EVERYTHING IS FIGURED OUT, EXCEPT HOW TO LIVE. ...and the reason is you...
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When JNUSU came together/The ‘halla bol’ culture The yellow-orange horizon was just beginning to get redder as I walked towards the parking lot of SSS1 after my viva got over. Clearly silhouetted against the sulpher red sky, I could see shadows flittering. As I moved closer, these took shape of people, the laborer’s and students. Women sat on a mat, peeling-chopping with sickle and men, at a distance were making fire. The menu was simple- dal, bhat and aloo gobhi. Before I knew it, I was peeling lahsan and washing aloo. Someone was washing rice and someone was trying to open a oil bottle, while someone was looking for a knife someone else was carrying buckets of water. There was so much around to be done and I could see the familiar ‘active’ faces of the campus giving their best shot. The next day, at the Administration Building, there was a protest demonstration where I heard the slogans of ‘halla bol’ culture for the first time. It was like a scene out of a 80’s movie where typically...
An evening with the Ustads Fingers beating. Hands beating. Head shaking. Neck agreeing. Eyes moving. Emotions. Smiles. Applauds… The Banaras Gharana does not fail to impress this time too. Must say that might lessen the Karnatic craze in me in a few days time.. Raag Yaman was the apt choice to set the mood for the evening right. Long and cautious. Raag Khamaj, one of the most passionate raag’s, my personal favourite.. was bang on to impress this time too..Romancing the light classical thumri with jugalbandi(my fav again) of the tabla , jhanak and folk-eternally romantic.The coversation of the tabla and santoor never seemed better. People somehow seem to applaud intensity actually. However,variation actually, in art to acting, music to theatre should actually be the true test and challenge. High and low at the same time, that impresses me every time. Sudden aggression ignites people’s minds.
YET ANOTHER UNFULFILLED DESIRE beautiful but caged had some, of the desired just a glimpse was left asking for more want to understand the attitude and ideas but actually we have too much in between to overcome in this life unless someone is on the knees and i say i do none of this is possible fantasies just one of the many I shall never have.
Ray’s Cinema. Go down on one’s knees in the dust, into the heart of Indian reality and the human condition. It is not just he statistical horrors in the Indian village but also a struggle to live. This makes us see them as one of us. He was a classicist; beauty was inseparable from truth and goodness in his work. Pessimism recognizes the compulsion under which compromises are made with the evil. The face of evil is somewhat averted and we do not make a direct confrontation with it. As if we can view the present as a part of the past. It is important to have good means to achieve good ends. His material happens to be Indian but the statements are of humanity. He sees people caught in the meshes of specific time and place, not as Indians, rest of the world seem affinity with him. We are all most westernized not just in attire but also deeply in the mind, in its resolution of the conflict of tradition and modernity and its success in making one enrich the other. It has to be a successful ...
I think I have lost count of the number of planes that have crossed my head (Oh I wonder! was I even counting). They seem to appear just out of nowhere, with lights on and tyres out- ready to touch down, while others just zoom past, much higher. The breeze is getting unfriendly and making me freeze, the people around me start walking away from here to warmer places on the campus. Sitting on the top I can see the fog filled trees, the OAT, the tank, the far away buildings and of course the library. Our spot where all of come to sit at night and the field. People look so small from here, playing soccer on the dry field. The Qutub minar and the Bahai temple, where we plan to go during one day on the campus are both, out of sight today. The lights are out as the world begins to dim, much like my future. Sudden surprise, there is this wind. Far away I can hear some chants or maybe some people are singing. Now when I look up I can’t see the far away buildings. Thick fog and darkness. It’s th...
brokeback mountain It is a little hard to imagine how cowboys, their image being somewhat-working hard, riding alone in the desert sun..or the Dallas Cowboys-America's soccer team image.., sharing duties in a faraway isolated world find themselves drawn into a relationship. And not just any relationship, the kind that is made impossible by time and people with whom they live. Or maybe we have always imagined people in these relations to be of a particular kind in our minds, always. But then, the Marlboro man is an icon of U.S. culture that has always colored our minds unconsciously and the other way round too. Cowboys and gays put together…oxymoron combination perhaps. But then maybe we need to look at things closely and differently. But the movie reaching Oscars, in a land where homosexuality has proved to be a contentious issue and where homophobia is common was perhaps the greatest challenge faced and perhaps won.. some good cinematography and direction,not to forget the concep...
CELEBRATING JNU I must confess and you must agree that there is something intensely erotic about this place. What is it? I don't know exactly. May be the greenery. May be people like Visvanathan and her polar opposites like Sharma [and I have equal respect for both the species]. May be people like Anand Kumar who have mastered the art of conversation. May be the element of freedom. Inhaling the JNU smoke and getting a hang of it. Initially one gets easily disgusted because it takes not more than a week to realize how false are all those grand notions that people outside the campus have constructed about this place. So reputations and expectations fall apart. The presence of the dirty check shirt wearing deehaatees landing up in the city for the first time holding the ladders of quota and quartile disgusts one. One gets disgusted by the moustache-wala, IAS-walas all around with their caged definition of success boxed within the white ambassador with red bulb on top. One gets disgust...
One drink to remember And then.. another ..to forget. My lazy-by-nature mind finds out old things in new ways. Living in disillusionment ,aspiring with diminishing hopes.the irony is that the identification of the mistake has taken place. The dreamer can feel the ground realities however is still going with the impulses..leading eventually to a dangerously complicated life. The face is blank...for want of a definate emotion. "I made a big decision a little while ago, I dont remember what it was,which probably goes to show, that many times a simple choice can prove to be essential. Eventhough it often might appear inconsequential. I must have been distracted when i left my home because left or right, i am sure i went(i wonder which it was) Anyway,i never veered: i walked in that direction. Utterly absorbed,it seems,in quiet introspection. For no reason i can think of, i have wandered far astray And that is how i got to where i find myself today." again the day ..again the nigh...
whither student politics ..the afternoon forum discussion. few people and fewer alive inside the room. pathak walks in..silence. the speaker,a prof refuses to start the talk and insists that a student should initiate. why should one involve oneself in politics?? so the student leader starts,the podium..under his control and his voice the weapon. outrightly starts from his humble roots and politics back home.(susan enters the room,i am reminded that when her class started at 9 in the morning i was sleeping....ouch!!)campaining for his party under the cover of the forum's topic.OUR students engaging in 'youth for equality',AAI.,not to forget NBA....showing solidarity..well yeah i am reminded that the elections are approaching in the first week of november. another talks of the progressive politics ...of producing not political leaders but political activists...i come from small background,never cheat or dope in my life,crack the enerance,go to IIM,A..then to US as a finance b...
This was en route since last year. Though it’s not making it then, gave me an even huger push to make it float this year.... But then somehow it got shelved under the load of the lectures, assignments, hanging out, other plans and other activities. But then one day, sitting outside SIS with enthu frens,filmstorming, something in me decides to come up with something concrete seriously...seemed it was time.. Well it was time, to do things that would probably add more value to it all, to express thoughts and expressions, to exploit the platform given to us, to utilize the time we waste, to play with words and graphics, to bring out the hidden talent ,to vent out our annoyance on the ‘system’ or with everything…even more getting in touch with old friends and people from across the campus and even beyond… This is an attempt to deliver words with tones and gestures to make it memorable, and the depth, to make it unforgettable..to look at situations with lucidity and aggressiveness, instead o...