The new moonlit night.

Being on the eleventh floor and enjoying the perks it has to offer, is not always a thing that can be savoured or written home about.. but today somehow, it is.

For the better part of this year about to wrap up, we have lived on the topmost floor of our mediocre levels of loftiness and this week with the winter fog and the Pournami moon, it has been a playful scenery that I peep out at.

The mornings, when I wake up really early to get going on the day's chores, the fog stretching across the tree filled landscape eases my grip.
The chill and the slow, teasing, warm sun's rays are all that I need to make me forgetful of the shroud of indifference that I strive to keep primly wrapped around my shoulders all day.

In the evenings or the nights that I reach home around twilight, dour faced and headache in tow, the lights from the boxes that we call homes, bright, dizzying displays, proof of man's inherent greed for the new and shiny wink at me from all around and even at a distance.
After a while though, when the weariness begins to fade and the world around me begins to retire, when the fog starts to reclaim it's right to sheath, the boxes curve, the lights smoothen out and the bright satellite takes over.
The one that causes all the turbulence, in the oceans and me, the familiar one that children hear stories about, the waxy one that causes men to resort to poetry and a swift search for a consort, the very same one.
It travels from somewhere slightly above my eye level to above my head and then after I go to bed, it crosses the night sky from the east and north to the south and west.

As the evening passes by and it embarks on this journey, it brightens the room and becomes the sole illumination to an other wise dark ending of days, stopping strategically at angles on the floor whence somehow, tiresome vitrified flooring becomes a thing of surprising beauty.

The dance of this light across the floor, the breeze that is the entrée to the fog and the night that is the setting to all of these theatrics in the boxes we call homes, call out to the human in me, the one that can bear to sit and swing in the winter night and not run indoors to huddle in the warmth and reminds me of the one that could bear to stay out while dripping with strings of sweat on the summer nights. Those nights when I'd have the privilege of staying up with the grown ups and those on which the moon chose to lighten the clamminess and clear the clutter within the kid by the window.

Too timid the grown ups have now become and as hamsters all set to ace the wheel, we have become too unaware of what lies beyond the metal bars that frame our world view.

On a day such as today, when the mind melded in the mundane finds in the middle of the grid floor, the moonlight, the night redeems manyfold the day that ended and makes me ready to take on the dread of tomorrow.

To the new moon and the foggy night, here it is then, a token of thanks!

Namaste!

Half Life

Lucky are those whose lives are short-lived.
The journey to nowhere is long and arduous and in the process of finding meaning it is a surprise how a significant amount of time passes by without any fruition.

It may be because we spend a majority of it living in the real world and the now of it, trying to breathe and exist while subliminally trying to solve this ridiculous notion of meaning.
An equation that has most of the variables constantly shifting on both sides.

When a life comes to an end with or without the solution, it affects those around them profoundly but they themselves seem to be freed from the whole fancy parade.

Also, I wonder how those who continue turn from youth to being old and talk about finding dignity in the process. Where is the dignity in knee pains and cramps, receding hair lines and being out of fashion with the rest of the world?
You are no longer the new kid on the block, the generation of reckoning or in-tune with the in thing unless it is a struggle that inches painfully forward, if at all.
How do we go from all the vitality of our lives and certainty of our thoughts to being once young?

When that happens, when your swiftness of thought and movement are a memory, however recent or distant, then what happens?
Mortality has never bothered me but somehow old age does.

Being out of sync, being unimportant and have beens is what most futures look like and without having a sense of meaning or purpose is what makes it more difficult to step out of the bed knowing that I'm well on my way there.
And just like that, a half life seems like a simpler solution.

Kick - A movie that metaphorically kick started my brain.

A 2009 movie that had everybody I knew in splits and howling in laughter, which I finally got around to watching earlier this week woke me up from my stupor and led me here. 

A poster of the movie, KICK
Image Credits : http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/kick-telugu-by-ssurender-reddy-movies-4087154/

The movie was an undisputed hit, people loved everything about it, the concept, the music, the twists in the plot, the comedy, the bootylicious actress and the charming, daring albeit a little older looking hero, the protagonist.

I could not stand to sit beyond the first few minutes after the titles but the prospect of being entertained made me hold my ground, clutch my pillow and throw my laptop off the bed.

The movie opens with a woman (the afore mentioned bootylicious actress) contorting herself in an effort to find peace and sort out her troubles when her parents and a sister approach her with a marriage proposal. All this is under a gazebo on an extending pier so that she can achieve her tranquility without being disturbed. Like a typical contemporary Indian woman, she does not want to get married right away because she has something to pursue and prove, but wait, what was that again? Studying? Nope, there is no mention of that, nor of a career (of course her future spouse does have to have) nor of her having any sort of dreams or goals for herself.

But nevertheless, in spite of her very obvious reluctance she meets with this guy, who happens to be a police officer (whose first name happens to be the same as her one true love but ex-boyfriend, the hero) since she is a dutiful daughter and they end up sharing life stories, which form the flashback for most of the first half of the movie (and they still look the same as last year? Probably all the contortion... ) and then agree to get married, in the width of a local train (read metro with posh interiors) journey in Malaysia.

After which, the hero waltzes back in to their lives with a complicated comedy side track, and then at one point makes his ex girlfriend realise that she is being dishonest about her love for him and walks away. 

Now the parallel plot, the secret bright side to our hero's facetious quest for kick is revealed.

He is in fact a modern Robin Hood, serving the noble cause of curing orphan (one has parents who commit suicide since they decided they cannot take care of their dying daughter and leave her to die alone or fend for herself) children with deathly diseases, by stealing money from corrupt politicians (all of them old, Telugu speaking, Dhoti wearing, God fearing and openly accepting that they have cheated people and earned money) and greedy capitalist businessmen (the leader here being the heroine's own father). 

The nobility of the cause, justifies the means and the earlier introduced police officer who has never compromised on his ethics, decides to let go of trying to capture this thief and bows out silently when the thief turns into a cop.

The End.

Forgive my bracketed commentary, I know it makes for confused reading but it colours the judgement into the right shade palette. 

This movie provoked many thoughts inside my head but I exercise a strong control on them since I wanted to complete seeing the movie without trashing it right away.  However, the end credits were the limit, they very simply underlined the essence of the movie, the kind of film making this was and the audience it was meant for.

Those with the ability to turn off their brains to get entertained.

How?

How can one turn it off and not think when they see a young couple leave their less than 10 years old, unhealthy daughter at an orphanage and commit suicide? Especially when they know there is a cure possible for her, however highly expensive it maybe? 

It is alright for a random stranger to break laws and steal for her cure but not for her own parents (since the government apparently does not do anything for this section of people who need the help)?

What sort of a world do we live in where the parents are allowed to turn into martyrs and choke on their ineptitude? 

How is this acceptable to even the most unthinking audience?

How can one turn it off and believe that all politicians are corrupt and greedy and still vote for them? How do they distinguish their choice from the rest, having believed that it is a postulate that includes ALL of them?

How can one turn it off when the son and father get totally drunk together(but are responsible enough not to drive) and that is not an example of depravity but an act of getting one's kicks and generating affection for another?

How can one turn it off when a car bomb blasts a car but the man in the driver's seat remains hurt but alive? Especially when we see them as horrible, atrocious acts of violence in real life? 

Why should anyone care then, when a blast racks through a city, hurts people and causes chaos? If it is funny in a movie, it should be funny when we see mangled limbs as part of the television coverage, right? 

How can one turn it off so completely that this genre of movies rule the media today and we all spend money, time and brain power to be a part of them? 

Because every time we see a movie like this, and do not have an urge to barf, we are accepting it and becoming a part of the epidemic that allows and accepts that people have to turn their brains off.

Acceptance of the ridiculous and logic defying in a movie is just a few steps away from accepting rot and disease as the natural way of existence. 

What then?

I have very regularly been told by people I like and respect for their thinking abilities that I take movies amongst other things too seriously and should learn to watch it without thinking too much.

I am now beginning to question my ability to think since I thought it was alright to respect them.

It is surprising that people can think, question, solve and be wonderful and still like and love these movies.

Parts of the movie where laughter is the end result of timing and logic and not titillation, hence is a genuinely comic situation are the only excuse that I can make for these people being able to stomach these movies and the only redemption I can think of, for liking them.

Oh, and no offence intended (Read without the No).

Namaste!

new avenues

"when one door closes another opens"

every time that i sit down to make a quick check of the way my life has been going, there is one thing that keeps perpetually repeating itself....
maybe not immediately but atleast after a while there open up other multiple doors that if I can't enter, at least knock upon falsely reassuring myself that I tried.
Surprising how easy it is to silence one's nagging conscience with these two words, "I tried".

This leads me to another direction of thought, kaise ye zindagi jise itni ahmiyat dee jaati hain, iski in actuality arth sirf khatam hone ke baad milta hain or woh bhi doosro ko, the onlookers always get rewarded!

I was on the thought for a very long time now, that this circle of life has no value in my life and for once, inspite of being an aberration from the rest of the people I know, as a scar on their wholesome values, as a bold ridicule to some and a tamacha on some faces


2006, 1st of April, Saturday.
17:32 hrs IST

Should we judge a book by it's cover?

If thoughts can be public can't appearances be out in the open too? Why do we in the name of religion, culture and tradition believe that one should dress and carry themselves a certain way in certain company?
I am not saying we should parade the streets in our nightgowns or wear shoes inside a place of worship that does not allow it, but isn't clothing supposed to be all about comfort?
Are we so intolerant that to grant access to Hindu temples we are supposed to dress a certain way, and even today under the pretext of religion millions of Muslim women are expected to follow the practice of hijab and burkha? All the same for a saree, the traditional Indian drape, that answers the climate and its requirements, the style has changed to such an extent that it does more to divide the bosom of a woman than to cover it, and it isn't about protecting modesty anymore.

In response to someone being judgemental about the non adherence of the Hijab in India.

An ode to the dying art of Small Talk

A professor once told me that I had the gift of the gab and it was at best a compliment of the twisted kind since she implied that my presentation lacked content even though I sold it well.
It has been a talisman that I have staunchly relied upon to get me through many uncomfortable meetings and interviews from then on.

In theory, meeting new people is exciting and exhilarating but in reality at least in my case the bundles of nerves and the anxiety of inadvertently saying something offensive at the least and making a total and utter fool of myself at the most accompany me throughout.
Of course, it doesn't help that in the years after I learned to spell my thoughts, literally and figuratively, a protective brittle shell also called a guard in the local lingo has gone up and grown higher and thicker like an invisible exoskeleton of a certain crawling annoyance.
And if an impulsive blabbermouth like me can have one the chances that most everyone I run into will have a sturdier one are definitely sky high.
Given this scenario, it is now easy to understand the slow death of this art form which enabled one to talk to another in forced upon situations without letting your companion know any better about your discomfort.
All this hullabaloo about being straight forward and saying what is on your mind with no pretense whatsoever has given rise to smart alecks who use this so called virtue to the worst use possible i.e. making fools of themselves and not entertaining ones at that.
Not to sound like a coiffed and gartered, early last century, progressive and educated woman of means but why should one say everything that comes into one's consciousness?
The self flattering notion that all our thoughts are important is something I prescribe to as well, but the important to whom part of it becomes a pertinent issue here.
Certainly, all my random thoughts may not be gold but strung together or seen through a mental microscope in retrospect, some may definitely be insightful into what makes me tick. Therefore they might be important in that sense only and unless I am Sheldon Cooper gone wild in the real world, off the television sight, such all pervading sense of omnipotence needs to be held in check in relation to another being and paraded on a personal stage with a complete set of arc lights, with a strict,

PERSONAL:NO OUTSIDERS ALLOWED

board pinned on.
To make small talk, in practice to make oneself small, insignificant to allow the other to fare well in comparison often helps in getting past their inhibitions. Imagine, if both parties in the conversation practiced this, they could go on for hours just talking about inane things, drawing out the other one into a comfort zone, where each after successfully, secretly patting themselves on the back could gladly come forth and froth at the mouth about their rigid opinions.
In that context, it is possible that even two contradicting points of view could be gladly presented without a bar room brawl or any such coquettish display of vanity and a mutually acceptable agree to disagree decision could be made.

Instead, we go to parties and gatherings, meet someone new, who out of their so called zeal to welcome you in will go on and on keeping up a friendly banter only for the shy or partially reserved guest to feel out of place and resort to not making an appearance the next time.
My only recourse in such situations where an attempt to draw out the person has not worked but has been perceived as inquisitive and prodding, has been to give up and then simply talk about the weather, the lack of water, the wonderful Shahrukh Khan and somehow it works like a charm.
Cheers then to the gift of gab and the power of Small Talk!
 

Perennially pondering but rarely posting~

Why is it that just when it becomes easy to take for granted a certain fact about oneself or those who matter, anything from a skill so well honed that it becomes second nature or an aspect of one's nature that has always stood out, like their inherent sense of responsibility or space or laziness or flippancy, all of it has to be turned a 180 degrees on it's head (or, read ass)?

Those sharing living quarters with me may realise now that my increasingly frequent bouts of ranting and screeching followed by tempestuous tempers are not to be faced and dealt with, but shouldered and braved roughly like caught outdoors in bad weather. They who were supposed to control me, make me mind myself and ensure that the line was toed are now hurrying to get out of the way when they sense the temperature rise and of course it irks me more!
This is a plane of my being that is uncomfortable, itchy and comes with a case of glutton's guilt, the discovery of which pales in comparision to how easily the voice of conscience can be muted to get this it's more than fair share of attention.

How it is possible now, at my highest level of depravity as an individual when during the obstacle race towards a supposedly promised potential, the incomplete and illusion of a journey was undertaken with a grin plastered and a back bent, beats my limited (whether it has become limited now spirit wise or world wise or always was in every which way is a tangent that should be dealt with later) scope of understanding..

Looking back and looking ahead at this junction, while always compulsively looking inwards, I wonder what pushes each of us to move on instead of roll over and lie indefinitely in that foetal curl, and how that friction or push factor changes and takes away or adds on to the facets of a character. Or is it that all of us can be each of us, inhabit each role and it is just a matter of when the cue is called?

Everyday and through every interaction we are trained to moderate, modify and methodically maintain a persona, but not make it from scratch everytime we are at a cross roads. It is definitely a practice that saves time and effort but amongst all those layers that get inevitably and inseparably entangled how do we find the basic true form that outlines the shape of our being? That mythical essence?

The more I try to figure it out, the more I contradict myself, if one has an essence that is true and firm then those aspects that stand out, are they definitive landmarks or perceptions of the viewer? If they are definite then they are useful tags that encourage categorising and boxing, but then it is an prejudicial injustice to their abilities of growth and being. If they are only the perceptions of the viewer, then they serve to tag the viewer through the same faulty system.

So if they are just a few of the facets, and can be overcome and rounded off, balanced by others, making us all whole much to the dismay of romance (we are to be made in pairs) writers, then how does one identify one from the other? Will the whole spread of humanity be united because they have the same underlying natures but for the ebb and flow of the tide of time to point and mark these differences?

Though I begin to lose my grasp on the path and wander,  a  nagging voice directs me back to my original premise of why it becomes so difficult to fathom oneself, why there are surprises that knock us off our feet in our own behaviour.

Considering, the concept of life as turning a  full circle makes a pretty picture, and that we traverse the roads that bring out all the shades of the spectrum makes sense. But what about lives that are cut short before a turn is completed, lives that are like one way long distance train travel, each station inimitable (the ones that the train does bother to stop for more than a few minutes) and new, adding further dimensions, enriching or diminishing, an account that does not get balanced with the prettiness, like a gift, wrapped with multiple pieces of paper in the same colour, such that the joints are seen only on close inspection?

Either of these choices can help in taking the hitherto unknown qualities in others into our stride but for the helplessness it creates when stumbled upon on the personal front, the feeling of being pushed into a corner or standing on the edge of precipice of a not so tall building (or even the compound wall of said building) remains.

Having said all this, in what I believe as a quintessentially me fact, one that seems to underlines all my endeavours (or wait is only a character trait, a temporary one at that), I hope that irrespective of the direction and nature of my journey, this plane in plain terms crashes and burns before causing any irreparable damage.

Namaste!
 

It's a day for the devout to wish their deities and ask for wishes, but then it's the traders that get most out of religion and the fervour that surrounds it. Maybe its my inner cynic or misfit frowning in disdain but still I wonder if every aspect that surrounds civilisation including religion, faith and love aren't really based in the benefits of trade and finance.

The birthday of the playboy God who charmed women and stole from them, the birthday of the God whose head was severed to be replaced with an ill fitting elephant head which for some reason had a fair complexion, the wedding anniversary/birthday of that God who for the sake of his subjects forsake the woman he couldn't protect from prying eyes that he undertook on the very same day we celebrate, these events and more in the Hindu Calendar that we spare no efforts for, and all those that other religions hold up as sacred, are they really for the devout to remember the Gods that apparently created them, or are they meant for displays of grandeur that we can't really afford and rather not avoid?

What is it about getting an idol of the Lord or the Goddess at the auspicious time of the year into our homes and refilling our hearts and minds with faith and hope that sways one and all to such an extent that we turn a blind side to the extravagance of it all?
Would this all permeating and all powerful God be put off by the lack of a fresh idol in the sacred space during this time of the year?
Would he/she be any less powerful and kind if we did not offer them these favours?

It's not to mock that I ask but to understand what is it that drives us. Faith and fear, hope for prosperity and success, a sense of abiding duty to traditions that are no longer relevant in the context of our lives, which of these sentiments and feelings bring us all together to repeat the exercise and the rituals every year? Or is it when looked at from a wider lense, as of the living beings in the universe and on a platform that puts us all together as creatures of habit and comfort, an endeavour to keep a constant calendar of recurrences that not only promotes livelihood but adds to the practice of community and enables us humans to survive as a global civilisation?

It's true that back in the day, when there was no Internet and the world out of the boundaries we saw on a political map was classified as "Abroad" and "Foreign" meant not unknown but a different place and a different country, these were the identifiers, the tell tale moles that created a mental image and were physically responsible for taking us through the year. Also esoterically, how would we mark the progress of the earth around the sun without events to break in the monotony, events designed to amazingly answer various needs of co-habitation.

Therefore, even though the blatant profit making function that these days fulfil poses unpleasant questions, the sense of community and neighbourhood that they manage to bring and in spite of the mostly useless feelings of despair and blind faith they generate, for all the good that they inadvertently cause, the livelihood of the idol makers and craftsmen going from worse to bad and for the variety that they bring to our otherwise droll lives and causing me to ponder, it's a Happy Birthday to Mr. Vigneshwara.

Namaste! 

Marugelara O Raghava and O clarity of thought?!

Not that I have anything new to say but then new is a relative term!

What is new to me and familiar to the inside of my head might be a rude awakening for someone else.

Through meandering paths and wandering ways, managed to stay away from this task of writing and talking and coming clean for a while now, and all this time, procrastination has certainly been the skill I have honed.

And the art of holding on to thoughts is sadly, something I have lost!

Even now while I type and enter all that I have to say, the thoughts are faster and perform the trapeze to keep flying away from my grasp.

Often I have found in the recent past that it has become difficult to hold on to thoughts especially when accompanied by silence, it's as if chaos and the noises of the background have done more to aid my concentration than to detract from it.

While playing a game or listening to a song or while preparing for the so called academic exams, it's the pressure that eggs me on to focus and not the other way around, although the twisted logic of this habitual occurrence still doesn't make much sense to me!

Lacking structure and actively defying it seems to have become a permanent feature of my being and behaviour and while I don't know if it's necessarily a cause of lament it surely does raise concern.

However, in an attempt to gain some of that structure, The song that led me here! And then to the next one!

Anyhow, going ahead with the task at hand, rather tasks at hand, which are presently karaoke-ing with Vasanthakumari to Marugalera O Raghava, pondering over the syncretism of my present leanings of pantheism and the leanings of the past and the poet Thyagaraja, the wider implications of all poetry, the metaphor and the spirituality of the tone of this song, and worrying about the other things waiting to be done in the physical realm of my real life and (you'd think) most obviously, the task of writing and putting into words the things that don't make complete sense to me.

This, writing, has always been a vital act of cleansing but sacred only up till the last full stop.

Meaning the act of writing itself is sacred but once its out there it's no longer so, and the need to keep it hidden in the recesses of my mind and to my private self vanishes. The impact it has on the reader is not really my foremost concern and the reactions are not one that I can fathom or care for.

This brings me to the crux of this sudden outpouring, a thought that I have held and played with for a long time now, is the beauty of art in the beholders eyes or does the artist do it for his consumption primarily? Will music be less melodious to the creator's ears if it does not resonate with his audience? Or has his journey come to an end once its been created? If that is so then what purpose does it serve after it's out there? Self consumption is done but does/ should the artist have any expectation from or any responsibility to the other, the receiver?

Similarly, with the issues of faith, giving and interaction between one sentient being and another, not necessarily human and God, but even in pairs such as human and human, human and animal, human and plant, how is the balance to be attained? How are the dynamics determined?

Though I totally believe in Love Thy Neighbour As You Love Thyself and Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do To You, what about self preservation that is taken as a given here? What happens in situations when self love isn't a given? Or when only self love is present as in most cases of humans we meet with?

Where do we draw the line with another person and at what cost do we do the barrier building? Optimism, innocence and cleanliness of the heart that get sullied are only the surface payments and there are other long term implications of that barrier resulting in damaging other interactions getting and the listing of which are not really possible for my flighty state of mind!

Everything is either permanent and rock solid with no chance of change or in such a perennial state of flux that it cannot even be classified as transient, with the fractional duration that it exists in.

Stretching this to the realm of man and the globe and then the universe around us, the questions begin to boggle my brain and with no clear answers beginning to take shape, there is a very interesting foot tapping jingle that is calling to me along with the delicious smells of garama garam ghar ka khana! So for now, Namaste!