tauru

THE RIVER KNOWS ITS WAY

2008-02-15T04:45:00.000-08:00

Will the most neurotic, anxious and stressed person run inside a train?
When you get into a train you simply forget everything and embrace sleep in your allotted berth, not bothering whether it is taking the right route or whether the driver is well-qualified to run it properly. It matters that you are focussed when you book the ticket and board the train on the correct date and recline in your seat.
There is a scheme of things set in motion by our parents and society and we are simply caught in this and are taken by the current of it _ going to school, college, getting a job and entering wedlock. None of these things were decided by us, one merely follows the other.
Most of our life is decided by others and hence why the need for tension?
I don't mean you should not be interested in any aforesaid acts. But these are already travelled terrain.
Many of our tense moments result from unnecessary concerns, and we worry about things over which we have no control. Poking our nose in other people's business and giving advice without anybody asking for it are the result of a heightened sense of concern.
The driver drives the bus and the conductor issues tickets. Imagine the conductor grabbing the steering wheel or the driver doing the job of the conductor while negotiating a curve.
I know people who worry about the lack of rain or its abundance, about the scorching heat etc. These things matter but you have no power to control these, but are destined to endure them.
I remember a prayer:"God, give me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
The boat takes the course carved by a hungry, knowing river. It knows the truth that the river knows its way.

IT TAKES ONE HOUR A DAY

2008-02-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

When you say you do not have time to read books, I sense a lie. Actually you are not interested in reading. I like straight-forward people who say they don't have an inclination.
A small mathematical calculation which anybody can understand. It takes me one minute to read a page, so in one hour I can read 60 pages. In seven days I can read 420 pages. Now tell me, are you so busy that you can't spare even one hour a day? Then I must be talking to George Bush. So, my friend, don't tell me you don't have the time.
I have read books during the interval of a film, while travelling by bus/train, while waiting my turn at the bank or paying the electricity bill. Often I have wished I would get caught in a traffic jam so that I could spend more time speeding among words.
Most of us would have passed out of college and given up the habit of reading, some would have thanked their lucky stars.
For students of literature, it's an Odyssey where you don't confront any Cyclops, but come across verbal delights. The journey ceases only when you hang up you glasses, so to say, when your time comes to an end.

RAY'S BRILLIANCE

2008-02-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

I am not an expert to comment about Satyajit Ray's films, but am too much of an avid enthusiast to restrain myself from saying a few words.
The Postmaster evoked a kind of numb sadness, the effect of which lingered on as a sweet pain for sometime. It's about the relationship between a postmaster from Kolkata who comes to a one-horse town and a small orphan girl whose job is to take care of who ever takes over as the postmaster.
He teaches the girl Bengali and she prepares food for him. After the postmaster catches a fever, he decides to resign and go back and the girl is upset. The last scene is a tragic moment which will be etched in the memory. The postmaster welcomes his replacement and calls the young girl. Seeing she is not anywhere within earshot, he gives a coin to the new man and asks him to give it to the girl, then pauses for a second and walks away with the money in hand. He sees the girl coming towards him with a water pail. He calls out to her, she ignores him and goes past him. The postmaster is left holding the coin as the girl reaches the post office.
The offering of money to the girl is the most poignant moment; that the man tried to measure her sense of loss with a coin cannot be lost on anyone.
Ray said so little, but the eloquence was explosive.
Another film that touched me was Nayak, with Uttam Kumar, an actor, and Sharmila Tagore, editor of a magazine. Their friendship during a train journey forms the story. And what feelings they have for each other will cast a colour on the viewer. Ray leaves much to be inferred.
The train reaches its destination and Uttam Kumar is welcomed by his fans and Sharmila is received by her uncle and they go off in different directions. And as in the earlier film, the last scene will linger on for years to come.
Of course, there are many films of Ray, mainly the Appu trilogy, which I saw when I was very young. Would love to see it again and write.

MOTORCYCLE DIARIES

2008-02-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Saw an excellent film about two friends going on a tour of Latin America to have fun and adventure, starting from Buenas Aires. What they see changes them for life. Both have a medical background and their final destination is a leper camp.
Shot interestingly, the film caught my attention and kept me watching till the end. Terrific style.
They see a communist couple whose land has been grabbed by the government and are forced to work as labourers. The scenes at the camp are realistic and idealistic.
If you have not heard about this film, you come to know only at the end that one of the characters is Ernesto Che Guevara. His identity is not revealed till the end of the film which adds to the charm of the entire narrative. The film is based on Guevara's jottings in a diary, hence the name.

DIFFERENT MUSIC

2008-02-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

I went to the Connemara library recently and saw the entire area had changed beyond recognition. Naturally, as I was going there after 15 years.
Getting a membership there was a nostalgic experience. The local lending libraries had simply left me tired with their staple diet of bestsellers/pulp fiction. I really wanted to sink my teeth into something hard like biographies, poetry and what not.
I visited the art gallery where on display was paintings by Raja Ravi Varma and some contemporary ones. Can't remember when I went to an art gallery.
To see something out of the ordinary is itself satisfying. I know nothing of art, have heard a few names such as Monet, not to mention Picasso and others. The visit only vetted my apetite for reading about the lives of painters and such like.
Something is charming about books which I can never explain, though I have tried. The smell of books in libraries can't be put in words. Each book has its own smell, just like their font, printing and cover. It's a different kind of music that can be enjoyed only by a few whose minds are attuned.
During college days I used to behave strangely when starved of feasting my eyes on words, like a drug addict deprived of his dose. If I say I have read books even during film intervals, you will consider it strange.
I had a collection of books which I bought from roadside shops. I got Hamlet for Rs. 10 - a steal if there was one - from a seller who was certainly not Shylock.
I sold my collection as my shelf was overcrowded and I couldn't maintain them, save for Hamlet, Julius Caeser, Old Man and the Sea, Anna Karenina and a few more.
Anatole France said: "never lend your books to your friends, they never return them. All the books I have belong to my friends."
At least I could have given them to my buddies. But tell me how many of my chums read books?

EYES ON STARS

2007-10-29T10:49:00.001-07:00

Once a poet said: I don't want to leave my shoes behind, for someone will try it on.
It sounds arrogant that nobody should take his place. There are many who have what they do not deserve and many, who though having talent, slumber in the dark caves of oblivion, forgotten by a tasteless people. "Nallathor veenai seidhe, adhai nalamkeda puzhuthiyil yerivathundo" wrote Bharathi _ and how right he was. To be seen and to have one's talent recognised, self-projection is necessary.
Old people suffer more from being ignored than from diseases. The world moves on and they stand trying to make sense out of fast-changing situations, and language also.
Among the youth, self-confidence is sometimes seen as arrogance, but what can one do when one is struggling? To be laughed at is bad but to be scared to death is worse. In such cases they appear arrogant, to survive and win in a competitive world.
As Oscar Wilde said: All of us are in the gutter, but some of us have our eyes fixed on stars."

BEEN AWAY, INTO DISH

2007-10-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Am back again. Was away watching all my favourite channels on Dish TV, that's all. 6
I was deprived of watching Star movies HBO, Animal Planet etc for over three years and when I got the connection, I went on a spree. This greatly cut into my reading and updating my blog. I have to steal time to do this now.
Without relatives, I grew up on films, books and songs. Almost became addicted to films and books and introverted. I was isolated, because my reading took me far away from those who didn't pore over books and didn't watch my type of films.
This included most of the people around me. I found I had walked past most people with my nose into books and had reached a place where there were none.
Sometimes I try to be extroverted with the undesired result that I get branded as being moody.
Then I stopped fighting my own image. Image is what people think of you: not what you want them to think about you. That is manipulation, a sin worse than being moody.

FOUR FILMS, A COMPARISION

2007-07-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Two English films reminded me of two Manirathnam films.
One was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which made me think of Thiruda Thiruda.
Everything sounded similar, both films etching out the life of two robbers, their friendship and exploits. In the English version, Etta Place gets the attention of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Though she is with Redford she goes bike-riding with Paul Newman. In Tamil, both Prashant and Anand love Heera.
The other films are Kannathil Mutthamittaal and Made in America.
In the Tamil film, a girl wants to find out who her real mother is and this search leads her to Sri Lanka where she finds out that her mother is a suicide bomber.
In Made in America, a young woman discovers that her mother, Whoopi Goldberg, conceived her with donor sperm and wants to find out who her father is. Whoppi Goldberg wanted the sperm of a black where as the donor happens to be white. Eventually, the donor comes for the convocation of the girl, that's it.
The films have much in common though they are not remakes. If the Tamil versions were inspired by their foreign cousins, I won't be surprised.
But maybe I am making uncalled for comparisons, the thematic resemblences are too striking to miss. Anyway, all four films are great to watch.

WHERE IS RHYME?

2007-07-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

It is true that I don't rhyme when I write poems. Life itself is like that. A long period of pain and a brief moment of joy. And the reverse also is true. Broken lines and meaningless disorder. Incidents occur in a jumble and we sit and piece them together; order scattered, disorder rearranged. Five joyous occasions joined in twos (pentametric lines) do not occur in life.
I am too lazy to rhyme but prefer to break the lines where-ever I like. I only hope there is reason though rhyme goes for a song

OOPS!!!

2007-07-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

A prodigal master (Genius wandering)
Searing-in ceremony (For a hot seat probably)
Legal hair (Leads to tangles)
Bulk male (Has to delete to reduce weight)
Animated suspension (Hanging in action)

I SAID IT

2007-07-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

If there is heaven on Earth, you and I must stay away from it
How many parents want their children to be Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa?

WORDS UNSEEN

2007-07-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

I go about weaving
A web of words
To ensnare beauty.
I hear the footprints
Of sound on wind
The pattern of the wings of birds,
The footfall of moonlight
On coconut trees .
Beauty lost to common eyes,
Beauty imagined and missed
Are words Nature wrote for some to see.
I see music and poetry everywhere;
In the silent sky and in the lost looks of many
And the madman's wailing in the still night.

CELLOPAIN

2007-07-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sometime back, I left my cellphone in my office. I remembered about it midday the next day. I desperately tried to get it back but in vain.
Once my cellphone fell down in the seat in front of me when I sat down. I hadn't noticed this. But an old woman selling peanuts saw it and alerted me. I thanked her and pocketed it.
When I compare these two incidents, I conclude that for every dishonest person there is an honest person.

SODABOTTLE SENTIMENT PART 1

2007-07-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

Recently there was a suggestion by NGOs and other right-thinking organisations that soda bottle should be banned as it was dangerous in many ways.
Following this there was an all-party meeting where this topic was to be discussed. Our journalist friend was present at the meet. Here are some excerpts:
Member 1: It is our birth right to protest against each other as is the precedent set by ....... (Here he names a few eminent names) Soda bottles and politicians are like twins, inseparable, conjoined at birth, connected by blood and thought as evinced by our great....
There were claps all round at the mention of a great name.
Member 2: I very much accept what our brother said.
(Here a journalist was heard saying that only recently Member 1 and 2 were at each other's throat and they abused each other's family)
M2: We may have differences but never should we forget that we are of the same blood which we have spilled mutually. We have every right to throw soda bottles at each other. They plan to replace soda bottles with plastic ones. I ask them, can plastic bottles split the head of our opponents? It's our right to protest which is ensured in our Constitution.
M1: Who can forget our 'Soda bottle Simon', 'Vattulodu vasu' , Cyanide Subbu
M2: I would like to remind my brother that Cyanide Subbu does not use soda bottle.
M1: Very sorry brother. I got carried away at the sweet rhyming names of the stars that dot our endless, blue sky which we look up at. Nevertheless Cyanide Subbu is a great tireless worker, a martyr.
M2: No doubt, please continue brother
M1: Our tireless workers do great deeds for us. If there are no sodabottles, they will be jobless. Their families will be on streets. What will they do. Women will cry, children will also cry.
(A few members were seen wiping their tears)
Here they take a break to drink soda

End of part 1

SODA BOTTLE SENTIMENT: PART 2

2007-07-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

M1: (Continues with renewed vigour) I ask them. Will they feed the families of our great workers? What other material can we use? Bricks?
M2: Bricks are costly brother (and quotes the latest price).
M1: And are bricks as effective as bottles?
M2: According to my personal experience, bottles are matchless, like gold.
M1: I remember once you threw a bottle at my head.
M2: But you caught it expertly and threw it back at me and broke my head.
M1: See. you can always catch it and throw it back. Reuse value. Which is not there in bricks.
M2: Correct.
M1. Past is past brother. Now I ask them. Have they fought with us in the streets, have they torn each others 'waistis', threw punches, abused each other in unprintable vocabulary in our very ancient language? Then what right do they have to ban bottles.
M2. Bottles are freely available. We can always borrow them from our shopkeepers who won't mind losing them for the sake of our esteemed party, yours or mine.
M3. I suspect this sudden friendship between you two.
M1. We are like brothers, fighting is our birth right. Right from birth we fight.
M2. M3 always suspects everything. if everybody is happy, M3 is not.
M3. I see it as friendship between wolves and foxes.
M1. Why not flowers and strings?
M4. M3 is always jealous. M1 and M2 please go on.
M1. Also children make 'maanjha' for strings to fly kites. For this they need glass pieces. Will not children be deprived of their pleasure if they ban bottles.
M2. Well said. Even I would have forgotten this point.
M1. Now it is bottle, next it will be cycle chain, what do they think of themselves?
M1. There are film songs about soda bottle:
(Starts singing)
"Vethala potta shokkula
naan gapunnu kuthunna mookula
ada vandhudhu paaru ratham
indha amaran manasu sutham
vaaravadhi erakkam amaran
vandhu ninna sarakkum
amaran pera sonna thaane
SODA BOTTLE parakkum"

(Widespread whistles and catcalls)

M2: "SODA BOTTLE kaiyila cycle chainu paiyila
dhoda varan paaruda aarumugam
vaada vaada maapuLLa podaindhiruvaen gappula
meiyaalumae enakku noorumogam"
At this juncture, all of them start dancing and hugging each other. Finding it unbearable our journalist source leaked out like soda out of a broken bottle, plugging our narrative.

THE END

MY DAD

2007-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

If today, I can write English, am confident, have made sense out of my life and stay cool when things get sizzling hot, it's all because of my dad.
Can't remember when he shouted at me, or anybody else for that matter.
He introduced me to the world of words, giving me comics first, then Enid Blyton, James Hadley Chase and then Arthur Hailey and Sidney Sheldon. He too was an avid reader.
Lost in the realm of imagination, I lived among created characters and always had a ready word for all situations.
Shy and recluse, but still I let my hair down only in front of close ones. And my dad would always laugh at whatever I did and was proud of me. This was a great encouragement and made me sure of myself.
More than everything, he introduced me to the world through various books. Such an experience still stands me in good stead.
I thank him, though he is among those enjoying eternal life.

WHY I BLOG

2007-06-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

As a boy, I read a lot and watched films. I lived a lot in imagination. Everything has to be put in words or picturised mentally. I used to talk a lot to myself, even now I do. I would rewrite mentally a situation or dialgoue in real life or a scene in a film. Hence, my blog is helpful and a great companion.
When we know someone is going to read, we become conscious of it. Maybe, we start colouring it so that others would accept it. We argue with ourselves as we would with others. But when I started a blog, I never knew who was going to read it. So it was more a personal diary or a jotting pad to give myself a pep talk.
Sometimes I don't react in reality, but do so in the blog. It is like living inside a confined space, yet it horizons might expand with sudden reactions from some unknown person.
Life means words for me or cinematic narration, that's the only way I can relate to actual life. Anything put well in words sounds appealing to me.
I speak to myself and you are welcome to listen in.

SAAR AGAIN

2007-06-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

Poor Pope Benedict XVI. He got called 'Sir' by George Bush. I don't know how His Holiness reacted. Good thing he did not read my blog. Had he, he would have seen red. Anyway, I am sure the U.S. President has not read it. Hence the goof-up.

A COWARD'S RETREAT

2007-06-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

I had a friend in college. We used to together on his bicycle to evening college. We would discuss poetry and he used to write much.
Suddenly one day, he told me that he had mental problems. It shook me, but I said "not to worry."
After sometime he stopped coming to college. When I went to his home, his father told me he would relapse into strange behaviour and after medication he would be normal.
I went to see him often. His father was grateful if I went to see him, as giving him drugs was easier in my presence.
Then he would come to college and then stay away. This continued till I finished college.
When I finished college, one day his father came with him to see me. His behaviour was strange. He imitated the train when he told me he went to his village by train.
His father asked me to tell him we are going to a movie and to take him to his doctor. I agreed. And I took him in an auto with his father following.
Once inside the hospital, his father told me "see now he'll scream." I asked why and he said "shock treatment". I had no hint of this.
Later, when we met him, he was inside a cell. He looked me and said: "you said you would take me to a movie, you let me down." The look on his face was enough to kill my sleep for months.
When he was discharged, he came to my house and said crows and chameleon were talking to him.
After that I lost touch with him as we shifted residence. It must be about 25 years since then.
I don't have the courage to find out what happemed to him. And like a coward, I write about him.

FRIENDSHIP ON ETHER

2007-06-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

I would like to acknowledge the frequent visit of three friends to my blog.
Prabhakar is a friend who started visiting on invitation. The other two _ Valli and Anonymous _ must have stumbled on my blog.
In many ways these three deserve mention. Appreciation, however small it may be, is well deserved and expected. Sometimes at least being noticed is just great, an acknowledgment that you are alive and that somebody does know and care that you can think.
The daily mundane things we see and think find a shape here. Wrapped in words they do sound different _ the heart beat in vocabulary, the ECG of the mind.
When I just read one word from these three, I feel alive and immediately I want to write one more.
I could write more on this, but some other time.
Thanks to this friendship on ether (web world can be called thus?).

LOST AND LOOKING

2007-06-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

it is dark
the darkness and void of death,
cannot see what lies ahead
staring into nothing,
fear colours and contaminates
the air.
where am i going?
suddenly a strange hand touches
my shoulder
and that's relief
it is nothing, being of no help,
like me, lost and looking,
a co-seeker
but its doubtful, uncertain touch
gives me strength
to go on.

NAIL IN THE WALL

2007-06-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Recently we went to our Uncle's village in Palakkad. Nice quiet place, looks hidden from the prying eyes of the crowd. Has its equal share of development (cable TVs, cars etc) and antiquity.
Mom always wanted to go there were she was born (also my brother) and grew up. As we went, she showed me the school where she and her brother studied. As soon as she reached the house, she went inside and then later told us: "I went inside to see whether there was the nail on which I used to hang the school bag. It is still there."
It evoked similar feelings in me; my school and college days came back to me.
I think there is always a nail in the wall in all our lives. An old friend or enemy, a school teacher, a tree, a street, whatnot. Something we would like to visit really or in thoughts.
How many of us have left our villages or shifted within a city or moved out?
Oftentimes I have felt strange moments of sentimental silence when I visit villages where I have been as a boy.
Before a person dies he/she feels like visiting the place where they spent their childhood. Coming a full circle.

SAAR EVERYWHERE

2007-06-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Saaaar. One word that is omnipresent on all tongues. Tea maker and drinker, bus conductors and government officials.
A typical conversation at a tea shop goes like this.
Tea drinker: Saaar, 1 tea
Shop owner: Aee, 1 tea for Saaar.
SAME TD: Saaar, light tea
SO: Aee light tea for Saaar
STD: Saaar without Sugar
Aeee without for Sugar.
It goes on like this till you faint. (Then someone will say Saaar has fainted)
Once I called a man Sir and he made a face and said "never use that cheap word.' That was 20 year ago.
Now "Madam" has joined "Saaar". At least madam is restricted to some women unlike saar, which has percolated to all sections of society. Great leveller.
If for one day I avoid using that word.... that's a big IF, YES SIR.

TWISTING IT

2007-05-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

How to misunderstand when someone says:

You are still the same:
You mean there is no improvement?
You are early:
Am I late usually?
You look smart today
Did I look dumb yesterday?
You passed
Did you think I would fail ?

TOO HOT TO HANDLE

2007-05-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

I blame the scorching summer heat for my not posting anything. It really got me down, no matter how many juices I downed. I felt like sleeping most of the time and tired.
It’s always summer in Chennai, except maybe December & January. So what’s there to grieve about?
Earlier, when I was in college, I never complained about the heat but enjoyed the season relishing various juices and coconut water etc. But this summer got me down.
[I thank the person who invented the air conditioner. I wish him a long life, if he has not already passed into the annals of memory.]
Season has an effect on our mind, gives us energy or saps it, just like the time of the day. Ernest Hemingway was sceptical about what he wrote in the night as he thought he would feel different in the morning.

A rain-drenched grass is past compare; the smell of rain and the new leaves in spring. How bright the leaves look after rain had washed away all the dust. It rained for a week last year and there was no sun. When it did appear, I went to the terrace and sunned myself like sun-hungry Westerner.

Seasonal changes are to be enjoyed, I tell myself. Forget the curses I let out this year, next time I will remember.

FRAGMENTS

2007-04-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am in fragments;
Future in my dreams
Past in my subconscious
Present torn apart by
Past and future.
The only time I was
Complete
Was when I was a child.

***

MELANCHOLY

2007-04-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Why does the dark horizon
Or a lonely water-drop on a grey leaf
Remind me of a forgotten past.
And why does the mind
Inescapably visit those unvisited corners
Just to check there is nothing,
Though it knows there is nothing.
Does melancholy hold an
Inexplicable happiness the mind loves?

FARMERS' SUICIDE, IT'S NOT COOL

2007-04-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

I got up feeling sweaty. Must have been 34 degrees Celsius yesterday. Hot. Inside bathroom. It’s sauna. Impossible. Must find a small AC for my small bathroom. What is the world coming to when a man has to wilt like a plant. In Chennai, we must have only house cooling instead of house warming ceremony.
I look outside and wince. It’s like Sahara. And it’s only early summer.
Noon. I switch on the AC and go to sleep. Feel like I am in heaven. Dream of water in all forms… waterfalls, oceans, lakes, ponds, rain, and bottles of cool water.
Now it’s time to go to office. Outside is hell, burning and tar is bubbling on the road.
Reach office. It’s an ordeal, I tell you. Now I am inside. Ah! here they have centralised AC. Must find whether they can AC the bus. Lalu Prasad said he would AC the local trains. Good man he is.
Now it’s cool. Work goes on at the newsdesk. Lots of shouting and instructions. Take this, take that.
Hey. Somebody call maintenance and ask them to step up the AC, they want us to fry here?
What story to take, asks someone. Try that farmers’ suicide, some damned place in Andhra or Maharashtra. Try. If you can’t fit it in see if Shilpa and Gere kissing thing will fit. Good news and picture too.
What the hell I have to call home and ask them to put on the AC. Don’t have an AC car. Must have my room cool when I go home.
Hey, that farmers thing is not fitting, Shilpa is fine.
Go ahead, do it. Have to rush home. Don’t bother about the farmer thing. Go.

DESIRES NEVER DIE

2007-04-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

I died yesterday,
As down went my desires
Deathless Hydra-headed
Desires,
A Herculean effort
Still puts no end to them
And as a minute weds a minute
A desire is born,
(And the wish to vanquish them
Is yet another).
Jealousy, hatred all
Have their seed in desire.
And in ashes I lay defeated
Only to rise Phoenix-like
As a million other desires beckon
Again and again.
Defeat becomes a thought
Defeated by desire

FAKE CREATORS

2007-04-12T10:25:00.001-07:00

A perfect moment,
Always poised between
The skeletal start
To the flair-filled finish
And oftentimes
Lost midway,
Is never to be.
Sunrise, waterfall, rain,
Rainbow, birdsong,
…. all perfect,
The creation of
An unconscious genius,
The unseen hand, the unexplored mind
But can never be replicated
By the ever-thinking mind.
But try we do
Like children scaling peaks
With small imaginary fingers.
Midnight hours lost in chiselling perfection
And a morn paints us
As mere fake creators

VANISHING MAGIC

2007-04-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

I remember Chennai only by its cinemas.
Mount Road had all our favourite haunts. I remember watching Godfather and Jaws at Casino. Magnificient Seven, Bond movies Sathyam, Bridge Too Far, Battle of the Bulge, Safire, Wild Geese Pilot. Devi theatre once featured a Chaplin festival. Blue Diamond had continuous shows.
After cutting classes, I would always go home, tell my mother I was going to a film and then go after changing the school uniform. We would go to one film watch it and reserve a ticket for another. Sometimes we would go for matinee and if we did not get tickets will wait and watch the evening show. English films were our favourites.
With DVDs powering themselves into the scene, the mountain has come to Mohammed. The rare charm of waiting and watching the stars has faded. Their greatness has been robbed by the frequency with which we see them. The silver screen had a magic that made stars and stories appear far off and mysterious. Films used to dictate our life. We had to cut classes according to the show time and wait.
But now, thanks to DVDs we can control all the stars, we can watch any film any number of times whenever we want.

NOT A STRANGER

2007-04-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

The morning breeze, brushes my face
Where it comes from, there it goes; woes
past, thoughts it has none
Gathers it does as one
Yours and mine
Gives me yours and you mine,
I look at you
‘cause, your thought came to me
Why look at me like that
No stranger am I,
I touched you through the wind
I spoke to you with it
Not words ears hear
Waves mind knows.
I died your death, twitched in your trauma
Died too in your love
Not a stranger
I know you —
You, he, she, that child, and all of them
From the past
Not a stranger —
Outside the hospital
Waiting for father’s body
That night flowers smelt of death
It spared not your father
I know your sad face,
Visited my father, it did, next week
Flowers smelt of death
Not a stranger
And you, broken in love, looking, waiting
Waiting and looking
The chill wind touched you
And you knew somebody knows.
That child there
I was he
He will be me.
Here in the breeze
You will find in the morrow
Buried pain, joy and sorrow
That was once mine
Was once his
And before that his
And before that…..

ONE DAY WITH MR. CRIBBER

2007-03-17T05:29:00.001-07:00

He is the eternal chronic cribber, found everywhere ... in you and me too. ( Some of my write-ups may make you think I am one.) In some of us, he rears his head sometimes and in some he is there seated on the official throne.
Here I have personified him as Mr. Cribber.
He wakes up and curses the fan and some noise that would have woken him up. Next it is the corporation water, it has too much chlorine or none at all. Then the newspaper is always late (his much-haunted read might be Reader's Mail), the children do not listen to him as they have taken after their mother. Coffee is too light with lots of sugar, and if he is making it, no one is coming to get it.
While shaving, he might curse his father for giving him such a face !
Mr. Cribber goes to the bank and comments about the Reserve Bank of India, the clerk and everything imaginable. Lots of suggestion as to what should be done.
In summer he wants winter and in winter he seeks summer.
Bus service, traffic, price rise, government policies... nothing ever escapes his critical eye.
He wills upon himself boredom and on others too. If he makes a list of things he liked and those he did not, the former one would be longer.
If he learns to like everything he sees, maybe he will make his stay on planet Earth pleasant. He thinks he can change the world with his views, but he forgets it is somebody's views and ideas which have made the world what it is.
If, for one day, he enjoys the bus coming late or the summer heat etc, .... he will not.

SPARE THEM A THOUGHT

2007-03-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

I must not write this. Good way to begin you think. But I never feel like speaking about the good things I have done or maybe I do not want to expose that sensitive side of my character. Whatever. Because I have a blog I am writing this, else I would prefer to remain silent.
Some months ago, I went to an orphanage to distribute food to children. We went in a car and waited for the kids, who were looking at us warily and shyly, to get ready. Then they took a bath and put on the school uniform and took their plates and sat down in a row.
Then they sang a prayer, and we started distributing food. For every idly or puri, they looked at me and rolled their eyes and said: "Thank you sir".
Their dress, their discipline and their sad eyes and the thought that they did not have parents, even a childhood ... I do not know what shattered me. Somebody said they would hold hands and walk in a line to school and come back the same way. Every detail I gathered about them shook me.
I am sangfroid, that's why I did not break down. But I wore a serious look for three days after that. Their faces never left my mind. Repeatedly, I heard their voice thanking me.
Basically I never complain about food, eating what is put before me. That day only made my resolve to stay that way firm.
Hardly we think of such children in our daily routine, though we know they exist. When we see them, believe me, it will leave a lasting impression.
I realised what it is to feed the poor and that there are a thousand hungry mouths for every morsel we drop. And when people gloat about their achievements of gluttony _ This hotel is good, food is cheap here, I shouted at the waiter _ I slip away to a corner and think of children who are grateful to god for offering them food.
It's good to hear that many people feed these children on their wedding anniversary, the death anniversary of parents and on birthdays.

LORD OF THE DRINKS

2007-03-10T12:20:00.001-08:00

He was writhing, twisting and turning in a corner of a bus stop. He was not a motor accident victim but one who worships Bacchus.
People were standing unmindful of this specimen tossing and turning, lost in inebriation. The callousness of the people, particularly women who do not take kindly to cigarette smoke and drunkards, was appalling. Some did not even bother to give a second glance or wrinkle their face in contempt.
Some among us check whether our zip is up or if we have combed our hair properly. And here lies one totally submerged in his own world were there is zero code for behaviour _ actually he was in non-behaviour, all possible voluntary animation suspended.
One guy drunk as a fiddler was standing in a bus, tossing here and there like a ship caught in a storm. And one man got up and politely asked him to sit! When we don't have the basic humanitarian decency to provide a seat to old people, why this sanctimonious gesture to drunkards?
I feel the first spirit lover should have been bodily lifted by some like-minded people and safely deposited in an Onyx garbage bin, where he could be left to mull over his bad old ways whenever consciousness returns.
The second could have been given an unholy exit from the running bus.
Well, I remember a joke: Once a drunk got into an autorickshaw and wanted to be taken to Central railway station. The driver protested: " We are standing right in front of the Central". Like all souls under the influence of alcohol, this one too was asininely assertive: "Don't I know Central, who are you trying to cheat." Our driver, who belongs to a tribe of people trained in taking people for ride, got into the auto, started the engine, kept it running for a minute and said: "We have arrived." The passenger was happy: "See I know, have not lost my senses to booze". He gave Rs. 20 as fare and waddled away.
One solitary instance in my life when I really liked the much-despised auto driver. Right way to treat sozzled up souls who are sometimes treated like the Lord descended.

GAMES LOST

2007-03-10T07:52:00.001-08:00

The games we played when we were children have disappeared into the mists of the ever-plodding time.
During summer, we would step out at 8 a.m. and return home only at 9 p.m., of course darting in and out to sneak a snack. Cricket was the perennial favourite, but once we played baseball, with casuarina sticks and tennis ball.
A range of games like gilli danda, marbles, top, seven stones, kabaddi, kings, apart from badminton, kept our spirits alive and our adrenaline flowing. That it shot up the blood pressure of people who watched us was not our concern. All the screaming, swearing, cursing was done while running at full tilt. I wish I could do that now to shed some extra (large) fat.
We had a set of indoor games, like trade, cards, chess and carromboard. These were quieter and our parents loved us _ if we played at somebody else's house. Hide and seek would take us to places where lesser mortals would fear to tread. Riding a hired cycle during summer vacation became an obsession, with a scene of us taking a tough curve appearing and re-appearing in our dreams.
When I look out now, I see not many boys playing. Most of them are in front of the computer, moving a mouse, wearing spectacles at a very young age and showing flab. The first sign of extra flesh on me appeared when I got a job.
I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but can a computer provide the music that the ball makes when we strike a ball; the smack of a ball landing into save hands, the sweat, the wounds on our knees and hands, the joy of running and falling and a thousand other feelings that my mind has lost as years gobble up years.

GREAT INDIAN BABBLERS

2007-03-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

* Indians are unstoppable babblers, chin-wagging everywhere ... wherenot. Often you can see guys hanging on footboard in a bus, discussing most trivial matters oblivous to the fact that they are precariously hanging and only a misplaced foot is separating them and a hospital bed.
* Another place where people indulge in this national obsession is the toilet. Yuck!!! Of all the improbable places. Guys standing side by side and exchanging views or whatever without being bothered by the nauseating odour leaves me tongue-tied. People talk everywhere except where there are supposed to, ie Parliament, from where they walk out at the slightest pretext or indulge in brickbatting.
* Enter the cell phone, the mother of it all. As if we did not have trouble with our mandible movers.
* One chap boarded a bus and started talking to a man to whose house he was anyway going to. By the time the orator finished he had almost reached his destination.
* Another started dictating a letter to a fellow who was dismissed from his job. And no prizes for guessing who was sitting next to him listening to this tripe for half an hour. One way to escape from these strange characters let loose on civil society is to plug an earphone and lose oneself to music. But if you are listening to FM radio, that is a subject fit for another story.
Got to go, can hear my cellphone ringing.

* * *

COOL HOGENEKKAL

2007-03-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

* Last summer, plagued by sound, air pollution and subeditors alike, I went to Hogenekkal. Seeing so much of water for a Chennaiite, for whom a bottle of Bisleri is too much, was like the deluge. From hell in Chennai to high water. The trip itself was relaxing, but there water was king.
* An old man took us in a parisal _ remember the Roja song 'chinna chinna asai' and that long shot from the top. Well the old chap who took us said that it was he who was on the parisal in that shot. (He was proud saying it as if he was Arvind Swamy himself. God knows whether he was taking us for a ride.)
* The parisal went along a valley with water falling in some places. What a roar it made coming down. The water raised a spray which covered the rocks like a fog, hence the name Hogenekkal ('smoke rock').
* All along boys were standing on top of the rocks ready to jump into the water from that height for 5 rupees. And they dived like a rock and swam like fish. You could see boys swimming along with the parisal beseeching you to throw money which they would retrieve from the depths. Poor ones, but at least they get money. Sometimes crocodiles can also be found in these waters. Some consolation this!
* We went during the lean season and the water level was low. We saw the level the water had touched during the peak season, and it scared me. In some places there was yellow scum _ let's keep journalism out of it... industrial pollution, political collusion et al. There was a floating shop, with a guy selling junk food and the ubiquitous Coke.
A paradise
* Then we went to a place where the Cauvery enters Tamil Nadu in Dharmapuri. It's a personal paradise of sorts. I lay in the water very near the sandy bed since I cannot swim like fish but only like rock. With the water gushing all around me, I lay in the water with only my head sticking out resembling, maybe, a hippopotamus. Good thing we never took pictures of my taking to the water. Once or twice I lowered my head under water and remembered the film Jaws and preferred to stay above. Some lucky guys swam here and there.... show-offs.
* Our next stop was the waterfall. The force of the water was such that it could cause you an injury if you were wearing a ring. My only apprehension was that it would wash away my underwear!
* The cascading water washed away body heat accumulated in the city and cleansed my mind of all things mundane.
* Finally when I boarded the bus back home, I could feel water all around me and when I closed my eyes the gurgling, gushing, roaring and murmuring water was calling me back.

* * *