OK Computer (8/10) (2021)

My current favorite series is the Hindi tongue-in-cheek sci-fi comedy set in India of 10 years from now. It is very nerdy, and low budget, so not for everybody. But think of ‘District 9’. In fact, I will put it closer to ‘Love, Death, and Robots’ but with a more extensive social commentary through comedy. In fact it starts with a self-driving car smashing a person into pav-bhaji. 

Writers include Anand Gandhi, and actors include Vijay Verma and Radhika Apte who have played their roles well, but the highlight is Kani Kusruti who has an interesting background (Kusruti means mischievous in Malayalam, a name she took for her board exams), and it almost seems as if some aspects of her real life, twisted for the story, are intertwined. Jackie Shroff features in half the episodes, and there are cameo’s by the likes of Tanmay Bhat, Kunal Kamra, and hell, even one of my science idols V S Ramachandran! It has not-so-hidden references to organizations in the US,  and aspects from Three Body Problem and or Ready Player One. It would almost seem like a spoof, and yet it is not given the subject it is tackling.

It is like one of those special series that have become a popular format these days, with the first season being 6 episodes. All 6 episodes were released in Mar 2021 on Disney/Hotstar. IMDB mentions Season 2, but I have not seen any details …

I have not finished the series yet, and may update the review later.

OK Computer (8/10) (2021)

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) (7/10)

A biopic about Srinivas Ramanujan (born 1887), the story had to mostly stick to facts. But there was enough drama in Ramanujan's life, not to mention the dramatic mathematical formulae he conjured one after another. Liberties have been taken about relative ages of people involved but that seems to help in keeping the focus on his life and mathematics. Only a little discussion of actual mathematics ensures that people will not get repelled by it. There is enough broad-stroke discussion to try to give the general audience a rough understanding of what Ramanujan managed despite troubling conditions.

At one point Hardy says: 'We can not converse in Tamil', to which Ramanujan replies: 'But you would want me to converse in English'. All the characters do use English in the movie, and the retort is ironic because Dev Patel playing Ramanujan does not speak Tamil.

The balance of proof (necessity of) and intuition comes out nicely. Ramanujan wants to run away with intuition but Hardy would like to reign him for the sake of concrete progress within Ramanujan's life-time. Intuition, or drawing together diverse facts subconsciously, happens best when you are at ease. Ramanujan though, seems to have managed it despite troubles of all colors. I guess it is the focus that he could muster would have played a large part.

Its a pity that a journey through the lost notebook can not be shown to all like Indiana Jones going after the lost arc. But I did feel after seeing the movie that it would be fun to dabble again a bit in Pure Maths. The abstract joy of even rediscovering connections known for a long time is unparalleled.

The recent - and continuing - story of Mochizuki's work on the abc conjecture tells us how the world has drawn away from purely intuition based works. Clearly Mochizuki would have had intuitions about his Frobenioids, but he had to also put together a proof for his solution. No more isolated romanticism as the world is too connected. Or is it?

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) (7/10)

Dhyasparva (2001) (8/10)

A biographic film from the turn of the 19th-20th century extending to a little past India's independence. The character being portrayed is Raghunath Karve, the son of another illustrious person viz. Dhondo Karve. Obviously the society then was more under the yolk of misconceptions, both religious and social. The resistance that ra dho meets to his very well intentioned but equally direct and blunt approach is imaginable (though not understandable). After seeing the strange opposition that Dadasaheb Phalke met to his filmmaking it wasn't surprising to see the tempers rise when family planning was being advocated by ra dho when even remarrying by women was not allowed. What is worrisome is that the issues have changed, but the views, the opposition to other (now current) issues has not. The dogma continues, and it springs mainly from blindly believing what is ancient and what the masses say. In fact now it is worse in terms of groups physically attacking someone (rather than bahishkar which could sometimes be a boon) because they think (I should say feel since normally they don't think at all) does not agree with their views (which are really someone elses views - as for instance, Gandhi's followers not having read his book, and attackers of Bhandarkar institute not having read James Laine's book). It is also interesting how the politicians have not changed either. I mean even the earlier ones had some strange mindsets.

The exchanges between ra dho and Shakuntala Paranjpye, Mama Varerkar and Babasaheb Ambedkar added a good flavour to the movie.

Dhyasparva (2001) (8/10)

The Namesake (2006) (6/10)

Well made, well acted, fast paced. Shows cultural diversities and borderlines of intermixing and problems thereof quiet well. Where it fails is that too much is crammed in to it, The character of the namesake is not developed at all. It can be anyone's story. The reason for that particular name does not really come out. Most Kolkata images are a backdrop and not clear why those particular ones were there. In general not enough time is spent on different parts of the movie and is abrupt much of the time. May be this is typical of books adapted to movies.

The Namesake (2006) (6/10)