The DASAVATARAM Effect..!!!

A Movie that brought together Science & Mythology...

When i say...Dasavataram, the movie brought back the real facts of physics and blended the fields of science and mythology..i mean that to the core..i believe u will agree to my point completely once u read through this article...

Well when i came out of the theatre after watching this movie..i knew i was not gonna write a review on this flick..as i felt it deserved more than just a mere review which says if its GOOD or BAD...but i thought i had to do something more to this technical and cinematic brilliance which was served with as much entertainment values as possible...This in turn meant that i would have to indulge in serious thoughts and research taking my valuable time..and should eventually come up with what all i wanted to tell in detail about the theory behind this movie and its whole plot..and a few of those which the story teller(Dr.Kamal Haasan) might have missed out telling in detail, may be 'coz he didn't want to go to the core of physics and dive away the point of entertainment.

So here we go...first of all..One thing we had noticed is why people didn't get the real subtext of the movie and the reason for the various roles(as many as ten) and hence the title.

I felt if you knew the real Dasavatarams of Lord Vishnu and their characters you can appreciate the script more. So, this is a way of interpreting the 10 roles...

Starting with the best adapted role:

1. Krishna avatar - Vincent Poovaraghavan
Lord krishna is actually a dalit, he is dark-skinned [shyamalam]. He saved draupadi when she was being violated and he was the actual diplomat in mahabharatham. Lord krishna dies of an arrow striking his lower leg. Now look at how vincent was introduced.. he appears when asin is about to be molested and he saves her like draupadi. Vincent is the dalit diplomat, fights for land issue [soil issue to be exact] and dies from the metal rod striking his leg.

2. Balarama avatar - Balram naidu
This is an easy given. as the name suggests and the role personifies you can easily get it.

3. Mathsya avatar - Rangaraja nambi
Nambi is thrown into water in an act of trying to save lord from being thrown into sea, though vainly. I guess thats more than enough for us to recognize this avatar.

4. Koorma avatar - Bush
This is the most loose adaptation that couldn't be clearly comprehended. But if you look at the real koorma avatar, the lord is the turtle/tortoise that helps in stirring the ksheera sagara and bringing out the amruth. This essentially creates war among the devas and asuras. Similarly today Bush facilitates war between you know whom all?? May be Kamal also indicates that this avatar is a bit dumb like the tortoise.

5. Varaha avatar - Krishnaveni paatti
During the mukunda song, krishnaveni paatti does varaha avatar in the shadow puppetry. The frame freezes on it for a second. there is the clue. Moreover, in varaha avatar lord actually hides earth so as to protect life forms. Here too krishnaveni hides the germs - life form inside the statue so as to protect.

6. Vamana avatar - Kalifulla khan
remember in vamana avatar, lord vishnu takes the vishvaroopa, that is the giant form! Hence the giant kalifulla here symbolises vamana avatar.

7. Parasurama avatar - Christian Fletcher
Parasurama is actually on an angry killing spree and killed 21 generations of the particular kshatriya vamsa. Hence the real KILLER. Guess what thats what our Fletcher is! He comes around with the gun [modern upgrade for axe] and kills everyone around.

8. Narasimha avatar - Shingen Narahashi
first of all the name itself is a play on the words singam [means lion in tamil] and narasimha [the avatar being symbolised]. Lord Narasimha manifests himelf to kill the bad guy and he also teaches prahaladha. In the movie, he shows up to kill the killer fletcher! and is also a teacher.. Lord Narasimha had to kill the asura with bare hands and hence the martial arts exponent here.. get it?

9. Rama avatar - Avatar Singh
Lord Rama stands for the one man one woman maxim, kind of symbolising true love.. Here Avatar portrays that spirit by saying that he loves his woman more than anything and wants to live for her.

10. Kalki avatar - Govindaraj Ramasamy
As you know, the hero in kaliyug can be none other than the Kalki avatar!!!

Now, i hope all the doubts about who was who in the movie is pretty clear..now the most asked question by almost everyone...was why the need of these 10 roles..here comes the real explanation to that..which is relevant to the story and the entire plot which Kamal is trying to portray...

Dasavatharam is a brilliant and bold effort which talks about the physics of Karma,Chaos theory, Butterfly Effect and Cycle of life.

Chaos Theory:
In simple terms,Consider this example:
A man Mr.A is sleeping inside his car which is parked in the parking lot of a big shop.
Suddenly another man Mr.B wakes him up and asks for 25 cents.
Mr.A runs his hand through his pockets (for say few secs less than a minute and gives him the coin). Mr.B thanks him and walks towards the shop and suddenly notices a driver, trying to back off his car is just about to hit another car(near the entrance of the shop) which is stationary.
So he shouts"hey..hey ..stop the car" and saves the two cars from any damage.
Now,if Mr.A had said"Sorry I dont have any change" to Mr.B,then B would have probably gone to another person to ask for money and the accident could have been unavoidable .
So A was in a way reponsible to the change in life patterns of B and the owners of the 2 cars.
This is chaos theory.

Now about the theory being depicted in the plot of the movie...it talks about this chaos theory by showing how different characters are responsible for the change in life patern of scientist Govind and goes a step further by showing how Govind is reponsible for the change in life patterns of these characters (For instance Avtaar singh is cured of cancer because of Fletcher who comes into picture because of govind.If not for them, he would have undergone the operation and would have never been able to sing for the rest of his life.
Similarly Khalifulla khan and the other 200 people wouldnt have been alive if they were not asked to stay in the mosque for investigation regarding govind's case). All this has been beautifully captured in the movie.So there is no question of unwanted extra roles or anything
of that sort.All the 10 characters are well etched and very important!!!

Physics of Karma:
Next, coming to the Physics of KARMA...Dasavataram also talks about it clearly.
What exactly is it?
Example:
You are watching a boxing match.Both are deadly fighters.You are thoroughly entertained while watching 10 rounds of gory violence.
Then few days later you see two of your very close friends fighting over an issue.
The fight goes to the next level where they start hitting each other with say cricket bats.
This is violence too.But you can definitely not find it entertaining this time.
Your instinct would be to stop the fight.
This shows that you are bound to experience something equal and opposite (as in physics)to what you experience now , either immediately,or in the near future.
What if you suddenly get to die before experiencing the effects of your action?
Well,Thats where life cycle comes in and you will experience the effect in your next birth.
This is what Karma is about.
You have the free will to do what you want.But the effects are bound to follow you.

Dasavataram deals with this brilliantly.
Assuming Govind is the rebirth of Nambi, they are totally the opposites. Nambi dies having faith in god,but Govind is an atheist. So it balances the so called Karma equation.
This also applies to asin(though the other way round) 12th century asin is ready to give up her belief in Lord Vishnu for the sake of her husband. But andal is a stonch believer in god who always tries to safeguard the statue.

Butterfly Effect:
It is the most important component of a chaotic system.Basically,small perturbations results in amplifications which completely destroys the original nature of the system and makes prediction impossible.If a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa,it could result in a cyclone in USA.(Mark the word "COULD")
The Tsunami can be thought of as the butterfly effect of the statue that was drowned in the 12th century, or a natural occurence that resulted in a miracle by saving millions of lives or whatever.

Cycle of Life...
It also implies that it made govind and andal reunite in front of the same statue where they were seperated 800 years back!! Finally, Dasavatharam says life is nothing but a cycle.You are bound to experience the effects of your actions either now, or in the future,or in your next birth.
You are provided with the free will to do what you want with your current life. But your actions will not only affect you but also the peolpe around you resulting in a butterfly effect which might lead to unbelievable consequences in some part of the world. You have to experience the effects for what you have caused. Until then life keeps repeating like a cycle.

Well, as for me...with the never ending researches done by many people around the world including myself, who became fond of the movie and its thought of life cycle in relation to physics in general, this was a great journey which took me sometime to come in terms with the "ACTUAL" physics which i was pointing to...and then i could mingle with many people indirectly who were involved in their own research as much as i was...ultimately..i believe i have done justice to this movie and brought to notice what exactly was suppose to be brought to the limelight with this Epic movie, DASAVATARAM...It amazes me the way it clubs the Physics, the Cycle of Life..all of it with our own Dus Avatars of Lord Vishnu...I personally believe this is a Great venture by all means...and deserves a Standing Ovation, if not for the technical brilliance..but for the sheer idea and thought of it.

Take a Bow...The Legend...Dr.Kamal Haasan..for trying to churn out something as inspiring as this by blending the field of Science and Mythology...and coming out with more than satisfactory results...and in flying colours...

As long as Mankind stays...the Great Mythology of Lord Vishnu and his DASAVATARAM will also stay..and this article of mine, i believe has in some way..just made it more clear and Believable.

-Dilse...
MunnaSrk

A Young Man who became a Mahatma...

The Making Of Mahatma...

"What made him a Mahatma..?"

This was the question i had in my mind for many years, knowing that i am just a normal person and there's nothing much special about me besides the fact that i have some born talents and i can nurture them to succeed in life..

But my Quest for Life was to know...

How does one become a Mahatma?
How come only one man achieved that great title?
and Was he born a Mahatma?

This article is the result of my research on One Man's Life, through which i try to churn out the answers for these questions i had in mind for sometime, going back in history, surfing on the incidents and experiences of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Life that i believe changed his life completely and evolved him to being a Mahatma("Great Soul")...

Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar in the present state of Gujarat on October 2, 1869, and educated in law at University College, London.

In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi returned to India and attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay, with little success. Two years later an Indian firm with interests in South Africa retained him as legal adviser in its office in Durban.

In 1893, a 24-year-old Indian lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi arrived in Durban South Africa to take part in a lawsuit in Transvaal and he later became the first so-called "coloured" lawyer admitted to the Supreme Court.

In South Africa, Gandhi's work dramatically changed him, as he faced the discrimination commonly directed at blacks and Indians.

Young Gandhi

One day in court at Durban, the magistrate asked him to remove his turban. Gandhi refused and stormed out of the courtroom. Just before Gandhi was to return to India, he booked a first-class train ticket to Johannesburg – and was ordered out of the train because of his colour. He spent a cold night in the non–European waiting - room at Pietermaritzburg railway station. His experience made him decide to remain in Natal and help the growing community of Indians imported to work on the sugar plantations.

In 1894, at the age of 25, Mohandas Gandhi found his calling. Working as a lawyer for an Indian firm in Durban, South Africa, Gandhi was booted out of a first-class train compartment and denied hotel accommodation because of his race. Gandhi was embittered by the experience, and despite his ignorance of current events and terror of public speaking, he launched an all-out assault on South African prejudices, persuading the Natal Indian Congress to run a campaign of education and peaceful non-cooperation with authorities.

Gandhi along with the co-founders of Natal Indian Congress

In 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress which was an organization that aimed to fight discrimination against Indians in SouthAfrica. It later allied itself with the African National Congress.

In 1896, Gandhi began to teach a policy of passive resistance to, and non-cooperation with, the South African authorities. Gandhi considered the terms passive resistance and civil disobedience inadequate for his purposes, however, and coined another term, Satyagraha ("truth and firmness").

In 1903 Gandhi began publishing the weekly Indian Opinion, and he had also started a communal farming project for Indians. In 1906 he gave aid against the Zulu revolt. Later in 1906, however, Gandhi began his peaceful revolution. He declared he would go to jail or even die before obeying an anti-Asian law. Thousands of Indians joined him in this civil disobedience campaign. Gandhi organised strikes on the coalfields and sugar plantations and led a march of Indians from Natal to the Transvaal to protest the measures put in place by the Immigration Act. He was arrested several times.

In 1914 the government of the Union of South Africa made important concessions to Gandhi's demands, including recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll tax for them. His work in South Africa complete, he returned to India.

Several years later, just before his seventieth birthday in 1939, Gandhi was interviewed by a missionary, Dr. John R. Mott. Mott asked Gandhi to single out the most creative experience of his life. This was Gandhi’s reply:

"I recall particularly one experience that change the course of my life. Seven days after I had arrived in South Africa the client who had taken me there asked me to go to Pretoria from Durban. It was not an easy journey. On the train I had a first-class ticket, but not a bed ticket. At Maritzburg, when the beds were issued, the guard came and turned me out. The train steamed away leaving me shivering in cold. Now the creative experience comes there. I was afraid for my very life. I entered the dark waiting room. There was a white man in the room. I was afraid of him. What was my duty; I asked my self. Should I go back to India, or should I go forward, with God as my helper and face whatever was in store for me? I decided to stay and suffer. My active non-violence began from that day."

-Gandhi

This decision changed the lives of thousands of South Africans and still inspires them to this date.

When Gandhi's bronze statue was unveiled in Johannesburg, newspapers published letters from some Africans who questioned the move. They complained that Gandhi fought only for the Indians and not for the majority blacks. Ela Gandhi vehemently denies that his grandfather was not interested in the affairs of black people. "Gandhi did not want to impose his leadership on them. He felt that Africans should carry out their own struggle. In fact, many African National Congress leaders have given credit for Mahatma for being their source of inspiration."

GANDHI'S TWENTY-ONE YEARS of experience in South Africa transformed his views on life and human existence. He started to look at the world from a poverty-trapped peasant's perspective, rather than from a middle-class bourgeois perspective. Stories of atrocities committed against exploited workers by their masters shaped his thinking and humbled him. He said, in interpreting John Ruskin's book Unto This Last:

1. The good of the individual is contained in the good of all.
2. A lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.
3. A life of labour, i.e. the life of the tiller of the soil and the crafts person, is a life worth living.

The profoundness of these three simple statements provided the essential philosophic underpinning of his movement in South Africa, and led to the creation of three principles, Sarvodaya, Swadeshi and Satyagraha.

Gandhi's belongings-He clearly did not need a suitcase nor a wardrobe

Sarvodaya (upliftment of all) was a philosophical position that Gandhi maintained. He believed that morality must underpin all human actions. Society must strive for the economic, social, spiritual and physical well-being of all, not just the majority.

He advocated that the locus of power must be situated in the village or neighbourhood unit. He believed that there should be equitable distribution of resources and that communities must become self-sustaining through reliance on local products instead of large-scale imports from outside. In this way each individual would be able to utilize his or her skills and be able to market his or her goods in the neighbourhood. People would then make goods for local consumption and become interdependent within each locality.

Gandhi was opposed to large-scale industrialisation, and favoured small local industries instead. In this way there would be a certainty that each individual would be gainfully employed and able to live a self-sufficient fulfilled life.

This local self-sufficiency he called Swadeshi. It means buy local, be proud of local, support local, uphold and live local. It was based on the theory of decentralized local interdependence and universal employment. When we buy or sell something outside our area then we are depriving a local person of his or her livelihood.

Finally, Gandhi's best-known theory of Satyagraha or non-violent direct action is in fact a way of life, not just an absence of violence. He believed that to carry out non-violent action one needed to be disciplined. His discipline entailed the important element of self-restraint in respect of all the sensory urges and consumptions. It also entailed respect for all beings regardless of religious beliefs, caste, race or creed, and a devotion to the values of truth, love and responsibility.

Gandhi left South Africa in 1914 for India and become a major spiritual and political leader in India and the India Independence movement.

Pictured here with his wife, Kasturba

Gandhi took on India's British colonial rulers upon his return, organizing passive resistance campaigns and shaping the Indian National Congress into an effective grassroots party, based around his own philosophy of satyagraha, or unconditional nonviolence.

All his actions for the upliftment of the poor n downtrodden of the Indian Villages and the equality of one n all along with his disciplined philosophical principles of Sarvodaya,Swadeshi & Satyagraha, earned him the title of "Mahatma," or "Great Soul."

His dream and vision of an Independent India came true and he was rightly called the FATHER OF THE NATION.

No man is born a Mahatma, its his life that makes him one...its his principles,thoughts and actions that help him to evolve first as a person, a citizen, a patriot and a great human being.

Its up to each individual to choose which path he/she wants to march on.The incidents which unfolded in South Africa changed Gandhi's life completely from being just another Common Man, to evolving as the Father of the Nation and an act of Inspiration for One and for All...

Mahatma Gandhi once said..."My Life is my Message"

I think he was absolutely spot on letting each of us know that its only Our Life, and the way We Live it...makes us what We are...

I bow down on my knees and salute the great soul of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who has inspired me in many ways to live a better life and make it beautiful...This is a Tribute to this Great Human Being from the bottom of my heart...I hope this inspires you just like it did me, to make your(along with your loved ones) Life, a Better one...

-Dilse...
MunnaSrk

SRK's Review...

Jodha Akbar...An Untold,Unconditional & Epic Love Story...

There's something extra ordinary about the movie
concerning the story and the way it unfolds...
The epic venture has been etched to perfection
regarding the cinematography, the settings of 16th century,
and the acting of the main protagonists...

The movie begins with a BANG!!!
presenting the viewer with a jaw dropping
and thrilling war sequence...
but there after it fails to keep up
that action-packed editing...
it nearly fades away from the magnificence showered
in the beginning..which kept the viewer interested...

The movie virtually crawls in the first hour...
but picks up in its drama and screenplay,
leading to the intermission...
but little can the story be blamed for
its lack of pace in the first half...
as the plot itself needs some valuable time
to unfold to the core...

The 2nd half makes up for the losing fragrance...
presenting some of the best moments
and scintillating series of events
that leads to the evolution of
"AKBAR", The Emperor...
All the scenes depicting the drama
and romance between Jodha-Akbar
have been enacted to the utmost perfection...

Both Hrithik and Aishwarya have just lived
their characters, and make us feel their emotions...
While Ash blossoms in her beauty and acting...
Hrithik discovers newer talents and greater heights
at times leaving the viewer spell bound...
with his sheer performance and dialogue delivery...

The music and the picturization of two songs
needs to be mentioned greatly..
one is the rare breed of sufi song "Khwaja ji"...
it has been choreographed,photographed and enacted
perfectly to the core...the other one being
the celebration of the Emperor Akbar, by his people
"Azeem O Shaan Shehenshah"....
the song has been picturized so magnificently
and spectacularly...that one finds no words
to describe how great a treat it is...

The drama further twists up on the verge of the climax...
which really keeps us at the edge of our seats...
The climax action sequence, again hasn't been
anything short of pure excellence...
But its the love of Jodha-Akbar that's again been
rightly given the pivotal role in the final scene...
where one finds it unbelieveable to experience such
an unconditional love shown even the last moment
of the movie...and makes us wonder...why did this
Eternal love story never get its praise and
went unnoticed somewhere in the great history
of our country...

On the whole, Jodha Akbar...is a Cinematic Masterpiece
right from the settings,art work,acting,music,
action,romance and drama that never fails to shower
the Epic Love Story into our hearts,even long after
the ending credits...

SRK's Verdict-***1/2

Such kind of a movie has very little chance
to be made again...So, Come & experience
the Golden Era of the Great Indian History...
And an Era of truthful,eternal & Epic Love Story...

-Dilse...
MunnaSrk