Work in progress...

She roams around almost lazily in the Magnificent cathedral - looking at the stained glasses the depict the life and times of Jesus Christ. The visitors go about the expanse, animated, letting out sighs of awe. The scene looks like a vintage motion picture sans dialogues. Her eyes rest on a sculpture. Jesus - bleeding while surrounded by his followers. Numerous candles light up around the scene, giving it a 'back in time' feel. She gathers her scarf around her elbows and picks a candle to light. She reaches out to a shining candle nearby and dips the wick into the gentle flame. The warm glow illuminates her face - a generous forehead letting out tell tale signs of a jump start of the process of aging when looked at in that illumination, Calm, peaceful eyes and a perfect nose that stands out and anchors the features. Her lush hair falls back in a tight braid while wisps of deep black hair escape and cascade onto her cheeks. She is effortlessly beautiful, dressed in a dull cotton tunic and a pair of conservative indigo jeans. Her face has no traces of makeup, the only aspect of adornment that competes with her absentminded smile are the generous solitaires she wears on her large earlobes. The off white knit scarf around her neck falls on to her bust while covering every inch of her long and slender neck. It is hard to say if she has any more decorations - fabric covers every inch of her body. Her tender feet nestle on the cool floor of the cathedral as she presses them hard into the surface in an attempt to cool the warmth the hurt sculpture of the Lord creates in her. The corner of her eyes get misty. She lets our a little mock cough...a reflex that comes out when she realizes the moistness in her eyes. She clears her throat and slily wipes her eyes in a make believe attempt that looks like she is wiping a grain of sand away from the tip of her lashes. The enigmatic smile plays on her full lips all along.

She finds a seat on the bench. and lifts up to look at the endless ceilings. It is hard to believe that it is middle of the day with the all powerful sun frolicking at his hottest, brightest best on the outside - the dark expanse of the inside of the cathedral has no traces of artificial lighting. The stained glass accents glow in the darkness along with the nimble wicker of the naked flames from the candles that are lit around. She is lost in a trail of thoughts again - drawing comparisons of how the inside of this dark place of worship with little flecks of light coincides with her own inside. Little flecks of thought shine in her gaping, empty heart. She is transformed into the past...a past that comes and gets her a decade and a half later.

Ponder

She limps up the stairs with a pot of water on her hip, her sari pleats tucked into her waist. She stops for brief moments, as if to gather strength to take the next step. Her eyes have a ring of grey, giving away the age which she denies by going about like a machine running on fuel. She carefully pours the water into a stainless steel drum and repeats the drill. On random days, when her luck fails along with the municipality water supply, she does this chore to make sure there is enough water to drink and use around the house. Her younger days aren't any different. She wakes up before dawn to cook for a big family, packs her lunch along with the others' and takes a public transport to go to the school where she teaches. Her evenings are filled with household chores and cooking and cleaning after grown up kids. Now she is retired. Old enough and worked enough to rightfully deserve a 'retirement'. She keeps her lips zipped and her hands and mind busy. Never waits for her daughters in law to chime into the chores. Diligently cooks, cleans and feeds an ungrateful family that should, ideally, take care of themselves and then take care of her as well.
Her service is the tip of the iceberg.
"Take it if you like it" she'd offer her every worldly possession from saris to accessories. "Do it your way" she'd withdraw, when family decisions are being made. "Let me take care of that" she'd volunteer to wipe the butt of a grandkid.
Her daughters in law afford the luxury of PMSes, boredom and break from the kids in forms of shopping trips while she works like a machine that could have been fortunate enough if she were an actual machine, that she could break down and stop working from the overuse.
The pampered sons and daughers in law think they deserve it, think they are so good that their mom is all over them slogging her last bit of energy off, repaying them for their worth!

**********************************************

If there were a human form to anger, ego and selfishness - this has to be THE man. He'd gamble, drink, womanize and come home to a dreading family that hides behind the doors when he smashes his dinner plate into the wall just because the fish isn't done right! His wife would weep silently while the sons and daughters follow instructions to the q, not looking in the eye, not questioning, not rebelling. He'd have it his way - shouting at the pitch of his lungs and making the house a living hell. The last time he comes home with an overdue bill at the local bar, the son pulls out the money earned from tutoring and pays the dues. The daughters cook and clean while the wife silently suffers the atrocities of holy matrimony. He specially makes it a point to show off in public as to what a dread he is to his folks and how much respect he commands and how disciplined his family is.

Little does this monster of a person know or realize that it is their love for him that makes them endure his eccentricities and to question a person and put him in his place, it does not take a whole army and ammunition - all it takes is a little giving up!

*****************************************************

The boy lives with a purpose - to love the girl. He has eyes only for her. He yearns for nothing except to give her what makes her happy. Smiles, cards, chocolates, flowers, gifts, reassurances - you name it! She chases a goal, a mirage, a nothingness - which makes her blind to the emotion, to the pure love that is being served to her on a platter. She doesn't look at the love, or may be she doesn't care to admit - for her world lies elsewhere, an elsewhere where there is everything but love. She admires him, acknowledges him but when it comes to realizing how lucky she is, she fails - she moves ahead in life, leaving a shattered heart that holds her in its every little piece. She gets what she wants, but will never live to realize what she threw away was a million times precious than what she chased.

************************************************************

The worst thing in life is not lacking it - it is lacking the realization of having it.

Value

Hey you - I am asking you!
What matters?
More than a smile that comes your way
When thoughts of despair doom your day!
What matters more than
A bellyful of grub,
Dreams to be - small but meaningful.
Does a closet of full of clothes
Define your inside?
Like the words your speak
Or thoughts you think??
Adornments, sparkly and shiny
Don't take away from the filth within.
What matters more
Than a friend in need?
Than a helping hand,
When you are hurt and pained?
A shoulder to cry
A word of love
That'd take the turmoil away!
A conviction to speak
And not be afraid
Of telling the truth
Or supporting it!
What matters more?
Than a non-judgmental take
On things you might not like
Or do yourself!
Does anything matter more?
Than being yourself
And loving and giving
What you can spare??
What matters more than a good deed
A kind word?
A caring seed
For folks around you?
What really matters
Is spreading the love
Not driving cool cars
Or fighting big wars!
The bags of money,
The heaps of wealth..
All stay back
What matters is health!
A healthy mind,
A healthy thought
What matters more
are battles fought
To fight our egos
To kill our selfishness
To be a Samaritan
Of humanness -
Is what matters more than
Having it all!

Verse

Your thoughts that follow
Like a persistent toddler
With separation anxiety.
Your Emotions that cling
Smothering my existence.
Your words echoing
In the abyss of my heart
Your never-felt touch
Mocking me of the lack.
Your love that was there
Without ever announcing itself,
Or impacting me,
Like the way your absence does.
Dreams of you
That take me back in time
Leaving a void in my present.
Where do I live?
In the non-existent past
Or the painful present??

Melancholy.

I sift my thoughts
Through the debris of the past
A heap clumped
with the moistness of my tears
I gather cysts of pain
Malignant, life taking -
Know not what they would come to mean.
I dig the graves
Of buried hopes
Cry over the remnants
And mourn the loss.

Is this getting them back?
Or letting them go?

Speechless.

She finds words
like luck in loads.
To translate a picture
into strokes with language.
She finds words
Like swift sharp swords
To haul attacks
At atrocities.
She finds words,
Like simple codes,
To put forth her thoughts
Of everyday life.
She finds words
To feign her feelings
To mask, to conceal
And confuse the world.
Alas...she finds not
A single letter
To tell Him
How much it hurts
When the love
Emerges out, piercing her heart!

Curiosity

In search of answers

looking for them -

In grass, side walks,

Flowers and buds.

In critters and bugs

Trees and bushes!

In search of answers

While lumbering around -

In bloomers and suspenders,

squeaky boots and pom pom caps!

Till the bloomers bloom into formals

And then the transformation of

Question and answer sessions

Take unexpected turns

Looking for them in people -

Their ages, lives, their homes and dreams

Inquisitiveness takes an ugly twist!

Ah…the pains of growing up:-)

The Plea.

This review contains Spoilers.

I got some down time, finally, to watch Guzarish, the film that I'd been wanting to watch all these days. Sanjay Bhansali intrigues me as a director. I saw his debut "khamoshi" and noticed him for his keen observation skills and sensitivity to the handicaps that exist around him. It was a failed but laudable attempt by a new kid on the block, brave enough to questions the 'song, dance, fight, cry and happy ending" sequence of commercial Bollywoood cinema. If my friends' observation of my taste being 'weird' is true, I seem to like cinema that addresses more than entertainment. I do enjoy the mindless dramas or romances that Indian cinema churns out, but I love directors who look beyond what meets the eye and make attempts to put forward a message. Who ever said that cinema is meant only to entertain and not to preach or teach or invoke thought, is, according to my humble and honest opinion - wrong! I see the influence of cinema all around me. People imitate the style, the dialogue and even the mannerisms of the characters that are created and depicted on the silver screen and we all do, consciously or otherwise, get influenced by the medium, which collectively, can effect the face of the society we live in- so to present a deep, thought provoking subject is a very laudable attempt in an industry where most movies are made with an intent to succeed at the box office.

Guzarish, or a plea - touches the sensitive subject of "mercy killing" or Euthenesia as it is popularly known. According to the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, the precise definition of euthanasia is "a deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering*

To come back to the plot, a slightly plump Hrithik Roshan, who plays a quadriplegic (Ethan Mascarenas) tied down to his bed, but not tied down by his spirit, counsels the hale and healthy brethren that calls him for advice and teaches them a thing or two about love, life and living, through the medium of a radio show. Aishwarya Rai plays his extremely diligent nurse (Sophie D'Souza) of twelve years, who'd not taken even a day off from her work during this period. Enters Shernaz Patel with her theater-trained performance, as the buddy and lawyer( named Devyaani Duttaa) of Ethan Mascranecas , and it is then and there that she takes away form the dumb looking Aishwarya with her out of place costumes and expressions. Aishwarya, I'd opined earlier, and I do again, is a woman India should be proud of - but not by any stretch of imagination is she an actor that is watchable. In the scene in which she confronts her husband that conveniently appears at the fag end of the movie, to make the 'marriage' of the leading characters possible, Ash displayed acting skills of an armature - and pulled the movie down with all her might and main. I am not critiquing her costumes or the scripting of her character - to me, Aishwarya is not born to act - and she seemed to not have learned form all the experience of being mentored by directors like Bhansali and Ratnam. She falls as flat as ever!

Back to the plot, the movie, for dealing with a sensitive and controversial subject like Euthanasia, didn't evoke the thought or emotions that I anticipated. This is coming form a movie goer that could cry at the slightest provocation, and I am surprised that no scene in the movie spoke to me in terms of sensitivity. The student's character played by Aditya roy Kapoor is worth a mention for his very natural acting skills but again, the character is not molded to its true capacity.
Bhansali is known for his grandeur both in terms of sensitivity and sensibility, but his movie is more like a first draft that would have had a great potential if it was worked on the way Bhansali is known to work on. Hrithik shows the shades of the actor in him which is a pleasant and powerful change form the star we usually get to see. The rest is mediocrity at its best. The soul of the film is flawed and so are the characters and the execution. The sub plots that walk in and out at their will are loose ends that leave the audience with a lot of questions about the love and rivalry aspects of the protagonist's life.
There are a lot of layers to the person that is Ethan Mascrenas and those layers are meant to be manifested in the numerous relationships the film portrays - but none of them kindle the underlying warmth or passion the director envisioned. There are a few scenes that attempt to steal the show - like the one in which Ethan refuses a hug saying he has enough attachments and the one in which he opines to have undergone 'Chinese torture.' All these moments lack the depth the intensity of the subject demands.
I shall remember Guzarish as a brave and expensive attempt with unnecessary ostentation that distracts the viewer from its soul. It is like the beautiful statue of a woman - breathtakingly beautiful, but lifeless and lacking personality. All it displays is the sculptor's skill and attention for detail. All else fades in the glory of the visual.

*courtesy - Wikipedia.

Orientaion.

This is how a tiny little angel (from the pre-k class I volunteer) with cherub cheeks, hailing form the country of Pyramids and Pharos, wrote her name on her art work, post a mile long vacation to her homeland.


A M L A S




:-))

Meaning

Today, I was introduced to yet another joy of facebooking - Controversial comments! Ahem, and I apparently made one such disgusting, demeaning and un-parliamentary (so what does this word mean anyway? something that is not appropriate to use in a parliament? - if so, why do they often compare ours to the fish market? I wonder aloud!) comment about women belonging to a certain state. I looked at one of these wedding pics a dear friend posted, looked at the stunning bride and said in all genuineness, that "Malyalee girls are hot!" Before I go further, I just have to acknowledge that I am not the kind of person that would say something nice or otherwise without meaning it. I had the good fortune in recent years, though I was mentored by a school of Malyalee Nuns in my childhood, to realize that these women are well read, well bred and good-looking all at the same time.
Enters a man who e-shouts at me - that the OCCASION doesn't warrant such comments and I should 'understand' this as a 'woman'. At first I thought there was some miscommunication - since the ever wordy yours truly who cannot say a simple phrase in less than 500 words happened to reply in all the lengthy glory, which contained a lot of negations to convey an utterly positive observation, as a response to the friend's playful feedback to the alleged unparlimentary comment.
Then, I panicked - I think - ever so slightly, since what my general physician said about my recent jaw pain and doc's visit was ever so slightly true and I do, in reality have some mild anxiety that comes as a side effect of having a over active toddler and a job that offers no fiscal benefits and loads of physical deficits, or because I have this OCD of a guilt complex that only a fellow sufferer of 'middle child syndrome' could empathize with.
I read and reread and then took the aid of the kid sister who chanced to call at the same moment when the concoction of ever so slight panic and middle child syndrome occurred. "The dude got offended by your "Hot" comment she offered which put me in a 'lack of reaction' mode. I could not, for once, figure if I had to laugh my heads off or feel sorry for the self appointed etiquette police on planet Facebook.

My brother once came home, post the 'Slumdog' fever, form a trip to a shopping strip in San Francisco and related to me a story about a co-shopper, who walked to him, confirmed that he's indeed Indian, and told him that "The hot little thing" in Slumdog is giving him sleepless nights and in his 'halo effect' mindset and said that he wants to go to India and fall in love with all the women! My brother managed a thank you I guess - and came home and told me the story as if he were Aishwarya rai's brother and was just relating to his sister, the extremely memorable and endearing compliment a very enthusiastic fan had urged him to convey. He didn't see anything unparlimentary about the words, hot OR little thing - and neither did I. I am thankful - since, had he been the self appointed police of 'saving the grace of Indian women' the guy would have though very highly of the Indian Gentry :-D
I feel the necessity to mention here, that on a site like facebook, where every one and their neighbor's forefathers have more friends than humans I'd ever seen in my three decades of living, you say a thing and it gets noticed more often for what it is perceived to be, than for what it is. I have this extremely funny younger friend who finds endless humor in 'gay' related statuses and comments. Though I am not a whole generation older, some of his observations come across more as 'cheeky' than funny. Like I said, I have an OCD guilt complex and often wonder how a 'fighting with the sexuality, still in the woodworks person' might get effected by that humor. I once happened to watch a telugu movie that was a mega hit in it's times for a comedy that ridicules speech impediments. By a strange twist of fate, we watched it with a neighbor that had stuttering issues and I could not, for the life of me, get to understand how a full house could go into a mass hysteria of laughter that is aimed at a handicap. I am probably in the minority and would be branded as a 'holier than thou' snob but Back on track - I would personally not make humor targeted at a certain group, but I do have the dignity to keep my opinions and judgments to myself when I am not asked for them and when the said 'comedy' is being expressed on people's own walls and blogs. So, why would anyone get offended if I called a certain group of women 'hot' in a space other than his, under a picture other than his, and a senior, well respected, head on shoulders member of the same fraternity seems to have taken it as a beaming compliment?" I fail to understand.
Like some wise soul opined in one of her blogs recently - "that people attach their own egos to what is being said - and seldom take things like they are meant to be, or it is just the fact that we are so engrossed in finding faults with every thing we set our eyes on, that we forget our boundaries of grace. I say that being judgmental is the worst thing anyone could do - and I just did that worst thing by saying what I just said. But Hey, I am trying to make a point here - meaning, like beauty, lies in the eyes and mind of the beholder.

Original!

"Hey Alex*- how are you? " I inquire enthusiastically as he comes and pulls a chair opposite to mine.
"You remember me?" he asks - without looking surprised!
"Of course I do!" I add wondering if he remembers me.

He lookes like he remembers me, or may be he doesn't care to remember... or care to remember if he rememberes!

He has that same carelessness about him - but a tenderness masked in that carelessness.

He pulls a sheet from the pile that is stacked in front of me.. I try to help him get it without rummaging the stack. He shoots a look at me with his mouth pursed tightly and his eyebrows knotted and pulls the sheet with all his might. I let go in fear of tearing the sheet into two. He lets out a carefully concealed smile but quickly goes back to his grumpy expression.

I get lost in the things I need to finish at the table - and when I look in his direction I let out a little shriek...

"What are you trying to do?" I ask him without sounding too bossy! "This is not how you do it!"

He shoots back that same disdainful look at me. A look that I try not take personally. He pauses a couple of seconds and holds on to the craft work tightly.

" I want to do it my way!" he almost yells.

" Your way?" I question back helplessly. Looking at a supposed snowman - that looks like a pile of unclean dishes with food drying on them. The embellishments that need to go on the snowman are probably dumped into a pool of glue and scattered with the hand. The hat stuck to the center with some feathers that are soaked in Elmer's washable glue.
I give up. I cannot really win with this kid! He has a very strong mind of his very own.

"All done" he smiles and walks with careless aplomb to put it on the drying rack.

The Following day:


"Hey Alex! How are you this afternoon" I question like a hyper door to door salesperson.
He doesn't answer. He just looks back at me with a pouty mouth and knit eyebrows. I smile and he makes a silly face at me. I look to my sides to see if anyone noticed his making fun of me.

"Never mind!" I say aloud. " DO you want to come and make a penguin?"

He doesn't answer. He grabs the sheet and attempts to cut the outline.

I look away to help the other kids at the table.

By the time I look back he has what looks like a Halloween ghost cut-out in his hand, instead of the "rounded at the edges" rectangle.

"let me trim it for you" I offer.

"NO" he yells. "This is his hair" he say pointing to a horn like protrusion on the 'supposed to be penguin' craft work.

Then he glues the eyes to make it look like a couple of belly buttons stacked in the center of the stomach.

"My way" he pouts mischievously.
"Is this a monster you made here?" I ask in funny mockery.

"It is a penguin silly" he snaps back and glides to the drying rack.

The 'supposed to be penguin' leers through a row of actual penguins grabbing my attention just like this little guy does in a class full of cute toddlers.

"I want to do it my way" I over hear him saying.

He is a menace, but an original menace!

God bless creativity!

:-)

*identity changed!