The August 15th patriots

Today would mostly start with a live relay of a septuagenarian within the safe confines of a bullet proof cabinet, delivering a speech which would make a 4^th Grade student’s essay on “Dream Nation” look more plausible. Next we excavate those translucent white kurtas (subtle metaphor for patriotism it seems) from below the debris   of Van Heusens & Peter Englands in our cupboard, only to flaunt in the Flag hoisting ceremony at our alma maters. The journey to our alma maters is characterized by banters of desperate RJs hurling patriotic trivia & songs at us from every radio station.

Then the flag hoisting with a spirited rendition of the National anthem ends on a sweet note, courtesy Caramilk(a provision store relic). Then we have over enthusiastic alumni deliver articulated lectures about why culture & folklore are more important than android phones & GDPs. Thus begins our patriotic rigmarole on the august day.

FREE ARE WE AS INDIANS?!

Lets start with freedom in movies for a start, If the movie's font is arabic or the protaganist has a beard without a moustache....the movie's anti-islam-ban it!...if the protagonist utters any word which bears remote similarity to a political figure’s moniker or is shown contesting election(even if in college)-the movie's politically incorrect-ban it! When our political mechanism has broken down huge stars with the ease of a fragile twig, what chance do we lesser mortals even stand in our Constitution backed freedom of expression!

Art isn’t far from the long arm of our Political guardian angels either- If a famous painter depicts a Goddess in a semi nude state, we ensure he is rusticated from the land. Ironically though, ancient architecture in most of the temples depicts Gods & Goddesses in similar manner.

If an author dares to take on a religious issue in his fictional book in a gutsy manner, he instantly is made an apostle of Satan in public domain & his citizenship is severed like bad friendship.

With the freedom of expression of a common man becoming thinner at a more alarming rate than the ozone layer, If someone mentions a political proper noun in bad light in social network or even a inter cubicle conversation, he can be rest assured of a rendezvous with Arnab Goswami or brief internship behind the bars.

INDEPENDENT ARE WE AS INDIANS?!

Lets talk about how independent we are at a grass root level taking into account very mundane things for instance, we Indians are genetically programmed to look upto people with good spoken English abilities with scant regard to their intelligence…like an unwise customer picking up a branded vessel with a hole in the bottom. We look down upon someone mispronouncing an English name like a dung beetle, only to enjoy Geoff Boycott’s carnage of Indian names like connoisseurs.

More often than not when we talk about movies in public space, we flaunt names of unheard of Egyptian/Spanish/Korean/Russian movies with the pride of a newly married woman gossiping about her loan funded honeymoon. Notwithstanding this we celebrate 100 Years of Indian Cinema, where we make a tribute movie helmed by reputed auteurs, only to be diagnosed as a rip-off!

Despite being in a tropical country, we dress up like Louis Philippe mannequins to make our sweat glands work overtime. And if the wardrobe buffoonery wasn’t enough, we assign anglicized alter egos to burn midnight oil for our living, so that westerners learn to use their home appliances.

UNITED ARE WE AS INDIANS?

The only time we are genuinely united together as a nation is when Sachin’s batting or India is in a good position in the second innings of a match. Another occasion we display unity in diversity is when the news about a politician’s multicrore scam hogs limelight or Rahul Gandhi tries to make a political statement, this is when everyone suddenly seem so opinionated & awakened. Barring this flickering display of patriotism on these stray occasions, every state seems to be an isolated mini nation with its own agenda. While public holidays & bribery seem to be a common thread linking the entire nation, the legality of prostitution changes from state to state.

As on date our pan Indian feeling seems to be a shallow concept that is characterized by either pilgrimages to places ripe with religious heritage or sin-dissolving dips in holy waters that transport corpses or art of living workshops where saffron clad urban babas teach us life altering things like importance of eating bananas . Not to forget our uniform liking to ayurvedic massage spas or failed attempts to smuggle pickles  past terminals in foreign soil or our favourite national past time of talking about the gutter, our political system has become.

Being patriotic doesn’t just end with Ben Kingsley’s Gandhi on playlist or standing up when the anthem is played, it’s a mental state where we accept the nation with its share of flaws without making a laundry list of lacunae…like a mother’s unconditional love for her son. Till then August 15^th would just be another cosmetic public holiday when pizza joints gives us buy 1 get 1 offer!

FRIENDSLIP

X-"We both keep in touch on a regular basis and more importantly respect each other's opinions",
Y-"Sounds good,so can I presume you guys are good friends?"
X-"on FB,yeah"
Y-"!@#$%%%&"

Friendship is the most littered word ever!Myth talks about eternal friendship between warriors of opposite camps,person taking the arrow shot at his friend on his bosom, men perishing along with their pals avoiding the lure to switch camps. Celluloid lore talks about a rich guy going out of the way to help his poor bud,protagonist sacrificing the girl of his dream for his friend,donating  assorted organs to replace his mate from the jaws of death,a wreck-machine who takes on the system to avenge his bud’s death and even wastrels who disable themselves physically to enable their friend’s friend elope with his girl and all other possible exaggerated portrayals of  ‘eternity ’ of friendship the human-mind can take!

But in the current scenario,true friendship’s become hypothetical and use of one’s resources towards his friend’s need has become viability based.This doesn’t mean true friendship doesn’t exist at all,it does like honest politicians & trim cops.And the indifferent few who dole out words like "friendship" & "soulmates" are often taken along in the same breadth as a vintage car or an excavated fossil.

 MISTAKEN PALS

This is the most common, yet unnoticed category.  This includes situation created friends who came into our lives through the conspiracy of fate & coincidence like our kindergarten/school/tuition mates or even the guy next door who used to be an accomplice during our balancing wheel days.  One common thing between all these people is that it could have been them or anybody else or in other words, the friendship came out of constraint of being in the same nursery/same class or the same neighbourhood and not out of emotional compatibility or mutual liking to make it special.  These places were well regulated/safely protected environments controlled by teachers & subjects, unlike in adulthood which imparts hard-hitting lesson in the rear ,at a point when the mind expects love,affection & understands betrayal.  These people were acquaintances mistaken to be “childhood buddies” famously.  Some childhood friends do get closer with age,but most remain namesake in the finite estate of nostalgia.

PARASITE PALS

These are people who expect things gladly, till we expect back.  The sole purpose of their name featuring in our contacts is to avoid their calls.  You can expect them in your life most certainly when yout're downhill,figuratively mostly and literally at times.  On a bad day when we are behind our schedule or have a pressing commitment  to complete, these men manifest out of nowhere in unexpected public places only to hone our patience by talking about those non-existent good old days with well-conceived imaginary flashbacks and worse, expect strong reciprocation from us back.

This is the time when our mind sinks into the sea of regret wondering  how harder can the face frown to convey annoyance to the speaker who is clueless about the art of body language.Finally when Satan's long innings ends at our pitch,with this guy receding away ,the hatred towards our ears reduces only to abruptly end by his-“We should catch up again!”

VIRTUAL PALS

At a time when the internet is no more a luxury earmarked for the higher-middle group and android phones have become more accessible than groceries,these people trespass into our lives like a virus through firewall.These are low-maintenance relations running on social-networking apps like whatsapp, facebook,viber,skype,
In a place like facebook, the number of friends one has could be a really deceiving aspect apart from the spirit of bonhomie kept alive by photo-bombing and tagging.This friendship, in a nutshell is as strong as one's internet plan.

VICE PALS

As the name suggests, this relation is born out of the common urge to fag,booze or drugs in a common place at a uniform time by like minded men,who got the concept of population control a little wrong. Like an automobile which just wouldn't move an inch without the fuel intake, their bromance blossoms symbiotically with every bout.  This escapist pursuit for happiness in alcohol remains as futile as the sheep’s plight for solace in the butcher’s knife.In short,a relationship which doesn't last beyond the hangover.

PANICK PALS

They basically use us as a dumpyard to unload their problems. They remain in a self imposed exile from us during their happy times and when the last drop of merry gets over,they get their chronologically accumulated woes to us, to rightfully seek our “honest opinions” in the name of friendship.The easy way to get rid of them is ask them for a top-up.

PICNIC PALS   

Notwithstanding the ongoing shallow relation,like cat in a dog-show they barge into our life with systematically etched,well-budgeted reunions/retreats/movie plans/birthday parties(not theirs).Basically, they seek your company for improving the headcount or filling the budgetary deficit in their purposeful getaways.

 PAY PALS

This relation is as strong as one's bank balance.They come with the deposits and leave with the withdrawals.They're generally found in high end places with filthy rich people take them to be real,like a naive flower about the honey bee.

Not that I'm cynical about the idea of friendship,but just that in some cases friendship’s eternity is a bit overrated.Everyone does have true friends who really care about them & remain constant notwithstanding the changes in fortune.
Just that,it's good to have one good friend than a dozen meaningless ones, for as many zeroes as there maybe in the background, we need an one in the forefront to lend value to the number.

               

In love with him

When a callous word was to breach his lips,
This guy was his leash of diplomacy

When there was a good shirt on the mannequin of his pet boutique,
This guy kept a note...surreptitiously for him

When there was a new movie in town,
He had the ticket booked by the aisle corner for him

When he wanted to crash a wedding,
This guy was his self appointed accomplice

When he devoured through burger and pizzas the previous night
This guy was his conscience around the love handles the other morning

On a bad hair day before the mirror,
This guy was his comb wielding savior who made him impunctual

When he needed his solitude,
He so delicately handpicked the songs in his playlist and left unoffended

There were some places and people he couldn't visit during month ends,
This guy's company was one of those things, a master card couldn't buy

He was his subservient shadow at sunny times,

His palm clenched umbrella during a downpour

At every evening of his confidence
This guy was the awaiting dawn of assurance

To him it was platonic love with the self,
To them it was narcissism

Forgotten Classics-RAJAPAARVAI & GUNA

 

Nayagan,Thevar Magan, Mahanadi, Anbe Sivam are some of the movies which come to our minds when making connoisseur statements to a friend wearing Forrest Gump or Shawshank Redemption as a badge of honour on a lackadaisical Saturday night one upmanship, ensconced in the Kamal Hasan hall of fame. 
The realm of cinema is no exception to the adage-" While success as flawed as it is, has got many fathers.Failure as opulent as it may be, more often than not is an orphan"

This piece is about  his relatively underrated masterpieces-RajaPaarvai & Guna, which despite featuring in the sanctum sanctorum of many a movie lover's collection including me for posterity, failed at the box office and went on to be inundated in the shadow of popular cinema in the coming years. 

RAJAPAARVAI:

Right from the oxymoronic title which translates to "Royal Vision" for a story about a blind man, this movie is as audacious as endearing classics get. This 100th film of Hasan that also marked his directorial debut is a story of a blind violinist played inimitably by Hasan himself who sees the world pompously, perched in the throne of his mind's eye, hence the title.
This movie is a sort of an antithesis of the usual tropes of a disability movie, right from the gratuitous sympathetic-romantic angle, vulnerable protaganist and a melancholic finale intended at leaving a lump in the throat of the viewer.
Here, the protaganist is infact a narcissistic-brat, who's made a daily routine out of intimidating naive people trying to lend him a helping hand,with his self assured-brash candour. To him, his self respect is the crutch he latches on to walk equally among normal men and gratuitous sympathy bestowed upon notwithstanding the genuinity, is the blindness that reminds him about his disability. The way he effortlessly wears his blindness like a crumpled shirt, is by far one of the coolest perspectives of the condition.
The movie is about how he ends up falling in love with a woman, who deconstructs his fortress of inaccessibility built upon misconceptions and insecurities, brick by brick while awakening to her own self discovery in the process of being his eyes.


GUNA:

This movie is about a senile man's mission towards his soulmate-Abirami,a namesake from folklore of his formative years.Raised by a mother, a prostitute in the backdrop of rampant fleshtrade, Guna believes Abirami to be his route to salvation. Shuttling between an asylum and the custodianship of his maternal uncle who uses him for small thefts, he finally happens to come across his Abirami in an affluent girl while in a temple as a part of a heist. The divine trance he breaks into at her first sight, is put across in one of the most poetic cinematic depictions, with acting in it's most unadulterated form punctuated to the mellifluous composition of Ilaiyaraja.
The next time he bumps into her, he kidnaps her to a dilapidated mansion on the top of  a relatively virgin part of a hilltop. From here on, the movie unfolds from the girl's perspective with her being wary of his delusional ways at the outset, to go on to endear the obsessive love from the hooligan, an amenity that had eluded her affluence till then. 
In this set up, with mountains, wild vegetation and five sensed creatures for company, she reciprocates his primal love, with every layer of her sophistication peeling away to make her revel in the same pedestal as him, her maverick soulmate with brain of an eight year old.    

There's this beautiful sequence in the movie before the finale, where Guna wants to write a letter to his love, Abirami but is an illiterate who can't write. So he dictates this letter addressed to her, to her to write. This leads to the evergreen song-Kanmani Anbodu , which she sets to tune while writing to herself as dictated by him.
In the end, with the ground below their relation shrinking with every passing moment with challenges galore, they jump off the cliff , to eternally be united at a place, elsewhere.

The Indian Dog

The other night when I was driving back home, I went past an aberration by the platform on the road. Curiosity had the better of me and I pulled over to revisit the aberration, God not again, it was what I was hoping it wasn't. A majestic mongrel, size of a nourished calf, pale white with black patches was lying dead in a fissure by the road. yet again to nobody's botheration.
Yet another driver runs over yet another mongrel, unscathed for its corpse to mutilate to a carpet with eflux of time on the same road or to be gracefully cleared along with neighbourhood trash the next morning- pretty much remains the exit route of every second stray on road.  

They eat from overflowing trashbins and tea kiosk spill overs on luckier days. While most fraternize with fellow strays, some enjoy the patronage of benevolent security guards. They sleep on roadsides as torrid as the climate maybe, with parked vehicle for roofs on kinder days. While these kind faced creatures are undeniably adorable,notwithstanding their pollution-hit withering fur, more often than not their litter go through the same cycle as them.
The irony involved is intriguing, given the fact that the self confessed "dog lovers" exist in the same ecosystem as these orphaned mongrels.
It's just that the ark of their multi-ethnic "dog love" that encompasses several breeds from the popular pugs,German-Shepard,Labradors,rottweilers to the niche Huskeys seems to eternally be short of space  and resources for the indigenous breed of mongrels, thanks to the overbearing prejudice from western-european nepotism.

Let's assume a hypothetical scenario,where Indian households adopt foreign origin children from breeding place that lets them choose from a multi-ethnic(Non-Indian) pool of babies born out of artificial insemination due to spiked up demand for white skin & blondes, courtesy  recently concluded IPL tournaments and hollywood blocknusters that have held the Indian imagination at sway. Meanwhile, there seems to be a northwards surge in the indigenous population of orphans & urchins with the number of orphanages remaining constant.

What would you call the above- altruism or ethnic husbandry?  It's less of an act of benevolence and more of another new found hobby of the creme de la creme suffering from money.

I would date the founding stone of this misplaced virtue way back to the release of Marley & Me, for no pet movie had portrayed the concept in such an accessible way till then. It was not dramatic, with over-the-top emotional set pieces, but it showed how a family came of age along with the growth of their Labrador, Marley. The coolness quotient came from the fact that, Marley, was not a martyr or an attention seeking lackadaisical bag of fur, but an unruly beast which was as flawed as dogs get, yet so endearing.
Instead of taking the film figuratively, we took it quite literally. So instead of taking to the habit of loving dogs and having them for pets, we got enamored by the fantasy of  "cute" golden labradors tearing through our home appliances, while the mongrels continued to rot in platforms and pet cares with no takers right outside our homes.
Why is it that after Titanic alone, all of us as love-struck as we were, went for Indian women with ethnic names and not for Victorian blondes named after flowers? So we do know to board the Pan Indian cruise , when smitten by a western sensibility.

There is no denying the fact that there are some genuine pet lovers , who do their bit by taking a mongrel or a cat under their wings. There are these places like Blue Cross which take care of abandoned pets, but even they are populated to the hilt and can't expand, not with their modestly filled coffers.
But these odd cases wouldn't go on to make a collective conscience for the nation as a whole, which still shops for pets to embellish their manicured lawns. For we can't be called "Clean" country on the basis of a Swach Bharat gig outside Salman Khan's house on the eve of his birthday.

Thanks to the gargantuan wave of globalisation sweeping us of our feet,  we have Louie Vittons in places where Batas were and KFCs outnumbering Gangotrees. So, egalitarianism in a consumer goods industry seems like a misplaced ideal to have, as the preference seems to be on the basis of competence and ongoing trends, with less dynamic brands(indigenous or not) dying a natural death.

But the concept of adoption is a way more responsible process than just buying a satchel or a sofa to go along with the carpet's texture. It involves the choice to make between allocation of resources to a every increasing population of mongrels, that are longing for love and attention as much as for food and shelter, over imported ones that are artificially bred to cater to the whims and fancies of a rather shallow population that's yearning for a pug from a mobile commercial.

Queer Pressure

Why does every tree have to bear fruits?
Some timber, some shade.

Why does every relation have to be fruitful?
Some passionate, some compatible.

Does a garden engulfed by a bed of red roses
Make the stray lilac any less a flower?

When police won't regulate violation outside of four walls,
Why the moral police to consent within fourwalls?

When subjectivity empowers an indivdual to pet or eat an animal,
Why should the facade of democracy dictate his choice of partner?

When our mind isn't clear,
Why call them queer?




PS:Who am I?For that matter who are we to allow a person to pursue his primal needs in a dignified way. We didn't allow them to be born as a girl or a guy, we accepted them for what they were born as. When we couldn't apply discretion to their births, why the furore over their grown-up choices?

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Dancing to the tune of...

 

While our lives can't get any more realer, what with the dampness of sweat beads, uneasy taciturn in conversations  with loved(loud) ones, shenanigans of toddlers, unbiased bills grinning at month beginnings and fancier manifestations inundating us from the other side of "They Happily Lived Ever After" of either our parents story or our own story, our playlist is our only go to place for solace.

Our panting span in the rat race, escapist as it is.

Songs arise from catharsis called composing, involving a story teller's vision put to sound by a composer. The lyricist makes the song talk the language of the indigenous hoi polloi, the director paints the canvas and the  the actor remains the alter ego we would identify with. 

Few creative manifestations have the ability to make a connoisseur straddle between different phases of  life like songs do. So when my grandmom listens to Partha Nyabagam Illayo from Evergreen classic Pudhiya Paravai, she feels like a spring chicken again, thanks to the nostalgia of her young self  enveloped in the song.

While I yearn to be a dad singing an unconventional lullaby to his teen aged children, in a distant future though, everytime I come across Peigala Nambade from Mahanadhi.  

Songs are our very gate passes to past or future, the rewind and fast forward buttons to the realm of our memory. While they always trigger off an emotion in us, sanguine or pragmatic according to the place they play in the movie, an over indulgent connoisseur has to be watchful about the leverage attained.

Songs more often than not, euphemize a state of being by virtue of melody, poetry,conceivement and enactment. Ava Enna Thedi Vantha Anjala from Varanam Ayiram makes primal dancing in public, post girlfriend's demise look so cool. While Aaromale from Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya makes cross-country roadtrips antidotes to cop up with being dumped. These songs by employing interesting montages and imaginative camerawork, make the drunken lovelorn disrupting public life look like a martyr, while being dumped is portrayed like a pilgrimage every cupid stuck person has to embark upon.

Songs can rig emotions when not in a strong state of mind, ask me about that. There was this rough phase post break-up where everything inanimate around me, seemed to act like apostles of romance. So everytime when I got stuck in traffic or was jogging alone in my gym, my playlist which seemed to have grown an emotional intelligence of it's own,played just one song, Tanhayee from Dil Chahta Hai. The song was tantalizing with that frame of mind, little did I know that with every listen I was sowing seeds of sorrow within. The picture of Aamir Khan jogging along to stop to Preity Zinta's absence, his void in an crowded Sydney junction with inebriating lyrics which go-

Khwaab Mein Dekha Tha Ek Aanchal Maine Apne Haatho Mein
Ab Toote Sapno Ke sheshe Chubte Hai In Aankhon Mein
Kal Koyi Tha Yahin Ab Koyi Bhi Nahin
Ban Ke Naagin Jaise Hai Saason Mein Lehrayi
Tanhayee Tanhayee
Palko Pe Kitne Aansoon Hai Laayi

After a point,a little late though I realised I had barely moved on from my break up, Why? My repeated listening of Tanhayee like some anthem, which made the pale of shadow my former self look like some rockstar,who epitomised love. Thats when I decided to do away with not just Tanhayee, but other melancholic songs of the same genre from my playlists including the sinfully soulful Bhula Dene Mujhe from Aashiqui-2, and the result showed. I started to feel vibrant again, looked healthier and went out with a lot of people.

Grim accounts apart, there's this song I'm so enamored by from Anbe Sivam the lyrics of which act as a torch of dichotomy when faced with an good vs god dilemma which goes-

Yaar Yaar Sivam Nee Naan Sivam
Vaazhvae Thavam Anbe Sivam
Aathigam Paesum Adiyaarkellaam Anbe Sivamaagum

Naathigam Paesum Nallavarkkellaam Anbe Sivamagum  

To an overabsorbed listener like me, songs are life altering flying carpets, trove of memories, medicine and poison, elixir and intoxicant, zephyr that gently combs the face and the tempest that uproots the person. While for a person who knows to objectify , it would be a superhit from a recent hit, a groovy number in a DJ's playlist, even a ringtone  or the perfect time to hit the loo in the cinema hall.