Movie Review: Meet the Browns

Title: Meet the Browns
Genre: Comedy-drama.
Cast: Angela Bassett, Rick Fox, David Mann and Lance Gross.
Story and Direction: Tyler Perry.

Lots of people complain about the tough times they endured growing up in poverty in large towns, not having enough to eat, less clothes etc. But the plight of a single mother struggling to bring up three children, when she suddenly loses her job, the sole source of livelihood for the family is incomparable. And this is the central theme of the Tyler Perry film Meet the Browns.

The central character Brenda Brown, played by Angela Bassett portrays how a single mother struggles to keep her children happy even at the face of having to go without food and electricity and a job loss. Brenda's teenage son Michael is a good basketball player and his sneakers start falling apart in the middle of the big game. The children's father has left Brenda and refuses to pay child-support, though he has a job which pays him $25 an hour. Director-writer Tyler Perry has done a wonderful job in creating characters in this touching movie.

Even as Brenda is struggling against odds to make a decent living in Chicago, she receives a letter with bus tickets inviting her to attend her father's funeral in Georgia. A person whom she has never met in her life. Arriving at Georgia with children in tow, Brenda gets acquainted with the loving, loud and eccentric small-town Brown family and their family friend an ex-NBA ballplayer Perry, who wants to help her son become a professional player. Brenda is firm on one thing, that Michael is first completing college and then playing professional basketball.

After the funeral, the family lawyer reads out the will and surprisingly old man Brown has left a country home to Brenda. The home is rundown and needs lot of work to bring it into a condition to live in. Brenda doesn't have the money, so she decides to head back to Chicago and try to get a job. But life in Chicago is tough and her son is invited to make money peddling dope. Brenda resents this and tells him to walk out of the house, Michael relents and returns the dope earnings but the gang doesn't want to leave him. In the ensuing confrontation he gets shot and is hospitalized. With a heavy heart she decides to move to Georgia taking her children and renovate her inherited home and live there. She has a surprise waiting there, which gives you the message "all is well that ends well".

In my opinion this movie displays the grit and courage of an individual who struggles to bring up a family single-handedly without any support from the spouse. She never seeks help even when she is down to the last penny. This movie is an inspirational story to all those young and old single-mothers who are often led astray in a bid to make ends meet. This movie gives the strong message that irrespective of what if one believes and does the right thing, life will end up alright.

Who better than Tyler can give this kind of a message through his captivating story and direction. His ability to effectively present a melodrama using humor, sarcasm and pain is very good. A must watch in my opinion.

Here is a trailer of the movie for you to get a sneak preview.

Entry fee for Jallianwala Bagh: A boon

Post-independence India adopted Soviet-style socialist model and in a bid to make everything accessible to everyone every public service was free and accessible. Entry fees were kept at negligible or nothing so that the poorest of the poor can access the services/ spots. Tourism is one sector that had been completely ignored both interms of its revenue generation capacity and its image building virtue.

Only during the past few years that the benefits of tourism is being realised. Tourism promotion is still in its nascent stage in India and tourism revenues are lower than small countries such as France, England etc. This is primarily because of lack of the instinct to ruthlessly pursue revenue generaiton out of tourism. Anyway the sense seems to be slowly dawning upon the Indian establishment.

I have visited the historic Jallianwala Bagh Memorial in Amritsar several times. The entry has always been free, which I feel is an insult to the martyrs who gave up their lives in the cause of freedom. I always wished that there were couple of multi-lingual guides who would take groups of tourists, school students and visitors around the vast grounds and tell the story of the Martyrdom of the thousands of unarmed Indians who were brutally massacred by the British. These monuments should be used to generate national pride among Indian visitors and awe among foreign tourists and if they are British make them feel ashamed of their nation and the cruel deeds of their founding fathers. Generations of Jews have not forgotten the holocust and German concentration camps and the World War II war crimes against their ancestors. But Indian's believe in forgetting, forgiving and loving even the most cruel and deceitful enemy, so this will never happen.

But at least one positive step has been taken in the right direction. The secretary of the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial Trust, S Mukherji, recently announced that the trust has written to the Union Ministry of Culture that entry fee should be charged for tourists visiting the memorial.

"We are going to introduce a light and sound show which will recreate the firing on a gathering of defenceless men, women and children on April 13, 1919 by British soldiers under the command of Brigadier Reginald Dyer at the Jalianwala Bagh, near the Golden Temple, for those visiting the site of the massacre," he said. The work for the light and sound show has already started and it is being installed at a cost of around Rs.5 crore, added Mukherji.

"Even the whole memorial will get a facelift soon. We will have a big museum in the memorial which will house many new exhibits. Renovation work is also in full swing in the memorial," he said.

The annual budget of the Trust is only Rs 25 lakh but after the installation of the light and sound show the expenditure will rise manifold. "So to cope with the rise in expenditure we have asked the ministry to consider introducing an entry for those visiting the memorial".

I am sure that this entry fee will generate much revenue which can help maintenance of the place and also better management of visitors and museums.

News Source: Deccan Herald
Picture Source: Jallianwala Bagh Photo Gallery

Price of Iraq War! Is it worth it?

America's global war on terror which started immediately after the the 9/11 WTO bombings by the Al Qaeda over seven years ago continues. Afghanistan seems to have been stabilised or rather at least there is no news about what's happening there. But Iraq is constantly in the news both within the US and outside. Iraq seems to be taking a huge toll on America both in terms of people and resources. Despite two bloody wars and continued battles in Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction has been recovered from Iraq. It is very clear to the entire world that American war on Iraq was for oil and has nothing to do with WMD or global terror or anything of that sort. Over the past few weeks I have noticed a surge in reporting on Iraq war and almost everyday there is one major article about the war in the newspapers. I read only one newspaper here, Dallas Morning News and my observations will be limited to what I have read.

Plight of Civilians in Iraq
A recent article highlighted the plight of civilians caught between Allied Forces (US, UK and others) and rebel militia. According to the article, Iraqis are suffering more now than under Saddam Hussein. Corruption is rampant, phones never work, electricity is available only 2-4 hours every day, taps go dry for several hours every day and when water does flow it is infested with worms and smells foul. Employees of the phone company, electric and water supplies routinely harass home owners for bribes. Majority of schools and colleges have been closed down as academics and teachers have fled the country. One housewife was quoted saying that though salaries were lesser during Saddam Hussein's reign they had decent services. Most civilians lead a meal to meal existence, doing grocery shopping every day for their daily needs.

Massive Death Toll
Recently the death toll of allied forces personnell reached an astronomical figure of 4,000. There has been a huge outcry about this in US and UK, two countries which account for the maximum casualities. But several articles which trumpeted this 4,000 number and also carried several follow-up stories on the subject have completely ignored civilian casualities due to the war. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq alone is estimated at 82,418-89,938 by Iraq Body Count, a website which documents civilian deaths in Iraq. A figure in excess of 20 times of military casualities. But civilians are Iraqis, why should we bother seems to be the attitude of the newspapers who don't bother even to spend one line to mention the number. Why did the war kill so many civilians? Is America justified in killing so many civilians while claiming that the war was to rescue them from a cruel dictator? These questions continue to be unanswered.

Financial Implications of the war
A whole country destroyed and demolished. Rebuilding will take away the possibility of a decent life for at least two generations of Iraqis. What right does any nation, including America has to devastate the lives of millions of innocent civilians? Is American's thirst for oil so much that the world of millions of people has to be destroyed to quench it?

The financial devastation of the war can be felt in America too. A research paper by Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes and Nobel-prizewinning Columbia economist Joseph Stiglitz claims that the final cost of the war to US could be $2 trillion — 10 times as high as the worst-case scenario of $200 billion suggested by a White House official before the war. The National Priorities website has a counter running and at the time of writing this article was $505,876,218,058. The website further reveals that the war costs as $4,681 per household; $1,721 per person and $341.4 million per day.

Troop Deployment
When the war started there were 250,000 men from US, 45,000 from UK, 2,000 from Australia and 194 from Poland. As I write this blog there is a 166,000-strong military inlcuding 10,500 from 27 countries fighting the war on the Allies side. Of course there are forces from contracted security agencies which total to 161,000 (53 percent (85,300) Iraqi, 17 percent (27,400) American, 30 percent (45,500) Others) and then there are 30,000 private mercenaries fighting on behalf of America.

Socio-cultural-economic impact
On the socio economic front the impact has been perhaps the highest, both in Iraq and in America. In Iraq of course the devastation has been the highest, with millions losing parents, brothers, spouses, children etc. Families have disintegrated not because of divorce but due to death and war. Children have been rendered orphans or separated from parents due to widespread demolition of the cities. Family structures have broken down with the more affluent and educated members fleeing the country to safer locations.

The impact in America has not been much different. Thus far there have been 16,000 soldiers who have been permanently disabled due to war. These people are entitled to receive payments for lifetime cost of disability and health care. To replace them recruitment budgets have to be enhanced.

With over 150,000 soldiers and officers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan there has been significant impact on their lives back home. According to a report in Time magasine there were 10,477 divorces in 2004, 8,367 in 2005 and data for subsequent years are available and will be published soon. That is an amazing number of broken homes and that many people under stress and combating depression.

Meanwhile on the domestic front in America, the economy is going south. Gas prices are rising, despite America being in total control of Iraqi oil. The common man is stretched to his limit. Job losses are common, hundreds of thousands of homes are facing foreclosure because the owners have lost jobs and are unable to pay mortgage. Where is the country heading towards? If the war continues more money has to be pumped into it.

Imagine if there was no war and the same amount of money ($ 2 trillion) were to be invested on poverty eradication, education and development programmes in Sub Saharan Africa or Asia. Better still if it was invested in various parts of America on technology enhancement, job creation and improvement of education infrastructure or bolstering university budgets wouldn't the dollar have achieved much more? Almost all universities across the US are announcing a steep hike in their tuition. I am pretty sure this could have been avoided if the country was not at war. Perhaps gas prices wouldn't have gone so high if there was no war.

Think of it, is this high price for the war worth? Your comments are welcome.

Information Sources:
Iraq Body Count
Iraq Coalition Casualities
Washington Post
Time Magazine
National Priorities website
Global Security
Wikipedia

Message in the Bottle

This article in the Dallas Morning News captured my attention and imagination. During my early childhood days I used to enjoy reading Phantom comics and would wonder how he managed to remain powerful, fast and strong through generations. One of the stories involved kidnapped scientists putting out a SOS message in a bottle and throwing it into the sea. This message is found by Phantom and he rescues them and solves a mystery.

The news item I read is about a similar but amazing incident. This time around the message sender is not kidnapped but an elementary school student who in a burst of enthusiasm placed a letter in an envelope and inserted it in a bottle and set it afloat in the sea. The message read "This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands. Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung."

The bottled letter sent from a suburb in Seattle was found 1,735 miles away in an Alaskan fishing village, accessible only by boat or plane, 21 years after it was sent. Amazing isn't it. The finder did contact the sender of the message, who had totally forgotten about the school project and the bottle. Anyway all that is well ends well, the sender and the finder are both surprised and happy at the developments.

Emily Shih, who is now an accountant, said she didn't remember the project that required her fourth-grade class to send a message in a bottle out to sea. That note was found 21 years later in an Alaskan village 1,735 miles away.

Trammell Crow Lake in Trinity Park

Last week we went exploring Dallas downtown and the south of the commercial district. Thus far we had been to cities like Frisco, McKinney, Plano, Carrollton etc, all located North of Downtown Dallas. I always wondered what was their on the south side. Sometime ago an opportunity presented itself for us to explore this part of the city.

As we approached the south side of Dallas on the I-35 I was a little shocked by its rundown appearance. It looks like a ghost town, narrow, pot-holed streets, dirty neighborhoods. If not for the absence of crowds, beggars and walking public, this part of the city looks more like small town India. But for cars whizzing past one would think it is really a ghost town abandoned by its people. As we were driving we chanced upon a vast open space flanking both sides of the road. We stopped to take a closer look and inside there is a small lake with a boat ramp/ pier, walking trails and cattle sculptures installed to beautify the place.

Signboard announcing the name of the park and lake.

Even in this seemingly forsaken place it is commendable that the local authorities have put in their effort to create such a beautiful, landscaped open space for recreation. There are facilities for football, soccer, hiking, running, boating and fishing in this park. There is no entry fee and there were hardly anybody in the park. Perhaps because it was in the afternoon or perhaps it is still winter here. Spring is just starting and people are just beginning to stir outdoors. Sometimes I feel that people here hibernate much like animals, they don't come out during winters and come summer they are all out in their finery.

Here are some pictures of the Trinity Park and the Trammell Crow Lake, south of Dallas downtown. Do leave your comments if you like them or hate them.

Bird perched upon one of the posts in the boat pier.

Cattle and cowboys are inseparable part of Texas. If not the real ones then the sculptures made of stone, metal or even concrete will do.

Closer view of the cattle sculptures in Trinity Park, near the Trammel Crow Lake.

Another cow, this is tired and sitting in the shade of a large tree which has shed leaves during fall and is slowly turning green as spring appoaches.

The road cuts right across the park, but in a bid to cause minimum disturbance to people enjoying the park the road is built like a flyover across the park. That is a nice thought and should be emulated elsewhere in the world.

The solitary tree near the Trammel Crow Lake which is just sprouting green buds presents a great sight.

Holi Celebrations in Dallas

Holi revellers dancing to the drum beats

Holi the festival of colours was celebrated in Dallas today. The premises of the DFW Hindu Temple, Irving was a riot of colour as hundreds of Desis congregated at the venue. I would summarise the event as "Colour, chow, charm, carol* singing, riotous dancing, and loads and loads of laughter and fun".

Before I continue I would like to give a little background about the festival of colours. Holi is celebrated on Phalgun Purnima month of the Hindu calendar which is sometime around the Christian months of February end or early March. The origins of Holi can be traced back to antiquity and like all Hindu festivals it is a celebration of the victory of good over evil. It was created as an event to bridge social gap and renew sweet relationships.

Traditionally celebrations begin with the ceremonial lighting of bonfire on the Holi eve to signify incarceration of all bad desires of the human mind. Numerous legends & stories associated with the origin of Holi celebration. One of the legends is about the burning of "Kama" the god of love by Lord Shiva. Kama would have shot the cupid's arrow and made Shiva come out of penance and fall in love with Parvathi, princess of the Himalayan Kingdom. But Kama had already accomplished his purpose of making Lord Shiva fall in love and hence it is also a festival of love and colours. A festival to celebrate love and colours. This is also a festival to herald spring of the season of freshness and colour. People welcome this season by applying gulal on each other.

Coming back to the celebrations at Irving Hindu temple. There was loads of food of all cuizines from Brownies in our stall, pizza in another and nachos in yet another stall. Of course Indian foods including the ubiquitous idly, dosa, pani puri, pav bhaji, mango lassi etc were also being sold. The stall and food and time was our donation to the temple. All proceeds went to the temple trust. Music blared throughout the day reeling out Holi numbers from bollywood superhit movies. A few aspiring singers belted out bollywood numbers and youth and the young at heart present danced away to glory. I guess this is the only way one can feel close to their home land while having to make a living and livelihood in an alien land surrounded by alien cultures.

SEF Stall in the Holi celebrations, selling brownies. (from left) SEF volunteers Shanti, Padma Mariam, Uma Suresh and Prabha.

I was there as part of the volunteer contingent of Sankara Eye Foundation, a California-based non-profit organisation which is working towards eliminating curable blindness in India. Along with five other volunteers we put up a booth to sell sweet and crunchy home-baked brownies. Our stall was very popular among children and youngsters with a sweet tooth and we sold over 250 brownies and were clear by 3.00 pm.

*Carol means "festive song".