A Glance Outside

It is 6. oo clock. The city barely sleeps.

The coy sun, behind the clouds

Lazily stretches out orange rays.

Morning autumn wind lashes my face,

The train briskly hurries to the destination.

The celestial sky above 

With almost white dappled clouds

Look down while I gaze up.

The moon descends with ascending light.

One dies while other is born.

The train keeps moving. 

Dwelling in high nature over

I dream in ecstasy of life.

Escape and desire lures my heart.

My gaze descends upon the road i travel

Filled with filth and dirt.

The horizon that lies,

Divides the earth and heaven,

Now in beauty and ugly

Is the real and surreal,

The man and the nature.

The train keeps moving.

I account the lesser greens

And more of browns and grays,

The metal sheets rest against the walls, 

The light flowery cloth

Waves in and out of door frame.

The sound of machine mutes

The early morning crowing and piping of birds.

The hoarding grows instead of trees,

The gutters lie open, emitting

The smell of the ugly truth.

The train never halts.

Then i see several naked bottoms

Squatting along the railway tracks

Excreting the hard labor 

In which they harnessed

The life of misery and poverty.

On the platform i see,

While a man sleepily sweeps,

The dog rests on the bench,

The drunk dead man on the floor,

Whereas, the lunatic speaks without an audience.

The train never halts.

The Spotless Mind

You sleep, just like others

In the night, when the stars are bright

And the moon, even brighter.

You close your eyes and rest peacefully,

Pretending to sleep.

But, you are not asleep,

Wide awake, living in a world

Of light and life.

You escape the night

In fear and terror

Of the dark and the depth.

You know, in the abyss of the gloom

Lies your weakness.

Monsters of your conscience come seeking

Hungrily, to bite and shred your heart

And mind into million pieces.

But, you escape!

You are coward!

You can’t face yourself!

You deny your own voice!

You run, run fast!

And before you are caught…

…You sleep, just like others
In the night, when the stars are bright

And the moon even brighter.

My Taste of Barfi

The movie starts unusually with the cop chasing the hero, which is an interesting comical start leaving the audience to think what the back story is. The director, Anurag Basu, has caught his audience within that moment and holds them till the end with his remarkable directing skills by taking the audience on a roller-coaster ride from past to present, happy to sad moments side-by-side.

The cast starring Ranbir Kapoor (Murphy/Barfi), Priyanka Chopra (Jilmil) and the debutant Ileana D’Cruz (Shruti) have done justice to their role. The music by Pritam and the playback singing of Mohit Chauhan, too, have added very well to the movie’s silent parts. Not to forget the setting of the movie that’s shot so beautifully,  in the landscapes of Darjeeling and parts of Kolkata, has moved the audience away from the pandemonium and chaos of city life, keeping it simple juxtaposing the simple lives of the characters.

This romantic-comedy movie has tickled the audience’s funny bone right from the beginning until the end. There have been “Awww” moments when Barfi is betrayed by Shruti, when she chooses to get married to an aristocratic Bengali man than to marry a physically-impaired, Barfi. Series of troubles follow after this rejection like, his father losing the job, death of his father, the only family member and struggling for money. However, his happiness outshines most of his trouble and eventually finds his happiness and love with Jilmil, an autistic girl. This unusual love-story between them awes the audience.

The movie seems to portray how Barfi and Jilmil, rejected, misunderstood and isolated by society have finally found solace with each other and have rightly understood other’s need and affection. It also seems to show how falling in love for such people is not impossible. Somehow, the movie seems to critique the “normal” people’s attitude that fail to understand people like Jilmil and Barfi and are mostly kept aloof in asylum or are rejected like Barfi.

What strikes me the most is the on-going comedy, in spite of the tragic moments. Basu has rightly inculcated Chaplinesque moments that does away with the tragedy of their life. Through the use of comedy all throughout, the movie ridicules the reality and also, it is not at all left heavy on the audience.  These are the moments that have definitely touched the audience. Ranbir’s outstanding imitation of Chaplin has marked the epitome of his acting career. Also, Priyanka’s acting of an autistic girl and de-glamourized side of the diva too has added quintessence to her acting career. Both the characters have touched the audience’s hearts.

The movie is embraced by most of the audience, and I too, couldn’t stop humming on to Barfi’s tune. Such was a sweet taste of Barfi!

Reverie

A wakeful sleeping

Of sleepless slumbers-

Opening at the shut

Of closed beginning,

Where befuddled emotions

In an endless maze

Perform a supernatural play.

The real morphs into unreal

The mute voices speaks of stories

Seldom seen or heard.

The illusional self

And delusional beings

Trapped in a cage

Behind the closed lids.

So much lay hidden

Like the treasures

Of deep ocean trenches.

The pearls and weeds

Grow harmoniously

And the waves

Whipping and lashing the shore.

By a whisker it is understood,

Barely spoken,

But always forgotten

Lies a dream somewhere

Behind the lenses

Awake or asleep-

Is a dreamer dreaming of dreams.

Timeless Giggles

Smallest things give the greatest joy and that is where our greatest happiness lies. It was my first pay and I was exhilarated. With that, I purchased my new smart phone with activated 3G connectivity, first to have to have it in the family. I carried it as the badge of my pride, as I had earned it to feel that. I flaunted it to all my family members, happiness simply multiplied. I can never forget those happy faces. It was only later on that phone had become burden for me. I had to do my work on Sunday’s as well as I had easy access to internet from anywhere.

World Of Mobile
Image Courtesy: webdesignsingapore.org

One Sunday while working, my ten year old nephew walked up to me and asked, “Popo (that is what he calls me), ain’t your phone fun? My friend’s dad has it… and he plays games on it all the time.”

I dint know what to tell him. I smiled at him and opened the Pandora’s Box and showed him what internet, games, apps, videos and social networking was. I told him how internet had enabled us and get all things on our finger touch. How I could work online, how I could surf the web on the move, how I could shop and in between he asked me, “Can we download games for free or do we have to buy?” I smiled and said “Yes, we could do both.”

I was amazed by the way he swallowed all the information. They are fast! It was not too late before he started operating my phone all by himself and showed me more fun features and taught me how to use maps and games. I saw him having fun more than ever. Without me teaching him, he learnt to download his favourite songs, wallpapers and mobile apps all by himself! Wow! Children are getting smart with smart technology.  I thought to myself.

Few weeks later, I woke up with some giggles coming from the hallway. It was time to go for work, so I just brushed around to see who it was. I saw my grandparents, working on my mobile.

NO. That’s not what they did.  I moved slightly closer to have a clear picture. I saw my grandfather was showing something to my bed-ridden grandma on my phone. I dint really want to disturb them, but my grandma replied just like my nephew with the same excitement in her tone, “I saw my friend after 30 years.”  Then I heard my grandpa say, “That was Facebook. This phone, it’s just like Alice’s Wonderland.” I dint quite understand what he meant but I felt he was charmed by the phone that could do everything. I wondered if it was phone or the internet on the phone that made my grandparents behave like kids!

I appreciated his imagination, and then I wondered how he had learned all this. To my surprise, he grasped the same knowledge that I fed my nephew with. He was watching, learning and understanding at the same time.

Few more giggles were heard when they were enjoying themselves with ‘Talking Tom Cat’ app. I just couldn’t enjoy myself more with their joys. I couldn’t believe such things were making them happy, while they remain vital part of my life. Internet, Facebook, applications, chatting, games much more on my mobile had become mundane for me while it was pristine joy, pleasure and fun for them! While I thought internet on mobile was work, email, more work and more mails…but for them internet on mobile was fun!!! Yes, they made me realise that internet is not just work but a lot more fun!

This post is my entry for the indiBlogger.in contest ‘Internet is fun’, sponsored by Vodafone. Readers can have a look at the Vodafone fun page – http://www.vodafone.in/fun

A Looking Glass

A fumbling hand strikes a glass,

Falling, shattering, breaking

Into pieces ten thousands

That lay dead on the floor;

Like a broken dream

I lie like a corpse in a deep slumber.

Hope I could have survived

This tragedy, loss and suffering

That has occurred to the world;

That lies in the nadir of pain, desolation

And whose wretchedness

Has spared no being - worthy or kind.

These moments have scarred

My heart, my soul, my self

And I see how cracks have appeared

Through which agony has found

Its course in the abyss of my conscience

Tearing and breaking me.

Like the glass pieces on the floor

That is sharp yet futile

And has no form or structure;

Separated, isolated and sequestered

Self, A face – broken and ruined

Is what I see in the glass.

Pen(is) Mighty When I hold It

I, I flirt a lot,

Going around, encompassing all

The thoughts, the words

And breed more in darkness-

The intense passion.

Initiation- make a move

I do it, do it all,

I play a lot with them

Swirl them, turn them, toy them.

They get better with more touch.

Our naked souls converge.

We get to the point,

Bereft of our coyness,

Ideas begin to penetrate my head,

Desiring for more and more.

Inserting pen on the sheet laid wide,

Expelling all that I am aware of

At the zenith of heat generated,

I deliver the climax and

The final sigh of pleasure!