incompleteness

yes now that i’ve written a “heavy” title i’ll move on to writing something completely incoherent. the trees were still. the wind was still. there was dryness in the air. lips had cracks. hope was scarce. happiness over hope not being non existent was wished for. the uncertainty was a reality. future somehow seemed empty. may be if i moved the future a little more towards present, things might seem to seem better. the wish to appreciate what is there in the present is extreme. the energy to take control of life is there (let’s not give it any adjective yet). you’ve to let it be. you just can be and just get better at being. that’s all you can do, and that’s all you should wish to do. that’s all.

Dear “Nice guys”, Yes you do have blood in your hands too.!!

Something I wrote couple of years ago (5 years to be precise). Found it while deleting mails –

A woman’s heartbeat goes over the roof when a man walks past her during her late-night journey back home. Let’s accept it, in a country where every 22 minutes that woman’s fear is justified, the change in “How men think” is more required than a stringent law.

Take an example from our mythology, why was the female protagonist asked to take a dip in fire when there was an equal probability that the male protagonist could have also cheated on her?

On the other hand men discomforted by the recent wave of misandry would ask- What is that I do or I did, that affects that crime? Even though butterfly effect has been disproved practically, here’s somewhere I would like to say, it does hold good.

Take a Normal distribution curve or the bell curve. Let’s consider the left side of the bell curve belongs to men, whom most women find to be socially acceptable and well behaved. The right side represents the section who tend to spill comments that would make any women’s face change as if she smelled something really bad. The extreme end in the right side is where men who do crime against women stay. And there is a cut off line which separates those heinous crime doers and the rest.

 

Now imagine:

1. A well dressed colleague while addressing a female co worker in third person uses a word that the English dictionary describes as a “young chicken or bird” or any other seemingly harmless but contextually derogatory word in their vernacular.

2. Two men while discussing about a women, use an adjective that’s usually used to describe temperature.

These seemingly harmless excerpts from everyday happenings tend to be small flaps of butterfly  that causes the mean line to move to the right and push some more across the cut-off line.

the stranger

Unplanned confrontation of the unknown has always been met with skepticism. What if the unknown was once known? So known that, it defined the very definition of being known. The absolute definition of knowing someone doesn’t exist, for you never know anyone. Not even yourself. Until there comes a time when time gets your linen dirty and lets you wonder, who are you seeing in the mirror.

Sometimes the prisoner, who escapes the prison of your own identity, turns out to be wrongly convicted for the crime. What justifies an imprisonment? The involvement of the convict in the act, the motive behind it or is it the moral low ground of the victim. In the battle between good and bad, what wins isn’t always good or bad, it is the confusion of what good is and what bad isn’t.

It was a Saturday morning and the shift lead at the coffee shop was wondering whether to send the new Barista, who talks funny, home early. The business was slow and for some strange reason there were less number of passengers wanting to drink coffee before boarding their flight on this Saturday morning.

He got up an hour back, now he wanted to wake up before the take off because he badly needed to make use of the travel time. A tea was bought and a table with the view of the runway was chosen. Every time this happened, it gave him a very Up-in-the-air-George-Clooney kinda feeling. A feeling he wasn’t very comfortable with. “A Espresso with a tsp of sugar and Do you guys happen to have soy milk by any chance?”, someone placed an order. In Anatomy, Atlas is the most superior and top most cervical vertebra of the spine and Axis is the cervical vertebra below it. Together they form a joint that let’s us nod and rotate our skull. He wanted this joint to rotate and also did not want to rotate at the same time. Eventually a decision based on indecision was made. So, still the runway was on sight. The Barista finished the order and was signing out of the terminal as his work for the day was shortened. He did help his last customer with an extra set of tissues before leaving.

 

What’s there in a name?

“Insaan naam mein mazhab dhoond leta hai” ~ Naseeruddin Shah from A Wednesday , which loosely translates to – People deduce one’s religion from a name. If you’re an Indian then add a face, the language(s) one talks, the way he/she talks it and how one pronounces Vaazhai-pazham (banana in tamizh), I could probably zero-in on the pin-code of the place you grew up with an accuracy of 50 km. Somewhat like this scene from Alaipayuthe . (For the hindi speaking audience- I suggest you browse through Saathiya, coz I couldn’t find that scene on YouTube.) Anyways kudos to Mani Rathnam for shooting that scene in a such a way that, no one thought it was stalking and thus no Open-letters were written. Well I have digressed enough for me to pull the emergency chain on my train of thought.

This post is just an attempt to address the question many asked – “Why this nameless- faceless online existence.?” (Oh k.! Not many, but a few).

It all began the summer three years back, when my then-future-Ex-girlfriend texted me saying- She had stumbled upon my twitter page. I didn’t have any specific reaction to that. In retrospect I think I should’ve had a knee-jerk reaction, made my profile protected and in few minutes should’ve probably deleted my account, because what followed was a string of text messages explaining why I shouldn’t have tweeted something and it was insensitive, un-thoughtful et cetera et cetera et cetera. This would eventually spiral out to she breaking up with me because of many reasons, one of which would happen to be- Me being a different person online and a different person in-person. May be I am. May be we all are. Isn’t that why the digital persona is there for.? To be what you want to be at that moment. A poet at 2 am, a food blogger at Saturday 7 pm, a travel blogger when on holiday, a film critic when a movie releases and a stand up comedian to make fun of all those guys you were playing before. A name/identity kinda constraints me from playing a limited number of characters. Being anon, you can have any number of opinions or no opinions. You can just be the pristine you or the pretentious you or whatever you wish to be that day. I can write a pompous and narcissistic post like this and shameless screenshot it and put it on insta stories for hits. It is liberating.!!

I’m not saying I don’t have an identity, I’m just saying I have many and I’m loyal to none.

Ps: I know I’ve just addressed the nameless part here. The faceless-ness part shall be addressed in the next post titled- “Why a four shouldn’t date an eight.!”

“I didn’t mean that when I said that.”

The battle of definitions. A word is a pointer pointing to the memory location in your brain, where the data of what it means is saved. You could have learnt it through many ways. Emotions like hunger are quite basic. You might have cried when you were a year old. There would have been words like “bah bah boh”, which only your mom could decipher, what you meant. These needn’t necessarily be vocal in nature. It could be anything. And this would be a pointer to the memory location to what it means.

As we grow older lot of pointers get added and so does emotions\meaning pertaining to those pointers. Now all of us speaking the same language share the same set of pointers. But do we share the same set of data, that is stored in our separate memory location saved locally in our hard disks (that our head is).?

Do we.?

PS: check this video out, which conveys a similar idea with “Ja Ja”(German for Yes-Yes, pronounced as ya ya) being the pointer and many different meaning it has. 

not a review of Kaatru Veliyidai.

This is not a review of the movie because writing a review of this movie would make me a hypocrite.  I would have done a long thread instead if I weren’t on a twitter break. I hadn’t watched any love story since my break up (Yes.! About which my poor twitter followers know a lot about and probably want me to shut up). Kaatru Veliyidai was a movie I was really looking forward to because- Mani Rathnam. So here you go-

The movie was successful in making me feel that this story is about me. The first response when I felt something for her was to tell – “I am afraid of travelling very long, for there is a point from where we can’t return”. So the reluctance to fall for it is well understood by the author. VC shouting at Leela in the middle of an incoming snow storm reminded me of every time I just wanted her to follow my decision and not question it coz I was too tired to explain. After VC tries to calm his “Male ego” and explains to her, for which she responds – “Why not say it like that?” is pretty relatable and I have gotten that line a lot. But yeah, there are lot of other parallels. Sadly, me looking as dapper as VC ain’t among them. Enough of the pompous me.

(As you can see, I am finding it difficult to bring a coherence to this string of discontinuous thoughts. So I shall not stop myself from embracing the incoherence.)

1. When VC opens his eyes after the accident. Ravi Varman captures Leela in his pupil. Awesome.
2. Soon after introducing the pregnant Bhabhi, who is marrying VC’s brother, it cuts to the song. This seemed rather abrupt. Felt like there were scenes in between edited out.
3. In the age of Whatsapp and blue ticks, VC and Leela planning to write to each other, Leela saying she shall wait in the door step waiting for the letter/courier makes you want to fill your Hero pen with blue ink and write to someone, even though there ain’t anyone.  (But then, where else would this be logically viable other than Kashmir, where 9 months in a year people have no Internet)
4. After having a fight, the scene when VC comes to her house, stands on top of his jeep and starts singing Nallai allai was way too cinematic.
5. The whole escaping from the Rawalpindi prison can be debated but first I want to read Four miles to freedom. AR Rahmans BGM during the escape sequence did add the most value towards making us feel as though it was escaping. But let’s not go into details by cribbing – how can the Border post look like that and all.
6. In two scenes I felt as though there was a disconnection between distance being depicted in the screen visually and the distances being presumed by characters to either talk or even see the other person properly. One was when Leela meets VC for the last time near the runway. It felt by looking like this, she can’t even look properly who is coming behind her let alone VC who is walking away in the tarmac. And the other scene was the climax scene, where the Red cross camp seemed like a mile away from where VC was siting, but Leela was able to have a proper conversation with someone in the camp. (May be these two points are stupid, but I could notice this and was irritating.)
7. Leela’s love makes me jealous coz she didn’t fall for an Alaipayuthey Karthik (Madhavan) or an OK Kanmani Adi (Dulquer). Deep down there is a VC within every guy and this is that guy speaking.
8. All together Aditi Rao Hydari’s performance was the best in the movie. Every expression, every frame. She was talking with her eyes. And since Karthi couldn’t compete, they asked him to wear shades throughout the movie.

Anyways thanks for the movie, Madras talkies. I liked it, but was disappointed.

 

 

PS Edit 1: A twitter follower pointed out that WhatsApp didn’t exist during Kargil. So point number 3 has a factual error. I stand corrected. But you get the point right.?

Oru Paadhikadhavu Neeyadi(Into English)

A Tamil song – Oru Paadhikadhavu Neeyadi
Translated into English:
–
The meaning of “you” is “me”
The meaning of “me” is “us”.
–
One half of the door is you, the other half is me.
We were separated, Whilst seeing each other.
Waiting for unification.
–
One half of the door is you, the other half is me.
We were waiting silently.
Looking for the wind to blow.
–
The meaning of “you” is “me”
The meaning of “me” is “us”.
One half of the door is you, the other half is me.
–
When the night comes, so does the fear of theft.
It unites the doors.
Love does the wonder of stealing the doors.
Both of them eventually held hands and the imaginary locks vanished.
The porch is shaking, unstable and is celebrating
–
<Some talking>
One half of the door is you, the other half is me.
It rained and thunderstorms came by, but we stood without moving.
Our hearts became one and doors no longer existed.
From now, in our house only Fragrant breeze would blow everyday.
(Same lines as above)
<Some talking>

 

Sakkarai Nilave (Into English)

A Tamil song – Sakkarai Nilave

Translated into English:

–

Sugar moon, Girl moon.

You melted as soon as I saw you.

There is no peace. Why isn’t it there?

Because you aren’t there.

–

Heart is green water, girl.

You made it go dry.

You burnt down my life, like a forest, and warmed yourself with it.

–

The eyes that sang poetry,

The hands that some love,

At the end everything was a lie,

Will my soft heart withstand this.

–

Love is like God.

You can only feel it, it’s not tangible.

The heart with bruises is like a child.

It’ll close the mouth and cry with no words to say.

–

Honey, I saved all your laughter in the bottom of my heart.

Honey, all your laughter melted away like my tears.

–

White laughter, are those your mistake?

I got lost in those, is that my mistake?

–

You left, is that your mistake?

I understood, is that my mistake?

–

A girl’s heart that causes a man’s tears. Is it skin or Wall made of stone?

–

The eyes that sang poetry,

The hands that some love,

At the end everything was a lie,

Will my soft heart withstand this.

–

I said “I’ll get drenched in the November rain”

“I also like getting drenched” you said.

–

“Under the moonlight in terrace I have my shower” I said.

“I also like that kinda bath” you said.

–

Who has a soothing voice? I said “Sushella’s voice”

I also have a similar voice, you said.

–

Buddha statue, with its eyes closed.

I like it when those come in my dreams, I said.

Without even a tinge of hesitation, you said you like it.

–

If you like all this,

Why did you say – You don’t like me??

Hello World.!

#include <iostream.h>

main() {
cout << "Hello World.!" << endl; //In English
cout << "Hello Welt.!" << endl; //Auf Deutsch auch
}