Why I write

10Nov09

I write because I delight in words

I write because it helps me sort out my thoughts

I write because I really like the idea of creating something just out of nothing

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A literary director

29Oct09

I am not sure what I get when I come away from watching Wong Kar-Wai’s films but I know it’s something unnameable, unspeakable, something that cannot be caught with words. Some critic calls his works “mood pieces”. He stretches a mood to the point that it might almost snap and then moves on to create the next. I never saw another rain-drenched street again without thinking of Wong Kar-Wai. His frames are almost perfect. Watching a billowing skirt on a rain-drenched street, for two seconds, I was confused if I was watching a still painting or a movie! In Days of Being Wild – on second thoughts, not just Days – he concentrates on the inner life of his characters rather than the oppressive outer life in cramped, sweaty apartments.

The blatant image of clocks signified – not surprisingly – time and what we lose every second, because his films are more about loss than love. We don’t just lose time, we lose everything every second. Time becomes a symbol of loss even. With such symbolisms floating all over the place, I consider him a literary director.

I felt this huge sense of relief when I saw Chungking Express. Subsequent viewings would reveal other feelings but the first one was very significant. I was relieved that someone had put emotions under a microscope. Wong Kar-Wai was so interested in finding out about the minutiae of emotions, some specific emotions at that. He dissects love, loss, and longing the best. At the end of the movie, the viewer is completely immersed into the mood/atmosphere so much that it’s difficult to get out of it for a few days at least. The music, the rich visuals, all assault the senses. One of the few assaults that I actually like.

Filed under: Films, Thoughts   |  4 Comments
Tags: director, film

I read poetry

28Oct09

…to feel a beautiful calm inside me. It’s to do with finding spaces to breathe in this sad-crazy world.

Filed under: Poetry, Self, Thoughts   |  2 Comments
Tags: Poetry, whimsy

A writerly poem

27Oct09

On the Scribe

As I write, I write myself. I am the one who has spent endless hours with the night ink, committing men’s memories to paper each day. I have written on the desert and every period is a grain of the same. Letters on the sea have been liquid and every word is anguish when it concerns oblivion. Sometimes I am the distant sign that judges. Other times, the letter that extols love. Almost never the one talking about what is just. In me are all the alphabets and I have tried complex calligraphies brought to me from unknown peoples hour upon hour. I have written in blood about gory battles. I have celebrated the triumph of death. I have celebrated the consecration of life with the sap of trees. I am the stellar sign. The sign of so many times that I am lost in it. I have written epistles of pain, of rejection, of sentences. Most times my hand shakes. At some moments my hand enjoys what I write and I feel as if I were caressed by a lost dove. I have brought order to obtuse thoughts. I have reordered the stars and their movements. I have attended the assembly where men conspire against others for power. Death also dictates its judgements to me. I am the celebrant of ancient alphabets in this half-lit room. Only the candelabra keeps me company and with its light I write a better horizon for the future generations. I write now, possessed by the syllables, I write on the stone of sacrifice. Hence the writing. The letter that accompanies me polishes my blood as if it were a diamond. I write with blood, with the same I have seen shed, like rivers of ink, in battles, with the same blood I have wrenched from the mauve sunset, I shall use the same blood to add the full stop to these folios on which I write my life.
© 2008, Juan Diego Tamayo
© Translation: 2009, Nicolás Suescún

Thanks to: www.poetryinternational.org

Filed under: Poetry, Prose poem   |  2 Comments
Tags: poem, Poetry

Knots in the throat

16Oct09

Sometimes, I develop a knot at the base of the throat. It’s like the throat is tied up or like my throat is closing in on me. It starts with a a light twist and progresses into a full-fledged traffic jam that doesn’t let even air get through. Most of the time, I try to work it out rationally. But that doesn’t work all the time. I have started trying a new tactic. I decided to trust life. As in, trust that everything will be fine. It’s a kind of blind faith I am not used to. I always question. And that’s the itch to reach for reason.

The Buddha would have said, “True happiness comes only if you can delight in things without wanting to possess them”. This is true. If only I could be sufficiently Buddha-like. When we see grass, or the sunlight, we do delight in it without the urge to posses them, don’t we? Then why not with the others? Especially situations where we are not in control. I have tried to be detached, Buddha-like sometimes. And it does work. But there are times when I have slipped as well. And I know there will be others. Imperfection is the fun of life.

In fact, one morning while getting to office, I had an epiphany. I was thinking that I mustn’t try to run, metaphorically, that is. I am always thinking “if only this was this way, or that way…; what can I do to change things?” In short, always trying to be somewhere else. I must enjoy the present moment. I am here in this present moment because I have chosen to be here. My soul has consciously chosen to be at this point in life; it’s not an unconscious accident. (All this would make sense if you believed in souls. Do you?) It’s a sort of accepting my state of being without questioning it. Something like Keats’ negative capability (or the Buddha’s detachment). Every time I try to work out something, I always come back to Keats’ negative capability. There are many explanations. This is the original.

When a man is capable of being in doubts, uncertainties, mysteries, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. (Keats’ Letters)

Buddha’s detachment, Keats’ negative capability, Rilke’s questions go hand in hand. Rilke said:

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. (Letters to a Young Poet)

After reading such enlightened lines, or rather embracing them, I can feel the knot in my throat loosening.

Filed under: Feelings, Ideas, Self, Thoughts   |  2 Comments
Tags: being, feeling, Ideas, observation, perception

Is idealism dead?

15Oct09

The talk about the arrest of Kobad Ghandy and the debate in the media, the retelling of old stories, the birth and growth of the Naxalite movement remind me of the stories that my mom used to tell me. It was more than just stories. She was showing me something that no text book would ever speak about. She was in Calcutta University during the peak of the crackdown on the Naxalites in the 70’s. She wasn’t one herself but had friends who were sympathisers and activists. The confusion, danger, madness that prevailed then was truly exciting at least from the point of view of someone who was listening to her in the 90’s. Some people even people blamed Gandhi for actively involving students in politics. Had they not been involved during the freedom struggle, they wouldn’t think of protesting in the 70’s, they said.

My first lesson in survival under duress of any kind (to run away) came not from any book or even the media (the media cannot be trusted, remember?) but from her. I have grown up the stories of police raids (sudden, unwelcome), illegal newspapers (must be burned), bomb explosions (regular), blood-spattered shirts (which had to be washed before the police turned up), Mao-Tse Tung pamphlets (banned, must never been seen with it), police investigations (brutal), detectives in mufti (handsome, not to be trusted), University politics (appear as a sympathiser but never join in) and near escapes. I got to know of “the system”, the student protest and the clash between them. But I also got to know that many people who were neither. They didn’t care if the system failed them. The system was attacking their kids. People who had faithfully served the system now had to protect their children from it. It was a confusing time. Many people send their kids away to different parts of India even the world to escape being picked up by the police. I admired that people had courage to stand up to the injustice. But also was scared for people who had to live through this uncertain time. There was a certain purity of purpose but everyday events smacked of corruption anyway. You could for instance bribe your way into seeing a friend in prison who was “allegedly” picked up for questioning. But you could not free him or her. Some of the kids of the richest people were wanted for their involvement. It was best to be like Switzerland, neutral.

A healthy society should always have the space for protest without fear of retribution. It’s when this space is vacuumed out, that the problem starts, the protest starts. On the other hand, can one be idealistic, have the same purity of purpose without being violent? If idealism and protest go hand in hand, is idealism dead or has it morphed into something we don’t recognise anymore? Or is this question even relevant in today’s context, where conformity is the new cool?

 

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Further Reading

1. The incisive article in Tehelka on the debate surrounding Kobad Ghandy.

2. The personal article in the Hoot on Kobad Ghandy.

3. The nostalgic article in the Times of India on the 70’s rebels.

Filed under: Ideas, Life, Thoughts, urban India   |  2 Comments
Tags: childhood, Ideas, perception, Stories

Somewhere else

04Oct09

Do you feel like you are living a different life? Different from the one intended for you, that is. Like you have gotten off the wrong station on the way to your destination proper and couldn’t find your way back. So, you stayed. And in time participated in the activities of the place—the many decisions, the maddening pace, the little rebellions. You also fell in love with the sensuousness and life that the place exuded. (How heady and delightful they were!) Then you forgot that this was never the place you intended to get off. At first there was this nagging feeling that something was off kilter. Sometimes when you looked out of the window the noise receded and a sense of calm descended on you, you got the feeling that you belonged somewhere else. That you are here temporarily. That however beautiful, frightening, confusing and alive this place was, this was not YOUR place. You’d rather be somewhere else. Should be somewhere else. Must be somewhere else. At other times, while reading (always poetry, of late lyrical prose) a feeling strong enough to defy gravity gripped your insides. Invariably, someone would ask you a question (sometimes as innocuous as “how was the drink, madam?”) and you’d be pulled back to the pageantry of this world. The noise, the strange beauty and startling insights anchoring you again. At least, till the next time you float away. Do you feel like you are living a different life than from the one you intended? 

I do.

Filed under: Feelings, Ideas, Life, Thoughts   |  10 Comments
Tags: whimsy

Notes on Books: Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi

12Sep09

Even though I had previously devoured Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, I was pleasantly surprised by Chicken with Plums. I am yet to read Embroideries, her other masterpiece. Satrapi uses the same formula that has worked so well in the past—using black and white drawings, milking her family history (the story of her uncle, the musician, in this case), throwing in a few truly quirky characters (“Cigarettes are food for the soul” says one of them), adding a dash of psychological realism (her uncle’s delusions) and retelling it in her own mould. She also experiments with narrative styles moving away from both the linear as well as the flashback techniques. The death of her uncle takes place on page 18 in an 84 page book. The rest of the book is how her uncle spends the last 8 days of his life almost in a fast-unto-death mission after he literally and figuratively loses the love of his life—his tar, an Iranian musical instrument comparable to the violin or guitar. In the eight sections that follow, Satrapi delves into his childhood, his past, his love, his music and his struggles, some of which remain unresolved. Apart from his music, almost every other part of her uncle’s life had been a compromise, which he realises quite late in his life. That, as Socrates says, is the tragedy—a good man who is consumed by troubles.

The circular structure of the narrative adds to the treatment of this story. The story starts with a few frames, which are repeated later towards the end of the story but with a changed perception or heightened awareness. Satrapi’s talent consists of creating an honest story not co-incidentally unlike the title of the book, which refers to a home-cooked recipe.

Filed under: Books, Comics, Graphic Novel   |  8 Comments
Tags: Books, Graphic Novel, Iran

Remembrance of things past

07Sep09

The first school I attended had two boards with very valuable sayings on them displayed right at the entrance. They were placed strategically on each side of the main stairs through which one entered the school building. On the one on the left was written “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. The other was on punctuality; I don’t remember the exact saying. It was a sadistic school that punished the kids rather strongly for many reasons. Hitting with a wooden ruler or a cane (if you are that special) was a common practice. One could be punished for not having a uniform in a particular shade of whiteness. The exact whiteness level was never clear until it was too late. I supposed they expected their students to shine literally rather than concentrate on shining light into their minds. It was not a surprise that I didn’t learn much here.

According to the strict dress code (by itself not an evil idea)—girls had to wear white shirts and dark blue box-pleated skirts (later we discovered how unflattering they were to the budding female body) that hang well below the knee and boys had to wear white shirts with dark blue shorts. Pleats on the shorts and the skirts had to be sharp enough to cut through cake. Common to both genders were white canvas shoes (on Mondays and sports days), black patent leather shoes (on other days), a dark blue tie with yellow stripes, and a metal badge in the shape of the school’s logo (on all days). It had to be pinned to the tie and if you were not careful, it could nick you fast and deep.

Invariably the white canvas shoes looked closer in colour to the black and the black ones closer to white. Most school students—like me—travelled by public transport to and fro school, which meant that our uniforms were always a little crumpled, our shoes a little stepped on, our shirts a little sweaty under the arms, which lead to us standing a little outside the class. To avoid being “outstanding” school students, most of us would religiously use our handkerchiefs to clean the shoes before entering the hallowed (or was it hollowed?) walls of the institution.

Once inside, it was question of dodging landmines—the prefects, the teachers, and the principal. Prefects were assigned duties to catch ‘untidy’ students of the day. I became a champion in trying to avoid getting caught. Just avoid looking into their eyes. If I kept my head down, and appear sufficiently humble and weak, they’d let me go. Once though, I felt real bold and looked into the hazel brown eyes of a prefect, and I was promptly dispatched to the principal’s office. Later, my parents were also called. I wonder if soap brands, which rely on pointing out how untidy and unworthy you are unless you subscribe to their brand, secretly sponsored this school.

Much later, I discovered that these robot-like prefects could be human too. I had tried to reason with one of them asking him to think how impractical it was to have spotlessly white canvas shoes while travelling by bus right in the middle of peak-hour traffic. He appeared to listen with his eyes. But his rigid body language was a dead giveaway that while he could sympathize in theory, there was nothing he would do in practice. He was as much a part of the system as I was. One other prefect caught me hobbling because of a shoe bite and was kind enough to suggest a remedy (apply coconut oil to the affected area). In an atmosphere where rules were followed to the letter (their spirit completely abandoned), those words seemed to be the sweetest words I had heard. I flashed him my most beautiful smile before continuing to hobble to class.

The same school had other rules: no running during lunch break was one of them. Lunch breaks were like oxygen to most of us. We could chat, fight, exchange notes, and play. We couldn’t always sit out in the sun, so we stayed indoors during the glorious 20 to 30 minutes of freedom before the drab classes began. I was in the 6th standard and my brother in the 1st standard. Suffice is to say that such rules did not register. He used to run around the campus on the hot sand (the school was close to the beach) for no reason other than the fact that he was a hyper energetic child. Far from supporting the fact that the child was using his meagre resources in the most non destructive manner to keep himself occupied, the school’s security guard, the guardian of the stationary lunch break, would run behind him with his bamboo stick ostensibly to make him stop running. The purpose of the stick was a little hazy. Such commotion usually caught the eye of the other children who would, as if on cue, run behind the security guard yelling as children normally do when excited. The scene was a sight to behold. To a spectator who was not involved, it would seem so harmless, even joyous. This was a regular event till one day mom happened to visit and was so horrified that her son was running such risks for the sake of education that she promptly transferred him next year to a school that ferociously guarded children rather than stationary lunch breaks.

The idea of instilling cleanliness or orderliness by itself was commendable. However, something was lost in its translation to practice. Their concern was so crudely conveyed that there was a big doubt in my mind as to whether cleanliness could indeed be next to godliness or whether not running during lunch was actually a virtue. I guess they wanted to clear all the debris from our path to heaven, so that we line up clean and neat and not definitely run to the pearly gates! Someone would have to tell them that this certainly was not the way to go about doing it.

Filed under: Life, Nostalgia, Self   |  8 Comments
Tags: childhood, Nostalgia, school

City central

05Sep09

I live in Chennai, which to many people is probably the edge of nowhere. Called Madras in its former life, it lies on the South Eastern coast of India facing the Bay of Bengal with a few beaches where no one can swim. That doesn’t stop people from trying and drowning. It was briefly in the news for the tsunami in December 2004. Politics governs one half of its life. Tradition governs the other. The colours of Chennai are legendary. I can’t tear my eyes away from some of the cityscapes. It’s a rich ground for street photography.

Sepia sunlight

 

Nazar na lage

My relationship with the city is a bit complex; there are things I don’t like about the city yet I can’t think of living anywhere else at the moment! I took these photos on my mobile and am pleasantly surprised at how well they have turned out.

Filed under: Chennai, Madras   |  3 Comments
Tags: Chennai, city