Epic Terms Old and New

Epic - not to be confused with The Odyssey, or the Ramayana, this is just an expression that expresses that something (anything) is very good!

Bestie- this is not a beast, but a human you like. Confusing part is, there could be more than one best, and grammar takes a best, sorry, backseat.

Bro- it's unisex, and is derived from brother, a term commonly used to describe brothers in early 21st century. Some centuries ago, Pardner was a similar term (in the Cowboy era in the US of A).

Awesome- this could be an ice-cream, or a chicken tikka, and does not necessarily have to be a view of the Alps.

Awww-  this term is reserved for exclusive use by the fairer sex. No one knows what it means, but we suspect it means cute.

You can add more, and improve the General Knowledge of the general public.

Baahubali-Film Review

In a word, it's magical. You can't take your eyes off the action, it is so well done, so larger than life, and yet, so believable, that you get lost in it for the duration. As the story comes to an end (with the promise to continue), you feel sorry it has ended! The editing, for a change, is just right.

The story is typical of a mythical tale, of betrayal, courage, revenge. Partly Tarzan, partly royal tale, it has all the elements of a good story, and the director tells it in a spell-binding fashion. The action scenes are the best I have seen anywhere, from Ben-Hur's chariot scenes, to James Bond, or Mission Impossible, to any modern tale of valour.

The cast is perfect, starting with Ramya Krishnan as the Queen and strategist who saves the hero-child, to Sathyaraj as the loyal Kattappa, to the hero, Prabhas in a double role, to Rana Daggubati as the counterfoil Bhallala, and Tamannah as the loyalist of the wronged king/queen. Even her action sequence is amazing.

Go watch it for a story well-told, and for a lesson on the technique of how to make a good film. Film as a medium comes alive and talks to you. From the sets of Bahubali at Ramoji studios-- some pics.

Epitaphs

Who has the time to read epitaphs any more? When people barely have the concentration required to read a facebook post or a less than 140 character flutter/twitter/filibuster or whatever, who in his right mind would want to write an epitaph? Also, if you cremate a person, it is likely to go up in smoke anyways. So, I say, it is a good idea to be very restrained in this urge to write one for yourself. No one may actually read it!

Which brings me to this series of words that begin with epi-. Like epiphany. That's a good thing. But epi-lepsy is not such a good thing. When there's an earhquake, it usually has an epicenter. So what's with this 'epi' thing? Is it good or bad? I don't know, may be linguists and etymolgicians can try and delve into this. An epicure may want to taste a lot of different kinds of food before deciding if the prefix is good or bad when applied to him.

Epic nonsense, you say? I take it as a compliment. Epi- you too.

Of Culture, Epics and Epidemics

Heard that there is an obesity epidemic in the land of burgers and Coke. We were used to some good old epidemics like Malaria, or Plague, or Chicken pox or something similar. But what is an obesity epidemic? Is it more, or less terrifying than a terrorist epidemic? Also, is it endemic (whatever that means) to a particular culture? Also, a related question- is culture good or bad for you?

Organising my thoughts neatly (something I keep attempting from time to time), here they are-

Culture is not entirely good for you, because it is more out of habit that one gets used to a type of food, or songs, or ways of celebrating something like festivals, or a wedding, or many such things. The problem is, you tend to cling to your way of doing things, by force of habit. Which is also fine, but for the tendency is to view your culture as being superior to other cultures that may be different.

Epidemics have a positive side too. They restore the balance between living beings and consumable resources like water, food, fuel, etc by reducing the former. Of course, if you happen to be 'reduced' it is not good for you as an individual, but we are talking humankind here.

What about epics, the third angle of this scholarly discourse? Why do people write them? One can imagine that in the pre-Ekta Kapoor (or pre-Facebook, depending on what you are addicted to) days, it was a way of passing the time, or shooting the breeze. That this marathon exercise was successfully accomplished in different parts of the world from Greece to India, itself is a tribute to man and his indefatigable nature.

Before the blog gets to acquire an epic status, let me stop this flow of thought-provoking thoughts.