Once there was a sparsely populated town in Kerala. There descended upon it, capable men who built institutions. Around these institutions like the VSSC, CDS, University of Kerala, Agricultural University, Keltron, DD, AIR, RRL, CTCRI, Libraries, Govt. Bodies and think-tanks, colleges, schools, museums, stadiums, theatres, etc grew a modern city of salaried working class and their children. We lovingly call this city by various names - Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram and Ananthapuri. Like everything sustained by human effort, these institutions stagnated. One fine day came Globalization. The people were ready for it but not the un-extinct dinosaurs who ran these institutions. Money became the sole-motivating aim for the masses and they looked elsewhere for succour. These institutions cried foul at the hydra that was changing people's lifestyles. They stagnated further when public interest in them dipped. The replacements that globalization threw up for them weren't anything admirable either. A city is known for the institutions it is proud of. What happens to a city when the institutions it was once proud of stagnate? What happens to a city where the sole-touted institution is the Technopark which beats just to the tune of money?
Is it not time to redefine socialism? Socialism has become a dirty word. Why shouldn't socialism from now on just be about awareness of social, economic and environmental problems and implementing solutions to it? Why keep adhering to the age-old inequalities of income argument? For me, the biggest injustice perpetrated is the tendency to teach children to play it safe. The most painful aspect of a socialist system is the difficulty in getting a new initiative approved. Socialism always begins with a crusader's zeal to improve and change the existing setup. But it soon settles down into a system where the men who take charge of the social setup will not allow anyone to change this status-quo. The collaboration of interest groups works at all levels in Kerala - everybody be it the communist, the congressman, the trader, the worker, the church, the media, the intellectual - everyone who is a part of the current system and deriving benefits from it, is never motivated to change anything. This proves that interest groups don't need capitalism to flourish. An interest group works transparently in capitalism while it functions with brute power in socialism.
The only solution is to set individuals free. In Kerala, every organization has to function with interference from the top and bottom. Administrators fail to implement latest technologies, hire and fire competent/incompetent staff, streamlining the functioning of their fiefdoms, losing precious time running from pillar to post for clearing payments and bureaucratic approval. I know of an example of a person who succeeded when he was liberated. In 1998, staring at a system which he knew would deny him any chances of getting to the top of the university hierarchy despite his credentials, he interviewed for and was put in charge of a miserably performing academic institution affiliated to KU. Funded and answerable only to the UGC, functioning independent of the politicians who remote-control the university, he very quickly transformed it into the first-ranking institution of its nature in the country. He succeeded where many people capable of doing such stuff floundered elsewhere. I know that person well - he is my dad. I wouldn't say he was lead by high ideals - he was motivated by ambition and a fierce determination to stand above his peers.
From my last visit to Trivandrum, I am convinced that what Trivandrum needs more than all the requisites for economic growth and development is the revitalization of existing institutions. The reason I am proud of Kerala is that in all purposes it is a distinct entity yet seamlessly fitting within India. We have our own distinctive social system and problems, film industry, literature, subject experts in all areas, and many other parameters for being evaluated as a "country". Once, the colleges in Trivandrum like University College, Arts College, Ivanios, etc produced most of Kerala's intellectual, cultural and literary giants. Today these colleges are in a state of disuse with several vacant seats for the many courses they conduct. In their place has come up self-financing engineering colleges named after their "reputable" wealthy patrons producing graduates who have learnt in 4 years what it means to have a good time forgetting all the good things they learnt in school of social responsibility and the power of the inner self.
Some of the most talented Malayalis I have met here in the US and who will go on to lead a successful and meaningful life were people not motivated by money. They took degrees in pure sciences and arts, but developed great interest in their fields of study, that opportunities never ceased to shower on them. And our well-educated malayali frog-in-the-well parents think they know it all while prodding their unknowledgeable wards into engineering and medicine. The US is in such a strong position because of people of all talents and dispositions. A US citizen encourages activities in their communities by going out of the way to participate or encourage. The world over, intelligent societies and individuals are realizing that there is no natural or man-made wealth worthy left fighting for. I guess the blame rests on our heavily stratified society, that malayalis, whatever be the colour of their collar, can never afford to take a break from wasteful competition, and perpetrate the same mentalities on the next generation too.
There exists today no real setup for the fostering of talented people. I knew people in my father's generation from such varied fields as zoology to space science. Today all the "successful" people I know are MBA's, engineers or doctors. People drill into their children's heads that every other profession which earns lesser is the failure of the social animal. To meet and to be in the company of writers, policemen, researchers, etc if I have to climb one ladder down in the social ladder, I would gladly do it because these are the people I would enjoy talking to. Do we want Trivandrum to be a one-dimensional city like kochi? I wonder if there is anything left in that crumbling mega shopping paradise which is not subject to crass commercialization.
In a few months i will go back to being a citizen of trivandrum...i feel sad at the decline of the cultural, academic, athletic and research bodies - both govt and private owned. I have second thoughts now on the so-called urban development we are seeing in our country...ultimately everything needs support from the ordinary man and good people who can rise up to take visionary leadership. But the good people are all in useless engineering colleges out of touch with the subjects they study or the many other subjects in the world. There will be very few left to provide quality leadership in the next generation. I am woefully out of touch with trivandrum...my last visit there, about three months back didn't evoke any nostalgia. It felt like I was looking at a city of tired and haggard people. A fresh start can come only from the schools. When I return, I hope to find and band with like-minded people who can carry a message to our young ones on the dangerous ability of conventional beliefs to throttle their potential.
P.S - For long, I have stayed away from writing on the world about me. I was preoccupied with my own struggles...that difficult phase is hopefully over. Around the net, I have read several brilliant people propose solutions to propel Trivandrum's development. I am of the firm belief that nothing will change in this firmly-entrenched system unless we can mentor today's school children to replace the adults of today. The radicals and progressive thinkers of my father's generation, all of them - people who stood up to Indira Gandhi's Emergency, run the show in Trivandrum today. In their race to the top, all of them conveniently dropped their ideals. But I can't help wondering if we are all going to go their same way. I have frequently heard people cite the example of the freedom struggle where men and women came up from nowhere to give leadership and shape a national movement at a time when all hope was lost. In these modern times of Free Speech, Expression and Opportunity should we just wait for that dark hour and then get into the act? Please don't hesitate to add your thoughts and disagreements to this post.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Fulfilled Love...
The airport was my gateway, away from the people, away from the present, away from the impotency that gnawed at my existence. A funny thought occurred then. How would it feel to be trapped here? A Thrishanku Swargam repeating in modern times. Oh, wait a minute, didn't it happen recently...wasn't that what "The Terminal" was all about. So much for original thought, I mused.
"Valmiki, Spielberg and me...and why not?" I said to myself, the mock seriousness of it all, managing to please me.
And then, I saw her. She had a small child in her arms, another tugged at her shirt. She hadn't seen me. But she would. She was headed to the same gate. I didn't know what would be appropriate - to beckon her, hide from her or ignore her. But I continued to stare. And size her up. She hadn't changed a bit. It looked like her husband kept her happy and the kids kept her busy. I had thought of her often. But why had a bloated, unhappy figure of her's filled my imagination. Was it closure I wanted or vengeance? Or were those thoughts, ever about her? Wasn't it I, who needed to see her that way, to justify why life couldn't have taken any other route, save the one I am travelling on now.
She chose the row of seats, right across mine. With difficulty, she got the children to sit. The older of the two, unsaddled his miniature backpack and began to unload his toys.
"No monu! Just take one out. Amma won't clean up after you. And you won't get new toys if you leave any here!"
The boy seemed to comply, for the time being.
She turned her attention to the infant. It sat placidly ready to go off to sleep. She slipped a milk bottle in through the child's lips.
Her handbag still clung to her shoulders. She took it off and rifled through its contents to ensure their passports and tickets were safe. A quick glance at a mirror to ensure her rudimentary makeup was intact followed. She looked at me, staring unabashedly at her. A wave of self-consciousness hit her, men did this to her always, she would have reacted differently earlier. She brushed her hair backwards, pulled her shirt at its hem, and pinched her jeans down at the knees, cloaking her bared ankles. I took note of her inconvenience and looked away. It was her turn now to stare at me.
"Is this real? Is this youuuu!"
"Yes, me." I replied uncomfortably. I slowly moved over to take a seat besides her.
"My god, you have become so fat." There was no indication of our unsavoury past in her initial disposition to me. It was just like two friends meeting in a long time.
"You are still the same." I offered back.
"Which flight are you taking?"
"British," I answered, "but mine is only due in 4 hours."
"Mine is this one which boards next, BA4517" she said. Was I relieved to hear that? But she looked genuinely happy to see me.
"What are you doing now?" She was eager to know of my life after college.
"I am traveling, as you see."
"On work, I believe."
"No - for pleasure."
"For how long?"
"It's been going on for some time."
"You never worked?"
"I work a few months. Then travel till the money is gone."
"So what happens when no one will take you?"
"As you scorned me in the old days, then there is father's money - to mine."
"What of all those ambitions?"
"None - whatsoever. All gone."
"Hmmm."
Her face was expressionless. Behind that facade was she envious, was she disappointed, or was she sorry for me, I thought. Or, did she care anymore?
"Are you working?"
"No. My husband earns enough for both of us."
"And you are happy?"
"Yes, as happy as I could be."
"Are you happy?" she threw the question back at me.
"I don't know." I had uttered it with a finality, that ended the conversation. My life was my business. She would get no answer for it. But I have to answer for it to so many people. How different was she from all of them?
She went back to tending her children. I debated returning to my seat. I couldn't move. My mind rushed back to the time, when she was a dubious part of my existence, and never found an abiding place in it.
I couldn't remember when she first caught my roving eye. They blinked before resting on her. She wasn't the most attractive, or the friendly kind, yet something about her caught my fancy. I never spoke to her alone, I was part of a gang of boys who kept me busy with myriad schemes to wile away time, but my eyes talked to her, and hers to mine, furtively yet loaded with meanings and nuances. We were enemies in a sense, trying to guess each other's motives, trying to win over each other, but not yielding a bit of the safe ground we were on. That year went by, and the next, she grew prettier, her figure trimmed and curved in lines that now drove other eyes besides mine, some in silent, others in loud admiration. Our gazes seldom caught each others now, mine still darted with a playful abandon about her, that seared me and infuriated her. It was obvious that she couldn't wait any longer for me to make up my mind, there were others who waited to jump at the chance, the electric youthfulness that pulsed and glowed throughout her body had made her a new woman, one with desires and cravings that she no longer felt the need to bottle. And yet I twiddled. I had much to answer for in life, I had built up a reputation for wisdom, goodness and ambition...I was loved and venerated by one and all- I wouldn't ruin all that or my family's hopes for me on a girl in whom all I saw, was the answer to a wild craving for love and sex. Yet the heart cringed each time an advance was made at her, and at the blush or smile that fleeted across her face in unabashed pleasure of recognition. And yet she gave in to no man in college, which pleased me, but for how long, I wondered.
The remembrance of that misty dawn, now hangs on my clouded brain, like a shroud that parted our eyes, from even stealing glances at each other. It was a Saturday morning that I rose up early for cricket practice. I looked forward to the pleasure of a drive with the fresh morning breeze on my face, and the sweat running down the same face, as i swatted and drove the cricket ball. My bike, surged through the empty morning road, the temptation of a hot tea and a cigarette to ring in the day, was too hard to resist. I parked and ordered at the roadside tea-stall, the auspicious first customer of the day. But it was not to be. A familiar figure gingerly walking down the steps of the shop, and away towards the bus stand, caught my eyes. The Shop. That shop. An unspoken word in our city. A place where the decadent old and pulsating new money came together in a perfect harmony, a polluted channel for all the vulgar vices that the self-righteous society of my class strove to curtail. My heart skipped several beats on that lifeless road. And then it roared back to life. I ran. I only know, that I ran. I had no desire for the cafeine or the nicotine, for all the pent-up oxytocin of the years came gushing out in a violent river that desperately knew it would find no ocean to sink into.
Her hair was disheveled. And panic was writ large on her face. I had my answer. My heart sunk and with it my lungs which throbbed for breath.
"What were you doing there?"
"None of your business."
"You better answer me."
"I don't have to."
"I will ruin you." The manic rage in me, threatened to get physical.
"As you wish." Her cheekiness broke my manly muster. Tears flooded my cheek.
"You are a slut. That is what you are. A slut."
"Are you done? Now may I speak." Her calm voice was a repudiation of the menace that still raged menacingly within me.
"Yes," I choked up a feeble reply.
"I have seen what money can do in this city. Look at your exclusive groups of rich boys and rich girls with their shiny cars, laptops, expensive clothes and paid holidays. I also want all that and more. Do you know what it is to not get what you want?"
"But-but, why sell yourself?"
"well, that's the choice, I had to make."
"But you could have got a job soon. And you would have all the money you need."
"What job? Tell me one person in college who has a job in hand. And what do you know of my family?"
"You, you could have waited for me."
"Tell me honestly. What is it that you want? Your wants - are they any different from those men?"
I didn't have an answer to any of her questions. She had answers to mine. It was all over. The first love. The one lasting itch down there. The longest infatuation. Would I know that feeling again?
My thoughts came back to the present. Once, there was a high probability that this woman, sitting by me would have been my wife. And the children mine. I laughed at the adolescent thought. She looked up from the note she was scribbling on.
"You went back to the old days, ha?"
An embarrassed smile escaped me. She went back to her note.
Some months had passed. It was a New Year midnight. We guys were at the beach and had checked into a hotel for the night. A mad melee of tourists, locals and plainclothesmen had escaped to this place, that would put to shame the craziest lunatic asylum. I don't remember when I passed out or what happened afterwards. By next morning, everyone in class knew, save me. She was late. The teacher let her in, without questions. The girl at her bench, quickly moved to avoid letting her in, and so did the others who had a vacant space to fill.
"Here, take mine."I offered and slid to the other end.
"Wanna escort me, next new year?" a voice called out aloud, ignoring the presence of the teacher.
Manufactured sneers, all around.
Thud! The slap landed on my face, before I even saw it coming. The class was silenced.
"How could you do this to me? Did I deserve so cruel a vengeance?" her voice momentarily broke the silence.
My eyes blinked at her. Not a word could come out.
She rose, and walked out, head held high, showing no shame, knowing none else to blame.
The last sensation she left me with, was also like the first. But when my eyes stopped blinking, she was gone. And I didn't pursue her.
She never came back. I heard she took the final exams next year, with the junior batch.
She was an episode, I never forgot. She taught me, what it is to want, and not get. She also left me with a question to answer. A question I get often, but an answer, I hopelessly still search for.
My lips moved to silently mimic that question, "But why?"
She was tearing up the paper, away from my eyes, which caught that action almost on the tangent. I had trained my eyes to dog her and after years it still obeyed that old command.
"Listen. I am sorry about what happened." Her words spread through me, like a cool morning breeze of many years back.
"No, don't be. If ever I wanted to see you, I wanted it to be this way." For long, I had carried the spite, of a loss and insult, I had itched to see her as a bitch, snob and destitute. Instead I only saw a wife, mother and woman.
"I have to go now." She rose in unnatural hurry.
"I guess, we will not see each other again, ever." What a fine actor, I am, I thought. Just letting her off, that easily.
"I guess not."
When she walked out on me once more, I pieced together the torn pieces of paper, she left on the floor.
"To the only one, I truely loved before my kids came: I don't owe the world any explanations. But I owe you one. In slapping you, I slapped the world which dared question my actions."
Every act of hers, was the answer I should have given. Maybe that was her purpose in my life - to show me that answer. I was finally at peace.
P.S - It has been a long while. And it has been frustrating. And several false starts. To top it off, I was obsessed with writing a love story. I suspect I may have diverted from that goal. Maybe because I am a person who had, has and might never known/find true love for a woman (this sentence would need explanation to the future wifey:). I began the story in the third person. And to be frank, I was scared of personal identification and because the first person is the toughest act in fiction to carry through. But then, I thought who was I trying to fool here. For those, especially friends and family, who seek autobiographical elements in this, I say they are wasting time. The characters and incidents here if at all true, have been twisted and fictionalized - and yet, if someone sees a part of mine or their life played out here, I say it is just incidental (Okay, I need to learn from my protagonists and not be answerable to anyone:). I however will admit to one minor source of inspiration - some recent sex scandals in Kerala. As always when I take on fiction, criticism and feedback most welcome.
"Valmiki, Spielberg and me...and why not?" I said to myself, the mock seriousness of it all, managing to please me.
And then, I saw her. She had a small child in her arms, another tugged at her shirt. She hadn't seen me. But she would. She was headed to the same gate. I didn't know what would be appropriate - to beckon her, hide from her or ignore her. But I continued to stare. And size her up. She hadn't changed a bit. It looked like her husband kept her happy and the kids kept her busy. I had thought of her often. But why had a bloated, unhappy figure of her's filled my imagination. Was it closure I wanted or vengeance? Or were those thoughts, ever about her? Wasn't it I, who needed to see her that way, to justify why life couldn't have taken any other route, save the one I am travelling on now.
She chose the row of seats, right across mine. With difficulty, she got the children to sit. The older of the two, unsaddled his miniature backpack and began to unload his toys.
"No monu! Just take one out. Amma won't clean up after you. And you won't get new toys if you leave any here!"
The boy seemed to comply, for the time being.
She turned her attention to the infant. It sat placidly ready to go off to sleep. She slipped a milk bottle in through the child's lips.
Her handbag still clung to her shoulders. She took it off and rifled through its contents to ensure their passports and tickets were safe. A quick glance at a mirror to ensure her rudimentary makeup was intact followed. She looked at me, staring unabashedly at her. A wave of self-consciousness hit her, men did this to her always, she would have reacted differently earlier. She brushed her hair backwards, pulled her shirt at its hem, and pinched her jeans down at the knees, cloaking her bared ankles. I took note of her inconvenience and looked away. It was her turn now to stare at me.
"Is this real? Is this youuuu!"
"Yes, me." I replied uncomfortably. I slowly moved over to take a seat besides her.
"My god, you have become so fat." There was no indication of our unsavoury past in her initial disposition to me. It was just like two friends meeting in a long time.
"You are still the same." I offered back.
"Which flight are you taking?"
"British," I answered, "but mine is only due in 4 hours."
"Mine is this one which boards next, BA4517" she said. Was I relieved to hear that? But she looked genuinely happy to see me.
"What are you doing now?" She was eager to know of my life after college.
"I am traveling, as you see."
"On work, I believe."
"No - for pleasure."
"For how long?"
"It's been going on for some time."
"You never worked?"
"I work a few months. Then travel till the money is gone."
"So what happens when no one will take you?"
"As you scorned me in the old days, then there is father's money - to mine."
"What of all those ambitions?"
"None - whatsoever. All gone."
"Hmmm."
Her face was expressionless. Behind that facade was she envious, was she disappointed, or was she sorry for me, I thought. Or, did she care anymore?
"Are you working?"
"No. My husband earns enough for both of us."
"And you are happy?"
"Yes, as happy as I could be."
"Are you happy?" she threw the question back at me.
"I don't know." I had uttered it with a finality, that ended the conversation. My life was my business. She would get no answer for it. But I have to answer for it to so many people. How different was she from all of them?
She went back to tending her children. I debated returning to my seat. I couldn't move. My mind rushed back to the time, when she was a dubious part of my existence, and never found an abiding place in it.
I couldn't remember when she first caught my roving eye. They blinked before resting on her. She wasn't the most attractive, or the friendly kind, yet something about her caught my fancy. I never spoke to her alone, I was part of a gang of boys who kept me busy with myriad schemes to wile away time, but my eyes talked to her, and hers to mine, furtively yet loaded with meanings and nuances. We were enemies in a sense, trying to guess each other's motives, trying to win over each other, but not yielding a bit of the safe ground we were on. That year went by, and the next, she grew prettier, her figure trimmed and curved in lines that now drove other eyes besides mine, some in silent, others in loud admiration. Our gazes seldom caught each others now, mine still darted with a playful abandon about her, that seared me and infuriated her. It was obvious that she couldn't wait any longer for me to make up my mind, there were others who waited to jump at the chance, the electric youthfulness that pulsed and glowed throughout her body had made her a new woman, one with desires and cravings that she no longer felt the need to bottle. And yet I twiddled. I had much to answer for in life, I had built up a reputation for wisdom, goodness and ambition...I was loved and venerated by one and all- I wouldn't ruin all that or my family's hopes for me on a girl in whom all I saw, was the answer to a wild craving for love and sex. Yet the heart cringed each time an advance was made at her, and at the blush or smile that fleeted across her face in unabashed pleasure of recognition. And yet she gave in to no man in college, which pleased me, but for how long, I wondered.
The remembrance of that misty dawn, now hangs on my clouded brain, like a shroud that parted our eyes, from even stealing glances at each other. It was a Saturday morning that I rose up early for cricket practice. I looked forward to the pleasure of a drive with the fresh morning breeze on my face, and the sweat running down the same face, as i swatted and drove the cricket ball. My bike, surged through the empty morning road, the temptation of a hot tea and a cigarette to ring in the day, was too hard to resist. I parked and ordered at the roadside tea-stall, the auspicious first customer of the day. But it was not to be. A familiar figure gingerly walking down the steps of the shop, and away towards the bus stand, caught my eyes. The Shop. That shop. An unspoken word in our city. A place where the decadent old and pulsating new money came together in a perfect harmony, a polluted channel for all the vulgar vices that the self-righteous society of my class strove to curtail. My heart skipped several beats on that lifeless road. And then it roared back to life. I ran. I only know, that I ran. I had no desire for the cafeine or the nicotine, for all the pent-up oxytocin of the years came gushing out in a violent river that desperately knew it would find no ocean to sink into.
Her hair was disheveled. And panic was writ large on her face. I had my answer. My heart sunk and with it my lungs which throbbed for breath.
"What were you doing there?"
"None of your business."
"You better answer me."
"I don't have to."
"I will ruin you." The manic rage in me, threatened to get physical.
"As you wish." Her cheekiness broke my manly muster. Tears flooded my cheek.
"You are a slut. That is what you are. A slut."
"Are you done? Now may I speak." Her calm voice was a repudiation of the menace that still raged menacingly within me.
"Yes," I choked up a feeble reply.
"I have seen what money can do in this city. Look at your exclusive groups of rich boys and rich girls with their shiny cars, laptops, expensive clothes and paid holidays. I also want all that and more. Do you know what it is to not get what you want?"
"But-but, why sell yourself?"
"well, that's the choice, I had to make."
"But you could have got a job soon. And you would have all the money you need."
"What job? Tell me one person in college who has a job in hand. And what do you know of my family?"
"You, you could have waited for me."
"Tell me honestly. What is it that you want? Your wants - are they any different from those men?"
I didn't have an answer to any of her questions. She had answers to mine. It was all over. The first love. The one lasting itch down there. The longest infatuation. Would I know that feeling again?
My thoughts came back to the present. Once, there was a high probability that this woman, sitting by me would have been my wife. And the children mine. I laughed at the adolescent thought. She looked up from the note she was scribbling on.
"You went back to the old days, ha?"
An embarrassed smile escaped me. She went back to her note.
Some months had passed. It was a New Year midnight. We guys were at the beach and had checked into a hotel for the night. A mad melee of tourists, locals and plainclothesmen had escaped to this place, that would put to shame the craziest lunatic asylum. I don't remember when I passed out or what happened afterwards. By next morning, everyone in class knew, save me. She was late. The teacher let her in, without questions. The girl at her bench, quickly moved to avoid letting her in, and so did the others who had a vacant space to fill.
"Here, take mine."I offered and slid to the other end.
"Wanna escort me, next new year?" a voice called out aloud, ignoring the presence of the teacher.
Manufactured sneers, all around.
Thud! The slap landed on my face, before I even saw it coming. The class was silenced.
"How could you do this to me? Did I deserve so cruel a vengeance?" her voice momentarily broke the silence.
My eyes blinked at her. Not a word could come out.
She rose, and walked out, head held high, showing no shame, knowing none else to blame.
The last sensation she left me with, was also like the first. But when my eyes stopped blinking, she was gone. And I didn't pursue her.
She never came back. I heard she took the final exams next year, with the junior batch.
She was an episode, I never forgot. She taught me, what it is to want, and not get. She also left me with a question to answer. A question I get often, but an answer, I hopelessly still search for.
My lips moved to silently mimic that question, "But why?"
She was tearing up the paper, away from my eyes, which caught that action almost on the tangent. I had trained my eyes to dog her and after years it still obeyed that old command.
"Listen. I am sorry about what happened." Her words spread through me, like a cool morning breeze of many years back.
"No, don't be. If ever I wanted to see you, I wanted it to be this way." For long, I had carried the spite, of a loss and insult, I had itched to see her as a bitch, snob and destitute. Instead I only saw a wife, mother and woman.
"I have to go now." She rose in unnatural hurry.
"I guess, we will not see each other again, ever." What a fine actor, I am, I thought. Just letting her off, that easily.
"I guess not."
When she walked out on me once more, I pieced together the torn pieces of paper, she left on the floor.
"To the only one, I truely loved before my kids came: I don't owe the world any explanations. But I owe you one. In slapping you, I slapped the world which dared question my actions."
Every act of hers, was the answer I should have given. Maybe that was her purpose in my life - to show me that answer. I was finally at peace.
P.S - It has been a long while. And it has been frustrating. And several false starts. To top it off, I was obsessed with writing a love story. I suspect I may have diverted from that goal. Maybe because I am a person who had, has and might never known/find true love for a woman (this sentence would need explanation to the future wifey:). I began the story in the third person. And to be frank, I was scared of personal identification and because the first person is the toughest act in fiction to carry through. But then, I thought who was I trying to fool here. For those, especially friends and family, who seek autobiographical elements in this, I say they are wasting time. The characters and incidents here if at all true, have been twisted and fictionalized - and yet, if someone sees a part of mine or their life played out here, I say it is just incidental (Okay, I need to learn from my protagonists and not be answerable to anyone:). I however will admit to one minor source of inspiration - some recent sex scandals in Kerala. As always when I take on fiction, criticism and feedback most welcome.
Monday, February 11, 2008
How Blogging Clicked...For Me
Sometime last year, I read a survey conducted by some magazine, on the most overrated things/people/products in the universe, and not entirely to my surprise, I found blogging to be one of the winners to this dubious hall of fame - while only a few years back, it was hailed as the voice of the common man. For a while, I have been reading quite a few bloggers say they are quitting. Some attributed it to pointlessness, no ideas to write about, lack of comments, not knowing who their audience was, insipid life, etc, etc. And yesterday, Silverine sent me a post from a very good blogger, where on reading backwards I discovered him to be having some of these problems. I replied to her, wondering how many more such bloggers are lost in this race for instant gratification.
Many people tell me I am a good blogger. I am happy with the compliment. But I have known deep inside that it was just a case of being at the right place at the right time. It was a case of accidentally doing some things right, and then accidentally using the right tools to pierce through the numerous blocks and barriers that soon came my way. And so, after a long time, I again thought of devoting a post, to this hobby, which fortuitously came to me at a time, when my self-esteem stood low at having to become an average programming zombie in corporate madhouses, and having only myself to blame despite knowing that several better but improbable careers like politics, government service, etc would have suited me better. If you are a new blogger, or one on the verge of quitting, despite having a love for writing, hopefully reading this post will give you some new ideas to start over.
1. Incubation - For the first few months of my blogging, I kept it to myself. When I go back and read, I find my first pieces of writing to be gems in dull and long rambling prose. In those months, I did not know of such a thing as blogosphere. A blog was merely a diary open to public eyes which funnily contrasted with my long-held opinion of a diary being a very private object of one's affections. When I gained confidence, I slowly let word out to my classmates, who suddenly had begun to clamour on why my long emails to our yahoogroups had dried up, and which for a long time(6 years) had been my sole forum to write. Comments didn't matter to me, I was just happy to do writing in the public domain, and gleeful that my name popped up more in google search and showed up alongside my dad's. I would have innocently kept to this idea of blogging, for quite a while, and probably even given it up, once ridden of the novelty until Neil and Silverine left the first outside comments here. Through Neil, I discovered the Kerala Blogroll.
2. Enable Your Site Feed - I think Blogspot by default sets it to a "No"! You never know from where readers will land up. And do refrain from using gaudy templates, with colours that give readers a headache.
3. Join the Kerala Blogroll - Though it isn't in me to be parochial, it is hard to track all the indian bloggers. Kerala Blogroll offered me a good collection of malayali bloggers, but now I rarely find much good stuff there from new hands. If you are writing well, you might catch the interest of many visitors there. I am thankful to Dr.Manoj who has for so many years kept his Melam feed aggregator running, considering the time he has to devote to his research and teaching, and brought us bloggers, so many readers.
4. Build a Community - Through Silverine's blogroll and the Kerala Blogroll, I found a set of young, recently begun bloggers like me, and we made a formidable online community. All of us posted once a week, left comments for each other and reading their blogs widened my vision on how a blog could overflow, not merely encompass. This collaborative success had solidified my thinking that an online initiative can be successful only if it is interactive. Some of those folks like Anish, Geo, Thanu and Praveen seem to have given up, some like Jithu and Flash have become irregular, but the 6 months I was active in that fold was a period of immense creative energy, the only time I really felt beholden to my set of readers. Back then, I would really felt rotten if I hadn't written a post, a week. What new bloggers need to do, is build communities, especially with other starters like them. Visit people whose blogs you like and leave comments. Some of them will keep coming back. For me personally, I content myself with a set of few blogs I read. I don't go out scouting for new blogs to read now, sometimes I am such a jerk that I don't even respond to the gesture of fellow bloggers who leave comments here - I wish I could go back to the days I devoted a solid hour daily to reading blogs. Silverine, on her part sends us some good reads once in a while and she says that is her new year resolution to uncover more new bloggers. I wish I had her tremendous energy, but this is what bloggers need to do, watch out for each other.
5. New Challenges - The only way to continue blogging is to put your mind to work looking for happenings around you or to look for new writing challenges. I chose the second route because the first didn't appeal to me - my social life in the US just hasn't satisfied me and incidents around me just don't inspire...its another story that years later I will look at these days differently and gather a different perspective. I too have said here two years back that I am quitting. It was yet another knee-jerk reaction from me. I stopped saying that after quite a few writing ideas appeared to me out of thin air. When I first went hunting into blog-world, I realized there was no limit or a defined set of topics, to what a blog should keep to. Your talent is your only limit, and finding out what those talents are, has been a reason I am still here. The best challenge, I have thrown at myself emerged from my discovery of this blogger at Kerala Blogroll, and on reading this post. I had suddenly discovered somebody who shared my aspirations and frustrations. A new frontier was suddenly mine to conquer through blogging - fiction - and having done that, I wanted a new challenge. And it was right before my eyes for many years, but I never took it up, for fear of failure - writing humour in a conversational tone. For years Silverine had done it, and I would sit open-mouthed when not laughing, reading her funny posts at Poomanam, wondering how she did it so regularly, week after week and month after month. Of course, I had written posts on funny incidents and anecdotes, but none of that really landed the knockout punch I was looking for, until I tried the conversational format out, last Feb. Now I have a new challenge set for me, writing that needs analysis, research and a lot of people skills - it goes beyond blogging, but I believe I have done some of the groundwork here. Ashok, another blogger, has become a friend, philosopher and guide on this mission, I know not what will happen, and where it will take me.
6. Love Writing - I have seen people begin blogs for many reasons - but I will list one reason I am still here. I love to write. A well-written post lands me high for a few days, before seemingly succumbing to the laws of gravity and dropping me down with a resounding thud, back to hard ground. The fall hurts and sometimes I stick to the idea of staying on level ground and enjoying freedom from creative foment. But, I keep coming back and looking for new highs to conquer with the knowledge that the fall which will follow has only helped me get better at my craft besides quickly busting any pretensions of having cooked up a timeless creation. Most people begin blogs itching to write something but most give up for other reasons. So don't ever forget that reason which brought you to this endeavor in the first place - keep that flame alive when it begins to flicker.
I don't know if this post took up a preachy, moralistic or self-congratulatory tone - but that was never the intention. Your motivation for blogging may be different or you may or may not be the target audience. But if the few tips here from hindsight helps budding bloggers, to break through the millions of blogs that have served more to obscure and stifle, rather than project the good blogging seeds - I will be thankful at having partly repaid a debt to this hobby that gave me the courage to honestly face my aspirations and fears...and so this post. Happy Blogging!
Many people tell me I am a good blogger. I am happy with the compliment. But I have known deep inside that it was just a case of being at the right place at the right time. It was a case of accidentally doing some things right, and then accidentally using the right tools to pierce through the numerous blocks and barriers that soon came my way. And so, after a long time, I again thought of devoting a post, to this hobby, which fortuitously came to me at a time, when my self-esteem stood low at having to become an average programming zombie in corporate madhouses, and having only myself to blame despite knowing that several better but improbable careers like politics, government service, etc would have suited me better. If you are a new blogger, or one on the verge of quitting, despite having a love for writing, hopefully reading this post will give you some new ideas to start over.
1. Incubation - For the first few months of my blogging, I kept it to myself. When I go back and read, I find my first pieces of writing to be gems in dull and long rambling prose. In those months, I did not know of such a thing as blogosphere. A blog was merely a diary open to public eyes which funnily contrasted with my long-held opinion of a diary being a very private object of one's affections. When I gained confidence, I slowly let word out to my classmates, who suddenly had begun to clamour on why my long emails to our yahoogroups had dried up, and which for a long time(6 years) had been my sole forum to write. Comments didn't matter to me, I was just happy to do writing in the public domain, and gleeful that my name popped up more in google search and showed up alongside my dad's. I would have innocently kept to this idea of blogging, for quite a while, and probably even given it up, once ridden of the novelty until Neil and Silverine left the first outside comments here. Through Neil, I discovered the Kerala Blogroll.
2. Enable Your Site Feed - I think Blogspot by default sets it to a "No"! You never know from where readers will land up. And do refrain from using gaudy templates, with colours that give readers a headache.
3. Join the Kerala Blogroll - Though it isn't in me to be parochial, it is hard to track all the indian bloggers. Kerala Blogroll offered me a good collection of malayali bloggers, but now I rarely find much good stuff there from new hands. If you are writing well, you might catch the interest of many visitors there. I am thankful to Dr.Manoj who has for so many years kept his Melam feed aggregator running, considering the time he has to devote to his research and teaching, and brought us bloggers, so many readers.
4. Build a Community - Through Silverine's blogroll and the Kerala Blogroll, I found a set of young, recently begun bloggers like me, and we made a formidable online community. All of us posted once a week, left comments for each other and reading their blogs widened my vision on how a blog could overflow, not merely encompass. This collaborative success had solidified my thinking that an online initiative can be successful only if it is interactive. Some of those folks like Anish, Geo, Thanu and Praveen seem to have given up, some like Jithu and Flash have become irregular, but the 6 months I was active in that fold was a period of immense creative energy, the only time I really felt beholden to my set of readers. Back then, I would really felt rotten if I hadn't written a post, a week. What new bloggers need to do, is build communities, especially with other starters like them. Visit people whose blogs you like and leave comments. Some of them will keep coming back. For me personally, I content myself with a set of few blogs I read. I don't go out scouting for new blogs to read now, sometimes I am such a jerk that I don't even respond to the gesture of fellow bloggers who leave comments here - I wish I could go back to the days I devoted a solid hour daily to reading blogs. Silverine, on her part sends us some good reads once in a while and she says that is her new year resolution to uncover more new bloggers. I wish I had her tremendous energy, but this is what bloggers need to do, watch out for each other.
5. New Challenges - The only way to continue blogging is to put your mind to work looking for happenings around you or to look for new writing challenges. I chose the second route because the first didn't appeal to me - my social life in the US just hasn't satisfied me and incidents around me just don't inspire...its another story that years later I will look at these days differently and gather a different perspective. I too have said here two years back that I am quitting. It was yet another knee-jerk reaction from me. I stopped saying that after quite a few writing ideas appeared to me out of thin air. When I first went hunting into blog-world, I realized there was no limit or a defined set of topics, to what a blog should keep to. Your talent is your only limit, and finding out what those talents are, has been a reason I am still here. The best challenge, I have thrown at myself emerged from my discovery of this blogger at Kerala Blogroll, and on reading this post. I had suddenly discovered somebody who shared my aspirations and frustrations. A new frontier was suddenly mine to conquer through blogging - fiction - and having done that, I wanted a new challenge. And it was right before my eyes for many years, but I never took it up, for fear of failure - writing humour in a conversational tone. For years Silverine had done it, and I would sit open-mouthed when not laughing, reading her funny posts at Poomanam, wondering how she did it so regularly, week after week and month after month. Of course, I had written posts on funny incidents and anecdotes, but none of that really landed the knockout punch I was looking for, until I tried the conversational format out, last Feb. Now I have a new challenge set for me, writing that needs analysis, research and a lot of people skills - it goes beyond blogging, but I believe I have done some of the groundwork here. Ashok, another blogger, has become a friend, philosopher and guide on this mission, I know not what will happen, and where it will take me.
6. Love Writing - I have seen people begin blogs for many reasons - but I will list one reason I am still here. I love to write. A well-written post lands me high for a few days, before seemingly succumbing to the laws of gravity and dropping me down with a resounding thud, back to hard ground. The fall hurts and sometimes I stick to the idea of staying on level ground and enjoying freedom from creative foment. But, I keep coming back and looking for new highs to conquer with the knowledge that the fall which will follow has only helped me get better at my craft besides quickly busting any pretensions of having cooked up a timeless creation. Most people begin blogs itching to write something but most give up for other reasons. So don't ever forget that reason which brought you to this endeavor in the first place - keep that flame alive when it begins to flicker.
I don't know if this post took up a preachy, moralistic or self-congratulatory tone - but that was never the intention. Your motivation for blogging may be different or you may or may not be the target audience. But if the few tips here from hindsight helps budding bloggers, to break through the millions of blogs that have served more to obscure and stifle, rather than project the good blogging seeds - I will be thankful at having partly repaid a debt to this hobby that gave me the courage to honestly face my aspirations and fears...and so this post. Happy Blogging!
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Oru Paathiriyum Rande Kunjaadukalum...
Jagathy: "Kalyaana kuri vaangikkan pokuvaano"
Mohanlal: "Athe"
Jagathy: "Pathu kalpanakal ariyaamo"
Mohanlal: "Illa"
Jagathy: "Ennaal poyitte kaaryamilla"
That was Jagathy in a short but funny role, whose desire to get married is repeatedly foiled by his parish priest, Thilakan in the movie Koodum Thedi, for not knowing the Ten Commandments.
Recently I had to accompany my sis to our parish in Trivandrum, to get the kuri for her. And it turned out to be more hilarious than I ever expected. Going to this church and meeting priests from this church was a tense affair for me, because I was irregular for mass, had bunked sunday school and we never made it for their prayer group sessions.
The priest handed out a four page form to fill out. My sis is dismayed as it is in Malayalam, not her strength by any means. What surprised me is she ventures to fill out the form in malayalam, ignoring my entreaties to get it done with, in english. I decided to watch mutely, the fun that was to follow. Yes becomes "Uvve" in malayalam and No becomes "Illa" while filling forms. But my sis wrote "Aaa"(her colloquial for Yes), and when I broke down laughing, she changes it hastily to "Athe". The questions the form asked were funny too but i forget them. And where her answer was negative she writes "Alla", firmly in the grip of colloquial usage. Gleefully, I let her leave it that way, hoping the priest would spot it. She took the obsession with writing in malayalam to dizzying heights by attempting to write our US address in malayalam and when she came to the words "apartment", the helpless look on her face was a moment to treasure for eternity. I stopped making fun of her right there, as she seemed to be on the verge of exploding with rage and tears.
The Achan took up the form, and the first sound that escaped him was a groan, and his hands went up to his face, seeing the systematic murder of the malayalam langauge that had taken place. Like a school teacher, he diligently corrected the spelling mistakes, semantic "misjudgements" and the grammatical errors. Sis sat red-faced, while I was enjoying the comedy of errors thoroughly. It was a long time, since some situational comedy happened in my life.
Achan: "Nee kooduthal chirikkanda. Ningalode njan chila catechism questions chodikkan pokuva"
Me (laughter substituted by fear): "Njan alla acho kettunne. Ivala"
Achan: "Pathe kalpanakal ethokkeya"
I begin sweating. Luckily sis knows them all.
But the next question stumps both of us.
Achan: "Pathe kalpanakal ethrayaayitte churukkaam"
Sis: "Eh?! Angane churukkaan pattumo?"
Achan: "Sheda! Illaatha Kaaryangal njan chodikkumo"
Sis: "Ezhe"
Achan: "Ezho! Ente karthaave ninte sabha pokka"!
Achan: "Ennaal nee para"
Me: "Acho njaan alla kettunne."
Achan: "Haa parayada"
Me (tepidly): "Naale"
Achan: "Naalo! Correct answer is two"
Achan: "Ninakke extra two evidanne kitti"
Me (embarassed): "Athe njan enikke vendi ondaakiya rande kalpanakal aanacho!"
Achan: "Seven sacraments ariyumo"
Sis: "Of course."
But the seventh stumps her. The priest turns to me.
Me (triumphantly): "Holy Orders!"
Achan: "Ho nee vichaaricha poleyallallo."
Me: "Oru kaalathe enikke achanaakanam ennondaayirunnu."
Achan (sarcastic): "Ho bhaagyam, athe nadannillallo!"
After more questions and some disturbing answers from my sis...
Achan (to me): "Ithokke kettathukonde ineem ninakke eluppamaayallo"
Me (chuckling): "Achan ithey chodyangal thanne chodikkanam, please!"
The priest winds up the session, giving my sis some really awesome words of advice. We were very impressed. Mom had given us a very wrong impression of this priest, both of us thought. He had totally floored us. But like a predator, quickly moving in for the kill after cleverly ensnaring his prey, he made his next move.
Achan: "We are building a church at Pongummoodu, and we are severely short of funds."
Me (that sinking feeling): "I forgot my checkbook."
Achan: "Cash mathi"
Me: "Veetil poyi eduthonde varaam acho"
Achan: "Sheri"
Me: "Kuri?"
Achan: "Cash konde varummbam tharaam. Porey?"
Me: "Mathi acho!"
We ran for our lives. Sis, embarassed that her catechism had failed her. Me, cursing myself, for not reading the Achan's mind well enough.
Back home, we tell our parents, all what happened.
Pops: "Why did you tell him you both are working in the US. You should have said you are studying."
Mom: "Ente maathaave, enikkingane rande mandan pillereyaanallo kittiyathe"
Me (sheepishly): "It is for something good, right?"
Mom: "Achanmaarke aavashyathilere kaashonde. Athe edukkaathe nammale pirikkaan nadakkuva"
Pops (mournfully): "I sent you guys there, to escape him. Ineem njan thanne pokaam, and hopefully undo all the damage!"
Me: "Another reason, to do a register marriage!"
P.S: Phew! I never thought i would blog again. Feels nice to be back. And enjoy this wonderful xian song, that I have listened to, a hundred times already!
Mohanlal: "Athe"
Jagathy: "Pathu kalpanakal ariyaamo"
Mohanlal: "Illa"
Jagathy: "Ennaal poyitte kaaryamilla"
That was Jagathy in a short but funny role, whose desire to get married is repeatedly foiled by his parish priest, Thilakan in the movie Koodum Thedi, for not knowing the Ten Commandments.
Recently I had to accompany my sis to our parish in Trivandrum, to get the kuri for her. And it turned out to be more hilarious than I ever expected. Going to this church and meeting priests from this church was a tense affair for me, because I was irregular for mass, had bunked sunday school and we never made it for their prayer group sessions.
The priest handed out a four page form to fill out. My sis is dismayed as it is in Malayalam, not her strength by any means. What surprised me is she ventures to fill out the form in malayalam, ignoring my entreaties to get it done with, in english. I decided to watch mutely, the fun that was to follow. Yes becomes "Uvve" in malayalam and No becomes "Illa" while filling forms. But my sis wrote "Aaa"(her colloquial for Yes), and when I broke down laughing, she changes it hastily to "Athe". The questions the form asked were funny too but i forget them. And where her answer was negative she writes "Alla", firmly in the grip of colloquial usage. Gleefully, I let her leave it that way, hoping the priest would spot it. She took the obsession with writing in malayalam to dizzying heights by attempting to write our US address in malayalam and when she came to the words "apartment", the helpless look on her face was a moment to treasure for eternity. I stopped making fun of her right there, as she seemed to be on the verge of exploding with rage and tears.
The Achan took up the form, and the first sound that escaped him was a groan, and his hands went up to his face, seeing the systematic murder of the malayalam langauge that had taken place. Like a school teacher, he diligently corrected the spelling mistakes, semantic "misjudgements" and the grammatical errors. Sis sat red-faced, while I was enjoying the comedy of errors thoroughly. It was a long time, since some situational comedy happened in my life.
Achan: "Nee kooduthal chirikkanda. Ningalode njan chila catechism questions chodikkan pokuva"
Me (laughter substituted by fear): "Njan alla acho kettunne. Ivala"
Achan: "Pathe kalpanakal ethokkeya"
I begin sweating. Luckily sis knows them all.
But the next question stumps both of us.
Achan: "Pathe kalpanakal ethrayaayitte churukkaam"
Sis: "Eh?! Angane churukkaan pattumo?"
Achan: "Sheda! Illaatha Kaaryangal njan chodikkumo"
Sis: "Ezhe"
Achan: "Ezho! Ente karthaave ninte sabha pokka"!
Achan: "Ennaal nee para"
Me: "Acho njaan alla kettunne."
Achan: "Haa parayada"
Me (tepidly): "Naale"
Achan: "Naalo! Correct answer is two"
Achan: "Ninakke extra two evidanne kitti"
Me (embarassed): "Athe njan enikke vendi ondaakiya rande kalpanakal aanacho!"
Achan: "Seven sacraments ariyumo"
Sis: "Of course."
But the seventh stumps her. The priest turns to me.
Me (triumphantly): "Holy Orders!"
Achan: "Ho nee vichaaricha poleyallallo."
Me: "Oru kaalathe enikke achanaakanam ennondaayirunnu."
Achan (sarcastic): "Ho bhaagyam, athe nadannillallo!"
After more questions and some disturbing answers from my sis...
Achan (to me): "Ithokke kettathukonde ineem ninakke eluppamaayallo"
Me (chuckling): "Achan ithey chodyangal thanne chodikkanam, please!"
The priest winds up the session, giving my sis some really awesome words of advice. We were very impressed. Mom had given us a very wrong impression of this priest, both of us thought. He had totally floored us. But like a predator, quickly moving in for the kill after cleverly ensnaring his prey, he made his next move.
Achan: "We are building a church at Pongummoodu, and we are severely short of funds."
Me (that sinking feeling): "I forgot my checkbook."
Achan: "Cash mathi"
Me: "Veetil poyi eduthonde varaam acho"
Achan: "Sheri"
Me: "Kuri?"
Achan: "Cash konde varummbam tharaam. Porey?"
Me: "Mathi acho!"
We ran for our lives. Sis, embarassed that her catechism had failed her. Me, cursing myself, for not reading the Achan's mind well enough.
Back home, we tell our parents, all what happened.
Pops: "Why did you tell him you both are working in the US. You should have said you are studying."
Mom: "Ente maathaave, enikkingane rande mandan pillereyaanallo kittiyathe"
Me (sheepishly): "It is for something good, right?"
Mom: "Achanmaarke aavashyathilere kaashonde. Athe edukkaathe nammale pirikkaan nadakkuva"
Pops (mournfully): "I sent you guys there, to escape him. Ineem njan thanne pokaam, and hopefully undo all the damage!"
Me: "Another reason, to do a register marriage!"
P.S: Phew! I never thought i would blog again. Feels nice to be back. And enjoy this wonderful xian song, that I have listened to, a hundred times already!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
A Time To Rewind...
I decided to move this by now customary year-end post up ahead. Two reasons for that, one is I had to get out of a blogging rut and this post had a template I have set in the previous years and was easy to replicate, the other reason being me getting back to my hometown in december, and memories, family, friends, places, habits, occasions are all going to come together in one overwhelming medley and hopefully supply a lot of posts to this blog. Readers have read most of this crap already, skirt it unless you have nothing better to do. 2007 was my year of passivity, it was my year of stability, it was my year of restless soul-searching, it was my year of loss and gain, and a year of lot more, which I intend to flesh out as I write on.
Ups - God - I haven't mentioned before that I spent six months from late september last year to late march looking for a job. The money I had saved up was all but over. God came along and took me under his wing once again as I was about to lose my direction in life. I had quit the UPSC preps by January when my forms didn't reach India in time. I had a return ticket back home for May, but a return to what and for what. I didn't have the answer but HE saved me the trouble. I haven't seen the inside of a church in six months, but every time I look back at how I overcame miraculously the challenges at work and in my mind, it is his unseen guidance I am compelled to acknowledge. Why is prayer such an impossibility for me...i struggle to find the answer. Maybe god lives only in a home, i am living in a sathram, maybe when i make a nest and settle down to it, HE will have a permanent dwelling place.
Ups - Career - The the longest I have worked at one place in my professional career - 8+ months now and counting. Last september when i returned to the US, I had made a firm decision to not go back to programming, i kept with it despite the delay in getting a job, took training in Cognos, a business reporting tool, and it has looked so far to be a right choice I made as a kind of wayside gas station to refuel and a stop-over motel to rework strategies on unravelling the big mystery to my purpose of living. Work was lazy till managers changed and now its hectic but I have been able to deal with it. I continue to be sick of meetings, the dozens of emails to be read and replied, the tasks to be managed, there are times I feel like running away but the money that has come in has helped. Thoughts of frustration and mediocrity have been relegated to the fringes of my existence. Love for, needs satisfied and the temporary security provided by money have given me justification and motivation to carry on for a few more months. A new career will beckon soon, it is a start from scratch, unless I find myself in it, I won't believe I made the transition. I am scared too. That is why I keep it secret.
Downs - Blogging - The latter part of the year has been a struggle to keep this blog going. Except for the upcoming expected interregnum in december I except this downward slide to continue next year too. Decided not to put pen to paper on thoughts arising from nostalgia and past memories and instead write only of present and future. Sadly I didn't do anything significant in the present, and the few posts I came up with in the last few months arose from career thoughts. To be frank, the hazy dreams of the future is the only thing playing in my mind now and there is space for nothing else. My mind is muddled and my words are lacking in flow now. Hopefully being back in tvm will put me back in some creative orbit. Still there will be positives from this year in that I arrived on the guts to post on this blog, a malayalam short story in january. There is some mystic almost spiritual energy for the malayalam language bubbling in me...I have a gut feeling that if I write to publish, it will happen in malayalam and not in english, despite all my inadequacies in the language. In february-march when 5-6 months had passed and i was still jobless and at wits end, i dug into my reserves of humour and memories and wrote on funny incidents to conquer all the worries and regain my sanity. Beyond blogging, as a writer this year was significant in that I tried to take classes in creative writing and screenplay to master the techniques behind it - I lost interest midway through, but I have the notes and hopefully will peruse them some other day. In writing fiction, a thankless process is coming up with story ideas, atleast once every day for the past one year, I have gone on a journey with my mind to craft many a tale, most of them never got anywhere, some find their way to summarized scribblings in my notepad jotted down while half-asleep, possibly never to be expanded on. I finally have another story to write now, but am troubled, with both the english language and determination deserting me in the effort to write. And finally grammar. I have given it a total miss all these years in the freedom of ownership that blogging offers...maybe it as to do with the rigid syntax checking enforced on us techies by programming tools! But using the right tenses, placing commas, spellchecks, I am making an effort to get these as right as possible nowadays. On re-reading my older posts, I now wonder if I slept through the english grammar classes in school!
Downs - Travel - Last year presented me with the opportunity to travel in North India. It was a great learning experience for me, my eyes soaked up the lives of so many people, and the sights of so many places. a lot of that found expression on this blog too. In contrast, this year found me wallowing away at home. In the past, I have done road trips in the US and covered the country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. The absence of people, and not learning anything new in these travels has affirmed in me an aversion to travel here. All i can think of as travel this year, was a trip to chicago to hang out with cousins, one to florida for a family reunion, a weekend camping at hollister hills near san jose and a sailing trip few weeks back(my initial enthusiasm to don a sailor's cap during the trip and hoist and turn sails, etc died down in the open sea with rough waves giving the boat a real tossing and me a mild attack of sea-sickness which I did well to conceal from friends...whoever named the Pacific Ocean so, had an incredible sense of humour!)
Downs - Reading - I'd blame the computer and the internet for distracting me with youtube and malayalam movies and indian websites but my inability to set all this aside and take up a book and read, which i know would give me the same pleasure, is baffling to say the least! First library books, then amazon.com...i thought since the library books are free, buying from amazon would force me to read...no luck either ways. Brought a lot of malayalam works from kerala to read, most of them are still waiting for me. Shame on you, jibster!
Ups - Health - One day I took a bus, it braked, I almost got thrown but for the grip on the sidebar, i felt the muscles on my back stretch and dreaded for a second, of it tearing(I am now on my fourth year running in the US without medical insurance. I don't know why i keep taking these foolish risks...but i am glad i dont give any money to the scamsters!). That day i came back home, and announced to my sis, who had been cajoling me for a long time to hit the gym, that i would join her. We hired a personal trainer, who has managed to work wonders to my lean, atrophying physique and after years and years of being skinny and perpetually underweight, i stand today at a healthy 70kgs. I have had the worst eating habits too...i have skipped breakfast for close to 10 years now because of stomach trouble or because of running late for school/work but have now got back into that habit. I have been a compulsive outside eater too for the last many many years, cheap junk food from the fast food chains here like MacDonalds,BurgerKing, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc have been my main source of nourishment in the US, i'd rather starve than cook, but now its been goodbye to junkfood for quite a while now, salads and a little fruit is all part of my diet now, and its as great and feel-good as chicken. The sis has been urging me to eat at home for a long time, I feel guilty making her cook after a tough day at work, but she convinced me that despite all my liberal postures, in my heart of hearts i am yet another mallu male chauvinist and that she wouldn't grudge me for it, but asked me to think of money i can save, not eating out, that i can put to better use for the future. Anyways all's well that ends well and i haven't had a fever for more than a year now. Touch wood! Looking forward to the reunion at school next month, and giving all 'em big boys a good run for the ball, when we play football and basketball.
<-> - Sleep - Is it a blessing or a curse I dunno. I have to take a nap once I get back from work. Without the nap, I am like a chathakozhi all evening and feel totally passive all night. Some nights, I get a good early sleep without the nap, but my habit of digging for stories is at its peak when i lie in bed, sometimes this causes me to become restless or excited and i stay awake for hours. But with the 2 hour evening nap, it gives me a cushion to go to bed at 1 but fall asleep only by 2 or 3 in the morning and wake up at 8am, and it all adds up to the perfect sleep hours! The sad part following the 2 hour nap, is that I haven't channeled my rejuvenated self to any constructive work in the 5 waking hours i get after.
<-> - Time - Time flies. Another blessing and curse dimension! A blessing in that my life from monday morning to friday evening at work and from friday evening to monday morning at home is over so fast, that the months gone by feel like a thankful blur and the months lying ahead to my D-day also look to pass by in that same fashion. It is also a curse in that, I look at some illustrious people in their twenties, many of them my classmates, and it pisses me that while I laze away, these people are working hard in their respective professions and doing a lot of fruitful stuff. Maybe my time is yet to come. Ha!
Downs - Friends - This was the year that friendships moved several rungs down the priority ladder for me. Previously I couldn't conceive a world without friends. As a part of my experiment with life, erected a wall between them and me, for several months of this year. I angered many of them. It was a cold, dark and empty world without them. But I managed. I joked to myself, talked to myself and lived for myself. The cellphone became an irritant. The experiment ended the day I decided on my next career, and rang some of them up. I was relieved, that I hadn't damaged the ties I consider more important to me than the ones with my relatives. I now see how these friendships will work in the coming years, from daily, the contacts with them had become weekly, now its monthly, in time we will be lucky to catch up once in a year or years. Career and family first, everything else comes second. Its a practical law of the universe, and it has caught me also in its drift.
<-> - Misc -
a. Watched quite a few good indian movies, old and new.
b. Have become an absent minded, impatient driver
c. Learnt to skip.(with rope!)
d. Drink a lot of water nowadays
e. Drinking rarely now, but when i drink its becoming a binge.
f. Too much youtubing (my faves)
Downs - Resolutions - The latest resolution made was just yesterday to take the 25 day lent for Christmas. There are a set of bad habits that I wanted to give up. Inspiration came from the 41 day Sabarimala vratham that Sreenivasan took in Chinthavishtayaaya Shyaamala! Maybe I love my weaknesses too much or I am too stuck in the morass of worldly indulgence. Not even one full day into the fast, I sheepishly promised infant jesus that I would try and welcome him into the world in better fashion next year! So no more resolutions...i have given up on reforming me...whatever good things happened, came by itself, the bad i invited in. Hopefully I have atleast learnt to reject new temptations.
This is my log of the year's activities. Sorry for the occasional bad language and haphazard writing. Goodbye 2007. Yours was a year I was caught stationary in a place, time and circumstances helpless in pursuing the call of my heart, meanwhile the earth went around the sun and did its full circle...you are also almost history now, but I am still standing. What if I run with the earth in 2008, do a lot of things differently, where will I be, 366 days hence, will I look at yet another winter sun and sing to him a different tune, will I perceive his balmy warmth on my face, and be able to offer a thankful smile in return? Is happiness always a thing of the past? Is satisfaction always a soother of the present? Is uncertainty always a primer for the future? Well life goes on...it dances only to the tune of those who can clear their minds of all the jarring notes, but Hope is the brand name of the dancing shoes I wear, and it keeps me on my toes. Enough of getting profoundly idiotic...wish you all a very happy new year.
Ups - God - I haven't mentioned before that I spent six months from late september last year to late march looking for a job. The money I had saved up was all but over. God came along and took me under his wing once again as I was about to lose my direction in life. I had quit the UPSC preps by January when my forms didn't reach India in time. I had a return ticket back home for May, but a return to what and for what. I didn't have the answer but HE saved me the trouble. I haven't seen the inside of a church in six months, but every time I look back at how I overcame miraculously the challenges at work and in my mind, it is his unseen guidance I am compelled to acknowledge. Why is prayer such an impossibility for me...i struggle to find the answer. Maybe god lives only in a home, i am living in a sathram, maybe when i make a nest and settle down to it, HE will have a permanent dwelling place.
Ups - Career - The the longest I have worked at one place in my professional career - 8+ months now and counting. Last september when i returned to the US, I had made a firm decision to not go back to programming, i kept with it despite the delay in getting a job, took training in Cognos, a business reporting tool, and it has looked so far to be a right choice I made as a kind of wayside gas station to refuel and a stop-over motel to rework strategies on unravelling the big mystery to my purpose of living. Work was lazy till managers changed and now its hectic but I have been able to deal with it. I continue to be sick of meetings, the dozens of emails to be read and replied, the tasks to be managed, there are times I feel like running away but the money that has come in has helped. Thoughts of frustration and mediocrity have been relegated to the fringes of my existence. Love for, needs satisfied and the temporary security provided by money have given me justification and motivation to carry on for a few more months. A new career will beckon soon, it is a start from scratch, unless I find myself in it, I won't believe I made the transition. I am scared too. That is why I keep it secret.
Downs - Blogging - The latter part of the year has been a struggle to keep this blog going. Except for the upcoming expected interregnum in december I except this downward slide to continue next year too. Decided not to put pen to paper on thoughts arising from nostalgia and past memories and instead write only of present and future. Sadly I didn't do anything significant in the present, and the few posts I came up with in the last few months arose from career thoughts. To be frank, the hazy dreams of the future is the only thing playing in my mind now and there is space for nothing else. My mind is muddled and my words are lacking in flow now. Hopefully being back in tvm will put me back in some creative orbit. Still there will be positives from this year in that I arrived on the guts to post on this blog, a malayalam short story in january. There is some mystic almost spiritual energy for the malayalam language bubbling in me...I have a gut feeling that if I write to publish, it will happen in malayalam and not in english, despite all my inadequacies in the language. In february-march when 5-6 months had passed and i was still jobless and at wits end, i dug into my reserves of humour and memories and wrote on funny incidents to conquer all the worries and regain my sanity. Beyond blogging, as a writer this year was significant in that I tried to take classes in creative writing and screenplay to master the techniques behind it - I lost interest midway through, but I have the notes and hopefully will peruse them some other day. In writing fiction, a thankless process is coming up with story ideas, atleast once every day for the past one year, I have gone on a journey with my mind to craft many a tale, most of them never got anywhere, some find their way to summarized scribblings in my notepad jotted down while half-asleep, possibly never to be expanded on. I finally have another story to write now, but am troubled, with both the english language and determination deserting me in the effort to write. And finally grammar. I have given it a total miss all these years in the freedom of ownership that blogging offers...maybe it as to do with the rigid syntax checking enforced on us techies by programming tools! But using the right tenses, placing commas, spellchecks, I am making an effort to get these as right as possible nowadays. On re-reading my older posts, I now wonder if I slept through the english grammar classes in school!
Downs - Travel - Last year presented me with the opportunity to travel in North India. It was a great learning experience for me, my eyes soaked up the lives of so many people, and the sights of so many places. a lot of that found expression on this blog too. In contrast, this year found me wallowing away at home. In the past, I have done road trips in the US and covered the country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. The absence of people, and not learning anything new in these travels has affirmed in me an aversion to travel here. All i can think of as travel this year, was a trip to chicago to hang out with cousins, one to florida for a family reunion, a weekend camping at hollister hills near san jose and a sailing trip few weeks back(my initial enthusiasm to don a sailor's cap during the trip and hoist and turn sails, etc died down in the open sea with rough waves giving the boat a real tossing and me a mild attack of sea-sickness which I did well to conceal from friends...whoever named the Pacific Ocean so, had an incredible sense of humour!)
Downs - Reading - I'd blame the computer and the internet for distracting me with youtube and malayalam movies and indian websites but my inability to set all this aside and take up a book and read, which i know would give me the same pleasure, is baffling to say the least! First library books, then amazon.com...i thought since the library books are free, buying from amazon would force me to read...no luck either ways. Brought a lot of malayalam works from kerala to read, most of them are still waiting for me. Shame on you, jibster!
Ups - Health - One day I took a bus, it braked, I almost got thrown but for the grip on the sidebar, i felt the muscles on my back stretch and dreaded for a second, of it tearing(I am now on my fourth year running in the US without medical insurance. I don't know why i keep taking these foolish risks...but i am glad i dont give any money to the scamsters!). That day i came back home, and announced to my sis, who had been cajoling me for a long time to hit the gym, that i would join her. We hired a personal trainer, who has managed to work wonders to my lean, atrophying physique and after years and years of being skinny and perpetually underweight, i stand today at a healthy 70kgs. I have had the worst eating habits too...i have skipped breakfast for close to 10 years now because of stomach trouble or because of running late for school/work but have now got back into that habit. I have been a compulsive outside eater too for the last many many years, cheap junk food from the fast food chains here like MacDonalds,BurgerKing, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc have been my main source of nourishment in the US, i'd rather starve than cook, but now its been goodbye to junkfood for quite a while now, salads and a little fruit is all part of my diet now, and its as great and feel-good as chicken. The sis has been urging me to eat at home for a long time, I feel guilty making her cook after a tough day at work, but she convinced me that despite all my liberal postures, in my heart of hearts i am yet another mallu male chauvinist and that she wouldn't grudge me for it, but asked me to think of money i can save, not eating out, that i can put to better use for the future. Anyways all's well that ends well and i haven't had a fever for more than a year now. Touch wood! Looking forward to the reunion at school next month, and giving all 'em big boys a good run for the ball, when we play football and basketball.
<-> - Sleep - Is it a blessing or a curse I dunno. I have to take a nap once I get back from work. Without the nap, I am like a chathakozhi all evening and feel totally passive all night. Some nights, I get a good early sleep without the nap, but my habit of digging for stories is at its peak when i lie in bed, sometimes this causes me to become restless or excited and i stay awake for hours. But with the 2 hour evening nap, it gives me a cushion to go to bed at 1 but fall asleep only by 2 or 3 in the morning and wake up at 8am, and it all adds up to the perfect sleep hours! The sad part following the 2 hour nap, is that I haven't channeled my rejuvenated self to any constructive work in the 5 waking hours i get after.
<-> - Time - Time flies. Another blessing and curse dimension! A blessing in that my life from monday morning to friday evening at work and from friday evening to monday morning at home is over so fast, that the months gone by feel like a thankful blur and the months lying ahead to my D-day also look to pass by in that same fashion. It is also a curse in that, I look at some illustrious people in their twenties, many of them my classmates, and it pisses me that while I laze away, these people are working hard in their respective professions and doing a lot of fruitful stuff. Maybe my time is yet to come. Ha!
Downs - Friends - This was the year that friendships moved several rungs down the priority ladder for me. Previously I couldn't conceive a world without friends. As a part of my experiment with life, erected a wall between them and me, for several months of this year. I angered many of them. It was a cold, dark and empty world without them. But I managed. I joked to myself, talked to myself and lived for myself. The cellphone became an irritant. The experiment ended the day I decided on my next career, and rang some of them up. I was relieved, that I hadn't damaged the ties I consider more important to me than the ones with my relatives. I now see how these friendships will work in the coming years, from daily, the contacts with them had become weekly, now its monthly, in time we will be lucky to catch up once in a year or years. Career and family first, everything else comes second. Its a practical law of the universe, and it has caught me also in its drift.
<-> - Misc -
a. Watched quite a few good indian movies, old and new.
b. Have become an absent minded, impatient driver
c. Learnt to skip.(with rope!)
d. Drink a lot of water nowadays
e. Drinking rarely now, but when i drink its becoming a binge.
f. Too much youtubing (my faves)
Downs - Resolutions - The latest resolution made was just yesterday to take the 25 day lent for Christmas. There are a set of bad habits that I wanted to give up. Inspiration came from the 41 day Sabarimala vratham that Sreenivasan took in Chinthavishtayaaya Shyaamala! Maybe I love my weaknesses too much or I am too stuck in the morass of worldly indulgence. Not even one full day into the fast, I sheepishly promised infant jesus that I would try and welcome him into the world in better fashion next year! So no more resolutions...i have given up on reforming me...whatever good things happened, came by itself, the bad i invited in. Hopefully I have atleast learnt to reject new temptations.
This is my log of the year's activities. Sorry for the occasional bad language and haphazard writing. Goodbye 2007. Yours was a year I was caught stationary in a place, time and circumstances helpless in pursuing the call of my heart, meanwhile the earth went around the sun and did its full circle...you are also almost history now, but I am still standing. What if I run with the earth in 2008, do a lot of things differently, where will I be, 366 days hence, will I look at yet another winter sun and sing to him a different tune, will I perceive his balmy warmth on my face, and be able to offer a thankful smile in return? Is happiness always a thing of the past? Is satisfaction always a soother of the present? Is uncertainty always a primer for the future? Well life goes on...it dances only to the tune of those who can clear their minds of all the jarring notes, but Hope is the brand name of the dancing shoes I wear, and it keeps me on my toes. Enough of getting profoundly idiotic...wish you all a very happy new year.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Idle Blogging...
I have blogger open. I usually type up my posts in notepad and paste over. Today is the day before thanksgiving. I have a four day weekend coming up. My friends in LA are off on a trip to Hawaii. Our ideas of a vacation differed. So I backed out. Now I will sit at home and twiddle my thumbs. I am not in the mood to work today. I have had a hectic month. So today is payback. I am not in the mood to blog either. But I have to do something. I am tired of browsing and reading other people write. I am obsessively compelled to add my share of bytes to google's huge memory dump.
I am at my desk, surrounded by 4 walls which do not reach the ceiling, the glorified work space we post-modern employees call a cubicle. Papers lie carelessly strewn all around. I am not a sucker for order. The carpet is clean today. Someone must have vacuumed the floor over the weekend. Last week, there were bits and pieces of chocolate strewn all over the floor which I frantically tried to clean, but ended up smudging with my shoes. I had bought a slab of white chocolate. It was too hard to break it. So I had to bite at it. Chocolate is one of my innocent pleasures. I will never outgrow my childhood when it comes to chocolate. Lets not speak about childhood here. The coffee is growing cold. I need to get another cup. I love the coffee in winter. It warms me up. I hate the taste though...they call it by different names nowadays but it all tastes pretty much the same...for me nothing better than filter coffee at a South Indian vegetarian restaurant. It also helps me overcome my hunger. Speaking of hunger, I mix up my lunch on weekdays. Monday and Wednesday are Indian, Tuesday mexican, thursday american, and friday something different. There wont be a friday this week. So today I had italian for lunch. A cheesy lasagne with spinach on top. I spend liberally on food. It is in revengeful memory of the days I had to starve, some years back. But let me not go back to the past again.
I was in an all-day meeting yesterday and this one was productive for a change. I looked at the 10 faces around. Faces from all over the world...america, china, india, england, south-east asia, persia. I noticed this glib-tongued desi consultant who held forte for most of the meeting. He spoke remarkably good english, a very healthy usage of american pronunciation enhancing his already perfect indian accent. I was envious, i would never speak so good english. I love the way americans pronounce words. They stylise every word to give it the best sound. I think Indian English sounds the next best. I hate the way brits and aussies speak english...it is hard for me to understand. I hate their accent. Period.
I am biding my time to get off work. Usually we get to leave early on the eve of a long weekend. No such email announcing early pack-up has come today. I don't care. After all there is nothing to do at home. And I bill by the hour. I have deadlines to be met, but I will come back on monday and start over, I have decided I can't work today. I am not a professional. I never will be one. I will never make a good manager either. It is going to get dark early. Even if I drive back home at 4, I will need headlights turned on. I hate driving in the dark. There is nothing to look at, other than the road ahead. By now the road has been mapped firmly in memory. I know which lanes are faster at each bend, and at each stretch, I know the side roads to divert to when I hit traffic. The commute takes me 25 minutes sharp, both ways. I wonder if I am part robot, part zombie, part human or like in Matrix am in a world someone's programmed for me.
Now what? I have four holidays. I love to sleep heavily on weekends. I have been sleeping a lot lately. I have a dozen books and movies in various stages of reading and watching, my concentration span has always been short. We don't have a TV at home so that I don't waste time. My knowledge of american pop culture is at zilch as a result. TV shows, the NBA and the college football season, music bands...i know nothing of all that. What I know is from the internet and google news, I am loving the dems' presidential debates put up on youtube, i am supporting Hillary just because i absolutely love Bill Clinton...Obama is definitely the better man, but i don't think he will win this time, I hope Hillary takes him on as running mate so that in 4-8 years of his stay in DC, he will have grown in stature internationally. His strong candidature has shaken the rest of the world which thinks America is racist. Alright the email has come in for us to take leave. Blogging for the sake of blogging...the fall of another blogger, ain't it? Enough bull, i have served you all...that was a real overdose of disjointed and random musings. Apologies and Sympathies! My holiday season is beginning. This is the time Americans erupt in a wild orgasm of senseless spending followed by gasping at the depleted bank balances. There is a lot of mysterious excitement building up for me too...more of that later.
I am at my desk, surrounded by 4 walls which do not reach the ceiling, the glorified work space we post-modern employees call a cubicle. Papers lie carelessly strewn all around. I am not a sucker for order. The carpet is clean today. Someone must have vacuumed the floor over the weekend. Last week, there were bits and pieces of chocolate strewn all over the floor which I frantically tried to clean, but ended up smudging with my shoes. I had bought a slab of white chocolate. It was too hard to break it. So I had to bite at it. Chocolate is one of my innocent pleasures. I will never outgrow my childhood when it comes to chocolate. Lets not speak about childhood here. The coffee is growing cold. I need to get another cup. I love the coffee in winter. It warms me up. I hate the taste though...they call it by different names nowadays but it all tastes pretty much the same...for me nothing better than filter coffee at a South Indian vegetarian restaurant. It also helps me overcome my hunger. Speaking of hunger, I mix up my lunch on weekdays. Monday and Wednesday are Indian, Tuesday mexican, thursday american, and friday something different. There wont be a friday this week. So today I had italian for lunch. A cheesy lasagne with spinach on top. I spend liberally on food. It is in revengeful memory of the days I had to starve, some years back. But let me not go back to the past again.
I was in an all-day meeting yesterday and this one was productive for a change. I looked at the 10 faces around. Faces from all over the world...america, china, india, england, south-east asia, persia. I noticed this glib-tongued desi consultant who held forte for most of the meeting. He spoke remarkably good english, a very healthy usage of american pronunciation enhancing his already perfect indian accent. I was envious, i would never speak so good english. I love the way americans pronounce words. They stylise every word to give it the best sound. I think Indian English sounds the next best. I hate the way brits and aussies speak english...it is hard for me to understand. I hate their accent. Period.
I am biding my time to get off work. Usually we get to leave early on the eve of a long weekend. No such email announcing early pack-up has come today. I don't care. After all there is nothing to do at home. And I bill by the hour. I have deadlines to be met, but I will come back on monday and start over, I have decided I can't work today. I am not a professional. I never will be one. I will never make a good manager either. It is going to get dark early. Even if I drive back home at 4, I will need headlights turned on. I hate driving in the dark. There is nothing to look at, other than the road ahead. By now the road has been mapped firmly in memory. I know which lanes are faster at each bend, and at each stretch, I know the side roads to divert to when I hit traffic. The commute takes me 25 minutes sharp, both ways. I wonder if I am part robot, part zombie, part human or like in Matrix am in a world someone's programmed for me.
Now what? I have four holidays. I love to sleep heavily on weekends. I have been sleeping a lot lately. I have a dozen books and movies in various stages of reading and watching, my concentration span has always been short. We don't have a TV at home so that I don't waste time. My knowledge of american pop culture is at zilch as a result. TV shows, the NBA and the college football season, music bands...i know nothing of all that. What I know is from the internet and google news, I am loving the dems' presidential debates put up on youtube, i am supporting Hillary just because i absolutely love Bill Clinton...Obama is definitely the better man, but i don't think he will win this time, I hope Hillary takes him on as running mate so that in 4-8 years of his stay in DC, he will have grown in stature internationally. His strong candidature has shaken the rest of the world which thinks America is racist. Alright the email has come in for us to take leave. Blogging for the sake of blogging...the fall of another blogger, ain't it? Enough bull, i have served you all...that was a real overdose of disjointed and random musings. Apologies and Sympathies! My holiday season is beginning. This is the time Americans erupt in a wild orgasm of senseless spending followed by gasping at the depleted bank balances. There is a lot of mysterious excitement building up for me too...more of that later.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
The Young And The Affluent...
This weekend some of my mallu juniors from the Bay Area came visiting. These are the kind of guys I would love to avoid but they shower too much affection on me that I just can't get away from them how much ever I try. It is just not them, even my best friends from school and college...the way their lives have taken off has left me breathless and of course, inspired. Some years back I wrote a post on how my American friends were faring professionally. I also wrote a post on our awkward beginnings in America. Today all that is history. I am amazed really at the changes happening in front of my eyes, half-scared, half-wondering why none of it rubs off on me. The flashiest cars be it the Porsche Boxters, the Nissan 350Zs, Infiniti G35s, Ford Mustangs, Range Rovers rest in their garages, the coolest accessories like Versace glasses, iPhones, Diesel shoes...they have it all and flaunt it too with a panache that makes me laugh at all those cliches of Indians being geeky/nerdy/shy, sticking to corollas, camry's, civics, can't even get it up with a girl, etc. My friends are changing all that. These guys dine and wine at expensive places, have begun travelling to exotic places, some look to and succeed in dating americans, you name it...its all there in their "resumes". These same guys who were once so self-conscious of their FOB status, now look at people coming from India, especially the hordes of on-site visitors and watch with amusement as they too learn the ropes of becoming cool.
We drove in to this high-end shopping mall in Beverly Hills. I assumed we were in for another one of those bouts of window shopping and kept muttering restlessly.To my surprise the guys actually went into a few stores and came out spending a cool amount of money on designer stuff that left me a little irritated, a little unhappy that I who probably made much more than these guys, thanks to a greencard holding, free-wheeling, overpaid consultant job felt the pinch in my pocket, though it was they who laid off those greenbacks.
I asked one of them, "Dey, nee enthina inganathe carum saamagrikalum vaangiche kooti kaashe kalayunne?"
He told me,"This is why I came to the US. I want a good life. Why did you come here?"
His poser left me sorry for asking, and I gingerly replied, "I had the greencard."
"What do you do with your money?" he asked not letting me off the hook so easy, I guessed there was talk amongst them, that I was a miser.
"I let it add up or send it home. I don't know what else to do with it."
He thankfully left it at that...but I felt like a child in front of this "kid" who was 4 years younger to me.
A few months back I was in Chicago at my cousin's place, and similarly put-off by the high-end lifestyle she and her friends lived. I probed her about it and she gave me and the rest of us younger kids a pep-talk that went miles into helping me decide finally what I wanted from life. She and friends studied hard through school and college not wasting time fooling around, found good jobs, banded around other super-achievers like them, made sure they were placed for vertical growth and now could fall back a bit and enjoy all the best things money could provide. She advised me to do the same, identify the right career i wanted to pursue and start putting in the hard work atleast now. She opened my eyes to a grave misreading I made about youth, friendships, etc. I was the kind of guy who prided myself on having an amazing school and college life, great friendships, wonderful memories, etc but I realized none of it was of any use now. I was wasting time then as I was now. I looked around, and realized those same friends who were part of those rowdy gangs had moved on, started taking life seriously, are in line for great success,some married already and are great husbands, yet they never lost their bonds with me and could talk in the same vein of our heydays, crack jokes, call each other obscenities, give each other advise knowing it wont be remembered in the bonhomie of our chatter.
You guys will be wondering why I have so many back-to-back personal posts. The reason is, these are some new lessons I have learnt along the way the last few months, lessons that if you who is one of my younger readers who is enjoying life like I did, may not have realized or won't have anyone to tell you. I am at a stage where bad habits have hardened and tough to be changed, where its natural to come home after work and rest and do nothing though your mind wills otherwise, where weekends are spent sleeping, browsing, watching movies, or hanging out with friends even when something keeps chanting in you to change course, where the danger of being satisfied and even further accept this mediocre existence lurks perenially around the corner. I have always wondered why the world has so many proverbs and aphorisms on time, but now I feel the pinch for every minute wasted. Happily there are no regrets for the past yet, but the present lies wasted(Sarah emailed asking, besides telling me other good things, "Why do you think the tense for now is called "present" in the english language?"). The title of this post may be a misnomer...i may or may not agree with the materialism that has gripped my friends, i guess i have no right to judge them...their lifestyles may have changed but they are still the good old guys i knew back then. Their affluence, my restlessness, the youthful vigor on which these friendships were built, our paths are diverting away from the junction we once ran into each other...when we meet again, years hence, at another confluence, what new tales will I have, to tell of their exploits?
We drove in to this high-end shopping mall in Beverly Hills. I assumed we were in for another one of those bouts of window shopping and kept muttering restlessly.To my surprise the guys actually went into a few stores and came out spending a cool amount of money on designer stuff that left me a little irritated, a little unhappy that I who probably made much more than these guys, thanks to a greencard holding, free-wheeling, overpaid consultant job felt the pinch in my pocket, though it was they who laid off those greenbacks.
I asked one of them, "Dey, nee enthina inganathe carum saamagrikalum vaangiche kooti kaashe kalayunne?"
He told me,"This is why I came to the US. I want a good life. Why did you come here?"
His poser left me sorry for asking, and I gingerly replied, "I had the greencard."
"What do you do with your money?" he asked not letting me off the hook so easy, I guessed there was talk amongst them, that I was a miser.
"I let it add up or send it home. I don't know what else to do with it."
He thankfully left it at that...but I felt like a child in front of this "kid" who was 4 years younger to me.
A few months back I was in Chicago at my cousin's place, and similarly put-off by the high-end lifestyle she and her friends lived. I probed her about it and she gave me and the rest of us younger kids a pep-talk that went miles into helping me decide finally what I wanted from life. She and friends studied hard through school and college not wasting time fooling around, found good jobs, banded around other super-achievers like them, made sure they were placed for vertical growth and now could fall back a bit and enjoy all the best things money could provide. She advised me to do the same, identify the right career i wanted to pursue and start putting in the hard work atleast now. She opened my eyes to a grave misreading I made about youth, friendships, etc. I was the kind of guy who prided myself on having an amazing school and college life, great friendships, wonderful memories, etc but I realized none of it was of any use now. I was wasting time then as I was now. I looked around, and realized those same friends who were part of those rowdy gangs had moved on, started taking life seriously, are in line for great success,some married already and are great husbands, yet they never lost their bonds with me and could talk in the same vein of our heydays, crack jokes, call each other obscenities, give each other advise knowing it wont be remembered in the bonhomie of our chatter.
You guys will be wondering why I have so many back-to-back personal posts. The reason is, these are some new lessons I have learnt along the way the last few months, lessons that if you who is one of my younger readers who is enjoying life like I did, may not have realized or won't have anyone to tell you. I am at a stage where bad habits have hardened and tough to be changed, where its natural to come home after work and rest and do nothing though your mind wills otherwise, where weekends are spent sleeping, browsing, watching movies, or hanging out with friends even when something keeps chanting in you to change course, where the danger of being satisfied and even further accept this mediocre existence lurks perenially around the corner. I have always wondered why the world has so many proverbs and aphorisms on time, but now I feel the pinch for every minute wasted. Happily there are no regrets for the past yet, but the present lies wasted(Sarah emailed asking, besides telling me other good things, "Why do you think the tense for now is called "present" in the english language?"). The title of this post may be a misnomer...i may or may not agree with the materialism that has gripped my friends, i guess i have no right to judge them...their lifestyles may have changed but they are still the good old guys i knew back then. Their affluence, my restlessness, the youthful vigor on which these friendships were built, our paths are diverting away from the junction we once ran into each other...when we meet again, years hence, at another confluence, what new tales will I have, to tell of their exploits?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Oh! Its Oct 2nd...What's the Big Deal???
I almost forgot today was Gandhi Jayanti. And I dont remember anymore if the last many years have also gone by in that manner. We live in a day and age where the only heroes we get to truely celebrate are armymen who give up their lives in the service of the country, business czars whose enterprise have provided millions of jobs and then we have the idols of young India, film actors and cricketers whose smiling, glamorous faces look up from a million posters and billboards throughout the homes and streets of gung-ho India. Those grand old men and women who fought the British, their memories relegated to school textbooks, their place in the sun not yet lost, ironically by idols installed at prime locations, yet I am sure not a single passer-by notices them except for birds looking for a nice spot to rest and shit. There is this statue in Raj Bhavan road of freedom fighter Akkamma Cherian, I must have passed it by for many years and always thought it was Indira Gandhi until a chapter in the textbook about her forced me to open my eyes. Later we studied about Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, the first of many men who fought for the amazing Freedom of Press, we now enjoy today in Kerala, whose statue I was told could be seen in Statue Jn but I never found it till one day waiting for a bus near the Marikar showroom I spotted him shrouded in the tree cover leading up to the AG's Office.
There is this favorite moment I have had with Gandhiji. It is a feeling I will cherish forever. It was during my MS days and I was walking to work on a campus road which stretched out in a straight line and ended up in an undergraduate student housing building. It was dark, close to midnight and there was this one light shining from a room, which seemed to guide me on ahead. Like most guys, the first fancy that came to my mind was seeing a girl in that room, in a state of undress. As I kept getting closer, the faint outlines of a picture on the wall caught my attention. I couldnt make out who it was, but it held me transfixed until the shape of the Mahatma grew clearer and clearer. Besides him on either side was a poster of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. I smiled to myself and wondered what possible source of inspiration could the Mahatma be to a person in the most affluent country in the world, when even Indians don't care anymore. There are moments like these, when you recognize the presence of a great man in your life, and you acknowledge his contribution to making your life a better one. Isn't that what is called immortality? Some months later we were walking on the street, when a homeless guy sniggered at us, "Gandhi Boys!" It may have been a racial taunt but we smiled, and I shouted back at him, "Thank You!" and would have loved to add, "But we don't deserve the compliment!"
Gandhiji's outward political postures, even if not in spirit are kept alive and kicking in our country, if you see the kadar clothing, bandhs, hartals, jathas, satyagraha what not. We have politicians to thank for that...if Gandhi was just a politician he wouldnt have survived...even he displayed selfishness and lack of grace at times. But his greatness was that he had lessons for ordinary people too. Even between politics he taught the importance of hygiene and a clean environment...it is funny that when ministers like Kamal Nath fight for India not to be brought under purview of greenhouse emission, he hides the fact that global warming is hurting India more than any other country in the world. I feel it...the biggest challenge before India in coming years is not democracy, corruption, economy or insurgency...it is climate change. In India, every man grosses wealth, in the safe knowledge that he is doing it for his children, but when it comes to anything that is global wealth, these same men exploit it without realizing they are digging their grandchildrens' graves even before they are born. Man is always helpless, for centuries we feared and grappled with the challenges earth posed, now we are so in the grip of technology and modernity, and acknowledge we face an earth we have tapped at indiscriminately, but cant face upto even a few minutes of power-cut, loss of transportation, air-condition or connectivity!
One moment, I make all these utopian(maybe even gandhian) schemes on how I should lead life...next moment, I find that same me, doing the exact opposites of what I thought of earlier. Truth, Non-Violence, Conquest of the Self...such impossibilities for us pampered people. For me the biggest challenge has been to win over my baser instincts...a lazy nap, porn, mindless movies, pointless net-surfing, companionships past their shelf-date and associated habits...the first book that ever gave me the tools to deal with it was no Bible or motivators like Dale Carnegie, Lee Iococa etc...but Gandhiji's My Experiments With Truth. Once you finish reading the book you realize that it wasn't an accident of history that a man like Gandhiji lead India to freedom. In his seemingly-pointless-for-us abstinence, vegeterianism, brahmacharya, etc he toughened his soul to give him the courage to face the higher aims of his life like truth, non-violence and India's freedom. It is the simplest yet most profoundly touching and inspiring book you can lay your hands on for as less as Rs.30. Truth, Non-violence and probably most of his experiments in the book are i guess beyond what we mere 21st century zombies can aspire for, but it also has lessons in simplicity, time-management, humility, health, social commitment and work-ethic we still can commit to, which can help us succeed and feel good about, in our busy lives. Gandhiji once lived amongst us, he still lives in us, we rarely seek to find out...a brilliant Rajkumar Hirani makes a Lage Raho Munnabhai and we rave about Gandhigiri for a while, every year we have an Independence Day and a Gandhi Jayanti, but if each of us truely want to celebrate him, his life and the freedom he and his men won for us, pick up his book, buy it for your friends, who knows...you or that person might discover a Gandhian thought in some simple action of yours, and who knows...we might even end up saving Earth! Happy Birthday, Gandhiji.
P.S - Albert Einstein, the man who pipped Gandhi to the 'Time Man of the Century' Award said of Gandhiji, "Generations to come will scare believe such a one as this in flesh and blood, walked the face of the Earth". I wonder if Einstein's fine statement will become a prophesy...Gandhiji becoming some unattainable freak great soul rather than the very human being he was...he will be remembered for sure...but how he is remembered lies very much in how much of him we can find in our lives, we the youth of India who are a link between a morbid, stagnating recent past and an exciting but hazardous near future owe atleast this much to that man.
There is this favorite moment I have had with Gandhiji. It is a feeling I will cherish forever. It was during my MS days and I was walking to work on a campus road which stretched out in a straight line and ended up in an undergraduate student housing building. It was dark, close to midnight and there was this one light shining from a room, which seemed to guide me on ahead. Like most guys, the first fancy that came to my mind was seeing a girl in that room, in a state of undress. As I kept getting closer, the faint outlines of a picture on the wall caught my attention. I couldnt make out who it was, but it held me transfixed until the shape of the Mahatma grew clearer and clearer. Besides him on either side was a poster of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. I smiled to myself and wondered what possible source of inspiration could the Mahatma be to a person in the most affluent country in the world, when even Indians don't care anymore. There are moments like these, when you recognize the presence of a great man in your life, and you acknowledge his contribution to making your life a better one. Isn't that what is called immortality? Some months later we were walking on the street, when a homeless guy sniggered at us, "Gandhi Boys!" It may have been a racial taunt but we smiled, and I shouted back at him, "Thank You!" and would have loved to add, "But we don't deserve the compliment!"
Gandhiji's outward political postures, even if not in spirit are kept alive and kicking in our country, if you see the kadar clothing, bandhs, hartals, jathas, satyagraha what not. We have politicians to thank for that...if Gandhi was just a politician he wouldnt have survived...even he displayed selfishness and lack of grace at times. But his greatness was that he had lessons for ordinary people too. Even between politics he taught the importance of hygiene and a clean environment...it is funny that when ministers like Kamal Nath fight for India not to be brought under purview of greenhouse emission, he hides the fact that global warming is hurting India more than any other country in the world. I feel it...the biggest challenge before India in coming years is not democracy, corruption, economy or insurgency...it is climate change. In India, every man grosses wealth, in the safe knowledge that he is doing it for his children, but when it comes to anything that is global wealth, these same men exploit it without realizing they are digging their grandchildrens' graves even before they are born. Man is always helpless, for centuries we feared and grappled with the challenges earth posed, now we are so in the grip of technology and modernity, and acknowledge we face an earth we have tapped at indiscriminately, but cant face upto even a few minutes of power-cut, loss of transportation, air-condition or connectivity!
One moment, I make all these utopian(maybe even gandhian) schemes on how I should lead life...next moment, I find that same me, doing the exact opposites of what I thought of earlier. Truth, Non-Violence, Conquest of the Self...such impossibilities for us pampered people. For me the biggest challenge has been to win over my baser instincts...a lazy nap, porn, mindless movies, pointless net-surfing, companionships past their shelf-date and associated habits...the first book that ever gave me the tools to deal with it was no Bible or motivators like Dale Carnegie, Lee Iococa etc...but Gandhiji's My Experiments With Truth. Once you finish reading the book you realize that it wasn't an accident of history that a man like Gandhiji lead India to freedom. In his seemingly-pointless-for-us abstinence, vegeterianism, brahmacharya, etc he toughened his soul to give him the courage to face the higher aims of his life like truth, non-violence and India's freedom. It is the simplest yet most profoundly touching and inspiring book you can lay your hands on for as less as Rs.30. Truth, Non-violence and probably most of his experiments in the book are i guess beyond what we mere 21st century zombies can aspire for, but it also has lessons in simplicity, time-management, humility, health, social commitment and work-ethic we still can commit to, which can help us succeed and feel good about, in our busy lives. Gandhiji once lived amongst us, he still lives in us, we rarely seek to find out...a brilliant Rajkumar Hirani makes a Lage Raho Munnabhai and we rave about Gandhigiri for a while, every year we have an Independence Day and a Gandhi Jayanti, but if each of us truely want to celebrate him, his life and the freedom he and his men won for us, pick up his book, buy it for your friends, who knows...you or that person might discover a Gandhian thought in some simple action of yours, and who knows...we might even end up saving Earth! Happy Birthday, Gandhiji.
P.S - Albert Einstein, the man who pipped Gandhi to the 'Time Man of the Century' Award said of Gandhiji, "Generations to come will scare believe such a one as this in flesh and blood, walked the face of the Earth". I wonder if Einstein's fine statement will become a prophesy...Gandhiji becoming some unattainable freak great soul rather than the very human being he was...he will be remembered for sure...but how he is remembered lies very much in how much of him we can find in our lives, we the youth of India who are a link between a morbid, stagnating recent past and an exciting but hazardous near future owe atleast this much to that man.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
On The Birthday Eve - Ten Confessions
Two years ago was my 25th birthday and it proved a singular milestone that offered to a lost traveler, a chance to once more feel the joy of living...I don't know what was different with me then and today...maybe I have grown in the knowledge of who I am and what this birth means to me, or maybe not. I remember of being content then with all I had to do to get to that point, and thus wrote that post...I was ready to take my life in my hands, though I knew not what I wanted from it. Today is another story, the past is a distant blur, the present an insignificant blip on the horizon, and the future stands right before my eyes unattainable yet. Every approaching birthday, these last few years has been a time for churn, change and new resolve...2003 i dug my heels in and decided to salvage my MS, 2004 i quit my first job without saving up a single penny, 2005 mustered the wits to give the UPSC a try, last September swallowed my pride and came back to the US. This time I have been lucky to have undertaken the by-now customary bday revolution quite earlier than September, but find myself dealing with the struggle of surviving 200 days before the next attempt to chart yet another course in life begins. I donot know what the intention of this post will be...is it to record for my posterity, my frame of mind at this point of time, or is it to find some clarity, which writing, more often than not, gives me.
Existence
I am appalled that several people close to me, expect wonders to happen. I think this blog gave them that idea. I can't think of anything else worthwhile, that I have done, during my time on Earth. Several things that I did, I now see as being done to give meaning to my existence at that point of time. In school, I read books to escape the confines of my introversion and my complexes. Later it was my friendships that defined my existence, and the books lay forgotten. In college, I took up drinking, hoping it would make me a man, hoping it would nullify self-questions of my adolescent manhood - such superficial stuff for me today like unsprouting facial hair, being underweight, and lack of physical courage. During Master's working at the Film School and my growing interest in movies gave the "Jeene Ki Ik Wachah". At work and lost, blogging came to the rescue, at Civil Service coaching travelling saved me, today surprisingly it is the naked need for money to satisfy a lot of my needs over the next few years that is helping me cling on. Of course it is my hope that these experiences/memories help me in future.
Flicker
Blogging used to be not just about letting my thoughts wander and capturing them in words but also about being part of a blogger community, reading my fellow bloggers, appreciating and imbibing their views and writing styles, leaving comments, etc. Nowadays I hate to wander in blogosphere. I feel a sad guilt at not doing my duty because I know how much a blogger loves to hear from a fellow blogger about his/her latest post. I am reading, M.Mukundan's Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunnu, a superb novella of hardly 100 pages, but I can't read beyond a page at a time before my concentration wavers. It must be jealousy at play, how such wonderful yet simple writing takes shape, whether in blogging or fiction writing. I worry that with my interest in reading at such a nadir, how my thoughts and ideas and love for writing can grow beyond the frankly adolescent level, that it is now at.
Waiting
For a lot of my life, I have waited for others to give me a helping hand. More often than not, that hand never came. I have longed for friends or relatives to begin path-breaking companies, so I can go work for them, for friends to break into the entertainment industry, for my dad to push me through into a field I can succeed in...riding on other people's wings was a lazy fantasy that I nurtured stupidly for far too long. Its been some time since I have realized the initiative to better my life had to come from me, and yet I can't help thinking why things are taking so long to change for me. My dad always tells me, "If I had your talent, I wouldn't have wasted it"...and I wryly muse,"Pops, if I had your ambition..."
Smiling
I remember I used to have a perpetual warm smile, once upon a time. I have caught myself several times with a frown on my face, several times with a weak, laboured and artificial manufacture replacing that once all-powerful beacon, while a deep emptiness resides in that mysterious place somewhere inside, that once powered the lone good thing about me.
Yearning
What is the idea of home? It cant be just the four walls of my house, my parents, my people, my language, my awareness of culture, tradition and history...it must be something much deeper than all this, that has found an abode in me, that has me going back, every moment these last many years. At a family reunion few weeks back, my uncle the novelist chap, remarked, that "Perhaps Jiby, has not, unlike the rest of us, found himself melting into the American mainstream like the rest of us." My sister's reply confirmed why she will probably know me better than anyone else on earth, "Achacha, it is nothing about America that he finds uncomfortable, it is India that drives him." Those words from her mouth, had to find its place in this post...she has stood like a pillar carrying me along, speaking for me when I lost my voice. No sister of today's times ever lifted a brother from failure like she saved me...I've always wondered how the finest human beings are people who are unassuming and seem ordinary to me.
Weariness
why cant I approach every day with reinvigorated zest. Why every day begins, continues and ends in intermittent tired yawns. Going to the gym would help, I thought, but the physical energy just doesn't seep into my spirit. The brawn is beginning to show up, the brain remains clouded in a perpetual suspension of all purpose. Wonder if Yoga will help. I tried hypnotism but that's a hilarious story for another day. Took online creative writing and screenwriting courses but gave up on it midway for lack of ideas and inability to stick to class schedules. There was a time in life that I had a spring in every enthusiastic step I took. The summer of my fatigue has bade goodbye, now the winter of my discontent is past the threshold and at home, will an eternal spring with fresh spirits come knocking at my doorsteps soon?
Impatience
For several months now, I took life as coming, Week by Week, with the weekend resuscitating and rejuvenating me. Until I took the decision on the next career. Now it is becoming harder to plough by each day. Each hour brings thoughts of what will happen ahead, the thousands of hours to be furrowed ahead to get there worries me no end. I used to be the guy who others envied for living life carefree and how I have changed! Will i lose my job and not find another one soon enough, will I meet my financial targets, will I fall sick, will my plans be derailed, a myriad such thorns plague my path ahead, wish I was that witch with the broom who could sweep past all this and fly ahead to meet the next call of life. Or is this life in all its colours?
Preparing
A week back, I serviced my car, then took it to a carwash and on the way back a feeling of well-being on how smoothly it ran and how good it was looking coursed through me. For some months now, have been urging my weak soul to reconcile with the material losses to be suffered and luxuries to be rejected, if I am ever to shed this moneyed mediocrity that is pinning down my happiness. Unguarded moments of such coziness will surely keep making life difficult. Will having all the accessories and luxuries of life compensate the sadness of living a most sterile, untested, homogeneous existence...I ask myself if I am the most foolish Indian in America.
Fear
There was a time I earnestly looked up to this bday as a time for setting aside singledom. I was vainly confident in the knowledge that family, NRI-ship, career and character could win me the right girl, any day i set out for it. As I set about rebuilding my ship caught in choppy waters, I realize its just not the career that is wrong with me, the person that I am today is a demon shrouded deceptively in human garb. If there is a fear in me today, it is one of commitment to another human being...I find myself incapable of any kindness, even to the people who love me most. Ironic that having discovered the girl who had captured for a long long time, my wonderment and unrequited, unspoken inquisitiveness, I scared myself away and realized it best to let things be and stay off it all. Some lives move in a tangent, barely touching, never intersecting...maybe that is the fate with this un-dis-lodge-able pinprick in my heart too.
Something
I don't know what it is. Something tells me all this will change. Something tells me I will find motivation. Something tells me I will persevere. I trust that Something...I agree to play along.
P.S - After the first read, I thought this was quite a silly post and decided to junk it. But the second read prompted me to resolve and I realized it wasn't such a bad exercise of looking inwards after all. Resolutions for this bday include surfing news websites every day without fail, reading two novels a week, blogging once a fortnight, writing one short story a month, and pen down a malayalam film script within a year. I leave you folks with a beautiful song as a birthday treat, my favorite this season, it is a christian devotional, but then doesnt good music transcend all these narrow boundaries.
Existence
I am appalled that several people close to me, expect wonders to happen. I think this blog gave them that idea. I can't think of anything else worthwhile, that I have done, during my time on Earth. Several things that I did, I now see as being done to give meaning to my existence at that point of time. In school, I read books to escape the confines of my introversion and my complexes. Later it was my friendships that defined my existence, and the books lay forgotten. In college, I took up drinking, hoping it would make me a man, hoping it would nullify self-questions of my adolescent manhood - such superficial stuff for me today like unsprouting facial hair, being underweight, and lack of physical courage. During Master's working at the Film School and my growing interest in movies gave the "Jeene Ki Ik Wachah". At work and lost, blogging came to the rescue, at Civil Service coaching travelling saved me, today surprisingly it is the naked need for money to satisfy a lot of my needs over the next few years that is helping me cling on. Of course it is my hope that these experiences/memories help me in future.
Flicker
Blogging used to be not just about letting my thoughts wander and capturing them in words but also about being part of a blogger community, reading my fellow bloggers, appreciating and imbibing their views and writing styles, leaving comments, etc. Nowadays I hate to wander in blogosphere. I feel a sad guilt at not doing my duty because I know how much a blogger loves to hear from a fellow blogger about his/her latest post. I am reading, M.Mukundan's Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunnu, a superb novella of hardly 100 pages, but I can't read beyond a page at a time before my concentration wavers. It must be jealousy at play, how such wonderful yet simple writing takes shape, whether in blogging or fiction writing. I worry that with my interest in reading at such a nadir, how my thoughts and ideas and love for writing can grow beyond the frankly adolescent level, that it is now at.
Waiting
For a lot of my life, I have waited for others to give me a helping hand. More often than not, that hand never came. I have longed for friends or relatives to begin path-breaking companies, so I can go work for them, for friends to break into the entertainment industry, for my dad to push me through into a field I can succeed in...riding on other people's wings was a lazy fantasy that I nurtured stupidly for far too long. Its been some time since I have realized the initiative to better my life had to come from me, and yet I can't help thinking why things are taking so long to change for me. My dad always tells me, "If I had your talent, I wouldn't have wasted it"...and I wryly muse,"Pops, if I had your ambition..."
Smiling
I remember I used to have a perpetual warm smile, once upon a time. I have caught myself several times with a frown on my face, several times with a weak, laboured and artificial manufacture replacing that once all-powerful beacon, while a deep emptiness resides in that mysterious place somewhere inside, that once powered the lone good thing about me.
Yearning
What is the idea of home? It cant be just the four walls of my house, my parents, my people, my language, my awareness of culture, tradition and history...it must be something much deeper than all this, that has found an abode in me, that has me going back, every moment these last many years. At a family reunion few weeks back, my uncle the novelist chap, remarked, that "Perhaps Jiby, has not, unlike the rest of us, found himself melting into the American mainstream like the rest of us." My sister's reply confirmed why she will probably know me better than anyone else on earth, "Achacha, it is nothing about America that he finds uncomfortable, it is India that drives him." Those words from her mouth, had to find its place in this post...she has stood like a pillar carrying me along, speaking for me when I lost my voice. No sister of today's times ever lifted a brother from failure like she saved me...I've always wondered how the finest human beings are people who are unassuming and seem ordinary to me.
Weariness
why cant I approach every day with reinvigorated zest. Why every day begins, continues and ends in intermittent tired yawns. Going to the gym would help, I thought, but the physical energy just doesn't seep into my spirit. The brawn is beginning to show up, the brain remains clouded in a perpetual suspension of all purpose. Wonder if Yoga will help. I tried hypnotism but that's a hilarious story for another day. Took online creative writing and screenwriting courses but gave up on it midway for lack of ideas and inability to stick to class schedules. There was a time in life that I had a spring in every enthusiastic step I took. The summer of my fatigue has bade goodbye, now the winter of my discontent is past the threshold and at home, will an eternal spring with fresh spirits come knocking at my doorsteps soon?
Impatience
For several months now, I took life as coming, Week by Week, with the weekend resuscitating and rejuvenating me. Until I took the decision on the next career. Now it is becoming harder to plough by each day. Each hour brings thoughts of what will happen ahead, the thousands of hours to be furrowed ahead to get there worries me no end. I used to be the guy who others envied for living life carefree and how I have changed! Will i lose my job and not find another one soon enough, will I meet my financial targets, will I fall sick, will my plans be derailed, a myriad such thorns plague my path ahead, wish I was that witch with the broom who could sweep past all this and fly ahead to meet the next call of life. Or is this life in all its colours?
Preparing
A week back, I serviced my car, then took it to a carwash and on the way back a feeling of well-being on how smoothly it ran and how good it was looking coursed through me. For some months now, have been urging my weak soul to reconcile with the material losses to be suffered and luxuries to be rejected, if I am ever to shed this moneyed mediocrity that is pinning down my happiness. Unguarded moments of such coziness will surely keep making life difficult. Will having all the accessories and luxuries of life compensate the sadness of living a most sterile, untested, homogeneous existence...I ask myself if I am the most foolish Indian in America.
Fear
There was a time I earnestly looked up to this bday as a time for setting aside singledom. I was vainly confident in the knowledge that family, NRI-ship, career and character could win me the right girl, any day i set out for it. As I set about rebuilding my ship caught in choppy waters, I realize its just not the career that is wrong with me, the person that I am today is a demon shrouded deceptively in human garb. If there is a fear in me today, it is one of commitment to another human being...I find myself incapable of any kindness, even to the people who love me most. Ironic that having discovered the girl who had captured for a long long time, my wonderment and unrequited, unspoken inquisitiveness, I scared myself away and realized it best to let things be and stay off it all. Some lives move in a tangent, barely touching, never intersecting...maybe that is the fate with this un-dis-lodge-able pinprick in my heart too.
Something
I don't know what it is. Something tells me all this will change. Something tells me I will find motivation. Something tells me I will persevere. I trust that Something...I agree to play along.
P.S - After the first read, I thought this was quite a silly post and decided to junk it. But the second read prompted me to resolve and I realized it wasn't such a bad exercise of looking inwards after all. Resolutions for this bday include surfing news websites every day without fail, reading two novels a week, blogging once a fortnight, writing one short story a month, and pen down a malayalam film script within a year. I leave you folks with a beautiful song as a birthday treat, my favorite this season, it is a christian devotional, but then doesnt good music transcend all these narrow boundaries.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Nee Veruthathe Aare???
It is a dilemma that hits me hard every time I sit down to write. English or Malayalam? I have heard people say the language that you think in is the language that you are most comfortable with. English is the language I grew up with - learning, reading and loving but Malayalam was the language I was raised up in, speaking and hearing. I have scarce given attention to the language of my thoughts, but when I began to write them down on this blog, English was the natural language of choice. But as time progressed, the itching to see what little of Malayalam survived in me, had grown to a point, that I have come to curse myself for the step-motherly treatment, I have meted out the mother-tongue all along.
It all began twenty one years ago; that summer vacation in my native place stays ever so fresh in memory. A 6 year old kid sat teary-eyed and shivering before the stern glare of the woman who taught the basics of malayalam to the children in the village. I was getting the alphabets wrong; my mom, ammachi and appachan crowded around the dining table trying to help. But I just kept getting worse and worse. The slide that began then continued year after year. I barely managed to scrape through exam after exam. The malayalam textbook, the malayalam teacher and the malayalam language remained a recurring nightmare of childhood that eluded tiding over.
The 6th Standard, was the first time I came into an oddly tangible, but then-unwanted inheritance - the knowledge that a small part of the malayalam literary corpus ran through my blood too. We had to study a poem, Aethen Thottam (Garden of Eden) written by Mahakavi Kattakayam. Inquired of him to my dad, but the pride which radiated off Pop's face as he recounted the Mahakavi's works and achievements scarce resonated in me. And then it happened. Our Malayalam sir, a literary critic of some renown then, an ancient hoary figure who scared us beyond all mention, was distributing answer papers, he reached mine, looked at my name, then my marks, and asked, "Cheriyan Mappilayude Aarayitte Varum Nee?" I replied and with an expression of pathetic condescension, passed me my paper. If ever I wanted to toss the family name attached to me, it was that moment. Jiby John offered me anonymity. Jiby John Kattakayam was an embarassment in Malayalam classes. Since then, I never used Kattakayam in school and in a gesture befitting my hallowed ancestor, bunked school, the day Aethan Thottam was taught, to skip further shame!
There were brief moments of magic - like when learning SankaraKurup's Mambazham, Malayatoor's Mummy, ONV's Oru Vattom, Lalithambika Antharjanam's Bhoomiyile Malakha, Uroob's Mindapennu and Poonthanam's Jnanappana but those were minor blips in a rigid syllabus that restricted malayalam into an academic subject, rather than a rich language with a good corpus of literature, we just didnt have avenues to know of. The way ICSE and CBSE schools which today are mushrooming throughout Kerala, treat Malayalam, needs to change. I went on to pass Malayalam with "high honours" in the 10th...the second lowest mark in the whole school...I didnt feel shame but blew a sigh of relief that I was done with Malayalam for life, but how wrong I was, how ironic has the turnaround been...in a blog where I extracted maximum mileage and sought self-gratification for the years of anglophilia, I write in loss today about a phobia that grasped me all those years to the cusp of a feverish hatred. Knowing English is good, but trust me, knowing my mother tongue better has been one of the most fervent prayers on my lips, these last few years. I read Basheer, Mukundan, MT and Vijayan today in the hope of reversing my ageing, hoping to make up for the many lost years, in the hope of finding the ability to write in Malayalam too, as freely and with the same youthful abandon, as I can in English. Remains to be seen if I can succeed...
Last year in Delhi, we had a discussion on Khasak, and a dear friend who was part of it, asked me if the english translation by Vijayan himself was anywhere close to the Malayalam original. Embarassed, I told him I had read the english version only and couldnot help on that question. It got me back into reading a malayalam work again and some events from a little later which I have blogged about before, gave me the impetus to atleast try. All said, even this post on Malayalam, I have succumbed to the easiness of writing in English. Maybe its too late, maybe its the overwhelming delusion of my still-strong fascination for English that is preventing me, maybe it is the laziness to master Varamozhi, but it's a restlessness that wont stop devouring me unless I write just once more in malayalam. I guess its true, that old saying - Pettammeyolam Varumo Pottamma.
P.S: I have said somewhere that the books read in the schooldays, the experiences in later life especially the exposure to a new world, have helped in the blogging process...I forgot to add something else to that potent combination. It might seem absurd to you guys but it is a fact...the 5000 strong wordlist I memorized day in and day out for my GRE preps. That took my vocabulary to a new plane all together...and I have rarely needed an english dictionary since then. These days I look at the Shabdatharavali wistfully hoping I knew atleast 1% of the malayalam words it carries, I know I am too old, lazy and busy to slog through its 2000 pages. If only someone has a wordlist of malayalam words prepared and put out there, that I can read, memorize and equip myself with...maybe to talk, maybe to write or maybe just to think in! Forget writing, these days very few people talk good malayalam, colloquial and commonplace words have taken so firm a-firm-hold on us...that I feel the wordlist is a viable option to save both the spoken and the written language.
It all began twenty one years ago; that summer vacation in my native place stays ever so fresh in memory. A 6 year old kid sat teary-eyed and shivering before the stern glare of the woman who taught the basics of malayalam to the children in the village. I was getting the alphabets wrong; my mom, ammachi and appachan crowded around the dining table trying to help. But I just kept getting worse and worse. The slide that began then continued year after year. I barely managed to scrape through exam after exam. The malayalam textbook, the malayalam teacher and the malayalam language remained a recurring nightmare of childhood that eluded tiding over.
The 6th Standard, was the first time I came into an oddly tangible, but then-unwanted inheritance - the knowledge that a small part of the malayalam literary corpus ran through my blood too. We had to study a poem, Aethen Thottam (Garden of Eden) written by Mahakavi Kattakayam. Inquired of him to my dad, but the pride which radiated off Pop's face as he recounted the Mahakavi's works and achievements scarce resonated in me. And then it happened. Our Malayalam sir, a literary critic of some renown then, an ancient hoary figure who scared us beyond all mention, was distributing answer papers, he reached mine, looked at my name, then my marks, and asked, "Cheriyan Mappilayude Aarayitte Varum Nee?" I replied and with an expression of pathetic condescension, passed me my paper. If ever I wanted to toss the family name attached to me, it was that moment. Jiby John offered me anonymity. Jiby John Kattakayam was an embarassment in Malayalam classes. Since then, I never used Kattakayam in school and in a gesture befitting my hallowed ancestor, bunked school, the day Aethan Thottam was taught, to skip further shame!
There were brief moments of magic - like when learning SankaraKurup's Mambazham, Malayatoor's Mummy, ONV's Oru Vattom, Lalithambika Antharjanam's Bhoomiyile Malakha, Uroob's Mindapennu and Poonthanam's Jnanappana but those were minor blips in a rigid syllabus that restricted malayalam into an academic subject, rather than a rich language with a good corpus of literature, we just didnt have avenues to know of. The way ICSE and CBSE schools which today are mushrooming throughout Kerala, treat Malayalam, needs to change. I went on to pass Malayalam with "high honours" in the 10th...the second lowest mark in the whole school...I didnt feel shame but blew a sigh of relief that I was done with Malayalam for life, but how wrong I was, how ironic has the turnaround been...in a blog where I extracted maximum mileage and sought self-gratification for the years of anglophilia, I write in loss today about a phobia that grasped me all those years to the cusp of a feverish hatred. Knowing English is good, but trust me, knowing my mother tongue better has been one of the most fervent prayers on my lips, these last few years. I read Basheer, Mukundan, MT and Vijayan today in the hope of reversing my ageing, hoping to make up for the many lost years, in the hope of finding the ability to write in Malayalam too, as freely and with the same youthful abandon, as I can in English. Remains to be seen if I can succeed...
Last year in Delhi, we had a discussion on Khasak, and a dear friend who was part of it, asked me if the english translation by Vijayan himself was anywhere close to the Malayalam original. Embarassed, I told him I had read the english version only and couldnot help on that question. It got me back into reading a malayalam work again and some events from a little later which I have blogged about before, gave me the impetus to atleast try. All said, even this post on Malayalam, I have succumbed to the easiness of writing in English. Maybe its too late, maybe its the overwhelming delusion of my still-strong fascination for English that is preventing me, maybe it is the laziness to master Varamozhi, but it's a restlessness that wont stop devouring me unless I write just once more in malayalam. I guess its true, that old saying - Pettammeyolam Varumo Pottamma.
P.S: I have said somewhere that the books read in the schooldays, the experiences in later life especially the exposure to a new world, have helped in the blogging process...I forgot to add something else to that potent combination. It might seem absurd to you guys but it is a fact...the 5000 strong wordlist I memorized day in and day out for my GRE preps. That took my vocabulary to a new plane all together...and I have rarely needed an english dictionary since then. These days I look at the Shabdatharavali wistfully hoping I knew atleast 1% of the malayalam words it carries, I know I am too old, lazy and busy to slog through its 2000 pages. If only someone has a wordlist of malayalam words prepared and put out there, that I can read, memorize and equip myself with...maybe to talk, maybe to write or maybe just to think in! Forget writing, these days very few people talk good malayalam, colloquial and commonplace words have taken so firm a-firm-hold on us...that I feel the wordlist is a viable option to save both the spoken and the written language.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Did You Know???
In an age dominated by the lazy game of cricket, that even a pretender like me can play with aplomb, the news of India reaching the final and then winning the Nehru Cup, screamed at me for attention and then filled me with a genuine feeling of happiness. If you still thought, it was another cricket tourney, forget it. Be ready to blink...the game was soccer and the opponents were not our regular South Asian neighbours. I went through this video and countless articles on the triumph with hope of a turnaround in a sport that India was genuinely good at until the mid-90's and then faded away. It can't be a coincidence that India's performance in athletics, football, tennis, and countless other sports took the downward trend once cricket attracted our singular attraction? A regular, pleasing, thrilling sight on train journeys through Kerala was local youngsters playing football and volleyball and a small crowd watching them...cricket took that place for a while, but last year again i saw those small-timers back to playing football and i rejoiced. Maybe the soccer World Cup last year has certainly helped India.
The Nehru Cup held in TVM in the late eighties was my first initiation into watching a sport as a spectator. A C.V.Pappachen goal from the left flank beating three Czechoslovakian defenders and netting the ball from an almost 180deg angle to the goal mouth is still fresh in memory. I.M.Vijayan debuted the next year for Kerala Police who won the Federation Cup, following which Kerala won the Santhosh Trophy after 18 years. V.P.Sathyan, the captain of the two victorious teams, who tragically killed himself last year was the hero of every malayali then. In school, I still remember every one of my classmates playing football with these names on their mouths. In the eighties and early 90's Kerala sport reached its pinnacle with supreme performances in athletics by PT Usha, Shiny Wilson and co, in basketball with CV Sunny, Jayashankar Menon and the rest of their Kerala Police team, volleyball under late Jimmy George besides the legendary football team I wrote of earlier.
Some years back a very talented young footballer who promised a lot and should have been part of this victorious team, Pradeep Jose(not sure that is his name, memory has faded, there is a kerala footballer, Vinu Jose, i think he is his brother, or maybe...), whom I had seen playing for Calicut University once, on that superb Trivandrum Doordarshan programme, Kalikkalam, who made it to the Kerala State team and indian team but died of typhoid, unknown, uncared for, in a hospital in Andhra Pradesh where he had gone, representing Kerala in some tournament. Last year or year before, I saw a Santhosh trophy match, i think the semi or final, which could be termed listless at best, long overhead cross passes failing to reach their intended recipient, clumsy tackles, a boringly sedate "friendly" performance, and i flicked channels, wondering how things came to so low a level. Its heartbreaking to see Leander stretch himself to his limits to keep India in the Davis Cup match after match, and no youngster coming up to replace him, either in skill or spirit and you wonder how, in earlier times, a steady flow of talented players like Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj, Ramesh Krishnan, Leander Peas and Mahesh Bhupathi kept arriving to take over the baton from the older set.
Is cricket responsible? Are we responsible? Were the men who marketed cricket more smarter than the ones who helmed football, hockey and athletics? With enthusiasm, I told my colleague of India winning the Nehru Cup and he scornfully remarked, "Maybe it was some local team." This same person keeps bombarding me with cricket scores each time India plays. If an Indian, can show such extremes of apathy and empathy for two Teams' in Blue, all of us can imagine, what sort of inspiration, support and pride indian sports persons outside cricket have to play for. I don't know if its a mentality developed as an offshoot of globalization, that the weaker ones are left by the wayside...but we see it happening everywhere. In the agricultural sector, in movies, in sports, arts and in almost every aspect of Indian life, a lot of what has been welded to make up our India has been ignored and left to fend for itself. Surely, all this doesnot bode well for us. Ironically, it needed an Englishman to coach, impart confidence and set free a young set of caged boys from the stigma of being ignored by their own countrymen and gain their attention, not by marketing, sponsorship or hype but through a renaissance on the football ground. Is Indian football rising from the ashes? I'd like to believe so.
The Nehru Cup held in TVM in the late eighties was my first initiation into watching a sport as a spectator. A C.V.Pappachen goal from the left flank beating three Czechoslovakian defenders and netting the ball from an almost 180deg angle to the goal mouth is still fresh in memory. I.M.Vijayan debuted the next year for Kerala Police who won the Federation Cup, following which Kerala won the Santhosh Trophy after 18 years. V.P.Sathyan, the captain of the two victorious teams, who tragically killed himself last year was the hero of every malayali then. In school, I still remember every one of my classmates playing football with these names on their mouths. In the eighties and early 90's Kerala sport reached its pinnacle with supreme performances in athletics by PT Usha, Shiny Wilson and co, in basketball with CV Sunny, Jayashankar Menon and the rest of their Kerala Police team, volleyball under late Jimmy George besides the legendary football team I wrote of earlier.
Some years back a very talented young footballer who promised a lot and should have been part of this victorious team, Pradeep Jose(not sure that is his name, memory has faded, there is a kerala footballer, Vinu Jose, i think he is his brother, or maybe...), whom I had seen playing for Calicut University once, on that superb Trivandrum Doordarshan programme, Kalikkalam, who made it to the Kerala State team and indian team but died of typhoid, unknown, uncared for, in a hospital in Andhra Pradesh where he had gone, representing Kerala in some tournament. Last year or year before, I saw a Santhosh trophy match, i think the semi or final, which could be termed listless at best, long overhead cross passes failing to reach their intended recipient, clumsy tackles, a boringly sedate "friendly" performance, and i flicked channels, wondering how things came to so low a level. Its heartbreaking to see Leander stretch himself to his limits to keep India in the Davis Cup match after match, and no youngster coming up to replace him, either in skill or spirit and you wonder how, in earlier times, a steady flow of talented players like Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj, Ramesh Krishnan, Leander Peas and Mahesh Bhupathi kept arriving to take over the baton from the older set.
Is cricket responsible? Are we responsible? Were the men who marketed cricket more smarter than the ones who helmed football, hockey and athletics? With enthusiasm, I told my colleague of India winning the Nehru Cup and he scornfully remarked, "Maybe it was some local team." This same person keeps bombarding me with cricket scores each time India plays. If an Indian, can show such extremes of apathy and empathy for two Teams' in Blue, all of us can imagine, what sort of inspiration, support and pride indian sports persons outside cricket have to play for. I don't know if its a mentality developed as an offshoot of globalization, that the weaker ones are left by the wayside...but we see it happening everywhere. In the agricultural sector, in movies, in sports, arts and in almost every aspect of Indian life, a lot of what has been welded to make up our India has been ignored and left to fend for itself. Surely, all this doesnot bode well for us. Ironically, it needed an Englishman to coach, impart confidence and set free a young set of caged boys from the stigma of being ignored by their own countrymen and gain their attention, not by marketing, sponsorship or hype but through a renaissance on the football ground. Is Indian football rising from the ashes? I'd like to believe so.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Goliath Is Winning...
I was in a bad, bad mood. Got into the car. Put on one of my fave songs lately, from Vadakkumnathan, Gange, the last classical song from the late Raveendran & Yesudas combo. Mohanlal's voice came up previewing the song and I shut it off hastily. "Drat! I want some silence." I clenched my teeth and felt like biting my lips to grind out the irritation with that voice which once soothed, once made me laugh, cry and fall in love with love. My sis giggled at my frustration, making an effort to hide hers. We had just come out from a screening of this years mega-blockbuster in malayalam, hit directorial team of Rafi-Meccartin's Hallo. This year had seen me repeat the angry act many times over...after watching Baba Kalyani, Mayavi and Chota Mumbai which have been the big hits this year. I have a new cardinal rule in place for watching malayalam films...also watch movies from newer untouted directors, younger fresh-faced actors, scriptwriters who have never delivered a hit and films that came and went without making a blip on the malayali conscience. As a result I have watched some good malayalam films in the last one year which many of you evaded, never heard of or never bothered to know of. As I write this two small films, Veeralipaattu and Thaniye, are dying or already gone from Kerala theatres.
The reason I write about Veeralipattu, though I havent seen it yet, is because it has my favorite malayalam actor of today, Prithviraj in the leading role, a debutant scriptwriting team, Ashok-Sasi who deserves early encouragement and finally the young director, Kukku Surendran whose debut film, Oraal, which I will write about later, was a brilliant effort. On Prithviraj, an actor whom I dedicated a post to, in this blog in July 2005, after watching his debut Tamil effort, Kana Kandein and realizing this was one man who deserved to succed in Kerala, i find he is in no better position, two years later in 2007. 2006 was his career-defining period where he broke out and away from all accusations of copying the superstars, limited range, lack of flexibility with such diverse roles as a wrongly accused victim of a sex scandal in Achanurangatha Veedu; the intense, brooding, rough-toungued corrupt cop of Vargam; the fiery SFI student leader with a romantic side who returns years later broken and mellowed in Classmates; the harmless, honest govt clerk from Kasargod whose transition into a guily, ambitious and cunning bureaucrat caught in between three women and salvaging his career when surrounded by enemies, all leading to his salvation in the classic film, Vasthavam and finally ending the year with an understated performance as a young, idealistic journalist in Pakal who reports on the actual scenario of Wayanad's crop failures and suicides blending himself beautifully into an otherwise shoddy film, Prithvi's career has come a long way but is Kerala listening? This year, in Mozhi, he made an indelible mark in Thamizhakam, in the role of a young, earnest musician in love with a deaf-and-dumb girl and in the process proved he could do comedy also effectively, if given the chance.
Well enough of Prithviraj, you guys might say I am overtly praising him, but I am frustrated by the continuing apathy of kerala's youngsters to go out and watch his movies on the big screen. It seems fashionable to say he is arrogant, loud-mouthed, not that talented, over-hyped and therefore his movies shouldnt be watched. I came across many people who pass judgement on him, without even watching his recent movies. Both Mammootty and Mohanlal are prisoners of their fanbase. Good Mammootty films like Karuthapakshikal, Kaiyoppu, Mission 90 Days and Big B have failed to run as they should have because his fans, especially in Malabar, crave for just a typical masala potboiler with comedy, action, romance, melodrama and sentiments thrown in. Mohanlal on the other hand is lucky he has admirers throughout Kerala among the old, kids, women and beyond his huge rowdy fan association, all of which will ensure even his good films like Thanmatra, Vadakkumnathan and Keerthichakra have a decent run at the BO, even without fan support. A few months back 3000 Mohanlal fans were present at the launch of Alibai and a similar number on his birthday celebration in Chengalchoola in TVM. What has Lal done to deserve so much praise since the late 90's. Teenagers and youngsters talk of him like he is their youth icon. But I am sorry. He is 45+. He was the icon of an earlier age...the eighties and early 90's when he did all those special roles. There is a simple explanation for all this. It is the psychology of the mob on display. It is cool among the rough and tough guys of Kerala to be a fan of these superstars and everyone else just joins in to become yet another cool guy and be part of a fraternity and soon they are sucked into believing these two are demi-goods and everyone else in Malayalam, a threat. Unfortunately, this is Kerala with a shrinking audience for cinema where across the board support is needed to rescue a film and not TN, Andhra or Bombay where theatre collections easily run into crores by the opening weekend itself. These superstars have lost it...they are treating us to average fare and we are deluding ourselves that Hello and Mayavi and others are another great effort from them. I have had enough pouring scorn and being cynical and all those things i hate to do and be...I move to the main purpose of this post...an eye-opener to recent good malayalam cinema which failed at the box-office that many of you maynot have had a chance to see, and which is available on vcd/dvd for all of u out there.
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****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****
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Oraal(2005)- The pair of Kukku Surendran-T.K.Devakumar's debut movie, a psychological thrller, Oraal, had Mukesh and Sreya Reddy in a leading role, telling the story of an avante-garde film director and his live-in partner, making a trip to a forest where he intends to write his next script. There, certain fears in the form of a young, bearded man who questions the pseudo-achievements of Mukesh, and gains the attraction of Sreya, enter his mind, all of which leads him down a path of self-destruction. It is what many of you call a slow movie...but I felt there was good suspense allthroughout, unguessable climax, and a very interesting young "villain" character, who is from a theatre background. Adoor Gopalakrishnan praised Kukku for his direction at a film festival.
Mayookham(2005) - Hariharan returns to a genre of film-making he seemingly ditched after the rotten, Prem Poojari. With Saiju Kurup and Mamta Mohandas in the lead, the film dealt with a young, jobless ruffian from a Brahmin family, Saiju Kurup, who fails repeatedly to find a job due to his upper-caste status and turns a rebel and falls into wild company. Enter Mamta Mohandas an NRI girl on a vacation who manages in him a change of heart and prompts him to pursue his old hobby of writing poetry and taking up a lowly press job. Shot in and around beatiful locales on the banks of the Nila, with beatiful songs by the last veteran standing, Bombay Ravi, enchanting cinematography by S.Kumar, a solid script by Hariharan himself and a splendid debut effort by the brooding and intense Saiju Kurup this film sadly went unoticed. The only flaw in the film was that it failed to factor in the IT age where jobs are available for those who try for entry there. Moreover today noone seems interested in the concept of wayward, idealistic youth rebelling against the establishment.
Achanurangatha Veedu(2006) - After the blockbuster, Chanthupotte in 2005, no one expected Lal Jose to take up an offbeat subject, give it as commercial a treatment as possible and extract a fine understated, sensitive performance from over-the-top comedian, Salim Kumar, in the scripts of Babu Janardhanan, for whom this was a second birth in malayalam cinema. Devoid of any sort of melodrama, this film based on the Suryanelli sex scandal, tells the story of a christian-converted widowed clerk, bringing up his three daughters, of whom the youngest is his favorite and a good student. She goes missing one day and incidents from there throw the life of the family upside down and gradually destroys them. Not at all dragging or slow, and not senti-senti, which many people cited as a reason to avoid this movie, i must commend director, Lal for the final shot of the movie which leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Undobutedly he is a filmmaker at the prime of his talents, as proved later by Classmates and Arabikatha, but unfortunately all the clout he commanded at the box office failed to save this one.
Nottam(2006) - Everyone has listened several times to the wonderful Pachapanamthathe song in this movie. This movie is no less special for the wonderful performance of a handful of veterans of malayalam cinema, Nedumudi Venu, Jagathi Sreekumar and Gopakumar. A young man arrives in a village in Kerala to shoot a documentary on Theyyam accompanied by his friend, a native of the village. Nedumudi plays a traditional patriach who gives in, to videographing his performance, on the urging of his close friend and co-artist, Jagathi's insistence. Jagathi plays his age but comes up with a delightful performance which makes us smile(the malayalam world i use for his character is sarasan...jovial is a close parallel in english...but its not the same!) and then sad. Venu steels the scene in a spell-binding climax. Samvritha Sunil is lovable as the young, village belle. Directed by Sasi Paravoor, I felt gladdened, if only for consolation, that this movie won some awards also this year.
Akale(2005) - Perhaps the first of many noteworthy performances from Prithviraj which went unnoted by the masses. Akale tells the story of a middle-aged, almost broken poet who is still trying to reconcile with his disjointed, cruel past while akcknowledging his present is crumbling. Akale is about Sheela, in the role of a nitwitty, pushy mother whose repeated attempts to straighten her young, helpess son who hates his day job drives him to drugs, alcohol and despair and prods her fragile, physically unable daughter, Geethu Mohandas to escape the confines of her house and find companionship and love, only succeeding in driving her deeper into a shell. A young man in the neighbourhood catches Sheela's eyes as a prospective groom for her daughter, but much to the despair and lack of faith of both her children, she succeds in getting them to agree to it and what follows is a touching portrayal of four human lives thrown amidst a cauldron of opposing emotions, one night. Brilliantly scripted and directed by Shyamaprasad, and photographed to drop-dead perfection by the veteran, S.Kumar and costumes by Kukku Parameshwaran, besides superb performances from Sheela, Geethu, Prithviraj and Tom George, this is a must-watch movie for all. Our movies have become too fast-paced recently, if you are willing to slow down your pace, you should enjoy the artistic powerhouse that is this movie.
Vargam(2006) - If you are looking for the film, that for the first time opened a lot of Malayali eyes, to the talent and screen presence Prithviraj can command, it was this film. Out of theatres in a few weeks, but incredibly popular on torrent sites by word-of-mouth, this movie presents Prithvi as a never before seen policeman on malayalam screen. For the "superlatives" on his character refer to the passage on Prithvi above and I have nothing more to say. Scripted and directed by M.Padmakumar, on an evil cop's rough ride to salvation, the movie has slight similarities to his mentor, Ranjith's Devasuram, but saw Prithviraj improve his dialogue delivery and his physique to deliver a truely break-through performance.
Vasthavam(2006) - Babu Janardhanan returned for the second time in 2006 and paired up with M.Padmakumar to tell a gripping tale of the rise and fall of an ordinary secretariat employee, who plots his way up the bureaucracy to become a powerbroker, but one by one, finds himself losing the people close to him and finally alone...all leading to a finely shot climax stunt sequence, filmed by upcoming cameraman Manoj Pillai. Prithviraj in leading role shows why he is the only young actor around with the flair to take up a multi-hued character whose personal life is in a muddle as he deserts his lady love for a marriage of convenience, seduces and then ditches a divorcee who gives him a helping hand in his career, ignores his wife and connives to draw his lady love closer to him, even apologizing for his behavior to his wife while still helplessly in love with another. His professional life is not much better either with problems recurring again and again, most of it of his own doing. Jagathy in an unforgettable character, of a benefactor to the lead character, draws our applause, smiles and thoughts, sometimes all these, even in the same dialogue. Good performances from Salim Kumar as the tottering businessman trying to shore up his fortune, Samvritha Sunil as the docile, all-suffering wife is a revelation and Kavya Madhavan as the lady love, who does a balancing act with Prithvi, even after her marriage, finally having enough of other people drawing the strings of her life.
Oruvan(2006) - A badly scripted film which stood out for Indrajith's intense performance as a psychopath and debutant director, Vinoo Anand's deft handling of the subject and coming up with some finely shot scenes.
Pakal(2006) - What I call an activist film. A young journalist goes to Wayanad to investigate farmer suicides and crop failures. He lays the blame squarely on the private money-lenders in the area and goverment's callousness and negligence when formulating policies. The film is taken us through the lives of some families, and introduces us to sitiations like women unable to find husbands, people who got overtaxed by uncaring offcials, people taking loans beyond their means, etc. Despite the good efforts of debutant drector Nishad, the script is too bad to give him a chance. Again if you are a Prithvi fan like me, you notice how, he manages to stay the course despite the uneven script.
Sancharam(2005) - A brilliant movie set in a central-travancore village depicting the friendship between two girls growing gradually to the point they fall in love with each other, catch the attention of teachers and family, and are seperated, with the movie ending tantalizingly at a point where one girl stares down a waterfall and the other is about to tie the knot. Possibly, only the second malayalam film, about lesbianism, this film directed by NRK, Ligy Pullapally, stands out for good direction, very life-like dialogues, haunting background music, excellent camera-work and splendid performances by the two lead girls and the supporting cast. A must watch movie...one that deserved a lot of theatre time.
--------------------------------------------------
No apologies for this long post. I had to get it out of my system. I am no intellectual or know-it-all film critic. I just want people to open their eyes to the mediocrity before us. Good malayalam cinema is not dead...the movies i wrote about above are some of the good ones...small films we fail to know of, drowned in the worthless, pointless advertising, marketing, superstar-centric overdose that you and I are spoonfed in Kerala. I don't want Prithviraj or any other youngster to be a superstar in the future. The reason I loved his movies recently was that he played characters who are vulnerable, characters with flaws and faults, a leading hero who lets other characters also have scope to perform, even at the risk of outshining him. Mohanlal, Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Dileep films are all about themselves. None of the acting talents of malayalam are allowed to shine in their movies, no slice of life of Kerala comes out in their movies, finally none of their characters look like you, or me, our parents, or any ordinary person in Kerala. It would be good if you remember the kind of films, they did earlier for us to put them up on such a high pedestal, now it would be equally good for us and our cinema, if we pulled these superheroes of Kerala down to our own level. Its just a suggestion!
P.S - In the malayalam film, Rajavinte Makan which propelled Lal to stardom, a character delivers this line..."Ente Achane Paranjaal Njan Sahikkum. Pakshe Ente Nethavine Paranjal...". On a discussion forum I saw a Lal fan use the same line, but substituting the Nethavu with Lalettan!!! Mohanlal is only a reel-hero, damnit...
The reason I write about Veeralipattu, though I havent seen it yet, is because it has my favorite malayalam actor of today, Prithviraj in the leading role, a debutant scriptwriting team, Ashok-Sasi who deserves early encouragement and finally the young director, Kukku Surendran whose debut film, Oraal, which I will write about later, was a brilliant effort. On Prithviraj, an actor whom I dedicated a post to, in this blog in July 2005, after watching his debut Tamil effort, Kana Kandein and realizing this was one man who deserved to succed in Kerala, i find he is in no better position, two years later in 2007. 2006 was his career-defining period where he broke out and away from all accusations of copying the superstars, limited range, lack of flexibility with such diverse roles as a wrongly accused victim of a sex scandal in Achanurangatha Veedu; the intense, brooding, rough-toungued corrupt cop of Vargam; the fiery SFI student leader with a romantic side who returns years later broken and mellowed in Classmates; the harmless, honest govt clerk from Kasargod whose transition into a guily, ambitious and cunning bureaucrat caught in between three women and salvaging his career when surrounded by enemies, all leading to his salvation in the classic film, Vasthavam and finally ending the year with an understated performance as a young, idealistic journalist in Pakal who reports on the actual scenario of Wayanad's crop failures and suicides blending himself beautifully into an otherwise shoddy film, Prithvi's career has come a long way but is Kerala listening? This year, in Mozhi, he made an indelible mark in Thamizhakam, in the role of a young, earnest musician in love with a deaf-and-dumb girl and in the process proved he could do comedy also effectively, if given the chance.
Well enough of Prithviraj, you guys might say I am overtly praising him, but I am frustrated by the continuing apathy of kerala's youngsters to go out and watch his movies on the big screen. It seems fashionable to say he is arrogant, loud-mouthed, not that talented, over-hyped and therefore his movies shouldnt be watched. I came across many people who pass judgement on him, without even watching his recent movies. Both Mammootty and Mohanlal are prisoners of their fanbase. Good Mammootty films like Karuthapakshikal, Kaiyoppu, Mission 90 Days and Big B have failed to run as they should have because his fans, especially in Malabar, crave for just a typical masala potboiler with comedy, action, romance, melodrama and sentiments thrown in. Mohanlal on the other hand is lucky he has admirers throughout Kerala among the old, kids, women and beyond his huge rowdy fan association, all of which will ensure even his good films like Thanmatra, Vadakkumnathan and Keerthichakra have a decent run at the BO, even without fan support. A few months back 3000 Mohanlal fans were present at the launch of Alibai and a similar number on his birthday celebration in Chengalchoola in TVM. What has Lal done to deserve so much praise since the late 90's. Teenagers and youngsters talk of him like he is their youth icon. But I am sorry. He is 45+. He was the icon of an earlier age...the eighties and early 90's when he did all those special roles. There is a simple explanation for all this. It is the psychology of the mob on display. It is cool among the rough and tough guys of Kerala to be a fan of these superstars and everyone else just joins in to become yet another cool guy and be part of a fraternity and soon they are sucked into believing these two are demi-goods and everyone else in Malayalam, a threat. Unfortunately, this is Kerala with a shrinking audience for cinema where across the board support is needed to rescue a film and not TN, Andhra or Bombay where theatre collections easily run into crores by the opening weekend itself. These superstars have lost it...they are treating us to average fare and we are deluding ourselves that Hello and Mayavi and others are another great effort from them. I have had enough pouring scorn and being cynical and all those things i hate to do and be...I move to the main purpose of this post...an eye-opener to recent good malayalam cinema which failed at the box-office that many of you maynot have had a chance to see, and which is available on vcd/dvd for all of u out there.
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****POSSIBLE SPOILERS****
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Oraal(2005)- The pair of Kukku Surendran-T.K.Devakumar's debut movie, a psychological thrller, Oraal, had Mukesh and Sreya Reddy in a leading role, telling the story of an avante-garde film director and his live-in partner, making a trip to a forest where he intends to write his next script. There, certain fears in the form of a young, bearded man who questions the pseudo-achievements of Mukesh, and gains the attraction of Sreya, enter his mind, all of which leads him down a path of self-destruction. It is what many of you call a slow movie...but I felt there was good suspense allthroughout, unguessable climax, and a very interesting young "villain" character, who is from a theatre background. Adoor Gopalakrishnan praised Kukku for his direction at a film festival.
Mayookham(2005) - Hariharan returns to a genre of film-making he seemingly ditched after the rotten, Prem Poojari. With Saiju Kurup and Mamta Mohandas in the lead, the film dealt with a young, jobless ruffian from a Brahmin family, Saiju Kurup, who fails repeatedly to find a job due to his upper-caste status and turns a rebel and falls into wild company. Enter Mamta Mohandas an NRI girl on a vacation who manages in him a change of heart and prompts him to pursue his old hobby of writing poetry and taking up a lowly press job. Shot in and around beatiful locales on the banks of the Nila, with beatiful songs by the last veteran standing, Bombay Ravi, enchanting cinematography by S.Kumar, a solid script by Hariharan himself and a splendid debut effort by the brooding and intense Saiju Kurup this film sadly went unoticed. The only flaw in the film was that it failed to factor in the IT age where jobs are available for those who try for entry there. Moreover today noone seems interested in the concept of wayward, idealistic youth rebelling against the establishment.
Achanurangatha Veedu(2006) - After the blockbuster, Chanthupotte in 2005, no one expected Lal Jose to take up an offbeat subject, give it as commercial a treatment as possible and extract a fine understated, sensitive performance from over-the-top comedian, Salim Kumar, in the scripts of Babu Janardhanan, for whom this was a second birth in malayalam cinema. Devoid of any sort of melodrama, this film based on the Suryanelli sex scandal, tells the story of a christian-converted widowed clerk, bringing up his three daughters, of whom the youngest is his favorite and a good student. She goes missing one day and incidents from there throw the life of the family upside down and gradually destroys them. Not at all dragging or slow, and not senti-senti, which many people cited as a reason to avoid this movie, i must commend director, Lal for the final shot of the movie which leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Undobutedly he is a filmmaker at the prime of his talents, as proved later by Classmates and Arabikatha, but unfortunately all the clout he commanded at the box office failed to save this one.
Nottam(2006) - Everyone has listened several times to the wonderful Pachapanamthathe song in this movie. This movie is no less special for the wonderful performance of a handful of veterans of malayalam cinema, Nedumudi Venu, Jagathi Sreekumar and Gopakumar. A young man arrives in a village in Kerala to shoot a documentary on Theyyam accompanied by his friend, a native of the village. Nedumudi plays a traditional patriach who gives in, to videographing his performance, on the urging of his close friend and co-artist, Jagathi's insistence. Jagathi plays his age but comes up with a delightful performance which makes us smile(the malayalam world i use for his character is sarasan...jovial is a close parallel in english...but its not the same!) and then sad. Venu steels the scene in a spell-binding climax. Samvritha Sunil is lovable as the young, village belle. Directed by Sasi Paravoor, I felt gladdened, if only for consolation, that this movie won some awards also this year.
Akale(2005) - Perhaps the first of many noteworthy performances from Prithviraj which went unnoted by the masses. Akale tells the story of a middle-aged, almost broken poet who is still trying to reconcile with his disjointed, cruel past while akcknowledging his present is crumbling. Akale is about Sheela, in the role of a nitwitty, pushy mother whose repeated attempts to straighten her young, helpess son who hates his day job drives him to drugs, alcohol and despair and prods her fragile, physically unable daughter, Geethu Mohandas to escape the confines of her house and find companionship and love, only succeeding in driving her deeper into a shell. A young man in the neighbourhood catches Sheela's eyes as a prospective groom for her daughter, but much to the despair and lack of faith of both her children, she succeds in getting them to agree to it and what follows is a touching portrayal of four human lives thrown amidst a cauldron of opposing emotions, one night. Brilliantly scripted and directed by Shyamaprasad, and photographed to drop-dead perfection by the veteran, S.Kumar and costumes by Kukku Parameshwaran, besides superb performances from Sheela, Geethu, Prithviraj and Tom George, this is a must-watch movie for all. Our movies have become too fast-paced recently, if you are willing to slow down your pace, you should enjoy the artistic powerhouse that is this movie.
Vargam(2006) - If you are looking for the film, that for the first time opened a lot of Malayali eyes, to the talent and screen presence Prithviraj can command, it was this film. Out of theatres in a few weeks, but incredibly popular on torrent sites by word-of-mouth, this movie presents Prithvi as a never before seen policeman on malayalam screen. For the "superlatives" on his character refer to the passage on Prithvi above and I have nothing more to say. Scripted and directed by M.Padmakumar, on an evil cop's rough ride to salvation, the movie has slight similarities to his mentor, Ranjith's Devasuram, but saw Prithviraj improve his dialogue delivery and his physique to deliver a truely break-through performance.
Vasthavam(2006) - Babu Janardhanan returned for the second time in 2006 and paired up with M.Padmakumar to tell a gripping tale of the rise and fall of an ordinary secretariat employee, who plots his way up the bureaucracy to become a powerbroker, but one by one, finds himself losing the people close to him and finally alone...all leading to a finely shot climax stunt sequence, filmed by upcoming cameraman Manoj Pillai. Prithviraj in leading role shows why he is the only young actor around with the flair to take up a multi-hued character whose personal life is in a muddle as he deserts his lady love for a marriage of convenience, seduces and then ditches a divorcee who gives him a helping hand in his career, ignores his wife and connives to draw his lady love closer to him, even apologizing for his behavior to his wife while still helplessly in love with another. His professional life is not much better either with problems recurring again and again, most of it of his own doing. Jagathy in an unforgettable character, of a benefactor to the lead character, draws our applause, smiles and thoughts, sometimes all these, even in the same dialogue. Good performances from Salim Kumar as the tottering businessman trying to shore up his fortune, Samvritha Sunil as the docile, all-suffering wife is a revelation and Kavya Madhavan as the lady love, who does a balancing act with Prithvi, even after her marriage, finally having enough of other people drawing the strings of her life.
Oruvan(2006) - A badly scripted film which stood out for Indrajith's intense performance as a psychopath and debutant director, Vinoo Anand's deft handling of the subject and coming up with some finely shot scenes.
Pakal(2006) - What I call an activist film. A young journalist goes to Wayanad to investigate farmer suicides and crop failures. He lays the blame squarely on the private money-lenders in the area and goverment's callousness and negligence when formulating policies. The film is taken us through the lives of some families, and introduces us to sitiations like women unable to find husbands, people who got overtaxed by uncaring offcials, people taking loans beyond their means, etc. Despite the good efforts of debutant drector Nishad, the script is too bad to give him a chance. Again if you are a Prithvi fan like me, you notice how, he manages to stay the course despite the uneven script.
Sancharam(2005) - A brilliant movie set in a central-travancore village depicting the friendship between two girls growing gradually to the point they fall in love with each other, catch the attention of teachers and family, and are seperated, with the movie ending tantalizingly at a point where one girl stares down a waterfall and the other is about to tie the knot. Possibly, only the second malayalam film, about lesbianism, this film directed by NRK, Ligy Pullapally, stands out for good direction, very life-like dialogues, haunting background music, excellent camera-work and splendid performances by the two lead girls and the supporting cast. A must watch movie...one that deserved a lot of theatre time.
--------------------------------------------------
No apologies for this long post. I had to get it out of my system. I am no intellectual or know-it-all film critic. I just want people to open their eyes to the mediocrity before us. Good malayalam cinema is not dead...the movies i wrote about above are some of the good ones...small films we fail to know of, drowned in the worthless, pointless advertising, marketing, superstar-centric overdose that you and I are spoonfed in Kerala. I don't want Prithviraj or any other youngster to be a superstar in the future. The reason I loved his movies recently was that he played characters who are vulnerable, characters with flaws and faults, a leading hero who lets other characters also have scope to perform, even at the risk of outshining him. Mohanlal, Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Dileep films are all about themselves. None of the acting talents of malayalam are allowed to shine in their movies, no slice of life of Kerala comes out in their movies, finally none of their characters look like you, or me, our parents, or any ordinary person in Kerala. It would be good if you remember the kind of films, they did earlier for us to put them up on such a high pedestal, now it would be equally good for us and our cinema, if we pulled these superheroes of Kerala down to our own level. Its just a suggestion!
P.S - In the malayalam film, Rajavinte Makan which propelled Lal to stardom, a character delivers this line..."Ente Achane Paranjaal Njan Sahikkum. Pakshe Ente Nethavine Paranjal...". On a discussion forum I saw a Lal fan use the same line, but substituting the Nethavu with Lalettan!!! Mohanlal is only a reel-hero, damnit...
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Antony, You Too Brutus!!!
Like Antony, who has now forsaken his mushinje naariya kadar shirt and mundu, even I made a decision few weeks back on my career...it was a choice my close ones suggested much earlier, but I rejected on the grounds of some principles, which today has been rendered obsolete by change. Change is good, change is a must for me...less than a year remains for me to face the choice i made...until then its my little secret. So, no questions asked!
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