Surviving with TINA

Surviving with TINA isn’t easy

Before you run your fanciful imagination amok

TINA isn’t the abusive – schizophrenic partner or the spouse

it is just the abbreviation of There is No Alternative

Living without any control or even a choice

Yet being advised to be grateful

That you’re able to Inhale/Exhale spontaneously

 when people are scampering around for ventilators for the brain dead.

The Pain

Let the pain drown you to the depths

Depriving you of any oxygen

And let you be there in peace forever

Because bouncing back and going through cycle

Again and again is not much fun

Is it?

An Actor

You laugh on a semi-funny joke

As if it is the most hilarious you've heard in your life.

You hear to the complicated love story of a friend

And offer him constructive suggestions and fresh perspective.

Without letting anyone know how tormented your being is

Or how sunken your heart feels.

Either you're a great actor

Or you're hiding the symptoms

Of bi-polar disorder.

तेरी याद

रंज नही

गुस्सा नही

बस एक दर्द जो रोने से भी हल्का ना हो

और जो ख्वाइश जगाए एक और ज़िन्दगी जीने की

तेरे साथ

Vanishing Vocations

This is Mahesh doing something that is rarely seen these days. What is surprising is that I found him very close to my home and that too on a Sunday. I don't remember noticing him before and he said that he has been there for the last 18 years. And, when I asked him why he was working on a holiday he answered with a counter question to my friend Raju "Do you take him out like this regularly or is this a special occasion?" then realised very soon that it wasn't a good question to ask and sheepishly replied "I've promised to deliver this chair soon so I'm working today."

I feel I was lucky as  a child to see this equipment operated, kids loved the sound this machine made and used to love seeing the sparks fly when it worked. So, everything worth sharpening was brought out when the call Kathi murcha aakaan undo? was heard. This fellow refused to pause when I called chetta from behind gestured him to stop. So, no frontal pose. :(

I don’t know why I wrote this

Existing in a vacuum

devoid of love

wrenching the heart

desire at least a touch

that can sooth the soul.

Don’t know why or how I wrote this. I feared that such things have stopped coming to me. So, when the first line struck me in the early hours a couple of days back, I tried to keep it in focus until rest of the lines came up. Without thinking about mistakes, rhyming and such things I typed it directly in FB with forward slash between the lines and posted it. I even copy pasted it in twitter (surprisingly it is much less than 144 characters).

Hope it is all was worthwhile.

Broken Lives

It does sound like the title of a typical South Asian novel where a kid or kids growing up in poor or middle class surroundings and their family migrates to the West to improve their living conditions. But, this is not my story or to put it more clearly the story I intend to write, I wish to write a story about the people who drift away, disappear or just vanish from your life leaving you to languish in the pain of separation.

Ah! This is turning out to be some kind of meta fiction where the author or the storyteller is a part of the story yet it is not an autobiographical tale. I even posted what I thought would be the first line of the story on my FB wall to an encouraging response of likes, comments and shares. But, as it happens with me every time the vague plot did not take a solid mould.

I feel that you need a totally vacant, painfully vacant mind for a story to take root and I don’t believe in the theory that you go on typing and the story would automatically happen.

PS: I tried to write this to see if the blur picture in my head getting any clearer and, more importantly I did not want this title to evaporate into oblivion from my head. 

A clichéd love story

A clichéd love story

Throbbing in my head

Though they didn't walk into the sunset

Hand in hand

And, carried the pain in their hearts

Throughout their lives

Need a writer with calibre

To make it sound

Unique and fresh.

Don't Suffer

Let the silence in your soul prevail

if it is giving you peace.

And, if the chaos inside is choking you

just blurt out.

Don't suffer.

These lines are playing in my mind for the last few days in a formless way, I couldn't do anything better with them, so just put them down as they came. Maybe it is the result of reading too much about Robin Williams' death.

Sunday outing with Aadi - 1st instalment

Never realised that I live in such scenic surroundings

Piety: Removed footwear even while praying metres away from the temple

Nostalgia: Premier Padmini in a roadside workshop

Kerosene stoves & a puttu kutti

Aadi befriending his namesake with a metal body

A tempting signboard - Chembila Appam

I'm using my camera after a long time. Went out for a walk with Aadi (he pushing my wheelchair to be precise). We couldn't go very far as it was cloudy and we had to take shelter once as it rained. More info in the next instalment.

Living in the moment versus planning for the future

They say life is full of contradictions and the one who can carry these contradictions lightly on his shoulders will be the happiest. Or, should we say that those who can do the balancing act between the given options are the wisest.

One such contradiction is between ‘living in the moment’ and ‘planning for the future’. One set of wise people theorise that living in the moment gives you peace and equanimity. It works in a way to make your mind less anxious or fearful of the things that would happen in the future.

The other theory that says you need meticulous planning to achieve success in life. You should be aware at least at the intuitive level what is coming your way, set your goal and strive hard day in and day out to achieve it. It is an enjoyable process if you see the signs on the way that you are reaching your desired destination.

Most of us just drift through life without paying much attention to these things. And, if we achieve certain degree of success we call it fluke or luck, as if things just fell into place, otherwise we are happy to be where we fit naturally without much effort, without rocking the boat as they would say.

Personally, I have always felt that the proverbial boat has been rocking and I have survived without any major catastrophe by latching on to the faith that one day everything will be fine and I’d sail safely through the sea called life. Yes, I’d thought of a few things to do (don’t know if I can call them dreams), one or two of them turned out to be workable in the long run. Sometime during the last year I started feeling that sailing has become smooth and I’d try to capitalise on this fortune by thinking of doing something big (I was gaining confidence that nothing can go wrong now). But, the feeling of good fortune was short lived as a catastrophe happened earlier this year that shook the foundation of my life, thus pushing me into ‘live in the moment’ gear where I’m really afraid to think about the future beyond the next few hours.

PS: This post is just an attempt to see if I can shift gears and think of planning a course for not so distant future.

A Visit

He came to me once again last night.

Not sure whether it was to refresh the memory

of a sweet pain.

Or he wanted me to know that the future still holds

something worth living for?

Or he just wished to give me courage to say I love you

once more?

Soulmates and other such things

When you have ample time in your hands you tend to finish reading every book that you start reading. In the last one week I’ve read two books by Dr. Brian Weiss, Many Lives, Many Masters was with me for many years and I completed it only last week. I wasn’t very impressed by it and wrote so in my FB page (a book that basically talks about ‘the soul is eternal’ kind of things). Then a friend suggested that she liked his Only Love Is Real. So, I got it and finished it in less than two day.

The book with the tagline ‘A Story of Soulmates Reunited’, furthers the theory of regression into past lives through hypnotism to solve the psychological problems of current life as propagated by the author in his first book. Here he goes ahead telling the story of two of his patients Elizabeth and Pedro, not knowing each other in this life, coincidently turned out to be real soulmates in their past lives and how they reunited in this life with little nudging from their psychiatrist.

There are other things repeated here, the lessons from the Masters like Love and Forgiveness help the soul to progress and negative emotions like anger, jealousy, hatred etc stall the progress and other such ho hum.

Surprising this book brought back the memory of me using the Ouija Board (some 15-20 years back), with the help of a few friends who believed in it, to know if the girl I loved at that time reciprocated my feelings. The friends who were there had warned me not to be depressed if the result was negative and I was allowed only two questions. And, you can guess the result of that exercise as I’m still (un)happily single, yet scared to mingle.

My Shield

Just a few days back I'd written something about the benefit of hindsight. But, the prominence of that phrase has started sinking in only now as it is going to be a fortnight since my dad passed away and to get over the grief and to soak up my  tears I am making futile attempts to remember the tiffs, fights, grudges etc. that I had with or against him, but somehow they do not sustain beyond a few seconds and soon they are overlapped by happy and positive memories that make the other things look frivolous.

One incident that comes to my mind happened when I went to write my Final year B. Com exam in a college as a private student (i.e. someone who studies sitting at home or attending private classes and goes to college just to write the final exams). That year the college had appointed a new person as the in-charge of Examination, who obviously wasn't familiar with my needs. So, when he saw my dad carry me inside followed by my scribe, he refused to make me sit in my usual seat in the library or any other place on the ground floor saying that the other students writing exams will get disturbed or they would write whatever I dictated to my scribe. He made dad carry me up to the second floor searching for an empty classroom. I could sense that he was panting and sweating profusely, this made me upset and I told him if they make you carry me any further I don't want to write the exam. He was in an unusually upbeat mood that day and told me just to think of the paper that I was going to write and leave the rest to him, adding that he had the strength to carry me to the terrace of the building.

Luckily things cooled down and from the next day I was provided a seat in a corner in the library.  Now, if I think about it I feel that I wouldn't have graduated if my dad had mentioned he was tired or fed up of the circus that he was made to do with me.

There are many more such incidents where dad proved to be my shield or saviour when the whole world seemed to be against me, yet he never boasted about the greatness of his action or made me feel that he had done something extraordinary for my sake.

PS: you can read more about my dad here,  here,  and see his one more picture here.

Cadbury Shots – for Pappa

I miss the Cadbury Shots and other assorted candies

that you popped into my mouth as soon as I settled in the auto

after work.

You for me were never the celebrated hero that people make you out be;

just because you made a man out of a son like me.

Never ever you indicated that it was something out of the ordinary.

As Preachers say Life must go on

and I promise you that I'll do my best to cope without you.

But, wherever you are, be sure that you're missed here Pappa.

One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf

I haven't updated this space for a long while now. There are not many reasons or excuses for that except for lethargy or laziness. Some posts die in my head while in formation stage itself and a few die after I have jotted ('typed' would be the right term here) down a few lines or even words. And, as I'm thinking about it now I feel that writing about life when it is happening, it is better to write about something with the benefit of hindsight.

But, this post isn't about any happening or an event in my life, it is just about a book that I recently read (I may be wrong as 'reading' also can be a happening or an event), One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf. It is a book for anyone who loves fast paced books with some depth and multi-dimensional characters, and also for those interested in creative writing as such. It shows you how to structure a narrative interestingly by revealing a mystery on every page, peeling off a layer from the characters to show the motive behind their action.

An unidentified assailant with a gun enters a school in a fictitious small town called Broken Branch, Iowa State, USA and makes a classroom full of third graders hostage along with their teacher. The story goes on to show how the school, police, parents and the town in general reacts to the situation. The tale is weaved from the perspective of five characters directly effected by the incident; Holly, a burn victim recuperating in a hospital in Arizona. Her two children Augie and P. J are under the care of her father and are the students of the ill-fated school. Augie, a teenager, who had to shift school mid-term because of her mother's accident. Mrs. Oliver, the teacher in the class that is taken hostage. Meg, a single mother and police officer in Broken Branch, whose child Maria is the student of the same school, but, has taken a day off before the spring vacation to spend some time with her dad Tim. And, finally Will, a farmer and the grandfather of Augie and P. J.

As this intricate and intense story moves forward from character to character and from first person to third person format we get to see how interconnected small communities are and an untoward incident effects every single person in the locality.

For me, the vividly etched mind-scape of Mrs. Oliver and teenager Augie worked wonderfully as it showed how two persons of different ages and different mentality act similarly in a given situation. And, I'm sure Mrs. Oliver will remind you of your best loved teachers.

A line from this book that will stay with me is: “the easiest way to save face is to keep the lower half shut”.

PS. With this I shun the romantic notion that you need to smell the paper to enjoy a book. For me e-books are convenient to handle physically as I don't have to hold them and turn the pages. I doubt if I'd have finished reading this book it was in physical form.

Happy Hartal Day!

A few moments of the Hartal day (18 Nov) were spent in a Park not very close to my house thanks to my friends Raju and Sendhil. The trip included visiting their homes (for the first time) through the bylanes of West Kochi refreshing some fond memories.

Sendhil engrossed in the narration of Life is Beautiful by Raju

Raju trying his best to evade the camera

A Golden Gandhi, A Gau (Cow) and A Nook in this World I can call My Own!

A man who spent his life preaching frugal and self-sustained living is painted in a gaudy Golden hue. What else can be called ironical?

Another stereotypical image of India; cattle strolling in the middle of the road, the only difference here being that the one here refused to budge even as dad tried to manoeuvre my wheelchair around it in a tiny by-lane.

This one doesn't need an explanation:

The Curse of being perceived as Gifted

There is a general myth that a disabled person may have a gift that would make him/her an extraordinary being. Yes there will always be a few gifted types among the disabled as you would find in any other sphere of life; racial, economic, social etc. Sometimes, you may find a genius who is a mixture of different spheres, so, it'll be difficult to pinpoint where the spark comes from. But, when disability is one of the sphere, it is normally considered a blessing for the gifted person and even a normal person carrying a disability is easily termed Gifted.

I write ordinarily, it is an acquired skill, that too very late in life as I thought it would be the easiest thing to do with my limited mobility (and very soon realised how wrong I was). I have no romantic notions about it as such. I will trade this skill if I am given physical independence in exchange.

These thoughts came to me after watching Bereft of Colours, a short film about a blind artist who loses her vision to paint after her eyesight is restored and in the end she dramatically destroys her eyes to regain her vision.

I felt very disturbed as I mentioned earlier that I can trade anything for physical independence even though I am not really unhappy in current situation.

For his part the director can put up a defence mentioning the constraints in exploring the subject in depth for a Diploma Film. But still...

Bereft Of Colours from Akram Hassan on Vimeo.

I came to know about this film from here. And, yes I have seen Ship of Theseus and feel like giving the benefit of doubt to the SOT team in the 'inspiration/copy' case.

Trust Deficit – The Kalyan Jewellers Way

It was the most anticipated event in the Malayalam Entertainment World in the recent times, that of Manju Warrier facing the movie camera after fourteen long years and that too paired with the Big B himself for a jewellers' TV Commercial (it being just an ad film was a non-issue). The TV Channels and the media in general was flooded with the 'behind the scenes' stories of the shoot.

Kalyan Jewellers, the brand they were promoting may have got enough mileage for their budget with this pre-release publicity itself. But, the final result to put it simply is a damper, it stretches its  "VISWASAM ATHALLE ELLAM"  (Isn't Trust Everything) tagline a little further. In the past, we had a young woman dropping the idea of eloping with her boyfriend and returning home so as to not to breach the trust of her father. And, here we have a daughter (Manju) playing a trick of sorts to win her dad (Amitabh Bachchan) back after marrying the man of her choice.

This storyline would have worked wonders a decade or two back. Or, it would have been plausible with lesser known actors. But, in this day and age imagining Bachchan as a dad who severs ties with his daughter just because she has selected her own life partner is difficult if not impossible. Similarly, Manju, who has played a few firebrand roles in short but memorable career, risking her own life as well as her unborn child win back her father borders on being regressive.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself: