Swabhimaan

She made her presence felt today
Along the crack that threatens
Arangetram, the moss comes out
Does her first dance today

Footsteps that come out of the dark
Silent, purposeful only to walk away
The anticipation or the farewell
Kept me awake many a night today

In a blink the wall is all green
A mural, a silent testimony
To the years that have passed
In toil, in pain and in slumber

I sit in the dark, ruminating over what I have just seen. I decide to (write a) blog. It’s not going to be pleasant. I’ve seen a very disturbing movie... I’ve seen Matrubhoomi...

I’m really quick at fixing responsibilities... usually...
For an hour and a half I’m unable to write anything...Im even unable to decide the structure of the “review” I’m going to write. This sort of a movie leaves you so unsettled that you question the very basis of “life”
Was I by choice or was I coerced into existence?
I’ll never know…
As the years that have passed have changed the equation forever... forever rendering the potency of a man to the status of a screwdriver or a tool that is needed to get the job done or more fearfully so into one of blighted force … instead of co-op
The kaleidoscope is displaying its myriad hues as I turn around for the battle …..
I settle for a smoke and by the light of the screen as the smoke is conveniently dispatched to the corners of the room a question forms itself.
What did Manish Jha REALLY want to talk about?

The honest (and easiest) answer is I don’t know. However I did watch the movie intensely, and at different stages I formed different opinions and when I pressed “off “on the remote I was confused ...was that perhaps the original idea?

First the structure of the movie... a story it is not... a description of a society… it very well might be
And if parallels really insist upon testimony, then “Nishant” was a story.
For those who have watched the movie it is an intense statement on the society of its times... more scathing than any statement about a “yet to be born” society aided by a “2URDE4CE” (tour-de-force) performance by Shabana Azmi... (I really had to interpret that no. plate)
Lest I trivialize, there are two scenes that stand out in my mind... in nishant I mean

Shabana azmi lies on the ground, having been physically overpowered by three men , in a yellow sari , and the moment is one of extreme poignancy , one where when the mind capitulates under repeated assaults, and a few frames later, she calls out to the domestic help as if the house were her own.. She asks, even nags for a kitchen of her own... sanity in an insane world

And the other, where the villagers commune under one rash action by the village-teacher to give the zamindars the boot... Naseeruddin shah looks for Shabana azmi “first” and then Smita Patil...the moment of death and the choice of the place is weird though …Sham Bengal chose a staid rock under whose backdrop the two lovers choose to die... not a rock for their love/affection/infatuation was anything but …

Contrast matrubhoomi --- where the subject is female infanticide... remotely related to the movie I am talking about... however it is definitely about redefinition... of one world into another.
And the vehicle that the author chooses is not one of subtlety where the idea haunts the viewer...instead the weak cast seeks subterfuge in repetition... until a concept is ( for the lack of a better word) hammered in …she is raped …she is raped …she is raped …multiple times..(Thank god for redundancy)
Here in my mind is a perfect example of a “can/can’t do “being sacrificed for the greater cause... For Mr. Jha when you depict a scene like that for public viewing, you cannot run away ...” I cannot be caught up in the details” cannot be an excuse…for no matter how uncomforting it is...each violation, EVERYTIME ,has a different connotation for the victim. Though her frightened eyes ask the same question every time...you cannot hide behind the same answer … namely circumstance.

Matrubhoomi fails in making you think about why… instead it succeeds in making you think about what if ?.. No matter how rhetorical the question might seem
For however logical the movie might seem, it fails in its primary purpose…
It assumes that man is beyond redemption... it fails the simple test of causality
It fails the viewer...
It seeks to burden him/her with a share of the guilt that is not adequately shared. Though I am one for noble ambition, am not one for perjury.

And maybe my limited knowledge obfuscates me

Maybe it blinds me to the many truths that women face everyday and the multitude blurs the face that spurs me to action, my mother my sister my lover

It does not blind me from the sense of judgment that I am pronounced to... my responsibility …and therein I hope Im one of MANY
And to that end I say


Hope while we missed it
Instead of the lines in green
Envy/ravage you say?
Beauty/damage I say

In damnation I find true blue
The colors that seek and
The colors that flew
I seek my colors true
And I for one refuse to give up on that.

.wither??? Said the “war of the words”?


PS - Tulip joshi is a gutsy woman(IMHO) for having agreed in the first place... for that , kudos.. if she has any sensitivity that I credit women with ..she took it out of a sense of responsibility over everything else..
and That demands commendation and every measure of international acclaim that the movie is receiving.
PPS - being the anarchist that I am i do hope the movie reaches your shores and does Disturb you ..it antagonises you, it insults you ..and maybe then..
there is hope for a common consensus

Breasts

I’ve always been fixated on breasts .. And breasts onto me ..Symbiosis has been a rather large part of my life.
“Be careful” , screamed a rather innocent looking headline
Sender – Srinivas road pulipati
Recipient – Doha
I wish i could italicise the thousand emotions ...
and speak the thousand lives this woman was in one
Happens to all of us ..Especially me
Honestly the “ Everything you wanted to know about sex but were always afraid to ask” -
The theme should have been explored in the Indian context. Would have been a classic case of
“JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I HAD ANSWERED ALL THE QUESTIONS THEY CHANGED THE QUESTION PAPER “
However I digress .. By profession I am a trumpeter , a blow-Horner , a man with a mouth, full of gas if you will … many adjectives have been associated with me
I do the most solemn duty of all ..Blow it when it needs to be blown .. Not many people would exchange places with me ..And THAT I think makes me rather special ..

Nayna the cradle snatcher
It happened many moons ago .. I was comfortably perched atop my feathery, cloudy bed trying to take the whole wide world in one giant stare when another pair of eyes locked mine
From experience I could gather she was at least 42 hours older however she had me in a trance
Staring at me from the adjacent cradle ..asking me if there was another ? “Noo” , I helplessly stammered , She had me ..Then and there.. A complacent grin stroked her cheeks as she looked upwards and breathed peacefully.
She bawled her head off when they tried to pull her out of the cradle and they did.. And for three days she would not stop crying … the nurse had a bright idea .. Let’s take her amongst the other kids … I had not been adopted yet .. She immediately calmed down.
She knew me.. A tryst with destiny ..
And until they adopted me for the helper’s family, she would not budge from the nursing room
Both of us stared at each other wide eyed .. Each nursing a breast and content ..The predator and the preyed.
I have to be fair to them of course, they gave me all that could be asked for .. A fine education.. Even pretence of jealousy when I would top her.. In the exams ..The excuse being .. “Oh she did not really study “ …would drive me mad for almost weeks when she would just come upto me and parrot the same thing over and over again.. I remember what getting mad at her was like

Nayna Nayna Nayna Nayna
Who’s the taller bol na ?
Ahh yes the helper and his wife, in whose home I was fostered … every night a dream would come and haunt me …after I had shared the meager meal …after I had watched them go hungry for an illusion ..a son they’d never have.. I would be haunted by a dream too.. of nayna, asleep peacefully in her mansion and us in her outhouse and I would dream… of riches and of bright lights and fireworks..
Coincidence or whatever ..the day I was appointed to get the morning newspaper from the gate on the bicycle I saw that Nayna had breasts. A little mound on the dress ..maybe it was the morning sun or my headiness on a bicycle as I flew past on it and turned to look back and her arms waving frantically at me, pointing forward …. Lost and bruised.. as I picked myself up from the ground and mounted the atlas once again, I felt like I could wade through a thousand brambles if only they would serve as an excuse for me to look back. The first ride is the loneliest one …after that the mobility is just an excuse…
Not only did she have breasts.. she was taller .. This was unacceptable, of course. Especially when she and I went to different schools and walked back for 1/4th of the way, from where our buses/rickshaws would drop us off. I was walking beside her ..and then not.. I would pretend to tie my shoelaces every time we would pass a bus stop. She kept saying “ I’m going to ask dadu to get you new shoelaces” …she never did ..
Her breasts however kept growing until one day they stopped and this was miraculous…she would stop growing now and I could compete …


Nayna nayna nayna nayna
Who’s the taller bol na ?
Was my constant refrain
I outgrew her by almost a foot …

Gangly, my thinness became subject of ridicule.. New questions to answer.. Every time I would catch up she would be there ..With a new book , with a new role for me to play ..Never a word as to how I had done so far..

Nayna the ..
Just nayna ..the bubblegum

I would take the atlas everyday and fetch the milk from the front gate ..the milkman drifting away as the gates closed was a morose sight to start the day with …however I always used to think of what he left behind
They did not send me to college and nayna . she went ..
“It’s always good to have a social service project at home , isn’t it ?” , I said
“I never thought of you like that , you know that” , nayna said
“ Why the fuck are you crying ?
Why the fuck are you crying …
They just convince me even more that
You took me to be a project” “that’s all”
She was still in control…
“ I just wanted to show you the new dress”
And why, WHY did you want to show me that? , just to make me feel bloody shitty and that in spite of a bachelor’s degree I can’t get a job , feed my parents? , is that why you decided to show me the new dress .. To show me what your world is and what mine is ? “
After all the day’s vitriol had been poured
“No I just wanted to show it to somebody ..Somebody who wouldn’t say how short it was”

“ITS SHORT AND ITS crass and you’re dressed up like a bloody whore!” “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

The bubblegum burst ..For the first time I saw beneath her breasts..

Nayna the woman
You know she died today.. Nayna I mean .. And I don’t want to comment on anything else except on how young she was and how unfair it all is. And I find myself unable to comment on both.
Her breasts are still. The heart that once beat within is still and I am weaned ..Once and truly of the
Fascination that was nayna .


Nayna the Ghost

“Oh did I mention the fact that “ , what a desk way of saying things , well at least what sprung to my mind and “whatever” is in order !

“Did I mention?”
That she killed herself

Srinivas Rao pulipati had this email ,all figured out …he had this woman, out to be a whore , he had her out to be, Miss Ranch , he had her out to be ,poisoned …poisoned with something “he could not figure out” …somebody all of us fight with …as the seductress, as the girlfriend, as the wife.
Nayna cackled , she laughed “Oh you men”
She cackled and burned bright tonight as she spewed and hummed
“Nights in white satin “
“Never reaching the end “
“Letter I had written “
Never meaning to send
Bright and sure …even as morning rears its head

WELL ..
Here’s to the ghosts of another day!
I did say I was the trumpeter…and I did blow … on her funeral day ….after all …a man’s got to do what a mans' got to do !?”

To nayna the whatever …
!!!

Women are from bras and men are from ...well !

A repost of my first ever post!


“Next time I produce a movie, I'll make sure you get a part,” she said and winked, naughtily, if I may add.

“And may I be impertinent enough to ask what that part might be?” I said with an overdose of sarcasm.

“A dead body!” she said.


Gosh, I thought to myself, I can't believe I fell for that again!

But that's the way it is, me the uninteresting bloke and she is… (explain said the guidelines, so the tense is present in case you thought the species was extinct) the effervescent spirit.

(Psst… what's that I hear? Hmm, you want to know the name!)

Well then, on popular demand:

“The name is ….(oops the ellipse is rather prolonged in its axis!)”

“Women are from bras and men are from Penus.”

“Hawr, Hawr” (No, it is in fact a female of the boo-hooman race, and yes, they can sometimes surprise you with the sound of what they call 'laughter'.)

“r”

“H”

“E”

“A”

And in case, gentle reader, you're lost, that's the name -- she always wrote it like that.

“Will you marry me?” she asked.

No, I thought to myself, I'm not falling for that again.

“Will you marry me?” she asked again.

(Enter JhunJhunwala, The sad music man)

When the day is small a lot smaller…than the night
And all you have is the darkness
Like the summer that never was to be
Watching the stars that twinkle from afar
Unlike the twinkle in your eyes
As the dreams drop by
Carrying a piece of your heart every time


“Sa'ab, mem saab ko bolo ki joke is no longer joke for you,” JhunJhunwala says.

Another swig of the famous preparation and I crush JhunJhunwala out of my head.

I smile and say, “For the two years that I've known you, I've asked you that and you have always asked me to go look for my Siamese twin. Then why this suddenly?”

“I don't know… I just felt like Romeo today instead of Juliet,” she said.

“Well, as long as it's a day-long affliction!”

“No, seriously. You haven't seen me, don't know what I look like, haven't ever met me, blah blah blah…” she said.

“Would you still marry me?” she asked.

(In case this sounds like one of those oh-so-famous chat transcripts… your worst fears have indeed come true, just a tad more animated.)

(Ting Ting Ting)

Boy, she's persistent, I thought.

“I don't know. No one's ever said that to me before,” I said.

“Oh, c'mon. If you don't come up with something more original than that…” she says

“Nah, really!”

(Ting Ting Ting)

Man, you're such a sucker, you fall for that every time… after all this time! I think to myself.

“You're such a gorgeous woman. Why would you want to be with such a normal bloke like me?” I ask.

“Normal. Hello?? That's why!” she said.

Oh-So-Good.

Just as I'm levitating…

(Enter Mr. Reality)

Dude, she's using you.
She faking love
Just like them others
Who wants you ooooo
For your money
Trrgh trrgh crrrgh Stop Stop It doesn't even rhyme


(Exit Mr. Reality -- you gotta get beat, dude! And I'm broke.)

(Ting Ting Ting)

“Hey, are you there?” she asks.

I wake myself out of my reverie and say, “Yes.”

“So, then?” she asks, “Will you marry me?”

Ask her and say it… it's for the best! Someone tells me.

“So what about that guy you said was interesting (and really cute) and you went out to lunch with a gazillion times!”

(Oh-by-the-long-lost-way I'm not good at role-playing)

(Mr. jealousy makes an entrance and a quiet not-so-musical exit here)

“Oh, that guy,” she says.

(At least that's how I hear it!)

“Yeah, that guy,” I say.

Brace yourself for the worst, I think to myself.

“Hmmm, now you're acting like you really know me!” she says.

I can't stand this role-playing (Ting Ting Ting) any longer.

“Of course I know you. Of course, you're my wife of two years. God knows it's been a great journey so far, and all I think of now is that maybe it's not been the same for you!” I burst out.

“That's so sweet. You're jealous!!” she said.

“Grrrrrr.”

(Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting)

“Nahin, jaan (No, my dear) this ain't working out now, is it?!” she says.

“No, I guess it isn't,” I say.

How can you expect it to when I'm chatting with my wife sitting in the next room! That counselor must have been crazy (or brilliant… whatever.)

“You know I love you?” she says.

I don't utter a word.

“So will you marry me?”

(A great Danish pause)

What the heck, it's the season all over again!

“Yes, I'll marry you,” I say. “I will, I will over and over again even if I have to undergo this a thousand times.”

So gentle reader, if it may please you, pass not this chronicle of domestic unrest to others; and as a species, remember it is not even important what Mr. Perfect's name is… we just want to be cuddled…(I wish i could change this PAPA BEAR sentence..but then NO! artistic integrity :) ) and yes, if you want that shrink's address, e-mail me.

(Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting) (Ringing furiously here!)

Can't stand it any longer!

I get up, open the door and let Love and rHEA make their entrance… (Yet again) and we silently renew our marriage vows and let Mr. Love do the talking.

(Shhh… Thanks again, but I don't really need a song here.)

Durga!

The windows are down. The wind is streaking my hair with grey as it urges a thought past every hair and splits time into two... what if? What if? Tricky business this...

The sky had churned itself into a very dark grey...almost black but not quite. The clouds were all trying to merge into shapes that I had not quite seen...frightful yet friendly
This was catharsis at its best and I felt a mirror being held unto my face
This purgatory was in fact my only salvation. How many times had I questioned this thought before? Today however I had to face my demons

This was not an evening to be driving with the top down. It might rain any minute. I knew that the moment I had set out of the house. As I walked down the driveway I looked back for a second at the house. That interminable second would not cease as I looked at the brick and mortar that encased my existence. The paint was flaking, I noticed. The water seepage was showing. Algae were trickling along the line that defined the water seepage. Funny how the destruction of a thing gives life to another. The roof still retained its proud definition... a shadow that sets with the sun every day and rose with it too... punctual... everybody has two lives... one that is constant, unmoved by nature, just giving into decay...and the other that is born and dies everyday.


“Why did you not return my calls today?” Ranjani asks enraged. “Today was bad...”. “Tell me something new”, she said, sarcasm dripping off every word.
“Not today”, I whispered.
What did you say, she asked. “Nothing “. “It’s always nothing with you”

It began two months ago when I had started seeing Aparajita.
Names have always held a fascination for me. It reminds me of the final chapter that is the toughest to write. For having created something so beautiful out of a piece of wood the sculptor agonizes over what to call it.

My grandmother used to tell me this story of this simpleton in a village who was very gifted with his hands. He used to make wooden statues for the village festivals... statues which would be immersed into the river at the end of the festival period. The simpleton was allowed to choose his wood, his look. No one was allowed to take a look at the statue until it was unveiled at the first day of the festival. Every statue that he made would signify the mood of the moment. If the villagers were afraid of some impending tax or sarkari takeover. He would make a statue that would look sad. On the rare occasions that the villagers were happy he would apply an extra coat of vermillion on the forehead of the statue. Every day of the year he would have food to eat, for he was blessed. Until the year he refused to part with the statue…
The villagers screamed and stood with fire torches outside his hut, demanding to see the statue, their festival goddess. The bhaktas deserve a darshan, they shouted. He did not budge, stood there mute, before his veiled statue. Some of the elders tried to reason with him, trying to dissuade him with food, playthings, even promising the dhol they had taken away from him.
They showed him visions of plague, of rotten deaths, and of bloody carnage. In the end they simply asked him why he did not want to give the veiled statue to them.
He replied “I am married to her” “She is my most beautiful creation”
They laughed out aloud, “Oh what a simpleton! “, they cried.
They restrained him in chains and took the statue. They heard a last wailing cry from him…”Please don’t unveil her, have her as the statue but don’t unveil her”. The villagers agreed to this pitiful cry and had the festival for the first time with a veiled statue. Then came the day of the immersion... and the simpleton had been released three days earlier for he was too weak to cause any mischief.
They decided to immerse her, veiled as she was. The clouds had gathered to form a dark backdrop on the horizon. The villagers were as terrified of the clouds waiting to unleash their anger as of the village priest’s warning that the veil should not be lifted as the statue was drowned.
They chose the simpleton to carry out the task of pushing her out to sea. He would be no great loss to the village, they argued. To their surprise no force was required and the simpleton agreed to carry out the task of pushing her out to sea. He stepped out dandily dressed, grabbed the plank with both his hands, his sinewy arms strained, pushing away from this desecration of his beloved every second. He lost his footing however and slipped and fell. The sands and the water engulfed him and took him down as a mother grabbing her lost child. The statue slowly floated away and a gentle breeze rose from the west, and...Lifted her veil for just a second. At that very instant a thunderbolt split into two the curtain of the clouds.
For the villagers who were gazing, petrified at this spectacle, they were blinded for many moments at the brilliant flash that had dazed them. For many minutes they were stunned and then sight returned, for most of them.

The sea before them was covered with wooden statues, floating, each purposeful, vigilant
The body of the simpleton was never found. Never floated up to the surface. The statues drifted away… the villagers never celebrated the festival again. They were afraid their conscience would take another form to haunt them...

And today I fight my demons…
Aparajita was not my “type”, she would challenge every thought, every rationale I had for every action. She would challenge my authority every second. She was trying to change me into something, and I gauged that she liked the resistance, as I did too. It was a game that had no losers. The days she wanted to make love she would place the cactus plant on her balcony. She would have it no other way. This I always questioned... why not a phone call?? Why not a simple phone call? There was no reasoning with her though... and there I was looking up to her balcony afternoon… I knew she was watching...I always knew that and that she especially enjoyed seeing that look of disappointment on my face when I would leave the sidewalk... I knew that because she would call me up in office in the evening to tell me “I love you inspite of everything... a cactus does not necessarily mean that you are stranded in a desert” …
Ah what a simpleton and what a predator! But which was which?

“Ah you were just a conquest!”
“What about our love for each other?” I screamed
“This decision is mine. Don’t try to blackmail me with some love laden innuendo, you know as well as I do that we both were just objects and bodies... That is all ... this however.”
“But “, I interjected.
“Let me complete”, she said
“I want to have this child and without you. I don’t want you to be any part of this child’s life... she is mine and mine alone... She will not have a father and not even his name, she will only have me...and she will be happy, I have decided to call her...Suverna”

I showed her vistas of society which would barb her; give her and her child names, names that would stick to her through her life. She would not share, would not let me be a part of something so beautiful. She had her strength and I had my promises. But what good are promises to somebody who doesn’t want anything except to want me away.

I immersed her, drove the very thought of her away and returned home.
The one question that remained with me was “Why?”
Was it because she was selfless enough to let me off the hook with an excuse and a reason
Or was she genuinely selfish?

Women always know. Especially the ones that know you. Ranjani was in a bad mood, almost every day of those two months.
I wanted to bring matters to a head so I left some photographs of app and me lying on my desk.
There was no reference to them at the dinner table and it was a calm quiet dinner.
“What’s her name?” ranjani asked
Aparajita, I said
Nice name and then silence
“Well she’s going to have to fight like hell if she wants to steal my husband away from me”
I did not say anything and walked out of the house

I face my demons now... I stare out at the ridge that overlooks the valley swathed in white bandages. As if moonlight was balming the wounds of the day for the houses that smoked from within
My face peered back at me from the valley, unrecognizable and contorted and ugly
And then I felt a touch on my shoulder

I looked around to see ranjani,
She was beautiful, by the moonlight; every feature was chiseled as in granite

“I am going to have our child, and from this day forward expect loyalty and nothing else
Expect loyalty and nothing more”

As she said that the moonlight did a strange dance and her features floated away into the misty silence.
Immersed in a sea of white...
Indistinguishable from the white
That had sprung to her defence...

Contentment

Contentment is my excuse , for feeling
Happy without a sense of failure
Venture as it does without refrain
The honesty that jeers, unrelenting

Names I conjure between now and then
Stare at me with passion
Sing our requiem , a proper burial
Demand the voices, stentorian

Every dream that lies stretched
At the altar of practicality, signals
Questions that beg to be asked
Echoes that refuse to be bequeathed

Every door I open now ,no escape
A mirror faces me at every wall ,showing
Me a thousand lives I might have led
Slowly they fade, they bled

Until I look at myself , passive
And then I look around
Content I am and happiness abounds
Everywhere ,except …..

Catharsis

Catharsis

Once again I see
Things I was not meant to
Through the hazy pane
That shields, your world

Lips that tasted like dew
Settling slowly ,smouldering
Conquering and yielding
Born again and new

Give me the hemlock I desire
Doubts that cloaked words,unspoken
When I walked that thin wire
Of deceit and promises broken

The birthday gift that made no sense
A wooden frame with a calligraphy grill
That would swathe your face with sundrops
That every morn I woke up to see

And what if it is cloudy , you asked
It is cloudy today I wrote ,
And I feel like the jew
Whose cheek, the pound of flesh, smote