Longing....

alas....my bed is empty
but my eyes are full of dreams
i am with you when i close my eyes
so wonderfully near you seem

Awakening is not even a distant thought
Until the truth of the day comes bursting in
Dreams must vanish, life must go on
There's miles to go, before I can dream of you again.

Bitter it may be, but truth it is
that we're a world apart, and nothing can be done
but even in solitude's painful grip, I know
that i'd rather have lonely dreams than none!


P.S : Thanks to mulloy for creative collaboration

from bling jewellery to reality TV

'The wheels of change'... ever wondered why we use that particular phrase? Is it because, with ‘change’, we associate a rapid, uncontrollable movement...an inevitable fluidity of principles, economies, traditions, ideologies, of beliefs, policies, relations, borders, of rivers, glaciers, mountains and volcanoes, of love and of war... I mean, what doesn’t change?? They say the only constant in man’s phenomenal evolutionary history has been CHANGE. Well, if its motion that we wanted to signify, why not say, the 'trains of change'.... and if it’s the incessant influx of new ideas, why not, 'the rivers of change'? Maybe it’s got something to do with the way wheels move.... up-down, up-down, up-down...cyclically...up-down, up-down, up-down... We see this, let’s call it ‘cyclicity’, everywhere... in every new dawn, in every drop of thawing snow heralding the arrival of spring..in religious theories of reincarnation and in the most fundamental law of science ‘matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Only changed from one form to another’.
The old cliché 'what goes, comes around' is exemplified in the world of fashion...by what’s hot and what’s not. Boot-cuts and bell-bottoms made a comeback a few years ago, and so did block and floral prints. What was considered criminally ghastly last year is a must-have this season. Your mom may not understand the aesthetics or the logic behind carrying a mobile phone and a tiny purse in a gargantuan bag but 'Bling is THE thing!'. All this said, bling jewellery is a completely innocuous indulgence and retro fashion isn’t killing anybody. However, not all things ancient have harmless modern avatars. For example, gladiatorial combat – the epitome of the decadence of the ancient romans, is back with a vengeance in a new, glossy, revamped form – Reality TV...and it’s turning every drawing room into the colosseum and every viewer into a sadistic, blood-thirsty roman..
The barbaric romans, in all their depravity, enjoyed as a spectacle, the brutal murder of helpless prisoners by Caesar’s legions, the savage conflicts among the enslaved gladiators, the inhuman scenes of torture and the blood curdling slaughter of slaves by animals... What is called reality TV is inherently based on and thrives upon the same thing- human sadism and the perverseness of what we consider entertaining... Here however, there are no victimised slaves and no inflictors of cruelty... the viewers are gratified, true... but they’re also victimised unknowingly...
When we see our basest instincts, our meanest thoughts, our numbing mediocrity reflected on screen by the rich and the famous, it probably smothers even the tiny scruples that we may still have about being bitchy and mean and well, mediocre...it gives us the confidence that, if we choose to, we could also become rich and famous by just being our vile, below-average, lazy, mundane selves.... We see celebrity participants snapping at each other and watch in rapt attention as they make mean, below-the-belt, racist comments... we enjoy it when wannabe performers are verbally assaulted and utterly humiliated by so-called judges and we also revel in the sniping and the bitching and the tantrums of the judges themselves...We have sunk to such macabre depths of perversion that we are now telecasting wars and executions... Whats more terrible, is that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop here.... as we smell more blood, we get hungrier, greedier and keep asking for more..more..MORE...
In today’s world of faster cars, bigger paycheques, looser morals, ephemeral passion and instant gratification, it does indeed seem like we will remain, for quite some time atleast, in the hypnotic hold of a monster that we created ourselves, a satanic beast that feeds on greed and boredom and dissolved morals, a poison that is nurturing human vice so subtly that we aren’t even noticing anymore... the hypnotic hold, of the Big Boss...

My name is Vishnu....

My name is Vishnu. I am seven years old. I live with my mother and my four year old sister outside Andheri railway station in Mumbai. My mother sells flowers and gajras at the railway station. I sell newspapers in the evening. Our house is made of plastic and is a very pretty blue colour. We got it from the vegetable market where they throw out all these plastic sheets and I picked out the colour myself. I have been going to school for two years and I already know the alphabet and even some small words. But my mother says that I may not be able to continue going to school because people don’t buy so many flowers any more. I told mom that chumki didi, who begs at the railway station, makes more money than us but my mother scolded me and said begging for money is bad. Even Raju bhaiya says that mom is right. Decent people did not beg for money. I didn’t know what decent meant but I wanted to look like a big boy so I pretended to understand.
Raju bhaiya is my best friend. He is twelve years old and very tall. Bhaiya says he is also poor but I think he says that because he thinks it makes me feel better. He has a tube-light and a table fan and it doesn’t rain inside their house. So he must be rich. He said he also used to sell newspapers at the station like me when he was a small boy. Now, he has his own bicycle and he delivers newspapers to the big houses in Juhu. On Saturdays, he takes me with him in the morning to see the big houses and the rich people. Sometimes, if the gate is not very high, he even lets me throw the newspaper inside. On my birthday, Raju bhaiya gave me a big ball. So we went to Juhu beach to play and I also shot balloons at Mohan kaka’s shop. I like shooting balloons because I am very good at it. Mohan kaka lets me shoot balloons on nights when it’s cloudy and there’re not too many people at the beach. He smiles and pats me on my back when I hit balloons in all my five shots. I like it when he does that. We went back on Raju bhaiya’s bicycle and like always, he let me ride it for a little while and, like he does almost every day, he told me that when he opens his own shop at the railway station, I can have his cycle. Raju bhaiya says that it is his ambition- to have his own shop. I have always wanted to grow up and be like Raju Bhaiya. Now I have a different ambition. I want to win a gold medal in the alimpix.
I remember that afternoon very clearly. It was pouring with rain and we were waiting for Raju bhaiya to come with the evening papers so that I could go to the station and sell them. I wanted to go play in the rain until he came but my mother would not let me. The last time it rained like this, my sister and I played for a long time and she fell ill the next day. The doctor said that my sister had something called new-moon-ya and scolded my mother for not taking care of us. My mother had to pawn her only gold chain to buy the medicines. It was a very nice gold chain. So I behaved myself and sat quietly. Raju bhaiya looked very excited when he came. I asked him what had happened and he said “India alimpix mein gold medal jeet gaya”. I didn’t know what that meant so i asked him. He seemed to be in a hurry and he said “For now, it means more people will buy the evening paper today!! Now go!!”.
I took my plastic sheet raincoat and ran out with the papers yelling “India gold medal jeet gaya! India gold medal jeet gaya!”. Raju bhaiya was right! Even people who would usually shoo me away called me and asked for a paper. Raju bhaiya had given me TWO bundles today and I had sold them all. My sister and I had an extra vada-pav at dinner that day. I was very happy. I asked bhaiya about the gold medal that night and he said that some man from Delhi had won a gold medal in the alimpix competition by shooting all the balloons. I said I can also do that. But bhaiya said it’s a very big competition and that people like us cannot win that. I think he didn’t know but pretended to know because he also wanted to look like a big boy. That man from Delhi has made so many people happy. He has given an extra vada-pav to so many children like me. I also want to make many people happy. I also want to make my mother smile again by giving her the medal in return for the pretty gold chain that she lost because of me. I also want to win an alimpix gold medal. Can someone please tell me how? Please.

blink

Mornings are beautiful.....whichever corner of the world you wake up in.... mornings are beautiful..... the freshly laundered sky....the luxuriant trees basking in the dawn and the dew.....with nature’s maestros exquisitely proclaiming another new day on their branches....oblivious to the attention or, in a growingly fast and unappreciative world, non-attention of others..... mornings are beautiful..... the sights, smells and sounds of a Chennai morning are extra beautiful to me.... now more than ever....because it will be a very different sun that will greet my bleary eyed stretches a month from now.....mornings in this nook of the earth are particularly early....as early as 4 AM..... with the tangy smell of the coast wafting in along with the uplifting aroma of fresh filter kaapi.... the elevating strains of suprabhatham in MS’s ethereal voice..... a tradition almost as emblematic of a Chennai household’s sunrise as kaapi....the newspaper sellers and doodhwalas whizzing past on their bicycles....passing maamis nonchalantly drawing intricate kolam’s..... while the men sit nearby with The Hindu in front of their noses savouring their brews along with the news.... mornings are beautiful.....

Interestingly, it is not mornings that I wanted to talk about.... as I was basking in yet another beautiful Chennai morning on my front porch, my thoughts turned to this rather boring crime movie i was watching yesterday in which a cop busts a criminal at the last, crucial moment even though he had almost no reason to believe that this respected honourable man was the bad-guy.....his awed partner (a feeling we were supposed to mirror, but sadly, it was too predictable and the clichés were too many..) asks him how he did it....and our man sagaciously says ‘I saw it in his eyes’.... and this pushed my thoughts to a rather fascinating book I recently read called ‘blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell.... now though our movies and their heroes proclaim it rather smugly, we do our own share of face-reading quite a few times everyday..... we try to gauge the boss’s mood before asking for a day-off.... we try to perceive what kind of product the customer will be interested in, not just from his face but also from the way he dresses, the way he walks and talks and the shoes he wears....we steal looks at someone across the restaurant because we feel he/she’d be a good companion.... we can ‘instinctively’ tell if a person’s a good orator or a good teacher just by looking at him..... extensive research has been done on body language.... we read articles that claim to be able predict if a relationship will last just by analysing the first kiss.... we know a loving touch...a comforting hug.... a critical eye.... a scornful stare....a flirtatious glance....an envious look.... we just know.... this knowing is not based on anything literal.... it’s not something the person explicitly said! It is just something we infer....so, we, normal mortals, engage in this occult science of mind-reading enough and more.... it does seem like a pretty useful ability to have, doesn’t it....

In ‘Blink’, Gladwell explores, among many other subjects, Autism.... he says that one of the most intense and evident effects of Autism is the inability to read faces... autistic people find it difficult, if not impossible, to do what we do automatically, to interpret non-verbal cues such as gestures and facial expressions .... to understand anything beyond the absolutely literal.... this is supposedly caused by the malfunctioning of a part of the brain called the fusiform gyrus.... the person might have a very high IQ....may have impressive degrees from prestigious institutions...but he will face problems in the most routine of practical situations because of his total lack of perceptual understanding..... we commiserate with these people....we feel sorry for them and try to imagine how difficult it must be for them to cope with daily situations.... but we should stop to wonder..... is our celebrated ‘ability’ all that it’s made out to be? Don’t most of our failed relationships break because of things that we didn’t say and thought understood or things that we didn’t mean but were unconsciously implied.....Don’t most of our caste-based and religious conflicts arise because of generalised and baseless judgements made based on anything but what is actually said.....aren’t all our prejudices based on assumptions and presumptions based on colour, ancestry, history and geography rather than on the person in front of you and what he has said and done....conscious and intended prejudice is not its only form.... it is a fact that juries in the USA take significantly lesser time to convict coloured people.... these juries aren’t entirely comprised of racists and xenophobes.... but this chauvinism is imbued in our very essence....don’t we instinctively cringe and feel a little more threatened when we see a two hundred pound African American man on a deserted street than when we see a blond man in a crisp business suit? unconscious prejudice is as bad as, if not worse than, its conscious form....Maybe we need to pity rather than laud ourselves for this burden of ‘mind-reading’ that we carry.... maybe we need to base our judgements more on fact than on the figurative.... maybe we need to appreciate the literal and tone-down the symbolic.... maybe we should learn to overlook, atleast sometimes, the implications, the inferences and the innuendo.... maybe we all need a malfunctioning fusiform gyrus once in a while....

Day 2 : Part 3

Blown and bloated beyond recognition by the much awaited, incredibly delicious and indecently devoured meal ,we literally had to roll out of Master ji’s kitchen. Taking into consideration the physical travails awaiting us in the coming week and also the inconvenient propensity of spherically shaped forms to roll downhill, we decided to take a walk in an attempt to return our distended forms to human proportions. Having already explored one part of the village, we decided to head in the other direction. It led gently uphill and we could see majestic coniferous trees and vibrantly beckoning rhododendrons at a distance. As we passed what would be the official starting point of our trek, Kris was told that masterji had summoned him for discussing some important issues about our trek. He left rather haughtily, chest puffed out in pompous importance. (kindly remember that given that the starting shape itself was a grossly engorged caricature of the human form, this puff of pride, though unnecessary, was an achievement in itself). Vaguely wondering what it might be that Masterji had called Kris for, we resumed our walk, periodically punctuated by excited screams and spellbound whispers as tiny springs, hidden streams and yawning valleys provided enroute entertainment.

It was already late afternoon and the sun was well on its westward journey. The colours of the ensuing twilight added to the drama, bestowing a mystical shimmer on the roadside streams and making the already intense red of the rhododendrons gleam as if on fire. This ethereal setting further enriched by the ghostly white flags billowing in the wind and the whispers of the rustling pines, kept us mesmerized for quite a while. Kris came back just as the night was creeping in and we decided to get back to the village.

Masterji had told us to stock up on chocolates, biscuits and dry fruits for the climb since we would not encounter many shops, or rather, any civilisation at all, in the days to come. Now, ‘stockin up’ and ‘chocolates’ and ‘biscuits’ were all terms that were dear to our guzzling hearts and we took to the task with gusto. The owner revelling in what was probably the sale of a life-time, we left the store with food that could have fed an army for a month and smiles that would have put the Cheshire cat to shame. After putting away our rather substantial hoard, we unabashedly trooped to the kitchen for dinner (yes! For more food! Any problems? We did take a long walk after all!). The savoury scent dismissing any qualms about the repetition, we treated ourselves once more to dal and cauliflower while masterji happily chatted away enthralling us with his accounts of the thrills and dangers of trekking along with some highly useful tips and tidbits. Among these tidbits was the rather sinister statement that the first three kilometres would take the wind out of our lungs. In response to the looks of open terror on some of our faces (identity protected in order to maintain some semblance of respect), he said, in what he assumed was a very encouraging tone, that if we could survive those (i would like to re-emphasize the IF in 'if we could survive') we would, most likely, make it through the remainder of the trek. A highly intriguing choice of words, wouldn't you say? With eager expectation overpowering any inhibitions that may have arisen, we hit the bed hoping to hurtle into the dawn that just couldn't come soon enough.

P.S : In case you’re wondering what happened to Kris, whom we shall rechristen as Banta for the time being (as in Santa and Banta, our leaders) when we were on our walk, here it is. Though Mr.Banta has some lofty and obviously spurious yarns about having been called upon to make critical decisions and do some meticulous planning, here’s our (totally honest and definitely not exaggerated) version of what he had to do. Since Mr.Banta took it into his head to be our “leader” and representative, he had to perform some ancient Sherpa rituals to protect himself and his group of “followers” from the wrath of the mountains. According to these, the leader is taken to a goat pen having about a hundred goats. Of these he has to identify the female goats (by looking ONLY at their faces! they’re sacred goats remember!! So no peeking! hence the afore-mentioned critical decision making), count (and remember) their teeth and bathe in their milk in the centre of that pen at twilight. All of these must be done with utter reverence or one might annoy the sacred goats. Though we’re still having some trouble in getting Kris to admit that he did all this, our account is based on Stuart’s extensive knowledge in this area and on strong factual evidence.

Delectable Detours 1 : Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

Jaane tu ya Jaane Na is easily THE release of the summer!! Oodles of fun, frolic and pep… some rivetingly refreshing performances…a thoroughly enjoyable, sarcastic, spoof-like storyline…and, needless to say, the extraordinary music… all come together in Rahmanic (synonymous with perfect, wat say) harmony to give you a delightful movie with the style, class and identifiability of dch (minus the thirty somethings who played college kids), the humour and romance of Jab we met and one more significantly fantastic feature that both these films could not boast of…A R RAHMAN! Kabhi Kabhi Aditi is one of the sweetest, most romantic songs to have come out in recent times and it sets the tune for the entire movie…

Moving on to the performances… Debutante Imraan, with his chocolate boy innocence and dazzlingly cute smile captures your heart and holds it firmly throughout the film… he’s here to stay and under the tutelage of maamu Aamir, is bound to reach great heights… Genelia, as the catty Meow, all giggles and effervescence in the first half and also as the insecure and moody Aditi in the second, has played her role with elan… the friends are adorable… and so is Naseeruddin Shah as the photo dad… Ratna Pathak Shah is superb as the gutsy mother and Paresh Rawal is outstanding as the annoying naam-ke-vaste villain…

Jaane tu is about relationships. The relationships that, during the phase when we’re just entering adulthood with unrealistic hopes and custom-made rosy-eyed glasses, shape our lives and define who we are…mother and son…brother and sister…unrequited love…friendship…the thin red line between love and friendship…and, enchantingly, the relationship between a father’s photograph and his son…And with its talented supporting cast, the film portrays these relationships with panache… the selfless support and love of the mother who understands her young son’s every smile and whimper…the adoring son who will do anything to live up to the promise he made to his mom…the proud and eager father who does everything he can from the confining limits of death and a photo frame to ensure that his son fulfills his destiny… the brother who annoys his sister at every available opportunity just so that she would have something (in our dirty mouthed heroine’s case atleast a swearword or two) to say to him…the friend who, though madly in love with the protagonist, finally learns to swallow her heart and move on…and the protagonists, who don’t realize, until they drift apart and into their separate lives and romances, that they are, as everyone they knew so confidently avowed, actually in love…

But nothing…not even an Aamir Khan film, is flawless….and the movie does have its blemishes…Firstly, though Genelia’s performance is captivating, to say the least, she has a lot of work to do on her hindi diction…next, the first three songs, each one a gem, have been thrust together….however, the virtuosity of Rahman is such that you still end up enjoying them to the hilt…most importantly, the storyline… you might not notice it because of the energy and vibrance of the narration but it kinda gets into a slump in the middle…but with the enormously clichéd Knight-on-white-stallion and scramble-in-airport climax, you kinda forget the lull…

What I can promise you is that you'll come out of the theatre with a wide grin on your face... evoking nostalgic smiles from the middle-aged, knowing nods from the teeny-boppers, and eager dreamy-eyed excitement from the kids, Jaane tu is a film you‘ll just love to love… probably even against your better judgement… don’t mistake me, it’s a film that achieves, and spectacularly at that, what it sets out to achieve…and that is two-and-a-half hours of refreshing fun, rejuvenating music and youthful excitement…what I meant was, in what was an extremely dry summer season for movie buffs, when tamil cinema was catering to the front benchers and getting more and more violence-based and when good bollywood cinema has come to mean serious issue-based we’ll-make-you-think ‘ers (with a handful of exceptions like Jab we met but even that gets a little tedious in the middle), this movie, with no serious plot, no dramatic twists, no menacing villains (except the not-at-all-menacing and charismatic-as-usual Paresh Rawal),basically no bollywood histrionics and melodrama, is breezy, light-hearted and simply invigorating in its freshness and inimitable charm…

Day 2: Part 2

Stuart’s violent reaction to Kris’s miraculous and slightly unconventional water purifier resulted in some early unwanted rainfall within the car which spawned a wave of laughter. We were basking in the now ceaseless sea of mirth, (to metaphorically continue the wetness of the afore used ‘rainfall’ and ‘wave’ comparisons) and luxuriating in the splendour of the vistas that were unfurling before our mesmerized eyes, when our hypnosis was broken by a rather unpleasant sound – a sound you do not want to hear when you are in a closed car as tightly packed as salted sardines, a sound that is very unwelcome when you are in rather stingy quarters and can’t recognise if the foul smell under your nose is the vestige of your friend’s hungrily devoured carelessly-brushed dinner from yesterday or the knock-out fragrance of your own feet, a sound that is symptomatic of a lethal projectile of unmentionable stuff that might come your way any moment. The mountain goddess, who with her paralysing beauty and stunningly magnificent visuals evoked feelings of awe-struck humility and open-mouthed wonder in every traveller blessed enough to set foot in her glorious lap, had found a rather unappreciative audience in Irene - the only open-mouthed tribute Irene deigned to pay the mountains was the nauseous grunt that had caused so much horror and chaos. Mercifully, the sound had only been an omen and there was no accompanying matter. So, we hurriedly shifted Irene to a window seat, gingerly shoved a pill into her mouth (fearing the deadly outburst any moment) and plonked a reluctant Stuart next to her (ah!! the pains and trials of love). The upshot of all this bedlam was that we were treated to Irene’s contented snores for the rest of the road.

Blanketed by the captivating spectacles on either side, our journey continued in a speechless trance and we reached our in what seemed like an instant. Maneybhaijan was a charming little Sherpa village with rosy-cheeked, runny-nosed children, tiny colourful houses and of course people whose faces shone with simple smiles and genuine warmth. We were shown our cabin by the innkeeper at whose place Kris had made arrangements for us to stay - a person whom everyone affectionately called “Master ji ”. With the morning’s burnt dosa long gone and our stomachs thundering away, we dumped our rucksacks rather unceremoniously and tore headlong into his kitchen.

To our disappointment, we were told that he had had no idea as to when we would arrive and therefore had to start preparing our meal only then. So, we decided to explore the village and the surrounding countryside and set out in the direction of a little temple we had spotted from the roof of our cabin. It was a typical Nepali temple atop a small hillock vividly painted in dazzling colours with quite a few flags fluttering in the wind to carry to the heavens the prayers of the trusting natives. The brilliant azure of the clear sky perfectly complementing the bright yellow of the temple provided our shutterbugs with some very pretty pixels. After many many photographs, some involving bawling local children (courtesy Mr. Red) , we climbed down and were just about to enter a winding lane when an old man sitting at the street corner told us that the gutter at the beginning of the lane was a very important landmark. Wondering what or whose famous waste it had once contained, we inquired about the reason for this rather queer piece of information. Buoyed by his enhanced importance in the wake of a group of youngsters gawking at him, he very flamboyantly announced that this seemingly insignificant gutter was actually the Indo-Nepal border. Lauding ourselves for having set foot on this “exalted” piece of ground, we resumed our stroll around the village.

Having spent almost an hour roaming around, we could no longer silence our growling stomachs and decided to check on masterji’s progress with our lunch. The wafting scent of the tadka told us what we needed to know even before we entered the kitchen. With the steaming rice looking inviting in sparkling white and the rich yellow dal dotted with specks of lustrous green, with the velvety smoothness of the Dal enhanced by the crisp, succulent freshness of the Gobi matar, all accompanied by the heavenly intoxicating fragrance that characterises good food , Master ji’s cooking was indeed a delight to all the senses. We stuffed ourselves to the limits of our stomachs’ storage capacity (“hearts’ content”, though linguistically more appealing, would not have conveyed the full extent of our greedy plundering) while listening to the seasoned Masterji’s accounts of the adventures, dangers and wonders of mountain climbing. After our rather loutish devouring, we were introduced to Santa Bhaiya, our guide for the next ten days. “He’s the best of the best” said Masterji and we could see what he meant when we looked at the small, sturdy Sherpa standing in a corner of the room smiling shyly. With the youthful athleticism that comes from years of trekking in arduous paths and unforgiving climes and eyes shining with wisdom and unbridled enthusiasm, Santa Bhaiya was and looked a son of the mountains themselves.