its been an orientation week to the next since i visited this blog…i think i m going to have the time to pen down something soon and so will hit this space…
Though am not sure how far my creative juices are going to take me but time is on my side this time…i v checked my orkut five times in the day , met up all my frnds, mused, chatted, checked my emails, pinged everyone i saw online and there is still time to be killed!
more soon…
Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain…the fabulous life of Amelie Poulain.
I have been looking forward to seeing Amelie in action for while now. While I kept tryin to get my hands on the CDs big time in Bombay I somehow could never manage finding a store that stocked anything other than the popular numbers. Thanks to the ISB library and to the short but well spent term break, I have finally seen her.
Very rightly the most feel good movie I have seen in a long time. I am by no chance going to put down here a review of the movie even though I would love talking about it. But it’s a good watch to start a term.
Its amazing how people who are most rich in talents are usually withdrawn to themselves. The theory of first impressions is a little misleading in this sense because for one time, it’s easy to decisive. The best first impression-ers could be the shallowest while the most unassuming people are the ones who display awing depth and ability. My views about people change with very many encounters and confessions galore, I find myself wronged many a times.
Chums who looked very receptive in the first few meetings are actually quite cold and few others who looked aloof are warm. I have grown to respect a lot one particularly awesome friend whose first impression was that of an intolerable bugger. Quoting someone else, Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.
Suddenly the most difficult thing seems like getting down to studies. End terms are just around the corner and the subjects of my distraction are increasing at an exponential rate. I am suddenly experiencing a deep affinity for cheap acts of dancing to bhappi da numbers in the middle of the night, attending all the soap box sessions like I had umpteen time at hand.
Four in the morning is the time when I sneak into the empty dark atrium to push in my assignment through the other box which gods strategically placed at AC2. As if they knew I would be running to submit mine right at the eleventh hour. That’s very nice of them.
Also another professor who has started to look even younger like he wasnt a distraction already is seen hanging out at the recreation centre everyday and that’s really motivating me to go for swims, bb and shuttle sessions. Salsa is the icing on the cake even though honestly speaking the session is only a fraction of glamorous.
And then there is blogging, quadies, section mates,cats,peacocks and trinetra running out of milk. I might be able to fit in studies admist all this finally when I realize where I am going with this stuff. The up side is that I am having a ball when I am away from books!!
Cold summer evening brimmed with wet earth,
Swell the spirits to enthuse a sense of mirth.
Talking and laughing the crowd pulls along
Chanting for the fellow a happy birthday song.
Sleepy in the classes , Merry in the crowd…
Beating the rain I called names aloud
The inquisitive and carefree,the dull and the bubbly….
All in one walked down the alley.
The waters are set awaiting a tide,
Sway the fellow ,throw him
Then run back and hide.
All attempts go in vain the hunters pull you down
They swing and shoot you,Like an air borne clown.
Swollen spirits sing the jingle,
Once in the day its time to mingle
Talking and laughing the crowd pulls back
Encore is incumbent, another day and jack.
It’s been a roller coaster ride to get oriented by a rushing outgoing class. While the experience in itself was quite exhilarating I must confess that the week has given me a peek into how jumpy I can get…
Everybody wants everything. Hope touching the skylines.
Amidst abysmal opportunities disorientation starts running bananas. Right now I feel like the woman who thinks all that glitters is gold ..
..and all that can’t be seen does not exist. All words and statements seem to have many meanings.
Glorious nuances conveyed to all and a subtle suggestion which rings in the ears of those who dare to hear. Sometimes misgivings haunt while at others a wild fear of the unknown.
A bustle in the hedge sets an alarm. The meanest of sheep expect followers.
We dunk dudes in pools and minds in beer.
Knowledge is worn by some in a private pocket..
By some like a watch to be struck at every second glance from a disinterested onlooker
While silence haunts the light, the dark drifts into ounces of bodyrocking music
Drunk souls and minds drift from siesta to siesta
From motion to motion…
Angoor is being screen at the Kalaghoda Art Festival. For those of you who enjoy comedies of the likes of Jane Bhi Do Yaaron and the origional Golmaal, this is a must watch. From what I collect about bollywood comedies, I can clearly put Angoor into the cult.
Strangely enough Gulzar did not repeat his work at comedy film making after Angoor. Today while I was reading the schedule of KGAF I hit Angoor again. I had seen it for the first time exactly four years back on a dilapidated CROWN TV sitting over dinner with my family and it was a laugh riot. Then again once when my father insisted on revisiting Angoor and we bought the cd from our local vedio library to watch the movie on my PC, which he still cannot operate with ease. So he waits for me to visit him in my hometown so that we sit and watch movies. Angoor is one of the few for which I can get his company.
Coming back to Angoor, it is an adaption of the Shakespearean work “The Comedy of Errors”. Here is a summary of the comedy of errors from spark notes:
The Comedy of Errors-Plot Summary
The part of the confusion between the two separated twin brothers and their slaves has been depicted in the most hilarious manner within natural settings of a small town. Sanjeev Kumar plays the confused brother coming from a different city, who has been mistaken for someones husband and has been dragged into the bedroom of his brothers wife. While he is stuck in this situation his slave Deven Verma is facing a similar situation with the housemaid who is supposedly in love with his own twin and a companion of Sanjeev’s twin brother. All this while the real husband is out trying to get a Nau lakha Haar made for his wife. He is angry and frustrated and etcetra etcetra. In all the confusion the naulakha haar gets misplaced and the famous Indian police gets involved. Misunderstandings at their best.
The dialogues are minimal and timely. The early experimentation of the cult lines:
“Kya tumhare Baayein kandhe par til hai?”…
“Nahi!”
“arrey mere bhi nahi hain. Waah to fir hum dono bhai hue!”
A bespectacled Deepti Naval plays Sanjeev’s sister in law has her own charm in the movie. Utpal Dutt has the Fathers part to play. Moushumi Chatterji is the beautiful nagging wife. While the name ANGOOR comes from the fact that the twin brother of married Sanjeev is traveling to Dinkapur to buy grape farms. And even though this is his first visit to the town, everyone seems to know him including the Ticket Checker at the Railway Station, the taxi-driver, the Hotel Manager, local Police, a Jeweler. And thanks to that he is caught in twisted erroneous situations.
Therapy for a relaxing weekend. ANGOOR.
Rendition of “Pathar ki Pukaar” by Shri Jayshankar Prasad.
The evening had set its foot into the bank of the Ganges. Flowing water glistened under the rays of the setting sun while the sky had been painted in purple and blue like the feathers of a peacock.
Nirmal gazed at the farmers treading their way back home and said to Naval in a lost voice,” Patronage of literature is an elation of its own kind Naval.”
Naval replied in a sarcastic tone, ”Ah my friend! I would call it the being a member of the most voiceless support society of the world.”
Nirmal looked at Naval with an uneasy expression on his face. Naval continued with a smirk..” Anyway, so which kind of literature do you find the most intriguing?”
“I see immense beauty in the tragic narrations of the past and in compassion my friend.”
Naval stopped laughing. He said,” Brilliant! Which other treasure is more unusual to us the Indians! Pronouncing the troubles of our past and the compassion of the our present, it still remains our beloved ode, our intoxication!”
Finding himself hurt by the insolence of his own friend, Nirmal started gazing at toward the sunset again. The farmers had left.
“Where do you want to go? “. Nirmal did not reply back.
“Anyway, I will move for a stroll by the river. See you later Nirmal”. With this, Naval got up and walked away.
After a little while, Nirmal, still lost in his thoughts, walked towards the village. Finding an abandoned square by the outpost, he started trudging towards it. In a corner a dilapidated charpahi has been made to stand by another dilapidated mud wall. A hammer, chisel, a half filled bowl of water and a koochi are lying around unclaimed alongside two huge sandstones. Nirmal carefully made his way to one of the deserted sandstone and for some reason, found himself seated on it. The sandstone was quiet like a rock. Nirmal heard a bleak voice. He looked around. Noone!. He heared again, this time more attentively. It was the second stone that was murmuring something. Nirmal went closer.
“I was merrily a part of my own hill. They blasted me off and you bought me and dumped me here! Where I see nothing more than human vanity. Where my pieces are chipped of and thrown on mortals. O sculptor, you lured me into coming here. I wanted to be carved into a beautiful statuette. To be transformed into a handsome outline. I was even ready to present to you myself, for you to break me off and sever me. That pain would have made me content. The outcome in the form of extols and admiration would have been a trophy for my perseverance making my survival worthwhile for times immemorial.
But Alas! You deserted me at your decrepit door, like busted pottery! How long will I slouch here musing about my future?”
The compassionate call of the stone cramped Nirmal with anger and irritation at the sculptor. Wasn’t this the same tragedy and compassion he had found intriguing earlier? Wasn’t this where he saw the beauty of literature?
Fuming in his anger he marched into the decaying house of the sculptor. “ How long has this stone been lying here? You indolent man! Ah! I can see!… basking around in the house is more pleasure isn’t it? While a stone outside, awaits in lonely abandon to be transformed into a beautiful figurine.” He said in his enraged voice.
An emaciated figure replied back,” Babu Sahib, I have not received an order for days now”
Nirmal retorted,” Ha!..Excuses!, well you could have made one. You would have found many buyers for your statue if your work were good. Can’t you hear the plea of that boulder, don’t you have the heart to heed to its call for mercy?”
The scutptor cleared lump of cough in his throat and said in a shaky yet firm voice,” Nirmal babu, you are the son of a wealthy zamindar. Your upbringing has given you an ear for elegies of the lifeless, the melody of flowing waters, the soft giggling of the winds and you find yourself lost in these subtle voices. They fill you with emotions and sympathy. But you are deaf to the loud cries of deprived souls, which are not the fictional or literary but the existent forms of compassion.”
Nirmal’s love for literary tragedy and compassion suddenly found itself in conflict with his own reasoning. Disappointed, he went outside, and found himself powerless and prostrate on the patched courtyard.
I was recetly home. And I picked some of my Fathers books. He practises a keen interest in Hindi literature and recommended his book..”Pratinidhi Kahaniyan” by Shri Jayshankar Prasad. For those of you who do not follow Hindi literature, Shri Jayshankar is a poet and novelist who writes in prose form Hindi of a very elite class. He has published Title,Kankaal and Iravati and no I have not read them myself. I need my father to explain the prose form Hindi when I read it. All by myself I would not understand half of it.
Anyway, so talking about the collection of his short stories which I am reading currently, the focus lies mainly on the comtemporary problems of the Indian society in late eigthteenth and early nineteeth century. It is just an urge to translate some of his stories into english. Having said this, I am not qualified to translate the stories of this acclaimed writer, so will call them narrations in the posts to come….
(..continued from yesterday)
Roll5.Get set go. Seven bamboos and criss cross threads. The power connection came from the shack. See thru curtains were hanged and fastened randomly. Left half loose so they could sway in with the wind. Bamboo ball lanterns of various shapes, which had been picked from the road side vendors, were tied around for faded lights.
As oozes of feni, filled up the jar,On a shack by the bay, Santana played his guitar,To the music in the air, the meshes danced by,The Floor became sand and roof became sky.
Slowly the crowd pulled in,He counted standing by the door.He looked at his sack as they all hit the floor.
The night intoxicated everyone. The sensation came mixed with the Feni, the exhaustion of the day and the happiness to be free. He joined the merry. The boozing and dance. They danced in the moonlight,As the drunkenness leached deep.He had killed his loneliness in heaven,And then they all went to sleep.
He opened his sack and waited for the winds to blow strong. He waited until the winds came to greet him. And then he let out the petals packed in the sack towards the sea. The air filled with this scent, will reach her today. In those petals, he sends his gift.As he blew a kiss he whispered.
“Happy birthday my dear, in my heart you survive.How would you be at twenty five, if you were alive?”
Knowing only the winds will answer back.
The itinerary was set. He hit Goa at 7 in the morning. First step was to find out the most pristine beach in an off season Goa. After a day of exploring the southern part of the city, he knew it had to be the baga beach. For him being there was like experiencing a kiss he could never get enough of.
Crowded yet gave him space. The motley of colors speckled on the yellow beach. The waters opening into the sea, like an eagle had just spread its wings to fly. So he had to do it. To kill his loneliness in his self proclaimed heaven.
He kick started the arrangements on his scooter. Had everything running in his head like a film roll. Roll 1. Get the palm leaves. Roll 2. Paint the invitations. Roll 3. Arrange the bamboo. Roll 4…….
By evening invites had been painted on palm leaves and the mesh curtains and lanterns had been arranged. He folded the invitation, put them in a basket and went off to lie down. He never booked a room. Just lay there on the beach near the shacks. Late into the night sometime he d just catch a shack worker who was free and strolling around and they would chat. Most of them fantasized with him about the goris visiting the beach in summer time. The morning ablutions were usually done at the shacks and beach showers. So he dint book a room.
Next morning the commotion began. All the lively morning people will be drunk by the evening. First were the beach visitors. He had 25 invitations and he was looking out on roads, on shops, stalls, shacks, beaches for singles and couples. In all colors, shapes and attires. Hitting Goa to free their mind, body and souls. By two in the afternoon, he had satisfied himself with the surety of 25 attendees. 25 people he hadn’t known before. 25 people he will spend this night with. 25 people to kill his solitude in heaven.
(To be Continued)
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