Wishes From the Dark Waters

Dear Mommy,

I am your daughter,

I want mother and father.

I want to breathe, love and grow,

And I want to walk on my toe.

Let me enjoy the sweet flowers, monsoon showers and warm sunlight,

And allow me to grow without fear and fright.

Let me sleep in your arms and listen to your sweet voice,

And want to play with many, many toys.

Inside your tummy, I’m waiting

For all the joys and love you bring.

So,

Don’t reject me, don’t hate me, don’t kill me

As I want to be alive and be free.

From,

Your unborn girl.

Deep Running Waters

Her lids fall heavily like they were carrying mountain

Her drugged eyes open with same pain

To look at the face she adored that day

With whom she had started the play.

Like two floating bodies in the water

Mesmerized - without the world to bother,

Creating billows in cold winter air

With the stagnant furtive glare.

Swirling, swerving, twirling

The oceans’ center within.

Two converging bodies create

Some vehement current.

The silent waters beneath

Dance with the tempestuous feat

Caused by two wildlings

In mid-winter mornings.

When passion was washed away on bed,

Slept in arms of the other, all cared.

With her last gaze, she sneaked away

In his peaceful sleep there he lay.

The Spectacle

The wind outside couldn’t have been more kinder,

They whistled more wildly now than before.

The moon too, came out from the shadow of clouds

And witnessed whatever it could have.

The stars now shone so brightly

That the sky glimmered as a wedding gown.

Even the night resisted to fade,

And dawn seemed like a distant dream.

The silence of that lonely street

Was adapted from hers.

It was hers…

No one responded to

Her shrieks and her yells,

Her cries and her screeches,

Her squalls and her squeals…

Her body lay still,

Frozen but not dead,

Wounded but not dead,

Damaged but not dead,

Harmed yet not dead.

That supreme soul who inflicted the pain

Had no mercy to kill her.

He repeatedly, shoved his impotence

Between her thighs.

But when that wasn’t enough

He ruined her eternity and ejaculated his humanity.

The silent eyes watched her

All collapsed,

All decomposed,

All naked.

She took what she got,

So the silence was all hers…

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!

A Pause

Walking on the road endlessly

Measuring its pleasures

Your eyes grow voyeuristic,

Seeing and glancing over everything;

A bus on its way

Reaching its desired destination,

A dog barking, sellers yelling, sun shining,

A child crying, his eyes watering…

Water in the ocean-plentiful

Sky- a limitless view of infinite hues

Thoughts- so pensive and intense

Emotion changes like shades of the sun

Time so rapidly moves, it sways

The seasons- such a constant cycle.

Words like me are so mortal!

I is constantly stuck in quagmire-

Unmoving, failing and regressing.

Crisp biscuit in warm coffee

Softening with time, loosing

Spirits, hardness and making.

Leaves of the trees, once rich,

Fresh and new becomes dead and dry.

A rock at the foot

Has no story to tell

But silent waters running deep

Tells tales untold.

A book is once written

Once read and once forgotten.

I have no center to hold,

It will crack and when it does

I will sink

There is no time to wait,

It flees like sand in hand.

The jewels of the night sky

Have begun to fade,

Clouds have begun to appear.

Again

Caught and trapped,

Seized in these pensive moments

I have locked the self.

I don’t know where I exist

In this fleeting time

The becoming has became

And don’t know of what will become.

Eulogy for my Beloved

How can you be so despicable!

Loving you is next to impossible.

You don’t take shower for days

As if you have been a stray kitty.

You take all the pride in the mane you grow,

Fashion it as a style as you know.

My heart thumps to kill you,

When you endlessly play your games

You feel triumphant when you murder visually,

I wonder if I could do that really.

If it is humour that you so praise,

I could use that in number of ways

To not let you know how was it used

A secret joke on you for getting me amused

You brag about the Apples you collect

And endlessly swagger over its seamless make.

I wish I could slice those imported Apples

And have them every day for my breakfast.

You talk endlessly as if you were the only human

Who had the precious speaking ability.

Trust me, my dear, if animals were able enough

You would be outspoken by a rat.

Elephant’s vision can compete yours.

Four eyes and yet so blind?

Everything is always in its place,

My love, only it is you who is lost.

There is not a better pig-head

That I admire the most

Who fails to understand simple logic

But tries to decipher laws of physics.

You laze around like a well-fed lion,

As if you returned from a Trojan war.

Sloth and you have some similarities

Sinful to share the same initials.

You batter my heart with the web of stories

You weave, the fables you narrate and

The tales without tails- Yet you proceed,

Without any shame or guilt.

Loving you is next to impossible,

While you are so despicable!

BlackBerry Boys’ Chauvinism

We learnt how to ignite fire. We learnt the magic of the wheel. We broke mountains, harvested water from the river and reached the moon as well. We have passed the modern age and landed in an age of fast-paced technological age. Great minds have enabled us to have all that we want as Midas’ Touch. Things are just a touch away these days.

Technology does have a colossal impact on our life-style but not majorly impacted on our thoughts. We are still crippled by age old conventions and ideologies that advance very gradually. We have passed through several movements of feminism since its initiation. The ad-world somehow still desires to instill the patriarchal notions. The BlackBerry phone which was initiated as a business phone, that enabled busy people to work anytime and anyplace to get them much and much busier; they started up with a ‘BlackBerry Boys’ ad-campaign to target younger audience. We see the scope of brand growing larger with the sing-song ad. The fast-paced features of internet access, e-mail and the BBM chat attracted many young minds, and BlackBerry was no longer business phone only.

The ad begins with five gentlemen in their “cool suits” and their “shiny shoes” singing the BlackBerry song. They think the BlackBerry adds to their already established 'coolness', or rather the word cool is more associated to ‘cool dude’. To my amazement, I do ponder what makes them think that business phones can be used by business men. How entertainingly they have sidelined businesswomen class! Or in recent case, they have also marginalized girls using the phone for same networking reason as boys. We see how they still inculcate the idea of how technology is better understood by men rather than women. In my defense, I believe the world (chauvinistic) is still unable to grasp the idea of how women can handle technology and nature well, unlike men. With this ad, they are surely boosting their male-chauvinistic ego, while they still desire to call themselves “Boys”.

On asking this question to my friend Anushka, who is also a Blackberry phone user; she denies of having any problem with the ad. It is true for many people that the campaign of ‘BlackBerry Boys’ that propagate “Boys” and not girls go blind.

It seems to me that “Boys” is also used for the purpose of alliteration (Alliteration is the repetition of an initial consonant sound), to make it more catchy. In that case, why couldn’t they use “Babes” for instance? I think it would have shattered their consumption, while they seem to target larger audience, as we see male population on rise in most of the countries. The hegemonic, normative men would have their concerns using a BlackBerry phone or their masculinity would be at stake if they had to use a phone that sung BlackBerry Babes and having lyrics such as:

"We wear tall shoes,
We wear smart dresses,

We are the BlackBerry babes,

Oh Yeah!
We are bright,
we are special,
we are very very special,

We're the BlackBerry babes,
Oh yeah!
We're the BlackBerry babes,

We do chat and
We do shop,
We do surf and we do all on the move,
Ooooooooooo,

Cos, we're the BlackBerry babes,
Oh yeah we're the BlackBerry babes,
We're the BlackBerry babes."

Can you imagine any of the Khans of the industry using the phone cause of an ad singing like this? Or can you imagine any of our so macho cricketers using a phone with such feminine inclination. Many men would not want to buy a phone with such a song propagating it. However, the current Blackberry ad does, effectively, cater to men and women as well just by adding women in the ad sequence and not in the lyric. We see the biased nature of patriarchy shooting themselves on us. In the prior case, such equality would be hampered. The question I would like to bring into light is, even if they created an ad with such a song, would they dare to show men in the ad; as we see many women in the ‘Blackberry Boys’ ad?

And so the tradition continues… The second sequence of ‘Blackberry Boys’ ad propagates the use of the phone by the current pop-generation or the younger generation for chatting and social-networking purposes. The ad somehow essentializes the use of technology that can be appropriated by male counterparts only. However, the ad ‘compensates’ and populates it with the women in it, that really doesn’t seem enough.

We see how in this ‘progressive’ world the binaries between the genders do exist. We still find ourselves caught up in the quagmire of gender discriminations repeatedly propagated through media. While women are still trying to break the glass-ceiling and climbing the corporate ladder, paving their ways through equal opportunities and fighting for it, it is a tragic event to see such incidents happening in the ‘advanced’ world, is regressive and recessive.

A Vista

Taking pride in the knowledge

That I have accumulated,

I stand over the roof.

I look right, I look left.

My visions stretch over the thatched roofs,

Where people look so menial,

Diminutive and of lesser beings.

Lying out-stretched on

The ground and covered in the dust.

Their finger nails soiled in hard-labour

And every breath is breathed for survival.

A dog sleeps next to the man,

There is no shame.

They breathe the same air,

Walk on the same land

And they are under the same sky.

They both worry

For two meals a day.

They are kicked out like garbage

Or pitied by a passer-by.

Charity buys them luck

And sometimes sympathy.

A man in born naked,

He is still naked.

Naked of joys and pleasures,

Laughters and merriments.

He is filled with grieves and sorrows.

He is clothed with struggle and dust.

I see a child not more than fifteen,

Pushing the loaded cart,

Enduring his body to feed his family.

I see an infant unattended,

Left on the floor, wailing.

I see an old lady on the road,

Stretching out her alms and singing boons

To all who throws a penny at her.

I stand on the roof

And observe, and anticipate,

And visualize, and introspect,

And witness, and survey,

And imagine, and watch,

And watch and just watch

And taking pride in the knowledge

That I have accumulated.

A Wall

Brick by brick,

One over the other

For a wall thick.

A room of one’s own

Cannot be broken or torn.

Seldom entered or even known.

No beam of light penetrates

No vagabond air dances

No thoughts wander.

There is a bondage-

a lumber

Of words.

Bound by memoirs

Locked in the past,

I’ve prisoned my own self.

The Hunger

She could have only been seventeen, but he was twenty-nine. He had charmed her in his masculine attitudes and lured her to his bed. She was waiting there and anticipating. He gazed at her immensely until she lowered her eyes and turned her head away. He progressed towards her and swayed her on to the bed.

He unclothed himself and pounced on her as a greedy monkey. He messily peeled her off her clothes and flung them over the floor. He kneaded her body as dough and squeezed and pressed her to the bed. His tongue ferociously began to tread her body. His beard frayed her cheeks. His teeth consumed and began chewing up on her nipples. And finally, he was ready to have the whole pork for himself. Her groans and moans filled the room until he had, had it all.

Thus, their hunger was satisfied.

Out from the window came a loud shrill. A screeching sound of a baby could have been heard very distinctly…

The house was not very far away. It was a small hovel with no proper doors or a window, where a mother had just returned home. It was almost eleven in the night. She took the crying infant out of the cot and patted it. The infant would not stop crying. She fed it with some fetid water, but no good. She later unhooked her blouse and got the infant’s lips closer to her breast. The infant promptly began sucking in whatever it could. Not more than few moments, there was lout cry yet once again.

Her breasts were dried. She had nothing for her to eat. She hooked her blouse and left the infant crying on the floor. She sat there, on the floor, her elbow on the knee and slapped her forehead.

While Studying “The Remains of the Feast”

I never thought I would have looked my granny the other way. The Other Way as in, would never think of her plight in a different perspective. For half a century, she has remained a widow, a loving, caring, giving and never asking daughter-in-law, mother and grandmother. But, never a wife or a beloved; too caught up in her rituals of being a woman than being herself. I do, really, do wonder what it would be like to lead a life so Chaste, so Pure and so unprivileged.

“The Remains of the Feast” is an interesting, ironic short-story narrated by Gita Hariharan. The story is told by the great grand daughter, who teams up with her dying great grand mother and helps her break all the shackles of tradition, caste, age and widow-hood. There are funny incidents in the story that makes one chuckle oftenly. She smartly juxtaposes traditional-ity and moderni-ity, old and young, conservative and progressive beliefs. It is a story where the writer makes one introspect of the life one leads and how often do we forget the desires of the body.

It was in this story where the light was thrown on the plight of Hindu women in India. My grandmother fits perfectly in the frame that is drawn by Gita Hariharan. We see that the old woman in the story has interesting sense of humor, a body so resilient and healthy and learns to absorb her own pain. That so made me remind of my own sweet granny. She voluntarily gave up on wearing coloured clothes, stopped eating onion, potatoes and garlic, voluntarily avoided going out to family functions and dinners.

My eyes swelled up with tears in Dr. Ghosh’s lecture where she kept on revealing the quandary of widowhood. I kept on imagining my granny, not smiling because it was not appropriate, not going out because she has no male protection, not wearing colored clothes because she cant woo or attract any male gaze. Barely, I could concentrate for a while and my mind kept on swaying between the stories of her life and the on-going lecture. I could clearly recall what she told me once:

“I was sixteen when I was engaged, seventeen when I was married, eighteen when your father was born, twenty-your aunt and at twenty one I was a WIDOW. That’s it.”

Not a word after that and she would turn her head and start to fold her clothes again and sinks into her memories of the past and leave me with more and more questions. Questions of how she could take that much of oppression, why was she not allowed to be free and make her own choice? She became too much of what society expects of a woman. And she became one.

She made a life of our ignorances. She harnessed her tears under the blanket. She accepted what she dint deserve and courageous enough to wear a smile on her face. Embracing the silences, she carried the yoke of widowhood all through her life, for almost fifty years. I guess that is what is moving on. When I cried, those tears were not out of pity or sympathy of her predicament, it was because I never realized that how I had failed her, failed her in understanding her miseries, difficulties and apathies. It is too difficult to give up on what you desire; she readily gave up hers, her wants, her life and her self.

Being Human

I walk down the skywalk over the Santacruz Station. Watching people pass by looking up-to-down at me; a stray dog has nothing to follow; so he wanders off to any strange sound, just like me. In a dingy corner on the bridge, which locals treat it as their own personal spittoon, is a beggar, very old with his palms stretched out to every walking person and simply pleading with mercy and calling out blessings for all who spare and don’t give a penny.

It was out of the blue where I will to share, only share a penny that belongs to me, give away and dish it out only because of my polite heart was filled with sympathy. Some more blessings from his mouth were transferred into the pockets of my karma. I walk away and stand aside to wait for my friends. Engaging myself into a Derridian talk, I divert my attention to something more significant and advanced.

On my route back, I check my pocket for the change given to me by the bus conductor. Finding it missing, I check again. The missing penny had its root in the morning when I offered it to the beggar. I then realized, how easy it was for me to forget the charity that started my morning. The CHARITY, perhaps, only namesake was actually an act of sympathy, pity, shame and self-loathing. If it wasn’t for sharing or sparing a penny but offering, it would have been a genuine charity. I heard bells ringing in my mind recalling a poem by Eunice de Souza “Feeding the Poor at Christmas”.

Lucky was that poor man, who didn’t have to think too much about morals and virtues. I, the giver is now muddled of not knowing what is genuine and ingenuine. We should be great liars to call ourselves connoisseurs and aficionados, while we can barely differentiate between our mind and heart. Playing GOD, is all we like to do but we are turning away from the real essence of being what we truly are, a simple human.