watchings of idle hours #6 : recipes for a good life

I am back with the series after a long gap. All the posts of the series can be accessed under the tag #watchingsofidlehours

Beautiful Minds vs Toned up Bodies

I watched the movie – A Beautiful Mind – on Amazon Prime when ‘Student of the Year – 2’ had just been released. Student of the Year 1 &2 have nothing to do with studies. The theme is all about chasing girls and settling scores with fellow competitors who are after the same girl. Bollywood is hell bent on giving you the impression that a school or a college is a place for doing anything but studies.

A Beautiful Mind is all about educational institutes being the breeding ground of inquisitive minds. The movie is based on the life of mathematics professor and Nobel laureate John Nash. It follows his life from his student days through his struggles with his mental illness in later years and his remarkable achievements despite that. His contribution to game theory has found a wide range of use in the field of economics.

Russel Crowe, who portrayed the physical prowess of a ‘gladiator’ in the eponymous movie, shines here in his role as the brilliant but mentally disturbed professor of mathematics.

As I write this, ‘Super 30’ is getting ready for release. Hope, it brings some realism to the portrayal of student life in our deshi movies.

A recipe for perfection

What would you say when you come across someone who has worked for seventy five years without a break and still looks forward to the next working day with the same enthusiasm as if it is going to be his first working day and feels still he has a long way to go in improving his craft. Well, ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’ is the story of an award winning Sushi Chef who, at ninety three, has not yet worked out a retirement plan.

I came to know of this docu-movie through a newsletter that had listed fifteen inspiring documentaries to watch on Netflix. I found that this was the only one that was available on Netflix India. After watching it, I discovered that it is available on youtube as well. The above link is not of the trailer, but the whole movie.

There are many interesting Japanese concepts to learn from this movie. I will explore those Japanese concepts and some related ones in a detailed post later on. For the time being I will leave it to explore for yourself.

Life is hard? Maybe, it is your own making.

This TED talk by John Jandai, an organic farmer from Thailand, has already garnered 8.5 million views on youtube. His simplicity has a charm of its own.

With a burgeoning population and water scarcity in many areas for prolonged periods of time, I am not sure how far his Utopia can be set up in India. But he has some interesting insights to offer, especially for those who feel breathless and claustrophobic chasing their dreams in an overcrowded city. It may also be a wake up call for those who measure their self worth in terms of materialistic accumulations and are caught up in the rate race of one upmanship.

(Coincidentally, today is the Bahuda Yatra which marks the beginning of culmination rituals associated with the car festival of Lord Jagannath. If you are interested to know more about the legends and rituals associated with the car festival, visit Netflix, youtube, and other stories #1)