Movie and Magic…

I finally know what I want to do…I might not be able to do it just yet…but I know now…and I know what matters…

Permanence and Uncertainty…

It’s a contradiction of sorts…and it’s me…there has been nothing in my life which has even a semblance of permanence…I start counting the days if not hours if something exists beyond a year in my life…and added to it I fundamentally believe there is nothing permanent…I mean what if a meteor strikes the earth tomorrow…where will all our future plans go…I seriously believe in the cataclysmic end…then why the contradiction…that’s ‘cause I also believe that we all need to have an anchor…some place, someone we can always go back to…a thread that runs through all your uncertainties and ties it all together…and if you don’t have it you are truly lost…but the fact is that this anchor doesn’t have to be external…actually it can’t be…it’s that place in your heart…the believe in yourself…but then again it is one of those catch 22s…you don’t get it if you keep on looking for it…and you get it the moment it becomes redundant…

बस यूं ही...

के आज हाथ थाम लो...एक हाथ की कमी खली...

यादें...

लिखना चाहा तेरी यादों को,
कुछ कही अनकहीं बातों को,
रेत के टीलों पे गुज़री शामों को,
रात से शर्माती सुबह को,
लिखना तो चाहा था...
यादों को लिखने लगी तो लगा...
मेरी कलम तेरा वजूद बन गयी है...
और स्याही में जैसे मेरी आज़ घुल गयी है...
दानिस्तः मैंने कलम को स्याही में डूबोया...
कलम जड्कने लगी तो स्याही और कलम जैसे एक हो गए थे...
फासला करती भी तो कैसे...
फिर सोचा की टीले पर जाकर वही सूरज को रेत में बदलते देखती हूँ...
शायद कुछ कह पाऊँ...शायद कुछ लिख पाऊँ...
पर सूरज की भी जात देखो...
उस दिन कम्भक्त ढला ही नहीं...
बस अपनी गर्मी चाँद को सोपकर जाने कहाँ गुम हो गया...
और में इंतज़ार करती हुई उसके पाऊँ के निशान भी ना देख पायी..
रात का आखरी पहर बचा था...
वोह भी बस चाँद का हाला बनकर मुस्कुराती सी मेरा हाथ छोड़कर चलदी...
सुबह तो वैसे भी रात की जाई है...
क्या कहती और क्या लिखती...

Avatar...the movie

Avatar is a sensational visual delight which will tease your senses…free your spirit as you waltz in the open spaces with natives…your eyes will pop out in wonderment at the delightful colors of lovely ethereal plants and strange animals…you will fall in love with the athletic, fast, earthy natives – but all for five minutes…

Remember star wars and Padme Amidala, young queen of the planet Naboo, remember Lord of the Rings and Tolkien and the whole new language he created and Peter Jackson who brought to life the magnum opus…remeber Pocahontas, the last of Mohicans, Dances with the Wolves...and innumerable others...

Well if you remember all that I doubt you will want to go and see James Cameroon’s Avatar…The visuals are no doubt grandeur but severely limited in imagination, the planet Pandora reminds you of the images you conjured up in your head while reading all those numerous Enid Blyton’s books…Remember making up various fairy tale creatures in your head (…you have to give it to the dame)…maybe it’s not all James Cameroon’s fault that all he talks about in his story has already been conceived and written about by a children’s author…now I do concede that he did come up with the hugely innovative concept of mining “unobtainium” on the planet Pandora…shrewd, money minded corporate at loggerheads with humanitarian researchers and savage mercenaries…added in good measure is the fight between the good and the bad, your own specices or the aliens...

All is not all that bad though…the precious connection that the “aliens” share with nature and the reverence to the spirit or gaya or ehwya as you would call it does inspire us to go green and think about the planet…Though I must say at the risk of sounding stale the tree the natives dwelled in did remind me of “The Faraway Tree” (…remember moonface, silky and Mr. Whatshisname)…I know I know…I grew up on a healthy diet of child fantasy…

The movie evaporates between the stunning visuals and mediocre performances…you leave the theater (and remember to watch it in 3D) thinking why you braced Friday night traffic to watch the movie in a theater which supports 3D and is about 20 kms away from where you stay…Its high time that the director of this and all such movies learn that no amount of visual extravaganza can replace strongly etched out charachters and a crisp storyline...

Seriously man…you need to take the audience seriously…all of us are not nincompoops…

जीने के करीने...

किसी शहर की गलियों या कूचों में...
कहीं झीलों तालाबों या नदियों की लहरों में...
डूबे हुए दिल की गहरायी में...
अतरंगी से ख्वाबों के हुजूम में...
किसी शायर की ग़ज़ल में...
किसी कलाकार के मुजस्समे में...
एक अधूरी लिखी कहानी में...
एक उलझे से किरदार में...
शायद मेरी आज़ में...

लेकिन...

आकाश बड़ा बूडा बाबा सबको कुछ बाँट के जाता है
आंखों को निचोडा मैंने बहुत पर कोई आँसू उतरा नहीं...

Books and Me...

I feel I am finally beginning to understand books and writing…the written word has always spoken to me more than the said word…I was a voracious reader once…now I am just a reader…but there’s a huge difference…I was overly critical…I would only read the works I considered genius…of writers who “I thought” understood more than everyone else…of authors whose words filled my head with boundarylessness…and so I restricted myself…but now I am more appreciative of the way someone writes…even a simple thought and idea if written poignantly can give rise to a thousand new ideas…I think I am “hopefully” beginning to appreciate that now…

My nemesis…

It’s pathetic to be low on people’s priorities that are high on yours. It’s a curse to think about priorities...

मायाजाल ...

हर सपना देखा सा लगता है
हर आइना बिखरा सा लगता है
तेरी नज़र मेरी रूह पिघला रही है, और
हर लम्हा बेमानी सा लगता है
मैं जहाँ थी अभी भी वहीँ हूँ
हर कोई जो पास था
अब धुंधला सा लगता है...

Long overdue…A movie flowing in frames…

I had written this ages ago...don't know why never posted it...anyways here it is now...

As I go about some of my fav blogs and see every one of them writing about Dev-D…I am engulfed with guilt of not penning my thoughts…

If there was ever any hype for any movie for me, it was Dev-D…having close to heart people closely associated with this movie…having heard awesome comments about the script, music, about the movie…I was just dying to see it…

I had heard the music long before the movie was released…the songs in themselves are addictive and psychedelic…so much so that I have heard the songs over and over again…and there is a song for every mood and (you discover later in the movie) for every character…the songs have so much of character in them that they tell a story even when you haven’t seen the movie…”hadh se behad hadh kar di”…need I say more…

The movie is radical in more ways than one…I will begin with the adaptation…having read the original book…having seen innumerable Hindi and Bengali movies on the subject, I still could not have predicted the characters in the movie…they have been adapted with such brilliance and honesty…things, feelings which are there, which we experience but hypocritical as we are, we don’t accept…I was amazed that the director could portray them with such panache….be it paro who is so in touch with her sexuality…or dev who is unapologetic about his addictions and way of life or chanda who discovers life and freedom behind a mask…there are multiple layers to every character…

For the first time I felt the Indian cinema broke the shackles of the plot and ventured into the actual realm of film making…it reminds you of Ingmar Bergman in “Through a Glass Darkly” or Alfred Hitchcock in “I Confess” (I know I repeat these way too often :) ) or Lars von Trier with his “Dancer in the Dark” or “Europa”…

The brilliance is in the making of the movie…the way the movie moved between frames for me flowing seamlessly was awesome…and the fact that the music was so much a part of the movie that you never realize that there are close to 18 songs there…there are scenes which are executed with no nonsense…all I know is that if I have to tell about the movie to someone I will just show some of these frames to them…

One must applaud the actors…Abhay Deol who could have easily let the role slip into that of a “pathetic sex addict cum drunkard and loser” brilliantly manages to internalize the character and deliver a performance par excellence and Kalki for the rendition of Chanda without guilt, with complete awareness of self, without being bogged down with stale morality and judgment…

Overall for me the movie brings o life what was missing from Indian cinema…

Selective Good...

Heard Sunita Narain on TV today… From what I understood before my patience ran out and I switched the channel that she is raking a campaign to regulate the colas and mineral water. The anchor asked her ( I think it was a viewer question, for we all know the IQ levels of the anchors) if we weren’t making too big a deal about concentrating on colas and mineral water when there were statistics to show that there were more toxins in the rice we eat than anywhere else in the world?

Now, I can assure you, you won’t be able to guess the answer to this one…

What I am writing here is not verbatim, but the essence as I understood…

It does not matter, the toxins in rice, because we are getting nutrition along with the poison. As long as the level of toxins is what our body can accept it’s OK. She almost justified the toxins.

How did we arrive at that logic, if it can be called logic? Why is it that every cause we take up and support is the one which will attract the most attention and the one which will lead to the minimum change, if any at all?

Since when did the “collective good” become the “selective good”?

Collateral Damage

I just caught some bits of the “Remembrance: Kargil” on a national television. And I was so shocked that I decided to check the entire show online to make sure that what I was hearing was just an unintentional slip. Alas! That is not the case here.

The entire show is despicable. And I am filled with this loathsome disgust which I normally feel these days when I watch any news channel. The de-humanization, the absence of any depth whatsoever, no argument, no logic, no essence, no point of view, and a pitifully hollow shell with no substance is what these programs have become today.

What is the one photograph that never goes away?

What about the smell of death?

Isn’t it ironical that you still love the mountains that so many soldiers died on?

There were no satellite uplinks and mobile phones then…how have the times changed…

The questions above are what this extremely popular TV anchor deemed fit to ask the soldiers who had fought during the Kargil war. The last one takes the cake – really – all that has changed from then to now is the availability of mobile phones?

And furthermore, she asks –

Has it been a difficult memory to live with?

Daaaaaaaaa…people died in front of him…by what stretch of imagination can that be an easy memory to live with.

I imagined soldiers to be brave creatures.

Creatures - really?

The woman did not ask even a single question which will tell the audience that she had any presence of mind.

And it goes on, the slew of inane, insensitive words pouring out of her mouth –

What do you think Vikram thinks when he hears you…twins have that thing no that they can hear each other even when not present

…is there any other synonym for “loathsome disgust” I can use here?

And this one leaves me completely speechless –

Now we approach tiger hill…would it have caught the public imagination in the same way had it been called rabbit hill…

And since when was this program about this anchor. I thought it was about the lives of these men and many more who lived, died and survived through the war. What about how their families have changed or their colleagues, or who came after them and heard of these heroes. The woman completely failed to bring forth the idea of how the war changed them as people.

There is a term we so loosely use in popular conversation these days Collateral Damage. To me it is the epitome of injustice that gets inflicted on humanity in the name of collateral damage.

But here watching this show all I can think is that the collateral damage in this day and age is the thinking power, the ability to feel pain, the sense of justice and the ability to reason.

Sex and the City

more wisdom from sex and the city...

in the end you always go back to your family...
sometimes its the one you are born into...
and sometimes its the one you make for yourself :)

i cant be more grateful to God...Thank you...

किस्मत...

कतरणें हैं रिश्तों की
चाहतों का ताना बाना है
मेरी किस्मत मेरे कल का कसीदा बुन रही है
मुस्कुराती सी मेरे आज पर...

Figment of my imagination...my reality

The smile that curls on his lips…And twinkles in his eye…His words…the intentional and unintentional humor…has me in splits…the riot of ideas…the sheer imagination…the thought itself has me glued…the songs he hums…his weird interests…his lack of any patience or loyalty to any idea or work…his narcissistic obsession with self…thoughtless words that can pierce your heart…never acknowledging…

an anomaly in my life…still an inseparable part of my life…

For dramatic effect...

on a cleaning spree...
the cobwebs...
the skeletons...
moulding fungus infected memories...

It’s time to start over…Dos and Donts…

• I don’t want to know anyone who doesn’t want to know me…
• I don’t want to know anyone whose name begins with “A”…it’s cursed for me
• I don’t want to have any of those so called friends who don’t bother
• I am not going to call people who don’t miss my calling them…
• I am not going to spend time logged in on Gmail or face book etc…

To be updated...

I give up...

रिश्ते...

हर रिश्ता चाँद से ट्पकी
सफ़ेद स्याही से लिखा लगता है...
या फिर लगता है जैसे
उथल पुथल मची हो एक गगरी में...
शायद एक कण में कायानत ढूँढने की कोशिश...
या साहिल की ओट में छुपी मृगतृष्णा...

रातों से लंबी रातों कि परतें...

The thought is very disjointed and i feel does not fully convey what i want to say...

रात को एक खिड़की से देखा तो बस रात इतनी गहरी थी की ऐसा लगा की रात की गहराई मी अंदर उत्तर गयी है...मॅन में एक हलचल सी हुई और ऐसा लगा की किसी तरह अपने को देखूं रात के बिना...फिर ऐसा लगा की रात की परतें हैं मेरे चेहरे पे और शायद और अगर में रात की परतें उतार दूं तो रात मुज़से अलग हो जाएगी...एक एक करके में रात की परतें उत्तार ने लगती हून अपने चहेरे से...पर परतें ख़तम ही नहीं होती...रातें ख़तम हो जाती हैं पर रातों की परतें अभी भी वहीं हैं...

छुपाया तो मैने ही था कहीं...

I think its very wannabe but since i wrote it i am posting it...

छुपाया तो मैने ही था कहीं
चीनी के डब्बे के पीछे
रात के सिरहाने के नीचे
एक पुरानी किताब के पन्नों के बीच में
या फिर बर्गद के पेड़ की जड़ों की ओट में
सपनों के सपनों में
तेरे कुछ कहने के इंतेज़ार में
छुपाया तो मैने ही था कहीं...

सफेद इन्द्राधनुष...

कितने दिनो से सोच रहीं हूँ की कुछ लिखूं...एक सपना जो एक रात को देखा था और जो मेरे ज़हन पे एक तस्वीर छोड़ गया...शायद अगर में कलाकार होती तो इस सपने को रेखाओं में खीच कर एक कॅन्वस में उत्तार देती... शायद शब्दों में वो सपना गुम ना हो जाए...कोशिश करती हूँ

मैनें देखा एक मिट्टी के मटकी रखी है...और उसमे इन्द्राधनुष के रंग भरे हैं...मैं उस मटकी के पास एक सफेद रंग की सारी पहने खड़ी हून...और मेने अपने सारी के पल्लू को उस मटकी में डोबोया...पल्लू मटकी से बाहर निकाला तो देखा की पल्लू अभी भी सफेद है...मैं परेशान होकर पल्लू ज़ोर से ज़टकने लगती हून और देखती हून कि रंगों की बूँदें पल्लू में से गिर रहीं हैं पर मेरी सारी का पल्लू अभी भी सफेद है...

ज़िंदगी जी लेते बस...

कभी कभी लगता है
ज़िंदगी जी लेते बस
गर्म गर्म शाख पर
पत्ते पिरों लेते बस
ठंडी नीली ल़हेरॉं पर
चाँद सूखा लेते बस
कभी कभी लगता है
ज़िंदगी जी लेते बस...

Catch 22...

There is very strange thing about friendship…the moment you let ego come in…you might as well call it quits…but the catch 22 is that all the people sharing the bond need to keep ego aside…even if not at the same point at least in turns…if the burden of doing that is only on one person then that does not work..

Why did I call it catch 22 is because “not letting ego come in” is absolute and not selective…so ideally you should be able to keep it out all the time…but we do not live in the ideal world and are not perfect…

When things go wrong...

Since nothing else is working I thought this might help. Listing down all the things not going my way which is giving me that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach:

1. My close friend for past couple of years just flipped over suddenly one day (just like A) and I have to internalize \ externalize \ rationalize \ make sense of it and live with it. Why such confusion in life? She is not my boyfriend or girlfriend…the fact is that I seriously believe in the concept that you need an anchor in life…someone you can always go back to…someone whom you know would always be there no matter what…be it parents or siblings or family or friends…and I seriously believed P was my anchor…and now it just hurts beyond measure to realize that it’s not so…

2. My job – not going anywhere, I keep on comparing myself to people and when I know there is no point…immensely dissatisfied and no faith or hope for the future

3. My recent accident just shook me completely – I realized that there not a single soul in the city I live in who will come to be with me not because I need it or because I have asked but just because I can do with some company…dealing with everything all alone…I know I can and I don’t need anyone to help me out here…but the realization that there is nobody hurts more than anything else…it’s a feeling of loneliness and a feeling that you are completely exposed is just too overwhelming

4. My sister is getting married…now why is that a sad thing…it just brought a contradiction and a hypocrisy in my parents character that’s I am just not able to take…so much so that it’s a humongous effort to even talk to my mom these days whom I love immensely…and try as hard as I might I have just lost all faith…

I don’t know what I am looking for here…I was hoping penning it down would be cathartic or maybe I was looking for some understanding from people who read it…I don’t know…

Spiral downwards…

I know I won’t do it but the temptation is great…sometimes it just seems like a chore to even open your eyes in the morning…in spite of doing everything I feel there is so much negative vibes in this house that it just does not feel comfortable any more…it’s such a shame when good relations go down the drain…maybe the expectations are too many or the communication is not enough…whatever be the reason…

The Truth is out...

Was reading New York Times today and picked up this quote:

“Fact is that this is a terrible way to make a living — except for the money,” Ken Miller, a former vice chairman at Credit Suisse First Boston and now a private investor, said. “The lifestyle is terrible — the hours, the sucking up. These guys must feel like they’re the victims of a capricious god.”

And I felt like saying, yippee! finally the truth is out…not that people didn’t know it earlier but no one had the @#$% guts to say anything…until now…

Rated below RNBDJ :(

I dont have time for you till my exams...

Got the hint...time to let go...

You have to be strong within...theres no other way...

I have again and again realized how people, once they know of your weakness or circumstances, don’t hesitate to take advantage of you; manipulate you or even just throw it in your face at the drop of a hat. Even the best of friends who seemingly are doing good out of the goodness of their heart – I attribute your behavior to your family circumstances…a perfect example of that…any close friend of mine knows about my “family circumstances”…but to throw it in my face just like that is so below the belt…that’s when you realize how important it is to be strong within yourself…but me being me…it hurts me deeply…

The minute things are a little less perfect I see the cover of calmness and control slip and what I see reminds me of the state of Voldermort in the last Harry Potter book…a pitiful contraction of the usual stronger self…why it bothers me so much? I know the answer…because I end up keeping people on a pedestal and when you realize that they are after all mere mortals no different than yourself…the realization instead of heartening breaks you…now there’s again no ideal to look upto :(

Khansamas...UB City...Bangalore

Yesterday J, D and me met for the first time this year and what better to do then to gawk at obscenely expensive clothes and accessories and top it up with a sumptuous meal…at least that was the plan.

The venue for this rendezvous was the new UB City in Bangalore…Now you know what I mean by “obscenely expensive” 

The first part of the evening was adventurous…we ventured into name less stores and looked through innumerable racks of clothes and shoes and jewelry…Every girl’s dream come true except that they were mostly un wearable and un affordable…sigh…
So after we were completely worn out we decided to head to this new place for dinner – Khansamas by the BJN group…some colleagues and online reviews highly recommended the place both for ambience and food…not wanting to spend time waiting, I had made reservations before hand and quite rightly the place was packed…after waiting for 10 minutes while the waiter was getting out tables ready we entered the place…the smell of the place was extremely appetizing and made you want to devour anything in the vicinity ;) we took some time ordering drinks…most of them were the regular drinks, no big surprises there…very surprisingly the number of waiters for the number of tables they had we really low…and as a result the service was actually pathetic…I don’t know if this is the regular feature or just some problem yesterday… the waiter who took our order for the drink brought only two out of three drinks after 15 minutes…and then we spent another 10minutes locating the waiter and reminding him that he had forgotten the third drink…we had ordered a regular chicken starter…and the starter was served but there were no napkins on the table…after again trying to locate the waiter I failed and had to finally asked the usher (I hope I am using the right word) to get me the napkins…this was a slight let down…and I don’t think throughout our stay there which was almost 2.5 hours anyone refilled our glasses…

Now coming onto the food…the menu is ok not too great…though there are a lot of vegetarian options…we decided to be adventurous and ordered a crab…I was going to try that for the first time but my friends were all out in their love for crab..so they specifically told the waiter to get the crab without the shell as (I discovered this later) eating with the shell is a nuisance…after a long wait we got our food which looked really appetizing…but we discovered that the crab came with the shell…after complaining to waiter we were told that there is no other way it could be cooked…so we dug into the crab…my friends guiding me at every step on how a crab should be eaten…and it was easily one of the best meals of my life  I loved the crab and the way of eating it…so what I enjoyed had nothing to do with the ambience…or the quality of food…but it was the company and the crab ;)

Though to be fair…the waiter was very polite and they gave us a complimentary crab dish which was without the shell when they saw us struggling with the crab…though the crab meat gravy was nothing compared to the original gravy we had ordered which was very yummm…

Coming to the ambience…the décor of very ordinary…the lighting was good though…but there were too many tables in too short a space and the whole place was way too noisy…there were some nice murals…the glasses were like old styled goblets and the cutlery was had a old jaded look to it…overall very ordinary and nothing creative about it…

All in all a regular place where you can have a good meal and happy times…but nothing extraordinaire…

Fight club...

I had of course heard about the movie before. And was told from one and all that its some sort of a cult movie…now I have a thing against generalizations like that, a movie can be a master piece for its script, superlative performances, editing, direction, visual appeal etc. but I don’t really understand this phenomenon called “cult”.

So last weekend I had a chance to watch the movie…I was quite skeptic…not sure what to expect…having seen Ed Norton in other roles I was at least hopeful from his performance and Brad Pitt can quite manage to act at times apart from just looking good on screen…

The movie was gripping from the very first scene…you don’t want to stray for even a moment lest you miss some important tidbit…the director and the editors don’t digress from the theme for even a second and the movie does not drag anywhere…when the realization of what has happened sinks in it is almost a “Eureka” moment for the audience…and you feel absurdly surprised and silly at the same time…like you feel after reading a Agatha Christie…the clues were there in front of you all the time…you just never pieced them together…Needless to say the performances were easily the best I have ever seen…even the role of the maniacal “Marla Singer” was performed flawlessly by Helena Bonham Carter…it had to be given the fact that the character of Marla is what ties the lives of Tyler and Jack…Ed Norton has played the quintessential yuppie who lives a cataloged life where days and nights merge without any meaning and each moment is similar to the other…Tyler Durden, on the other hand (played by Brad Pitt) is a man with a mission…who seemingly has realized the burden of consumerization that we carry and has broken free from it and now wants to free the world…reminded me of “Sam Lowry” played by Jonathan Pryce in the movie “Brazil”…the movie peaks with the twist that actually leaves you breathless…

All in all a brilliant movie not just for the script but the treatment and the performances…A must watch.