by a lone man with a gun, or might fall to a viral disease. These, then are the hazards a man must continually try to defeat and overpower and go higher and higher to god.
The man who gains maximum control, and who understands the nature of life and the agendas of the society, and who has got rid of his conscience is a relative god. In order to reach god, you must attain his abilities. In other words, we must try to become God ourselves.
END.
My comment on your comments on the “God” essay
In many of the comments and reactions I have noticed that quite a few missed the point of this essay and took every thought of mine to a completely different direction. Right at the outset before the 1st Part was put on the blog I mentioned that this essay was just meant for those curious enough to know how I used to think 27 years back. So for all practical purposes I too have quite a few comments to make on my own thinking of that time.
I am definitely impressed with myself, that given my age and my limited exposure, that I could think so much even though those very thoughts today to me seem too simplistic and juvenile. I am not the same man I was 27 years back. I could have become worse or better depending on from whose point of view one sees but I am definitely very different.
The change in each of us will be affected by factors such as our exposure, the people we keep meeting and interact with, the books we read and the experiences we go through. Let alone 27years ago, I don’t think I am the same man today as I was a week ago.
P.S: For the people who bombarded me with questions on my present relationship with Satya the girl who I wrote this essay for, I want them to know that Satya never knew about my love for her. She considered me as a kind of weirdo always talking intellectual stuff. She being very beautiful and because I could not compete with the really good-looking guys hovering around her for her attention, I tried to win her with this essay which has what I thought was my intelligence. This miserably flopped as she never read this essay beyond the first para of Part 1.
She gave it back to me and said “It is too boring for me and I can’t understand why you have to take life so seriously!” Well, I could not tell her that the truth of writing the essay was not about taking life seriously but it was about my love for her and I never expressed my love to her because my pride came in my way and also ofcourse I had a tremendous fear of rejection.
Last I heard of her, she is married and is a practicing doctor and lives in New York. 2009/3/31 Essay on God – Part 6 of 7The Nirvana Theories
The terms NIRVANA or MOKSHA are often heard, but when asked of their precise meaning, we will never get a definitive answer. Some proclaim that Nirvana is a stage where your soul reaches god. We are but our thoughts encased in a body. Other than the thoughts, we perceive with our senses certain feelings such as pleasure and pain. Our genetic characteristic determines some other factors such as the way we walk, gesture, etc. In addition to this, we are governed by certain ideas which might have been acquired through others or through our own reasoning powers. So, where does the term soul fit in? If the soul is beyond perceiving then in a realistic sense it should be taken as ideas and feelings minus the body. Then, when it is said that the soul has reached god, it can be interpreted as them traveling until they reached god and I guess they stay in some corner of his house.
Another theory is that work is god, meaning that happiness must be sought in work. When we take the example of a wood-cutter who is happy in his profession, we observe that if he suddenly runs into a lot of money, he will stop cutting wood and he will get into another more interesting work. But when he doesn’t have it, he consoles himself that he should be satisfied with his work. Also, his inferior intelligence is exploited by encouraging his beliefs and in the process eliminating him as a competitor in more profitable ventures. There will be many cases where men genuinely love their work, but the important thing is to truly realize whether that love is induced or inborn.
Scientists and professors for instance, possess immense knowledge. But very often their lives are controlled by people who have nothing but a will to power. The man in power uses people with knowledge to get what he desires, like we use calculators to do calculations for us.
Buddha stated that “Desire is the root cause of sorrow”. By this, he meant that if we are no able to get our cherished object, only then misery will arise in us. As a solution he said that we must not desire anything and through this we can reach a state of Nirvana.
But wanting to reach that state in itself is a desire. Apart from that, if we make a close study of what we desire in life, we can arrive at certain conclusions. We desire to satisfy our hunger. So we kill animals and eat meat. If we eliminate our desires up to a point where we stop killing animals and then a man like J.C.Bose comes forward and claims that even plants have life and feel pain. So when we stop even that, ultimately we reach a point where we just breathe because of the desire to live and in the process, kill germs. So we stop that too, and reach Nirvana or in other words, die.
2009/3/30 Essay on God - Part 4 & 5 of 7.Essay on God - Part 5
Pleasure and Misery
Everyone desires to reach a stage of absolute happiness where he is all the time happy. This is defined as a state of NIRVANA which supposedly brings you to an ultimate state of pleasure.
But the terms pleasure and misery cannot be absolutely defined. It is because they are relative terms. To explain this through an example, let us take an example of a man who is accustomed to have stale bread as his daily meal. If his diet is suddenly changed to something like biryani which is better in taste, he will feel a pleasure. His degree of pleasure is in direct proportion to the degree of improvement in the taste of the food. If he is offered still better food, his pleasure increases further and if one day, it is suddenly continued to supply him with stale bread, he will feel misery. This is because, he has obtained a knowledge of something which enhances his pleasure.
On the other hand, if stale bread is the only available food on earth, the terms pleasure and misery will be meaningless as there is no scope for relative comparison. Even if the supply of a wonderful meal is continued over a long period, without any variation in tastes, a man will be bored, as the feeling of pleasure can be derived only through comparison.
Considering another example, if a man feels he is good looking, it is only in comparison with people who are not as good looking as he. If he is sad in this aspect, it is because of people who are better looking than him.
So, a world of absolute happiness is a world where all people are identical in appearance, have equal intelligence as difference in intelligence will again give rise to certain complexes, and in proportion to the difference, degrees of pleasure and misery will begin to surface. Also everyone should have equal power and artistic abilities. To sum up, each and every individual's tastes, behavior, appearance, intelligence and capacity of doing work must be same as each and every other individual.
As everyone will be having the same thoughts, there will be no need for speaking with each other, and as every one will have the same abilities, there will be no question of anyone getting interested in anyone. It is a world devoid of competition and initiative. In short, this world will be of the LIVING DEAD.
Essay on God - Part 4.
Satan
When the promoters of god were questioned about why there was so much misery in the world, they were in a fix, as they themselves proclaimed that god was responsible for every activity that happened. So, they quickly made provisions and declared that god is a force which is responsible for all the good things that happen and an evil force Satan is responsible for the misery in the world. Good is something which gives pleasure and bad is that which causes pain.
If we examine an act of rape, we see that the victim suffers and the rapist enjoys. Here, the act is sexual. In this act, god has taken the side of the rapist as the pleasure is in the rapist and Satan the side of the woman in the form of pain. What more, God and Satan have joined hands in this venture. When it is said that god is responsible for whatever gives us pleasure and satan for misery, this can be the only conclusion we can arrive at.
In any act pleasure and pain go hand in hand, for the simple reason that one’s gain is another’s loss. For example, when a man kills a bird and eats it, he gets pleasure whereas the bird gets pain. So, here too, god has taken the side of power and caused misery to the bird. When the man wants to eat it, he can satisfy his biological needs by means of eating vegetables, but because he wanted to get the pleasure of tasting a better food he killed the bird. Thus, in proportion to the amount of pleasure he desires to obtain, he causes misery as gain in pleasure is directly proportional to the gain in pain.
So there are no two forces, one good and one evil. Either there’s only a single force that is responsible for every activity; or in direct contradiction to the proclamation of the promoters of god, god is the force which causes misery and satan is the force which causes pleasure.
2009/3/28 Essay on God - Part 3 of 7 The Character of God
When we examine certain activities that supposedly please god, and view them metaphysically, their true nature can be realised. For instance, take the example of a man who is wishing for a large amount of money. If God grants him this gain it will be on account of another’s loss as money has to come from somewhere. Then, why should god favor this man? Is it because he is good? But, good is a relative term and the theory that god favors good people disproves itself again and again in our daily observance. On the other hand, if god favors only those who pray to him, then he is no different from a man in power who helps those who constantly flatter him.
When god helps a man, god is praised as great, but when a man in power helps a person, he is accused of favoritism. Everywhere and every day we see people getting carried away when they are flattered and do favors to promote the living of flatterers. Then, is god too like them? From this should we conclude that the purpose of our life is nothing but to flatter god.
We believe that god is responsible for every activity that happens and yet we tend to blame individuals when a certain action happens which is not desired by us. If the person responsible is within our power, we punish him and if he is beyond it, we console ourselves that god will punish him.
Very few people have a proper understanding of why they are praying to god. Do they fear his power? Are they afraid that harm will be done to them, if they do not pray to him? For instance, a powerful man like Hitler was looked up to for what he did to Germany’s economy during the pre-war period, and later hated for his role in Second World War because he brought so much misery. But, in case of god, even in misery, we continue respecting him. Is it out of fear? We are again at the starting point of discussion and the conclusion can only be that we respect god because we have been programmed and conditioned to do that.
We sometimes see that Yogis and Babas are respected and feared, like Satya Saibaba for instance. It is not because people are in awe of his magical abilities like creating objects apparently out of nothing that he is looked up to. The same trick performed by a street corner magician goes unheeded. What sets apart these babas is the way they behave, the way they dress, their talking ability etc. In the way they live, they create a mysterious aura around them and the sleight of the hand combined with all this, earns them the fear and respect of the people. Just talking about god will never help. For example, if Satya Saibaba comes on a Honda motor bike wearing Jeans and a T-Shirt with a walkman cassette player at his waist to preach about god, will anyone listen to him?
When we respect a professor, scientist, etc, what we respect is their knowledge, dedication etc. Even here, most of the time, we do not respect the man, but only his reputation and fame. For example, we hear many people praising Shakespeare. But the truth is, majority would not read any of his works. Here, it is not being said that Shakespeare is not great. It is only to point out that most of us respect and admire without knowing what we are admiring and respecting.
When we hear from reliable source that our respected politician is in fact, dishonest, we immediately despise him, as fundamentally we respected him only because we thought that he was working for our good. But, in case of god, if we ask him for something and he does not give it, and on top of it, he furthers our misery, we still continue respecting. It is because, we feel that if we go on praying him, our prayers will be answered some day, like if we keep on buttering a senior officer even though he is rude to us and blacklisting us for no apparent reason, he might someday recommend for us promotion. But in this case, we are called as people without self respect. We are looked down upon by the very people in the society who upheld a person as a great devotee who does the same thing with god.
Sometimes, people say that why they came to believe god is because they were saved miraculously from death or because they were suddenly elevated from their misery to happiness. We take the case of a man who has fallen over-board from a ship in mid sea and thought that he was going to be eaten by sharks. At the last minute, he was saved by another mate. He starts believing it to be the grace of god that he is saved. If this is true, then are the sharks are justified in despising god for depriving them of their food, and turning in to atheists?
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