Wisdom Tree

The games children play at twilight
Soap bubbles we wish would always last,
Tears magnify in cold darkness of lonely night
Cherished memories of protected past.

Fragrance of wet soil still makes nicotine charred lips smile
When laughter was not a commodity, tears could reach the sea,
Drops on cheeks not tears but monsoon showers making emotions fertile
Eden was the backyard, Evening spent under that friendly mango tree.

Midway through the labyrinth, innocence is redeemed
The friend became teacher with his sour and sweet fruits of wisdom,
I don’t complain of darkness but the light of Life seldom is a straight beam
Sprouting seeds are my lambs in thy lord’s kingdom.

Wisdom of my roots branched on to theirs I bless,
Shaded till their ripeness is realized in the fatherly caress.

Dogstar

Back to this bed
back to this life,
Where hundreds live
to make a million strive,
Binoculars of the future bring a land barren
songs of spring sung only in a tavern,
Succumbing to ambition is a Capitalist sin
I measure my life by nipperkin,

Standing at the crossroads of life
I am waiting for a guiding light,
Searching for my Dogstar
for last page dreams to survive,
The snores of faith beckon fortune's shore
tranquility is a faithful wife, fame a fuckin' little whore!

Paa

Amitabh Bachchan’s talent seems to have no bounds. R Balki’s second directorial venture Paa stars or rather introduces Amitabh Bachchan as a 12 year old boy Auro, suffering from Progeria, a rare genetic disease augmenting the aging process and reducing the lifespan. Amitabh Bachchan’s get up is commendably well executed and unless you know he is Amitabh Bachchan, you will not get to know he is Amitabh Bachchan. Auro, the 12 year old high spirited boy, is out of the wedlock with a single parent (Vidya Balan). Vidya Balan plays the role of a well to do gynecologist, an independent woman, much similar in ideology to the role of Tabu from Balki’s last film Cheeni Kum. All the actors in the film have done justice to their role with Vida Balan striking out the most, of course with the exception of Amitabh Bachchan, whose performance will most probably fetch him his third Silver Lotus (national award.)

The cinematography of the film is decently poised with extensive use of wide angle lenses to limit Amitabh Bachchan’s height for the character of 12 year old Auro. The storyline keeps switching from tackling the issues of single parenthood and Progeria to corruption, slum dwelling, political power plays and awareness on safe sex, which arguably become a hindrance to main plot of Auro. Balki has touched the surface issues of Progeria, without paying attention to the psychology of the child suffering from it. The film is shot with an overtly optimistic perspective and the unnecessary time given to Abhishek Bachchan’s character of a young politician is definitely a mood breaker. The background score of the film is well paced and synchronized with the story. The film should carry an ‘Above 12’ viewership certificate as the issues of children out of wedlock, condom and the intimate scenes are not ideal for audience below 12 years of age.

Balki is definitely a fine director but both his films have suffered from confused themes, hence Cheeni Kum missed the due recognition for their film craft and the same might be applicable for Paa. Though predictable the film’s ending is emotional none the less. Sticking comparisons can be traced between Paa and Cheeni Kum in terms of portrayal of women, sympathy towards ailing child, social message and well tuned sense of humour. All said and done, Paa as an overall infotainment package is a must watch film and you can walk in the theatre with your hearts locked to your lungs otherwise Auro will steal them with his Auromania!

Redemption

Redemption

The Fortune stood stolen,
the jewels were sold
Legacy was buried,
to be remembered only by the old
My Child, those days were golden,
Is what I was told
.
.

The shine remains but the metal is lost,
lethargic rusty mind covered with frost
why should I shield my breath?
His kindness is fraud
I may not be God,
but I am immortal till death
.
.

The clock ticks, increasing the pain
with every passing hour faith becomes difficult to retain
He is no lion who walks in a circus to entertain,
It is time to reclaim lost glory
rewrite the century old story
The Crownless Shall be The King Again.

Reality Bytes…Worse than a dog

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.
Susan Sontag


Sitting in your living room after a hectic day of work, browsing through your television for something to refresh your over stressed nerves; all you get is a sneak peek in the life and activities of a dozen of unemployed wanna be celebrities who are caged in an in studio dungeon and aired on national television. On an optimistic note, you might find talent hunt shows, aired every season on almost all General Entertainment Channels (GEC), but the amusement lies in the fact that every show claims to be the biggest thing on Indian television and every winner is claimed to be the next Mohammed Rafi or Kishore Kumar, while reality asserts that most of these singers, winning a show on reality television bubble out by the next season.
It was in the 90’s when AXN was home to programs which had a ‘dare’ or a stunt in them, these days anyone remotely related to media & entertainment can be a Khiladi.

Indian cinema has always been under attack for “cut-copy-paste” from western cinema but cinema’s poor cousin television is following the same trend. Almost all the reality shows on Indian television have an inspirational muse running in Europe or America. One talent hunt show went on to such an extent of idol worshiping the original American show that it shamelessly copied their typography and background score. One reality show imported everything from a show running in another country and replaced the word Brother with Boss.

Gone are the days of Hum Log where our own family values and system were projected on the small screen, The days of Buniyaad talking about the partition of India to a generation which was not a witness to it or the days of Ramyaan and Mahabharat on Indian television when our mythology served as basis for inspiration. Reality television was not a nuisance initially when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan graced the small screen with Kaun Banega Crorepati, even this program was based on a program in America but it had intellectual content to offer to the audience unlike some reality shows which go on to the extent of vulgar skin show and allow unparliamentarily language.
We as educated viewers must question ourselves that what are we feeding our and our children’s mind with?
Is this the content that will lay unconscious building blocks of the personality of the future generation?

Reality television with its cancerous growth, has penetrated 24 hour news channels which are already suffering from lack of content, news channels should ideally to telecast political, world or sports news employs programs with stand up comedians to fill its afternoon slots. As I write this article I can overhear the television in my living room and more than words, beeps are audible; needless to say an abusive BOSS is at work!

Only that thing sells which has a demand, unfortunately GEC’s target our baser passion and tickle our gossip bones. To look at the flip side, the lack of programs with a right balance of information and entertainment is lacking. Media ethics has remained a much debatable topic but we must transcend beyond debate initiate action. If junk food is bad for health, junk information and entertainment can also have its adverse effects on our mental and intellectual well being as well. This article will serve its purpose fully only if the readers attest these views by boycotting these intellectually hollow programs.

Why So Serious?

Bramha made Horses and Donkeys with a difference, unfortunately his other creation- man is disregarding that difference...

India would have been deprived of the magnificent art, architecture, cuisines and literature with which the legendary Mughal emperors calligraphed the history of India if Behram Khan, Humayun’s general, decided to seek opportunities and explore the unexplored rather than grooming Humayun’s orphan Son Jallal-ud-din, who later went on to become Akbar the Great.

Everything around seems anarchic and absurd. Opportunism has suddenly become passive after assessing the futility of my decisions. The myth of Sisyphus is an exemplification of futility... he was punished by the Gods to carry a heavy stone over his shoulder and climb a mountain, only to see the stone fall down from the mountain. He would repeat the monotonous exercise untiringly again and again, knowing that the stone will never be perfectly placed on the paramount. Albert Camus in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” professes that the myth of Sisyphus is interpreted as a tragedy only because we assume Sisyphus to be unhappy of what he is doing; one must imagine Sisyphus to be happy, to make meaning out of life.

I further advocate the stance, Let it be assumed that no God punished Sisyphus to climb the mountain and try to place the stone, he did it out of his own free will (on hourly-daily-weekly basis as he obliged to do), knowing in his heart of hearts that the stone will never settle on the paramount. His act of climbing the mountain with the will to climb was neutralised by his pessimism about the stone being placed at the paramount. Time passed by, he dissolved himself physically and mentally into the act of climbing the hill with the stone mounted on his shoulder, making it his second nature. The stone, which he only removed at the pinnacle to be subsequently rolled down and lifted by him again, became an extension to his body.

A snail on the pinnacle observed Sisyphus religiously; matching if not exceeding Sisyphus’ passion to place the stone on the paramount. Sisyphus’ physical strength, honed over years of repetition of the same act was also matched by the Snail with his steel like shell. Slowly, the Snail, without informing Sisyphus, started to push the small stones off the paramount by the force of his shell. He went over to the extent of rubbing his shell against the rough and sharp edges of the pinnacle to smoothen them. The shell did not break, not because Zius/Bramha blessed the snail with an unbreakable shell; the Snail knew his physical limitations, beyond which he tactically pushed and rubbed his shell against equally hard surfaces with an angle which would put bearable pressure on his shell. Watching the Snail, other snails also joined him and started doing the same. Not only did they remove the small stones which disbalanced Sisyphus’ stone, they also buffed the pinnacle to a flat base for the stone to settle on. All this happened in Sisyphus’ ignorance as his mind was focused on his climb and the stone, not on the pinnacle. Subconsciously he observed that Snail and later other snails on hill top.

One fine day, Sisyphus climbed the mountain with the stone over his shoulder, reaching the top, he tried to place the stone on the pinnacle, doing what he did for out of a mechanic reaction, he climbed down the hill to lift the fallen stone again; only to realise that the stone was not there, it was resting on the pinnacle. All of a sudden the jigsaw made sense to him; he could decipher the movement of the Snail on the hill top, slowly followed by other snails. His mammoth achievement after countless attempts did not infuse joy in him, he realised that he could have cleared the pinnacle with one strong brush of his foot for which a Snail had to risk his shell!

As SOMEONE said, everyone is an opportunist, so was the Snail in my story, he worked to clear the pinnacle, not out of a sense of duty but out of the need of the stone to be placed on the pinnacle which would enable him to defy the barrier of height over which the mountain took pride, and use the stone, placed on the mountain, to reach a height, unachieved previously and thereafter.

And So He did!

Its 3:20 a.m and I should sleep or study for my Rise-fall test, but at Night i don’t want a Fall.
I will watch As Good As it Gets for the Nth time.

“Always Look At the Bright Side of Your Life”
Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson)