Ratatouille - A riotous combo....

Hare and tortoise, Golden goose, Ugly duckling how many moral stories have we read from our childhood but we seem to have forgotten the message. For those of you who are gluttonous for money, power fame and fortune get to the theatres to see your blind spot. Pixar has become the Grandmother of the world coming up with wonderful Moral stories for adults and children. A must watch for all adults and the child in them.

Ratatouille is a movie for adults who've forgotten how to live it right and finish it happy.
A rat's (Remy)strong sense of smell changes the course of his life. His ideas of becoming a chef were opposed by his family and friends, but isn't that the case with many of us? But unlike us, he decides to risk and part way with his clan to live his passion. He now abhors thieving food from homes and living out of garbage cans and sewerlines. Destiny brings him to the world above the sewer lines and leads him to his guru Gusteau's restaurant in Paris.

Remy and Linguini (garbage cleaner) at the crossroads of life meet each other at Gusteau's restaurant. Survival is a problem for Linguini, while living passion is the mantra for the little rodent Remy. This explains why some people make it to the top unnoticed and stay there forever, and why people stay at the bottom, feed on crumbs and complain life is unfair.

The friendship with the garbage cleaner at the restaurant brings about a change in both their lives and to A cooking fiasco brings Linguini to the limelight and the friendship chord with the Remy makes the rest of the story move without much effort. It is tough to maintain balance when one has it all. Linguini and the rat go through typical struggles of life, love, power, and ego. But they soon realize it is honesty and humbleness that matters in the long run while recognition, fame and fortune follows. Villians like Anton Ego they get killed by their own action - what goes around comes around.

The movie ends with the dah!! moment. The rodent and Linguini has it all in the end. The formula is simple "It all comes to you when you live your dream without any pretense and arrogance."

1. The magic in the simple script and lessons through the little rodent attracts more adults than kids to the cinema hall.
2. Life is all about living your passion even if it means parting ways with your family and friends. When you are sucessful people will come back to you.
3. Values in life ensure sucess in the long run.
4. The constant struggle between the ego and alter ego makes the movie earthy and interesting. We all have such struggles in our life,
but we seldom listen to the inner voice.
5. Villians get taken care by their own action - what goes around comes around.
6. There is no shortcut to sucess. Honesty, hard work, and humbleness is the formula for lasting sucess.
8. Tough times and tough people don't last forever.
7. Anyone can cook - Life is simple and it is easy to get what you want provided you listen to your heart.
9. Life is all about receipes and flavors- the one with prejudice misses the flavor of life.

Did someone say Angels take themselves lightly and hence they fly?

Never Insult Rats again - They are better than Humans

Have you watched the movie Ratatouille? You just can discount the animation movie to be a fiction anymore.In this world filled with voilence, hate, prejudice and lack of compassion, we have a lesson to be learnt from Rats. Ramayana talks about how squirells and monkey helped Lord Rama to lay the bridge to Lanka. For some this could be a myth, but when you read this article below you can extrapolate the same logic.

Scientist have discovered from experiments that the rats had developed what they call generalized reciprocity — that is, they were generous even with an unknown partner because another rat had just been kind to them.

Here is the extract from NY TIMES - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/science/10rat.html

Swiss researchers put pairs of female rats — they were littermates — in a cage, separating them with a wire mesh. In one half of the cage, a rat could pull a lever attached to a baited tray that would deliver food to her sister, but not to herself. Each rat was trained in alternate sessions, first as a recipient of food, then as a provider. The sisters learned to cooperate, and they pulled significantly more often when their littermate was present than when the other half of the cage was empty.

Then the researchers put rats who had recently been assisted by their partners, and rats who had not recently been helped, in with unfamiliar and unrelated rats. Those who had recently been helped were about 21 percent more likely to pull the lever for the new partner.
This was not just ordinary operant conditioning or reinforcement, the researchers maintain, because the rats were never rewarded for their own behavior, only that of others. Because the rats were unfamiliar and unrelated, there was no family interaction involved. The only plausible explanation, they believe, is that the rats had developed what they call generalized reciprocity — that is, they were generous even with an unknown partner because another rat had just been kind to them.

The study’s lead author, Claudia Rutte, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, warned against drawing conclusions about humans from work with rats. "We’re interested in the evolution of cooperation," she said, "but our research is about animals, really, not people."

Still, the paper, published in the July issue of PLoS Biology, cites previous research showing that humans act the same way — people who have been helped in some way are more likely to help others immediately afterward.

Incidentally, these rats were not the usual cute, pink-eyed white lab rats. They were bred from wild Rattus norvegicus — the brown or gray Norway rat depressingly familiar to residents of many American cities.

Is it time to stop using the word "rat" as an insult? Maybe. Apparently even a nasty-looking rat can be possessed of sterling character.