Beach on a fullmoon!!

It must have been over four months since I last relished a full moon. And it was more than two and a half years I have wanted to go to a beach on a full moon evening. Well, these waiting had to stop some day and it did when I saw the full moon riding by my side, all way through the OMR to the Elliot's beach, The beach was well illuminated and had less crowd being a week day.

I sauntered through the sands across to the inviting beach, laying my eyes on the moon. The beach in the moon light was more beautiful than what I could imagine. The reflecting waves and the calm fluffy snow white clouds laden sky bordering the horizon are something beyond my words. I am no Wordsworth. I wonder, will ever somebody be able to describe that beautiful night convincingly with full satisfaction. If not by words, the next thing close to satisfaction will be in capturing it in the canvas. Capturing the entirety!! Something like Ravi Varma's 'the Lady in the Moonlight'. But what if you are neither Wordsworth nor Ravi Varma?? The clouds and the soft twinkling stars and felt the horizon was very near compared to one in a dark night. A white carpet with shimmering moon light had been laid to the moon before me, if only i had the power to walk on water. I am no Jesus either!!

The playful silver waves, breaking into the shore and the anklets in girls legs playing with their forbearers, beguiles you from the griefs and stress and fills with peace and divinity. A dog which was running in its pack, broke from it to play with the waves - face to face with the ocean's spray. Was it Neruda's dog?? Had it not died?? The tiny crabs running for the receding wetness of the waves too were in a very playful mood. The entire living world there seemed to be lively and playful. The tides too were on a high now. I too was getting in to the mood.

I got up reluctantly as it was getting late to get home. I got a grilled corn for a munching company to get back to the bike parked across the vast expanse of sand. When almost there, I turned back to be entreated with that beautiful sight again, The innumerous wavy imprints in the sand under the wan white moonlight and the waves in the sea looked the same. Could not tell where one ended and the other started!!

A Mysore Travelogue

I had a very enjoyable trip to Mysore recently. It is a very beautiful and clean tourist place to visit and spend a memorable holiday. So it did not get me by surprise when i found out later that it was the second cleanest city in India, next only to Chandigarh. My three day stay there were fully packed with plans and i really enjoyed every second of my stay there. Started off with a visit to Chamundeshwari temple, the evening we reached there. Fog was descending on the hill, the night was chilly and without fog-lamps during the climb, made it sort of adventurous in the murkiness outside. Everything in front seemed like pale frost wraith. We paid our tributes to the goddess and on our descend stopped by a view point from where the vast expanse of Mysore city was visible, fully lit. A lot of expectations crept in with that beautiful sight of the city that I was to explore from the next day and I could not draw rein on my excitement. All I can say is, it always exceeded my expectations in all ways.

The following day we visited the world famous Mysore palace, zoo, the Brindavan gardens and its musical fountains - which might have been among the first of its kind in the India but needs to be ameliorated. After the show, i found a lackadaisical crowd owing to the majestic fountains of the Las Vegas they have seen at least in their television sets sitting in the drawing room of this ever shrinking world of ours. One funny yet grave thing I noticed was the crowd started to disperse it began to play Jana Gana Mana. The citizens of the largest democracy are beginning to look upon their national anthem as the indicator for crowd dispersal.

The archaeological and historical city of Srirangapatanam, the Jagmohan Palace Art Gallery, and the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary were scheduled for the last day of our tour. When we were probing the many dungeons in this naturally-fortified-from-all-side city, I really lived through the history pages we studied in the lower classes. The meandering Cauvery gushing at one side of the fort was the one the English army breached to fall the mighty Mysore kingdom. For a moment I felt being in the fort built by Tipu in my home town Palakkad. The same flooded Cauvery disappointed our boating plans around the lovely and beautifully crafted bird sanctuary. The paintings of artist prince Raja Ravi Varma and the 'Glow of Hope' by S.L.Haldankar, housed separately in an aptly lit room, stood apart from the rest. And in the night, when we were strolling, the lighted Mysore Palace by its sheer magnificence allured us towards it. It was on a high note that we bid adieu to such a wonderful city.

During the entire journey, the pleasant, helpful, good natured and volunteering people of the city made our trip easy in the Kannadiga heartland. Through out the trip, the numerous auto-rickshaws and the numerous tourist vehicles plying with KL-registration boards enticed us to believe that we were home - all the time. In the restaurants too we were really surprised with the bearers asking us in Malayalam. Once after placing the orders when we were wondering among ourselves why hot-water is not served for drinking, a smiling native bearer served hot water saying "Sir, choodu vellam". This made me realize why the Mallus are embracing this warm and hospitable palace city as their second home.

Bollywood repeats . . .

While watching this seasons hit song ‘Senorita’ from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, it dawned on me that Bollywood has completed a full circle; that like history Bollywood too – repeats. It was like watching the old movies when the movie industry was still undergoing the process of evolution. The actors were needed to lend their voices not only for their dialogues but also to what may be considered as the contribution of Indian cinema to the world cinema – the songs. I have always wondered how amazing it would have been if one was the instantaneous being in the movie, to sing and dance poetry on the go. To me, even though i like hearing to the songs, it is one area our movies are so impractical and far from being even surreal. And this song ‘Senorita’ sung by Abhay Deol, Hrithik Roshan and Farhan Akhtar both in and out of the movie, flash-backed Bollywood to the K L Saigal days, when actors were required not just to be actors, but classically trained singers too, which i believe was primarily due to the lack of technology. I don’t know why there has to be singer-heroes now in this era of specialisation, may be just for a change or a thrill. It was fun anyways.

Another aspect of the Bollywood that draws a big circle amounting to a big zero, is its story line which is still in its juvenile stage or rather the bonsai stage. I am much happy and hope many would be relieved that Bollywood has grown past the old “lost-and-found” masala formula. It may be considered as one of the very few achievements of this fashionable and wastrel industry pursuing a retrogressive path, which is the face of Indian cinema to the world, have made. In my FIR, majority of the popular Hollywood movies are based on some very good books, be it fiction or biographies. It saves the director a lot of the ground work, helps him make the theme tangible and the story line close to being flawless. I would love to see more movies which are based on our rich and vivid literature, that appeals and portrays our culture, sentimentalities more real-life-like than just another disconsolated copied-absurd-reel-life-like characters.

Want more?? Pictures speak a thousand words..

Do u still think this a coincidence?

Movie-makers should stop dividing the movies with an interlude, like Moses divided the Red sea, penalising the viewer by breaking the momentum. Why drag it so much? Ahead lets hope the centripetal force overcomes the centrifugal force, and the string driving the Bollywood industry to run in viscious circle to break, for it to dash straight to the finishing line of perfection.

Who wins the battle of good and evil??

Have you ever wondered if good will prevail over evil? Not in movies.. Not in comics.. in real life.. in our own lives..

I suppose it did not incite a supernatural battle between a cruel and wicked villain and a kindhearted, brave, handsome hero. Well, I was talking about the big battle in a congested space - our minds. Some times we don't even realize the battle horns have been blown. 


Here is an instance. When i went to withdraw money from the ATM the other day for 900 Rs, i got 2100 Rs. I rechecked the reciept a couple of times to confirm it was not my mistake. According to it, i just withdrew 900. I had to walk on the tight-rope of scientific principles, asking myself 'how? why? when? what?', to conclude that someone had misplaced the box having 500 Rs with the box containing 100 Rs, though it was obvious as i received four 500 Rs note and a 100 Rs note which should have been otherwise. I was very happy that i stopped by that ATM on my way home from work, which i frequent very little and made up my mind which shall not be so from now on.


Did u realize 'the good' lost the battle already ? If yes, well.. very good. I did not. 


What followed was a long battle in my brain. Although i was elated for the first few hours,  'the good' was building up a mighty fort cemented with compunction. In another few hours, the conscience prick had overcome all other emotions so much so that i hardly had any other feeling. If you are unaware of such battles within you,  i need to tell how resilient is 'the bad' to any plot of 'the good'. I feel ashamed to admit that the thought of going back to the ATM to withdraw more money did not escape my mind. At one moment I was busy doing permutation and combinations to arrive on the amount that yielded most profit. As i am quite weak in maths i could still not agree on whether to put my bet on 400 or 900. But the sudden surge of goodwill inside prevented me from taking such a heinous act. The interesting fact is that, contradictions and the balance of the battle never remained permanently with any of the side. It was a fence-sitter.


I could not handle any more of the din in my head. It had started unsettling me. So i decided to do what i used to do as my last resort - calling my father. He had no doubt whatsoever in arriving at a decision and advised me to inform the Bank authorities the very next day. My mind too was clear then. I should have done that a long earlier. I called up a friend of mine whose father was an employee of that bank. His father thanked me many a times for the information and lauded my honesty, which i did not deserve.


The next day, i went to the bank and informed them the reason of my coming, they greeted me warmly and led to the ATM. The shutter was half drawn down, but the doorkeeper allowed me in after a brief discussion with the clerk who had accompanied me. Inside, the ATM manager and a few more employees where having a serious discussion. They thanked me for returning the money. He then pointed to a squatting man and said that poor fellow misplaced the cash. His eyes were all white, pale and tired from a sleepless night. He did not utter a word, but he bowed with praying hands. That stirred me. He was accountable and had to keep money from his pocket else, his job will be at stake. A lady, he said, had informed the bank about the issue the previous evening itself. He also mentioned about the alert message from other branch which i understood was through my friends father. He also added that there was no way to track the persons who withdrew the cash and did not return as it was a mistake of the bank employee.


You will be mistaken if you thought the joust between the two was over. 'The good' continued to be on rampage. It seemed to me as it had time travelled to the past to fight its arch-rival and the result was 'regret'. One has to feel it to understand how difficult the going gets once you reach this stage. I lost track of the count of the battles that were fought and won. A lot of questions were clamoring - 'you should have informed that evening itself' , 'you could have prevented the situation from getting worse' and lots of them more. Many a counter conciliatory remarks too reverberated.

I could not agree more nor can articulate it more convincingly than the legendary director Francis Ford Coppola when he penned for the movie Apocalypse Now - these : " .. there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point.. ". These filled my fallen mind.

Many beneficiaries might not have returned the extra cash for sure. I wonder how different the outcome of the encounter is, though it was between the same opponents, for the same cause.  I wonder how different the outcome would have been in a different time. The only difference was it was in different spaces, inside different heads. For the lady, the good won the battle and there would have been no other war. In my case, the good was still waging a one-sided war of regret. For those who did not turn up there would have been no war at all. And the question remains for the reckoning...
 

A lot can happen over a coffee!!!

Its 4 o'clock in my wrist watch. Now one more hour to my favorite time of the day. The tea break with my friends.

Its the hour me and my friends look forward to, after the enervating clockwork. Our minds hopping around like a dog set free from its kennel. The refreshing air - that blows only at this time, the slanting rays over the lush green office lawns, and the long shadows it cast, colleagues treading to the buses, all seemingly remain the same. Its the topic that churn itself out at tea that seems to demarcate today from yesterday. The rest are all so predictable that i rarely take notice of.

Some times it is about the movies that we confabulate, at other times it is the music, girls, politics, the problems we face, planning for the weekend,..... what not!! In effect, anything under the sun comes under the axe. We exchange the information gathered till time from what ever blogs and sites we went through that day. It is just an information passed when we stand in the long queue at the coffee counter, which transforms in to discussions while savoring each sip from steaming cup, developing into an argument augmented with the aroma, color, flavor and essence of the coffee by the time the cup needs a refill. There were times when we even declared wars on some countries that wronged ours. The seriousness transmogrifies into peels of laughter when we realize nothing over this tea is going to change anything. But the frivolity of the outcome is never a deterrent for the leisure of being an arm-chair critic is enchanting.

I have always looked upon the giggles and laughter erupting from the durbars of elderly men beneath the peepul, that shatters the silence in the temples every now and then, with great amusement. I have had been to such durbars with my grandpa occasionally in my childhood, but then i never understood what they talked. Due to the love for this hour of the day, I some times even look forward to growing old with my friends over a hot cup of coffee with sincere and foolish enthusiasm.

It is about to strike 5 . I don't want to be late. Au revoir!!

The train to Hogwarts

It happened so that, one fine day after dinner, having nothing else to do, i clicked open a folder in my friends laptop - a pandoras box it was to be - titled 'HP series'. I too would have been bewildered like you are just now, wondering wat does this HP stand for?? But not now, for i was unaware that action of mine, opening that folder, would transform me forever in to a HP series fan. 'I am a Harry Potter fan' was one thing that never failed to bring a frown in my face. I can't help myself off with the whirls of memory that bought me back to the pictures of the long queues in front of the book stores the night before a book in that series was to hit the shelves; a movie of the HP series hitting the big screens being made a headline news. How I wished back then to be an editor of that channel or the news paper so that i could highlight those news in the poorest light possible, may the shortest font in the last page of the last column of that news paper. I believed it was despicable to waste time in such imaginary fantasies, to have such 'wild dreams'. It meant nothing less to me than a crime.

I opened that magical box, on that fateful moment, which i had shunned for years. Little did i know, it was to change my world upside down, for at least a few days to come. It contained all the movies released till date. To be exact and factual - seven of them. I, always being disciplined and systematic, started off with the first : HP and the Philosophers stone. I finished that. There was no going to bed that night. By the time i realized it was morning from the crowing of the crows, i had finished four of that wonderful and amazing series. Still not tired or sleepy and to my great amusement - wanting more. I don't find a need to delve in to the details of the movie nor the story and make it look just normal. But one thing i should mention here is that though technically the movies got better and better, the stories always remained stagnant - at their very best.
           

                                                                                  

I completed the other three the following day, which did not come as a surprise to me even though i never had the reputation of having a dogged determination. I felt so happy to see them all but found it impossible to wait for the last of the series to hit the screens the same week, which might have seemed shorter in any other time. Then i realized how i had escaped the painful and agonizingly patient wait of the senior members of the HP fans league to which i had recently enrolled into. But this was truly unusual. Ensuring I got myself and my wolf pack of 11, tickets for the premiere show, which i believe so firmly even now that i was entitled to it. The only worry while enjoying the story unwind at an engrossing pace in the cinemas had been that, my friend seated next to me had wanted me to explain some of the wizardical nomenclatures and the spells in it. But soon he too was into the movie very much after finding all his enquiries falling in deaf ears. It was an enthralling experience and was par expectations. What bemused me after the show was, more than feeling content, which i never was, i could not take that i was not to see those immortal characters again on the screens to entice us with more adventures.

I had been dreaming of HP and his tripod Ron and the lovely Hermione, Hogwarts, Hagrid and many but not You-Know-Who without fail in all my sleep that week. Even i wanted to be with them in the actions, I ended up disgustingly as a mute spectator from another planet. The best of them all dreams took form the following weekend when i boarded the train home. I slept good for i was tired but i found myself in the steam-engined train - The Hogwarts Express. It was too good to be true, so to speak it was not true.

When i woke up, i realized i have been living in the dream world Ms.Rowling had gifted the world, that had begun to be too existential and busy to have a dream, leave alone one of a fantasy genre. I felt so energized, refreshed and full of cherubic delight and thoughts. Chanting those spells, checking with self made wands with 'a quick swish and a flick' if they really worked - all slyly and strictly when left all alone, praying whole heartedly for it to work, only to bring a disappointed smile in my face. The fact that i failed to read the books as and when they hit the shelves over a decade, may have possibly helped me to cherish the movies well, but always kept me away from breaking into the tripod even in my own dreams. As i wave good bye to them, I understand with unfathomable sorrow that i have missed the train to Hogwarts - forever.