Urban poetry

 The metro station is familiar territory but it is cold and impersonal. It’s all shining steel, hard stone and bright lights. It is also arms, legs, heads, hair, skin, breath and sweat. But it is here that some fleeting moments of sheer beauty are created by chance. Right here, in the spaces between bodies, stone and metal.

Walking into this cavernous underground labyrinth stuffed full of flesh and things, I am drawn to this couple. Their hands are moving, but their mouths only just. It’s as if someone filtered out all the noise and what is left is pure communication – stretched mesmerizingly thin around them like the rainbow-surface of a soap bubble. And in this bubble around them the space seems to expand with each gesture-for-word. Theirs, I realize, is a silence, which in the absence of words is more than just a lack of sound. It’s an abundance of calm. They talk without speaking. And all around them are words being spoken, yet nothing is being said.

And then there is me.

Smiling like a fool, overjoyed at this urban poetry being written a few hundred feet under the earth, set to music by trundling trains of gleaming silver.

So what is it about a mundane metro commute and two people talking to each other in sign language, that is so unspeakably poetic? It’s like a missed heartbeat in the racing pulse of life in the city. Exhilarating, this precious pause.

If less is more...

If less is more, more or less, do you want more or less?


There are certain questions that come up inexplicably, without invitation and make their home in the recesses of one's mind. While some of these questions border on the absurd some others are inevitable and universal. And anyone who says they do not know of them is lying.

What do you want?
How much do you want?
What do you need?
How much do you need?

It was an economics class and then a history class in school that I was first introduced to the terrible twins - wants and needs. That it was to be an eternal quest for some sort of amicable reconciliation between the two,  I could not have known back then. Karl Marx knew it but I didn't.

"I need you. I want you. Oh baby. Oh baby." 

Human greed is a peculiar thing. And by greed I mean real, unbridled avarice of the most material kind. It is peculiar because while human beings take to it willingly and with gusto, its prospects are from the start bleak and pessimistic. For while greed is an endless cycle of acquisition far beyond what need dictates, it is still desperately incapable of providing fulfillment. The cup of greed is never full.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse"


So why hasn't the 'less is more' philosophy become a life-choice instead of just an oft-quoted aesthetic principle? Is it narcissism - a firm belief that we are the centre of our own universe and everything must indeed gravitate towards us? Is it the curse of the information age to stare every day at an image of ourselves reflected on multiple screens  - only  prettier, fairer, richer, happier, thinner, sharper, cooler, more fun, more adventurous and more unlike our real selves?

"You talkin' to me? There's nobody else here."


Everyday we accumulate things. Surround ourselves with objects and noise - the noise of other people accumulating and acquiring more than us. The noise grows with every tweet, every post, every update and becomes a cacophony until the original voice in our head is barely audible. A mere whisper.

What do you want?

How much do you want?

What do you need?

How much do you need?

Work and an Explanation of sorts

Everyone who has a blog knows what a blogging slump is. That's what seems to have plagued me. There seems to be a lot to say just no right combination of words to say them with. Of course I know that sounds like the cliche of all excuses. My mother would credit my insatiable appetite for sleep, my father likes to blame general laziness and incurable procrastination. But I say "It is infinitely better to shut up, than to sound like a stuttering fool." We live in shrill times, full of information-noise. I don't wish to add to that chaos.

So bear with my silence for a wee bit longer.

There is some new work to show. An educational teaching aid to explain the concept of the seasons / months in the context of the Indian 'Hindu' Calendar. The seasons in this case are not Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter but more nuanced divisions that respond to slight changes in weather that subsequently influence the rhythm of life in some parts of the country. Although one realises that these so called seasons are no longer as easily recognised in the course of the year thanks to a changing climate the world over, it is interesting to note the keen connect between life and nature that these 12 months or "Baarah Maas" indicate.

Here are some of the illustrations I came up with. Ignore the typos in the text pls.

cover page

Worked with Room To Read, India once again. And got to polish my Photoshop skills, which before this project came along were rudimentary at best. 

:) 

A Life Less Ordinary

Its been too long. 

But I suppose sometimes you just don't have all that much to say. And that too can be a good thing. 

I often find myself at a loss for words when people ask me that most innocuous of questions "What's up?" And I rummage through my mind for a coherent, robust answer worthy of this eponymous query. Sure,  I can tell the rhetorical what's-up from one of those probing, searching, investigative ones. But the discomfort I feel at the latter is becoming something of a social handicap. 

And I have never been more acutely aware of this handicap.

For this I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of that wonderful warm shiny gooey thing called facebook. My friends (facebook friends that is) all seem to have highly exciting lives peppered with occasional drama, lots of fun times and most importantly a definitive road map of where this exciting life is going to take them next. (Explanatory status message coming up...) 

I used to be one of those people in the pre-facebook era. Figured out, with much less self-doubt and anxiety about where everything is going to end up. Now here I am, wondering what will be while the rest of the world is sending me live updates of lives being lived (or so the facebook messiahs would have me believe) 

Never has the phrase "Get a life" seemed more ironic. Because now, you can! 

The cup of life that is social networking is always on the up and up, never rock-bottom low mixing with the dregs of yesterday. So when one stares into it , rarely do you get to see rock bottom. But when you do hit rock-bottom - and everyone does at some point - even a lame little "what's up" will make you want to punch someone in the face. 

Sometimes I have to shake myself out of the ennui of keeping up appearances. Its not the harmless banter that bothers. Its the feeling of constantly being sized up. The whole idea of living your life like a roster of what you did-who you met-where you went.  It might be worth asking then - "How would you live your life if you knew no one was watching?" 

Its unsettling - this feeling of living your own life as if you had been for the longest time, merely an opening act in a great variety show. Always on the outside, waiting for the show to start. Stealing a glance every now and then at the audience from behind the red velvet curtain. And while we stare diligently at cursor on screen, tomorrow becomes today becomes yesterday all at once. 

And I worry more at this than my seeming lack of ambition, goals and road-maps-to-a-better-life..... because how will there be nostalgia, if I cant't even remember living? 

 

Midsummer Mayhem: storms, broken trees and other such unearthly pleasures

the late bloomer: Rajpur Road, Civil Lines

"The rain fell like applause"

- Signature by Michael Ondaatje (From the Cinnamon Peeler)

Finally.

Delhi got the sound and light show it deserves.

No. I’m not referring to the one at Red Fort set to Amitabh Bachhan’s baritone or the one at Purana Quila narrated by Om Puri. (Ironic isn’t it – that the fort built in a time of excess gets the decadent voice of Bacchan while the crumbling, deeply neglected Old Fort has its story told by his doppelganger Puri – just a thought)

Coming back to what I was saying. We were treated to three incredible albeit short-lived thunderstorms in the span of two weeks. And what drama it was - certainly worth the wait. Sepulchral clouds on the horizon, swirling dust, winds that made light of even the mightiest Neem and raindrops that felt icy on sun-baked skin. Thunder sounded a preliminary warning and people scurried like ants, looking for cover. The rumble set the stage with a fantastic drum roll. Whooshing gusts of wind threatened to spirit away trees, birds, things and people alike. Lightning that scared the bejesus out of me with its white whip cracking across the night sky. Even hail that fell like marbles out of tin box!

And finally rain. Delicious, smelling-of-earth, soak-you-to-the-bone, redeem-the-month-of-may kind of rain.

But for me the best part is when the grand show is over. The time when the damp air and sweet smells filling it can be imbibed without prejudice. When people (some people at least!) survey in shock and awe, the arboreal carnage across the city. Huge branches, entire trees, piles of leaves, flowers, pods and nests litter the roads. A fitting homage.

I got to take in the sights on my regular rickshaw ride from the metro station back to my house. The road is particularly beautiful winding up from Shamnath Marg flanked by the pristine white façade of the British built Maidens Hotel, rising up towards St. Xavier’s and the Governors residence and finally ending at a junction framed by Oleander and Jarul trees. Near the hotel, a tall eucalyptus tree had been felled by the storm, and a small army of men and women were at work trying to clear the road. Most of the leaves had been turned to mulch by the speeding vehicles. A happy accident in my opinion because the whole place smelled divine – aromatherapy in the most unlikely fashion!

Further ahead, near the beautiful St. Xavier’s school, a massive branch of Neem had broken off. Almost half a tree. As the rickshaw pulled past the giant green bush on the road I caught a glint of steel underneath. A silver Esteem barely visible, seemed to be resting, virtually unharmed under the canopy. The next day the whole thing was gone – stripped for daatun and its medicinal leaves and bark I bet – or for firewood. I remember soaking in a bath of neem leaves when I was down with Chicken Pox as a kid. To my mind, it’s the closest I’ve come to a spa treatment till date. I’m telling you – Cleopatra might have bathed in milk but I’ve had itchy sores healed by a bittersweet broth of leaves.

Anyway, the rickshaw ride had many more sights for me to savour. The purple flowers of Jaarul, magenta Bougainvillea trellis over a wall, the wet red brick building of B.M. GangeSchool and finally the flaming Amaltas (laburnum) tree in my own house compound. When May began, I was worried. The Amaltas tree I loved to watch, was still bare. In the rest of the city, they had already begun to show off their dangling yellow bunches. This one was bald except for a few new shoots. I thought the mindless pruning of its branches by the neighbours had finally been its undoing, as I had often feared. But as it turned out I was being paranoid. It was just a late bloomer. And like all late bloomers, when it finally did come into its own, it outdid all its golden siblings across town. I should’ve known – our family has a real thing for late bloomers.

These things – part of nature’s very own Cirque du Soleil - invoke in me what I imagine to be the closest thing to religious fervour and passion. A constant reminder that it takes so little to lift ones spirits. For me it takes a dash of good weather and a smattering of crushed eucalyptus leaves put together with a burst of yellow laburnum.

Once Upon A Time...

Ammuma - my grandmother is an ace story-teller. When my brother and I were young, she regaled us with some not-so-conventional bedtime stories. That is how I first heard of 'The Titanic' and was taken by the phrase "ill-fated maiden voyage". It was also the reason why, many years later while reading Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca I knew how it ended even before I had finished. And first sentences from books like "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again" and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" were in fact all too familiar. Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities was an instant favourite. My brother and I asked again and again to hear the story of Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton and Lucie Manette. I found the descriptions of the siege of Bastille and the rolling heads at the guillotine magnificently macabre.

I have an image from one such narration - it is of an old almost toothless woman sitting on the other side of the guillotine knitting away an inexorable scarf watching with considerable glee as the heads roll into a basket. One would imagine that my child's mind would reject such violent imagery - but somehow it stuck. As did Marie Antoinette and her "let them eat cake" remark which is something of a historical myth. I think my grandmother's bedside oratory brilliance had something to do with the fact that both history and literature became dear to me.

But the stock of great stories was endless. She never tired of telling us about our illustrious lineage. We would puff up our chests and preen at the mere mention of the 'Royal Family of Cochin'. And the inevitable child-like barrage of questions would follow. So did vallia-muthachan (great grandfather) wear a crown? Did you have an elephant of your own? Did you eat dinner on a table that was as long as a coconut tree? Of course, none of the above was true. And my grandmother would try her best to sound mysterious when she said "No.But we had two cars!! An ambassador AND a Chevrolet!!!" Needless to say, we weren't impressed. Not even when we heard about the children stealing dosas from the kitchen. Stealing? Dosas? Royalty? Pffftt.

But we loved hearing about Padmalayam - the big house, with the central courtyard. The lagoon at the back witht the coconut tree bent so low , it almost formed a bridge. The maid who would catch tiny fish using her sari like a net just to amuse the children. My great-grandfather who loved wearing walking shoes even with a mundu. And how the eldest of 6 brothers and sisters fell into a ditch full of dung while trying to run away from his tution-master.

Today, even at the age of 80, my grandmother is holding on to those stories for dear life. For so many years, growing up in family that was more scattered than together, she has been my eye and ear into the past. Going through old family albums, identifying thumb-sucking uncles and mischievous aunts while savouring anecdotes like adamaanga - yeah, that was our thing. Now, as her memory fades she finds the urge to talk about those days and years past, more often. Repition seems to be the backbone of remembrance. And even though names and incidents get all mixed up, the story never ends. She will stop mid-sentence, squint and frown - as if putting a puzzle together in her head. Eventually, she returns to her audience with a fresh detail or a forgotten twist in the tale. And we forge ahead...... It's amazing how much she still remembers, and how easily we seem to forget.

Grandparents perhaps intuitively take on the role of chief-storyteller. Their own lives, mirrored in their children and their children's children, take on mythic proportions. Perhaps it is some primordial preservation instinct that makes us want to pass on our stories to each successive generation. So that even in un-living and un-being, an echo of the life lived may resonate in time.

Highs and Lows: Unsolicited Opinion

Given how saturated our lives are these days by the omnipresent, ubiquitous in-your-face media it's hard to be restrained in one's own reactions to the goings-on around you. There have been many events, incidents, occurrences and occasions when I have wanted to vent my frustration on this blog. But for some unknown reason I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Perhaps its the feeling that my opinion/observation would be just another shrill voice adding to the cacophony (literally - have you heard the likes of Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai trying to outshout their on-camera victims??) However, some time has passed and after much quiet reflection I have decided that I do want to put my do paise worth of opinion out there.

Brevity will be it though, since many of these happenings have lived out their time in the collective consciousness of the media - if not the people en generale. So here are a few things that have disturbed, enraged, upset and/or reassured me in varying degree. (in no particular order)

1) 26th November 2008: People aren't about to forget this date anytime soon. Many tears have been shed, even more words have been spoken and written. But at the time I felt nothing could heal the wound other than introspection. A serious and solemn look at our history - the parallel history of two nations which used to be one. And that erroneously forgotten human tragedy - the partition. It is said that amputees in the early days sense their missing limb as clearly as when it was still attached to their body. A phantom limb syndrome. Ring a bell does it?

2) Marathi Manoos and the politics of the MNS: An MNS worker said on television in an attempt to justify the Marathi Manoos agenda "In Rome you must do as the Romans do, or else....leave." How absurd. While they quite rightly point out that Mumbai is not Maharashtra they are unable to apply the same logic to their own mandate. For if they had, surely the MNS and Raj Thackeray would have done something for the suffering populace of Vidarbha? Surely his esteemed legions would have asserted their regional identity through Marathi Cinema and Theater....But how can they, when they are driven by nothing more than narrow political gain.

3) Media noise: It has been a while since 24X7 news became as normal as mobile phones. But how does one ignore the constant barrage of images that trivialise and sensationalise all at once. Everything is newsworthy and simultaneously nothing is. As if playing out an Orwellian saga, the camera is everywhere - lingering on every shard of glass, every drop of blood and every wrinkle on every tear stained cheek. All the world's a stage and today, someone is always watching. While the Simi Garewals and Barkha Dutt's of the world pass loud judgement, the rest of us struggle to hear the thoughts in our own head. Wildly gesticulating anchors proclaiming 'an exclusive, live, breaking news' every other minute leave no space for coherent thought. Everything is a premeditated, foregone and foretold. And in the meantime a girl and a man murdered brutally still wait for justice.

4)Mangalore, Kandhamal, Bajrang Dal, Shri Ram Sena, Intolerance INC: It seems in our country economic progress, steady growth rates and 'shining' labels are inversely proportional to tolerance. Every time such an incident occurs I find myself wondering how can one human being do this to another human being? Why is it so hard to live and let live? The musing, I am aware, sounds laughably naive. But no one - no newspaper, no book, no film, no friend or family member, no intellectual - has even brought me close to an answer. And since there is no reassurance from the State that Intolerance will not be tolerated, I believe we are on our own. (with the corporate honchos cheering for Modi, the whole thing has been painted an uglier shade)

5)Sanjay Dutt and his fall from grace: Munnabhai, MCP as he's been aptly christened on this blog has definitely lost favour with me once and for all. During his impending 6 year conviction almost two years ago I had written a semi-sympathetic post on this blog. And now I wish I hadn't. Read Sanju Baba's regressive spiel here.

6) New New Wave: On a slightly positive, uplifting note the arrival of 'Brave New Bollywood' has been such an encouraging development. So many good, heartwarming films have graced the big screen in the recent past. Dibakar Banerjee - without a doubt one of the torchbearers of this new cinema along with a few seasoned others like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and Rajat Kapoor. Small stories with great ambition that stay away from those broad brush strokes that Bollywood uses all too often to colour our notions. Just go over to passionforcinema.com and you will see the child-like wonder with which cinephiles - both known (like Kashyap) and unknown - are talking about this second-coming of mainstream cinema. Here's hoping there are more big-little movies like Aamir, A Wednesday, Mithya, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Manorama Six Feet Under.

7) Slumdog Millionaire: Fact or Fiction or Who-Cares-As-Long-As-It's-Fun? I'm on the fence with this one. Do I take issue with the word 'Slumdog' -No. I think it has more to do with the word "underdog" than it has to do with the more Indian "gali ka kutta". (although in one of the sub-titles the hindi word kutta is replaced by the word slumdog) Do I have an issue with it as a film made by a foreigner who has little or no understanding of the complexities of India - Erm. Yes and No. The outsider argument does not seem relevant when you take into consideration that Danny Boyle has made the film primarily for a Western audience. Therefore the reliance on tiresome cliches like the Taj Mahal and the very Lonely Planet-ish image of the child-god Rama encountered in the scene where Jamal and Salim are running away from a riotous mob. The narrative structure too is fairly straightforward and formulaic at times, building up to a predictable yet exhilirating end. I thoroughly enjoyed the parts played by the youngest three - who were in my own personal view let down by the older actors who took over. The characters of Jamal, Salim and Latika outlined quite poignantly by them were somewhat abandoned by Dev Patel and the others. The tumble from the train, into the future was where it started going downhill for me.

An oversimplification of otherwise complex issues could have been ignored because one is so used to this lumping together of themes in a most superficial fashion in mainstream Bollywood. So while slums, squalour and even the rags-to-riches tale are fact, it is the telling of the tale that gives it away as pure fiction. So let all discussion stop at that. It is not refined social commentary. We know that. Does Danny Boyle know? I'm not sure. In the meantime....let's root for A.R because it's irrelevant whether he deserves recognition for the music in this film. The point is that he does.

8)Obama! : The world took notice as one man stepped up. What a moment. Forget whether he will be good for India or not and just revel in that most positive message of the year "yes we can!"

There. I said it. Now I can move on.

Cest la vie.

Winter Wonderland

Winter in Delhi is many things. Bitterly cold, sun-less and bleak for the most part it can be an unhappy time for many. For me though, the city shrouded in mist is a happier place. Happier than the Delhi of April and May – when bathing defeats its own purpose and the tarred roads melting in protest, stick to your shoes. Happier than the city in monsoon when complaints are rife of potholes and puddles. No. Winter is relief.

And what an entrance it makes! Easing its way into our lives with a shudder here and a shiver there. Not like spring that reminds of the oppressive summer heat lurking ahead. Long hot days give way ever so gently to shorter days when the cool air brings goosebumps on bare arms. Night sneaks up on the day and the light fades dutifully. The sun doesn’t hurt anymore – its warmth spreading deliciously over skin bare now but soon to be hidden under warm layers. Soon instead of the once-a-week Chocobar, it’s warm smoky peanuts and seeking out the un-earthly pleasure of cracking their crunchy shell under thumb and forefinger. The city is changes its hues – Tilak Marg will be flanked by a skeletal army of trees. Trees that jealously kept out the sun, now filter its rays and create winter ephemera.

Like I said winter in Delhi is many things.

It is the billowing white mist from my mouth. It is layers of wooly pleasure – scarves, gloves, multi-coloured socks, shawls, sweaters, stockings and neck warmers. It is going to lodhi garden to watch the dogs play and laze around in the fickle sun - just like everyone else. It is huddling in an auto sharing a shawl while the wind makes light of your chattering teeth. It is waking up in the dark (when we were young) to go to school. It is a bonfire of dry leaves that dies out almost as soon as it is lit. It is the haze that hangs low on the empty streets at night and the halo that crowns the tall lights along the way. It is dahlias and chrysanthemums. It is lumpy quilts wrap around frigid toes and a frosty nose. It is sun-kissed mornings and plump oranges with tangerine jewels. It is the smell of freshly washed woolens and their fuzzy warmth baking in the sun. It is fallen leaves crackling underfoot and the smell of wood smoke.

To me winter in this city will always smell of burning leaves. Perhaps it is because until a few years ago these autumnal-discards were burnt in neat little piles along the roadside. The pungent acrid smell tickled the back of my throat. But mixed with the winter air, it felt cold but smelt of warmth. A warm woody fragrance that would get into my clothes if I got close enough to these winter pyres.

R shares my joy for the cold season. And though hers is a sartorial obsession we were equally excited about the steadily dipping mercury. One evening as we sat in auto speeding down Siri Fort road, considering the nip in the air with apt concentration R said something…..wonderful.

Don’t you think people seem a lot friendlier in winter?

Hmm. Why do you say that?

All this road rage and rabblerousing….it’s because in the summer everyone is so hot and bothered. But in winter…it’s so cold that people can’t be bothered about sticking their noses out of their monkey caps, let alone open their mouths to say something vile.

….I think you’re on to something.

I can’t wait for it to get so cold that my knuckles get jammed! says R here eyes the size of saucers. Hey, move over so I can get under your shawl. My nose is cold.

As we cowered in oner corner of the auto almost cheek-to-cheek with bare chested Sallu bhai, I caught a whiff of wood-smoke from a park nearby. Winter had warmed my heart yet again.

Delhi Times

I have a bone to pick with this city.

What is it about Delhi that makes even the most demure, polite,well mannered people whip out their claws and bare their teeth?

Delhi is not for the fainthearted. It is exasperating, infuriating and tends to just rub people the wrong way. A colleague at work told me that a man consumed by rage (in all probability due to an altercation over a near-invisible dent on his precious vehicle) started chucking mini boulders at other commuters, damaging a small cavalcade of big cars and even bigger egos. Where he found boulders to hurl on a main road is a question worth asking. (Although my guess is it was thanks to the BRT/MCD/PWD/NDMC or some other acronym that makes good use of the taxpayers' money by digging up every square inch of motorable road) And anyway, the fact that he found it in him to do such a thing is perhaps mundane and would draw less attention than the question of availability-of-boulders-to-throw-at-errant-drivers.

These are the times we live in.

A time when violence is the new normal
A time when we split hairs over whodunnits while a nation becomes a republic overnight
A time when we ask the most banal questions with utmost sincerity....

....and leave it to someone else to bell the cat.

Yet Another Inconvenient Truth

image via 'skineart by njlee

It floated into my stream of consciousness like a post-it tugged loose from cyber space. Cloaked in deceptive simplicity, the ring of truth is unmistakable in this charmingly lucid statement. So true and yet, somehow, so incredibly disconcerting.

To think that life will never make complete and total sense until it has passed you by............

*shudder*

I bet there is an appropriate Calvin-esque retort to this.

Until the next pit stop

Disclaimer: this is not a poem.

The tracks span length and breadth in the soil
over water, land, valley and rock
they leave a marked trail
the train runs snake-like
pregnant with the mass of humanity
lives in tow, trussed up in linen
or boxed up in cheap wood. The lives
dangle, they leap, they sweat
they sleep, they watch, they bore
they shit, they score, they cry
they scratch, they shift, they doze
they laze, they trace, they look
they cook, they eat, they wash
they give and they live
from one place to the next
forever in motion
no full stops no stopping for air
go sit on the roof if you can't
breathe inside where
the babies yell for their mother's breast
and the air is like glue
filled with the acrid smell
of pickle, sweat and soot
let your eye traverse the contours
of resting bodies - bodies in limbo
waiting to move - dormant
till the next stop.
the next stop
life begins anew
and so we play at the charade again
we move, we pull, we push, we shove
we lean, we stall, we, yell, we crush
we smile, we wave, we holler, we pale
we step, we hop, we skip, we jump
we lift, we heave, we ho and we hum.

Never too late?

The past few days have been - to resort to a cliché - an emotional roller coaster ride. To be reminded of the impermanence of life in the most jarring way, is to have a mirror held up to how you've been living it all this while. A spitting image of everything you didn't do. Didn't say. Didn't think of. Until it was too late.

No wonder it's liberating to think of yourself as a mere speck of dust on the face of the earth. Without the weight of responsibility, relationships and the rigour of living, as a speck of star-dust you are free. How cool would it be if you could zoom out at will and look down at the earth from space, and watch your troubles disappear to leave only a great big ball of blue-green? Rationalists can come running with their pitchforks of reason and yell "escapist!" but I am at the moment reveling in the (mis-guided) pleasure of denial.

To try and fudge over the hurt and guilt of not having been the person I should have been.

But I know I cant bury my head in the sand forever. So when I'm ready - when I've healed a little - I'll look up and face reason, reality and all those other things I'm avoiding right now. After all how hard can it be to pick up the phone and call someone you haven't spoken to in years? Or to write that story you've been meaning to write for the longest time? Or to tell someone that you wouldn't be the same without their quiet presence in your life?

Not all that hard. For sure.
And anyway, life is too damn short for me to believe otherwise.

In Memoriam...

Nostalgia is something I like to indulge in every once in a while. And it is indulgent I think, to savour memories and thoughts, re-play incidents and moments in slow motion with omissions and additions. To not take take stock of the present and revel in a past re-imagined. Phrases like 'the good old days' and 'hamaare zamaane mein..' or even my latest favourite 'aaj kal ke bacche' trigger a chain of thought that follows a trail of old phtotgraphs, memorabilia and notes from a diary. The present pales in comparison to the glorious past.And somehow things never seem as great as they used to be.

A wise wise man once said "We live life in retrospect." When i first heard that statement I was astonished by the simplicity of its truth. Generation after generation has believed that there was never a better time to live (not exist) than when they were young. The air is always cleaner, the trees more abundant, the children more child-like and life infinitely simpler back then.
Grandparents are among the first people to introduce you to this curious world that belongs to their memory and is eventually given over to your imagination. The ancestral house with a dozen rooms to get lost in. The crazy cook whose adamanga you steal at your own risk. The large family you wished you could have. The music sessions your grandfather had with his daughters as he played the veena and they sang. The story about the namboodiri who cured the sick boy of a snake-bite but died himself. And the many many ammavans, chittammas, chechis and chettans you just can't keep up with.

Then....you have memories of your own. The railway track that you named 'trackey' and then returned to years later with a little cousin in tow. The swimming instructor whom you threatened with instant death at the hands of your father (who FYI is a doctor). The pond at the back of your grandmother's house where you poked the turtles while your cousins thrashed around trying to swim. The aunt who died of cancer but taught you how to squeeze colours out of a flower. The time when you lost one slipper in the slush after the rain and went home with one foot in a slipper and the other in a cast of mud.The train journeys when you would wait for a glimpse of the hill shaped like a thumb. The history projects at school that you put your heart and soul into. The teacher who made you not just like the subject, but love it. The moment when you knew you had made it to that one institute you had been obsessing about for 3 years..... and everything that followed.

It's the good stuff we romanticize. The rest is all reluctant remembrance. The things we leave behind don't actually get left behind. They get shelved into some compartment or the other and are labeled unanimously "For Future Reference." And then we reminisce about the good, bad and the ugly....incessantly and unabashedly. Why wouldn't the present then seem like a mere shadow of the past?

Flotsam I Am

So many times I've felt exactly like this. Going somewhere.....reaching nowhere. I haven't yet made up my mind if this is a good thing or something that is to my detriment.

Pre-determined destinations have never been my friends. I continue to drift among strands of thoughts that don't tie up to form a web and ideas that melt as quickly as they form.

One tends to float or amble towards a general destination with no road maps in hand. Reaching nowhere is not exactly a dead end. It's more like coming to a clearing which stretches as far as the eye can see.

So the best thing to do I suppose is to walk on....

List-en to this...

I adore making lists. It gives me an absurd sense of purpose and the (often false) feeling that there is order where there appears to be chaos. But my lists are not always functional. Quite the contrary actually. Riffling through old notebooks, journals and the innumerable pieces of loose paper I hoard (I'll get into that subject some other time) I found list after list of things, names, activities, places, people, words and thoughts. (I was reminded of the film Pillow Book (1996) by director Peter Greenaway. The film had a fascination for lists - lists of a more 'bohemian' nature.)

I was going through the Top Ten section at sensesofcinema.com. Random lists submitted by readers of their top ten favourite films. Thats what got me thinking about lists in the first place. I have never succeeded in making my own "top ten" list of films. It's horribly tempting what with film magazines, e-zines and TV shows throwing lists at you from every direction. Best Directors, Best Films, All Time Greats, Top Ten Film Noir, Best Musicals and so on and so forth. Sight and Sound had asked renowned film directors for their own lists. One of the directors said "I won't put Citizen Kane on that list just because every list in the world tells me to!' Fair enough. And I don't blame said director for the outburst. Lists are sensitive things. You have to be careful what you put on it. When I tried making such a list I felt so burdened that I had to abandon the venture. How do you decide the criteria for such a list? And why only ten? Why not five or fifteen? Since then I have stuck to making lists that come with far less responsibility and where the criteria are not as important as the making of the list itself! It's been good going so far.

A list is ordinarily prioritised. Some things are more important while others are not so. Some things demand immediate attention while others may be content to wait a while. But then there are the lists that are simply there because someone felt like making a list. An idle mind is the perfect source of an odd little list. And the possibilities are endless!

My own lists include:
My favourite words with each letter of the alphabet
The books I simply must read before I die and a list of all the books I have ever read (it's a work in progress)
The films that I think have changed the way I look at cinema
'Indian' English words that I think are indispensable
Names for my dog when I do get one
Hindustani Classical Ragas that give me goosebumps and/or make me cry
Possible subjects for a research paper tracing the material history of an object (e.g. paper, cotton, salt, indigo etc.)
Overrated film classics (next in line is underrated film classics)
Credit lists for my various film projects
Thank you lists for various things
Things I learnt from Mumbai
Words to look up in the dictionary (obsequious, eponymous words like that)
Things to do when hopelessly bored
A list of my most vivid childhood memories

And now......A list of lists! How fitting!

Blogito Ergo Sum?

The great thing about blogs is not that you get to write, vent, display your wares or publish stuff you think no one will ever read anyway. The great thing is the whole universe of bloggers that opens up once you have discovered and unraveled for yourself some uncharted blog territory. Blog-hopping is great fun and immensely satisfying I think. Not all of it is good - far from it. But it's almost like a silent conversation with people adding to it on their own, bit by bit. A conversation that doesn't really have a beginning, middle and end. One that is prone to many many tangential departures. Some of which you may not understand or be able to contribute to. While some of it might strike a chord and you might find yourself smiling a little because you understand.

A friend remarked that she would NEVER use her blog as a personal diary. Neither would I. But there are many who do just that. I have come across several blogs that give so much away about the author, that one immediately feels like an unwanted visitor. An intruder in violation of personal space. The argument is simplified by saying that if it's out there then it's meant to be read. Of course. But have we discarded our traditional notions of what is public and private? Conventional ideas of space? Blogs perhaps exist - as does most of the content on the internet - in the turbulent space in between the two spheres of public and private. The lines are fine and blurry. A post might be plain rhetoric - not meant to be answered or discussed. Sometimes it is provocative and invites argument and quarrel. It may seek definition or defy it altogether. A blog derives meaning from dialogue, from this dynamic relationship that the author establishes with the universe of bloggers. It grows in most cases. But there is also death and decay. A wasteland of abandoned blogs - conversations left incomplete.

An article in Tehelka about "Celebrity Blogs" says Blogs are cults of personality, read for the tastes, idiosyncrasies, lifestyle and preoccupations of the blogger." Cults of personality! Indeed, it is a cult with faithful followers, timid first-timers and incorrigible zealots who work tirelessly in order to make this a cult worth subscribing to. My own preoccupation with blogs has been somewhat of a mystery to me. Is it really "Blogito Ergo Sum" - I blog therefore I am? No, not by any stretch of imagination. But it might be "I am therefore I blog." Just that. Nothing more, nothing less.

Cinephilia - Young Love

I wish I could boast of having been a cinephile since the day I was born. The truth however is bland and stares me in the face. I am incredibly envious of those die-hard movie-buffs who fed off of cinema and scaled walls to catch the latest film in town. I have vivid memories of going to the circus that came to the Red Fort grounds and the puppet show in Sri Ram Center, but no such memory about going to the cinema hall.

I do remember the films that I watched as a child. Back then the fascination was with the stories and characters - not so much the medium itself. I was completely taken by The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. The musical was such a spectacle and it was thrilling to watch Julie Andrews and Dick-Van-Dyke do such wonderful routines to the music. The video-store near our house was a regular weekend haunt. VHS tapes of Tom and Jerry, Lion King, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Mr. India, Home Alone and much later, Lawrence of Arabia made their way into our home. There was also a most wonderful television channel called DD3 (Doordarshan 3) which showed films like Born Free and The Gods Must Be Crazy. But my engagement with the material was far less than with say, books, music and theatre.

The film appreciation course at NID in my first year was something of an eye-opener. We watched films like Jojo's Cafe and Wedding and standard film-school fare like De Sica's Bicycle Thief. Alain Resnai's hauntingly beautiful Hiroshima Mon Amour left me bewildered. It was so lyrical, so sublime and yet so powerful. There were other films and directors whose work I learned to appreciate and identify - Truffaut's Les Mistons, Ozu's Tokyo Story, Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou, Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers, Welles's Citizen Kane, Godard's Breathless and Weekend and My Life To Live, Ray's Aparajito, Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Modern Times, Antonioni's Red Desert, Resnais's Night and Fog, Kieslowski's Three Colours Red White and Blue,Almodovar's Talk To Her and All About My Mother, Scorsese's Raging Bull and Goodfellas, Vertov,s Man With A Movie Camera and Robert Weine's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to name a few. It was then that I began to really look at cinema. I saw it as the perfect amalgam of the great traditions in art, literature, music and theater. It was a social and historical document. It was unique in that it was imbued with the value of the fourth dimension - the dimension of time.

When I watched Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso, I felt a strange kinship with the little boy Toto who grows up to be a filmmaker. The enigma of cinema - the nearly magical projector, the sound of film whirring through it and the dancing translucent images on the screen - is hard to shake off once of you have experienced it. Today this romantic notion of film and cinema is being replaced by something far less tactile. Something that has changed the very foundation of filmmaking and has empowered many more people to make films. There is nothing even remotely romantic about digital technology. Nothing to touch and feel. No sounds that reassure. The world of objects reduced in one fell swoop to some binary code and little squares that are inadequate from the start.

I am in no position to speak of the joys of one medium as opposed to the perceived ills of another. I haven't had the opportunity to fiddle with a film projector or use the lithe video camera, almost an appendage of the human arm when in use, in diverse ways. I do not wish to debate over the subject of analog and digital - though it is changing the very nature of communication - because I am no expert. But I will say this - if i were to strike up a romance with one of the two, it would undoubtedly be the former.

Meanderings....

There are time when you can feel absolutely and completely alone while being surrounded by a sea of people. Your face becomes an inscrutable and unyielding mask that puts on the prescribed emotion as if on cue. But inside....its another story. There's a storm brewing. All purple rage and grey gloom.

You let your thoughts wander. Arbitrarily they make tangential connects. I was thinking just this instant of what Truffaut said about Renoir's films - "they're as simple as saying hello." How beautiful....how eloquent. And the next thought that trundles through my head is about the two goats in the phtotograph I saw and how they seemed to be smiling at me. Decidedly odd....

Solitude always meant something good. Something very peaceful. Something you experience as sharply as a moment of clarity and yet, paradoxically, as languidly as watching the sky change hues at twilight. In such a state the inane and the obvious details become infinitely more absorbing than the most bizarre other-wordly occurrence. Flies on the wall acquire such mystique and charm and grace that one could entirely forget their otherwise annoying existence.

Such is happiness - which i believe to be a sensation that originates deep inside the belly - a warm fuzz-like creeping sensation - always sneaks up on you and yet always manages to baffle, surprise and exhilirate.