Charlie- our lurking alter ego

I had to be told by the visibly baffled ushers that the movie was over, all of it including the last syllable of the end credit. It's been a while since a movie has had this kind of an effect, that the blank screen seemed alive, long after the moving images seemed to have breached its contour. The movie in point being "Charlie".

The way it started in an abstract manner made me think it was only a matter of time before things would go above the audience's heads, alienating them in the process. 

It's always about the initial few minutes as far as a movie goes. You've got to pique the viewer's interest and allow him take the trip you've in offer, dovetailing his imagination with your narrative in these precious initial minutes. Otherwise, predisposition sets on them as they decline to get on board and resort to next important things like checking the reclining extent of their seats or getting up to add some butter to the popcorn tub.

So as I was saying, it started abstractly, but with every passing moment the sense of intrigue enveloped me. Soon there I was, moving in tandem in my head with the stroke of the artist's brush on his canvass till the last stroke that led to the incredible painting, the movie was.

Charlie is a celebration of the spirit of wanderlust, eponymously named after its protagonist. It talks about his constant travelling, warming us up to his psyche through the perspective of people on whose lives he's left an indelible impact; enriching one albeit.

So we embark on this journey to find Charlie along with Tessa, who's intrigued by one of his creations with the brush; yup; he's an exemplary artist who makes sketch trophies of people, the only footprint of his available to her at all. As fate would have it, she comes across men, one after the other from the sketches. With every first person anecdote endorsing Charlie, a dot gets connected in her mind that's attempting the big picture.

He's like one of these exotic birds, which doesn't confine itself to one sanctuary. It belongs to the sky and the sky to it, flying mockingly above frontiers. He loves touching upon a myriad lives in his journey, oh so nonchalantly. But never lets to be touched back, in his characteristic inoffensive way.

A zephyr, that bristles its way through the hair strands cozily to leave without a trace.

From the account of the burglar who came to burgle, who he hitched along to burgle with after a drink to the cutting of a marinated fish(ersatz cake) on mid sea; commemorating the birthday of an unlucky hooker who breaks down to only be held by him to be told-"The sea's got enough salt and can do without your tears", we travel along with Charlie .

Here’s this bohemian spirit in all its prowess, stopping a suicide victim with great difficulty to only negotiate a postponement to kicking the bucket. He sells the experience of magic mushrooms and the sight of a cloud crowned peak, to justify the postponement .

Once she likes the new habitat he gets her acquainted to, he barely tries to check on her in a fiduciary way. In fact he tells her how she could just roll down from the mountain top on her Enfield, to an assured end if this wasn’t working. But that’s him, this unobtrusive person who lets people be.

There’s this beautiful scene in the movie, where a lovelorn septuagenarian is overwhelmed after being introduced to the lost love of his life-a nun now, by Charlie. This man locks himself up and asks to be let alone  curtly, when Charlie goes in search of him. Charlie just smiles in an empathetic, un-offended manner. That moment, you understand his reverence to space and privacy- A cornerstone to his nomadic life pursuits.

In another uncanny episode, Charlie advertises his demise on a leading daily’s obituary column to check the turnout for his funeral and the extent of emotion at display. He later tries to reason out with his baffled wellwishers on his hoax of a funeral over drinks, sufi music and wisecracks.

For a fluid entity like him, intimidated by the very thought of settling down; knowledge of another female constantly on his toes is an unsettling feeling with the fear of permanence it brings about. So he indulges in a cat and mouse game with Tessa; notwithstanding her earnest efforts at catching up to him.

And it doesn’t help that he doesn’t have a permanent residence,uses mobiles, laptops and constantly hitches a lift to commute from place to another; leaving behind no digital traces for her.

The movie ends with Tessa and Charlie coming together in a festival over a glass of lime juice finally, courtesy his tip to her about his whereabouts. The union happens in an unhurried, mischievous manner without much adieu, like the epiphanies that happen to us over the course of the movie.

This is that kind of a holistic movie where nothing stands out like a sore thumb screaming for individual attention despite their superlative contribution to the film- be it the blemish less performance of the two leads, Gopi Sundar's ethereal score or the auteur’s  skilful narration of the convoluted plot in an endearing manner. Every element functions as a cog in the wheel.

Overall, Charlie is the personification of our organic self. That part of us that comes alive at the prospect of constant adventure, travel and bonhomie without the need for any form of societal validation. An alter ego that endorses leading a life without an ambition; making life an ambition in itself.

An alter ego that doesn’t delve on the consequences of an act or the accruals of a deed, but lives every moment till its last drop. One that is so preoccupied with living an experience and monkeying to the next one, to take stock of petty things like success and failure. A good Samaritan who touches upon lives of people he bumps into; not because it's good; but because it is cool.

Foot notes

It's beautifully enigmatic as to which among the two is an encompassing entity, the water or the pear shaped vessel that it's poured into.One is the rigid, impermeable vessel that's shape giving

Other is the flexible, skilfully deceptive water, that’s shape taking. It’s in the head as much as in the perceived emotion attached to one's object of musing.Beauty indeed is in the eye of the beholder.

The other day I was at my pet temple, part of a daily ritual. The lord's deity's has pretty much remain unchanged since the first time I'd gone; embellished with ornaments to value higher than the GDP of a third world nation on some days or modestly dressed up to look like a working class demigod on some; depending on the whims & fancies of seasonal festivities. Basically over the years, I've got acquainted with the deity and its opulence well enough. Well enough to not be awestruck and familiar enough to overlook some facets. Contempt or not, familiarity definitely does breed indifference, even to the most amazing of manifestations.

This day was special than generic, courtesy the epiphany it entailed. My eyes directly went for the lord's feet, his lotus feet actually. That's when I realised its nonchalant prowess and the sway it would have on a soul at a designated time. It was ironic that the most beautiful and divine part of the deity, should be the lord's naked feet made of black stone, the only un-embellished part. It made me realise my insignificance in the larger scheme of things, a feeling usually reserved to stargazing.

I was overwhelmed by a stream of emotions that rolled down the cheeks as tears; a moment I realised anxiety and peace could co-exist. Anxious by the guilt of taking this piece of infinite energy for granted. Guilty by the gratuitous reverence of featuring it alongside daily routines like brushing and bathing. Peaceful that my soul had found its beckoning, a higher authority to surrender my ego without much adieu. A supreme personality whose awareness made obeisance such an organic process, The lord's feet that day taught me a lot more about spirituality as a concept in a matter of minutes, than my post puberty life had in a whole decade.

When I was bastardly enough to round off the Lord to generic significance, you could imagine the reverence I would've attached to my parents. Familiarity definitely has bred copious amounts of contempt in this case, all the more given the fact that my workplace ain't different from my home. My parents have become a daily feature in my life, not that it's such an outlandish thing for other people. Just that it doesn't help that I'm a pesky private person, who could buy privacy on e-bay if traded.

So having to interface with dad in an informal space and in an official capacity sort of screws the head in terms of demarcating mind spaces for familial fondness and hierarchy stiffness; that too under the same roof.

Reverence here is a very thin line to tread in terms of parents; given the fact that its exercise happens in an informal set up and isn't as extramural as paying obeisance to the lord, in terms of spontaneity. After growing up, parents become your friends and directing gratitude and reverence to people you have inconsequential tete-a-tetes with; is a strange...rather evolving concept that happens in a subtle evolutionary manner in sync with one's emotional maturity as an underlying thread.

The habit of touching elder's feet was imparted at an impressionable age to me as a part of a doctrine directed at preserving an elderly culture aged multiple centuries. As I grew up; I tweaked the habit to fall in line with my moral code. So I stopped touching the feet of all and sundry based on the underlying rationale that age doesn't lead necessarily to nobility. Rather I fell at the feet of people I looked up to in terms of virtue or as an act of expressing gratitude. So touching my parent’s feet became a regular ritual. A purposeful act of expressing gratitude in the process of receiving their blessings. Deep inside I figured out that; this was a process of preserving my ego by knowing to surrender it at one place. Contradictory?      Well, not exactly.

Ego if founded well is a virtue than a vice. A luxury only the honest can afford. Like other resources it is expendable. This act of knowing where to let it go, who to surrender it before is a wonderful process of discretion which lets one to preserve it, in the process allowing him to expend it manifold times by the leverage attained.

In short the places we surrender our ego, charge it for use at other places.

Who better than my parents to feel humble before. Letting go off my ego at their familiar, yet congenial feet is a therapeutic process that makes me a more thankful individual with every iteration, reassuring them of my reverence and love. In short, it’s an humbling experience that lets me be proud.

Touching your soul mate’s feet is altogether  a different experience. The firmness in your hold shows her the extent of your devotion. The manner you run your fingers on her feet, caressing them radiates passion. The process by itself lets her know in an un-fussy manner,the vantage point you've given her in your life. 

At a surface level, they are the ones we have regular exchanges with- verbal and non-verbal, latter flattered popularly as "making love". So to intersperse a superfluous reverential act into this kind of a peer-to-peer ecosystem earmarked for beings, celestial and elders is a rather cerebral concept.

This barter for solace at a loved one's feet is a subjective process, endorsement to which depends completely on how romantic a person one is.

If obeisance to Lord's feet marks surrender to his inundating authority and the parent's feet exudes reverence and gratitude. The beloved's feet in the romantic syntax, represents reassurance and security. There is no overwhelming sense of the divine authority, a visible generation gap, a spiritual pursuit nor a affiliating bloodline; which makes the act of touching the feet of one's beloved all the more special by the sheer exercise of autonomy sans conventional endorsements.

A pure, unadulterated display of love.

It took me a while to figure out the myriad emotions involved in the contour of the feet that I was tempted to put my epiphanies down. Probably in all likeliness these are mental escapades of an abstract person, who takes pride in ensconcing in the cozy confines of his over indulgence. Or probably not. In which case, there is a layman sanctity attached to the process of bringing down one's upstream faculties like the head and the hands in contact with a downstream faculty like the feet of another person as a mark of reverence. 

It's a beautiful process of bowing down by an evolved entity, a wonderful creation in himself in an endeavour to enshrine his reverence for another magnificent entity who managed to tug at his soul strings. 

To me, feet of an important person is a sanctum sanctorum of sorts-to tame my ego, direct my gratitude and cultivate congeniality. To others, it might just mean a shoe size or a pending session of pedicure.

On Spirit of Chennai- in flood & blood

Source: Dr. Mithun James

Torrential rains to us till now have meant a motley set of dissimilar things depending on our stake- no drying clothes on terrace, no light pants on roads, no school or no open air events. The 'us' here refers largely to chennaites, though could interchangeably be used to describe the hoi polloi of most Indian cities in general. The farthest we've gone to despise rains has been when it's disrupted an ongoing cricket match at a home venue, the single sacrilegious act an average Indian can't tolerate. 

'Rain enough to flood or dry enough to famish, but never rain on a home venue match', goes the popular indian sentiment.

As far as Chennai goes, it’s never rained on our parade. At least, not on the ones that really matter. Even on those fleeting occasions, the showers have only had prowess enough to fell elderly trees or make translucent white shirts obscene. If anything at all, the monsoon has evaded this part of the country year after year snobbishly.

She's been this city, who's always had a dispassionate third person account to an aftermath of a calamity or an insurgency in other cities, through news channels. Even when the tsunami had sprung a surprise at her on a generic Sunday morning a decade back, her fortress remained largely impermeable. Who knew good old red tapism with some clerical errors and a 50 cm downpour for a couple of days would bring her down like never before.

Call it providence or nepotism to north India; but both the forces of nature and fringe elements have hitherto been rather kind or should I say, indifferent to her, notwithstanding the opulence of her endowments or the diversity of her populace.

National attention has always come to her in rationed quantity as a scavenged leftover, taking a multi crore scam or a Kamal Hasan movie’s ban to scream into the national media's ears for acknowledgement of her existence.

Blame it on phonetics or the font, colour or the culture; the north-south relation has always been a plummeting affair. Over the years, the tepidity has been subtly vented out through unsuspecting populist processes like caricaturing, stereotyping, ridiculing and mispronouncing with ersatz entitlement.

To an average north indian, anything south of the Vindhyas is Madras and every living being, Madrasi. This is one intriguing conundrum, that most North Indians marginalise a South Indian as a Madrasi (after the erstwhile name of Chennai) despite there being many other attention worthy South Indian cities than Chennai. Chennai to its credit has been behaving like an adolescent coming to terms with the extent of his faculties.

The spirit of Chennai has been a largely jingoistic concept founded on infantile credentials like CSK, Marina, Saravana Bhavan and Satyam. It's always pitched itself as a middle-ground between cultural conservatism and cosmopolitan trappings.

Chennai has been this lackadaisical metro, content with its runner up status behind Delhi and Mumbai, disgruntled but surreptitiously so. It has all along taken respite in one-upmanship battles between Sambar vada and Vada Pav or  Bessy and Juhu, to keep its glory afloat, flimsily albeit.

It takes a heartbreak to make a man out of a boy. And it takes a disaster to consolidate the spirit of a land.

The rise of Japan after Hiroshima or Gujarat after earthquake being case in point.

The city for the first time succumbed to nature's fury and tumbled to a standstill. Mobile towers short of fuel, floating cars, flooded roads, islanded houses, perennial power shut downs, vestigial electrical appliances  were apostles to nature's cryptic mockery at human pursuit at building a utopian civilization, all of which came down in a tumbling manner like a deck of cards.

A natural calamity devours through the veil of urbanization; turning lands to naked strips reeking with primal ambitions of food, survival and shelter, in the process reducing concepts like GDP, gold prices, interest rates, loss of pay, year ends, audit, fitness, politics to redundancy of gibberish extent. 

When pushed to a corner, the nemesis that doesn't break us makes us stronger than before the impetus; in the process increasing the pain threshold.

Which is exactly what happened with the floods. 

It brought together the residents to dovetail their aspirations to a common purpose of helping the city rise up on its feet again, giving it a personality of its own for the first time since its conjuring. They vicariously lived through the turmoil- limping, recovering and rising along with it; behaving similar to individually insignificant parts of a behemoth machinery, on their road to recovery.

By the time the national media arrived gratuitously like cops in the climax of an eighties movie , the nature’s fury had receded paving way for the city to pick itself up on its own without reaching out for help. This self sufficiency after one of its most cruel rendezvous with nature, was Chennai’s way of reiterating its autonomous jurisdiction to the national media which was content on making saleable vanity projects of sensitive news from rest of India.

The floods helped in forging the spirit of Chennai beyond a cliché, helping it come of age from a boisterous city content on flaunting and finger pointing to a self sufficient one with empathetic inhabitants, who would individually fall to make it infallible.

A city in general is defined by its characteristic infrastructural traits, the political ecosystem, sporting franchises representing it, flagship landmarks and primary goods that it produces. But it always takes a single occasion of unanimous display of ownership by its indigenous population, to come into its own; truly and tangibly.

In the coming days we might go back to signal hopping like apes in traffic, queue up outside liquor shops, curse the sun's tyranny on humid days and wear yellow jerseys to CSK matches as a display of pseudo solidarity.

But we would never forget those dark days when we were there for each other with dogged resilience to see the light at the end of the tunnel together. Those dark days when we realised that Chennai meant more to us than just an address, an indelible identity to relish.