The journey within

Rock

2011-04-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

I have become a rock among rocks

Taking the heat of the sun

And expanding in silent contemplation,

But buried within are cold crevices

Where wet moss grows,

A den of worms and ants,

Where the suffering soul lies shrunk...

Tonight

2011-01-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

And tonight the clouds of darkness again,

Shall around my bed of dreams envelop,

And in a while it will begin to rain,

Leaving me lonely, wet and cold...

Lines of a lonely street prostitute

2010-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

I was a cigarette butt lying on the street
When you came across me
And while you could have walked past,
Crushing me under your feet,

You didn't.

You stopped, you stooped and you picked me up,
Blowing the dust away gently.
Then you lit me up again
And I flickered back to life.
You puffed on me happily
Until you burnt your fingers on me.
Now I am back again on the streets,
An ugly, burnt-out speck,
Hoping that someone who walks me past next time
Would be kind enough
To crush me under their feet...

Staring into an abyss

2009-09-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

I find myself staring into your eyes.
They smile at me, a hundred thousand bulbs
Seem to light them up…

Such is the glow that radiates
From you to me,
That it lights me up

And I smile back,
Am not myself now, I am you,
We are flying together, there we go!

I am imagining it all,
Your smile, the glow and the possibilities
That do not exist, but I see…

In a moment, we are apart,
And long after you are gone,
Your ghost follows me

It feels my skin,
Answers my desire,
Tells me all that I wish to hear,

Yeah…Wishful thinking, it is
I am staring into an abyss…

THE PRESENCE

2009-09-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem by Jane Bhandari, who lives in Mumbai... Re-read this today and felt like sharing it with all...

I have not seen your shadow yet,
But I hear you often.
>
The rain patters down
Like the rubber sound of your feet
>
Flip-flapping along the passage:
I hear you go outside
To smoke a cigarette.
The wind creaks the door:
It is the creak of your chair,
The little rasping click of the lighter
The screen door closing,
And the smell of the rain
Creeps into the room, almost
The smell of a long-gone cigarette.
>
I have not seen your shadow yet,
But I hear you often:
Your presence still haunting me,
A little bit, here and there.

MY FIRST SONG!!!

2009-06-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

This is a song composed by me. The voice and the lyrics is mine as well. Have never written anything in Tamil before. But here it is. My first attempt at song-writing and composing.

The recording was done at Sa Recording Suite, 5th Street, Dr.Subbaraya Nagar, Kodambakkam. Thanks to my friend Sreejith at the studio who helped me score the music for this song. Haven't uploaded the version with instruments because there is much more work left to be done in the song.

Please listen to this voice-only version and give your feedback! :D

Sookhi paati

2008-09-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

Kabhi sookhi paati se poochna, us oonchi daali ka choh
Bichud kar peele hone par, woh hariyali ka moh
Tan sookha hai, man sookha hai, par jeevit uski aasha hai
Padi hui hai gumsum si, par yaad abhi tak taaza hai...

Tribute to Mother

2007-04-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

This is an old poem I wrote for my mother. Just reproducing it here.

Let me hear your song again mother;
That song ridden with pain and agony
Which you have often sung to me,
For in hearing it I can feel the pain

Through which you have been all your life.
You think I will not understand it, perhaps,
For I have never experienced the same
But I promise I’ll listen to you with all my heart.

Mine are the same brown eyes, mother,
Wrapped in wrinkled eyelids. The same tears
Flow through them, those useless salted pearls:
Once a symbol of womanly weakness.

All you wanted was a bit of love, right?
A tender loving hand that would support you
In distress and pamper you with caress
And make you forget the world…?

But violent hands had bent you in force, they broke you almost!
I can see now how your mother (her tale another paean of pain)
Had thought you no less than a burden, only meant to wash
Clothes, cook food, be shut indoors and lay rotting thus for life.

You thought marriage would be a means to escape
From that house which overwhelmed you
With memories of a bitter childhood but
You only found yourself landing into further trouble…

For you became somebody else’s burden now
And your life became a monotone of melancholy,
Hummed in lonely corners of the one-room
Apartment where you spent eighteen years of life.

From that corner of your heart where motherhood
Lay rooted, and from the cracks that were formed
Due to suppressed desire, burst a fount of fury; you
Rebelled in silence, nourishing your womb with dreams…

And the sole aim of your life became the education
Of your daughters, to make them capable enough
So that they may lead a life of freedom and dignity.
Now, after twenty years of nurturing, I stand before you,

A different individual but your own reflection, all the same
With the same brown eyes, wrapped in wrinkled eyelids.
The same tears flow through them, those useless salted
Pearls. But today your daughter proudly bears testimony

To that legacy of patient suffering which you have bequeathed her.
I shall sing this song for the whole world to hear, mother.
But I wonder if I shall ever be able to sacrifice as did you
Or carry forward this legacy, this pillar of womanly strength…

The fragrance that remains

2007-03-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

The sun is down and the promenade at the Elliot’s beach is aglow under the neon lights. There is the caress of the breeze, the smells of fried fish, roasted groundnuts and maize, and the sounds, of chatter and laughter, of tinkling bells on vendor pushcarts and the whisper of the sea. Amidst all this is a boy with ruffled hair wearing soiled shirt and shorts, who would not quite reach up an ice-cream pushcart but stands eyeing all the women who are walking down the path. He would look for ones with long and neat hair. His aim: to make them buy some flowers. And Manian would almost always manage it well, but he hadn’t today.

The boy is as tender as the jasmine he sells. Yet there is this mature streak to his face that belies his age. Some young teenage girls even cast a slighting look at him as he runs after them, vessel in hand, calling, “akka, akka*!” despite the refusals. At ten, with three years’ experience in selling flowers, Manian says that he can tell from a girl’s face if she would buy the flowers or not.

“Oru ponnuku pottum, poovum vecha thaan azhagu”, he says (For a girl, only bindi* and flowers can make her beautiful). He is confident that this statement would compel any woman to buy flowers. And if the woman is still reluctant, he would persuade the man accompanying her, if there is one. “Make your wife or girlfriend happy today”, he would suggest smilingly.

At eight in the evening, with much of the still fragrant jasmine lying unsold in his steel basket, Manian says he is scared to get back home. “Amma adipaanga” (mother will beat me), he says. He points to a huge billboard at the turn of the beach road, featuring a model in pink, advertising an FM radio channel,

“I live under it.”

“Under it?”

“Yes. Our house is made of black plastic.”

He means a tent made of black plastic sheets. His mother is single (there is no mention of father, despite asking several times) and works as a maid servant in nearby homes. “She must be waiting for me”, he says anxiously and also explains why. The money he made today would decide how much they eat tomorrow. With tiny fingers, he carefully counts the notes and coins from his shirt pocket. “Twenty- two rupees”, he says nodding with disapproval.

“Will you buy some flowers, though I can see your hair is short?” he asks me.

“Yes, but first tell me have you been to school?”

He says he used to attend the Corporation School in Besant Nagar but dropped out after completing standard three. He scratches his head as he answers why, “The food was not good in school. I can make more money and eat better by selling flowers.” He cannot say what exactly his mother does with her earnings but he knows that she is struggling to pay the rent. The rent, he says is to be given to a tall and fat man with a thick moustache.

He looks around eagerly for customers. “There is a new boy and girl now, smaller than me”, he says with anger, “They sell 50 mozham* of flowers. And people don’t buy from me.” His face droops and he mutters to himself, “I must go early to Parry’s tomorrow and tie the flowers really fast. I must sell them before the other boy and girl could sell theirs.” He grits his teeth, “I can even beat them up but I don’t want to do that.” And he explains how girls are silly and would cry. When someone cries it makes him sad, he says.

“You won’t tell anything to the police, right?” he asks me.

“No. Why?”

“No. There are people who complain. Once there were men who shouted at my mother for not sending me to school. She had cried a lot.”

Manian would loll in the beach sands playing in the sun till about 11 in the morning and then take a 21D bus with other flower boys to the Parry’s market. He would look for fresh white and sweet-smelling flowers and buy them for Rs. 90 (it fetches him three kg); keep Rs. 10 for the thread, Rs. 10 for the bus fare and another ten for his food. He would tie the flowers, on his journey back in the bus which takes an hour and come to the beach by about 5 pm. He would return home after selling the flowers.

But today his basket is near full. There are more than 40 such children selling flowers on the Elliot’s beach now. As for Manian, he looks up at the sky now. There are several kites in white, with blue, green and orange bands on them, that flit across. “I wish these flowers were sold. I could have flown one too”, he sighs.

Glossary:

Akka- Tamil for “sister”
Bindi- a small colored ornamental dot worn in the middle of a woman's forehead, esp. Hindu and sometimes Sikh
Mozham- A measure of the arm from wrist to elbow. Flower sellers measure the length of tied flowers on their arms, usually.

Abyss

2007-01-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Was walking aimlessly one day when I stopped to stare at a profoundly blue sky. The sky was bright and beautiful, thanks to the generous sun that made it so. After a while my eyes began to ache so I rested them for a while. The sun went to sleep as usual too. The next day, when the sun was up and shining, I stopped again to peep into that deep hole above, stretching away endlessly.

The longer I looked, the more it seemed to reveal. Strange shapes emerged from it, strange symbolic shapes and I spent hours, trying to interpret them. But every once a while a cloud would pass by like a thought, from nowhere. The clouds, I think, were laughing at the foolishness of my pursuit.

This staring at the sky went on for a few days. I kept searching for meanings in the weird symbols that it showed every time I looked into it. But it seemed to take me nowhere. There was nowhere to go, really. The sky is only an abyss, my mind told me. A voice warned from within, “The deeper you look into an abyss the more it drags you in. BEWARE!”

It can get dangerous at times. Terribly dangerous. Especially when you are the only one to believe there is something, and the only one to see those signs. It is better sometimes to leave the unknown somethings behind. For those of you, who think chasing wild ideas can be fun, let me warn you: DO IT AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Alter ego

2006-12-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

I stand before the mirror

Not seeing myself, but another-

Pallid skin and bloated eyes,

Red from crying; cold as ice.

From the heart of my being

Come echoes of cries

Thoughts, incomplete or left behind,

Forever haunting the mind.

Who are you that trouble me the most?

Seeking the truths I cannot find?

A wizened voice tells me, then:

This searching self is your alter ego:

You cannot erase, you cannot hide.

Unnamed

2006-12-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

Clouds envelop

The yonder sky

And blue goes grey,

Neither black nor white…

It will rain, it will rain

She hopes again and again

The angry cloud

Roars and flashes light

She crouches in fear

Her lips held tight

It will rain, it will rain

She hopes again and again

She waits unquenched

With skyward eye

The ruthless clouds

Would let her die

It will rain, it will rain

She hopes again and again

There is no water

The wells have gone dry

In the month of monsoon

There is famine

She tries not to complain,

She tries not to whine

It will rain, it will rain

She only hopes again and again…

Cry of the Lark

2006-12-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

The night lark hides

Amidst a thick of green.

Her throat chords torn,

She fails to express love.

A mad moon laughs,

Filling the sky with electric light.

A jarring voice resounds-

Sing you no more can!

Last Resort

2006-12-23T04:20:00.001-08:00

When all doors are closed

And the night outside

Is a mess of hail,

Chill and dark;

The blood stops running

The wind feels harsh

And life’s all pain,

A sore throat’s bark;

When you long for warmth

For hands that love

For eyes that care

For that live-giving spark

But you find none,

A bald moon stares

And the trees all bare

Look eerily stark;

Let feet take you then

To that lone street corner,

Where you had grown,

So familiarly known;

And there you shall find,

A girl with open arms

Waiting to receive,

Your last resort.

Transition

2006-12-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

The sky is a bride of beauty,

Hennaed maroon.

The wind sifts through the leaves

Playing a tune.

The trees are guests of honour

They stand and watch.

Until the sun begins to sink

And the sky goes dark.

Unnamed

2006-12-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

The light has gone

It’s dark here

Remember the times

When things sparked here?

In this lonely sea-side

Watching the waves dance,

Their gesture to the skies

Of happiness unbound,

We moved to its rhythm

The rocks pricking our bones,

The sand smooth and warm

Was a blanket to hide.

Today in this lonely sea-side

I feel lonely

No people around,

Just a few dogs looking for bones

And I for you…

Bubble of dream

2006-12-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

Come hither

O! sky with no seams

And in you I’ll float

My bubble of dreams

Let the wind of time

Take along its flow

This dream of mine

And let it grow

Oh! Pop not, Change

This bubble of mine

For herein I live

But for it, I’ll die…

Madness

2006-08-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

A lazy moon reclines on clouds

With eyes of empty dreams afloat

It is three ‘o’ clock

The sky is red

From moony eyes that have cried

And bled…

A breeze blows by

And with its touch

It reminds her self of nights gone by

Spent in wintry solitude

Among lovers,

A bed of clouds….

She is tired of making love to pillows

That lie beside, like dead wet clouds.

The sky is a mirage, she tells herself

And the moon will hide, when there is light…

Longings...

2006-08-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, less is more... I have tried to express in few words here, a complex emotion.

The ache of an unfulfilled desire

Wrecks me, consumes me, it sets me on fire...

O serpent thine apple’s increasing lure

Has filled me with venomous desire…

On Remembering You

2006-05-11T03:33:00.000-07:00

A lone heart had once sought solace in your companionship.
There was poetry, there was love, and there was joie de vivre
In our newfound relationship.

I saw the world through your eyes, through your senses
Found perceptions new, a new language I think I’d learnt
In those days I had spent with you.

That language was of an equal soul, whose utterance only we
Could interpret, a secret code of private meanings it was,
Oh! I lost it and ever shall regret.

The thrumming of my heart strings, have they reached you yet?
Here, the silent groans from a painful sting and the sorrow of your neglect
Remains, it is the only thing…

Watching Clouds

2006-05-07T06:44:00.000-07:00

Watching the clouds form shapes
Keeps our imagination engaged

So we watch them pass by every day,
Conjecture an elephant, a bird or a babe

And are content with what we find
But others refute our ideas-

“See, your elephant, it lacks a tail!”
Or “Your bird, it seems, has no wings…”

And we think again and again
Trying hard to call that cloud some name

Something we hope would never change
But clouds, they never stay really the same…

And when we’re simply tired of trying to trace,
Meanings we leave just unclaimed

For the sky is open, a bright and blue blank page
Where clouds we sight only to watch them erased…

ARTifice

2006-05-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

If there were an art
To hear but not to hear
To speak but not to speak
To feel but not to feel
To see but not to see
I could never have mastered one…

For my art- my poems, my words-
Hears the unheard,
Speaks the unspoken,
Feels the unfelt,
Sees the unseen…

And so, a whole world out there stands laughing at me,
A fool, I never learnt to ‘simply ignore’…

Soliloquy

2006-04-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

The moon is a desolate dream
Carved on the sky’s black surface:
Marble white moon, your hardness
Stifles the night wind’s breath.

Look up, O! Forlorn beauty,
Your sulking makes the night still worse,
How you gleam in your borrowed Lights
With nothing to claim your own!

Your dreams are somebody else’s
Their realm elsewhere doth lie:
Night after night, you watch them go
Hiding their darkness in a sheath of glow…

Has the Generation Truly Awakened?

2006-03-26T23:47:00.000-08:00

On the 26th of March, a write-up of mine appeared in the Open Page section of The Hindu. I'm putting up an extract here on the blog. You can click on the link if you wish to read further. Kindly communicate your feedback to me. I'd love to know what you think or feel!

I BELONG to a community of Indian youth that believes in steering clear of any form of socio-political participation primarily because there are better things to do in life — study, earn a degree, get a job, get married perhaps and while away spare time watching TV (not NDTV but MTV), hanging around coffee shops with friends or best, flirting. But sometimes this other voice within me grows so loud that it hinders the path of hedonistic pursuits. Read More...

Blogs: Boon or Bane?

2006-03-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

A letter that I had written to The Hindu got published in the Metroplus section under the Voice Your Views column that had its topic as "Blogs: Boon or Bane". To read my letter kindly click the link below that leads to the web edition of the paper.

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2006/03/22/stories/2006032200530800.htm

You can check out the other entries as well. The response to blogs as such were positive only and many agreed that blogging was indeed a very useful activity to pursue. All bloggers are welcome to share their views regarding blogging here.

Reflections: On My 21st Birthday

2006-03-16T08:40:00.000-08:00

Another year passes by and I,
A year and twenty now,
Am a fledgling yet,
Yearning to scale the imaginary skies.

The world without is unknown still,
A mystery lying hung in the mind,
The closer I get to solving it
The further it slides off behind.

And then this world that imagination spins
Out of its inner spool of words,
Spread their wings and flutter about
Like tender, unlearned birds.

An adult in the wide world,
And a child yet within,
I balance on this tight-rope called life:
Every Step now has to be measured with care,
Every Hope built in the face of despair…

My B'day was on the 15th of March.

My Reaction to the Varanasi Bombings

2006-03-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

Sacrilege

A small town that stood by the Holy River’s banks
Had become the hub of pilgrims, joining higher ranks.

The river that turned northwards, homewards here
Was sacred, utterly pure, a miracle so clear!

Hands joined in prayer and knees bent in humility
In its ancient temples, the throbbing heart of divinity.

But explosions of hatred have rocked the town, this day,
The purpose of our prayers defeated, have led but to dismay.

O! What sacrilege, in the garden of love now weeds of poison spread:
A child’s laughter, a mother’s cry lie silenced among the dead…

The river flows, as usual, she bears the burden of timeless Truth:
This Life must turn to ashes and tread holy waters to find its soothe…

6/3/2006

A Momentary Revelation

2006-02-18T07:38:00.000-08:00

While waiting under a lamp-post
I saw a host of beetles around it,
Flapping rapid wings,
Enchanted by its glow,
The glow of the lamp…

Standing below, I saw as well, its shadow,
And viewed in it the private darkness
In which the light doth wallow…

Stasis (For Sylvia Plath)

2006-02-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

a bright, bright star
that gleams in the sky
looks small to the eye
but is a big ball of fire;
its energies full and flowing,
deplete, first a blaze, then, a
narrow gaze; it consumes itself…

a gust of light is now a pile of dust,
burnt up self, powdered to death
all all, all that was, nothing of it remains.

what remains is the stasis,
stasis in darkness,
no star, no light,
only a coal black sky
bereft of life
stretching away endlessly…

The word ‘stasis’ and the phrase ‘stasis in darkness’ are from Sylvia Plath’s poem “Ariel”.

Testament of a hopelessly hopeful dreamer...

2006-02-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

I have left those paths behind,
Those paths redolent of dreamy mornings
When a half awakened consciousness precluded hope.

There were times I turned to them,
To where once a story that had begun in innocence,
Was sheathed in autumn leaves and slowly frozen to death.

On one of those early mornings,
When insight played games with present reality,
You were there on the path, waiting for me to come.

I came across as a stranger,
Who was familiar, as a future unknown
Yet anticipated so much so that it didn’t surprise when it did come…

Those paths redolent of misted reality
Now trail at the back and before me the clear light
Of dawn breaks; I wake to my dreams and live in them…

Ambition

2006-02-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

Ambition swells like a tide within,
Macabre and morbid are its ways.
I mull and moan before giving in…

Happiness is not what it wants,
It wants only sorrow, blooming black,
Like a lovely flower meant to attack…

I only wish I could be the thorn
Living defeated ever, torn and thrown away it is
Yet better than a jaded flower…

Unheard melodies

2006-02-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

It is the season of unheard melodies,
Of words unspoken, unrhymed
That ring in the eternal void of life.

It is the season of unremembered memories,
Forgotten, yet haunting the mind,
That dwell in the eternal void of life.

It is the season of unexperienced pain,
Of vibes traveling from corners, unknown,
That remains in the eternal void of life.

It is the season of unexplored love,
Of this ache that fills up within, unknown,
That becomes the eternal void of life…

Fight against child abuse

2006-02-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

This came to me as a forwarded email. The Blue Ribbon is a logo/symbol used by child abuse activists, similar to the Red Ribbon symbolising AIDS awareness.

This poem sensitises people to the horrors of child abuse.

Sarah

My name is Sarah
I am but three,
My eyes are swollen
I cannot see,

I must be stupid,
I must be bad,
What else could have made
My daddy so mad?

I wish I were better,
I wish I weren't ugly,
Then maybe my Mommy
Would still want to hug me.

I can't speak at all,
I can't do a wrong
Or else I'm locked up
All the day long.

When I awake
I'm all alone
The house is dark
My folks aren't home.

When my Mommy does come
I'll try and be nice,
So maybe I'll get just
One whipping tonight.

Don't make a sound!
I just heard a car
My daddy is back
From Charlie's Bar.

I hear him curse
My name he calls
I press myself
Against the wall.

I try and hide
From his evil eyes
I'm so afraid now
I'm starting to cry.

He finds me weeping
He shouts ugly words,
He says its my fault
That he suffers at work.

He slaps me and hits me
And yells at me more,
I finally get free
And I run for the door.

He's already locked it
And I start to bawl,
He takes me and throws me
Against the hard wall.

I fall to the floor
With my bones nearly broken,
And my daddy continues
With more bad words spoken.

"I'm sorry!", I scream
But its now much too late
His face has been twisted
Into unimaginable hate.

The hurt and the pain
Again and again
Oh please God, have mercy!
Oh please let it end!

And he finally stops
And heads for the door,
While I lay there motionless
Sprawled on the floor.

My name is Sarah
And I am but three,
Tonight my daddy
Murdered me.

There are thousands of kids out there just like Sarah. And you can help. Please help fight child abuse.

Swimming Against Tides

2006-02-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

The river of life flows on, uninterrupted,
Yet, some there are who dare to swim
Against the tides of the time.

A Medieval world, darkened by ignorance,
Witnessed the birth of a humble boy,
Whose Virgin mother was unusually so
And her son, the son of God.

He taught the world to look within,
To look for that ray of light, that shined eternally
But was hardly seen, in a world of eternal blinds;
He had changed the people’s minds.

Yet here was a world, that wouldn’t cure itself
For it loves its incurable disease
And the physician, none but within its self,
Failed to bring any ease;

In the meanwhile, the Lamb was sent for slaughtering…

Many such lambs, many, many came to this world and went
And the world goes on, forever and ever, without a care for them.
They are the venerable saints, the icons of faith, glorified, idolized,
But kept so far that in the whole wide sky they are but a twinkling star.

So the river of life, goes on uninterrupted,
Unaffected by the small counter tides;
The small ripple loses its stir in the all-encompassing Deluge…

Jamshedpur & the Tatas: A story worth listening to...

2006-01-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

This article by Suhel Seth that had appeared in The Asian Age (dated 6/5/2004) and rumored to be an account by Lakshmi N Mittal of Wipro and circulated in corporate offices' private mails is a piece worth being read...

I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept alive the legacy of perhaps Indias finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tatas but in hindsight, the best thing to have happened to the Tatas isunquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration. For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known for industrialunrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess in the rest of the country.

This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I asked Mr Muthurman, the managing director, as to why he was so quiet about all they had done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all.

They have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed. The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Russi Mody. But the plant this time was gleaming and far from what it used to be.Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no tired faces and so many more women workers,even on the shop floor. This is true gender equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists.

I met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There wasa spring in the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of how boring and decrepit the Lacklustre Fashion Weak was. It is at times such as this that our city lives seem so meaningless. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and who doesnt'. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old values intact and this is what I learnt. Which is exactly what the Tatas have done for years in and around Jamshedpur. Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as aUN Global Compact City, edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore. Selected because of the quality of life, because of theconditions of sanitation and roads and welfare.

If this is not a tribute to industrial India, then what is? Today, Indian needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this Jamshedpur to be given its fair due, its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being publicised to theInfosys and the Wipros of the world. Modern India is being built inJamshedpur as we speak. An India built on the strength of coreconvictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla. Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evilpoliticians only talk about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt: Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. Buttoday, they are brimming with a confidence that will bring tears to your eyes. It did to mine. One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery competition. They have their own womens football team and whatsmore they are now fond of education. It is a passion and not a burden. This was possible because I guess people like Ratan Tata and Muthurman havent sold their souls to some business management drivel, which tells us that we must only do business and nothing else.

The fact that not one Tata executive has been touched by the Naxalites in that area talks about the social respect that the Tatas have earned. The Tatas do not need this piece to be praised and lauded. My intent is to share the larger picture that we so often miss in the haze of the slime and sleaze that politics imparts. My submission to those who use phrases such as "feel-good" and "India Shining" is first visit Jamshedpur to understand what it all means. See Tata Steel in action to know what companies can do if they wish to. And what corporate India needs to do. Murli Manohar Joshi would be better off seeing what TataSteel has done by creating the Xavier Institute of Tribal Education rather than by proffering excuses for the imbroglio in the IIMs. This is where the Advanis and Vajpayees need to pay homage. Not to all the SaiBabas and the Hugging saints that they are so busy with.

India is changing inspite of them and they need to realise that. I couldn't have spent a more humane and wonderful weekend. Jamshedpur is an eye-opener and a role model, which should be made mandatory forreplication. I saw corporate India actually participate in basicnation-building, for when these tribal girls go back to their villages,they will return with knowledge that will truly be life-altering. Corporate India can do it but most of the time is willing to shy away.For those corporate leaders who are happier winning awards and beinginterviewed on their choice of clothes, my advise is visit Tata Steel, spend some days at Jamshedpur and see a nation's transformation. That istrue service and true nationalism. Tata Steel will celebrate 100 years of existence in 2007. It won't bejust a milestone in this company's history. It will be a milestone, to my mind of corporate transparency and generosity in this country. It isindeed fitting that Ratan Tata today heads a group which has people who are committed to nation-building than just building inflluence andpower. JRD must be smiling wherever he is. And so must JamsetjiNusserwanji. These people today, have literally climbed every last blue mountain. And continue to do so with vigour and passion. Thank god for the Tatas!

Rang De Basanti- A Generation Awakens

2006-01-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

Saw the movie Rang De Basanti yesterday and found it to be simply brilliant for several reasons.

The movie addresses issues that concern the youth in contemporary India
The movie portrays aspects of India’s Freedom Struggle rather objectively; there is no villainization of the Angrez and unduly glorification of the Indian.
The movie has permanent values to offer to the audience, which unfortunately not many Bollywood movies emphasize on these days…
The movie’s crisp editing helps maintain the flow of the story than marring it.
All the roles have been played to perfection by the actors; especially Aamir, Atul and Siddharth whom I felt were the best.
The music is apt for the movie and enhances its richness.

Rang De Basanti raises several questions with regard to the meaning of freedom and how the present day youth in India perceives its own history (often glorified in school textbooks). The movie starts off with Sue, a documentary film maker in London, reading her grandfather’s diary, who had been one among the representatives of the British Raj in India. His account of the fierce determination of the Indian freedom fighters, unshaken by the cruelties of the jail authorities and happily sacrificing their lives for the national cause, leaves a lasting impression upon her. She decides to shoot a documentary film based upon her grandfather’s diary in India but unfortunately her ideas are not welcomed by the production house in London with whom she is associated. Sue decides to accomplish the task all by herself and comes down to India without a second thought.

But in India she confronts a world, utterly different from that India of courage and sacrifice which she had read about in her grandfather’s diary. The youth, she realizes, are a bunch of cynics, who are carried away by Western culture and have little regard for their own tradition or history. In fact when she proposes DJ (played by Aamir) and his friends to play the role of freedom fighters in her film, the idea is received with sarcasm and laughter but later on they agree to work on it.

Slowly as the movie proceeds we see that DJ and his don’t-care-attitude-donning friends have begun to think and act differently. Playing the roles of Chandrasekhar Azad (Aamir), Bhagat Singh (Siddharth) and Ashfak (Kunal) in Sue’s movie, they become familiar with the story of India’s freedom struggle and this surely has its impact on the fellows. When their close friend, Ajay (played by Madhavan), an honest son-of-the-soil unlike them, dies in an MiG crash, all due to the lackadaisical attitude of the Defence Ministry, the idea of revolution and fighting for a cause becomes meaningful to them.
Individuality is freedom lived and these group of friends understand it no better than now, when they have the opportunity before them to assert their freedom. Ajay’s mother, played by Waheeda Rehman, Sonia (Soha Ali Khan, Ajay’s fiancé) and DJ & co organize a silent protest march on the streets of Delhi, asking the Defence Ministry for an explanation as to why MiG aircrafts are being manufactured with poor quality materials which is the main reason why many air crashes are taking place but the Defence Ministry deploys police personnel in the area and brutally attacks the protestors, in an effort to muzzle them.

Ajay’s mother runs into a coma due to severe head injuries and the other protestors too get wounded. Somehow this particular scene brought to my mind the recent Honda episode in which the workers silently protesting against the company’s labour policies were brutally beaten up by the police in Gurgaon. It isn’t too difficult to see the obvious nexus between political parties and heavy-pocketed MNCs that mint money using Cheap Indian Labour. The truth remains that anyone who raises his voice against injustice is considered as a miscreant by the powers-that-be and suppressed gradually.

Atul Kulkarni, who is a political worker, realizes that his own party leader and mentor is a bikaau (susceptible to being bought by money) and that all the party’s so-called idealistic slogans are a mere eye-wash. He is thoroughly disillusioned and decides to achieve his end by his own means. He grows closer to DJ & co now.

In a fit of fury, the friends decide to kill the Defence Minister, who they realize, can manipulate any situation with his political clout and get away with lapses. They decide not to forgive the corrupt minister, for putting the lives of young military officers at stake thus, and then spoiling their image by claiming them to be rookie pilots, who drive carelessly.

Very similar to the manner of approach of the freedom fighters, these young men, on a lazy winter morning, shoot the Defence Minister. Siddharth’s father, a politically influential man, is also connected with the Defence Minister’s corrupt work and Siddharth soon realizes this putting him to death that day at his home.

The movie ends on a tragic note when the young revolutionaries are shot dead in the All-India Radio station where they manage to narrate the story of their freedom and courage to the whole world. These young people are not terrorists who attack innocent people but believers in the religion of liberty who’d risk even their own lives for the sake of delivering justice. Through the media the message reaches to all that the struggle for freedom has not ended with the achievement of political freedom in 1947 and that every individual must continue to fight for his individual rights and thereby assert his freedom against the oppression of Government. The struggle for freedom is therefore a never-ending one in the history of mankind…

The movie is really an inspiring one. But I wonder how many will actually take the right lessons out of it. The movie had problems with the censor board and it isn’t difficult to ascertain as to why… It speaks the truth.

Those who have seen the movie are welcome to post their comments here.

Tribute to Mother

2006-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

Let me hear your song again mother;
That song ridden with pain and agony
Which you have often sung to me,
For in hearing it I can feel the pain

Through which you have been all your life.
You think I will not understand it, perhaps,
For I have never experienced the same
But I promise I’ll listen to you with all my heart.

Mine are the same brown eyes, mother,
Wrapped in wrinkled eyelids. The same tears
Flow through them, those useless salted pearls:
Once a symbol of womanly weakness.

All you wanted was a bit of love, right?
A tender loving hand that would support you
In distress and pamper you with caress
And make you forget the world…?

But violent hands had bent you in force, they broke you almost!
I can see now how your mother (her tale another paean of pain)
Had thought you no less than a burden, only meant to wash
Clothes, cook food, be shut indoors and lay rotting thus for life.

You thought marriage would be a means to escape
From that house which overwhelmed you
With memories of a bitter childhood but
You only found yourself landing into further trouble…

For you became somebody else’s burden now
And your life became a monotone of melancholy,
Hummed in lonely corners of the one-room
Apartment where you spent eighteen years of life.

From that corner of your heart where motherhood
Lay rooted and from those cracks that were formed
Due to suppressed desire burst a fount of fury; you
Rebelled in silence, nourishing your womb with dreams…

And your sole aim in life became the education
Of your daughters and making them capable enough
So that they may lead a life of freedom and dignity.
Now, after twenty years of nurturing, I stand before you,

A different individual but your own reflection, all the same
With the same brown eyes, wrapped in wrinkled eyelids.
The same tears flow through them, those useless salted
Pearls. But today your daughter proudly bears testimony

To that legacy of patient suffering which you have bequeathed her.
I shall sing this song for the whole world to hear, mother.
But I wonder if I shall ever be able to sacrifice as did you
Or carry forward this legacy, this pillar of womanly strength…

Certitude

2006-01-27T06:22:00.000-08:00

Certitude is a scarce element
Like the rare gases;
Only a very small proportion of it
Exists in life.

What is essential keeps eroding
Like the range of fold mountains
That grew tall in time
And in no time will fall.

I have read about Angara
And Gondwana land
And Tethys Sea in between,
That vanished in time…

The mighty Himalayas grew there,
Rising from nowhere,
And it’s so mighty now
That we look up to it.

The sea was sucked in, the lands moved apart
Some of it remains, maybe,
None of it remains.
(Who knows why? Who knows what?)

Nobody cares to know
For life is running fast,
Like tectonic plates
Something within forever is moving apart…

What mountains are these
That rise between us
Within us, without us?
They are so tall, so tall...

Perhaps they will not remain,
Time’s hands will render their coarseness
Smooth; we shall hate them, yet love them
In spite of ourselves. And we must.

And there is only this certainty
In our perennial lives,
That these changes will keep
Changing constantly …

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past- part 6

2006-01-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Think I’ll conclude now with this poem that I wrote in Calcutta on 28th Dec, 2005:

Coming back

Life was moving ahead,
Hopes were high,
Dreams dreamt in lonely corners
Were becoming true;
I came back to you.

It took me a long time to realize
That every moment, once it is lived,
Is gone, but not lost. It remains somewhere,
Buried within the forgotten layers of the mind
Until we experience it again and every single
Moment to us comes back…

These tiny bits of memory
Swirl within our minds,
Whirl among our thoughts.
They are like the wrecks of an old ship
That lay in the wide sea drowned
And in time’s tide to the surface
Keep coming back…

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past- part 5

2006-01-23T06:32:00.000-08:00

Little Things Remembered

There are aspects of day-to-day life that become so much a part of our life that we often end up taking them for granted; but in revisiting Calcutta, I recollected certain things that were such intimate aspects of my life, that their very reminiscence brought me joy. I remembered what Jai Prakash, our Bihari milkman and a taxi-driver, had once said about me. He used to regret about my loosing milk teeth as a child and having permanent ones because he felt it spoilt my beauty (actually I have slightly protruding upper front teeth!J) I met his family this time; they are still put up in Pappad Galli only (a lane in Lake Gardens where hand-made pappads are manufactured in a house and left for drying out in the sun).

I remembered my immediate neighbours in Calcutta, Mr. & Mrs. Chowdhurie, whom we used to call Bada Mama and Bada Mami. They were Biharis speaking Maithili at home. Both their sons were doctors and married to doctors too. When I used to suffer from convulsions, as a baby, their sons took great care of me. Bada Mama used to love me and my sister a lot. He would call sister, Indira Gandhi, and would call out to me, “Bidiya Gadatha Biniyam”. Only God knows what that meant, maybe a Maithili vulgarization of some Sanskrit saying uttered in order to irritate me; the first word coinciding with my name Bidiya (Vidya)... He was a man of weird habits; a great fibber. He would often tell us stories of winning the Ranjit Trophy in cricket, of shaking hands with Gavaskar, etc, much to our amusement! He had a mocking tone in speech and often addressed my father as Kalua (Hindi. “blackie”) as he was dark-skinned. Even as a child, my blood used to boil with rage, when he addressed dad thus, but dad never seemed to mind much; ‘cos they shared a very good rapport. Bada Mama would often invite him home to have a few pegs of whisky and do gup-shup. Bada Mami used to carefully place a plateful of fried groundnuts on the low table to go with the drink. And I used to stand and watch all this, relishing the groundnuts, but at the same time cautiously counting the number of pegs of whisky that went down dad’s throat, so that I could go back home and give mom accurate reports of how much he drank…! I heard that the Chowdhurie’s are somewhere in Patna now; there is no news from their end.

I remembered going to Safari Park close to the Jogger’s Lane by the Lake. How I used to eagerly wait for mom to wake up from her afternoon nap, and quickly get dressed by 4:30 pm so that we could go to the park! I used to love the small hill there which sis and I used to compete to climb up fast. There was a huge sand pit too, in which I used to build my dream castles… and of course the usual swings, slides, see-saws and all the child’s innocuous games…

I remembered savouring those exquisite Bengali sweets. Behind Bangur Park, in Lake Gardens, is a Mother Diary milk booth where sis and I used to go together in the evenings to buy milk and there at times, we used to relish the packed mishti-doi (sweetened yoghurt) available in various flavours. This time I went with my cousin to Bancharan’s sweet shop in Gariahat, hailed to be one of the best dealers in pure milk sweets and relived the experience of relishing creamy mishti-doi (a more traditional preparation, this one) and spongy soft roshogullas… it was yummy! This time had gulabjamuns too, asli Bengali ones, at Srinka’s place. Oh, how much I miss those sweets here in Chennai, also raajbhog, cham-cham, potol sweet (esp. the ones from Bharatmata in Lake Road), and many more…

I also remembered, most fondly, going to school (National High for Girls in Sarat Bose Road) with my friends. For a brief while dad had arranged for a school-van driven by a Bihari man called Raamlal, but later on, when dad found out that he made the children push the van when there were upward slopes on the road, he stopped it. From then on we only walked to school. It took about 15 to 20 minutes by walk. Sometimes in the event of getting late, due to oversleeping in the morning, I used to take a hand-rickshaw from the stand that fell on the right side, soon after the teen-number railway crossing. But now the hand-rickshaws have been removed from there; there is a taxi stand instead.

This time, I walked through those lanes again and it was sheer joy! The crossing the teen-number gate, walking past Lily Pool, walking past the Dhakuria Lake, walking past the Jawaan Stall which sells extremely well-made egg rolls (yumm!J), crossing the Southern Avenue Signal, walking past Maharani’s Tea Shop, walking past Khushboo, the shop that sold gift items, crossing the Gariahat mode (crossing) with tramlines running across, walking past Deshapriya Park and the long row of shops on the foot path by the side, glancing at the sky every once a while, wondering if its silence was also secretive as mine and reaching school at last … of course with the coming of the flyover in Lake Gardens, the road routes have changed a bit, yet the touch of the past still remains. How do I express to others what strange satisfaction I had in walking past those familiar places again?

School was closed for winter vacation, so couldn’t meet my old teachers. But remembering school, I remembered my friends, the best of whom was one Srinka Mookerjee, a rotund, five-feet three inches tall, fair-complexioned, wide-eyed girl with wild curly hair, colored jet black. She was the only daughter to her parents, lived in a joint family and was much pampered and protected. But Srinka was an intelligent girl, popular in school for her leadership qualities. She became the school pupil leader too. Srinka is important to me because she was my first friend in life, right from Kindergarten to class 9 (about 14 years) we studied in the same school, same class. The first friend is always a golden treasure in one’s memory books… when I left Calcutta; I scarcely had an idea as to how much I was to miss her. So, coming back this time, the very next day, I went to Srinka’s residence at Tilak Road, behind Deshapriya Park. Unfortunately she was not at home then. I got her number from her dad and met her two days later.

Together we recollected the days when I used to go to her place to relish fish curry. I used to love having cooked rice with maacher jhol (fish gravy) and Srinka’s mom knew that pretty well. Srinka always used to come first in class and I stood second. Once when Srinka had malaria in 4th standard, I came first instead of her. Such was our friendship that I couldn’t tolerate taking her place and cried for days together mourning over it…Srinka’s eyes beamed in delight and a lovely smile streaked across her face, every time she remembered some of the incidents that had happened in school, “Hey remember that boy Brahmadev? We used to tease him as Brahmaputra naa?” and we both would go hee...hee...hee. We also recollected how she used to be the class leader and me, the assistant leader; we used to bang the duster on the table (to maintain silence) and write the names of disobedient students on the board if they made too much noise. Many a times, the principal used to declare the class “Noisiest of All” and make us all stand up on the bench holding our ears… But those were the days of innocence, days of sheer fun…

We spoke about the present too- about coping with life, present education, future career and everything else that had to be caught up with in these five years’ gap. Things had changed, of course, but still we hadn’t lost our old rapport. Srinka expressed great surprise when I told her that my first book of poetry was awaiting release from Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata. She requested me to recite one of my poems and I recalled from memory, an old piece named “Gratitude” which she listened to with genuine pleasure. It was really great being with her, remembering school, remembering old friends and those days of complete innocence.

There are just so many things that I had remembered, like this, while in Calcutta- memories spanning fifteen long years that have formed an unfathomable depression in the mind. Some of these are memories that I don’t even remember now. Flashes of the past just went across my mind, made me stop for a while and reflect, and then vanished again… I don’t think it is possible to list them all here; it’d take too long then, maybe an entire lifetime…I have been writing this piece for the past two weeks, squeezing out time as and when possible and have not been able to stop!

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past- Part 4

2006-01-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

Mu-maa

I would love to tell some things about Mu-maa. Her proper name was Kajol. She was a woman of petite built, dark-complexioned with small, sunken eyes and high cheek-bones. Her teeth were stained red from chewing paan but her heart was crystal clear. She had been our maid-servant for fourteen years, appointed at the time of my birth to help mother with the household chores. Mu-maa would sometimes not wash the utensils properly, requiring mom to wash them all over again, yet mom kept her for work, because, she knew that she was very honest. She never stole money or gossiped about our family matters outside. But often Mu-maa brought interesting stories to entertain mom from other houses…Mom’s favorite tale was that of pagli Boudi (‘Pagli’ meaning mad and ‘Boudi’ a respectable form of address for adult women in Bengali). This pagli Boudi was perhaps widowed and took to drinking due to the poor circumstances of her life. But women in the neighborhood had made her the butt of their gossip. Mu-maa would often whisper confidential matters into mom’s ears and I used to crane my neck towards the kitchen in an effort to hear!

Mu-maa used to take me in her arms and we used to go out for tata. She loved me a lot and often brought sandesh (a Bengali milk sweet) and taal-mishri (sweets like kalkand made from palm jaggery) after doing puja in the temple. Also during the festive season, Mu-maa used to bring a bottle of aalta (a red colored dye) and paint designs on my palms and feet. She liked to decorate me because I was fair. Often as a child I used to talk to her in a mix of Bengali, Hindi and Tamil! I was a very imaginative child and often framed my own imaginary characters and stories about them. One such character was a funny Lokash. Mu-maa would patiently sit with me and hear my Lokash stories and the little poems that I made in my strange undecipherable tongue…I was very small then.

So that was about Mu-maa. There are so many other things that I wish to tell but the details are so blurred in my mind that I can’t frame them exactly in words. Nevertheless, I really cherish these small memories; it is the secret bureau with golden treasures hidden in them…

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past-Part 3

2006-01-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

The Cost of Living!

Now the basti has been completely removed from there. The eviction process, a long drawn one actually, had been completed only three days before my reaching there. Even the small basti dwellings near Charu Market had been destroyed, said Maanta, the doe-eyed girl in the neighbourhood. It has been proposed that a road be built running parallel to the railway track connecting Lake Gardens to other points in the city. But frankly, I feel so long as the basti was there, it formed a protective covering around Lake Gardens. Now if a main road is built along it, with the easy connectivity, the area would become susceptible to attacks. Earlier there used to be small incidents of theft or robbery here and there, now there’ll be crimes of larger proportions. There have already been many such cases in the recent past. A Marvadi woman was shot dead inside a shop in broad day-light in Lake Gardens last year. Looting is on the rise. It had sent a chill of panic down people’s spines. The tailor, Mullick, too was threatened by the goondas for hafta (money as grant) so much so that he had to vacate the shop. Earlier when such incidents took place, people conveniently pointed a suspicious finger at the Bad Basti Chaps (BBC). Now when such incidents will rise numerically (and they already are), where will they point their fingers to? The basti is gone…

But many hold opposite views too. These are the ones that innocently believe that all will be right now. They feel that the basti went for the right reasons, for it has put an end to the menace of the basti people. But I have my own doubts. The basti people were poor and miserable and even if there were crimes, they were small ones, but now with a main road running so close along the railway track, there are wider opportunities for the criminals to explore and it is not too difficult to imagine too. At least the basti, spread out along the tracks, blocked the residential plots inside, now with this layer being removed, the residential plots will lie vulnerably exposed…

I think this is the right opportunity for me to reflect upon the current issues relating to Calcutta. Development projects are being initiated by the Government that benefit the rich but deprive the poor of their opportunities. Economic liberalization has had its impact everywhere. Whole lifestyles have changed and therefore, the need to move along with the times has affected Calcutta too. Old babu moshai is shedding his old Socialist mentality now. Like any other metro-city, even in Calcutta, the cost of living has gone up. While coming by train, I was telling my train friends that Calcutta was a city for the poor man, it had a large heart, was accommodative, etc.etc. But traveling by taxi I realized as to how the prices have actually gone up. Five years back I remembered myself paying ten rupees for traveling from Lake Gardens to Deshapriya; this time I paid twenty bucks. Only puchka was as cheap as before, as for the other things one can’t say… Earlier when prices were hiked in Calcutta, the Government used to crouch in fear, anticipating a public strike and violence all over the city. I remember how once, when there was a hike in bus fare, angry commuters along with some Party protestors had burnt down many buses! But now the people there know only too well that the cost of living is surely going to go higher up and that nothing much can be done to either withhold or revert the process…

When I was coming via taxi from Howrah Station to Lake Gardens, I was stunned to see as to how the city’s exterior has undergone a complete transformation. We took the Toll road along Vivekananda Setu (the 2nd Howrah Bridge) and the flyover that commenced thereafter was simply brilliant. I don’t remember going via that route before. The city had surely become more polished or so it seemed to my eyes. As long as I was living in Kolkata, I had been a frog in the well, smugly satisfied in my cozy Lake Gardens. So I hadn’t explored much of the city then. The few areas I was familiar with were Lake Market, Gariahat, Ballygunje, Jodhpur, Russa Road, Sarat Bose Road & Hazra.

This time I saw as to how the city had been influenced by the wave of globalization. Plush shopping malls were mushrooming everywhere. In fact, to Mrs. Bannerjee, the latest excitement is the recent coming up of a departmental-cum-luxury store called Arambaagh in Lake Gardens and an upcoming Mall, hailed the largest-to-be in Eastern India, close to Prince Anwar Shah Road… My cousin, who lives in Ballygunge, showed me the Gariahat Mall, while we were on our way to Gariahat for shopping. It stood tall, flanked by ad-hoardings of Westside. I had raised my eyebrows and said,”Not bad! Apna (Hindi. Our) Kolkata is improving yaar!!”

But it is the other side of development that one gets to see in such events as the eviction of the basti. I wonder if I sound like another Arundhati Roy, talking about the perils of capitalism and Globalization, but this is nevertheless the truth one has to reckon with. As capitalists intrude into a city, the poorer sections loose out on their space. I guess, right since the basti came into existence, the Government knew that the occupation was illegal, but the authorities slept over the matter and Mamta Bannerjee and her like vociferously exploited the slum-dweller’s cause to gain political mileage, but, the sleeping ones opened their eyes, all of a sudden, when the need to makeover the lazy city’s image became pressing. In a developing country, foreign funds are attracted by fashioning the image of a city, like the clothes of a model. Slums and the people living in them are unwanted elements; they are like the scraps that need to be removed and dumped in order to keep the city clean. And foreign investment won’t happen in unclean cities…

So Mu-maa is gone, along with the basti…yes, when the eviction had become an obvious reality, the likes of Mu-maa had to vacate. Lake Gardens is now becoming a haven for the rich, for those who can go to Arambaagh and buy luxury items. Right opposite to Joy Villa now, there is a multi-storied residential complex coming up. “A lot of multi-storied buildings are coming up in Lake Gardens”, said Bannerjee uncle, beaming with pride. That is really the first sign of capitalistic development, the Real Estate industry flourishes as the bourgeoise and upper class scramble for space in the city and in this scramble Mu-maa loses out space, the basti loses out its space. I heard from Mu-maa’s daughter, who is thankfully still there in Lake Gardens in an old dilapidated house, that Mu-maa had retreated to her village in Bankura and so did most of her family. The alternative accommodation provided to them by the Government was too distant from the city (somewhere near Garia) and it’d become impossible for them to retain their jobs in Lake Gardens, requiring to travel so far…

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past- Part 2

2006-01-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

Going Back

The fifteen long years of association that I had with Calcutta led to a familiarity which I’d not been conscious of until I went back to this city. Each time a familiar face greeted me with a sweet smile or expression of surprise, kemon aacho? and all that, my heart went out instantly to them. This was the place I’d left behind, the people I’d separated myself from and little had I realized that this would turn into a huge crater that could never be filled up in my life. Readers may feel this a bit too exaggerating, but the truth is that when one begins to identify oneself with a place and its people, a strange sense of security develops from within and often displacement can put one off balance. Regaining one’s inner sense of security in a new place, among unfamiliar faces can be quite a challenging task.

Even today in my dreams when I visualize home, the picture of the one-room apartment in Lake Gardens which had given me shelter for fourteen years appears before my eyes. In a few months, we would be shifting to our own two-bedroom flat in Chennai, but that is only a house…home was in Calcutta, in that literally toota-foota (broken) one–room apartment where water used to leak from the broken ceiling when there were rains…

The brick-and-cement structure that was home to us was originally a godown which our landlady used as a store-house. When my parents moved into that house, I was yet unborn. The godown’s tin roof was replaced with a false ceiling, its walls patched up with some cement, its floors cemented as well, and brick tiles were placed above to form a gabled roof. Fine, it was a live-able house now. But there was a natural enemy who lived up there. A tall coconut tree spread itself right above our house and every time its huge fruits turned ripe, it fell right on top of the house, breaking the brick tiles and creating fissures, sometimes even craters, on the surface of the ceiling and therefore providing ample scope for water to seep in when there were rains.

As a child I used to love the rains (and still do). The best thing about living in a house with a broken ceiling facing the wide and open sky is that one need not step out of the house to enjoy the rains. Tiny droplets of water used to fall from different points into the house and the favorite pastime of my sister and mine was to carry small vessels and catch the falling drops to fill up as much water in them as we could. I used to love the music of water droplets falling on the steel vessel.

When our landlady, addressed to as maashimaa by all in the neighbourhood, refused to cooperate with regard to the maintenance of the house, my father, a typical Angry Young Man, began to pay the rent to the High Court instead of the house-owner as an official record of the sufferings that were borne by us during tenancy. Maashimaa was not a bad woman, my mother used to tell me often. She was old and wretched and could have been convinced to come to our rescue if dealt with in the right manner. In the manner of most old people she required some coaxing and cajoling, but dad was the type who wouldn’t bow his head before anyone. He only believed in giving an ultimatum before launching a foray…and because of the case running in the court, the rent also remained low; a few hundred rupees only…

Anyway, today this is history; history that has no official document to prove its relevance but for the memory that lives in the mind…and before this memory gets erased, I thought I’d better capture them in words. Maashimaa is no more; I think she died when I was five or six years old. She was survived by two daughters who still live in and around Lake Gardens only. Between us, today, there is immense cordiality. Once we vacated this house, we became friends with our house-owners. Separation has a strange method of reconciling relationships. This time when I went to Lake Gardens, I stayed with the elder daughter of maashimaa, whom we address with love as Popla aunty. Her husband, Mr. Bannerjee, is a very cordial man, aristocratic in demeanour. At their place I enjoyed the warm hospitality that is the highlight of their culture and utilized all the opportunity I had to reconnect with the city and the locality, in particular.

A lot had changed about Lake Gardens…the biggest change for me was that within the innermost compound in Joy Villa, once consisting of a huge building and our house, a separate structure crouching behind it, was now situated an Ashram. And there was not even a trace of that brick-and-cement structure which had once been home to us… only a long tennis table sprawled across that piece of land. The verandah in the front of the bigger building, where we all used to sit when there were load sheddings in the evening and all neighbours together used to play anthakshari or do gup-shup, was now converted into a room, kept closed when I saw it... The huge ground in the front, thankfully, was still there. It reminded me of all the games that we used to play as children there, catch-catch, chain-chain, hide-and-seek, even cricket at times (in which I was always declared doodh-bhaat or dummy player!).

There were gardens on either side of the compound with beautiful trees and flowering plants. There was this tree with multi-colored leaves, the dominant color being a deep sort of red that stood out elegantly on the left side garden, now no longer there. A tall mango tree rose behind it, whose unripe fruits, the children from the nearby slum used to stone and pick to eat. But it had now been chopped off. A petite jasmine tree with tender white blossoms stood at the back side of the garden, and close to it was also a jackfruit tree; nothing of which remained now... On the right side garden, right in the front, used to be a tree with huge lemony fruits, which in Tamil is called bablimaas naarangai. That tree died a natural death it seems; its roots had rotted… The garden on the right side was not a well-maintained one and therefore grew to be a home for wild botanic species and some animals too. And this garden ran along the walls of our home upto some length. So mice of all sizes, great or small, lizards, mosquitoes and cats were regular visitors to our house! These mice used to store their food at the corners of the roof of our house and could often be spotted running along the electrical wiring from the back of the shelves up to the roofs…!

It was indeed a big jolt to my heart when I found that the house was no longer there. Nor were the trees which had been my friends once. There used to be a shed for keeping cars on the right side before the garden, even that had been removed and the ground had been extended for the Ashram’s children to play. The truth is: sometimes even the relics of the past don’t remain; only their ghosts lurk in the mind…

Behind this compound was a basti or slum which was home to a number of poor people migrating from the villages. Even our Bengali maid-servant, Murari maa (Murari being the name of her elder son, she was called Murari’s maa or mother) lived in this basti. For the sake of convenience we used to call her Mu-maa, an abbreviated version of Murari maa!

Now that I have mentioned the basti, how can I not talk about the romance of the railways! Oh yes, the local railway station that was some 3-minutes walk from home; the railway tracks running right in front of the basti (the basti itself was an illegal occupation of the land belonging to the Eastern Railways) and at the back of our humble abode, along with the passing trains, had literally interwoven itself with our very lives. The heavy goods trains made a thunderous noise along with a trembling of the floor and the walls between 3:00 and 5:00 in the morning everyday. There used to be three goods train and the last of them, crossing past us at about 5 was my mother’s daily morning alarm… I recollect now how once, my sister had read a geography lesson on the Earthquake, the previous night, and thought the earthquake had really hit, when the 3 o clock monster had shriekingly halted by for a while!!

Calcutta Sojourn – Following the Trails of the Past- Part 1

2006-01-23T06:26:00.000-08:00

Before the gulf between Calcutta experienced and Calcutta remembered widens, I’d like to ink down whatever my heart longs to say with regard to my recent visit to Calcutta. This particular piece of writing is less an account of my week-long stay at the place from 24th Dec to 30th Dec, and more about my childhood association with this city.

I was brought up in this city of large-heartedness, this city that puts on a façade of joy to hide the sorrow lying beneath…Five years ago separation came when my family moved to Chennai as dad had got a job transfer. But this December, when I’d the opportunity to visit Calcutta all by myself, the experience was thoroughly refreshing and provided ample scope for personal reflection on the years that had been spent. The city in itself was redolent of my childhood and early adolescence, a rather impressionable phase of one’s life.

I could somehow relate this experience of going back to Calcutta to meeting an old intimate lover. A string of memories were my sole possession and almost no physical evidence remained to testify the relevance of the relationship that had once been. I had lost the love with the lover when I left it. Time’s axe had rendered such a strong blow that only bits and pieces of the past remained and I had to bend low to gather them all…

I wonder why one must adhere to such perceptions as “familiarity breeds contempt” when the whole angle of viewing is negative. I’d rather put it this way: “understanding leads to evolution”…for the more familiar you become, the more you understand or at least make an effort to understand and when this happens, a relationship evolves…and as long as the persons involved are enjoying this process and benefiting from it, there can be no room for contempt. I realized these truths only after I went back to Calcutta this time. I know, I know, it is Kolkata now, but I’d still prefer Calcutta, I like it better!

Meeting Professor P. Lal

2006-01-23T05:20:00.000-08:00

This was the original purpose of my going to Calcutta this time. Professor P. Lal- the doyen of publishing when it comes to modern Indian Writing in English, widely responsible for popularizing it worldwide through his Writer’s Workshop- had invited me to one of his Mahabharata sessions at the G.D.Birla Sabhaghar in Calcutta, when he wrote to me, having agreed to publish my first book of poetry “Voice of An Anonymous Poet”. I could not miss the opportunity to meet this living legend for I had already read a few of his poems featured in Saleem Peeradina’s anthology of Indian poets and was greatly impressed. In fact, more than his own poetry, the poetry of the writers whom he published is better-known. We have Keki Daruwalla, Vikram Seth, Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra and many more.

I was amazed at the simplicity of his working. At 86, Prof. Lal retains a school-boy’s enthusiasm when it comes to poetry writing and publishing, and his words are wells of meaning, from which one could simply keep drawing. At the 308th Mahabharata session, held on 25th Dec, 2005, a host of contemporary writers were present, which included Joe Winters. Professor Lal’s English transcreation of the Mahabharata is a boon to English literature. This epic, pregnant with meaning, has been rendered so straight and simple by the Prof. that anyone can read and benefit from it. And it was a pleasure listening to Prof. Lal’s narration of the epic. His years of experience as a teacher of English literature had surely sharpened his ability to actively interact with an audience and communicate lofty ideas with ease.

Later, when I met him at his residence, in his study room flooded with books from ceiling to floor, he told me about his love for the Mahabharata as it could provide him with permanent human values unlike much of the pulp fiction that is churned out by publishers today. Prof Lal is a strong critic of present day publishing practices. He talked about the dilution of literary principles, etc. One thing that I could see was his unflinching and undaunted adherence to integrity in the profession.

His advice to me was to continue my writing and keep working hard at it, for poetry requires faithful devotion. He quoted Pope and said that constant practice was essential to sharpen one’s poetic skills. I took the advice happily (I had half anticipated that this was coming!). I was actually a bit shaken up by his strong traditional views, but I had to respect them all the same, for he was ripened by age and experience, unlike me…

The Poet-Warrior

2006-01-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

Voices sounded the clarion call,
Words I wore as armories
And I found myself trudging
Into unfamiliar territories.

With coloured dreams in my eyes
I moved ahead, head held high,
Not knowing that there was a price
To be paid before I could sigh.

I fought like a warrior with the world
Flashing the might of the pen;
I seized the moment in my hand
Just that the end was beyond my ken.

At Twilight

2006-01-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

The sky is mad at twilight,
A confusion of colours,
The deepening red of a blush
Blights the vastness of fading blue…

Such is the rapidity of change,
When the sun is plunging down,
That the sky gets flustered,
Suggesting helplessness.

It is not that the sky does not anticipate,
But it only knows too well, that seasons
Of the dark, however unwelcome,
Are sure to have their spell.

The Season of Winter Madness...

2006-01-11T05:44:00.000-08:00

The season of winter madness soon returns;
Crinkled yellow pages of a poetry book
Upon the wooden table’s chillness burns.
Thoughts are fogs wherever the eyes look

I search for words among ashes on the floor
The wind whistles impatiently at the door
Eyes are tired in seeking light from the sun
The self is a battle; I wait to see who won.

Only this single question, where are you?
Forever and ever is lurking on my mind
I wish someone will help an answer find
For every reason brings its questions anew.

I turn, at times, to what was said before.
Nothing, oh nothing ever was fully true
Only shards of truth that prick the inmost core,
Heaps of broken images that Time accrues.

All, all, within this frozen mind
Crackt under the force of the torrid wind;
Till this winter’s madness is left behind,
Comfort, you must only come from within.

An evening by the sea-side

2006-01-02T02:51:00.000-08:00

This is an old, old poem of mine. Written sometime in 2003. Quite a puerile attempt but nevertheless sincere in its feelings...

An evening by the sea-side

Kissed by the sun setting in its crimson glory,
Spangled the billowing sea waves
And the sky above held a view
Kaleidoscopic- bright pink, azure and some grey;
love feelings were wafting in the air…
Slowly the bright star sank down that line
where the sky meets the earth everyday.
I sat observing these scenes in solitude,
when caressed the tender breeze as do you.
In those hours of twilight, with approaching night,
As the silhouette of palms grew dark,
Reached to a crescendo the song of the lark,
Life stilled amidst the sands of gold
And I thought of you, just you…

Lines written on seeing a cow

2005-12-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

What conspiracies are you hatching silently inside that big, horned head of yours?
I can see you have been contemplating on some serious issue for quite sometime.
Is it the scarcity of fodder that has been bothering you or your master’s tyranny?
The having to feed on wall posters sometimes, eating out of dust bins and getting whipped…

I can understand your problem dear but tell me is this any solution?
You lift your wiggly tail upwards just when I’m about to cross you by
And splash hot, thick yellow urine right in the middle of the road;
Now what point is it that you are trying to get across, eh ?

I want you to use a little bit of commonsense now. Is your mooing and dunging
And peeing in public gonna do you any good? You only end up messing the streets
Our Government lays after much deliberation. You may claim your liberty to raise
Your tail as a mark of protest for all the pains that you undergo in everyday life,

But I will not tolerate your non-sense darling, I can’t take your shit and crap!
Oh! How you remind me of these politicians who mess up civilian life for their own Cause…

Musings: On Watching 'Meenaxi- A Tale of Three Cities'

2005-12-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

Sometime in January this year, I had been asked to write a short report on M.F.Hussian’s art exhibition at the Lakshana Art Gallery in Mylapore, Chennai. As a tribute to M. S. Subbulakshmi, on hearing about her death, Hussian had created a portrait of hers which came to be talked about widely for its artistic virtuosity. I still remember how brilliantly the diamond nose ring shone in that portrait signifying M.S.’s own brilliance as a living legend.

It was my first brush with Hussain’s works (of which I’d only until now heard stories) and frankly speaking also my first attempt ever at writing an art review!! But luckily the editor had asked me to keep the write-up short so didn’t have to struggling with it but visiting the gallery opened up to me a whole new world of imagination- the imaginative realm of a man, who had spent a great numbers of days working as a poster-painter, living amidst filth and squalor in the streets of Big Indian Cities. I was wonder struck to see some of his paintings.

From what I recollect now, there were amongst other paintings ones that depicted the Culture of the Streets, with Cinema posters on walls and their larger-than-life images being juxtaposed with ordinary life on the streets. The color and the contrast were inventive and every picture was a statement in itself sketching the invisible line that separates reel life from real life. Though I am not a very discerning critic of Painting as an art, I do understand some basic elements that pertain to any Art and could therefore arrive at my own interpretations of the pictures. I had also keenly perused some lovely picture-illustrated books on ‘Gajagamini’ and ‘Meenaxi- a Tale of Three Cities’ which attempted to convey the gist of the movies along with interviews of their creator.

Today, I saw the movie Meenaxi for the first time and was enthralled by the vivid imaginative realm which Hussain has explored in it. The movie was a flop I think and quite naturally so because such movies are meant for the “Classes” and not the Masses… Sorry for sounding elitist, but then a movie that explores the intricacies of the novelist, Nawab’s mind, that is immersed in a fictitious world and has imaginary conversations with his characters, Meenaxi and later Maria in the movie, cannot be understood by all. There were brilliant insights into the workings of a creative artist’s mind in the movie and so brilliantly portrayed that I could almost relate to Nawab and his dilemma.

Nawab’s dilemma is something that every true artist, be it a writer or a painter or a musician, would have surely faced in his/her life and that is the pursuit of The Elusive. When locating Truth in ordinary day-to-day life becomes almost impossible, the artist takes recourse by fleeing into his own imaginative world. Here all impossibilities become possibilities; the corporeal emerges in the shape of the incorporeal and every experience becomes more real than reality itself. It is this idea that Hussain explores throughout the movie.

To Nawab, his character Meenaxi is a riddle and she is the Elusive whom he is in pursuit of. The evasive nature of the character symbolically represents the evasive nature of truth itself. It is tantalizing, for the closer we go the farther it gets. Meenaxi (played by Tabu) tantalizes the writer and haunts him in his moments of loneliness. The writer initially promises Meenaxi, in one of his imaginary conversations, to write a story of her life, but slowly as the character evolves she takes over authority and the writer is unable to proceed with his story according to “his will”. Here, I was reminded of what Dom Moraes had said in the Preface to a collection of his poems once, “We (as in we poets/artists) serve a ferocious master.” True, for when Meenaxi, the character begins to gain maturity in the novel, she begins to impose upon the author so ferociously that he gets stuck with his writing. Meenaxi would now like to have her own way with the story and the author succumbs to her demands. The idea of surrender is subtly brought in.

But before we go further into that I’d like to mention as to how Nawab discovers the male protagonist of his novel, Kaameshwar. Nawab comes across this guy, who is in real life a car mechanic, in the middle of the road involved in a brawl, during one of his drives to his Haveli. The Nawab approaches him to repair his car and investigates into his personal life to get to know him better and later on makes him the protagonist of his novel. I liked this portrayal because any writer would have done this that is to capture snapshots of such characters in the mind, which evoke our curiosity and then give them shape through our writing. I did that with my short story Shanti, where this character was actually a lady I knew in Kolkata, who lived in our neighborhood, whom I often used to brood over; I never quite understood her queasy silence and much later built a story around her in Shanti (she never actually killed herself, it was my own invention!).

Anyways, coming back to Hussain’s Meenaxi and the Nawab’s novel, the story explores the colorful landscapes of three cities Jaisalmer, where Meenaxi belongs to and Kaameshwar lands up; Hyderabad where Kaameshwar comes from originally; and then Prague where Meenaxi becomes Maria cast in a new mould. Actually Nawab’s first manuscript is destroyed in the fire when he fails to proceed with the story of the novel. Here is where the Nawab builds a story of Meenaxi and Kaameshwar in love portrayed against the colorful life in Jaisalmer. The car-mechanic guy is shown as enjoying the company of Hyderabadi prostitutes in a harem which maybe considered as a way of escaping from the travails of a mundane life. But here it is a little doubtful if it is the guy himself who is imagining or actually shown as visiting the harem or it is Nawab who imagines this… at times, the narrative tends to blur the thin distinction between reality and fiction and I’d say rightfully so because for any writer who is completely absorbed in his writing the line between reality and fiction becomes blurred and everything appears as one and the same. Self-oblivion is a significant experience for any writer to be able to accomplish his Deed in the best manner possible.

The Nawab reinvents Meenaxi as Maria in his novel, now shifting the entire locale to Prague, portraying her as a theatre actress and a part-time waitress. Kaameshwar comes to Prague and meets Maria and they fall in love. The Nawab’s effort to rebuild the novel in a new fashion depicts his single-minded pursuit in unraveling this enigma called Meenaxi who is able to meld herself in whichever locale she is placed against and comes out with newer aspects that delight the novelist. The story of Meenaxi is for sure, one that would grow forever and never conclude, which is why the novelist is unable to put a full-stop to his novel.

Another interesting facet that is subtly brought to light is that Nawab’s own fascination for this enigmatic character Meenaxi is depicted through the character of Kaameshwar. This idea confirms to the fact that every author uses either one or many of the characters within his story as vehicles to carry his own personal feelings or emotions. This is often implicit and subtle enough so that the readers might not be able to see through. Kaameshwar’s poetic verses written in dedication to Meenaxi and later Maria are nothing but veiled expressions of the Nawab’s own attraction for Meenaxi.

The Nawab in his effort to do justice to his novel is shown as labouring under the shrewd master Muse’s instructions and in an ultimate act of surrender hands over the whole story to Meenaxi herself who was his sole source of inspiration. For a brief moment one may think that the Nawab has died in the midst of trying to finish this never-ending story but it is only a transformation, from the fictitious world, he closes his eyes briefly and comes back to the Real world and discovers his mother and sister standing by his side… the self-oblivious phase is now over and the story stands abrupt, incomplete.

In the final act, the Nawab raises some pertinent questions with regard to his pursuit. He asks, “Am I the one to pursue the idea or is it the idea that pursues me?” (This is just a close translation of the Urdu dialogue). And he envisages before him Meenaxi, the character born out of his imagination, as in the first scene, draped in immaculate white, peaceful yet provoking standing face-to-face. He asks her, “Who are you?” She smiles and says, “I’m Meenaxi…”

The movie ends on this note but it leaves many questions unanswered. Even the little answers that Hussain does provide are embedded with questions hidden deep within its many layers… all in all one may conclude that the Elusive only remains elusive forever; the search is what really matters and it must be faithfully carried on.

Dead End

2005-12-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

I set out on a long walk
One night, don’t know why…
I thought I could reach the places
For which others wouldn’t even try.

I kept walking relying upon
My sole confidence,
Battling the midnight darkness;
No moon peeped out of the sky.

The air was thick with mist,
I thought my tears hung frozen there.
I hugged myself for some warmth
To melt the biting frost within.

In silence I walked past empty roads,
Only a dog or two laid there.
I stumbled upon a rock, its noise
Inviting an unpleasant stare.

Even dogs didn’t like to get disturbed,
For peace they were willing to fight.
And here was I, disturbed and desolate,
Not knowing wrong from right;

Venturing into dark lanes, where dim
Street lights formed shadowy lines;
Watching the night creep eerily about,
Watching my lone self lose sight;

Until a towering wall had arrested
My progress by the bend,
And there was no prospect of further
Movement; I had reached the Dead End…

The unknown presence

2005-12-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

I think I have been living in a castle of reasons
To which I am the volunteered satrap,
amidst isms, mere human abstractions,
shaping the world with thoughts, my own creations.

For I have indeed become oblivious to the world.
What world is this that lives forever unknown?
Our questions rebound bringing no answers back.
As to what I think I have been losing track.

There are realms by human knowledge unexplored
to where this puerile mind does often drift.
Quite unlike in the clasps of a rigid society,
Where an eager child lives with murdered curiosity.

I have questioned the basis of Truth
And urged to know the purpose of Science
But I found no answer convincing enough,
For the more I brood, the less I seem to find…

This proud human race boasts of achievements
Of discovering things and all that it invents,
But nothing has ever been enough to ascertain
where the souls departing from this world went...

This lack of answer fills me from inside,
Like a vacuum, its pressure builds steadily within.
I twitch uncomfortably from side to side
Seeking desolate corners to run and hide.

An unknown presence fills the frigid air;
it looms about like a ghostly augury.
Someone, cold as ice, as if is watching
from the folds of mountains, distant, somewhere.

What do these dark forests hide in them?
What mountains are they that rise above so high?
What secret harbours this unrelenting sky?
These questions only echo as silent cries…

In an effort to seek answers I have come here,
climbing mountain paths like some old seer.
I'm faced with but the quietude of the skies:
The presence before which all absences die…

This improvised version has some inputs from a friend. Many a thanks to him!

The Truth About Poetry

2005-12-10T07:53:00.000-08:00

Truth in poetry is absolutely white;
If this truth must live then
The dark must duly die.

The words in shroud convey but
Hidden truths, without letting
The world know where they really lie…

Death in itself is not that very harsh
But when meaning dies, oh!
Who can tolerate?

For the love of pain to kill
One has no right. And to kill the truth
And lie one needs no might;

Only empty words, that jingle
In their rhymes filled with feelings
Plucked when in their prime.

Pour sweet concoction brewed in bitter pain,
Taking a tinge of sorrow from the broken heart
And dipping them in words, all honey to the taste.

Paint them in white, to please the viewer’s sight;
And you’ll have poetry, utterly beautiful-
That will make the poet touch new poetic heights…

Communion

2005-12-09T21:58:00.000-08:00

You have been haunting me for the past few days,
Your absence making its presence strongly felt;
Your eyes like water flow all over me
And my skin ripples with the eurhythmy of waves.

There have been moments
When I longed to be
In imaginary arms
And viewed that lovely face…
But moments are like restless butterflies
That flutter wings and vanish in the skies;
And you know of this world and its careless
Ways- it comes intruding into private space…

I have been learning the meaning of true communion,
Of knowing that the other exists, though unseen;
And in stolen moments, slowly gravitate
Towards that being; two souls communicate…

These are mere figments of my imagination... :)

In your eyes...

2005-12-08T23:17:00.000-08:00

I find an expression in your eyes,
An inscrutable expression
And wish to locate meaning in it.

How I wish to plunge straight into that
Deep, White Ocean
And swim across

To reach that marooned island of black
There, floating in between,
And dig the secrets out!

Years may pass away in silent exploration
But nothing, just nothing
Would be enough to understand

You or that expression in your eyes…

Wanderlust

2005-12-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

I walk alone in a world,
Filled with ambiguities
And seek meaning in words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

I come across zigzag paths,
Filled with potholes
And seek direction in words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

I meet sorrow on the way
Filled with despair
And seek solace in words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

Moments pass me by,
Each filled with experience;
I seek refuge in words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

Memory is the sole companion,
Tugging along through life;
I secure it with words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

I have the wanderlust in me
And travel, searching constantly;
I leave my findings behind in words-
Their shapes,
Their sounds,
Their sensations…

What Goes Unheard...

2005-12-07T01:32:00.000-08:00

A street hawker calls out aloud,
“Want to sell old newspapers?”
Mom in the kitchen can’t hear
While the cooker’s whistle blows.
Dad is so immersed in listening
To Carnatic music,
He doesn’t want to respond, though
He hears, and I, wading through
The shallow sea of sounds, hear
Suppressed heart beats-
One tired, one restless, one calm.
The street hawker continues to call.
But nobody hears, nobody tries,
Nobody responds…

My pen speaks to me

2005-12-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

A "poet-friend" of mine- who is humble enough not to call himself a poet in the first place (though he makes a better one than me!) offered me some very useful tips in order to better this piece of writing. I 'd like to thank him for his generosity (a rare virtue, I must say). Here is the improvised version. Hope my friend and all others like this...

My Pen speaks to me
While I am writing
And my inner self
For want of words is fighting.
I pause for a while
In between, thinking,
Lounging lazily
And scratching my head.

My pen is caught up
In a jam. In this world
Which keeps spinning round
And round, about its own,
Not giving a damn,
The mind is bound
To carry the burden of thoughts,
Not thought of before…

My Pen complains
Of all this thinking
That I do, but expect
The Pen to be inking!
It rolls its head,
Restlessly on paper,
Trying to shape
The ideas that taper…

My Pen asks me
To stop writing
And show some pity
On its tampered tip.
It says that I have done
Enough for the day,
And must now fill up

The Drying Pot…

Deluge

2005-11-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

Ma, look at what has happened in Tiruchi!
A palm tree has drowned in water;
You can only see its head, peering through
The waters with great difficulty…
I’m scared, ma! What is happening here?
There were days when we cursed
the rain-gods for depriving us of water
and today, we curse him for sending
too much rain…

To Daddy

2005-11-21T05:52:00.000-08:00

Dad, do you remember
That creamy yellow t-shirt which I wore
As a baby with these words,
“I love Daddy” inscribed on it?
Look here is the picture of it!

I still love you dad,
Twenty years later, from that day
When this picture was taken,
I still love you, for the way in which
You would come and wake me up
In the mornings singing those stupid
Old Tamil songs into my ear, so loud,
That I would get irritated and throw the pillows on you!

I still love you, for the way in which
You would hide money in your spectacle-case
Instead of your leather wallet, thinking
That I wouldn’t find out, when I come asking for it!
And you would believe your money is
All safe inside it… unless you find
Out how I’d emptied it, sneaking
Into your room when you were away!

I still love you, for the way in which
You would crack those dirty shit-and-fart jokes
Right when mom would sit down to eat
(The thing she hates the most!)
And irritate her so much that she’d walk out
Angrily and you would sing an old Kishore da
Song to make her smile again!

I still love you, for the way in which
You would bore me to death
With all that philosophical talk of yours
And when I walk away, disregarding you,
You would say nothing
And with a serious nodding of the head
Would convey that I’m forgiven
When I would later come and say ‘sorry’!

I still love you, though you haven’t stopped
Smoking those cigarettes- they are so suffocating!
(Remembered, you’d promised me long ago that you would?)
And taking rum, though I have shown you
So many newspaper articles that talk about
The ill-effects of alcohol consumption…
I care for you, dad, and I just can’t bear
To see those chest bones now jutting
Out of your thin, frail frame…

Oh! I know now what you’d say.
You’d talk about the inevitability of death,
That it must come in some way or the other
And it doesn’t matter…but not this way, dad,
Not this way, for ever since you retired
You have been shrinking into some lonely corner
And seem so distant,
Though I have you seated next to me…

Wrote this poem for dad just today because he had always wished that I wrote one for him, because I've written for mom earlier... Well, just wanted to tell all my blogger friends that a word game called "Word Plus" which dad had conceived is now available in the market, manufactured by Funskool India Ltd. So please do check out, if this interests you and do not forget to tell me what you think about this poem...! :)

A Visit to The Banyan

2005-11-20T00:52:00.000-08:00

“However mean may life be do not shun it and call it hard names…”

On Friday, that is, the 18th of Nov, when I had visited the mentally ill women’s rehabilitation centre, The Banyan, at Mogappair, this saying instantly came to my mind. I had been there earlier too but couldn’t spend much time that day owing to other appointments. So this time I decided to spend at least a few hours with the inmates out there and learn as to how I could contribute towards their cause. Anna, the Communications officer at The Banyan, took me around the place and provided me greater insight into how the institution functions. It was really a visit worth the while.

Two dedicated social workers, Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar had started the Banyan, initially in a small rented apartment, in order to provide the homelessly wandering, mentally ill and abused women a shelter where they could undergo necessary treatment and begin to live a normal life again and if possible, send them back to their lost families. The very cause these two bold and young women had undertaken was full of challenges and quite novel in itself, but, for the past 12 years, the duo along with a small dedicated group of social workers, psychiatrists and health workers have managed to rescue a great number of women from the streets and bring them back to life.

The first thing that got me by surprise was the way in which the inmates were allowed to move about freely within the institution’s premises. They were not chained or locked up in a room like prisoners, as is usually the practice in mental health rehabilitation centres. Nobody makes them feel as if they are unwanted or mad or abnormal. At the Banyan all the residents are given a very humane treatment which I really liked a lot. “These women”, Anna narrating a few of their stories said, “were found eating out of dustbins, lying on the streets half-naked, were abused physically and mentally and abandoned by their families…”

Most women when brought to the institution were resistant to the treatment, so it obviously posed a big challenge for the psychiatrists and health workers to convince the patient that she was in need of treatment, without which it was difficult to proceed. Giving them the required medical attention, providing psychological treatment, training them for an independent livelihood (by teaching them to cook, clean, embroider, knit, etc) and restoring them to a life of dignity and respect became the mission of the institution. I must say that the institution has lived up to its promise.

The Banyan is presently a very well-organized NGO, which is utilizing all its funds, from the Government, the private institutions and individuals in the best possible manner to help the mentally ill women. It is also running an outpatient clinic and counseling centre at Choolaimedu to provide psychiatric counseling and treatment to those women who are in need of it. It has got good connections with the local police and other NGOs and is effectively running a rescue-and-rehabilitation operation. Presently Adaikalam at Mogappair alone has about 380 women residents in different stages of development.

It is nice to see the once uncared for and near shattered women facing their lives bravely and hoping to contribute their bit to the world at The Banyan. I was greeted with smiles and sweet words from all the residents when I went to meet them. It was consolation enough for these women to know that there was somebody in this world who cared for them…All that they need is a bit of support and loads of love. Yes, love can change lives and Vandana and Vaishnavi have set the right example for the rest of the world to follow.

This world needs love and only love
To nourish its body, mind and soul.
For without this element
All life would vanish-
Like a circle of smoke
In the air- into
Nothingness

Born Naked...

2005-11-05T23:45:00.000-08:00

How much ever may these so-called ‘conservative’ humans make a fuss about nudity, be it on TV or in Art (these days Nude Art is damn popular!) the truth remains that we were born naked on earth… Though exploiting nudity for commercial purposes is something quite unethical which I do not appreciate, but, the entire process of human civilization, I personally feel, has been a process of cloaking/hiding/covering up what has been natural. Isn’t it?

The other day looking at the huge pile of clothes that needed washing, mom exclaimed, “How nice would it be if people stopped wearing clothes altogether!” True, it’d save so much expenditure on detergent, water, etc. etc and best, the cost of buying clothes...Quite an idea actually! :)

I feel people the world-over are going through a process of atavism. Look at our Adam-&- Eve-inspired FTV models for instance! But I do see sharp differences in the attitudes, earlier and now. I am reminded of what one of my professors says about the Christian White Man who proselytized in order to tame the pagan and apparently uncivilsed world, “The same White Man who taught them to dress is now teaching them how to undress…!” We live in an Age where almost everything is commoditized; value is assessed not using the yardstick of morals or ethics but saleability alone, including nudity…

I would love to be in a world where nudity would be appreciated for its simplicity, beauty and naturalness than for its ability to titillate the onlooker… Nudity would be fine only as long as the world could develop again the pristine innocence which Adam and Eve possessed…

The Other Self

2005-11-03T03:47:00.000-08:00

Being a poet is like having another self within oneself. It is like being pregnant- the mind is the womb and the fragments of thought in various stages of growth being the foetus. Every poem undergoes a period of gestation, before it is born and the labour of writing poetry, another thing in itself…is the Holy Labour of Creation.

Every human or for that matter every living creature has within itself the capacity to regenerate what is but a part of its own being, but, unlike one’s child, a poem is not part of the poet’s flesh but it is a part of his soul. I would like to bring into context here, the popular simile in the Vedas that establishes the connection between body, mind and soul. The chariot is the body and the traveler, the soul. The preferred destination is heaven. The horses are the senses that pull the chariot, that is, the body forward and the charioteer is the intellect which guides the mind through the reins that control the horses, thus directing them. If at any given point, the charioteer loses control over the reins the horses may go in the wrong direction putting the chariot at the risk of toppling over and hurting the traveler and therefore failing to reach the destination.

I am listing it in a linear fashion here:

Chariot- Body Horses- senses
Reins- Mind Charioteer- intellect
Traveller- Soul Destination- Heaven

I have brought in this simile here, in order to explain the peculiar position of a poet in the scheme of things. The poet has a duality to his nature, a peculiar duality to understand which we must now extend parts of the simile. He loves the journey (life) as much as he loves the destination. He is constantly trying to freeze the moment and make it part of his own self which gradually gives rise to his other self. In other words he attempts to immortalize his mortal self and to achieve this he constantly grapples with the soul trying to pour forth its essence through the twin faculties of intellect and sense into poetry. So the poet’s soul remains partly crystallized in the concrete edifice of poetry while the mortal self is struggling to liberate itself. I don’t think even the dead poets are forever living in heaven, they are somewhere suspended between heaven and earth and each time their poems are remembered or even their ideas echoed, their crystallized soul stirs within their works which are their creation.

The poet’s constant urge is to find meaning in day-to-day life, in the journey itself. He is too impatient to reach the destination. The poet’s soul is like water- it flows out and cannot be held in the frame of his being. This is because even as the poet’s soul is within the frame of a body, it constantly soars above, through that capricious facility that Imagination is. It acts as an extended intellectual facility, not present in ordinary mortals. So while all ordinary beings have their intellects drawing their senses to the paths below, the poet’s extended intellectual capacity, which functions as imagination, is constantly pulling his soul upwards, making him oblivious to the paths before him and the vision of the far-off destination luring him elsewhere. While an ordinary mortal grapples with his senses, the poet grapples with his soul. Even while the poet lives, he is like a free spirit reaching out to all and even while the poet is dead, his spirit remains bonded to the mortal world for he has poured himself into his creation (or deeds) that have frozen in time. It is as if the roles have been reversed, the poet’s peculiar soul roams out of the limits of his frame and refuses to free itself when it must. There is a friction which generates from nowhere but within his own self. To the living poet this other self is illusory like a mirage and only seems to exist and it constantly draws the poet’s soul to realms that are the semblance of heaven. The poet’s journey is therefore everlasting; it never ends…

Cat's Sense II

2005-10-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

I have previously written about the cat which lives in the balcony of my house in this blog under the title "Cat's Sense". This is a continuation of that story. The mother cat has been missing ever since the rains had started pouring down heavily in the early morning hours of the 27th of Oct. My mother suspects it is our landlady (yes that vamp!) who might have arranged for the cat to be thrown away somewhere far since it had been hiding in her kitchen all night to keep itself from getting wet. Whatever be the reason, the cat is missing now and all at home are missing her a lot too. Surprisingly, this includes mom too as she has all her sympathy for the tiny kittens, that were lying abandoned under the cemented slab in the balcony…

Dad brought these two kittens into the house in the morning to protect them from the heavy rain. Where else could these little ones go? And that too with their mother not around? I don’t think I mentioned this previously, but these two little female kittens were born some 25 days ago, the cat’s second set of babies. Whatever happened to that first set of four kittens is not known yet; guess by now they’d be having their own independent life somewhere!

My focus now would be on these two little ones. Dad has named them, Gabloo and Babloo, and it is really amazing to see how well they respond when their names are called out! Gabloo is the black one, with greyish blue eyes and the more impulsive of the two. She would instantly pounce on any colorful, moving object her eyes fall on. Babloo is beautiful and Snow White, with occasional patterns of dark grey and deep blue eyes. She is my favourite personally, because she is quiet and at peace always, unlike her sister and is therefore a true Princess! Unless and until someone provokes her, she would be quietly seated in a corner making herself comfortable.

Both of them simply love their playtime. Once the needs of their tummies are satisfied, they would start playing, rolling on top of one other and scratching and biting each other. Both have now learnt to jump from one stair to the other and also climb in and out of the cardboard box which shelters them. These two little things are only about 7 inches tall, so you can imagine how tiny they still are and how frightened they must have been with their mother not around and the rains falling heavily accompanied by thunder and lightning.

So Babloo and Gabloo spent the entire 27th of Oct inside my dad’s room; it was like a small holiday for them in an exotic place they had never been to before! Both of them spent the day touring the entire room and exploring the remote corners, finding new places to hide themselves in for warmth (cats love cozy corners!). The place they seemed to like the most was the lowermost part of the shelf with old newspapers stacked in them. The newspapers not being evenly stacked had wide gaps and the kittens found it most convenient to play their game of “hide-and-seek” and “climb-the-hill” there! Mom too enjoyed the kitten's visit. She fed them on milk herself and sat down to watch them at play occasionally. But she was angry to find out the next day morning how the entire shelf was moistened with kitty piss! It was very cold that night and I am sure the kittens would have peed on the newspaper tops and the corners of the shelf as there was no way they could go out.

So far Gabloo and Babloo have been managing without their mother since we feed it regularly. But rather concerned, I asked, “Who will teach them to hunt and perform the other cat duties then?” at which my mom quipped, “Does the little fish need be taught how to swim?”…

The Dark Day

2005-10-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am one of those people who on any given day would prefer the sun to dark clouds, blue sky to a grey one and calm breeze to stormy winds and so, yesterday, the 27th of october, was not my kind of day at all. A depression in the Bay of Bengal set in wild winds blowing with a torrent of rain torturing the Chennaites. There was no current, no transportation, flooded roads, etc.etc. Life almost came to a standstill. Most people remained shut in their homes the whole day. I had to battle with the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears and the frogs outside merrily croaking aloud, due to which I couldn't even sleep peacefully. Phew! Luckily now the rains have stopped.

So what else do you think you can do on such a day? Knowing my inclinations, you must have guessed what I was upto.. Well, wrote a short poem trying to find some logic in this sudden whimsical behaviour of nature...

Lines Written On a Dark and Rainy Day

Look at the sky now.
Painted with shades of grey,
even this inanimate sky mourns
the departure of innate beauty
from human hearts.

Save these precious
tear drops from heaven
and drench your parched souls...

My popularity on Google's Search!

2005-10-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

On Google's search engine, Vidyanjali is popular indeed! Check out my poems at Poemhunter.com which are displayed in Google's search for "Vidyanjali". So do read my poems and communicate your feedback at the site or email me here... Simple!

(Since semester exams are up, I may not post anything till November 1st week.)

Meeting the Nawab

2005-10-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

In December 2004 I had done a story on Amir Mahal in Chennai. Meeting the Nawab there was a memorable experience for me. The palace with its old historic ties and its family stories fascinated me! I have always had an affinity for old, forgotten places and anything to do with history has interested me always...So this was one story that I really enjoyed writing.I am republishing this story here, previously published in RITZ.

Amir Mahal: A symbol of heritage and harmony

Amidst the narrow lanes of Royapettah, stands aloft an edifice, that is the abode of a royal family belonging to the Arcot House. As I crossed the brick red dome-like entrance, with its imposing wrought iron gates, a friendly green ambience with a regal touch to it, welcomed me. I was led to the office of His Highness Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali Azim Jah, the eighth Prince of Arcot, who received me warmly. The mood of Ramzan prevailed, as the Nawab spoke of the importance of Islam as a peaceful religion and also expressed his concern over the disruption of religious harmony in India.

Amir Mahal is one of the few monuments built in Indo –Saracenic style in India. It was built during the British Era, in 1867 when the Chepauk Palace was taken over by the British Government, in accordance with the Doctrine of Lapse, when the last Nawab of the Carnatic, Ghulam Ghouse Khan, who succeeded Muhammad Ali Wallajah, died without a male heir. This splendid palace which sprawls over 14 acres houses 600 people including the Nawab, his immediate family, staff members and the sovereign.

The family traces its lineage from the Second Caliph of Islam, Hazrath Omar Bin Khattab. In the year 1609 when Mughal Emperor, Aurangazeb summoned the Nawab’s ancestor, Zulfikar Ali Khan, to fight the Marathas, little would he have realized that this land was to be his to reign over one day… As the Nawab himself says, their sense of belonging is with this land and not any other. As Zulfikar Ali succeeded in his mission and routed the Marathas with their bastion over Southern Carnatic, in the Fort of Gingee, and inflicted a crushing defeat over the ruler Rajaram, the Emperor made him the Nawab of Carnatic under the suzerainty of The Nizam of Hyderabad. It was this historical event from which the House of Arcot took its root in Indian soil. In the years to come the interaction that followed between the local Tamils and the Nawab’s family fructified in a climate of camaraderie between the two cultures which has been preserved till date.

The Chepauk Palace was the first one built by his ancestors in Chennai. The eighth Nawab of Carnatic, Muhammad Ali Wallajah, who was a “secular” ruler, (the Nawab emphasises) built himself the grand palace at Chepauk near Marina Beach. At present this 121 acre palace houses the Senate House, Public Works office and The University of Madras campus.

Apart from the palaces, the Nawab’s family has made many contributions towards their town of residence. The Nawab beams with pride as he says how his ancestors donated vast lands for Hindu temples, Churches and mosques. To mention a few the Srirangam Temple, Trichy, has a Nawab Garden, vast tracts of which were donated by Wallajah. The Kapaaleshwar Temple tank was dug and the land contributed by the Nawabs and so was it for the St. Bishop Heber College in Trichy. The Nawab also purchased lands and constructed ‘Rubat’ (lodging) in the holy places of Mecca and Medina, in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrims visiting from Madras. The Wallajah Big Mosque in Triplicane which is a landmark in the city too was his contribution. It was the successor of Wallajah, his son, Umdat- ul- Umra who built the Thousand Lights Mosque.

In 1855 the Nawabship of Carnatic came to an end with the application of the Doctrine of Lapse. The uncle of the deceased Nawab, Azim Jah, was conferred the title Prince of Arcot in 1867 by British. Amir Mahal now constructed became the royal residence of the family. As a part of the agreement made with the British Government, the maintenance of the palace premises was taken over by them. Today the Central Government undertakes the maintenance of this monument.

For the past several years now The House of Arcot has remained non-political and committed to social and peace activities. The Nawab runs an Association for Communal Amity, Secularism and National Unity called ‘Harmony India’. The family has throughout been a votary of camaraderie between all religions. The Editor-in Chief of The Hindu, N.Ram, is the President of this organization. The manifesto of Harmony India refers to ‘Communalism’ as ‘a malignant disease that is upon us’ and to ‘Secularism’ as ‘the oxygen without which India cannot survive’… The Nawab holds a deep respect for the tolerant spirit that India has always nurtured in its people and any force that claims to destroy this, he avers, will not be able to survive in this land.

The secular spirit of the family and the significance it has enjoyed on diplomatic terms can be assessed by the number of dignitaries who have visited the Palace. The people visiting the palace are drawn from an eclectic source. It includes Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, twice as Prime Minister, PM Rajiv Gandhi, V.P.Singh, and a number of other diplomatic persons. The spiritual leaders who have paid a visit to the palace are: the Chief Imam from Mecca, His Holiness Jayendra Saraswathi from Kanchi Kama Koti Peetham, Archbishop of Canterbury from London, Jain Acharya and Jathedar from Golden Temple, Amritsar.

The grandeur of Amir Mahal is kept alive by its tasteful settings. The entrance hall has Mughal witness boxes and palanquins which create an old world charm about it; the chandeliers, upholstered furniture and plush carpeted floor provide an added impact to this elegance. The Durbar Hall on the first floor is royal with the walls adorned with 8-foot high paintings of the Nawab’s ancestors which are 125 years old. The Nawab’s genealogy is well represented in the line of paintings. Also the walls are decked with framed pictures of the various dignitaries who have paid a visit, resonant of the history of the palace. The Dining Hall, for example, proudly displays a picture of late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, having lunch with the Nawab…

The Nawab’s immediate family comprises of his wife, Sayeeda Begum, a gracious woman whose interests are in religious activities and the upkeep of the palace. The Nawab, who was educated in Church Park presentation Convent and Madras Christian College High School, a student of history, takes interest in social work and has business activities too. He is the President of All India Educational Society (AIMES) and is also the head of the Carnatic Family Association. The Nawabzaada, Ghulam Moideen Asif Ali is a musician and the younger Nawabzaada, Ghulam Ghouse Nasir Ali, does Export business and presently resides in London.

The 600 people living in the palace live in individual houses and get together for various functions such as Ramzan, Meelad-un- Nabi, et al. The Nawab in fact holds stern views that such religious gatherings should not be politicised for they are a solemn occasion and should be spent in meditation. The Nawab averred that ‘Iftar’ is not a social get together but an occasion of breaking fast after sunset; something that has to do with giving due respect to God than being ‘exploited’ for achieving political ends…

The meeting with the Nawab was drawn to a conclusion with a plea from him, to the Indian public, not to accept the gimmicks of politicians, who are exploiting religious sentiments. He said, “In an India where I believe I am ‘lucky to be born’, another Godhra carnage or Babri demolition should not take place, he appealed to all…” As I stepped out of the palace premises, I could sense in the air, the wonderful fusion that our land is of the diverse cultures of the world- where there is a place for all. In a nutshell, a truly Indian feel of heritage and harmony is what Amir Mahal symbolised…

Meeting Shashi Kapoor

2005-10-07T01:08:00.000-07:00

A week ago I got the DVD of the movie, Shakespeare wallah, from the library and watching Shashi Kapoor in it, conjured up in my mind, the image of the person that he was now- pink, fat and cute like Santa Claus! Thanks to the 8-month stint I had with a local magazine, as a reporter, I got to meet a lot of interesting people including Mr. Kapoor when he had come down to Chennai to promote Prithvi theatre that was to stage the play, Perchance to Dream, featuring Footsbarn, a travelling Theatre Group performing mainly Shakespeare and other classics.

Below I have reproduced excerpts of the interview I had with him, published in the March 2005 issue of RITZ magazine.

PAPAJI'S SON:

At 67, Shashi Kapoor, the once glorious actor of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s- whose renditions in films such as ‘Jab Jab Phool Khile’ and ‘Deewar’ are still fondly remembered by film lovers- in all his avoirdupois reminds us of his father, the great Prithviraj Kapoor, who had dedicated his life to the furtherance of the theatrical Arts and cinema. Like a dutiful son, Shashi Kapoor has been striving hard to live up to the dreams of his papaji. Now with Footsbarn Travelling Theatre’s performance in Chennai as a part of their India tour to 8 destinations, under the aegis of Prithvi Theatre, another milestone has been set by the institution which was reestablished by Jennifer and Shashi in 1978. Speaking to RITZ, Shashi Kapoor shared his experiences as a Bolllywood icon and theatre person, which is now helping him to guide his daughter in carrying forward the tradition, which came down to her as a legacy.

Chennai and reminiscences:

Any connections with Chennai? I asked curiously and realized that there were many indeed. The first time that he could recall himself coming to Chennai was in 1956, when he was doing theatre with Shakespeareana . Having joined his father’s theatrical company at the age of 15, when he was supposed to be studying in a college, he became a part of Shakespeareana three years later, which was at that time being led by a British actor-manager, Geoffrey Kendall. “It was while performing in their troupe that I came to ‘Madras’ sometime during the summer, and we stayed opposite Egmore station in Hotel Victoria. I remember having staged shows in different schools and colleges in Madras. We went to Loyola College, Presidency College and many other places. Subsequently we came again and again to perform here. I was not a known person at that time and remember traveling by trains, buses in Madras; in fact I even remember going with Jennifer (Geoffrey’s daughter who became his wife later) to Moor Market for buying fruits! We used to buy one Australian apple that cost 1 rupee at that time and shared it in halves…” Shashi ji acknowledged Chennai as having a very good audience, for English theatre, but not so for Hindi, which is true even today.

Theatre: my first love…

Considering the fact that it was Bollywood which took care of him for forty long years, (he did his first cinema at the age of eight in Raj Kapoor’s Aag) his preoccupation with theatre for the past few decades, needed some reasoning. “It is true that I owe cinema my identity as an actor but it was through theatre that I was initiated into the realm of acting.” He explained. “I saw the real life of actors when I did theatre and I owe my skills to that training which I received there. In fact I did my first play, Shakuntalam, at the age of six for my father’s theatre company. Though I have gained wealth and fame through cinema, it is to theatre that I owe my craft. So whatever money I earned through cinema, I tried my best to put it back into the Arts, especially theatre, which was my first love... ” His wife, Jennifer had been another motivating factor. “Twenty seven years ago, it was due to my wife’s initiative that Prithvi was given a concrete shape. The theatrical company which had been closed down in 1960 was revived only due to Jennifer’s efforts.” So Shashi is now carrying forward that passion which was passed on to him through his father and wife.

A Proud Father:

And now, Sanjana has become the real moving spirit behind Prithvi’s activities. It is only to her advantage that Shashi Kapoor was travelling along with her to the various destinations where Footsbarn was performing, thus giving mileage to the theatre’s promotion. His younger son, Karan has not been contributing much towards the theatre; he is doing photography, travelling world-wide, and his elder son, Kunal too is busy making ad films, but Shashi ji is surely a proud father to Sanjana. “Sanjana has been doing a great job for Prithvi. In fact, she was the one who brought Footsbarn to Chennai. Ten years back, she brought Footsbarn to perform in Bombay which was a great success and now they are drawing good responses in Chennai, which is really good. The entire credit goes to her and as a father I am really very proud that Jennifer’s legacy is being carried forward by her own blood… What amazes me is the amount of energy she has. In spite of being married and having a two-and-a half year old son, who still demands a lot attention, Sanjana has been brilliantly carrying forward the theatre work. Sanjana does act at the Prithvi but for the past two years she has not been doing so as she feels that there are the others who deserve more than her…” Doesn’t she look brilliant on screen? I intercepted. And for that he exclaimed, “Well she must do what she loves to do! Movies have never had much attraction for her, though she did act in one film.”

Reality Bites:

“For theatre to be alive, only two things are important: one is the playwright and the other is the actor. As long as the world produces them, theatre will be around. You don’t necessarily need a director to put things together in theatre unlike cinema where the director has to assimilate different departments like sound, cinematography, etc. Theatre has always been a spring board for actors. Today it is able to make enough money for people to survive, but unlike cinema, you cannot have an actor’s performance projected 3000 times in different places… One theatrical performance can be rendered only one place at a time to the audience so there cinema earns more than theatre. This is the reality that we can never fight the movies as far as money is concerned, but when it comes to a good performance and meaningful content, theatre will always stand above the films. We must remember that the movies have not been able to create a Shakespeare, but theatre has done that and the world still holds him in veneration…

Theatre as such can never be an independent venture because it comes down to just one performance. Cinema can afford to be cost-effective but not theatre. In order to survive in its present state, theatre needs new blood; it needs money to keep flowing in, whether it is NGOs or corporate houses, it needs the money. It would be nice if the Indian government took up the onus of running the institutions dedicated to The Arts, as in Britain, but then they are also doing it in whatever way they can. The Indian Government has not patronized Prithvi so far, though my father had been a part of the Ministry under Pandit Nehru. I must say that we have pulled along till now, thanks to corporate sponsors like Hutch, but Prithvi does need a subsidy to continue its good work.”

An actor’s parting words:

Shashi Kapoor who is identified more as an actor on the big screen, brought out his zeal for theatre and the performance it involves, during the course of the interview. It has truly been an inseparable aspect of his very life. The charm of an actor that captivated millions through movies, translated really well by way of his words and as a concluding note he quoted a line from Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream:

“Our true intent is all for your delight.”

Before parting I bent down and touched his feet; such was the respect I felt for the person before me and then he was so unassuming, that it surprised me a lot!

Interpreting Tagore's Gitanjali

2005-10-05T04:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the wonderful professor who taught us Tagore's Gitanjali, I was able to discover a whole new world. Being a poet myself, I do dream a lot but the Gitanjali transported me to heaven! The amount of peace one can receive by going through its verses is truly ineffable. Tagore, I believe, is simply great...

I had written an essay in which I'd given an original interpretation to the Gitanjali as I had understood it. This piece is a long one but I hope lovers of poetry would take some effort to read through the same and communicate their feedback.

Gitanjali- A Poet's Prayer

There is a distinct spiritual flavour to the verses of Gitanjali. Going through them, anyone is capable of getting transported into -what in poetic idiom is often referred to as- a ‘poetic heaven’. As Yeats too had expressed, in his introduction to the Gitanjali, the verses depict a poetic world which can only be dreamt of by most of us. There is an other-worldly feel to it. These words can only be uttered by a person who has transcended the physical world to explore what lies beyond it. But isn’t that what every poet wishes to achieve? Gitanjali is labeled as ‘religious’ poetry by critics; but to Tagore these verses were just poetry and it is these classic poetic qualities of Gitanjali that is dealt with presently.

Even a lay reader with no feel for poetry will be able to recognise how these verses though framed in the simplest of vocabulary, manage to articulate thoughts and feelings of the highest order. To comprehend them may not be possible for all. Such is the talent of Tagore and such his inspiration. In Gitanjali, I see a poet’s gratitude finding expression. Every single utterance of the poet is soaked in this gratitude felt towards that Supreme Being without whose will, a poet would never have been born. The very fact that God has appointed him to accomplish a poet’s task is elevating. And when the recesses of a poet’s mind, impregnated with divine feelings, reach the state of maturity, it is but a moment’s labour for a poem to be born through the channel of language.

To a true poet, every poem comes as a blessing granted after numerous prayers have been offered at the altar of the Supreme Being. Gitanjali is an embodiment of these several prayers that the poet has offered at the feet of the divine giver of inspiration. While praying, we do not always plead for something, sometimes we praise our God and sometimes we just share our sorrows and joys as if talking to a friend. At other times we simply meditate in order to compose our minds. Prayers are means to achieve inner harmony. The quality of poetry depends upon the intensity of this prayer. Tagore’s Gitanjali is evidently a prayer, a poet’s prayer, and manifests in itself that harmony which the poet has experienced.

A proper prayer is that which involves direct communion with the Supreme Being. It is an extremely personal experience. Therefore the poetic inspiration experienced by a poet is also a thoroughly personal experience, which one can consider as the benefit of prayer. In Ramayana we do see how Ravana through constant utterance of prayers wins the favour of Lord Shiva. We can consider a poet too to be like that, who constantly prays for inspiration and when the Muses are convinced of his sincerity the wish is granted. Since we are considering Gitanjali to be the poet’s prayer, we must understand that it is something which the poet has undergone singularly. The tapasya (spiritual endeavour) of the poet can not be therefore understood by all. One must have experienced the same to be able to interpret exactly as to what the poet is saying. Yet an attempt is being made here to interpret the Gitanjali from the point of view of the poet’s various poetic experiences and the poetic qualities that the song exhibits.

The very opening line of Gitanjali reflects the inner harmony that the poet has experienced. The words are an outburst endeavouring to articulate the intense pleasure that the poetic experience has conferred upon him:

“Thou hast made me endless such is thy pleasure”

‘Thy’ here becomes poetic inspiration itself and ‘thou’, the one who inspires. Anyone is bound to be ecstatic if his prayers are answered. We see the poet here starting at the peak of inspiration. In the life of every genuine poet such a moment does occur when he experiences endlessness.

One may wonder how endlessness can be experienced in a brief moment as it is seemingly contradictory. This can be explained by drawing a parallel. Coleridge in his Kubla Khan talks of ‘A sunny pleasure domes with caves of ice’. Here the opposites merge and all seemingly contradictory elements are resolved. When a poet touches this point he experiences eternity for in a state of eternity only a single entity exists. It is only when the poet attempts to articulate this oneness that he has experienced by means of language that the problem arises. Because language and words belong to the mortal world; their realm is the world of corporeal experience. There is no specialized vocabulary that can articulate abstract, extra-sensory experiences such as what a poet experiences when he is inspired. At the level of experience, everything is in a state of unity. But the moment a poet descends to the ordinary mode of existence and tries to express in finite language his infinite experiences, the contradictions emerge.

In prayer, it is essential to keep in mind that we are insignificant as against the Supreme Being. It is important therefore to develop a humble attitude. A humble being who is completely aware of the all-encompassing spirit of the divine being would always express a state of wonder, awe and admiration at this. There can be no room for the poet’s vanity to exist when he is subject to the ‘grandeur of divine inspiration’. A true poet who experiences intense divine inspiration would sublimate to an egoless state and he will humbly follow the instructions of his Muses:

“My poet’s vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.”

The poet here confesses how his own vanity or pride dies in shame when he realises that there is a poet more powerful than himself now before his sight. There is no way in which he can surpass the ‘master’ poet, and it is only within his capacity to surrender at his feet and endeavour to emulate him. The expression ‘master poet’ also needs some explanation here. The Supreme Being who bestows poetic inspiration upon man is a poet himself, his creation being the universe. We have earlier reflected upon eternity and oneness of experience. The same idea continues here. The master poet, who is the creator of the universe, is one single entity. The music that emerges from the master poet is responsible for the creation of this universe. The poet is only an instrument, like a flute, and it is the divine giver of inspiration who fills it with music. The poet knows that it is only as an instrument that he must ideally come before his master’s presence:

“I know that thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.”

Also note these lines:

“I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.

The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made me captive in the endless meshes of thy music.”

The poet’s constant reference to music and singing must be commented upon. What possible connection could there be between poetry and music? Apart from both being forms of art, the aspect of metre, rhyme and coherence of thought in poetry relates it to the rhythm found in music. Metre, rhyme and coherence of thought in poetry bring in order and discipline and to achieve this is no mean task; the poet will have to struggle. A poet will have to constantly endeavour for this and the task in hand cannot be finished so easily. Music suggests euphony as against cacophony which can be related to the assonance in poetry as against the dissonance of the world. Musicalisation of the poet’s thoughts would result in harmony in his poetry, which is an essential attribute. Tagore’s reference to the master poet’s music and his own music also relate to ‘musica mundana’, the harmony of the elements of the spheres and of the seasons, and ‘musica humana’, the harmony between body and soul in singing, respectively. As mentioned earlier the divine giver of inspiration is a creative being as well responsible for the creation of the universe and the harmony found in it. The poet on the other hand is also creative and creates art and gains inspiration from the master forever emulating him. A poet experiences meditative immersion in music always in the consciousness due to the fateful participation of the celestial sphere; his sensitivity is integral. In the universe a mortal being always sees contradictory elements. The life-giving breath of the master poet is boundless and capable of inspiring all but only the ones gifted with the faculty for it can benefit from the inspiration. When the poet reflects upon how the master poet went about creating the universe from all the dissonant elements that were present he is awe-inspired, his own task of composing poetry from life seems insignificant and all that he can do is but to listen in silent amazement. And when a poet transcends his mortal being and merges with the divine, even if it is only for a brief moment, the apparent discordance dissolves, there is clarity of vision and he is able to see the ‘uni’verse as opposed to the ‘multi’verse.

Philip Sidney in his ‘Apology for Poetry’ echoes something similar when he says, “The world of nature is brazen but the poet always delivers the golden.” Due to the profound inspirational heights a poet is able to universalize and make one what is otherwise harsh and separate.

“All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony- and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across.”

As mentioned earlier, at the peak of inspiration every poet experiences oneness. The poet when inspired is able to compose harmony out of dissonance and make soft what to a layman appears harsh. Only an artist is gifted with the faculty by which he can make dead stones come alive, and convert them into an idol for worship. We all do see stones lying on paths trodden upon day after day, but how many of us do recognize that these stones can become objects of worship when carved? That is exactly what a poet does. Even Shakespeare echoes this idea when he says “through indirections find directions out.” The raw material for poetry is the world and its life which is physical and short-lived but the poet composes life into poetry, casting it in the mould of inspirational experience and takes it to metaphysical heights and makes it everlasting. That is why when the poet is inspired all the harsh and dissonant elements in life melt into one sweet harmony and flow out as poetry. This also explains why all great poets harp on the significance of coherence, wholeness of meaning and comprehensiveness of imagination in poetry.

In the line quoted above, the imagery of a bird in its flight suggests the idea of ‘poetic flight’. At the level of inspirational experience a poet is glad and filled with adoration or respect for his Muses. His faculty of imagination is like the wings of a bird that helps him to soar above the ordinary plane of existence and see those aspects of life which others cannot. Keats expresses something similar in his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ when he says that he would fly on the “viewless wings of poesy”. The authenticity of the poetic experience is established here as other poets have also felt the same way.

But the lack of inspiration or inability to write poetry, also referred to as poetic lull can be an extremely painful experience for the poet, which Tagore expresses in his prayer:

“Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest or respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.”

The poet’s poetic endeavour constantly needs the inspiration of the master poet and away from him the poet would never be able to accomplish his task. The poet’s work is no mean task, as already mentioned. Therefore in a situation where there is nothing to inspire a poet has to struggle. In one of the lines previously quoted the poet expresses how when his speech breaks not into song, he cries out baffled. The poet has to communicate his feelings to the rest of the world in a meaningful fashion and this becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil if no inspiration enlightens him. But the poet is ready to wait sincerely for the moment of inspiration to arrive:

“In the night of weariness let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my trust upon thee.

Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.

It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening.”

A sudden understanding seems to dawn upon the poet that his master only wants him to rest for sometime and get back to his task at a later time. The night of weariness can refer to the moments of poetic lull, in which case the poet must sleep or rest, reposing faith in his master that he would awaken the next day with fresh inspiration that would provide him gladness. A poet can never force poetry out of him. Infact it is believed that it is not the poet who writes poetry but poetry that writes the poet. Tagore here echoes something of the same when he says that his own flagging or waning spirit should not make vain attempts. The poet’s poetry is the prayer that he offers for worship to his master and a devoted poet can never afford to compromise in his quality of offering. There are other verses in Gitanjali too which echo this idea. Infact if we read the different lines of Gitanjali closely it is possible to relate to similar ideas; only the metaphor varies but the poet’s various experiences that find expression would be more or less similar. Take a note of this:

“On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.

Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.

I was tired and in my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.”

We can connect these lines to the ones quoted earlier. When the poet experiences a lull and is unable to carry forward his task any further; he faces a block. The poet knows that he is a mortal being and his life on earth is brief and the task in hand enormous. He values time and cannot afford to let go even a single moment waste. A poet experiences boundless joy in accomplishing his task but being idle is disheartening and he grieves over time lost when he was making futile attempts to compose poetry. But the poet realises that the moments were not really lost and his master had taken it up from him in order to let him prepare himself. This idea holds relevance because every time a poet experiences spells of lull it only means that his thoughts are undergoing a transformation or renewal of some sort and once they are fully prepared the poet regains his capacity to express them. It is the master that nourishes ‘seeds’ of thought in the poet’s mind and when the poet is able to fructify them into lovely poems he offers them to his master in all obeisance. The poet’s poetry is nothing but prayers dedicated to the master poet:

“From the words of the poet men take what meaning pleases them; yet their last meanings point to thee.”

Tagore had always maintained that his religion was a poet’s religion. Most critics interpret Gitanjali from a solely religious point of view. This maybe because he belonged to an Indian Hindu community generally considered to be pious and devotional. Tagore’s poetry cannot be confined to a particular creed or faith; it belongs to the universe. A poet’s religion knows no boundaries, it is all-inclusive. The religiousness of a poet arises not from the religion he belongs to but out of a respect for life which in him is an instinct. Can anyone ever point out exactly where from faith emerges? It is as impossible as to predict when exactly the heart began to beat or the universe was set in motion. When Wordsworth referred to poetry as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility” he fore grounded the word ‘spontaneous’ only in order to stress on the instinctive nature of poetry writing. The urge to write poetry is a call of the conscience, an intuitive pursuit which not everyone is capable of committing oneself to.

In the essay called ‘The Poet's Religion’ Tagore says: (excerpts from pg. 3-26)

“Through creation man expresses his truth; through that expression he gains back his truth in its fullness. But the poet in man knows that reality is a creation, and human reality has to be called forth from its obscure depth by man's faith which is creative. The great world ... has its call for us. The call has ever roused the creator in man, and urged him to reveal the truth, to reveal the Infinite in himself.”

There is mystery in it, like the mystery about life and its depths can never be fathomed using language as a measure:

“At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to an utterance ineffable.”

Here the giving birth to an ‘utterance ineffable’ by the poet is akin to Wordsworth’s ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions’. When poetic inspiration touches the poet, his sensibility is stirred; the humble poet is elevated to unprecedented heights of imagination in his moments of tranquility and the poetry which overflows or is born out of him then is filled with emotions or joy; guided by his inspiration, he utters what would otherwise be ineffable or inexpressible.

This takes us to another level of understanding of the poet’s creed which requires him to utter what under ordinary circumstances is inexpressible. Every religion has its prescribed rites and rituals. A poet’s religion also requires him to follow certain methods. “When thou commandest me to sing…” says Tagore which we can relate to the commandments in the Bible that every believer will have to abide by. A poet- if he is a strong believer in his poetic creed- will have to obey the commandments of his Muse, the supreme being that inspires. It is a poet’s duty to articulate the truth without being misled into fallacies. That is why poets are believed to be the conduits through which God reaches common man. In his essay, ‘Silent poet, untaught poet’, Tagore makes an important statement with regard to the poet’s rites that must be performed faultlessly:

“A powerful imagination does not by itself make a poet. It must be a trained and refined imagination of a high order. There should be the intellect and the taste to employ the imagination to good purpose.” He even goes on to say later, “The imagination too, like everything else, requires training. An imagination without proper training revels in the extravagant, the impossible, the preternatural.” He goes on to compare such an imagination with a mirror of curved surface that shows its image disproportionately and then accuses people with ill-trained imagination, “People of such imagination cobble together ill-sorted objects and produce a monster. They are incapable of seeing incorporeal dimensions in a corporeal object…”

Therefore a poet has to develop a religious discipline in order to reach that state of perfection. Praying for inspiration, offering one’s songs to the ‘divine giver of inspiration’ and constantly training oneself for the complex art of poetry writing are the rites that a poet must faultlessly perform. It is not an easy path to pursue:

“It is the most distant course that comes closest to thyself, and that training is most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.”

CONCLUSION:

There is only a very thin line that separates poetry from spirituality or religion. Infact poetic experience is akin to spiritual/religious experience when the poet is genuine in his pursuit. In spirituality great thoughts realised by enlightened beings gradually transformed themselves into religious doctrines and the spiritualist came to be regarded as God incarnate. A true spiritualist never abandons the world but moves along with the world understanding the problems of humanity, redressing them. The poet who experiences true inspiration is also an enlightened soul. He does not shut his doors to the outside world but refines the world through his imaginative capacity and offers the world an antidote for its maladies through his works. A spiritualist conveys himself to the rest of the world by means of sermons and teachings whereas a poet leaves his thought behind in the form of his art. The poet’s soul is connected to the divine force, whereas his physical self is linked with the people in the rest of the world and for him complete bondage/surrender to the Divine force means complete freedom where he becomes a tool in the hands of the divine forces. For both the spiritualist and the poet Deliverance lies not in renunciation of the world but in such bondage:

“I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.”

The medium of language has its own impact. In poetry, the spiritual aspects are subtly woven; the poet never preaches overtly. These lines of Tagore directly appeal to his master conveying what a struggle it is for a poet to be able to express satisfactorily in language what he has experienced at the spiritual level. A poet can never completely transfer his experiences into words and the relationship that he shares with the divine forces remains a mystery forever:

“I put my tales of you into lasting songs. The secret gushes out of my heart. They come and ask me, ‘Tell me their meanings.’ I know not how to answer them. I say, ‘Ah, who knows what they mean!’ They smile and go away in utter scorn and you sit there smiling.”

Infact when spiritual truths are written down they become literature automatically. Take the Bible for instance; today its popularity in the world is more as a literary account of the Christian civilization and its beliefs than as a holy or religious text. Literature, especially poetry, is therefore a viable medium for communicating truths that people realise through heavenly inspiration at various points of time in their life. A poet too is a spiritualist who undergoes a grand transformation in his lifetime due to the various inspirational experiences and becomes sublime. A poet is like the legendary white swan which is believed to take only the milky portion from the milk leaving behind the water in it; he offers to the world pure truth which is soiled by the world otherwise.

Through Tagore’s Gitanjali we can get a glimpse of the poet’s true nature and his spiritual feelings. Embodied in this work is his very soul; it will continue to give out sparks of truth to the world. This pious poet’s prayer will continue to kindle in generations of poets the desire to lead a life of humility and self oblivion and accomplish their task of telling this world what it would not realise otherwise with utmost sincerity. Tagore’s own reflection upon his poetry, I suppose, would be the best way to conclude this essay that is all about the poet’s prayers leading to divine inspiration and complete surrender to the ‘master’ poet:

"When I look back and consider the long, uninterrupted period of my work as a poet, one thing appears clear to me that it was a matter over which I had hardly any authority. Whenever I wrote a poem, I thought it was I who was responsible for it, but I know well today that this was far from the truth. For in none of those small individual poems was the real purport of my whole poetical work wholly significant. What the real purport is I had no knowledge of previously. Thus, without being aware, of the Ultimate, I have continued adding one poem to another. Whatever limited idea I may have ascribed to each of them, today, with the cumulative aid of all my poems I have come to realise, surpassing each of their individual meanings, one supreme and unbroken idea had flowed steadily through them all, so that years afterwards I wrote:

What is this game ever-new
You play with me in your jesting mood?
Whatever I may want to say
You do not allow me to express.

Residing in the innermost me
You snatch words from my lips
With my words you utter your own speech,
Mixing your own melody.

What I wish to say I seem to forget;
I only say what you want me to say.

In the stream of songs

I lose sight of the shores.”

My poems on NDTV.COM

2005-10-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

Hello folks,

Just out of curiosity I'd posted a few of my poems on ndtv.com (Poetry Corner) an year ago and luckily not all but five of them were published . It was a great delight to see my poems published online. That was of course my first time. Here is the link to the webpage. Check it out and post comments on my blog. Two of them have been already published here in the blog.

http://www.ndtv.com/ent/bookspoetrycornerarchives.asp?sortby=author&pgs=97

They are under my proper name Vidya Venkat.

A tryst with an auteur

2005-09-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of meeting the current Dada Saheb Phalke Award winning director, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, when he had visited Chennai in December2004, as a jury member for the Vatavaran Wild Life Film Festival. I am publishing this interview here again for the benefit of those readers who probabaly missed it in the December issue of RITZ magazine. Hope you find this interesting.

BLURB: No art worth its name will be liked by all or hated by all. A work of art will not look the same to all eyes. It is not like a table or chair that appears the same to all. Its interpretations will change according to the perception that people have.

Your movies are acclaimed to be a class apart; a parallel is often drawn with Satyajit Ray. Could you explain this inclination of yours towards making Art movies?

AG: Well, I only make movies. Whether they are Art movies or commercial movies is a classification made by the so-called critics. The material for making movies is one-human life, relationships and the experiences shared- and it is the perception of the moviemaker towards these aspects of life which reflects in the movie he makes.

When you make a movie do you target a specific audience?

AG: There are two dimensions to it. In one sense, you make it for others to watch but in another sense you don’t make it for others because you don’t know the others… So I attempt to understand myself. It is important that you understand and enjoy yourself whenever you do something. And since I enjoy making my movies, I also believe that others would enjoy watching it.

But only a certain class of society, a coterie of movie buffs, have been receptive enough to your movies. Your response?

AG: No art worth its name will be liked by all or hated by all. A work of art will not look the same to all eyes. It is not like a table or chair that appears the same to all. Its interpretations will change according to the perception that people have. Depending on these factors, my movie may mean different things to different people and so their reception too. That is the significance of an artistic work, with age and maturity, for the audience, it takes on new dimensions.

Tell us about your student days in FTII, Pune. In that phase you must have experienced your formative influences.

AG: Yes. My student days in FTII were spent more outside the classroom! I used to visit the library quite often to learn more about the cinematic culture of different parts of the world. As a young boy, cinema seemed too distant to me… But in those days apart from theatre, cinema was the only popular medium which I could explore and I naturally strayed into it. I used to watch about five movies a day in those days.

Then was this the time when you caught up with the French New Wave?

AG: Yes (nodding) a journal called Cahiers du Cinema turned out to be a big influence on French film makers. The magazine discouraged the then directors from making big-budgeted movies which were flopping anyway and opt for more realistic, low-budgeted movies. These low budgeted gems bagged all the awards at the Cannes and captured global attention. This was the beginning of the French New Wave which had its repercussions throughout the world, from the Soviet to England. Naturally we at FTII got inspired and adopted similar ideas in filmmaking.(Mr. Gopalakrishnan was conferred the title of ‘Commandeur des Arts des Lettres’ the highest honour bestowed upon an artist by the French Government.)

How do you choose the cast of your movies and do you train them?

AG: The actor has to give the look and feel of the character which he is playing. I think not upon actors or actresses but think of my characters only. If I don’t have a suitable person to cast I advertise for them. And about training, it is only in the sets that I try to help.

So are you a terror on the sets?

AG: No, (a sweet smile streaks his face) I am a very nice person on the sets. I try my best to infuse confidence into my crew. I ensure that they are comfortable playing their roles. After all, they are the instruments through which I communicate my ideas.

How do you make use of music in your films?

AG: Sparingly. (After a moment of contemplative silence) In cinema, the three components of the soundtrack are dialogues, sound effects and music. The purpose of music is not to heighten the effect. I rather use it to give a new interpretation to my scenes. For me silence too is a part of the soundtrack. It is only with silence that sound becomes meaningful…

What is your approach to criticisms?

AG: A lot of people think that writing out their opinions is criticism. But it is only an opinion after all. A good critic needs to have real knowledge of the field that he is working upon. The person who makes a movie, that is the artist, should be in a position to respect a critic and not doubt his critical faculties… The truth is that there are very few professional critics in this field. They think they can “make do” with their lazy comments. A critic has to do a lot of homework; he needs to be on par with the person whom he is criticizing. Most reviews these days come from people who are ill-informed. I am always open to sensible criticisms.

How would you like the world to view your movies?

AG: My movies may be specific to a culture, that is of Kerala, but at the same time it gives a universal appeal. This is one thing I’d like my audience to understand. My movies are factual, the ambience real. For instance, in my movie Elipathayam, I examined the character of Unni in context of his peculiar social position when the feudal system was crumbling in Kerala. He was a creature of the feudal attitude. In the last 22 years, this movie has been virtually screened the world over and everywhere people could identify themselves with the idea emphasized. When the movie was screened in the London Festival people confessed that the plight of the character portrayed in his existing social condition was not only true of our country but also of every country, even the London city itself.

So what would your advice be to budding filmmakers?

AG: Never go for any advice. (Chuckles) It is important that young filmmakers develop their own way. In a sense, a certain amount of detachment is required. We all live in the same world but have different ways of looking at it, don’t we?

‘If I weren’t in movies or in theatre, I wouldn’t have been around”, he said. It took us a while to understand the profundity of that statement. He had authored Cinemayude Lokam (which means The World of Cinema in Malayalam) and this was “his world” indeed, a part of which today stands apart but for his own unparalleled contributions to Parallel Cinema. After all the credit of drawing the attention of the world towards movies depicting a culture deeply rooted in the mannu of his birth land, buried in the southern borders of this vast subcontinent goes to this bold auteur and his creative craft.

A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Considered one among the ilk of Satyajit Ray, this distinguished filmmaker was born in the year 1941 in Adoor, Kerala into a family which traditionally patronized and practised Kathakali. After completing his graduation from Gandhigram Rural University, Madurai, he experimented for a while in theatre, writing plays as also acting in them. In 1962 he joined the Film and Technology Institute of India, Pune where he honed his skills as a scriptwriter, director and of all a great thinker.

His first feature film, Swayamvaram (1974), won the President's Gold Medal for best film, best director, best cameraman and best actress. It also became only the second Malayalam film, after Chemeen, to win a National Award. His films have been exhibited at every Film Festival in the world. His third film, Elipathayam, won the Most Original Film award from the prestigious British Film Institute in 1982. He won the coveted International Film Critics Prize for five successive films; in 1983, he was accorded the Padmashree. His book Cinemayude Lokam won the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema.

I love mommy!

2005-09-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

Mother's love cannot be measured but only treasured...

Every time I think of my mother, an image of hers clad in a simple cotton saree, with her silken hair tied carelessly into a bun would conjure up in my mind. I love the softness of her cotton saree especially when it is damp either with sweat from working in the kitchen for long or with water from washing clothes, and therefore very, very cozy. The softness of her very nature is what I relate to while feeling that saree of hers. Usually I’d run my hands stealthily over her or sometimes take the saree's pallu and rub it on my cheek or just lie on her lap and thus relish her softness, her love that provides such comfort as can be found nowhere else in this world. Since my mom is quite plump and chubby, there is a cushiony comfort about her. I’d usually squeeze her tight until she would get irritated and ask me to leave her. But her minor tantrums are fun too.

Every child is emotionally attached to the mother, that goes undoubted but to me my mother means more than a mother, she means everything to me. There is some kind of warmth that radiates from her, a mere presence is enough and it makes my bond with her stronger than what it is with my father or my siblings, not that I do not love them, but when it comes to my mother the bonding is everlasting. There is a very strong telepathic connection between our minds. That is probably the reason why I can intellectually relate to my father but psychologically relate only to my mother.

It is strange but whenever I have had an emotional problem mom would know about it instantly and ask me what is wrong… I have always wondered where from she acquired that unique capability and every time I question her, “How did you know about that?” she would only give a mysterious smile, as if to say, “I know it all”! I often compare her smile with that of Mona Lisa; there is a certain mysteriousness about it that evokes the curiosity!

My mother’s moral influence upon my character has been tremendous. Often my mom’s words help me to realise my mistakes and correct myself. Whenever I have had the temptation to do something that I’m not supposed to do, my mom’s figure would sway before me as if warning me "No don't do it!" and I’d stop myself. I can somehow relate the situation to the one in Wordsworth’s “A Stolen Boat Ride” where Wordsworth as a boy is able to realise the wrong in having stolen another’s boat due to nature’s presence. What nature was to Wordsworth my mom is to me…

Guess I am getting a bit too emotional; it’s just that mom has been away to a relative’s place for the past four days but she will be back tomorrow and I can’t wait for her to be back. I must say that dad has been taking good care of me, but then he cannot provide me mom’s cozy comfort (I can be really selfish at times!). Mom would, if in the mood for it, cuddle me as if I were a small baby and sometimes even tell me children’s stories which I’d know by heart, yet, love to hear from her again and again and again. I don’t know how but when mom feeds me rice and curry (I know it’s silly but I like it) I would eat much more than I usually would!! Even as such I am a great foodie, just love to eat (!) and even that I must attribute to my mother only: she cooks so damn well…!

There are simply so many things about her which are stored in my mind as sweet memories. Like when mom used to grate coconut manually, I used to sit beside her and slowly steal some of the scraped out coconut and put it quickly into my mouth thinking she wouldn't notice but then she would and then pull my ears mildly for doing it! Sometimes in order to tease mom I'd call her Basanti, the name of the heroine in the movie Sholay and would myself pose as Beeru, the hero, and sing songs after her... I know mom enjoys all that a lot! Sometimes I 'd just compare her with the cat in our house and tease her by saying how lazy and sluggish and careless she is and she'd then act coyly pretending even to be angry but would soon burst out laughing! Mom is so so good. She's been a great friend throughout, very supportive and always made sure we got all the love and care that we needed.

Guess you can see how nice my mommy is and how much I love her. The best thing about her is that she is still so innocent. She is very simple and clean at heart and it is from her that I have learnt to be a good human being. She is very benevolent though she doesn’t like animals especially cats and dogs, (read about it in the next article). She can get a bit moody at times and nagging too, especially when I neglect my studies or become lazy or mischievous. But mom never really scolds without a reason and her nagging does help me a lot, though it irritates. It would usually go like this: “Don’t eat junk, eat fruits instead!”, “Why aren’t you studying for your exams?”, “Why is your cupboard so dirty?”, “Why can’t you get ready a bit early for college?” blah…blah…but inspite of all that my mom is really sweet and I can’t live without her… I want to tell the whole world about it so I’m putting this piece of writing up here!!

I had once written a poem praising my mother’s cooking. Here is it:

THE JOY OF GLUTTONY

I attribute to my mother's expertise
The sensitivity of my taste buds.
With the right blend of sugar, salt and spice
And the splendid aroma, she can appetise
Even the anorexic!

She sweetly meets my daily demands
Of the long list of delicacies.
I truly worship those God-gifted hands
Adept in cooking them tasty!

I seriously consider those unfortunate
Who haven't relished my mom's dishes.
They've always been my greatest palate,
More valuable than worldly riches!

Whenever someone advised me to diet
Or called me on a hunger strike
I refused, avowing myself a 'glutton'
For eating is what I like!

Oh great mother!
If not for your cookery,
I wouldn't have been such a foodie.
So I immortalise you with this poetry!

Cat's sense

2005-09-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

About two months ago from this day a female cat of colour an alternating dark and light shade of grey and piercing green eyes, almost uninviting and unpleasant to the viewer was spotted near our house. We had never seen this creature before. She strode into our compound quite slowly, casting her glances hither and thither almost demurely and let out a small meww upon realizing that she was being watched! Oh, she was a cat, a true cat indeed!

My house owner was the first one to react at its entry, “Oh! now we have a new nuisance…” She found many things irritating, the street dogs that would bark whether there was purpose or not, the tenants (we!), and many more things which if I began to list would make this piece of writing tooooo long… so here was she, the cat, an uninvited member who was now to occupy a space in our abode. She somehow thought the balcony attached to our Hall most convenient and settled herself there.

Age ripens wisdom and wisdom is acquired through observation and our 75-year-old house owner was quick to take notice of her swollen belly and conclude that she was pregnant. So there was going to be more trouble for sure! There was an empty carton box kept under a cemented slab fixed onto the wall used as a seat in our balcony. Now this new entry occupied that carton box, a place that was airy, shady and cozy enough for her. My father was extremely pleased to see her being fond of cats himself but my mom was angry; her reaction was almost similar to my landlady’s because she was worried if it would dirty the place daily (I hope you understood how) but dad immediately clarified that cats usually do IT in the open and cover IT up with mud and they even lick themselves up clean every once a while so even cats have a good sense of hygiene, you see! Thus mom’s fears were pacified but still a new entry was unwelcome. If you are waiting for my own reactions then I’d say I didn’t mind her presence at all. I was neither for nor against this creature.

The same day evening our new neighbour living in the balcony gave birth to four tiny kittens that had not yet opened their eyes and relied completely on their mother’s protection. Their soft mewling mom considered as ‘loud and disturbing’ and evening time was TV viewing time for her and the balcony being on the other side of the wall by which we had kept the TV, it was found to be disturbing. Dad commented, “Look at the cat, does it need to go to any hospital? Look how God gives it strength enough to give birth to its kids, that too four of them, that too without any anesthesia or surgery!” Mom never reacted to it but I joined in and said, “How true!” Being a woman myself I’d often fancied how it’d be to give birth to a child and frankly speaking I’ve always had fears about it having a pre-knowledge as to how difficult it should be inspite of the doctors, the injections of pain killers, etc, etc. I went and had a look at the new born kittens and their mother, there was such innocence in their faces and such a glowing orb of serenity on their mother’s that for a moment I almost envied her pride. Her four children were scratching their tender paws against her soft furry body groping for a nipple and having found one greedily drank their share. The picture was sublime!

From the next day morning the cat’s presence had become almost acceptable to all. What else could we do? It was not possible to drive her away and we couldn’t sue her for trespassing or make her pay rent for the bit she occupied! My landlady was happy that it stayed in our balcony and never came near her rooms in the ground floor so there was atleast no trouble to her. My mom was swayed under a sudden passion of charity and began to feed her milk on all mornings and my dad would offer her tiny bits of biscuits, sweets, etc.which she accepted gracefully. For most of the part she hunted in order to meet her dietary requirements and did not really depend on our charity. Her self-sufficiency was admirable indeed!

Out of the new found love for our neighbour dad began to indulge a lot in her household affairs as well. He wanted to know who the kid’s father was to which mom retorted once, “Go and search for him if you want!” A surge of affection would take over him when the cat paid its respects to him by rubbing its head on his foot and he would immediately offer her some milk or biscuits. Mom was beginning to worry about the cat now consuming a considerable amount of our supplies, a quarter glass of milk, a few bits of biscuits, two spoonfuls of rice, oh how much a greedy cat could consume!

As for my part, I had made some valid observations: the male cat had literally no role to play in the upbringing of the kittens and the entire responsibility was the mother’s. The cat would shift the kittens to different places once a week was complete. And the kittens were fed milk only by demand; the mother wouldn’t persuade the children to drink milk. Many a times I saw the cat getting irritated when a kitten demanded more. I felt she was being rude but maybe it was right on her part not to encourage greed in her tiny ones. The mother had complete control over her children and she would carry them between her teeth to shift their residence. The kittens were transferred to the garden at the back in a corner where used to be a store room earlier but was now only a muddy pit with a broken door to it. With some hay serving as cushion, the cat prepared a comfortable bed for her kids.

Though the children weren’t in the balcony any longer the cat would visit us there and summon us with her mews. Usually dad used to consider these summons particularly meant for him and responded to her with warmth… The minor indulgences would follow as usual. Dad was pleased with her easy nature; a caress usually elicited a gentle mew from her, an offer of milk or anything edible an excited mew, a minor tantrum such as “shoo! shoo!” or a spray of water (usually by mom!) only a passive withdrawal. Sometimes when she managed to enter into our room or even tried to mom would chase her out. But she never seemed to mind anything much and her moods were more temperate than that of ours.

Within a few days of the kittens changing residence they were not to be found anywhere around. “Perhaps she has abandoned them”, quipped mom. “Cats are not like human beings protecting their children till they are old and haggard and unable to move about”. True, for the cat understood the law of nature better that freedom was the birthright of all living beings, including her children, and that she mustn’t intrude in their affairs longer than it was necessary. But I don’t think the children were old enough to be left by themselves; it had been only a fortnight and she must have shifted them to a safer location since the previous one was not so protected and was vulnerable to dogs too.

So the cat remains at our balcony or in the garden at the back till date. The address of her kids is not to be known yet though their supposed father visits her once in a while now. Maybe she is preparing for the next set of kittens to be born, what other job do they have on earth? Lucky creatures! all they need to do is eat, sleep and reproduce and do their bit for the kids. The simplicity of their lives is their complexity as well because ours are so far removed from theirs that we find the very simplicity to be incomprehensible. They are not forever concerned about issues relating to ‘livelihood’ or ‘survival’, they do not ponder over philosophy, they are free to live and act as they please, they can meet their needs easily which are not so many as ours, they do not possess any sixth sense or extra intelligence as man yet they live a life that is filled with less hassles than ours and the best of all is that there is still some higher power that provides them strength to carry on without depending upon our meagre charity which is often done not out of pure love but out of pretense of love for all or an excess of resources that we do not wish to waste hence donate: in the name of charity.

I wish I had possessed a cat’s sense too….

Classroom masti!

2005-08-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Our class is a unique one in college because of so many reasons... We are a real notorious lot yet loved by all the profs! here is my observation...

Here I am painting a picture of my classroom
Not in vibrant hues but in simple words.
It welcomes all with a tinge of surprise (or awe?)
Thanks to the naturally ‘resounding decibels’ of our vocal cords,
A terrific noise bombards the air (we need no mic!).
Above the levels of sanity, the din rises...
(Until a poor professor in the nearby class victimised
Makes pathetic appeals of “please keep quiet!”)

The visual appeal is even more profound...
You will find an Olympics aspirer amusing us with his stunts
On top of the sad wooden benches, save our heads!
And there's our Bryan Adams crooning away
Hoping that his lady would at last, yes say...

But at the farthest corner
there is this prim and proper girl
Withstanding all the jarring audio-visual effects
Yet attentive and of all this making a careful record.
Don't you realise who this is?
Then FOOL, read again the first line!

What's in this name, Vidyanjali?

2005-08-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare had probably thought that names were not so significant. No wonder he commented, "What's in a name?". But I would rather not toe his line in this regard. Because names, their very articulation, have a profound impact on the psyche of a person. In my blog you'd find this poem, 'This World is an Assumption'. When I had showed it to Professor Rufus in my college, he was very impressed and said, "Lovely, Vidyanjali!"

That name had a deep impact on me, more so because we were doing Tagore's Gitanjali in class (by another prof.) then. Not that I thought my poetry ranked on the same level as Tagore's, I dare not do that, but then human nature is frail to rosy words...Isn't it? And I rather preferred to "fly" high! This I therefore thought the aptest name to use in my blog. What thinkest the readers?

I dare not ask this question, I am sure people are pretty capable of bringing down souls that soar high but then it is a good thing sometimes to laugh at one's own vagaries...

Meeting the poor farmers at Chengam

2005-08-22T03:17:00.001-07:00

When the truth strikes, it strikes hard. I had always read about the farmers in India; how poor they were, how their fields were growing barren due to poor rainfall and lack of irrigational facilities, how so many of them were committing suicide due to impoverishment, etc.,etc. It used to be just another report in the newspaper for me until I visited Chengam.

About 30km from Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, Chengam is a village in transition; five years from now it should be a well-developed town. I was doing research for the script of a documentary movie on Village Markets in the state. We went to Chengam in order to study the weekly market that happens there.

At the cattle market I had conversations with a few farmers who had come to sell their cattle. When I asked them why, they said they didn't have the means to maintain them. It was obvious that they were very poor. The farmers thought I could do something for them and shared all their problems with me. Most of them had large amounts of debts to repay and were in great poverty. The poor rainfall in the area and poor irrigational facilities led to poor crop yield. The nearby Sathanur Dam meant to provide irrigation to the nearby fields is more popular as a tourist location today. Read the description given about them in sites such as geocities.com to know more. Whatever happened to the original purpose for which it was built!

There was this farmer who had no money to take care of his family; obviously he had no means to feed his cattle too and so wanted to sell them off at this market place at any price available.. It was really disheartening to hear their sad stories.. I asked them to try seeking financial aid from a bank but most of them said availing a loan was difficult due to the tedious procedures involved plus they had nothing to offer as security to the banks as their lands were all mortgaged. And since these farmers were illiterate there was little awareness among them regarding related issues. Also they understood little of these procedures and were often misled by intermediary officers and others...

All in all the situation was pathetic. Having seen all these in real, my whole attitude towards the condition of the poor people changed. I cannot afford to turn a blind eye or deaf ear anymore. I only hope I am able to help such people in future. People who live a comfortable life like me find it hard to relate to the poor, suffering masses, the desire is to escape from all this. While I was standing amidst those poor farmers who poured out all their grievances to me, in vain expectation that something nice would happen after this, I felt like rushing back to the security of my car back home, shut the door and forget all about it. But those images haunted me and I felt that being a human I could not afford to run away from them. I have a duty towards them, I have to help them, in some way or the other.....But how to do it? I am still thinking...

This poem is what I wrote in order to give vent to my feelings. I have tried to empathise with the condition of the poor farmers here.

A Poor farmer’s prayer

O! Itinerant dwellers of the sky
Shower your mercy upon us.
Our thirst is unquenched and throats are dry
O! Lend us a new life...

My fields are lying barren as sand,
The food we get doesn’t fill our hand
Then how will it soothe that painful groan
Of the stomach? And I'm not alone.

My children are being starved to death
My crops have failed I've a debt;
Tell me what can I do but pray?
Hope to live or die one day....

The ministers had made us promises huge
Of making better our weary lives
In famines or calamitous deluge
Yet unfulfilled are they, don't know why…

We trust in you and your eternal powers
Who give us fruits and lovely flowers
Who bless our fields with bounty of green;
But such ruthlessness had never been!

Why O! Great Gods of the sky
Have you punished us so?
You I worshipped in fervour high
And sacrificed my goats.

O! Do tell what mistakes are mine
And ever shall I repent
Forgive our faults, O! deity divine
And rains of happiness send...

THIS WORLD IS AN ASSUMPTION

2005-08-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Have temporarily deleted the poem from my blog since I have sent it to a contest.The contest does not accept previously published poems...so... Please wait till the results are out and wish me luck people!!