Author: pkb5363

Passion Post #6 – Chintakayala Ravi

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Good things happen to those who are good. Chintakayala Ravi is the perfect example of this. Starring Venky Mama, Chintakayala Ravi, a modest man from a modest middle-class family, is a man who seems to have nothing in his life. After coming to America as a student with the money to pay for his tuition, Chintakayala seems to have lost it somehow, which is what he tells his friends. However, Chintakayala doesn’t tell this fact to his family back in India. Does it work though?

For the while, yes. Chintakayala Ravi convinces his family back at home that he graduated and works for a software company for about 5 years. In reality, he works as a bartender at a bar that seems to have the same name as another software company nearby, which helps convince his parents even more. Chintakayala Ravi therefore leads a difficult life, as he still is trying to redeem his software job or even education to make up for all the time lost. Managing his job and family responsibilities become too difficult for Chintakayala, especially as his younger sister is getting married soon and has to use his money to fund it for the family. He still leads a humble life while being good and helping everyone, which leads to people taking advantage of him. This in turn causes Chintakayala to lose even more money. Eventually, with the little money he has left, he buys the plane ticket back to India to hopefully find a solution there while his sister’s marriage is going on.

Pressures increase however when all his relatives begin asking Chintakayala for help and ask him about the US, as he is the first one in the family, and one of the only ones from the village, to move to America. He somehow manages to keep the secret for time, mainly due to the fact that there’s another software company there. However, the truth finally gets revealed when one of his friends accidentally mentions Chintakayala’s bar. The whole family gets confused and almost upset with Chintakayala, as they assume Chintakayala lost the money, to which Chintakayala doesn’t argue. 

However, suddenly when the marriage is about to get canceled, a millionaire comes to the wedding and tells the family what really happened. When Chintakayala came to America, he saw a man suddenly collapse on the floor while walking out of the airport. After moving him to the hospital and personally staying with him, the doctor requests immediate surgery. After surgery, the man is still unconscious and will be for a while, but someone has to pay the bill. Because no one knew the man, Chintakayala offered to pay for hospital bills with his own tuition money. That man turned out to be a millionaire.

In the end, Chintakayala was offered free education and a guaranteed top management position in the software company that is owned by the millionaire.

Civic Blog #3 – Refugees Who Go Back

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What if the country where refugees came from gained political and/or economic stability? What if the country where the refugee had gone to for safety turned out to give the refugee a worse situation than before? What if the refugee wants to go back to their country for whatever reason? The process is actually much more complicated than expected, and is also heavily frowned upon depending on which country the refugees are in or even coming from. Wanting to go back to a native country may not even be possible once you are a refugee, as the legal process may bind you to certain restrictions.

For starters, there are many factors that should be considered when refugees want to return to their own country. One of the main factors is transportation. How will these refugees return to their country of origin? Many refugees leave their home country via some military transport that is constantly going from the endangered country to the country of safety. The chances of the safe country to provide military transport from the safe country to a previously endangered country, especially if that country does not have any more refugee camps, is very slim. As a refugee, it also may be unlikely that the person or family has significant funds to buy a commercial plane ticket to their country of origin. Therefore, refugees usually need the support of some service organization to return. In certain countries like India, the refugees sometimes have no way to return back to their country, which causes them to be stuck in the country.

Another major factor is the refugee’s use of resources in the country they originally went to. When a refugee goes to a country and even stays there for a while (but maybe not long enough to go from refugee to citizen status), the country may have used a significant amount of resources on helping the refugee settle. Many countries may strip away the refugees of their resources upon the refugee returning to their country. However, the revocation of the resources can provide a difficult situation for refugees returning, as they may not have significant funds to begin their life again, especially if their old home and living conditions got destroyed when the country was in danger.

Sometimes, a refugee may not be able to return home due to immigration services not allowing them to return, for various reasons such as resource or other legal reasons. Sometimes, it is considered the refugee’s right to go back to their country in some areas, but others may not consider it as they personally invited the refugee to stay at the country’s expense. Sometimes, the refugee when returning home may not be in the complete state to find their home or job. If many refugees return to the same area, that may have gotten destroyed, then there could be fights and arguments ensued for who owns what. Therefore, sometimes a country or service organization may have to provide some sort of legal attorney or backing when it comes to certain preventions or solutions to the fights. 

At times, the refugees may not legally return, as the country they want to return to is not deemed as safe for the refugee to return to. This is actually a large problem that many refugees face. Especially in Ukraine in recent times, many initial refugees want to return to Ukraine for various reasons: family, to help fight, and more. Though a lot of countries are permissive, many are not due to various tie-ups in the legal system or refugee process. Once again, the refugees might need some sort of legal protection when it comes to returning to their country of origin if that country is still considered ‘endangered.’ For countries considered endangered, some refugees may even want to just visit their home country for whatever reason. Lots of service organizations and countries may provide such visits, but once again, it requires some legal backing for the refugee to complete this.

To summarize, the refugees once again need a lot of help when it comes to returning to their country, for better or for worse. Though many countries and service organizations are working to better find solutions for this problem, awareness should be spread on this issue.

 

References: https://www.unhcr.org/returnees.html#:~:text=For%20many%20of%20the%20millions,millions%20of%20displaced%20people%20home.

Passion Post #5 – Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi

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Sometimes, everyone just needs a break in life, especially when you fail in something. Instead of immediately trying again, you need that break to sort of regain your thoughts and reflect, which in turn will most likely help you in the long run when you try again. That is what the movie Ee Nagaraniki Emaindhi tries to show.

Watch Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi | Prime Video

Starring Vishwak Sen, Abhinav Gomatam, Venkatesh Kakamanu, and Srinivas Voletey as the protagonists, Ee Nagaraniki Emaindhi is a movie about a group of friends who had to separate themselves from each other due to unfortunate circumstances. Initially after college, the group of friends made a short film in hopes that they would enter the film industry. However, the short film fails as one of the actresses they casted suddenly runs away. With the group in despair, especially Vishwak Sen, they immediately try to complete another short film. However, that short film fails even worse, leading to a great loss of money and embarrassment with their families. As fights ensue with the friend group, they decide to separate and live on their own, leaving all the good memories with each other behind.

After a series of events after years the friend group somehow meet each other and decide to catch up at a bar. There, Vishwak Sen, who was initially the most hesitant about the movie, brings up the short film again. They collectively decide to do a short film together and submit it to a film festival. However, midway through the shooting of the short film they somehow fail again. This time, they decide to instead wait for the next film festival to take a break and properly plan the next short film without getting too emotionally involved so that they don’t end up like last time. They take a vacation where they have fun and try to get inspiration for their next short film.

Eventually, they decide to remake the first short film they ever tried making, as they were the most collaborative during that time and the only reason they didn’t complete it was due to the girl leaving. After casting a friend from college as the actress, they go through the shooting. Though some parts of the shooting got difficult, they managed to pull through and even get ranked in the film festival. The friend group enters into the film industry successfully, and they even have the opportunity to sign a deal with one of the top actors, Vijay Devarakonda. In the end, the movie shows a message to have patience and just simply take a break in life.

Passion Post #4 – Mr. Perfect

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Sometimes, it’s important to stay humble in life no matter how high you go. If you forget to be modest when you become successful, your own success might bring you back down. That’s what happened to Prabhas in Mr. Perfect, a 2011 telugu film.

In the movie Mr. Perfect, Prabhas came from a very humble background in a small village, where his father had barely enough money for basic necessities for him and Prabhas. One day as a child, Prabhas was playing with some kids when suddenly, an older classmate bullied Prabhas. The bully told Prabhas that he was allowed to do that to him because he was richer, which made Prabhas angry but also lit a spark in him. Prabhas thought that the only way to do what he wanted was to become powerful and get rich, which is what he sought out to do.

Prabhas then worked hard for the next several years to land a high paying job in Australia, where he leaves his family and friends to work and earn money. After Prabhas works there for some time, earning much money and status along the way, he gets an invitation from his father to attend a festival event in his village in India. Though initially reluctant, Prabhas agrees to go for the sake of his father, where Prabhas agrees to stay for only 3 days. Once Prabhas reached there however, Prabhas was always on his laptop doing work, not going out and celebrating in the village. Though Prabhas and his father somewhat bonded on the last day, Prabhas still leaves immediately after those 3 days.

Back in Australia, Prabhas gets the chance to get a top managing position in his company. To confirm his position, Prabhas has to attend another 3 day event of his boss (who he’s never actually met before)’s festival event. Prabhas immediately goes without hesitation. At the event, everything seems to be going there. However, the boss reveals in the end that Prabhas won’t be getting that managing position because of his character towards his father and village. It turns out that Prabhas’s father and his boss came from the same village and were good friends. Prabhas’s father also had the opportunity to go to Australia and work in the same company when Prabhas was a child, but chose not to for the sake of the village. Prabhas then realizes his mistake of forgetting the people he loved and tries to fix it. I will leave you guys to watch the movie to see how he tries to fix the issue and if it works in the end.

Civic Post #2 – Citizenship Process for Refugees

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From the time of colonization, the path to citizenship has been a process that many people have gone through and perhaps even dread. As the years went by, the path became easy at times, giving citizenship somewhat easily, and difficult at times, taking perhaps a generation to gain naturalization. The situation as refugees are no less different, as sometimes naturalization for refugees can happen somewhat easily but also extremely difficult at times. Even as a refugee, citizenship is not guaranteed, as there is a whole another process to go through. In fact, it may even be harder as a refugee to gain citizenship, as the government may not see the benefit of granting citizenship to the refugee. Depending on the country, especially if it is a third world country or first world developed country, the difficulty for refugees gaining citizenship varies a lot.

There are many factors that have to be considered when granting citizenship to a refugee. For example, a government has to see whether or not a refugee has proper means to start a new life in a certain country. If the refugee is granted citizenship, what will they do next? How long should they be receiving benefits after citizenship has been granted if they are not in the complete state to go work or receive proper education. In countries such as America, refugees may have proper facilities to get the proper education or work training to participate in before citizenship is granted. Third World countries may not have those facilities to carry out the work. What if the country that refugees sought protection from gained political well-being before naturalization can take place? In that case do the refugees have to return to their home country or are they allowed to stay if they already have received proper training?

As said before, each country has their own set of rules and regulations when it comes to granting citizenship to refugees. In America, refugees automatically have the same natural rights that citizens have. They may apply for different forms to grant them work, education, bringing of other family members, etc. However, the refugees are required to apply for the Permanent Resident Card, otherwise known as the Green Card, 1 year after staying in the US. The Permanent Resident Card allows a person to permanently work in the US. This alleviates the worry of getting sent out of the country suddenly as your life is progressing in another country. However, applying is different from actually receiving. As a regular immigrant, gaining the Green Card is very difficult, as it is this process that takes years to come. From personal experience with people around me, there are people who have been in the country for longer than I was born and still haven’t received the green card. For refugees, there are mixed views on whether or not it is easier to receive the green card. Generally, people accept that it is easier for the refugees to receive a green card as it is a country’s duty to accept the people as their own citizens. However, I have also known refugees who were not actually able to receive the green card and even left the country. After a green card is received, it is generally an easy process to apply and receive citizenship. Most generally, the refugees must try to find work before applying for the green card.

In third world countries, the process is generally very different and varies greatly country to country. For example, in India there is actually no strong legislative work regarding the refugee to citizenship process. Currently, there are rules that are starting to be processed and implemented regarding citizenship. The only rule that is more strictly enforced is that refugees must remain in India for 5 years before citizenship. Other third world countries may have processes where the refugees may immediately become citizens and get jobs. Refugees may become citizens if they have known people, or sponsors, in the country they entered. Some refugees can only go through citizenship if they have proper education in the country. Regardless, there are lots of arguments regarding whether or not the refugees should have an easier or harder process when getting citizenship. Therefore, it is important to analyze the living status of refugees and help them gain the new life they deserve without harming the government.

 

References:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/brochures/USCIS_Welcomes_Refugees_and_Asylees.pdf

 

Passion Post #3 – Rangasthalam

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Is it really true that anyone can do anything? We have seen special cases of common people rising to the top in their careers or social life. We have also seen many people who try to rise to the top but end up falling even farther than what they were originally at. The movie Rangasthalam shows both sides of a failure and a winner.

Rangasthalam, starring Ram Charan, is a movie about a village in the 1980’s that is ruled by a corrupt and dangerous person. This leader, known as the sarpanch, is someone who uses violence to get what he needs. Initially, the sarpanch was a nobody who no one even cared about. After seeing the power of violence, the sarpanch rose to power in such a way that ensured no one else would contest against him in upcoming elections. After many years of ruling, another common man, named Kumar, decides to run against the sarpanch in hopes of change. As a common man with good morals, Kumar gains support of the villagers quickly. However, as the story progresses and tensions rise, Kumar mysteriously dies.

However, this story’s protagonist isn’t Kumar. It is Kumar’s brother, Chittibabu, played by Ram Charan. Chittibabu is a very simple man who doesn’t know much about anything going on. However, when Chittibabu’s brother dies, Chittibabu does everything he can to seek revenge. Because Chittibabu is considered lower than the common man, it becomes very difficult for him to even know where to start. Many of the villagers hint that it must have been the sarpanch that killed Kumar and Chittibabu should just leave it. Adamant to seek revenge, Chittibabu goes to a higher official, who everyone respects, which the sarpanch works under. However, Chittibabu discovers a shocking truth about this higher official and sarpanch, leading Chittibabu to carefully plan his attack. The way Chittibabu does it is very interesting, so I’ll leave you to watch it.

Though this isn’t necessarily a story about a common man rising to power through a means of intelligence and hard work, it shows how life is sometimes. There will always be people rising and falling. In a sense, the sarpanch, Kumar, and Chittibabu have broken out from their cage and gone above. However, Kumar, who is deemed as the one who deserves to be at the top, ends up being the one who falls in the end. Therefore, this story puts out an interesting point: good vs bad and its effects on rising in life.

Passion Post #2 – Duvvada Jagannadham

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Have you ever lied to a loved one for a good cause? Whether it was a white lie or lying to protect them, a lie may always cause trust between two people to be harmed. One such movie, Duvvada Jagannadham, shows the comedic but message-oriented way of what lying to loved ones, even for a good cause, can do.

DJ tells the story of a Hindu priest named Duvvada Jagannadham. As a Hindu priest, DJ is a very orthodox person who does not even say bad words or things to other people. He always has to be good-natured and be the man of God. However, DJ once saw an innocent person get beat up for something they did not do. DJ then had no choice but to fight the bad people. Once DJ’s father found out that his orthodox son had gotten into a fight, he immediately made DJ take an oath to never fight someone again. This oath was in the form of a bracelet that was tied to DJ, which DJ may never untie. As time went on and age progressed, DJ witnessed many wrongdoings in his town. The pinnacle of these events included a child being beaten up by a gang of men. Frustrated that he was not able to do anything, DJ questioned God why he wasn’t allowed to do the right thing. Then, out of circumstance, the bracelet got caught onto another person’s clothing and fell right off. DJ, noticing this was a sign, decided to do the right thing and fight, as it wasn’t DJ who took off the bracelet.

Realizing that DJ has been given an opportunity to do the right thing, DJ and his friends decided to help the town out, as his friends would take the bracelet off when DJ’s father wasn’t around. When the bracelet was off, DJ would then take advantage and fight all the wrong people in the town. DJ keeps this a secret to everyone but his friends so that his father doesn’t find out and the bad guys don’t know DJ’s secret. This trend continues until the main villain, to whom DJ has been causing a lot of trouble to, finds out DJ’s secret. Through a series of plans made by the villain, DJ is forced to reveal his secret to his father. The rest of the story is for the audience to watch. This story therefore is a really good lesson of the importance of how keeping secrets and lying, even for a good cause, may cause harm in the end.

Refugees in Third World Countries

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Refugees have been a major part of our world, as many people have to leave the harshness of their countries to another country that will give them freedom and the opportunity to pursue their dreams for the better of themselves and their families. Many of these refugees have aspirations to go to areas like the US and Europe to live their dreams. However, sometimes these refugees don’t have the facilities, or even luck, to go to first-world countries. Sometimes, to escape immediate persecution, the refugees have no choice but to go to third-world countries. Sometimes that sudden threat gives the refugees no choice but to go to a country that will not persecute them for who they are, at least not the government. One such country is India, where aside from the threat of violence or being killed, all sorts of persecution may still occur.

Personally, I have witnessed people persecuting some of the refugees in India due to many reasons. For example, the refugees of Rohingya have come to India due to persecution for being Muslims in Myanmar. In India, many jobs and standard education are not given to these refugees. People isolate the refugees in slums and give them little to no economic opportunity to grow. In India, there are also no strong legislative acts that protect the rights of refugees. There are no strong legislative acts that permit the refugees from getting immigration documents and becoming working citizens of the country. Even refugees who were initially Indian also have faced persecution from the government and people. For example, the Sri Lankan refugees in the 1980s were technically from a part of India. These refugees faced persecution from the Sri Lankan government. However, India aided Sri Lanka in persecuting these refugees, which showed the refugees that they were not necessarily wanted even though they were able to become refugees of India.

Not only India, but many other non-Western countries have had similar experiences with the refugees. For example, some areas in the Middle East that take up refugees seeking economic opportunity trick the refugees. Some areas trap them into working for certain groups for a certain amount of time while taking rent, where they won’t end up having enough money to pay the rent and in the end keep on working for them. Some of the refugees are even tricked into forced labor, making conditions worse than what it was from the original country they were in. However, when certain emergency situations occur, such as the Afghanistan crisis that occurred recently, the people fleeing do not see the horrors of other countries as they want to escape the most immediate ones.

There is also another side to this argument, as some people say that the refugees may also not be completely innocent in their workings. For example, the definition of a refugee shows that one can be classified as a refugee when they have a threat to life, but not necessarily economic opportunity. Some people, who still have a threat to their lives, don’t necessarily face the same danger in economic situations. To be more specific, they have the opportunity of moving to another safer country but have the risk of going through too much documentation and spending a lot of money for their safety. Rather, the people classifying as refugees may come to a country in the name of refugee protection but still have the same economic status and opportunity to grow. To certain Western countries, this is not a great concern as the economic status of these Western countries are well above average. To third World countries however, their economic status is not the greatest. They may or may not have facilities to help their own citizens, so to see refugees come with a greater economic status than the citizens itself can demotivate the government especially when the refugees aren’t contributing to the economic status of the country. At the same time, many of the refugees come to the countries illegally without documentation, which is a huge problem even in the Western countries. Some people that I have talked to even stated that in the case of India, many of the refugees such as the Rohingya have not received jobs or education due to them being illegal and not having the proper documentation they need as a refugee. 

Therefore, the idea of refugees must be considered on the international level because the threat to safety is not something that should occur. We should work towards an international goal to provide countries with the correct facilities to help the people leave danger.

 

References:

https://www.ilo.org/beirut/media-centre/news/WCMS_211162/lang–en/index.htm

https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/refugee-crisis-in-india

 

Passion Post #1 – Waltair Veeraya

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Known enemies are better than unknown friends. Sometimes it is hard to understand this statement and implement this phrase into our own lives, as it is much easier to trust those who are nice to us as opposed to those who aren’t. However, this statement is best exemplified by the recent telugu movie Waltair Veeraya, starring Chiranjavee and Ravi Teja.

 

 

Waltair Veeraya is a story about a local gang lord named Waltair Veeraya, who is a part time fisherman, and his fight to stop a large-scale drug lord. As a local gang lord, Veeraya doesn’t indulge in morally wrong acts, as he does not commit murders or life-threatening crimes. In fact, the people of Veeraya’s town even consider Veeraya as their own police officer rather than a bad gang person. However, problems start to occur when an actual police officer, Vikram Sagar, comes to Veeraya’s town on the note that there was drug smuggling going on.

Vikram Sagar and Waltair Veeraya are step-brothers who never got along from the start. The fact that Vikram became a police officer while Veeraya became a gang leader didn’t help their relationship get any better. Because of this, Sagar doesn’t fear Veeraya and his influence when investigating the drug case in Veeraya’s area. However, Sagar also doesn’t suspect Veeraya as the main crime lord, as he knows Veeraya’s morals and knows he won’t stoop to such a level. What both Veeraya and Vikram don’t know is that the problem is due to Veeraya’s right hand man. Due to the enmity between Veeraya and Vikram, Veeraya gets distracted and doesn’t suspect his own members of the gang, as Veeraya tries to mess with Vikram the whole time with regarding the drug problem. This ultimately caused many losses on both Veeraya’s and Vikram’s side. By disregarding the problem, the main drug lord rose to power and brought down Vikram and his police force. After all the great problems caused, Veeraya realizes his mistake and tries to take down the now international drug lord.

This movie shows an underlying principle of how important trust is. The movie shows how trust doesn’t have to be with someone who you get along with. That trust can prove to be very beneficial when you come across situations, not necessarily on the same level as drug problems, that require careful confidence in trustworthy people. Just like in the case of the movie, sometimes people who may be nice to you may not be nice to you for the sake of good friendship, as the people might just be trying to use you. That is why I believe this movie embodies that idea very well, and I encourage you all to watch this movie.

Extra Credit #2 – Nov 1. The Future of Democracy and the Humanities in an Age of Catastrophes

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  1. Nov 1.The Future of Democracy and the Humanities in an Age of Catastrophes

 

The talk by Ira J. Allen, Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Northern Arizona University, and Nathan Crick, Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University, were about the track that democracy is heading, especially while connecting the recent PA elections and what these connections could mean for the future of democracy. This talk not only talked about the broad aspect in how democracy is continuing to change, in good and bad ways, but also talked about how there can be simple solutions to making the democracy better and in turn turning society into a better place.

The talk had basically baselined that many negative events that are happening today, such as the Proud Boys event that was initially supposed to happen, are all due to the democracy that we are currently living in. Dr. Allen stated that we vote for the people who choose to express ideals that are not beneficial to society. We vote for the people who choose to pass or enforce the laws that can be or not be beneficial to society. Therefore, a major solution to ensure that we can keep or change society for the better is to in fact participate in democracy. It is our civic duty to choose the correct leaders as we are trusting them to better society. However, the speakers mentioned that we cannot simply sit idle just because we chose a bad leader and allow bad things to happen in society. Therefore, the speakers mention the power of mass movements and protest. Dr. Crick talks about how there are different forms of protest, such as nihilism, which is one who does not believe in what exists, or revolt, which is the physical protest against an overwhelming ideology or such.

When considering the forms of protest, Dr. Crick mentions how we have to be careful when countering an argument. It is important to not be like or worse than the opponent when being the protestor, as the counter protest should be something meaningful in expressing the counter-ideology. As countering is a democracy in itself, as we are allowed to choose the ways we protest, it is important to consider the factors and consequences of the revolt in place to express our ideology and hope for change.

Overall, the talk was very informative and thought provoking, as the ideas that are mentioned in the talk make us really consider the freedom of thought and action. The original ideas and own research by the professors help us take on the new aspect in consideration of democracy. The arrangement of the talk was almost that of a story, bringing the main problem directly and slowly easing into the solutions to modern problems. Finally, the delivery was outstanding as every sentence had a distinct tone of voice to invoke a meaning for the audience. For example, when talking about the main problem of the track of democracy, the talk was presented in a loud profound voice to show how this is a real problem that we have to consider. By attending this talk, I was able to really consider my place in democracy and broaden my ideals when considering the power to vote.