The great war of Lilliput

They stood around in a noisy, spirited huddle. The war was about to begin. Lightning and thunder rolled loudly above. Rain had started pattering down.

“This is the right time”, Tom said to Harry.

Harry nodded in agreement, “We must take our revenge. We should make him regret for our Dick’s blood.”

“He’s down”, Tom said looking at the huge figure of Gulliver lying a few meters away from where he was. “You charge!”

Harry moved close and sparred. Straight at Gulliver, hitting his forearm. Indeed Gulliver was down, he was caught off hand. Blood sprinkled ever so slightly from his strong forearms. Then Tom repeated the dose. Gulliver, in spite of his huge frame was helpless. His weapon hung from his fingers like a paralyzed limb, useless.

A host of their soldiers, waiting in the hiding, sprang into action, injuring Gulliver all over. The smell of victory was enough to gee them up, young as they were.

An old warrior, the senior most one, rebuked the spirited youngsters. “I’ve seen all these, boys”, he said, “Gulliver is dangerous. I feel we should plan the war on another day.”

The young blood hardly paid any attention. They kept on sparring at Gulliver.

The old warrior hid in a corner, face overcome with fear, looking at his young boys.

Suddenly Gulliver sprang into action. With a swipe he killed Tom, who crumbled in a heap on to the ground. Harry charged and got a similar swipe which invalidated him. In Gulliver's hands, the weapon swung like a rapier which swished through the air in expert arcs.

Gulliver pressed the weapon against Harry’s dark, incapacitated body. He was dead. A vein sputtered loudly, red blood flowed out and solidified. Without their leaders, their loyal army was vanquished in a trice.

The old warrior sat cowering in a corner, alone.

Gulliver said to his wife, “Ah, It was the battery. The bat is fine now with the new batteries. They are done with”. He blew a dead body from the mosquito bat, tossed it onto the table and crept into bed. His wife put an arm around him and snuggled close.

“Still they are not fully killed”, said she, listening intently. “I can hear a buzz”

“It’s alright, let’s sleep”, he said.

Gulliver and his wife slept peacefully that night. The old mosquito buzzed around, sadly, looking for a gap to launch at least a token attack. Sensing there was no hope, he escaped after a while, silently, through a crack in the window pane, vowing to come back again, to exact revenge for his beloveds' blood.

Together, alone.

I first met her in the deserted corridors of my school. We sat on the dusty steps leading up to the library and read a book which told a tale of a young man who fell in love with a fairy.

From far away, I could hear the squeaks of delight from children who played on the grounds, under the summer sun.

We met again - Under the giant oak tree near the deserted basketball court. At the corner seat of our library, behind the book shelf from where I could see the radio tower in a distance, majestic and alone.

I guess I was in love with her. One day, she broke my heart.

"I have many lovers", she squeezed my hand and said, "but call me any time, I'll be there for you."

I thought she was bluffing me, but she wasn't.

Like the quintessential genie, she materialized whenever I wanted her to.Those were lovely moments. I hated people when they butted in and spoiled our heaven.

Time went on.

One day I squeezed her hand, just like how she had done to me years back. It was payback time.

"I have some lovers now too", I said with a smirk. "Still I love you."

"I will excuse you", she teased. As she stood up, her hair brushed against my cheeks. "Don't forget me"

We didn't see for a while. In fact, I didn't think of her. I was too busy to do so.

Several friendships, love affairs and years later, one rainy evening, I thought of her. There was one near me other than a cup of steaming coffee.

She didn't fail me. Immediately, I felt her soft hands hug me from behind and her moist lips on my neck.

"How have you been, my darling?", she whispered, flirtatiously.

I pulled her around and looked into her eyes.

"The time without you", I said, "it wasn't worth it."

I kissed her on the lips.

Breathless, I looked into her eyes. She looked at me coolly, as if she had seen all this before.

"I love you", I said, "I love you, My dear Goddess of Solitude"

In reply, she just held me tight, silently.

I'd rather be here..

No,

I can't stand the stares,

At my attire,

At my mobile phone,

At my clumsiness with which I dig into a slice of jackfruit,

At the odd way in which I have draped my dhoti...

I can't stand it,

When your women giggle at me,

With the back of their palms pressed against their lips...

I can't stand it,

When your men cheat me off ten rupees,

And put that fake innocence on their faces,

And act concerned when they ask, scratching the back of their heads,

"Are you finding everything fine here, sir?"

I'd rather prefer,

to be here,

in my dusty, dirty, immoral city,

which, by night,

would pull me in,

seduce me,

under the cloak of

its pure, orgasmic anonymity.

Some random morning thoughts

I was in heaven, the cloudy smoke rings all around, sieving the sunlight through them. Ahead, an angel clad in white stood, holding a pristine white cloth. I sat back, watching the spectacle through my half clad eyes. The vision of heaven had never come to me this beautifully - the smoke rings, the bright light, the whiteness, the angels. It was phenomenal. But then, the phone rang in my shirt pocket.

The call was from Airtel and I had to pay my Broadband bills for the last two months. Three thousand bucks.

I remembered an adage: Money is the best vehicle from the world of dreams to the cruel, real one.

Then I rushed to survey my bright, cloudy, angel-inhabited heaven again. It was in ruins. My snuffed out cigarette lay under the chair; the girl on the next house's balcony had gone and her white bed sheet lay there fluttering in the breeze. The only definitive memory I have of the heaven was that it smelled of cigarette smoke.

**********************

On some days like today, when I don't cook my breakfast, the only hotel I turn to is a run down malayalee tea-shop near my house. And daily I order the same menu - 3 poori's with potato masala,a double omlette and tea. The omlette and tea are taken together, bite by sip, at the end.

The potato masala that they give with the tea is so drab and tasteless and it makes me wonder how I keep on having it each time.

It must be because I have a faint memory of having a tasty masala from this shop. It was perhaps the first or second time since I started eating from here. Maybe its the hope of a repetition. Its funny how far hope can take you.

**********************

Today, while I was eating, a lady sat in front of me, washing the plates. Daily she operates a grinder, staring ahead, with a curious impassive expression on her face . There is some undefinable air about her which depresses me.

But today she was sitting on the floor, plates piled up around her.

Suddenly one of the waiters moved around and knocked some plates down and it landed on her. She looked over her shoulder angrily and stared him down. An icy-cold stare. Cold fire.

But the waiter had moved across without noticing and was cracking jokes with someone outside. She was looking at thin air.

For a second, the mood was unique. She had no one to stare at. But she held the stare angrily for a couple of minutes. The culprit waiter guffawed outside at his own jokes, oblivious to what he had done.

Then she looked down and then went back to scrubbing the plates. Harder.

It was depressing. I felt I could feel her frustration brimming over and that it had more to it than just the knocked-down plates.

I didnt finish my tea.

You...

You had been,

In the hushed whispers, falling on my ears over the phone,

on many an hour where the night had started dissolving into the day.

You had been,

In the words, the sentences, the songs, the tunes, the sorrows,

which we shared, Long before we started to share each other.

You had been,

In the fearsome dread we felt, the stupid dread ,

whether the eyes would judge and spoil the bliss

that the Minds couldn't ever do without.

You had been,

In the aroma of body oil which was a perpetual, sweet irritant,

whenever I pressed my face, deep, between your ear and your neck.

You had been,

In the infinitely happy giggle which escaped our wet lips,

when all our body juices had just dissolved into each other,for the very first time.

You had been,

In the pang of sudden guilt - born of meaningless social obligations -

which would melt in the heat of yet another long kiss,

You had been,

In the feel of your soft hands which I prised off my chest,

when the setting sun's golden light reminded me of a journey at hand.

You had been,

In the inevitable curse which was on my tongue on that horrible day

when my careless words made you suddenly realize, that we ,

so far, had existed in nothing but a mere bubble.

But, that was then.

Now, you exist,

In the meaningful silences which seems to fill all our infrequent conversations,

In the memory which now consoles me,

In the memory that I have indeed loved and been loved,

In the numbing hollowness I have now learnt to live with.

Yes,

Now,

You are in me.

More than ever before.

You are me.

And then, he just faded away...

He would walk down those streets, daily. The streets where the lovelorn princesses stayed in dilapidated mansions which had dull paints and sooty chimneys.

Every day or almost every day, as if by design, his roving gaze would meet the eyes of a lovelorn girl. It would only be a trice before she got enamored with his hazel green, delicate, teary eyes which seemed to tell a hundred tales.

Then they, he and the princess, would fly, the girl close to his chest, sleeping like a kid, warm in his embrace.

After flying a while, they would land on some grassy meadows, where there was no other sound other than the chirping of the sparrows and the rustle of leaves in the gentle spring breeze.

Then he would bring forth his magic wand, and with a wave of it, create castles which would stand high, mighty and imposing on the grassy meadows. And then, he and the princess would venture inside the castle.

Inside the castle, they would be trapped in a time warp. Time would stand still outside as they discovered each other, inside the castle. He would merge into her and she into her, till they were nothing but one.

Then one fine day, when he felt he had enough of the princess, he would decide to leave.

Then, as soon as he left, a metamorphosis would start.

The grass on the meadows would go dead. A strong, chilly winter would set in, replacing the spring. The castle would be shorn off its aura and would resemble a deathly prison.

The princess, trapped inside the castle, would become a lonely prisoner waiting for her salvation at the gallows.

And he would fly away, deserting the meadow, to find a new princess, to explore new meadows where he would again create castles with a wave of his magic wand.

More castles, more love sessions, more prisoners. More immediate, cold winters. It went on, on and on.

One day he woke up, and realized with a shock, that he had lost his magic wand.His hazel eyes had lost their charm and had become pale.

He flew. His sudden ineptitude frightened him. He flew far and landed on a meadow which he had left long back. The castle was still there, looking less gloomy than when he had suddenly left it. With a relief, he realized that the chilly winter had given way to something which was less strong, more bearable.

He could make out strains of a song coming from inside the castle. She was singing. There was a refreshing freedom in the lines. A tone of relief as if celebrating newfound hope.

He moved with unsure steps towards the castle. But then, as he groped at his waist, and realized that he had lost the keys to the castle.

He stood helplessly for a while. Then in a stray wind which came that way, he just melted.

Vanished without a trace. As if he had never existed.

The strains of the song were still audible from the castle.

Musical Nonsense

I loitered on the platform, outside the train compartment, waiting for the railway staff to come and stick the passenger list. Come they did and I checked out whether my seat was mapped rightly to my name. Yes, seat number twelve and the name was mine.

Then, as always, I went on to scan the list, making a mental note of who my fellow passengers were. Most were nondescript Tamil names, but one, on seat number nine, was a Miss.Veena Krishna (F23, F for female :P), was chartered to board from Katpadi and to get down at Chengannur. There wasn't a malayalee name alongside hers and that was real good news. It meant she was traveling alone.

I didn't really have an idea of where Katpadi was, so I kept looking out at the station nameboards at each stop. It took a while coming, this Katpadi. It finally came when I had just woken up after a nap, to find lot of people swarming in to and out of the train.

I took out the comb and shaped my hair, regretting that I had forgotten to oil it in the morning.

She came soon – tall, dusky and shapely. Long hair as well. But she was talking to someone, that too in Malayalam. I cocked my ears. She was talking about seat numbers and a guy was answering from outside my line of sight. The hero came into view then - fair and handsome with a nice goatee which suited him just fine.

Then they snuggled into the seat opposite to mine and started talking. I focused hard on my copy of "How to Kill a Mockingbird", but my ears were glued to their mouths. Just out of college, they were. And the girl was chattering like a non-stop train: about studies, about affairs, about others affairs, about other guys. She did it with such a flirtatious smile on her lips. And I got sick.

I get sick when I see these girls and boys cuddle together and talk. It just makes me squirm in my seat. It must be jealousy, or maybe the frustration that I hadn't really been able to do all these candy floss stuff while in college.

Then I noticed that the guy had his elbow dangerously brushing her hip. I grew more and more uncomfortable. To make it worse, the guy started asking me some perfunctory questions as well. I replied in kind, making sure that I looked and sounded as if I was way past their age. And that I was least interested in what was happening between them. I acted it out rather well, I guess.

But the girl's chatter and the guys smiles were really making me agitated. Then I found my solace. My cell phone and my headset. I plugged it into my ears, stretched out my legs and played the first album which my aimlessly moving fingers took me to.

Kishore Kumar started singing. The girls chatter was still faintly audible. I pressed the volume control and send the decibel levels soaring in my ears. Kishoreda filled my ears. "Chukar mere man ko..Kiya tune kya ishara". I looked at them with the song pumping in my ears.

"Badla ye mousam, lagey pyaara jag saara.." when the high pitched rendition filled my ears, I could no more hear anything of the girls chatter. The song had drowned her completely.

But, now, it was lovely. My ears were full with a beautiful, awesome love song. In front of my eyes, the pretty couple smiled and snuggled romantically together. It was in sync, perfectly. Now since the girls bubbly chatter wasn't audible, the whole picture was perfect. I noticed them a while, sitting happily opposite me, with Kishore Kumar providing the perfect background for the romantic spectacle. It was so dreamy a sight that I dozed off.

A climax was necessary. But what came was an anticlimax. And it came when I woke up.

My phone battery had conked out, which meant that Kishore Kumar wasn’t singing in my ears anymore. I noticed that the girl had leaned away, but with sugary expression on her face intact. The guy was peering sleepily into his mobile. Still talking though.

"So many in our batch getting married", says the guy.

"Yes, Aswini getting engaged too, did you know?", she replies.

"Yes I did. Someone told me. When is yours?"

"Mom keeps on looking, might happen anytime", she says with a smile. He answered with another smile.

I was shocked. So they were not couples? Really?

They went back to talking some crap, which I didn't listen.

I didn't listen because I was busy. Busy mourning the colossal waste of so many things. My mobile battery. My valuable time. My imaginative juices which worked overtime, to give Kishore Kumar background to their inane chatter. Oh, so many things.

Pissed off, I took a trip to the bathroom, pissed, came back, apologized to Kishore da’s soul and slept.us

From a homebound journey...

Thought of jotting down a few idle thoughts which occured to be during my journey back home, from Chennai.

Mother Nature and Lady Luck smile: Hit by fever on the day before, I had still not recovered. Thankfully, for the first time, I had booked my tickets on a non-ac bus. To add to my luck, it rained throughout and the air conditioning wasn't really missed.

Mr.Grumpy Dumpty: The guy who sat next to me looked was such a grumpy soul, staring fiercely at me as my bag accidentally brushed his shoulders, ever too faintly. I stared back, and dismissed him with a don't-care-a-hell-for-you smirk, which I have after years of use, practiced to perfection. He, to me, was proof that the world wasn't as good a place as I had started to feel, especially with the air condition thing that I told you about.

2 Damsels:Two girls, one of them real pretty, sat diagonally across me – both looked the college going type. We spent our time glancing - Me at them, they at their mobiles and occasionally at Grumpy, who I must admit was a rather handsome guy.Don't start mistaking me now, I am as straight as a pole!

Rain,again: Annoyingly, the bus started to leak, and a string of drops started to trickle down on to my trousers. I would slide my leg away, but involuntarily the leg would back go to its comfortable position, get wet and annoy me. Slowly I started to get sort of acclimatized to the reassuring trickling rhythm of the drops and their consistent impact on my thighs, so much so that, I started missing it awfully, when the rain and the leak stopped after a while.

Grumpy turns friendly: The two of us were already felt miles apart, though our shoulders were brushing each other's for quite some time now. Then his phone rang - one of his buddies had missed a train and the guy had calledhim up. He turned and asked me, I felt a sudden surge of companionship, called up my friend who is almost a railway Wiki and gave him a prompt suggestion. We soon got talking; got on rather well, and I found out that, he was a frustrated software engineeras well. Like how I had been, until I switched my job.

Expletive Barrage: Notwithstanding the jitters, stiff seats and the leak, we had worked ourselves into somekind of a sleep, when a mobile phone started to ring at full blast, waking theentire bus up. I heard three expletives in two different languages, in addition to one by me, in pure, chaste Malayalam. The irony of the whole thing was that,the owner of the phone was the last person who woke up.

Grumpy strikes again: After a rather uncomfortable sleep, I woke up, hoping we would have crossed the Kerala border. Rubbing my eyes, I found a huge, orange placard with big, green Tamil letters on it. Still, there was a faint hope inmy mind – it should be somewhere close to Kerala. Grumpy slowly murmured, "Madurai" and went back,contented, to sleep. Dejected and disheartened, I crashed back on to my seat. He had given me yet another reality check.

Passenger Mutiny; Our own words for breakfast: The bus got stuck at the check post, for reasons known only to them. We waited for half an hour, rumbling tummies and all, till finally I lost control, took my bag and started to get off the bus. Grumpy followed me and we vented our frustration on the poor driver, the undivided attention of the damsels being the motivation. Two angry young men. I felt heroic.

But, as soon as we got off the bus, the checking was over and the driver proceeded to start the bus. We rushed back, jumped back in clumsily, and with a sheepish look on our faces, went back to our seats, pretending not to hear the driver's rants. Talk about eating your own words!

Homecoming: Mom was at her fussy best, caressing mycheeks and holding me close, complaining about my hair and skin. I bent down awkwardly to let her kiss me on the forehead and then proceeded to the kitchen,where as if pre programmed, steaming Dosa's were getting cooked for me, with my favorite coconut chutney. I brushed, pulled my chair next to the stove and gobbled up a few.

Gosh, you talk of friends, you talk of relatives, you talk of Mother nature and Mother India, but is there anything, anything ever, toreplace the care of your Mother?

Lull before the storm: The first few hours are always serene,when it takes a little time to blend back into the presences of each other. Then the usual fraying of tempers and stuff would soon start, so I sat back and savored the calm, while it lasted.

Writer's Block and a remedy: And if you wonder why I wrote this whole thing, its just following the old adage:- If you can't think of anything to write about, just write about anything that you think! :)

To you dears: If you have reached thus far, wish you all Happy Onam!

The story of a director

Prologue: Prasad Siva, software engineer based in US, took time off from a busy job schedule to pursue his passion – films. He had the script ready for his first film: which he had based on Bhama, his chitta(Mother’s younger sister). Bhama had no longer been in contact with him and his family, after she had recovered from an attack of depression, after an (alleged) affair with her student. But Siva believes otherwise. Here, we trace his experiences, through memories, through diary notes, through emails…

Over to Prasad: It’s April. The summer has set in. The three month holiday is up. At the airport, I wait for the announcement. I have my suitcase by my side and a carry bag with me. I browse the bag. There is a pack of Lays, a bottle of Coke, my last year’s diary and the script for my first film. I have forgotten to bring the newspaper. Or that new novel that I had bought last week.

There’s nothing to do. I just turn the pages of the diary. Flipping through, well knowing, to where I am headed. I stop flipping and start reading…

************************************************************************************

November 15 2008: Am damn tired as I check into the hotel room. The one good thing is that it rained. Heavily. Instead of Cochin, I wished I had gone straight to Calicut. But then, was it raining in Calicut? I don’t know. I am about to start my first film. There is a sudden flutter in my stomach when I think of it.

I go through the photos of the shortlisted ladies for the heroine’s role – most of it was trash – this idiot Aravind, such a horrible taste he has. Oh yes, he does say the same about me too. Surprisingly four of them seem okay though, look bold enough. Four out of twenty is a better ratio than usual, when our tastes for women are matched up against each other.

Boss calls up from Texas. IT Crap is sickening even if it’s on phone. I disconnect the phone abruptly and congratulate myself on my audacity. Not very long under you, boss, I am directing my own film now.

I have to fix a time to meet the four girls, talk and do a screen test tomorrow. I call up Aravind and fix it up at ten in the morning.

November 16 2008:: Yesterday’ rain was the best thing so far. Now today, Sreedevi thrills me as much as the rain did. Or even more.

I meet her for the first time, at noon and am stunned. She’s tall and dressed in a white salwar-kameez and a pink duppatta flung carelessly over her neck. Careful carelessness. She is as different from Bhamachitta as she can be, but I find her so similar – I can’t place why. I fix her up for the role immediately.

She waltzes through the screen test; I don’t even try out the other girls. Aravind is offended, Sreedevi was his last preference, he said. Knowing him, I guess he had a grudge on her, may be because she wouldn’t have been as receptive to his flirtatious solicitations.

November 20 2008: I had a long talk with Sreedevi. We went to the temple pond, sat on the steps and talked. I explained to her the whole script, told her about Bhamachitta. All those memories that I had of her – everything – from the first swim I had in this pond with her to guide me, the way she played the Veena, the way she chose not to marry saying that she never wanted to experience labor pain…

She didn’t blink. She just nodded on, looking at me, her face cupped in her palms as she kept tossing pebbles into the pond. I went on…about Sunil, her student…how close Bhamachitta was with him, how innocent the relation was…how my people, my parents and grandparents included, misinterpreted it to be an illicit affair…

When I finished off, there was a look in Sreedevi’s eyes that I’ll never forget. Then I realized why, right from the beginning, I had felt that overwhelming similarity with Bhamachitta – both had the same set of eyes.

December 22 2008: I haven’t been writing the diary for a while; as I have been too busy with the shooting. I hope to wind up everything up by mid-January.

Sreedevi has been a revelation and has already got an offer to play a lawyer in my friend Sibi’s yet-to-be-titled film. She has transformed herself beautifully into the character of Bhamachitta. I have been lucky to get Kailas’s – widely touted to be the next superstar – dates too to play the character of Sunil: but somehow he does not rise up to my expectations. Seems a tad immature, but okay.

Sreedevi though, is covering up all the flaws with her superbly mature, restrained acting. In the traditional set-mundu she, though starkly different from Bhamachitta, exudes the same charm as her, I feel. Aravind agrees, though a tad unconvinced.

I feel I couldn’t be more right in choosing the character to play Bhamachitta. Once more, after that conversation with my boss, I congratulate myself. God, I don’t want this film to fail. I feel it won’t.

We have decided to shoot the indoor scenes at our old Tharavadu itself. It gives me a high, shooting here. Since coming here, I am able to make alterations to my script, some of which I wonder why had never occurred to me previously. I rewrote some of the dialogues and now they look better, more authentic. The relationship between Bhama and Sunil looks much better on the screen than I had expected. (After much thought, I have decided to retain the names of the original characters in my film)

************************************************************************************

No announcement yet. I open the pack of Lays and sip my coke. I open my laptop and check for mail – no new ones – I come across an old mail that I had sent to Aravind. It was in March last year. It read:

> From Prasad Siva godfader@gmail.com

> To”Aravind” aravindqzd@gmail.com

> Date Thu, March 3, 2008 at 11:17 PM

> Subject: Macha… read this mail…

> Macha! How are you? Have something to tell you!

> I have an idea for a story in mind…Have started working on the script as well, it’s almost complete…

> You remember Bhamachitta? My mother’s cousin…? I’ve told you na?

> I came to know she is in Ahmedabad now. Anindita met her it seems on one of her trips to Baba’s Ashram. Ani is sure that it is her…

> We all had no idea where she went after she was discharged from hospital after that attack of depression…

> I can’t stop thinking of her for the last one month…

> After shooting, I’ll go and meet her in Ahmedabad. I will watch my film with her…I hope she agrees to meet me…

> Man, I think I know how she got that attack of depression…somehow I feel it…That’s what my film is about.

> She will never do such a stupid thing as to get into an affair with her own student.

> Maybe through my story, I could do away the wrong that our people did to her… Bring out the truth…

> Call me back when you see this mail. I’m feeling so inspired…I might take a long leave from here very soon…

> Be ready…ciao…Bye.

I shut down the laptop and go back to my diary. I read the next entry, which was on Christmas Eve. As I read, I can almost hear the drum beats, the Kathakali song, the prayer chants from the temple, and the same sick feeling rises up in my stomach…In spite of which, I read on.

*******************************************************************************

December 24 2008

‘Nalacharitham’ is being played on the stage. Damayanthi is at her sensous, romantic best, sharing the stage with Nala…

I am sitting in the corner of the temple compound. Sreedevi sits a few paces ahead. She is wearing a rose petal in her hair, sits inclined with a palm planted on the ground. I feel it is Bhamachitta herself is in front of me. Kailas is by her side.

Then suddenly I spot it. Her hand is in his. He looks around, makes sure no one was seeing and pinches her. A giggle escapes her mouth, which she suppresses consciously. Then he gets up, walks away into the darkness. A while later she disappears into the same corner.

Ever since I met her, Sreedevi’s each action had seemed so familiar. So soothingly familiar. She always evoked a sense of respect within. But the expression on her face now is strange to me. Nauseating. Clandestine.

I feel defeated. I curse the moment when I felt like going to the temple. I have returned to my room and decide to go early to sleep. But I stay awake late into the night. There is nothing much I can do, but I realize what has begun to crash down within me.

December 31 2008

I am back from the hospital. Sreedevi is pronounced out of danger. It was an overdose of sleeping pills. I should have guessed this was coming. I didn’t, though. The crew has packed up and left. The producer is livid. I’ve asked the old rascal to come tonight; I’ll throw his money back at him and tell him to fuck off.

Ever since Kailas left after completing his scenes, Sreedevi has never been the same. She has lost that aura around her, I felt. She constantly stands in a corner, punching keys on her mobile and setting it aside in frustration. She just sleepwalks through the scenes. Before she took the drastic step, that is. I don’t know more details and I do not want to know. It is immaterial.

But somehow, I feel I know something else now. About something which had happened years back. About something which had driven Bhamachitta into despair and out of our lives…

I have cancelled the ticket that I had booked to Ahmadabad. Feel I could make it next time. Now, I need some time to myself. The ticket to Goa is okay. I am leaving today. I plan to take a further three months off.

***************************************************************

The announcement has come. My flight has arrived. I close the diary and put it inside, then get up and walk briskly towards the check-in kiosk. On the way, a red penguin, with its beaks open and holding a ‘USE ME’ board smiles blankly at me. I open my bag, take out my script and stuff it into its mouth.

And I move forward. It’s back to Texas. It’s back to work.

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

A Culinary Conversation!

The lady in question is one with I have been working. I see her at the shopping mall, on a Sunday. And walk up to her at the shopping mall.

We had never shared a good rapport, so I am slightly apprehensive. Surprisingly she fires the first question. Catching me off guard. By the way, she is the one talking in italics. No special reason for that, but still.

“So what’s up this weekend?” Says the damsel.

“Hey nothing much, I need to clean the house. And cook.” I curse myself for involuntarily portraying myself as the unfashionable, slogging male who cannot afford McDonalds and Pizza Hut.

“Cook! Wow! So you cook yourself?”

I can tell that the surprise on her face isn’t exactly natural. “Yeah I do. I cook myself.”

“Hey, that’s cool. What you gonna cook?”

“Yeah, today is Sunday, right. Thought I’ll cook something special. Planning to make vegetable fried rice.” At least I said something catchy. I feel happy. Thank God I didn’t tell curd-rice.

“How did you learn to cook?”

She doesn’t know cooking. It’s evident from her fluttering eyelids. “I’ll tell you later.” The ball is on the borderlines. It might slip into my court now. I tighten myself.

“Oh hey, are you a veggie? "

What if she is a veggie? What if she is not? I decide to play it safe. “No not exactly. But yeah, a forced one. Forced vegetarian.” Wow!

“Forced vegetarian? What’s that?”

Great, I have managed to stroke her intellect. And interest. “Yeah, my mouth does water at the sight of non-veg food but my stomach revolts when it tries to digest the same. So forced to don the veggie garb.”

“Ha Ha, that’s funny!" Its a fantastic feel when humor clicks.

I thank my english teachers and the books I have read. Words never fail me.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make my fried rice in lots of ghee. It’ll be quite tasty then…”

“Hmm, you can afford to make things in ghee and oil, I can’t.”

“Hey why? Why can’t you?” I act concerned.

“Coz, I am trying to slim down. Need to shed some kilos. So no ghee, no oil for me.” There’s that petulant look on her face, the one which girls put on while they get self-indulgent.

I think I’ll cheer her up. Time for more humor. Along with a slight dose of flattery.
“Hey you look alright though.” I ignore the few evident extra pounds.
“Any way that’s sad. I’ll tell you a technique by which you can lose 7 kilos in a week. Just four thousand rupees.” I say.

“That’s awesome. 4000 and 7 kilos in a week? That means 28 kg in a month? WOW!”

Jesus! Some mathematics! “Yeah it sure is. Don’t try it at a stretch. Split it up across four months. Okay?”

“Yeah sure, tell me.” Fluttering eyelashes. Nice.

“Go to hotel Sea queen; eat Non-vegetarian thaali meals for four days at a stretch. You can try other dishes too, but then I can’t give a guarantee for that.” I take care to put on a poker face.

“Ok, what the hell does a hotel have to do with it?” Good going, I have her hooked.

“Come on. Don’t jump the gun.” I am still poker faced.

“Ok, am listening. Go ahead.”

“Ok, you eat that stuff…what was it that I told?” Memory testing. Beep Beep. It’s good to test your own performance in holding the interest of the subject

“Non vegetarian thaali meals, right?” Good. She is listening.

“Yeah you’re bright. Eat it for four days. Fifth day, in case you’re alive, you’ll be down with diarrhea. If you’re really lucky you might get vomiting as well.”

“What? What the f**k?” She sure is shocked at the dismal imagery that I have conjured up, if the four letter word which sputtered out is any indication.

“Listen. Then get yourself admitted in PM Hospital, Adayar. They will treat; rather ill treat you like hell. “ I turn it on. “And bingo, within a week you lose 7 kilos!”

“Ha ha, you’re ultimate.” Big grin on the pretty face.

“Now you know why I learnt cooking, don’t you?”

“Yeah, got it. Ha Ha. Too good” . Now she is laughing.

I shed the poker face and grin. Operation success. “Yeah, purely out of desperation. Nothing else.”

We walk together out, smiling and grinning.
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
That’s all. A blow-hot-and-cold relation has now changed into a much more warmer and fulfilling one, thanks to a hospital stint and a timely dose of humor. We talk more frequently now.
Strange are the ways of life.

May be this is what Lord Krishna said in the Gita, “Whatever has happened is for your own good”.

An artists afternoon...

OVERVIEW: This is a story, which takes place on a hot Chennai afternoon…

With great care, Anwar bent forward and adjusted the ear-ring on her left ear. He hoped she would smile at him, but she didn’t. Instead she kept staring ahead, a cold expression in her eyes, lips set in a tight line.

He gazed admiringly at her pink cheeks, the full lips and the dark eyelashes which gave her face that dreamy, just-been-kissed look. Then, after a couple of idle minutes, suddenly conscious of the task at hand, he dabbed deftly below her chin and under the ears, smoothening the layers of face-paint. And as he moved his cotton sponge over her lips, he felt the admiring eyes of the crowd on him.

The pride swelled within him. After all, who wouldn’t admire him, who wouldn’t envy him – painting the lips of Divya Malini, the goddess of the South Indian film industry?

His mind started to wander. Even as his hands moved adeptly in their trained trajectories, he slowly became engrossed in his own thoughts and memories…

It was around ten years ago, he remembered, though not entirely sure of it. An entire film crew had landed in his village in Ottappalam. The news had trickled down to his school, on a sleepy summer afternoon, the air pregnant with ennui. The news suddenly transformed the day; he dashed across the school compound, jumped over the wall to escape the blue-suited, betel-chewing school-peon, scurried through the lush green paddy-fields and reached the Panchayat president’s huge bungalow where the shooting was planned.

There were two remnant memories of the day…

The first – he had had a bloody shoulder, the result of jumping over a barbed fence. He had cut himself badly. Anwar stopped applying the make-up and felt the scar on his right shoulder. It was still there, just above his polio injection mark, the skin there having hardened with time.

The second – there was a half-sari clad, debutante girl of fourteen who was playing the heroine’s childhood. She hadn’t become Divya Malini yet; she was some young girl, whose only claim to fame was a photograph of her which had appeared on the cover page of a local daily, which, fortunately for her, the director had found time to peruse through.

Few had expected her to be christened Divya Malini in five to six years (after the runaway success as a heroine, she was named after the yesteryear super-heroine of the same name), fewer had expected her to become the highest paid heroine in the whole of South India. Anwar hadn’t too.

Neither had he imagined these, nor had he imagined that he would be brushing her cheeks with his fingers on a similar hot summer afternoon, ten years later.

He could still remember the pangs of envy which he had felt towards the boy, of his same age, who played the childhood of the hero. They had a song together, in which they ran across the paddy fields, chased each other around trees and most irritatingly, the guy would sit with her on a swing and lip-sync for a song which blared away in the background.

For one month, he had kept on skipping school with more regularity than he had ever attended it, bribing his sister with stolen ice-candy so as to not tell his misdeeds to their mother. He loitered around the shooting premises, stealing furtive glances at the girl in the arc lights, fruitlessly imagining that she was doing the same at him too. While at the same time, his classmates at school were busy submitting their tenth standard exam applications and devouring their text-books like crazy.

As for Anwar, he was bitten by the film bug. He wasn’t sure whether it was the arc lights or whether it was Divya Malini, but he was bitten alright.

He didn’t write the exams that year. And for that matter, he didn’t ever since.

Anwar looked at her face again. She still had the same expression on her face, though her cheeks were slightly more illuminated by the sun which was now at its highest and hottest. With his sponge, Anwar carefully brushed away the specks of dust which had gathered on her forehead.

It could be nothing but a coincidence of the extreme degree; Anwar thought to himself, that at all the critical junctures in his life, this girl should always be present.

After his skipped tenth-standard examination which effectively dashed the dreams of his mother that her son would acquire a good education and would relieve her of the hardships of her labor, he had spent two worthless years as a painter and makeup man in a drama troupe, which spent much more than it earned. A born artist, he perfected his craft at the troupe.

But, the troupe-owner went absconding one fine morning, leaving his employees and money-lenders alike, agape in dismay.

Then he had boarded a train to Chennai, loitered around Kodambakkam, the Tamil film hub, doing this job and that, for quite some time. He had work on one day, and none on the next two, but something, maybe the proximity to the film world, kept him afloat. Life had been going on in this fashion when the shooting of the movie “Kondayil Thazhampoo” commenced in Kodambakkam. The movie starred the reigning super-star with a new face as the heroine. His heart jumped into his mouth when he saw the heroine; the girl had now become a woman, a far cry from the starry eyed fourteen-year old who had come to his village years back.

His heart had fluttered a bit more than normal, maybe because of the habitual drinks he took that morning – there was a scuffle as he tried to break the ring (for what, Anwar couldn’t comprehend later, in hindsight). The end result was that one of the security guards sustained a flat nose and a black-eye. It didn’t end there; Anwar landed four months in jail for assault with intent to murder. The law enforcement wasn’t as strict as it would usually be, because of the timely intervention of a priest whom Anwar had earlier befriended at a drama in the city.

What it eventually did was that, no one was interested in employing him anymore. The once in three days work cycle dwindled to once in a month or even less, and it was a miracle that he kept himself alive.

It must be third-time-lucky, Anwar now thought to himself, as he neatly touched up her hair, done up into a parrot-shape at the back of her head, the eyes of the parrot adorned with golden beads. This new job was the courtesy of an old time friend from his village who had struck gold in Kodambakkam, who had a major share in a film production company and even owned the franchisee of the biggest jewelry group in the state. He had hired him, on the promise of no further misbehavior. After a few minor touch-up works, this was the first stand-alone assignment that he got his hands on.

He had done a neat job, he reckoned, but the persistent dissatisfaction on her face kept on rankling him. He looked askance at her, with a critical eye, and then with a sudden glitter in his eyes, picked up his brush and sponge. Bending down on his knees, by her side, he did a sudden, expert waft at the sides of her either cheek. He stood up victoriously – Divya Malini was smiling now, though haughtily, her eyes affixed far away.

Then, turning back, Anwar nodded at two lean, dark men who had been standing impatiently beside him all the time, smoking.

As they came near, Anwar backed away, and, as he watched, Divya Malini slowly rose upwards, steadily, towards the sky.

Packing up his tools, and slinging them over his shoulder in a grey duffel bag, Anwar walked back slowly, pocketed his fees – five hundred rupees – which was the highest that he had received in quite some time.

The two men on the ground, who were standing beside him all this while, looked upwards questioningly, the muscles on their forearms straining as they tugged at the ropes which hoisted a blue billboard upwards, as two men from the top of the scaffolding shouted back – “Enough, Enough.” Then they affixed the billboard with ropes, on top of the scaffolding.

A wistful smile played on Anwar’s lips as he looked upwards over his shoulders at his just-completed painting – Divya Malini, smiling, sitting smugly atop a blue billboard, which advertised “Lakshmana Jewellers”, the biggest jewelry group in the state.

I dedicate this to: All the underachieving artists out there…

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

For all the unlucky Pinkys

Prologue:

This year, Smile Pinki (by Megan Mylan) got an Oscar for best short documentary. It was about a poor girl, Pinki, who got her cleft lip surgically corrected, thereby saving her from a lifetime of ridicule and ostracism.

http://passionforcinema.com/smile-pinki-2009-and-dr-murari-mukherji-a-pioneer-of-cleft-lip-and-palate-surgery-in-india/

Though I had felt incredibly happy for Pinki, I couldn’t help feel for similar people who are less lucky, being born with such a defect and having to live their entire lives with that tag attached to them.

The stronger ones survive and even become success stories but the not-so-strong ones, sometimes fall by the wayside. I have tried to capture one such story here, in the format of a short film. A ten minute one may be.

[scrippet]

Scene-1

It’s dark inside the room. Early dawn. A siren goes off, somewhere in the distance. Roopa sits up, her hair all ruffled, eyes groggy.

The mini-calendar on the wall says 24^th June. Her eyes fall on it and a forlorn look creases her face.

She reaches over and takes the mirror, and looks into it. While looking, she runs her finger over the mirror, over her reflection.

The finger moves, slowly, over the mirror. Over the eyebrows, the nose, the cheeks, finally coming to rest over her lip.

It’s a cleft lip. And it looks hideous. She tosses the mirror away with a violent sleight of the hand and then falls back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling fan.

The camera zooms in onto her face. Then the frame fades out.

Cut

Scene-2 A

Intended to be a flash-back. To be shot accordingly. In a sepia tone, maybe. Scenes 2A,28 and 2C need to have a smooth transition between them. I’d need to work on that .

A school assembly. Around five hundred children sit on the steps of the assembly court, looking at a cleft-lipped girl standing in front of the mike, making a speech. She is extremely self conscious; her hands occasionally come up to shield her lips. She forgets the speech, and fidgets around clumsily, evoking stray laughter from the crowd.

The laughter ripples louder as she says “Thank you” and walks off, inadvertently tripping over an electrical wire.

Once out of sight of the assembly ground, she runs off to the bathroom, covers her face in her palms and sobs uncontrollably.

Scene-2 B

Again in flash-back. A wedding function. A noisy song blares out in the background. People scurry around busily.

The frame focuses on a photographer, moving his hands animatedly, and instructing people to stand in place. Roopa is one among the group of brightly-attired, bubbly, adolescent girls who pose for the photograph. Rustle of silk. Jingle of bangles.

A middle aged lady, her mother, watches from the side, along with some other women of her age. Just when the kids are all set for the shot, she gesticulates to Roopa vigorously : Not to smile too much, so that the lip remains inconspicous.

The other girls glance at Roopa and suppress a giggle. The smile vanishes from Roopa’s face. She self-consciously bites her upper lip, so as to hide it from view. Now she looks normal. Painfully normal.

There is a camera click as the scene freezes in a photographic frame.

Scene-2 C

This is the last flash-back scene.

“I don’t want to marry him” Roopa shouts tearfully. “I will stay here. I don’t want to get married.”

Then she storms into her room, slams the door behind her and throws herself onto the bed.

From inside her room, she dejectedly listens to a conversation. Her Mom and Dad are talking.

“She is right. Isn’t the man too old?”

“So what? There is one more girl younger to her. Shouldn’t we be thinking of her too? Listen Indira,” her Dad says, lowering his tone to a hush, “we won’t get many better proposals. Let us go ahead with this.”

“My daughter’s plight, my God…” Mom was wailing now, trying to keep her voice down.

Roopa buries her face into the pillow.

Cut

Scene 3

Back to Roopa’s room. Camera once again focuses on the calendar on the wall. Daylight has now started peeping in. Roopa is still asleep and now holds a framed photograph which she hugs close to her chest.

She hugs it tighter and starts crying. “I am happy for you…” she says, sobbing, eyes still closed.

The sobs become louder by the minute. And soon becomes hysterical.

A woman comes up to her and shakes her.

“Roopa, get up” she says, looking around cautiously, shaking her shoulder in the process. The hysterical wailing continues unabated.

Then there is a creak, the sound of the door opening. The reverberating tap-tap of high-heeled shoes is the only sound now. The woman standing near Roopa now tiptoes back to her bed, with furtive glances to and fro.

Two sets of hands hold Roopa by the shoulder and press her down.

A syringe needle slowly presses into her veins as she slowly becomes still, as the tap-tap of the shoes slowly fades away. The camera stays on Roopa who now lies still, with her back to the camera.

Cut

Scene 4

The tapping of the shoes is still in the background, connecting this scene to the previous one.

Two uniform-clad nurses walk together in a corridor. It is clear now that they are in a ward of a hospital. One nurse is middle aged while the other is young and evidently new to the service. She is obviously curious about Roopa.

“That lady, what’s her problem?”

“Chronic case of depression. She was admitted two years back.”

“Oh…”

Cut

Scene 5

The interaction between the nurses, their conversation continues in the background.

The camera is trained on Roopa. It focuses first on her, sleeping, unconscious.

“Today is her kid’s birthday”, says the middle aged nurse.

“Where is the kid now, is it a boy or girl?”

“It was a girl. She tried to kill herself, along with the kid…but she alone survived. ”

“Oh, God…”

“It was then that her family had admitted her here. Poor thing.”

“ Ok, it’s time for me to go home. See you tomorrow evening then.”

“Bye.” They bid good-bye, their footsteps go distant…

Scene 6 A

Then the camera focuses on the photograph that she is holding. It is the photo of her baby girl, taken when it was around two months old.

The camera zooms on to the photograph. The film ends with the baby’s face in the frame.

The baby too, has a cleft lip.

Cut

Dedicated to all the unlucky souls forced into a lifetime of insult, self-pity and depression by the thoughtless comments of the society on disabilities that they are born with and can do nothing about.

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

A tale of two women

Intro: Female centric plots fascinate me. Unfailingly. So, when I landed this idea, about the chance meeting of two women, courtesy a conversation with one of my lady friends, it was irresistible. So much so that, I wrote it down, straightaway. It was then that I wondered if it couldn’t be made into a short film, and hence this article…

A disclaimer: This isn’t the script. It’s a write-up as to how I visualize the whole episode in mind. It would take some real good acting from the lead actors to bring out the emotional turmoil within…

How I visualize the plot, if it’s filmed: Indu, thirty-five, a mother of two, recollects an unforgettable experience to Athira, one of her close friends, as they take a walk together. The story would unfold in a flashback. The linear narrative would be occasionally punctuated by voice-overs, as the thoughts in her mind – the judgments and observations that she makes (or had made then) – are aired out aloud, in conversation to Athira.

Over to Indu, and as she starts the narration, triggering off the flashback.

The narrative: I tapped on, incessantly, at the call history button on our telephone. She had called around afternoon on the previous day, I remembered. I wasn’t fully sure that it was her, but I had got a hunch, as I listened to my mother-in-law talking over the phone. Gaurav’s granddad had passed away the previous week after a prolonged illness, and she was attending a condolence call from someone, in response to the obituary news in the local daily.

Should have been a local mobile number, I thought to myself, squinting, poring over the caller-id list on the telephone. One number caught my eye. Local, mobile number. I dialed. A guy with a deep, booming voice picked up the phone and snapped at me, in response to my question whether I could get Maya on the line. Slamming the receiver back onto the cradle, I continued my search.

Soon, I found another number. This had to be it, I realized; there weren’t any other calls received the day before. I noted the number down, and dialed, this time from my cell. For quite some time, the phone kept ringing.

The fact that I was getting tense surprised me. Then, a soft, mature female voice answered.

“Maya?” I asked. There was an unmistakable tremor in my voice.

“Yes. Who is this?”

Confused, still pleasant. I could feel the smile in her voice.

“It’s Indu”, I said. “Indu, Neryamangalath.” I was sure that our family name would ring the right bells.

“Oh!” The calmness suddenly disappeared. Then a stunned silence. A barrage of questions ensued.

“I can’t believe… How did you get my number? Where are you now? At home? Or at Gaurav’s place?”

“Am at Gaurav’s”, I said, “Maya, could we meet up?” I hadn’t planned on that, but somehow, it was my heart which seemed to be talking.

“I…” she stammered, “No Indu, I am a bit busy, have to fetch the kids, maybe another time…”

“Oh Maya. Just take some time off can you? I will wait for you.”

She mumbled incoherently in reply, vacillating for a while.

“Ok, I’ll wait for you, at CCD.” I said.

“Which CCD?”

“The one near the bus station. I will wait for you. At Three in the evening.”

“Ok, I’ll try to come. But I can’t be sure…”

I hung up and called Vinay and Anuja who came bounding up towards me. “We are going out, kids. Get dressed up.”

“Where to, Mummy?”

“We’ll go have ice-cream”. I called out to the kids who were already running off to their room, eager to go out, “Get ready fast. And don’t care to explain to anyone where we are going or whom we are meeting.”

“Ok Mummy”, they shouted back.

******

A five minutes drive and we were waiting at Café Coffee Day, the three of us. To my surprise, I found myself perspiring, in spite of the cool evening air; a strange tension seemed to hang in the air. The kids sat next to me, oblivious to my mental escapades, contentedly munching into their Chocó bars.

I kept watching out of the window, wondering how she would look like, trying to picture her in my mind. I had never seen her yet, not even a photo. I was even thinking whether she would go back on her word, when my cell phone rang.

******

It was Maya. “Indu…I have reached here. Am standing near the door.”

Just as we were talking I spotted her. She should be around forty, I guessed. One or two stray strands of hair stood out on her scalp. She had aged gracefully. Even in the chiffon saree, which though very plain, was meticulously wrapped, she looked graceful. I wondered how she might have looked around ten years before. She should have been strikingly beautiful, I realized.

Then both of us looked away, involuntarily. It was becoming more difficult than what I had expected; even to look at each other. She came up and sat beside us, self-consciously pecking the kids’ cheeks, asking them their names. As I watched her, I couldn’t help comparing myself with her – it’s something that I never do, but somehow, I found myself doing just that. And I felt a pang of jealousy whizz through me. I rebuked myself.

The kids wandered away, leaving us alone at the table. She was looking at me now.

“Indu, how did you get my number?”

“I guessed it might be you. I was in the room, while Mom was attending your call. It was a hunch…”

“I feel so happy now…”, she started off. The voice held a lot of poise. “I never expected we would talk. Ever. I really don’t know what to say.”

I smiled back. “I never really thought you would turn up too. Calling you up was a spur of the moment thing.”

“How are your parents doing?” she asked.

“They are fine. Just some age-related problems.” I said. “You have a daughter, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and a son”, she said. “Anuja looks just like Gaurav.”

I smiled. “He says she looks like me.”

“Where’s he now?” she asked. “Is he at home?”

“No, he is back in Oman . He couldn’t manage to extend the leave, so had to go back last week.”

There was a pause again. We just sat facing each other, unsure of what to say next.

“Maya”, I said. “Keep in touch. Will you?”

“I wanted to. I always think of that, but somehow, I could never bring myself to call you up. I am sorry. Maybe we’ll see each other more, from now. Maybe this is a beginning.”

“I don’t have many friends here. I really hope we will keep in touch.” I said. And I meant it; being born and brought up in Bangalore, I didn’t have many close friends worth mentioning in my native place.

Then she shocked me. “Isn’t it Gaurav’s birthday today?”

“Yes, it is”, I said. “And yours is day after tomorrow, isn’t it?” Now it was her turn to be stunned.

“How did you know it?” she asked, the surprise not leaving her eyes. Then she turned, looked out of the window, the sunlight painting patterns on her cheeks. She looks amazingly beautiful, I thought.

“One second, excuse me”, I said, as I got up from the table. She didn’t seem to notice, and continued staring outside, lost in thought.

******

Then I rang up Gaurav. “Gaurav, where are you?” I enquired.

“Am in office, where are you? Somewhere outside? Vinay and Anuja seem to be there with you…?”

“Yes they are here with me. We are at Café Coffee Day. By the way, Happy Birthday!”

“He he”, Gaurav laughed. His typical, lazy, laidback laugh. “I just forgot all about it. Thanks Indu!”

“As if you remember always! You would never remember if it wasn’t for me”, I said complainingly. “And guess what? I have a surprise for you today.”

“Hmm. Surprise? What’s it? Now Indu, don’t kid around, tell me fast, I’ve got a meeting coming up.”

“Someone is with me now. Just a minute.” I said, trying to keep the bubbling excitement out of my voice.

I suddenly handed the phone over to Maya, who, was now totally taken aback. She took the phone hesitantly from me, pressed it against her ear and muttered weakly.

“Hello… Gaurav? It’s me.”

There was a long pause at the other end, I guess. Silence. Maya sat looking at me, blankly. Then she handed the phone back to me.

“He didn’t recognize my voice”, she said with a smile. But though she smiled, I could see and feel the hurt which simmered beneath.

I took the phone from her. “Gaurav, it’s her. Maya. Maya Devi.”

Silence again. There was a sudden spurt of questions, breaking the silence, as the recollection dawned upon him. “What? How on earth…” He was now fumbling for words, unable to cope with the sudden shock. Then I gave the phone back to Maya, who now was even more hesitant than before.

“Come on, speak, he is still on the line”, I said reassuringly.

She just sat there, pressing the receiver against her ear, her hands trembling visibly. I smiled as I pictured Gaurav, sitting in his office, his typically deadpan expression disturbed by this sudden, unexpected turn of events.

Gaurav had told me about his love affair with Maya even before our marriage, during our courtship days itself. Though Gaurav’s family was more or less ready for the marriage, her family wasn’t ready to give her in marriage to a businessman and that too, one who was abroad. Instead, they had married her off to a college lecturer, who was ten years older than her.

It used to irritate me to no end, I remember. The passion with which Gaurav spoke about her. The unintentional excitement which used to ripple in his voice then. That sickening, sickening feeling that I was the second love would never leave me, in spite of however strongly Gaurav rubbished the idea. But slowly, as the years wore on, I had grown to accept it. That it would never affect us, and that it was indeed a closed chapter.

As I watched, both of them slowly recovered and finally managed to put some perfunctory greetings together. The tension which creased her face relaxed. Then as they hung up, I noticed her voice crack, ever so slightly.

She then handed back the phone to me and got up, glancing nervously at her wrist watch, hurriedly adjusting her saree pallu. She bid a quick good-bye to us, affectionately patting the cheeks of Vinay and Anuja in the process. And as she walked out of the coffee shop and turned back to face me, smiling, I saw a stray tear brimming over in her eyes.

I still cannot explain what exactly I had felt then. I was overwhelmed. Words came up, choked and died in my throat. A heavy cloud descended over my chest. But nothing came out. In spite of all that raged within, everything about me would have appeared perfectly normal, I believe.

And all I did, as she left from the coffee shop, was to just smile and wave her good-bye, and watched her walk away, hurriedly cross the road, tugging at her saree and disappear into the madding crowd.

******

PS: I dedicate this post to the one and only Padmarajan, and the trio of Jayakrishnan, Radha and Clara, from the timeless classic, Thoovanathumbikal.

(For more info on Thoovanathumbikal, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoovanathumbikal)

Originally published on www.passionforcinema.com

Randamoozham - Bhima and the lady characters in his life..

Prologue: I recently finished reading Randaamoozham (The second turn) by the celebrated author, M.T.Vasudevan Nair. Narrated from the perspective of Bhîma, the book shatters many age-old myths that we have grown up hearing. Though MT hasn’t tampered with the story-line, he, as he himself said, has tried to understand the pregnant silences that Vyasa had left behind without explicit explanation. I have read the book four times in all, and it leaves me stunned to bits, every single time.

M.T.Vasudevan Nair has also penned the script for the national award winning ‘Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha’ which received both commercial success and critical acclaim. In that story too, MT glorified the character Chanthu, who, in Kerala folklore, is a most treacherous and despicable villain, who defies the very ethics of warfare with his cunning treachery. With MT’s unique treatment, myths were shattered and Chanthu was transformed to a chivalrous, tragic hero, with his own tragic flaws; his much maligned actions now presented in a hitherto unseen light. The effort was supplemented by a brilliant performance from Mammootty, who too won the national best actor award for his portrayal of Chanthu.

Similarly, Bhîma, the more ridiculed and unsung among the Pandavas, receives a heroic shade to his character in this book. It’s through his eyes that each character is presented. The characters are humanized a lot more; they become ordinary mortals, shedding the supernatural shades that are attached to them in the stories that we have grown up hearing.

I recently wondered why Randaamoozham too, couldn’t be made into a film. Such an enormous epic to be fitted into a two and half hour movie would take some planning. The casting, with each role requiring tremendous histrionic expertise, would also have to be spot on.

What I have tried to do here is to draw a sketch here some scenes of Bhima, with the main lady characters, their relationships with him being the common thread which binds the story together. This article is just intended to give the readers a feel of the whole theme; of the unique ambience which is created in the novel.

Draupadi: An extremely beautiful and strong willed heroine, whom Arjuna wins over at a Swayamvara. Though she is wife to all the five Pandavas, her first passion has always been Arjuna. We see this trait of her character through Bhima’s observations - whenever her eyes light up at the very mention of his name, one such scene being that of her first night with Bhima (The day when his turn, the Second Turn, begins).

Bhima looks on, ready for the first night of his turn, very modest decorations done at his abode, after Draupadi’s year-long honeymoon with Yudhishtira, the eldest of the Pandavas, has come to an end. That night, the Pandavas and Draupadi sit around the bonfire, as she listens wide-eyed to Arjuna, who incidentally has come home that evening after a brief hiatus. Later, at night, when Bhima moves close to her in bed, lust rippling through his veins, she dreamily mutters Arjuna’s name, lying sleepily by his side. Bhima, then gets up, goes out and makes his bed on bare ground and lies down, staring up at the star-lit sky. He would have none of her cold body tonight, Bhima decides, when her mind dreams about Arjuna, even while she is beside him in bed.

On yet another occasion, she mentions her desire to wear the Sougandhika flowers, famous for their heavenly perfume, in her hair. Though Bhima gets the flowers from a heavily guarded pond after a minor adventure, he gets caught and is kept captive by King Kubera. It’s only after the arrival of his brothers and Draupadi that Bhima is released. Though it is an occasion to be embarrassed, Bhima proudly hands out the flowers to Draupadi, but she tosses it away disdainfully and later, when they walk past, the Sougandhika flowers lie, soiled and crumpled on the ground (This is purely the author’s innovation), a beautiful symbol of rejected love.

Draupadi always looks up to Bhima as a protector and someone who would grant even her extreme desires. Bhima realizes after a rare romantic rendezvous with Draupadi, when she pleads him to go instead of Arjuna to fight King Jarasandha, a formidable opponent, in a wrestling bout, that the lure of romance was just a bait. To her, Bhima is always the man who loves her unconditionally, someone who could be emotionally swayed with the slightest gesture of love.

Her pledge to let her hair loose, till it becomes wet with Dusshasana’s blood is yet another indication of her trust in Bhima. It is a trust which borders on the attitude towards a devoted servant. Bhima, during the war, tears open Dusshasana’s chest, in an action unbecoming of a Khshatriya and returns to smear Draupadi’s hair with his blood. Could there be any more that a lover could do? Could there be a sweeter revenge? Yes, it had to be Bhima, when it came to satisfying Draupadi’s most unreasonable whims.

The whole relation is captured in a nutshell, in the final scene, during Swargarohana, when the Pandavas ascend the path to heaven. They walk, in the order of seniority, with Draupadi behind them. Then Bhima hears a rustle of clothes, a sigh and a faint thud behind. Draupadi has fallen by the wayside.

Then Yudhishtira says, “She has sinned, she has loved Arjuna the most amongst us, instead of seeing all her five husbands with the same eye. That’s why she has fallen. Do not turn back, do not fret, and keep walking. Erasing worldly memories is a prerequisite for attaining heaven.” All of the brothers obey him, not turning back to look at their beloved wife.

Now comes the author’s classic intervention, a detour from the original storyline, raising Bhima’s love to a feeling bordering on ultimate, selfless submission. Ultimate submission, they say, is the highest degree of love; which is why; in poems and songs the woman whom one loves is often compared to a Goddess.

Bhima stops, ignores his brother’s wise words, turns back, walks up to Draupadi, bends down next to her and cups her face in his palms. She looks up at him, smiles, turns her head away and breathes her last. Peacefully. In Bhima’s arms.

Hidimbi: First wife to Bhima, the sister of Hidimba who was a Kiratha (a primitive aboriginal tribe, with enormous physical strength, who inhabit the jungle) whom Bhima slays in a jungle duel. Dusky, voluptuous, tall and bold, Hidimbi brings with her, womanhood with all its wild, unbridled sensuality.

Her character is brief, but in the context of what is to unfold, assumes immense significance. Bhima’s first taste of a woman, like many other Khshatriyas, is a devdasi in their palace, but the encounter leaves him unmoved. He even wonders aloud whether the much celebrated Bhima cannot satisfy even a mere woman.

But when he meets Hidimbi in the jungle, gets to know her and subsequently makes love to her, he is aroused to a degree which he has never thought himself capable to be. Bhima wonders whether the existing definitions of a woman’s capabilities in bed wouldn’t be enough to describe the fire of passion that Hidimbi aroused within him. He later marries her and introduces her to his mother and brothers. He then sees a glint of shock in Kunthi’s eyes, a shock which he alone notices. (This scene, the shock in Kunti’s eyes, is also a detour from the original storyline, but in hindsight, is one of the scenes in the whole novel which is plotted with inimitable foresight.)

They live together for a few days, after which Bhima and Hidimbi part, when the Pandavas have to leave the jungle to a nearby village. She is pregnant with his child, Bhima’s first child, Khadolkacha who arrives years later as their savior during the Kurukshethra war. They part, with Bhima kissing Hidimbi’s forehead in farewell.

Years later, Bhima does come in search of her into the same forest in the pretext of a hunting trip, but never finds her. Though a Khshatriya by birth, Bhima’s first wife, his first orgasm, his first child has all been from the lowly Kiratha tribe. It is this attribute of his character that Hidimbi so beautifully symbolizes.

Kunthi: The mother to the Pandavas, she is often portrayed in stories as a weak woman, but here she comes across as a wise, shrewd and calculating lady. A frail, non-descript woman; she always takes Bhima by surprise with her quick thinking.

When Vidura, uncle to Pandavas, who is always much concerned about the welfare of the Pandavas, sends an encrypted message to them while they stay in a castle made for them by the Kauravas in the jungle, Kunthi is the one to decipher the message and sense that the castle is made of firewood and could be set fire in an instant. And later, when a Kiratha lady and her five sons come begging, on the night when the castle would be set fire to, while they plot their plans of escape, she amazes him again by welcoming the beggars in. Her untimely urge to serve the visitors with food and liquor irks her sons, but when they question her, she coolly quips, amazing Bhima to no end: “When they search for our bodies tomorrow, the charred bodies of this Kiratha lady and her five sons would mislead our enemies into thinking that we are dead. What can these visitors be, if not God’s gift in disguise?”

Later, when the Pandavas return home with Draupadi after Arjuna’s victorious Swayamvara, Yudhishtira shouts aloud to Kunthi who is inside the house. “Mother, see what bhiksha we have got today!”

She shouts from inside, without looking out, “Whatever the bhiksha may be, my children, you must share it among yourselves equally.”

Yudhishtira, who is always inclined towards dharma, suggests that they must not disobey their mother’s words, and hence Draupadi becomes destined to be the wife to all of them, from the eldest to the youngest, the turn changing with each year.

Later, Kunthi says to Bhima, who was vehemently of the opinion that Draupadi must belong to Arjuna and not to the five of them together: “I knew that the bhiksha was Draupadi. I saw lust in each eye that looked at her, even in the eyes of the youngest Sahadeva. My sons must never quarrel over a mere woman, hence my words.” Bhima struggles to look Kunthi in her eyes again during that night, wondering whether his mother could have spotted lust in his eyes too.

But the real bombshell comes after the Kurukshethra war, when Kunthi asks Yudhishtira to perform the last rites for Karna, who, she reveals, was her first son. Karna knew it, but the Pandavas hadn’t and Arjuna had killed him in the war. The Pandavas sink to the ground in despair when they hear the news, the most distraught being Arjuna, who had killed him using unfair means. Yudhishtira even curses womanhood as a whole on this occasion that they can never keep a secret to themselves again.

A visibly angry Bhima shouts at his mother, deriding her decision to keep Karna’s secret from them for so long. He recollects aloud his umpteen encounters with Karna, in each of which he had insulted Karna in public, by calling him Soothaputhra (Which means, son of a charioteer. It was a humble charioteer, Adhiratha, who raised Karna, after he was abandoned at birth by Kunthi. Karna has to hear this insult many a time in his life, at various critical junctures in his life, the most important one being Draupadi’s Swayamvara, when, on the verge of being successful, Karna was expelled from the Swayamvara because of his
parentage).

It is now, that MT pulls off another magnificent, stunning and the most important deviation from the epic’s original story-line:

Kunthi looks at Bhima and to his consternation, remarks, “Karna was a Soothaputhra indeed.” She continues coolly, “At sage Durvasa’s ashram, amongst all the hardships that I suffered there, it was a handsome Sootha (a charioteer) who showed me some care, some love. Karna was born to him.”

A stunned Bhima listens as she goes on, “Listen. Dharma is Vidura indeed. And Vidura is Yudhishtira”, thereby breaking the secret of Yudhishtira parentage too, which is attributed to Dharma, the God of Justice. When Bhima shouts in despair, “Then tell me! Who am I?”, her reply is similarly icy cold.

“I wanted my second son to be strong. Strong like an elephant. Then he came to me, from the deep forests. Like an unbridled, violent wind. A Kiratha with the strength of a thousand elephants. Bhima, you were born to him.”

To Bhima, who has grown up, muttering silent prayers to Vaayudeva (the God of Wind) who was said to be his father, by Kunthi herself and also by all the paean-singers who sang praises of the royal families; this was a shock which was too much to bear. His life-long arrogance at his physical strength, his confidence in Vaayudeva, who he has always believed would incessantly keep guarding over him, all becomes meaningless myths when faced with this cruel, humbling reality.

It is then that everything falls in place for the viewer. His first marriage with Hidimbi. The shock in Kunthi’s eyes when she first sees Hidimbi. Khadolkacha, his first child. His first hunting success, which unconventionally comes in the form of slaying a wild pig. His forays into the forest, which is a second home to him, unlike other Khshatriyas. His obsession with wrestling, considered to be a low-grade war form. His wild, animal instinct which comes to the fore when he tears open Dusshasana’s chest during war and even drinks his blood. Uncle Vidura’s obsessive attention towards the Pandavas. Everything. The legends that we have grown up hearing now lies astray, shattered into pieces.

Final thought: It is through these three women, that Bhima knows life. Every emotion that a man needs to know comes to him through them. Love. Romance. Despair. The layers of superhuman facets, attached to him and his fellow characters through age-old mythical tales peel off, gradually, during his interactions with them.

What we see in this adaptation of Mahabharata is not a legend that we have come to see many times on the small screen, but a group of beleaguered ordinary mortals, Bhima included, forced into helplessness by the cruel turns of fate.

There are a lot of other characters – the other Pandavas; Balandhara, his second wife; Visoka, the trusted charioteer; Karna, the wronged brother, Gandhari and Dhritharashtra, all of whom play more than significant roles in the story. Bhima comes across as a worthy central character, a fulcrum around which the whole tale can be woven. Maybe I could write a sequel to this article to elaborate on the other characters as well.

But the greatness of this adaptation by M.T is that it simplifies the Mahabharata. The characters and their actions are no longer arcane and mythical; their motives and secrets become clearer and more justified now, thanks to the unconventional genius of M.T. And this is the reason why, this adaptation could, and should, be made into a film. A film which would transform these characters into mere mortals, which would demystify the legends and which could alter the common man’s perspective of this magnificent epic. Maybe, for ever.


PS: Malayalees, who have not read the book yet, go get your copy of Randamoozham straightaway. Non-Malayalees, try to get the English translation of the book, titled ‘The second turn’ or shop for it online at:
http://www.amazon.com/Second-Turn-M-Vasudevan-Nair/dp/0333923243

SOME LUCK!

orginally published in www.passionforcinema.com

http://passionforcinema.com/some-luck/

A quick idea which came to me while slugging it out in office...

Scene 1
4:30 PM
Sreehari’s Office

Sreehari sits facing the computer, tense, veins distending on his forehead, sweating in spite of the air-conditioning. The problem reported in his code had huge impacts and could incur huge financial losses for the client of the software firm for whom he was working for.

The client was one of the biggest privatized banks in the country.

The bank people had already kicked up a huge ruckus. The issue had already been escalated to the top management of the company.

And he was solely responsible.

Damn. What a horrible time for the issue to crop up, he thinks, with just a month more to go for the probation period to get over. The whole thing could even affect his confirmation.

Then, the cell phone rings. It’s Mom.

“Sreehari”, says Mom, endearingly. “That girl’s mother hasn’t responded yet….”

He was already into his third unsuccessful year of girl-hunting. This one suited him to a T; the horror-scopes gave in too. He wished her family would be as interested as he was.

Horrible day.

“Too bad. I’ll call you later Mom”, he tells. “Very busy now.” He disconnects the call.

Then, he nose-dives into the task at hand, frowning at the monitor, taking occasional sips of cold water, and furiously massaging his aching temples.

Scene 2
6:30 PM
Sreehari’s Office

Two tense hours whizz past, in a flurry of intense activity.

Then Sreehari goes out, has a smoke, comes back and strides confidently towards his Manager’s cubicle.

There is no tension now. Cool and composed, with an air of a person who was unjustly convicted, he starts to speak.

The issue reported has nothing to do with his code, which is working perfectly. Pucca.
All the fuss was a result of a mistake by some ignoramus dealer at the bank, who knows nothing about software. God help these fools!

The manager is happy. He realizes that he wouldn’t get the firing that he dreaded, congratulates Sreehari profusely and rings up the client, the Bank.

The manager waxes eloquent on the quality of his product, and on how unlikely it was for bugs to be found in the system.

Buoyed by Sreehari’s discovery, he even audaciously suggests to the bank that they employ people who are better trained so as to prevent such confusion in the future.

To which, the bank agrees and they also furnish their embarrassed apologies.

In the meanwhile, Sreehari packs his belongings and starts to leave home. The girl’s family must have called Mom by now, he hopes.

He rings up Mom, she doesn’t pick the phone. Must have gone to the temple, he guesses.

Feeling relaxed, he switches on the car stereo, and drives back home.

Scene 3
8:00 PM
Sreehari’s Home

A bit of shopping and Sreehari is back home. Mom has reached back as well.

“Did they call, Mom?” He asks.

Mom answers in the negative.

“Why don’t we call them up?” He pesters.

“I will call them now, then.” Mom consents, looks up the number from the directory as Sreehari waits by her side.

She finds the number and proceeds to dial.

Scene 4
8:05 PM
Sreehari’s Home

“We had come across your daughter’s profile in the matrimony site...” she says. “Wanted to know your reply...”

There is a click at the other end, and then the line goes dead. Mom places the receiver into the cradle.

“The girl’s brother says they are not interested.” Mom says with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

She feels for her son. She knows that her son had really wished that this proposal would go through.

Sreehari has a cup of tea, a quick bath and then climbs upstairs into his room, hiding his disappointment. He tries to get it out of his mind, but cannot.

He wonders what could be wrong, but he is not able to figure out.

He then locks the door, plays his favorite movie on the computer, and sits idly, smoking, cigarette after cigarette.

Scene 5
Ten Minutes Ago
Lakshmi’s Home

Lakshmi and her Mother looks up at her brother Vimal, who has come back from work.

He looks distraught.

They anxiously enquire and come to know that he was fired by the bank for which he worked as a contract employee.

“Initially I thought that it was the mistake of the software people”, he said, wiping the sweat off his brow. “Then they realized it was my mistake, and my contract was terminated.” He sinks into the chair, devastated.

The three of them sit around in a circle, immensely worried, pondering over what could be done. The job loss is a big blow. More so, in these times of recession. And he being the sole breadwinner in the family.

Scene 6
8:05 PM
Lakshmi’s Home

Then the phone rings, its shrill tones cutting through the silence of the room. Vimal gets up, and picks up the phone.

At the other end is the mother of the guy from whom Lakshmi had received a proposal last week.

“We can’t proceed right now”, Vimal mutters into the phone, in a dejected tone, “We are sorry.”

Then he disconnects the line.