Rajinimania

I am not a fan of Rajinikanth. I decided to write this blog after seeing the hype around the release of his new movie 'Sivaji - The Boss'.

Facts about Rajinikanth:

Original Name: Shivaji Rao Gaekwad

Current Profession: Movie Actor
Film industry: Tamil (India)

Movies acted: 170 (100 in Tamil alone)

Next project: Sultan - the warrior (animated movie to be directed by his daughter)

Salary for last Movie: About $9,000,000

Status: Super Star - Tamil Film Industry

Registered fan clubs: 69,000 (as per claims in Indian TV channels)

Alumnus of: Madras Film Institute (Batch of 1974)

Previous Profession: Bus Conductor - BMTC, Bangalore

Rajinikanth a.k.a Shivaji Rao Gaekwad is the reigning 'Super Star' of Tamil Film Industry. He's the highest earning actor in India and probably the second highest earning actor in Asia after Jakie Chan from Hong Kong. His latest movie 'Sivaji - the Boss', released on June 15 is running to packed houses. The movie is released in Tamil Nadu, Andhrapradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Bombay, Pune, New Delhi (All in India), Srilanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Middle East, USA & UK. The movie will be shortly releasing in Japan. The movie was produced at a cost of $13,000,000 using the best technical talents in the Tamil Film industry by AVM Productions, the oldest and the largest film production house in the Tamil Film Industry.

Rajinikanth made is film debut in 1975 as a supporting actor. He then acted in negative roles for sometime before getting opportunities to act as a hero. While in his earlier films he got a chance to display his acting skills, he's more famous for his style and on-screen mannerism. He got the title of 'Super Star' in 1987. Since that time only three of his movies have failed to make a profit in the box office. Most of his movies are formula movies targeted at youngsters filled with 'punch dialogues' and logic defying stunts. The amount of adulation that his fans have for him would put any Hollywood actor to shame.

Whether we like him as a actor or not, his rags-to-riches true story is an inspirational one. Rajinikanth a Marati by birth, lost his parents when he was a kid and was brought up by his elder brother. As an youth he worked as a bus conductor with BMTC in Bangalore. With the help and support of his friends he joined the Madras Film Institute, Chennai. In a career spanning 32 years he has become the most successful actor in the whole of South India commanding the appreciation and respect of film personalities across India.

Heroes and Fans (Part 2)

There is no limit on the amount of influence that our heroes can have over our lives or the extent of adulation that we would have towards them. Not to mention about the activities that we would do as a result of this adulation and influence. People might cry while watching the concert of their famous rock star/band (e.g.Beatles), might cry when their famous sportsperson/ team looses (e.g.Steffi Graf, Brazil's soccer team). And if its India or Pakistan, fans might throw water bottles on the opposition players if their national cricket team is about to loose their match.

Why do rational people become irrational when it comes to their heroes? Indian Cricket Team lost its world cup (1996) semifinal match against Sri Lanka by default because angry Indian fans at Eden Gardens Stadium, Calcutta started throwing water bottles on the fielding Srilankan side. This is probably the first and only instance where a match was awarded to a team by default - what a national shame! Every now and then we find supporters of one political party clashing with supporters of a different political party, fans of one football club clashing with fans of opposition football club etc. Fans might stop a match, burn books, effigies, posters of their fallen heroes. Why do people resort to such activities?

Heroes and Fans (Part 1)

Most of us are ordinary human beings. Not many people celebrate us or our activities and achievements. We go about doing our day to day activities with ease and sometimes with a great sense of satisfaction. The trouble is there are a million other people who are similar to us, do similar activities with the same favorable results. Therefore there is no one to notice or appreciate our actions other than our family or close friends. As minutes become hours, hours become days and days become years we continue with the same or similar line of activities. We get bored... bored to the core and enervated!

And that's when we look for entertainment and inspiration. Entertainment of relax and inspiration to carry on with our day to day activities with a certain amount of enthusiasm and confidence. Entertainment can take various forms - sports, movies, music, theatre, books, painting etc. As we try various sources of entertainment, we develop a liking to certain form of entertainment. Some people prefer music over sports, others prefer movies over books and so on. Not to mention that each form of entertainment would have hundreds or thousands categories.

As we continue to follow one form of entertainment over a period of time, we develop a liking to certain active players in that form of entertainment. Over time this liking develops into an adulation. These active players in a particular entertainment field become our heroes and we their fans. Not to forget that we can have heroes in fields outside the entertainment arena itself (our family, school, national politics etc.). And from this moment onwards, the activities of our heroes will start influencing our life in some way or the other. Some of us might follow their lead and enter the same field like our heroes (choosing writing as a career because we like Michael Chricton for example), others might follow their style of dressing, still others might become very serious advocates of the cause with which their heroes are associated with (e.g. Live Strong - wrist band)

Coincidence, Correlation or Causality!

Every now and then we come across very interesting forwards regarding relationship between events and predictions based on those events. Yesterday, I came across this very funny yet heartwarming prediction. Heartwarming because it was about the Indian Cricket Team and what their performance is going to be, in the ongoing ICC Cricket World cup. This forward was sent to me by one of my friends who work in an IT company in India’s Silicon Valley. IT companies’ intranets have become hotbeds for such discussions, debates and forwards.

The culture of sending forwards has become so endemic among IT professionals that they have come up with a tagline for this habit. And the tagline is ‘Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, small people talk about others. But legends never talk, they forward emails.’ To put it in a funny way, IT professionals seem to grossly abuse the idea of free exchange of ideas.

Coming back to the forward on Indian Cricket Team: we have to go back a few years in time. The Year was 1981; the whole of England was in a festive mood and was celebrating the marriage of their Crown Prince Charles Windsor with Diana. The same year English Football Club ‘Liverpool’ was basking under the glory of having been crowned the European Football champions. Also the Australian Cricket Team lost the Ashes Bilateral Cricket series to England. The same year, the head of the world Catholic Churches, the Pope John Paul I passed away. The following year (1982) the Italian National Soccer Team was crowned World Champions by winning the FIFA world cup. You might just be wondering what these discrete pieces of information have to do with the Indian Cricket Team. Well, one year later (1983) the Indian Cricket Team surprised the mighty Caribbean Cricket Team (who were marching towards winning their third successive world cup), the whole cricketing world and themselves by winning the Prudential Cricket world cup. Now for people, who are asking ‘so what’, please continue reading.

The year was 2005. Prince Charles once again got married, this time to Camela Parker Bowles. Liverpool again became European Champions, the invincible Australian Cricket Team lost the Ashes again and Pope John Paul II passed away. A year later in 2006, Italy won the FIFA World cup. Now based on these chains of events and comparing them with the chain of events that took place from 1981 to 1983, IT Forwards’ Pundits and Prediction Gurus are predicting that the Indian Cricket Team will win the ICC world cup. What more, they are even pointing to the fact that like the Italian Soccer team the Indian Cricket Team also wears blue jersey. Not only this, while West Indian Cricket Team was looking forward to winning their third successive world cup in 1983, this year it is the Australian Cricket Team which is looking forward to winning their third successive world cup.

Well, what can one say? The forward goes on to finish that, the next time Prince Charles gets married or plans for a marriage, the Pope should be careful!!! Well, this is a perfect example of how the probability of one event occurring would leave some parties well off and some parties worse off. – Poor Pope!

Will India win the world cup? Being an Indian, I would want this prediction to come true and India to win the world cup. If India wins the world cup, then there would be a perfect correlation (at least theoretically) between each one of these events that took place from 1981 to 1983 and the events that took place/ supposed to take place between 2005 and 2007.

Well now let’s pose the broader question. Do all correlations convey causality? Not necessarily. In the case of this particular example I doubt if a correlation exists between these events in the first place. To be honest it is possible to come up with correlation analysis and find a positive correlation between any unconnected events.

One of the funniest examples about correlation that I can remember is from one of the books that I read on Portfolio Analysis (Stock Market related). The book quotes an example where the Stock Market Pundits were able to find a positive correlation between the U.S. stock market performance and of all things, the length of the American women’s skirts!!! In each of the years in which Mini-skirts were a fashion, the U.S. stock markets performed really well. In each of the years in which long skirts were the fashion, the U.S. stock market dived south. In this case while there was perfect correlation between the two events, we cannot say one led to the other.

The last three decades have seen the U.S. and of late the world Capital markets following a 10-11 year cycle. The U.S. economy went into a recession in 1982. In 1991-92 the U.S. economy once again tanked. In 2001, the whole of world economy went southwards. Now comes the interesting part (at least according to me): The Solar cycle also follows an 11 year cycle. At this point of time the world economy is much more integrated than it was a few decades ago. The majority of world economies are based on agriculture and farming. Now Agriculture and farming are dependent on the sun (and the changes in weather that it causes). Now what I am interested in knowing is that, will there be correlation or better causal relationship between the Solar Cycle and the Capital Markets of the world. Well, will any one of those economist sitting across the globe have an answer to this Multi-Trillion Dollar Question?

Religion – Should we Believe in it or not!

Who/What is God??? Is he some superman who created the world with a wand or an unexplainable super power? No idea. Western Philosophy believes so much on proof (proof in its own way, proof to a theory that it can understand or explain). Any thing beyond its cognition is brushed as nonsense. What if the proof given by someone is beyond the understanding of current scientists (Scientists will not be willing to accept it)

e.g.. Most Western scientists do not believe in Astrology. Why was there so much destruction in the year 2005 (year of East Asian tsunami). There are so many scientific explanations for the tsunami. But when we look at astrology there are some interesting points. One, it was the year in which MARS was closest to the earth. According to Astrology MARS is the planet that brings destruction. Another interesting point, by Tamil Calendar (based on Astrology - following a 60 year cycle) the year 2005 and year 1945 fall under the same category. Now what happened in 1945 - World war was in its peak, maximum destruction in East Asia (Japan). 2005 Tsunami - Maximum damage in Indonesia and Thailand (somewhere close by the same region). Is this just a coincidence or there is some underlying phenomenon which we do not yet understand. May be there is some principle behind the incidents (as explained by Astrology also). Again why does Astrology only use the heavenly bodies which exert maximum gravitational force on the earth? But Modern science would not believe or not even attempt to understand Astrology because it cannot be verified by empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol. But, are proofs by empirical, testable, demonstrable protocols the best way or the only way to prove or disprove any hypothesis including the existence of God.

Now the concept of God and religion - Who created the universe. For a religious guy it's God. For an atheist it’s Nature, for all the scientific community its 'Big Bang'. Ok agreed Big Bang created the Universe, but what created 'Big Bang'. No answers from the scientific community. What makes ordinary people hate religion, as well as the supreme almighty that represents the religion - superstition, unjust rituals etc. But did God create all these rituals. Religion is a Classic paradox - Did God create Man or Man created God? Definitely Man created superstition and unnecessary rituals.

e.g.. Take the case of Ramayana - When Rama accepted Guhan (a boatman) as his brother, he made a case for Class equality. When Rama accepted Vibeeshana (A demon) as his brother, he made a case for Race equality. When Lord Shiva accepted parvati as half of himself, he made a case for male female equality. But does the Hindu society reflect any of these principles. No, all that they have carried from Ramayana is 'Sati' and a sacred home for Rama in Ayodhya leading to religious violence. Religion/God is much higher concept than what we see and preach today - offering milk to Idols or floating the dead body in Ganges. Therefore the religious leader who preaches violence is the one who has to be blamed for the violence and not the religion itself. Religion based violence has so many additional factors (Poverty, Lack of education, social inequality, to name a few) contributing to it. Therefore it would be naive on our part to blame it on religion or God.

Note: For the sake of political correctness, I do not want to talk about any religion, other than my own religion. That's the reason I have quoted examples from Hinduism. I am sure there would be other such examples in other religions as well

Scientific Theories are based on underlying phenomenon. This need not necessarily mean that if there is no scientific theory, an activity or a phenomenon is not possible. Remember there was gravitational force even before Isaac Newton came up with this theory and laws of Gravitation. And in the 20th century some of Newton's assumptions were disproved by Einstein. The whole history of economics can be traced back to the 17th-18th century. Does this mean that economic activity did not take place prior to this period? All that the studies on Gravity or Economics did was to help us understand the subject better and helped us use our resources in a better way.

In a similar way, religion and God cannot be brushed aside just because both do not have a scientific explanation. May be in future somebody would be good enough to use science to prove or disprove God. Till that time all we are left with is unlimited time to debate on this subject.

My argument is not that everybody should believe in God. I'm merely saying that while there is no proof for the existence of God, there is also no proof for the non existence of God. So while I cannot go to an Atheist and ask him to worship God, an Atheist also cannot laugh at me for believing in God.

Is the false prediction by an Astrologer a result of fault with Astrology or fault with the Astrologer? Only a small percent of Astrological predictions turning true is result of so many fraudulent Astrologers but may not have any thing to do with Astrology itself. The same is the case with religious leaders misleading the people.

Various religions evolved out of man's fear and his desire to look for logical or illogical ways to overcome it. Most of the Hindu gods evolved out of Nature and man's fear. Man was afraid of Elephant - so made it into Lord Ganesha/ Iravadham. Man was afraid of Lions - he made it into Narashimha. Man was afraid of snakes - he made it into Aadhiseshan. Man got most of his food from Plants - so he worshipped it as Karpaga -virutcham. Man got most nutrition from cow’s milk - therefore he made it into Kamadhenu.

Another classic example: In the North-Western region where the Lions ruled the jungles once, the Goddess is always seated on the Lion. In the eastern region where there was the threat of tigers, the Goddess is always seated on the Tiger and in the southern plains where there was this perennial threat of snakes, the goddess always had the snake as her head guard and the temples had snake worship.

Religion is Faith. Agreed. All I'm saying is - its not just blind faith.