Blinks and Drags

Apparition

2010-12-20T15:48:00.004+05:30

Seeing Voices

2009-12-29T23:16:00.014+05:30

Asymmetries

2009-12-29T03:47:00.011+05:30

Perspective #5

2009-12-29T03:37:00.001+05:30

Through the Looking-Glass

2009-12-29T03:26:00.004+05:30

Perspective #4

2009-12-29T03:12:00.005+05:30

Olympia

2009-12-29T02:48:00.007+05:30

Door

2009-04-21T23:15:00.038+05:30

When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything. I could hear the night though. This meant I wasn't dreaming. I've always had silent dreams, or so I've always believed. To make sure, I touched my face, felt the cheek bone, the stubble. The sensation was real, it was me, I was awake.

It was pitch dark. 'A black out', I thought at first. So I looked towards the window, for some light. There was no window. Frightfully, I then strained to see the ceiling. It was tar black. My hands, table-fan-pillow-bottles- I had begun to panic -lamp-ashtray-watch, nothing. I was sweating profusely by now, and all I could hear was my heartbeat screaming insanely amongst many shapeless scattered thoughts. Confused thoughts. Scary thoughts. Scary confused thoughts. I closed my eyes, thinking everything would be fine the next time I open them. Like naive children. Like some dream from which you wake up, relieved that it was a dream! When I opened my eyes, my world seemed darker than before. And the darkness kept growing, until it sucked in everything, as if it were a black hole, a blind vortex, an excruciating hunger. I thought of shouting for help, but didn't. I was too scared, too afraid that some evil might become aware of my defenseless presence. Instead, I held my breath for a long time, pretended to be inert. It occurred to me then that it might be better to sleep. Better still to dream. But my dreams are always silent. 'Vision but no sound, or vice versa?'. Without answering the question, I decided to stay awake. 'And besides', I reasoned, 'one cannot sleep for ever'. I sat up slowly and placed my feet on the floor. A chill ran down my spine, and then it recoiled back. There was no floor. I felt like crying, and slowly the knot in my throat tightened. This same tenseness began to descend. My arms felt distant, thick and heavy, like a bulky rope, getting bulkier with each pulse. And so did the torso. But right then, the floor started to slide under my leg, very slowly, as if it were a conveyor belt. Touching the heels first, then reaching the toes. And for a moment I thought that my legs were moving away from me. I clinched to the floor harder. The floor was cold. And then, because of the sweat, became wet. My heels pricked. Still sitting, I tried to grope for my slippers, and after a long time, found only one. I willed to get up and got up suddenly, in one jerk, in the process almost loosing my balance. But before that, I wore the slipper and willed to will.

I took few steps, warm-cold, warm-cold…, and hit upon something, loosing my balance again, but managed to stop myself from falling. A slightly raised floor, I discovered was the cause, after going down on my knees and touching the side where the two floors met. And noticed that the rise was very small, almost unnoticeable. 'Yes, the raised floor'. In an instant my entire apartment flashed in my mind. And I knew the direction of the door from where I stood. I got up to move, this time my hand groping the blackness, running almost parallel to the floor. I was relatively calm now. I took a step forward, and fell. Hitting my head hard onto the floor, hurting my shoulder and the elbow. I totally forgot about the raised floor that towered in front of me. Getting up, with a dizzy head and an aching arm, I headed for the door. The fingers, feeling the bump that had suddenly appeared on the head, became wet. For some time I was unsure whether it was sweat or blood. Blood, I finally decided, having tasted it and felt its texture between my fingers. Somehow, the thought of reaching the door assuaged my fears. I had no idea why I felt so, or what I would do after reaching there. Everything, after all, was black. Right then, I thought, a hand touched my elbow. I jumped instantaneously, 'Who is it?', my head pointing in that direction. 'Hello?'. For a long time I didn't move. I held my breath and squatted, like a frog. Tried to listen some sound, a step, an anklet, anything; in the process intermittently twisting my neck, and waist in every possible direction. I closed my eyes, and realized that I felt better. I didn't open my eyes for a long time. Tried to breathe hard. Harder. And even harder. Puffing up my mouth with all the fear and letting it out. A white calm reigned over me, that felt divorced from all the things I had known since. When I opened my eyes later, I knew very well that nothing was going to change. In that instant, blinks, became meaningless to me. A stroke of uncanny ruthless chance made me aware of something I never imagined was in me. It occurred to me then that I'd better get my eyelids stitched.

I headed for the door, the trouble was I didn’t know where to go. The fall had left me completely disoriented. I knew I was still somewhere near my bed, but felt directionless. I kept walking – if one can call that walking – inside the apartment for a long time, in search for the door. And as I walked, everything seemed sudden. There was no continuity. During this time, I fell many times, got bruised all over, and was bleeding from many places. My palms were sticky and slippery from all the blood. By now, they had dried several times. The blood was black, my body slightly numb. I went around the apartment, searching for the door, negotiating the paths, bumping into things, causing them to fall, picking them up (sometimes they were broken, sometimes intact), making sense of the space, touching new shapes, smelling new smells, noticing new sounds.

When they broke open the door several days later, I was found in an obscure corner almost touching -but separate from- the door. The apartment looked as if it had just come out of an earthquake. At first, they thought there had been a break-in, and that somebody had beaten me up. Badly. But somehow quickly concluded otherwise. No one came near me, or touched me. The reason for this, someone told me later, was my ghostly appearance. Many bruises and cuts. Black, red and yellow, the dark corner. From a distance, they called out my name, softly at first and then loudly, as if they were knocking at someone's door. As if, I was the door. There was no response. Somebody suggested, with a tinge of derision, that I was dead. But even after considering me for dead, nobody dared to come close. 'Most deaths are not beautiful', I'd think later, 'Something deep buzzes in you when you look at a dead face, and not many call that music'. I finally writhed, and slowly got up on my feet, like an old woman, humped, with parched lips, shaking. I felt heavy as I was getting up. My body was facing the direction where the voices dwelled. I stared at the floor for a very long time. That's when I recalled everything. Looking up, I finally spoke, the voice felt distant, almost alien, 'No....door....'. 'The..re.....are.........no.....door..s. An..t..s, only....an..t..s’, smiling convulsively, nearly breaking into laughter. Almost immediately, the floor vanished again.

Nativity

2009-04-16T19:47:00.000+05:30

Now it whirls,
lifts me up
and seeps into my very bone.
Dissolving me into a
thud
that completes its magnificent roar.
The impeccable ticks
and the prompt rings,
melt in me,
and a primitive spirit
that doesn't despair
is forged.

Unhindered, with the immense blue above me,
a fervor, burrowed deep in me,
leaps out
forming a wave,
as it comes forth and
ebbs
with the contact of
this naked myth,
        swallowing it completely.

I become the furrow
of the rough stone you hold,
the murky blue in the fleeting fragrance that makes your eyes droopy,
and the undulating vein of the old leaf that your fingers chart,
in a futile search for nothingness
        The reckless curve of the swooping bird
that you construct in the void,
all the tenor in the colors
that makes you hum,
and the luxuriant threads you see
in the muffled bird call
that gives afternoons its heaviness
        is me
I am the last ray you enjoy that makes the lazy dust gold,
and the galloping thunder,
arrogant with the rain, that you taste
on parched lips
                I am
the mist that blinds you,
the breeze that gives back
your eyes,
the feverish pearl that you catch, as it
jumps and dives in a silky stream,
                and the canine that pierces through you
on a white winter morning.

So as you delve out next,
lend yourself
into the heart of the mundane spirits
Unclench that bruised hand and let go of the time,
you clutch to, so tenderly,
Feel the texture of a solitary tree
you see everyday but move on
A flower might descend slowly at your feet
leaving behind a scented trail
and a lost bird might perch close by
just for your sight
You might hear the flight of a butterfly as it glides past you
as if ushering you
to a tribal welcome
where you see the padded air
leaning on to a bough
shy from your fresh glance

Who knows then,
you might as well notice a smile
Who knows,
you might smile
the smile again
Maybe,
you might just as well
hum again.
And maybe,
the lines on your palm will be
visible again.

Ants

2009-04-10T02:49:00.029+05:30

Ants are everywhere. Back then, I never realized this simple fact. When I think about it now, I am surprised that I could have missed such a thing. I am not the same person I used to be when I first met him. I am not sure if I have changed. ‘Change’ has always been an impregnable idea for me. I do not understand it. At times I think it to be just an illusion. I understand ‘transformations’, though.

---

Waking up in the sound of night. I sat cross legged on my bed, furtively tracing the patterns of the bed cover. Yellow curves, and grayish dots. As I squinted at them, they appeared to me like a caravan passing a sand storm. Flutters and grains, peppered with unrelenting shadows. Groaning, I twisted my stiff body and looked behind, near my pillow, still staring at the bed cover. I remained still for a long time, my eyes straining hard. They relaxed as I removed something off the bed in one sweeping stroke, in the process momentarily feeling the smooth texture of the sheet at the back of my hand. As I lay back, eyes closed now, my fingers started tracing a shapeless benign swelling that had surreptitiously appeared on my left shoulder. It stung for some time, but the pain subsided soon. I knew this feeling of emptiness well. A long persisting pain that one gets used to, and begins to savor it, when lost feels the same. 'People generally become aware of their treacherous body only in pain. Pain in that sense is an innocent reminder...', I thought. Gauging this sentence for a long time, I added, 'Of what?'. I went back to sleep, enveloped in the fleshy reassurances the swelling provided. When I woke up, the swelling had vanished.

---

This happened when his friend was still in touch with him. A long time ago. When he still had many claustrophobic inhibitions. Or so he told me.

---

Back then, these strange dreamlike escapades had become so recurrent that I couldn't recall a time when nights were short. A single blink; darkness and then a flood of fantastic colors. Nevertheless, to me these incidents were nothing more than innocuous dreams that one relishes for having dreamt and later forget. I never got preoccupied thinking about them, never remembered them consciously. Until, the day I mentioned this to one of my closest friend. It just so happened that we, one late evening, ended up talking about our strange experiences. It was a light hearted chat, funny in fact, where one speaks ones mind. After hearing his convoluted talk for some time, I gathered little confidence to share my recent experiences, I began elaborating, half in jest. It proved to be a laugh riot. We talked for quite some time. Later, getting up to leave, laughing, he said, 'I bet... you are going crazy'. Somehow managing to keep these syllables afloat as the world around us inundated in our laughter. It was an innocent remark, that made us laugh even more violently.

---

If anyone were to hear them that evening, it would have been hard for him to distinguish one from the other. This incident made me think –in retrospect- that simple conversation is like a smilingly innocuous path filled with invisible landmines. Unaware, you can many a times pass it without a scratch, but sometimes it can destroy you completely. After this incident, we didn’t meet for a long time.

---

The following day, while smoking my after-lunch cigarette I happened to recall previous evening's conversation. 'Did he really mean that?', I thought aloud. Then nodded and smiled. The foliage above me was stingy in letting anything pass through it, the light that fell at the small patch, near my foot, formed an eagle's head. A small breeze intermittently transformed this patch into a gramophone. After a long time, getting up, I thought, hardly audible now, 'I'd like to own a gramophone some day'. 'But, I wonder what's playing on this one', I added almost immediately. I could hear the rustling all around me, looking up at the small gaps between the leaves, I saw the whirling dust, that I thought looked like a tunnel directly leading to the sun. I stared at the tree for a long time, but decided to remain silent. On my way back, I resolved to prowl through the night and dissect previous evening's conversation.

---

That night, I cleaned my room. Swept the floor thrice. Placed the stacks of books lying on the floor back into the cupboard. Cleared all the scattered newspapers. Changed the pillow-cover, spread a clean bed cover. Wore clean cloths and tried to sleep. But sleep seemed very distant. And everything around me dripped with lethargy. At some nights though, and even in broad day light -but mostly at night- I have also seen them run like crazy, scary close, almost touching me. The night crawled on. To kill time, I stared at the grainy ceiling in front of me. I was pleased with myself when I was able to reconstruct the swoop of a magpie. And in that swoop, I began to doze off. When I woke up later that night, I was covered in a sheet of yellow calm. I knew this feeling well. Although still sleepy, I waited for the sting. The wait was not very long. It arrived, this time at the right calf. Wide awake now, I pressed the spot with my hand as hard as I could. Rubbed the surrounding part randomly. And then tried to see if I could find anything on the bed. I saw an ant, or what I thought to be something that looked like an ant, for it was dead and completely squashed. A tiny dot, a black grain, a symbol of discovery and pain. I got to the floor and scanned it to see if there were more, their colony, a column. Not a single one could be found. Nothing. The swelling had grown by now, and it stung bad. I started to place the shape again. I could not, the shape was completely new to me.

I was occupied with my thoughts for many days. Slowly, I tried to stack up all the stale nights, and winnow through them. During these deliberations, it occurred to me that as far as I could remember I had never been bitten at the same spot twice, the stings always found a new place. I was also tempted to think that each time the swellings took a new shape, although I was not so sure about that. And it surprised me when I remembered that I was always awake before these experiences happened. 'Never asleep, not even once; that's funny!', I reasoned timidly. I later realized that it wasn't funny at all, but having realized, found the irony of it funny. I saw my friend from time to time, since I thought he was bothered too. But he couldn't help me. Reassurances. None could be found.

---

All this started to bother me acutely. And understandably so. In the process, I started noticing my many idiosyncrasies, many of which I was confident other people - if not many, some - possess. A person talking to himself is not unheard of, one might have even seen one, but I did not know anyone who took pleasure in talking to inanimate beings, comparing the properties of stones with music, or who thought that the buildings opposite his were robots and that they communicated every night. There were innumerable other strange dispositions which I started to make note of for the first time. Nevertheless, I believed that people mostly do not share their quirky desires, habits and experiences with others. It makes them feel vulnerable. It is also true, I thought, that we not only filter what we experience, but also filter when we communicate it to others. '90% of universe is dark matter that we don't understand, and so is experience and communication', I reasoned.

---

Over the period of many days I continued to unravel the problems. To check if something was wrong with my room, I started sleeping in other rooms, until there were none left. I then tried hotels, my friend's place, railway station, airport, gardens. But to no avail. Like an ancient curse that doesn't relents, each night, I would find myself awake waiting for the inevitable. Scared, and wistful. As if I were a fallen tired prey staring at the limbs of a predator, longing for the final experience that can never be taught. After all this time, my initial observations about the incidents still remained true. Of course, there were some new ones too. I had, for instance, started to smell a pattern in the shapes and many a times could successfully guess the next one. I could never find where the ant came from though. It was always, a single ant.

It was somewhere during this time, in a state of frenzy, that I came up with my first hypothesis describing where these creatures came from. Later I also began to elucidate about the whys.

---

This is when he came to see me.
He began, 'I think my friend is loosing his mind'
'Do you think I shouldn't have told him that?'
'Is it all my mistake?'
...
...
As I listened him speak, I thought I felt a sting. For the first time. On my nape. It had an elusive shape. I remember well, it was the first time I understood him completely. We became closest of friends. All of this happened a long time ago.

Untitled

2009-03-13T00:18:00.010+05:30

Inane questions vaporize
to form earthy clouds
They block the sun
and later, hide
the hare in the moon.
The wind,
with a tinge of thunder
scurries around,
nibbles at the whys and hows.

The rain is elusive.

Stasis

2009-02-03T11:52:00.006+05:30

I feel it now...there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world. I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it.
- Rilke

We become what we behold.
- McLuhan

We do not see things as they are,
we see them as we are.
- Anais Nin

A death

2009-01-16T03:00:00.012+05:30

Those intermittent moments gave my arm a life of its own. The shudders raised unheard emotions in me. And echoed throughout my body. Strangely enough, when these shudders died I felt a strange weakness. I was holding my own spirit. One of many.

Some of them flutter, some don't.

The moth, he was huge. Enormous. I held him by his wings between the thumb and the middle finger. As if he was a material to be offered into the sacred fire. The pinks and whites on his green looked like ripples viewed from a smoggy glass. And at the edge of each forewing (where it met the thorax) was his other-eyes, always on guard. Looking from the top he looked like Ganesha, thorax and abdomen forming the trunk and the wings transformed into ears.

At a young age he wanted to be a bird, but the elders advised otherwise. They told him to take a grip on reality. Although he succumbed and lost the grip on his reality, those inherent dispositions still flicker occasionally. There have been times when -much to his delight- he has been mistaken as a bird.

He was rescued (or so I thought) from the tinted blueish caged glow which resembled a Rothko. A greenish patch against the bands of blues and whites. He laid there, on the metallic mesh, mesmerized. Stunned by the fantastic azure. He was lured into this floating contraption, while the other creatures -the humans, as they are commonly known- sat indifferently on some cold metallic objects. These beings were busy ruminating. In front of them was some funny looking food, kept on a cold metallic sheet which in turn was placed on a cold metallic platform. For them the contraption became visible when it made a sound. The sound of electrocution. Sometimes even this sound seemed incapable of penetrating these curious creatures. Very little is known about them. It is said, many a times they communicate aimlessly. It is also rumored that they have intelligence and something called 'consciousness'. No one knows what that is.

It is not clear how he got there, or for that matter why. There are only speculations. Many say that the glow made the moth to think of a long forgotten love. In spite of the place being filled with unknown -sometimes awful- odor, the thought of another touch was irresistible. Nothing else mattered. So perhaps, in that moment -just before the shock, with the blueish mosaic eyes- he had lived epochs.

The electric shock was fatal. He couldn't fly anymore. Intermittently, he would spread out the hawk like wings in all its majestic splendor and make a fervent attempt to fly, but in vain. I placed him safely into my cigarette pack and the pack in the inner pocket of my jacket. Away from the azure, in complete darkness, he was still shuddering. The muffled sound of those shudders interspersed with my heartbeat created a curious chimeral harmony.

In my room, I placed him on top of one of the stack of books. Even after many hours it laid there unmoved, as if comatose. At 11 when I went to sleep he still appeared dazed. When my sleep broke at around 2 he had vanished. Looking around to make sure that he had actually gone, I found him hidden between a narrow gap of the book columns. When I touched him, there was a response.

It is said that when a being knows that its going to die, it searches for a corner of solitude. Alone, imagines itself in an invisible shell. Just like the beginning. By morning he had died in his corner, enveloped in sheets of whites and yellows, and perhaps with all the blue in his eyes.

Later that same day, I decreed the clouds to form shapes. A ballet dancer, her tutu whirling and a horse rising high on his hind limbs, his mane flowing superbly. Having humored me, they disappeared very softly. Watching the colors go dark, I thought perhaps that's how the spirits leave us when we die, whispering softly as they are about to leave. It's a sad feeling, but somehow reassuring. Perhaps that's what happened when the moth died.

Dissolve

2008-11-19T09:37:00.001+05:30

Blue

2008-11-17T00:37:00.000+05:30

Words and Images

2008-11-09T00:31:00.006+05:30

'sky'
Magritte's The Palace of Curtains [via]

Magritte's Key to Dreams [via]

'This is not a pipe'
Magritte's Trahison des Images [via]

We speak of a sign as iconic when it resembles (i.e., looks like) what it refers to. Hieroglyphic writing does this, at least at times. To represent (or signify) a house, inscribe a (perhaps simplified and stylized) house H. It is generally said that such writing is limited to the things that can be depicted and hence cannot readily express abstract things or processes, logical condition, negation, or even novel things that do not yet exist. Similarly, gestures can be used to convey certain meanings by virtue of resemblance, as for example when we extend an arm, holding the hand and fingers upright, meaning to signify "stop, hold off" as if we were preparing to stiff-arm the person...

Visual representation depends on resemblance, using the latter in the narrow sense of likeness of form or appearance (e.g. "The roofs resembled a row of tents"). It is a good idea not to use resemblance when describing similitude of function (e.g "Bactine is similar to iodine in function" but not "Bactine resembles iodine in function"). Resemblance is one kind of similitude, namely, similitude of appearance...

More here and here.

Doors

2008-11-07T01:07:00.007+05:30

Tonight
its the sound
of the

far-off       thudding            h   E    a               Rt
h   E    a               Rt
thudding
      far-off

         whirling f~a~n

      unhindered thoughts

f~~~~a~~~~n unhindered         whirling thoughts
                     drunk _m^o_t^h

                              rough j^^^^ea^^^n__s
f~~~~a~~n~~~           unclipped pa  p    e  r  s

       far-off           h   E    a               Rt
                      thudding

ruffling     c
c                 u            a                    n
     u         r        t                i
               t
                a
               i
                n                     dry throat

unclipped pa  p    e  r  s
                                                whirling

                  tapping

       k_ey_bo_ar_d

whirling unhindered ruffling
                                thoughts

____sighs____

                thudding   h   E    a    Rt

that make me
Me

and the night
Night

The tunnel

2008-11-04T19:57:00.008+05:30

Top photo by Micheal Woolley.

Atum

2008-11-02T03:22:00.039+05:30

The lizard,
coiled
just above my bed
and my head
looking straight at me, or
past me, I do not know,
doesn't respond to my friendly refrain
Instead, slithers up higher in some sine wave,
lies stoically, in the penumbra
of the glow

Like the night outside,
he is dark, and silent
Or maybe
he is the night
with a grin
of the grinning moon
And, just like the stars
that wiggle around
to decide the future,
to make the past bare
(and sometimes, todecidethepast,
tomaketheFUturebare)
he has an oracle tail,
cryptic and divine
He is the night
that has caressed, sun's glow

After ages of stasis
and unconcern
A lightening fork
strikes a tiny prey
The prey isn't surprised
relents easily
Before long,
They are one
The prey is the lizard
The lizard is the prey
That grin
reappears,
like the moon
after a dark cloud's flow

'Look!'
I find myself whispering
'There goes another one
ambling near you'
He looks at the insect,
the insect looks at him,
Them eyes
look at me
He doesn't budge
The insect ambles on
and flies off
And the grin
It still glows

The shape of things

2008-10-30T23:11:00.015+05:30

If you think some of the images don't make any sense, squint!!

Perspective #3

2008-10-28T01:21:00.003+05:30

Have had this image with me for a long time. Sadly, cannot find the original source now.

The Tracy Fragments

2008-10-26T15:47:00.046+05:30

Watching 'The Tracey Fragments' was a satisfying experience. I liked the erratic and seemingly random placement of different scenes; the entire screen divided into 'fragments'. The fragments were Tracey's memories. The shots were deconstruction of her recent traumatic experiences. In all the movies that I have seen I don't seem to find any correspondences with this movie's brilliant depiction of the thought process, and visual perception. Bergman's Persona comes to mind, but it employed a very different technique. Bergman usually preferred zooming into a shot till the actor's face becomes so vivid that one can literally see the pores of the skin; this along with exquisite lighting, innovative camera angles and long shots. The result is scary; it stares straight through you, slowly creeps on to you, devours you, makes you its own. One could, on the other hand, find some similarities with the works of Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner.

Hardly five minutes into the movie, you get to know the entire story. In fragments. This barrage of fragmented scenes is random; there is no temporal connection, no association, no causality. Its only later that Tracey apparently picks up this instantaneous emotional outburst and puts it into some perspective. In retrospect, you can't help but appreciate the director's and the screenwriter's ability to capture this seemingly elusive phenomenon successfully. In an emotional outburst nothing is lucid, events that cause this condition are scattered. It takes some time before you gather yourself and make sense of the chaos, or at least so it seems.

Apart from the psychological aspect of the technique, the director uses fragments as an essential element of the narrative. Among other things, he uses it to show various kinds of simultaneity. For example, you see a kind of perceptual simultaneity in the scene where Tracy talks to her shrink. One fragment is the usual wide-angle shot, it shows the shrink and Tracy seated face to face. Other fragments show things that are already present in the first fragment; like Tracy's face, her hands, her feet, shrink's face, her hands, her feet. Together they solve an unknown jigsaw. Its wonderful what effect each of these 'dissected' scenes have on the overall experience of viewing. Other than perceptual simultaneity, there is the process of connecting a scene with other co-temporal events, bringing in varied context, introducing associative symbols, showing a single object from different angles at the same time, etc. I thought, given the seemingly complex technique, one could have easily screwed up this idea. Fortunately, the team did a really good job. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie.

Strangely enough, few days back I tried something similar here.

Perspective #2

2008-10-26T14:44:00.014+05:30

[click on the image for a larger view]

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Tails and horns

2008-10-21T19:09:00.010+05:30

It started with the Virupaksha temple. Well, with the two brackets which adorn its top, to be precise. Virupaksha being a Shaiva temple, the guess was that the brackets represent the horns of Nandi. This was easy, although still unverified. But this led me to somehow think about the curves that one sees in the Buddhist architecture, especially Thai. The curves, undulating, you cannot miss. They are everywhere, the top of the temple roof, the edge of the roof, the brackets, the acroterion. You can even see them as appendages in some of the dance dresses. Anyhow, what I was interested in was the iconography of these waves that flow from the edge of a roof. My initial guess, Dragon's tail.

For the next 2-3 weeks I mined with no avail. The only obscure rationale that I found was that the spirits in the Chinese mythology do not travel in straight path, and hence the curves. Of course, this was not a very satisfying answer.

Last week searching the web for godknowswhat I came across this wonderful book. Titled 'Buddhist Art - Architecture, Part I', written by P. Phrombhichitr, the book is a life saver. One stop for everything I needed to know. Was it a Dragon's tail? A tail alright, but of a swan. And a Dragon too, named He-ra; not the tail though, its head.

And it turns out that the gable itself represents a seated Buddha, how wonderful is that!!

Fly

2008-10-17T02:14:00.018+05:30

Image via
More about the dance here

Travel

2008-08-26T02:57:00.015+05:30

The journey was long, very long. I crossed epochs of distance. There, in the desert, everything seemed to have a soul. Each with a different hue; unique. Each myth was as true as the reflection of history. The history shivered with a yellow tinge at the horizon, while myths filled everything with their orange gait.
I came across Simoon. Glancing at her next victims, clad in armours, she said gingerly and with disdain, 'Those fools have waged a war against me, they know not the meaning of war; never have, never will', raising just her left brow. She left me with an innocent smile and an aching heart. My eyes followed her until she flickered as a mirage for sometime, later vanished; the walk was hypnotic; those arms, the head, the torso, all so magically floated on her long legs. At a distance, the mirage, all azure, suddenly inundated everything, now transformed into water. I observed all the movements of the lithe figures --the black phantoms-- as they swam past me, into the water and disappeared. 'They are the exiles, this, their pilgrimage', somebody whispered. I don't know who it was, but does it matter? In the desert everything has a soul. Then there was a silence, deafening; as if time had stopped, tired of negotiating the sandy terrain. I wondered if time really travels in a straight path, or as the Hopi think, it can accumulate; like water, like experience, like grief. What does it mean to have a sense of time; is it absolute? It takes 40 days from northern Sudan to reach where I was, but I didn't start from Sudan, I started from a different continent, crossed an ocean and it took me an instant. I could hear the thuds of my heart when I woke up; the ceiling fan was furiously ecstatic. 1:20am, thirsty, my eyes full of sand, I thought of the prophet.

The music of antiquity

2008-08-13T21:50:00.012+05:30

[via]

A fascinating study by Iegor Reznikoff claims that the drawing spots in the prehistoric caves of Niaux are acoustically richer than other areas in the cave. And the claims get bolder, not only are these spots special in having an amplifying characteristic, they might have been chosen because of the unique sounds that are produced at these spots. Sounds, which corresponds to the kind of animals drawn near that location.

"maybe horses are related to spaces that sound a certain way"

[via]

There are also reasons to believe that these spots were associated with various rituals performed by the paleolithic people. The study might shed some light on the question of what came first, was it painting in the form of various symbolic figures or singing.

Niaux caves were discovered in 1906, and contain a rich array of prehistoric drawings. These pictures are supposed to have been made about 14,000 years ago.

Ethnopoetics

2008-08-13T04:27:00.017+05:30

A wonderful site on Ethnopoetics managed by Jerome Rothenberg.

This is what he says in the introduction:

The breakthroughs of the last 100 years in poetry and elsewhere have been marked by new approaches to language and performance. Largely this has been the work of several generations of experimental writers and performers, many of them now archived and available thru Ubuweb and related web sites. It fell to some of us, starting with forerunners like Tristan Tzara and Antonin Artaud, to track related but traditional approaches over a wide range of once impenetrable cultures throughout the world. In my own work I was able to bring some of these lines together in gatherings of the 1960s and 1970s like Technicians of the Sacred and Shaking the Pumpkin, as well as in the magazine Alcheringa that I co-edited for several years with Dennis Tedlock. The name that we gave this enterprise, as it applied to the world’s deep cultures – those surviving in situ as well as those that had vanished except for transcriptions in books or recordings from earlier decades – was ethnopoetics.

The site has loads of engaging texts. Many essays, translations of poems from various cultures, etc.

Gary Snyder writes in The Politics of Ethnopoetics

The very fact of anthropological curiosity is a function of being a member of an expanding civilization. The opposite of that, of the contrast to that, is to be in a cultural situation where you will not have any particular interest in what other peoples' cultural habits are, but simply, hopefully, respect them. In Zen Buddhism they say, "mise mono ja nai," which means this is not something we show to people. No radio interviews, no tapings, no videos, no movies, no visitors are permitted in Zen training establishments. It's not for show. It's open to everyone who wishes to participate but it's not for show. That is the sense that insiders have in their own culture as members. They see people who come to them wanting to study (but not participate) as strangely floating around the surface. We can begin to imagine how weird our anthropological efforts must look to people who are in that other kind of culture which is ecosystem based and deeply rooted in its own identity while not doubting in the least the humanity of other human beings.

... poets were always "pagans," which was why Blake said Milton was of the devil's party but he didn't know it. The devil is, after all, not the devil at all, he is the miming elk shaman dancer at Trois Frères, with elk antlers and a pelt on his back, and what he's doing has to do with animal fertility in the springtime.

In 'Poetry without sound', Rothenberg says:

In the real world of the deaf, then, language exists as a kind of writing in space and as a primary form of communication without reference to any more primary form of language for its validation. It is in this sense a realization of the ideogrammatic vision of a Fenollosa -- "a spendid flash of concrete poetry" -- but an ideogrammatic language truly in motion and, like oral poetry, truly inseparable from its realization in performance.

Robert Ducan writes in 'Rites of Passage'

We go now to the once-called primitive—to the bush man, the child, or the ape—not to read what we were but what we are.

... This Tree, too, we saw each year, for at the birthday of the Child-Christos, we were as children presented with a tree from which or under which gifts appeared — wishes made real. This Christmas tree came, we know, from the tree-cults of the German tribes, ancestral spirits—a burning tree. But it is also a tree of lights, and where, in the time of Jacob Boehme, in the early seventeenth century, the Jewish and the Germanic mystery ways are wedded in one, the Christmas tree may have also been the Divine Tree of the Zohar, lit with the lights of the sefirah.

Not so happy rain Gods

2008-08-10T23:15:00.011+05:30

Indra, it seems, is suffering from a choleric outburst. Hyderabad has just suffered huge damages due to the incessant torrential rains. And its not just Indra, his far of cousins, Zeus, Chaac, Tlaloc, Cocijo, Illapa, and the Dragon king, appear to be in no great mood either. In Vietnam, the rain-guardian 'uncle' toad seems to have ground his teeth to death.

The Mayan rain god Cháak and the female deity Chak Chel producing rain from clay jars [via]

We know how to go about pleasing them to bring in the first shower; but I wonder if there is a way to make them stop?

Tune up

2008-07-19T01:34:00.010+05:30

See how

That white canvas

2008-07-07T22:46:00.014+05:30

With that step, I saw
the bulging spine of a great monster
on it stood, huddled
an immense caravan of fantastic beings
their frightened eyes reflecting the steel
of a blazing chariot galloping down
Then suddenly
their figures relaxed in a white silky warmth
As the whirling dervishes
enveloped them, making them disappear
Until all that remained was a fleeting echo
of the wheels and an invisible spoor

I then slowly, with unbelievable ease
with such puerile grace
painted
the phantasmagoric details
on that white canvas

The Beckoning

2008-06-03T07:58:00.017+05:30

A muffled thunder woke me up this morning. As the first batch of light filled my eyes, some unheard sounds gushed out, 'you pour out your laughter and tears fill your eyes'; as if I'd unconsciously translated the thunder. Where did they come from, or what they were meant to mean, i'd never know. Words, prematurely chiseled off. It came again, the laughter. My heart starts to pound just a bit faster. I knew, I had to rush out. But before that, I wrote this surrealist bastard down, 'you pour out your laughter and tears fill your eyes', and added, 'Eureka!, Archimedes was right after all'.

I always try to step out when it rains. So, I stepped out hoping that I would be just on time. The lacquered road was wet in patches, but no rain. The thunder seemed to have traveled some distance. I crossed the play-ground; few students playing hockey started to argue over something, a foul I guessed. Looking up, I imagined that the clouds were facing similar trouble, a foul...you just cannot have percussion alone. I try to hear the voice of silt as I walk, different at each step. An unfettered flock of breezes try to negotiate their way past me, they collide straight into me instead. And just then, I smell rain. Its drizzling, I smiled. And felt ever so light. I always try to step out when it rains, and it beckons me even in my sleep. Or, so it seemed.

Perspective

2008-04-26T17:02:00.000+05:30

Perspective II

When I first stumbled upon this painting, I could tell it was a Manet. And a Magritte. I discovered later that it is part of a series painted by Magritte. Apart from Manet's, the series has paintings which are reinterpretations of the works of François Gérard and Jacques Louis David. The series was aptly named Perspectives.

Manet's Balcone*

Painters have for long found their inspiration in the same muse. The old Masters, for instance, painted varied themes from the religious/mythical canon, and expected the viewers to interpret the painting through their religious understanding. The issue of interpreting any work of art is in itself fascinating; some believe that a work of art (especially a painting) should be self-contained; others think that it should be porous. Its always interesting to hear different views (often conflicting) that people have for the same work of art.

The motivation for reinterpreting an old painting in the modern** context perhaps is quite different. Some painters do this to reorient the way one perceives and interprets the theme of a painting. Such works generally are a critique of the status quo. For others, I am not so sure; perhaps its their way of acknowledging the Masters. Or maybe, it’s simply an adaptation of the previous work in the present space-time.

Its interesting to note that Manet's Balcone was itself a reinterpretation of Goya's Majas au balcon. Like his Olympia (which was inspired by Velázquez's The Rokeby Venus), Manet stripped the subjects off their earlier mythical/religious subtexts.

* The dog and the ball under the chair doesn't show in Magritte's painting.

** Its difficult to categorically state the beginning of the 'modern' era. People have different notions when they use this word. The beginning of Realism is what I have in mind here.

Trickle-down

2008-04-12T14:08:00.001+05:30

Hindu Goddess of wealth, Lakshmi

a self-portrait by Magritte

Lost Connections?

2008-04-12T10:35:00.001+05:30

You can instantly recognize a Modigliani. While it is known that Picasso was inspired by the African themes, best exemplified by Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; such influences on Modigliani are poorly documented. The non-european influences in his paintings, nevertheless, are profound. The celebrated elongated neck, among other things, is a case in point. Kayans and Ndebele tribes look strikingly similar in this respect. Perhaps this similarity is just a coincidence, since there seems to be nothing on the web that points to this connection.

.
from left: a Kayan women, a painting by Modigliani, and a Ndebele woman

More about the Kayan tribe, about the Ndebele tribes, about the practice of wearing neck-rings and the African influence on Modern art.

À la recherche du temps perdu

2008-03-11T07:01:00.002+05:30

Abysmal
and ineffable
It is not
Promiscuous
Yes
I have seen it
naked
and felt it
mutate
Inhaled all its radiance
Enunciated, acutely
I don't know how
or when
I know
I decree shapes
a lion, a hunter,
and a virgin,
the curves,
pubis, or a brow
I know how
and when
I know
I want to stop
and behold
Know
not the form
Wear
the lost charm

'Une' or 'Un'

2008-02-26T14:14:00.000+05:30

A news which should perhaps cheer everyone struggling with the French gender system. Dalila Ayoun's research shows that even the native French speakers have surprisingly low consensus when it comes to the feminine-masculine noun distinction. Read the complete article here.

Meaning

2008-02-26T07:02:00.000+05:30

laughed my guts out...
worked for me.
View xkcd for the mouse-over text.

Faces

2008-02-23T16:30:00.003+05:30

An empty canvas
splashed
with memories of the past
A door, the see-through curtains, the shadows
deceive
The frame
looks misty

Colorless dream
the shadows reveal
Wordless,
two faces, or one
dances, and remains still
The pores reflect
her desires, inanely

She listens,
She speaks
Love, smiles
and blood
The hallow face
wanes
slowly

Watch
your floating self
recoil
Unspoken words
cut deep
Innocent memories
return and flee

Do not strain
Reasons
are hollow
Look yonder
The waves
tell you
a story

from F to E

2008-02-14T13:05:00.000+05:30

I couldn’t feel the gate at all, but I could smell the bright cold. Coltrane is great, he is smooth, I like the thud of bass on my body. In Jazz, they use a double-bass. Noise. From the window opposite mine. Someone’s birthday. I hate birthday celebrations, too much laughter, shouts, plastic smiles, photographs, water; makes me sad. Another song, ‘I want to talk about you’. Its hot, should I get a haircut tomorrow. Tomorrow, is it Tuesday? The barbers don’t open on Tuesdays. But no, let them grow a bit more and tomorrow is no Tuesday. I should start my work tomorrow. It’s been a month, almost. Planning, ha ha ha… The table is too cluttered, I should clean it up. Too many unread books, and the newspapers, I should throw them away. I should clean up my room too. Coltrane is doing his closing part, improvising. I should light up a cigarette. No, just finished one, don’t overdo it. To hell with it. Unexpectedly, the cigarette feels good. What’s the taste of a cigarette? Well, unfortunately, no one can tell you what it feels like; you’ll have to feel it for yourself. That’s from Matrix. Except that, it was slightly different there. Too many movies, I watch. What’s this urge for writing in the middle of reading, fuck it, don’t think just write, and write whatever comes to mind. Comes to mind, or comes from mind, fuck it, just write…Pause. A drag, another drag and another. A plane just crossed by, sound pollution. We should sue them for disturbing our flow of thought. An empty ashtray doesn’t look good. It’s difficult to type when I hold a cigarette, I should practice. I should have a chocolate. Five star, fruit-n-nut. Are you nuts? bad joke. I should definitely work from tomorrow, high time. The polybag on the table and my shirt are of the same color, that’s depressing. Another improvisation, song ends, some clapping, it’s a live performance. Hip hip hurray…hip hip hurray, are the shouts from another lobby, a birthday party, why do they make so much noise, for gods sake, that poor chap isn't getting any younger, that’s sad…Another bite, its good, the chocolate. Duke’s here too, ‘In a sentimental mood’.

Ole Rockin' Chair

2008-01-17T09:19:00.000+05:30

And the debate continues. Pieces, one against Capitalism, and the other in favor. The latter tries hard to hatch up numerous arguments (most of them are shamefully/ignorantly misplaced) and understandably tries to be rhetorical. The 'free-market' apologists, perhaps, can do much better to shroud the conspicuous mess we are in.

Questions #1

2008-01-10T15:13:00.000+05:30

Do you walk,
a futile walk
Do you pursue, a floating leaf
Do you stare, without knowing what
Do you slither, crawl, or fly

Do you like the smell of the fog
Do you amble,
if caught in the rain
Can you notice the mutating colors

Can you pick up a muffled music
What darts through you, the tenor, the alto,
or the bass
Can a note make you cry,
or ecstatic
Is the sound of the crushing leaves,
the creek of the bough, the rustling leaves, music to you

The art of graceful (yet effective) mosquito killing

2007-12-12T14:51:00.000+05:30

The air-condition in my lab gets switched off at 12:30 am sharp everyday. This practice, according to the administration, will bring down the electricity bill (one of those policies which makes no sense whatsoever given the fact that the lab is a box with no ventilation, come to think of it, most policy makers are brainless humanoids, a quality which takes you a long way). Anyhow, the lab is hot. Humid. The keyboard feels sticky and the laptop has started to elbow too hard to keep the zeros-n-ones flowing. Wait, I have to scratch my back, one sec… OK, so I was saying that the lab is getting close to becoming an inferno. If that was not a problem, a quaint family of mosquito suddenly seems to have arrived for their nightly hunt. My search for a mosquito repellent goes futile. It’s still early that I go to my cell. They start to attack the lord of the lab (and the lord doesn’t care who bit. All mosquitoes are the same and they deserve to be shown their place). There’s going to be a massacre tonight (yet another which will go unnoticed, unrecorded, these lowly creatures are going to get wiped out, ‘they had asked for it’). The art of killing a mosquito lies in your not getting annoyed. You need to take your time, and give them theirs’. The strike has to be calculated. Fatal. It’s when your victim is complacent and unaware that you have to take your shot. Like those Hollywood mob movies, remember Godfather, when Pacino orders the kill of his brother-in-law. So if you start running around in spirals behind a mosquito, who has just bit you, with your arms stretched out (bugged that you are, how dare this low lying creature bite me, me, the Almighty’s chosen one, the one who has the whole existence at his mercy, the one who has to show the right path), its probable that it will escape (of course, it’ll return and you’ll get bitten again and you are going to fail in exterminating this despicable creature, again). If you think that humans invented the guerrilla warfare, remember the bite and think again.

The trick is to let it bite you (and not bite at the same time, let it think that it has the edge), let it savor your mojo, all the while you being vigilant. In fact, with experience you can lure it into your trap and place yourself at a strategic position (on your left arm for instance, if you are a right hander). Sharpen your sense of feel and keep your eyes where that bugger is engaged, the minute you feel a small twitch (just a little, this way it gets some blood, gets heavy, and hence is not that sharp anymore. Its also slightly tipsy and happy), and Whaam!! (just when it thought that it had the world under it). The mosquito is history. It didn’t exist (mark the irony here, 'its history and didn't exist'). By the way, you ought to know that all this while, in spite of all the hardships, the lord was also engrossed in a cello performance.

Of course, this kind of warfare is obsolete. We have after all evolved technologically and this shows how we go about using our technology to exterminate colonies of such creatures, as a matter of fact, such is our technology that the victims (oops, the creatures) don’t even feel the pain it is claimed (we have some heart after all, no matter how despicable their acts are). Those who have resource don’t like to get their hands dirty, but make sure that the job gets done.

30 days of night and a wasted evening

2007-12-11T17:44:00.002+05:30

Recently I have made a come back from the underground after a short self-imposed hibernation. But unlike Dostoevsky, I could not muster any notes. These periods of nocturnal dwellings are buffers when I catch up on my readings. When I get tired of reading, I do some trackless ruminations and gravity-less brooding. Keeps me healthy, un-wealthy and wise. Before I digress too much, let’s return to what I was beginning to say. Or, did we really not start? (Such is the enticement of these digressive braces). Ok, for a week now I have been working consistently, clawing up the steep muddle, inching closer to the summit (and that would be my thesis).

Tonight, I had to do some preparation for a class I am to take tomorrow morning. Before I got on with it, I did a quick mail-check, quickly scanned through the news, and like everyday, checked for the latest updates on my institute’s movie server. These checks are meant to keep me updated with the recent movies floating in the campus, to download when something interesting crops up and save it for the future (alright I am lying, not only save it but watch it as well. But when I am all excited about my work this doesn't happen, I do really save it for the future). So far, so good. As I am browsing through this list of movies, I notice a name, ’30 days of night’. And, all my plans, my resolutions and the in-the-flow spell melt away.

The problem is, I have a weakness for vampire movies (VMs) and I have been wanting to see this new VM called '30 days of night' dubbed as 'the best vampire movie of the decade' (I would have watched it even if it were ‘the worst vampire movie of all time’, the fact is, all VMs are identical). The movie was just a click away. Of course, I clicked. And. I watched. Then. I got down to write this blog.

I am a big movie buff. When I am in my work-mode though, I can usually manage to control myself, and defer watching a good movie (as a matter of fact, as of now I have many unseen avant-grade movies, and if I was my usual self, these movies would have been devoured in a week). Although my movie-filter is pretty effective in sifting through bogus movies, I have a weak corner for VMs, bring me any B-grade, C-grade...Z-grade VM, I am game. No kidding; I have seen loads of them, starting with ‘Nosferatu’. Lately, I have been trying to psychoanalyze myself to decipher this anomaly. Why this exception? You can understand, I presume, that it’s awfully difficult to be a shrink and the patient at the same time; to be on the couch and not be there. I think, I am close to finding out the reason; I can smell the core but it’s still elusive. There are pieces which need to be put together; pieces such as, the first fiction that I read was Bram Stoker's Dracula, the seductive appeal of the sultry female vampires, the shiny white canine, the idea of immortality (you can kill a vampire, but given favorable conditions they cannot die), vampires being immune from the holy water and the cross (this has a very significant religious implication, but lets not delve into that), their telepathic and transformational capacity.

I think what really gives the character of vampires its despicable aura is its extra-human characteristics; many would disagree of course. There are many scholarly studies on Bram Stoker’s Dracula (and the book which supposedly inspired Stoker, Carmilla), such studies cover a wide spectrum. Some say it's a misogynist work, others that it is a colonial apologist, still other relate it to the folklores (vampires have existed in the European oral tradition for many centuries, its adaptation in literature is a comparatively recent phenomenon). Most cine-goers however, usually have no clue, whatsoever, about such critiques (delusional or rational). Most VMs do not use such motifs. The whole cult of these movies, I think, seems to have germinated on the unconscious fear of death which humans have, their desire to become immortal, to know peoples’ thought and to control them. This character (and imagining oneself to be one) gives the viewer a sense of power, and thereby a great sense of illusional security. Rational arguments about the impossibility of the existence of such beings are really not going to dilute its diabolic hold on the people, nor are the people concerned with the folklore which may have inspired the character. They really don’t care about the innumerable theories the critics and social scientists expound against or in favor. There is something else happening here, which is much more deep-seated, something which is invariant to the external parameters. WAIT, this is stretching too much, because I can go on for hours dissecting through. I'll probably brood over it again after I watch another VM and continue my reflections then. Off to work now, before the sun comes out.

Anaphylaxis

2007-10-25T19:37:00.000+05:30

Its been three days now. Three days since i have been listening to this song and cannot gather myself to listen to anything else. Its as if, i have somehow got tuned to the undulations. An obsessive compulsive disorder, is it?

The song, "Way back into love" sung by Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. Perhaps, writing about it might help in breaking this spell, or whatever you might call it. The song is not pop, thats the only reprieve.

Flux

2007-10-20T18:13:00.000+05:30

Awake, still dark, stitch up that dream, was it a dream,
a smoke filled room, the red of the cigarette seems far, its not helping...

It counts

2007-10-20T13:35:00.000+05:30

'It doesn't count', he says. 'You have to be old enough before you can categorically say that you have traveled to such-and-such place, that you have experienced it. And besides, you really don't remember all of it, now do you?', this is his refrain every time I bring up my early travel exploits.

You see, by the time I was 11, i had devoured almost all of India. From Jammu and Kashmir to Kanyakumari. The only place which was finally left unexplored, was the North-east. After that, i was caged. The flights became solitary, minuscule compared to the vast expanses covered earlier.

Somehow, these conversations never lasted long, and we generally jumped on to other lofty or mundane things. I think this it-doesn't-count needs a redress. What is this 'travel' after all ? Is it something for which you need a sense of history, of culture, etc. ? And, is it really important that you recall everything that you experience ? Does every moment needs to be digitized, immortalized ? Only then, have you traveled ?

While one must concede that to savor the past experiences from ones memory is a wonderful thing. And perhaps, this is one of those things which make humans human. But what of all those delicate feelings which one relishes without bothering to imprint them. That brush of soft breeze on the nape, the sight of the sunset, ever so different; that moon with its many faces; and the clouds, their metamorphosis; the rustle of the leaves, the beckoning of a lithe arm. A distant muffled tune, an elusive smile, that feeling of elation without knowing its reason, a line of a poem which one relishes never to hear it again. What do we call these, if not intimate experiences?

The relationship between memory and experience can be asymmetrical after all. And when compared, perhaps spontaneous experience is much more basic and undoubtedly more real. So, even if one cannot explore through the labyrinth to mine that experience again, it doesn't mean that the original experience in itself was worthless.

Places are reliquaries, once you touch them, you become a part of them, forever.

Yet another blink

2007-10-02T02:12:00.000+05:30

Walk now,
through this haze.
Run
Untangle all the mysteries tonight,
Breath by Breath,
Blow
the meshes, apart.

What's the matter?
Never mind.
Sleep
It's still dark.

A known stranger

2007-09-28T18:37:00.000+05:30

Something wonderful happened today. I have been going to this small tea stall near my institute for months now. Usually in the evening, to smoke out the days' fatigue, to drag in the bustling world outside. Or many a times, to start a new day. The place is owned by an old decrepit man. Always dressed in white. White his hairs, his teeth (except for the one which is missing), his unshaven beard, white mundu, white shirt. He has become a familiar face now. He has given me his company many a evening, but without speaking a word. Speaking just enough to get the transactions over with. kitna ('how much'), I'd say, and he'll spell out the number. Today, I asked his name instead.

It was difficult to communicate initially, for my knowledge of Telugu comprises of just a few words and his Hindi just enough for his daily transactions. I had to ask a passerby for the Telugu equivalent of naam (hindi for 'name'), its peru he said. So i asked this old man his peru. That was it. He beamed ear-to-ear. Heavenly, his smile was. Suddenly, we were communicating as if he knew all my Hindi, and I, all his Telugu. He opened up for me his box of relics. His name, his home here in Hyderabad, his native place, how many times does he manage to go there, how its going to be difficult for him once the construction of the complex behind his stall is complete. He has been here for 15 years now. He actually saw my institute get built. He was here when it all began. Its funny how we were able to communicate without knowing each others' language. Perhaps, what one needs, is the intent, everything else is details.

I can't help but quote Blanche DuBois

You can always depend on the kindness of strangers....a stranger's just a friend you haven't met!

His name is 'Srinivas'. I'll call him 'Srinivas garu' from now on.

Déjà vu

2007-09-27T19:41:00.001+05:30

It happened again. Like always, I was not expecting it. Caught unaware. Most of the time though, I am perceptive enough to understand that it has happened. This experience of noticing things where we don't expect them to appear can be disturbing.

Like this other day, I stumbled upon this site. Its about the native tribes of the world. The next day, I pick the newspaper and find an editorial on them. Never mind, its a coincidence, I say. But the same evening, I am watching a Blackadder episode and lo!, Rowan Atkinson (of all the people in the world) mentions something about the lost tribes of the Amazons. Too many coincidences, don't you think? I would have never reacted the way I reacted to this mention of native tribes in the episode if I would have not read about them before. This means my experience of watching the episode would have been completely different in the case of my not reading about the native tribes earlier. Experiences like the one I have just recounted happen too often. I see a vivid sign board for the first time someplace where I have been a million times. I could have sworn that it was never there. The fact is of course, it did exist, it was there all this time. Blake rightly said,

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through chinks of his cavern.

There is just too much filtering going on while we perceive things. Does this mean we do not understand things in their complete essence. The thing could be anything; an article, a book, a movie, a street, a tree, a shoelace. What are the repercussions of this filtering ? Can we tune it ? Do we have control over our perceptions ? No wonder why we can enjoy a book even on its nth reading, there is always something new we find there, always something new with which we can relate our present state of mind, our present experience.

Just yesterday evening I gave my copy of 'The English Patient' to a friend and this morning I read in the papers that Michael Ondaatje is a jury member of this years' International One-minute Film Festival. Like i said, this time too, I was caught unaware.

And I have just realized that as I write this post, I am listening to The Doors.

Red Herring ?

2007-09-07T15:23:00.002+05:30

Animal sacrifice for an airplane snag or for the menace of the Monarchy. Coincidence or a plot by some God fearing communists ?

The Salinger Syndrome

2007-08-17T19:16:00.000+05:30

I saw Ocean's Thirteen recently. For those who haven't watched it, Al Pacino plays a part in the movie. While I watched him act, I remembered what Salinger opined about actors, this is what he says in 'Catcher in the Rye';

"They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any actor's really good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it."

He's pretty much spot on (though the last sentence seems over-generalized). Pacino, for instance, is considered to be a great actor. In Ocean's Thirteen, he sucks (so do others). I am not a Pacino hater nor a Pacino vs. De Niro guy so don't get me wrong. All I am trying to point out is that most of the so called great actors are really not that great (some of them won't even pass as average). Actors like De Niro and Pacino have acted decently in some of their earlier movies, maybe acted brilliantly in a couple of them, but thats where things end. They have eventually been hit by what I call 'The Salinger Syndrome'. They know that they are good and that spoils it. They tend to take things for granted, the directors who cast them are happy just to have them in their movie. Together they shelve out the same old tried and tested routine package which have made these actors famous. The same gesticulations, same expressions, similar punch lines.
The audience and the critics alike tend to be obsessed with the old performances of these actors. These performances, in a way, act like a veneer (actually, more like a thick wall) between the present reality and the perceptions of the audience. To put it crudely, the shadows of these actors have outgrown them. While we can debate on what a movie should be and how it should be composed etc., etc. we cannot, i think, disagree on the necessity of the virtuosity of the actors and their capacity to evolve.

What one needs is objective critique, not cult worship.

On the Road (and the Rail)

2007-06-23T16:26:00.000+05:30

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2216 km, and counting...

Void

2007-06-10T02:39:00.000+05:30

of mystics and mysteries
of colors and icons

of you
and the driving forces

what are they, if there is none of me...

But this is not an eye you fool, its a toe

2007-06-04T21:33:00.001+05:30

Abstract art can really disturb you, especially if you are one of those people who go about finding meaning in whatever you see. Personally i am very skeptical about the visual abstract form, especially paintings (you can still dissect cryptic movies and plays to some extent, you have more context there). Now, you may say, 'Dear, why don't you accept that you are just not arty enough to handle such flights of fantasy'. But even if that were true, it raises some other serious issues. Who understands them, why are they made, for whom are they made, and why are they so bloody priceless.

If to understand every art form i have to dig deep into some reviews made by some high-browed critic or connoisseur (which, by the way, are pretty cryptic themselves). And its not once that you go to them to help you show the way, its actually every single time. I refuse to understand such a piece of art, given the present state of affair. True Art is liberating, its lucid, its definitely not parochial in a sense that only few can understand them. And that these chosen ones are the only people who can 'enlighten' us, the ordinary mortals. So when these people say that traditional imagery is inadequate to convey the meaning in todays' world, or they may say, this dot you see on the canvas represents the dialectical materialism in the sub-conscious psyche of the petite bourgeoisie, you better know that you are being taken for a ride. Art without meaning is useless. Come to think of it, all the schools of paintings before and including Cubism are what i call true art (Surrealism may create some problems though). They are all within grasp, even if they have symbols and metaphors, you at least have some concrete object signifying the ethereal. The problem creeps in when abstract signifies the abstract.

This is why the folk art form is so appealing. There are numerous examples, 'Madhubani Painting', the murals in the traditional temples or churches, or the murals drawn by Rivera.

Remembering Qadir...

2007-06-04T02:43:00.000+05:30

Today is the 23rd death anniversary of Qadir Ali Baig. The Naya Theatre presented its latest play 'Raj Rakt' at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Hyderabad) as a tribute to the doyen. During the period of 1970 to 84, Qadir Ali Baig was the leading light of Hindustani theatre in Hyderabad and one of the most respected theatre personality in India. During his lifespan he made around 46 plays, some of them, classics by now. He died at the age of 48 on June 3, 1984 when he was at his artistic peak.

'Raj Rakt' is based on Rabindranath Tagore's play 'Visarjan' and his novel 'Rajrishi'. The play has been directed by Habib Tanvir. Tanvir has made some changes in the original stories to adapt them to the contemporary mood, but the underlying message is intact. The play explores the tussle between Secularism and Religious fundamentalism (and other divergent threads which interplay in the overall theme). The play was two hours long, all the way engrossing and stimulating*, with very intense dialogs. The acting was pretty good (apart from some sprinklings of melodrama from some of the characters), in particular Ramchandra Singh was awesome. It was complemented by some beautiful music and good lighting. The recurrent songs sung by Nageen Tanveer were very timely. Her voice, husky and deep, was sometimes very haunting. The cast had some tribal people (Naya Theatre has a history of being close to "folk" art and theme and in its casting rural people in its play, in fact, Tanvir was one of the few people who helped create a space for the folk in the mainstream theater culture), there were dances and songs sung by them, with full traditional attires et al. And their names created a magical resonance in your ears, names like...Hidia, Kosa, Tati, Masam, Hungi, Loodo, Jeeko. Finally, the language, the language was Hindi most of the time along with some other dialect which I thought (i am not very sure) was a dialect of Bhojpuri spoken near the Bengal-Bihar border or it might be a variant of Mythili.

Habib Tanvir paid a tribute to Qadir Ali Baig before the play began, and spoke about him at length. He also spoke about the condition of the theater in India and Hyderabad in particular. Obviously, the condition is pretty grim. One doesn't need to ponder hard to find out why this is.

And yes, the evening also saw The Rain God paying his tribute as well.

*This was apart from the times when the mobiles buzzed, in spite of requesting the audience to switch off their mobiles (for around 10 thousand times), there were innumerable instances when the mobile rang (things get worst as the ring tones are really awful most of the times). And when this happens, the audience starts showing their disapproval by making sounds like...o ho, [m]ch [m]ch, hhuh etc., which is even more disturbing. In fact, some of them keep on uttering such sounds long after the mobile has stopped ringing.

Satori

2007-06-04T00:58:00.000+05:30

Going to the main city market on a share auto* takes a long time but it usually makes a better experience when compared to the buses . Few days back on an auto, lost in my thoughts, I notice a big arched gateway at some distance to my left, the auto had just stopped to drop off some passengers. Just below the arch was a statue of a goddess (i am not very sure which, but probably 'Saraswati'). It was a prototypical statue but what i found very interesting was the texture and color of the dress adorned by the Goddess. A vivid pale green and the pleats of the saree looked immaculate. I thought, its so wonderful how we get to see such good art-works in the most unexpected places. Suddenly I felt a soft breeze caress my ear...and i see the pleats move.

*In Hyderabad, these autos are called seven-seater. The name is very misleading, as you generally find lot more people in the auto (sometimes, as many as 13).

The Look

2007-06-02T13:50:00.000+05:30

Different animals (including the human beings) use different kinds of methods for performing some common set of activities which most of them share. Activity, like 'fighting'. Almost all animals fight, needless to say for different reasons. Dogs for example show off their sharp teeth to intimidate its adversary (which has encroached upon its territory), if this doesn't suffice then it moves on to barking, then biting etc. Now in the case of humans everything remains same (they generally do, most of the time) except that the teeth (which after all are not all that sharp) are replaced by the eyes. So here you start off with staring (which i call the 'look'), then abusing/shouting and finally fighting (or biting, you never know). We come across numerous kinds of 'look' in our daily lives which are meant for different purpose, and this actually tells us how much and how effectively we can communicate without uttering words. Given a context, a 'look' can mean various things, with subtle differences the meaning changes, of course, they are complemented by other things like face muscles, eye brows etc., but eyes generally are the focus in this kind of communication (there are others in which we use hand and body gestures). Here are some of the looks:

The what-the-fuck-do-u-think-of-yourself look

This is the most common look in a traffic (almost everyone who is driving is unconsciously ready for giving one), this 'look' is generally given by the individual who owns a relatively better vehicle in the mishap (that is, a not so serious mishap). Bicycle owner will give one to the rickshaw-valla, scooter vala will give it to cycle-vala,...and so on up the chain, of course you never get to see the look given by the truck or bus vala, there just isn't any chance. On a different though related note, i have always wondered why are there so few accidents on the road, keeping in mind how people drive (at least in India), i am afraid of the traffic (and rightly so).

The O-my-God look

This is a generic look, just as the expression 'O-my-God', it can be used when you are really excited after seeing something/somebody, or you are trying to get rid of something/somebody and that wouldn't let go, the look is always given to some third person who is at a distance and is generally not involved in the active communication.

The i-am-not-interested look

A slight glance (inadvertent), thats it...

The i-might-be-interested look

A recurring oblique glance (combined with other gestures)...mostly from the wrong person.

The don't! look

Again a very generic look used in a number of situations, you must have internalized it through your mother. Your facial muscles are stretched to the max.

The how-can-you-be-so-dumb look

Given to somebody you are very familiar with, very close. A droopy gesture.

The Yes! look

Is divine.

Alfaaz 'Words'

2007-06-02T05:17:00.000+05:30

Words, what about them ?

They amaze me, excite me, make me happy.
They inspire me, ignite me, fill me with hope.
They stifle me, choke me, make me sad.
Words i dream, i wish, i crave.
They can run, crouch and fly. They slip from my grip, i chase them, i long for them to return.
I can see them, feel them and touch them. They can be mushy, hard, or even hollow. They are shy, evasive, they are conceited.
They rebel against me, before me they prostrate.
They are to my right, and my left.
They are real, they are imaginary, they are the facts, and the myths. They are mystical, they are ephemeral, and sensuous too. They can transform and yet so mysteriously retain their shape .

Words are everything, they are nothing...they are you, and me.