Sunday mid night I am in deep sleep. It seems my phone has ringed and My room mate gave it to me saying you got a call and and it was over before i picked, It seems you have message. I read : “Bond died”. I was shocked. It was just few days I was chatting to him in gtalk , about his plan to go to kolkata. He was beaming that with that he would have gone to all metros...typical of him. He speaks speaks speaks for hours, elaborating on things...He will tell the story of a 3 hours movie for 3 hours.
I still remember the day i met him. I had joined company from campus and was looking for a house. I took room with Thiru who joined with me in the company. He said two of his college mates will join with us. I was moving to that house on night and bond was there. He told me his name is Vinoth and people call him bond. He started to speak as if he knew me for years. No one called him Vinoth. For all he is bond, even to the lady who came to cook food for us....
I think it was on Saturday or Sunday, I saw him in gtalk , but as I spoke to him just few days back I didn't ping him. I thought i can ping him later. Later , that's how we take things in life. We take things for granted. We take our things will exist and by a crude stroke by a moment its gone. Sometimes life is so cruel , it never gives a second chance. It throws us just questions, questions any single answer we find throws open hundreds of question and all of a sudden in fraction of moment it wipes us out. All this for what purpose? What greater good? what end ?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
தப்பித்தல்
சிறை பட்டு,
தரை பார்த்து,
உறை பனியாய் கிடக்கும் நாட்களில்
கரைந்து போகாமல்,
கரை கடப்பது எப்போது?
தரை பார்த்து,
உறை பனியாய் கிடக்கும் நாட்களில்
கரைந்து போகாமல்,
கரை கடப்பது எப்போது?
Sunday, December 21, 2008
System
There are four coins in the table I have an option to chose one. I chose one on my free will. So were all millions of people before and after me. Based on what every one chose surely there would have been a probability of what I might have chosen. As billions and billions people had chosen the probability would be damn accurate with an negligible error percent. If what I chose could have been predicted without ‘me’ does that not mean I have no free will? Didn’t I choose what I shall have chosen?
No. Because the probability is from the perspective of the system. If the system has predicted I might chose coin A and if I chose coin B then it is only a negligible error for the system for which I am one among the sample space of billions. I am no longer an error, only a noise. The fundamental premise of the system is the common denominator of a huge population, which is called the social behavior. It is not something that existed. It is something that has evolved just because more people decided to choose a coin over the other three. But the system conveniently can forget it and project on collective consciousness as it will make the system more reliable and simple. If a system has to be reliable it has to be simple enough for more people to believe and not simple enough to understand.
Do I change anything in system by choosing otherwise? No I can’t change the system. It’s not even my intention. My intention is my own ends. If my choice is in line with system prediction it embraces it. If not throws out me as noise.
No. Because the probability is from the perspective of the system. If the system has predicted I might chose coin A and if I chose coin B then it is only a negligible error for the system for which I am one among the sample space of billions. I am no longer an error, only a noise. The fundamental premise of the system is the common denominator of a huge population, which is called the social behavior. It is not something that existed. It is something that has evolved just because more people decided to choose a coin over the other three. But the system conveniently can forget it and project on collective consciousness as it will make the system more reliable and simple. If a system has to be reliable it has to be simple enough for more people to believe and not simple enough to understand.
Do I change anything in system by choosing otherwise? No I can’t change the system. It’s not even my intention. My intention is my own ends. If my choice is in line with system prediction it embraces it. If not throws out me as noise.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The bicycle thieves
Films are essentially about what it creates in you when you watch. But still context matters, more, older the film is. For the films which don't belong to our times, the one about which we read so many times, which we want to see because everyone you awe, awed about it. If we don't know the context, we may miss the beat. We may fail to understand why it was so pulsating then(though not now). The bicycle thieves also needs one such context. If we don't remember (to be exact force ourselves to remember), once cycle itself a luxury, we can ask what the heck, its a cycle.
The movie is more like a short story. It's during great depression times in Italy. The hero gets a job, when everyone struggles to get it. His job is to post flyers. He needs cycle for it. He talks to his wife about his rotten luck of having job and not to go. His wife takes the bed spreads which came as a present for her marriage,(which will explain why she is soar when she takes it to pawn shop) to pawn shop. With the pledged money he retrieves the cycle he pledged long time back. The whole country is running through pawn shops. It is one of the beautifully shot scene in the film. He goes to next counter in the same shop to redeem his cycle. At that time a person carries the bed spreads to store it. He enters a room which is filled with nothing but pledged bedspreads, as if the whole countries bed spreads just lie there.
While in work bunch of guys steal his cycle. The remaining movie is his search for it. During the process he even goes and meet an evangelist , whom he ridicules when his wife go to pay her for prediction that her husband will get job. He becomes a believer, he walk through all roads with his son for cycle. At last when he realizes he can't get the cycle, he decides to steal one. He steals and get caught. People beat him , and all this happens before his son. He walks back with his son. No longer its just a cycle that he lost.
The movie is more like a short story. It's during great depression times in Italy. The hero gets a job, when everyone struggles to get it. His job is to post flyers. He needs cycle for it. He talks to his wife about his rotten luck of having job and not to go. His wife takes the bed spreads which came as a present for her marriage,(which will explain why she is soar when she takes it to pawn shop) to pawn shop. With the pledged money he retrieves the cycle he pledged long time back. The whole country is running through pawn shops. It is one of the beautifully shot scene in the film. He goes to next counter in the same shop to redeem his cycle. At that time a person carries the bed spreads to store it. He enters a room which is filled with nothing but pledged bedspreads, as if the whole countries bed spreads just lie there.
While in work bunch of guys steal his cycle. The remaining movie is his search for it. During the process he even goes and meet an evangelist , whom he ridicules when his wife go to pay her for prediction that her husband will get job. He becomes a believer, he walk through all roads with his son for cycle. At last when he realizes he can't get the cycle, he decides to steal one. He steals and get caught. People beat him , and all this happens before his son. He walks back with his son. No longer its just a cycle that he lost.
The film still has relevance: you can replace a cycle with something. What makes a person to commit his first crime? The little push that starts the free fall of human character. Human character- that’s the word we use to define a man .Man who is actually what he is made of ,all those virtues he wrapped himself which might be of no value, they can't protect him if the things turns out to be too vicious to not break up. As the movie closes he walks back towards home, wiping his face with kerchief and his son holds his hand and his face is filled with tear, it can break anytime.
Its a neorealist film, the earliest of films that used real people and not actors in movie. But not those 'first of time' that makes this movie stand against winds of time. Its relevance, the concept it speaks about and the way it speaks. The way it follows a man's search for his cycle, his only source of hope to a normal life in a dying country. How far he goes to get it back, how much he puts in stake to get it, how much he will take before he gets broke. A movie more than just worth to watch for.....
Note: I thought of the interesting movies I watched last 2 weeks in a single post but will post others later
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Hours----time ticks
Books (even movies and music) are like wine, they need to get old with time before declaring them masterpiece. It needs more than one sip to peel out the various aromas they will give. Their taste more often don’t lie with buds in tongue but on the way it travels in and the sense it gives. But we can say whether it can become a good wine ,the moment it was pour in to the cask for storage. On my first read of ‘the hours’, exactly that’s what I felt: It’s a good read.
The novel traces 3 stories or could I say 3 independent incidents. Each one is rooted to its past and impacted profoundly by what they are and how they were. Virginia wolf is about to write her greatest story, “Mrs. Dalloway”. As that particular day unfolds she decides about what each character will do. What actually dictates their character? What she is, what she want to be, how she conflicts and collide with people conjures up as a story. It’s a magic of capturing the moment where a flower blossoms and the sweet scent fills the room. It’s a momentary feel, technically you can say the instant where it happened report it micro second by microsecond, but still you might not have told what actually happened. But Michael Cunningham transpires it beautifully. May be it’s because he took the literary freedom and made a story out of incidents that transpired over a period of time. May be, Virginia wolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway and she had committed suicide later in her life is the only fact that he stated. May be all things he stated are actually happened in his mind. What the heck …its so beautifully told, with all those powerful words, expressions and metaphors above all its relevance to life, the real life, not the life of blood and skin but that of the grey and white matter.
Mrs. Lara Brown has a picture perfect family, what most will long for. She has a war hero husband who is sincere in his work and in his care for family. On his birthday, he wakes up before his wife, buys flower and makes breakfast for his son. He senses his wife is dull but he attributes it to her pregnancy. He is, the common man, the successful common man. But the problem is Laura is not looking for him. What she wants is not this. But can she say it? She fills her life in reading books. Her everyday is struggle between the life she wish to have and the life she have which is filled with the people who love her and care for her. On the particular day she is reading the novel “Mrs. Dalloway”. You could blame the novel she was reading or the passionate kiss she gave to Kity, which made her understand her lesbian interest or who knows what inside her brain, she decides to commit suicide. But her love for life stops her from doing it and she returns to her family. Eventually she leaves her family and runs to Canada and spends her life as a librarian.
Clarissa is an editor living with her lesbian partner in New York. She is busy on the day with the party she is planning for her friend, Richard. Richard, an AIDS patient who is counting his days to death, has been awarded a literary honor, for the only novel he wrote, which spends reams and reams of paper about nothing. The only thing, who ever read it understood is (from the lady who sells the flowers to Richard‘s gay partner), he has spoken in length about Clarissa. He has a chapter running for pages which simply states how much time Clarissa had spent in a nail polish shop , ending up not buying any nail polish .‘The hours’ presents itself a book on existentialism, on marginal people, what not. But at the end, all I could feel is, it is the best love story I have ever read. The one that Clarissa has on Richard and the one Richard has on Clarissa. Of all the things that happened to her she still remembers the day, the kiss she shared with Richard. That was the happiness. She thought it was the starting. But thirty years later she knew it was the moment. Richard (only Richard) call her Mrs. Dalloway for reasons no one know. May be on a crazy moment when both knew each love one another more than anything else, on the moment of pinnacle of one’s happiness he started to call her Mrs. Dalloway and he calling her so continues. Clarissa, still wonders, how it could have been if they chose to be together. They are not together; it’s more because of their love for them, which is actually their love for life. Some hours before the party, Richard commits suicide. How much it affects Clarissa? It looks she knew it all way. Her love for day is slightly more than her love for Richard. After all that’s what keeps us moving, isn‘t it? In spite of all the heartbreaks, all those hours which just exist to remind us the good old time once we had. We all rooted in our past and we still look forward for day for reasons no one can say how. The concluding line of the novel best surmises it:
“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.”
The novel traces 3 stories or could I say 3 independent incidents. Each one is rooted to its past and impacted profoundly by what they are and how they were. Virginia wolf is about to write her greatest story, “Mrs. Dalloway”. As that particular day unfolds she decides about what each character will do. What actually dictates their character? What she is, what she want to be, how she conflicts and collide with people conjures up as a story. It’s a magic of capturing the moment where a flower blossoms and the sweet scent fills the room. It’s a momentary feel, technically you can say the instant where it happened report it micro second by microsecond, but still you might not have told what actually happened. But Michael Cunningham transpires it beautifully. May be it’s because he took the literary freedom and made a story out of incidents that transpired over a period of time. May be, Virginia wolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway and she had committed suicide later in her life is the only fact that he stated. May be all things he stated are actually happened in his mind. What the heck …its so beautifully told, with all those powerful words, expressions and metaphors above all its relevance to life, the real life, not the life of blood and skin but that of the grey and white matter.
Mrs. Lara Brown has a picture perfect family, what most will long for. She has a war hero husband who is sincere in his work and in his care for family. On his birthday, he wakes up before his wife, buys flower and makes breakfast for his son. He senses his wife is dull but he attributes it to her pregnancy. He is, the common man, the successful common man. But the problem is Laura is not looking for him. What she wants is not this. But can she say it? She fills her life in reading books. Her everyday is struggle between the life she wish to have and the life she have which is filled with the people who love her and care for her. On the particular day she is reading the novel “Mrs. Dalloway”. You could blame the novel she was reading or the passionate kiss she gave to Kity, which made her understand her lesbian interest or who knows what inside her brain, she decides to commit suicide. But her love for life stops her from doing it and she returns to her family. Eventually she leaves her family and runs to Canada and spends her life as a librarian.
Clarissa is an editor living with her lesbian partner in New York. She is busy on the day with the party she is planning for her friend, Richard. Richard, an AIDS patient who is counting his days to death, has been awarded a literary honor, for the only novel he wrote, which spends reams and reams of paper about nothing. The only thing, who ever read it understood is (from the lady who sells the flowers to Richard‘s gay partner), he has spoken in length about Clarissa. He has a chapter running for pages which simply states how much time Clarissa had spent in a nail polish shop , ending up not buying any nail polish .‘The hours’ presents itself a book on existentialism, on marginal people, what not. But at the end, all I could feel is, it is the best love story I have ever read. The one that Clarissa has on Richard and the one Richard has on Clarissa. Of all the things that happened to her she still remembers the day, the kiss she shared with Richard. That was the happiness. She thought it was the starting. But thirty years later she knew it was the moment. Richard (only Richard) call her Mrs. Dalloway for reasons no one know. May be on a crazy moment when both knew each love one another more than anything else, on the moment of pinnacle of one’s happiness he started to call her Mrs. Dalloway and he calling her so continues. Clarissa, still wonders, how it could have been if they chose to be together. They are not together; it’s more because of their love for them, which is actually their love for life. Some hours before the party, Richard commits suicide. How much it affects Clarissa? It looks she knew it all way. Her love for day is slightly more than her love for Richard. After all that’s what keeps us moving, isn‘t it? In spite of all the heartbreaks, all those hours which just exist to remind us the good old time once we had. We all rooted in our past and we still look forward for day for reasons no one can say how. The concluding line of the novel best surmises it:
“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Life is all about living
For the sake of convenience let’s assume I met this lady, who is in her fifties, somewhere in my life and we were talking about something which ended up about war.
I saw some news, it seems some blast in your country. Is it war? She asked.
Well it’s not war, as countries fight, but some fundamentalist and terrorist organization, I told her.
“War is bad, too bad”, she continued. They will give a warning and will drop the bombs. I was a kid. 10 years old. I was in street for shopping. One such sound came. People were running. I don’t know what to do. I saw a shop owner closing his shop. I went in. I was a small kid. Her hands were showing a small height, and her eyes were lost somewhere. So he allowed inside and closed the door. There was a heavy sound of shells dropping and guns shooting (actually she made the sound). Then after 10 minutes no sound. The shop owner opened the door slightly and saw outside. He asked me to wait for some time then after an hour he opened the door and asked me where I Live. I told it’s just few blocks away. I came out. Its dead bodies on street. I saw my parents searching for me in them. When I used to go to school, I will see these dead soldiers in age of 13 or 17 outside the church . It will disturb me. It still disturbs me. I take medicine. I talk with people, consult doctor otherwise I may get depressed. If I saw any such news in TV, my husband will switch off the TV. Suddenly in night I may wake up, because I may hear the shooting sound and the light that chased me when I tried to escape. If my son plays music loud, I ask him to reduce. I don’t know why there is war but war is bad.
I don’t know what to say. I simply saw her. She was regaining her control. She said life is going. When I landed in this country, it was cold, I was having no winter dress, I am standing in bus stop and I don’t know the language. Then I said to myself If I have to live here I shall first learn the language then some education to work. Now I am here.
Something got into my stomach, but at the same time I felt how lucky I was. I was not born in a place torn by war or by poverty or by natural disaster. It doesn’t mean nothing could happen in future. It simply means so far so good. I sit here and cry about my rat race failures: the guy next to me bought a house or got promoted or got ....,what not, while there are millions and millions of people who aren’t sure of the next day (and even if it happens it means nothing to them). I am not talking about getting complacency or renunciation of worldly desire or the emotional black mail ( you are in a better position than them). The thing that I am trying to drive to myself is: Life is not fair. Lot of things happens; you attribute it to chaos, probability or the God. But move on. That lady tried four times to escape and got and finally landed in a country with no money, no language. Now she is self standing women with a caring husband and nice kid. Yes, she is still tormented by her memories, but she never surrendered to it. She had her kept her spirits high. The spirit, the life, keeping it alive is the activity one is supposed to do. It’s what living is all about. Everyone has a way of doing it. Its not the end result, he gets in it that keeps his spirit, it is the process of doing it. The end result is a tiny moment. The process, the means, that’s where we spend most of our time. If you are not happy about it, it doesn’t matter what you get at end. Lot of things can decide how it turns it out but nothing stops u from doing it except you.
I saw some news, it seems some blast in your country. Is it war? She asked.
Well it’s not war, as countries fight, but some fundamentalist and terrorist organization, I told her.
“War is bad, too bad”, she continued. They will give a warning and will drop the bombs. I was a kid. 10 years old. I was in street for shopping. One such sound came. People were running. I don’t know what to do. I saw a shop owner closing his shop. I went in. I was a small kid. Her hands were showing a small height, and her eyes were lost somewhere. So he allowed inside and closed the door. There was a heavy sound of shells dropping and guns shooting (actually she made the sound). Then after 10 minutes no sound. The shop owner opened the door slightly and saw outside. He asked me to wait for some time then after an hour he opened the door and asked me where I Live. I told it’s just few blocks away. I came out. Its dead bodies on street. I saw my parents searching for me in them. When I used to go to school, I will see these dead soldiers in age of 13 or 17 outside the church . It will disturb me. It still disturbs me. I take medicine. I talk with people, consult doctor otherwise I may get depressed. If I saw any such news in TV, my husband will switch off the TV. Suddenly in night I may wake up, because I may hear the shooting sound and the light that chased me when I tried to escape. If my son plays music loud, I ask him to reduce. I don’t know why there is war but war is bad.
I don’t know what to say. I simply saw her. She was regaining her control. She said life is going. When I landed in this country, it was cold, I was having no winter dress, I am standing in bus stop and I don’t know the language. Then I said to myself If I have to live here I shall first learn the language then some education to work. Now I am here.
Something got into my stomach, but at the same time I felt how lucky I was. I was not born in a place torn by war or by poverty or by natural disaster. It doesn’t mean nothing could happen in future. It simply means so far so good. I sit here and cry about my rat race failures: the guy next to me bought a house or got promoted or got ....,what not, while there are millions and millions of people who aren’t sure of the next day (and even if it happens it means nothing to them). I am not talking about getting complacency or renunciation of worldly desire or the emotional black mail ( you are in a better position than them). The thing that I am trying to drive to myself is: Life is not fair. Lot of things happens; you attribute it to chaos, probability or the God. But move on. That lady tried four times to escape and got and finally landed in a country with no money, no language. Now she is self standing women with a caring husband and nice kid. Yes, she is still tormented by her memories, but she never surrendered to it. She had her kept her spirits high. The spirit, the life, keeping it alive is the activity one is supposed to do. It’s what living is all about. Everyone has a way of doing it. Its not the end result, he gets in it that keeps his spirit, it is the process of doing it. The end result is a tiny moment. The process, the means, that’s where we spend most of our time. If you are not happy about it, it doesn’t matter what you get at end. Lot of things can decide how it turns it out but nothing stops u from doing it except you.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
மீண்டும்
சொன்னதையே சொல்லி, பேசியதியே பேசி,
நேரத்தை நீட்டி, காலத்தை கரைத்து,
கடல் தாண்ட முடியாது -என தெரிந்தாலும்,
கரை கலக்கும் முயற்சியிலே வாழ்க்கையை கானும் அலையாய் -
கண் மூடி,
உலகம் உறங்குவதாய் நினைத்துகொள்வது கூட சுகம் தான்.
உடைந்த கண்ணாடியில்,
பெருகும் பிம்பமாய் என்னுள் நீ.
p.s:
நீண்ட காலமாய், தமிழில் எதுவும் எழுதவில்லை. எதவாது எழுதியே தீரவேண்டும் என் முடிவு செய்த பொழுது, ஒரு காதல் கவிதை எழுத முடிவு செய்த காரணம், சுலபமாக செய்யக்கூடியது அதுவாக மட்டுமே பட்டது.
நேரத்தை நீட்டி, காலத்தை கரைத்து,
கடல் தாண்ட முடியாது -என தெரிந்தாலும்,
கரை கலக்கும் முயற்சியிலே வாழ்க்கையை கானும் அலையாய் -
கண் மூடி,
உலகம் உறங்குவதாய் நினைத்துகொள்வது கூட சுகம் தான்.
உடைந்த கண்ணாடியில்,
பெருகும் பிம்பமாய் என்னுள் நீ.
p.s:
நீண்ட காலமாய், தமிழில் எதுவும் எழுதவில்லை. எதவாது எழுதியே தீரவேண்டும் என் முடிவு செய்த பொழுது, ஒரு காதல் கவிதை எழுத முடிவு செய்த காரணம், சுலபமாக செய்யக்கூடியது அதுவாக மட்டுமே பட்டது.
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