Month February 2020

The underdog detective

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Over analyzed movie review – Episode 1

I like movies a lot. That is why I don’t watch many. 


Spoiler Alert: The following blog contains spoilers. Please stay away if you haven’t watched the movie.

Well to start with a gist, better get it from IMDB, “Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is an authentic humorous investigative thriller revolving around the adventures of a detective based out of Nellore.“

Now let me try it in my own words. It is a low budget comedy thriller that has a very good script and screenplay. An ambitious detective who watches loads of English detective films to learn his trade and operates from a shack in the middle of a vegetable market. He gets dragged into a very sophisticated criminal operation. He thinks that he is on the right path, so do we. He ends up being framed for a couple of murders and now has to clear his name while also find the real culprits.

Phew! Those were some long sentences. But to the topic of my interest. Why did it work?
Traditional movie goers in India prefer movies with big name stars to ones with a good script. So, how did this movie do as well as it did? Well a movie, irrespective of language will always do well if it manages to play with the emotions and instincts of the audience. 

In this movie, some of our basic instincts (not Michael Douglas’s) are played with. In any detective movie you expect the lead to solve the mystery. But casting a rookie as the film’s lead trigger’s the underdog effect. Let’s say you are watching a James Bond/Sherlock Holmes/Mission impossible, if the lead were to fall into any peril, you wouldn’t be concerned. How can any harm come to such a powerful character? (Same logic used in reverse to blow your minds again and again in Game of thrones) If you are not concerned or connected with the character, you wouldn’t be blissful when he wins. In this movie, the lead is not very powerful or well built. You wouldn’t expect him to win any fights. So, it makes him the underdog. In a neutral situation, one always roots for the underdog. So there is a connection established with the audience. Its always satisfying to see a deer escaping a tiger than a tiger devouring a deer or a tiger fighting another tiger.

Next, Us being Judgmental. Movies have always generalized bad people. Their appearance,body language, the facial expressions have always been stereotyped. But, How does a bad person look?  Here is a test for you. If you haven’t watched ‘The Usual Suspected’, play along. Look at the image below and find the culprit.


Before you answer, think again, this may or may not be a trick question. Watch the movie to know the answer. I will not reveal it. 
Another test if you are interested. Below is a poster of “Murder on Orient express”.The poster of the better version of 1974 was not very convenient for the task, so I am using the 2017 version. Who among the below is a cold blooded murderer?




Now coming back the topic of discussion. At no juncture in the movie, the audience get any information on who the bad guy(s) is/are. There is no attempt to mislead you either. They genuinely show characters in different situations. Besides appearances, People mistake attitude for character. So, for major part of the movie, our brains keep passing judgments on everyone we see on the screen.

Side note: This topic alone deserves a separate post. On how we assume ourselves to be the judge, jury and executioner for everyone.

Coming back to the movie. A detective movie is only good if the audience cannot figure out the mystery themselves. There are different ways the narrators achieve this. Some make the plot so complicated/illogical that its impossible to find the culprit. Others mislead you on purpose. But only a few master the screenplay of audience coming to their own conclusions and making sure they are wrong conclusions. 

So, this movie plays at 2 habits of ours. One always supporting the underdog and the other, us being judgmental about everything. This is why it hit the right cords.

Collective compass

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Ants

 
Ants are curious organisms. They are always busy. I mean always. Have you ever seen an ant that is not in hurry? Its unfair that bees get the idiom ‘Busy as a bee’ just because they start with same alphabet. I have see plenty of bees that are just sitting idle of a wall or a leaf. Though, I cannot change the existing language, I can add another idiom. ‘As industrious as an Ant’.

Ants have a social hierarchy. The queen is the founder and responsible for laying eggs. Drones are the males responsible for mating with the queen while worker ants are responsible for building and maintaining the nest, protecting the colony from other ants and, most importantly, feeding the colony. The most fascinating aspect of worker ants is the way they carry food. If you observe the below animation closely, you will notice that Ants keep changing places. Its not like they are taking turns at the job or taking frequent breaks from their task. You will also notice that each time a new ant joins the effort, there is a slight alteration in the direction.

Worker ants have a collective goal. They trust each and every one of the ants to work towards the same goal. When ant leaves its position and wanders around, it is actually scouting for the direction they need to travel in and when it comes back and tugs in a different direction, the rest of the group just follow the new direction, without even a slight hesitation.


A compass is a tool that tells you direction. But it does its job only if its working properly. A broken compass will show a wrong direction. Lets look at it as each ant has its own compass, each member of the group, takes turns to check their compass and tell the rest of the group to follow their compass. The rest of the pack ignore the readings in their compasses and just follow the latest information. Also there is no single ant forcing others to follow only its directions. It sounds like a very inefficient plan. But it ants always make their way back to their nest.
 
Now, if we give a group of human beings a compass each. Some working and some broken without telling them who has the proper ones and repeat this experiment of asking them to go from Point A to Point B with no single one having any idea where their destination is, I would bet one of the two things with happen. They will either remain at the same location arguing or end up being influenced by the most dominant member and leave the result to the change of the dominant member’s compass being correct.

All this might seem like a stupid Idea. When would anyone be in this kind of situation. Well, this happens often in life and more often at work. Whenever we embark of a journey to uncharted territories with a group/team of people, almost everyone in the group has an opinion on how to go about it. But they seldom trust each other. They fail to consider that they might have a broken compass.

I don’t mean to say the one must follow everyone’s advice. It would be ridiculous. But one should at least give a benefit of doubt to other ideas. There is a very good quote in the movie “Ratatouille”. It says “Everybody can cook”. It doesn’t mean that each and everyone of us would make an excellent cook. It means that a great cook can come from anywhere.

 

 

 

50 shades of Red

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What’s left of left?


I have stopped watching news. I have deleted all my social media accounts. No, I am not depressed or on a digital fast. I was really sick of the hypocritical trolls out there spewing hatred 24/7.  Religious, regional and political affiliations often bring out the worst in people. Until a few decades ago, these topics were dealt separately. But the information age started making a toxic cocktail of these affiliations. 

I have already spoken about the religious and regional affiliations. Its time to hit the trifecta. 
Almost all political parties in the world classify them selves as the Right, the Left or the moderates. But there are many shades of these ideologies. In US, the Red represents republicans who are right wing. Where as every where else in the world Red represents communism which is far far left. This is the reason I called this post 50 shades of red. These many shades make the whole deal very kinky.

Now what is left and what is right? And why are there wings? Is the government an aircraft or is it a bird? How come it can fly with a single wing?

The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the center that of the middle classes..

Speaking honestly, are any of the political parties working for the non-rich? 


Just like bloodstock horses that are bred to run others races and die earning money for others, the lower and middle classes spend their lives making meager money while the people who employ them reap the actual benefits. 

There is another part of horse racing analogy that applies to politics, politicians make sure that the common folk is not distracted by the realities of the world, So they tie blinds called religious and regional feelings to their eyes. The working class throws common sense out of the window, don’t complain about getting whipped by their jockeys and run until they die.

The true sense of liberal or left philosophy was always a myth. Soviets embraced it to overthrow czars only to surrender to another equally totalitarian leadership. In US, communists are seen as terrorists but lobbying is rampant in both their major parties. The plight of Chinese has been very similar to that of the Russians. Over the last decade, the right wing parties have been gaining momentum in each passing election and pushing even the theoretical left parties to the brink of existence. I say theoretical because, I have never come across a self proclaimed socialist and liberal government truly work to improve the lives of the less privileged. 

From reds of the US to the reds of rest of the world, all political parties do is to fill their pockets with money from the lobbyists and businessmen. The only difference is their choice of rich. If they preach hardcore religious values then they pay the right and if they are less religious, they pay the left. Thus, every citizen is having to pay (a far more costly price).

Well wishers

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Foxes in sheep’s clothing

The Wolf has been one of the most maligned animal in an idiomatic sense. Some one who is cunning and deceives is commonly referred to as a Wolf in sheep’s clothing. But, in reality wolf is a very ethical animal. It never hides its intent. From an evolutionary perspective-it doesn’t need to. It has the physical strength to survive, it always lives in a pack. So, anything that it does to undermine the integrity of the pack will not be tolerated and this fact is genetically embedded. 

On a side note, this idiom has biblical origins. According to new testament this was quoted by none other than Jesus. No, I don’t attend mass. I just googled the idiom and Wikipedia told me this fact. Which means., 1) Wikipedia is wrong or  2) The guys who wrote new testament lied or 3) Jesus didn’t know the nature of wolves (which is highly unlikely coz his dad created everything. Right?)

Coming back to the poor misunderstood wolves, The actual culprit here is another canine. Foxes – They are always deceitful. Their slender size demands that they be cunning. Else, they wouldn’t survive. This is evolution, the survival of the fittest. The word fit here is misleading, it doesn’t just mean physical fitness. It is the fitness demanded by the surroundings and environment. Now that my mini-crusade for Wolves has concluded. I would like to get into the actual context. 

The image and the title might not make a good correlation on first glance. Now read well wishers as the people who wish that they can at least push you into a well or in a best case scenario wish they could push you off the cliff. Now, can you make the connection between the foxes, the well wishers and the stick version of “This is Sparta“?

Since, the gentlemen in the figure are wearing ties,Can I also assume that you made the correlation to an office environment? Okay, you might have missed that. But no worries. 

Lets look at the employees in an office in conjunction with the Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution. 

In nature, all species have developed different tactics to attract mates. 
In offices, the managers become these mates. But eventually most mates ehm…. managers turn into praying mantis (they f*ck their mate and they eat them – wow this my first ever expletive ridden post). In nature the female always prefers a partner which would pass on the best genetic code to its offspring. The particular quality that is preferred depends on the type of species. But in offices, different mates look at different qualities. Some good for the offspring (organization) some just good for them. This is where offices deviate from Darwin. 



Now that we have discussed the metaphorical mating rituals, lets look at the competition. In animal kingdom there are different types of competition among peers (Other than competing for a mate). Social animals fight for control or power over the group. But this mostly results in finding the right leader. But in most organisations the oldest animal becomes the King. These Kings in the organisation do not opt for a long term partners. So, they don’t choose a queen. They instead pick a bitch* from time to time. This would be their most loyal employees. Then there is another position up for grabs. The one of a minister to seek advice. This is where again the there is a deviation from evolution. Here its not the survival of the fittest. The person most capable of doing his job well would be the fittest guy, some Kings do choose their counsel wisely. There by becoming successful even if they are incompetent. But some others choose poorly and ultimately perish.

The poor choice of counsel happens because of not having visibility. This generally happens in large organisations. But in smaller/medium organisations, the foxes come-to-the-fore. Since, they don’t cut the bill, they resort to all sort of tactics to get the competition out of the way. Gossiping, bullying, back stabbing, undermining others, taking credit for others work. They use all the code in their cheat book. Their skill here is to do it subtly. They make every effort not to get exposed. 

So, long story short. The foxes in offices have defied the laws of evolution. If you want to be successful, please be on a look out for foxes. They can be lurking next to you, masquerading as a Sheep, waiting for the right opportunity.

* not trying to insult any dogs here