Movie Review: The Last Time

Suspenseful and Emotional Drama

This movie kinda caught my attention on Youtube's movie channel. I decided to watch because the star cast looked good. The movie is a corporate suspense drama and has been very well executed. Micheal Keaton, Brendan Frazer and Amber Valletta play the main roles in the movie. Ted Ryker (Keaton) is a very successful salesman in New York city, but he is extremely aggressive and has a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor. Jamie Bashant (Frazer) arrives into town with his fiance Belisa (Amber Valletta) to join Ted Ryker as his assistant. Bashant claims to have been a star salesman in his previous job and hopes to deliver the same performance here, but miserably fails.

Meanwhile Belisa and Ted get close to each other and begin an affair. Jamie continues to fail presentation after presentation and Ted watches him without any sense of comaraderie or sympathy. Something changes in Ted as he gets closer to Belisa, he becomes soft, good mannered and loses his dry sarcasm. The company gets taken over by rivals and everyone loses out in the process.

The final is a totally interesting part to watch. What happens to the corporate bosses and how things are orchestrated in the world of business is a totally different way of life. Watch the movie to know more.

Movie Review: Gangs of New York

The United States of America, perceived as the land of unlimited opportunities, heaven on earth, land of ultimate freedom, a place where wealth can be made, the world's most powerful nation, etc... But like every other nation in the world, it has its own share of slums, underworld gangs, thugs, crooks and prostitutes. This murky underbelly is carefully hidden away under the towering sky scrapers and grandiose buildings.

What was it to live in this land of freedom and opportunity a century and half ago? This is what the film Gangs of New York attempts to re-create and it does very successfully. Set in 1846 the movie stars Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and others. The story is pretty historical as it is a movie and there is a substantial amount of reality in this according to a National Geographic study.

The movie starts off in the year 1846 with the protagonist Leonardo DiCaprio getting released from the prison and returning to the neighborhood in Manhattan where he was born and grew up. As he approaches the five points neighborhood, DiCaprio is witness to hordes of Irish immigrants landing into the US, in a bid to escape sure starvation due to the Potato Famine and of course persecution from the British Crown and nobility. But the original settlers (who call themselves "Natives") don't want new immigrants and they are standing at the docks yelling humiliating abuses at the immigrants.

DiCaprio, himself an Irish immigrant-settler and has seen his father being murdered in cold blood by Bill the Butcher, the undisputed king of underworld in New York. Young DiCaprio is thirsting for revenge and his target is Bill the Butcher. DiCaprio starts off being a small time thief and gets into the Butcher's brotherhood of thugs. In his life of crime he tangles with Cameron Diaz who is another petty thief and pick pocket in the same gang. Love blossoms between the two much to the angst of DiCaprio's best friend, who reveals the former's true identity to Bill the Butcher.

DiCaprio's first attempt to kill Bill the Butcher fails and he is thoroughly beaten up and knifed. In retaliation DiCaprio decides to start his own gang of Irish settlers and wrest control of Five Points from the original English settlers (Natives). This coincides with the American civil war era when Irish immigrants were ordered to get drafted into the army to fight the southern states against slavery. In frustration the immigrants rebel and riot and of course there is the clash of gangs in which Irish emerge victorious.

The Gangs of New York is a brilliantly made movie and performances of all the stars are captivating and cinematography is hypnotic. It has a few subtle lessons about American history, social equations and immigration. The original British settlers who landed in the US and started killing native Americans and taking over their lands were intolerant towards Irish immigrants in the 19th century, now a substantial section of the white population of the US hates increased influx of Indian technology workers. Things are pretty much the same: American's hate immigrants, especially those whom they think are taking their jobs.

Another subtle reinforcement that the White people try to make is that America belongs to them and not to the native Americans who were here thousands of years before the settlers came in. It is common for people of color in the US to be referred to as "Asian Americans", "African Americans", "Indian Americans" but to themselves they say "Americans" implying that the country belongs to them. This movie in which the original settlers call themselves "Natives" is one such attempt. To understand these messages one must watch The Gangs of New York.

Book Review: The Courtesan and the Sadhu

The Courtesan and the Sadhu, A novel about Maya, Dharma, and God by Satya Avatar; Dharma Vision LLC; Price: $20.95; 361

One of the most difficult challenges that every Hindu parent living in western societies faces is how to educate their children about the complexities of Sanatana Dharma. With its multitudes of gods, numerous texts, hundreds of sampradayas, thousands of religious gurus and numerous regional, caste, and linguistic communities, Hinduism is perhaps the most fragmented religion in the world. One of the reasons for Sanatana Dharma aka Hinduism to be such is its open and accepting philosophy. Hence there is not one straightforward, black and white way by which one can explain all the tenets of Hinduism to children, teenagers, and young adults. This ambiguity in the faith often leads to fundamental questions in a teenager’s mind.

This need to explain Hinduism to his teenaged son motivated Satya Avatar, who hails from Mysore, Karnataka (South Indian) to write a novel drawing heavily upon certain historical incidents in India’s history. “More than four years ago, my son came to me and asked me how we related to God in Sanatana Dharma. As I progressed in formulating an answer to my son’s question, it occurred to me that the best way to explain the basic tenets of Sanatana Dharma to my teenage son was to write a novel set in ancient India and explain the tenets through the spiritual journey of the characters in the story,” writes the author who came to the United States in 1978 to pursue graduate studies at State University of New York at Buffalo where he received his Ph.D in 1981. Since then he has worked in the high-tech industry where he has held several technical and management positions in research and development, product management, and marketing.

Set in ancient India just after Alexander’s invasion, The Courtesan and the Sadhu takes the reader through the spiritual journey of two seekers: Kautilya and Manu. The former is a highly learned and erudite Vedic scholar, whose life takes an unexpected detour, and he ends up building the Mauryan Empire. Although successful in re-establishing dharmic values in the Indian subcontinent and getting rid of the vestiges of Alexander’s invasion, he continues to have inner struggles about the path he has chosen.

Manu, the other seeker, is an elite warrior in the Mauryan Army but ends up becoming a seeker of Truth at a young age. Disappointed in love, he tries to find answers to his spiritual questions, first as a Buddhist monk and later as a Sadhu. In this story, the author takes the reader through the intriguing journey of the two seekers as they finally overcome Mâya to reach Moksha (emancipation).

The book starts off with Kautilya being asked by a Greek (Yavana) general to modify the Vedas and perform a yagna (vedic ceremony) to praise his accomplishments. A completely angry Kautilya decides to take matters into his hands and seek help of the king of Patliputra to chase the Yavanas out of the Arya land (India). “As Kautilya entered Pataliputra, he was surprised to see that it was much larger than he had imagined. It was a well-planned city with large boulevards and stately buildings. The city was bustling with commerce, and trade. There were stores stocked with expensive and fine jewelry, clothes, and furniture. Many stores were selling vegetables, grains, and wine. He could also see many dance halls, restaurants, and temples,” explains the author speaking about Kautilya’s journey.

One of the most interesting facets of The Courtesan and the Sadhu is that apart from being an absorbing story, the book subtly teaches the readers about Hindu theology and scriptures. Written in the deceptively simple style characteristic of American writing Satya Avatar effectively communicates the anger, insecurity, adventure, pains, fears, and wonderment the characters of the story. The author has taken pains to describe in exacting detail the various aspects of his story and how they relate to various aspects of the Sanatana Dharma and its allaccepting philosophy. This book would be highly useful to all those people who wish to learn about Hinduism and its philosophy.

“It is interesting to note that for Manu and Kautilya, Dharma without a Creator God was not acceptable, whereas for Chit-Ananda and Chandra Gupta, the existence of a Creator God was immaterial. What mattered to them was the spiritual experience in the material world. The greatness of people of Aryavarta is that they respect and honor all these paths with or without a Creator God,” concludes Satya Avatar in the epilogue of his Magnum Opus.