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…

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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)