Random Realizations 1

Think. Analyse. Dissect. Lay bare under the light. Tinker. Observe. Think. Analyse. Lose the magic.

I want the magic. I want to believe in Santa Claus. I want to believe in karmic connections. I want to believe in hope.

But..if I indulge the intellectual, I kill the romantic.



Those who can't, teach, I have never believed in that, but I wouldn't deny that there's a germ of truth in it.

Is that what I am? A teacher? A good coach, counselor, enabler but not an achiever myself?

I sit with a blank sheet in front of me to write my "story" for FY13. And I am blank. Nothing to say, no vision, nothing to achieve. That's me.



Nice lines from Alexander McCall Smith's book - "Beauty triggers interest because we yearn for the beautiful. We want to possess it because it represents harmony and resolution - things that we all need, whether we know it or not."

Suddenly it crashed around me....

Will my family fall apart? Will I be able to help everyone through with dignity and sanity? How have I contributed to this? Could I have taken different decisions a long time ago? Have I been irresponsible? How much pain can Mummy go through without giving in? How much does Dolly need to bear? Is this something to do with us as a family? Are we inherently dysfunctional, under the guise of unconventionality? Are the others right? Would Daddy’s being around made it better? Or worse?

A drive to office. Irritating mails from the idiot. Potluck with the team. Laughter. Food. Cake. A mock-fight with Nithya. A spontaneous decision to bunk office and watch Barfi. Immediate booking of tickets. Appreciating the ones who got the food. Keeping spirits high. An sms exchange with Mum.  Then the movie. A muted implosion of thought and emotion, a rumination on love and loss. Too many uncomfortable parallels. Leaves me in tears. Which I cant show.

What am I doing? In the name of “connect” or whatever fancy word we use, is this the right thing to do? Or is this to be embraced and experienced, as long as it feels right? Can the feelings itself be trusted? How about betrayal? How about trust? How about the guilt? Isn’t that valid too? Can I distance myself from one but not the other? Am I making a fool of myself? Or of him? Have I been the cause of someone else’s pain? Am I heading downhill? Or is this like a glider…flying high, yet fragile, about to crash? Have I even experienced what I think I have?

A drive back home.  Unable to talk to Vik. A show at home. Of normalcy, of calmness. See the gifts purchased. Enquire after logistics. Assure and reassure Arav. Read a book blankly. Check mails. Work. An sms from UP, a mail from Becky. A heavy dinner, a cup of tea. Some silence in the balcony. Desultory conversation. More mails. Get some of the emotion out, write about Barfi.

Where is it going? Can I keep trusting that thing I call “destiny”? Does everything actually happen for a reason, or is that a consolation? Is it ok to not get irritated or frustrated and adopt the “all at the right time” approach? Am I just being unrealistic? Am I also part of the current brigade that has an inflated view of their own abilities and value? Am I also a frog in the well? Am I being unfair, or are Becky/ UP and the others? Do I continue to trust my instincts or let the thought process dictate my decisions?

Finally, bed. Toss and turn. And finally drift into another disturbed sleep. Teeth fall out, he makes love to me. And cries. I wake up sweating. What does this all mean?

Lessons in love and tragedy

Across a palette of painstakingly detailed scenes unfolds an enchanting play of tragic comedy in Barfi. The unfair blows of fate and the pain of unrequited love are juxtaposed with Chaplinesque sequences and the flames of romance that warm the heart as much as it aches.

Ranbir continues his spree of bravura performances with the portrayal of a boy who, despite being deaf and mute, is practically all sunshine and laughter. If the concept seems unbelievable, Ranbir injects it with just the exact note of melancholy and self-deprecation to avoid going over the top. This performance is right up there with Sanjeev Kumar of Koshish, Sridev in Sadma or Rani in Black.

The foil to him is Ileana, the new girl from the south. Though her porcelain complexion and wide eyed wonder brings back echoes of Manisha from 1942- A Love Story, she helps us quickly forget that comparison by expressing a surprising level of depth as her characters evolves. 

But the surprise is Priyanka. In a role that has less screen time and scope for physical beauty than the other two, she plays an autistic girl, unloved by her immediate family, with a gauche awkwardness that appears as real and appealing as some of her recent performances appeared robotic. Without the pressure of being made to carry the film on her shoulders, she acts the perfect third angle to this “triangle”.

The story moves at its own pace, cocking a snook at the recent spate of frenetic melodramas. The screenplay goes back and forth across decades and cities (Kolkata and Darjeeling) with consummate ease and a solid knowledge that the audience watching this movie will not get irritated by complexity and in fact may welcome it. The same confidence is displayed by presenting the turning points of the movie in some of the most sublime moments ever seen on the screen – whether it be the death of a loved one or the unification of lovers.

Through all this, the music often takes the place of dialogues, communicating light-heartedness and pathos with equal intensity. The production values are classy, playing with colors in a muted way, yet not restraining from giving us a panoramic view when the screenplay deserved it. The verdant hills and the chaotic streets look equally appealing, yet never in a plastic, re-touched way. Each element of the movie forces us to question our fundamental assumptions about love and tragedy, and and our own experiences, leading us to that all-too familiar question - Have we loved at all? And if we did, what did we lose? And if we didn't, do we have the courage to?

After losing his way with the big budget Kites, Anurag Basu returns to the world he had got us familiar with in Gangster and has now polished further – a world where each gesture speaks a thousand words, and where hopeless romanticism blooms in a world of commonsensical reality, reducing us to tears in the midst of laughter. 

My encounter with my poet

On a fine Sunday morning, I felt restless. And sensed something was afoot with my beautiful poet. He had been cheery and productive for the last week. Which was great. But I know that the man lives on two levels. And if its happy and cheery on top, it's obviously coming at the cost of something below. Like someone drawn towards the depths of the sea it admires and fears, I probed. And I got a series of messages in return. Which elevated, provoked, disturbed, saddened, alarmed, frustrated, enamored and absorbed me, sending me on a whirlwind of thought and emotion for the rest of the day. 

Most people stay in one space, and I adjust my thinking and reactions to that. My conversations with Darshan are as practical as they are whimsical with L. I laugh at Wendy Holden's chick-lit, and delve into the intricacies of humanity with J.M. Coetzee. I enjoy the straight forward, well paced story telling of The Pirates of the Caribbean and lose myself in the magic of Before Sunset. 

But what do I do with someone like Vik who straddles the worlds with an apparent comfort that would shame people of intellect and character? The answer is - nothing. I can do nothing,  I control nothing. For the first time in my life, I subsume my ego to the complexity and circumstances of another person, and all I can do is react - laugh, love, fear, retreat, reach out, plunge, extract, laugh, love, fear - and expand my intellectual and emotional reaches to accommodate and partly absorb the words and energies that come my way. 

This is what my came my way today - 

Creatively I draw a blank…or actually…I have nothing to tell the world…I have a huge blank and myself and my people

I’m blank…and don’t have anything to offer the world and that is painful for my existence. My mind gives direction to my will…and my heart does some preliminary ratings…emotions are a cauldron in suspension, my desk has taken priority

Your locus of control is external…which will always keep you charged and excited and effervescent, except for the days when your discussions are dominated by idiots, then you get angered. But you are good at making good of a temper.

I am all internal…and what can grow on an island, where deserts rule, cacti, and floods, extremities. Very few people can survive me. And that’s the bitter in the sweet pill, the fear that people have – that one day I will turn around and shut myself out of their lives, towards my own extinction.

The fear that you probably have too…you bring out the artist in me…and that artist suffers every day by own consumption…of what it does not service or be a part of…the wanderer needs the roots of wandering, but how can a wanderer grow roots. But the roots grew and the wanderer did not; what belonged to the world, belongs to lust now.

All that I said will not lead me out of my predicament. I cannot obviously renounce the world. All of this is mental masturbation, which is classified as lust driven. Lust driven by the origins of lust…the wanderer still hurts for its lust of withdrawal from all things permanent and seeing the world, its depths for its own sake. That is the allure…and that is not lust, since lust is insider and allure is outside.

I cannot take two years off and live the dreams that are distant. For that I have to be born again and different. And sometimes I question this life’s worth…pennies I guess.

And with that, I will work towards my make-believes.