Enna solli Azhaithaal, Varuvaayo?

I will always remember...

• That walkman by his ear, singing to him in all intensity, the panthuvarali ragam...and many other ragams, the depth of which I will never understand the way he did...such love for carnatic music.
  
• His unfailing faith...a gift not many are blessed with...
• The three stripes of grey vibuthi eternally on his forehead...
• His love for coffee, and rasam made with the apt amount of perungaayam...
• His teethy smile...
• His willingness to be photographed! No fusses about wearing santa caps or birthday hats for the picture... just that smile, time and again...
• His childish excitement, each time he wore a new shirt...The way he squeezed the oil out of a vaazhakaai bajji using a dinamalar newspaper, claiming it absorbs much better than the english newspapers!
• His Mandira bedi and Kareena Kapoor fancy!
• His hilarious comments on every actor and politician...like he was the representative of 'tea-kadai-bench' for Upasana!
• His everyday NDTV profit stock market checks...
• How he spoke to me about a particular part of a book again and again, each time sounding like he was telling me about it for the first time...
• His stories from travels around south india, and the awesome food he ate back then - Oru dosai, Oru Kaapi :)
• How he was so bad at Maths...he managed to score in geometry, but hated algebra...and always talked about the 'maadu mekara' problem, where he had to calculate the circumfrence of a field based on the distance a cow tethered to a post walked around it!
• The million times he mentioned that Paati got more marks than him in 12th std!
• His love for Badam Halwa, and digestive biscuits... plain milk chocolate and little bits of velam...
• Dining table conversations with him, and the brothers...about how they're all meant to marry only Iyers, Iyengars or Rao's! :)
• His absolute non-necessity for the air-conditioning...! And his claims about feeling cold under the fan in the hot Chennai weather!
• His tech-saviness! Good enough to read gossip on 'kumudam reporter' on the internet!
• Him being paranoid about locking the house every night!
• Him closing his mouth with his hand saying 'vaai ilaa poochi' after passing some mocking comment about someone, or after saying something not entirely appropriate about the taste of the food at the table! Aah... an everyday act which always called for laughter, and attempts to provoke him to say more, much to Paati's wrath!
• His rare attempt to help in cooking! Which went as far as holding the dosai thiruppi...and once, somewhere close to chopping spinach!
• His idea of getting rid of the 'bangu' notes first! (the 10Rs bills that were torn and old!)
• His wonderful knack of never forcing an issue...never imposing his opinion...or giving his advice... unless he thinks it is called for...
• The influence he has had in 8 very important years of my life...

S. Arunachalam Iyer. My grandfather. The best thatha ever... I cannot describe what exactly thinking of him reminds me of... partly awe for the way he lived his life, and influenced others around him...admiration...smiles...and the lingering sadness, that all we have of him now are these thoughts and some photographs...But even now, I can hear the echo of his voice... of him calling Paati 'Thaaye'...saying his usual 'Ramaa nannu brovara'...trying to sing a part of some Maharajapuram Santhanam Aalaapanai... Upasana will never be the same. We will never be the same...Love you forever. And so the breeze shall sing your song... and we shall reminisce. Cry. Smile. And live on...

Say a little prayer for you...

Kulir Mazhai Kaakka kudai piditha Giridhari...Enna solli Azhaithaal, varuvayo?

Yours "Sarvogya, Brahmarpanamasthu" ly
Signing off...

Melancholy...and Endless-ness

For a long time now, I have believed that I belong to the category of people who are easily vanquished by the sadness in a song, a book or a movie... rather than the happiness. Sometimes, it almost feels like the happiness imparted by a medium like that is fleeting, but the sadness is not. The sadness tugs at your sleeve, throws an invisible blanket around your heart, leaves you staring into nothingness through misty eyes...and eventually, remains in your mind with that big sigh you heave in that long breath. Its like a melancholic breeze...that lingers...that follows you.

Most of mankind has been designed to constantly adapt. How else do we deal with loss? With change? How else do we live on? That's why we learn to get comfortable...to embrace the unexpected...to find happiness in what we have, and be thankful for it. That's why we have the ability to see layers of complexity in an issue sometimes, but smile at the real simplicity of it all, some other time. And so it shall be, that the people we know, and love, will remain both our lucid waters, and our unsolvable puzzles... and this was beautifully depicted in two movies, in very different ways.

Aniruddha Roy Chowdry's Antaheen and Aparna Sen's The Japanese Wife. The only two Bengali movies I have watched till date... both telling stories of relationships...and how their complexity, or the absence of it, can depend solely on the people involved.

Antaheen, set in the backdrop of busy (or not-so-busy) lives in a city, beautifully depicts a scenario alot of people may be able to relate to today... an outward facade of acceptance, with an inherent knowledge that one is in denial...is living a farce. The Japanese wife is like an intricate painting of life in different shades of grey...each brush stroke depicting helplessness and poverty...and yet, amazing simplicity. It is mildly teasing to realise the striking similarities amidst all the differences. One movie depicts marriage as a complex web of perspectives...and misunderstandings...the answer being separation. The second movie on the other hand portrays how simple a marriage could be, if all that matters is an understanding, and all that is required is an acknowledgement. The first movie outlines the complexity of relationships through a young couple conversing through the internet, clearly in love, hesitating to reveal their identities or their feelings to each other, for the fear of losing it all... while the second movie asserts the possible simplicity of relationships by telling a story of two people who for sheer love, marry each other through letters, and remain so till the end. However, both movies tell of endless waits...for love. And how sometimes we wait a tad too long... and its all gone.

In Antaheen, the melancholy is of people... caught in the web of their thoughts. In Aparna Sen's brave, independent outside... and an inside yearning to go back to her separated husband, who now portrays himself to be cynical and bitter... In Sharmila Tagore's life of singlehood, brought about by phone conversations that suddenly stopped... In Rahul Bose's and Radhika Apte's solace in strangers...In the orange kite, stuck in the antenna... In the wait, that almost ended... but didn't. In the sad truth that life goes on... and if we wait too long, we learn to live with the losses...and the memories the breeze brings.

In the Japanese wife, the melancholy is three fold. There's poverty, helplessness, and... people. There's melancholy in the beauty of the Matla river...and in its unfortunate potential for destruction...there's melancholy in the simplicity of the marriage that binds two quiet, shy people... In a widow's attempt to conceal her beauty, her feelings, her fears... In a poor man's quest to cure the cancer eating his wife...a wife he has never laid eyes on...There's melancholy in the Japanese woman clad in a white saree, holding a white umbrella, showing the world her shaved head...her symbol of devotion to her dead husband... the one she loved, and lived to see... but as fate would have it, never saw. Melancholy... in the japanese kites flying high in the blue indian skies... In a pair of hand-knitted socks that imparted snug happiness...

Thus continues my endless liking for such movies... some melancholy...some bitter-sweet-ness... some smiles... but finally, a blank stare... an irony... a realisation that everything... is personal.

Ajo ache gopon, Pherari mon…
Beje gechhe kakhon, Se telephone…

(The wild escaping mind is still concealed...
When has that telephone ever rung?)

Ps: Please feel free to correct that Bengali translation... I got it off the net :)

Yours " Class...."ly
Signing off...

Saffron

I read somewhere that the mark of a good book is that it changes every time you read it. I do not know if the same can be said for movies. Some movies drag you back to them, repeatedly, mostly the funny ones, the feel-good ones. Then, there are the other movies, that you do not want to watch more than once. You do not want the impact the movie had on you to change because you have changed. But when you do end up watching a movie like that again, and when you realise that it hits you the same way as it did a few years back, it is an inexplicable feeling...of awe.

I give you Rang De Basanti. Revelations. Causes. Bouts of happiness, all through with a mild undercurrent of poignancy. And eventually, a sad smile, and a lonely tear.

I have read too many posts in the recent past about Rahman's genius, about how he is god, and about how he's always experimenting. So, I shall refrain from talking about him as such. But what his music does to this movie...is something else.

The goosebumps start at Tu bin Bataye. The perfect setting to make anyone yearn for a bunch of friends like that...to make any girl wish she had the look Sonia has in her eyes with her perfect man...to make one wish he/she was throwing leaves down at the happy couple with the rest of the gang. The song is as dream-like as reality can get... floaty bliss... you can't stop smiling at these young people who want to do nothing other than be in each other's company, and savor small nothings in life. Yet at the end of it, when you see seven blurry figures lost in their own world walking arms-around-shoulders into that sunset...your heart grows heavier, and you know that what is easily the happiest moment of the movie, is, but a classic calm before the storm. Mishri ki dali, zindagi ho chali...

Rahman then gives us Luka Chuppi. Prasoon Joshi gives us Luka Chuppi. As if the music of the second half was meant to compete with that of the first half. Wonderfully portrayed. The indian flag folded, and the pistol-shots into the sky...the teary-eyed faces sobbing through the smoke...the white...the devasted mother, hollow eyed, with loss etched all over her face, almost collapsing at the sight of her dead son's trunk...the girl, having lost the man she was meant to marry, pulls out a picture of both of them from his diary...

Kya bataoon maa kahan hoon main, Yahaan udney ko mere khula aasmaan hai...

And then there is fire, burning hard in the eyes of those that care...those who want justice...those that for the first time in their lives, have a cause to believe in, and fight for. Khoon chala adds to the shivers...with the candles and the crowd, the unreasonable assault on believers and the blood shed...and most of all, with each trying to protect the other.

When I watched this movie for the first time, almost 4 years back, one line stayed in my head for a very long time. Sonia's 'Maar dalo...'. And so she said the words... and as friends avenging the death of the best man they ever knew, they found their justice in murder.

And they do not stop there. They tell their fellow citizens what they did, and why they did it. They throw themselves out in the open, ready to face anything, having fulfilled their purpose. And what better than the ascending notes of Robaroo to wrap up the elation neatly? Again, Prasoon Joshi's lyrics can't get better. He says it all by saying so little... DJ dropping his gun in finality, Karan's pain-filled expression relieved in that first hug, and as he looks into DJ's eyes at suraj ko mein nigal gaya...Laxman breaking into tears while hugging Aslam at wo loha tha pighal gaya... beautifully crafted scene, like the director did not want to waste a single word from the song...so carefully overlayed... Sheer brilliance.

And then comes the end... as they die one by one...and we're left with nothing but the echoes of their laughter in our ears. And they walk together from the lush green field into the white light... Its over. They fought for their cause...and in their heads, they won. And how! And you...are left staring at the titles, wondering what really hit you...

I said nothing about the over-lapping freedom struggle portion of this movie...the clever screenplay...and how each one of these students become the character they enact for Su's documentary. It seems so seamlessly done... one could go on and on.

I love this movie more than I did before. I love the music, more than most of Rahman's other albums. Maybe that's because the songs have been stitched so well into the script, that when you listen to them, you are instantly reminded of how the actual scence made you feel, and you love it even more. The simplicity of the lyrics complements every song, every scene...it just makes one so happy to see such good effort, such meticulous balancing...such genius in cinema...and nonetheless, what we always ache for - Inspiration.

Paint it Saffron.

Yours "Chaaya liya bhali dhoop yahaan hai..."ly
Signing off...

Arziyaan

When music fails to reach the depth of your being...and your ears refuse to acknowledge the sweet song of the breeze...close your eyes. And let me be your melody, in all silence...in all blackness.

When shadows of the bygones seem to jeer at you from the sidelines...and ambiguity of the forthcoming leaves an abominable splash of despair in your perturbed skies...Let me be your rainbow...your dash of colour. Your hope.

When questions swallow you into their whirlwind of complexity...and answers fancy eloping on the chariots of elusion... Let me be your momentary lapse of reason. Your flash of nothingness, that changes it all.

When yesterday is long gone, and tomorrow has finally come...when the spark has returned, and your need to see the light overcomes your fear to let the hidden flame flare...lock in that aching embrace. And let me be that single tear at the corner of your eye. Let me be the memory that will slowly fade.

When you're strolling along your familiar pathway at dusk...and the rays from the west make those silver streaks gleam crimson and yellow ... lift your eyes to that sunset. And let me be your sigh. Let me be your smile. Let me be the reflection of that horizon, stealing daylight from all around...only to give you a sky of sparkling stars.

When the river of hope has been quenched in all ruthlessness...or when serenity surrounds you like a warm blanket of content...look up to the stars. And let me be the one that will fall down slowly from the heavens, for you to wish upon. Let me be the promise. Let me be the love. Let me be...the end.


Arziyaan saari main,
Chehre pe likh ke laaya hoon,
Tum se kya maangu main,
Tum khud hi samajh lo...


Yours "Daraarein Daraarein hain maathe pe maula..."ly
Signing off...

The Eye of the...

From where comes this sudden calm...? One wonders, if the storm now tired of raging, decided to fade away...or the waters lay still, awaiting the wildest of tempests. And the unnatural tranquility persists... in the unstirring air...in the soundless night...in the languid glimmer of the crescent moon...in the lone red star surrounded by a galaxy of white sparkling stars... in the single line that stands right out of a beautiful song... in the simplicity of a melody, that sounded unreasonably complex before the calm...always reflecting the mind.

Why comes this clarity...? Only when boundaries are stretched...only when the mind is disillusioned into futile pursuits...only when vestiges of pledges to the self, allure, but mockingly...only when the horizon beckons, full of promises never to be...promises a tad too late...a tad too early.

With what comes this new found hope? With the aching truth of the words that came from the believer's mouth...or the guarded embrace that brought a myriad of heartbreaks out into that fateful lament...or the finality of an almost lost cause?

Now what? Does the gamble continue to let that see-saw see all means of parallelism? Is it going to be a yes, or a no, or is it going to be much more? Does the breeze blow one way, and make you sway...and sway...and sway? Is that assymetrical slant going to light up all the silver, or blur it all out? Is 'poetry' just not in the equation anymore? If the seeds don't grow, and the ship doesn't stow, should the river still flow where the current goes? And will the river banks hold on in all patience?

Poetry...feeling it. Wanting it. Cherishing it. Welcoming it. Embracing it. And holding on to it, for time everlasting.

No fair trade...

Songs for the moment - Aaromale.

Kalalenaa...kanneerena...?

Yours "Did they get you to trade... your heroes for ghosts?"ly
Signing off...