(Poem) The Eyes

It's all in the eyes
- the emotions
the eyes -- the skylight of the soul

We heed words-
And read thoughts
behinds words
When all the while
In clear sight
are the EYES

The Eyes - that tweet all...
the pain and the pleasure
the suffering and the grit
the doubt and the conviction
the ecstasy and the despair
the cruelty and tranquility
the hunger and the ecstasy
The belligerence and benignity
the triumph and the regret
 the warmth and the vulnerability
the fire to fight
the serenity of surrender

If only we could read faces
instead of words ...

[Short Story] Autumn Flowers

I waited impatiently for the lift, my hands weighed down by grocery bags. It seemed to make an inordinately long halt in the fifth floor. I looked enquiringly at the watch man sitting a little away at his desk...
"New madam coming fifth floor," he said.
"Oh, the vacant flat!, but they should shift late at night or in the middle of the day!" I murmured in annoyance.

It was already 5 pm and I was having guests over for the evening. When the lift finally descended I looked menacingly at the occupant and the movers who were with her. The slight woman in a blue saree looked apologetically at me and said, "I am extremely sorry, we are almost ..." she stopped in mid sentence and I shouted,
"Malini!  Malini Vishwanath! is that really you?"
 My anger and my anxiety vanished in an instant. Malini rushed to me and gave me a warm hug. We both started talking excitedly and before I knew it, she was in my flat after hurriedly disposing off the movers.

As we hurriedly cooked together for the evening, we talked endlessly, piecing together the major events of the intervening years. I had met Malini in college and we had hit it off immediately. We spent all the breaks together and the weekends as well. She lived amongst sylvan surroundings in the outskirts and a  huge contrast to my dull apartment in the city. The weekends felt like paradise as we explored the countryside armed with a story book, singing songs, losing our way ever so often and being chided by her mother for our wild ways! We were an inseparable pair in college even though she was in a different stream. We even sat through abstruse lectures in each other's classes just to be together.  Malini exerted a great influence on me, kindling my interest in gardening and photography and helping me look at life as a dream and a celebration.

As we sat, sipping the rejuvenating cup of tea after the exertions in the kitchen, I looked at the five foot slim figure in front of me. She had not changed one bit- she wore no makeup as always and she had done nothing  to mask her greying hair. She was dressed in her characteristic simple cotton saree.
Malini gave a gentle smile and asked softly, " So how are your relatives?"
 I recoiled from the memory raked up by the question...

Marriage was something that  often came up in our talks and Malini always said-
"I will not marry, I want to become a social worker! I don't believe in living for myself! We need to give something back to society too!"
 
I did not have her conviction, brought up as I was to believe that marriage was the very purpose of a woman's existence. I was married soon after college, but much to our disappointment, Malini couldn't attend as she was away at Delhi, at a convention.

Malini on her return tried her best to make up for it. She would often come over, in the evenings to my new home with my in laws. Life for me,suddenly felt very different and strange! Marriage, is a journey of discovery where every woman learns, about becoming progressively responsible and selfless and romance is but a girlish fantasy. I would eagerly await Malini's visits as a breath of fresh air, but soon it became clear to me that the friendship was unsustainable. Malini too sensed it and while I felt  her trauma, I was in no position to comfort her.

Once when Malini, came home, there were a lot of guests. People were talking loudly and Malini said " I can't talk in this din, let's go outside for a walk."
 This remark invited a few glares in our direction and I instinctively knew that trouble was brewing. In panic I said, "Malini, How insesitive of you?
I have guests at home...
You are single, what do you know about marriage and responsibity?
You can't walk in here and demand my time.
I wish you wouldn't visit me so often, frankly its quite trying!"

 At this, Malini, left  my house, without saying a word, and disappeared completely from my life. I made no effort to follow her or look for her, for many years. But I often thought how she was and pondered in our friendship, who needed the other more. After my children were born, I gained enormous capacity to handle stress. I began to appreciate her selfless love for the first time and sense her need to be loved in turn.  Sadly, we appreciate most what we have the least!
 Oh, how often had I wished that I would run in to her some day and fate had finally granted that wish!

 I came out of my reverie and smiled broadly at Malini. I vowed, I would give her all the attention she needed this time around and never to lose her again.
In the autumn of our lives, we were once again little girls wandering in the wilderness, wild flowers all around.

[Poem] MI -rage

 

                                                                         The MI -rage

How easy it is to die 

To close the eye in final sleep 

Leave all the cares behind 

This frame swathed and entwined 

In the tentacles of 

Want, Age, illness and an overactive guilt 

Emotions tearing up my core 

Leaching their way out 

Fuelled by my impotence…


Trapped in the trench of inaction 

I seek
Meaning, causality, closure… 

Grabbing rotting vines 

I seek 

Refuge 

In religion and philosophy! 

Hope is but a thin shaft of light or rope 

In the increasing darkness I grope …


The gods are safely housed in their temples 

And sages no longer walk the earth.


Who will hear the infant’s cry? 

Who will heal when epidemics strike?

Who will wipe the tearful sweat,

of toilers in the mud? 

Who will release the hoarded wealth? 

Who shall halt the will to kill for petty thefts? 

Who can stay the hunger deaths? 

Who can stem human depravity? 

Who will heed the shriek of a bleeding earth? 

Will Love ever again walk this earth?

Will love ever walk this Earth? 

And make your pain, your cry, your voice, mine?
Will love ever be an open mine
That bursts forth in ochre, crimson, amber, citrine…


If all of mankind’s rage fuelled a volcano, it would soar like an inferno
Ready
to burn and grind to dust,
All that is aught in this world.

A burning flavescent flame that thaws the human heart
Burns up into ash
The evil, the callousness, the disregard
Melted in the magma of human rage
Smelted to birth Human Love 

Humane humanity’s return

Sadly, in this age, 

This image 

Is
but a mirage…

[Blog] Kunti Devi: A study in sacrifice

The Mahabaratha, the greatest Indian epic, inhabited by powerful characters some inspiring and some others archetypal, has been invoked and revisited innumerable times. Karna, the most human of all the characters, is someone men can relate to even today and empathise with completely. But, this post is not about Karna, but is instead about his mother Kunti Devi, a rather endearing character.

Kunti Devi's life is a study in suffering. At a young age she is separated from her natural parents and is adopted by the king Kuntibhoja from whom she gets her name. She gets an unbelievable boon after serving the sage Durvasa well, which enables her to call upon any god and demand a child through him. She is a mere child when she gets this boon and with a childlike curiosity, she invokes the Sun god and begets a son. The social norms that put a premium on virginity and chastity, force her to abandon this child. She marries the King of Hastinapur, Pandu, but  does not have a fulfilling relationship with him as he soon marries a younger princess Madri. Kunti does not enjoy a very cordial relationship with Madri either. Pandu is rendered impotent by a curse and gives up his kingship and retires to the forest with his queens. Here, Kunti shares the secret of her special boons with him and Madri. She uses three of these to beget her sons and sacrifices two others to Madri. But Pandu meets an early death and Madri decides to die with him, (citing her culpability in his death) and Kunti, is left alone to bring up her five sons. She returns to live in her husband's kingdom amongst hostile relatives. In fact she and her sons are under constant threat from the Kaurava princes all their life. The guilt of abandonment of her first born too plagues her throughout, and after a long life of suffering and austerity, a forest fire brings to an end her tumultuous life.What I like most about her character is her stoicism and the equanimity she exhibits in the face of constant adversity.

I see the Kunti myth as a tangled web of several issues-an empowerment (by way of the boons) that is seemingly not; a child's curiosity; the guilt of banishment of her son which she endures alone although it is not entirely her fault; the polyandrous relationships with the gods brought on by her husband's curse; the guilt of polyandry that she unwittingly bestows upon her daughter-in-law Draupadi.

 But Kunti Devi, despite being a well delineated character,  displays certain stereotypical traits :-
a) The Sacrificing heroine : Kunti is even more of a martyr than the Ramayana's Sita. Kunti epitomizes the sacrificing mother. She is projected only as the mother of 6 sons and her role is the constant care and worry about these children and nothing else.
This sacrifice of Kunti is cited as a supreme virtue by traditionalists and she displays the traits often seen in women - that of emotional dependency upon others around them, and in the incapability to uphold their own interests and well being over and above the interests and well being of their children and partners.

b) The devaluation of female curiosity- Women have always been stereotyped as having a higher degree of inquisitiveness with rather negative consequences. The Kunti myth shares certain elements with Greek, Roman and Judeo- Christian myth. Kunti is similar to Pandora from Greek myth, where Pandora, despite warnings to the contrary, opens a certain box, out of curiosity and unleashes untold evils upon this world. Eve's curiosity is the sole cause of the loss of Paradise, in the Judeo-Christian myth and her act is the cause of suffering of all mankind. 

c) Child abandonment at birth: too is a recurrent theme in myth. Karna is not the only child so abandoned, Sita, the heroine of Ramayana is an abandoned child too and so is Shakuntala, the mother of Bharatha, the eponymous king of India. Moses of the Judeo-Christian myth is an abandoned child too.

The Mahabaratha lanscape might look like a highly repressive society with the onus on virginity and chastity and the repeated restorations of virginity - in Satyavathi after her encounter with Parashara, with Kunti when she bore Karna and with Draupadi at the end of each year with each of her husbands.  But the startling take away from this ancient epic for me, is the freedom of sexual choice and the freedom of motherhood exercised by the women here, that is now denied to the women of today with our repressive notions of morality. For me therefore, the Mahabharata society comes across as a highly progressive one.

 Each rereading of this epic throws up amazing and relevant insights into human nature and I find it remarkable that an epic written almost 1600 years ago, can still be of great interest and provide enough scope for a heated discussion even today. 

[Poem] Now

                                                                         NOW
 

Everything is now
this moment...
right now
this very moment...
Tomorrow is another day
and another chance may never come your way.

How often
have I let go
a golden moment
and lived to lament
an entire lifetime?

So sing that song
speak your love,
say your thanks
and your prayers;
give that smile,
open your heart
Let flow that kindness.

A friend of mine Srinivasan Balasubramanian was kind enough to translation this poem in Tamizh : 

அத்தனையும் இப்பொழுதே
இக்கணமே இன்னொடியே !
நாளை என்பது வேறொரு நாள்
நாளை வரை விட்டு விட்டால் எல்லாம் பாழ்
அரிய தருணங்கள் ஆயிரம் விட்டிருக்கிறேன்
அது நினைந்து அய்யோ என்று அழுதிருக்கிறேன்
அன்பு நெஞ்சங்களே
உங்கள்
பாடல்கள் ஒலிக்கட்டும் இன்றே
காதலும் வெளிவரட்டும் நன்றே
இறைவன் தாளிணை பணியுங்கள்
இன்றே நன்றி நவிலுங்கள்
இதயக்கதவு இன்றே திறக்கட்டும்
உங்கள் கனிவு புன்னகை மலரட்டும்
கருணை எங்கும் பரவட்டும்

[Translation] Bharathiyaar's Maayayai Pazhithal

Maayayai Pazhithal, is a less known philosophical poem by the Mahakavi. We see the poet in conversation with the concept of Maya and while recognizing it's power is confident of defeating it. Though Maya is broadly translated as illusion, it is in fact a rather complex concept which in the Vedas denotes knowledge, might and power. In Vedanta it refers to the cognition of reality, and Maya is a veil that the seeker must see through in order to experience the epiphany and set out on the path of liberation. Maya makes one view the world as duality - superimposing a perceived reality over Brahman consciousness. 

The English translation was done in collaboration with Shekar Raghavan.

[Original]

Unmai arindhavar unnai kanipaaro Maayaiye --
Mana thinmai ullaarai nee  seivadhum ondrundo Maayaiye.

Ethanai kodi padai kondu vanthaalum Maayaiye
Nee sitha thelivenum theeyin mun nirpaayo Maayaiye.

Ennai kedupathark kennamutrai ketta Maayaiye 
Naan unnai kedupathuruthi yendreyunar Maayaiye

Saaga thuniyir samuthiram emmattu Maayaiye
Indha degham poi yendrunar dheerarai yenseivaai Mayaiye

Irumai yizhandhapin engirupaai arpa Maayaiye
thelindorumai kandaar munnam odaathu nirpaayo Maayaiye

Neetharum inbathai nerendru kolvano Maayaiye
Singam naaithara  kollumo nallara saatchiyai Maayaiye
 
Yennichai kondunai yettrivida vallen Maayaiye
Ini unnichai kondena kondrum varathu kaan Maayaiye

Yaarkum adiyallen yaanena therthanan Maayaiye
Undran porkanjuveno podiyakkuven unnai Maayaiye 


 [Translation]

Those who know the truth, do they ever judge you O Maya
Do you ever harm those of determined hearts, O Maya

Come armed, you might, with raging armies O Maya
But can you endure the fire of clear thought O Maya

You seem most determined to destroy me O evil Maya
But know this, that I shall certainly crush you O Maya

Braced for death, of what consequence is the ocean O Maya
 Can you harm the fearless who have realized this body as false O Maya

With loss of all duality where will you be O petty Maya
In the presence of those enlightened with Oneness will you not flee O Maya

The pleasures you yield, would I hold them as true O Maya
Will a lion accept sovereign counsel from a mongrel O Maya

I have the power to cast you whenever I wish O Maya
Know that nothing shall befall me of your volition O Maya

I have realized I am captive to none, O Maya
I fear not your strike, but shall annihilate your might O Maya.


Here is a rendition of this song by Shri S.Kalyanaraman:

[Blog] Popular Culture : The proliferation of item numbers

The item song is a phenomenon that now dominates the Indian film industry. We seem to have them in all languages. It has replaced the bar song that was quite popular a while back, which has now returned after a hiatus in the form of the item number.

Typically an item song has a set of very predicable characteristics: it usually features a very popular, highly paid, good looking actress (and actor) or the occasional 'Western' model. The marvelously beautiful woman occupies centre screen and is usually surrounded by a host of men who appear, poor, uneducated, ill dressed and drunken. What makes the item song so remote from reality is the fact that the actress seems to be at ease dancing in their company in her skimpy costume while appealing all the time for them to love her. The song has a catchy tune and ingrains itself in the audience's imagination through its choice of words, facial expressions, dance moves, music and style of singing. Paradoxically, the song manages to attract all sections of society- prodding one to want to see and hear it innumerable times. The tune generates an upbeat mood which encourages one to see and hear it often.

 The very presence of a respected, sophisticated, popular, good looking and highly paid actor 'sanitizes' the song and its lewd picturization and surprisingly lends it an undeserved credence and credibility. This directly contributes to it a garb of 'decency.'  I never cease to marvel at the way the actors cleverly manage to portray facial expression and gestures that exude an air of 'innocence' and 'sweetness' in these songs -- be it  Katrina Kaif in Sheila ki Jawani or Kareena Kapoor in the recent Fevicol song.

 The life cycle of an item number: The song is released after much fanfare and publicity and is played over and over in the media, at every wedding, every party, every festival and every school annual event and if that isn't enough, some local groups even manage to make parodies replacing the theme with a religious one and playing it over loudspeakers at all festivals. This constant bombardment of the psyche with the tune feeds on itself and makes one want to hear it more often until saturation kicks in at which point the scales tip - paving the way for a new item number.

Now, unlike the bar song that used to have overweight 'vamps' ( at least in Tamizh) which only entertained a section of the male audience, these songs now feature fashionable, main stream actresses thereby attracting all sections of people including women. Interestingly, it is women who play these songs at home and dance to them at private parties and social gatherings.  Another surprising trend is that the presence of a lesser known (albeit more talented) woman in a song doesn't attract the same degree of popularity and public endorsement. An example I can think of is : En peru Meenakumari from the film Kandasami which might not be allowed into 'respectable middle class homes but  a song like Pottu thakku that features Ramya Krishnan may find better acceptance.

Sadly, the item song has a direct impact on the safety of women on the streets of India. I feel that they fuel the fallacy that urban, educated, fashionable women and western women are promiscuous and decadent and these songs might be the single unwitting cause for an incidence in rape.
All I can wish for is an increase in the maturity of the audiences to view them as mere entertainment which might take a while. A more realistic wish would be the 'death' of the item number and its replacement with a more sensible form of entertainment.

[Blog] Empathy - Sympathy - Apathy

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Picture a nursery filled with new-born babies all lying quietly in their tiny cribs, suddenly one begins to cry feebly and surprisingly one by one the others join in- psychologists call this empathy – which is the capacity to experience someone else’s pain as one’s own and respond in the best way one can.
This same attribute is exhibited by toddlers as well - in the first few weeks of a nursery or a kindergarten class when one child begins to cry and if he or she is not pacified quickly, the other children will join in and raise quite a din–all on account of toddler empathy.

Very young children are usually quite selfish but when they find a fellow being in distress they might decide to part with their favourite toy just to comfort another - especially if she or he has been the cause of this distress but some toddlers are downright altruistic - they stop their play and rush to the aid of a distraught one with a touch, a token or a kind look. It would seem that we humans are quite capable of selflessness and empathy when we start out in life.

And starting with school all the way through college and beyond humans are capable of sympathy- they are capable of compassion, , commiseration, congeniality -and respond with kindness to others' distress- so unlike early childhood we just don’t stop with feeling the pain but translate empathy into direct action to address the problem.

Long lasting friendships are forged through these years and we witness people becoming less and less emotionally dependent on their immediate family and more and more focused on the world outside. Life is rife with numerous examples of kindness – from helping a close friend pay for his college tuition to helping a perfect stranger with a blood donation. Individuals jointly fight for a cause and seek justice. People volunteer when disaster strikes like an earthquake or a tsunami. People even travel to other countries as voluntary aid workers, to participate in disaster management efforts.

But the greatest paradox is that somewhere along the way – even maybe as part of gaining adulthood and becoming successful in life we humans let logic and reason dominate our thinking and we withdraw our gaze little by little from the outer world. Slowly but steadily all of our actions pass through these filters of logic and reason and financial considerations. We summarily dismiss calls to action and social justice as the exuberance of youth.

However this earth that we inhabit has been the site of unspeakable and unimaginable acts of cruelty and violence– we are guilty of the genocide that began with the Holocaust, and continues today in countries in Africa like Darfur for example– the many wars that have wrecked many nations and it would seem that we are guilty of not just perpetrating violence but are also guilty of being silent spectators-– we are guilty of apathy.

We have conveniently turned the Japanese maxim of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil to I will not see the evil, I will not hear the evil and I will not speak out against evil. A social conscience is not the responsibility of the media, the police, the judiciary and organizations like Amnesty International alone but it is also the responsibility of every individual.

John Donne a 17th Century poet, said- “ No man is an island” what he meant was that we are all part of a society and we exist as cogs of a giant human wheel and we cannot ignore the evil that abounds in society as long as we are not affected by it- he says –“any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,”

I would also like to quote a very famous saying attributed to Martin Niemöller a German pastor and theologian

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Although, in the aftermath of a crisis there is a huge uproar in the media and Arnab Goswami may express his outrage and we all do join in– but people’s memories are quite short lived and every scandal and sensational news quickly fades from public memory and very rarely are perpetrators brought to book. Our social and political apathy makes us live safely cocooned in our own little worlds oblivious to the tragedies taking place around us.

What we need to ask ourselves is does adulthood cause this apathy, this dehumanization or does our humanity simply lie dormant somewhere deep within and can be awakened with the right stimulus.
For all our sakes I do hope that this is indeed the case and that we are definitely capable of the empathy we were capable of even as infants.

[Poem] : Age

                                                     

Stop right there,

Right at the door,

Right in your tracks,

Stay yet, your feverish hands

I dread the aching bones

The faltering step,

The halting breath,

The falling teeth,

The memory loss,

Being the hospital’s dross.

Most of all I dread

A wrinkling face,

The sinking eye,

A shriveling skin,

A timorous voice.

But age draws near…

His fangs eager…

Oh! The savage plundering rampage,

The cruel ravage of my vestigial youth

Drawn out to the last embers…

Sacrilege!

[Blog] Posing for photographs...

This is an age for photography- additionally it’s an age of globalization, liberalization, global warming, urbanization and so on… but let’s leave such trivialities to the underutilized intellectuals. As I was saying, this is the ‘age’ for photographs what with a zillion digital cameras flooding the market.

I have become quite shutter happy of late, arming myself with a reasonably good camera, shooting all at sight, (whether willing or otherwise) and sharing the spoils with friends and family and of course posting some on my Facebook wall. While I am very pleased with the very generous comments my friends and well wishers post, I have come to realize one thing though, that posing for photos surprisingly, is not the easiest thing-- just as photography isn’t simply about “aiming and shooting,” posing is not just about “looking and smiling!”  My worst nightmare begins when I look at the photographs after I have diligently transferred them to my computer.

Which makes me wish we were living in the black and white era… In the black and white era – one could wear any saree, any jewellery (It would all look the same anyway) and stand ramrod straight and glare sternly at the camera and it was done. No worries of any kind. But then colour photography entered the scene and someone must have decided "Now let's have some smiling faces!"-People (read the photographer) suddenly took to saying ‘cheese!’  Now I don't know about you, but I have tried saying cheese in front of a mirror but instead of a smile all I get is a grimace!

While posing for group photographs, someone decides to crack a joke with the noble intention of eliciting smiles but with very disastrous consequences and results in a 'natural' photograph of monstrous facial expressions. So posing is indeed one of the greatest calamities confounding mankind. Every time I pose for a photograph all I wish for is to look like this:





 With hair blowing naturally, with makeup intact – instead I end up in most photos with, well smudged eye liner, and a persistent weather competing with my foundation and compact- declaring – "I am way better than both of you combined,"  and yet my true friends write comments like – "I love the natural colour on your cheek!" Dear friend both you and I know – what caused that 'flush' in the first place!

 I guess I should be grateful if I don't end up looking like this:





But when the odd photograph does turn out well and when I proudly share it, what I dread most to hear is the comment, “You are photogenic!” which is not really a compliment at all– what it actually means is  either, the light was great, or your camera is awesome!

But I am really thankful that we have digital cameras now and we can click away all we like till we get the perfect image! And if any of you have some tips on the subject please don't forget to share them...

[Book Review] Chetan Bhagat's Two States

I recently read Chetan Bhagat's novel Two States (2009).
The book was highly recommended by a friend and since I had moderately liked Five Point Someone and One night at the Call Centre, I was rather curious to read it.
The novel is autobiographical by the writer's own admission and is inspired by his marriage to Anusha Suryanarayanan. The name of the 'hero' Krish is reminiscent of Hari from Five Point Someone. Krish is a Punjabi, who again studied at IIT.

Well the positives first.

It is a realistic, first hand account of student life and of the campus recruitment process in India. The book aims to outline the complications arising from love marriage in India with the added complications of an Interstate union. Bhagat begins with an intense focus on the two people in love and then slowly pans the camera as it were, to introduce the family members on either side, one by one.

It is commendable that the writer has devoted only a few pages to the boy-meets-girl-falls-in-love part and devotes the rest of the narration to familial conflicts that arise. Bhagat accentuates an important nuance of marriages in India - marriages here are not just between two individuals, but between two entire families.

If I were to accord percentages to the handling of different interactions within the story - it would go something like this -
Girl and boy- 50%
Girl's family description -25%
Boy's family description- 15%
Boy's experiences in Chennai - 10%

I believe, like most others that, for a novel to be credible it must have characters that are realistic. CB seems to have devoted all of his attention to the two main characters in the book. Other than them, it is disappointing to find stereotyped characters floating all over the book, who had no substance to themselves.

The second glaring disappointment in the book is the lack of adequate research about the language and practices of the Tambrahm community. He ought to have paid closer attention to the transliteration of Tamizh words that dot the book. There are quite a few misspellings too of very commonly used words. 



Yet, despite the literati lament, writers like him will rise and flourish as they cater to an emerging and ever growing audience that values light reading over literary merit.