Se7en - Movie Review

By Ravikiran Ramaswamy

David Fincher is the man who gave us Fight Club, Panic Room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network. While all these are critically acclaimed films, Se7en is probably his best work to date.

Se7en is a grisly, dark and horrifying thriller that grips the viewer from beginning to end. It is disturbing to the point of being hard to digest for most people. It tells the story of two detectives, one on the verge of retirement (William Somerset, played by Morgan Freeman) and the other at the start of his career (David Mills, played by Brad Pitt). They are partnered for their first case together, to investigate a series of killings based on the seven deadly sins. The movie’s opening credits are set to a remix of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”, which sets the depressing mood for the film.

The movie constantly sends shivers down the viewer’s spine, depicting the grisly murders based on the Sins. A fat man is forced to eat himself to death (for the crime of Gluttony), a model’s face is disfigured and she is given a choice between help and suicide (for the crime of Pride at her own beauty), another man is barely kept alive for an entire year (Sloth). Lust and Greed have equally disturbing murders to their names. These scenes are about as graphic as a commercial film would allow, and are certainly not for the faint hearted.

As the story progresses and the detectives get closer to the killer, the feeling of tension becomes stronger. The scene where the killer’s books and notes are revealed is spine-chilling, offering an insight into the his twisted mind. In the midst of these scenes, there is a faint glimmer of hope in the scenes involving Mills’ wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) confiding in Somerset. These scenes flesh out both characters wonderfully, and Morgan Freeman plays his role to perfection, showing why he is one of the top actors in the world today.

The film is gloomy throughout. The visuals are brilliant for the value that they add to the film. The story takes place in an unnamed city where nothing works properly - pipes are leaky, buildings are dingy and dark (the only light is from the flashlights of the detectives) and when the lights do work, they cast small, wan pools of light which serve only to depress the viewer even more. It is perpetually raining. These touches are rarely ever noticed by viewers, however do a brilliant job of (subconsciously) preserving the mood of the movie. The dialogue in the film deserves special praise. Morgan Freeman’s lines seem tailor-made for him (or is he tailor-made for them?)

Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman have put in top performances for this film. The entire film is brilliant; however, the final half-hour will simply blows you away. The hunted serial killer (an uncredited role) makes an appearance with a role that makes Pitt and Freeman look small. He carries the rest of the film on his shoulders. He is revealed as a scarily twisted psychopath with an equally twisted plan for the finale. The ending is one which should not be missed, and definitely goes down as one of the greatest in movie history.

In all, Se7en is a scary, twisted but nonetheless brilliantly-made film that is a must-watch for any movie fan. Watch this one from beginning to end without any breaks, for that is how it is meant to be watched. It will leave you in awe.

Krishnaa

By Hasita Krishna

The sound of anklets echoed through the dark corridors of her mansion. As she ran through the halls to see who her suitors were, the walls looked at her in awe - joy wasn’t a very common expression in that castle. She could have counted the number of times she’d laughed out loud, or spoken to anyone, or been happy in general. Krishnaa was an unwanted child, too dark and too ungraceful to be a princess. Her brother loved her, but the tender touch of a mother, she never knew.

Krishnaa had been born to change the world. She was told that she alone would be more powerful than all the warriors alive. As she ran through the main corridor now, she wondered who indeed would be the man who would hold her hand, the hand of destiny itself. Would he be strong, with eyes that burned fiercely? Would he be dark, like her? Would it be Arjun, the most powerful man on earth, or would it be Duryodhan? For reasons she didn’t know yet, she hoped it would be neither.

The minstrel was exhausted. He had shown the princess thousands of pictures of suitors from all over the world, but there she sat with her characteristic pout. No one had so much as gotten a second glance from her. In a final attempt, he took out the one last portrait he had. He had been forbidden from bringing the picture, let alone showing it to her. But he had no choice.

  Time lost its significance as she sat looking at that picture. The man wasn’t dark. He certainly did not have fierce eyes. In fact, they looked like deep pools of melancholy. Yet, there was an arrogant air about the man; the look of someone who has been through a lot, but knows that he can survive. It was in that seemingly endless span of time that she fell in love with him. He was the eldest of the Pandavas, abandoned so early that he knew not of a mother, except as someone to be loathed. He was Karna, and she did not know then that she would never be allowed to marry him.

Draupadi, she was to be. She would live to be the queen of the earth. She would marry five men, each one a noble warrior, yet she wouldn’t love a single one of them. Her words would drive them into action; the greatest battle in history would thus be fought. She would be the reason why a thousand women would be widowed on the plains of Kurukshetra. She would also be Sairandhri, a chambermaid. She would be gambled away. She would be humiliated in public and would spend her days in a forest far away from royalty and excesses. After all of this, she would die alone. Those she lived with wouldn’t love her, and those she loved would be too far away.

What she did not know then was that the sands of time had changed patterns, with that one decision to fall in love with the wrong man. She would humiliate him, just to deceive her husbands and hide her true feelings for him. The more she longed for him, the further he would be gone onto the enemy’s side.

As she kept looking at him, blissfully ignorant of what would happen, she scorned at the words of the chambermaid who had once told her that love is complicated. If only she knew then that she had committed the greatest of all sins at that very moment, would she have done things differently?

For falling in love had been quick, painless and simple.  Falling out of it, however, would be another issue.

Red Bus

 Start-up Interview

 

Q. What is your company all about? What does it do? Who are the founding members?

A. There were three of us from BITS-Pilani, Sudarshan and Charan. Sudarshan looks at operation and Charan handles technology.

What we do is basically bus ticketing. We leverage technology through the internet. We have three divisions – Web based ticketing. We sell bus tickets online. We also have a call centre where customer can enquire regarding availability of tickets and book tickets. Delivery boys deliver these tickets to customers. Finally, a software division – here we lease software to bus operators and they pay us for the usage of this “seat selling” software - as we have access to all the seats available on all the buses, we provide the seat availability information to our competitors for a price. We operate about 10,000 buses every day spread over 15 states and 700 bus operators.

Q. What made you start this company? What first gave you this idea?

A. I got the initial idea in the Diwali of 2005. I was in Bangalore and wanted to travel to Hyderabad, so I went to a regular travel agent. He made a few calls and told me that no seats were available. I asked him to try calling other bus operators but he said that he had no dealings with them. I went to some other agents, who after making some calls told me the same thing. So, I was stuck for the long weekend in Bangalore. This pushed me to go to the bus operators. What I found out was that all bookings were done using a pen and paper method. A travel agent would not know all the bus operators. He would call them up by phone and ask whether seats were available. The whole system was flawed. I thought, why not set up a computer system and make the information available to everyone. When I told my idea to the bus operators they appreciated it.

Q. How difficult was it to start up? Did you encounter any set-backs? How did you deal with them?

A. The initial thing was software. Even though we were engineering students, we graduated with a B.E. in Electronics. We knew C, but none of the other programming languages like Java etc. We learnt whatever we could through books and started developing the software. It took us 4-5 months to create the software. This was the first hurdle. Then when we approached the bus operators with the software, they were not willing to buy it. Now this was a huge challenge for us. Initially these people had said this was a good idea but now they were not willing to buy the software.

We weren’t sure what to do next. We approached TIE, a non-profit organisation which helps entrepreneurs. If you came up with a good idea you could approach them and they will help you. So we went to them with our problem, and the mentors there were really helpful. They told us that these are the kind of problems were faced by entrepreneurs everyday. There is a huge resistance to change. People don’t change unless there is some major problem. So find out that problem. So we started searching for this big problem and figured out that selling tickets was the real problem and that was what mattered to the people. So we started selling tickets on the internet. Once the volume started picking up, the bus operators approached us and started using our software.

Q. What were the sources of finance you could leverage?

A. We were already working for 3 years and used our savings for the set up. After 4-5 months we got an investment from a venture capital fund. This gave us three crores.

Q. How will your work affect the masses?

A. I cannot exactly say masses but this is having an impact. The whole bus industry has changed. It has become more transparent. As a customer, it’s very easy for you to book seats. You can know the seat availability, compare prices, and choose the buses you want. Also now you don’t need to go to the travel agent causing less fuel wastage. If we booked 8000 seats a day, let’s say earlier the customer travelled one km up and one km down. So everyday 16000 km of fuel is saved! Even if Rs. 5 is spent on one km then the total would be Rs. 80,000 every day!

Q. Where do you see yourself after 5 years? What are your plans for the future?

A. We want to grow and expand our business. We want to achieve 10 times of what we are now. Then only would we be along with the big companies. 80,000 seats a day is not something small.

Q. Any tips for upcoming entrepreneurs?

A. They should find a good mentor and trust him. Initially when you get an idea, you don’t know how to implement it. The mentor tells you what to do and how to do it. I think this is the critical advice I would give. A good mentor would be one who has started a company from scratch and built it. He/She can be anyone, irrespective of the domain. Since start-ups are innovative you wouldn’t find two start ups to be similar. (When we asked him who his mentor was - he said “Sanjay Anand, worked in wipro. He is the founder of two companies. You can google him up.”)

 
Q. What lesson do you think people should take from college?

A. One of the important things is to have a big friends circle and retaining all of them. You learn a lot from your friends. You learn how to tolerate people, figure out who is going to help you in the time of need. You learn people management skills. And a company is nothing but people. If you don’t know how to manage people you can’t manage a company. People should participate in all cultural and social activities, like clubs for instance. You should try to take up leadership positions. I was head of DOPY in Pilani. I had to make people work for me without salaries. People would have tests, other activities etc. but you had to get them to produce something. You would learn to experiment and when something becomes successful, your belief will increase. I use what I learnt there even today.
 
Q. What are your favourite memories?

Presently the only thing I can remember is DOPY. I really love my college. In DOPY, we used to go out every semester on a trip. There was a rule that the ratio of girls to boys would be equal. From selections to excursions, this rule was always applied. We would go out to new places. As the head, I organised 3-4 trips. Booking the buses, hotel arrangements, I had to organise a lot of things. And everyone would have to listen to me. Those times were memorable. I have tons of pictures of them and I look at them even now.

Q. Any such belief as a “formula for success”?

For a company to be successful, many things would need to happen simultaneously. You need your suppliers right, you need your workers right, and you need the competition to be wrong.

Even if a things few fail, everything fails. So I thinks that if the no. of positives is more than the no. of negatives, then you are most likely to be successful. I am saying “likely” not “will be”.

Atlas Shrugged

By Rohit Vakul

Beads of sweat trickled down his back as he struggled to hold posture. Days turned to months, months to years and decades, but the weight bearing down on his shoulders only grew. Despite the incessant weight on his shoulders the single thought running thorough this mind throughout the years was not about the pain or the lack of companions, but pride, in defying all odds and managing to keep his honor. Every single time the weight seemed too much to bear or when it seemed to slip from his fingers, he was tempted to let go, maybe not forever, just a brief pause perhaps. He most definitely deserved it, he reasoned with himself. But he knew that a moment’s pause was all it took for worlds to come crashing down taking all his years of toil with him. He had no choice, he told himself, but to rally own, straining every muscle to a point where he was sure they would burst, spending every ounce of energy he could muster.

He thought he heard someone call out his name. It couldn’t be, he told himself, must be the exhaustion playing tricks with his mind. He heard it again, this time however it seemed too real to be just voices in his head. However even if there was someone calling out his name, he was not willing to spend any precious energy on lifting his head.

“Atlas, a man of his word, the epitome of endurance!”, he heard a cheerful voice say, which, in spite of his disarrayed state, recognized as that of Prometheus, his brother. Atlas began to wonder why Prometheus decided to pay Atlas a visit, assuming of course that this was not a hallucination, a possibility that hadn’t entirely deserted Atlas’s mind. Prometheus spoke, “When brother, would you give up? When would you realize that this burden is not yours to bear? Let go brother and come with me.” Silence ensued as Atlas debated on whether his brother’s words were worthy of the energy spent on a reply. “I do it because I can.” said Atlas. Prometheus laughed, a hollow laugh, which echoed long after the he stopped. An eerie silence of the infinity of space which followed, unsettled both the brothers. It was first broken by Prometheus, “Because you can? That’s your excuse for having spent close to eternity bearing the weight of the skies on your shoulders?” “ Because I can.” Atlas repeated. “And because no one else can.” he continued.”I don’t need an excuse to do what is right. You, a sly thief are judging me for what I do, for my actions, which any man would see as noble and moral? It’s my turn to laugh! And come with you? Where to, may I ask? Need my help in another scheme of your? Is that the purpose of this encounter?” Atlas asked, finally looking up, straight into Prometheus’s eyes. Prometheus sighed and said, “I did not steal out of greed. I was once like you. I thought it was unjust of the Olympians to not share their knowledge of the fire with humans. All my attempts to reason it out with the Olympians were futile, which inevitably led me to my act of thievery. I stole, not out of greed or malice, but with the most noblest intentions, the same as yours, to help man. I gave them the gift of fire. I saw them flourish. And then I saw the same fire engulf them. Their greed consuming them slowly, spreading like fire, it’s flames turning everything to ash. It’s not the greed of those who were able or those who could, those like you and me, but the greed of the parasites, those that fed off our abilities. Their idea of nobility and morality nurtured this vicious cycle. The burden of stupidity fell on the intellect, and they bore it! Carrying them along on all their endeavors, holding on to the idea that it’s their moral duty to do so, despite the incessant increase in their number. They toiled on, just like you are now, only to be consumed. All of them. Those that believed that the quality of their work was their religion, were consumed by the rest of the world. Atlas, don’t make the same mistake they did. Their greed consumed them, the lack of it will consume you. Come with me dear brother. The strong shall no longer bear the burden of the weak. I’m leaving this universe, along with a few of the ancients, to set up a new Atlantis. A land where morality is defined as each man’s pursuit of happiness, reason the only absolute and achievement his religion.”

The silence that followed was almost deafening. Atlas was unsure of his own thoughts, as the sheer gravity of the exchange bore down on him. He closed his eyes in an attempt to gain a perspective on the things that had been said. In the silence that ensured, even sound rustle of the sweat bead as it rolled down Atlas’s back was audible. As Atlas opened his eyes trying to gauge what Prometheus expected of him, he realized Prometheus was nowhere to be seen. Atlas called out his name, in vain. As he began to wonder if this was trickery of his brain or that of Prometheus, an elaborate plan where Atlas would now abandon the skies and go in his pursuit, he realized that the burden of the conversation, real or imaginary exceeded the weight of the skies. And Atlas….shrugged.

The 8th Sin

By Shruti Vishwanath

I lie silent, witnessing the cries around me

Pray, what can I do?

I have no political clout.

I am just one hapless person.

The cries get louder

The children are in pain.

Nay, don’t look at me, reader

I am but one hapless person.

Mother, why should I shoulder

The problems of the world

Mustn’t I enjoy the life you’ve given me?

What good came anyway

Of Suu Kyi , Mandela and Gandhi

The world will get more like them, mother

But not me, oh please not me

I want to enjoy this life

I am but a weak and hapless person.

The hooker on the streets

She chose the life

She slept with the ragamuffin

Why should I care?

The NGOs- They will take care of her

I know they can

They will.

What can I do?

Just one hapless person?

The world is changing, ma

It’s getting warmer

The ice caps are melting

What can I do, ma?

I do care, well, maybe a little

But it’s too hot, ma

I need the AC

And I can’t travel in those buses

Jesus, no, I need the car

You see ma?

I’m trying

But what can I do?

I am but one hapless person

I know this world is also mine, my sweet

But what can I do?

There are too many problems that we face

In 2012, we’re probably going to die anyway

What’s the point?

I ain’t standing for no elections.

I don’t want to be no whistleblower

I am just an ordinary human being.

I see the problem.

We’re self-destructing.

But I am no scientist.

I don’t have the trigger in my hand.

I am spiraling downwards, like the rest of our race.

But what can I do?

I am after all

Just one, ordinary, hapless person.

The Life And Times Of Nicholas Sarkozy

By Savyasachee Jha

LUST

Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, current President of France and ex-officio Coprince of Andorra was born in 1955 to a Hungarian immigrant couple in the city of Paris. A “Rockstar” among presidents, President Nicolas Sarközy is an idealist, known for trying to improve the French work ethic, trying to improve the French economy and trying to bring about an end to intolerance. Whether he succeeds or not will only be known after the national elections to be held 2 years later.

Nicolas was born to a young couple, Pál Sárközy and Andrée Mallah in 17th arrondissement of Paris on the 28th of January 1955. Being as it were, a posh area, young Nicolas grew up in wealthy surroundings without any material wants. He had with him two brothers for company, Guillaume, born in 1951, and François, born in 1957. Young Nicolas’ life had every chance of being very pleasant. He was descended from Hungarian nobility from his father’s side and from an intellectual Jewish family from his mother’s side. Neither of his parents were lacking in money. He went to a state school and then was sent to a private school, where he got his baccalauréat. He entered military service, as was befitting a member of the nobility and then passed the bar as a graduate of business and family law. He was one of Silvio Berlusconi’s top French advocates. Now for the fine print.

For those of you who do not know, the reason young Nicolas was even sent to a private school was because he failed his sixième, an exam one gives at the age of 11 to 12. Naturally, he could neither be shifted to another state school nor could he drop a year. He just had to be shifted to a private school. He somehow managed to scrape through secondary school and graduate. For his military service, he joined the air-force as a part-time air-force cleaner. A job befitting nobility  anywhere in the world. After graduating, he entered the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, better known as Sciences Po, (1979–1981) but failed to graduate due to an insufficient command of the English language. All this time, young Nicolas maintained that his behaviour was due to actions of his father.

Nicolas Sarközy went on to become leader of the Union for a popular movement (UMP). He has served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finance for France under Chirac and Raffarin. He was, before assuming any of these posts, a Minister of Budget under the RPR government, president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France, from 1983 to 2002.

He is known for being a skilled orator as well as for his charismatic personality. He is also said to be more pro-US and pro-Israeli than most French Politicians.

However, Sarkö is not a “Rockstar” because of any virtue described above. Like a true Frenchman, his image stems from his many, and highly publicised, relationships with women. A description of the life and lusts of Nicolas Sárközy follows.

 Sarközy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982. A charming lady, she was the daughter of a pharmacist from Vico. She met him, fell in love with him and married him while he was a newly-elected councillor to Neuilly. The couple had two sons, Pierre and Jean. They lived happily for two years, a happy, loving family. Unfortunately, the bliss was not to last. Nicolas’ libido was simply waiting to spring up again. And spring up it did, as he presided over the marriage of Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz and Jacques Martin in his capacity of Mayor of Neuilly.

Marie-Dominique Sarközy knew nothing about the thoughts roving in her husband’s head. She befriended Cécilia and the two women grew very close. They went out to fancy restaurants together with their husbands, raised their children together and did other things a pair of close lady friends would do. She never even suspected the real reason behind Cécilia’s friendship. It took the poor woman until 1988 to realise that her husband and Cécilia were having an affair. The discovery took place in the Alpine resort of Megeve where the two couples had gone skiing. Marie-Dominique knocked on Cécilia’s door and was met with the sound of scuffling feet. When she looked out the window of Cécilia’s room, she found Sarkö’s footsteps in the snow. Poor Sarkö, caught in the act. But give him some credit, Sarkö took it like a man should. He convinced Cécilia to leave her husband and come to him, which she did.

At this moment, let us pause to see the exchange Sarközy made. He swapped Marie-Dominique for Cécilia. Marie-Dominique was a small town girl with a rustic, rural touch about her. A native of Vico, Corsica, she could not hold Sarkö’s interest for long. Compare her to Cécilia, who was a former model and a public relations officer. No comparison. No indeed. Sarkö’s mind was made up. He made his choice.

From 1988, Sarkö associated himself with Cécilia, who was lovestruck enough to actually divorce her husband thee months after she left him. The couple stayed together, Marie-Dominique safely out of their lives. The golden years of Cécilia’s life begun here. Apparently, she was enough for Sarkö, for no new reports of affairs stem up from this period in his life. He progressed politically, he was satisfied with his new girl, but for some curious reason, he did not divorce his first wife until 1996, after which he immediately married Cécilia. In 1997, she bore him a baby boy, Louis. His union complete, Sarkö seemed to stabilize, growing in political stature. He went from ministry to ministry, ministry to ministry, finally ending up at the top post itself, that of the president of France.

 But as he went up the ladder, Sarkö’s thoughts turned elsewhere. Or rather, back to where they belonged. ‘Cécilia’s getting boring....’ His thoughts turned to his bed and he began scouting for other talented women. With great power comes great responsibility. Oops! Sarkö misread the quote. With great power come many women.

But Sarkö, for all his academic failure was a very cunning guy. When he was a Minister, Cécilia Sarközy had an office next to his, serving as his close adviser. In 2002, she was appointed to the Office of the Ministry of the Interior. In 2005 she was appointed Chief of Staff for the UMP Party. He heaped political offices on her, hoping to keep her busy while he had his fun. He even took out statements claiming Cécilia was his Achilles heel and that they would forever be together and that she was his soulmate and all that talk. However, Sarkö’s cover was blown when it was reported that he was having an affair with a reporter by the name of Anne Fulda in 2005.

Apparently, Cécilia knew about it as well, because there came an article in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin expounding on her affair with Richard Attias head of Publicis in New York. Way to go Cécilia! You beat the man at his own game!

Sarkö threw a tantrum at that. He sued the paper for its “accusations of private nature”. But their bubbles had burst. He knew that he was not interested in her, and she knew that he was not the one for her. She went as far as calling Attias her true love. All this was too much for Sarkö. On 15 October 2007 he divorced Cécilia and began scouting around for another partner. It took him four months to get married again. Carla Bruni must have been as desperate as he was. Or maybe it was the power of the president’s title which attracted her, she’s known to have been attracted to powerful men.

His marriage to Carla Bruni was the main highlight of his first term in office. Of course, protests and roadblocks are quite common in the land of the French Revolution, so the blockade of the country (twice) doesn’t really count. A President who divorces his wife in office and has a four month whirlwind romance before marrying an Italian pop-star of international fame? Yeah! That’s what we French want!

But Carla Bruni’s supposed to be a tigress herself. With 9 affairs under her (ahem!) belt, she was not one to be satisfied with monogamy. What is Sarkö compared to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton? Yeah, everyone knows the answer. It seems she’s already set the rules for their marriage. Both parties are currently reported to be engaged in extramarital affairs, according to some allegations on Twitter.

At this point, we must return to one part of the story we have deliberately overlooked. No, not the reactions of his ex-wives, we can guess those. Remember Sarkö had a father, with whom his relationship while growing up is central to who he is today? Well, in 1959, Pál Sárközy left his wife and remarried three times. He had two more children, Nicolas’ half brothers. He refused to give any financial help to his ex-wife and children, nor did he even visit Nicolas frequently. “What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood.” Says Sarkö, who felt inferior to his classmates blessed with kind fathers. Yeah, poor Sarkö. We can feel your pain.

No One Can Eat Just Once

By Nishant Boorla

GREED

No one can eat just one. Simple. Brilliant. For one who has always been an admirer of genius marketing campaign slogans, this one in particular stood out the year it was coined. Coupled with a catchy jingle that’s a blink and a miss, this slogan for Lays potato chips caught the fancy of millions across the nation. It’s appeal lies in its simplicity. Whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, fact is we all hate sharing good food. Add greed to selfishness and you’ve got a knock out marketing strategy. It’s as simple as that. Greed and Gluttony go hand in hand, add a catchy jingle to that and you have the holy trinity of food ad campaigns. But why do we need to pay attention to a simple advertisement? Because it’s one in a long list of commodities sold, targeting the greedy child in you. Don’t take my word for it. Think about it. Take shoes for instance. You apparently don’t need just the one pair, you need separate pair to run, a pair to walk, a pair to work, a pair for yoga and so on. Don’t even get me started on footwear for women. Shoes to match your eyes, shoes to match your top, shoes to match that cute kitten you chanced upon on an exotic holiday! Just one example. And if that didn’t make an impression here’s everyone’s favourite - Greek Mythology.

King Midas was the ruler of Pessinus. He found Silenus and returned him to Bacchus. You don’t need to know who they are. Long story short, Bacchus asked him to wish for anything, Midas asked for the power to turn anything to gold upon touching it.

 So here you have a prosperous monarch, with all the wealth in the world who wants to turn everything around him to gold. Just like a child who always dreams of a room full of candy. Predictably, his food and drinks turned to gold, so  did his daughter. Yeah food, drinks and daughter in one sentence, I’m insensitive, bite me!

Is greed really a sin? Isn’t our greed for knowledge the reason why the human race is at the pinnacle of the evolutionary tree? One may sugar coat it and call it the thirst for knowledge but it is what it is - greed. It’s greed that helped man invent the wheel. It’s greed that pushed him to invent an engine to power his wheel. From a primitive bicycle to a Boeing jet, from a telegraph machine to a Blackberry every product that makes our lives easier to live is a direct product of our insatiable desire for more.

Take technology for instance. There was a time when we were content with cassette players or walkmans as they were called. Then came Discmans and before people figured them out - hello MP3! But a simple MP3 player wasn’t going to be enough. Of course not. We needed a click wheel. We needed a screen.

“Alright, the iPod it is then. “

“Oh no wait, it’s too bulky.

“Fine, you may have the iPod Nano but that’s it. “

“No, too many buttons.”

“Ok the iTouch.”

“But I can’t make calls”

“You ingrate, iPhone should do the trick.”

“No Bluetooth?”

”New iPhone.”

“But it’s not as functional as my PC.”

“Stick to your PC then. “

“What if I’m on the move.”

“Mac Book. “

“Too many buttons.”

“Fine.....only cause you said please..”

“But I didn’t...”

“Just go with the flow ok? Here’s the iPad!”

“But it’s too big....and I can’t make calls...” “aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh”

So we’re all as greedy as God apparently felt we would be. We’re all sinners and are all destined for hell. Where’s the moral you ask? Come on you greedy prick, how much do you want from a simple essay? And as a parting thought....does hell have an Imax screen? Avatar’s just not the same without one!

| articles | bio | email |  

---

Nishant Boorla
Sarcasm means the world to me. Yeah that's always a good place to start. I watch movies...a lot of movies! Sports nut and a die hard Manchester United fan. Highly opinionated and that shows in my articles.

---

To Kill A Mockingbird

Book Review
By Sukanya Venkatraman

PRIDE

“Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”

Set in the 1930s in the sleepy town of Maycomb, To kill a mockingbird, is, essentially, a simple story about growing up. Woven delicately into this, is an epic about racism, and its effects on the society. It is, however, not a blunt, in-your-face description of the immorality of racism. However,  through the eyes of  Jean Louise Finch(Scout), the author profoundly, yet gently, describes the sheer lack of reason and logic to a white man’s pride in his so-called superior race and the unfairness a Negro faces in a racist society.

Scout and her older brother Jeremy Louise Finch (Jem) live with their father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer. When Atticus is required to defend a Negro, in a rape-accusation case, he realises that the following months would reveal, to him and his children, the cruel and prejudiced side of the people of Maycomb. While he knows that even though logic and evidence is on the defendant’s side, convincing and expecting a jury to deliver a verdict against a white man, Bob Ewell, based on a Negro, Tom Robinson’s words, would be asking for too much.

 As the story progresses one grows along with the characters, and is given an opportunity to view a white man’s pride, the primary cause of racism, through a child’s eyes. What stands out, however, is that Scout’s and Jem’s lives are not primarily defined by the problems they face and lessons they learn while Tom’s case progresses. Rather, it is just a part that helps in their growing up and forming values and beliefs.

It’s a deeply moving and compassionate book that makes one realise that sometimes we need to look through a child’s eyes, to place evidence over pride, to see the unfairness of racial discrimination, and to know why it is a sin, to kill a mockingbird.  

| articles | bio | email |  

---

Sukanya Venkataraman

---

Dudley Dursley

By Sayonee Ghosh Roy

 GLUTTONY

Maslow rightly lists food as one of man’s cardinal needs. But excesses always lead to complications, gastronomic disorders by natural extension. Greed has already been established as a Sin, Gluttony is merely its subset. And if you think that Gluttony doesn’t merit any debit, on the scales of Karma, then have a look at Dudley Dursley.

Famous Harry Potter’s not-so-famous cousin. What comes to your mind immediately when I say his name? Yeah, he eats a lot. So does Augustus Gloop from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. But our liaison with Dudley is a little longer and so is the list of evidence of his gluttony. His only claim to fame is “achieving what he had been threatening to do since the age of five – grow wider than he is taller”.

Dinky Duddydums may not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he most definitely had a spoon in his mouth! Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia left no stone unturned in satiating their precious boy. Really, which parent wouldn’t install a TV in the kitchen because the apple of their eye felt that the refrigerator was too far away? The resultant physique may have landed him a spot on his school boxing team but the Smeltings nurse sure did notice that he had “roughly reached the size and proportion of a baby whale”.

Aunt Petunia could swear that it was nothing but puppy fat and Uncle Vernon may have pronounced the new diet as ‘rabbit food’, but they should have seen it coming. Big D took up an entire side of the table for himself, even more so when sulking over his pitiful meal of celery and cottage cheese. But let us give him a little credit. His gluttony transcends all tastes and he is perfectly capable of displaying a longing for something as unappetizing as Uncle Vernon’s share of grapefruit in his “sour, piggy eyes”.

What a big appetite! How about a tongue to go along with it? Yeah, remember Fred’s Ton-Tongue Toffee? A sweet pay-back. Even though he’s perfectly aware of his parents’ aversion to some of “their lot”, he can’t stop himself from picking up anything that’s edible, wizard-made or otherwise. He’d probably eat out of Voldemort’s palm, even!  But he can’t help it, it’s in the poor chap’s nature.

And he has his parents to thank for this. Even though the Dursleys never actually starved Harry, they always seemed to feed Dudley more than enough for himself and Harry combined. Even during the diet regime, Harry was given his customary, pitiful helping because making sure that he got less to eat than Dudley seemed to be help pull Dudley out of the ‘gloom’ brought on by the diet. And he’s known no other way since childhood, so he thinks it’s perfectly fine. It’s sad to see that his own parents are responsible for nurturing this Sin.

But old Dudders turned out to be okay in the end. True, his other traits are grossly overshadowed by his love for food. Remember Harry’s first reaction to Honeydukes was imagining Dudley’s first reaction to Honeydukes? It is difficult to move past that, but even spoilt brats are capable of human emotions and so is our little Popkin. The consequences of Gluttony are almost laughable when compared to those of other Sins. Obesity, big fat paunches, but again there are slimming pills and gyms to take care of that! In my opinion however, what should really be deemed as Undesirable Number 1 is, being a pig *ahem* *Hagrid* *cough* *cough*

| articles | bio | email |  

---

Sayonee Ghosh Roy
I humbly profess to be spoilt, pampered brat with old-school upbringing. You could let me loose in a book-store and I'd never come out, except if you lure me out with coffee and Italian food.

---

Envy

By Vidya Ramamoorthy

ENVY

People turn purple with rage, red with shame, and green with envy at least once a day, and more than a handful of times a week. It’s statistically proven. Ok, maybe it’s not, but that doesn’t make it untrue, and I’m sure you could vouch for that. Shades of these emotions certainly make life more interesting, but while no one wants to lead a boring life, maybe living sinfully isn’t the solution. It’s one thing to talk about the evil effects of these …! GASP! vices, and a whole another thing to live with them.

Envy. 

Something we’ve all befriended, ever  since we saw our neighbor propping his Mac Book against the dashboard of his BMW, or ever since we secretly wished we too,could put away a cheeseburger and fries along with a chocolate latte, and still look like that amazingly fit friend (everyone has one of these friends, everyone).

Envy.

It’s never pretty, and sometimes, it gets downright ugly. Although it might be a bit of an ego boost when you know someone secretly envies you, it’s not so much fun when above mentioned person decides to indulge in a little behind- the- back slander or _______(insert backstabbing activity of choice here). After all, ‘Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, and spite spawns lies.’

Unless your skin is as thick as dragon hide and you are unaffected by the petty crimes the world and its denizens commit around you, you might want to square your shoulders and learn to deal with it.

Look for the good in everything, and also teach others how to do it. More often than not, green eyed monsters are usually big warm marshmallows inside, but with a baggage of low self esteem attached. Counting our blessings and remembering that each of us is unique is an amazingly simple gift we forget to give ourselves. We tend to get so involved in marking our win against the others on that giant imaginary scoreboard, that we forget that we aren’t even in a race.

This season, we stop the sins.

This season, we turn our wasted minutes into useful ones as we finally join that salsa class, or get that A on our report card because we’ve kept ourselves busy and wonderfully so.

This season, we lock up our envy, and give that friend of ours a high five while falling into step beside her during her morning jog. Maybe we even pass Mr. Hotshot neighbour and his car, enroute, and flash him a smile. And just maybe, that classmate who always picked on us for being a Harry Potter nerd will ask us if we’d like to go watch Deathly Hallows: Part 1 with them next week. After all, what goes around comes around.

This season, we shed the green.

Losing My Senses

By Vijay Narayan 

ENVY

Employee

8.45 pm ....hmm...15 minutes before the ‘big’ man left the office. Yes... I mean the President himself, the puppet master in this pathetic excuse of a workplace. Don’t get me wrong, being the Head of Marketing of a huge company does have its perks. But still...all I could dream of in my inebriated state was having his life! Now, the Boss was one man who definitely had it good. Look at him...He had everything!! Loads of money, good looks, that adds to the glam! His social groups included the rich and mighty. He partied with the new Governor, a personal friend of his. He had a beautiful beach house. He was married to one of the most beautiful women in the world. Rumors had it that he was even going at it with the wife one of the vice-presidents of the company( The wife of the head of Logistics, I hear)

And yet....it seemed unfair. Why was he the Boss and not me? I remember twenty years ago, we were good friends; teenagers with a big dream. A vision, that one day, we would make it big in the world. And by God, did we manage it! But here’s the problem. Everyone knows that I’ve always been the smarter one. Everyone, including him, knows that it was my brains that got the two of us to the top. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he was the Boss, and not me. I, on the other hand, was made to watch as he soared in the financial circles. I was rich as well, no doubt about that, but just not as rich as him! While he was going around with a multitude of gorgeous women, I had to go home late every night to my pregnant wife ( who, for some reason, just didn’t seem to want me around any longer)

Why?

What had he done that I hadn’t??

And in one fell swoop, I made a decision. Enough was enough. For too long had I been the man in the background; and I was sick of it. Perhaps it was the whisky that was doing this to me. Yet somehow, in that haze of alcohol, things seemed crystal clear to me. It was time to take matters into my own hands. Everything that he had rightfully belonged to me. And now was my chance to take it back.

Except for the two of us, the office was deserted. I opened my drawer and took out my prized possession. Yes, there it was…a .45 Walther pistol. That really did bring back memories. It had originally been part of a set of two. And guess who had the other one? Yes, twenty years ago, when we were still the best of friends, the Boss and I had decided to pick up the set. As a token of our…well, brotherly love for each other. But why go there? All that was important to me at the time was the fact that it was loaded.

I slowly made my way to his office. Everything seemed to happen so slow, and yet inexplicably , everything was a blur. Everything else seemed pointless to me. All I knew was that I wanted blood. His blood.

I walked into his office. He was sitting right there at his desk, staring into space. I called out to him. He looked up, and in his eyes I saw something strange…resentment. Odd! But I had more important things to take care about. I raised the gun, and kept pulling the trigger.

By God, it was loud!! And surprisingly painful…I looked down, and watched the blood spurt out of my chest…. This was not going to be fun.

Boss

Why him? Of all the women in the world , why did it have to be the wife of the  man who brought me to the top? The man, who as a boy, and shared a dream with me. A dream to make it big.

Everything had been going fine till last year. True, I had been overworking him, but for a reason. Having mingled with all the right people, I knew some things that most others didn’t. The state needed a new Governor, and They had asked me for a suggestion. And I had given his name. Sadly, to make him seem like a viable candidate, he had to be tested. He had to prove that he could take the pressure. He couldn’t.

And then, as he turned to alcohol, I tried to help him. I went to his wife to see what we could do about him. Oh God!! Everything went so wrong then…I couldn’t control myself. She was a beautiful woman, in an unhappy marriage. They had been trying to have a child for a year, and it wasn’t going so well. She was vulnerable, and I …like a fool, unwittingly took advantage of that…

When she told me she was pregnant, everything became clear to me. I wanted the life he had. It didn’t seem fair. I was the richer one obviously, but it was his wife I fell in love with. I was so bloody jealous of him. He had everything he needed. And I wanted it. I wanted to be able to father that child that was growing inside of her. My child…

It seemed so unfair. I loved her, and he was the one who got to go home to her every night. He was the one who got to kiss her when he got home. Not me… And why?? God alone knew.

All I knew was that I wanted him out of the way. That child would be mine, not his.

I realized what I had to do…and it wasn’t going to be easy. He had, after all been like a brother to me in the past.

And then suddenly, he walked in. And I just lost it. I was mad at him, and I would make him pay. In a flash, I had the drawer opened and I had taken out the Walther. I was going to sever every bond we had. I pulled the trigger.

Funny…I never expected it to hurt so much. I watched as he fell slowly to the ground. And then, I noticed the gun in his hand. My vision started to blur. Everything was going cold.

| articles | bio | email |  

---

Vijay Narayan

---