Testing..!

Checking if I am able to add anything at all.

All day long the sun remained subdued, cornered even, by the downpour from the heavens. At the first let in the rains at the day's end it must have thought - now,or never! And thus, spontaneously, it burst at the horizon, spangling the rain-drenched earth, turning everything golden, curving upwards many a lip, and setting off a chatter amongst the crows, which were as delighted as the much reticent humans. It seemed as if the sun was bent upon telling us, 'See, this is the glory I bestow on you folks...' Its warmth seemed special perhaps because it had scored one up against the rain god!

The Living Dead

I know I am dying
when one by one,
bleached of hope,
my dreams turn gray.

Vistas

For days on end the sky wasn't exactly cloudy yet the horizon looked gray. The coastline was
distinguishable from the sky only because it was expected in that direction and thus was the sea's gray distinguishable from the sky's, more by the mind than by the eye. One wasn't sure though about what made a day gray and what allowed it to be blue and sunny. Perhaps it was do with the atmosphere, dense as it could have been with suspended particles - dust not let by gusty winds to settle down.

Then one day a vista, belonging to the other extreme, bewitched me: On the ground were sharply etched shadows while above a clear sky raced towards the horizon where defiantly stood the deep-blue sea - luminous, bristling, and unmerged. At that distance, the sea was no longer a fluent water body but seemed more like lapis lazuli gone liquid.

The Mind's Eye

‘The Tratchenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics’ has one of the best foreword for any book: Its summary of the eventful life of Mr. Tratchenberg makes for an inspiring read. What soon turns to be difficult is the unwieldy nature of making mental calculations – be it through the Tratchenberg method or by the supposedly clunkier traditional methods. I had bought the book years ago with fond hopes of bettering my scores in the Quantitative and DI sections of my CAT. When I recently picked up the book I had forgotten what had put me off its techniques despite that brilliant foreword which had again seduced me headlong into the first chapter ‘Tables or No Tables’. As I waded through the topic ‘Multiplication by 11’ it was clear that it had been the difficulty of ‘holding’ in the mind's eye, the numbers involved in calculation.

Tratchenberg system or not, the ability to do this shall prove to be the clincher. For someone like me with such a poor memory for numbers it would require miracle or sheer practice to master Mr. Tratchenberg’s system of calculation.

Agog in the brilliance of the sun
I photograph it for keepsake.
What remained though was loneliness -
of a beauty caught in memory, not quite in words.

But what?

There upon the shimmering sand is the man. He has a gun that ain't loaded. He points it at me and I feel, correctly, no terror. What shall happen next I ask myself and find myself handing him the bullets. He pulls the trigger upon himself - with better judgment indeed - escaping where I can't follow, leaving me in living hell.

To wrap up the below post I had written something about how I met an American-Italian who sported a nose-stud like Gujarati babes usually do. And how we ended up having a conversation
which climaxed in she quizzing me about an Indian dish she had tasted a long time back
(it was, I had decided - Paneer Mutter Masala and written it down in block letters for her reference).

When I read what I had written it seemed not so funny, not so interesting. And hence I just forgot I even wrote it. All that remains is the above obituary of that post!
Shit, my life could end up being so, in someone else's obituary.

What then?

Mmm, I feel better.

p.s.: Listening to Efterklang. To my ears they are a worthy replacement for Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd et al.

Summer Showers in New World

One’s smile veiled by various tragedies. Light, such, pours past layers of clouds - sometimes upon an earth just showered, sometimes upon an earth foreshadowed. Whichever way, a face made lovelier, I summarise, imbued with life and light.

These clouds have descended upon unsuspecting folks like an immaculate conception and I am watching the sunshine upon this foreshadowed earth. Stray drops pellet me. I am by the wayside, under good shelter. My back is stuck to the glass panes of the bookstore and perhaps it is being browsed by the books stacked behind the glass. They are returning the favour. Would they find us interesting? They are after all us, set down in paper.

At a distance, the traffic is muted, the roadscape looks deserted yet simultaneously busy with the clouds getting arrayed into a massive front. On ground, busy feet scamper towards shelter with short, precise steps – a balancing act featuring safety and alacrity - as the clouds begin their shower. The first drops 'dopple' here and there as if aimless but frantically seek a groove to settle in. Soon enough, as the drizzle becomes rain, and the shower a lash, a rhythm, lush and insistent, arises. It reminds me of the initial dithering when two bodies grapple with each other’s desires, the frantic foreplay that follows, and the eventual rhythm they revel in and settle into.

If someone could strum a guitar and sing a simple melody to go along with the lush score of the rains it would have been perfect. Like how a rainbow befits perfectly a world sparkling with recent rainfall. Alas, rarely do you have all the stars aligned in one lucky line. Rarely do you have coincidences worth recounting.

I can remember of one right away. Years ago when I bid goodbye to what was then one of my serious sweethearts, on the shared terrace that was also the conduit between two hostels, the sky was unbearably clear (ok this is a bit of a Photoshop style cleaning up but what now follows is absolutely true to original detail). Upon this blue sky a pair of high-attitude jets passed by each other, as seen from the ground apart only by a centimeter, their feathery vapour trails forming a perfect pair of parallel lines that shall meet only when they dissolve into oblivion. As those pieces of metal passed by each other, their speed rendered into a cool slow-mo by their altitude, I brought her attention to their bodies glistening as they caught the sunlight at the correct angles. She nodded, looking bemused rather than amused. What a piece of memory for a parting gift, she must have felt.

Back to the rainy day in NJ. I now see fluid sunshine fractured into a million pieces and readily held captive by the raindrops that decorate the face of earth. A lady by my side lights a cigarette and that almost physical need to juxtapose contrasts, to match something hot against the chill rains envelops me. A girl of Indian origin, bespectacled and too busy on the phone to notice my presence walks by, remains under the shade for a while and then restless, goes inside the store. After the cigarette has vanished into thin air the other lady too rushes into the rain towards her car and drives away. In a few seconds I am left alone with the rains. Having had enough of them and also sensing boredom (I knew he would beckon his more portentous twin, Ms. Loneliness soon enough and I was in no hurry for her companionship.), I too go in to the books, DVDs, and coffee.

(Hope to continue...)

Tragedies for Consumption.

The overwhelming moments at the WTC memorial site remind me of what vicarious emotional experiences end up being, especially upon a filled stomach and a warm body: a self-indulgent trip full of gravitas and solemnity.

I am sure, that day, Vanitha and her parents weren’t as much washed over by a sense of tragedy as I was. Yet, that the lump rises less readily up their throat doesn’t mean they would be any less constructive in amending others’ misfortune. Mooning over others’ sorrow is more often just that – feeling and mooning over, and as a rule worth precious little. The exceptions of course become revolutionaries and lose their lives.

Vicarious experiences are not the equals of our darker emotions – jealousy, depression, suspicion, hatred, loneliness, loss, and those accompanying sheer starvation. These are real troubles and cause real heartache, not the ‘ensconced-in-comfort’ wallowing in others’ tragedy. However big others’ tragedy is, it wouldn’t bother us as much as a bolt which has descended upon ourselves.

Eventually, our deepest feelings for others are noble-colored fluff. And they frequently get degraded to the level of ‘the sentimental dope of this month.’ They become yet another piece of gratification, which in a twisted sort of way makes us feel less bored. As proof I could perhaps offer media’s penchant for disasters, corruption, serial killers, ethnic cleansing, besides grotesque relief such as Bush and Indian Cricket, to go along with our morning coffee, and to act as fodder for small talk through out our day.

The Empty Thumps While Kick-Starting a Habit Left Out in the Cold

Wanted to post something but had nothing to talk about. So what does one do? What does one do if there is craving but no hunger, desire but no appetite? Wait it out and let time take over?

--

Our sins could make us more connected to the rest of humanity than any amount of empathy! The only sure key to understanding others is to understand myself thoroughly, by being cognizant of the sea within myself, with the penchant of a pearl-diver.

--

Now with the act of forgetting my old password amended by resetting it to a new one, now with the block removed, let me see if I can begin to regularly publish in these pages.

Why Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (VV) Didn't Give me the Kicks

The negatives far outweigh the good things about the movie...

-ve

1. There are too many things to remind one of Kaakha Kaakha (KK) -- the names (Ilamaran, Maya), the actors (Jyothika, Daniel Balaji, Jo's family members), the lingo (poturlaan daa...and all the swear words censored jarringly), loud acting by Daniel Balaji that seemed like a poor imitation of Jeevan's Pandya.
   
2. Not enough background to let us know why they turned into serial killers - one would believe they started the whole thing as some sort of a hobby, that's how shoddy the treatment of their past is! This exploring of rationale / motivation is something Kaadhal Kondaen and Thiruttu Payale does quite well.
3. What was it with Homosexualism!! Pointless and an injustice to gay men.
4. The incessant killings
   
5. The stock escape situation featured in the Mumbai airport
6. The heroic opening that doesn't jel with the rest of the story
7. Loud, mood spoiling BGM
8. Why does the Hero have to get plain lucky in cornering the guys
9. Raghavan instinct, my foot!!!
10. The needless romantic angle - perhaps it was necessary because there was not enough powder in the keg.
11. The songs - each one slows down the pace.
    
12. The 'pathbreaking medical research' crap blabbered in the end
13. The severed finger as a signature - Why should he even do it for all his avowed intelligence and then admit it was a mistake?!!
14. How does Kamal figure out where Jyothika has been buried alive? Why is Jo spared torture and rape (apparently...) - In a nurry to wind up the story?

+ve

1. The confrontation between Amudan and Ragavan in the former's apartment
2. The very short introduction between Ragavan and Kayalvizhi in a marriage
3. The locations are brilliant, but only partly, as the bgm screws up the mood
4. Prakash Raj, kamal for their performance; Kamalini merely for her presence
5. The sequence in which Kamal tracks down the body of Prakash Raj's daughter is brilliant: Everything stands out in this, for example the performances - Prakash Raj, the 'beggar' who gives the right leads, Kamal
6. The molestation of Amudan and Ilamaran by the eunuchi n the prison cell

** (Interesting)

1. The sniggers among the audience when Kamal says 'neenga homosexualsaa daa?" doesn't bode well. And technically they should have been called bi, but that might have been above our audience!
2. The volte-face climax. The film was much better for the happy ending - Otherwise the film's very creation would have been pointless as it would have further sealed the similarity with Kaakha Kaakha
3. I am not sure why I am making this comparison: I think Thirutu Payale was a far better movie even after taking into account its sleight of hand and information witholding game it plays with the audience.

New York Nagaram: A Liberal Translation

There is a simple joy in translation, akin to a craftsman’s. Instead of the pain of creation is the precision of re-creation, and what a recreation it turns out to be!

The terrain is familiar and safe because it has already been mapped out and for someone like me who owes no special allegiance to the source material, it can be re-imagined to various degrees to please oneself. So as long as one is not aiming at an official translation you have the best of both the worlds: you use someone else's terrain but for your own literary pleasures. Isn’t it like having an affair with another’s wife, sans the complications!

In the above said manner I had set out to translate the recent hit 'New York Nagaram...' in which AR Rahman performs the alchemy of turning a lyric of uneven quality (lyricist: Vaali) into a cool song that I am sure is the anthem for many a young onsite guy's longings, fantasized and real.

Here is the output.

“As the city recedes into sleep loneliness takes over,
Snow spreads, from the seas winds alight to stroll the shores.
Amidst glass panels am I, lonely and pointless
Having dinner in the company of candle sticks.

No more conversations that double up as lullaby
Or kisses alongside morning coffee.
No more you to taste dust in my eye
Or straighten the wrinkles of my psyche.

You over there and me here:
Blessed by the loneliness, minutes drag as years.
Blue over there and bleak sky here:
Why is it upon us to illumine this metaphor?

In my diary is your name penned myriad times.
And lo, streams of ants array behind the honeyed lines.
Though the winter has chilled earth even,
This moment scorches like an Indian summer.

Come home, oh alchemist’s magic!
Won’t you turn this red ember into ice…”

I would like to thank the following site for the lyrics:
http://arrahmaniac.blogspot.com/2006/08/thanimai-thanimaiyo.html”

(C) MaheshC.

Just a Filler...

Yesterday I saw a surreal sight while riding in a darkness punctuated by lashing rains, headlamps, and thunders crashing down at the horizon. The steady sheet of rain was visible only when a headlamp, single or as a pair, flashed by. Otherwise it was felt streaming down my face, and tasted. In that circumstances too, workers, drenched and with improvised rubber boots, were at their work on the IT Corridor Road. A bulky equipment was
spreading steaming tar mix on the road. The steam rose upwards to meet the showers under the auspices of the orange lights.

For my Curious Canadian Friend..!

The Statue represents an important moment in that great epic of ours, Mahabharata.The epic is about the two warring group of cousins: Pandavas and Kauravas. Yet to put it so simply is being grossly reductive. Like any great classic (think of Iliad and Odyssey) Mahabharata is not about one linear storyline and one crux. It is made up of a great array of characters and there are all their stories to contend with; besides ofcourse philosophical and religious discourses and discussions of morality. So much so that the author (or rather the compiler/anthologist of this epic), the sage Vyasa says something like, What's not in this is not found anywhere else, and if it is not found here then it is nowhere else. Such comprehensiveness!

The statue depicts a charioteer, and a warrior with his bow and arrows. The warrior Arjuna is one of the greatest heroes and archers in Indian mythology. One episode vouches for his powers of concentration and his ardent love for his craft. His guru Dronacharya asks his pupils
(Pandavas of whom Arjuna is one, and Kauravas who are a hundred in number and his led by Duryodhana) to aim at a bird perched upon a tree (I think it is a bird or it could be a fruit such as the mango) with their bows and arrows. Then he asks them one by one to describe what they are able to see. Ajuna alone says that he can't see anything else than the eye of the bird he has been aiming at. Befittingly he wins his wife Draupadi (Interestingly Draupadi is the wife of all the Pandavas-five of them in all and not just Arjuna) at an archery contest. In the epic there are only two other warriors who come close to beating Arjuna in archery. They are Karna and Ekalavya. Yet both are handicapped by others' schemings that it only serves to reduce the glory of Arjuna: It raises the classic 'If only...' questions.

The charioteer is no ordinary charioteer. He is Krishna. He is such a multifaceted personality that there are so many ways to describe him-charmer of women and one of the greatest lover in Indian mythology, cowherd, counsel for the Pandavas, philosopher, schemer of the wisest and vilest kind, charioteer, and a king in his own right..! Krishna was greatly instrumental in the victory of the Pandavas over Kauravas in the Kurukshetra war (fought somewhere near present day Delhi). Without getting overly judgemental let me just say that all that was done by Krishna to bring victory to the Pandavas wouldn't come across as being wholesome. One can put a finger on a lot of other characters in Mahabharata and finally (even though with the greatest of difficulty and vacillation) say whether the character has been good or bad. Such a judgement, in my view, is not possible to carry out on Krishna. And in a way it is only befitting. Some points of view hold that God for most parts has nothing to do with the man-made morals; that the Lord acts in mysterious ways not all of which we can be readily understand and Krishna afterall is one of the avatars (roughly incarnations) of Lord Vishnu.

Now coming back to the Statue...The Pandavas and Kauravas are all lined up as the worst of enemies. But they are cousins and hence Arjuna sees so many of his grand relations (uncles, cousins), his guru Dronacharya and so many of his acquaintances all lined up on the other side. He thinks of the lives he has to take, the bodies his arrows have to fell-they are all his relations, his dear ones. He hesitates and wonders if the success shall be worth all the dear lives he has to get past. Even though he is convinced that the Pandavas have been wronged and that Dharma (roughly translated as Justice, virtuousness, righteousness) is on their side he is now paralysed by confusion and the contemplation of immense grief and disaster. Then Krishna on the eve of the war appears in all his Godly glory and advises Arjuna, which forms the cornerstone of Indian Philosophy: The Gita, the essence of which is often paraphrased as, 'Perform your duty without expecting the results'.

In your scrap book you could probably name the statue as, 'The Sermon at the Battlefront'.

Faces at the Farewell

So many faces! Composed, clicked and stolen away from the fumes of time. Guess my thinking is not thoughts strung together but rather a slideshow of images. I could indeed relive all my life as a parade of faces, most of them shared, but a few existing just within me. Aren’t these few my precious ones, leading brighter lives than many of those I have preserved on film? I don’t mind having missed the chance to put them in print. Maybe all my craft and application wouldn’t have done justice to these faces. And some of them are too precious and personal to even have tried. Now I see them all clearly as if my closed eye-lids were a projection screen, despite all these drugs numbing my mind. During the passage of what seems like the final hours I am just glad that these images are giving me company, like you do Sugandhi.

Oh mom, here, you are: face withered and lost in a world of your own making. How much my own visage would resemble yours now-mine too has closed out communication. You had communicated so much with that fine economy of a danseuse until you went impassive in your old age, like a frozen lake. Occasionally your seething schizophrenia used to erupt like a Loch Ness monster. Stones dropped into that lake just sank not yielding me even the comfort of a few ripples. You became so different from rest of us-we, oceans and rivers murmuring incessantly and keeping each other happy with the illusion that we know what lies beneath the other. So many nights I have looked at you with all the years’ love and understanding, with all the intuition of my art: Is it hurt, is it puzzlement; are u lost, can u see your son seeking you? What do you feel, let me know. Don’t leave me in a lurch. I am your son, look at me like I am indeed your son. At least tell me whether you are happy or sad. Then something, back of my mind reminded me that rarely are humans found sitting in neatly defined binary states of joy and sorrow. I never knew till the end. Your impassive face was all you left me with.

These plugs, tubes, monitors, bandages, strapping me to life, taking the spirit out of me…how I wish it were true that one’s eyes were windows to one’s soul. Try reading them Sugandhi for I have no other way of speaking to you. Alas, it is now your time to seek me out.

Ah, Suleiman, come. You have visited my memories at the right moment! Suleiman the maker of masks and painter of portraits-you did with paints, brushes and canvass what I did with lens, blackbox, and chemical films. You opened my eyes to the universe of masks; you vested with me the gift to look at human faces as layer over layer of masks and unpeel them; you vested with me the gift to identify the most pristine of emotions and their most unpremeditated expressions. You taught me how our cultures mute our expressions; how wider our smiles could be, how heart rending our cries, how obscene can seem the most complete expressions of joy, shame, fear, and all the seven sins. Oh, how we traveled like vagabonds, seeking situations that were not found within the compass of modern human experience. Oh, how we sought out people who expressed as if they haven’t yet learnt of shame; who expressed as if other people ceased to exist. How long we have been together at mental asylums, maternity wards, drunken parties, cremation grounds, and nursery schools.

Do you remember the best passing-out photograph I had clicked, every kid in that kintergarden class are seen erupting with laughter while that girl in a pair of doubled-up plaits...wasn’t her name Ruba…crying because some fellow in the row behind had undone her ribbon. I didn’t let the moment go and pressed the shutter. Do you remember the terrorizing innards of that asylum. My fingers trembled, refused to go down on the button to click the sweep of strange gazes, chained limbs, and broken spirits. Or do you remember the time when we were discreet hangers-on in a cremation ground. That man had died a long-drawn death. Lung cancer, we gathered from broken conversations. He had lived gaily and generously, we understood, while the preparations were being done for the cremation. That the valiant efforts to save his life had gone on for just too long was evident from his body. The man was soon decked with firewood and his bare-chested son went around twice with the pot pouring out water from his shoulders. Then he was handed the firebrand. We were surprised that the son, a teenage kid, hesitated. As others looked on, and as the silence broke into murmurs of surprise, he went on, nimbly foraging the waist-folds of his dhoti and stuck a cigarette in his father’s mouth. Then he took the firebrand and lighted the pyre with a glad face. I had my camera and both of us were aware of the opportunity. But we couldn’t bring ourselves to it.

All those experiences made us forsake the luxury of harboring any illusions about man’s dignity. Upon folks like us fell the burden of harboring both the beauteous and the beastly within one breast. We drove ourselves to the edge of sanity and strained our faith in mankind. Then we recoiled and sought refuge in arts and religion. We studied dance forms for their expositions of bhava; we studied the tribal crafts to see how they had identified, analysed and decomposed human expressions. We saw spiritual masters and gurus and alas figured out a vast majority of them had just chosen just a different kind of mask. Then, you had left.

You left my eyes open for an ideal we had agreed upon at the end of all our travels: the still adult face. The antithesis of everything we had seen till then. A clear face that stood steadily mounted upon a still being. A pendulum that rested, after all its trials and tribulations, at the centre. It was not my mom’s placid face that didn’t let one in but a face which simply did not have anything to hide. It wasn’t just anyone’s happy face, certainly not a kid’s. It was not a stoic patience which only had misery neatly tucked beneath. It was more than contentment that rested smug in a turn of fortune. It could be a kind of absorbedness, but with nothing in particular. It was definitely peace. Oh it was more than all these. From then on my travels ceased but my eyes opened. And how I looked! It wasn’t a search marked by desperateness but wholeheartedness. When I discovered that the image I was seeking was very much a part of me…

Sugandhi, ah you are back, looking over me. Outside, are they all sad? Would you be able to take it well, will you move on? You are pressing my arm, you are seeking meaning in my face. There is so much I could tell you. But what could I feel now that you can’t so much guess? What could I think that could surprise you? I am just going through these images you know. I feel as if these esteemed friends of mine have come to bid me farewell, probably at the right moment! Ah these cemented, atrophied muscles…Sugandhi my face is dead, you know that, so simply read my eyes. Let me take your palms into mine. Oh that smile of yours, keep smiling. Yet do I see a thin film forming over your eyes? Are you giving way? The film breaks open into a stream of tears and instead of draining down my cheek gets stranded and lost among my stubble. Its time I close my eyes you know. Everyone has bid farewell except you. We have been so much together that you might think I wouldn’t have you in my mental scrape book. Yet, do you know my most precious image is yours.

Do you know Sugandhi, would you remember? In the hospital room a week after Nithya was born…your health had stabilized, the flow of eager relatives and friends had ebbed. That forenoon as the crows’ caws drifted in along with the breeze and solid pillars of light and dust formed spots on the clean hospital floor, you, Sugandhi, younger and stouter was sitting upright after a long restful sleep. I had been sitting by your side watching mother and child in sleeps that till recently had been tucked one inside the other. Sugandhi, you were catching up with household issues and I was feeling a little like a school kid pulled up on account of his pending homework. If there could be stops like these from time to time life was definitely worthy, I thought looking at you. At that moment something clicked in me. You had that look I had kept my eyes wide open for years. I knew this was it. The human face at its simplest...you know, not a single palpable emotion was evident on your face, not a single thought, I was sure, playing about in your mind. A human face not exuding anything at all except a kind of sweetness. We kept looking at each other for a long time and I was trying to imbibe every detail of your face. There was a camera in the bag I had brought along. Yet I did not know how to manage a picture of yours without running the risk of breaking the balance. It was as if time had forgotten to flow, everything seemed so still, and any motion on my part would only set time in motion again. Then I remember turning around as delicately as possible, almost tiptoeing, towards the table which had the usual hospital paraphernalia, to take my camera out of my bag and set it. Alas the inevitable had to happen. My chance was despoiled by your surprising look when you figured out that it was my camera I was meddling with and not a glass of Horlicks you thought I was fixing for you. Would you remember I then asked you what you felt like. You answered, your curiosity piqued, that it was nothing particular, that you were merely glad.

Here, Exit.

The pandal is coming up. The stout casuarina poles are stuck deep into the ground at regular intervals and more of them are tied tightly across them. They shall form the robust structure upon which the canopy would soon be mounted. After this is done we shall go in a long patient row, in shiny black and yellow gowns to collect our diplomas. I have passed by so many separations, I know the excess emotions during such occasions don’t mean much for practical purposes. Voids cause pain yet there are always fresh arrivals to fill up voids in our life. So I am wary of spilling tears unless and until they are absolutely necessary. I would like to choose my tears and sentiments more carefully than my smiles and laughter. Also, there is this thought that nostalgia and the pangs of separation from one’s alma mater is not so unwholesome an emotion-in its effect it comes close to the pleasures of vicarious tears from big screen tearjerkers and soap operas. Yet in saying and thinking all these too I am being hopelessly pointless. Because when the moment comes I have to live that lump in my throat.

Abba

You know what, I love Abba-now don’t you worry, its ok if we don't have too many things in common! Abba's tunes are nice and so vigorous! The group's two female voices complement each other so well-as if their voices were a package-deal from God, as if he hadn't conceived them individually but as a whole. However my original motivations for liking the band were different. Then (when I was in my first year of college and was getting introduced to western pop) theirs were the only lyrics which I could decipher easily. Added to that, the girl I liked a lot liked Abba a lot and I soon took a fancy. Hey, I am talking about stuff that happened some eight years ago.

When I think of those (gosh am I old enough for this usage!) days I am kinda overwhelmed at the rate the world has changed. My favorite illustration for this change is the following: When I was introduced to Abba by Rupa (ah, no rhyme intended!) I copied down a whole notebook of their lyrics by hand. Can you believe that! That notebook of lyrics was a legacy passed down to Rupa by her sister. Her sister had put together the lyrics along with her friends in the Church choir when one of them had stumbled upon a treasure trove of published lyrics in a second-hand book shop.

I had to resort to a lot of sleight to get that dear family treasure from Rupa’s cupboard to my cycle-carrier. Like letting my fingers over her smooth cheeks once and vouching for the efficacy of her Fair and Lovely and convincing her I was a die-hard fan of Abba by reciting fully, ‘Does your mother know…’. She had on that occasion played back that song and so many of my favorites in her own voice. Of course her mom did not know. Later, in that year’s summer-break, I transferred those songs from her delicate note book and its brown pages.

Does it all sound so quaint? It would, it would! That was the time I could still take pride in going around in my cycle and the internet was ‘a something called internet’. It was a new, strange creature just prowling the Indian shores. A year later I visited an internet cafe for the first time in my life on a free pass. I cut two morning classes in college and visited this parlor with our gang-Rupa wasn’t with us then. I was not greatly impressed with the Internet and obviously so. It hardly had any of the usual trappings-I didn't know what Yahoo! was, I didn't have a mail account, I wasn’t exposed to many of those personals sites I would later visit with wide-eyed fascination, and what the hell, there was no Google!! So it was like leaving a kid to explore a sex toys shop. It hardly meant anything to me.

So much water has flown thence! Rupa is long gone and settled in New Zealand, while the Internet has become my bread and butter. And cajoling anyone for lyrics doesn't anymore sound a plausible excuse for anything.

The Seeker and the Sought

My friend, you ask me how do I know, how am I sure.
You say, ‘shouldn’t you be giving it more time’, you say, ‘shouldn’t you wait a little more?’
But I am sure that I have found the answer! You ask how? I am not sure if I can explain but let me see if I can cook up something for you..!

One lonely afternoon, in my verandah, I got into a strange tussle with my memory. The wrangling was to unearth a word I had come across in the past but was now giving me the slip. I remembered a lot of its associations and feelings, but I had nothing concrete to show when it came to its meaning. The word I was looking for denoted some kind of desperation, a state that possessed your whole, an all-eating preoccupation. It perhaps also had to do with anger. It connoted confusion and desperation. It had the smell of a revolution around it-you know, that fervor and idealism; a romanticism about it. Or that’s what I thought.

But what was the word! Which of these associations were misleading me, which were guide-posts? I tried hard to focus on the vaporous raw material much like cigarette smoke in a still room. Imagine me trying to lock up the lazy blue smoke neatly in a box. That was how I felt, trying to lock up the myriad meanings neatly in that one magical word. Much of love, I aver, is such my friend. That one being to contain all our desires, needs, insecurities, and generosities-that’s what the search is all about.

I never doubted the existence of this word that shall neatly, wholly, without leaving anything behind or quite spilling anything, encapsulate fully what I was imagining. If I do plumb my depths and unearth that magical word, I shall never ever forget it again in my whole life. Yet what was the word!

I was paralysed because I couldn't quite figure out the way to go about it. Earlier experiences of recall (and those of solving a knotty problem) have not been completely under my control. Sure I used to break my head over a problem for hours together but the solutions for the worthy problems always hit you suddenly, unawares. I recall an incident involving mathematician Poincaire (as recounted in the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) who left for a geological trip after having worked on a certain path-breaking mathematical problem with great intensity. As he stepped onto the bus that was to take him on the tour the whole solution hit him like a wave and he knew that was it. Without feeling the need to work out a formal proof he felt confident about the veracity of the solution. Of course without laying claim to any such greatness, let me just say that the creative processes in the greats and in the commoners seem to be the same. Solutions pop up when you least expect it. And you are surprised by your clarity about the right solution. You know this is it.

I have read somewhere that our mental faculties work like a magnet. Once we are emotionally and intellectually attracted or locked in with a certain aspect of the world we zoom in to anything that has to do with our attraction. Well I didn’t feel as confident as this auto-zooming mechanism suggests I should be. Sure I was all sleeved-up for a search but then felt like a young man who heads west and finds a whole valley at his feet but no shovel in his hand.

I made the first tentative effort based on phonetics. I ran through the whole list of alphabets, stopping by each character and trying to figure out if the consonant or vowel had anything to do with my word. With the belief that I shall know my word when it comes by, I scaled up and down the hill. A, B…F, G, H-no, no- J, K…stopping for a long time, L, M...arghhh! Then I stopped this futile exercise. I was growing impatient and it was not a right sign. I stood up and paced the verandah. The alphabets and sounds were not helping yet…

‘I examine that vaporous existence inside me- a certain helplessness, a grave all-consuming feeling, an anxiety of too great an import nibbling at one’s self. Ah..! I just have to focus on the feeling and I am definite the word would surely pop up-have to, sometime or other. It is inside me. I know it exists. After all I had once known it. Then, I must have ignored it, slighted it, shoved it carelessly in some corner of my existence and gone onto attend far more interesting things. Uh! Did I know its devils shall be afflicting me thus! Brilliantly conceived punishment ain't it, if at all I have to look at it as a punishment. I can't say I am enjoying the process. It is strange why I am still at it, but yet…maybe it is due to the reward at the end of the search. So plunge the depths, keep the breath, search intently and rush up triumphant with the treasure. Ain't this what pearl divers do? Using whatever…ha I am digressing, digressing from this A, B, C..business. Now should I just leave it and let this word bubble up on its own-It shall some time or other, wouldn't it…’

Yet that summer afternoon with nothing else to do my mind and pride fixated on this single act of retrieval. So without much ado, I forged on. I ran through the alphabets once again. I was searching for that explosive combination of phonetics, meaning, emotion-the wherewithal to trigger and shake loose my subaltern of memoria.

A-agony, anxiety, aggression, apprehension…
B-boredom, botheration, bomb, breakneck, blacked out…uhh
C-concern , no not c, not the ‘ee’ sound, it’s the ‘aa’ or the ‘a+e’ sound..
D-distress, disquiet, no the sound is not right…

‘Now why in the first place did I remember this word’s existence..! More importantly how did I? What did I do and what did I think that has led me to mull over this word and its whole network of meanings and emotions? Like a somnambulist I have gotten into a strange place I only vaguely recollect ever seeing before and one way to know its name is to travel backwards along the path I had taken to this place. Hopefully as I tread backwards, the more familiar neighbourhoods shall gradually reveal the identity of the strange place I am grappling with. Like someone on a treasure hunt game I am flogging my mind to go from one post to another post in search of vital clues. Will it lead me anywhere at all or just dump me into greater mire?’

With these doubts flickering in my mind I stopped in my tracks. I had unconsciously reverted to checking out the alphabets from the one back in a unconscious way to my A, B, C routine…this time I had decided to spend a lot of time on ‘A’ which I had earlier ignored!.

‘Agnorra
Angiform
Angle
Angel
Haa…what am I doing, spewing verbiage?’

Now hold, this is the feeling I want you to know. This is the answer for your question-how do you know if this is the one; how do you know u are approaching, that you are deliciously near? A few full moments before the word burst out like spangled sun...I knew the word was coming.
Angst, my friend is the word! Angst-it shall never slip from my mind.

And well that’s the feeling my friend, that’s how it feels. When I saw her I knew my search ends here, fullstop.

...Further Notes

1. I thought my mug of happiness was overflowing until I sighted you. When it became clear you could do pretty well without me, a gap formed and now simply persists. I can't say I am unhappy-hardly! Bless the angel that guides my life. But during the moments when I am sitting with my friends sipping coffee under the lilting influence of the cool breeze and the afternoon sun, the possibilities of your joy flashes by and it is back to feeling all alone.

2. I duely added you to my messengers and cellphone; I noted down your landline and beyond that I engineered oh-so-many face-to-face's, and even fixed my route to give myself a chance to knock your door. All set and done, now I am feeling like a bungee jumper at the edge of a cliff. It was the same ten years before. Then, I gave myself the excuse that things are bound to be messy and palpitated the first time around. But, ah, we never grow up perhaps. Many emotions
conflict at the cliff-edge. They needn't but ain't it boring if all the worthy heroes are lined up like propah school kids on the same side! The urge to spend time with you rages like waves-against the fragile sense of my self-respect and decency that says, never in your self-centred pathos are you to become a nuisance to an unerring soul.

A Note of Love, Unrequited

This madness cannot be explained. It is not easily expunged yet I know it cannot be excused. Sorry for showering a love you never wanted. Sorry for being a nuisance-For that shortwhile I couldn't help it. Thanks for putting up with me, for not shaking me off anxiously like I was a leech. You have been a lovely being. Bless the God who could come up with you and other such beauteous beings, Amen!!

Sounds of a Marriage

Wishing someone over the phone on his marriage is hilarious.
Radhika calls me and says, 'mahesh NOW!'
'What?'And before she could answer I hear all that tumultous happy sounds of the marriage.
'Oh yes, ramdas' marriage I say to myself and mentally chide Radhika for not following the lengthy protocols we had laid earlier, which had to do with a relay of missed call signals and hence was cheaper.
But i guess this is better. The cellphone, apparently in Radhika's hands, was covering the event live: The melange of happy shrieks and giggles didn't mean much, yet meant a lot. 'There goes Madhavi with that high pitched joyshrieks of hers. Does this giggle belong to Radhika? By the way where are Pooja's fitting repartees; where are Priya's softer tones?'

Some familiar tune is played in the background. I try to decipher what it is. I know this a tamil film number. Yet the excitement of the situation and the fact that I shall have to appropriately wish Ramdas in a few moments from now keep my attentions divided. The two sides being, what could be that number and how shall I wish Ramdas.

'Good luck maaaan!!'-with full force of cheerfulness
'I am happy for you Ram, I am happy for you...'-measured and punctuated by pregnant pauses that is supposed to communicate gravitas and thoughtfulness
'Heyy happy married life Ram!'-served with an extra dose of enthu
Eh everything sounds conventional. Either from the textbook or handed down as tradition or as seen in the movies. How shall I wish him in an inimitable manner?
'Deii maapilai, kalakku daaa..nallaa ensoi pannu!' in a tone that derives from the streets of chennai
'Many many happy returns of the day' Is this apt? Would he like to stand like this sweating and posing every day of his life even though the gifts may seem adequate compensation?
'Mmm mmm nadathu nadhathu, asathu daaa!' in a conspiring, naughty tone
'Irandai petru Inbamaaga vaazhudaa!' Uhh, it sounds like a government worker propagating birthcontrol measures.

Suddenly the booming voice of Ramdas cuts through my selection process and puts a stop to it. 'Thanks machhaan, for calling up and wishing me...'
'Err..I haven't yet delivered..'
'Romba nanri daaa, I am glad you called..'
'Yeah, sure,..good luc...'

Suddenly his gushing ends. And I am left high and dry, again listening to the sounds of the marriage while they are apparently posing for the video and the photos. That's virtually the end of the call as a few second later Radhika says goodbye to me to pounce upon two vacant seats at the marriage feast.

My immediate surrounding come into picture again. The unobtrusive orange light throwing around mellow shadows, the measured footsteps of the security pacing the verandah, the hurried footsteps of a student rushing to take some printouts, and me just transported back from the ambience of a wedding. I feel like a space-time traveller easing out his mental panting and looking around to see if he has arrived back as unobstrusively as possible.

Christ for the Matinee

It’s a baking midsummer sun. We should be mad to be loitering around on the roads. I I simply want to settle in my room like a crumpled heap of clothes, book in hand. The room shall be hot but I guess it is fine-the books are inviting. The room shall be for me what this sprawling old tree is for this second-hand book vendor. I am sure Lovelesh wouldn’t like my simple plan for the afternoon…I am sure he is sweating, swearing, and rattled by this noon heat. Just look at his face..!

Anything but my sweaty room! Somewhere cool…but where? Look at Vivek, nonchalant as usual. Strip him naked and make him kneel down on the rocks by the side of Marine Drive he would still be poker faced, hmmm…! Alternatives…alternatives…cheap, cool and lasting till the sun hits the ocean…Café Mondegar, Jehangir Arts Gallery, Croissants, Oxford Bookshop…no…no…not quite right…the point is, uninterrupted AC till evening.

What do we do till evening Vivek? It shall be too hot in the room.
I am gonna settle with Erica Jong.
Erica..? Ok! Erica for you…then suggest me something before you hit your bed with her…
You see the toilets in my floor were stinking. You could…
F*** you. That’s what I shall do. Jesus Christ! Jim Caviezel from the Cross. A matinee show of The Passion at Regal Cinemas…whats the time now…ah it is 10 minutes from now! This is it. Vivek, let’s go to the Passion! What say?
Passion…well! I feel ambivalent about watching Jesus’ suffering on the silver screen. I mean…please, it is not entertainment! There were some things in life you dealt with a lot of respect. Good professors, great books, your parent’s sentiments…this is one such right? For what vicarious pleasure would you want to see the movie? Why do I want to see the movie? Though I know I do want to see it…what would come of it? Not much, mmm….
Let’s go Lovelesh. Only I feel you might not relish so much blood and religion for a matinee.
Oh that’s fine man. Religion or anything, it’s eventually a good movie I suppose. If for nothing else then atleast for the popcorns during the interval…
Well... I am sure you won’t have the appetite for popcorns by the time the interval arrives.
What’s your point!
I mean, it is so bloody maan. It’s gonna be godaamn retching…
Hey please...it is just a movie.
Surely not something to flavor with popcorns…

Vivek makes me wonder if all that blood shall somehow dampen my plans to relax. Sometimes these movie makers are nuts, out of mind I should say. But then not more than the people who end up seeing their films. How could I ever understand people who pay to cry, mmm? There in that corner, by the door, a religious type is crying, offering prayers with palms pointing upwards…that too in a cinema, imagine! There surely is lot of money in making people feel miserable!

For the faithful everything speaks the Lord’s word. Then why not a sincerely crafted film! What if it is gory; reality was such wasn’t it...if the foyer of a cinema could be turned into a prayer hall as the elderly woman by the corner of the door is doing I guess the film is not mere entertainment. It is a Mass in darkened halls.

Vivek check out that chick in psychedelic pink. Doesn’t she resemble Esha?
What Esha? Oh, maybe...I don’t know yaar.

He is taking it way too seriously, Vivek-like the woman by the door offering prayers! We walk up the stairs and step into the darkness of the theatre. Probably it is for these types tragedies are made. ‘Oops we are a bit late!’ Everything inside has taken the blue tinge of the scene on the screen. Clouds waft by a bluish moon. It is eerie. Jesus, knelt, is looking up earnestly towards his Father seeking resolve. The last occasion where blue was used with great impact were the opening scenes of Roja in which Wasim Khan is snared. The atmosphere here is way too good. The chill and desperation of that night is nicely painted in blue. Mel scores fully for imagining Satan in such seductive terms! He once stated in an interview that it reflects how he sees evil to be. Apparently normal and so deceptively attractive!

The first chapters of suffering were already being played out on a bluish screen. Jesus kneels down in a night lighted by a bulbous moon, reclaiming his resolve from the seductions of the Satan. Temptation is not a sin; yielding is. Doubt no sacrilege; ceasing to believe is. If before the momentous journey of the greatest martyrdom He had felt uncertain…phew, that comes as a relief. If the master had his doubts and the disciples were no perfect; yet with belief and resolve had they stuck to their ends…there is yet salvation. It is interesting to see how attractive Satan has been depicted. It’s true to life right! Vice always seduces; virtue never solicits.

Oh man…the sequence depicting the damnation of Judas is one helluva sequence! Loud, impish kids representing Satan plaguing a conscience. Judas’ body hanging from a stark tree against a blue, peaceful sky. Then, there couldn’t have been a better background for this scene than the buzz of the wild insects rummaging the carcass. Man, I am liking the movie!

Judas, poor guy! Sometimes it is too late for redemption. Your sins stick to you like leprosy and eat into your soul. Judas is repentant for his sins but that alone doesn’t bring peace. Isn’t repenting enough? Is it a mere knee jerk reaction? Is it just a starting point towards redemption and by itself not of much avail?

Ahh, that is so close to the films I know! If Mel thinks a flashback scene of Mary running anxiously to save baby Jesus from getting hurt innovative, how wrong he is. It would look so familiar to our audience! In contrast the Indian audience shall find Mary’s controlled sadness very intriguing. An Indian Mary would have cried her lungs out-her wail would have edged out all noises from the scene.

Travelling down the cobblestone paths with the cross on the back. The people’s sins upon the Heart. Which is heavier Oh Christ, which whittles you down? I know the truth according to me. But you shall say: the Cross right now cuts through my skin; as for people’s sin it’s for me to forgive them. They know not what they do. Mother Mary stoic and controlled; the knowledge of her son’s divinity, the understanding of his religion a meager wall against a raging maternal instinct. She runs, her suffering let loose. She runs to cradle a bloody Jesus stumbling by the path; the heavy cross breaking his limbs; the searing whips ploughing his wounds. How many times shall he fall; how many times humanity shall fail itself; how many more times shall prophets and seers be burnt at the stakes?

This bugs me man! Twice or thrice is fine but not so many times. Now I almost feel bored when Jim Caviezel, nay, Jesus stumbles down for the umpteenth time. Mel has told the story in an unemotional key. Maybe it was a deliberate choice to present the story as it is without embellishing it further than is necessary. That’s why the documentary style. That’s why the protracted scenes of misery. Possibly, the film works best for people who identify closely with Christ; for those who have the faith…

Oh my gawd…how could people ever do this? Stretch a writhing body to hammer a nail through it…argghh…

Hmm…Vivek, has taken it right to his heart. He has simply buried his heads into his thighs…Hey, Vivek…are u fine? As I thought, the film works if you are the type to closely identify with the protagonists…
The final scenes, a naked Jesus gets up to reach heaven. Where the nails had made their way near the wrists are now clean holes. I wonder if it is artistic license or a biblical one!

We decide to walk back to our rooms. I feel as if hit by a thunder. I am not feeling normal. I want to be left alone for some time.

Vivek looks stoned as we crossed the road. I keep an eye on him as he seems oblivious to the heavy traffic honking on the roads. Vivek…surely, the movie has got onto you
I guess so…
Keep it out of your mind buddy
Not as if I have a choice, you know
It’s a film, fullstop
But I can’t see it as yet another flick
Is Religion simply extreme sentiment!! Whatever...I would never understand either you or the woman who prayed at the theatre!
Maybe you don’t need to right now. But there shall come a time when your popcorns are less tastier…

Pebbles in my Pool

Untimely rains here. It is Providential and it is welcome because just during yesterday's jog it occured to me...ah, the days of jogging carefree in lush rain and the solitude of a campus are simply gone. I would be leaving this place in another 40 days, forever. And here it is! Someone sure heard my achings, my nostalgic rumblings! Let it rain tonight. I will take my tshirt off for one last time in my jog.


Sometimes a song, a tune enters our thoughts spontaneously without any sign it is on its way. The nice tune leaves you in a nice mood. I suspect that songs that make such spontaneous appearances are gems. I like the thought that somewhere in my memory is a neat little mechanism which can unfailingly bubble up favorite stuff. The latest bubble which induced me into making this post is this tamil song starring vijay and (sneha?), a number which fared decently in the charts: "Nenjam orumurai nee enradhu, kangal orumurai paar enradhu..."

Other times a song sticks on you like a...you know when u have miraculously struck a nice rapport with a kid, or even a puppy..they won't let you go, they are all around you and
they engage you in the best way possible: This song from Simon and Garfunkel I had little fancy for now doesn't let me go. Its tune goes round and round in my head and rolls like a lump of jaggery in my tongue, yielding its sweetness continuously. I am not complaining..! Let the little pleasures continue, they have always been the only ones.

Private Sorrows

There are dark crevices in my house
never touched by the setting rays.

Untitled

God I am sure has a lot of fun.
Whoever he is, carefree,
his job presumably done. No emergencies,
no moral compunctions,
He sits aloft with consorts not just one.
Sure he can with his birdeye view chuckle a lot
and enjoy at our expense a few laughs.
Like I used to when my stupid brother-ravianna-
frozen and helpless could only
steal a glance at his lady passing by.
But does He ever cry, feel guilty at this tsunami.
It only took ravianna to Him says my Daddy
But I know my brother.
Instead of a place by His side
he shall have anyday preferred his lady.

Untitled

I have known them all along, all right!
Those innumerous times when I slapped
a bucktetful of water to lap up
the fated ants with giant waves...

Jimikis

We all have old photographs which like those mountain passes are a tenuous link to a whole wellspring of nostalgia. One look at those faded, brownish images and memories (often tinged with a kind of sad happiness) come tumbling down from old racks. When we run our fingers over them a fuzzy melody could well be running in our minds.

I have one such photograph of me and my sister, in the backdrop of an unsophisticated set in the local studio. The owner of the studio, a tall man with curly hair and a paunch that merged quite neatly with the rest of the body had borne witness to so many of our family occasions.
But I had always cherished that photograph as it is one of the earliest photographs of us together. I have shown it to my friends and the girls have always pronounced, 'Oh so cute!!' Needless to say I was joyous at such reactions, even had a tinge of pride mixed up somewhere. The photo shows us facing the camera in a posture of attention. We stare with eyes wide open, I and my sister. Innocence I thought.

'Cute!! Your sister is so lovable!'
'And me..?'
'You have the same lost look man, some people don't change I guess..'
'Oh you are being jealous'
'Jealous? You think too much of yourself Mahesh...'
'Umphhh'
(I think that was Madhavi...)

In the photograph I am wearing a round-necked t-shirt and shorts, my knock-knees showing. I look at my face in the photograph and I can with the benefit of hindsight see that my face is as yet unformed. The ridges are not yet deep and the eyes not set deep in the bone structure. So they are a large pair peering sincerely at the camera-perhaps trying hard not to wink when the flash goes on and end up asleep for posterity. I see my sister is dressed in pattupaavaadai. Her face is done up with a thick eyeliner and a round evil mark on the cheek to ward off cursed stares. Her fingers are chubby and curved inside, no sharp lines of the bones show up. I in contrast am bony and tall. The differences in our height is huge, she still looks an younger sister. All this would change in later years!

I do remember the circumstances of that shoot though in the past I haven't always recollected it-my sister had to be cajoled and then forced by daddy to wear an eardrop, called 'jimiki' in tamil. I see the picture and there is no jimiki there. There is only a roundish paring of the glossy surface under one of her earlobes. When I had looked at that photo as a kid I had asked myself where the other jimiki was! But there are no jimikis here. Now I can imagine daddy on the other side, in the dark, licking his wounds after a lost battle with his daughter. I hear our family photographer assuaging, 'Oh sir, these days the kids are too fashion consciousness for ornaments of our times..don't worry she looks smart even without the jimiki!'

I had missed till now the nervousness exuding in the fingers that are entwining each other, the toes which are tightly withdrawn and are scratching the floor. The eyes large and yes, lost, exuding an expression well expressed in tamizh as 'miratchi'. The face not cute but puffed up after a prryhic victory over a stupid jimiki. If I choose to go beyond the surface and dig my memories its perhaps one of the saddest photographs! And as a reminder my sister still doesn't like those lovely eardrops we call jimikis.

The Gifts by the Doorstep

The other day busy humming a tune I pushed the toilet door open, only to feel it yanked from the other side with equal force. All of a sudden I found myself smiling at close quarters at a familiar face i have hardly smiled at before-had no reason to till then when a sudden gaffe at the doorstep of the toilet sprung a smile upon our unsuspecting faces.

I will rather die for the truth,
but never let a lie eat me up alive.

The following is what i would call an 'emotion note' like you have concept notes. This was written for the actors (their names as characters) in this 6min shortie called Carpe Diem we are shooting...

Smoke

Mitash knocked twice. Sujoy opened the door to bare a smoke-filled room. Sujoy himself was busy taking a drag and latched the door back with the other hand. The room was darkened, a single bulb and the computer screen glowing in a space of darkness and smoke. Mitash walked over numerous cigarette stubs and looked around haplessly. ‘Sujoy, whenever I see you with a cigarette why is it I am always reminded of a man’s funeral pyre?’, his voice showing exasperation. Sujoy gave him a look which said, ‘now let’s not start it all over again’. Sujoy’s chain smoking was a bone of contention between the two friends exactly because of the great understanding they shared. Mitash knew that Sujoy wanted to chuck the habit. Not that smoking had beginning to affect his health-hardly. The issue was more about the will to leave the habit. And the Sujoy, Mitash had known intimately was one who always prided himself upon his determination. There was hardly a milestone Sujoy had desired and had not reached. More than the damage to his lungs Mitash wondered if this battle of the smoke was now all about Sujoy’s spirit. Mitash gave him a long drawn look and sensing the defenses and arguments Sujoy was stacking up mentally, just dropped the issue, changed his tone, shifted the subject.

Sujoy’s hands involuntarily picked up a cigarette from the packet nearby. He didn’t quite realize it until it was brought halfway to his lips. He snapped himself off from the computer screen and wondered. What’s happening to me? Don’t I need to quit smoking now. He felt he clearly ran out of the confidence that he could stop it anytime he wanted. That was clearly not the case now. At this moment he didn’t feel like covering up that bare fact-He was addicted to cigarettes and he knew stopping it was not as simple as lighting up a fag. If Mitash was concerned he knew that it was time to ring the alarm bells. The cigarette was still dangling indecisively between his fingers. The dark patch of burn on his index finger waited for yet another rendevouz with fire. He, almost absentmindedly, bought it to his lips and took hold of the lighter. If he had been able to take an objective peek into his psyche he could have seen the wild search for excuses to placate himself into smoking this cigarette. The flame from the lighter went up once, twice. Excuses, excuses so that he can smoke this fag without much guilt. Nothing seem to come by. He thought weakly to himself, ‘Well, lets see tomorrow…’ and with those deadly words lighted up his ‘funeral pyre’-as Mitash would have termed it!

The next three days his thoughts, feelings, and even dreams were lashing against one another. Within him he felt the case against smoking resembled furious waves trying their might against a rocky coastline. The waves were never going to give up. But when will the rocks show up their crack lines? Sometimes he had the funny feeling of being an innocent bystander watching this spectacle of a psyche divided over this small stupid extinguishing piece called a fag. He then cleaned up his room of all the cigarette stubs; threw out his ashtray and a packet with two full cigarettes in them. He felt a ritualistic cleansing, which alas did not last long. That evening he bought himself a packet from Thapas and smoked a few with his friends. It just resolved the matter for a few minutes until the smoke lasted and soon again the raging waves…

The group was having a small break at the Thapas amidst classes. Someone lighted a cigarette. The group was having a light banter and small ripples of laughter did the rounds. The cigarette did too. Sujoy was 5 hands away from the cigarette. Mitash at the other end was looking at Sujoy with a poker face. For a moment Sujoy wasn’t sure if he saw the cigarette or a fire raging towards him. His imagination was overworked and was capable of such tricks! He took a few deep breaths, looked at Mitash watching him, his poker face how turning intent. The cigarette now reached his neighbour who took his puff. He extended the cigarette towards Sujoy confidently with the surety there was no need to ask. Sujoy missed a beat, he imagined how aghast the group would look if he said coolly, ‘No thanks’! He imagined the smile on Mitash’s face. He imagined how the raging waves would finally rest, how he would find himself in peace over the determination he had now almost decided to redeem.

‘No thanks!’ he uttered.

An Imposition on Compositions

When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write
Not even a haiku on my predicaments
When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write
Not even a poem on my imagined figments
When I dont have anything to write
Not a word on the fact I can't write
why should I worry my blog goes empty
and my readers emptyhanded. Eachtime
my lover returns emptycheeked or emptylipped
shouldn't I be worried
When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write

The Cutting Edge of Culture

Eyes sunken dried hopes
A bent back jutting bones
A dirtbag by the wayside
whom only the platforms
haven't disowned.

What shall he do about
the desires that croak
within those ribbed cage,
like a thousand frogs on a
rainy night, those ugly noises
wanting to mate, on seeing our
latest flicks' blown-up lust?
Rape?

Jaye, Poems for you.

Do all writers go through cyles of fallow and flourish with regards to specific genres of literature? Fore me it happens with poetry. Sometimes there have been dry periods lasting even half an year. Then without any premonition the flow starts again. I would like to fancy that this process to be an upward spiral-each time poetry finds me I am a better vehicle than the last time round. But ofcourse it is not necessarily so!

I have finally written two poems not able and eventually not feeling to write one for the past 3 months. Check em out!

1. Sitting on the banks she dropped a pebble.
From that wretched loci now recur her thoughts;
Incessant ripples that spread out to the banks.

2. Can I sit still?
With no Doors on the Player
and Pirsig on my mind?
Without worries that ache
and dreams that flake?
Especially without her memories
that are now mementoes?
After every trip the last resort
is to sit still by myself.
Can I sit still with only
loneliness for company?

Excerpt From a Mail to Someone Stepping into a BSchool Campus

...So this is me welcoming to two years of an amazing experience!! I shall narrate this very small anecdote to let you know how dear our psyche shall hold the campus and its memories...

During Manfest-our management fest (what an unimaginary name, eh!)-we also have the Alumni Reunion happening. The greatest draw for the alumni is the chance to relive their wild nights at the instiparties, just once more, for a brief three days. Towards the fag end of one such instiparty I came across one slightly drunk alumni talking to a senior in Tamil. Mother tongue bonhomie tempted me to join in and I did-the conversation was in a sentimental key.

'Hi...!', I said at the opportune moment when he looked up to see who is the new one in the magic circle, and introduced myself,
'Mahesh. And you..?'
'I was born Karthik Ramanathan, I shall die an IIML graduate'

I am sure, to this date, it was not the drinks.

An Indictment

Class presentations, rituals that marked the closure of each course of a term bored us to death or were minefields of inane laughter. With exams usually a week or two away and a few more Projects to be wrapped up, who wants to stay alive in darkened rooms to listen to power point presentations which earn only
disdain-ah, don't I know how he did his Project-all gas, no substance-he simply started working on his Project last evening. And hence everyone wanted to go to sleep. Generals of a losing side would have an easier job of stopping their troops retreating from the warfront-never the presentors from rousing us from sleep. They had an audience of one, the professor, the poor soul who had ordered the whole affair in the first place.

The other day Satyan was presenting the Pharma industry to us. His father was a Doctor and Satyan, not being able to study Medicine, always nursed a soft corner for the Pharma sector. He could hold his own on IPRs, process and product patents, the impact of WTO on Indian Pharma industry and he peppered his talk with a lot of relevant examples...Poor Satyan, that day he was putting up one of his best performances but there was none to savor it. He would be finally shown his seat with a round of customary applause which was done more for breaking the audience's monotony than for pepping up the speaker.

Satyan was using the example of Viagra to illustrate how the lack of product patents in India gave the local companies enough room to reverse-engineer the final molecule and rebuild them using different processes. He took up Viagra as a point in case. Viagra he said was very costly for an average Indian. So the local companies cashed in with reverse-engineered verisons such as Penagra, Cinagra (add up three such rhyming names, dear readers). Medically safe and effective, he said, but definitely bending international patent regimes!!

The lights at the back and the corners of the classroom had been switched off to falicitate relaxation and scores of silent snores. The class was deadeningly silent-not of a rapt attention, but of a deep sedation. From one dark corner arose an innocent voice, 'You seem to know so much about this...!'

It was as if the class was waiting to pounce on something and shred it with laughter. The dropped bomb created waves after waves of laughter. The professor couldn't help smiling, neither could Satyan searching as he was the owner of that nasty voice!

Case of A Mis(interpreted)nomer

We were a group of tamil friends in a predominantly hindi- speaking campus. The language bonded us closer than usual and we knew each other so well that we were each quite a character for the other. We bickered, fought, loved and stayed put together as only family members can! We had Venkat the most idiosyncratic of all-Rajini fanatic, and a guy with one helluva attitude and
confidence. He had an engineering degree in Computer Science and was very comfortable with coding, softwares and actually anything to do with Information Techonology (IT). Then there was
Krishna-amazing singing talent, quickwit, and such an amiable character!

Our summer Project scattered us to different cities. I and Krishna were in Mumbai while Venkat was based in distant Coimbatore. Embroiled as we were in work and the leisure of our respective cities, we hardly spoke or even mailed each other for a month. And then came our term grades.

There was a flurry of mails across each asking the other's grades, consoling and congragulating and feeling worse or better at the end of the day. Krishna too sent a mail to Venkat asking his term grades and informing him his.

The eagerly awaited mail from Venkat, alas, was blocked by an Anti-Spam Software . An automated mail arrived mentioning that the mail was identified as a spam and hence blocked. Krishna was
asked to reply in case the mail was not a spam and was valid and personal. Krishna immediately replied that the mail was from his friend and surely not spam. The reply mail from the Network
Administration was a bombshell. It said, 'We are sorry to say that according to the Network Management Policy of this Company mails containing sexual content cannot be delivered to the recipients. We regret the inconvience caused. All the best in the future. Regards, Irfan Ahmed, System Administrator'

Krishna was flustered. Not only was he a very uprighteous guy; he maintained restraint and decorum in such matters that he found it very ironical such a thing should happen to him. He wondered what sexy mail could Venkat have sent in reply to a mail that discussed something as sober and grave as one's term grades!! He called me immediately to share his woes, wondering loudly over the telephone wires just what could have been the dubious content of Venkat's mail...I too listened with curiosity and interest. It was a sleepy afternoon you see, such interventions were very welcome.

I assuaged him that no one can do much about such spams and he should be treating this a minor issue. Krishna was worried of infamy. He said that it reminded him of the predictions of a
certain astrologer who coupla years back stated that Krishna shall lose face in his Company on a 'ladies issue' as he had delicately termed it. As I was wondering how to reason him out of this line of thinking, it suddenly struck me...

'Krishna which ID did Venkat reply from..?'
'From his yahoo id...'
'Oh ok,' I beamed 'the venkatit one..?'
'what...?'
This time I spelt the ID again, slow and meaningfully,
'venka-tit!!'

No wonder the automated software smelt something sexy in the id which actually should have been read as venkat-it. Anyway how could the software have known it was venkat's expression of his career interests and not of other shady fetishes! Krishna revealed a sigh. Sadly, my efforts to push the matters along the line of further fun by inducing Krishna into explaining this subtle matter to the Network Administrator failed though.

The Days we Coasted by...(Part 2)

As we disengaged our footwear and tentatively stepped into the river we discovered why it sported such a deceptive, dark facade. Its clear waters simply showed up the color of the pebbles that made up its bed. And this was indeed to its credit quite unlike what we had made of its dark colors. Agreed the water level was quite shallow, it could at best only come up to our shoulders but in contrast
to what we had imagined, the water was cool and crisp.

We undid our clothes and walked into the river in our underwears to scrub ourselves and enjoy the cool morning. At dawn the river looked like still waters. The flow was imperceptible. Vijay avered the river hadn't a flow, which sounded presposterous to me. I picked up a little leaf sticking on to a nearby rock and let it float in the waters. For a moment I wondered whether Vijay was right, the
leaf hardly moved. But ofter a clutch of seconds we saw the distance it had patiently accumulated.

We sung a few tamil songs that featured heroines bathing by some waterbody, gay abandon. Further our imagination careened to those in which some mischief-monger, a la Krishna, walks away with the clothes and belongings on the banks leaving those in the joyous dips of the river high and dry. Then our imaginatinative banter extended to us getting arrested for nudity and profanity in the town of Chiplun...because of us losing our dresses, the news getting flashed in Sun TV', 'Two IIM Students Arrested in Chiplun Town for Obscene Display..'; 'IIM
Students' Innovative Protest Against Joshi's Diktats-Sleepy Chiplun Enraged!' and so it went. We had such rollicking fun for the next hour or so that it made me think how delicately this tour was posed till the previous evening, its prospects swinging like a pendulum-shall we , should we, would we,need we, why should we...hmmm! Finally the pendulum just stood struck in the affirmative and here we are.

After an hour or the sun was out along with a few lads, upstream, to get its morning dip in the river. The river shone only a little despite the black pebbles that colored its flow. And the flow now turned quite strong. The water level rose rapidly and I had to relocate our belongings twice, farther up in the bank. We were wondering if the river was dammed somewhere upstream-that neatly explained the low water level which was growing tremendously. Soon after we finished our rendevouz with Vasishti, dried ourselves, and next headed to the hills nearby.

To be continued...

The Days we Coasted by...(Part 1)

'Is this the river we came to bathe in, all the way from Mumbai', Vijay asked in a downcast voice. The Vasishti that was drawn in a promising blue color in the map was now a dark little flow which seemed to eke out a stark living and seemed ready to wilt further in the oncoming summer. From the bridge where we had just alighted upon, we could sense none of the grandeur we had imagined in its name. Worse,
instead of clear waters, a suspectfully dark river, banked by srubby undergrowth and smooth pebbles were all we could see now. Evidently this bank was once its bed-or takes up its old avatar under the river once an year if the monsoons granted the boons. Images of Cooum and Buckingham Canal, smelly black open-air sewers of Chennai, visited us. 'Here is the Cooum of Chiplun', we wanted to wail. The size, current, color-from this distance all the dimensions of the river tucked our conversation within dissapointment and deprecating humour.

'Never say aloud we came all the way from Mumbai to bathe in this river...', 'Hmm this is what the hotelwallah mentioned as where you can have a refreshing bath..ahem..', 'I am not bathing..whatever water making up this river would be displaced that I shall have to emerge dry anyways..' And so we went on.

We felt pity for the lone individual who was washing his clothes in those dark waters. 'Cleaning up the river', intepreted Vijay. I added, 'Why the bother yaar...if only he had been patient for a couple of years, he wouldn't have had a river to clean up...'

We went farther away from the bridge towards a parallel railway line that spanned upon a bridge the misplaced banks and the skeleton river. We saw a couple of other individuals bathing, in a manner we surely cannot mistake as a cleaning expedition of the river. We asked the last person if we can indeed bathe in the river. The man neatly srubbed and with washed clothes over his shoulders answered in affirmative and left the place for us. We opened our eyes for the first time to look beyond its dark and skeletony facade and view the river afresh. We dipped into its cool waters and came up with some of the best moments of our life...

...To be continued

Vacations

To live slower and plough deeper
So that savoured memories are sown well:
In parched times they shall sprout springwells.

Ode to my Old Pocket Diary (roughcut)

You were the receptacle for my
stray thoughts which would have
vaporised if not for your pages.
You held that yellow leaf I decided
for posterity to accompany and also
my dreams big and petty.

Do you remember my four minute mile
wish was first recorded within your realms.
Where are you this minute when I am nearing that mile.

Ha ha ha..

Finally, on the threshold of my first freewheeling journey.
It feels good to just plan as you go, take ferries or board buses
If all comes to naught simply take a walk or
swim along the currents of the river.

See faces, observe landscapes
and dip in a life that moves slower
and deeper.

Await, friends, lots of posts on places and travel. My mind is bubbling and my fingers
itch to bang it all off the keyboards.

Adieu for now. Back on tuesday.

MaheshC.

The Sundew Moments


My 'CubicleNeighbour' asked me to explain the story behind 'thesundew', the longstanding name of my email accounts(hotmail, yahoo, and now Gmail!). Though there isn't much of a story behind the name there are surely crystal moments.

Human memory is a mysterious instrument. It has its own laws, which rule what to remember and what to discard into the deeper recesses of our consciousness. Often it springs surprises by pulling up to the forefront, frozen pieces of our memory we thought have long vaporised. Hypnosis and various experiments on memory have shown that our memories are only fossilized, not vaporised. Field reports from Freudian psychoanalytic practice has also shown how intricately memory is linked with emotions. That which is painful we forget, hence the necessity for
techniques such as free association which can approach those sensitive zones tangentially.


But there are images that linger on, to recur and almost become leitmotifs. Some of these beautiful images I suspect are not moments in the sense they could have happened in a discrete time interval. Rather, I wonder if they are luminous aggregations like pearls are-layer after layer of related memories over a seed event.

There is a sepia-tinted image of my childhood in which I am walking down an avenue of tall Ashoka trees, my fingers tenuously linked to my mother's palms. It is dusk. The place is littered with seniors chatting, laughing and walking down the avenue in groups. My contention is that this moment probably never happened as I cherish it. Many such evenings would have been picked, chosen and pickled for an everlasing flavour; crystallised for an everlasting radiance.

Ofcourse most of these images do happen to be vivid, definite moments too. I consider them granted boons, by God if you like it that way. They can't be contrived. They can't be waited for. If you are lucky you catch these as they come by, like whiffs of a distant kitchen in the air.

Have you seen the American Beauty? The film has a name for these. It calls them 'the plastic bag moments'-the seemingly commonplace stuff of our lives which can parent extraordinary beauty, if only we want to. The final frames of the film are that of a discarded plastic bag sauntering in the breeze, rising and falling, dancing in slowmo-lovingly, if you may.

The elements of a Margazhi dawn in Chennai are faint mist, dew, and the sun. Alas the ascent of the sun rapidly kills the former two. So much so I could arrive at that magical slot of 6. 15 to 6. 30 when all of these coexisted after only weeks of determined observation. And why did I want them on the same stage? Because of thesundews! During one of my jogs I had chanced upon the dividing median a crop of grass crowned with glassy spheres: dewdrops charged with sunlight. With
a slight shift in my angle they disappeared. So there they had been, shining within the delicate, tremulous angle between me, the dewdrops and the sun. They hadn't existed in my earlier lap. They didn't in my next.

The magic of angles lies in the fact that it is a single parameter capturing the relationship between three entities. Let me give an other instance. While in the memory described previously two of the elements were on terra firma, in this two are right up there in the early morning sky's blue. Me, an early morning jet, and ofcourse our sun. For most of its observed passage it flew dully, silently. At the magical angle I caught its affair with sunlight. It shone like a broken shard of mirror in a placid sky.

During my 6. 00 O' clock fast train to ChurchGate, between Vile Parle and Santa Cruz, an aeroplane usually made its flight, towards the setting sun. The velocity of the train, factored by the huge distance, looked as if it was equal to that of the aeroplane. A kid would have shrieked in excitement about how a plane hung suspended, resolutely stationary, as if a supermechanic went about fixing its snags midair for many minutes!


Sometimes we end up observing each other like the multiple reflections of a mirror hall. Once, in office, our group of four made its way for a refreshing cuppa. Suddenly he broke away making his way towards her at her workstation and cajoled her flirtingly to join us. She, next to me, staring at them, stomached the sight of cooings. My eyes travelling from the pair to her was caught by him behind
me, who like an omniscient being oversaw all the flicks before him. He, had the last smile!


Once, in the terrace, over the same kind of cuppa that we had ambled towards in the previous paragraph, we made small talk and pointless laughter in a closed circle, each in different postures, all at obtuse angles to each other. A joke went around which I didn't quite understand as didn't Radhika next to me. The other three were emitting enthusiastic peals of laughter that I sought her eyes for some solace. But she was looking intently at them. 'Hmmm..!', I cast my sight downwards and immediately thereafter, it occurred to me that she just then suffered the same fate as I had a second before. So I again turned up to her but she was no longer looking at me and I thought I had been wrong and started to turn away. But right then she too must have felt, quicker than I had felt last time, that she had missed me in a snap and hence caught the tail of my turning away. Now she lingered on. I knew that she knew and I knew too she knew that I knew. With that unconscious knowledge hardly verbalized even to ourselves, we finally locked eyes. We erupted into a laughter as if the tension resolved was that of a joke.

Such is life I thought yesterday when I was catching the whirlwind generated between our 8 O Clock fast and another fast train on the adjacent track: In the twin strings of the call of duty and the search for love my life is a necklace of sundews.

Yaaron, Apun Mumbai Mein Hain ..!!

Its happening frequently nowadays..I start to write a piece-of shortstory, of poetry-and hold back from updating the blog until it is completed. Then I find I am sitting on it for too long and on the other hand there are so many other things that urgently want to be voiced. So shelving the stance of 'update-the-short story-what-may-come', here are my reflections on my current muse: Mumbai!

This city is big and at times, overwhelms. Like its train travels, the nattily dressed gents and sexily dressed ladies, the sights of Marine Drive, the amazing clockwork that the railways are, the explicit ads for innerwears you can't excape at the busy Church Gate station, the worklife whose timings seem to extend into wee hours of the night and whose travel, to and fro, could stretch beyond 100kms a day, ...so many things: this place oozes enterprise, sexuality, and energy.

Chennai is in comparison, what do I call it, innocent, preadolescent...? These constrasts are worth atleast a 15 min film, I say!! I even came up with a longish title for the film: Various are the Ways the Waves lap the Shores.

The title takes its inspiration from the contrasting beachlines of the two cities. For me they seemed to reflect the lifestyles of the two cities. Here sitting at Marine Drive on a full moon night I see the waves slap the rocks and crash against the concrete structures that bulwark the reclaimed land against the sea. In Chennai its as if the sea and the sand softly cradle against each other..!!"

I guess this is how commercial capitals all over the world shall look like. Always on the go, with a set of values that are designed to further commerce than anything else. Cities that are the lands of promise to the brethren from the hinterland. Cities that have enough moolah to support lavish cultural activities. Cities that are big enough to allow space for the different types of mainstreams, and hence for various fringe elements at its circumference. Cities busy and hence granting anonymity. An anonymity amidst the crowd that comes so close to freedom, because the others are too busy minding their livelihood!

As I am just into my third week I guess my eyes are still fresh to catch the nuances in my daily life. The city still feels like a dope and I like to absorb, through my eyes and in lesser degrees through my other senses, its wares. I travel from ChurchGate to Andheri by train and from Andheri to MIDC (East Andheri) by Bus. These account for most of my observations.

I have never seen such ferocity in people trying to board trains. Believe me, even the wretched crowd of Jallianwallah Bagh would have acted in a less frenetic way on their route to escape. Last night I and my friends were badly mauled at Dadar station and emerged with hurt ears.

We were wondering why people do this because there is always enough time for everyone to get in. Vijay who was accompanying me said, 'Simply, there isn't enough space for everyone to be seated. People travel long distances, nobody wants to stand the whole distance...the fight is for the seats'. Everyone in this country fights for some sort of seats I thought wryly-politicians, students, train commuters..! 'Vijay...I feel it has almost become a sport for them..I have seen
people doing the same even when the train had been empty and there were only a handful of people trying to board the train. Even then the behaviour was the same...to beat others into boarding the train first. Maybe people simply get a kick out of it or simply have got habituated to it, that they keep doing it irrespective of the change in the situation. Maybe this is an ocassion everyone can legitimately show aggression and who wouldn't want to let some steam off after a hard day's work. So the few seconds madness of train boarding becomes an alibi for agression...'.

It was evident Vijay, and Krishna who was with us then, were hardly convinced by my alternatives. We simply wrung our hands that this was one of those inexplicable things and shoved it into the deeper cellars of our mind for future cogitation.

To be continued...

kicks

Hiya folks, somehow not able to turn out poems however I try. Many of em in various degrees of incompletion are resting in my computer and on untidy sheets of paper. Following the wisdom that it is of no use yanking a dry udder I thought, let me treat you to some prose.

I wanted to write something on the various shades of joys and sorrows I have had the good luck to pass through. So starting with...


Pink, the Color of Joy, Seeped into my Fingernails

If I had to give joy, mirth, and fun gay abandon a color it would be pink.

I had a friend who used to question what reason what sanction one needed to celebrate life. He was an apologist for birthdays, New Year celebrations, Diwali, Krishna Jayanti, Independence Day, Republic Day, Valentine's Day...I strongly suspect he had gone around wishing 'Happy Good Friday' to all his Christian friends in his younger days until someone not quite politely stopped him on his ebullient tracks. He used to say, 'All festivals are great excuses to rejoice because to do so all alone and without a reason shall look a wee bit crazy. Imagine how would it be to burst crackers on some odd tuesday, to throw colors on each other on a nondescript saturday, or to ask your Dad for new jeans on some godforsaken day that is not your birthday!'. 'I can't feel happy just because you are supposed to be celebrating a certain date. It seems to me as fakery, plain and simple.' He would theatrically retort, 'Though it is sad that celebrations too have to be institutionalised it makes me shed tears of blood to see you question their logic instead of grabbing the opportunity to be gay abandon'. So, when he pranced on Diwali morning guiding kids quarter his age in exploding 'atom bombs' and 'hydrogen bombs' of Bijili and Sparrow brands I would spend my time on my balcony breathing the smokey sulphur fumes that rose from the streets.

I had my own reasons ofcourse. My personality came dressed up as reasons-a sobriety supported by a overdeveloped sense of skepticism when it came to human nature. I couldn't digest the fact that wishes kept pouring to no end from people who on other days would only extend a cursory nod or at best a smile. Bear-hugs, salutations, endless greetings that people could say in an unthinking 'Hey...Happy Diwali, Hey...Happy Christmas, Hey..Many Many Happy Returns of the Day' tone like a turbaned door-keeper employed to bend low in grace for every customer. I thought people smiled incessantly without investing it with any amount of responsibility. I compared it to what alcohol could effect in people. On a high, people become super-friendly, forget their petty troubles, jealousies and self-centredness, and apparently become so gregarious. Festivals seemed to have the same numbed pleasantess about them. A transitory intimacy. Automaton joy on an appointed date; friendliness for no rhyme or reason. Only to vanish the next day like crowds after a cricket match leaving the stadium littered with a loneliness (known only to the ragpickers). Is that why I have always felt the day after Diwali to be the most desultory?

I held that tokens of love held true meaning only among one's beloved ones and closest friends. They mean it. They shall bear the cross love may entail-if it comes to that. Others-acquaintances, fellow workers, batchmates, society-can't but remain shallow. But where I smelt insincerety or at best the unthinking habit of ritual, my friend held that the fact they atleast smiled, hugged, and opened up on these days was a real gain. He had then pleaded, 'Is it so difficult to be affectionate to a fellow human being, acquainted not even a total stranger, without tying him into deals of love and responsibility...No doubt these festivities are oases in a desert. But would you refuse them because they are a passing phenomenon? The stretching deserts are reasons enough to have our fill of the oasis whenever we stumble by them. Don't you think so?'. I wryly replied, 'I think they are mirages'.

Two clocks in my room
give each other company.
Each one's tick close on the
heels of the other.
Cluck.Click.Cluck.Click.Cluck.Click...
Each one's voice sure, distinct
but I can hear them only as a cluclick-
Like mom and dad have merged
into dear parents.

I wonder: With whom shall I Click!?

Basics

The sharp taste of curd and pickle
remind life's simplicity.
All I find essential is someone
at home awaiting me.
All full day's work to keep sanity,
Elayaraja and Bach to
iron out incongruities.

Runner's High

Lungs cry out for breatherspace,
My limb are a spent force.
In the funnel of a consciousness
that is left amidst a beat-up heart
and beaten spirit,

the chatter of the birds
and the orange orb of a sun
filter through as godsent
gifts.