Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu

Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu

Director: Srikanth Addala

  Seethamma Vakitlo stars Mahesh Babu, Venkatesh, Prakash Raj, Anjali, Samantha




Seethamma Vakitlo talks about the bro-mance between two brothers.   It was not your average typical Telugu Movie as Mahesh Babu ( Chinnodu) and Venkatesh (Pedhodhu) do not do any fighting except threatening to throw a punch or  kicking plant pots; instead, it was about how the parents of the two want to fix Pedhodu's marriage with Anjali (Seetha) . While Seetha is all for the marriage Pedhodu feels indifferent towards her and treats her like a servant; even Chinnodu treats her poorly. The brothers were rowdy and did not have jobs because they did not want to change their attitudes towards work and towards life which takes its toll  on the women because they were doing all the work. Every word coming out of the womens's mouth was that they have this chore to do that chore to do or they were comforting the men .   Seetha leaves her house and her parents to serve her fiance's family until she and Venkatesh are of marriage-able age. The movie establishes virtue in traditional roles of women .Even  Samantha and her friends were treated to a lecture about the importance of braided hair and flowers in the hair.
        There was no actual plot in this movie , just some problems within an Indian family and of usual dilemnas concerning marriage.  But this is not really the problem that should be addressed  of Telugu cinema or in any other Indian cinema.  The problem is with attitudes towards women in the cinema. Women in Telugu cinema have no intellectual role.  They do not make any important decisions they are constantly pushed into domestic roles which only include taking care of husband and children.  What annoys me further is that in a typical Telugu movie  while the actors know Telugu  the actresses are not from Andhra but are North Indians with a pretty face and body.  I would not mind if the  North Indian woman who can speak Telugu fluently but the pattern holds for any movie you watch. It is a pity that
  1)  Tollywood does not think that actual Telugu speaking women are pretty and do not have them act.
  2)  Telugu superstars think only their sons have a right to this legacy and discourage their daughters from acting, as stated by Lakshmi Manchu.  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-05/news-interviews/30592741_1_mani-ratnam-film-film-industry-three-films
The acting was very colorful in the movie and the characters were hilarious.  Although there should have been some series of events which change the character's personality slowly instead we have one personality altering event 

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Biff Loman -- "Death Of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller

            Biff  is the brother of Happy and the older son of Willy and Linda Loman. Biff and Happy had always looked up Willy and Biff had been especially close to his father.    Biff is so devoted to following his father’s dreams he never bothers to think for himself and find out what he wants to do with his life.  In fact, as the play reveals flashbacks of Biff’s youth, it is hard to figure out where Willy ends and where Biff begins.  They seem to be two halves of the whole.  Later in Biff’s life, something goes terribly wrong in his relationship with his father.  The play through a series of flashbacks traces the decline of this relationship. 

                        At the beginning of the play, when Biff is 34 years old, he and his mother would have quarrels about his father with Biff getting annoyed with his father and yelling at him and his mother defending his father saying that Willy would think about nothing but the happiness and interests of both him and Happy.  There is a certain tension between the older man and Biff. Willy is unhappy that Biff has not settled down even at 34. Biff admits to being mixed up. He tells his brother, “I tell ya, Hap, I don’t know what the future is.  I don’t know-- what I’m supposed to want”.  (Act I)  He confesses that he liked working on a farm and in the great open spaces, but then he thinks to himself “And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not getting anywhere!  What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week!...everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my time.” (Act I) 

            Initially, it seems as though Biff does not care for an aging man who seems to be unappreciated at work and is suffering emotional and physical trauma.  The climax of the play occurs in the scene when Biff finds out about his father’s infidelity.  Willy had affairs in his travels unbeknownst to his wife because he was lonely and he thought nobody appreciated the “work” that he did for his company.  At that point, Biff cannot rely on his father’s judgment or perception of life.  Even though Biff and Happy looked up to their father, Willy never was able to instill the right kind of morals and decencies that children should be able to understand and told them that the ends justify the means Despite the fights with Biff and his father, Biff never tells his mother the affairs his father has at work. Biff, like Willy, has been known to resort to theft such as stealing footballs from coaches or steal lumber from the construction yard at the instigation of his father.  But when he realizes that Willy betrayed his wife, he loses his confidence.  He becomes a thief and he does jail time.  “I stole myself out of every good job since high school”, he informs his father (Act II).  At the end of the play, Biff comes to terms with himself.  “I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!” (Act II) he tells his father.  There are no great dreams to chase, and he realizes he doesn’t even have to be liked.  “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” he pleads with his father.  In a way, he does get through to Willy and perhaps Willy unburdens himself of the guilt of betrayal by crashing his car so Biff could have the insurance money. 

Thoughts on William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

                Jack Merridew represents anarchy, which leads to regression in society.  Jack doesn’t believe in the fire, the conch or providing shelter for the rest of the tribe.  Life on the island with Jack is more chaotic than peaceful because Jack doesn’t put the greater good before himself.  For example, he turns the majority of his tribe into savage hunting lunatics. He also represents narrow mindedness and ignorance based on how he regresses to a frenzied state, causing the rest of the tribe to mistake Simon for the beast.  He also represents egoism; he is worried about himself and what will bring him happiness, and gets angry when people, that is Piggy, Simon, Ralph and the littluns try to get in Jack’s way. He also represents a cold cruel type of person, for  he fuels people’s insecurities, thus bringing out the evil in most of the tribe members.             

                   Ralph represents both utilitarianism and democracy. He works to promote the common good in society. This is how he seems to come up with good ideas, one of them being the conch.  The blowing of the conch heralds a public meeting.  Once the meeting is called, only the person holding the conch has a right to speak.  The conch is passed on to others so that everyone gets a chance to speak.  Another one of his ideas was to start a fire which was to alert a ship or a plane to come rescue Ralph and his tribe. Ralph, unlike Jack, listens to other people’s advice like Piggy’s, as to how to handle the members of his tribe.  Ralph also represents true leadership and he takes an active role in the protection of the tribe. The rescue of Ralph signifies hope for society.  His weeping for innocence at the end of the novel is a reminder to us that evil exists in all men and that man needs to admit his faults and try to improve himself.  

Santa Claus Religion

I was going to the piano class with my mom on Friday, June 4 and I saw a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike that said "When you die you will meet God".

I wondered where atheists would go when they died. So then I came to the realization that this idea of religion is a macrocosm of the Santa Claus world. Here's how the Santa Claus philosophy works. If you are a good boy/girl during the year you get presents, if you are a bad girl/boy during the year you get a lump of coal.

Now for religion it is the same thing on a larger scale and the so called "expectancies" of behavior are for a lifetime instead of one year individually. For example, Hindu philosophy believes your caste is determined by how well you live in the last life. If you were a noble person you would move up to the next caste towards the top in the next life and continue the path of nobility.

However, if you are a selfish and put yourself before others, you will be put into the next caste toward the bottom in the next life and the cycle will continue that path. Christianity's philosophy is if you live your life to the fullest and obey the law or be a life saver you will go to heaven and live with the angels. But if you are a mad mass murderer , terrorist, or even so much as a common thief you rot in hellfire and spend an eternity with the devil.

During Christmas, kids go to shops with an adult dressed as Santa Claus an the kid would pay money to sit on the Santa's lap and say, "I want a Barbie doll/water gun for Christmas". The church for Christians, the mosque for Muslims and the synagogue for Jews are people's religious shopping centers and adults will go there and pay money to honor their respective gods and beg for their wishes to be granted.