R S Prasanna

Ko - My Customer Feedback

2011-04-30T21:11:00.001-07:00

Ko: A Customer Feedback.

(Not a Review. I Paid 120 buck to watch it in the theatre!)

Overall I loved all the 'story' moments and attention to detail given b the writers and we see K V Anand using his past as a photgrapher to full effect. Gladdenitg to see technology being used very well in a Tamil film.... including laying down a tripod for a still camera shoot at night becasue the ISO was vey very high! Superb to see such nucances honestly captured.

Too many bad songs interrupting a fairly riveting screenplay. Piaa's character is typical of the Kollywood 'Pupply' girl. Kollywood manages to get it in its trademark style: Vulgar, Crass and Never in Lip ynch!!!! Jeeva is endearing and hats off for a good role selection. Plus points for the zeitgesit connect in terms of vote for cash, Naxals (Euphemism for LTTE?) and political reality/aspiration of the people....Karthika neither looks good nor acts.

Very disheartening to see the scene where the young boy is shown ogling Pia - why cant such scenes be handled with finesse, if at all required? Or does it show the perversion fo the 'mass' audience in TN - becasue the whole 'mass' segment of the theatre erupted in applause. If applause justifies scenes, why not go the whole way and lets all switch to record dancing as a State Sponsored Entertainment?

Was interesting to see Udanidhi Stalin grabbing this film also - so many scenes shown in the movie were directly against the DMK!!!! A case of 'Even if the people want to throw slippers at us its ok - we will start a Slipper Bisiness and make money that way!!!!!" ????? Or a more charitable thought - times they are a changin????

The Kollywood version of the Om Shanti Om song - where some celebs paraded in - And we have Editor Anthony cutting so fast away from them that we can hardly register their faces.... sometimes blindly cutting away can actually result in a new plugin for AVID/FCP which will eventually replace the editor!!!

Ko - Konjam Kollywood Komaalithanam Korachirukalamaa - Aaaana appidi Korachaaa Kovai Naaama Naalu bear paathu FB la review panniruppom - and the 'niche' and so called 'A Class' audience would have watched it on Torrent or Lve Stream or Pirated DVD and given KV Anand FB tributes.

In that light, Ko is a very very appreciation worthy effort - to change the course of the mainstream Tamil Cinema a- like Politics - by getting into the Gutter and no matter how many stinking parts it retains, the good parts stand out !!! And thats CHANGE!!!

A Bit of Love

2010-07-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

{
In this digital world
Its always a Yes or No
Go, No Go
There cannot be a gradation
Even a point cannot just be
It can be zoomed in
Broken into and Lo,
Step by jagged step,
Another point found.

Between the Zeros and Ones of this
Pulse wave,
Exists my love for you

And since you resolve it
With but a digital heart
My pulsing gets filtered out
And all you get is what you can see

Yet I try, my love
For one day
Just like MB replaced KB
And TB replaced all else
Your mind shall open
And gradation shall flood in!

Ah, what a lovely day that will be
I will be visible to you,
In all my colourful splendor
Of one color smoothly transforming into another
And as your digital fingers
Seek in vain to find the creases
The point where one point becomes another
I shall laugh my analogue laugh
At your digital ineptitude

And feel your binary hands
Upon my infinite body

Love you, my digital Princess
Waiting for Moore
To make you see me one day,
Until then,
Print
Return
}

Lines

2010-07-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

For people who I see thrice in a year
For Gods that people have not seen even once
For causes I do not identify with
I have sacrificed myself
At the altar of society

The lamb and the butcher, both me
Khe knife I fashoined out of my will
The public audience called in by me
By my acceptance of their values, their yard stick

But it was easy for me to die
Their eyes never meant anythign to me
my Life had already been taken away

My wife and I could not wed, said they
Because lines crossed a certain way
In the parchment as old as us
The parchments were born a little later than us
Yet becasue they did not match
Their elders could not marry

So much for tradition
The parchment won

Now the two parchments lay waste
To live untouched, unmarried
And throbbing with life
Far longer than the people
Whose fates they ended

I said it first!

2010-06-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

For the record, I am hereby posting the following line so I can prove I said it first:

"Moviemaking in all shapes and Sizes"

Thats the tag line of Eklavya Productions

"Cinema in all shapes and Sizes"

Thats the tagline of the future!

Anniversary

2010-06-13T23:55:00.000-07:00

When words stop, music begins
Where the world stops, she begins

I walk through crowded roads
Selling my wares to make a nickel
I rest in an empty home
The Nickel beside me,
While she walks
Through crowded roads
Earning her nickel

Words stop where music begins
This poem started where I missed her,
Its been a year since we've been engaged
Seems like a blink of an eye

Mine not hers,
Her eyes are for more
Worthy metaphors than the ones
Her Husband peddles!

Beat this

2010-03-09T00:29:00.000-08:00

You never pay attention to me,
Heavy with emotion, She panted
In gushes, blood oozed from her

Never once you acknowledged me
You don't need me, nor do you care for me

As She said this,
Blood poured out from her rhythmically

No amount of tears she shed
That day,
Could stop the flow of blood

"I am guilty," said he
"Of leaving you in the dark,
About what you are to me."

"I can die to show how much you mean to me,
But for me to die, you have to die first,
And that will pain me to death,
Apart from of course, killing me."

Putting a stop to this
Confusing train of thought,
She paused a second and held her breath

The Man started choking,
Just when he fainted and fell to the ground,
She started breathing again

And, not miraculously, he came to life

"Fool," the man said, regaining life,
"Now are you happy I need you?
I shall die if you cease to be
And maybe the reason I don't see you often,
Is that you are within me always."

She gushed, and started pumping blood again,
Satisfied that her man needed her
After all even cold blooded men
With cold cold hearts
Need to show they have their hearts
In the right place

She, if you haven't guessed till now
Was his four chambered, warm blooded heart.

Hurt Shocker

2010-03-08T04:16:00.000-08:00

Ok so I make plans. Hunt for TV sets near me with Star World connection. (I dont have a TV u see). Make advance reservations in the front seat. Line up backup TV set-equipped-homes, just in case. Then I plan the schedule for my whole day around the time slot. Then I hear someone say "Avatar didn't win." I walk up to him and ask - he was having lunch - "Are the results out?" Quizzially he chokes on his food, getting out the words - "Yes - of course... didnt you watch Star World? - At 8 am?"

8 . AM.

Hmmm. Not PM.

Slight mistake.

The End

2009-12-31T04:32:00.000-08:00

And with rage,
God withdrew poetry from earth

The End

And Then There Were None

2009-12-31T04:15:00.000-08:00

And then there were none
As a kid I kicked around
In the forgiving womb of my mother
She hurt, and I kicked
And then there were none

In school I saw a girl
Loved her, married her
Raised a family with her
We fought over where to place the sofa
Our fights stopped in class Three
When she left school
No bye came my way
Nor the love letter

And then there were none.

In college I changed the world
I stood for President of America
I criticised my father
All fathers and all that came before me
A glorious future
I dreamt
With me fueling the sleep
Then I landed a job

And then there were none

My wife broke my family
She fought over which portion of the will we keep
Not over where to place the sofa
My brother turned foe; My sister, enemy
My mother remembered me
Kicking from inside her womb
This hurt more she said
As she spoke her last words to me
Before going where all men had gone before
And no words were allowed

And then there were none

One day I awoke sweating
My wife was counting gold
She had just returned drunk
From a party
Where my best friend had made a pass at her
The dirty man, she said
As she counted the dirty gold
I looked at her one last time

And then there were none

I ran like I never ran before
The fathers I hated guided my way
I saw my mother with her womb swollen
I saw the love letter that never reached me
And my sweet heart fought with abandon
Over where to place the sofa
Class three, class Two, class One...

And then there were none.

Avatar

2009-12-22T02:39:00.001-08:00

Dear Mr Drona,

Subject: Avatar.

“The visuals look splendid.”

That I heard is the correct password to enter. There, I have said it.

May I introduce myself as a student of yours who stole lessons by watching you work. I am guilty of stealing. Before you get all angry and ask for my (useless) thumb, let me hasten to add something that will make this crime seem petty in comparison. Not only have I stolen lessons from you, but I am daring now to question you about your latest work.

Hold on a sec and consider this before swooping down on me in 3D splendour. This once I did not steal from you. I paid for the ticket to watch your latest work – 'Avatar'. That grants me certain rights. Like the right to have thoughts triggered by your work, and express them. Call it 'Thoughts from the Dumb One'

1) Once again the Truth of cinema was revealed. As was revealed in your brilliant “T2” and “The Abyss” by presence, 'Avatar' proved it by absence. However splendid the form of a movie is, what matters in the end is the screenplay, acting, and direction. If I yawn at places, look around the theatre interiors and predict the lines that are to roll out of my lead actors' lips every so often - I am watching a bad movie. Alright, a splendid looking, jaw-droppingly-luscious 3D bad movie. When a guy invests 1000 crores INR in making a visual spectacle, what prevents him from buying a good script for a teeny weeny fraction of that humongous amount?

2) Why gripe about a 'bad' movie? Becasue this 'guy' happens to be the one who taught me big-action-spectacle movie writing with his T2 and The Abyss (and yes, even Titanic). He is a master. A master can not be forgiven for his small mistakes. (Now is the time, Drona Sir, you may want to huff puff and blow this conceited piece fo dust off the face of Pandora.)

3)More than anything else, I found the politics of the film very very shallow, immature and even plain irritating. So much of 3D layering done on screen, and none what so ever on script. Look at the politics of the film. It is still preaching 'With me or against me'. You have to be a Navi for you to want to protect them. You cannot fight against your brothers. So what does one do? Change the brothers! Reincarnate and get new brothers! You have to choose 'To be or not to be Human' if you want to sympathise with the Navis. Do I have to give up my Indian citizenship if I have to support say, Pakistan on some issue? I have to look and behave like my clan if I want to show them my support. Is that not the problem we are beseiged with today? This regurgitates the same problem of 'Us and the other'. In 3D. If I am a 'Hindu' by birth, by right my other neighbours in the same 'religion' demand my unquestioning support. If I support a cause of a guy from 'the other religion' I am no longer one from my own. I think this movie, more than any other (given the capabilitiy of the director) could have pushed the envelope of this 3D way of thinking too, instead of just the visuals.

4) As for the environmantal 'logic'. I may have been dumb in not getting it, so do tick me off if I am wrong. The humans use fire to fight. (Explosives, fire guns, huge fire balls all around burning the place down.) Isn't this a planet with no oxygen? (Or very very little, if at all? )I mean I saw the humans dying without their gas masks. So how does the fire work without oxygen? And if it is indeed an 'alien fire' burnng out of say methane or some other gas, would not the color be diferent? I am not a great intellectual Sci Fi expert, but I have read some Artur C Clarke books (which is the extent of my scifi exposure - this might be frowned upon by some, I know) I have grown up loving his reconstruction of an alien environment. Well, if I am not wrong (and I still add, I am a dumb guy - did I overlook somethWhen you claim to have created a whole new world in entirety, well, I am left wondering if Drona has just been a tad lazy with his imagination or sci-fi rigour.

It is interesting how every movie is an excuse for us all to don our own avatars and fight for /against the movie. You may not know how many Avatars are floating around (incuding this one and the zillion avatars on Facebook, Twitter and the like) fighting for or against your work. That, dear Master, is indeed your success.

Let me end my arrogant questioning with a disclaimer like the one at the beginning: The movie has within it a zillion man hours of work; some priceless human invention in terms of technology and filmmaking; hordes of creative geniuses working for years to chisel this masterful piece of visual magic. I know. That is no mean feat. Hats off to all of them for that. Cinema is grateful for your work in those departments. I bow to thee with reverence.

But from that bow are launched some arrows. The arrows of Eklavya.

Yours sincerely,
A fan.

Me, Myself and Ranga

2009-12-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Ranga has been good to me. He has helped me a lot in the last one year. I met Ranga one day in a restaurant when I had one of those panic attacks, called 'Deadline Fast Approaching, and No Idea in Place'.

A week to go for my thesis film script submission deadline and here I was whining at a family dinner at a cosy lil restaurant round the corner from home. My bro, as always, turned saviour. He mentioned this Tamil novella that was a family favourite. He narrated a particular story, which I had last heard read out by my dad years ago. As he spoke, forgotten images reappeared in my mind. In the hurry to grow up, I had forgotten this childhood bed time story. It was a wake up call right in time.

I hoped my audiecne would long for the nostalgia of suhc a story. I did, at the least. Where even villains were cute and lovable, and the biggest angst of the protaganist was that he had to play a girl in a village play, to be watched by a sparse crowd of 30 men, if at all!

As I dug into my sambar idli (a south Indian delicacy) with gusto, I realised Ranga could possibly save me.

And he did.

The film went on to win the "Best Film and Director" award at the Graduation ceremony of my film school (L V Prasad) and I received the honor from the hands of Oscar winner A R Rahman. I can never forget how he laughed at all the right places in the film, while I watched him nervously, my heart in my throat!

It was thanks to that film that I travelled to many film festivals (including The Delhi International Fest), and was invited to the Pusan Film Festival's Fellowship program. I also landed a job as a screenwriter in Bollywood, and had the good fortune of working with the legendary filmmaker Santosh Sivan (his film 'The Terrorist' made it to Roger Ebert's 100 Must See films). All this in the span of a year.

Now I have turned media entrepreneur, with plans to make a subtle change to the way internatioal film collaboration can be realised in India. Thanks to my invitation to Berlinale and Pusan, I have had a remarkable learning curve where I have become even more confident that cinema is universal and we can all collaborate in creating a global cinema, using the latest cutting-edge tools of remote communication.

In 2008, my film 'ART' fetched me Best Indian Filmmaker Award from Reelshow, and now 'Ranga Plays a Girl' is up in competition with the best student films. May the Best film win. :)

I take this opportunity to thank Reelshow and all my fellow filmmakers. Cinema unites. It connects and elevates. And in these times of global warming and Human Coldness, I think cinema can be the binding glue for humainty.

From me, my team, and Ranga, a very Happy, peaceful and Cinema-filled New year to you all!

PS: As I write this, I am 3500 feet above mean sea level, close to the Himalayas, India. I am honeymooning with the love of my life. (Yes, we got married last week). Ranga has played a part in that too. But that's a story rserved for later. If and when Ranga takes the bow :)

Gift Maker

2009-11-16T19:52:00.001-08:00

Some would call her a fool - Jumping over the moon
For a measly gift from her miserly lover

As in all things she does
She saw value
In a tiny piece of paper
In badly sribbled hand,

On her birthday too
It was she who gave;

She saw something that wasn't even there.

Her eyes painted the gold
Her soul threw in star dust
Her pounding heart, gave the music
Her smile lent the aura
And thus a gift she shaped
From out of thin, soggy, air

By God, if only I had known
My audience was more of an artist than me
I would have not been so miserly.
I hate competition,
Especially when I lose!

Firefly

2009-09-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

On my wind swept face
eyebrow matted with frozen rain
My breath white against the whiter mist
My lips cracked and numb
My eyes still retain their life

They see the light atop the hill
Small as a dot against the black
They mirror the life filled pupil
Black as a dot against the white

I walk. Toward our home
You will be there.

Making Tamil Cinema Global - My review of Acchamundu Acchamundu

2009-07-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

There is a difference in screenplay structure and narrative flow
between a typical Tamil film and an international film like 'Acchamundu
Acchamundu'. The film is a rarity in Tamil screens - no high
sentimental drama, no fussy over the top acting and staging. Just a
simple, neatly made film that you will love to watch.

This is a slice-of-life film that looks at the life of a cosy little
family made up of Prasanna, Sneha and their kid. The movie is brilliant
when it shows the chemistry between the lead pair, and their
interaction with their kid is very natural. The director scores with
his nuanced handling of actors, and the dialogs are very witty and
crisp. The first half of the film is a breeze, as it is filled with
such nuanced tit bits of life of a Tamil family in the US. Very
enjoyable! I am glad to see Arun Vaidyanathan bring back the smacking
wit and brevity of Sujatha to Tamil cinema. 'A Touch of class' which is
much needed in today's times of blood thirsty heros, and gory killings
in the name of 'realistic' cinema.

Prasanna and Sneha have acted very well, living heir characters and
doling out a controlled, under-played performance. John Shea plays a
pivotal character, and I will let you see what he does, as I do not
want to reveal too much.

Over all, a commendable effort at taking Tamil cinema to the global
arena. Camera and sound design are top notch. Production design is
neat. Music is sufficient.

I heard the film has won "Best film" at the New jersey film festival
and was invited to the shanghai Film Festival in June 2009. I can see
why. :)

===============
Directed by Arun Vaidyantahan, and released by Ananda Pictures, this movie stars Prasanna and Sneha. Music by Karthi Raja. Camera by Chris Freilich. Shot on RedOne Camera. (Released on July 17th to house full shows in Sathyam, Inox, Mayajaal and others. Also released in parts of the US)

Let's hear it for this man

2009-07-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

"I finally, officially announce that I give up. Where can one go on digging for energy? The well has dried up. R.I.P me.

For any artiste to perform, he must first love the stage. That's when he was an audience himself. He would look up at the stage and then want to get on to the place himself. Then comes the stage where he must love... no, care... at least not detest whole heartedly his audience.

I have reached that stage now. I hate humans. I cannot stand the sight of them. Even the sight of them shrouded in the darkness of an auditorium.

I do not care to perform to them anymore."

The curious thing about the letter was that it was found on the body of an unknown actor. It took the Inspector two days to work out that the actor belonged to a leading theatre group in Chennai, and the lad was to have made his stage debut in the Hindu Theatre Fest, opening just a day after his death.

Strange the ways of men, thought the inspector. Stranger still those men who proclaim to be performers.

The inspector folded the letter and kept it carefully back in the plastic bag marked 'Do not Touch - Forensic Evidence.' The inspector had touched, and his finger print was firmly embedded on the letter; only the latest layer added to a long list of finger prints right up the chain of command. From the constable to now him. So much for Forensic Quarantine procedures. Anyway it would be a miracle if the letter survived the 10 years it would take for the damn case to appear before the sweating, frustrated law at the Chennai High Court, Parry's Corner.

If he had bothered to read the words on the back side of the letter, it may not have helped him all that much in knowing why the young actor committed suicide. He would only know how he did it.

"So here I am. I shall die the way I always imagined I would die on stage. I have narrated the long Tamil speech that Socrates gives - yes, I grew up watching Shivaji Ganeshan as Socrates - and have accepted the cup of poison, knowing very well it shall suck my life out of me. And I wait.

It is as majestic a death as any actor can ever dream of. The only light on my performance comes from the dim, flickering light of the street lamp leaking through my tin sheeted window. The only music is the howling of the horny dog in the mid night moon shine. My only audience is the darkness in front of me.

I care not for any human anymore. I hate this world. I cannot act to entertain this vile sewage of compost that is the collective consciousness of human today.

To hell with the heroic in man. It is a delusion, a lie to be told to kids to help them grow out of child hood. A rope thrown into the well to pull out a drowning man, only to show him that all the land above is filled with blood thirsty monsters, evil cesspools and rapists on prowl. Some may choose to jump back into the well. But most often the well of childhood is sealed forever. I do not know that somebody. I have lost hope that I would ever find such men.

I choose the alternative of Socrates' Reward. The reward given to the greatest intellect by the men who he hoped to elevate.

Thanks. So long, farewell. May God curse you.

R.I.P. Me."

The inspector did not read this second part. The letter lay in the Forensic Evidence bag.

The body lay half rotting that night in the government morgue. The electricity had died down that night and the generators had not kicked in as they were supposed to. By the time they had been attended to, a good three hours was lost.

Narendran died an anonymous actor.

Let's hear it for this man, gentlemen.

Up

2009-05-30T01:25:00.001-07:00

I do not fear heights
I mean not looking down from heights
That's vertigo
I mean looking up to them
That's virtue

Welcome Meena

2009-05-25T22:07:00.001-07:00

I could send you flowers
But I am no mushy man
I could send you poems
But my poems never rhyme

What can I send you then
To what say you mean to me
Shall I send you tickets to
The latest hit on the marquee?

That would be prosaic
Too ordinary a gift
I think I know what to send
That'll give our romance a lift

I'll send you my kid brother
My second cousin and his mom
I'll send you packing uncle Tom
And his third wife quite buxom

How better to say I love you
than to send you my family
Take care of them - they're not too bad
You'll learn to love 'em eventually

Deal with the Devil

2009-05-19T10:25:00.001-07:00

I'll take from you your wife
the sum total of your wealth
Your friends will trun foes
Boils will erupt on your smooth skin

Death will evade you
As you'll beg her to come and
Give you solace with her kiss

Your children will spite you
Your neighbours despice you
You will not be remembered beyond your death

In your life you shall be numb
No senses of yours shall function

Flesh will turn you off
Wine will taste like water
Thirst of yours will never be quenched
In hell you shall rot

Now tell me
Do you really want it so badly?

I looked at the offer
I nodded yes

As God moved away with his haul
I was left alone on stage
The arc lights shone upon my face
My smile cast a shadow of joy
Across the lower half of my face

NaCL

2009-05-13T23:52:00.001-07:00

I do see other girls I confess
I find them charming and nice
I wonder frequently if I must
Play again and roll the dice

The pull is there I admit
Men will remain boys
The eyes that can philander
Can numb my inner voice

If you have collapsed now in full
In fainting hazy shock
I offer you my hand to pull
You back to your hammock

This happens to the best of men
Its really not your fault
Fidelity should be taken with
A healthy pinch of salt

I haven't done anything wrong
Sight is not like touch
You cant crucify me for
Not doing all that much

Ok now the joke is off
I really was jus kiddin
No other woman in my life
No threat to our weddin

You may wake up now my love
I've just called my bluff
I knwo I've carried a joke too far
Le me off the cuff

Hello darling, are you there
My god, she's not breathing
Like fidelity she must be now
Taken with a pinch of salt

Death

2009-04-13T06:03:00.000-07:00

The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.

The smiles on the lips
Of the children will dip
Into furrows buried in time

We move on with hope
We live on with death
In between every breath
That we take

Look on in wonder
At the birth of a thunder
That lightning brings in its wake

Yet today I see
That a friend from my past
Has gone off the earth with a blast

I hope that the tales
Of the stars that won't fade
Was not just a fantasy rhyme

I know my pal
Will never be back
Nor shall we pause in our ways
We're so used to this
That we don't even kiss
Our goodnight kisses away

We wake every morning
We eat every meal
We smile and sing and we dance
And cry when we lose
One more from our clan
To this wretched curse upon man

Everything changes
Everything moves
Everything go on as before
I'll not be around here anymore
And it won't mean a bit to the world

So deadly our living
So silent our screams
So light must we seem to this world
Atoms that dance
Holding other atom hands
In the vain little hope that is Life

Death is the ending
Death is real
An end must annoint every song
A meaning that only an ending can bring
For a song that has gone on too long

May I now place
Oh mighty Above
The full stop after this line?
May I take away the life of the song
Just like you took away mine?

I see that you made me
End with a question
A deliberate hint did you leave
Have you been saying something all along
A signal we never receive?

-----------------
In memory of Bhargav, my dear friend.

With acknowledgements to the genius of Bob Dylan. The first two lines and two lines else where, are a homage to his song - nay, a straight lift from his song, 'To Ramona'

RIP, dear friend

2009-04-13T00:26:00.000-07:00

"The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines."
- Bob Dylan.

RIP, dear friend.

Speechless

2009-04-10T00:13:00.001-07:00

I'm a wordless poet of lore
You've never heard of before

I am a pitiable wannabe
Ready to steal
But not skilled even at that

You see when I hear him
Display his skill
Of words that play at his whim,
I only watch on, wordless again,
As tears rise and fill to the brim

Heart ache of love
No match for this now
The love of a wordless poet

The poet of lore
You've never heard of before
Shall try again tonight to write
Sit down and give his all to the fight
He's been raging every painful night

So don't mind the wail
If you hear through your veil
Of a wordless poet of lore
You've heard him of course
Every single night before.

Only you thought it was the streetside beggar
Going to bed without food

But now you know
'tis something even worse

A poet in bed
Without words.

The Lover

2009-04-07T02:44:00.001-07:00

"As soon as I met her," said the lover, "I did not care anymore if I agreed or disagreed with others." The lover spoke at length thereafter, about his love for her. But that's the line which stuck with me.

The Argument Against Marriage

2009-03-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

I am an underpaid PostGraduate, soon to be married.

I saw an advertisement in the local paper about a grant fund, that was tailored made for me.

No Kidding.

"Welfare Fund for Employed but Underpaid PostGraduates, Soon to be Married" (WFfEbUP,StbM)

I applied, gleefully.

And got a disturbing reply.

I publish it here in full.

"We can not release any funding as of now. Upon inspection of your marriage site by a gazetted officer, to ensure you are really poor, very poor, we may deem fit to release funds anywhere between 6 months and 2 years from your marriage date. We can arrange to make the payment in your kid's name. Thanks for the application,"

Quite understandably, I was crestfallen.

Just when I was losing hope, I saw a column in the National newspaper (From Local to National. Growth.)A famous Agony Aunt column.

So I wrote to the column, but too shy to quote my real name, I wrote under a pseudonym.

Not being too creative at these things, I borrowed the name available closest in my memory. The girl who was haunting me day and night, ever since I set eyes on her.

Yeah, no prizes for guessing.

My best friend's wife.

I publish here in full the reply I got from the columnist.

-----------[Begin Column Quote]
"No. There is no such fund for soon-to-be-married people.

Because if after all the astoundingly clear evidence (global warming) and historical precedent (dinosaurs disappearing) stacked against the institution of marriage, you still believe in it, then God alone can save you.

Have you heard of Lemmings? They just go mad and in groups of hundreds jump into a river and commit suicide. Just like that. On the spur of a moment.

Not unlike getting married.

What Grant can save a Lemming?

There is one way out of this icky situation though, and lemme tell you this before you get married and get turned into an extinct dinosaur, or extremely warm lemming:

(And this is girl to girl talk, don't tell your man.)

The only way to escape from the tyranny of marriage:

Every single day, appreciate the guy for his brilliance, and tell him that He is the Messiah the world was waiting for. Shortly after, (say, after 15 years of keeping this up) when he finally believes he is Jehovah himself - tell him the world needs him more than you do, and this hardest of hard sacrifices (of giving up Lord's Messenger to the service of mankind) is really a hard sacrifice for you to sacrifice.

And then find the next meat loaf hunk that comes your way and romp your way to extra marital bliss.

PS 1: By the way, you are a girl. Why do you need a grant? The guy needs to earn for you, child. I mean, this Feminism and Equal Rights are ruining it for women, I say!

PS 2 (Not the game, he he) : It is true that dinosaurs disappeared because they got married. What's the evidence, you ask?

Well, well, you think Agony Aunt says things without scientific rigour?

Watch Jurassic Park.

Keenly. You will find three very clear evidences for the dinosaurs being married:

1)The dinosaur who chops off the poor guy in the commode - if you look at her (yes its a her) paws, you will see that she is wearing an engagement ring.

2) The scene where the dinosaurs run across the field in hordes, you will find some really fat ones there with beer bellies. Those are married men.

3) If you are clever, you will ask : "In point 2, why would a beer bellied Husband Velociraptor (or what ever Dino that was) run? Shouldn't he be sitting in couch watching football?" That's clever, but not clever enough. My answer: "Where the heck do u think these guys are running to?" In the deleted scenes of the movie (not yet released, but may be seen very soon in the blu-ray edition) Steven Spielberg shows where they are headed: "There's a dinosaur Superbowl happening down hill, and Shakira was performing live"

------------------[End of Column]

Weel, as you can see, I was left even more confused than before.

I mean, I understand the column had a lot of scientific reasons against marriage, but theres one nagging point.

Yes, the video may clearly show that the dinosaurs are married.

But I am no fool am I?

I can clearly see they are not extinct!

Help.

Please.

Prasanna Nose All

2009-03-24T01:40:00.001-07:00

[From a diary I wrote of my experience after my Nose-Throat surgery - 13 August 2006]

Operation

To this day I am a very obedient patient. I was one too, even on the first day. That’s why when I fainted people wondered.

First things first. I had a Laser surgery done to my throat (to remove the tonsils) simultaneously with a corrective Endoscopic surgery through my Nose, to correct my sinusitis problems.

The fascinating experience starts with the anesthesia (General Anesthesia).

I was wheeled in. I smiled at the anesthesiologist, who greeted me with a “Welcome Boss, go to sleep.” He strapped a mask on me.

Then I heard him say, “By God! He sleeps quick.” Then I heard snatches of conversation, felt once a whirring motor pushing painlessly up my right nose, and even an “Idiot!”

Seemed like two minutes, and I was back in my room, surgery a success.

My family had had to wait an hour extra to see me, I was told then. It had taken two hours – one hour for the surgery, and another one for me to naturally come out of ‘sleep’.

By God! I sleep long!

Ice Scream

I remember my proudest creation in the demanding field of humour was a pun I discovered in my sixth standard. Ice cream. I scream.

Prophetic.

I was an obedient patient. In one valiant effort, I gulped cup after cup of vanilla ice cream, though my throat hurt. And my nose seemed to gorge with every gulp.

My brother Prasad, who was one phenomenal support for me that day, quipped that I looked like a Red-Nosed clown.

My nose was gift-wrapped. The wrapper color kept becoming redder with the hour, of course.

Not to panic, that was “normal”.

Some hours later, after meeting and taking the warmth of my family visiting me, including my sister-in-law and her mother, I was beginning to feel alive.

That’s when I indicated to my brother that I wanted a special something.

Did I mention, I could not speak?

My brother and I had advanced so much in sign language in such a short time that it took just a second for him to act on what I wanted.

I puked into the bed-pan he gave me.

The Fuelled Engine

Our body is an engine.

Two hours after the throwing up (“It’s normal,” ) I was more relaxed.

I wanted to piss.

I signaled to my brother. He came to get me up on my feet.

I felt all air leaving my body, I gasped.

My head spinned. My dying mind was not yet giving up.

It seemed, as my mind clung on its last fingernail to the receding cliff, that it’s only good would be to actually let go.

And what a relief, that descent into black!

The five second swooning act was a warning from the governors of the engine – “Your body’s been without food for too long”

Glucose solution entering me through my veins, brought the engine revving up again.

Everyone around me held me and reassured me that I was fine.

I needed it.

I was scared I had had a relapse of my childhood feberal fits, and I enquired if that was the case. It was not.

I cried.

One cries when one is a child.

A child is one who seems something unfathomable.

The dip to black that moment, signaled the first of those “realizations” that has peppered my path to recovery – Life and its intricate mechanisms is huge; it is true; it exists.

Life is bigger.

Than me. Than my thoughts. Than any of my will.

Life is a mechanism.

Its engines need fuel.

"The Long Wait" - Excerpt from 'The Fountainhead'

2009-03-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

Roark sat at the desk in his office, waiting. The telephone had rung once, that morning, but it had been only Peter Keating asking for an appointment. He had forgotten now that Keating was coming. He was waiting for the telephone. He had become dependent on that telephone in the last few weeks. He was to hear at any moment about his drawings for the Manhattan Bank Company.
His rent on the office was long since overdue. So was the rent on the room where he lived. He did not care about the room; he could tell the landlord to wait; the landlord waited; it would not have mattered greatly if he had stopped waiting. But it mattered at the office. He told the rental agent that he would have to wait; he did not ask for the delay; he only said flatly, quietly, that there would be a delay, which was all he knew how to do. But his knowledge that he needed his alms from the rental agent, that too much depended on it, and made it sound like begging in his own mind. That was torture. All right, he thought, it's torture. What of it?
The telephone bill was overdue for two months. He had received the final warning. The telephone was to be disconnected in a few days. He had to wait. So much could happen in a few days.
The answer of the bank board, which Weidler had promised him long ago, had been postponed from week to week. The board could reach no decision; there had been objectors and there had been violent supporters; there had been conferences; Weidler told him eloquently little, but he could guess much; there had been days of silence, of silence in the office, of silence in the whole city, of silence within him. He waited.
He sat, slumped across the desk, his face on his arm, his fingers on the stand of the telephone. He thought dimly that he should not sit like that; but he felt very tired today. He thought that he should take his hand off that phone; but he did not move it. Well, yes, he depended on that phone, he could smash it, but he would still depend on it; he and every breath in him and every bit of him. His fingers rested on the stand without moving. It was this and the mail; he had lied to himself also about the mail; he had lied when he had forced himself not to leap, as a rare letter fell through the slot in the door, not to run forward, but to wait, to stand looking at me white envelope on the floor, then to walk to it slowly and pick it up. The slot in the door and the telephone--there was nothing else left to him of the world.
He raised his head, as he thought of it, to look down at the door, at the foot of the door. There was nothing. It was late in the afternoon, probably past the time of the last delivery. He raised his wrist to glance at his watch; he saw his bare wrist; the watch had been pawned. He turned to the window; there was a clock he could distinguish on a distant tower; it was half past four; there would be no other delivery today.
He saw that his hand was lifting the telephone receiver. His fingers were dialing the number.
"No, not yet," Weidler's voice told him over the wire. "We had that meeting scheduled for yesterday, but it had to be called off....I'm keeping after them like a bulldog....I can promise you that we'll have a definite answer tomorrow. I can almost promise you. If not tomorrow, then it will have to wait over the week end, but by Monday I promise it for certain....You've been wonderfully patient with us, Mr. Roark. We appreciate it." Roark dropped the receiver. He closed his eyes. He thought he would allow himself to rest, just to rest blankly like this for a few minutes, before he would begin to think of what the date on the telephone notice had been and in what way he could manage to last until Monday.

-----------------------

The telephone rang late on Monday afternoon.
"Mr. Roark?" said Weidler. "Can you come right over? I don't want to say anything over the phone, but get here at once." The voice sounded clear, gay, radiantly premonitory.
Roark looked at the window, at the clock on the distant tower. He sat laughing at that clock, as at a friendly old enemy; he would not need it any longer, he would have a watch of his own again. He threw his head back in defiance to that pale gray dial hanging high over the city.
He rose and reached for his coat. He threw his shoulders back, slipping the coat on; he felt pleasure in the jolt of his muscles.
In the street outside, he took a taxi which he could not afford.
The chairman of the board was waiting for him in his office, with Weidler and with the vice-president of the Manhattan Bank Company. There was a long conference table in the room, and Roark's drawings were spread upon it. Weidler rose when he entered and walked to meet him, his hand outstretched. It was in the air of the room, like an overture to the words Weidler uttered, and Roark was not certain of the moment when he heard them, because he thought he had heard them the instant he entered.
"Well, Mr. Roark, the commission's yours," said Weidler.
Roark bowed. It was best not to trust his voice for a few minutes.
----------------------------
[They want Roark to make a change in the facade of the building - which waould defeat the whole purpose of the buidling, according to Roark. they ask him to make what they clearly see as a 'minor' change, and Roark explains in detail why he cannot make the change. Finally...]

"I'm sorry, Mr. Roark, but the board will not re-open the question for further debate. It was final. I can only ask you to state whether you agree to accept the commission on our terms or not. I must admit that the board has considered the possibility of your refusal. In which case, the name of another architect, one Gordon L. Prescott, has been mentioned most favorably as an alternative. But I told the board that I felt certain you would accept."
He waited. Roark said nothing.
"You understand the situation, Mr. Roark?"
"Yes," said Roark. His eyes were lowered. He was looking down at the drawings.
"Well?"
Roark did not answer.
"Yes or no, Mr. Roark?"
Roark's head leaned back. He closed his eyes.
"No," said Roark.
After a while the chairman asked:
"Do you realize what you're doing?"
"Quite," said Roark.
"Good God!" Weidler cried suddenly. "Don't you know how big a commission this is? You're a young man, you won't get another chance like this. And...all right, damn it, I'll say it! You need this! I know how badly you need it!"
Roark gathered the drawings from the table, rolled them together and put them under his arm.
"It's sheer insanity!" Weidler moaned. "I want you. We want your building. You need the commission. Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?"
"What?" Roark asked incredulously.
"Fanatical and selfless."
Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbow moved a little, pressing them to his body. He said:
"That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do."
He walked back to his office. He gathered his drawing instruments and the few things he had there. It made one package and he carried it under his arm. He locked the door and gave the key to the rental agent. He told the agent that he was closing his office. He walked home and left the package there. Then he went to Mike Donnigan's house.
"No?" Mike asked, after one look at him.
"No," said Roark.
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you some other time."
"The bastards!"
"Never mind that, Mike."
"How about the office now?"
"I've closed the office."
"For good?"
"For the time being."
"God damn them all, Red! God damn them!"
"Shut up. I need a job, Mike. Can you help me?"
"Me?"
"I don't know anyone in those trades here. Not anyone that would want me. You know them all."
"In what trades? What are you talking about?"
"In the building trades. Structural work. As I've done before."
"You mean--a plain workman's job?"
"I mean a plain workman's job."
"You're crazy, you God-damn fool!"
"Cut it, Mike. Will you get me a job?"
"But why in hell? You can get a decent job in an architect's office. You know you can."
"I won't, Mike. Not ever again."
"Why?"
"I don't want to touch it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to help them do what they're doing."
"You can get a nice clean job in some other line."
"I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think."
"Architects don't take workmen's jobs."
"That's all this architect can do."
"You can learn something in no time."
"I don't want to learn anything."
"You mean you want me to get you into a construction gang, here, in town?"
"That's what I mean."
"No, God damn you! I can't! I won't! I won't do it!"
"Why?"
"Red, to be putting yourself up like a show for all the bastards in this town to see? For all the sons of bitches to know they brought you down like this? For all of them to gloat?"
Roark laughed.
"I don't give a damn about that, Mike. Why should you?"
"Well, I'm not letting you. I'm not giving the sons of bitches that kinda treat."
"Mike," Roark said softly, "there's nothing else for me to do."
"Hell, yes, there is. I told you before. You'll be listening to reason now. I got all the dough you need until..."
"I'll tell you what I've told Austen Heller: If you ever offer me money again, that'll be the end between us."
"But why?"
"Don't argue, Mike."
"But..."
"I'm asking you to do me a bigger favor. I want that job. You don't have to feel sorry for me. I don't."
"But...but what'll happen to you, Red?"
"Where?"
"I mean...your future?"
"I'll save enough money and I'll come back. Or maybe someone will send for me before then."
Mike looked at him. He saw something in Roark's eyes which he knew Roark did not want to be there.
"Okay, Red," said Mike softly.

==========================================

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

My Interview in the New Indian Express (22nd March 2009)

2009-03-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

A promising engineering graduate, R S Prasanna ended up doing what he loves most — make short films, says Ranjitha Gunasekaran With handicams available now, many youngsters are taking to filmmaking and learning its techniques. This is the breeding ground for the next generation of disciplined filmmakers
t here are some people who could see an opportunity and walk right past it, and then there are some like R S Prasanna who will create opportunities whenever he can. Take for instance how the 24-year old engineering graduate translated an ordinary film school assignment into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity . “We were supposed to do a 10-minute documentary and get it reviewed. I decided to interview Balu Mahendra about his filmmaking techniques. Why study only (Akira) Kurosawa and (Martin) Scorsese when we have a genius as our visiting faculty,” he recalled. The ace director agreed and Prasanna crossed his time limit, but no one cared. “It’s the first documentary made on the legend,” he points out.

“He was so helpful and he trusted me. I spent one-and-a-half hours with him shooting the video and my faculty and school were very supportive of this,” he says, explaining that otherwise, all references taught on filmmaking tended to be foreign. Prasanna, always had this passion for films and though he deviated into engineering studies, he eventually ended up exactly where he belonged. “My father loves theatre and acting and I was always on the stage through school. But my whole family is into management so I took up engineering. There I started making short films with a digital camera. One such film won an award and I received it from the famous film editor Lenin,” he explained.

After completing his studies, Prasanna enrolled in film school with his parents blessings and there he quickly realised that not everyone who gets in, makes it. “I took my assignments seriously and always aimed for film festivals,” he recalls. “The stage was my training ground. I have acted and directed stage productions while at school and that experience definitely helped in my filmmaking,” he says.

One such film of his called Art, took him to the Gateway reality show, a talent contest for young filmmakers which also led to opportunities and inputs from Hollywood. “It was a wonderful opportunity and experience. In fact, I keep in touch with many participants,” he grins.

This year another honour came his way when he was selected by the Goethe Institute to attend the Berlin Film Festival. “I wanted to meet as many business people as possible and make them aware of the short film movement that is sweeping India. With handicams, many youngsters are taking to filmmaking and learning its techniques. This is the breeding ground for the next generation of disciplined filmmakers,” he says.

“My father always told me, that even if you want to be a toilet cleaner, you should always be the best in that. They are very supportive and proud of the recognition that I have got,” he says. At present, Prasanna is a writer with Abode, a company which he says, aims at making honest and sensitive films. “I am working on developing my own film right now. Something with a Ruskin Bond story . I would love to make a children’s film because there are so few films like Makdee out there for kids to watch,” he explains.

— ranjithagunasekaran@epmltd.com

The Job Hunt and the Hunted

2009-03-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Who's to blame, brother?

When it is known that there is no free lunch, no easy way to earn our money?

Who's to blame when we took the cushy Software job which we hated to the core? We joked about how all we ever did was paste codes googled from the godown of the Internet while our pay packets ballooned faster than the poisonous fat around our waists?

'Who cares for tomorrow, I have a Life now,' i remember sayin, guzzling the wines of heaven, for a few thousand bucks at the dingiest bar in the most uppity up restaurant in the stinking night of the dark City.

Who's to blame brother? We rejoiced hard, didn't we?

Maybe we should have worked hard too.

Obama has come, not to worry. he will take care of us all.

Ha ha.

We still haven't grown up, have we, brother?

Obama's milk will once run dry. Let's stop suckling and take to finding food ourself, for a change, eh, brother?

But then, who's to blame?

I know who's to blame, brother.

I didn't know till yesterday. But I know now.

There's no free lunch brother.

Maybe we should have stuck to drawing.

We were good at it, weren't we?

Business NOT as usual

2009-03-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

There used to be a time when business was based on one cardinal principle: provide great value in exchange for money.

Some where down the line the world seems to have lost track of that good old principle, and thus the recession.

Money is always created. Not in imaginary profit sheets or inflated housing estimates - in hard gold coin.

I don't know how big this recession is anyway. But that's beside the point. i suspect most companies are using recsession as a threat to simply cut down costs, sure in the knowledge that no emplyee will prtest. 'No jobs anywhere; better stick to my company and take the pay cut. Where else will you go?' I am pretty sure not many would actually think fo calling the bluff - and actually GO!

Look at TV to understand why the recession is happening. Like I said, it may not be as widely spread as yet - but surely we have got the principle wrong, so it is gonna happen sooner or later.

Look at TV. The other day i was watchign an extremely mind-numbingly dumb show on Hungama channel, meant for kids. There was NOTHING happening on screen. NOTHING. The episode went on and aon. and in between came the long ads.

Now, I wonder how many kids actually watch this programme. The TRPs may be high - but who the heck still thinks those TRPs are for real? I mean some 2000 sets taken as a sample size for a nationa TV chnnel's viewership? Come on, who are they kidding?

They are kidding the AD agencies and Media buyers that's what. The con job Phase One has begun.

The ad guys then siphon off money from their clients showing them the Truth - "The TRPSs sir, the TRPs are high for this show!'

The Gospel truth is paraded from one node of the food chain to the other. And money is pumped out like out of festering sewer. And it lamnds in the pockets of everyone, but brings no returns to the guy who actually puts in the money.

reason? the con job of the TRP.

The show sucks. Period.

How do you expect to make money out of a faulty product?

Is this the new age business philosophy? I don;t even want to call this a philosophy and attribute intelligence where none exists. It's just a wide-eyed, gleeful, salivating bunch of idiots who think, 'Come on let's make Money - to hell with how we will do it!!! Or How the hell we will make the money inflow sustain fro the long term"

For many years I have seen a visual barometer for what I think is the health of the business philosophy (or ill health)

It is a most common barometer, very humble, and some would even say quite silly for being bestowed such a huge honour.

It's the good old Ruffles Lays Chips. And the Balaji Chips (for the low income group), and the other Waferspackets that hang from any small, neaighbourhood shop.

Just see how the packets are gettign bigger, and the content smaller and smaller.

I actually counted 8 wafer pieces inside a packet that cost me 10 bucks!

This is what is causing the recession, you fools! Whoever you are!

No content. No value. Only a huge bloated, gas-filled con job.

Now go and look for jobs.

To hell with the world.

Absolute Truth

2009-03-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

No he said
Yes said she

Black or white
Right or Wrong

Absolute Truth
Is all they want

God watched on
Shaving his stubble

'Kids, don't fight
Mama, take care of them'

'Oh your kids
Fight just like you'

Mama said from celestial kitchen
'You bought them the toys, didnt you?'

'But you gotta disipline them,'
God said, splashing Old Spice

'After all, they are you kids!'
'Hah' said Mother, 'Gods will be Men!'

Mama went and gave the kids
One sound thrashing, smack on their buns

'Give that toy back to papa,
Even he does not know how to use it.'

And thus the Earth
Was wanked from child's hands
And it bounced and rolled
And rested on the left ankle
Of God's hairy foot

Aadhe Adhure

2009-03-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

jaage hain dher tak
hamen kuch dher sone do
thodi se raat aur hai
subah to hone do
aadhe adhure khwaab jo
pure na ho sake
ek baar phir se neend mein
woh khwaab bone do
Gulzar, in the movie 'Guru'

An attempt at translating only the content, as nothing in my ability can match the craft or spirit of the original.

"I have worked all night
Please let me sleep a while
There's still some darkness left
The Sun is asleep, afar

And all those little dreams of mine
That could never come true
Once again let me take them with me
And sow them back again"

I came across this song in its original Hindi version, after having liked the music of the Tamil one.

Gulzar is brilliant. I loved his movies and always thought he was way ahead of his times (and the audience showed they were, too, by making his movies hits). I am a great fan of his.

Oh, and btw, this has NOTHING to do with his Oscar, or the most-abused Jai ho.

I swear the timing of this post is a genuine coincidence.

Operation, Operation, Operation Just Now

2009-03-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

The irony of it all!

I started acting when I was in my kindergarten. I still remember playing the doctor in the musical, 'Operation, Operation, Operation just now!' in Jessie Moses, Chennai, and i still have the photo preserved.

I am standing there checking the non-existent heart beat of a baby doll with a real stethoscope I borrowed from my real uncle (who is a real doctor). For some reason, I thought I needed to wear the blue cap that I saw another uncle wear, and that completed my look: a roly poly lil doc, with a blue cap, branded 'TVS'! Talk about endorsements coming in early.

I used to love the movie 'Karnan' by Shivaji Ganeshan, and my reenactment of the climax of the film used to be a regular fixture at my house, if you happened to drop in to my house during 1991-92.

My mom would serve lime juice, bring in a tray full of knick knacks, and I would act out "Karnan's Death" - this was the welcome package you got if you were a guest at my house!

I used to prop myself up, imagining a hundred arrows sticking out of my bleeding chest, my face contorted in pain, my voice straining as it tried imitating the Tiger growl of the thespian-god Shivaji Ganeshan.

Then came the madness of Guna, and with it the circumambulation of my living room, saying in a Kamalesque pleading voice that would tug at my parents hearts... "Abiarami, Abirami!"

That mad actor is not dead, ladies and gentlemen.

He is very much alive.

The irony is, as I grew up, I realised that there was more behind the acting in a film. And I realised I did not know anything about them.

I did not know what a director does. So, I became a director.

Then I saw that there was a writer behind the director, who did something I had no clue of.

So I became a writer.

In this whirlwind of learning, the actor in me willingly took the backseat. He was good at back seat driving though, ever ready to spring into a 'Hey, cut to the right fast!!!" or "Hit the breaks, you fool!" whenever he saw the young driver err.

The back seat driver hated driving over the years, as he saw that the roads he used to play in as a kid, were actually beginning to be spewed with muck. He saw the Shivajis and Kamals of his childhood suffer in these garbage-strewn roads.

Thus he willingly gave up - if only for a while - the steering wheel, and let the other drivers take over.

But it seems now that he has begun stirring in his seat.

The actor prepares.

The Bad Poetry of an essentially Poetic Man

2009-03-03T05:14:00.000-08:00

Poetry is to make the inane interesting,
The mundane beautiful
And the arcane understood.

How else does one justify
Inventing cupid's arrow
For something
That is essentially hormonal?

Or bringing in mountains
Plains and the canyons
Just to say hey, he's my pal?

Why metre and rhyme
When plain words are what one thinks?

So much of poetry
Is masking the blandness of life

My problem is thus
Uniquely different
You see.

I am a poet
I think poetic
I feel poetry
Every sight I see is a poem
What hormones do to my brain
Is poetry at a level
Not understood by man!

So how do I
Convey Poetry
In a poem?

I cannot.

Thus my inane lines
Mundane structuring
And arcane thought process.

Forgive me, men.

My Teacher

2009-03-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

(Posted in my alma mater's web community. Thought this deserves a blog post. My shcool was Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Anna Nagar, Chennai)

Not many of you would have heard of this teacher. But she shaped my life, and left an indelible impression in most of the 'year 2000' batch. She was Jyoti Ramdass. Incidentally she taught Social Science, a subject supposedly dealing with History, Geography and Civics. But instead she taught me and the other lucky few who had sense enough to learn from her the real social science. She made me a leader. I wish i could contact her some how. I have wished all along, ever since I left CVA. But each time I had the urge to reach out to her, I stopped myself, saying 'not yet.' I wanted to meet her, after achieving something truly incredible. It is perhaps in the nature of achievement, that once you achieve something, it loses its sheen. Or is that in the nature of the achiever? Either ways, I moved for one achievement to another, feeling each was not Big enough for me to call out to her. I am still waiting. I will soon meet her. Some time.

A Cat Named Day

2009-02-14T02:50:00.001-08:00

Valentine was a happy girl
Who had a cat once named day;
The cat was of the bubbly sort
Who loved frolicking in hay

She stood unerring
As an example of
A free spirited lil soul;
For all the dreary villagers about
A lesson in joy she´d extol

She drew a smile in all that saw
How she pranced and danced around;
Now a lil salsa, a tango step or two
Bollywood following tap dance,
And then some Broadway too!

And thus she kept the town enthralled
Until the day she bid goodbye
Leaving the village with only a sigh
And a phrase they use till day

Happy Valentine´s Day.

Berlin

2009-02-05T08:47:00.000-08:00

Its been 24 hours in Berlin. My first trip to a foreign country. Its very cold and I am loving it. Every single thing is so neatly laid out here. The streets seem deserted, compared to India, and there is no noise at all. The first day was spent sight seeing, thanks to my nice Indian host in Berlin. We cooked up some basic Indian food for dinner after traveling to as many places as our cold and numb legs could take us. (climbing into trains and buses included)

From tomorrow I will be starting to attend the various Berlinale events. The Goethe Institute which is sponsoring me is extremely kind. They are doing everything to make me feel like I am actually a film maker of any significance at all! Thanks Goethe for that, I will strive to live up to the honour.

I am going to be meeting some film professionals, producers and business men. Hope something fruitful comes out of it, on the work front too.

Signing out now. Typing with cold and numb fingers is hard.

Cheerio.

2009-01-30T23:46:00.000-08:00

"The Young Indian Filmmaker"
Reelshow International / the best film schools, student films and graduation films - Saturday, 31 January 2009

2009-01-25T05:11:00.000-08:00

"Berlinale What?"
Reelshow International / the best film schools, student films and graduation films - Sunday, 25 January 2009

IgNite

2009-01-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

A spark of fire once I chanced upon

I hid it in the hollow of an old, rotting tree

Hah! In a flash I saw the forest burn down!

Is there ever a spark too small?

- The legendary Bharati, from "Agini Kunj Ondru Kandaen". A humble translation of a migthy poem.

Overhyped Millionaire

2009-01-14T23:53:00.000-08:00

I saw "slumdog millionaire" finally.

For those two or three people who do read this blog (my mom and dad including), heres my two cents review.

The concept of the whole movie, in terms of the structure, the story device, is very interesting. I remember Meena, a friend guide and philosopher-wannabe, had read this book almost two years ago. She had told me to read it too, and she asked me to adapt it to screen. Apart from a smirk, I did not give it much thought. Not as if if I wanted to adapt, I could have. :)

Anyway, so I loved the basic premise of the movie. Hats off to Vikas Swarup for coming up with a very nice idea.

I loved the frenetic direction of this movie. The sound design of the movie was top class. For all those who say cinema is a visual medium, and underplay the importance of sound, this is another example added to the long list of good movies that use sound design as an integral part of the film "watchers'" experience.

I loved the first 30 minutes of the movie. The shots, the editing, the color-schemes, and the sound design, and some of the acting... Also, this is when the central story device is revealed, so that adds to the freshness of the opening.

Coming to the acting. I was terribly disappointed with most performances. While I can understand (and discount for) the need to use English, and I understand that it may tinge the performances a bit, I don't understand why they could not have used a more natural dialog style? Why were the English dialogs so "written" and spoken like a college English production? I mean Jamal speaks more like a corporate managaer than a slumdog. He could have used broken English at the very least?

The kids in the first 30 minutes gave the best performances. This could be again because they spoke their natural language. But that's no excuse. Mira Niar has directed better English performances in her movies. Way better, actually. Monsoon Wedding and most parts of Namesake are a case in point.

Rahman's score was hardly impressive. It was sufficient, but hardly elevated the movie. "Jai Ho" was atrociously lame, but it fitted in with the equally bad dance, and the even more atrocious desision to include this song as an end to a "realistic, gritty" movie!!!

All this has nothing to do with it winning laurels.

Given the bad state of writing in Hollywood, I am sure this movie could easily be way better than most. And it certainly is a good movie, no doubting that.

I am only saying that I think this movie could have been way better, and easily so, that's all. And it is riddled with flaws.

Anyway, I learnt a lot while watching this movie. And I am very happy India is hot on the international circuit. That could have added largely to the hype about this movie.

The movie certainly deserves accolades. But not to the level some stupid critics are saying.

Finally, I was amused at the trope borrowed from "Bollywood". The word "Destiny" is used so much, to explain away tough screenwriting problems. Must say that these guys are smart! They took the one thing from "Bollywood" that suited them the most. Reduces their workload! "Destiny!"

Keeping with the downward slide of the movie, the silly Bollywood dance in the end was a fitting finale to the stupid ending. This is what danny Boyle would have liked about "Indian Cinema" so much, that he chose to use this to spoil an already mediocre, rushed-up ending.

So, overall, my two cent verdict: a good movie that could have easily been way better.

There are many cinemas in India. Bollywood is one of them.

There is another little cinema, that actually was looking at the west, as sort of a greener pasture.

And that cinema may now start worrying.

:)

Kudos to the Slumdog Millionaire team. It's not your fault that the world is hyping your film. Enjoy it while it lasts!

And hey, I'm not complaining!

"I am an Indian director, Hire me tooooooo!!!!"

Why I may become a Slumdog Millionaire quicker, because of Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-12T23:54:00.000-08:00

First things first. I am not a slumdog.

Second things second. India is burning hot.

Not the weather, but in the international movie market.

My guess is you will see Shantaram finally getting made. (Mira Nair may be given Dimiki and Danny Boyle may replace her, but that's another prediction)

I see no other reason why Danny Boyle's film 'slumdog millionaire' has garnered so much critical and BO attention, and now the golden globes.

Don't get me wrong. I am only saying, given 5 equally good films, economics of market may form a huge factor in tipping the pointer towards one film. Especially if it is a film from a piping hot, new market.

This film is certain to be the harbinger of many (bad) India-centric films, but i am not complaining.

There will be demand for Indian talent on the international scene like never before, even directors and writers.

As always no one event can lay claim to a revolution. Each event plays its part. But one event finally acts as a trigger, or comes at the tipping point and pushes the wheels finally over the steep cliff.

So, kudos to many many 'cross-over' directors and talent; Mira Nair comes to my uneducated mind immediately. There are others. Many many others.

God, am I lucky to be born at a time like this!

Of course, I am gonna have it a lot easier now.

Or this could be my famous last words.\

:)

Either ways, it has something to do with fame, so I'm happy!

What Can I Do ?

2008-11-28T23:09:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I was a teenager when there were simple answers to very complex questions. Like why do terrorists exist? Why is the government not doing anything?

As naivete dies within, taking along with it the spirit of youth - one sees that there is more than meets the eye and thus one becomes wiser, more informed... and old.

So what will replace the brilliant answers I had as a teenager, sitting as I was on the throne of the future world?

An admission that I do not know too much.

Ignorance, they say, is the beginning of wisdom.

Notice how I have even begun listening to 'them'. Something again I would never do as a teenager.

I am an angry old man now, all of 24 years.

So here's my two cents.

If there is some leader today who has a solution and wants to recruit able young men to join his clean up team; he has a solution to all this - the systemic failure world over; I would certainly join him.

The solution has to stem from an understanding of economics, world orders, population and environmental studies, political structures, gang warfare behavior, an understanding of money and even human psychology. Suffice to say, its a highly skilled task that is best left to experts and definitely not politic ans and some some vague cliche-espousing reformer.

An organic slow change, no overnight coup. No drama.

I am not a teenager anymore, you see.

The change has to be in the form of progressing towards a healthy society, a prosperous nation that is not crowded.

At this juncture, I draw from what Matsushita (the Chairman of National) said during the rebuilding of Japan after being torn apart in the war.

"PHP: peace and happiness through prosperity"

Education should spread through the nation and educated middle class should become a major part of the vote bank. As of now the majority of India is poor, uneducated - and for some of them a haul in jail could actually be luxury and not deterrent, given their poverty.

So when we are the minority in this country, how can we expect politicians to speak to us, to be accountable to us?

They will obviously want to preserve that vote bank. Keep them poor, keep them uneducated.

Education makes one question. Gives one an opportunity to earn wealth, and be exposed to the best ideas from all across the world. Makes you understand your role in the country, the world and the universe.

So how does this vote bank turn educated and prosperous overnight?

And what do I mean by prosperity? I mean wealth created by work. Not money given to them as charity or money that is tainted.

And how long will all this take?

I am in no hurry. For I know this might take as long as a hundred years. I hope I am proved wrong. I hope it happens much sooner. But a nation will surely take time to reach this inevitable progress. I see my maid striving hard to get her kid educated and that gives me hope. Every person wants his kid to be wiser, more prosperous than him/her. That's reassuring.

Can I do something to aid this progress?

On my part, as soon as I can afford it, I will ensure that at least one kid gets education (high quality education) at my cost. It could be my maid's kid who I sponsor - and monitor and ensure he sticks to schooling, and help him out like a parent would.

Not as charity. No, not at all.

It is the least I can do to preserve humankind. It is something I am doing to preserve my own health and well being. It is for my only house.

And being a dreamer, I hasten to wonder: How would it be if each earning member who can afford it starts adopting one kid and sponsoring his/her education? Or one family adds one more unit to its education budget, apart from its own two kids?

I invite thoughts from all netizens on this. And other solutions that we can throw open for discussion.

Ha!

For one moment now...

I feel like a teenager once again!

Eager to hear your views.

Guru Sishya

2008-08-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

To get your film liked by people is a huge task. To get it made so you like it is tougher still.

But the wait to find out what your guru thinks about it is pure agony. Ranks all the way up there with boiling-in-oil in hell.

When that guru is a person the whole of India celebrates, and whose work sometimes has moved you to tears - you know your work is right now being fed into the one of the sharpest and the most creative minds around.

So you wait in fear, and avoid him. For days.

Then suddenly he walks in and now there's no easy exit.

You walk up to him, arms sweaty and fingers meshing in stress.

Over tea he slowly tells you...

... how he loved the film, and how proud of me he is.

There are very very few precious moments in my life... and its gonna be rarer still, as success and failure will visit me with boring regularity... but this moment: casual, over a cup of tea, in a nondescript dirty canteen.

Thank you guruji.

From a man of your stature, you can only spread joy to other students like me. First with your inspiring work, then with your pat on the back.

Thank you guruji.

Wedding Anniversary

2008-07-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

Do I love you?

"Why waste time talking now?"

Do I love you?

"You really want me to answer that?"

I don't indulge in rhetoric

"I don't think you're in for an honest answer"

Why?

"Feels like you're in for something else"

I can manage both at once

"I should get angry -
Am I so boring?"

Answer me, or else -

"Wait... will you just - stop! - allow me to?
I cannot manage both!"

So, now - Do I love you?

"You want to know what my gut feeling is?"

I already know what your gut's feeling

"Then that should answer you"

I mistrust intuition

"You cruel man... you're hurting me"

What? Oh shit, I'm sorry, I could never do that!

"With your question, fool, with your question!"

Oh for a minute I thought...
Stop! - I'm trying to - stop! - say something...
What are you doing!

"Thanking you for your love!"

So you think I love you?

"Yes, and I think you suspect so, too"

How would you know?

"I can feel your suspicion rising."

----- R S Prasanna, december 2006

[PS: How many get it? - I wonder]

Dasavatharam 'Review'

2008-06-16T04:34:00.000-07:00

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=GnkySBxUf_g

Please watch this fantastic video for my review of the magnum opus. The video reference 1minute 2 seconds.

"Endha vishayathume plan pannaama, seya koodaadhu.... Ohhhhhkay." courtesy: vadivelu in Pokkiri.

That's the review.

Thanks.

Cinema checklist

2008-05-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

1) What is the image?
2) What does it convey?
3) What did you want to convey?

simple, isn't it?

Admiration

2008-05-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Can't a team be built on admiration?

Should the CEO always look at 'putting people in their place' and 'making them earn their money!'

Can't I just hire people because they are great in what they do?

And leave them to do what only they can do best?

Are there not humans any more who perform best under adulation and encouragement?

Are we all so shit scared that competence is something that can be extracted only at gun point? From inside jail-house-like rules? Competence as a result of insults and threat of punishment?

Was Pixar built that way? Was Apple built by crooked business men or visionary leaders? Google lives this way, doesn't it?

Work is actually a joy for certain people. They don't have to have guards breathing down their necks for them to perform well.

They have a far more worthy boss, a far stricter critic who they wish to satisfy.

They work to standards that they alone set for themselves.

And for the kind of people I am talking about, the barometer inside them is far more sensitive than any available externally.

And it is such people that built Pixars and Apples and Googles.

But for that to happen even the CEOs should be of such a caliber!

Well, hoping to be either one of the lucky souls in a company like that, some time, some day - either as an employee or as a proud (and rich) leader!

Like I told my friend the other day, hope on! Doesn't cost you money. Hope comes free. Theres lots of it here!

PS: Generation of money can actually be joyful and an end-product of a spiritual process of work! It need not be a guilty secret. "That guy is talented, but get him cheap. Ensure he doesn't know he is valued. Only then he will work well.' Balls!

Give it to 'em

2008-05-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Give the world what it wants from you. They will extract their pound of flesh before you are allowed to climb over them. And then one day they will call you their leader.

Then you will be free.

But that freedom is given to you by them. So you need to pay them with your flesh.

After all, they can demand from you only what they see. And they can never see you in full.

Give them what they see - it's nothing after all!

Some times I wonder if it wouldn't be easy if humans could read each other's minds - and brains, specifically.

But no. All they see is the flesh - the age, the qualification, the background.

'Anyone is good if already selected by someone else!'

I read that somewhere some time ago. How true!

'Oh you are XXXXXX's assistant? how many films? 3! Wow! Do you have a story? Why don't you give me a narration?'

B*****ds.

Yes, I am that angry.

Hope

2008-05-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

The problem is, lady, not that I have too much self respect.

The problem is with my 'hope'.

Beaten; still, at the slightest opportunity, it rises its shameless head.

It won't take a lot to say 'to hell with the world.' And stop believing in people.

It will only take all my life. And that's certainly not a lot. Certainly not to this world and to its people.

Hoping is a sign of weakness.

Now that you know my weakness, I hope - there I go - I hope you do not exploit it, like the world will.

The problem now you see, is not that I have too much self respect.

It is that my hope has too little.

Strewn Morsels of Life

2008-05-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

For morsels of food they will scramble,
In petty talk their lives dissipate;
Slowly, grey will envelope their hair,
Into old age they will crawl one day.
Finally, there, in prostration they’d lay
Before a much diseased death.

Such are the people around me!
Amusing.
And like them – Ha!
Like them you thought I’d fall!

- by The great Bharati.

(A humble translation of a mighty verse by the great Poet Bharati, "Thedi Choru Nidham Thindru")

The Walk

2008-04-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

The human is alone
In his path in this world

A circumventing path
That may lead nowhere.

In this lonely lil walk of mine
It seems immensely joyful
To have a soul like you
To hold my hand
And give me strength

I understand we're essentially alone
In the depths of our heart
Wondering if we're evil

I understand in this endless jungle
Fears are more than the dangers present

Alone in our minds, never ever to see
The jungle, in its full

Yet walking, step by step
In this path circumventing
That leads the walker back to himself!

It is highly odd, this
Two lonely, confused, wanderers lost
Helpless by themselves
Frightened, alert, seeking for answers,
Wondering at Joy, shriveling at tears

So wondrous that two limping limbs
Can together give a cripple his gait!

Thank you dear partner
My walk was eventful
In this event-less,
Infinite path of the Jungle!

Why compete?

2008-02-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

When was it exactly that I lost my way? It used to be simple. Sweet and pure. Now it is so complicated that I dread to even give it a try.

The fear of losing. Losing against whom? Winning what?

There used to be a time I remember when I created for pure pleasure. And I felt like the son of God.

Now I am so afraid and frozen that I think twice before hitting a key on the keyboard. Will these words be the best words ever written by man in a blog?

That's a funny thought. But imagine living your life that way. Competing every second. Measuring up to something every act that you are to attempt.

I am now at a point where I fear I have momentarily lost my way in trying to find out how my neighbour runs his life, If he has got a car better than mine, a wife more beautiful than mine. A kid more intelligent than the one I have got.

My neighbour lives in my house today.

And I am homeless.

That's a good place to start rethinking.

I need to find a home. Any home. To restart a humble life.

From scratch. And regain the joy that is now but a distant memory. Dissipated in the oh so many sermons i gave at the pulpit of my successes. To people who once listened, and now have moved on to a more entertaining Priest.

I am homeless.

And that's good.

I am far from completing this post. But I have to go now for some errand.

I shall send back notes from the ground.

Why should I continue in Filmmaking?

2007-09-12T08:38:00.003-07:00

I have always feared this day.

When I was safely away from film school, I indulged in my passion for cinema. Now that I am half way through an organised education, I find myself at times pondering the dangerous question.

Must I continue in cinema? It's so boring. Going to the sets day after day, lighting things up, breaking actors down, getting claps fom people I am beginning to like lesser by the day.

Why should I continue filmmaking?

I can work things out in my mind anyway. I can continue admiring luminaries of the screen. I find my girl, settle down, lead an honest life and die away one day. Fine by me.

As for ambition - well, I am damn sure I shall make it one day at the - ok let me not name it - at the biggest film award in the world. I know it will happen. I also know how and when. And also what can prevent me from getting there. So, whats the point?

No. Yet, I can not give up on films.

I shall continue because of one single reason. The reason I came into filmmaking in the very first place.

Music.

There is no other reason. No music and there would have been no films for me.

What saved me by serving as reminder of this simple fact today?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mjVsV1zvEo

Watch this, reather LISTEN to this. Its some very basic animation student exercise. Thats not what is of importance. Watch the short film in youtube for one single reason.

The tiny song in the end. Made by my friend.

The reason I want to make films.

Such music.

Father

2007-06-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

The Lion King told the Wizened Monkey,
Sire I desire my son to be
Stronger than me;
Build upon the lands I leave
A kingdom of Heaven.

The Monkey smiled his age old smile.
I see your father’s done his job well -
The lands remain as barren as ever
Kingdom of heaven, safe above
People toil still in vain
Your father was an imperfect man.

Yet, as a father good he was
For he left along with this
A priceless heirloom to you, didn’t he?
He left his yearning in you, dear King!

[Birthday gift to my dad, June 18th, 2006]

The Eklavyas

2007-05-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

Today I am really proud becaue of two guys.

Guys I grew up with. Literally. They were there when I had outgrown my seventh standard trouser in my eighth standard and saw the tear across my dignity lengthening with a seemingly deafening, sadistic growl - in front of all the girls in class.

They were there then to cover my ... literally.

So these two guys who have been so much a part of me have made me so very proud today.

Praveen, Jithin. Jithin, Praveen. (To prevent disputes over First Billing)

Praveen acted in my film "Nambum Poi"

****
http://rsprasanna.blip.tv/file/208633/
****

Jithin acted in another film, made by a friend of mine.

****
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onc3ufAOUmY
****

These guys were simply awesome.

I sat watching Jithin on screen, and for a moment yearned to get in touch with the guy, show him my films, and some how convince him to act in my films.

Thankfully - oh glorious thanks! - I realised I owned him.

And Praveen. Here's a link to a blogsite where, in the review of Nambum poi, the reviewer has in one word summed up what he felt about the guy's performance.

"Kalakkal."

****
http://www.kirukkal.com/archives/2007/04/rs_prasanna_nambum_poi_shortfilm.html
****

I am one lucky guy. Can't wait to start my first feature film backed with such supremely promising talent.

(Doesn't hurt also that for me they will act for free. But not for long. No, not for long at all!)

Dreams, here we come!

Labour of Love

2007-04-20T04:12:00.000-07:00

Filmmaking is a labour of love. In love, the only thing you're after is not the climax with your girl. Thats' there. In the end. It'll happen, and yes its great fun - but thats not the whole idea of lovemaking.

And filmmaking.

There's the tease, the flirting. The guessing game, the thrill of a lingering gaze allowed, the foreplay. Thats what's love's all about.

You miss that, you're a moron.

Don't sit there waiting for the final cut to move you to tears, the oscar playing in your palm - that's there, in the end. It'll happen.

Coming to think of it, lemme make a blind guess here.

That's probably what life is all about. It's maybe not at all about that Big Burst of Joy that you are waiting for. All too oten, the minute you get something that you so desired, you start wondering why the flood of ecstacy you expected never came in.

The world Started with a Big Bang, damn it - anything after that is no comparison! Does that mean its retirement for Diva Earth? Hell, no.

Having said that, there needs to be a climax. After you have read through the past coupla paragraphs, you'd be cheated if I said, hey don't expect a Big Bang ending to this post - your reward is the Process of reading.

No.

I'd never do such a thing.

So here goes, my Big Bang ending -

Filmmaking - and as extended, Life - is a labour of love, but hey, I wouldn't be complaining if there's a good, mind-exploding, soul uplifting piece of Big O thrown in at the end!

Is God an atheist?

2006-12-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

I was telling a friend today, "If God were an atheist, he would lack in self-confidence."

I sorely want to beleive in the existence of a God.

Someone who can reward me for my good, and punish me for my sins.

And not the other way around.

This world, I am slowly beginning to hate.

Not the mountains, the birds; nor the greatness of man, but just most men that inhabit the world today.

I am an atheist.

Never before have I so strongly regreted that.

It would be oh so simple, if only He were there to set things right!

Alas, seeing the putrid stupidity that today scars my earth, even God might become diffidant and disheartened!

Yes, I know, this is jus another gloomy day. I probably am overreacting.

Tomorrow I shall look back at this blog entry and laugh.

But tonight...

You may not believe me, but 'tis true... I actually googled this -

"Where is God?"

I need sleep.

Love

2006-12-13T06:09:00.000-08:00

"I can see it in your eyes - you love cinema. By Goerge! Do you love it! But then there are certain people that cinema loves. Look at him. See the way cinema lets him make love to it!

Well, sometimes... just sometimes - no guarnatee - unrequited love makes good cinema ...

There's hope."

The One I Never Mailed

2006-12-12T01:46:00.000-08:00

Dear my friend,

I know you are not angry with me because I did not attend your marriage. Robert and Joseph told me you looked great in your bridal wear, and your husband is prone to blushing once too often. Good for you; like I used to say, a ‘husband who blushes, fulfills one’s wishes.”

Yeah, my poetry is still bad. My agent is yet to call me. The last time he called, he left a message in my answering machine, about a deal he was sure to close within a day or two. It’s been a month, and the only thing that’s closed is the library down the street. The old man died. Henry, remember him?

He died of heart attack. It was two days before his body was dragged out of the pile of books. The old man must have wanted to dust the top shelf… pulled down the whole load on him as he fell.

The last time he spoke to me, he asked about you. “You and Liz are my oldest customers,” he said, “and the youngest,” he added, smiling. “But I am very angry with Liz, tell her that; she did not send me an invitation.”

I did not think that saying I too had not been invited, would serve to comfort him any. So, I smiled, putting the blame on the postal system. The old man had a wheezy, raspy cough then, but he seemed alright otherwise. Anyway, Henry’s gone now.

So, how’s married life? I realize it must be hardly a week after your wedding when you receive this letter, but isn’t that the most exciting period? Write me about it.

Henry is dead.

What does that mean, Liz? Death, I mean.

You were always the smarter of us two. I’m sure you have an answer to that. Write me.

Your husband seems to be a good man, Liz. Wish you a great married life.

Then, what else?

Henry asked about you. Oh, I already told you that.

So, how’s life?

Hope you have a great honeymoon. Is it the Alps, like you always wanted, or did the man in your life bring with him his own honeymoon dreams? Wonder if his friends knew about his dream place.

You should write me, Liz, about how it went. Also, the weather here’s quite-

I apologise, in fear of death, for every single word I told you three years ago.

Yours,

-------

"Wealth and India" (Random Cribbing).

2006-12-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

1) Is our 'culture' a growth-propelling, competence-rewarding, and wealth-creating one?

I will proceed to argue that it is not. This may only be because I am ignorant, but more likely because I am arrogant.

Which again my 'culture' detests.

I feel that we Indians have had no philosophical context to understand the process of wealth creation.

We have been taught to thrive in meagre living, or, excel in our work 'in a humble sense of social welfare.'

That is why I see so many of the 'newly-rich' software professionals and those from the service industry not being able to respond to this new condition.

Should they feel guilty for earning the huge pay packet? Or should they splurge like there's no tomorrow?

Which might be a reality, actually. With China waiting behind the hill to capture the Service industry soon.

So, theres no immediate 'tradition' to refer to when they try to comprehend this.

Where do they refer to for these answers?

2) We speak grandly of being a Super Power. Yet we love to bash up the US and other developed countries. Instead of trying to see what made them click!

Well, the sad truth is, the First Ranker in class never cared a damn about the failures belittling him from the back benches.

So this generation - I, and those that are to come - have to evolve a 'culture' of our own.

3) And finally, what really is 'India'? Or, to put it more specifically, WHO is 'India'.

It is 'I'

When 'I' create wealth honestly in my chosen line of work, when 'I' advance the bar of excellence a small notch higher, I am pushing the 'concept' of 'India' a notch higher too.

That is the truth. But we as a nation always like misappropriating an Indian individual's performance, and somehow by calling it an 'Indian' victory and celebrating it for days - we waste so much time and bunk college and office and sit and talk and talk and talk!

If some american discovers the atom bomb - "Oh, we indians have done that a long time ago. See in the Vedas!"

Damn it, what have YOU done?

Nanotechnology.

2006-12-08T23:56:00.000-08:00

God, I cried,
I don't understand,
This nanotechnology thing

A small speck of dust,
Pressurised and cold
Revealing unlimited
Power, I'm told

Molecular hammers - Atomic fire guns
Nuclear Nano tooling machines

Babble, Gabble, gobbledegook

God, I turn squarely to thee
Tell me what Nano
Should mean to me?

God replied
His voice sound-mixed
Minus 2db-Pitch altered

"Son," he bellowed
Thats me, I popped
"Yes, it's you,"
Snapped out the Lord.

"Nanotechnology, you ask?
Surely you know what it is!
Speck of dust - Potence unheard
Wrapped warmly in a blanket of cold
Always needing pressure to thrive -
Does that not ring a bell in you?

I waited.
It didnt.
I waited.
No bells.
I wanted to wait again
But then-

"My Man," he laughed,
"My man, my man!
"The answer is there right under your nose!
"You, Man, are an example of
The finest nanotechnology!"

What's in a Birthday Gift?

2006-11-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

Art.

Artist.

Audience.

Each one's joy is different.

The audience is awed by the work of the artist, and is dumbstruck thinking, "My god, this guy is a genius!"

The artist savours a deep and silent joy - sitting and watching every single element of his handiwork being devoured and relished, and enjoying the unexplainable predicament he puts his audience into. His fan wants to say something, but he can't.

Art makes one speechless.

I had wrapped up the gifts in layers of newspaper and built up the suspense with small notes here and there. It was her birthday.

I had spent two weeks for the Hand-made Birthday card, had personally scouted shops for the most exotic trinklets that would be moulded by my fingers into a unique statuette. I had sat and designed for close to three hours, a beautiful wall hanging for her. I knew that my poem in the top-left corner of the wallhanging would move her to tears.

I gave her the package.

It was a bithday gift.

She was a birthday girl looking at her bithday gift.

The audience looked at the art. The artist looked at her eyes.

The artist can never understand fully the joy in the audience's head.

She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. She had taken a full ten minutes to unwrap the gifts. She'd savoured each layer, each note. She caressed each curve of the statuette, each dent that my nail had embedded in it. She'd thanked the poem with her fingers, she'd laughed at the 40-page birthday card!

She looked at me.

We gaped at each other. Stupidly.

Wide eyed, drop-jawed, and thanking the million stars above that each belonged to the other!

What's in a bloody birthday gift?

The handiwork sat in between us silently. The very object of awe lay seemingly unattended.

The work of Art.

It of course, couldn't care less.

In Perfection

2006-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

When I see it in my head
Why can't I make it through my hands?

What block still keeps falling between
My sight, and my sleight of hand?

The dam will burst one day I'm sure
And the block will go away,
But why should creation forever be
So violent,
Like your Big Bang?

Yes I agree after that gore
The music of nature more than soothed
The scar from that difficult child

But must I endure the tremendous pain
Of labour yes, but also harbour
A doubt, more paining in me?

What guarantee there is
That the work I deliver
Will be nature perfect?

Ha you laugh! Perfection for Man!
Impossible, you smirk.

It is only right, you whimper haughtily
For man to strive to be;
Perfection should exist, you say, in its job
Of existing always an attempt away!

Laugh, go on - you have all the right
Please continue laughing at me,
For I too am not silent!

I am busy mocking at you.

You are cursed with eternal imperfection
You who created the imperfect me!

Filmmaking is bloody TOUGH

2006-11-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

Which is why I shall make it one day!

One day...

Heaven and Earth

2006-09-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

When heaven couples
With the tortured earth
It is said its climax
Can be seen and heard

First comes a stroke of blinding lightning
The mind distorts in a flash of sin,

Then comes the moan, low and pining
Surging to grow to a full-blown cry.

A second later
There's suspension of time
Just when it seems
This will go on like this
Comes a release
Wrenching the clouds

The clouds writhe and they release
Their climax in spasms, wet and heavy

'Tis said the heaven
Loves the earth
The story goes the earth doesn't

Thereby in those very rare occasions
When earth agrees to copulate,
The heaven is laden with built-up lust

Thus when the earth finally gives in
The heaven has waited far too long
It lashes against the unfeeling skin
Tears at the earth, beats it with rain

The heaven cries as it reaches its peak
It bemoans its fate, its tears combine
With its bursting wetness.

The earth is rough and quite used to all this
It bears it all, quite like a man

The earth heaves and leaves to nurse
Its wounds - The hills, the valleys, its scars
The pained Heaven, when it bit and scratched
Opened up wounds on earth

The blood from them, mixed with tears
Trickle down in torrential rivers.
The earth, scarred
Feeling no pain.

The pain of the heavens never unloaded
The heaven departs as spent clouds
Slowly lugging their sadness around
Their lust is gone, surely, and how!

But a new weight they will gain from now.
Their sadness is theirs,
See these rarefied clouds
Will soon build in pent-up lust,
Mixed with sadness
Growing in heat
They will repeat
The never-ending feat

Of Heaven and earth
Copulating in
Vain.

The Music Man

2006-08-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

The man was in rags. And in ecstacy.

His fingers seemed to catch every note wafting out of my house window, and I, for a moment thought, he was not conducting the music from my music system. He was pulling each note from it, slowly coaxing it out.

I moved closer to the window. The man's closed eyes widened.

I did not know what music was playing. It was some vague opera, I guess. Hit the wrong button and zoom I fell into the wrong century in World Space.

But by the time I could change the radio channel, I noticed this man nearing my window, and well, he started doing what he has been doing now for the past few minutes.

His fingers were greasy, light though in movement. His lips quivered with recognition.

I watched on.

The singer shrieked. God, how shrill! Surely glass breaks.

The man's face cringed - he raised his hand, his fist closed.

He opened his right fist, and his fingers slowly floated down - the other arm still raised.

The singer's voice softened. It floated.

The man's eyes relaxed, still closed.

Silence.

The singer started in a whisper, some bass instrument caressed.

The man smiled, his fingers floating.

The violin joined in.

The man opened his eyes.

The singer fell silent. The violin played the last note.

Then, the bang on the drum.

In precise synch with the man bringing both arms up and crashing them down.

The man smiled.

World Space fell silent.

I coughed at the window.

The man walked on.

My eyes followed him.

He disappeared down the bend.

So, what could be the end of this story?

I am still waiting for the man to come to my window again.

Today is the twenty-seventh day.

I have religiously sat at the window, ever since.

I walk up to World Space, turn on to the Opera station, plonk down by the window. And wait.

Well, I am still waiting.

Richard Strauss to Pavarotti; the bass-baritone and the counter-tenor have come and gone; be it the homophonic texture, or the polyphonic arrangement - no, the Music Man has not to this day answered their call.

And what a beautiful piece by Gluck! How could the Music Man resist the beautiful syllabic text-setting, the ripping apart of the de capo aria!

What divine music!

Damn it!

Where is the Music Man?

At the Theatre

2006-08-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here, way past midnight
I havent spoken to you yet
Just a longing keeping me awake

I sit at the comp
I listen to the music
And all I see is a theatre
With a miillion people
My life's work there on screen

You weeping on my shoulder

The music shall rise and it shall cleanse me, my Love

And as all the million fall silent
A tear in each eye

I shall chide you for not looking
But you, my baby, can't look

Then the crescendo shall come
And there on screen shall kiss
You, I

Shall kiss the Man, the lady
And "The End" shall come bold on screen

Then the projector shall dim and flicker, but not yet!

Wait, there on screen
"Written and Directed by..."

That's when you shall rise and clap
Like your life depended on it
As if you were born this monent
And born for this alone

A million claps, a million tears
A million buoquets
Shall be thrown my way

But I shall sit,
and dear my Life
I know you will hate it
But I shall hug you by your hips and

Douse your evening gown
With tears that are twenty five years in waiting!

There on screen my name
A million minds seeing my work
The music cleansing me!

And your hips wiping my tears,
Your fingers kissing my cheek,
Your hug assuring me that
I deserve it in the end.

Thats the dream I had tonight
Only, I wasnt sleeping

I could not

Its been long since I spoke to you!

Art Is Living

2006-08-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

And this, dear pal, is what art is all about, in my humble
opinion - a product of an artist when he is undergoing some mysterious
process, where his mind and senses unite, his creation and his life
unite; he sees himself, his art, life, and God, all at once, clearly
standing before him; and he seems to take notes....

And then, after that moment of purity, the unexplainable life experience, there on the table - would lie one clean piece of the artist, produced by his most purest
state of mind.

That for me is art.

Art cleanses.

In its creation - and appreciation - in any form, I believe, lies the
only few minutes in life, when one lives!

Thus, Live. Honestly. Your craft will improve automatically, to cater to your ever increasing standard of living!

You dont need anyone else, then to evaluate your art.

Mozart the Vulgar

2006-08-22T00:53:00.000-07:00

(One beautiful line from the
extraordinary movie, "Amadeus." )

Mozart has just written an opera about a
prostitute. He is to stage it for the king, under the King's
patronage. But when the King hears about the topic chosen by Mozart,
he is applalled.

"I trusted you Mozart, so much as not to even check upon your work.
Today, I did, and today I regret! A prostitute! Appalling."

The other jealous Noblemen salivate in anticipation of the King
devouring Mozart, their prey.

"But King..."

"Shut up! So it is true what they say! You philander, your eyes and
morals wander! And today you plan to bring your filth on to my stage!"

Mozart's eyes moisten.

"Sir, I," Mozart swallows the lump in his throat. "Sir," he continues,
"I am vulgar."

The king waits.

"My work is not."

("Amadeus" written by Peter Schaffer, for stage and film)

Review: Why I refuse to review 'Omkara'

2006-08-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here I review my decision not to review the movie Omkara.

The movie Omkara deserves no review from me, because one can review only something which has been done honestly.

The acting was uniformly just about OK. This could be the actors'
best. Which is not saying much.

Kareena and Saif did a decent job.

Then again, I don't care a damn about Kareena's "best"; I do, about Vishal's.

That's why it hurt.

The screenplay sucked. Sucked the blood out of my system, and brought it to my head - no kidding. I actually dveloped a throbbing headache by the time interval was announced. (Ok, I exaggerate; I have sinusitis, it was the AC)

I think the reason the screen did not play at all, is the absence of screenwriter Abbas Tyrewala who was there in the first two movies and is sorely missing here. Conspicuos by absence, is that the term?

The two item numbers included in the movie, stand testimony to how serious Vishal was about the movie. So, I shall not make a fool of myself by speaking about him.

Here (upon my friend's prodding) I am forcing myself to take the effort to talk about the acreenplay.

It is first of all a very paper thin "story" as such. I was wondering
how the hell people call shakespeare great if he wrote something as
lame.

Of couse that is surely the reason no one dares speaking against the
stupidity of the displayed story, the characterisation, the stupid
Devgan character etc. Because, it is supposedly "shakespeare"!

I say "supposedly"

Yesterday I watched a more truthful version, called "Othello" by
Oliver Parker, starring Laurence Fishburne and a genius whose name
eludes me, as the scheming evil guy.

Shakespeare is great.

Vishal, in Omkara, is pathetic.

I saw only the first half of Othello, and was applled by the complete
lack of understanding by Vishal, of precisely the reaons why a "paper thin story" stood firm on a bed of sense, logic, and human character study, and stood unshakingly on the bed of certain universal truths.

I suggest you watch "Othello" by Oliver parker, to grasp what I might fail to convey.

In his "adaptation" , Vishal has unfathomably left out all these
reasons. The same elements that make the story sensible.

Omkara deserves no review from me.

That is my way of paying my respect to a certain great filmmaker.

Not many might know him.

He made Makdee and Maqbool.

Mother and Daughter

2006-08-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

“Don’t worry, you’ll win,” said the mother to the child, twenty seconds before she lost.

They had trained for weeks. The child, you see, suffers from a crippled knee, from an accident three years ago.

The mother had very badly wanted the child to win at the games today.

As the child took her position on the start line, the mother had said to herself: “I’m sorry child. I’m sorry. Win, and forgive me for that day.”

The twenty seconds on the running track, the mother anticipated, would seem like a little less than eternity. Eternity was different. Oh, sordidly different. Eternity was that one millionth of a second, three years ago, when the mother had rammed the car –

The child was nearing the finish line. It didn’t seem that long after all! The mother stopped breathing.

“There, my child! Just push a little more, baby; I know your leg hurts, the splints are coming off, but child there you are just a few metres away, go on, you’re coming so close to forgiving me!”

The line was exactly a metre away.

When the child stopped, and looked at the mother.

The mother started. Then, the tears came.

“Why! Why are you stopping, baby. Run! Don’t stand there looking at me! Run to the line! Won’t I ever be forgiven? Don’t stare at me, run!”

The child kept looking at her mother.

They both cried like babies that day.

The mother cried at what she saw as eternal damnation for all her life. Life, unforgiving life, holds no mercy, she learnt.

The child cried because she, unlike her mother, knew.

There on the track, there was no line there anymore.

The child had not taken twenty seconds to reach, no.

More accurately, four minutes and forty-eight seconds.

All that remained in the place where the line stood, was a bunch of PT instructors walking toward the stranded cripple.

Waving her to move away, as the next batch of runners were readying their start.

The Speaker Stops Speaking

2006-07-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

It's been long since I've given a "speech" speech. Guess I have realised there is actually not too many things that I would like to speak about to a huge gathering of strangers.

I will speak to them, I suppose I have said to myself, through my movies and my written word.

In any case one figures that the most valued speeches are the ones whispered, or not spoken at all!

Finally, the ones who really matter, will be pretty close to you anyway, so no mics needed!

Friend

2006-07-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Did my firend die, doctor
Just check once more,
He acts really well.

You don't know about this actor,
No one knows but I.

The first time I saw him
We were in line
A brilliant play we saw that day
Both he and I, a rupee between us
And a thronging mass of crowd
But not too much to block the sight
Of our heros there on stage.

I saw the Singer, upon the stage
He saw a fab actor in him,
Neither of us saw the today that was
Being born amidst that din.

A great actor he is,
Doctor, believe me say
Gem of an actor who never saw his day

Check once more doctor,
He acts really well.

I remember his father threw him out on the road,
He crashed on my bed, eyes teary
Then he gave the most brilliant performance
He cried and wept and sobbed in turn
And taught me the diffrerence between the words!

I clapped, he smiled, my mother smirked
"Mad they are," we heard her say.

A fabulous actor he is,
Doctor please wake him.

From that day on, our madness grew
I suppose what we shared can be called friendship,
I for one am just a singer, he can write well though
I want to ask him, what it was we shared.
Wake him doctor
He is only acting.

Ramu, wake up, the drama's over
As usual your audience of one,
Is here,

Wake up!

See doctor, how well he acts!

Wake up Ramu!

My friend, he acts really well,
No one knows this but I,
But even me he has surprised, now!

I know he's dead,
But for a moment there
See how this actor
This gem of an actor
See how he decieved me!

RAC

2006-05-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

I am not a very educated man. So, kindly excuse if my English is bad. Went to the IIT today to get my son an admission. They asked for his marks. Yeah, I know, but what do I do? I know, but... Listen, I will NOT burn down the building. I just didn't feel like it, ok? Yeah? You think so? Your mother only - don't make me say words!

Why don't you just listen to me. I know I should have slapped the guy then and there. But, we can't be violent, please. How many times I have told you that?

He asked for my son's marks. What good would a beating have done. Tell me.

Please think.

Violence is not the way out.

So I protested peacefully.

My son will boycott classes from the first day - by the way, which course is better, Computer Science or Electrical? He has to decide quick. People say Computer boom has stopped. Just check and tell me, ok?

But getting back - so, my son is going to sit outside the class from the first day.

He is now busy rallying support.

I instruct you clearly now itself - I do not want you to burn down the IIT Admisions office.

We will learn to forgive.

That's very important.

After all he only asked my son's marks!

Peacefully only we should protest.

Gandhi said that.

Paper Flower

2006-05-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

You decieve me with untruth;
Try decieving the Truth -

You wave a mesh of veils at me
A puff of smoke create;
Through them you hope I never will see,
The lies that you cremate.

Behold! The Rule of Truth and Lies
The paper flower is a lookalike
The fragrance cannot lie;
Forever it shall smell that of
Paper that tries to a flower be!

----------

Inspired by this beautiful couplet told me by Meenakshi, a passionate admirer of Hindi Poetry.

"Sachhai nahi jhukti banavat ke usooolo se
Ki khushboo aa nahi sakti kabhi kagaz ke phoolon se"

Home, by the Poet

2006-05-28T20:47:00.001-07:00

It was not dark
It was not bright
I sat alone in wonder

All that I saw was new
Not a sight warm to my eye
Not a speck igniting my mind
All around me strangers
I felt alone

And when I felt that
I felt scared

I made not a change to all this
Not a word i spoke
A thought I thought
would ever touch that around me
I did not matter
And that scared me

This is not home
Yes, my home had the mountains,
The river, the trees, the chirps
But back at home
They were somehow warm
More real

Here they seem an illusion
Lifeless, devoid of thought

Not a sight warm to my eye
Not a speck igniting my mind

And when i felt that
I felt I wanted to write

The poet I am, i began
I looked around me, and i smiled

The mountain
The river, the trees, the chirps
Are alien to me, I wrote
I, a stranger
Out of place, out of home

And when i wrote this
I suddenly felt
warm

I stopped to look around
At the strangers

Only now, every sight warm to my eye
every speck burning my mind

And i laughed
Like a child

For I was home.

I, a poet
The poem, my home!

Soldier In Love

2006-05-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

Here I am a lonely soldier
Always soldier alone was I
Now I feel lonely more

I set eyes on you
Before I left to play
With death
On the battlefield.

Just a glance of you I got
Before the weight of the gun
Laid across my chest
Call of duty
Weighed upon me

I thought of what name I would use
What string of sounds
To describe you
None I confess, perfect.

No earthly sound I've heard
Seemed to even know of you
How then could I expect them
To dare even a try?
I gave up!

Amidst sweaty comrades
Lewdness abound
Rickety paths, relentless cold
Noises inside desperately trying
To diffuse the noise around

Of bombs, of cries, of dying friends
And death-calls raised to enemies made
Anew with every falling pal

Amidst the fear that raises its head
Fearlessly, through all the training;
Amidst laughter too loud, gaiety too gay
Confessions made of confessing fear
You are with me, through it all

In vain the attempts of fearless men
To dodge with the truth of war!

Who are you, whose name I know
Not makes a difference to me now
What are you then, that I carry in me?

Are you the girl my pal tells me
Married twice and making merry
Once with the drunkard,
Once with the teacher?
Are you the girl my pal seems to know?

Or is this just another prank
That my pal is known to frequently pull?
Or is it true this, which he says
The naive, too weak, they want to shy
Away from the pain of the truth?

Tell me are you what you are?
Or are you what I think?
Or are these, as I hope and pray
But just the same!

Are you the angel I think you are
Or a prank of the setting sun?
Shadows, they are known to play
Tricks on men,
'Specially those
Longing to be tricked

What matter it is to me now?
My pal, he chides me knowingly
Why trouble writing a poem on you?

When whizzing past a metre away
Is someone else's death
Which could as easily have been mine?

I want to laugh, with gaiety too gay
I'm tempted to think you're a mirage
But here I am just a minute away
From a bullet that demands truth!

You are.... you are.... you are...

What are you, in this moment of truth?
The bullet, there it seems to help!

I know!

You are not the girl my pal sees
Nor even the angel that I think.

You are the question that you raised in me.

The answer I carry to my grave.

The bullet, the truth, and you in me.

Kids These Days

2006-05-28T20:43:00.001-07:00

I was walking to the Ice Cream shop with the cousin in tow. Smart chap. Nags now and then. He was incessantly talking.
"I have this girl, bro. Real smart. I am quite smitten by her,"
I stopped.
"You have a girl."
"Yes."
"And you are in the fifth grade now."
"Yup"
"And, your girl, she is in-"
"Sixth."
"Oh."
We resumed walking.
Times they are a' changing.
"Err..." - Me.
"Hmmm?" - He.
"Nothing... err... don't you think the age gap is- "
"No."
"Oh."
We resumed walking.
We reached the Ice Cream store.
"2 candies, please. And, bro, for you?"
"I... err... well, one would do for me."
This guy is one weird chap. Its actually been a year since I've seen him. My uncle's family moved to Delhi a year ago, and I live in Chennai. They come here every winter. That is, winter there in Delhi, not in Chennai. In Chennai, there are no winters.
Roshan finished half of one candy, and slurped the dripping liquid from the other candy. The melting liquid was running down his hand.
"Roshan, you could have got the other candy later. See, its dripping now, and half of it'll go waste before you finish the first."
"That's the idea," he said.
He continued slurping.
"It’s about time," he suddenly muttered, to no one in particular.
I heard a bus pull up behind us. Roshan straightened. He hurriedly finished off his candy, eyeing the melting one.
I looked on. The bus belched as it came to a halt.
The pollution these days. I remember when I was in school, I went in the good old cycle rickshaw. The only smoke came from the driver's Beedi.
And here, the bus coughed out a final puff of black, stinking mess. God!
I turned to Roshan, wanting to ask him about-
Roshan?
He wasn't there.
I turned around searching for him.
Where the hell-
He was standing near the door of the bus.
This was puzzling.
He stepped aside as the door opened. A stream of school uniforms unloaded. Pink stripes - must be the primary kids; Grey for the seniors. One thing that will never change however modern the schooling becomes. Pink for toddlers, grey for learners!
And this girl especially, she looked cute in her pink.
Her hair was done up in a nice, bouncy cut. She was smiling at-
Roshan was handing over something to her. I can't quite make out, he has his back to me. What is he-
She seemed to go at it immediately.
Two hours later, Roshan and I were walking back home.
"How do you know she liked the Mango flavor?"
"All girls do, brother, all girls like mangoes."
We were just a foot away from our house.
"Err, Roshan."
"Yeah."
"Two things, buddy."
"Shoot."
"What about Sheeba?"
"Oh, she's back in Delhi, na."
"But won't she feel kind of-"
"No, she won't. I'll get back to her as soon as the vacation is over. And hey, not as if I've gone on a date with the girl. Rita, pretty name, na? Just got her Mother's mobile number. Rita's mob was stolen in class last week, apparently. Anyway, don't worry about Sheeba, bro. I am going steady with her."
"Good. because, I just-"
"No, probs."
"That’s settled then."
"Yeah."
He opened the gate. He could barely reach the latch at the top. He stood on tiptoe.
"Roshan."
He looked at me.
"You've been here only a week, how did you know-"
"The gaming center's just down that road. Spotted her getting down there everyday. Smiled at her the first day. She smiled back the second. We both smiled the third, and then-"
"I get the drift."
We walked in and stood near the door.
"This you have to do. I can't reach the bell, bro."
"Sure, I'll do it."
Thank god, there's something this kid could not do. I rang the bell.
It would take a minute for the maid to open the door.
I had a minute left, that's all.
"Err, Roshan."
"Yeah?"
"On the way to my gym, there's this Infosys bus that comes."

The Only Lesson

2006-05-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

"Teacher, teach me just one thing."

"Now, that's quite a task."

"Why, it would not exert you much."

"Think so? That increases the ask!"

"Stop them riddles, teacher, for once."

"Straight to the truth, you want to go?"

"Just get me to the dough."

The teacher scratched his chin, and saw, the student did the same.

"Son, I know what to teach you."

"Good! My dad always judges right!"

"But the lesson you should learn correctly."

"Trust me, I have never known to fail."

"Fail once. That's the lesson."

"That I fail to understand."

"Good. You have started learning."

The student now was mighty dazed, and saw the teacher savour.

"Teacher, there you go again."

"Displaying my wisdom?"

"No. Enjoying in my lack."

"Son, now, learn the lesson. It starts the moment you ask."

"I give in. Pray tell me now."

"Fail once, that's the lesson. Failure, the teacher."

"But failing, what penance that needs?"

"Failing requires toil not, but ... failing just once?"

The student stopped. The teacher smiled.

"Fail, ye, and fail again.
Yet fail not in the path you walked.
Find in the world new paths to get lost!
Yet flounder not on the walked path.
Flounder never on the walked path."

The student now did not fail, to understand the teacher.

For good student he, he knew he failed the same way once before!

Kamal Haasan's "The Fire", and my Translation

2006-05-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Fire told me this tale.
It was the day Sita was asked to prove her chastity to the world. By Rama, her husband. Because of Ravan, her lover.
Using me, her …
But I jump.
First things first. How I met her.
Ravan’s attendants wanted my warmth. The most cold terrains ever seen, the most bitter winter the forest saw. Shivering, they kindled me with the cold sticks picked up from the sticky earth. Fed me oil.
I blazed. They slept. Sita lay awake.
With me.
After everyone had slept - the guards do sleep after all – Sita would sometimes just keep gazing at me. Into me. And I…
I…
I would writhe. The lust that her gaze aroused was sweet. The oil, the wet earth, Sita… and I, slithering in heat.
The morning breeze and the fresh dew douse fire. I would lay spent.
Sita!
Once, I got so angry with the man, Ravan, that I decided – lust blinds – I decided to burn up his home!
I caught on to Hanuman’s tail, and tried bringing down Sri Lanka. In vain. In vanity!
But I digress.
The point: I stand witness to Sita’s chastity. The nights she spent with Ravan, she spent with me. Nothing happened. I know. I should know. I lusted. .
Not a word she spoke. To Ravan. To me. Ravan never laid a finger on her.
But she gazed at me, oh how she did! And I writhed.
In fact, the first time she spoke to me, was that day In Rama’s court. When in front of the whole nation, he – the fool – asked Sita to show him that which his trust doubted. The fool!

"I who am Rama’s, my nakedness, his. I, who have not a thought of adultery staining my love, today here I am, asked to strip. By my husband. I am asked to strip my soul. And I do it in you. Your lust, let it consummate today. Take the nakedness of my soul, and prove the integrity of its body."

Love is strange. It can happen like it did between the frog and the rock, unknown to others. It did now.
It put a thought in front of my growing lust, stalling it.
A memory, actually. Of my first love.
I lost her, my first lover, because I loved her. You see, I wanted to hold her in me. I did. But only until, to my shock, I saw her burnt ashes at my feet.
My love destroys.
My lust burns.
But this knowledge could save.
As Sita stood there, waiting for me to slake in her, I paused to consider.
That which I hungered for, yes she waits, waiting for me. But in her I see anger.
The Sita that gazed in the sultry nights, she was the one I wanted to take.
The Sita here, no, she needed my shoulder to weep on that’s all. But she is angry. And angry women don’t know what they are saying.
After all, Rama – the fool – what a thing to do?
Poor Sita.
All she wanted was somebody who knew her, and for that she is ready to trade her… her… I can’t allow it.

"Why are you hesitating. Take me. You lusted for me, Here I am! Take me and make love to me all you want, and show my husband, my dear husband, that I am chaste."

Sita, you poor lady, if love were to consummate only by union – of soul, of body – then Rama – the fool – would not have done this to you! Maybe that is the nature of love. It slowly fizzles after union.
My dear Sita, if I drench in lust, engulf myself in your wetness, I would die. You would return to your mother, this earth.
Unlike others, I harbour no hope of union with you.
You, like me, are beyond rules, explanation. You should remain pure. My love should remain.
And for that, we should never…
Just walk past me quickly. Rama – the fool – waits for you at the other end. Hoping you would walk through, yet thinking you might perish. Doubtng your sex.
And as you walk into me, as you do precisely what I have dreamt in heat, I shall be staunchly unfeeling.
I know it sounds bizarre. In this union-less union, of lustless consummation, of touch that dare not seek any meaning or hope, in this moment beyond explanation, only one who is beyond the norm can dictate the terms.
Listen to me.
But there’s something more.
In memory of … of… in memory, I will present you something.
I will give life in the form of Draupathi.
As I said this, I saw Sita touched by my love for her.

"I have never felt so much love before, nor seen a man like you. I doubt I ever will, again. After you die, I shall carry you in me. In the land of people like Rama, my sex can only wither away, so arid these loveless souls! Take my sex and preserve its life and give it to our daughter – Draupathi, you said?- when it is time for her to marry. It is a mother’s gift to her daughter. Her untouched sex."

Her tears fell heavy on me.
She left.
I never saw her again.
I will ensure our daughter Draupathi is never asked to prove her chastity by a doubting husband.
Will not allow her to die inside the cave of doubt that a husband forges.
Sita did.
My Sita.
Rama – the fool.