Theory: Novel Classification of Profession Entertainment

Title: Novel Classification of Professional Entertainment

Abstract: Professional entertainments are naturally classified based on individual tastes or level of expertise. In this theory, I present a new classification for professional entertainment or more specifically stage performances, including professional sports, cinema, classical recital, a rock festival, magic shows, TV soaps, porn, etc. This theory then helps us to understand how some people cannot enjoy certain forms of entertainment, while others have a ball (Example: The movie "Sivaji").

The Classification: In this classification there are two types of entertainment: Type I and Type II. In type I entertainment, the audience is amazed at the skill of the performer and wonder how he/she does it. A typical example of Type I entertainment, would be a magic show. In this case, the satisfaction for the audience would come from being convinced at the performer's slight of hand. Other examples are a live music (recorded music belongs type II), professional games (like tennis).

An entertainment in which the audience enjoy the performance itself and the not the Raison d'être, would be Type II. For example, when people watch a firework show, they just enjoy the lit up sky, and the skilled maker of the firework is never thought about! Other examples of Type II entertainment are TV soaps, porn. I am sure nobody watches porn and gets entertained by the talent of the artists.

Exceptions: I am not aware of any blatant exception. However, there are fuzzy cases. For example, I am sure people go to soccer matches or cricket matches for the fun of watching a good game and that would put it in Type II. On the contrary, a soccer match could become a one man show, where the striker in one of the teams becomes the star attraction, which would change the source of the entertainment to be his/her display of talent, thus making it Type I. So, at times, even though we are classifying an entertainment, it could also depend on the perception of the spectator.

A good exception would be that, there are some forms of entertainment like this "blog" which are boring, and it fails to come under any of the above category! Or you could be amazed at how I could come of with such theories with absolutely no use, whatsoever!

Uses of this theory: Using this theory it is possible to understand why some people cannot like the new Rajnikanth blockbuster "Sivaji". Considering "Sivaji" as a Type I entertainment, where one is amazed at his charisma, his mottai avatar, his goodness, the movie would be liked. When the movie is considered as a Type II entertainment, and the movie goer sees it without an iota of appreciation for RajniKanth, it turns out to be drab (deservedly so!). Unfortunately, the north Indian population can only see it as a Type II entertainment, and therefore cannot join in a celebration of this larger-than-life dramatis persona!

Can you think of any exceptions to this classification? If you think this theory is a load of crap, I completely agree with you :-)

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Tell Tale 17 - Postnatal Story II

After I was born, I was put on a fabric, and wrapped all around. None of my personal preferences were heeded, but I was voicing them anyways. I should have had a tag saying, "store in a warm & dark place", not that the biggies would have cared to notice.

Then one biggie, who was also lying in the same bed (about 8-9 times my size!), was checking me. First the appendages (4 big ones) and then the fishy and was very pleased. I was watching its movements carefully and finally it looked at me and began speaking to me like this "bubbla boo, giggly gooogly ga", "goochi goochi", with very very interesting facial expressions. I guess this must be the biggie language. I was very impressed with the biggie language, but damn! even though the biggie was very animated, it lacked articulation and the biggie language had so many consonants. May be it wants me to do something... I said "quuuaa", for which it again repeated "goochi goochi". I tried to say, "goochi", but it was too hard. I promptly named this biggie "goochi". Then I realized that Goochi had a much wider range of vocal versatility: why don't they try to speak my simple "qualese" (the baby language)? Maybe, biggies are not so smart to understand my qualese, so I have to learn their ways. Hmmmm!

Then Goochi touched my tummy, and it felt funny. Actually, there had been a weird feeling going on in my tummy, you know not outside, but inside. Something like a pulling feeling and I had no idea what it was or what to do. Then Goochi took me closer to its body (the biggies have no sense of personal space) and tried to a thrust its sack like appendage into my mouth. I was in no mood for this kind of closeness, for I had just met Goochi. And I told that, "qua quuu quaa quaa". Again this poor hapless being's protest were in vain, even before I could finish the sentence, my mouth was full. With nothing to do, I grasped the huge sack with my limbs, and suddenly my mouth was all wet! Can you believe it? My mouth was full of some very tasty fluid, and unfortunately, it disappeared down my throat immediately. Just when I was sad that such yummy fluid was exhausted, there was more fluid from the sac. Hmm, Hmm... Oh! I get it, the sac must be filled with this, and Goochi must have been trying to articulate this to me! Goochi could have just told me that in the first place, and I would not have made such a huge fuss. I already liked this biggie. I had one more mouthful of tasty liquid. After plenty of yummy liquid in about 3 huge mouthfuls I was very happy. I also wrote a small poem "quaua quaua, quak qu!" (In case you did not understand, it means "Yummy Yummy, Happy me!")

A little while later, I could not think straight and my vision became blurry, and I could not keep my eyelids open! Goochi must have mixed some sedative in that yummy liquid. I have never in my 4 hour life trusted strangers and resolved I never will! Before I could realize, I fell into a deep state of unconsciousness.

To be continued...

Tell Tale 16 - Postnatal story

I am a just born baby and by nature babies think and talk very much like you grown-ups. But babies have short term memory loss so they seldom remember their pristine first moments. So, the world knows not a single nascent story. But I am gifted with an excellent memory and I remember everything. But here is the world's first postnatal autobiography.

The first thing I remember was when I tried to open eyes. Ah! and it hurt. Everything was so congested and I was stuck somewhere. I was being squeezed from my place, and I didn't like the new place one bit. I tried to squeeze myself back into the warm moist place but na-ha. Crap! There was an enormous force and in one fine twist I was out in the open. I felt like the soft wet Colgate toothpaste, squeezed from the pregnant tube onto the brush like world. I was chocking with air... oh wait, this air is cool but I liked it better when I was in the liquid, for I need not breathe needlessly. Soon, like a smoker I got used to feeling of breathing fresh air and I am now addicted to air and have fatal withdrawal effects.

It was too much work, I decided to take it easy for some time and let things happen. Only then did I realize there were huge things all around me and they all were exactly like me, but only bigger! I will call them "biggies", I resolved. They were all very powerful.

I took a look at myself and I had a torso and 6 things attached to it, four of which I could move voluntarily. A biggie lifted me and the bloody bastard cut one of the things that was attached to my tummy. Aaarh! Do you know what you are doing? I tried to say to him with "quaa qua quaaaa qua quaa", the dumbass pretended to not hear me and he dressed up the vestige of the umbilical cord. At least it did not hurt much. Now I could see 5 things attached to me, oh wait, I wanted to reclassify my attachments, I counted 4 huge attachments and the tiny but very interesting stuff between my legs... I called them fishy.

I was everyone's attention. And I liked it. The biggies were busy looking after me. They put me on a hard metal, and I looked at the dial and it showed 7 lbs (I understood "mass" and "weight" right after birth because like I said before, I am a prodigy). They prodded me with sticks and needles and I screamed "stop it, stop it!" like this "qu quaaa, qu quaaa!" Again everyone pretended not to hear me. There was only one obvious conclusion... "The biggies must all be deaf!"

To be continued ...

Twenty Thousand leagues under the Sea

I am a Science-fiction fan. My favorite is Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". I am a fan of hard science fiction, where the author puts an appreciable effort to support the fiction with scientific reasoning. For this reason, hard science fiction is not everybody's cup of tea for it takes ample amount of prior knowledge to appreciate the author's reasoning and verify the soundness and validity of the logic. I found "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea" in a old book store and bought it for Rs 30. It was originally written by Jules Verne in French and since I am not a "foutre vous" fan, I never tried to read it, but this one is an English translation. It was first published about 150 years back.

The story is quite simple. The oceans are explored in a submarine ship in which the protagonist and two others are held against their will, until they manage to escape. The fate of the submarine is unknown after a last mishap, and the protagonist lives to tell the tale. The protagonist is a scholar in marine biology. In the title, Twenty thousand leagues (a league is 2.2 km) is the distance they travel in the submarine.

There are a few popularly interesting things about the book. Firstly, his predictions of a submarine ship came true, and the actual designs were very close to his descriptions. He had a thought quite a bit before he wrote about the vessel. The mysterious and most interesting character is Captain Nemo, of the Nautilus (name of the submarine ship) is very famous.

What struck me was the protagonist Professor Pierre Aronnax. Prof. Aronnax is not a magician nor is he shown to have off-the-charts intelligence. Prof. Aronnax is shown to be a logical man and a social one too. In the beginning of the novel, when the world is dark about the existence of this submarine ship, but there is rampant speculation about an unknown sea creature with massive destructive powers. Prof. Aronnax convinces that the object of everyones attention is a narwhal (a species of whale). Even though that the reader knows that object is a metallic contraption which the world will call it "submarine", one will be convinced that Prof. Arronax's conclusion is derived from flawless and impressive reasoning.

The other important think I noticed about the book is the careful limitation of the characters. After Prof. Arronax, is the very necessary Captain Nemo who cannot be ignored in that story. But other characters are given a low profile and a lot of the fiction being spent on the submarine zoology, artifacts and adventures. It would be hard sustain other complex human characters. The undersea adventures are multitude, for they see the south pole, Atlantis, historical shipwrecks, fictional underwater Suez canal.

It is quite possible that the author engineered Prof. Aronnax based on
himself, for the scientific reasoning did not look like part of some piecewise constructed character but a real researcher with painful attention to detail and adherence to robustness of logic.

This book is a must read for any researcher and it would not be cricket to recommend this book to everyone.

Have you read book? What are your thoughts?

Pratap Talkies -- Adolescent Fatiques (Part II)

Please read part I, for an introduction. There would be self-contradicting happenings, but since this is directly from my dream, logical correctness was not part of the deal.

Somehow I manage to get off the grip of the Tigers, and run off. The escape was easier than I had expected and I have a feeling that they might have staged it, hoping to lead them to something, like a bee homing to its hive.

Then I looked in my hand, and there was a paper stub. I automatically knew that my mission was to take this piece of paper to somebody. I did not know who it was, not did I know where he is. I also knew I had to go north (this is contrary to current state of the SriLanka, where the northern part of the island is under the tiger control and I am a army regular).

I started from the front-line in the middle of the jungle and headed north. The jungle was thick, and was not too green like I had imagined. There was a footpath through the jungle, and I jogged for the most part. My army boots were sturdy enough for the long journey. The hard sole crushed pebbles and any small creatures which were unfortunate enough to tread across my way. I was happy to have those boots, (and military fatigues) other than which I had nothing on me worthy of a soldier's attire. The Tigers had disarmed me, and I had no rifle, or the standard small arms pistol (I did not miss my army knife, because I am not a fan of knifes). An unarmed man in army fatigues, running into enemy territory is quite comical, but I had a mission to finish.

Then I entered a village and it was early morning for I had walked most of the night. I was hoping to get some water and possibly some food, but was quite apprehensive. More importantly, I had to find the person to deposit the paper in hand. I meant a 50 year old man, who looked decent, and so I asked him if he knew. He looked at the paper, and told me that the person that I need to see was in a town, some distance north of that village. He also told me that the paper I had in hand was a cheque, and there were no banks around. So, I exchanged it with him for its worth. (I never took the effort to read the paper). So, taking his advice, I headed further north.

There I entered a town, and managed to find the house of the person I was looking for. The road surprisingly looked like Lakshmanaswamy Street, KK. Nagar, Chennai. His house was at the corner of an intersection, and was easy to find. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. There was a back door, through which I entered and found him sleeping. I carefully woke him up, and was afraid I would scare him but surprisingly he woke up and kept his cool. He was very concerned about me, and before I told about the journey, I conveyed my hunger. He fed me well.

After I ate, we sat in the same armrest-less dining chair and we talked. I formally identified myself, with my name and ID, and then narrated my first encounter with the tigers. I told him about the piece of paper which I was supposed to be delivering to him and how I got cheated on the way. He asked me not to worry about it and was happy I made it to him. He told me that the information about the Tiger advancement was critical.

He then told me that the tigers would have reached this town and since it does not have any military installation would fall quickly. He took me to another room and opened a cupboard. He was very well equipped with an array of M16s. I was surprised at the preparedness of the man.
I took a M16 and provisioned myself well with 2 magazines. I did not see any reason to carry an assault weapon then, but he assured me that the tigers would be here soon and they would get to his house.

Since we two were the only people in the house, defending it would be quite difficult against a determined well organized Tiger squadron. We drilled holes in the concrete wall, to aim and shoot from inside. In urban warfare this is common procedure when a smaller unit is holed up in a house, they cannot use the windows for firing because of larger exposure area, and the weak barrier. Firing through drilled holes in the walls gives good protection against enemy fire and shrapnel and the position is hard to find. I made 3 such positions and bedecked each with a couple of M16s. If I died there, I would have at least fought to finish.

I was busy getting nervous, when he suddenly suggested that I get out of the house. He told me that, the mini-fortress was impossible to defend and will only end in death. He noted my young age and asked me take one rifle and get out of the town. I obeyed his word because he was confident he himself could inflict the quite a damage on the approaching enemy and since he was a senior officer I had to follow his order. I moved out of the house, in civilian clothes, and could not believe my eyes at the peaceful neighbourhood. Only I could see the fortress in the sleepy town on a warm afternoon.

I was resting my rifle on my shoulder, standing at the intersection, carelessly choosing a direction to go. At about half a kilometer, there was a tiger squadron of about 7-8 soldiers which is when I realized that the enemy was here. I realized I had to act soon, and checked out the other three roads and no tigers were in sight. I knew that since the house was the target, they would come in all the four directions. If they find me, the M16 would ID as an army regular, and they would be happy to empty their magazines on me. And while I was contemplating my direction to flee, there were Tigers in all the four direction. I placed my M16 under a moped parked nearby and decided to proceed along the widest road.

I was walking nonchalantly on the shoulder of the near empty road which had almost zero vehicular traffic and carefully noted the buildings around in order to run into. I was planning to just walk past the approaching Tiger squadron and completely ignore them. As soon as I had decided on this plan of action, I noticed that they had started firing at the sidewalk users and three men went down. I had to get off road in order to avoid death. There was a school playground where some girls were playing soccer. I jumped over a wall into the ground and hid behind the parapet wall. I eagerly waited for the Tigers to cross my position and raised my head and checked to verify. They had walked past the school and were about 50 meters away. I was happy to have evaded them and jumped over the fence and landed softly. I started slowly walking in the opposite direction hoping that the dangers over but the house would be surrounded soon.

I was increasing my pace when suddenly one of the Tigers looked behind and saw me walking. Even though I was in civilian clothes I knew my time was over as I could see him drawing other soldier's attention to me. I was not sure if he was interested in me or the two other civilians who were happily ignorant of the impending danger. But soon I heard automatic fire and bullets ricocheting on the tar road surface. I dropped on my knees and rolled to the shoulder (the shoulder was about 20 cms lower than the tar road surface) and I hoped to hide from the line of sight. There I lay on my back, and tightly closed my eyes afraid of the danger and more importantly the dirt blew all around me from the impact of the projectile bullet on any hard service. Then about after 30 seconds the automatic fire stopped, but I was playing playing dead, not that I had any other option.

About 2 minutes later, there was a single shot and it landed pretty close and I knew that someone still remembered me. Now, as I was looking at the sky, and nervously waiting for my death, there was one more shot and landed equally near. I realized that there was only one person and he was using semi-automatic mode in his assault rifle. I hoped he would just go away and leave me alone. It looked like he had taken his firing position and I was his target practice. Finally after several close shots, there was a hit. A bullet braced my tummy and made a 1 cm cut diagonally starting from the right hip to the left chest. It was just a external wound (skin tear) but I knew that the Tiger soldier was getting better at this. Then there were three more shorts each of which entered my stomach and was lodged inside.

The semi-automatic fire stopped after than. I lay there, immobile and nothing to do. I hoped my intestine absorbed most of the stopping power of the bullet as anything else means a bleak future. I did not feel any pain, but was much agonizing as though someone very close to me was getting shot at (may be in dreams can one actually feel pain??). Somehow I was at peace and was both sad and happy at the same time. I was sad because, even though I had enough firepower to stop the whole squadron, I chose to drop my weapon in a failed attempt to flee. But then again, in this whole bloody war, I did not kill anyone. I am completely innocent. What was the point of all this? Why did that guy kill me when I chose to stay in the path of non-violence?

I then remembered the book Catch-22, and how the illogical, maddening arguments Joseph Keller puts forth made sense like never before.

Naan partha penn - I

I was talking to one of my friends about Blank Noise Project and how the young girls were stepping over other people's rights in their campaign. I was wondering how I would react if I met any one of those people. It seems they have special campaigns where, the beautifully dressed stand in crowded urban public places. Apparently, they are honeypots for perverts. Hmmm.... I wonder if I would look at them! correction... obviously I would look at them, a good exercise would be to know if they would brand me as a pervert. The catch here is... I might be one, but how can you tell ? he he he

(I don't want BlankNoiseProject cyber patrol to find my blog and start sermons)

So, yesterday when I was traveling in an autorickshaw I had an brilliant idea! Not that any of my ideas are less than brilliant, but this was quite special. I wanted to see a girl. I was not planning to arrange a bajji, sojji kinda familial meeting, so a quickie :) I was quite brave because you know I was in an autorickshaw :)

So, the plan was to pick a girl and look at her. That is all. There was a huge traffic jam near Pothy's in Usman road and I was fed up with the fumes and traffic, and I completely forgot about the plan. Just then the traffic cleared up and the auto neared the Usman Road bus stop. There was a girl in chudidhar, with nice earrings(I fall flat for girls wearing nice earrings ) and she was talking to some other girl and waiting for a bus. The girl was very pretty. Before I knew I was looking at her, straight at her face.

Then time slowed down, and the few seconds seemed like a few more seconds. Then she turned in slow motion to look at me. Here the reader should be informed about the rarity of the incident. In all my 25 years of looking at girls, they have only given me dirty or disgusting looks, if at all they deigned to look at me. So, this girl looks at me and stops talking to the other girl. It looked like she stopped mid sentence. Now, I am unfamiliar to this kind of attention and I did not know what to do. She did not smile, but neither did I. You know the kind, who look at each other and start loving at first sight?

We locked into each other's eyes, and were talking silently. Even though we never spoke, I think I told her that she was the most beautiful girl in that bus stop, and I like her. She seemed to reciprocate. After few seconds with her, the auto crossed the bus stop, and I lost sight of her.

What do you think the girl must have thought? What if she was a BlankNoiseProject girl? What if you were the girl?

Drowning Victim

First reports about a drowning victim identified as Kiran Yellajyosula has come out. We are still awaiting confirmation from the official search blog.