subramanian santhanam

"Prophet song" - my impressions This is certainly one of the books that was very disturbing and made me realise that how much relatively peaceful and comfortable atmosphere we are living in India. The story of the book is set in a totally imaginary period of time in the country Ireland where it is not clear which of the political formations fight for power. What are the idealogies, left or right, religious or irreligious, etc. are not mentioned. Booker was awarded to this book last year. On what basis? I think the reason for giving the Booker prize must be the political relevance of the content. More so, these days people do not seem to understand enough of the importance of civil rights of individuals in societies. This book really brings that to the forefront and descrbes the struggle of a family during the time of suspension of all civic rights in the country. So essentially the novel takes us through the journey of a urban, well settled family who live happily in Ierland. What happens to the family after head of the family who is trade unionist goes into the custody of government agency due to political turbulence in Ierland. Some people compare this book to that of another classical work “1984” by Geroge orwell. But the difference is, I think, at many points while reading this book, emotional attachment of the reader to the characters is more than that of Orwell” s book. None can escape the personal grief or extreme sadness while going through certain portions. The book is not recommended for the light hearted. Some may feel so grief stricken that the plight of the protagonist will haunt them for long. What is the takeaway from the book? In my opinion the book stresses on the importance of free society in which the institutions of the state are to be accountable to the people. In India too, the fear of losing fundamental rights of citizens is looming large presently with the rise in power of the ruling dispensation which perceivably do not believe in any democratic principles per se. The book certainly deserves to be considered at par with all time great dystopian works like Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave new world, etc. A must read for all those who are politically inclined.

Hey Jude - Never before emotional connect You don't get to watch many movies that can get you immersed fully into it. 'Hey jude' got me hooked to it right from the beginning to end. Emotionally it got me so attached that a lump in my throat never left me even after I finished watching it. The movie is directed by Shyamaprasad and the lead characters are played by Nivin pauly and Trisha. I knew about Nivin Pauly before watching this film but I did not know it was him who played main role in the movie. After watching the movie I came to know that it was him. Then I realized why he is rated so high. About Trisha, this was her debut movie in the mallu cine field and this is one of her best in her long film career. Some times it so happens that there are no big reasons why we get connected emotionally to a story line. Hey Jude is a kind of movie that is not normally made in other languages esp. tamil or hindi. Only malayalees have the guts to take up unique and special subjects for their movies. This is a movie about the story of two special people. One is a mathematical genius who has phenomenal talent with numbers and has a lots of interest in oceanography. This man has special talents and brilliant in solving maths. But when it comes to social life, he comes a cropper. He has huge difficulties in understanding basic tenets of normal social life. The other is a girl who is a daughter of a professor of psychology who has bipolar disorder. Her mood swings from best to worst in no time. The story is all about how these two unusual people meet and befriend each other. As I said before I did not recognize Nivin in the movie. I started watching the movie more for Trisha as I thought she would not act in a mediocre or bad movie at this stage of her career.Nivin was totally into his character. Initially I thought of Jude in the movie only as an unknown malayalam actor. But the playing of the characterization was so brilliant that I wanted to refer google for the identity of the man. His portrayal of the role was so complete that nobody could have done justice to the role better than him. Trisha was so real in her role that we forget that she is a star actor and we could see her only as the disturbed girl who breaks down emotionally so easily. Technically also this film is made perfectly and camera work is so eye catchy and pleasant and it is difficult to take our eyes off the movie. All in all, this is a movie worth watching and in my limited film watching I would rate this along with great movies of all time for the quality of time I spent watching it and for emotional connect.

This book I think, is a must read for people who want to know about the journey of human progress made thus far. One of the super positive books I have ever read. This book is a kind of eye opener for many as this will turn their world outlook upside down. For the better, of course. Essence of the book is positive progress made by humanity in the last 200 years. The author establishes with facts and figures and with the help of many charts how we have come a long and better way in poverty alleviation, education, health and many other social indicators. For example, poverty level of the people was 85 percent in the 1800s and now (2018) it came down to just 9% which was just phenomenal and unbelievable according to the author(s). It remained at around the same level for thousands of years and only in the last 200 years the increase had been made possible. Likewise, the author gives a lot of information with statistical data. In the last twenty years, according to the authors the extremity in poverty levels has almost halved which is really revolutionary.