Saturday, November 03, 2007

Medium, Nothing "Well-Done"?

Every weekend, I look forward to catching up with my "favourite" serials on Indian television. And one of the main reasons I look forward to this time is that, it has never happened that it hasn't inspired me to ask some fundamental questions of life.

Just take my today's thoughts as an example:


  1. As far as I remember, taking aatmas of dead people is a task allocated to Yama (and his Yamdoot) in Hindu Mythology. Since when was the task "outsourced" to the scythe-bearing Death?

  2. And is that why sadhus (tr: sages) now recognize Death? Is this what they mean by "Global Village"?

  3. Death being such a mean, old (yup, mean and old both) thing, shouldn't its aura be black, and not such glowing bright Rin-ki-safedi white?

  4. Luckily, the old remedies(?) to frustrate the Death still work (remember the tale of Savitri and Yama?)

  5. There might be worse reasons to die than just because your wife cannot care to follow Karavachauth, right? (And standing near a Sati-Savitri might be more deadly than just jale pe namak (tr: rubbing salt on...) in this case)

  6. Incidentally, how do you know that someone sitting next to a temple in a place completely foreign to you is Gyaani Mahatma (tr: An Enlightened One)? As a corollary, how exactly does a GM look?

  7. On an unrelated note, why do all women take a bath on suhag-raat (tr: wedding night?)?

  8. If somebody is suspected to have died of poisoning, and if there is a beverage glass lying nearby, the conclusion is obvious. So, after discussing and saying it out loudly many times, and packing off the glass to forensics, why are some people surprised when they hear that the beverage contains poison? Is it short-term memory or are they surprised that they got it right?

  9. If police are tracking somebody who used to work in the place where a murder was committed, why should it come as a news to the commissioner that the aforem. person used to work in the aforem. place? What happened to all lines of communication in the investigation?

As you can see, despite the doubts about television's IQ (or lack of it), it does keep providing me such food for thought weekly... Nothing better to relax on a weekend..

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken


P.S. Can anybody give me the English translations of the Hindi words I have used here? For a detailed description of "Karvachauth", see Madhavi's comment below.

P.P.S. And no, in my opinion, suhag-raat != honeymoon. Honeymoon normally extends much more than "that" one night.

Quote of The Day:
Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done.
- Fred Allen (1894 - 1956), on the radio program The Big Show, Dec. 17, 1950

19 Comments:

Anonymous said...

coooooool :)

SiD said...

can only translate aatma - spirit...
karvachauth... cant imagine the translation for that...:)
and I agree... black is much more sexy.. now if death wishes to have a image makeover, it shud take ur advice..LOL...

Amey said...

@Nikichan: Thanks :D
What do you like to watch on TV?

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@Sid: It wasn't a suggestion. They literally showed the "Angel" of Death descending (dressed so very similar to Voldemort) and glowing like, well... an angel.

Care to translate "suhaag raat"? :D

tulipspeaks said...

a bit lost with the Hindi words though.. :P



ammu-in-deepavali-mood

Keshi said...

**Since when was the task "outsourced" to the scythe-bearing Death?


LOL Fleiger!

Keshi.

Amey said...

@Tulip: Happy Divali to you too... Looks like you are going to enjoy with all those sweets.

Tried adding some translations, but some will be lost in translation. :(

Got any TV shows to share?

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@Keshi: Seriously. I could not come up with a better explanation for watching the Angel of Death taking souls from a devout Hindu family. ;)

Anonymous said...

Those are good things to point out. *lol* Very interesting and funny. I loved it! =D

I took into account what you pointed out. I changed my site's font color. Thanks! =)

Amey said...

@Anna: Thanks... Who said TV does not entertain any more, right? ;)

The shows don't have subtitles, otherwise I would have told you to watch them and laugh. So, I ask you, got any such shows you "like"?

The 'Mad' Orchid said...

Haha....gud gud wrk keep finding flaws in the super intellectual Serials in vogue nowadays they surely consume a hell lod of ur thinking n visualizing power...
N u want translations aha...
Karvachauth - Is a festival which is celebrated after one week of the Dushera n its a festival for
where mostly the married women n girls who r engaged (in tht case for their fiancees) or those gals who wish to keep for their love of life etc keep a day long fast for their mates...n break the fast only after the see the first glimpse of the moon on tht particular day phewww..Karva is meant to be a clay pot which contains water n the gal keeping the fast is said to break her fast when her husband or respective mates make her drink water from that pot n chauth is the fourth day after ekadashi (first day whn the full moon nite comes ?) myslf m weak here :P n rest translations are indeed the right ones Amey so u cn heave a sign of relief n erase those small question marks beside em .. :)
Phewwwwwww am exhausted,explaining Karwa chauth need a water break :P
Nice read n informative as wel ;)

Princess Stefania said...

I know I've been a away for a very long time... but I'm willing to bet anything that Fleiger used to run this blog. Yes. Fleiger. Pretty darned sure it was him.

Amey said...

@Madhavi:
explaining Karwa chauth need a water break
Now you know why I didn't try to translate that ;)

But I guess I will link your comment for others...

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@Princess: Just goes to show how much time you have been missing ;)

The 'Mad' Orchid said...

Wel wel thank god my hardwrk is getting paid finally.. :) n understood vry wel y did nt U take the pain to translate :p

Amey said...

@Madhavi: Well, I can be lazy sometimes, you know ;)

The 'Mad' Orchid said...

Yesh yesh I cn see tht vry vividly..sometimes or.... :P n u back to square 1 with MADHAVI :(

Amey said...

@Mads: Oops...

Well, I need to come out of my laziness sometimes to post something, right? ;)

Bennie said...

amey,

you know what they say about inspirations coming from all sorts of weird places-;)
i don't know about indian tv series...but I remember watching bollywood stars like dharmendra and shashi kapoor while i was growing up close to two decades ago. I suppose this was probably before your time. Those men in imho were smoking hot hunka hunkas-lol

Amey said...

@Bennie: Oh, you watched Hindi movies? Now that's interesting. Which ones do you like? Do you watch the recent ones?

As for inspiration, I agree. But really what I didn't like in this was that they present a complete mish-mash of mythologies, stories and everything. End product is absolutely and unintentionally hilarious.

Bennie said...

@amey,
In case you haven't noticed dear, I'm a bit over the hills as they say in the west-:) You're asking me to name names about all those hindi movies I watched over 20 years ago...while growing up in Africa? Are you kidding me? I can't even remember the name of some seriously bad movie I watched yesterday with hubbyl-lol! No, I haven't seen any hindi movies recently. I don't believe our local blockbuster has many or any selections that'll make it worth my while. I could be wrong. So, I'll check next time I'm out and about.
P.S. Next time you're in my neighborhood, be sure to check out "Home:A trip down memory lane." Perhaps you'd understand why I still remember the likes of shashi kapoor.
Have a great day!

Amey said...

@Bennie: Oh well, I was just wondering where did you watch Dharmendra. It is really rare to meet someone who has seen anything except Raj Kapoor and Satyajit Ray. Ray is a brilliant movie-maker, btw. You can probably get his movies in library or somewhere.

Lemme check out the post :D