Tragedy not comedy

Why is it that a sad ending to a story makes it hit so much harder? Why does that stay with us longer than a sweet little everybody's happy tra la la la ending? What is it in us humans that we prefer tragedy to comedy?

Here, I always think of this movie, Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell (Harold Crick) and Emma Thompson (Karen Eiffel). Harold is a boring IRS agent until he starts hearing an author narrating his life. Turns out Karen is writing a book and somehow her character is an actual person. Harold hears the author narrate his forthcoming death and does all he can to stop her from writing it. (SPOILERS ALERT) He finds Karen and reads the book and he is convinced that he should die in the end because that's just what the book needs. Karen however can't go through with it and changes the ending. A literature professor (played by Dustin Hoffman), who had helped Harold track down the author, reads the book with the changed ending and his verdict to Karen? - "It's ok. It's not bad!" And he can't understand why Karen would change the ending. - Meaning that Harold should have died! It's almost like an unwritten rule. Just look at the classics - how many of them have a sad ending? I don't get the reasoning behind this, but I do know that personally, no matter how much I like to see a happy ending, the ones that don't have that are the ones that remain in memory as classics!

This guy is quite an inspiration

How Not To Discuss Rates with a Translator

So true .. Hilarious and sad that this is how it is really!

Die Welle

Just saw this film and found it really good, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies a tad. Though thinking about it, certain aspects are weird - many of the changes that the teacher Rainer Wenger (Jürgen Vogel) makes in his classroom, changes that slowly form the students into a quasi fascist group, are normal school practices here in India. We all wear uniforms to school, raise our hand when we want to say something and stand to give the answer, we never call our teachers by their first name and the desks always face the front of the class. That doesn't make us fascists, only disciplined. The students in the German school in the film are clearly shown as lacking this particular quality and when discipline is introduced through the Project Week experiment, they turn into a group that excludes the other and embraces violence. Komisch! 

Boobquake

Hilarious stuff, love the idea. Read the article on how we all survived "Boobquake" ..

But the statement that prompted Jennifer to initiate Boobquake is sadly how many people think. They believe the revealing clothes that women wear is what leads to eve-teasing and rape. The worst comment I heard about a lady who had been raped was "she was asking for it, dressing like that"!!! That just nicely takes away all the blame from the guy - the poor soul can't be expected to control himself if a woman wearing a tank top comes into his line of sight! Life in prison is what rapists should get - then they'll get a damn good taste of being in the victim's shoes.

The Virginity Industry

Check out this article: The Virginity industry
Makes me real mad. Sad what society and tradition force women to do in order to "not only change their lives, but quite possibly save it"! 

Random Conversation

On my way home after a day long seminar I had a nice conversation with my rickshaw driver that left me feeling happy. It was just a regular tale of good, hardworking people trying to better their lot in life. But these stories always make me feel glad and (I don't know why and it does seem condescending to say so but) proud of them in a way.

He started the conversation commenting on how the weather today spoke of coming rain, even though the monsoon is two months away. And about how it has become quite hot since the past few days and that it will get even worse. He continued to say how difficult his sons are finding it to study for their exams in this heat and so he has bought them two fans that he lets run throughout the day. The rest of the conversation was centered around the two of them. Both his kids are studying chartered accountancy. Knowledge of that fact really impressed me because anyone who knows rickshaw drivers in India, knows that they are not the most well off and are mostly uneducated. The latter was confirmed to me at a later stage in the conversation. He went on to say that his only dream was for his kids to get an education so that they did not have to drive a rickshaw like him. His kids have apparently always scored high in their exams (88% in the 10th, 86% in BCom) and have even received prizes from their college for their performance. He spoke like a true proud papa, who can see the result of his long years of hard work in front of his eyes. And that was it. The conversation ended there, I had reached my destination. I will probably never meet this man again (and never get to know the exact percentage his sons score in their CA exams :), but I am happy being reminded that such people live in this world.

On a daily basis we are bombarded with news about murder, rape, theft, fraud. It would be nice to hear simple, positive stories once in a while. It's just a pity that they don't sell.