Yes. A fountainhead which does not spring water anymore is nothing but a reminiscent of past, with no bearing on present and future. The Fountainhead of Ayn Rand lost its water long back (assuming it had lot of water when it was written). She says a building is a function of its purpose, I say her fiction is a function of her time and her past. I agree I have minimal knowledge of her time and her past but I am sure of my time, and in my time society is never an enemy of geniuses and one need not to sacrifice self to help the society. A person who does not have an established self is not even capable of contributing towards the society. I know lot of people who are brilliant and who do not compromise with the work ethics; and still they take time to help others around them in their own ways. That is real genius. Society is an act of symbiosis between different individuals, each contributing based on their capacities and constraints. Society expects only from those who can help themselves, others are expected to try to help themselves and improve. A society has never been a fair playground. There is a theory of dependency which says interdependence is an interaction between independent people and dependent people are not even independent. How to deal with those people who always seek help without trying to be better and become parasite in the society is a different problem altogether.

I am not commenting on her writing, it might be true when she wrote it. I am commenting on the reading by people who converted that work of fiction into a philosophy, for this so called philosophy is totally flawed in present time. It has no vision of interdependence as if being independent is everything and the pursuit of happiness in one’s life should end there. Thanks heaven it is not, but it is indeed prerequisite for the next stage of interdependence. Only happy people can increase others happiness.

For me the hero of The Fountainhead is Mr. Gail Wynand.  The man who redeemed his self by sacrificing himself for someone else. And that is the point.

A linky for those who never read the book (don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead

Robert Adler died this Thursday at the age of 93. His one outstanding contribution among his other 180 plus inventions is our dear TV Remote control (remote), invented almost 50 years back in collaboration with his fellow engineer. The remote happens to be an underrated yet heavily used household device and the only way to appreciate a remote is try to watch TV one day without using it (in case you have memories of searching remote control in every nook and corner of your house, you have a ballpark estimate of its importance). Thanks to him for handing over a power in our hands so that we can easily switch away from ubiquitous ad breaks, we can also surf a range of TV channels in less than a minute without moving ourselves (making some couch potatoes). He did get an Emmy in 1997 for his the most important invention. So, let’s mute our TVs for a minute using that remote.

More about him here -> http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/tech/5903576.html

 

Water (2005) is a movie by Deepa Mehta about widows in pre-independence India, who were forced by men to live in inhuman condition for the rest of their lives (whether it is in ‘vidhwa ashram’ or home). It will not come as a surprise if in rural part of India i.e. two-third of India, widows are still facing this 2000 year old curse in letter and spirit. Anyways following are my two cents:

1. It is not worth the Oscar nomination in a foreign film category. For it is not perfectly made, there are clear signs that this is not shot in the banks of river Ganga, all the folks in the movie (except the star cast) were south Indians (or Sri Lankan). Acting is superb by all the actors, especially the little girl. But, nothing is exceptional. Maybe they nominated it just because it is an entry form Canada and not India. It surely had exceptional idea of story, but movie is not Oscar-type. By Oscar-type I meant movies like Apu’s trilogy.
2. This movie was shot in Sri Lanka because it was not allowed by Hindu leaders to shoot in India as they found it offensive!!! I think they could not tolerate the pain of those widows, even if they were acting and not real widows. This clearly shows the concern of Indian society for women.

IMDB Link for Water (2005) = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240200/

PS: Mahatma Ghandi ji appears in the climax scene of movie and really does the job of concluding the movie. Truth is God, and thus by following truth, we do not violate any Shastra or any other holy scripture.

 

How about a New Zealand visa for visiting Khandallah!

Broadmeadows, Wellington NZ has something special to notice for people form Indian subcontinent. It has lots of streets named after places in Indian subcontinent e.g. Kanpur Rd, Gaya Grove, Satara Cr etc. Here is the Google maps link for you to see for yourself.

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=broadmeadows%2C%20new%20zealand&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

 

Surely a place to visit if you happen to be in or around Wellington, which has a very good Indian community.

 

This is a tale of two taxi drivers. Vindo Mago and Osama Chowdhury, they surely do not know each other, and live almost 3000 miles apart. 

We will start with Chowdhary ji. (Ch*dh?r$ can be written in so many ways,  by appropriately choosing for *, ? and $). So one fine day in New York City, he was driving an old american lady to an apartment building and the fare came to $10.70. The lady paid a tip of just 30 cents, making it a total of $11. Had it been an old indian lady, it would have make some sense giving $11, because its a 'shubh' number. Anyways, he did not mind that tip becuase there were several genuine possibilities for her action, such as she did not have money, her mind was somewhere else etc. etc. But, that is not why I am telling this story. The old lady happened to forget her bag in the boot of the taxi, which Chowdhury discovered several hours after dropping her. He took all efforts to make sure that the bag reaches her owner. He knew the apartment building where he dropped her but not the apartment, so he went to the office of his taxi company, found the contact number of her mother in Texas on the bag, made a call so that the old lady can come and pick her bag from the office. She came within few hours, and got her bag from a taxi driver whom she paid a tip of 30 cents. She gave him a gift of $100, which he later accepted to cover the cost of fare he lost during the time he was looking for her. Ok, so this lady was a jeweler. The bag had 31 diamond rings in it and he knew it. And, this is a true story.

Three days after that one fine day in Seattle, Vinod Mago, the hero number two of this tale, did almost same thing. After dropping one passenger to Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport), he found that Mr. Passenger had forgot his big fat wallet in the taxi, which had lots of fifty and hundred dollar bills amounting to $5950. Rest you can guess. Another true story it is.

These are just two samples of events happening all over the world, in every country. It is one of the ways Nature tries to keep us all sane and happy. I am equally sure that there are several folks who drive their strength from people like Mago and Chowdhury.