Open Letter to Linkin Park

Dear Linkin Park,

I can't believe I haven't done this before. After being a fan of your work for years, this is the first time that I am writing to you. Honestly though, I probably wouldn't be writing to you today either, had it not been for your latest exploit, your fourth studio album.

I must have been in school, when I first heard In the end...that iconoclast of a song which completely blew me away. Never could I have imagined that the cocktail of rap and rock would be so potent as to give me a high lasting many many years. The music and the style was fresh, no doubt and the presentation too was way ahead of its time. Nu metal was what they called it. I was hooked. But if I had to choose one thing that really bound me to you, I'd have to pick the lyrics.

You seemed to capture my emotions better than me. Growing up is never an easy time. In fact, it's overwhelming. Your songs gave words to feelings I knew had, but could never express. My boyhood angst, my teenage frustrations, my tribulations as a young adult...all seemed to find company in your songs. Not one or two, but each and every song of your first two albums. Numb, Breaking the habit, By myself...the list just goes on.

With your third album, you chose to highlight the folly of our ways and remind us of the impending doom they are almost certain to produce. Honestly, it had none of the elements which attracted me to your music in the first place. You were talking about issues that were affecting people all over the world, while your earlier songs focused more on the individual. A daring change, yes, but I was afraid I was losing my connection with you. It was as if in the three years you took to come up with this album, you had grown up and matured, while I was still stuck in that turbulent phase from where we had started together. However, nothing could have prepared me for what was to come next.

A thousand suns takes the doomsday theme a step, no, make that a thousand steps further. If Minutes to Midnight took off on a tangent from your earlier works, this one reaches a different plane altogether. The overall feel of this album is dark and profound...even scary at some places. Few others would have attempted to capture the ethos of a post apocalyptic earth, let alone do it beautifully. And when you end the album with words like "Love, keeps us kind", it puts in perspective the message one needs to take away from the album. Brilliant.

You do know that after Meteora, you could have continued making nu metal albums. The fans and the critics wouldn't have minded. You could have made a ton of money and sailed into the sunset a few years later. But you chose to keep evolving your music and the messages it conveys. You dared, and thus, are winners. So here's to change then, may you continue blurring genres and may your work always give me enough food for thought. Cheers!

Anirudh.

Robot - Learnings from the movie

How does one build an andro-humanoid robot (AHR)? This question had been bothering me for quite some time now. So, to get in-depth knowledge of this tedious process, I decided to watch a documentary on the same subject, very aptly titled "Robot". I was told that the robot in this documentary was modelled on Superstar Rajnikanth which added to my eagerness to watch it. As expected, the experience was vastly rewarding and I am compelled, nay, honoured to share my learnings with you.

1. When working on the building of an AHR, do not shave. You will save a lot of time and by the end, you will look like a tapasvi from the good old days. Thus establishing the connection between modern day research and centuries old tapasya in one fell swoop.

2. Order the water/fire/insect resistant parts for your robot from your local hardware store only. Not only do you get to reduce the carbon footprint of the project, but unboxing the stuff will actually give your assistants some real work to do.

3. When using your AHR to drive your car, always ask it to follow your instructions. It doesn't matter whether you've programmed a 'driving module' into its memory or not.

4. At any demonstration, people will ask your robot random-ass questions like Fibonacci numbers, prime numbers, existence of God etc. It is best if you can prepare it for them.

5. Most importantly, remember you are the BOSS (pun intended) so whenever the workload gets too hectic, take a break and sing a song with your ladylove. It is essential that this activity be carried out in an exotic foreign location.

6. These robots are great for cheating at exams, and so can be used to further the cause of education in the country.

7. Street gangs in Chennai do have foreign recruits these days. Prepare your AHR accordingly in case he has to face them in a hand to hand combat situation. It is also important to install heavy duty castors in its feet for any emergency train chases.

8. It's probably best if you don't get influenced by the criticism from your old thesis advisor. It's likely that he's pissed at you for not wishing him on teachers day.

9. Even if you do listen to him, please do not program emotions or 'reverse map' hormones into your AHR. This is for your own safety. More so, if you happen to have a super hot girlfriend.

10. Do not skimp on a good 'mosquito mode' for your AHR. This will allow it to communicate with those miniature vampires when the need arises.

11. When using your AHR for destructive purposes like suicide bombings etc., it is best to dress it up in loud clothes and garish hairstyles. Subtlety only applies to human terrorists.

12. Sing another song. You might want to use a lot of CGI this time.

13. If, for some reason, you have to destroy your AHR, chop it up into little pieces and dispose the pieces in your regular trashcan. You might also realize the importance of point # 2 at this juncture.

13. In case of a malfunctioning AHR, check its batteries. In case your AHR starts behaving like a dark overlord hell bent on destroying everything, he may have been hacked. You might want to search him for malicious, red coloured chips.

14. Before we forget, sing another song. Probably in Machu-Pichu.

15. In the end, you're going to realize that the AHR you created is too smart for the world's good, and you are going to want to dismantle it for good. At this point, you should probably ask yourself why you created it in the first place, and whether or not formatting its hard drive would have been a better option.

16. When you do get the answer, please let me know.

On a more serious note, the movie Robot does touch upon some very pertinent issues related to human-machine relationships of the future, especially in the first half. Absolutely comparable in its execution to any damn Hollywood movie of a similar nature. Where it chooses to display its Kollywood legacy, is in the second half ,thereby making it a tad too long and melodramatic for my liking. Nonetheless, it redeems some of its lost ground with a fantastic climax. It'd also have been great had the makers set the movie in a more futuristic Chennai city instead of the present  day, you know, just to add that extra bit of fiction to all the science.

Oh and if you do watch this movie after reading till this point, pliss to tell me whether or not they misspelled 'neural' in one of the opening scenes where Rajnikanth is shown programming his robot...