Reads like fiction : The oracle executive who changed his identity to escape law.

 

I had the habit of reading detective fiction, and espionage novels during high school and college. But later the hobby died a gradual death as I got busy with work. Now I just read the news. But gone are the days of simple, straightforward news. Now the crimes being reported are stranger than fiction.

This week I read this bizarre news of this murderer who changed his identity from a Malayali to a Gujarathi to escape law for 15 years. He was finally caughtcaught because he was still in touch with his loving mother, of all people.

On Thursday, Pravin Bhateley, a senior manager working with Oracle Private Limited on Bannerghatta Road in Bengaluru, was arrested by the Ahmedabad police. But strangely, Kiran Chowdhury, the inspector dressed as an employee of the IT company who came to arrest Pravin, said, "Hello Tarun, it's over... Let's go."

 

Read TNM’s excellent coverage of the news.

 

Oracle ! Seems like a right fit for him.

 

 

 

The world’s fastest growing economy has the world’s most toxic air

 

Not surprised.

 

 

Faith and Reason Are Irreconcilable

 

Faith is a tricky subject. Once people believe deeply in some stories, they are not available for reason any longer. I think its best explained by the scientist of our times.

 

Well, so let me say that differently. All efforts that have been invested by brilliant people of the past have failed at that exercise. They just fail. And so I don’t, the track record is so poor that going forward, I have essentially zero confidence, near zero confidence, that there will be fruitful things to emerge from the effort to reconcile them. So, for example, if you knew nothing about science, and you read, say, the Bible, the Old Testament, which in Genesis, is an account of nature, that’s what that is, and I said to you, give me your description of the natural world based only on this, you would say the world was created in six days, and that stars are just little points of light much lesser than the sun. And that in fact, they can fall out of the sky, right, because that’s what happens during the Revelation.

You know, one of the signs that the second coming, is that the stars will fall out of the sky and land on Earth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physical universe based on Bible passages got the wrong answer.

So what happened was, when science discovers things, and you want to stay religious, or you want to continue to believe that the Bible is unerring, what you would do is you would say, “Well, let me go back to the Bible and reinterpret it.” Then you’d say things like, “Oh, well they didn’t really mean that literally. They meant that figuratively.”

So, this whole sort of reinterpretation of the, how figurative the poetic passages of the Bible are came after science showed that this is not how things unfolded. And so the educated religious people are perfectly fine with that. It’s the fundamentalists who want to say that the Bible is the literally, literal truth of God, that and want to see the Bible as a science textbook, who are knocking on the science doors of the schools, trying to put that content in the science room. Enlightened religious people are not behaving that way. So saying that science is cool, we’re good with that, and use the Bible for, to get your spiritual enlightenment and your emotional fulfillment.

 

 

 

 

“God is the name people give to the reason we are here” – Prof Stephen Hawking

 

 

Portarlington Trip

 

Have you heard of Portarlington ? Its a little coastal township in the Port of Phillip Bay, right at the entrance to the sea.  A short ferry ride away from Docklands, Melbourne, the place has amazing views of the bay, and is the perfect place for a short holiday. It reminded me of those picturesque British coastlines often seen in movies. A village by the sea. And thats where we went for a holiday during a long weekend.

 

 

Hiked the 1.3 km Rambler’s walk. Best part is that all the attractions are within walking distance of the port, and we saw a lot of visitors walking and cycling across the coasts. What continues to surprise me is that these idyllic holiday points are within a few hours travel from the city, yet the place itself is like stuck in time. It looks and feels as if one has gone back in time to a quieter , calmer time.

Tourists, mostly families visit the place in groups, yet they are mindful of the cleanliness of the place. There is no rubbish on the ground, and no crowds rushing in a hurry. The vehicles drive slowly, giving way to hikers and cyclists, and children have a blast in the children’s park. There are public grilling areas free for use, people can bring in the foods they want to cook and eat. And everyone is expected to clean up afterwards. There are affordable eateries across the street, nothing is over priced.It is a historic town, and they do have their own museums and churches to show. But there is no graffitti defacing public property.  The free restrooms are clean, and there are fountains providing drinking water.

 

We in India still have centuries to go before we can reach this level of maturity. And love for nature, things old and new.

Kayamkulam Kochunni

 

This was one of those rare weeks when I watched two movies. In theatres. In the same week. After having damaged my eyes permanently watching First Man, I needed something..err…soothing. Something completely in the opposite end of the spectrum to negate the..er…negative effects. My news feed told me that this Malayalam movie was breaking all records, so I looked it up. No chance I could watch it in Melbourne, I thought. No way they would be showing it in the first week of its release here.

Dead wrong.

Turns out, Mallus take their movies wherever they go. From the facebook page of the movie, I found that they where showing the movie to a small audience in a few small theatres across Australia. The closes one to me, a place called Backlot studios, near Southbank !

 

And so we went. Onnum parayenda, puttaakee, it was a day of surprises. Mallus ! They move in herds ! They do move in herds !

In a small 70-something seater theatre in the back, which looked more like a shady production company, they were showing this movie.  It was as if one was invited to an exclusive party. Luxrious seats. Air-con.

The movie was ..well, what I was expecting. A glorified re-telling of the fable of the famous robber who lived  150 years ago, with the modern treatment of slow-motion scenes and chorographed action scenes. For a while now, directors have found this format to be the safest. It had everything one would expect from a contemporary movie. Everything was checked.

Flash back scenes to his childhood  ? Check.

Superstar cameo ? Check

Two heroines ? Check.

A rocky-style training sequence for the hero ? Check !!

British baddies ? Check.

An item number ? No really ? No one was expecting this, but check.

The hero, is a thief, but he is not really a baddie. So he escapes in the end. Check.

A theme discussed throughout the movie is the caste system prevalent during the time in Kerala, which was different from the rest of the country. The system was carefully orchestrated to oppress the poor and hard working, while the rich and influential enjoyed luxuries. Rules of untouchability was severe, but that did not stop the higher caste males from having ‘relationships’ with the lower caste females. Then there was the very high level of taxation on the poor, levied by the king and landlords.

Of course, this was all part of the Hindu religion, and Kochunni, being a Muslim, had an oustsider’s perspective. As the legend is told, he becomes a saviour to the lower caste and the poor, and steals from the rich to provide for the needy.

This is what Vivekenanda said when he visited Kerala during the late 19th century.

 

I got carried away. Back to the movie, its a good one time watch. Despite the artificiality and macho heroism, they have really worked hard on this one. Of course many things could have been improved.