Useless Feet :P

Bangalored - II

Deep in Conversation

My Sis-in-Law Kanchan

& Ma

Check Bangalored - I  here.

Books

Some books have a meditative quality.

They make you forget the surroundings,

the colour of paper, fonts, dog ears or any such thing.

Just words and thoughts therein revibrate inside.

Taking you closer to bliss.

Bangalored - I

Manish working from home - shaken not stirred (I mean the pic)

The Couple - Kanchan & Manish

Ranveer guiding me on the ramp

Quenching the thirst

Father, Son & the laptop

Jai obediently poses for me

Not so heavy traffic in the by-lanes of Kormangala

Truckloads of Joy

I tried clicking some trucks parked in and around Willingdon Island while returning from work. It is amazing how mundane sights become interesting when you have a camera with you.

Surviving in the daily life

Sometimes while trying to survive in your daily life you tend to miss out noticing what big transformations you have been through over the years. Last Sunday I happened to spend a few hours with two college boys (they may become filmmakers or writers in the future,who knows).  In between the conversation I asked one of them the year of his birth, 1994 he said. His reply made me  wonder aloud 'what was I doing in 94?' I was 22 then, had just joined the Degree Course (or was it my 2nd year?), wishing to make my life worthwhile. But, whatever I'm doing today seemed like impossible dreams at that time.

On Monday, I received a message from a friend saying that 2012 also passed in a jiffy, his son became 8 years old and daughter 4 years old. It made me realise that I’d no such scale to measure my own ageing (even though I'm for almost 15 years now and writing for at least 12 years). So, I feel mentally stuck in my teens or early 20s believing that life is yet to begin.

This video taken in the early 90s further shows the transformation in the physical world as well, these days PCs don't have floppy drives as floppies have become extinct and PCs have began to be replaced by laptops or tabs.

So, looking back can be fun sometimes.

A torn poster and a hoarding

Watching film posters is a weakness from childhood (this was clicked while going to work sitting in an auto).

And, this while coming back...



(was trying to get this hoarding of Biennale on the Thompampady Bridge for a while now).

Happy 2013

Under Construction

A multi-storey housing complex coming up next door. They had brought down an 'old world' tiled house there. I regret not having a camera with me to capture the old structure for posterity.

On the clothes line

എന്റെ പ്ലാവ്‌ പൂക്കുന്നു (കട ചക്ക) My curry jack-fruit tree is flowering... 



As clicked by Ma (below):

Caught the setting sun

In fluke, from the auto rickshaw while returning from work yesterday. I was just trying to click and see if I could maintain my balance without really focussing on anything particular. Lucky Me!

Effort to capture a Hibiscus

In the end Ma did it very effortlessly

Kochi Muziris Biennale/ Fort Kochi

Visited Fort Kochi yesterday afternoon with friends Sendhil, Raju and Raju's brother Nitin to see what Kochi Muziris Biennale is all about. We had been planning this kind of outing for a long while now and it just coincided with the Biennale.

Against the empty walls in the David Hall:

with Sendhil

with Raju

It is a black wall for a change

Books in the background

In the Parade Ground

A fallen tree

On the walkway

with artist Mrida Joshi

This is her website.

These photos are clicked by Raju, Sendhil and Nitin (who refused to face the camera) random order.

Guilt

Guilt feeds on your innards

It is easy to forgive others

When they err

but tough to pacify your own soul

If you are the one who has erred.

It's a tightrope walk

Being aware of your limitations yet not letting them depress you or stop you from doing what you can takes effort.

After the coming of twitter and facebook single line posts have disappeared from blogs, otherwise I remember many popular bloggers posting single line thoughts or recommending something to read many times in a day.

The above thought came to me in the afternoon and as usual I saved it in my phone with the intention of copying in fb and twitter later. Then this idea struck me why not use the blog? I've always felt that a blog deserves respect and it shouldn't be used unless you've something substantial to say. So, I've posted this thought here just to fight my long held notion.

I'd started preparing the background for a longer post about how this thought sprouted and the vague experience behind it. Then said to myself "What the hell...".

Anyway, this has become a long post of respectable length for this blog.

Hand-Eye Coordination – My Experiments with the Camera

I have admired and envied sports-persons like Virender Sehwag and others who are said to have great hand-eye coordination that helps them bring magical charm to their game. For me let alone hand-eye coordination, my hands most of the time refuse to move on my wish. But, I do try to push myself once in a while I like to try something that feels though at the onset.

Trying to click photos is one of them, like I tried last weekend in the break between watching two films back to back in Saritha Theatre,  it helps the place is wheelchair friendly by default and I can reach all the three screens without being physically carried much.

Da Thadiya - One of the most eagerly awaited X'mas releases

Corridor leading to the theatre

Apart from watching movies, I love to see the pics of forthcoming attractions while being in a theatre

Being pushed to my seat

Seats next to mine

Thanks Slogan Murugan for the idea of taking pictures of my weekly visits to the theatres.

A Poem

Wishing that a poem comes to me now.

Just to let you know how precious you are.

To describe the effect your crackling voice has on me.

And, to be reassured that true love

doesn't diminish with the distance

or the lapse of time.

What I could click

Serious Men, the Amul Girl & of course a couple of movies on my table

Picture on the wall

Typing the previous post.

Getting a grip of the new Canon Powershot A2300

Education: By Mani Ratnam via Baradwaj Rangan

The religious significance of Vijayadashami is well known, the day is also known as Vidyarambham when young ones are initiated into the world of letters. In my school days Ma used say that you'd learn something today as it is an auspicious day, at least do your homework. I've carried on that ritual to this day – not because I'm overly religious or something. It just makes me feel good to read or write something new. So, this year I picked up Conversations with Mani Ratnam by Baradwaj Rangan. And, one of the most interesting passage I read that day was: 

This shift from paper to film, this metamorphosis, is the chemistry that makes or mars a director. That was the first day, and by the third or fourth day I remember telling Balu Mahendra, 'I want to run.' And he said 'Don't worry, I felt it the first day when I started directing a film.' He said that the disillusionment would pass soon, and he was right – in the sense that you slowly start learning that this transition from paper, from the abstract to reality, is your coming to terms with a different medium, that you have to rediscover everything in this medium. You actually reinvent your ideas on film. There has to be a leap from paper to screen. That's the job of a director – to elevate what's in the script to the next plane. You have to put in an effort to bring in other elements to make it alive. That is the key – to make it alive, to make it magical. You have to take the elements around you and invest them in that scene. You have to be able to draw the actor into that particular moment, so that he will bring something of himself into the character he is playing. It is like shedding one skin and taking on another. The most difficult thing in the first phase was this transition. And then you discover that there are some things that you cannot write and can only capture. Whatever you write, the magic of capturing the moment, a face, an expression, a bit of light, a movement – and you really discover that while making films. You discover that those are the things that really elevate a scene on the page to the next level. 

As I'm grappling with a story idea for a film for the last few months, having virtually no idea about how  to put my vision on to the paper and then transposing it on the screen, I feel that this passage may prove to be the guiding light for me. 

Here is an old post about Baradwaj Rangan's interview with Rajiv Menon. 

PS. I've completed reading almost hundred pages of the book (upto the chapter covering Anjali) till now. 

PPS. Sorry, if this post sounds dated as Vidyarambham has become history now and Diwali is upon us. But it is better late than never, na? 

Happy Diwali!

Why?

Why do bowels play truant?

Not letting me focus.

Reminding me to invoke Gods

And, pray that this night passes off without disasters

Or making me take refuge in sleep

Or endless games of Solitaire

Just as a distraction.



PS: experimenting to be creative about a mundane situation. Sorry, if it sounds crass to you.

Blog Impact

The title of this post is inspired from newspapers/channels, it is used when their report or a story gets positive response or makes powers to be act to redress a grievance or correct a mistake.

I always thought that my blog is just read by a few people close to me or people I coax to read by mailing them the link of a new post (blowing my own trumpet, in short), never thinking that it would be of any consequence as such. 

More than anything else, it is writing practise; trying to make an incidence in my life or articulating my own thoughts or just putting the words rambling in my head into this space. The most common thing behind all these things is timidity or you can call it laziness, I've to force myself to type word after word as if some fear is holding me back.

This post about how a breath analyser played tricks  with my cab-driver friend Robert was similarly written. But, surprisingly it has put him in the Caravan Magazine.

It so happened that I'd put additional info that Robert performed Chavittunatakam. Reading that Minu Ittyipe (one of my first writer-journalist friend) mailed me asking his me his number and came out with this beautiful write-up about him.

In fact, Minu has helped in alleviating my guilt  a little as I'd talked to Robert and one of his uncle at length about their passion for Chavittunatakam wishing to write about it somewhere but, somehow couldn't do it. Above all, Robert is very happy and excited to see his story in print, he says: “now, I can show this book to friends who tease me as being a king when I refuse to join them in fun and frolic citing a rehearsal or a performance”.

So, thank you Minu Ittyipe.

Take the plunge

Take the plunge

Burn the bridges

Be like the trapeze artist

Who doesn’t care about the safety net

Once the act is on

Just articulate your thoughts

Give your emotions a free run

You live only once

So don’t let regret be your soul-mate

Rather make joy your constant companion.

Death has its own charm

Death has its own charm

Not the thoughts of another world

Or the joys promised therein

It is just dropping the burden of guilt

Or the craving for love

And, experiencing the calm buzz

Of a motor that has just been switched off.

Note:

The first line of this was throbbing in my head from early last week. I kept adding and deleting lines to it, not wishing it to have negative connotations. And, yesterday I came across these lines from Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which gave me the impetus to finish it:

The reason death sticks so closely isn't biological necessity – it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

Age and wisdom: residue of a review – a strange connection between Chattakari and Run Baby Run

Read it here.

Two Men Two Videos

There are two men I admire the most in films; one is   Clint Eastwood, after watching Million Dollar Baby I started digging his material, mostly the films he has directed rather than acted and I'd say that I haven't felt disappointed once. The other is Anurag Kashyap, we are of same age and I always felt that we shared a brotherhood of struggle (or whatever you may call it), he has surpassed that phase now but I'm still stuck there. And, the other thing we share is our dislike for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black.

And, if you're wondering what makes these two eminent men to share space here, it is just that I saw  two videos with these two guys in the last few days:

The first video is of Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention in Florida a few days back.

I don't have much knowledge of American Elections, so, can't really gauge the impact of this show but it brought into my mind the Malayalam saying 'however old the squirrel may be it never forgets the skill of climbing trees' (the Hindi equivalent of this borders on being an insult, so not mentioning here), same way Eastwood never stops being macho. Here is Roger Ebert's take on the whole  thing.

The second video is of Anurag speaking about his film Black Friday in Brazil last year.

Here is my short take on Black Friday the book from which the movie is adapted.

PS: As Anurag mentions in the video I too had seen the film on DVD sourced from roadside vendor in New Delhi, when my brother had gone there.

PPS: Special thanks to my Facebook friend Binu Narayan who'd posted Anurag's video there on the tenth (Arurag birthday).

Indelible - The Film

I'd thought that my association (or obsession if you like to call it that) with Down's Syndrome had come to end with the publication of this short story. But, the link got revived a couple of nights back when I chanced upon a short film titled Indelible directed by Pavitra Chalam through twitter.

The film shows glimpses of life of seven persons of different age groups having this syndrome:

PS: Another coincidence connected with this film being that I knew Akshay Shankar, the production manager of this film as a toddler (pre kindergarten age) as he happens to be the son of one of my teachers in the special school. In fact, we both learnt being on all fours together, while I was made to do it on the physio mat with my crooked hands tied with gaiters, it came naturally to him.

Something Beyond

There is something beyond exhilaration and numbing sorrow.

Making pain and pleasure feel petty.

As if the soul is just floating through life.

It is the time you spend with someone who is really in love.

Dichotomy

Dichotomy was one of my favourite words when I started learning this language seriously in my mid or late teens. I used look at it in the dictionary without really being able to grasp the essence of it. So, this word never came into my (don’t know everyone who aspires to write may be having a wish to use a new word he/she comes across) writing.


Recently, it struck me again; I was talking to a friend and out of the blue he asked ‘how do you sustain your cheer?’ (people dealing with me closely do know that I’m not always cheerful, I become sad, depressed, angry and even vicious sometimes), I just said ‘it is my normal state, I don’t do anything special for it.’ Still, the look of enquiry was in tact on his face, so I continued ‘look at the bigger picture, be grateful for what you have, be focussed, try not to think of things that are beyond your control etc. etc.’


Then ‘dichotomy’ resurfaced from somewhere inside, whatever I said was opposite to what we are conditioned to think ‘live in this moment, here and now’. In fact, we reverse the thought process of ‘here and now’ when the individual moments become miserable, fooling ourselves that everything will be hunky-dory once these miserable moments pass. Basically, we are just expected to carry on even if we are miserable in this moment or the future looks bleak.


Isn’t this the real essence of ‘dichotomy’? Which no dictionary can explain...


A similar post is here


I wrote the poem Lost to use the word oblivion.

Needed

A guilt free soul

Wings to soar

An unique vision

And, someone to say I love you

in spite of all your flaws

(I didn't feel that this will turn out to be so mushy or trite. The first few lines were reverberating in my head for the last couple of days and the rest happened in the last few hours. Still, I'm happy that it has got a flow).

Kahin Aisa Na Ho DaaMan Jala Lo

Kahin Aisa Na Ho DaaMan Jala Lo, 

HaMare Aansuon Par Khaak Daalo, 

Manana Hi Zaroori Hai To Phir TuM,

HaMein Sab Se Khafa Hokar Mana Lo, 

Bahut Royi Hui Lagti Hai Aankhein,

Meri Khaatir Zara Kaajal Laga Lo,

Akelepan Se Khauf Aata Hai Mujhko,

Kahan Ho Aye Mere Khwabon Khayalon,

Bahut Mayoos Baitha Hoon Main TuMse, 

Kabhi Aakar Mujhe Hairat Mein Daalo...

(I risk the prospect of ruining the beauty of it by attempting a translation. So, just enjoy the pure thing and the melancholy).

A Formless or a Shapeless Life

Sometimes life stares at you as if questioning you where you are from or where you are headed, and as you fend for answers you may see a pattern and feel lucky that you were at the right place at the right time when things happened. I'm not a great planner or go-getter by any stretch of imagination. I just see a few dreams and some of them do come true.

The reason for the introspection now was an email forward from a friend about a girl (half my age) having cerebral palsy (a condition similar to mine) on top of that she is diagnosed with depression, wishing to know if there was any hope for people like her. In the brief mail she'd lucidly described her life (making me green with envy of her writing talent), the thing that struck me was that I'd see myself at that age (though I wasn't formally declared depressed), I'd just started studying for degree as a private student, wished I'd a few friends who'd spend time with me, elders were more understanding etc. etc. I just wrote to her that our life stories were very similar. Then I started composing an elaborate response to that email in my head for the next couple of days. But, as I went through the events of my life during that period my confidence started sapping as I felt I'm not fit to advise or counsel anyone as I haven't led a perfect life or overcome my disability as such (I feel that you can't overcome a permanent disability, you just learn to live with it).

If I look back now, the period from my late teens to mid-twenties was time of my transformation, during this period that it was accepted by people around me that I won't be able to walk, run or be physically independent beyond this point, so every painful treatment to make me ok was stopped except for token physiotherapy sessions at school and home.

I'd joined Degree Course just to buy time, a regular job or writing weren't even in the distant horizon, in short I'd no idea what I'd do with my life. I had just started reading pulp and self help/motivational books. Palmistry, numerology and such things were of special interest (as someone I was very fond of was keen to know what the future holds). Cheiro and Linda Goodman were the buzzwords then. This interest won me lots of friends. But, I stopped indulging in it when I realised people were taking me very seriously and coming back saying that my predictions proved right or wrong, and seeking further guidance.

Writing is sort of a cultivated hobby for me (I've mentioned this earlier also) as I thought this was the easiest thing to do physically (foolishness or naivety whatever you call it) and saw people like Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy making loads of money.

Still, if I have to explain how things work out for me, I'd remain dumb not knowing the answer, it maybe a miracle at the best or I am good at hiding thousands of tiny failures that I face on a daily basis and presenting life in a long shot just showing the bigger picture.

PS: this has again become a meandering post with no clear idea what was expected of it. I also feel like you wondering why I couldn't simply reply to the mail instead of wasting time writing this post. Maybe my writerly instinct was at work trying to grab a few more eyeballs.

It just happened!

Hell is when you have lost control of simple things in life (this is not a philosophical musing, I'm talking about physical/tangible things, which we tend take for granted otherwise). And, you keep wondering what hit you... The only rational explanation you may have is 'It just happened'.

Lately I've realised that my conscious mind is reluctant to register my limitations as it has got used living in my body and considers it as normal, it doesn't warn me that something is beyond my capabilities with the possibility of me failing miserably (though in my subconscious mind I'm perennially depressed at the prospect of not being able achieve something that appears to be very simple).

Recently I read somewhere that fate or luck per se is just an assumption; if you accomplish something that you ventured out to achieve it is called luck and if you fail it was your fate. There is a very thin line between the two.

So, again we come round to the question of dissecting the effort and check if 'It just happened' was real or an excuse?

Interview with director Arun Kumar Aravind

Read it here.

On Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic

I have done this write-up for the next issue of Success & Ability.

Your smile becomes the most important weapon in your armoury to survive in this world when you possess a deformed body (let the political correctness be set aside for a while). Anyone born with severe physical disabilities maybe aware of this fact subconsciously as I was, but it struck me or came to the fore into my consciousness when I saw Nick Vujicic's picture on the cover of his book 'Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a ridiculously good life'. I have been staring at his face for nearly a month now, sometimes straight and sometimes guiltily from the corner of my eyes as he was lying on my table and I was doing something else instead of reading his book. Coming back to the smile; it dawned on me that the smile on his face conveyed that he was normal, accessible and happy despite having no limbs.

Nick was born with Phocomelia (born without limbs), and who went on to become world renowned public speaker spreading the message of hope and faith among the down trodden and less fortunate in the slums Mumbai and Cairo, and to the far flung regions in South Africa and Indonesia. 

I have not read many biographical books about disabled people as I feel I would have to relive my own life through that person's story as there are always some universal similarities in such stories. So, you have to brace yourself first and even take a break when things become overbearing.

The other thing, Nick being a motivational speaker, takes the tone of one while writing this book, believing that every reader who has taken up his may be feeling low or depressed and seeking to change his/her life for the better as he writes in the beginning; To wish for change will change nothing. To make the decision to take action right now will change everything! Initially, we (those of us who have casually picked up the book to read an interesting life story) may find it difficult to plunge into this book so to speak. It becomes easier once we get used to the tone.

Nick begins his story right at his birth, about how his mother refused to see or touch him out of shock. Nick's mother who was a nurse and a midwife at that was worried through the pregnancy period of her first born but the doctors had allayed her fears and even the Ultra Sound Scan reports hadn't shown any complications. His parents had started talking about this when Nick was a teenager and had started prodding them about his birth.

Nick's childhood was normal as it could be with two younger siblings and number of cousins. He was an adventure loving kid and had even learnt to be in an upright position by thrusting his forehead to the wall. He goes on to say that however confident and determined he was externally, doubts and dark thoughts always haunted him in private. He used to pray to God every night for a miracle and hoped he would have at least one limb when he woke up. But obviously that never happened and the depression led him to attempt suicide by drowning in the bathtub. This phase was but temporary as people around him (mainly his parents) made him realise that his birth was according to the plan of God and that it had its purpose that would be revealed to him one day.

Nick, an Australian of Siberian descent had migrated to California, USA with his family for the better medical facilities there, realised that he was good at public speaking as a teenager when he started seeing what positive impact he has on the members in the audience.

'Life Without Limits' is structured very thoughtfully with the foundation of optimism, hopes and dreams leading to attitude of gratitude and in the end realising one's life's purpose.

A book's purpose is supposed to open a new world to the reader and Nick Vijucic opens up a 'ridiculously good world' with his book, whatever your faith or beliefs are and fills you with positivity.

On the brink

Every happiness has a residue of sadness in it.

This space has been lying vacant for nearly three months (in fact I haven't updated it this year). I am a very lazy and scared writer, I have never felt guilty or whatever it should be for the long gaps in between posts. I post something here only when I have something compelling to share and it has become a fully formed piece inside my head with a beginning, a middle and an end (though it may change while I’m typing). But, this time it is different, I’ve been having this urge to write something here without having a clear idea about what it should be. So, sorry if you find this post incoherent or simply beyond understanding.

A few days back someone very close to me was talking about me to a comparatively new friend of mine; “you won't believe this, Paresh was very shy and introvert in the past. He would creep inside his room and shut the door if a new person came visiting,” she said. But, when a teacher talked about the Paresh of the same period she had exact opposite memory of me. She described me as very communicative, aware of the world around and eager to learn new things. I can't say that one of them is wrong. Both of them are right, as I remember both facets of my personality very vividly. In fact I'm still confused whether I'm an extrovert or an introvert, or just plain and simple crazy, as I love to keep my head dipped in book for hours as much as I love talking to a friend of same wavelength. What annoys me is the fact that when someone introduces you as an introvert or having a secluded personality, it is in the tone of an accusation as if being introvert is a criminal offence.

One change that I now realise is that my nervousness in meeting a new person is drastically reduced as I rarely anyone who can be called a total stranger as I would've communicated with him/her through sms or be familiar online. So, you can say that the advancements of the digital age have helped me to better myself a bit. And, as the cliché goes; times have changed. So, have I.

If you are wondering what the title means, maybe it is the brink of craziness I'm always on between being introvert and being very communicative.

And, as for the first sentence, no idea, it was just rolling in my head for a few days waiting to be written.

A couple of similar posts are here and here.

Slender Fingers and a Shaving Blade

Holding a pen and jotting down the words

maybe the most divine thing

that slender fingers can do.

Or is it the strumming of a guitar?

But, sometimes they fail in doing

a mundane task as holding

a weightless ordinary shaving blade...

And, cut the bulging vien.

One more attempt in fiction

Full of possibilities....

Uncouth

He was literate according to the official statistics because he could write his name in his mother tongue and even in English using Capital letters. This was a thing to be proud of when you know that there are millions around you who used thumb impression wherever their signature was required. And, he took small pride in it. Economically too he had brought his immediate family a few notches higher than the people of his group, sending his three children to school and college, earning and investing in enough so that the children would inherit his legacy in equal proportion without any major disputes. His calculations for life and thereafter would have made any Chartered Accountant unashamedly become his disciple.

The Sense of an Ending

When you finish reading some books, they leave you depressed as if you went to drop a dear friend to the railway station still you feel that the train left before you'd say a proper goodbye. This is the same feeling you get when you finish reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes that has won the prestigious Booker Prize this year.

I'm not the person to discuss the literary merits or demerits of this deceptively thin book (about 150 pages only), as I'm not an avid reader (I feel lucky if I complete 5 books in a year), or comment on the controversy on whether it can be called a Novel or just a Novella. Seeing the size of the book I'd promised myself to finish reading it in a sitting taking 6 to 7 hours. But, it took me some 15 to 20 hours over a weekend with couple of meals and toilet breaks. And, I even had a couple of false starts when I stopped reading after the first 15 pages (I'd feared that the jinx of leaving the book incomplete with the bookmark intact had returned), before the lucky weekend.

This book mainly deals with memory. It shows how we mix it up with imagination to make our own history as years go by to make it comfortable for us to live with. And, how devastating it can be when the reality of the past confronts us breaking the spell of our imagined history.

The reason I told it is deceptively thin is because it isn't simple as its size may make you believe and if you are the kind of reader who likes to go over a passage a few times just to savour its feel or beauty may fail in the race against time. Here is one example appearing (about the passage of time) on the first page itself:

Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing – until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.

There are such nuggets virtually on every page that would stop and make you ponder for a while.

When I finished reading it, it just left me wishing that it was written a few years earlier. So, I could have avoided making a few mistakes that have remained with me as hurtful memories.

A couple of interesting and varied reviews here and here.

House of Cards

Life is always on I'll teach you a lesson son! gear, especially when you are feeling least vulnerable or feel a little high on confidence about tackling a situation (because you've been through similar things before and got out nearly undamaged in the past). It isn't about a warlike scenario or some extraordinary circumstances that I'm talking about, sometimes even going through your daily functions when you are at peace with yourself leave alone cheerful (oblivious of the fact that something may go wrong). This is the time it strikes; a bolt from the blue ( as the cliché goes), virtually pushing you to the brink.

You may have put a lifetime to train your mind to tackle such situations smoothly. But,at that moment everything seems to be falling apart like a House of Cards. Your faith, your belief just evaporate.

Eventually you survive, regroup, maybe a little bruised, maybe scarred. Because, you are programmed for self-preservation and to cheerfully continue the charade. 

Kaleidoscope

I found this passage in a long discarded story of mine (obviously because I found too much of me in it). This is also a tribute to one of first friends I made through blogs. His blog was titled Kaleidoscope, he has deleted his blog (for reasons that I cannot fathom), but, still he remains being one of my best friends and guide (as far as writing goes).

Hey friend, hope you revive your writing soon by whichever name you like.

Kaleidoscope is the word that reverberated in her head whenever she was with Rajan. It was not that she was good with allegories. For her everything was divided into two: Right-Wrong, Good-Bad, Like-Don’t Like or Love-Hate. Only a hyphen could fit in between and nothing else. Rajan was someone who rose above the two clearly divided portions of her mind. As a kaleidoscope was filled with broken pieces of glass, but would show colourful and vibrant images with a smooth jingle whichever way it turned, same way Rajan even with his deformed limbs and contorted face gave a sense of perfection and serenity to the world around him. The vibrancy he exuded was infectious, so was his humour.

The Ghost Writer

We may never judge a book by its cover because it is nailed into our heads even before we begin to learn the nursery rhymes. But, what happens when you have seen the film based on a book and that too a gripping one? You go to the book expecting to be in line with the film, maybe little clearer and the characters etched with more depth and empathy; that is all. No, not at all! You be ready to be surprised and even shocked as the book takes a totally different trajectory or to another realm.

This was the feeling I'd while reading  The Ghost Writer (the American imprint of The Ghost as published in the UK) by Robert Harris, which is adapted into a film by Roman Polanski.

The story is political thriller where a nameless London based ghost writer (the book is narrated in first person by the writer himself without ever letting out his real name), who is called into to finish the work on the memoirs of the former Prime Minister Adam Lang (a character said be based on Tony Blair), when the man working on them is found dead just a month before the deadline for submitting the manuscript to the publishers. So, the Ghost heads to the USA to be with Adam Lang and his team holed up in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the summer holiday home of the rich publisher Martin S. Rhinehart to finish the book. Obviously, the sailing isn't smooth as the Ghost had expected. First, the manuscript he has been given to work with is bland and needs overhauling. Second, Lang is very reluctant to open up about is youth and his years in Cambridge, and, there is discrepancy in what Lang says about his entry into politics and the actual version as the Writer finds out through his research. There is more to come in terms of thriller and conspiracy theory.

The film starring Pierce Brosnan as Adam Lang and Ewan McGregor in the title role is loyal to the book as far as the thriller part of the story.

But, what I loved about the book is the fact that at least half of it is a writer's manual, a ghost writer's manual to be precise without the dreaded 'Do it yourself' exercise with the process of writing dealt with in detail; from drawing the Contract to how to present yourself in front of your subject. Everyone of the seventeen chapters begins with a quote from Andrew Crofts' seminal book titled Ghostwriting thereby giving direction about how the story will move in the said chapter.

Couple of interesting passages from the book:

All good books are different but all bad books are exactly the same.

Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk's too big, the desk's too small, there is too much noise, there is too much quiet, it's too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply start.

A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and immediately it becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it's halfway to being just like every other bloody book that's ever been written. But the best must never be allowed to drive out the good. In the absence of genius there is always craftmanship. One can at least try to write something which will arrest the reader's attention – which will encourage them, after reading the first paragraph, to take a look at the second, and then the third.This in no way means that this book is very high funda or technical; it can be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in listening to a good story.

PS. Searching for this book was an experience in itself. It was last year in Bengaluru; I went into an upmarket book-store and asked for this book. At least half a dozen of sale-people converged around me and virtually emptied the whole of the 'Horror' section on my lap. Ma and my sister-in-law had a hard time explaining to them that I wasn't interested in horror stories but just wanted a novel titled The Ghost written by Robert Harris. In the end, they themselves had to dig it out from somewhere for me.

A Day When Jagjit Singh Did Playback For Me

We often feel exasperated when a writer or a filmmaker overly depends on coincidences to move his story forward thinking how lazy of him to use a 'beaten to death' cliché rather than working out something natural or new. But, if we see minutely; the one who has written our lives is the laziest of them all, he uses coincidences that go on to become cliché when used by us in fiction. Here is one such incident:

Long back when I wasn't this bald and my beard was black pepper without even a crystal of salt in it. I was sitting here reading and waiting for my dinner to come. The cassette-player was soulfully playing Seher, the latest addition in my Jagjit Singh Collection.

But, before the dinner, she came that too with a red rose in her hand; “don't get any ideas in your head, this may be the last birthday I'm here to wish you in person. So, felt odd coming empty handed”, she said, handing me the rose. I held it near my nose as Dilip Kumar of Mughal-E-Azam.

At that precise moment Jagjit Singh started singing Tere Aane Ki Jab Khabar Mahke/Teri Kushboo se Sara Ghar Mahke (When the news of your arrival wafts through the air/My whole house becomes fragrant with your scent).



I started to lip-synch him as if I was Naseeruddin Shah. After a few moments she just said trying to keep a straight face; “please save your singing and acting skills for the time when you have a real girlfriend”.

PS. Here are two old posts about Jagjit Singh.

A Fruitful Day

Yesterday (05/10/2011) for me began on a low note (not the typical 'mood swing' kind of low, but the 'end of the road' kind of low). One good thing about such days is that you tend to love whatever that can keep your mind occupied. So, these kind of days do have a positive side to them, you begin to feel the importance of the things that you'd push away on a normal day.

For me, I reduced the heap of newspapers on my table by at least 250 grams (the pile of newspapers on my keeps increasing unless I mark them as 'Read'). Reread the first fifty of a best-seller that I am intending to finish for a long while now. And, at the end, watched Whose Life Is It Anyway?. It may not feel the right kind of film to see when you are low. But, let me assure you that it can be an uplifting experience if your perspective is right.

I had started this post on the morning of 06/10/11 to mark the Vidyāraṃbhaṃ, but couldn't complete it as other mundane things got priority over writing a blog post.