Suicides and Sivakasi

The public mind is always manipulated, either intentionally or as a kind of unintended side-effect. We see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe. When new light is thrown which suggests something contrary to our long-held beliefs and dogma, we suffer from cognitive dissonance. I'm no exception to the rule, but the important thing is having diagnosed it, i can work towards minimizing and ultimately eliminating the dissonance.

The first case in point is the issue of the merits(?) of what is now called as globalization in general and farmers' suicides in particular. Senthil has done a good job of putting it in perspective here, so i won't attempt to reiterate the obvious.

Secondly, there is this phenomenon which seems to have gripped the collective mass consciousness of the TN youth, elite, urban or rural. I'm talking about the Vijay-mania and the unbelievable praise heaped on his latest offering Sivakasi*. I suspect it has something to do with the mentality which (assuming a superior grasp of economics) assumes that the market is the ultimate god and whatever it decides is necessarily for the good. What can i say???.....
Like the line goes in Kurudhippunal, "I feel i'm on the losing side".......

Update: [How did i forget to include THIS?????]
Taken from Sify:

Vijay’s Sivakasi, in spite of heavy rains crackled the most at the Tamilnadu box-office. It took a 100 percent opening in the first three days all over. At Kolathur Ganga theatre, a suburb of Chennai the film grossed an amazing Rs 7.26 Lakhs on Diwali day!

Now, take out your calculators [dunno about you but i'm not very good at math]. Taking into consideration factors such as # of seats, price per ticket @ the counter [not in black], and # of shows, which dumbass would believe the aforementioned statement? Well, he did!
As a preemptive defence, i will refuse to eat my hat if i'm proved wrong, subsequently. Amaam, solliptaen!


* He has been touted as the next Super Star. There are two schools of thoughts on this. One says he can never be the Super Star simply because he can never match the SS trying to do the stuff which made the original a SS in the first place. The other says that he is slowly but surely getting "there", and he is matching SS in what he does. To me, this sounds like the Republicans and the Democrats fighting over who would have done a better job of the genocide at Iraq. By the way, never mind the third school, of which i'm a member. Nobody is listening :)