The Death of Love

Read this somewhere, don't know when or where. Been a while, I guess. But I remember it enough to post it here.


Sometime love is for a moment, sometimes love is for a lifetime.
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime.

Once upon a time there was an island
where all feelings lived together.
One day there was a storm in the sea and the island was about to get drowned,
Every feeling was scared but love made a boat to escape.
Every feeling boarded the boat .
Only one was left, and
Love got down to see who was it,
It was EGO,
LOVE tried and tried but EGO didn't budge and refused to board the boat
The water was rising,
All the other feelings asked LOVE to leave EGO and come back and board the boat
But Alas! Love was made to love,
And, it didn't know how to abandon.
At last, all the feelings left the island
and LOVE died with EGO on the island,
LOVE died because of EGO


But, haven't we seen love dying and don't we still see love dying even when ego is NOT in the scene? How do we account for love's death, then? I wish I knew... May be, when love dies, aboard the boat or on the island, it is easier and less painful if you have someone or something to blame. Or, is it?

Virtually Yours

Chills, Thrills and Frills

Quite often I get a strange kind of longing to be adventurous and it fills my dreams. I guess I should define what adventure means to me. It is definitely NOT riding a race horse or scuba diving or going bungee jumping! It is not even climbing a tree! Some say life is an adventure. Some say love is the greatest adventure. Some say death is an adventure too. Some say art is an adventure. Some have even said that marriage is an adventure! Well…!

For me, the adventure is in becoming someone that I can never become, in becoming someone that I never want to become… I wish I could explain it well. Now the best that I can do is to be adventurous in my thoughts, in my opinions, in my judgements… I wonder how it would be like to be adventurous with people, with situations, with choices, with decisions, and yes, with relationships. I love the way the word adventure sounds – it is so powerful, so daring and yet quite teasing. There is an ease with which the syllables slip from one to another – ad-ven-ture. Wikipedia defines adventure as “an activity that comprises risky, dangerous and uncertain experiences”. I hate the dangerous part of it and I romanticize the uncertain experiences that it offers. Wiki adds, “However, an adventurous activity can lead to gains in knowledge”. Not a bad deal!

I prefer to describe myself as a practical, level-headed and sensible human being. But, those who know me well – really well – also know that I would love to throw all cautions to the wind and plunge head down into a pool of uncertainty where neither pragmatism nor reason exists! But again, that same ‘those’ who know me well – really well – also know that I’d always linger on the edges of the cliff, never mustering up enough courage to actually make the plunge. May be, because deep down, I wonder if it the fall is really worth the jump!

I keep telling the significant ‘someone’ of my life that I want to own an elephant and tie it to my window! But I hate it when the ‘someone’ comes up with boring and totally colourless questions like how would you manage its food, the gargantuan expenses, and well, its shit! As a child, I used to get these dreams about the elephant that I owned, with which I lived at the sea shore in a tiny hut, and my elephant was tied to the window of the hut which had bamboo railings. I still have the vivid image of the sea, the hut and the elephant… the elephant which I may never own.

It is perhaps that fascination for adventure that has drawn me to books and movies where I can co-inhabit with men and women who don’t even belong to my world. They allow me to inhabit different worlds at the same time without ever giving up the world that I own… rather the world that owns me. Perhaps even this blog is a space where I negotiate with those worlds, where I try to strike a fair deal with my imaginary reels of adventure. It is indeed a moment of adventure even to acknowledge to myself that I dream about becoming that someone that I would never become, that someone that I never want to be.

Like Alice who has comfortably falls back to her world even after her trip to the wonderland, like Rip Van Winkle who wakes up again and finds himself in the same old world… I too would like to go for the free fall, only to bounce back and make sure that I still haven’t lost the ground beneath my feet.

What could have prompted Norman Lindsay, the fascinatingly controversial Australian artist, to say that the best love affairs are those we never had? I wish I knew but that ignorance is certainly not an unsettling experience. But ask me if I would trade my world for the best of wonderlands, for the glorious of dreamlands. Well! For the life of me, I swear, I will not!

The thrill is in the chase not the quarry!

Virtually Yours.

At last… somebody said that! Encore, Victor Banerjee!!

Was mindlessly flipping through Sunday Mid-day (Times of India) which is not yet tired of the IPL auctions… but was quite relieved to come across one voice that dared to call a spade a spade, thanks to Victor Banerjee.

An array of Bollywoodians - Mahesh Bhatt, Shekha Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Hema Malini, Bipasha Basu, Sameera Reddy, Madhavan and the likes - found the Cricket-Bollywood alliance 'perfect' and 'Wow' and 'exciting' and 'fantastic' and 'pleasing' and ‘forward thinking’ and 'wise' and 'super' and 'fun' and of course 'more money'! The predictable Bollywood stuff! Mahesh Bhatt even went to the extent of saying that this ‘ushers in a new brave world’! (I hope Aldous Huxley doesn’t mind!)

Victor Banerjee, who has also 'been there and done that' from Passage to India to Joggers Park, was strikingly different from the other dumb-glamour-studded responses. I tell you, in a nation where cricket has been made (wrongly and forcibly) synonymous to patriotism it takes tremendous guts to say ‘to hell with it’! I love his guts!

Read through the following excerpt as reported by Subhash K. Jha:

Victor Banerjee: Gullidanda was a plebian pastime that the British elevated with the willow into Lords. Cricket in India is largely played by the sportingly incompetent. There's just a handful of tough exceptions. Don't give me a bellyache by stating that we are a 'sporting' nation of 'sportsmen'. We're a nation of businessmen who have destroyed the game with its worldwide corruption centred in India, a nation where politicians fight like animals to be on cricketing and Olympic boards. The reason we love cricket is because it's dependent on the bettable vagaries of fiddling with the ball, rain that determines decisions, ground conditions that can be tweaked and the odd upwardly-mobile player willing to accept a bundle under the table and even on a flight. We were wonderful in hockey and even winners of the gold medal in football in the first Asian games when my father who couldn't play for the team because of his commitment to the Indian Army.
Lo and behold… now comes the clincher!
It's hilarious that we take the Australian Kerry Packer's resurrection of an idiotic colonial game so seriously.

This is what I’d call a stellar performance! Encore, Banerjee, Encore!

Virtually Yours

some spill over moments...

Some people come to your life for a reason, some for a season and some for a lifetime. Mixing up these people and their 'categories' and expecting them to fit in elsewhere is never a great idea! Looking back, I’m amazed at the way in which I came across some people, got incredibly close to them and later just forgot about them! Perhaps, they had come for a reason and they had to be left behind once that reason for which they came got over.

There were some who brightened me up every day, gave me memories that would last a life time - snippets of conversations, moments of laughter, a tear before it could be hid, a word which was never spoken, a smile which bridged distances, and just faded away! I remember staring at those faded images for a long time till I could see them no more! They came for a season?

Then, there were some who I always took for granted, who always were there to catch me when I fall, who always gave a hand when I stumbled, who always listened when I rattled on, who always remembered even when I forgot, who always ‘did’ even when I ‘undid’, who always stood firm even when I was swaying, who always reached out even when I clammed up, … but I always used to walk ahead of them, hoping they would be there right beside be, or right behind me even when I took no notice of them. They are the ones who are here to stay for a life time, even when reasons and seasons change. And, very rarely you come across someone who walk into your life for a reason, brighten up every season and then stay on for a life time!

Every phase in life is beautiful, every relationship is precious and every person is unique. There’s a lot you learn through every reason and season and those lessons will last a life time. I feel, people and relationships make sense only within contexts and situations. And, I believe, every situation is God-send and every person is a blessing, some in disguise. Isn’t it awesome to be a part of God’s grand master plan? I hope I’ve been fair to the people whom God has sent to my life for a reason, for a season or for a life time.

I normally don’t wear my heart on my sleeves. Of the many people whom I have come across, or the many people who are still around me, very few may have seen me doing that. But, I think it is healthy to do so occasionally – to appreciate and acknowledge the beauty of life to yourself as well those around you – it reminds you that the world is not a bad place to be in, after all!

As the famous John Lennon song goes…

Life is just what happens to you
While you’re busy making other plans.

Virtually Yours

Stumped!

It took some time to sink in - the idea of bidding for cricketers and buying them! It's a hell lot of money, indeed; and a sleepy blogger is not the best person to comment on it. Just one teeny-weeny doubt crossed this naive mind. Isn't this a sophisticated and glamourised form of slave auction, of course sans the barbarism and modern-day stigma attached to slavery?

Browse through the following link: It is the journalistic narrative of an 1859 slave auction. You can see how similar this sounds to any of the reports that came in the national dailies on IPL auctions.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slaveauction.htm

This may not be the most opportune time for this rambling so let me do the next best thing - hit the sack!

Virtually Yours

From Agra to Andalasia to New York - Let us all live happily ever after!

Well, watched Jodha Akbar - and not in the least motivated to write or even comment on it! Forget about the expectations from Gowariker, it lacked life and punch. The quarrels with history, regardless of what they are, were not put forth effectively either. I would have loved to see a strong parallel history emerging through a movie! And, I wish the projection of secularism and heterodoxy were powerful enough to initiate dialogues with contemporary India rather than remaining as vestiges of a glorious distant past. At least half as powerful as Chak De which drew a fleeting glance on Indian hockey or as Swades which stirred some momentary discomfort, to say the least. Jodha was nearly invisible - as Rai had almost completely overshadowed her!! Hritik Roshan has delivered his best as always, not to mention his well-toned body that most of us had never associated with Akbar!

Been staying away from Enchanted as I thought a Hollywood mushy stuff can wait. I found it interesting - seemed as if the Hollywood is going Bollywood in certain ways! The song and dance on the street was pretty much Bollywoodian and the grand finale at the ball room is a sure bet! The first half gave the illusion that it was all about subverting - seriously subverting - the fairy tale stereotypes, which Hollywood has been nurturing for so long. But it was not; and I should be blamed for rushing into conclusions. The stepmother continues to be wicked and conniving, the princess continues to be naive, loving and innocent, the prince is charming and romantic as always.
For those who haven't watched Enchanted yet: It opens in Andalasia a fairy-tale land with all the typical characters - a wicked Queen Narissa who wants her stepson to remain single so that she can retain her throne, the charming (but a little dim-witted?) prince Edward who falls in love (yes, at first sight) with Giselle who believes in true love's first kiss. The picture is complete with an array of birds, animals and insects that talk, sing and dance indiscriminately! And then behold, Giselle is cursed away to 'a place where there is NO happily ever after' and that happens to be New York city. The princess who pops up through a manhole is lost, robbed and ridiculed till the handsome Robert, a divorce-lawyer (who is divorced too) living with his six-year old daughter Morgan, accidentally rescues her and takes her home. Robert's girlfriend Nancy is annoyed when she sees a towel clad Giselle on top of Robert; but Giselle somehow helps clear the confusion later by giving romantic lessons to Robert! If only a heart shaped bouquet and a couple of doves were enough to forget presence of a towel-clad woman in fiance's apartment... (That humour, if you got it, was not in great taste!) Edward also shows up soon and Queen Narissa is still after Giselle's life - literally. After a series of amusing incidents in NY city Edward finds Giselle in Robert's apartment and breaks into a romantic song but is puzzled when Giselle does not sing along as always. Giselle, who has obviously taken a liking for Robert and NY city wants to go on a date, an idea which is alien to Edward. To cut a long story short, at the Queen's ball (that everyone in the movie attend) Queen Narissa tries to take Giselle's life, Robert is declared Giselle's true love as Edward's first kiss fails to wake up the unconcsious Giselle, Nancy falls for the romantic and straightforward Edward who takes her to Andalasia. It was nice to see Nancy sweeping Edward off his feet after the fairy-tale wedding in Andalasia! Robert, Giselle and Morgan live happily ever after in New York city!

At the risk of sounding cynical and stupidly unromantic, let me confess, I'd rather go for a not-so-happily-ever-after ending. In fact, for me, the catch line which glued me to the movie was 'a place where there are no happily ever afters'! So much for Enchanted, which had offered all the possibilities to subvert a genre as well as blend one genre with other. While the latter showed some signs of relief the former was totally washed out. At least it partially hinted that 'don't bet on the Prince' always, for everything! (courtesy Jack Zipes). Nevertheless, Enchanted is an entertainer through and through and the mere screen presence of two stunningly handsome men, a lovely lady and the cute-smart kid is quite a treat!

Wait a minute, whether it is history or fairy tale, one just can't escape the stereotypes of romance?! [Romance, as in heart shaped 'I-love-you-you-love-me-let-us-live-happily-ever-afters'.] Well, I suppose so - unless one chooses to deal with it, say, for instance, the Chak De way or the Being Cyrus way or even the Dor way. And yes, how do I not mention my all time favourites Thoovanathumbikal and Before Sunrise which are romantic but refuse to conform.






Virtually Yours

Confusions and Confessions

Am I a 'confused' soul? No, but I am a 'very confused' soul. And, I believe that all souls (within the human bodies, of course) are confused in more ways than one. The vestiges of Hamletian dilemma can be found everywhere - to wake up or not to wake up, to read or not to read, to cook or not to cook, to fight or not to fight, to vote or not to vote, to go or not to go, to kiss or not to kiss, to wed or not to wed, to believe or not to believe, to love or not to love, to wash or not to wash, to frown or not to frown, to lie or not to lie, to blog or not to blog .... one can go on and on. Human civilization would not have progressed if there were no confusion. Remember the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues?

Virtually Yours

it's Monday again!

Do you feel you are the only one who gets those (in)famous Monday Blues? Here's some great news for you! You're just one among the millions and zillions! Does anyone remember that not-so-great Jethro Tull song?
I said they call it Stormy Monday
But I said Tuesday's just as bad.
I said they call it Stormy Monday
Tuesday is just as bad.
Wednesday's full of sorrow,
I said that Thursday's oh-so, it's oh-so-sad. It's oh-so-sad.
That's about blue and stormy Mondays - the only comfort is that Mondays are not more boring than the rest of the days - they are only just as boring as the rest of the days! The worst thing about Monday is that it comes right after the weekend and the best thing is that you have the whole week ahead to procrastinate.

"MBBS grads pursue MBA to rise quickly"! Surprised? Times says so and my hunch is it is true. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/MBBS_grads_want_to_be_MBAs/articleshow/2792592.cms). In a few years' time India can be broadly divided into two - the ones with MBA and the ones without MBA.

By the way, saw a very interesting one-liner in someone's T-shirt today - Women are like elephants; everybody loves to look at them but no one can own one. My friend thought it was offensive. I try and respond to sexism in whatever little way I can; but I love elephants and I totally missed out on the offense here!

I'm waiting to watch Jodha Akbar - for Ashutosh Gowariker and his art. The Vaishyas are unhappy about the exclusion of their hero Hemu and their quarrels with history as well as Gowariker's adaptation are hitting the headlines, though in a minor way. I wish the academic stalwarts and historians would make use of this opportunity to initiate a healthy dialogue between the media and academia, between history text books and movies.

Yours Virtually

A Nervous Beginning

All visuals used here are lifted from here and there, as inspired and led by Google images search and they are used just for the heck of it. However, kindly note that the ideas penned down are original - though 'being original' is a much debatable ontological issue. Well, I've been wanting to launch a blog for some time - to log something about myself! Not really some 'something' but some SOMETHING! Folks, friends and even foes have told me, I write well - so why not let the world know about it, just in case they were not kidding. For all you know, they were being just kind, perhaps. Anyways, now that I've created a blog and have decided to log, what do I clog this page with? I did not want to consult other established bloggers because taking advice or tips have never been one of my strong points. But I did visit some blogs, forget about some, many many many blogs! And I realised people write just about anything - yes, anything, I mean it. And, I also figured out that the ground rule is to write about something as if the whole world is waiting to read about it. Before I get back to my own cynical self, which is generally well hidden, let me try and find something which interests me and well, the whole world. Okay, let's be realistic; if not the whole world, at least my own self. The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people! (Incidentally some Lucille S. Harper said it before I could).

Once upon a time, when I was young, naive and a little more egotistic (I discovered very late in life that egoism and egotism are two different things) than I am now, I had somehow developed a vague kind of 'intellectualism' (for want of a better and less arrogant word!). Let me try and explain, when given a school composition work on 'My favourite movie', when all my friends were writing on Roja and 1942: A Love Story and Kilukkam and Dil, I thought I should write on Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Mathilukal, which still remains one of my favourites! After the class when we were routinely asking each other "Hey, which movie did you write about?", I still remember telling them proudly - 'Mathilukal' - only to be given such unbelievable looks which almost read "You don't really look like a freak"! Some didn't even know that it was a movie - and the some who knew thought it was not even a movie! (We had not even entered teenage then). I wondered if I was supposed to be apologetic about my choice but I found myself in similar situations quite often ... and self-translated those looks into compliments! Thankfully, I didn't look like a freak so I was never traumatised - was left just a little puzzled. When girls of my age were still revelling in the world of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, I thought I had graduated to Silas Marner and Jane Eyre and Indulekha didn't really want to go back to Frank Hardy, on whom I think I had my first crush! When they were reading Vanitha (a popular women's magazine) I was trying really hard to comprehend Mathrubhumi weekly and Bhashaposhini and The Week and The Frontline and trying my best to pretend that I understand everything! I thought I was politically more aware and responsive than all my friends put together but my dad thought I didn't even read the newspaper properly! I used to get defensive about it for a long time till I discovered to my shock and dismay that even my husband (whom I myself had picked/chosen with much care, thought and skill) fanatically believes that newspapers are my enemies! Why do men think that they own newspapers?? Another exclusive session on that... eh... not immediately!

Coming back to my school days... in my world Reader's Digest co-existed with Tinkle Digest, Balarama was a staple diet but Basheer and O.V. Vijayan were desserts! I still can remember the state of trance I was in after my first encounter with Orwell - I could see and feel Big Brother! Equally incredible was my first date with Mills and Boons! I really have a lot more to write about the way I devoured books indiscriminately to the point of indigestion and at times nausea and even severe diarrhea! May be, in another session?

When I finished school, friends and foes thought I was going nuts - I wanted to choose the Arts Group! For those who don't know, in Kerala we believe that it is a crime to choose anything 'less' than science or maths if you somehow or the other score some ninety per cent in the Board Exams! Unless, you are dead sure that you will definitely aim for Civil Services, which I had no intention to! An uncle of mine thought it was suicidal, or did he mean slow poisoning? Whatever! Let me not digress. I reach college and I find that most of my classmates had had a bad dream - and when they woke up they were in G-batch, Arts Group! (Arts or Humanities, christened as 'G Batch' in our college, A-F being Maths/Science groups). That was the best they could explain about their accidental and not in the least happy landing or rather the crash landing in G Batch. Anyways, that was a long time back and again I found myself being a 'freak' occasionally - when I thought Beauty Contests didn't really make sense or wondered why Lady D's death should become our national tragedy! (I didn't say I don't 'like' Lady D - will definitely clarify it soon if you can hang on). At home everyone used to say that I just go on talking - most of the time out of focus but without omitting uninteresting and irrelevant details. I guess, I've been confirming that allegation for the last two and a half decades! So, let me move on to something else now.

I used to think I'm not much of a movie person but of late I realise I am pretty much au courant than most of the self declared movie buffs. Not sure if that's a moment of pride for me - anyways, who cares. There are some movies which I have watched over and again till I can identify them even when just the background music is playing! My list may keep varying for various random reasons - I'll reserve that logic or lack of logic for another session. Can't wait to reach all the 'another' sessions that I have promised! Why do these 'another' sessions remind me of the Other, which cannot always fit into the 'main' (con)text!

Hope I’m doing well for a beginner and I guess I’m here to stay for a while!

Virtually Yours