The Coffee Mugh

Changing Address

2011-04-04T13:59:00.001+05:30

I've exported this blog to http://flowersociety.wordpress.com. I find it easier to blog there. See you all there soon.

Warriors Parade into a Cave

2010-07-10T22:54:00.000+05:30

Last night, an architecture student friend of mine, Pratu was talking to me about her Urban Renewal assignment in Mylapore. Apparently, this is just for their study and any suggestion they make will remain in files because no has the money to change anything. More interestingly, she said, "Even if there is public will we need political will to do something."

Today, I am watching Marley & Me. In one scene, the Florida beaches are shining clean. It's because dogs or anyone are strictly not allowed to poop and pee out there. If you do, then the police come in, fine and close down the beach. Hmmm... Okay it is a movie. Nothing to throw a tantrum about.

What I am finding hard to understand or actually stumped that I do understand is this...If the police or the government want the people to behave, they have to ban. If the people want the government to do something, they have to protest. Both ways it only has to be a fight. Bans, protest, under-the-table creation of illegal activities... The government will ban alcohol and then start selling state liquor creating bigger revenue. All of this is sick. The entire world is a whole lot of garbage.

We have finished the first month of work on our magazine. It is out, everyone likes the look, and everyone wants to read the next issue. Very happy! It can be read here: http://www.issuu.com/chaikadai/docs/cuttingchai-stuck

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Destiny differs from Fate: Conversations with Adolf Hitler

2010-06-24T17:37:00.003+05:30

I often read that we create our own destinies. However, fate is something that happens to us. Fate is a word/concept loaded with a negative connotation. It is something we do not want but a force that pulls us into a certain life. It doesn't depend on choice, opinion, or emotion. It happens and we have to deal with it then and there.

How can someone deal with their fate? [This post is not about death, though that is one of the larger questions troubling my mind. I will come to exploring the concept soon].

A few days back, I retrieved my copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf from my dusty bookshelf. I have recently been interested in reading the stories (autobiographies and letters) of influential people in history. After I finish this book, I will be reading Azad Hind, letters by Subash Chandra Bose. These leaders whether they did something right or not they understood something very crucial about the younger generation and the part they play in a nation, a society, and this entire world. I have been jotting down questions and comments as I read along.

- In the first few words of Hitler's autobiography, I had a recurring block in my head. This is a man hated by all, with evident proof of massacring people in millions. Why should I read his thoughts? Should I read him to know he is a bad man and reinstate my morality? or Could there be any good that I can take out of this reading?

- The copy I am reading is a Master Mind Books publication. The house offers an introduction, to Indian students, in order to defend themselves and clear the air that they do not support Hitler. They call it a 'warning guide' to be read carefully in order to understand India's diversity and the need for unity; and that to ward away from extremism we should be knowledgeable of the revelations of 'wretched souls of incorrigible criminals like Adolf Hitler'. In fact, there is not much left to the reader to form an opinion anymore.

- Why is the Unification of Italy and the French Revolution treated as a story of Nationalism whereas the story of Germany one of terror? Was it just a calculation of causalities or a bias to certain ideologies?

- Hitler wanted to be a painter! I did not know this, even as an undergraduate history student. He left to Vienna after the death of his father to a life of dire poverty. Why is there such a lack of political and social education amongst the youth of today in my country?

- I might have something to learn (also) from this man and his life, like he writes it.

Only two chapters down, I have put together some passages from the book here that made me reflect about myself and gather some strength. I don't necessarily agree to these passages, but they are worth reading.

Sam: What is all this fight for nationalism?
Hitler: It is the 'voice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole people for a return to the unforgotten home of their fathers'.

Sam: What should I actually be looking for when studying history?
Hitler: To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events.

Sam: We study everything, but what should we set out to be?
Hitler: I was determined to become 'something' - but certainly not a civil servant (that's only what my father wanted).

Sam: Could your determination help me?
Hitler: Obstacles are placed across our path in life, not to be boggled at but to be surmounted.

Sam: Who are the youth?
Hitler: I make a distinction between the wisdom of age - which can only arise from the greater profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long life - and the creative genius of the youth, which blossoms out in thought and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these into practice immediately, because of this very superabundance.

Sam: If I agree to be that kind of youth, what should I do and what should I unlearn in order to live? Should I foremost unlearn my middle-class upbringing? In order to move in society, do I need to sympathize, empathize or understand?
Hitler: The man who has never been in the clutches of that crushing viper [poverty] can never know what its poison is.

These were random questions I asked as I read the book, and from a time long ago Hitler gave the answers he willed to give. I am not here to share what you already know about him or count the Jews he has killed. I am here to question on my own account, in a selfish manner, in order to help myself.

My previous post was published the night before I had to meet my dean and know the fate of my college life. It was on that same night that I retrieved this book from my shelf. As I read, I was not taking a liking to Hitler, but clearly removed him out of the context and read it like a novel. For pure historical criticism, I might have to reread this book in a different manner. But, probably in the world of reading, criticism is not the goal. Here's a passage about reading by Hitler:

Page 27/28: Chapter II Years of Studying and Suffering in Vienna, Mein Kampf -

I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page, and yet I should not call them "well-read people." Of course they 'know' an immense amount; but their brains seems incapable of sorting and classifying the material which they have gathered from books. They have not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds if possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible, then -when once read- throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfillment of his calling in life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of earning one's daily bread or calling that responds to higher human aspirations.

Such is the first purpose of reading. And the second purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will result from all this reading. That jumble is not merely useless, but it also tends to make the unfortunate possessor of it conceited. For he seriously considers himself a well-educated person and thinks he understands something of life. He believes that he has acquired knowledge, whereas the truth is that every increase in such "knowledge" draws him more and more away from real life.

...On the other hand, one who has cultivated the art of reading will instantly discern, in a book or journal or pamphlet, what ought to be remembered because it meets one's personal needs or is of value as general knowledge...Should some practical problem suddenly demand examination or solution, memory will immediately select the opportune information from the mass that has been acquired through years of reading and will place his information at the service of one's powers of judgement so as to get a new and clearer view of the problem in question or produce a definitive solution.

What did I choose to take with me on Monday morning? What have I taken further on for myself from these brief conversations?
On Monday morning, I lazed around a bit, made myself tea and finally got myself out of my house. I found a C51 and set out to college. Contrary to my other visits to college to sort out my scene, this morning was serene and free of trouble. I felt like I wanted nothing and expected nothing. I had been told that I might not have to attend classes and only finish exams, the previous night. I reached, waited and waited, till the Dean finally saw me. We eagerly looked through my files and papers. My fate was announced: You have to repeat a semester. I was not teared up, hyperventilating, or stressed out. I had a brief out of body experience. I was looking at myself smile at the Dean and thanked him for everything, without a single trace of sarcasm. I walked out of college in a dazed manner. Fate happens. Smile at it. Live with it. This might sound cliche, but the relief one feels when the fate is smitten by a smile is extraordinary.

About reading, Baba (my father) has always told me to keep a notebook while reading a book to jot down what our mind wishes to take from it. There is hardly any difference between what he taught me and what Hitler reiterates here.

This series, X Questions History, is in fact my notebooks and my questions that go along with my readings, and what I wished to take from it. These questions will multiply the more I read about history, society and culture. It will be shared with you here in this section. It is a simple window into how my mind wanders and the conversations with these books.

Only three chapters down with Mein Kampf, will be back with more conversations.

Ivan Illich or John Holt: It doesn't matter anymore.

2010-06-19T15:35:00.000+05:30

This is written for those who think they understand, actually understand, and simply don't know. Some of you might never take a chance at reading this, but I don't stand to lose anything but your understanding. That's fine with me.

Dear ..............,

On Monday morning, two days from now, I have to go to college. In the pit of my stomach the noises of scary creatures have started. No need to worry, it could just be hunger for I haven't eaten yet. After a bit of work on this random Saturday, I lay down on the floor and stared at lotus on my ceiling. I breathed, I thought, I pondered and questioned.

Why am I here? What do I want to do?

Three years back, I did not want to go to college. I did not know what else I wanted to do. In March 2010, I dropped out of college in my last two months of undergraduate education, right before my examinations. When I decided to adjust to college for two whole years, what could have happened to me?

I had comments calling me lazy, irresponsible, ungrateful, scattered, and stupid. Like all mistakes done and gone, I had my own set of excuses - teachers, attendance, etc.

This letter is not an excuse, but an insight into what went on in my mind in the last few months of college life. After reading it, you can call it some name and categorize according to your judgement.

I love studying. I love to know, to learn, to read, to write, to analyse, and to even write examinations. This is an ability that I am extremely proud of. I wanted to study History, because I saw it as my base for any other social science, art, literature, or philosophy. Anything, I wanted to learn about had a history and so I chose that as my Undergraduate Major.

In my first year of college, I maintained notebooks, timetables, and charts about my subjects. I bought books, I read them, analyzed them and wrote papers for personal use. I was enjoying my bout of self-studying. We were allowed to read in class and often had long library breaks. It wasn't crime to visit another class to listen to another lecture. It wasn't a crime to sit under the trees and share readings or thoughts. The point was not necessarily to score high, be popular or wear IDs.

Second year, I was lost. My first semester that year was remarkable in the same flow and my skills on studying History were improving. I decided to get involved in college culturals and had many lovely ideas. Nothing worked out.

Third year, too many things had happened in my life outside college by the end of my fourth semester. I had lost my ability to study, because classes were dry lectures that most of the time had nothing to do with the subject. We had to listen and take notes, even though we might know what they are saying otherwise. The only focus of the teachers of making every student pass. The projects included 'Question and Answer sets', with questions as dry as 'What was the Cuban Missile Crisis?' or ten-page summaries of any topic we deem to choose from our scattered syllabus. I grew tired. I was learning NOTHING. I still don't know if this was all my fault.

Probably, if I had just focused on studies for that one year or treated like just an examination to pass, I could have gotten out of this rut earlier. Instead, I escaped. I joined everything and did everything. I found my foot in theatre. I directed plays, brought together a lot of people, and lived with it.

Was finding theatre a fault? I should have said no to those plays and distractions. I should have not worried about Chai Kadai or anything else I created. I should probably not search for avenues that I can actually learn from. Maybe the point is just that paper certificate. But, why should I waste three years for that in an institution interested about examinations and paper qualifications, but not actual studying or understanding of this world?

I am not saying I did not learn anything from this college. If I did not have any reason to escape, I might have never landed on Chai Kadai or theatre. I'll take it as an experience.

My mom asked me, "You want to drop out? Do you think you are too smart for college?"

I want to tell her now, "I might not be smart for college life. But, I have completely lost my ability to study because of this college and I can't go on."

My parents chose to understand this in their own ways. They never accused me. They never told me I was completely out of my mind. But, they would rather I finish those exams and have a paper qualification.

I wonder why? Why aren't individuals allowed to make their own mistakes after a while?

I am twenty-one and I can't understand this.

I will go to college on Monday.

I will try and figure this out.

I will meet all those people whom I don't want to meet.

I will study on my own finally.

I will write all those exams I have missed.

I will beg those teachers who hate me.

I will sit and write Q&As and ten-page summaries.

I will do this and more.

All for a paper.

Love,

Sam.

p.s.: Guess no one is allowed to run away. If you have to beg to get something someone loves you wants, you have to beg.

The Words that Go with a Heart

2010-06-01T11:10:00.002+05:30

I was reading Susan's post on meeting Seamus Heany, when my mind started wandering. I started counting the poets who had taken me on journeys. People I wished to meet, and cried when I learned of a few deaths. Pablo Neruda, Sheldon Silverstein, Charles Bukowski, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and this one poem by Elizabeth Bishop.

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Runaway: An Animated Film by Cordell Baker

2010-06-01T10:54:00.003+05:30

Cordell Barker, who directed The Cat Came Back and Strange Invaders, is once again at his best with Runaway. Set to the music of Ben Charest, Runaway takes you on a journey that is both funny and disastrous.

Happy passengers are having a great time on a crowded train, oblivious to the unknown fate that awaits them around the bend. The ensuing crisis leads to a class struggle that is as amusing as it is merciless. Naturally there are victims, but in the end everyone is equal.

Warriors with Minds on Easy Chairs

2010-06-01T01:34:00.000+05:30

I hyperventilate. It happens everywhere. Sometimes inside the bathroom. Sometimes in the middle of the road. Then, I try and call someone who can talk me out of it. All of them say, "Put your mind at ease."

But, how?

Here is an abrupt extract from Carlos Castaneda's Tales of Power: (pg 52)

"Should I try to find an explanation for what happened, then? I[Carlos] asked.
"Certainly!" he[don Juan] retorted. "It's your duty to put your mind at ease. Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over the walls; they don't demolish them."
"How can I jump over this one?" I asked.
"First of all, I think its deadly wrong for you to regard anything in such a serious fashion," he said as he sat down by my side. "There are three kinds of bad habits which we use over and over when confronted with unusual life situations. First, we may disregard what's happening or has happened and feel as if it had never occurred. That one is the bigot's way. Second, we may accept everything at its face value and feel as if we know what's going on. That's the pious man's way. Third, we may get obsessed with an event because either we cannot disregard it or we cannot accept it wholeheartedly. That's the fool's way. Your way? There is a fourth, the correct one, the warrior's way. A warrior acts as if nothing had ever happened, because he doesn't believe in anything, yet he accepts everything at its face value. He accepts without accepting and disregards without disregarding. He never feels as if he knows, neither does he feel as if nothing had ever happened. He acts as if he in control, even though he might be shaking in his boots. To act in suc a manner dissipates obsession."

The Art of Discovering

2010-06-01T00:42:00.001+05:30

Discoveries are the clouds in our sedentary lives. It could be about the soul, the nature of science, bacteria, mutant frogs, or the colour blue. They may happen when reading a book, engrossed in a conversation, bleeding in a fight, watching a death, expecting a birth, or a finding the chance to run away. We'll find a discovery hanging off an ignored leaf, grab it and treasure it in an old cigar box. It may simply be the choice to stop everything and return to sedentary silence. At the beginning and at the end, it is a choice to search.

It begins from a dream.

Here is an extract from Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip, a story of a little girl named, Matilda and her teacher, Pop-Eye. (pg 159)

Broken Dreams

The girl next to where I grew up used to sleepwalk. It was amazing how far she would get--still fast asleep. One time she paddled a canoe out to the reef, came in and went back to her sleeping mat. Or else you'd see her marching up the beach like she was late for church.
Once we found her in our house sitting up to the table, her eyes closed, while every other part of her suggested she was waiting to be brought a cold drink. I was going to wake her but my mum stopped me. What if she is dreaming....? Dreams are private, she said. And she is right. A dream is a story no one else will get to hear or read.
Thanks to dreams, in the history of the galaxy the world has been reinvented more often than there are stars.
The girl in our house though was probably just dreaming about jumping off the wharf--and that's okay too.

Twenty One Years and Two Days

2010-05-26T13:40:00.000+05:30

Birthdays - I do not how they are supposed to be spent. Each one has been different, memorable for different reasons. Some have gone worse than the others, hurting me for years. But, this twenty-first birthday was mellow, cinematic (watched Iron Man 2 and Kites in the span of three days), and yummy (ate Korean food at InSeoul). Thank you to everyone who showered love!

Leaving to Hyderabad. Lots of people to meet there, things to pick up, stories and plays to write, proposals to finish, and cousins and parents I need to catch up with.

Goodbye.

See you all in Hyderabad.

The Superhero Blanket Around My Shoulders

2010-05-24T15:05:00.003+05:30

I will not be alone when I shout from the rooftops, before trying to fly: "I LOVE SUPERHEROES." Going to start digging into the history of who brought out this concept soon. Stan Lee, according to me is God in this area. The day I saw him (on TV) flying down on a spider to receive his Scream Award, I fell all over again for him. However, I've always had the reservation of making my sister jealous if I agree I love superheroes or Stan Lee as much as her. This is her thing. I've sat with her in book shops where she has blown her entire month savings on comics and series. She is mad about them. I take them as a sweet ride of ecstasy. It is Energy.

Expecting this, I went to watch Iron Man 2. Back home, I am confidently writing this: "it is one of the most intelligent superhero movies ever." Why? I spent most of my childhood wanting to be a physicist, it was the closest I could have gotten to understanding the world and conquering it. No. 1: Tony Stark is a physicist. Van Con is a physicist. Even, Hammer is a physicist. When the time came to choose my subjects of specialization I chose to study the human race more than the world. If I was going to conquer anything at all in my life, it was going to be me.

More than the first part, Iron Man 2 exceeds it brilliance. Tony Stark was first only a technically bad man, a mass murderer, who invents something for himself and then turns it into a good man's weapon. This is the initial story of Iron Man. But, this sequel digs deeper and adds darker shades, with even the touch of romance and glamour. It is a packed, entertaining ride to the sky.

In the sequel, Tony Stark is a narcissistic rich man, with a self-created super power, who is threatened by death and personal longings. He is a human-being, battled by other human-beings. James Rhodes is that same patriotic commander and the man who stands against his friend thinking he might save the country. And yes, the Russian is the villain, with his own share of personal history triggering revenge. The best man of all, the creator of Stark Industries, is Howard Stark. Just like expected, he talks out of an old taped recording and reveals to his son that death is not going to stop him and that he is here for a bigger purpose.

There are all these and more stereotypes. Even, if you haven't read the comic book, one can guess who is the lover and who is the sexy one. I am back here and haven't forgotten a single character, a single scene, or a single turn in the story. Does this make it a good movie? I guess so.

It's true I went there wanting to enjoy it and I am back satisfied, exhilarated, and happy. My textbook on 'Writing on Film' tells me strictly that I cannot go to a movie with the intention of enjoying and then criticizing it. Defying this, I think the intention is precisely why the mind stays open enough for flaws to tape themselves in my mind.

I haven't done anything wrong by wanting to enjoy this movie. I simply let it take me on a ride, and it did a pretty good job, probably the best. The last few superhero movies terribly disappointed me - yes, Watchmen being one of them. Kudos to Iron Man 2.

It's not keeping me waiting to watch more, but has put me on the most brilliant energy rush with the simple story it told me today. Be a superhero or a normal person, there is fear that's going to hit you and you are going to have to deal with it in your own way.

Here's a small peak into my childhood superhero:
"Sun rose in her dreams, and sun flowers lived beneath the thick black blanket. In the dark sunny abode lived a paradise. Swarna turned around restlessly, distracted what the day had been. She should have been kissed by him. She should have caught the bus in time. She should have seen the sitcom episode completely. She should have talked for hours to her boyfriend. She hadn’t done any of this. She had been on this mattress with a cobra.
Every morning, it coils itself around her, pulling her plump self in to the mattress. Tied and worn out in struggle the cobra suffocates itself to life. The black cotton cobra would hiss into her ears: a hundred love stories and mystic hymns. Then she would pull him over her head and close her eyes.
Tonight, she told herself about the magnificent cobra. She read the bed time story about his crawling love. Under the cobra evils are not seen. Under the cobra everything is protected from unknown things. Blankets are super heroes."

[written long ago]

It's late in the night, but come back tomorrow for a nice look into the History of Superheroes.

The Dreadful Slope of Dreams

2010-05-23T19:28:00.005+05:30

Climbing a hill has to be done slowly, so every bit of stench and fragrance, every bit of movement and stillness, every bit of sound and silence, every bit of smoothness and itching can be taken in without any hindrance. Most of the times when we start something we run, we are in a hurry. We want to finish it fast and get to the top. We want to scratch ourselves deep, stress ourselves fully, and sit down panting. The feeling is exhilarating and amazing.

But, when we sit back we start realizing that we missed so much on our way and made so many mistakes and probably even broke a few bones. We need to try it once more. If it is only one ride we have, ride it slowly and steadily. So, when we fall we don't break our heads and start digging deeper holes. It is a search for isolation in my dreams. An isolation which pulls everything closer!

Charles Bukowksi says:

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."

[Poem - Roll the Dice] [Last Dialogue from the film: Factotum]

The Walk Around the Childhood Town

2010-05-20T23:00:00.002+05:30

With papers, tearing notebooks, markers, emails all scattered around me I am sitting here waiting to create something out of it. There are ideas, mediums, disagreements, and creations. Different people keep coming across my path, stirring it, tripping me, and showing me new things. Then, I want to do this, I want to do that, and I want to do everything. The end is a confused, complex, cluttered state of excitement.
Sometimes, I take a break from everything. Like today, I walked and walked and walked. Five kilometers from Anokhi Cafe to Tiruvanmiyur Bus depot. Feel free, energized and ready for more excitement.

It is the Hidden and the Impossible that excites a Soul

2010-05-15T05:21:00.001+05:30

There is something we all live for. And it takes some of us twenty years in a life-time to realize it. We could realize it sometime when the Muslim priests next to our house starts their first Namaaz. It could be after shutting off the television set after a movie marathon. It could be because we watched Autumn Spring and The Thomas Crown Affair back-to-back on two consecutive nights. It could be because we see the empires we are building for ourselves.
It all boils down to one thing. We live life relentlessly for the passion inside us that we need to challenge. We do this to believe in an adventure we created for ourselves when we were children.

It's Messy to be with One thing All the Time

2010-05-13T20:13:00.001+05:30

Messy Addiction # 1
The Art of Advising the Other

Morning dawns and all you can think of are the troubles you have to handle. Down that familiar road we take to our offices and colleges, stands a person to check on you: Have you finished your report? Have you studied for your exam?

When the trouble gets to your head, you become like me, like her, like them, like everyone. We start checking on others: Have you spoken to your mom? Why are you fighting with your wife? Have you sent those emails?

After the questions are over, we tell them what to do, like we're told what to do: Don't fight with her man. Go to college and don't waste your life. Try a cigarette.

It is normal. When in trouble, solve another’s.

We get trapped, in this love for advising and fixing another’s life that we always tend to forget our own.

We accuse someone else of ‘self-pity’ and ‘ignorance’, but fail to look within.

Advising is an internal addiction. It’s something our hearts feed on, by the pure pleasure of giving more.

It is a hunger to give. It makes us all noble.

Advice. Take advice. It is a humane condition.

Who is this Ruth who followed her Mother-in-Law to Heaven?

2010-05-13T00:38:00.000+05:30

It has been a long time since I received any story ideas inside this head of mine. Two days back, I found my grandfather's diary and started reading through it. Believe me, you probably don't want to know so many things about your grandfather and grandmother. This was when the evil writer part of me came alive. She is still kicking strong, my real self, the one each one of you, is sleeping. My family, its characters, its life are turning into my stories.

Anyway, while I print out my words, for all those of you who want to write - there is this beautiful method of structuring your novel called the Snowflake Method elaborated by Randy Ingermanson.

The Jack in the Box is Always Ready to Scare You

2010-05-11T19:42:00.000+05:30

There is this emptiness that time carries. We don't know what do with it. It's not like we don't have dreams or even the enthusiasm to do a million things. I do have these dreams, these wishes, those that dear people share with me. But, the times comes when you sit with them staring at a white wall behind the smoke, tired of hearing the Television set grumble all day long. What do we do? What can we do?
Stumped!
I am jobless today, because I cannot think.

The Harsh Wheel of your Motorcycle Puts me to Sleep

2010-05-11T13:41:00.000+05:30

It was around 9.00 a.m. when Ernesto Che Guevara was half way through his journey in South America. The scenes started flickering, the sound became constant, which became my snore with the Television set still running. Then, there they were, my dreams. Friends, plots, adventures, and sins all bottled into one. Before, watching The Motorcycle Diaries, I started this morning in a very peculiar way. I read the entire Old Testament.

The Tower of Babel and Humanity - Men baked bricks one by one. Laid one on top of the other. His tongue was the same as his neighbours. Unity flowed. Why then did God confuse humanity with these languages? Did he do that so we can philosophize further? Did he do that so we can find more Gods? or Did he do that because these men were being preposterous by wanting to reach God? Lord says he knows if man can go to extent of building this tower, he will definitely destruct the meaning of life. Somehow, sitting many thousands years after this incident, with so many skyscrapers teeming out of this land around me, I fear God did not achieve in confusing humanity or in punishing them for trying to reach him or further.

Inside the Green Wine Bottle is the Core of My World, or where is it?

2010-05-11T05:50:00.001+05:30

It is six and early in the morning, but my night is not yet over.
I am awake in my sleep, for my eyes have not yet winked.
I have wiped cleaned the paint, that spilled off my first canvas,
On which sits a bright red strawberry, hidden in my blue world.
This is Core of the World. The Core of My World.
The Core of the World is what you see.

Task finished: I have finally painted my first ever canvas in my entire life. The Canvas is the core of my world. I used acrylic paints, fingers, old brushes, and torn up sponge. No techniques, probably no skill. But, my painting on my canvas. Then, washed the brushes and my hand with a strong Lifeboy handwash, and scrubbed the floor clean with Pril. Energy is beating its way to my heart.

The Waste Underneath the Garbage Bag

2010-05-11T02:11:00.001+05:30

It's pure shit to procrastinate, but the idea is stalled. I got past the title, three lines, and then ideas came. No ideas to do with Vedic Mathematics. I am sitting here all alone in my big house missing my allies: Arun, Git, Mary, Nina, kitchi, and Karan. Mistakes can be made, but were they worth it. Why am I not regretting anything? Because, you stupid crow you have some numbers to compute, some words to conjure, some thoughts to sort out. Leave.

Summary: I am suffering from Writer's Block. I am missing my friends.

The Squeaky Fan Annoys the Voice

2010-05-11T01:40:00.000+05:30

I am trying. The crow is pecking.
My Assignment: Why is Vedic Math Forum India the best place for your mind?
Waiting for it to flow. Blocked inside the squeaky fan wires right now.
Staring at my coffee mug, remembering 'don't do list' I made to stop all my addictions.
None of my addictions have yet stopped.
I stop. Look around my room. It remains clean.
Snap. I am leaving. The thought has come.
It will arrive.
The train is coming 'round the bend.
Adios.

The Return of an Addiction

2010-05-11T00:36:00.003+05:30

The pursuit of a writer is confused in its very nature. It is not that the writer does not want to write, but she does not know how to manage the other elements in her life. She is doomed forever if she is a multi-tasker. She has to manage: friends, work, college, clutter, families, promises, lies, and after everything the thoughts in her head, her stories.

Four years back or more, a writer started this blog with the reason of creating herself a space to diligently write. Then, she got bored of making people read only her words. She took a break and vanished from many memories. The only comments she got were from grateful young college students who passed their English exams reading about The Postmaster.

She is back with a fervent spirit in the middle of the night. She is here to write, to question, and to shout not about her personal worries, but about her journey as a writer. It is finally starting. She is finally starting her career....

In me, is there a wanderer?

2009-08-22T01:18:00.004+05:30

This is the dream that causes my existence to ache, for I am too attached to carry this out. This is the dream of a wanderer caught in the net of urban systems and institutions, willing to succumb to see a few smiles and a beg a few hugs. Is it all worth it? This summing up can only happen in my last moments, but I have gotten used not to regret anything - and this too shall pass as just an aching sore...

I attain Peace only through writing, for this is how I speak to myself. Am I a wanderer?

The most important thing for me is to grow inside and not outside, for that will take its natural course. My serious battle is with myself, my questions, and my travels. How do I intend to wander if I feel myself connecting and attaching everywhere? I feel compassion for every soul that passes my existence, whether they sell me a bus ticket or find me in this myriad of internet networks. Probably, the trick is not to detach, but to attach in a pure manner.

If I attach, philosophy tells me I am not free, but there I differ! Every soul has some wisdom to part towards you. My wandering lies in meeting people, many more as they come my way and I go towards theirs. This can be done through the simple physical practice of nomadic behaviour. But, sitting within my seat, hot and comfortable, in Chennai, I am still a wanderer. I wander day and night within myself, carefully sharpening my ears to another's trials, questions, searches, and knowledge.

This strikes me, when the most "mundane" questions are thrown my way. Not, when someone asks me "What is life?" or "Who are you?" (for these actually seem mundane and fixed within languages). But, when a bus conductor seriously questions a boy hanging out of the bus, "If you insist on hanging out and crowding the bus by not letting people in, how will I sell tickets and still save your life?" This is a trial many bus conductors live day in and day out. This, of course, can be solved by re-planning buses itself. Apparently, boys love hanging out of the bus for two simple reasons - it is the test of their youth, and the women sit on the left side next to the door. So, bus drivers could start selling the tickets, like done in the West, and the women could start sitting on the right. But, won't this put conductors into further turmoil, for they would have lost their jobs?

For me, the most important searches lie in trying to question our every day realities that involve more souls than anything else. This is not theology, strictly left to certain practicioners and theologists. This is not just the path for philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, or any others who like to stay within their definitions. This is for those who are ready to live the every day life apart from the personal politics and ideologies, with a humble openness to receive and debate.

Again, this debate, though I testify an inner process, isn't reserved for the individual. It is the discipline of dialogue that strengthens this state. For a wanderer, doesn't need to free her physical proximities, but actually test her intimate proximities. Who are you willing to love? Who are you willing to tolerate? Who are you willing to receive?

If I let that creep who insisted on staring at my breasts just get away, I would really feel misused. Instead, I shout loud at him and further question myself and others, "What is it that men find so interesting or stimulating in looking at women in such a disrespecting manner?" This is not just sick behaviour, but a condition in itself. Why does a man feel justified when he does this? How can he find the right to blame my clothing? What brought about this condition? Women, cannot free themselves of this blame too. However, it may be progressionist for a woman to write about a penis, some women can get down to the insociable side of actually extracting pleasure from a rubbing a man's groin in the bus. Should a woman also start questioning a man's clothing? Why is it that women are told what is dirty and what is not, according to the men's conveniences? Why is masturbating looked at as a social and psychological dysfunction by counselors? My mind wanders.

It is only when I speak, ask and read, that I realize most of the times I do not ask new questions. However, this hardly matters. I ask, I imbibe and that is all that matters.

In order to wander, there are only two disciplines I have left to learn - the hardest. They are, to free my ego (not to suppress it, but to understand it as well as I understand desire in all its forms for myself) and to remain honest (this is the art of creating silence within oneself and the ability not to hurt another soul's integrity).

The art of creating silence does not mean suppressing, again. It is the art of strengthening decisiveness, the openness to mistakes, the ability to imbibe energy, beauty and knowledge from an entity (soul, idea, plant, elephant, etc), the simplicity of common sense, the sensibility of cultural propriety, the character of integrity, the humility to see beauty in every soul, and the sense of belief in the purity of existence and disappearance.
Silence, this is what this piece leaves me with now.

And...
Silence...
is what I intend to leave you with forever.
Breathe Silence.

"Pornography" shouts the Voyeur

2009-07-18T20:00:00.005+05:30

- copied version of the review posted on Chai Kadai

This is not an age of revolutions, but dullness, we hear. However, innovation might have not completely died. Some anonymous characters have made the sexy bhabhi image sell all around the world, with one website, and beautifully illustrated comics.www.savitabhabhi.com

While most of the media is busy type-casting terrorism, Savita Bhabhi turns all of it into a voyeur’s treat with her new adventure. Yes, she is in her dream frolicking around Kashmir with terrorists, undercover policemen, and all men. A typically undercover look at pornography and sexcapades, currently facing CyberMedia News’ petition to block the site and follow it with a CBI inquiry to bring the owners of the Canada website to book, the site is still going strong. Strong in visuals, views, and colour! However, stronger than ever, Savita Bhabhi claims to “Save the World one Dick at Time,” in the newest issue. Pornography is down-right illegal in this country, and even talking about sex is not acceptable in many cases. But, under-cover or not, this team sensationalizes sex with India’s first porn star, not being a person, but a perfectly voluptuous comic book character.

It is not really unacceptable for a man to get horny or think about sex. This is taken to be natural in any Indian community. But, with “Indian culture” pushed down women’s throats, even her fantasies are subjected to the Censorship board. “Think what you want within your four walls, but if you speak of it you’re a heretic, a witch, or a bitch.”

Do you find this sick? Women get raped, people sever each others’ heads, children get abused, families kill each other within four walls, and all this stays within those walls, because it is immoral to talk about this and spoil one’s status in society. These voyeurs of perversion can carry on under-cover and we’ll shut about them. But, one innocent site that just draws sex we have our problems with. Who isn’t a voyeur? Savita Bhabhi at least has the element of class!

It is fine to be a voyeur of violence nowadays, when we watch Mumbai attacks sensationalized on TV increasing the TRP ratings. It is perfectly fine, to watch those TV Channels announce “We will be back after a short commercial break,” just after they announced casualities of hundreds with a presentable smile on their face. All this is fine, but being naturally primitive and excited by sex, is against the law, culture, and “God”. Phew! This world, and not Savita Bhabhi, has to be shoved down a huge drain. Those who read newspapers, watch television, stare at the breasts of a woman in the bus, photograph calamities, are all voyeurs. But, we cringe to accept any form of reality.

In this deepest intolerance of life, pornography, especially comic books, are the last evils of society. One is not raising their hand to defend snuff, child pornography, mms scandals, and forced pornography or prostitution. At the same time, one is not raising their hands in support of glorifying violence, gaping at a fashion mishap as a model’s top falls off, linking people in scandals that invade privacy, type-casting and stereotyping people with specific identities. With all kinds of men and women writing these “scandulous” incest stories all over the internet, probably India could ban internet itself. But, no what happens to the IT industry? One can just imagine the terrorised looks on the administrators’ faces. With no women, men or children gettin hurt or forced, with just art, Savita Bhabhi is probably the most decent form of pornography one has ever come across.

Enough people are out there writing about this website and its successes, but this is a statement to the society. This is a statement to societies who conveniently label their opponent as a voyeur and destroyer of “culture”. In this world of many stereotypes, connecting religion and violence, gender and position, caste and voice, this stereotype is flimsy. One doesn’t essentially need only Savita Bhabhi to corrupt any mind. We have men dragging women out of pubs with their hair. Glorifying violence corrupts people for sure, but not sex. Sex and porn is not new to this culture, otherwise the Kamasutra would not have been written, and the Temple of Love, Khajuraho would not have been built.

Sex is the most primitive instinct, and all Savita Bhabhi does is to add the excited human touch to it. But, does one think ’saving one dick at a time’ is a little too far? Actually, it is a laugh at the rest of the media. The media with their desperate additions of zig and excitement, watches as Savita Bhabhi strikes again to show the country how to excite people, if that’s what one really wants to do.

The Vashi Window

2009-01-09T00:28:00.005+05:30

Inside a joint, if there were a million eyes:

"Sometimes I think it runs more than twenty-four hours, Where my eyes - two of them are fixed, on the simple computer of mine.

'But, it is pleasant, more than ever, to sit by a barricaded window. This looks out to not more than wheels.'

'In this bright yellow hue, I might never recognize the form of this written piece. But, I have realized that I am very much at home."

: all this and more would go into the oblivion far far away, with a drag and a gulp of coffee. Written on 03.01.2009.

Chai is warmer now.

2008-12-18T21:05:00.003+05:30

It so happens that every time I decide to leave my computer I resort to this blog, this space, mine and old. The week was filled with great excitement and for once I do not care who reads my words and who doesn't. I am purely happy! If you want something new to read: GatelessGate Magazine is a good choice. Yes, the travel part of the month. This year has been absolutely wonderful: travel and more travel. Not very new places, but the best indeed. I am off to Goa tomorrow, and stopping for transit in Bangalore. Hopefully, will meet Shilo and so even those few hours would be coloured!! Then..the plans of December start: Goa and Bombay! Work, love and life. Experiments, ventures, and beauty! Will hopefully scribble, click, talk, and spread some wings to fly. And if so, I will come back to you with every random story on earth. for now, love... Sam

The Need to Experience and Express

2008-11-26T12:09:00.005+05:30

Peer pressure is one of the most problematic social issues, which affects people of all age groups. In fact, many brands and businesses survive based on these strange habits of human beings to compare, imitate, and pressurize. In school, the peer world started to build walls that were narrowing around me; it led me to a deeper recognition of the loner in my being. This made me embrace isolation and solitude.

Let me start by asserting that my emphasis is purely on the negative effects of peer pressure, for there are many positive effects too. It is said, “Peers influence your life, even if you don't realize it, just by spending time with you. You learn from them, and they learn from you. It's only human nature to listen to and learn from other people in your age group” (KidsHealth). Here, what follows speaks of my journey of tackling with the problems of peer pressure by realizing the importance of expression.

Solitude and silence have intrinsic beauty, but emotional isolation can get psychologically and sociologically dangerous. It could be due to bullying, teasing, rumors, bad relationships, abuse or violence, mental illness, and such reasons. My experiences are a mixture of these reasons. Though I had a growing social network, I was still lonely. Ultimately, I spoke honesty only to the new kittens my cat had given birth to. Till date, I do not know if I spoke with honesty in school. It seems to me that I lied more, put on a variety of masks, gossiped, spread rumors, and shrank to insignificance. This developed a fear of contact with peers, which resulted in frequent absence in school.

It was that fine Monday morning in the Principal’s Office, which dawned upon me a variety of journeys. He looked at me pitifully and asked, “What’s wrong in school? Why do you want to keep staying at home?” I only remember crying and defending my classmates. Obviously, I loved each one of them very much then, because I still do. Many days later, he walked up in front of the assembly and said in a loud clear voice, “Speak knowing you will be misunderstood.”

The Art Room and the Library became places where I recognized my potential, and re-discovered my isolation, which was slowly blossoming into a self-accepted solitude. This was a painful process, because one needs to keep experimenting to find the exact forms of expression. I tried the refined forms like pens and paints, but I needed something louder that would break things once and for all. So, my expression and thereby my Self got re-invented through the strength of oil pastels, the harshness of ball-point pens, and the fluidity of my words. Since then, I vouch that a human merely exists to experience and express. Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding (Gibran 62).

At the initial steps of this journey, I constantly annoyed my classmates with the question – why? But, I was actually taking the easy way out by blaming them. The words I scribbled on scraps of papers unraveled many inner secrets and found out what I expected of myself. I figured I was a person who hated disappointments, lies with ease, and loves people with an easier flair. My words and the sheets of textured pastels told me to ask myself all the questions. Expression grew me. After all, every class mate of mine was going through similar problems and processes. But, to get into this world of expressions, one has to first quietly experience and then wash out a lot of prejudices. Understanding is possible only when there is observation without the centre as the observer (Krishnamurti 114). Without this, one cannot celebrate the freedom that expression entails.

Firstly, one has to overcome the pre-defined myth that whatever one spends time in should lead to a source of living. Instead, creativity, interaction, growth, and learning should happen. Secondly, one has to experiment with all forms of expression. Shouting from the rooftops, painting walls, cutting paper, scribbling on bus tickets could all be forms of expression, and thereby a constructive process of dealing with emotional isolation. A piece of expression, even a short lived sound, helps the individual reflect and develop a better relationship with the outer world. Thirdly, do not hide your expression, for it is by itself a form of sharing. The only way to make use of your expression is to build a courageous foundation to share it. Experience is the process. Expression is breaking the shell and celebrating this process.

To further demonstrate these insights, one should go through the Eschatological Laundry List that says, “10. The world is not necessarily just. 11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless. 14. You can’t make anyone love you. 16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable. 27. Each of us is ultimately alone. 36. You can run, but you can’t hide. 39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself” (Kopp 223-224).

Fortunately, school encouraged this constant search in my works and behavior. The day I left school I thanked them, “Though school kept trying to describe me, even one as enigmatic, it taught me that I should never lose the sense of myself and should keep searching for the meaning of this sense.” Secretly, I was thanking my own efforts.

WORKS CITED

Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet. New Delhi: Indialog Publications Pvt. Ltd., Jan 2002.
Kopp, Sheldon B. If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients: Epilogue. Toronto/ New York/ London: Bantam Books, May 1976.
Krishnamurti, Jiddu. The Flight of the Eagle. Hampshire: Krishnamurti Foundation India, 1971.
KidsHealth Site. Took, Kevin J. November 2007. The Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media. 24 Nov. 2008 http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/emotion/peer_pressure.html.

And the World Begins, again!

2008-11-19T19:23:00.003+05:30

The old man stood in front of me and told me college is not good for such minds as mine. Another bearded old man said college is going to be a compulsory part of my life, inevitable and necessary. I chose to listen to the bearded man, as I have for the past 19 years and I needn't change that now.

Fourth Semester paints a new red mark on the college board, and quietly managed to enlighten me about the process. As an institution, anything from family to college could get dysfunctional at all points of time. But, one has to surely understand, at least after an age, that they are an equal functional unit responsible for the balance of the institutional processes. Imagine an ecosystem, and draw an intricate web of the all the species, then you will know every system is purely the same. Every unit is functional and responsible, though some may be replaceable.

Here is why I have suddenly found some interest in writing proactively about college. This is because, this semester is filled with two of my favourite words in English language: diverse and random. History of India - III (Freedom Movement: 1758 to 1947) has a brilliant Professor handling the paper. First of all, one of the few Professors with a great command over English, moreover, he is a person who demands you to read and work. He walked into our class on the first day and has been delivering wonderful lectures on Periodization of History and Developing Trends in India during the 18th Century. This is why I am in college.

Introduction to Archaeology and Museology is good fun, because I never really expected to be learning this. A nice professor, and new things to learn. This is quite exciting to look forward to. And then, I continue with Elements of Sociology, and I quite enjoy writing that paper. For one, I score well, and two, it has some interesting reading material to go with the topics.

Now, probably, the best of all, and a paper I never expected to be studying is Music and Literature. It has been great fun sitting in that room that smells like a studio (which always proves to be nostalgic and pleasant). Studying Musicology is really good fun, and he relates it to English and Tamil literature. Today, he was talking to us about Music as an Art form, and then as a temporal Art form. This course really inspires me to put on the sruthi box and practice in the evenings. He concluded by saying that Sound and Time are the two bodily elements of Music, that define and create it.

The only sad news, I am yet to get over, is that this is the last semester of General English. I really love studying English Litt and there goes my last chance of doing it in college. It has been good so far, and I only hope this is one of the best semesters in that regard. The Merchant of Venice and a Nick Adams story, are some of the things I am really looking forward to delving my head in. However, we've also made some changes in class patterns and I might end up doing a lot of Tamil translation this semester.

Side by side, Chai Kadai is going really great for me. I have found some brilliant people to write for it and if you are reading this, and have a story for it, please do email it to us at chaikadai@gmail.com True, true, I am putting out the Chai Kadai label wherever I can, and I have figured that is probably the best way to get people to speak: Tell them, they can!

Otherwise, I have been experimenting with a little bit of writing here and there. I hope to finish NanoWriMo somehow. As usual, I have an assignment in head and that is why a blog post is flowing so easily. I have refilled my Rotring pen and hope to see some of the ink flowing on to paper somehow. I am no longer interested in creating art as such, I am only interested in creating myself and for that I am going to let a lot of things flow.

Academically, this Semester sees a small bit of pride for me in the hidden pockets. My French teacher called some of us and told us there are some students in Sacred Hearts Matriculation, Shozhinganallur, who need French classes. She thinks, we will be able to handle it. I will be going over there, tomorrow. Let's see how that goes.

Overall, a good set of months that have started well. I hope to save up a bit and travel this December. Whatever works and whatever doesn't, this year I am going to have my best Christmas and New Year, for I've been deserving one for a very long time.

Goo goo night ! :)

The beauty of love!

2008-11-09T21:56:00.002+05:30

The land of wonders never ends to inspire the geeks out of love. This is how random I am and there is no two ways about it. November has been so beautiful so far. Here I am learning to live with one parent and living away from another, and learning to love both more and more. It is quite a chilling and great experience. In a weird way, I am learning to love home! It is the prospect of blogging, working, and writing that is making me learn a little bit more each day. I sound like a nice well bred lunatic, and nowadays I seem so perfectly fine with it. The eve of exams always get me musing about life, mind and all that. Chai Kadai Benches is running exceptionally well. I have a job interview tomorrow at the 044 Magazine and close to shitting bricks! It's probably that I make a fool of myself in work spaces, when not in school or college, has gotten to my nerves. So, I am rolling up my pants and getting deep into this muck of the world. Yes it is true, I want money and recognition. And you know what, it is not such a bad attitude, because it is not the only attitude I have towards life. Today, I realised something I always knew, my father is made of heart. He bought a ticket donating $25 to Palestine in my name and $25 in my sister's. He told me everything seemed so impersonal to get us from Abu Dhabi. He made my whole November. This is the best November ever. I have been sailing through my exams, though I should assert that I need to check time management strongly. Yoga, meditation .. oooooh! Chill I am not that shallow. I don't treat them as cures. I have also been reading so much lately. Amir Aczel's God's Equation is brilliant. I have to get through it completely to understand it. Let's see. Slowly, my interest in the sciences are returning. I think the point was just that I needed to learn them and not be taught for exams. I have picked up a Cambridge Pure Mathematics text book, and I am going to work through as slowly as possible. I am going to crack Mathematics to my ability. This month is just filled with a terrible and lovely whiff of imagination and determination. NanoWriMo, Mathematics, and Love. My God this is my Mania phase, and I am loving it. Bye. Look forward to my book ;)

Bombay Days.

2008-10-29T19:27:00.003+05:30

Every time I hear your voice in my head I cannot wait to write you down. It seems like ages since I've put pen on paper or fingers on keys. Somehow all of this does not matter, because in some weird way all my sense fly away and all the words are written down....I have a dream...a voice...I'm hanging on to something I know nothing off...It really doesn't matter what I think and do, it's what I feel and do that matters. To do I need no thought. 20.10.2008 I am not searching for a living. I am looking for a medium of 'search'. Who cares if I do not become "professionally" able in everything I try. If the point of being is to make a fool oneself. Then it shall be done with no sarcasm and cynicism. What is the whole damn point??? 20.10.2008 Watching out of the train at the expanse of the sea we were travelling on: Like a million people standing very close to each other, between the cities stands a smog dome. It's suffocating not able to see a horizon. But...20.10.2008 I am always getting ready to explain why or what I did...I always have a fabricated excuse....the point is to create what I want and how I want it. It's the point of putting pen on paper and leaving the words and lines to flow. 21.10.2008 'The world keeps happening.' The only sentence apt to describe this city. It's an absolutely alive place that has managed to scare me and yet make it seem like a home. :) 21.10.2008 I'm only as free as I feel. I am only what I feel. 21.10.2008 It's always him-me, she-me, hers-mine, his-mine, theirs-mine, Them-Me...Comparison!!! Language is starting to sicken me. It limits one expression to a certain set of words. Bluh blaaah bloooh! 22.10.2008 It really hurts till the center of my tummy that I made of no talent or beauty at all. 24.10.2008 The train should not stop. Home? I am confused. A complete part of me has been left within four wall of pink in a completely different city. No.. I am not going home! If the train never stops, I will never know where I'm going and will never be force to end or begin. But wishes are merely wishes, because if they weren't I would have got off the train, because one must do what they have to do most of the times. 27.10.2008

2008-10-18T17:44:00.002+05:30

An amazing quiet trip. Will put up all the drawings and paintings I manage to do in this trip. Bombay is steaming hot. Downed half a pitcher. Now ready to go on... See you all soon. Keep reading the rest. There are two years of posts in this blog. Going to take anyone long. Love. Sam.

buddha feared death

2008-10-16T23:10:00.002+05:30

I live in a comfort zone. Every pilgrim first lives in a comfort zone, and then one moves away, because of fear, guilt, confusion and whole baggage of negativity. Enlightenment is the positive acceptance of negativity. However, even I have the strong need to overcome the fear of death, but the motive is not one of immortality. It simply a coverage for another fear. By overcoming the fear of my death, I deal with happy acceptance of the time and reason, but here I hide to myself and rejoice loudly in the fact that I do not have to watch the death of others as an immortal. Because I fear immortality more than my death, and want to prevent watching the disappearance of those I know. Even the thought of their demise makes me shiver like I've been buried in a fresh avalanche.

12.55 a.m. on a random day, October 2008

a progress of days..

2008-10-16T22:49:00.006+05:30

As days pass on life changes and many lotuses bloom around the beautiful snake garden. True, I am still sleeping in my snake dreams and sipping jasmine tea. However, the typical plans of life took a decent turn to understand simplicity and the plain reason of being slow. A couple of days back, I was almost defined (quite out of joblessness, as he adds) by a very a good friend of mine as "New Age". As much as this sounds, what would you say: 'cool', 'awesome' and absolutely great; you see I am very bad on updating myself about the new vocabulary. The only times I manage to find out these new words are by accident and I make it a point not to use them. I still stick to the same slang of familial creativity: summaaa, wateeebeeauootee, and rolling on the floor and laughing when needed too.

If you cannot say or do anything with a bang, why do it? It really makes no sense if you do something, because you're too lazy to actually do what you intended to. It's a complex web, with the greatest simplicity of life. My advice to all who find themselves at a tough spot in life: Get off your computer chair, jump thrice up and down, and sit down. Release this bottled up energy. The problem is that sometimes we try to speak out everything we have inside us, which is absolutely necessary, but we forget that people WILL misunderstand, comment, and criticize. That is the simple of point of relating with others. If everyone agreed with everyone, there will be no opinions, arguments, let alone discussions. It will be pure monotonous boredom. Sometimes you just have to do things that you swore you would never do. Drink. Paint. Sing. Drive. Smoke. Love. Marry. Raise pigs. Something odd and new. Or you get caught in a life like mine, where you always have to do something new. NGO internships. Painting. Drawing. Writing. Singing. Cycling. Photography. Writing. Travelling. Painting. Internships. Jobs. Stage Management. Love. Sex. Smoke. Drink. Stop drinking. Stop drinking coffee. Acidity. Every day there has to be a new obsession. A new focus, and a new hurdle to get over, otherwise I am bound to get bored with myself. I deal with a very fast life, but the institution of collegiate education in India is designed in a way that makes us feel like we're brewing in a certain mentality and idealism of placement cells, campus interviews, project vivas, and attendance sheets. That's what college ends up being. I started of this year absolutely hating college and I had enough valid reasons to do so. But, I have moved a step higher. Sometimes it also important to stick around and see what a certain routine would reward you. If it doesn't reward you what you want, it cannot be deemed useless. My life is still going on. Plans can keep cropping up. But that's the deal. That's life. Right now I have very certain plans: 1. Go to Bombay tomorrow. 2. Spend a wonderful week there. 3. Figure out my enrollment in Long Ridge Writers' Group, Connecticut 4. Start liking college 5. Study for my semester examinations 6. Spend quality time with aunt and grandmom 7. Paint out the entire Silappathikaram 8. Repair the cameras 9. Save hell of a lot of money

10. GET A JOB

2008-10-12T16:08:00.001+05:30

and so what is the purpose?

2008-10-12T02:10:00.002+05:30

Where beauty lies the green snake slithers it way through the ponds. And lovely small slit eyes watch the panorama of ghazals and sitars. All we hear can be are of beautiful butterflies fluttering there little bright wings. I feel like painting them on a humongous canvas. The beautiful beautiful reason of watching things is to tilt our heads slightly and find something new. Watch. Wait. Breathe. Go slow happily.

The life of mysteries and the answers it hides in a basket of all-nighers:

2008-10-06T01:50:00.004+05:30

It is two hours past midnight and I am no where close to "done" with these assignments. In four hours I have to wrap all this up and get ready for that new day, and nowadays because of the closed window next to my seat in the bus and the headset that booms the radio into my ears I feel insanely sane. Happy and calm. I am watching Alex and Emma on Zee Studio and I amd esperately trying to understand what this midnight means. I am out of my harem pants that were getting too tight around the ankles and have slipped myself into a beautiful pink tie-and-dye sarong. This was initially stitched to be my sister's blanket, but ended up being a multi-role playing beautiful piece of cloth. Everything keeps changing! Somehow, in this strange hour as these thoughts keep running through my head I feel this in-depth feeling to be honest with one and all. The goal of life here is not salvation, but to attain a simplicity in handling the day-to-day life and the days to come. So, the truth... My therapist (hmm...I don't know if I can call him that. I went to his center for three days, got diagnosed and well that's it) called me yesterday. He let me know that taking medication is a very important part of dealing with illness and health. This has been a debate of science and medicine in general. When did this whole trend of psychiatric medication crop up? What about Einstein? Are you going to start calling him a lunatic too? I know, I know..he is not calling me a lunatic, neither am I calling myself one. No one is a lunatic, everyone ends up having a history and a reason to do something, which might be treacherous or wonderful. It is in the talent of the individual to understand what is going on. Yes..yes..what about these people simply out of their minds..like probably, Hitler. Here is my point. As long as I am not harming anyone and I am not harming myself, everything is fine. It is this definition of normalcy that really deserves a debate. For one I do not understand the word. In which culture, in which history, is what normal? I do not condemn psychotherapy itself. If so, I would not be reading hell of a lot of psychology text books and books by psychotherapists. Believe me, for one, I would not speak about something I do not like knowing about. In that sense, the visit to the therapist, and knowing what the dance of my neurotic chemicals could be classified into, is a boon, because it is a just step closer to understanding psychology and psycho-therapy as a whole. So, it has been fun so far. Yes..that too. The crying has happened, but so has the laughing about the situation. It's a realisation process that is happening here. I am talking to myself and making myself write this on a public forum. Ever since I got to know what my "psychological" condition could be, I have had many questions about what I should do with myself, but I just realised that there are so many people out there with similar mood cycles and...(wait Alex and Emma just kissed. Where is this movie going? Why do I like it so much?)..distractions, and well..."disorders". And they don't even know it. Come on and they are living extremely "normal" lives. And here I seem to have understood what this whole "normal" concept means. They are living "their" lives, free from some kind of tabulation and labelling. What difference is that I know it? I know it and that's all. It's like what life has in store of you, at least a part of it. I feel happy and calm. This is the best midnight and al-nighter ever. Things love to change! Back to work. Goodnight.

2008-10-04T08:14:00.003+05:30

If you are a circle, you live in a square

2008-09-30T07:56:00.002+05:30

Everything I've read for the past couple of years has brought me to back to two of my favourite poems, dramatic monologues: Ulysses by Tennyson and Journey of the Magi by Eliot. However, here is my attempt at verse writing, after a very long time.

Some Lives

Morning is awakened, by the pungent robes

Of rain, dropping dew and dancing clouds.

The empty window frame calls out

To his slit vision of words, thoughts, and pens.

The writer looks beyond the succulent

Red of bright extinct roses, through the beady rain,

A girl sits there with an umbrella.

There she sits, in a transparent and scary

Loneliness. One believes in her emptiness,

Lays a God, but even a lack of purpose.

Black cloth sewn on the cane matches her suit,

Perfect, elegant, and strangely alien to him.

Catch her with a purpose in those empty eyes!

Perhaps a new maid, the mistress of Mr. Timberland,

The mother of the abandoned twins in the dustbin,

Or a passerby lost in her passage. Why?

She is not a rhodora, rose, or cloud, but

A mere woman of a history, past, and hazy present.

Contemplations burnt to the buds,

Packets of Camel cigarettes lie done.

Alarm rang – alert, appointment, meeting, run!

The writer ran down the stairs,

Missing every second one in a forgotten question. Why?

Unprotected he ran into the dance of the clouds,

Into a slushy street, but did not get wet.

There she stood the girl with the umbrella,

With her eyes like water and her breath like the sea,

Protecting him and the rest under it -

Purpose is one of simplicity.

Rain clears to a sunny dome,

Fog opens a lattice window, through which

One’s watery eyes can watch.

A maiden rejoices in her reflection,

Her brush blushes her cheeks,

Shapes her eyebrows, and reddens her lips.

Luscious and barren, the day lies open.

She wears the silken dragon robe

And steps out in grace to struggle.

The divine waits feel her sinews

And feed her the bitter wine.

Why is she? Who is she?

She hangs onto the last warps and wefts

Of her robe, cutting her tender, fine fingers.

Her hips and loins hurt in the brutality

Of this struggle and the many to follow.

Speeches and resolutions, systems and papers,

Nothing saves her from this vulnerability.

She could be gay, coloured, transgender, lesbian,

Straight, mother, sister, wife, male or female. Or merely, she is that person,

Staring at a lucid mirror, showing her

Red translucent beauty.

She, the prostitute, mistress, courtesan

Of struggle, is us – you and me.

For all, life, a struggle,

Offers us threads and strings

To hang on to and cut,

But also eventually transcends,

Weaves into a fine dragon robe.

Here, struggle is one of beauty,

One of grandeur and of colours.

But it lies undone on a fragile loom

That bellows every time

The shaft heftily weaves.

Struggle is one of vulnerability.

III

From any struggle sprouts an overgrown potato,

Like the one that lies forgotten in your fridge.

Now, turn your heads swiftly, her feet are too dainty

For this meandering, sandy path.

Is she too young or already too wise?

Gilgamesh plays on her toes,

Pushing her to search for answers…immortality…peace -

But even to wish for peace

Is peaceful, and to look for an answer

Is satisfying.

But she does the mistake as any other,

She makes an ascetic of herself.

Productive, reproductive, political and social

Are abandoned. She is new,

But definitely not herself.

What could it be that she started?

Was washing dishes all she did,

That her past was so distant now.

As ascetic, she had to accept all,

In a pilgrimage, nothing becomes distant,

A residue of her past, she is

But from a struggle, she has bloomed.

She lives tiny and single on her rose bush.

No teacher, no answers, no definite

End or beginning.

Tougher than the worldly struggle,

The path is rugged and uncertain.

Will she reach? Will she let of herself?

Will she let go of every kind of herself?

After every struggle, she waits,

And that is the plain point of it.

Pilgrimage is one of stillness.

A life leads to a beautiful black hole

Of pondering ideologies, thoughts, and a life.

Questions seem to stream out

Of our eyes, ears, and all senses.

Withdrawing she becomes the ultimate,

The end of all, the beginning of the unknown.

Again, who is she?

Like every woman, she lays a mystery,

To be buried in a coffin.

But there her greyness covered in white,

The symphony of cries around her,

Young widow in her death.

Stark cruelty of life, to take all

And just keep taking.

Does not the divine know to give?

He gives the life, the struggle,

The brain to think of purpose, and

the heart to think of valour and Love.

We roll on the crust, and rip the leaves,

Then fall in a pit – Hell.

We take a pilgrimage of Sins,

The sweetest, the best, and most fruitful,

In some vain hope that we shall,

Yet again, be born to live this again.

Rather, in this purity of life and death,

One understands the story,

The pure feminine fable of the May fly.

Living for a day, to copulate,

Not to eat, digest, or excrete,

But simply born to recreate,

And then to die without an answer.

Where is the purpose, struggle?

Pilgrimage, thought or death?

Does not one have to start out

A life and then deal with that death?

Is that young widow’s life full?

Disappearance is one of inevitability.

Some Corny Diary Piece

2008-09-26T15:27:00.001+05:30

I am STUBBORN. There have been a 100 times in my life when I’ve started writing wanting the best story to turn out of it. I keep hearing it being read in another’s voice; the glamour, the fluidity and the lucid body of that voice. It feels succulent in my palms, because in that voice I feel and hear the path I shall lead. As a writer I have been born here as a slave – the freest slave the world has ever created. In my stubborn existence, all I have ever wanted is a struggle; a struggle different from my parents. I travel on these buses – yellow, blue, and green. I think till my brain, those convolutions Shantanu always referred to, burns. No wonder every love of my life finds out one interesting thing in me – You think too much! But somehow in this much thought-out existence, I have constantly missed two things. Those two things that just held in their tiny hands a massive key that has opened the door to the most beautiful black hole one could have ever heard of. One, I am struggling now. All this while I have fooled myself to believe is that I have been waiting for my struggle. “I am in a waiting phase.” No Sam, snap out of it, now! It’s a struggling phase. Your struggle is not to run away from your parents, but to turn around and learn to live with them. That is your only way to be yourself. These are the loins, hearts, and sweat you sprang from. Whatever you create, they have the credit too. Give it to them. It is not straining oneself to be different that works, but it is the point of brewing and realizing that we are essentially different. You are their lucid and succulent voice. And what you may create might be for such a voice. But, two, understand it is yet again your voice that has to speak it first. It is fun to release your stagnation and understand that the river will flow, but will stay in a place when you dam it.

Written on 24.09.2008

the beauty of this world

2008-09-13T21:02:00.001+05:30

Today, I feel like a soft-board. Yellow sticky notes are hanging from my head. Too many questions and statements thrown at me. But you know what...I really do not care. Let the world think what they want. I am honest to myself and probably the problem is bigger than what they think!

Rainbow!

2008-09-06T23:23:00.001+05:30

The simplicity of a rainbow is the arch it makes on mountains and hills. It has the queer power to bend any height and colour any cloud.

Two liners

2008-09-06T23:02:00.001+05:30

The beautiful miracle is when we find peace, just behind us in a bright yellow fluttering bee. Why does the rain drop on my shoulders, heavier than the ink on these papers?

And then we forget what we see

2008-08-24T20:50:00.001+05:30

Tea kadai Ramu cursed back at that belly-bloated customer who broke two glasses, “Do you have senses? You’re just a man whose belly speaks more than his brain.” “Ei…I broke only glasses, why are you trying to hurt me otherwise? Stay away! Who doesn’t have sense? I have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two hands, and a pretty strong tongue. I can walk on fours. I can dance on twos. I can sing aloud and bellow too…” the customer kept talking as four men dragged him away from the conflict spot. One of them was a journalist who was drinking china tea and reading an English newspaper. He did not want to hold on too strongly to the customer’s biceps. The belly bloated customer pulled up his lungi and spat at Ramu, “Ada thu…leave all that…at least I know to forget.”

Segmented

2008-08-24T20:34:00.004+05:30

That ratty man was crawling towards the kitchen counter. He was tip-toeing successfully, but was being watched. His sharp snout, severe ears, and dry grey fur were followed by a segmented, fleshy long tail. Yuck! I’ve always hated to watch him. This instance made it no different. It just affirmed my belief that rats are male, and mice are female. I had no choice, but to boil in disgust and fear. I stood on my bed watching his ugly tail swish about. I could not stop him, for I would I have had to get close enough to smell him for that. So, I decided to watch him, devour him, and let him walk to death. Then, I can ask my maid to throw him in to the street dust bin.

Only if we all had dream catchers

2008-08-24T20:25:00.000+05:30

Satya rested her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around him. For further grip her legs fell on him. He leaned forward to kiss her forehead, but stopped. She caught his doubtful eyes in sight, did not let him kiss her…she slept! Middle of the night, he was restless. She was woken up. They sat up on their bed. There was a green lanky creature of no particular sex or gender sitting in between them. A smirk grew on its face. Satya saw wings, and open windows. He saw names, titles, and cubicles. She turned and heard rain, rustling leaves, crickets, and lizards. His head started to hurt. His limbs started to pain. The creature stroked his head, putting him to sleep. Now, he saw a high mountain, vultures, and pretty sunflowers in a garden. Blue skies. Seventeen rainbows. Beautiful mountains. Magnificent rivers. Satya started dancing around the room. And for once, he took her by the arm, swirled her around, and kissed her. They fell on to the bed in peals of laughter. The greenness faded away. Glass pieces and mirrors of music were resonating within the four walls. They slept looking at ceilings.

The Red-Gown Bald Master and His Monkies

2008-08-24T20:08:00.000+05:30

The trees were singing to an old rainy tune, and the Zen monks were chanting their prayers. The scene settled and some students started to follow the master, a small round and bald man. He always wore red, in this land of nowhere and nothing. This master was the one who always asked the questions, which celestially bothered their primate origins. But here civilization did not matter, because in civilizations no one is brave enough to ask a question. He plucked two red shoe-flowers and planted it on his ear. “If the body rules all will the monkey take over?” One disciple answers: “Correct your grammar and then find me a monkey.” He does not believe in a civilization on these blue-ridged mountains, but keeps peace with all beings, believes in oneness with the webbed skies and underworld snakes. The master turned around and watched these creatures and just had more to ask! Written on 11.04.2008 Edited on 24.08.2008

Window Seat

2008-08-24T19:41:00.003+05:30

The rainy afternoon was just coming to an end. I was still in the yellow colour bus, which was jumping up and down in the road. I could hear frogs, or toads, I do not know. But, I heard a voice in the squeaky wheels of the bus. Just then, my friend, Ego called me. My phone vibrated and churned in my bag, and I desperately fished it out of the mess. Ego is a he. He has always been a he. I keep changing choices, wanting to be a she and then a he and then a spider, but nothing changes. He spoke some gibberish about a debate on Wednesday afternoon. We were always pitted against each other in debate and speech classes. However, we often won both ways by playing our favourite game: Parasite and Host. Ego has always been my first love, because I was born with him. No, he is not a sibling. This would make us extremely incestuous. He is my lover. A lover who sits on tree tops and heckles at me, when I sit on the porch with a ligament torn in my right ankle. I’d quietly watch his blue eyes, burning with victorious laughter. Once, he noticed me. His eyes blinded with tears and he cuddled into my palm. He slept there for hours, cherishing dusk, clouds, stars, and night. I slept with him. We all own a kind of him. His species is peculiar, unique and mine. Soon, he squiggled awake and started his morning run. Faster than ever, it hurt my thighs and arms. I tried to hold him back, and then all of a sudden he sprouted wings. He attempted to fly out of my hand. These ferocious wings have only hit me when he has needed, wanted, and yearned love: the kind he got from Pride. The phone started to hurt my neck. Only if he knew that I loved him. I was hoping too much. His gibberish continued and joined the squeaky wheel-voice, the pitter-patter, the croaking and that queer swiveling spring in my head, which was spacing out.

Hamster Monologue

2008-08-24T19:06:00.006+05:30

I was on my old well-known hamster-wheel. My tiny legs were hurting, and I was eagerly yearning for a glass of milk. The room was filled with Sam’s silent snores. Scanning and turning. I was getting distracted. Suddenly, my eyes got fixed beyond the curtains, and my limbs worked in rotation…afternoon...evening...night...morning...afternoon...evening...night...morning. With a fearsome yawn, and acrobatic movements, Sam crawled out of her bed and turned my cage towards her. She peered in and explained for the hundredth morning, “I’ve been having bad chest congestion, Ham. I wouldn’t snore on other days.” She snores louder on other days! I drank my cold milk and ate a few millet grains. My whole body was aching from strain. I was bored. Thoroughly bored! The metal surrounding me, the plastic wheel I run on, the paper I sleep on, and the grains I eat started to grow in size. I watched them and my eyes started popping out. Imagining me in a psycho-therapist’s office, I started running the wheel on that path. Faster, faster, and yet again, faster! I ran, ran and ran again. Then, I jumped off and sipped on that milk. That’s it! I was bored. I was bored, but not with these things. I was bored, with the hamster. I climbed on to the wheel, and slowly started it. Round and round and round again. “Sam, Sam,” I shouted. She turned aimlessly towards my direction and in a foolish manner I shouted at her, “Sam, I need to go. I need to run. Let me go,” as I said this, the cage turned into a kaleidoscope. It changed colours and turned again and again. My ears were twitching. Pink. Blue. Orange. Purple. Hope. “You look gorgeous on that wheel, Ham. I love you,” she said as she refilled my milk tray.

Questions:

2008-08-18T22:44:00.002+05:30

1. Do skirts have to fly to make a Marlin Monroe? 2. Do lipsticks have to flair to make talkshow artist?

Theo Jansen

2008-08-12T18:27:00.005+05:30

click on picture to access Youtube BMW Ad featuring Theo Jansen

He is a person who crafts beyond engineering, movement, and sculpture. The work is innovative and mind-blowing. A friend sent me a BMW advertisement, where Theo Jansen talks about the art of motion and the way he likes to play around with it. He says, "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."

I believe everything exists in what the mind creates. Art seems to prove this over and over again. The movements here created by sheer skill of engineering and art opens a new world in the mind. His creations have their own life and essence. Innovation is the biggest art. Thinking out of the box has the biggest power in leading a holistic life.

GONE

2008-08-09T19:44:00.002+05:30

I started writing this on a happy note. Some weird feeling. It did not even last three sentences. I have no idea what I am upto? There is a huge elephant sitting on my head. I am losing hope. I feel like a sponge getting dehydrated. I want to go into this long sleep and never get up. But, I do not care for anything I say. Leave it. Don't even bother to read more.

WORK IN PROGRESS

2008-07-22T21:20:00.002+05:30

Kolkata Matkaas and Conversation

Off to Goa now! Blog under renovation.

New header. New posts. New ideas.

All on its way. Check back next week.

Travel stories. Poems. Songs. Photos.

Love. Questions. Explorations.

See you all soon.

Tata.

Banana Man

2008-07-08T00:17:00.002+05:30

Kolkata Trip, May 2008

Windows

2008-07-07T23:24:00.007+05:30

an old speech (and some comments) I had to make in School. I was quite happy to find this. Written on 5.12.2004. Forgive the standard of English in places. I did not want to edit.

Good morning! For today, I was asked to speak about windows. While preparing I looked up a lot of books on the architectures of arches, wooden joints, window frames, and so on. Then, one of my teachers came along and gave me a book of zen quotes. Hereby, I will be referring to symbolic windows; those that our minds possess. Not to worry, they are very similar to our house windows and that easy to understand. But think about closing all these windows and sitting inside. The house will become claustrophobic. Now, understand the mind as house, a home that harbours thoughts, feelings, opinions, contemplations, criticisms, emotions and views. Close these windows! Imagine never letting anyone of these getting a breath of fresh air: the company of expression. We're left with suffocated minds. Heads that hurt, and lives that are entwined. Very early in our life, we learn hard to put bolts on these windows when confronted by certain concepts. Let it be politics, friendship, sex, or even music, dance and paint. Then, we keep strengthening these bolts keeping an eye all the excuses that make this right. We refuse to speak to people darker than us. We refuse to speak to people shorter than us. We refuse to listen to people who speak too slow. We refuse to look at people with short hair. However, one has to realize that we are social beings and we have to keep 'interaction' and 'expression' an alive part of our lives. We have to break down these bolts. It is a personal effort. We need to ventilate our minds. We need to use the windows. A person who is 'open' will be able to receive and therefore give better. (And I actually said: to make sure nothing too terrible happens in this vulnerable position we could fit mosquito nets). Windows are basically frames through which one can look. These windows are special. Though open enabling us to look out, it has a reflective quality attached to it. It looks back into the self. Life is a changing path. Both mistakes and successes have to be taken at stride, with openness. If we are insecure, it is because we have suffocated ourself. We need space to think. We need to open this windows to become secure creating a stability and willingness to learn.

A poet named Donovan Holtz said, "Through a window, I watch, windows are, for watching - Square pieces of life, ever changing." These frames provide two contrary needful aspects: confinement and openness. There are times when we have to take the lead, and there are times when we have to step back and wait. One should be attentive and then they can learn to not get hurt, and not hurt. It is very important to create a free space. It gives one a strong choice. But, one will think more, because they actually 'listen' to more versions of life. Then one becomes open to even criticizing statements, just because we waited and listened. It bends everything to make it constructive, and gives the power in the self to construct the truth and belief of life in a sensible manner. It is in our hands to not take advantage or be taken advantage of.

Thank you.

The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore

2008-07-07T20:47:00.003+05:30

I've figured that it always helps people studying literature, when there is a comprehensive set of ideas they can start from. I've always loved studying literature and spending detailed, organized time analyzing my readings. It helps! The insights it gathers and presents to a person is invaluable.

In the small village of Ulapur, an Englishman who owns an indigo factory near it manages to get a post office established. A postmaster from Calcutta gets separated from his family and transferred to this village. From the noise of the city, he comes to a deserted village with just scattered glimpses of people.

Tagore, a lover of nature, uses it to describe the surroundings. The postmaster’s office has a green, slimy pond, surrounded by dense vegetation. The way he describes this shows that postmaster is not in a position to appreciate his closeness to nature.

There are three central themes to this story.

Firstly, the story revolves around ‘longing and separation’; starting and ending with this. The postmaster is taken away from his family and brought to a remote village. He was in a village, where its busy people were no company, and he was left with not much work to do. He tries to pacify his longing emotions by writing poetry. However, the fact that he tries to write something external to him, like nature, makes it an impossible venture.

An orphan girl of the village, Ratan, helps him with his daily chores. He speaks to her about his mother and sister in the evenings, and would keep enquiring about her family. He would speak with sadness of all those “memories which were always haunting him”.

Secondly, ‘companionship’, and thirdly ‘dependency’ can be seen through how the relationship between the postmaster and Ratan grows through the course of this story. Ratan did not have many memories of her family to be recalled. There were only fragments, like pictures, of her father coming home in the evening, and her little brother whom she played with, fishing on the edge of the pond.

Once she met the postmaster, ‘Dada’, she spent her days with him. She would sit outside his shed, being only a call away from him, and doing all the small chores. Dada would share his meals with her. Then in the evenings, she would listen to him talking about his relatives and in imagination make them her own.

Tagore translates the longing ringing in Dada’s heart to nature, when he says, “A persistent bird repeated all the afternoon the burden of its one complaint in Nature’s audience chamber.” A man, who initially failed his attempt at verse, thinks of this as parallel to his emotions. Poetry is something that comes from the inner overflow of emotions. He hopes for the presence of a loving human being he could hold close to his heart.

The same theme of longing is discussed in Kamala Das’ poem, “Hot Noon in Malabar”. However, the situation is flipped. She is ripped from Malabar, a town life, to the noises and solitude of a city, Bombay. She says:

“To be here, far away, is torture. Wild feet

Stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my

Home in Malabar, and I so far away....”

The postmaster can’t stand the quietude of Ulapur. He longs for the noises of traffic and life in Calcutta.

One evening, he tells Ratan that he is going to teach her to read. She grows closer to him. She sees him as her only relative. She grows dependent.

But, as the season’s rain seemed like it would never end, like the constant patter on the roof, Dada was troubled by his heart’s exile. He falls sick in his solitude. Ratan takes care of him, and he recovers just taking her presence for granted. But, he then decides that he has to leave this village. He writes an application of transfer, based on the unhealthiness of the village. The transfer is rejected.

He tells Ratan that he has resigned and will be leaving the village. She asks him to take her with him. He thinks of it as an absurd idea and she is haunted by his reaction. Next morning, she fills a bucket of water for him. He bathes and waits for the next postmaster to arrive.

He consoles Ratan saying that he would inform the postmaster about her. He even offers her some money to keep. She refuses both and expresses that she doesn’t want to stay there any more.

Ratan has lived a life of loneliness. Dada was her only companion, and the only one who seemed to understand her. She is broken, when he has to leave without her.

He leaves as soon, as the new postmaster arrives. He hesitates for a moment as the boat leaves, but it is too late for him to take her with him. Tagore illustrates the two ways a human mind works. The postmaster uses the element of philosophy to console himself. He tells himself that meeting, attachment, and departing are all part of life. It will all settle with the passage of time. The wind that fills the sails of the boat indicates the reason the postmaster fills his heart with, as he separates himself from the village.

However, Ratan stands outside the office “with tears streaming from her eyes.” She has succumbed to a common human folly, as Tagore expresses, of hope. She has been separated from her only bond and now longs for it to return. Tagore ends by saying that humans often fall into hope than seeing the reason, and long before we realize, disappointment becomes too hard to handle.

This short story was eloquently presented in Satyajit Ray’s Teen Kanya (three short stories on two girls and woman, by Rabindranath Tagore).

The Postmaster

1. A Post Office in Ulapur: A remote village, with no need for a post office. An Englishman, owner of the indigo factory near the villages, manages to set it up.

2. Postman transferred – a man from the city, is brought to quiet village. He becomes lonely because he has not company or much work to do.

3. He tries to write poetry, but fails. Because he is not writing about what he feels, but something outside of him.

4. He meets a small orphan girl, Ratan. Both of them give each other company. He shares his meals with her. She does all small chores for him. He talks to her about his family.

5. One day, he decides a good way to use time is to teach her to read. Ratan grows closer to him, but he is still longing to go back to the city.

6. He falls ill, and she takes care of him. He then decides to transfer and get away from this village. He applies for transfer, on the pretext of his unhealthiness and the village’s lack of hygiene.

7. His transfer is rejected and he resigns his job to return home. He tells Ratan this. She asks him to take her with him. He shuns the idea. She gets hurt.

8. She fetched bathing water ready for him in the morning. He tells Ratan that he would tell the next postmaster to take care of her. But, she is deeply hurt and asks him not to tell anyone. She even refuses the money he gives her.

9. He leaves. And when on the boat, for a moment he feels that he should go back and get her. But, he philosophizes and says that people meet and have to depart.

10. Ratan is in no position to reason. She stands outside the office in deep hope that he will come back. Finish with Tagore’s opinion on hope, and the human mind’s mistake. He says that humans will keep hoping, and disappointment becomes harder to handle.

Themes:

Longing and Separation: The story starts and ends with this, The postmaster is taken away from his family and brought to a remote village. He spends his evening with Ratan speaking about his family: “memories which were always haunting him”. He also falls sick from his heart’s exile and loneliness. The story also ends with this. Ratan gets separated from him. She stands with streaming tears and longs for him to come back, “wandering about the post office with tears streaming from her eyes”.
Companionship, explain about the postmaster’s and Ratan’s relationship.
Also explain how they depend on each other.
The contrast between the city and the village, best from the postmaster’s point of view.

Ideas:

Philosophy – abstract study of life, reasoning the happenings. He consoles himself saying everything is part of life.
Hope – she is no position to reason. She sinks deep into hope. Tagore states this as a common human mistake.

Also add that Tagore is primarily a nature writer. So, bring out the references of how he uses nature to illustrate the emotion.

2008-06-30T21:34:00.004+05:30

Ego is a funny creature and I attribute a 'he' to him. He has bright blue eyes that blind with simple tears, and that burn with victorious laughter. My Ego is blue, sleeps in my palm, and has very quick feet. We all own him. We all own a kind of him. When he takes his morning run he hurts my thighs and arms. I try to hold him back, but he flies. His wings are ferocious and hard. They hit me when he needs, wants, yearns. Ego taught me love, because he loves wearing pride as a cloak.

'izing' my life

2008-06-26T19:24:00.002+05:30

A vastly spread dust storm hit my eyes and sorted my ears. Organizing Personalizing Analyzing my life now! Everything is happening Planning Breathing Working Goodbye!

theatre Y - a new theatrical learning venture

2008-06-17T20:02:00.015+05:30

What does Chennai Performing Arts Scene need now? Chennai needs a growing pool of fresh, trained, young and excited actors, performers, and storytellers. theatre Y is a breakthrough effort in cultivating such a group, which will go through a diligent and fun theatrical workshop process. It looks at generating a talent bank of individuals who can make a remarkable difference to the performance media, be it movies, plays, workshops, or dance dramas, and so on.

The process of a theatre school, a consistent course, and the creation of a theatre conscious youth generation is a remarkable effort. This is just the place for all the students who want to learn about their bodies, voices, and get active help in grooming themselves as artistes.

Who started this? We hear his name when any big student group play is getting staged in the city. Yog Japee is one of the leading actors and directors in Chennai. He started this as a place where one can learn the art of performance through literature, theatre, and music. It not only focuses on training, but also in creating performances, productions, publications, and projects. The aim is to have a discipline to learn, but also freak out with fun.

They offer two courses: act one and voice one. act one adopts a process of ‘learning-by-doing’ using improvisations, workshops, solo performances, and working as groups. This introduces the participant to the basics of acting theory, theatrical techniques, and opens up the person’s expressions. It prepares the person for more intensive sessions in theatrical exploration. voice one adopts a similar approach, with the focus on helping the vocal chords to energize the personality. The course uses a lot of voice exercises, voice theory, and explores voice in various media forms. Both these courses help the person realize their talent, and give them a head-start in working towards a learning performance. The basic courses encourage and strengthen the confidence in one’s body, expressions, voice, and self.

Where does this happen? The world of theatre and rehearsals has been of a strange nomadic sense. Rehearsals, workshops, and the rest happen in free homes, or big halls. Theatre Y is dead sure about the want of a focus, a space, a plan, and a dream dedicated to the purposes of the group. They have opened a new studio space…studYo in Mandavelli! They conduct their workshops and courses in this place – wide-open, painted fans, and a nice terrace. Two batches have graduated the basic courses. Join them, learn, and grow. Anyone can be a part of this.

The group is secular and liberal in their efforts. They soon hope to create an array of performers the rest of the art and theatre world can choose from. This is a place for anyone to open. Do you want to join in this journey? Think simple. Work for it. Enjoy the spirit of all at http://www.theatrey.blogspot.com/ and soon to be launched – http://www.theatrey.com/. Write to them: showup@theatrey.com Call them for queries about the courses: 98840-70796.

Pip...pip...join the play in progress.

Zero Degree – a transgressive wave

2008-06-17T18:04:00.002+05:30

A talk with the translators

who’s that prankster

that plucked the stars out of the sky

and then scattered them here on Earth?

These are my favourite words in Charu Nivedita’s book, Zero Degree. His book speaks more poetry than prose. It was first published in Chennai in 1998, and later translated into Malayalam by Balasubramanian and P.M. Girish.

Fortunately, I know how to read Tamil and had the privilege of exploring this culture through words. What about the rest of the world? Don’t all readers need a choice of cultures to know about? The problem is that the works are not translated into other languages, making it available to everyone. BLAFT enters the picture, picks up a book (quite by chance) – revolutionary in Tamil writing, and now sweeping a wave in English (translated fiction).

Who are the translators?

Pritham K. Chakravarthy (PKC) is a theatre artist, storyteller, activist, freelance scholar, and translator based in Chennai. Her recent translations include The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, also available from Blaft Publications.

Rakesh Khanna (RK) was born in Berkeley, California. He has lived in Chennai since 1998 working as an editor for an e-learning website.

Why did Blaft choose to start with translations?

RK: The overall idea is that literature and art from India, published in English, is popular as the work of a narrow range of NRI authors. They provided a glossy, nostalgic view of India for their fellow NRIs. Therefore, the actual vernacular writing gets ignored, the books rooted in this culture is not available. To start with translations seemed a sensible path.

Who is Charu Nivedita?

Charu Nivedita is from a family of postmodern Tamil writers, which includes Konangi, Swadesa Mitran, and so on. He grew up in rural Tamilnadu, and spent many years working in Delhi. He has been a regular columnist, with his works translated into Malayalam.

Where did Blaft find Charu’s book?

PKC: We were at a lawyer’s office, when on his table was a ten rupee novel, with the back cover advertisement for Zero Degree, another ten rupee novel. Then, Rakesh and I got talking about Charu Nivedita. We tried out a basic translation and then figured we wanted work with it.

RK: Zero Degree is so surprising. It shocked me that such a book would be successful here. It shows how out of touch people are with what’s going on in the regional languages.

So, to which genre does Zero Degree belong? Charu sounds scattered, abstract, but the compulsive name dropping of Latin American intellectuals makes him seem pretentious? He even seems to love denying his whole work as a bunch of random notes and writings.

RK: “Transgressive fiction” describes it (this is a genre of characters that feel confined by society and use abstract, unusual, illicit ways to break free). Muniyandi, one of the protagonists, with all his phone sex antics and caste-riot inciting, is a transgressor. The whole work is a transgressing against a literature establishment. For all the pretentious aspects of Zero Degree, I think he shows some humility about his own life. For all the name-dropping and hyper intellectualism, he makes fun of himself.

PKC: Charu uses a lot of gimmicks throughout his book. This beauty has a nice non-linear storytelling pattern. There is a constant challenge to the reader, making the reader to be an ‘I’ and crochet one straight story.

Is it just his love for Kathy Acker? Does Charu walk the same plank that Kathy Acker walks?

PKC: In some sense, yes, and in many, no. I am not saying men cannot be the bold feminist, like Kathy Acker. There are enough instances in Zero Degree that makes it clear Charu’s views on female sexuality (Aarti, Avanthika, Brihanalai, etc.) Fuckrunissa was the only positive woman.

What was your experience working with this book?

RK: It was a lot of fun, like a roller coaster. It took us from grossed out horror parts, where we got sick in our stomachs, and to some really tedious part; we always knew that we were about to go over some crazy drop.

PKC: Weird, challenging, and had fun finding out mistakes. Translating poetry is tiresome.

Thus by treacherous sex

Shakti’s powers were stolen

Creation, Protection, Destruction

The three men divided

the chores amongst themselves

tired, they returned

to ask Shakti,

“Where’s my chapathi?”

Everyone should read this book for its crazy drops, unexpected images, beautiful poetry, poignant moments, grossed out horror, and the persistent attempt to probe the psychic wounds of humanity. It is a startling publication of South Indian fiction. Don’t forget to get yourself a copy. Visit www.blaft.com

rajasthan village woman who fed me dinner - bhajra rotis

2008-06-16T04:40:00.000+05:30

I found this woman in the sky, the land of the stars, where the milky way was mine and hers! A secret revealed at 5.30 a.m. Is a secret of Suns and Moons and Flowers new?

a disorderly sleeper who sighs

2008-06-14T04:49:00.011+05:30

காலை நேரத்தில் ஒருப் பறவை என் வட்டத்திற்குள்ப் பறந்தது அவனை என் உள்ளங்கையில் பிடித்து ஒருக் கதை பாடினேன்: பனித்துளிகள் கலந்த மழை கதிர் விழிகள் கலந்த காதல் மின்னல்குடன் பந்தாடின. ஒருப் பறவை, சில பறவைகள், பல பறவைகள் என் வட்டத்தினுள் பறந்தன. ஒருப் புவி பிள்ளைகள் நம்மளை வளர்த்தது: நண்பர்கள், தோழிகள், காதலர்கள். ஒருப் புது நாளின் ஆதங்கம், உற்சாகம், மழை, வெய்யில், மேகம், கடல், காற்று யாவும் சுழன்றன. இரவுடன் பகல், நிலாவுடன் சூரியன், எதிர் புதிர் எலிகள், பூணைவிழி கதைகள். நான் பார்க்கும் சுவரில், கூரையில், வானத்தில்: பல கதைகள் நட்சத்திரங்கள் எனக்காகப் பாடிகின்றன. காதலர்கள், நண்பர்கள், தோழிகள், குடும்பங்கள் பெறுகின்றன. ஒருவர். சிலர். பலர். கைகளின் கன்னம்பூசி ஆடம். 1, 2, 3, 4...Out!

Translation: Morning, a bird flew into my circle I caught him in my hand, sang him a story of dews entwined in rains of sun eyes entwined in love playing ball with lightning - one bird, some birds, many birds flew in my circle. One earth grew us children: my friends, girlfriends, lovers. A new day's anxiety, excitement, rain, sun, cloud, sea, and air swirled. Night with day, moon with sun, opposite rats, cat-vision stories. On the wall, roof, and sky I watch: many stories. stars sing for me. Lovers, friends, girlfriends, families enlarge. one person, two people, many people. Hands' hide-and-seek game; 1, 2, 3, 4....Out!

Blaft?

2008-06-12T21:06:00.008+05:30

What is that strange noise? It's resonating all over this world. Where is it coming from? Blaft! The sounds of an alternate universe of creativity, dreams, eccentricity, and well...purple creatures:

What is Blaft? Blaft is an amazing new independent publishing house, based in Chennai, that successfully launched itself into the realm of exploratory literature and art, on 16^th May 2008. Don’t miss out on them. They present an array of unique and exclusive publications. If you want something new to read, you must pick up one of their books, all available on www.Amazon.com, www.landmarkonthenet.com, and all major bookstores in India, USA, and Canada. So, who started Blaft? Two extremely versatile, excited, and happy characters: Rashmi Ruth Devadasan lives a life of cinema, theatre, and writing. Her ideal world would be rows of bookshelves and DVDs She has worked with Director Gautam Menon since his first film Minnale, and is an active part of The Perch Collective. Kaveri Lalchand is an apparel manufacturer and exporter, and a fashion designer. She is passionate about theatre, dance, the culinary arts, travel, old buildings, meditation, people and books. What have they published? The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction selected & translated by Pritham Chakravarthy edited by Rakesh Khanna Cover illustration by Shyam Cover design by Malavika PC Mad scientists! Desperate housewives! Murderous robots! Scandalous starlets! Sordid, drug-fueled love affairs! This anthology features seventeen stories by ten best-selling authors of Tamil crime, romance, science fiction, and detective stories, none of them ever before translated into English, along with reproductions of wacky cover art and question-and-answer sessions with some of the authors. Grab a masala vadai, sit back and enjoy! List of authors: Suba; Rajesh Kumar; Vidya Subramaniam; Indra Soundar Rajan; Ramanichandran; Pattukkottai Prabakar; Tamizhvanan; Pushpa Thangadorai; Brajanand V.K.; Resakee Price: INDIA Rs 395/- US $17.95 India: Order from Landmark Bookstores Outside India: Pre-order from Amazon.com

Zero Degree by Charu Nivedita translated by Pritham K Chakravarthy edited by Rakesh Khanna Cover design and illustration by Malavika PC

With its mad patchwork of phone sex conversations, nightmarish torture scenes, tender love poems, numerology, mythology, and compulsive name-dropping of Latin American intellectuals, Charu Nivedita's novel Zero Degree stands out as a groundbreaking work of South Indian transgressive fiction that unflinchingly probes the deepest psychic wounds of humanity

Price: India Rs 315/ - US $9.99 India: Order from Landmark Bookstores Outside India: Pre-order from Amazon.com

when this key sketch gets real tongue is fork hen is cock when this key sketch gets real my baby eagle's dream comes true drawings by Natesh Chennai-based artist Natesh is perhaps better known for his installation artworks and colorful paintings, which have recently been exhibited in New Delhi. This collection of some seventy ink drawings of surreal combinations of hands, women, fish, tigers, eagles, and rhinoceroses showcases the amazing things Natesh can do with a simple black line.

Price: INDIA Rs 395/- US $17.95 Outside India: Pre-order from Amazon.com

Each book delves into strange, bizarre and brilliant worlds. This is a feast for the every reader’s mind. Blaft plans to keep growing and casting purple eyes on strange stories, dreams, and worlds. In future, they are planning on translations of fiction from various South Asian regions, English fiction, comic books, graphic novels, children's books, non-fiction, textbooks, how-to-manuals, encyclopaedias, and kitchen appliances, Wonder which world they may capture in their forthcoming publications.

Catch the Blafters on www.blaft.com 27 Lingam Complex, Dhandeeswaram Main Road, Velachery, Chennai 600 042. India. T: +91 98843 06144 / 98840 06145 Email: blaft@blaft.com

Still Life With Woodpecker

2008-06-12T13:19:00.008+05:30

As a child I thought I would never read love stories, and I would grow up far from mushy romanticism. Years after certain blind assumptions, my luck turned to be brilliant with a handful of carefully selected love stories. The journey started with Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood and Wind-up Bird Chronicle. This week, I read Still Life With Woodpecker (1980) by Tom Robbins. It explores love in very unique and exquisite ways. Robbins writes the story of a princess, Leigh-Cheri, and an outlaw, Bernard Mickey Wrangle. This a revolutionary post-modern fairy tale of dynamites and saving the world. Still Life With Woodpecker talks of some strange relationships of the writer and his Remington SL3, of Woodpecker and his dynamites, of Guiletta and her toot, of Camel Cigarettes and solitude, of Princess and her Prince Charming, of European Royalty and America, and of love and its Moon. The narrative urges the reader to watch the Moon, learn childhood, listen to fairy tales carefully, observe objects, and delve in solitude. The writing is dynamic and runs in express speed. It separates the narrative, writer, typewriter, reader, and characters on different planes, but manages to place them in the same chamber of thought. This is beautiful, eccentric, and something everyone should read. Who is an outlaw? What is the basis of social activism? Who are the Redheads? What is importance of the Moon? The book keeps on asking questions, searching in the depths of life and thought. It bursts like dynamite lit up in a dark little chamber. The pages fly. It struggles to discover, what makes love stay. *Cover design - Leslie W. LePere **Click cover to Buy at Amazon.com

Who makes me fall?

2008-06-11T16:32:00.001+05:30

No way here or there, life tumbles down the hill to where Birds and sunflowers and bees, Embrace my life, as it sees That I was born to love this and all, And to love me Earth makes me fall.

Then hear them clearly:

2008-06-11T16:30:00.002+05:30

It started to rain and then it began to pour. Warps and wefts of water, reflections of skies of stories fell horizontally on my scalp. We caught it in our palms, waking up in the dance of our feet. Footsteps got louder and louder and louder. The yells in my ears were like the suddenness of trains in a dark tunnel. Booming. Whispering. Tiring. Sigh!

Moon Songs

2008-06-11T14:42:00.000+05:30

Midnight pen and paper love stories have been on a long humid vacation. Tonight, it's raining. I will write. The spiral in my head wants a rest, but it keeps on spinning, singing to the vanishing eye. My heart is palpitating like the pushing and pulling of tides in a vast ocean. The dim bulb is flickering, and humming: when what I cherish dies, love alone stays. For the miles we are apart and the trains that drag us closer to each other, there is a song. The moon usually sings it to us when we take a break from the road and sleep on the shore of our tides. The beat bellows into our deaf ears. Tonight, I am learning to listen to my tides, and the spiral in my head. I am learning to restart a childhood and eat mangoes in the middle of a night. I am learning to climb and fall off bunk-beds. I am feeling alive. I am breathing. I can hear the purple sky dance with the moon and the dark green mango leaves. I can sleep and snore. I can sigh. I can love. Lovely!

The Habitual Freak

2008-06-09T13:38:00.004+05:30

Picking a nice goblet full of Golconda wine, I felt the days of Pondicherry with family. I smell the wine. It's in the name itself, the worst wine. I preferred, even, the Vino I drank in Cafe Mondegar (where I was strictly kept in the hands of elegance and expected to follow a tradition of wine drinkers) I sip it. I rotate the glass and let its flavour flow out of the glass rims. I let it flow, fall, and tell me a story. It takes a second. Then, I pace my eyes watching the room. I am the spectacle of habitual manners. I gulp the wine down and let it burn down my throat. And I feel the taste in my belly. Liquor goes down. Only in one way. Straight down, where it belongs.

the wine lover

a mosaic obsession

2008-05-28T21:48:00.000+05:30

fall within the facets - boredom!

A man flying in his dreams....sleeps

2008-05-27T22:17:00.003+05:30

click on it to see in original size!

A lookout somewhere far

2008-05-26T23:43:00.003+05:30

Read the peice on your right by Haruki Murakami. That is the piece of writing which is keeping me sane nowadays. I have finally acquired a nice job. Looking forward to creating a new house with my parents. I will not be able to move out of their place for quite sometime. I don't want to. It's hard to ask anyone to understand you. Everyone is human. It is in our power to learn and grow. Comfort zones have now tied me down. Therapy! The next step...

Back home

2008-05-21T21:54:00.003+05:30

A new place is always old to me. After many homes that were created for me, I walked into the arms of my own family. It is a good feeling, but I am really torn apart from a lot of other people. Planning for another getaway, soon! Now, Kolkata had the people, the books, the colours, the traffic, the markets, the walks, the tea, but no sea. And Mumbai had the people, the books, the colours, the traffic, the markets, the walks, the tea (I hate it), and the sea (which likes to think it is a beach). I am packing bags again...moving out of this house! Creating homes, spaces, getting jobs, losing time..new lives. Loving it. Want to travel. Get out of this city soon.

Urban Dusk

2008-05-05T03:20:00.002+05:30

One by one, a thousand at once, Flooding the streets and over-head bridges, Windows, hoardings, and cars Light up the land below, For a dark dome Of sleeping dust. Coast rushes in a breeze, Blending in battle with noon’s Wave; Confused and loud, Dynamically proud With a brimming species, On two feet, wearing faces And masks. Like the wheels of train, All unchanged and same toil, Rolling on and on, The two feet ravage about. A million feet above Concrete builds cages: Human zoo of colors, Paints, and plastic sounds. Metallic breezes blow beneath A dusty dome, Where in a lived spirit, Music still runs. Something stays alive, No sunflower beds or swallows, None of the bright daisies, But within the caged expanse Of footprints, many spirits Lie and tear apart these walls.

Magi, Him, and us

2008-04-26T12:33:00.011+05:30

"A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The was deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter."

T.S. Eliot starts by speaking the words of Lancelot Andrewes, a 17th Century divine, who spoke on the dangers the Magi faced, in his Nativity Sermon in 1622. Eliot, in his middle age, needed a recluse from his hardship, confusion, and drudgery. He converted to Christianity, and confirmed his catholic faith in the Church of England in 1927. 'Journey of the Magi' is a dramatic monologue by a Magus describing his journey to see the Birth of Christ, but the words delve deeper on a spiritual journey that is the need of every human. After the hardship and rumination, Eliot claims Christianity offered him a journey to answers, a spiritual calling, and something that transformed his life.

Journeys that transform lives, callings that direct people on various paths, can never be explained to the larger reality. It is a personal experience. These journeys involve an eventful path of difficulties and conflicts. Eliot known for his obscure imagery details the Magi's hardship, yet again based on Andrewe's sermons. Journey of the Magi is the story of the three kings of Orient, believed in legends to be Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar.

The lack of logic, and pure spiritual absorption, reeks in the fact that they set out in the dead of winter. The camels, vehicles of the desert, traveled on their soft hoofs through thick snow. The calling was only powerful enough to drag along the three kings, who are believed to have brought frankincense, gold, and myrrh. (According to Mathew 2:1-12 2: 1–12, the magi are not specified as three, but as the first Gentiles to believe in Christ were venerated as saints in the Middle Ages.)

The camel men could not be torn apart from their material desires and homes. They ran back to civilization, to their sexual pleasures, and intoxicating habits.

"The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling And running away, and wanting their liquor and women"

Even the Magi, still clouded by their desires, regretted going to far from their palaces, especially not knowing if what they were heading towards was a fruitful calling. Practical rationality always tries to defeat instinct, passion, and a drive towards misty goals. Here, Eliot hands out an interpretation of life. The mind will constantly create conflicts of two faces, but sometimes the pathless goal is the right calling; like seeking truth, which is always a pathless land.Abandoned by their camel men and camels, torn away from their comforts, and stuck in the middle of winter, their journey is not understood by anyone. The dramatic monologue is delivered with the undertone that even years after the journey, it cannot be explained in any way that could be understood. Understanding is personal, justification is personal. Spirituality is personal. God is personal.

Eliot's vivid description of their loneliness and physical hardships are a symbol of their psychological turmoil. This turmoil is owned by anyone who asks questions, and searches endlessly, with no path or maps, just some single light guiding her (Star of Bethlehem), not knowing within the question lays the answer, and the significance lies not in the answer, but the process of asking questions.

In the second stanza, Eliot sinks into his comfort zone - symbolism. It is highly metaphorical and requires a deep understanding of biblical imagery. After experiencing the hostility in cities and villages, the magi travel in the dark (no light of understanding). They reach a temperate valley, a symbol of the birth of spring, birth of something new and blossoming, and the coming of God. They pass a water-mill beating the darkness signifying that paganism, idol worship, and magic will be beaten to ground by the New Spirituality. The three trees on the low sky is a symbol of the crucifixion day, when three different men were put on crosses on Calvary; Jesus, the compassionate son of God dying for the sins of humankind, the stubborn thief who even considers Jesus as a man of magic and trickery, and the thief who understands his sins and confesses to be redeemed of it to reach God. The old white horse galloping on the fields is the Holy Spirit who spoke of the gifts of humankind, and the second coming of Christ as in the Book of Revelations.

The Magi, eventually, reach a tavern (an inn/bar) with vine leaves on the lintel, interpreted as the ancient Jewish custom of hanging vine leaves to announce the birth of a child. Guided by the star they assume they have reached the place and enter the inn in triumph, but all they find are intoxicated sinners.

"Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins"

The six hands are those of the soldiers gambling for Jesus’ seamless cloak and also a mark of Judas’ betrayal. The inn is filled with men drunk in their pleasures and slurring in intoxicated trances. They are the people with empty wine-skins, those bodies with no souls into which no new life can be poured.

The most momentous ingredient of this poem is Eliot’s interpretation of Birth (physical and spiritual) and Death (physical and spiritual). Christ was born in a manger, well among the lower class of the society. Seeing this, the magi are merely ‘satisfied’. All the prophecies lie fulfilled, making the magi those of an alien kind, and truth lies asleep in a hay crib, in a lowly stable. They are dumbstruck by God’s plan. They have only seen the births and death, purely physically manifested, that all of human race has seen and will continue to see. This Birth of Christ creates a Death.

The poem is not a physical account of the magi’s journey. It is indeed written in a confused chronology, of how an aged magus’ memory may aid him. It is the agony and transformation that each magus went through when all their beliefs were put to torturous death. Christ awakened the birth of the Kingdom of God. His teachings broke the vertical hierarchy and made everyone a person of God, a vessel of God. Everyone is equal in the eyes of God.

“This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death?... this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death”

Old ritualistic manners of clutching to one’s household gods were murdered by this Birth. The beliefs that the kings had laid all their life and growth on seemed to be buried and hanged. Witnessing the birth, and the death of their systems, the moment was agonizing. Under the Kingdom of God, when the return to palaces, their kingdoms seemed of an alien race and system. Everything they lay their cards on in their kingdoms seems untrue, unfamiliar, and lacks the understanding of God.

The magus (Eliot) still ardently hopes for another death, large enough to happen in every human’s conscience. This is the spiritual death of prejudices, sins, rituals, ignorance, materialism, discrimination, violence, and resentment that dies deeply rooted in human-made systems. Change is the only goal one must await in a quest.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi#cite_note-9 http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/eliot.htm#biography http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/w/e/wethree.htm http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/291.html http://mariannedorman.homestead.com/Star.html

inhaling

2008-04-17T17:23:00.005+05:30

The world is always spinning and it is like a treadmill. It's just that we don't feel the tiresome work of our knees. Is the world too slow for me? I ran onto the road; getting drenched in the untimely rains and hail. The shores of the Bay are boiling and sinking, an alternate balance. A blue hand descends upon my head and the road just keeps growing. It presses down my head till my neck and shoulders hurt. I love the fact that I do not know where I am going. Would rather have a body very close to me, whispering into my ears, ruffling my hair, and laughing. I would rather smoke just rises all around my feet, engulfs my knees, hips, breasts, neck, and face. Tendrils of hair fly about and wait to be caught in between fingers. The smoke has clouded my vision. I sit down in one of the most peaceful falls, a trance seeps into my head, tears open meshes, and meditation sets in.

19/11/2007

2008-04-15T10:32:00.003+05:30

A sunny morning on a far way hill station and the birds were chirping with exceptional happiness. The air smelled of jasmine and dancing lotuses. Humans have never set foot in this land. The patterns of Nature are perfect. However, even the intruder is a creation of this Nature. If you go to this land, you will see an eternal rainbow. this rainbow never dies. A spectrum of all colours and differences live together.

the song of solomon

2008-04-15T09:50:00.002+05:30

pedallers

2008-04-15T09:49:00.000+05:30

who are you?

2008-04-15T09:48:00.001+05:30

I am slowly getting over my fear of clowns. A Quentin Blake dream is the only knight-in-silver-armor.

a dolphin beetle story

2008-04-15T09:47:00.000+05:30

doodling

2008-04-15T09:45:00.001+05:30

black face woman

2008-04-15T09:44:00.001+05:30

stand alone, watch the birds fly off your sill, the same road features again. Bloom.

moksha trainers

2008-04-15T09:43:00.000+05:30

automatic wheels

2008-04-15T09:42:00.001+05:30

and the variety of questions, identities, and roads?

aligned

2008-04-15T09:40:00.001+05:30

Behold such faces in your dreams. The normal line drawings never seem the same whenever drawn. Drawn is the line, the way, the path, the turn, and the sway. Number 9 is an elephant.

peace

2008-04-15T09:38:00.002+05:30

When a kid draws the normal, stereotypes too make some sense. They develop a beauty, but the simple whiff of happiness lies in watching flowers outside your window.

the mindless creatures climb the trees and fade away with lead lines...

2008-04-15T09:26:00.009+05:30

Popped

2008-04-12T21:26:00.002+05:30

I have got this sudden fascination for this world of Pop Art. I have been reading bits and pieces on how it originated. The term first appeared in Britain, in the 1950s. It encompasses much of the twentieth century art. Let's see what I get doing in the next few days. Blaaaah.

The Red Gown Master and His Monkies

2008-04-11T16:44:00.007+05:30

Behind the land of nowhere, there lived a Zen master and a disciple he learned peace from. The master often tumbled upon questions, which celestially disturbed our primate origins. Yet again, he asks, "If the body rules all will the monkey take over?"

The disciple wants to keep peace with all beings and believes in oneness with the skies, and underworld snakes. "Correct your grammar and then find me a monkey," he replies. The master crawls away searching. He tumbles upon a discovery, some words of Shelley to fill his emptiness:

"I met a traveller from an antique land who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone...'"

Reminder!

2008-04-11T16:44:00.003+05:30

Once a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name ho! B. I. N. G. O B. I. N. G. O. B. I. N. G. O. and Bingo was his name ho! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, you face will surely show it! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

ஒரே ஒரு ஊரிலே ஒரே ஒரு ராஜா அந்த ஒரே ஒரு ராஜாவிற்கு ஒரே ஒரு ராணி

suddenly, my head was filled with nursery rhymes and I started to check my planner. I have to study for a Philosophy examination. This happens to excite me in many ways. Fully engrossed in a random book, drawing and sticking papers in some notebook, I fail to think that I have to sit and learn some definitions. So, what is philosophy?

ha ha ha!!!

2008-04-11T15:05:00.008+05:30

the pages keep growing

2008-04-11T15:05:00.005+05:30

Went to the Market

2008-03-28T20:02:00.010+05:30

I bought a wing in a flea market, They asked me to get a pair. So, I searched and searched. Too big Too small Too fluffy. Not same. And then I asked the Gods for an angel, they asked me to get some wings! A little girl sat on the pavement smiling at me, told me: "I'll search." Was I thinking too loud for this globe? So, we searched and searched. Too thin Too short Too long. Not found. I want a wing. She was Chinese. I was Indian. Not like it mattered! She crouched on the floor. I have a pair. We have some. The one who owns or one who makes: all angels with origami wings, bought in a flea market.

Blue zone imagery

2008-03-28T20:02:00.008+05:30

When I'm feeling all blue, and insisting on wearing black - Just watch me, intently watch me. I'll be bending over the wooden railings, the barricades of the rooftops. You're making me an onlooker, the one who listens to love, I hear a hundred snakes coiled, grinding against each other making dust. Feel that dust with me. It's not fine gold dust, it feels like powdered apples dried in your sun. They glisten like lizard eggs, sleeping in hollow branches. Clean your panther eyes, sterilize our visions. So, let them join and sink in hotel beds (the random one I walked into). Drink chilled dry coffee in the morning, and talk to me. Forget that I'm showing you my back. My heart is in the moon. Let me run away, fall asleep on a cloud. If you don't want to be one ( a fluffy floating cloud), then perch yourself on a street light, and watch me float away, with wings on my head.

Thoughts while watching Taare Zameen Par

2008-03-28T20:02:00.001+05:30

When the world is make-believe, the action is real. Does fame and recognition cure everyone? Does recluse deserve maturity?

The Random Log at a Gate

2008-03-15T20:15:00.004+05:30

If the child did not hold the candle wick, the town would not know where to go. The dark grey little church would ring its bell till the autumn blossoms fell home. The people's doors felt like a void, one that we were bound to get sucked into. The skies would keenly watch the town, the place that was filling up with festive footsteps. That Saturday, we reached the town gates with a gaze on our foreheads swaying and searching for help. This is how it feels when you run away from something. It feels worse when you reach somewhere else. The drumming noises, the trumpets, and the coloured dances tried to invite us in. A common day for all at town. What hurts more is to find that you have reached home, and yet a stranger's plane. We settled our bags down on the muddy entrance and looked for place to sit and hesitated on our arrival. Hesitated on our approval and denial of truth. That was when rain fell on us, but our legs were paralyzed, ordered by a mind that did not want to travel. The hard bark covering the log grazed our skins through our pants. We reclined and fell asleep in a strange trance, leaning on the town wall. We heard various songs that made our ears feel like railways signals. Swishing and running over our memories, the dreams refused to come, and the dreamcatcher waited patiently on the road-bend. I felt bad for him. He laid his net on the floor and looked at us. He would take breaks to look at the sky, which was too happy to clear up. I started to doubt the rain. Was it really raining? Why is the town still alive? Does no one want shelter? I did not want shelter. I wanted to be chased away from all systems. I ran away from one, and refused to join any other. I just failed to see that even chaos has a system. A strange one that fools you, just because it is non-linear. It is concentric.

With a sudden rustle of shirts, she woke up and looked deep into my eyes. I felt her hand on my shoulder and the scraping sound jarred as she pulled herself closer. I looked past her, I believed, but I remember every move of her expression. She imposed a smile and then winked her eyes. She was plain tired. I felt that she wasn't thinking. She wasn't watching. I could run away without her knowing. All of sudden, like she could almost read minds, her hand clutched my arm with a stronger intention. I breathed hard. I was lost. She was in love.

Once upon a time, like a fairy tale eon ago, I did love this girl. She was all I needed. She was all I knew. And she was the only one who seemed to know me. She never failed to know me. But, I had forgotten somewhere to listen to her. I could not remember a word of what she told me for the past few days, months, and probably, all these years. Yet, I seemed in love and could think of no one else. Does she exist? She pulled herself up and walked behind the wall. I patiently watched. Her feet looked blue bathed in the neon lights and sinking in my footsteps. The rain bathed her essence with no strength to separate her scents. Only her shoulders shivered. She was no timid, cut-out pretty lady of the covers. She was beautiful, in and out. She was one who cared for her mind, and her body. A gift. Suddenly, I remembered the presence of the dream catcher. He wasn't at the road bend. He was sitting on my left, tilting his head to his right. He still gazed right into my eyes as if it was filled with activity inside the pupils. My eyes felt empty. I was watching. I could see. But, my eyes felt like they did not see anything real.

*it will grow, I promise. GJ help me out.

So, I was just thinking:

2008-03-15T20:08:00.003+05:30

I am a person who is completely in ease with the whole examination system in the educational institutions of this world. It must be easy, for those of us who fare decently, to make such fruitful remarks about exams. Education after a point should be a matter of choice. Examinations should always be a choice. But, if everything became a matter of personal choice, then there would be peace. Yet again, if everything is a unique choice there would definitely be chaos. Probably, chaos is where peace lies.

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

2008-03-14T21:18:00.010+05:30

Often when a writer travels, interviews and by life gets to a know a lot of people, he/she goes through much trouble to unearth privacy, stories that don't really belong to them. Yet again, that is the job of writer, mainly a journalist - making another's story a creation of their own intellect. The triumph to stay alive, the implications of heroism, the social set up of Columbia under the military and social dictatorship of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, run a seam across the story-line of "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The narrative stands alone to talk about the wavy depth of the story telling talents both that the protagonist and Marquez have acquired through the years. This book, particularly, is a different and unique publication by Marquez. It is a typical journalistic reconstruction, like many of his other creations like "Of Love and Other Demons," but these pages are thoroughly filled with the view Luis Alejandro Velasco.

Marquez, the famous magical realist, with in-depth understanding of realism needed for courageous jounalism, reconstructs a narrative, publishes it, but warns us that he was pretty much persuaded to lay it on the shelves for sale.

The most intriguing aspect of this author is that he will never fail to tell you from which incident and from what understanding of realism, did the narrative bloom.Nothing puts his magic in words, other than his own, where he writes an abstract for this 'reconstruction' - "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor who drifted on a life raft for ten days without food or water, was proclaimed a national hero, kissed by beauty queens, made rich through publicity, and then spurned by the government and forgotten for all time."

Marquez has a passion for magic, and writes poetic prose. Much noteworthy claim goes to the translators of his writing. This book has been translated from Spanish by Randolph Hogan. The translator needs credit for keeping alive a writer in a different language, a different system, with the same magic.Penguin Publishers sell this book globally, at reasonable rates. In India, one can get a legal copy for Rs. 170.

The VLR Morning

2008-03-14T21:18:00.003+05:30

The VLR Morning To be sure that your stomach doesn't start growling and grumbling eat your breakfast. However, circumstances and situationspersuade one to skip meals just because food access is not ready enough to grab. Chennai local railway stations do not give you the option of catching trains as an excuse for such impeccable crimes to your stomach and day. The Vegetarian Light Refreshment stalls, in most of the stations, provide one and everyone with good, warm, light, and healthy food and eating conditions. VLR saved my morning and put some steamy hot Pongal on my plate to subdue hunger, growling, grumbling, and mental crankiness. Food is important! Pongal is dhal and rice steamed together with black peppers, asafoetida, and jeera. The rice becomes soft and blends with dhal in a comfortable way. VLR stood up to the normal standards of pongal. Crispy vadai accompanied this pleasant surprise. With three generous scoops of pongal, warm sambar, new coconut chutney, the vadai just adds to the glory. The crispy fried vadai woke up my senses for the morning. Yum, to be precise! All this costs a person twelve rupees. Standing up to its name, the food is clean vegetarian, light on the stomach and pocket, and is absolutely refreshing as a emotional and physical hunger saver.

Lookers, Watchers, and Lovers of this Elf

2008-02-26T23:37:00.004+05:30

A looker, a watcher, a lover, are you?

I see you perched on the same trees,

every day and night.

Sometimes you climb down to hold me,

tight in your arms, like you -

you would never let me go.

That's when I swirl you off my arms,

I let you slip through the winds,

I watch you disappear.

Am I a looker, a watcher or a lover?

Many old voices ask this elf.

I sink in my pleasures, can

but only smile.

Flowing hair, calculated walks,

I know this world,

as it knows me true.

Are we lookers, watchers, or lovers?

Those who live true,

who breathe,

are we?

*work in progress or shall be abandoned in this state.

Pages fly

2008-02-26T23:17:00.007+05:30

As I stare at a computer screen now, I feel heavy. My head is throbbing, not with pain, but with some strange set of thoughts. I am hearing words, but not too much sense. I put my luck at stake, to understand the world of letter. Pincodes and postal officers have created hell of a lot of confusion killing my enthusiasm in this whole venture. So, I have decided to be persistent, to live against this cold blooded murder. I read of a nurse tending to a burnt patient, wandering in her solitude. I feel new. I feel old. I feel me. I know I desperately want certain things. If you cut open my head, you will see an iron mesh, dark and hard sealing my brain, my flesh, my blood, the nymph. The nymph of the blue world. The world of the blackbirds. Fly. An obsession. Cameras click, studios build. I am sleeping in a corner, at a recording studio. People speaking, dubbing, acting, morphing scenes. Living truly. The air-conditioned hall is causing a chill to crawl down my back. I am wrapped in a blanket on cushions, the child of the sets. A child brought up in these wrapped blankets, crowded nights, and ancient rooms, next to a cardboard box. Today, I'm home. The air-conditioner is on. I'll be wrapped, in some blanket, in some corner. The pages of a book are flying. My pens are rolling in the wind. The curtains fly with my dream clouds. A floating spring. I think. I dream. I am. I am curled up, next to a cardboard box.

Neon and Yellow Blizzards

2008-02-15T22:22:00.003+05:30

The snow cut across my skin, as I lay on my back staring at the ceiling. The rucksack made us slouch and drag our feet making big foot marks. You don't hear heels click, just a squishy squashy sound. Splush. Never smell your shoes after one of these walks. Crystals, they ought to look like, but fell like heaps. Snow fell, like old memories just hitting and trying to blind me.

I escape and dodge, hoping for some rain. The parched desert is filled with rain. The water falls and seeps into the ground leaving still dryness. I feel thefear of height, the sense of psychotic vertigo as I walk on the plain. This plain is filled with sand dunes and plateaux. An angel wrapped in blue walks past us. We are four. She is one, with her child. He flies. You know, with those tiny little wings. The snow still falls. Not leaves. Not rain. Not clouds. Snow.

The heaviness makes me want to faint. I faint and feel the edge of drowning, I wake up in fear. The whiteness of the ceiling nears my head. Blackout in white. A severe headache pierces through me. I can only see a lizard. He stares down at me and then at a moth. The moth is too far behind that I can see only one wing of hers. Fly moth, now. The lizard is filled with stealth and bad-mouths my presence. I get lost! Let happenings play. Somewhere in the distance, a phone rings.

Way across the book piles and old coffee mugs, if you look beyond my head, you see a phone. I see a phone. Black and old, new to history. It favours its tenant with love and care, dust. He sleeps on it day and night and years together in my timelines. Time has never been linear, it refuses to be remembered and associated so. Yet, time is clever. He manages to move on and on. The calendar pages flip. A quote on it: "What will our children do in the morning, if they do not see us fly?" Rumi.

I catch the breeze in my hand and with strength tear of the dates. With no dates I don't see the movement of time. Time wouldn't be a concept. K and P are silent in many words. Why? Why not? Why? Why not? How? Sleep. I've never touched or walked on snow.