Schindler's List

A world classic from Steven Spielberg. 1993 B&W movie, discussing Nazism and the atrocities towards Jews. The three-hour movie portrays the story from the beginning of massacre of Jews and to the end of the War and liberation of Jews.

Schindler's a businessman, who tried a number of businesses tries his luck on saving some Jews – the best and healthy ones – to open a factory, where he can use these Jews free of cost. The Jews too wished to join Schindler's factory.

Visual treat by Spielberg remains until the last scene and shot of the film. The depth and treatment of the concept, makes the film worth a watch and doesn't make it boring. Germans are given the role of protagonist in the film and Jews given a lower status. Schindler's even though a German, uses the opportunity to save the best Jews for his company, tries to make profit as he doesn't have to pay for the labour. There were no Jew who enjoyed a higher status instead everyone was treated as same, but Schindler's accountant, even though a Jew enjoyed a higher status as he was loyal and good at his work, and Schindler reckon him than anyone else. And, hence Schindler saves him at times when he nabbed by the  German army. Another Jew who enjoys a similar position is the maid to the German chief soldier.

The intelligence and cleverness of Jews and their selfish attitude portrayed in the shows how they fought a silent war against the holocaust. Each Jew tries to save himself and his family, and never spare space for another Jew, among kids as well as the older Jews.

But towards the end of the film there is a gradual change of attitude, where the of Jews (Schindler's Jews) pay adieu to their protector (Schindler) as the war ended and they (Jews) were free and liberated.

Wide shots and long-range shots in the film show the mass number of Jews being butchered and slaughtered. Murders committed by the army being shot in close up shots, where the killings are all from a close range –shot on head- shows the brutality of the Nazis.

Even the attitude of German people portrays the propagandistic power of Hitler, where in one instance a German girl shots ‘good-bye Jews' and in another instance a tracking shot of  Jews vacating their homes are pelt with mud and dirt. 

The whole film is a visual treat of another side of the holocaust, where a Schindler's selfish attitude saves a few Jews and in turn he saves a race from extinction.

Drishyam

Image, is something which deceives and the one who creates it is a deceiver. But if he does this to protect his family. Mohanlal starred film Drishyam revolves around a crime, which is entwined with a family drama. The film opens up unlike any other south Indian movies, to be specific like the ones by Sathyan Anthikad. Where the frames are much wide open and the shots are lengthy.

A simple narrative style arouses curiosity from the beginning of the movie, which lasts till the film ends. An unusual trend of lengthy shots and the wide framing always tries to have an impact on the viewer and it makes the viewer to search the frame, and the frame is absorbed into the mind. Here the purpose of the film maker and camera man is very much clear that they want the viewer to make sure that this is his story, this is clear and natural. A feeling of realism, even though there is melodrama, is established from the beginning. Georgekutty (Mohanlal) the lead character, an orphan, whom tried out various enterprises and is proud himself his attitudes towards his life and family. The story is well written, wherein the establishment of the plot till the twist is well narrated and visualized. Later the film shows how an image is being established in the minds.

A social issue being portrayed and placed in such a situation, where the whole thing is faced by a middle class family. Even though there have been films with the same issue, here the issue is addressed in a entirely different manner. Where the knowledge and experience of a fourth grade Georgekutty head on with the entire system and with his as well as his own family’s remorse over incident. But the scrupulous effort of creating images and the police officers underestimation of this fourth grade country man, worsen the whole situation. In the end Georgekutty wins the game in front of the whole world around him. He succeeds in creating a day with incidents that really didn’t happen at all. But for his own self he fails to admit the mistake. 
The visuals throughout the film is shown as bright as possible, with the perfect utilization of the daylight, so that a feel of realism dominates the whole thing. Minimal usage of flashback and the well-knit music and dialogue sequences adds to the beauty of the whole film. Georgekutty claims that reading a newspaper won't help to create knowledge, but he is a movie buff. And there is an instance where Sulaimanikka (Kozhikode Narayanan Nair), the tea shop owner says Georgekutty is a movie buff whom watch almost all the films. This clearly shows that, Georgekutty is a well aware of the whole society within which he lives and even much more aware of the whole world. And this knowledge helps him to prove his own stand and make himself to be true.

The film is a real eye opener to the whole system of truth, justice and present society. Cinema has taught us to be good, shown us what is bad and what is good. It rarely went against the law, even though it has pointed out the flaws. But here the film maker neither pointed the flaw nor went against it. Georgekutty simply made sure that his family is not ruined. But he was sure that they are going to suffer. Film maker made sure that, the law, justice and even the point where the truth lies is all a matter of subjectivity. Because facts can be created, and here the protagonist creates the whole facts for him.

As far as a common man is concerned everyone who is a part of the ruling class is above him. He is conditioned to learn and teach others that, the law and the rulers protects the common man. Here this particular aspect is explained where both the common man and the ruler knows, the law never protects the common man. And hence Georgekutty states towards the end of the film that, he believes in the police system and he is sure that, police will protect him and his family. The following montage reveals how police is going to protect Georgekutty and his family. 

North 24 Katham

Realism and realistic visuals always touch the hearts of the audiences. Whether it is Italian neo realism or the similar films of Ray in India. 16 Kilometers make a Katham, thus it’s a journey of 384 Kilometers to the North. The journey portrays a sarcastic view of a Harthal-day in Kerala. Hari a software professional who suffers a personal disorder is obliged follow a co passenger whose wife expires, which Hari comes to know from the phone call on the old co-passengers lost phone.

North 24 Katham shows a world of loneliness faced by the protagonist. Combination of close-ups and medium shots, with less emphasis on long range shots, creates a confined environment. The nuclear family system, IT work culture and creates a constricted sphere of the protagonist. The later phases of the films opens up the wide view for the protagonist as well as the audience, where Hari discovers how important it is to think beyond his own profession. Hari starts to learn the power of his own self. The shot duration of the film make the viewer feel the exact (real) duration of the situation. As the film is all about a journey, time is an important aspect. The lengthy shots are common throughout the film, where it grabs audience attention to the maximum.

Apart from the scripting, treatment and the cinematography, it is Lighting and Costume / Make up which are the two areas that has to be mentioned, natural light adds to the realism within the frames. Outfits and make-up blends with the character and their milieu that they all become to be real. Subtly maintained visuals with emotions of the half told stories doesn’t irk the audience as each of these stories are complete within themselves.

Adjusting and confronting to the situations is quite necessary to sustain in a land where people enjoy the ineluctable strikes. Film ends by showing the change that happens within Hari where the ending scenes delineate the change around Hari showing the spaciousness around Hari and his thoughts. The film starts from the protagonist’s daily routine, and puts the protagonist in a hypothetical situation, in turn bringing him to a situation where he realizes his problem and is forced to finds the solution. 

Virtual Society

S

ocial networking is never a new term; it is a general term which has a different meaning when done over the internet. The term brings the faces of many friends, websites which offer the service such as Orkut & Facebook, both of them have their own impact over the people especially the youth in general, due to the fact that the present world needs information and it is much easy to get information from the internet and one of the best place to search for information is social networking sites and even having a discussion over a particular issue over the website can even solve the problem. And as far as technology is concerned a social network is a social structure made up of individuals, who are called as nodes, connected with each other. The idea is being used for over a century to explain complex sets of relationship between members of social system at all scales from interpersonal to international. Humans always have the habit of making up societies and groups around him, and being a social animal he has no other way.

The 21^st century communication is also behind society, networking, social issues and all of these are over the internet, and it is now being connected via mobile phones and personal computers. The computer mediated social interactions was suggested early on, and it was made on many services such as Usenet, Arpanet and so on. And earlier social networking, as the web began in the form of generalised online communities such as the globe.com, geocities.com and tripod.com, these web sites basically offered some services like: bringing people together over the internet, provide chat rooms for interactions, and even to share information about the user and even share his ideas and thoughts via personal web pages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive hub space. And in the late 1990’s user profiles became a central feature of social networking, wherein these were profiles being created by the user according to his or her wish and he or she could visit many others profiles, communicate with them through the web site.

Now the time and technology has changed a lot than the earlier one, and even the change is very well seen in the social networking too, today social networking is being done by individuals around the globe 24x7, on cooking, golfing, gardening, developing friendship or professional alliances, finding employment, doing b2b (business to business) marketing, and even there are groups in the social networking sites sharing information about numerous social issues, now the topics are varied depending upon the interest of the users. Recent reports over the globe in the case of social networking over the internet states that there is a dramatic increase in the people who uses social networking sites, for example the Indian youth in the major cities devote around 2 hours daily for social networking alone. The websites that are accessed generally by the youth are Facebook, Twitter and Orkut, which are the three popular ones among a list of social networking sites.

“Social media” survey by Indiabiz News and Research Service (INRS) found that 30% of youth access websites for social networking from their mobile phone rather than PC’s, and it states technology has grown to a greater extent where man satisfies his need for socialisation from his fingertips at any time that he wish. The present studies states that Facebook has more than 8 million plus users in India, and another study states that 70% of social media users in India identify Orkut as their preferred social medium. Apart from social networking the websites are places of marketing now a days and the common and widely used marketing technique is the business to business marketing, due the reason that the feedback is much faster and spontaneous in the web sites than any other medium of communication. The websites which offer social networking are increasing day by day and now many of these websites are having accounts of celebrities in their websites and it has developed the publicity of the websites, and even there is social networking sites which got itself popularised due to media hype.

The present marketing world has value for everything and even the social networking has its share and marketers are behind this medium since many of the social networking sites are becoming the largest continent with millions in the website who are from all over the globe. Even we can see youth, who are so obsessed with their cell phones, and they never keep it down for a moment and they are losing their valuable time which they could have utilized in a better way. Even the marketers and the mobile phone companies are very specific about their customers and they have advertisements stating that “you are just one click away from ur friends”, ”click chat share and express” and many more, which are all motivating the youth to spent much of their time for social networking, than anything. Already the world is so fast moving that people have not even a single second to spent for his fellow being but here the social networking sites and the mobile phones have worked a lot, since it give a break for the user to connect to his friends in a better and easy way. And the next generation in the case of social networking is stated to be real-time networking and that too location based, which is similar to the television broadcasting. The time will explain how it would affect the next generation, and it is a fact that we all have developed a sort of media habit from the social networking which we didn’t even think of in the past.

Slums Of India

Slum, street of dirty crowded houses, we Indians were proud when our country was exposed by Danny Boyle, in Slum Dog Millionaire, when our beloved AR Rahman and Rasool Pookutty were awarded with Oscar. But that film was a fact about the real slum people who are ignorant and are utilized by many, either with their will or they have to do things because it is India. “Sovereign, democratic republic”, As described by the Constitution of India and it may take another long time to be like the things written in the constitution, after all, to live in India it isn’t essential to learn the Constitution and its Preamble. But the knowledge about these things can make a change to the existing system and also to the society and its problems, so it’s the prime duty of every educated individual to contribute something for the society.

Republic for 61 long years, India and her people are still a slum for the rest of the world, which is true to certain extend. Every year we feel proud to be the best in every field, which includes poverty too. Every year we spent more income in the defense, to protect India and her people. A preventive measure towards future, but what about the present, the one who is living in India who pays tax for every single product he uses. There are Indians living in India who are not in a position to make proper appetite for his family. And this makes him do whatever he can to make his appetite. And later that becomes a daily routine for him. Still in India child labor and the people who use children for many immoral habits are increasing since they get children in plenty from the slum. These things were in the policies of the government recently and the latest move of making every Indian to sleep without hungry stomach, “Koi bhi bhooke peet na soye” declared by our PM recently. Will that make any difference? Let’s hope that it would.

As India is a vast country we have many classes of people. Among them the educated class or the people who enjoy life can be divided into many types. People who are really interested and working for the society and its needs, people who are willing to do something but don’t know how, and also a group who are not even cared of his fellow men and his needs, he has his own world and he doesn’t even bother to think of the society and its needs. While we look ourselves and the society we may also belong to the third one, since it is human nature to not getting gratified, he needs more and more hence there is no time for him to think of his fellow humans. Man knows about humanity and the value when he is affected by the natural calamities, where we come to know of ourselves that we are all equally treated by the nature. And thus we have to realize that everyone can make a change in the society.

We Indians unite together on every 15th of August and on 26th of January declaring that we are a nation. The very next day we become apart we make conflicts between states or within state itself either for land or for water and even there are conflicts based on beliefs. It seems that now man is slave for the beliefs, he is not able to think he is just making unnecessary moves towards useless things, which may take another century for him to realize what he did was wrong. Poverty and slums were a part of every part of India and it continues still, even after we have our own government, democracy where people rules. We have a good education system and we have good and eminent personalities in every field but, it isn’t everything the thing lies where he or she applies his or her knowledge to eradicate poverty and even to do good towards poverty and make them also to do so. But unfortunately we have very less number of such people who are innovative in their thoughts towards the society, and even now it has become the job of a particular class of people who study on social work.

Every Indian who is having a good sleep should always know that there are people who, live in houses where the number of people are more than twelve, which is a fact and that too not to be called a house it just a hovel, the worse thing is that they don’t want to leave that, even if they are given good house to live they just make money out of that house, by giving that house for rent or so and they never use it for themselves, the reason for this is simple, to make more money. Lack of knowledge about actual problems of the slum is the reason for these things to happen, even they are least interested to know about the problems, they say it is like this and will remain like this. But the time and knowledge can change the things, for this the educated class should make their contribution. We have to make the people realize the health related problems and also the easily spreading diseases. Without the proper knowledge about the problems and support the people who are living in slums won’t make a move.

Since these problems are interrelated we have government officials for all the problems who are responsible to serve the poor, but here too they don’t do the work properly or they don’t do their work completely, since they fear that they might have nothing to do if they complete their work. And at this particular situation when the government is unable to make a change in the society, the literate youth of India can make the change, since they can make the propaganda of the issues regarding the slums. Another important step to be taken is in the education system, where every child should be taught to love his fellow being, to live a life which make him grow and also to help others to grow. Also the education should make the child to think what he can do for the society rather than thinking what he can get from the society. And this can give us a better thinker, a better leader, and also a better worker who is always behind the welfare of the society.

The history of India tells us about the change that has occurred, and it should serve as the steps to make a dramatic change for the history of future India.
Jai Hind.

A Simple Hack

Hacking through Registry

Automatically Close Programs at Shutdown

When you shut down Windows, if you have any programs running you'll get a message box warning you that a program is still running. You then have to close the program and tell XP again to shut down. It's a fairly pointless warning—better yet would be if XP automatically killed the programs without issuing the warning. That way, you wouldn't get error messages and wouldn't have to close each individual application before shutting down your computer.

To have XP automatically close programs at shutdown, run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Edit the AutoEndTasks key so that is has a value of 1. If the key doesn't exist, create it as a DWORD value and give it the value of 1. To disable it, either delete the key, or set the value to 0.

Disable XP Shutdown

There may be times when you want to make sure that XP can't be inadvertently shut down. You can use a Registry hack to disable the normal Shut Down. Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a new DWORD value named NoClose with a data value of 1. Exit the Registry and reboot in order for the change to take effect. You won't be able to shut down Windows in the normal manner from now on; you'll have to run Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete or right-clicking on the Toolbar, choosing Task Manager, and then using the Task Manager's Shut Down menu to close Windows. If you want to reenable normal shutdowns, delete the NoClose value.

Change the Names of the Registered User and Company

When you install XP or when it comes factory-fresh on a PC, a username and company name are entered as the owner of the system. And that's the way it stays, like it or not. But a Registry hack will let you change both. Run the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion, and look for the values RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization. Edit their value data to whatever username and company name you want.

Change the Amount of Time Before Programs Time Out

When an application hangs and no longer responds, XP displays a dialog box that prompts you to kill the application or wait a while longer. By default, the dialog box appears after the application hasn't responded for five seconds.

This can cause problems. For example, if a program is doing heavy-duty calculations in the background, it won't respond until the calculation is done, so the operating system will report that the application is hung, even though it isn't. You can use a Registry hack to increase or decrease the amount of time it takes before XP reports that the program has hung.

Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Select the HungAppTimeout entry and edit it to input a new value, in milliseconds. The default is 5000. Exit the Registry. You may need to reboot for the new setting to take effect. Try increasing the number in increments of 1,000 until you find a number that works.

Disable the Disk Cleanup Warning

If your hard disk has what XP decides is too little space left on it, the operating system will pop up a warning and recommend that you run Disk Cleanup. But you may be like me and not want a virtual nanny nagging you to clean up your mess. You can turn off the warning with a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a DWORD value called NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and give it a value of 1. Exit the Registry and reboot. You can also do this by using TweakUI

Change the Default Location for Installing Programs

XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/or directory by using a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. By default, the value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder; XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

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