Once upon a time, she met a secret in a corner. She didn't know what to do with it, so she carried it with her everywhere. Then one day, it threatened to consume her from inside. So she took a chance, and whispered the secret to a dead tree. The tree spoke to the wind, and the wind blurted it out to the mountain over evening tea. The mountain told it to the river in jest, and the river ran to tell the pebble...so that when she met the pebble next, the pebble called her the evil one, and accused her of stealing his spirit away.
She has been scared of secrets since then.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Look Mommy! No Goosbumps!
So, by now one is guessing pretty much everyone in this country has seen Zoom's new version of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara and hated it. Everyone, with a TV or access to cable television, and time to care that is. A lot of lucky people one knows, just gave the whole hoopla a miss. But then, a good number of these lucky people would give life a miss, if they could (one is always amazed how a lot of people can go through life in a somnolent haze, it's a marvel of the modern times. Or not). Anyways, one digresses from one's original rant about the horror of epic proportions that the Times of India Group so creatively called "Phir Mile Sur".
One really feels bad for Rahul Gandhi at this point. The video pretty much has every progeny that made big by carrying daddy's glorious name to further heights, and our man, the poster boy for dynasty politics, was left out. The video was so horribly wrong in so many different ways, one does not really see why Times could not have gone ahead and have had him also.
Perhaps, for most of us, who grew up around the late 80s-early 90s the new version is so hard to digest because we associate a certain part of our early life with the original song. Less than a month ago, one spent a happy evening with Gee, looking up all these DD things--Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video, the Baje Sargam song, the ek-chidiya bit, and that Pyar ki Ganga Bahe song and on and on--on YouTube and feeling elated. It was like looking at old albums (the ones that have photographs, and not songs in them)...you kind of remember not just the photos, but how you once were. It's like finding an old faded pieces of yourself.
As a kid one considered oneself very patriotic--one was the kind who passionately delivered speeches for every other Republic Day and Independence Day assembly in school, who meant every word of her "Why I love India" type essays etc etc. One remembers once when one was in 3rd standard, how upset one was because one could not get hold of a tiny paper flag to pin up to one's shirt pocket. One sincerely believed that this was part of the I-day protocol, and one will be considered a second-grade citizen for not having one. one almost felt guilty eating the free laddoo they'd distributed at school...one had to earn that, and without wearing one's patriotism on one's pocket (not sleeve), one certainly had not.
For that kid, Mile Sur meant something. One honestly believed in the whole idea of unity in diversity, one believed that India did indeed have one voice. Even though, growing up, one learns the hard way that along with Santa Clause and Maveli and the Abominable Snowman, a lot of these theories and feelings are just myth and gas, but then there is that child-alter of yours who wants to hold on to them still. Which is why, you still hope for some joy and wine for Christmas and stay up till 3 in the morning to make a pookalam the day before onam. Which is why when you hear Mile Sur Mera Tumhara after some 15 odd years, and see those hundreds of children dressed in green, white and saffron running ahead, you still get goosebumps. And which exactly why, you will hate the new version so much (one WILL NOT call it Phir Mile Sur, unless one is aiming for sarcasm, which right now, one is not).
The new version just pulled the ugly reality which was lurking at the back of your head, and shove it right in your face. It will tell you, that, "Ha! There is NO real India" --not one that belongs to the "real people" anyways. What was then was a media myth, what is today, is also a media myth, only a less romantic one. The "real India" today, has movie stars (and stars, not necessarily actors) as their social idols, has your surname for your ticket to succeed. The "real India" does not care if you work namelessly to train the rural illiterate to harness solar energy, you will still need Shilpa Shetty in a see-through saree to get you in the frame.
The old version still could fit 3 major actors of their time together in one 5 second frame, the new one, each actor needed his own airtime, his own frame, even his own tune. The only people who agreed to share screen space were the children (or were they only the "charity projects"?) and the defense personnel at the end.
So is one surprised? Honestly, no. But one is angry. Because one would have wanted to hold on to one's delusions a bit longer. Because one would still prefer goosebumps to retching disgust.
(If you haven't already, you must, must read Krish Ashok here . Actually, you must, MUST read him here first. Go. NOW.
One really feels bad for Rahul Gandhi at this point. The video pretty much has every progeny that made big by carrying daddy's glorious name to further heights, and our man, the poster boy for dynasty politics, was left out. The video was so horribly wrong in so many different ways, one does not really see why Times could not have gone ahead and have had him also.
Perhaps, for most of us, who grew up around the late 80s-early 90s the new version is so hard to digest because we associate a certain part of our early life with the original song. Less than a month ago, one spent a happy evening with Gee, looking up all these DD things--Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video, the Baje Sargam song, the ek-chidiya bit, and that Pyar ki Ganga Bahe song and on and on--on YouTube and feeling elated. It was like looking at old albums (the ones that have photographs, and not songs in them)...you kind of remember not just the photos, but how you once were. It's like finding an old faded pieces of yourself.
As a kid one considered oneself very patriotic--one was the kind who passionately delivered speeches for every other Republic Day and Independence Day assembly in school, who meant every word of her "Why I love India" type essays etc etc. One remembers once when one was in 3rd standard, how upset one was because one could not get hold of a tiny paper flag to pin up to one's shirt pocket. One sincerely believed that this was part of the I-day protocol, and one will be considered a second-grade citizen for not having one. one almost felt guilty eating the free laddoo they'd distributed at school...one had to earn that, and without wearing one's patriotism on one's pocket (not sleeve), one certainly had not.
For that kid, Mile Sur meant something. One honestly believed in the whole idea of unity in diversity, one believed that India did indeed have one voice. Even though, growing up, one learns the hard way that along with Santa Clause and Maveli and the Abominable Snowman, a lot of these theories and feelings are just myth and gas, but then there is that child-alter of yours who wants to hold on to them still. Which is why, you still hope for some joy and wine for Christmas and stay up till 3 in the morning to make a pookalam the day before onam. Which is why when you hear Mile Sur Mera Tumhara after some 15 odd years, and see those hundreds of children dressed in green, white and saffron running ahead, you still get goosebumps. And which exactly why, you will hate the new version so much (one WILL NOT call it Phir Mile Sur, unless one is aiming for sarcasm, which right now, one is not).
The new version just pulled the ugly reality which was lurking at the back of your head, and shove it right in your face. It will tell you, that, "Ha! There is NO real India" --not one that belongs to the "real people" anyways. What was then was a media myth, what is today, is also a media myth, only a less romantic one. The "real India" today, has movie stars (and stars, not necessarily actors) as their social idols, has your surname for your ticket to succeed. The "real India" does not care if you work namelessly to train the rural illiterate to harness solar energy, you will still need Shilpa Shetty in a see-through saree to get you in the frame.
The old version still could fit 3 major actors of their time together in one 5 second frame, the new one, each actor needed his own airtime, his own frame, even his own tune. The only people who agreed to share screen space were the children (or were they only the "charity projects"?) and the defense personnel at the end.
So is one surprised? Honestly, no. But one is angry. Because one would have wanted to hold on to one's delusions a bit longer. Because one would still prefer goosebumps to retching disgust.
(If you haven't already, you must, must read Krish Ashok here . Actually, you must, MUST read him here first. Go. NOW.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Stream of Unconsciousness
Where do lost dreams go? Do they slowly melt into nothingness, or do they, like prayers, keep traveling around the world? One likes to think they are like free souls, they wander till they can find a new being to latch on to. May be that is why we all have the same dreams. May be that is why we all have strange dreams.
It is that time of the year again...when one takes stock of one's life and then refuses to decide if one likes what one sees or not. Resolutions are a thing of past, one gave up making them long ago. You see, resolutions demand some pretence of action and effort. One prefers to dream, and hope...one can always pass on the responsibility of those to fate, or Providence or parents or partners or the company or the next-door-neighbor. Anything to shrug responsibility, anything at all.
One is always overcome by a tinge of inexplicable sadness on New Year's eve. If one is alone, that is the gripe--the disgust and loathing with/at felt at the thought of ringing in the New Year (with a capital N and a capital Y) with bad television. If one is with a bunch of friends, it is always the problem of whom to hug and wish first, if to hug and wish anyone at all. Why do we make a big deal of it anyways? It's not like anything is going to change just because we change a digit or two in the dateline. One still has to go back to work Monday morning.
New beginnings are such a myth. Or maybe it's just the wannabe cynic in one talking. And here one was, thinking one was the optimist. Maybe one is. (Or maybe like everyone else, one is just confused)
2010 should be fun still. One will have a new sister-in-law to look forward to. The now extended family should be fun. One also has the time to be spend at home running around for a much-looked forward to wedding of the much-loved (and the only) brother--which one thinks is an excellent excellent way of beginning any year. However, there is also the cringe-inducing parading of self as the "next-in-line" thing. And middle-aged aunties pulling cheek and saying "now that your line is clear, we should not wait any longer to get you married" thing. Ah well. Collateral damages. One might as well pretend to have made one's peace with it.
One is guessing the next year should give one ample topics to write about. One can almost see a book title "Attempts to Get One Married and Other Horror Stories". Maybe one should start approaching publishers. If one is going to suffer, might as well make some money out of it.
One is hoping to put more posts in 2009 still, so one will defer wishing one's dwindling readership a happy new year (referring to one's readership as dwindling, gives one the false reassurance that one had a substantial readership to begin with. Ah, there is comfort in denial yet).
It is that time of the year again...when one takes stock of one's life and then refuses to decide if one likes what one sees or not. Resolutions are a thing of past, one gave up making them long ago. You see, resolutions demand some pretence of action and effort. One prefers to dream, and hope...one can always pass on the responsibility of those to fate, or Providence or parents or partners or the company or the next-door-neighbor. Anything to shrug responsibility, anything at all.
One is always overcome by a tinge of inexplicable sadness on New Year's eve. If one is alone, that is the gripe--the disgust and loathing with/at felt at the thought of ringing in the New Year (with a capital N and a capital Y) with bad television. If one is with a bunch of friends, it is always the problem of whom to hug and wish first, if to hug and wish anyone at all. Why do we make a big deal of it anyways? It's not like anything is going to change just because we change a digit or two in the dateline. One still has to go back to work Monday morning.
New beginnings are such a myth. Or maybe it's just the wannabe cynic in one talking. And here one was, thinking one was the optimist. Maybe one is. (Or maybe like everyone else, one is just confused)
2010 should be fun still. One will have a new sister-in-law to look forward to. The now extended family should be fun. One also has the time to be spend at home running around for a much-looked forward to wedding of the much-loved (and the only) brother--which one thinks is an excellent excellent way of beginning any year. However, there is also the cringe-inducing parading of self as the "next-in-line" thing. And middle-aged aunties pulling cheek and saying "now that your line is clear, we should not wait any longer to get you married" thing. Ah well. Collateral damages. One might as well pretend to have made one's peace with it.
One is guessing the next year should give one ample topics to write about. One can almost see a book title "Attempts to Get One Married and Other Horror Stories". Maybe one should start approaching publishers. If one is going to suffer, might as well make some money out of it.
One is hoping to put more posts in 2009 still, so one will defer wishing one's dwindling readership a happy new year (referring to one's readership as dwindling, gives one the false reassurance that one had a substantial readership to begin with. Ah, there is comfort in denial yet).
Saturday, October 31, 2009
This and That
I miss blogging. So much that I think I am beginning to make a conscious effort to get back to writing. I miss those friends I made here. I miss the comfort of writing. I miss the joy in the realisation that I have been read.
I don't know how many times and with how many friends I have debated the purpose and pointlessness in blogging. I think we blog for the same reason that we get into relationships, or get married--because we simply want to share some tiny part of our lives with others. Not because our life has been great or consequential to the world and the grand scheme of things, but because our life has been lived. We want someone to be our witness, someone to acknowledge that we existed, that we lived. And when we cease to be, we want our life to be validated in that memory of us that is stored in the other's mind.
Perhaps, it is that validation that I miss.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Complications Aj Kal
Yeah yeah, so you guessed it, I am going to be talking about Love Aj Kal. Eventually.
Meanwhile...life has been, well...lifey. It's all been wonderfully busy and banal that I don't find a single thing to sit down and blog about. Unless you count out my newly acquired obsessive compulsive need to play Typing Maniac on Facebook at least 17 times a day. For a person who can neither spell nor type, it is amazing why I would even like the thing, let alone be pathologically addicted to it (in case my employers see this, the previous line is inserted only and only for its comic value, and is really no where near the truth. I have excellent typing skills and my spelling powers are what give Oxford English Dictionary so many sleepless nights).
But well, life as an almost grown up does weird things to you. And I have had to be horribly grown up the last few days. I even get back from work and cook dinner. Please to be noted, I said COOK. Not eat, not order, COOK. But the frugal life of a single working woman does come with some perks. Access to fast internet, for starters. Weekend movies for another. And if you still have a little bit of Culture Studies hangover, the inability to watch a film without being able to analyze it to bits. Even though the last one is not much of a perk.
It was with this baggage that I watched Love Aj Kal. As movies go, I think I have seen worse. It was not a bad film, in fact it has got all the ingredients for a minor multiplex hit--hot looking leads, who play characters with cool jobs and inconsequential families, and a no-frills take on love relationships. So, then what? Then it is the same old, same old. The meet, they make out, they go their separate ways, and then discover that their happy place is in each others arms, thus reaching the bottomline, “ one true love theory: hence proved”. Finis. Everyone goes home happy.
After watching Love Aj Kal, we (me and the fellow boarders of the house) went ahead to watch Socha Na Tha. It was after that that the AHA! Moment hit. I like Imtiaz Ali films, they are smart, classy and very urban. And with the exception of Jab We Met has these enlightened females patiently waiting for the guy to grow up and realise that they are in love. Nice, but that is not what the aforementioned AHA moment is about. One could almost argue that they are not moralistic. But there, lies the subtlety of the man (The man in question being Imtiaz Ali. Try to keep up, will you?). It is in the realisation that he is not really breaking new ground, or saying new things in his films. He is, in fact, only selling very old wine in newer bottles (This adage is essentially meaningless, you realise that? How is that a bad thing for the buyers, if someone is selling old wine in new bottles? Doesn’t wine get better with age? So shouldn’t old wine in new bottles be a steal? But before you accuse me of digressing...)
Look at Socha Nah Tha...it's a film about essentially nothing--at the end of the day, Viren and Aditi go through all that trouble, confusion and Goa trips, for what? So that they can get married to exactly the same person that their families originally wanted them to get married to. So with Jab We Met. The dadaji says the kids are in love, and in love the kids are finally. And then we have Jai and Meera, the latest caricatures of Love 2.0, the modern age man/boy and woman/girl. They are smart, sexy and very career oriented. But eventually they decide to that love and marriage is after all what matters, careers be dammed. The film began and ended at the same place...they spilt because their work did not allow them to be in the same country. At the end of the film they walk away hand in hand into tall grass, but what about the bridges half-built in San Fransisco and frescoes half dusted in Old Delhi? Collateral damage of true love, I guess.
So as Gee summed up in her usual lucid fashion, our man Imtiaz Ali is only a more intelligent version of Karan Johar. But given that Karan Johar makes considerably more money than Imtiaz Ali, the word I'd use is probably subtle. Either ways, his films are funner. And much easier on the eye ;)
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Between the two of us
"You know this won't work. This thing, between us. I love you, but it won't work"
"Stop repeating the same thing. I know it won't work. I know there is no future for us, and yes, I know that both of us have too much baggage. But you know what? That still does not change anything for me. I love you. I don't have anything to do with your past, and I know I can have no part of your future. But what we have today, I want that to be mine. Is that asking for too much?"
"Stop repeating the same thing. I know it won't work. I know there is no future for us, and yes, I know that both of us have too much baggage. But you know what? That still does not change anything for me. I love you. I don't have anything to do with your past, and I know I can have no part of your future. But what we have today, I want that to be mine. Is that asking for too much?"
---
"Listen...we have to talk..."
"You are leaving"
"Yes"
"But why? I told you I forgave you! You cheated on me, but I still forgave you. I took you back, and now..."
"That's just it! You forgave me. You didn't get angry, you didn't shout. You cried your quite tears, and then decided to forgive me. I can't live with that. I can't look into your eyes and see all that hurt and broken trust...if I stay, it will drive me insane"
"You saw the hurt and broken trust...but apparently you can't see the love that is still there"
"That's the problem, I will never feel whole again"
"Listen...we have to talk..."
"You are leaving"
"Yes"
"But why? I told you I forgave you! You cheated on me, but I still forgave you. I took you back, and now..."
"That's just it! You forgave me. You didn't get angry, you didn't shout. You cried your quite tears, and then decided to forgive me. I can't live with that. I can't look into your eyes and see all that hurt and broken trust...if I stay, it will drive me insane"
"You saw the hurt and broken trust...but apparently you can't see the love that is still there"
"That's the problem, I will never feel whole again"
---
"This has to stop"
"I know"
"We can't keep doing this, to us, to the people who love us. They, at least, deserve better."
"But what about us? Don't we deserve to live this love?"
"We should have thought of that 2 years ago...before we got married"
"But I still love you"
"I know. But we can't keep meeting once a year like this for the sex and the realization of how incomplete and broken our lives really are. We are now parts of two different wholes..."
"I wish..."
"Yeah...so do I."
I wanted to write this as a he-said-she-said kind of a thing, but when I actually started writing, it made more sense this way. This, in a very rudimentary and crude way, is my first attempt at fiction. While there may be liberal influence of reality (and not always just my reality), no one thing is based on any one real event. Any inference or similarity, may or may not be intentional, but will always remain anonymous ;)
You may now proceed to pass judgment. Or leave comment. Or not. Whatever. (appears not to care by whistling to nothingness in a nonchalant-ish fashion, while hiding her crossed fingers underneath her table)
"I know"
"We can't keep doing this, to us, to the people who love us. They, at least, deserve better."
"But what about us? Don't we deserve to live this love?"
"We should have thought of that 2 years ago...before we got married"
"But I still love you"
"I know. But we can't keep meeting once a year like this for the sex and the realization of how incomplete and broken our lives really are. We are now parts of two different wholes..."
"I wish..."
"Yeah...so do I."
---
"So you've made up your mind about this"
"Yes. I have"
"But why him?"
"Because I see a future with him, damn it!"
"Yeah, a future. Something you never saw with me"
"We've been through this before. I like you. I really do. I may even be in love with you. But we'll never work out. We're too alike, too unstable"
"Yeah, and that similarity was enough to give us one night, but not half a chance at a lifetime together, huh?"
"There are other things--things like, stability, like balance, compatibility..."
"Yeah...fuck that too."
"Yes. I have"
"But why him?"
"Because I see a future with him, damn it!"
"Yeah, a future. Something you never saw with me"
"We've been through this before. I like you. I really do. I may even be in love with you. But we'll never work out. We're too alike, too unstable"
"Yeah, and that similarity was enough to give us one night, but not half a chance at a lifetime together, huh?"
"There are other things--things like, stability, like balance, compatibility..."
"Yeah...fuck that too."
---
I wanted to write this as a he-said-she-said kind of a thing, but when I actually started writing, it made more sense this way. This, in a very rudimentary and crude way, is my first attempt at fiction. While there may be liberal influence of reality (and not always just my reality), no one thing is based on any one real event. Any inference or similarity, may or may not be intentional, but will always remain anonymous ;)
You may now proceed to pass judgment. Or leave comment. Or not. Whatever. (appears not to care by whistling to nothingness in a nonchalant-ish fashion, while hiding her crossed fingers underneath her table)
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