My short stature makes people come pat-backingly close to me minutes after we get acquainted, but it has made me so casual with strangers that I crack unsettling jokes at their cost even before we are properly introduced. That is unwise, I agree.
I suspect that my coolness is a red herring of sorts. It is a means to conceal some extremely vulnerable part of me.
I have messed up many times. By 'messed up' I don't mean some pardonable mistake but that I have been confused, in conflict with myself and the world around me for rather long stretches of time. Yet, not once did it stop the world from spinning nor me from going about as if everything was fine.
Most shrinks I have gone to were kind but those not exactly kind were matter of fact and brutal. One of them simply told me that it was too late for him to help me. He was old; he was the old school type, meticulous and to the point. His practice was not solely to earn loads of money. It was to cure people too if he could, but in my case he said that he could not cure me.
My 12 hrs trip, all the way to Madurai by bus one way was fruitless. That shrink flunk me and I was depressed. Then I saw the cloth Mahatma Gandhi was wearing when he was murdered, preserved in a dark room in the Madurai Gandhi museum, and got more depressed.
The 12 hrs return trip was an eager treat, almost.
I regard the forty seven years of my life with guiltless objectivity.
I have not dared much. I have not taken risks, have not set goals. My super-objective was shrouded in difficult folds of impossible targets. Like, for instance, I sought "supra - mental" change even before attempting the more plausible "mental" change.
Thus time here is spent gazing at shapes on mobile walls.
Tuesday, July 27
Monday, July 26
Happenings over here
The French girl next door was robbed a day before she left for France two years back. A young Tamil man entered her apartment last Thursday. She saw him standing right next to her bed in the early hours of the morning. She screamed. Wonder what it is about some people that attracts crime.
There is security personnel in Auroville. This girl did report the thief but he is still out there. Conjectures are bad, but what if he had raped and killed her? We share one wall ...
On Saturday, while returning with Mir from Ami I saw in distance a cyclist on wheels talking into a running car window. The car swerved. The cyclist said something. The car swerved again and again until the cyclist was pushed to the brink of the road, forcing him to dismount. The driver, a hefty drunk called Das, got out the car and grabbed the cyclist. I reached the spot exactly at this point. I recognized both of them. I did not want to interfere because Mir was with me, but the cyclist was alone and helpless so I told Mir that we should help. I raised my voice and hollered, " Hay Das, our namma aal tan da! Pavam. Addikkiyade!" ( Hay Das, he is our man. Poor guy. Don't hit)
It was effective. The drunk sobered down. After a pause he smiled at the cyclist and began caressing his face saying that he was sorry. By then more people had gathered so I came home with Mir, a very impressed 6 year old with his father.
As we rode he said, "Charu, that man got scared of you, right?" I said that may be he was not.
"Then why did he listen to you?" - Mir.
"Because"... -I.
" You are stronger than him, right?"
" No Mir, his body weight is no match to mine...."
"But you have reflex!!"
I smiled at my innocent son.
Last Friday I went for a session of counseling with my wife. Everything was as typical as typical can be with these counselors except that she knew almost to a shocking detail my personal life, yet when I called her for the appointment earlier she did not know who I was. I asked her how she knew so much about me. She shrugged. " Auroville, you know!", she said.
But how is that I don't know almost anything about anybody's personal affairs and she does? ( I am sure she knows about many) Professional advantage? Could this be because she sees many people and they tell her things? But people go to a counselor to discuss their OWN personal mess, I thought, not mine? I had this uncanny feeling that she knew everything about me. I am meeting her again. I shall face her with my dilemma.
We have added two members to our family in the form of a pair of Guinea pigs. Mir wanted them. His mother has fur allergies, but she let him have those stinking creatures as pets. Such is love? Well, INDULGENCE at any rate for sure!
Muralidharan retired from first class cricket. Who cares? He was abnormal. If you ask me, a lucky freak. My hero is Gavaskar. Consider the look of my blog and you may, perhaps, understand why.
There is security personnel in Auroville. This girl did report the thief but he is still out there. Conjectures are bad, but what if he had raped and killed her? We share one wall ...
On Saturday, while returning with Mir from Ami I saw in distance a cyclist on wheels talking into a running car window. The car swerved. The cyclist said something. The car swerved again and again until the cyclist was pushed to the brink of the road, forcing him to dismount. The driver, a hefty drunk called Das, got out the car and grabbed the cyclist. I reached the spot exactly at this point. I recognized both of them. I did not want to interfere because Mir was with me, but the cyclist was alone and helpless so I told Mir that we should help. I raised my voice and hollered, " Hay Das, our namma aal tan da! Pavam. Addikkiyade!" ( Hay Das, he is our man. Poor guy. Don't hit)
It was effective. The drunk sobered down. After a pause he smiled at the cyclist and began caressing his face saying that he was sorry. By then more people had gathered so I came home with Mir, a very impressed 6 year old with his father.
As we rode he said, "Charu, that man got scared of you, right?" I said that may be he was not.
"Then why did he listen to you?" - Mir.
"Because"... -I.
" You are stronger than him, right?"
" No Mir, his body weight is no match to mine...."
"But you have reflex!!"
I smiled at my innocent son.
Last Friday I went for a session of counseling with my wife. Everything was as typical as typical can be with these counselors except that she knew almost to a shocking detail my personal life, yet when I called her for the appointment earlier she did not know who I was. I asked her how she knew so much about me. She shrugged. " Auroville, you know!", she said.
But how is that I don't know almost anything about anybody's personal affairs and she does? ( I am sure she knows about many) Professional advantage? Could this be because she sees many people and they tell her things? But people go to a counselor to discuss their OWN personal mess, I thought, not mine? I had this uncanny feeling that she knew everything about me. I am meeting her again. I shall face her with my dilemma.
We have added two members to our family in the form of a pair of Guinea pigs. Mir wanted them. His mother has fur allergies, but she let him have those stinking creatures as pets. Such is love? Well, INDULGENCE at any rate for sure!
Muralidharan retired from first class cricket. Who cares? He was abnormal. If you ask me, a lucky freak. My hero is Gavaskar. Consider the look of my blog and you may, perhaps, understand why.
Saturday, July 17
LOVE
God knows why I was stirred into pondering about LOVE today, but I was and now I am on the verge of tears.
I was thinking...
Ashamed as I am about those ellipses above I am on the verge of tears indeed, but 'tears' here is not to be confused so much with tenderness and the touchy-feely thing that happens to most of us - except hypocrites (of course!) - when we undergo the experience of intense emotive hypertension. It is so intense that it is unbearable, hence tears.
What?
What did I just...
Ellipses. Of course! I hate them, but sometime they are inevitable. Is it their inevitability that does it or not I am not so clear about. But I am clear about love. Rather, about my clear thought today about it.
As I said, I was thinking! About love, about the many renditions of this one most compelling emotion: LOVE.
What can be written about love? EVERYTHING IS LOVE, don't you see, dear readers?
I was thinking...
Ashamed as I am about those ellipses above I am on the verge of tears indeed, but 'tears' here is not to be confused so much with tenderness and the touchy-feely thing that happens to most of us - except hypocrites (of course!) - when we undergo the experience of intense emotive hypertension. It is so intense that it is unbearable, hence tears.
What?
What did I just...
Ellipses. Of course! I hate them, but sometime they are inevitable. Is it their inevitability that does it or not I am not so clear about. But I am clear about love. Rather, about my clear thought today about it.
As I said, I was thinking! About love, about the many renditions of this one most compelling emotion: LOVE.
What can be written about love? EVERYTHING IS LOVE, don't you see, dear readers?
Thursday, July 8
Maniratnam's Ravan
May be it is not such a good idea to compare two movies by two different makers, but one certain commonality prompts me to compare Maniratnam's 'Raavan' to 'Rajniti'. The common factor is that both draw from India's two foremost epics, the Mahabharat and the Ramayan. 'Ravan', in fact, is the villain of the epic mentioned latterly. Mahabharat on the other hand is primarily about rajniti or politics: politics is the central thread on which beads of dramatic occurrences are woven to make, as it were,a necklace. Both these films take off from old Indian epics to make, what I suppose, amounts to a contemporary statement.
Whereas good over evil is the message of the two ancient texts the films state just the opposite. They seem to say loudly but not clearly, just garishly, that it is the evil which triumphs in the end. If not then why does the director of Raavan in an impossibly unexpected turn bring in "Rama" to shoot "Ravana", thereby veering the sympathies villain-wards. Though that is how it should be as per the original epic where Rama, the god slays Ravana, the demon, but the spectator's sympathies vacillate t'wards Rama. They are not forcefully steered towards the villain as in the film.
In the film junior Bachchan is the obvious villain. He abducts the SP (Vikram)'s wife, he kills without mercy; most of his evil deeds are pre-meditated enough to leave no doubt in the mind that he is evil. But Maniratnam seems to justify crime by painting the naxalite-like Beera (that's Abhiskek's name in the film)virtuous. He is vengeful (the reason for his abduction of Aishvarya Ray); he is a tyrant(the way he treats his sister's fiance and later kills him for a trivial yet hugely egoistic reason)and much more; he has fits of what I surmised could more likely be schizophrenia than any mild criminal enthusiasm, but Mr.Manirathnam justifies all that. And just as it happens in Hindi films this outright cruel maniac abstains from raping Aishwarya's character because he is truly(sic)in love with her. Methinks, given the screen-time and the busy killing schedule of Beera the attraction he feels towards Aishvarya's character can only be lust, not in the least love and not at all'TRUE LOVE'.
It was something perverse in me that wanted to see Ravan till the end. To be fair to Mani's efforts however , the film has engaging dramatic turns (although the last bit was rather far fetched)but thematically it sucks like a weak proposal. It is a film obtained to enthrall the brains of a tired middle class, too tired to ask sensitive questions.
If I were to give an analogy I would say that Manirathnam's Ravan does give you an orgasm, but it is an orgasm that you reach after quite some laboured masturbation and not one you reach after a meaningful coitus.
Whereas good over evil is the message of the two ancient texts the films state just the opposite. They seem to say loudly but not clearly, just garishly, that it is the evil which triumphs in the end. If not then why does the director of Raavan in an impossibly unexpected turn bring in "Rama" to shoot "Ravana", thereby veering the sympathies villain-wards. Though that is how it should be as per the original epic where Rama, the god slays Ravana, the demon, but the spectator's sympathies vacillate t'wards Rama. They are not forcefully steered towards the villain as in the film.
In the film junior Bachchan is the obvious villain. He abducts the SP (Vikram)'s wife, he kills without mercy; most of his evil deeds are pre-meditated enough to leave no doubt in the mind that he is evil. But Maniratnam seems to justify crime by painting the naxalite-like Beera (that's Abhiskek's name in the film)virtuous. He is vengeful (the reason for his abduction of Aishvarya Ray); he is a tyrant(the way he treats his sister's fiance and later kills him for a trivial yet hugely egoistic reason)and much more; he has fits of what I surmised could more likely be schizophrenia than any mild criminal enthusiasm, but Mr.Manirathnam justifies all that. And just as it happens in Hindi films this outright cruel maniac abstains from raping Aishwarya's character because he is truly(sic)in love with her. Methinks, given the screen-time and the busy killing schedule of Beera the attraction he feels towards Aishvarya's character can only be lust, not in the least love and not at all'TRUE LOVE'.
It was something perverse in me that wanted to see Ravan till the end. To be fair to Mani's efforts however , the film has engaging dramatic turns (although the last bit was rather far fetched)but thematically it sucks like a weak proposal. It is a film obtained to enthrall the brains of a tired middle class, too tired to ask sensitive questions.
If I were to give an analogy I would say that Manirathnam's Ravan does give you an orgasm, but it is an orgasm that you reach after quite some laboured masturbation and not one you reach after a meaningful coitus.
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