Those little rituals

The first time I saw them, their interaction was friendly, social. They looked happy, and it made me smile. The second time I saw them, it was exactly like the first time. It seemed odd.  The same loud laugh, the same handshake, and the same excitement. When I saw them yet again, a third time, I realized that the interaction was a daily ritual. Maybe a weekly ritual, I don't really know.

The train sounded its annoyingly loud horn as it came to a halt. People queued up by the doors, careful not to push, and climbed down the stairs one by one. The passengers getting on and off the train were quite a crowd - most rushing to their cars or their pick-ups, others hurriedly boarding. Some, who had the extra few seconds, noticed them. The short and stout man wearing a hat and sunglasses stood by the bench at the end of the platform.  He yelled in excitement, and waved to the stationary train. From the very front of the train, from a very high compartment, a second taller man, probably the engineer on-board, opened a door. He descended two steps and with one arm holding onto the door, he flung the other out, to share a strong boyish handshake with the man who waved. They both shared a loud laugh. The second taller man then climbed back in, the train announced its departure with the blaring horn again, and left. The man on the platform, childishly ecstatic, watched as the train pulled out, still waving.

They could be old friends. They could be related. For all I know, they could have known each other all their lives. But in my head, they are perfect strangers. Perfect strangers who by some inexplicable way  have gotten into the habit of greeting each other, and sharing a few seconds of loud and obvious happiness. Maybe that right there, is a perfect relationship.

Of course that was a fleeting thought, and once I walked past them, I quickly got distracted by the lovely cherry blossoms, and the traffic view on my phone. However, today, while I drove back home, almost gliding on the highway at a single pace, the sunset on one side, the new spring flowers on the other, I thought about little rituals - the ones you keep, and the ones you miss. Like sending post-cards from across the world. Like buttered toast with honey and cinnamon on Saturday mornings. Like leaving a co-worker a 'happy Friday' note every single Friday. Like greeting each other every evening with a fresh shortbread cookie :)

 My family and friends have embraced my obsession for the colour green for long, and gifts in green have sort of become a little ritual. Thanks Niv for the wonderful handmade green bookmark! And of course, the book - I flipped through it, and it looks like a dream. I can't wait to read it, but at the same time, I never want to be done with it :)

Yours "sprezzatura"ly
signing off...

The forgotten song

I'm cheating this time. This one's a mix of a lot of previous ones. I wrote it a while back (or compiled it, maybe) and thought I should put it up. But mostly, its something that came out of a re-visit to the soul stirring Confluence of Elements by Bombay Jayashri.

....................................................................................................................

...sounds like dew drops in the morning...

She heard an echo inside her head and opened her eyes. It was still pitch dark. The sound of moving vehicles filled her ears. She had moved into a house near the highway and soon got used to the noise. But what about the silence inside her? Was she getting used to that too? She didn’t want to think about it. She sat up and opened her eyes wider. They pierced the darkness and looked ahead into...nothingness - an empty room, empty walls, and empty shelves, all reflecting her emptiness. She did not want to think of that either. She opened her window and stared up into the heavens. The clouds were moving lazily, engulfing the stars with their transparent greyness, and the wind was swishing swiftly, as if beckoning the drizzle to join it on a mysterious odyssey. It all looked like some sort of celestial dance to music she couldn’t really hear. She thought she was being teased by the forces of nature. She closed her eyes, and her face remained tilted towards the open skies, as if she were awaiting the return of the breeze. She thought she could finally hear the music...the melancholies of broken promises and broken hearts, of unwritten poems and unsung songs.

...sounds like dew drops in the morning...

The words hit her again, this time with a fresh dose of nostalgia, of happier times, when there was music in place of the silence. She could not lose herself to music anymore. In fact, she could not lose herself to anything other than the abyss of silence and emptiness within her. She picked up her bag and reached for the little present Vedha had given her. ‘Listen to it,’ she had said, her eyes full of concern. She looked at it for the first time. Confluence of Elements, the title read, with a picture of the singer Bombay Jayashri Ramnath looking so admirably peaceful with the tambura in her hands. It was her that Vedha had described a long time ago as having a voice like dew drops in the morning. ‘No wonder my mind kept bringing the words back,’ she thought. She didn’t believe this could do anything, but she thought she might try. Just for her friend.

Jagadhodharana...She let the music play and walked to the balcony. She recognised the Kapi raagam which would have instantly called to her some time ago, but today, she felt nothing. She heard the beautiful voice and the contemporary music, so different from the traditional instruments used for Carnatic music, she thought. Moments into the music she found her mind wandering into the shadows of the past, like the divine tune was mere background music in the stage of her life. She found it amusing, that nothing pulled her heart’s strings anymore. Was she all stone now? She wondered. The notes from the strings of the Sarangi reached her ears, bringing with them beats from a Tabla and a tune from the flute, so light, she thought it could be floating. She felt so full of her of emptiness, it was overflowing. Slowly, she found herself rising and falling with the notes...like waves in her ocean of voids. She heard it now, like a revelation brought to her by the breeze... Purandhara Vitalana the voice was singing. There was a sudden power in the immensely soulful voice that was claiming her undivided attention...pulling her towards it...demanding that she doesn’t ignore it. She didn’t understand the lyrics, but she could feel the chills running down her spine; she had to hold on to something to stop her hands from trembling.

Now there she was listening like never before; the piano, the guitar and the mesmerising voice that was singing her pain, her heart-wrenching pain. She felt a little less solid, like melting butter... a little less composed and a little more tranquil at the same time. She was running madly through a maze, and could finally find her way out... The whole world was in a swirl, and there she could finally witness the dance of life...a slow dance, in perfect harmony with everything, waltzing its way to the inner core of her very being. And somewhere within the enticing force that was music, there was surrender...there was rapture...there was a feeling of being consumed by the unknown, and a desire never to return. And a thousand heartbreaks burst out in a single tear, which remained in her eye for a moment, glistening, making the stars twinkle more than usual. She let it roll down and take with it a sea of despair...all her pain... all that made her deaf to music...all the silence that consumed her...like that single tear just drenched her and cleansed every bit of her disturbed soul. Every note she heard was a part of a beautiful story...was an escape from what had been...was ethereal glue that brought broken pieces together...was her truth revealing itself...was a realm of almost-attainable liberation. Moksham.

The music eventually stopped playing. She stared into the rising sun which was sincerely painting the skies fiery shades of orange and pink...she smiled. She was back from what felt like a journey. She thought of life, its blacks and whites, and its more prominent greys...isn’t life like a musical composition? It has its ascending portions and its descending portions, its high notes and its low notes, its flat notes and its flowery notes... and each one of them comes, and goes, giving way to other notes because if they don’t, there cannot be a musical piece. And at the end, what stays with us is not a single note, but the song itself, to which every note counts...

She walked into the kitchen and threw some tea leaves into hot water. She felt strangely serene, mildly inspired. She could still hear the pleading tones of the Sarangi, they were tugging at her heart. She found herself humming a song in the Kapi raagam while she brought the cup up to her mouth and sipped her tea. It smelled of hope.

Yours "block!" ly

Signing off....

Within

They had shared a peculiar bond. One which was, but was not. One which had lulled its way into her life many a time, remained silent, lurking, suddenly appearing around the corner. They had walked together through the dark shadow, and another, and another... but when all was bright, sunny and happy, they knew it would become fickle again. One of them would depart, and they would forget each other, only to be thrown together again amidst the next dark shadow. But who sought who?

She looked for him sometimes, when he vanished. But she forgot. It was easy to forget, and get busy with other mundane things. It was easier now than it was a few years back. She had the power to beckon him, to question him, to hold his hand, or let him hold hers. That is how it used to be. But now she had come too far, or so she thought. He had walked away voluntarily. She had let him go, voluntarily. But why didn't she look for him? She waited for the shadows. The shadows had always brought him back. But the shadows came and danced around her, changed the air and slowed her down. She walked on, tried not to succumb. She walked alone, without him. She fought the shadows, without him. She left the shadows behind, without him. And then she reached the bright, sunny and happy place, and as it would be, she forgot about him. Forgot that he hadn't been there this time.

She went so close to him sometimes, but he still wasn't there. She matched his smile with hers, but he had something more hidden behind those eyes. Was he teasing her? Refusing to acknowledge her? Why was he so evasive?

She stared at the trees outside her window - leafless branches perched on a pale white background, a clouded sky. The stillness smelled of his absence. She saw him everywhere, but he was nowhere. She wondered how long this separation would last. Could she live the rest of her life without him? Would she have to? What could she do if he chose to stay away?

But what if she was getting it all wrong? Maybe she was hiding from him. Maybe he couldn't find her. Maybe he was waiting for her too. Maybe she wasn't looking in the right places. Maybe she had to let herself go, stop thinking, stop searching, stop questioning...

She sat cross legged on the floor. A tea cup beside her. She imagined she could hear the sound of the tambura being played in a single pitch, repeatedly. It was a familiar sound. Perhaps, the most relaxing sound. She sipped her tea slowly. This time, it tasted of sweet hope. She sat up straight, closed her eyes, and began to sing...

Kannan mugam marandhu ponaal, indha kangal irandu payan unndo?

Yours "Find it. keep it."ly
Signing off...

Chapters

So much has changed, without much changing. I have moved on, with parts of me still hanging behind. Here and there. Everywhere.

You never really leave a place. You never really leave people. You never really forget anything entirely. You have left chunks of yourself all over, at different cities you lived in, with different people, that it is sometimes impossible to just be at one place, with one person, even though you actually are. Of course it is all inside the head. But isn't that enough sometimes? Because memories are flawless. Because memories don't really change, even if the people in them do. Because they remain... and sometimes they're so lucid, so alive, that they seem more real than the real, truer than the truth. And that is what sometimes makes it impossible to listen to some song without thinking of a person...without being transported to another place and time.

I meant to write about so many things during my little Australian odyssey. Not the big life-changing happenings. The little things. The ones I will forget in a few months. Never got around to it. Even though I can remember vividly even now, the lone violin player I saw seated on a bench under a tree by the road while I was riding the bus...as if it were a scene out of a movie - the music in my ears substituting for the notes I couldn't hear come out of his violin. Watching smokers outside No.12 Creek street, a work culture that seemed so different from lab research! Almost like I could feel the pressure of the people bustling to work just by watching them. So much like Tokyo was, a few days later. The joy of cooking. Walking on Park road so many times with Niv, staring at the pricey restaurants we never ended up eating at. Weekly Soccer. Endless...

So today we toast to significant and not-so-significant memories. To finished chapters of never-ending stories. To the smiles and laughter that were, and will be. To new beginnings. To change. To dilemmas, ever so puzzling. To the unknown future, and the people who have walked and are walking with us towards it.

Chapters...that's what they are.

Yours "In another life, but not really" ly
Signing off...

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...