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.