Ender’s Game

What makes a book or a film so great is when the end is so unexpected but at the same time very plausible. In the last few days I read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. Earth has been invaded by a species called buggers twice. Humans are preparing for the third and the final battle. Ender Wiggin is their best hope. I’m looking forward to reading the sequels in the series from Speaker for the Dead. Nobody has yet to make a film out of it so far.

Harry Potter Film Wizardry

Harry Potter Film Wizardry, a book about the films, was released recently. I got the British edition which has a different cover than the American edition. The British edition got delayed for some reason. This is a huge book weighing  more than a kilo, 160 pages of pictures and writings about the films and some props from the films. The level of detail  they have gone into designing the sets and the props was always amazing. Harry Potter movie sets are like museums. There are tons of things to see and examine if you can.  Each object is meticulously designed or acquired specially. For example you may find a set of mismatching antique plates laid out on the dinner table gotten from some serious shopping in the secondhand shops. Some of these artwork is not even shown in the films or only get half a second glimpses. They had even designed a complete Quidditch World Cup programme. There were sculptures made from thousands of real tea cups and saucers of different shapes, colors and sizes in the Trelawney’s classroom. The book includes reproduction of some these props from the films notably the letter from Hogwarts, World Cup programme and folded Marauders’s map. I really don’t like the films but the film sets and the props are so amazing. The book is a great memento for the films.

Sri Lankan Customs

These are some excerpts from a great old article by a brave journalist from Sri Lanka who ventured into the cave of the thieves.

As I watched the proceedings, my attention was immediately diverted by the outstretched hand of a Customs officer at the counter, who casually took a one hundred rupee note from a clearing agent, before attending to his Customs Declaration. My eyes lit up. I was not too sure whether my eyes were playing tricks on me. As I coolly watched the proceedings at the counter, every single clearing agent was oiling the palm of the Customs officer with a hundred rupee note, which was carefully put away in the officer’s drawer before he paid any attention to the job at hand. I found it hard to believe that such practices were the norm at the Customs. The clearing agents in the queue had fistfuls of 100 rupee notes.

I happened to overhear a telephone conversation in where a high ranking Customs official was making arrangements with a friend to hire a van to transport a Chinese vase, which he had taken as a sample. He went on to explain to his friend, that usually he managed to put all these samples in his car, but the vase was unfortunately too large. Clearing agents told me that a sample, once given to the Customs can never be retrieved, unless an importer demands that it be given back, which then means that the clearing agent has to once again allow money to do the talking.

At the final point of departure, each container is halted for approximately eight minutes, at which point Customs verify the delivery document for the umpteenth time, as to whether the container is carrying the correct consignment. Given the impracticality and the absurdity of the endless questioning, the clearing agent has to bribe the officer, and the eight minutes is spent on negotiating the amount the officer should receive.

A rough estimate done by an industrialist states that Sri Lanka Customs earns Rs.900,000 in total overtime, and “speed money” amounts to another Rs 1,100,000 a day alone, which roughly amounts to five billion rupees a year. Sri Lanka is a nation that is heavily dependent on imports, be it food and clothing or industrial raw materials. This means that every single citizen in this country is paying a price for corruption!

[http://sundaytimes.lk/021222/ft/srilanka.html]

At the gates of hell there is a red channel specially for Sri Lanka Customs officers to walk in straight to eternal damnation.

The Other Side of Dawn

I’ve just finished all seven books in the Tomorrow series by John Marsden. It has been quite an experience reading these books. It feels so real. Like in real life, unlike in films, there are so many deaths of the heroes.  There are so many things going wrong and so many failures one after another. In fact some books are all about things going totally wrong.

Teachings From the Silent Mind

Now we are prone to having blind attachments, aren’t we? For example, say you’re locked up in a foul, stinking prison cell and the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key. All you have to do is take it and put it in the hole there underneath the door handle, turn it to the right, turn the handle, open the door, walk out, and you’re free.’… But you might be so used to being locked up in prison that you didn’t quite understand the directions and you say, ‘Oh, the Lord has given me this key’ – and you hang it on the wall and pray to it every day. It might make your stay in prison a little more happy; you might be able to endure all the hardships and the stench of your foul-smelling cell a little better, but you’re still in the cell because you haven’t understood that it wasn’t the key in itself that was going to save you. Due to lack of intelligence and understanding, you just grasped the key blindly. That’s what happens in all religion: we just grasp the key, to worship it, pray to it … but we don’t actually learn to use it.

So then the next time the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key’, you might be disillusioned and say, ‘I don’t believe any of this. I’ve been praying for years to that key and not a thing has happened! That Buddha is a liar!’ And you take the key and throw it out of the window. That’s the other extreme, isn’t it? But you’re still in the prison cell – so that hasn’t solved the problem either.

Anyway, a few years later the Buddha comes again and says, ‘Here’s the key,’ and this time you’re a little more wise and you recognise the possibility of using it effectively, so you listen a little more closely, do the right thing and get out.

– Cittaviveka, Teachings from the Silent Mind, Ajahn Sumedho

I have read this book some time back. You can read the book in here. You can find other publications in here.