Floral scars

Unsung notes hover from

A mad woman’s song .

She walks with a white cloud in her palms

Heavy moments inside.

Orange jasmines trapped in

The mud walls of her home.

Brittle petals and floral scars.

The dung polished floor wafts up

With orange acridity.

White marble glistens

Like a pale diffidence

Forced into a solid pretence of confidence.

Yamuna caresses it like a watchful governess

Trying her best to convert

The weak marbling into

A precipitated, curdled monument.

Lotuses , jasmines,

Tendrils and rubies

Capsized into the moments of curdling and age.

Symmetric symphonies in frieze.

As she walks into her muddy domesticity

Smelling of orange twilight and curd,

The jasmines are tender again,

Blooming forth from mud packed walls.

She picks them out

One by one from their walled captivity

And tucks them in her hair.

There on the banks of Yamuna,

The marble mausoleum

Stands naked.

The capsized rubies have conspired,

The emerald leaves have rebelled,

The flowers on walls

Have fallen like shattered glass.

Paused in space.

Hung in suspended action

Awaiting a bearer to walk by.

Makhmalbaf’s Silent Song

Sokout ( the silence) , Iranian film maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 2007 release, leaves one surrealistically floating in twilight hues. Through an intensely affectionate door, we walk into a little boy Khorshid’s dark world of sweet sounds , silent waters and crimson cherries, while his little friend Nadereh dances to dulcets with petalled petunia nails and a porcelain chastity so ethereal, that one fears for her fragile beauty.

While Khorshid tunes his master’s delroba, Nadereh prances with the cherries dangling on her ears and hands swaying to the waves of his untuned stringed notes. The effect of the scene is ephemeral. So are most of his other imageries in the film. Just when we think we know what we see, the moment turns into a surreal canvas where we no longer know. The beauty of the film lies in this shift in our state of mind where we move from a bourgeois information seeking state to the state where we no longer feel the need to know or be informed. We simply surrender to its experiential spell.

Replete with metaphors , the film takes on a poetic liberty typical of Makhmalbaf.Perceiving a world through blind Khorshid’s ears, the movie captures sound in its most beautiful visual form. Sights that we see, he hears.Little Khorshid , however, hears only sweet sounds.. be it losing his way in the market following a folk singer, or teaching pretty schoolgirls poetry from their own textbooks. So he is made to stuff cotton in his ears, lest he be distracted on the bus and lose his way . Silence for Khorshid , sounds like the lapping waters of the stream where his mother catches fish for a living.

With childlike naïve optimism and with a brazen outlook of an observer of life , the director takes us through a rich canvas of light, colour and texture, and turns them all into sounds for the boy. The boy lives in poverty. He works to support his lonely mother. They face eviction at the hands of their landlord. Time , as always, is cruel in running faster in the face of such situations. These are factual stains of their lives. And the director leaves them untouched with a dignified silence. What he does is to show us the beauty, the wonder, the love and the innocence of purity. The affectionate love of the director towards this boy is embodied in the tone in which Khorshid's mother calls out to him every single time,'Khorshid... Khorsheed jaan!'

Khorshid needs only his sounds, his music and Beethoven’s fifth symphony to make him feel complete . Nadereh , needs only her mirror to make her a queen at the banks of the stream. The street singer needs only his instrument to play out his loneliness for him. Makhmalbaf needs only this silent song , to make us hear the sound and colour of silence.

Gora

Gora , by Rabindranath Tagore , stands as a vast discourse by Tagore for a society which is highly aware and sensitized towards a higher spiritual goal, that surpasses a mere individualistic cocooned frame of life. Tagore, talks through his key characters of the book, and evolves a story of two households that symbolize two schools of thought and religion of Colonised India in the 19^th century. The intellectual and ideological turmoil of the Brahmo Samaj and the Hindu Samaj sets the stage for the story, of seemingly normal middle class families which transcends its mediocrity through its highly evolved and critical characters. Binoy and Gora are the two indispensable friends, who’s bond is very beautifully elaborated by Tagore through the story, being sensitive to many little details of typical human nature , be it their follies, faults, their shortcomings or their morality. In fact, Gora emerges before us, not as a flawless protagonist but as a case – study of man’s many dilemmas in his struggle to realize the essence of his existence. He is the symbol for the constant , undeterred anguished struggle that every human conscience undertakes at some point of his or her life , to place himself in the bigger scheme of things, to define his locus within societal co-ordinates.

However, the stimuli to the actions in the story are its heroines, Sucharita and Lolita. Having been brought up in a Brahmo household, and encouraged to freely discuss personal opinions,(as opposed to the traditional Hindu woman of those times) , these step – sisters are the igniting spirits of the story , who by entering into the heroes’ lives brew up a storm between principles of the head and logic of the heart.

What strikes about this work, is the immense consciousness of the theme. In today’s times, a book based on one ultra patriotic soul urging his fellow men and women to act in a way, as to keep in mind, always, the higher goal of a united ‘Bharatvarsha’ , may seem highly improbable. Yet, the theme stands its ground, speaking from the pre- independence days to this very generation of today. The ringing notes of an individual’s awareness of life as it unfolds in terms of events, of self and of those connected to him, turn into an intense personal churning.

Gora , gradually , succumbs to the trap of an extreme individual identity. Unknowingly , he limits his vision into conventional shackles.His desperate urge towards societal acceptance and an idealistic vision of an efficient social machinery, leads him to embrace dogmatism blindly. He is victimized by himself. However, with the fact of his birth and origin being shattered, that he is in fact of a British parentage and only raised in a Hindu household , Gora is liberated in his state of non-identity. To be one and to be all. Not belonging to any set of beliefs but to be a maker of one’s own.

Gora , is an intense journey. It raises so many questions in your head, answerable and unanswerable, that once through, one cannot but be a changed mind ; in outlook as well as in conscience.

june rains , gokarna #6

8^th june

The feeling of homecoming is overwhelming and I cant stop the smile on my face.As the bus crosses the Sanikatte salt pans, I know, I am in my territory. I surprise ajji with my early arrival. Well, it so happens that she always seems surprised. I see an older, ajji, little weak and frail in movement, but with a content and energetic mien. I have to make my own tea this time after being asked reluctantly by ajji if I can. I succeed only after I have my initials hiccups with the gas knob, and not before ajji has to walk all the way in , a little irksome at my incompetence at the simplest act of making tea.

Time melts here , from one moment to the next and before you know it, it is either lunchtime or teatime or dinner time.(although I must admit, dinner time comes a little slower than the rest). It is calm after a heavy downpour of rains yesterday and the town seems to be in calm slumber. I make my routine trip upto Maneshwara. Quiet and ever lashing, the sea is still there. The beach is still awaiting consumption by the July monsoons. The tiny people are there, screaming at the sheer joy of being in the sea. As always, their voices travel much louder and clearer over the long distance compared to the scale of their sizes from the distance. Everything seems just the same.

Once back, Protima Bedi’s memoirs “timepass” makes me wonder if its an appropriate book for the landscape around me. Scandalous, overtly cathartic and immensely indulgent, the book seems some different alien mind zone from the mind zone of small seaside pilgrim town that is my native town. Nevertheless, I manage to finish the entire reading within the next day, partly out of the fact that it is fast reading and has some juicy insight, and partly because I want it to be out of my way , so that I wont be left disturbed by the dichotomy of the world inside the book and that around me and can enjoy my home.

Up on Ramateertha, the mineral water spring is gushing with monsoon effervescence. Clad in just towels, some pilgrims are bathing free and without a care. I avoid looking , and proceed up to the concrete deck, that for once seems to be the only concrete creation in the town that seems to make sense in serving a purpose. There is a magical spectacle in the sky, as it turns dark and stormy as the rain clouds charge towards me. One has the rare privilege at sea to see the rain clouds bring the menace slowly from the distance; so the element of timing ones run to a shelter offers some excitement and gameplay. That is exactly what I do; wait till the point where the rain curtain is just few kms away.. and then make a dash for home – some sort of mental race with the rain.

Don’t we all do it? Race with the sunrays through the window, race with the seconds hand of the clock, race with the street dog who doesn’t really care ; mental races.

The following morning, I wake up at 5 am and watch a full bloom moon shedding its beautiful moon rays onto the sea waves. The sea gleams silver, ethereal and unearthly.

It is more of the light falling all around that is mesmerizing than the tiny shiny dot itself.

It is like the Midas touch. Moon rays turn everything they touch to ether. I go back to sleep with ethereal dreams.

9^th june

My early morning walking circuit takes me up the hill to Maneshwara, across the hill to Ramteertha, and down the hill to the beach. A foreigner dressed in a yellow cotton shirt and an orange dhoti is sitting at Maneshwara, puffing a cigarette and watching the sea. He looks at me in my boyish red capris walking up the steps, and give me a perplexed smile. Perhaps , he expected a more stereotyped Indian in the setup. I have half the mind to ask him , whether they had the audacity to smoke in their churches too.

I carry on. It is just the beginning of monsoon, so all around the yellow grass has just turned lush green , but not grown long enough for snakes to play hide and seek in them. Therefore, I can walk without being scared of being bitten by a snake and dying in obscurity. The super tall network signal pole (or is it the lightening conductor pole?), stands tall perfectly balanced with its radial chords holding it down , like a captive hero in a movie. There was a feast of tiny cute green birds perched on this pole net, flocks of them, the last time I saw. Watchable yet, unreachable. This time it is barren. There are none of the green wonders to see , only those hidden chirps from the forest , with their own symphony making the silence of the acacia forest a happy silence and not the silence of a graveyard.

As I climb down to the beach, I realize how, everytime, the waves and the sand manage to surprise you. Yet, the surprise is shortlived. Soon , I am a part of it all and no longer a distant object. With sand in my hems and bag pockets, I decide to drop in to check if the little wise one, Chaya and her little devil sister Chaitra are at home.

As I peep in from the porch, out the head pop, one in a frock (as she has not yet got her new school uniform) and the other in her navy blue school dress, getting ready for school. I am reminded of that feeling that comes with morning and school . the little churning in the stomach even if you know you have finished your homework. That feeling of leaving your workbook at home or , wearing the wrong uniform on the wrong day.

They are the same. They haven’t changed. Not even in size. I am quite relieved inside. I have always dreaded coming back to odd grown up freaks turned out of the kids I left behind. They feed me good breakfast and send me home with a nice big jackfruit from their garden.

They have promised they will come after school , in the evening. I will wait.

I have just finished reading “timepass”. It is a thunderous book and sure to leave any reader a little dazed. It walks the thin line , at the heavy risk of sounding very exhibitionistic and repetitive. The core, the sentiments and the essence of the book is very familiar, appealing to my sensibility and quite amusing. The only thing that beyond my rational understanding is her need for the indispensable male company. I like the letters she writes to her son Siddharth, who later committed suicide away from home. The letters contain the sensitivity and sense that feels so right and positive and parental.

10^th june

It is the most pleasant morning. I wake to the voice of my moon; it is music to my ears and resounds long after. The beach is breezy and afloat with my joy.

In my red capris, I get the wild thought of a bull coming charging towards me and tossing me by its horns! Such filmi thoughts cross my mind often.

Two letchers on the beach jeer and smile. I stare back indignantly and the shameless jerk smiles! Now, I am the stupid one to have given such impudence even some notice; shouldn’t have. The beach is infested with such pests. I move on.

Walks on the beach are inherently set to an inherent rhythm of a stroll with necessary pauses and waits. They are far from the fitness regimen workouts with nike shoes on. I find myself smiling so many times. I wish one could telepathically connect. The waves seen from up Bharatgudi hypnotize one into a pin drop stance. Each waves with its white foam trail carries along my palpitating breath and lulls it into a slow rhyme of a steady nothingness. A marine blue kingfisher wakes me up in its flight. It is time to get back to real time.

11^th june

Chaitra comes home, hopping in her anklets in her new frock. It is her sister’s birthday, and I am called to go for a small simple cake cutting ceremony. The birthday girl is in a salwar kameez, busy with her dupatta. On the beach we play ice and water. I run like a child. I don’t seem so bad at the game after all. Spoorthi’s dogs come and join us. One is Raja , the old guy, the other is Pinky, the doe eyed furry tailed daughter of his, and the other is Gunda , her new found goy friend. I hear, that Raja is not on barking terms with his wife, Rani anymore. Sad , indeed.

Chaitra is a funny kid. She suffers a little from the over-shadowed syndrome. Always in comparison with her bright talented sister, she seems complexed about her lack of talent. But she is the caring endearing one, who shares her chocolates with all, clings on to you and plays the wannabe big sister. While Spoorthi and Chaya dance and sing perfectly, she watches on silently, thinking hard ,as to what she can do to impress me. ultimately, she recites an English poem for me. Charming. The little bunch is an immense package of pure joy.

13^th june.

As I pack my bags and sit in the verandah in the dusky sunshine of the evening, all I do is soak in every detail around me. Every little movement, every distant sound, every inch of the canvas before me, and every breath of my dear ajji ; as I leave her alone, sitting in the verandah under the newly repaired incandescent street light , waving back at me.

june rains , gokarna #5

june rains , gokarna #4

Pattern language.

Waves in a constant race

Of frothing patterns

And splashing cisterns.

As water, salt and air bubbles

Salivate at the beach front,

They leave behind patterns

In the sand.

Lately I see patterns in me.

On my skin, in my breath.

As waves heave and crash within.

A bovine herd crosses

The beach.

The pattern of their hoof prints

Makes it simpler,

To pass the time.

june rains , gokarna #3

Kotiteertha is being drained dry.

It seems they want to clean it.

Of what? Of sins?

A million thousand sins must

Be afloat in the tank water.

A water pump , most probably,

Would not want to mess its machine

With this sinful business.

Maybe a sin or two, distilled out

And got stuck into the gear box.

A crystallized sin,

Deposited into one of

Its pipes perhaps.

A layer that reforms,

Every time you scrape it off.

Maybe then, a thoughtful boy,

Chancing upon a precipitated sin,

Bottles it up and

Sells it for 20 Rupees.

Sin on sale !

Are there any buyers?