Babies

Thomas Balmes' Babies is a full length Documentary from France on four different babies belonging to different parts of the world. It is a novel attempt to document the birth of the babies who are born in different clime and atmosphere. The concept of the movie is the brain child of Alain Chabat, also the producer of the film, and was adopted by the director Thomas Balmes appreciatively to engender the thought-baby. The documentary opens with two African babies sitting in the mud and playing with stone and clay. There starts a tussle between them over grabbing an empty plastic can and one of the babies begins beating the other. The camera moves down memory lane showing the bulged stomach of an African mother daubing the mineral an calcite rich mud on her belly. The child is Ponijao, a male child, from Namibia. The chosen mother belongs to a particular tribe that lives on the forest plains of Namibia. The women do not wear any cloth to cover the upper torso and child is fed with their bare breasts. The setting is rustic and embraces nature harmoniously. The father of the child is not even shown whereas the Japanese and the American patriarchs contribute much to the accompaniment with the baby. On the other hand the Mongolian child's father does only a patriarchal cameo.

The next child is Mari from Japan, the only other female child chosen among the four, and a completely contrasting surrounding nurtures her. The couple of the child lives in a cosy apartment and Mari is brought up in gadget filled house. The next one is the Mongolian baby Bayar, born in the community of cattle-tenders occupying a vast plain of between glade and savannah. They live in decorated and beautifully pitched tents and not unknown to the modern equipment viz. satellite television. This baby boy grows amidst cattle and a naughty elder brother, who in one frame drags a quiet cat through the bedroom and puts it close to the baby. On other occasion he beats the baby boy till the later cries out. The fourth one of the babies hails from the richest of nations, the US. She is Hattie and leads as sophisticated a life as Mari. The documentary starts with the birth of the babies and ends at the first of the year of them tracking down their growth for a whole year or until the crawlers become toddlers. In the end the babies are shown in their fourth or fifth year. The documentary does not offer any narration or commentary on the setting and backdrop of the babies. Notwithstanding, it traces the psychological features that go with the gaining of knowledge from the environment. A wonderful study carried out with earnestness and disinterestedness.

Old-Year Babble

This is the fifty-second week of the last year of the first decade of this millennium (some mathematical geniuses would agree with me as they fight it out that there was no Zero year between 1BC and 1AD). Let us not worry about the others who say that the decade was over last year itself, for the time being. Let us resolve that the first decade is going to be over in four days. Many people make much fuss about bidding the year adieu and welcoming the new year. As a young boy , i was fascinated to see the cartoon strip that the Tamil daily 'Dina Thanthi', never failed to put on the first page of the newspaper on the first of January. A young boy sends out an old man and the connotations are the young boy is the new year and the old man, the passed out year. Though very mundane, the cartoon strip has a lot of messages in it. For every one the time comes to an end. I am not the kind of person who celebrates much of new years. For a time being i was in a fad of celebrating the Tamil new year opposed to the hype and hoopla filled English New Year. That too fizzed out as the time of it breathed out. Being a student of English Literature, i was part of the company that was celebrating the English New Year in college by cutting cakes on New Year's Eve and putting every one of those present to the gruelling task of narrating their resolutions. I look back at every one of those celebrations with much discomfort now as i consider them funny and juvenile.

It is only for the human understanding that the time has been divided into days, months and years. As far as nature is concerned, it troubles itself only with the changing of seasons. The change of seasons is cyclic and early humans looked forward to them for betterment in their lives. During the French Revolution, in opposition to the involvement of Church, the revolutionists designed a calender with ten day weeks to make people forget going to churches and not being influenced by the Parish and Kingly soverignty. For me it is just like any other ordinary or for that matter special day, if one considers each day special, and one should continue to do what one considers best on that day too. I may have sounded rather skeptical and boorish, however i have just given a piece of my mind.

In a Day

Hoveeel... ooolllliiii... ! The sound keeps ranting the air. It tries to prise the delicate membrane of the ear-drum with its icy chillness. It is on at the dead of the night and has been intermittent. The source of the sound is known though whence it comes from is carefully umbered by the night light. It is the shrilly voice of a puppy that has had an untimely weaning from its bitchy mother. It allows the neigh bours to get some sleep as it, being exhausted of its energy, faints to sleep. The morning breaks up and its hunger wakes it up and reminds it of its prising voice that could summon even the dead from distant land. Unsuccessful though. The shrilly voice summons bevies of hens and piglets, though not at the same time. The early risers of hens strut on the earth raking soft mud and clay to find savoury earthworms and insects. Their morning meditation on food-finding comes to a sudden halt as they see the puppy under an abadoned carton.

The bigger of the hens initiates a conversation with the puppy. 'Hallo there! Are you hungry?' The puppy ignores the cackle as it knows well that nothing comes off it. The younger of the hens swaggers close by and tries to stay close to the puppy. Not ruffled, the puppy begins its hoveeel... ooolllliiii... ! ' Goodness me!' the younger of the hens, 'I think this will not get you anywhere except prising the eardrums of all those nearby'. 'What is your problem?' Rather disinterested the puppy answers, ' i was brought here last evening by a group of urchins who wanted to get rid off me as i was bitten by my mother's lover, who considered me a hindrance for his love-making. And the urchins consider me ugly as the skin on my back grew to be scaly and the fur came off exposing an ugly gnash. I was here ever since last evening and has not had any soul giving me anything. Oh! i am sorry. I almost forgot. A young boy gave some food last night, that was too bad. I managed as i had nothing to eat. I am hoping to be restored to life by some goody-goody soul. Most of the neigh bours never mind my prising noise though they definitely curse me for not letting them sleep peacefully. Another young man attracted, i think rather annoyed, by my wail came to look under the carton and got himself satisfied that i was not dying and went away.'

'OK, we will call our master and try to bring the attention towards you. You stay here, by the way for sometime suspend that gnawing shrill of yours.' The younger one of the hens walks back to join her mates and dawdles its way to its place. The puppy waits for sometime and nothing comes by and resumes its hoveeel... ooolllliiii... . The bevy of piglets is attracted by the loud squeal and swerves to find the source of it. The initial confidence between the bevy and the puppy has been established through nosing each other. The piglets pout their mouth and push the muzzle to touch the nose of the puppy. Rather bamboozled, the puppy thinks for a second that it has met its brethren. 'Oh! No. take your crappy muzzle off mine.' The prettier of the piglets moves cosy in its position and starts fondling the fur of the puppy with its nose. 'Stop it i say. I do not need any of your comfort. I am sick and do not aggravate it by supplying me with your contagion of germs.' Oh! we are sorry. We have not dug our noses yet into the turds. We are clean, can't you see. We ooze fragrance. Does it not reach you?' declaims the prettier. 'Alright! Can you be of any help to me?' 'Sure what do you want us to do?' 'Get away from here.' 'Oh! our sympathies are always with you. Bye bye.', depart the piglets. As the morning travels fast the puppy gets some milk from the same goody goody soul and goes to sleep after slurping the milk. In the evening its hoveeel... attracts another group of urchins and it plays with the puppy for sometime. There starts a small skirmish between two boys on fondling the puppy. That separates the coterie into two. They scatter immediately dropping the puppy. The ruckus subsides and one of the fighting boys comes with his cousin to show the puppy and is shocked to find the carton laying empty. As for the puppy it starts another round of its fight for existence.

Where is she?

It has been several days since Olivia went missing. A search party had been formed and that did the act of turning all the stones to look for any information that would tail them to find Olivia. The family of hers is grieved much by her absence. The government are also much discouraged by the act of hers. In fact, the government are looking for an opportunity to grab her well ahead of any of her relatives or friends would catch hold of her. Olivia is unmarried and only twenty-seven. She was a very brilliant student in her school as well as college days and stood first in the state level test conducted for the recruitment of prison-guards. Her track-record as a trainee too did confirm her talent. She has been a prison-guard superintendent for three to four years and has been active in her profession. The police do not hold any record of ill-demeanour on her part. Her family has very decent history and is not connected with felony of any kind in the recent past as well as the historic past. Things have been quite muddling as none of the search parties has come out with any clue of her presence. There has been a severe hunt for dead bodies and their identification parade too but with no avail.

Olivia was on duty on that fateful day when all of a sudden a huge conflagration triggered by an electric short circuit engulfed the female ward of the prison that housed nearly one hundred odd convicts. Most of the inmates of the ill-fated quadrangle had been convicted for petty crimes like pick-pocketing, jay-walking, causing public nuisance as some of them exposed their private parts publicly and so on and so forth. The keys of the ward were with Olivia but was not the permission to open the lock . She contacted the chief of the Prison Control, who was out of town and was an incommunicado as he was holidaying in a resort. All these delaying features were on as the fire was ravaging the ward and singeing their physique. Olivia could do nothing as the singeing turned charring and obliterated the prison-mates. She was a mute-spectator (rather a hollering-spectator) of the event. That night she went missing. The whereabouts are not yet known.

Forgotten Things

'Circle' a Marathi short film screened as the inaugural feature in the Madurai Documentary and Short Film Festival, currently on in the Madura College Auditorium halls, happens to be the theme of this article. I have been quite fortunate to watch three short films or documentaries this forenoon of 07/12/2010. This first one is a real treat to the audience who has been hankering for a great feast, much different from the mundane box-office implosions. It is a story of a six or seven year old boy, who is fatherless and poor. As the film opens the boy bathes himself with tremendous involvement relishing each drop of water that caresses his body from crown to toe. The mother hurries him with the lure of his favourite sweet-meat impending to be prepared as it awaits the condiment of jaggery to go with it. He finishes his bathing and prays to Gods and to his departed father and rushes out to buy the condiment. En route to the destination he is subjected to devilish lure in the forms of a race, a bioscope show; a feature with an aperture to view photographs of film personalities, and in the end a game played by boys by drawing a circle and putting dimes within it. The objective of the game is to release as many dimes as possible from the immure. The boy successfully suppresses the former surging pitfalls but finds himself engulfed by the last one. He plays the game with great aver and contributes greatly to the disfigurement of the dime. The game gets abandoned as the elders of the village interrupt and the boys disperse picking up the dimes that they have laid their hands to. The boy rushes to the shop only to be told that the dime will not be accepted in exchange of the jaggery. Disheartened, he cries himself out in a temple and goes back home much late only to be consoled by his lovable mother and treated with the surprise of getting his favourite sweet-meat from his neighbour.

The remaining two films deal with two different subject. The Austrian 'Waiting' has a post-modern theme of unresponsive attitude of the citizens as they proceed with their work no matter what happens around them. The Tamil 'Senkruthi' features three powerful figures, Ravana of the Ramayana fame, Kumaran a freedom fighter from Tamil Nadu and One Man from the Sri Lankan Tamil family that has suffered in the recent war between the LTTE and Sri Lankan Army. It has a rather somber end with macabrely finish to it.

The Night Ordeal

She dreads the ordeal that she goes through every night. She requires an immediate relief. What she gets instead a reprieve. The relief tantalises her as it always culminates in a temporary phenomenon of a reprieve. On several occasions it has given her a long rope to consider it being a permanent escape from the mental trauma. She has often dismissed the hope of getting herself purged of the sin that she has committed without her volition. The night-ordeal has made the sin, of which it is only a by-product, nothing. She relives the moment of desolation and incapacitation far more, every night, in bed with her husband. Her husband is a good man under ordinary circumstances. He is an ordinary citizen of a nation who has found a fine job to sustain himself and his family very nicely. He has only limited goals. He is much pleased with the world and its people. He is comfortably settled with a fine job as a bank manager in a private bank in a metropolis. He married at a very right age of twenty-five and a woman of great beauty and intelligence. She too has not deprived him of any pleasure a man could get from a woman. He has been bestowed rather blessed with the title of 'father' by her with two beautiful children. He had been in cloud nine until the night that dreadful thing happened.

She is a graduate of considerable talent and knowledge in the subject of hers. She was working in a private firm before her marriage. She chose to stay at home after her marriage and until the kids had been born. She is a lovable mother and has devoted her entire time in raising the kids up. It was only after the second child had turned six, and she was thirty, she thought of using her free time productively by seeking employment. Her husband did not stand in her way and was always cheerful and encouraging. With her knowledge of English, she found a call centre job. It was tedious for her as it required night-shift stints once in six months. She thought of declining the offer initially as the night-work would deprive her of the time that she would spend with her children. She accepted the offer after discussing it with her husband and with the confidence that she would manage the short stint that happens occasionally.

She was good at her English and gained a very good name in a very short span of time. She was managing her kids in her home quite well too. Things had been fantastic. She was very happy and her husband too got quick upward mobility in the rungs of designation in his bank. It was at this juncture a very unforeseen thing happened to them. During night-stints, she was dropped by at the wee hours of the night at the entrance of the street on which her house stands. One night, as she was dropped by the taxi service that operates for her call-centre, she was accosted by two men and made her get into a cab that was standing near-by. She had no option as she was bidden at gun-point. There in it, she was brutally raped by a group of men. It was nightmarish and highly detestable. She was thrown out of the cab as the guys got exhausted with their energy, she lost hers much earlier and was in a faint. She lay motionless on the street until the daybreak and was found by the early risers of the street. Her husband was informed. He slept through the night of her ordeal as he had a lot of work to do, the previous day, in his office. She was taken to hospital and spent sometime in it. She was given counselling and her husband was briefed about her status. The husband of hers behaved gentlemanly as he accepted her with great love as he had always had for her.

She began slowly forgetting about her ordeal with the group of men. The husband of hers grew fidgety as he was deprived of his love-making for long. After getting ratified by a psychiatrist, he began the preamble of love making with her. As the closeness between them begin to get strengthened day after day, he has started talking about the ordeal that she was subjected to without her volition. He asks questions about how the men behaved with her, how they caressed her and how many were doing the act simultaneously and what was her reaction then, how she tolerated all these gagging and he is always reminded of the dastardly act of them, quite contrary to mental trauma as the victim limps back to normality the husband of hers has grown empathic. Day by day the questions turn into a tortuous grill and she even finds the traumatic night much easy one to tolerate. She hopes for a permanent solution to this interminable ordeal of hers.

The Supreme Architect

There are several things that decide a buying. I am talking about buying books. Once in a classroom of adult boys and girls of about eighteen or more years of age, i put the question of eliciting their response about buying books. So many hands went up when i had asked them whether they had bought any books in a book-shop. As i narrowed down the point of my knowing i began seeing the raised hands deplete. I pruned or re-phrased my question to know whether any of them bought any book without the book being suggested by any source, like prescribed text piece, recommended by elders or friends, a popular best seller, a much advertised one or something that was the need of the hour. I hardly came across any hoisted hand dangling in the air afore me. The question was a tricky one as it tried to find out the act of voluntary choosing of one in being a book-consumer.

What decides a book-buying? With my very little experience as a buyer of books, all i can suggest is that a supreme force that is beyond the grasp of any earthly perception. I have never felt sorry for choosing any book. I often go through the first page of any book that describes a little about the writer as well as the book. On all occasions i feel an urge in me to choose the book in prospect of being bought. There are occasions that i left the book-shop, after spending several minutes, without buying even a single book. And, there are occasions that i chose books in a matter of seconds and left the stores instantly. For these two contrasting behaviour, i believe only chance can answer. I pray to that supreme force, a Deist term i believe, to confer the ever fierce flame of desire to buy books burn in me.

Epic Endeavour

As my mother asked me to take the dry towel, that had been wet for sometime, that was dry now, off the clothesline, i ended not only taking the towel off the clothesline but also disturbing the smooth file of ants that were shuttling between two mysterious destinations en route the clothesline. For a moment i did not know what to do as i stood transfixed thinking about the onslaught that i would trigger did i disturb their smooth passage. My mother got frustrated at the slackness of my pace at the duty rather dutifully entrusted on my hands from her. She began worrying about my diligence at working out errands. I stood before her as dunce who was incapable of performing a task that would be easy even for a moron.

What made me stood bamboozled was the kind of disaster that would befall on those ants that were traveling on the towel at that time. If i took off the towel, then they would end up as refugees on some unknown territory, finding themselves completely alienated from their colony. I thought about their decimation for a while and even thought about their possible reunion though in the end i ended up disturbing their union. I took the towel off and shirked it rather violently to shed the possible ants that were clinging on to the towel, i did not know how could have i taken the towel off lest disturbing the smooth march of them. It was impossible to stop the oncoming ant to step on to the towel off the clothesline and to speed up the one that was already on its course on the towel.

After ruining their smooth passage, i decided to find out where they were heading using the clothesline as a cantilever bridge. The journey of them started from a teeny-weeny chink in the wood window frame of the window of the kitchen wall, from where the one end of the clothesline began, to another of the teeny-weeny chinks of yet another wood window frame of another window of the dining hall wall, where it ended. On a closer examination i found them transporting chunks of food and chunks of eggs, quite wary of the oncoming monsoon. I did not know the difference between the abodes of these two colonies of them. There would have been differences between the two tunnels that they had built into the wood window frame. I also found out that the detour on the clothesline had saved thousands of miles on the part of the ants to travel. They would embark on an arduous journey crossing water-bodies of the sizes of puddles, lakes and mounds as big as the Himalayas were there no clothesline. I was awestruck at the level of their intelligence as they found a wonderful short-cut to take them safe, quick and in exhaustive. As the clothesline arrived at that spot only a fortnight ago as my mother thought of drying up the clothes under some shade, an act of ingenuity on her part, during the monsoon season. It showed the adaptability of them to the changing ambiance. I felt sorry for those who were stranded off the course by my callous act. I have not obtained any knowledge so far whether they made up their journey to reach their colonies.

'Enjoyable' Trips

I travel much on public locomotives, buses especially. So many hours of my life is spent on buses. It is not an interesting journey that anyone embarks on if what the journey, destination and the route one chooses are quite mundane and drab. On occasions i think of converting hours long bus travel into anything productive. The first of my effort was to look for places on the way and know them fully well, an added wisdom thanks to years of travelling. Second i started noting down the numbers of the buses and their seating capacity and the years of their make. Third i thought of travelling on all the buses that shuttle between the destinations i travel regularly, though the work time does not permit that. Fourth i subjected myself to severe experience of forcibly undergoing a reverie each time i travel on the buses. It was of some use to me when i was doing some research work on some literary pieces as some flashes appeared all of a sudden and opened up new fjords. Then i started concentrating on the timing of buses and the chasm between the first and the successive ones. Next i started reading while travelling and amazed at the books i devoured during these travels, i had to abandon this act as it gave too much strain to my eyes. Seventh and final, i have befriended a lot of conductors and drivers and as a result have become a patron of them.

Befriending the workforce that runs buses has taken me to a lot of interesting anecdotes having been told by them. A few days ago when i was travelling, a motor-bike rider misbehaved or violated the rules of traffic and blamed the driver of the bus for the act. The driver, a young man, angered much by the biker's act was on the verge of starting a tiff with him and the pillion. The public intervened and saved the rider from receiving blows. This act led to a series of stories being told by the driver about the misbehaviour of both road users and people who travel on buses. It is quite alright in the morning, barring some stray incidents of male caressing and fondling the female in crowded buses. Whereas night travel offers a treasure trove of incidents. Some time ago in a bus a man was misbehaving with two girls who were sitting in the parallel pews in the bus. A stern warning from the driver made the man sit quiet all through the journey afterwards. On another occasion a man, heavily drunk and almost not in right senses, was sitting in the seat behind and was fondling the woman who was sitting before him. No one could do anything and the woman too lost faith in the stopping of the act. She did a very interesting thing of taking the ring off the finger of the man and as he was drunk and in the ugly act of physical debauchery, he did not know that. The woman waved to him as he got off the bus the ring. There were also acts committed by drivers and conductors who are supposed to run the buses providing safety to the passengers. I was quite shocked to listen to these stories. Though there is a scarce doubt that pops up in my brain as i ruminate these acts. In atleast a few acts like these the women too enjoy the 'ugly' thing. I may be wrong. There are occasions that force them to be incapacitated. However the doubt lingers on. I thought of writing something else. Somehow i embarked on this not so decent journey.

The Great Indian Novel

I recently bought the novel The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor. It is a rather lenghthy novel of nearly four hundred and eighteen pages in the publication that i bought. The print of the book is rather minute and the size of the font is a little bit teeny-weeny. Had it been of a quite a big font size, comfortable for the old people to read with or without spectacles, the novel would have definitely gobbled up nearly six hundred pages. It was published in the year 1989, when Shashi was around thirty or in his early thirties. He spent most of his time in the UN and recently ended his career there. He also acquired a Ph d at the age of twenty-two.

The novel is based on two things. Tharoor would have been inspired by the great epic of The Mahabharatha that he had before him a lofty model to emulate. He himself gives out a foreword in the beginning to caution the readers, who would have bought the book with the expectation of reading through a great novel, that the title is a translation of The Mahabharatha into the English, that means the Great India. He has drawn the theme from the two things of the Mahabharatha and the political happenings between 1910 and 1980 in India. The novel begins with a tinge of parody of the conversion of the Brahma, one of the Hindu Trinity, into a tycoon and friend of VV, stands for Ved Vyas, another successful entrepreneur. It sails smoothly by simply retelling the Mahabharatha until the birth of the sons of Vyasa through Ambika and Ambalika. It swerves itself off its path all of sudden as Ganga Dutta, the man who has taken a terrible vow to abstain from climbing onto the throne: Bhishma, is identified with the Mahatma that India engendered. The novel also offers some interesting portraits of all national leaders including the former head of the political party that Shashi Tharoor now represents to have become the Member of Parliament. The novel also touches upon Indian life and views politics through the eyes of common man.

Tharoor can be appreciated for his fictitious selection of names like Manimir, Chakra and so on so forth. The novel depicts some important political happenings in India between 1910 and 1980. I think it is good for anyone who would love to taste History if it was told in the form of a story.

Lalithambigai Antharjanam+Kamala Das+Virginia Woolf+Deepa Mehta=Water

It is a strange title to any article. Four Women are equivalent to Water. The word, i owe a disclaimer to the reader, does not refer to the basic element required for the effloresence of nature and its rebirth. It is the title of the 2005 Deepa Mehta film Water. She started shooting the film after getting permission from the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2002 with her favorites Nanditha and Azmi. She had to abandon the project as the Hindu Groups claimed that the script of the film was anti-Hindu. She re-started the project with the help of a Canadian producer in 2004 in Sri Lanka. She had to drop her favorites as the script needs a young protagonist, i should say supporting protagonist, since the girl, eight year old Chuiya, is the protagonist of the story.

The title features four women. Three of them are writers, i should say four of them if i include Mehta also. None of the three writers is alive. The first one wrote in Malayalam; the second one in both Malayalam and English and the third one is British and eventually wrote in English. They appear in an order in the title as their influences are seen in the film of Deepa Mehta. The first of the influences has come from Antharjanam. 'Cast me out if you will' is a powerful phrase of hers that is employed by the protagonist of the story 'Admission of Guilt' (Kutta Sammadam)in which the protagonist, a Brahmin widow in her early thirties, is summoned by the elders of the community to take oath before them about her fidelity. She had been married at a very tender age even before she attained puberty to a sixty year old man. Her father exchanged her for a thirty year old daughter of that old man who had been included into the 'Nallukattu' as the fourth of the wives of the child's father. The sixty year old man was sick and the girl did not much stay in her husband's abode. She was brought back to her maternal house immediately. One day when she was playing hopscotch a messanger came and divined the dreadful news of the death of her husband. she lost her husband much before she attained puberty. She stepped into widowhood and had been a widow ever since. She is now found pregnant and the elders want to know the act of immorality on her part. She challenges every one with the phrase 'cast me out if you will', as she says she has been embraced by a divine figure in an unearthly hour when she has gone to have a bath, an ablution to be carried out before setting foot on the campus of temples. I see resemblances between her and the girl Chuiya in the movie Water.

Kamala Das is remembered through the film, as the keeper of the house of the widows decides to send the child to an old man who is in need of a nubile sexual partner. Kamala Das' 'A Doll for a Child Prostitute' is a terrible story that unravels the veneer of modesty of Indian traditional life and exposes scathingly the reality.

I could not help myself except thinking about Virginia Woolf as the supporting protagonist; Kalyani, played by the very beautiful Liza Ray, decides to commit suicide as the lover of hers, again a fine casting as John Abrahams playing the role of Narayan; a radical reformer influenced much by the teachings of Gandhi, happens to be the son of a local big-shot, who is also much entertained by the night visits of Kalyani, as that has become the only source of money for the widows to sustain themselves. Kalyani comes back to the house but the keeper of widows does not let her in. Kalyani takes a firm decision of walking into a water body and drowns herself very much like Virginia Woolf. I must say Kalyani is the predecessor as the film was set in 1938 whereas Woolf died only in 1941.

Deepa Mehta excels in the field of writing. The film is sheer poetry and India are ashamed of not letting her shoot in real setting. Sri Lanka does not resemble much of North India though it has remnants of the South of India. The sets though made with fine artistry and hard work create only an artificial back drop to the story. A good film.

A Ride of Life-time

It has been almost a fortnight since i published anything in my blog. The last of the posting is a story of mine that has received lukewarm response from the readers, that is if at all there are readers who are serious about any kind of writing. I do not demean any effort of anyone in getting their comments registered for my write ups. As a writer, i long to be commented, criticised or even ridiculed at, berated at and so on and so forth. By the way, this is not i intend to write now. I have spent the whole of the past two weeks in doing something pretty much academic with my colleagues. I have had no free time to do the thing i like the most; reading and wathcing films. My colleague in the Department of Tamil, Rathinakumar, gave me two compact discs of two films. He has a very fine collection of world movies and has been kind enough to give a glimpse of his collection to me for tasting his broth. I am now going to write about the three movies that i have seen this weekend. Two are his contribution and one is mine.

'Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles' is the name of the Japanese film released in 2004. The year of the release is only a surmice, as the sub-titles of the film do not deprive of the makers, actors, production crew or anyone for that matter, who has associated with the movie. The film opens with an old man staring at sea with dismay. He is Takata, who has moved to this fishing sea-shore small town after the death of his wife. He has a son, who chooses to live in Tokyo. The son, Ken-ichi, is a teacher in Oriental folk-arts and is published much in that field. He travels a lot to China to record the native opera performed in villages. The opera is popular in the Yunnan Province of China. Takata is unhappy as the relationship between him and his son has strained greatly after his immigration to the fishing hamlet. He is not much in contact with his son and his daughter in law. The daughter in law, Rye, sends an invitation to him to visit Tokyo. The reason is that the son is ill, suffering from severe stomach pain, and is admitted to hospital. The invitation is not approved by Ken-ichi and he refuses to admit his father into the room. Rye consoles the father and gives a video cassette that Ken has recorded. The father comes back to his native town and watches the tape, which contains a recorded programme of the Chinese dance form. In it the son talks to a performer, named Li, who assures a fine performance of the story of Lord Guan, who travelled thousands of miles to save his friend: 'Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles', the next year. Ken is ill and cannot travel to China.

Takata wants to do something for his son. He visits China's Yunnan Province without letting his daughter in law know of his visit. He catches hold of an interpreter, Jasmine and tries to film the performance of the story of Lord Guan's travelling. As it is about to happen, Lingo, a local quack interpreter tells him that the actor is different and not Li, as Li has been jailed for the crime of an assault for three years. Takata does not want any other person performing it. He decides to take the matters to the judicial system, which refuses it on the grounds that a foreigner is never allowed, apart from foreign correspondents, inside to film anything. Takata does not lose hope and sends a video cassette describing the condition of his son, who is afterwards diagnosed with cancer in liver, who is known to the authorities, as he visited quite regularly and stayed in the villages alone for many days. Takata is given permission. However, Li breaks down and cannot perform the role, as he is thinking about his eight year old son, Yang yang, born out of the union of him and his wife.

Takata decides to visit the stone village, that is very far away from the prison and bring his son to the prison. The trip to the village makes him understand about the people of the village who are the sole guardians of Yang yang as he already lost his mother. They hold a community feast in honour of him and decide to send the boy with him. In the mean time, Ken has relented and is much moved to know about his father's intentions and wishes him to come back to Tokyo immediately. Takata is conveyed of this by Rye. Takata has forced himself in a situation that he has generated personal interest in him to film the opera. On the way to the prison, the boy escapes and spends a night or two with Takata. The villagers do manage to find them and Takata firmly wants to know from the boy that whether he is really interested in seeing his dad. The boy answers negatively and Takata leaves the boy after getting assurance from the villagers that they would do take care the boy. He still does not lose hope and decides to go to prison to find whether Li is in a good mood to perform the opera. On his way to prison, he is informed of the death of his son and a letter of him is also read out. He goes to prison and shows pictures of Yang yang to Li and expresses no interest in filming the opera. Li requests him that he would do well and dedicate the opera to Ken, who is his friend, and Takata would show the performance to him. The film ends with the performance of the opera.


The second film is 'Divided We Fall' by a Russian director Jan Hrebejk. Many films have been made for years using the second world war happenings as the back drop. Charlie Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator', that is the other movie i saw this weekend, tries to visualise, rather mockingly, the dictator in a hectic robe of activities. Chaplin's portrait of the dictator Hynkel, that is very much modelled on Hitler, is highly comical as he tries to parody the serious activities that Hitler was credited with in involving himself.

The present film by the Russians was released in 2000, and is about a Czech family that was living in Russia or i think in Czech, during the time of the second world war. The film is such a fine blend of family drama and historic holocaust. The first six minutes of the film depicts six years between 1937 and 1943. The remaining one hundred and fourteen minutes depict the happenings from 1943 to 1945. Josef and Marie are a childless couple. Josef is employed in the firm of a Jewish businessman. As the film opens, the audiences are shown the happy gathering of all races. The Jewish family moves to a concentration camp and its whereabouts are not known. David, the son of the Jewish businessman returns after two years, by escaping from a camp set up by Nazis on Polish soil. Josef helps him to escape with a friend to another of the destination, that miserably fails as the friend does not turn up at the agreed on spot. Josef decides to keep David, who tells him that his family members would have died by now, in his house without the knowledge of the Fuhrer's men. He has a, rather, snooping friend Hurst, who often scampers into Josef's house in a surprise of alarming degrees. He senses the arrival of David and tries to find it out. Josef gets a job in Hitler's administration. He also visits doctors in the prospect of fathering children.

On one occasion, while Josef is meeting the doctor, Hurst tries to rape Marie. Marie kicks him and walks her way home from the place of the incident. The doctor gives out a shocking news that Josef could never father a child. In the meantime, Hurst wants to take revenge on Marie and brings a widower German officer to stay with the couple. Marie turns down the request by informing him that she is pregnant and the couple needs the small room for the child. Josef is now caught in a Catch-22 situation. He cannot father but needs a child for being spared from the gallows. He requests Marie, who loves only her husband, to bear a child through David. After much coaxing, David agrees. As Marie nears her delivery time, the Hitler's regime is rooted out and Josef finds himself in a quandary, as he is accused of supporting Germans and he proves that he is friendly with Jews by revealing the secret behind the birth, and before being comforted with the birth of the child. The film ends with the proud father Josef walking his pram with his child, a male child.

Master and Mongrel

There has been a ruckus in the court. The judge brings down his mallet to mark his presence there. The plaintiff, a droopy looking being, is very tense as all eyes are on him. He has registered a case against the use of the expletive 'animalistic pleasure' by the defendant. It hurts his feelings very much. Moreover, the context in which the phrase has been employed by the defendant is incongruous. No such thing is happening in the fauna-world. The faunal shows a decency that the defendant refuses to honour and carries a rather parochial attitude towards them. The defendant, happens to be an odd figure in the court of law, is not nervous as he carries a lot of protective gear. The judges adjusts his spectacles with an air of self-importance and asks the plaintiff to present his views.

The plaintiff rises rather gingerly and ahems his gullet to produce a declamation to be heard by the huge gathering. 'My Lord, the gentleman standing opposite me, is accused of using a rather derogatory remark to bring defile on the whole faunal race. I think he uses the expletive to refer to such a filthy human behaviour prevalent among most of their species, of deflowering girls who has not even attained puberty and seducing them in an age at that they never understand what rape or sex is all about. I strongly condemn the usage. I agree that the masculine beings of the animal world resort to uncouth measures, while the circumstances trigger them to procreate. It is simply an urge due to changing levels of chemical compositions in their bodies. There is also a dearth of partners and the male species has to vie with others in finding a partner of its preference and channelise his pleasure urge. It is common in the animal world that the male has to fight it out to get the best of the partners. The feminine gender of the animal world has got a choice to choose their partner on the basis of capabilities that vary according to the species. I assert here that the human female does not even enjoy such a freedom. I would like to reiterate here that there has been subjection of female in the animal world at the time of making love. However i strongly assert that there has never been any case of juvenile raping in the animal world.'

"My Lord, you are a learned one. You know everything. The male of the species look for a triggering scent in their counter part. They themselves try to exude such a scent through urination by marking territories and spraying the liquid on odd objects. The male will be triggered only when it smells the scent that it looks for and any female that has not attained puberty has been treated with all reverence. I do not deny the fact that there has been a practice of homosexuality but the thing that is subjudicious here, i declare, is unheard of. With these words, i conclude my arguement, thank you." The plaintiff saunters back to his seat. It has been an unnerving experience for him as he a mutt has to contest a case against his own master. The defendant does not want to say anything.

Judge Hippo makes himself sure that there has been no cross examination and no more tirade from the defendant. He takes his pen and writes something. He finishes his act and begins pronouncing his judgement. "After hearing to both parties, the apex court of the jungle pronounces that the race of humans is forbidden, from now on to use the expletive that has been put to contest so far, to refer to the ugly act of humans that is not prevalent among the animals. I leave the human, as he happens to be the master of our plaintiff, with a reprimand. Any act of non-compliance to the law will be sternly dealt with in future. The court is adjouned for the day."

The master and the mongrel come out of the court and the master does not look the way he used to be. He stealthily puts his hand in his coat pocket and slowly unravels a hand gun. The mongrel expects a command from his master to go on. He gets a nod and goes near by and is only blinded by a point blank shot. The bullet pries his heart and he dies howling. The master wades through a huge gathering of animals wielding his weapon, unharmed.

Draupadi and Agaligai

Draupathi and Agaligai. Two great women. The favourites of Lord Vishnu. In two of His incarnations, He did the great act of rescuing them both. As Krishna, in the Mahabharatha, He comes to the help of Draupathi, who has been stripped publicly, and salvages her by supplying her with yards and yards of saree. Ducchadanan, the younger brother of Duriyodana, the arch-enemy of the Pandavas, feels exhausted as the great hour of seeing her Full-Monty, as she was born, is interminably deferred. In the Ramayana, as Ram, He salvages the wife of the great sage, Gautama; Agaligai, who had turned stone on realising her infidelity, or rather had been punished by her husband for her being unfaithful to him.

Two modern writers, one is alive and one has joined the world of the dear departed, have taken up these events from the great epics and subject these two events to different angles. One is Mahasweta Devi, a Bengali writer and the other one is Puthumaipithan, a Tamil writer. Mahasweta Devi's short story 'Draupadi' features a woman protagonist. She is known as Dopdi Mejnun and Draupadi. She is one of the Naxal women. She snoops around the regiments of the soldiers and tips her own men. She is on the list of the most wanted criminals. Her crime, she had been part of the gang that killed the local rich man, who never allowed the oppressed to draw water from his well. Draupadi has never been lousy except housing a litter of them in her tresses. She applies kerosene to her lock to kill them all. The government police force looks for the scent of kerosene in rivulets to nab her. She has been warned by her fellow villagers to be wary. As the police force has been ingenious, they nab her by catching hold of one of the Naxals as defaulter to their tenets. As she has made them suffer in woods and other places the members of the police force decide to have a feast on her. She is subjected to continuous rape by innumerable men of the special task force. She is bleeding profusely in her vagina and she is to be presented to the chief of the special task force. In order to make it happen, they dress her and cudgel her to the tent of the chief. All of a sudden, Draupadi cries and howls and throws away the draping cloth and stands naked before the chief, inviting him to be the next in the line of rapers. The chief asks the subordinates to cover her, to which she never budges herself and she makes them conclude that she is in her wit's end.

Puthumaipitthan's short story 'Papa Vimoshanam' (Salvation from Sin) commences with a warning from the writer, that the story may not be enjoyed by those who relish the Ramayana. It starts with the description of a life-like statue of a beautiful woman. The statue stands testimony to the skill of the sculptor, that has a tendency to make all men come away from their lascivious looks to perceive the dismay of the woman in her countenance. Then two boys saunter on the way ushered in by a sage, who are none but Ram and Lakshman. As they are playing on the muddy and ruddy track, there rises a lot of dust and which cascades the vision of them both making Ram trip on the stone. Ram is bamboozled at the appearance of a good looking woman. The sage Viswamitra explains everything to Ram and that the woman is Agaligai and her husband is Gautama. Gautama and Agaligai restart their life. She cannot stay as plain as she used to be before her sin. She is afraid that any word of hers would cause pain in Gautama. She is also subjected to mental torture by the wives of other sages, who distance themselves from her. Agaligai feels wounded as she suffers for the fault of not her own. Indra, the king of Indralokam has disguised himself as Gautama and enjoyed her. She cannot make out the difference between the caressing of her husband and a stranger. Days roll by and they get information about Ram's departure to the woods and the accompaniment of Sita and Lakshman. Gautama and Agaligai wait for their return. Sita and Ram visit them on the banks of the river Sarayu and Sita narrates the story of her ordeal to Agaligai. Agaligai is dumbfounded and she asks Sita why she has accepted to undergo the ordeal. Sita, imperturbed, says that it has to be proved to the world. Agaligai does not know who the world is. Ram and Gautama return from the stroll that they have embarked on leaving Sita with Agaligai. After the departure of the Royal couple, Gautama feels a great void in his hut. He thinks that the presence of children would assuage the situation. He approaches Agaligai to make love and Agaligai has already become a living stone. She cannot bear the disparity in treatment between her and Sita. Sita has been subjected to the ordeal of expiation of crime that she has never committed and Agaligai has been salvaged from the sin of adultery only after the act. She cannot understand the Gods and decides to lead a stony life.

A Cataract Surgery

I happened to come across a short story collection. It is a collection of translated short stories from various Indian languages into the English. I chanced upon reading a story by a Malayalee woman writer (since i just opened the book and found myself in the page of that story). The writer is a famous one in Kerala (I realised only after having spent sometime in searching for her in various web sites). She is Lalithambigai Antharjanam, a Namboodri Brahmin, who has contributed a lot to Malayalam Literature.

The protagonist of the story is a powerful politician who holds a very high post in the government of Kerala. As the story opens, the politician is found rather busy to sacrifice even his food. It is after four o'clock in the evening and he has not had his lunch yet. He is just back from a programme and is still to undergo the same ordeal of meetings and programmes. He is very tired and indisposed. He summons his secretary to cancel the appointments that he has given already. He sips coffee and is moved by the surging crowd outside his residence. He tells his secretary to send them in one by one. Time passes by quickly and he lags behind his schedule. As he is about to get over his vis-a-vis confabulation with the members of the public, who elected him out for the Assembly, the secretary whispers in his ear that an old lady has been waiting outside since morning to see him. The politician gets wild. He berates at his secretary for some time and then consents to his request.

The secretary ushers in an old woman, who is wearing only a cloth to cover herself, that is between an overall and a mini skirt. She comes with a boy of seven. The politician is highly irritated at the sight of the woman who is almost in rags. He shouts at the woman with the words of enquiry. To his repetitive interrogation, the old lady responds and uses a term that is only familiar with the close family circle of the politician. To his shock, he recognises her to be the Namboodri woman of his own village who helped him many a time in his childhood days. In fact, she is very much responsible for his education and his being a big-shot in society now. When this man as a politician and representative of a political party is fighting those people who own much in terms of cultivable land and property, here is a woman belonging to the very race that this man opposes, has spent her entire life in helping the poor. She lost all her property and her elder son is a cripple and she does not have money to educate her grandson. The purpose of her visit is to plead to her son-like protagonist to do something for the grandson.

The politician cancels all his appointments and chooses to spend the evening with the old woman. He learns from her that she did not stop her charity even in days of penury. Her wealth dwindled but not her intentions to serve the needy. The politician feels ashamed of himself as he is fighting the very race that has made him come up in his life. It dawns on him that not every landowner and rich and upper caste is cruel.

'முனியாண்டி விலாஸ் முனியாண்டி'

The readers of this blog should be familiar with the chain of hotels that the title refers to. When I was a kid, i wondered at the number of hotels that God Muniyandi owned, with a prefix 'Madurai'. The name of the hotel would read 'Madurai Sri Muniyandi Vilas Non-vegetarian Hotel'. There are many such hotels existing all over Tamilnadu today, standing as a symbol of an unorganised sector in the world of restaurants. Each of the hotel is owned by a different person, belonging to different castes and even religions. I happened to read about the origin of the name for these meat-serving hotels. I bought an interesting Tamil book with the title 'Tamil-mannin Samikal' written by a very young and energetic writer 'Mana' (probably the short form of Manavalan).

The book tracks the Gods of the soils of the Tamil world. In it there is an interesting feature on this 'Muniyandi Vilas Muniyandi'. There is a small town near Madurai with a very religious past in its origin; Tirumangalam. Fourteen kilometer journey to further south would take to a small village 'Vadakampatti'. There lived a man there belonging to the community of 'Naidus'. He migrated from there over to a town near the famous 'Pillayarpatti'; Karaikudi and started a hotel. When a name was required for his venture, he remembered the god of his soil, 'Muniyandi' and with that he prefixed the known place of his nativity, 'Madurai'. Another one of the village of 'Vadakampatti', belonging to the community of 'Rayar' had migrated to the nearby village 'Kallikudi and started another eatery and naming it on his God of the soil and remembering to agglutinate the prefix, 'Madurai', with that. The eateries became popular amongst travellers and settlers from Madurai and other parts of the district of Madurai in various mushrooming satellite cities and each individual with an earnest interest to start an eatery found the name of Muniyandi catchy.

As the hotel owners flourished, they began celebrating their success with remembering the God. Every year on a particular auspicious day, they all flock to the village and conduct a big feast with meat and the delicious Mughal dish 'Briyani' to all villagers in honour of the powerful God 'Muniyandi'. A very interesting anecdote on the origin of chain of 'Muniyandi Vilas' hotels and so has made me share.

Inspiring Stories

The following is a write-up on two teenagers who had fantastic life-experience in their teens. One was thirteen and the other was sixteen when they had great opportunity to understand life and its intricacies. The first boy of thirteen is Langston Hughes, an American man of letters and the second boy of sixteen is Booker T Washington, another American many years senior to Langston, a great thinker, educationist and African-American activist. Both were Afro-Americans.

It was the year 1915. Hughes was thirteen years old. His aunt Reed took him very often to the church nearby, that was being patronised by her and his uncle. The church witnessed the visits of many a sinner and their expiation. As a frequenter, Hughes knew all these things. One fine day the aunt took him to church, as customary, and there Hughes found, to his great surprise, a congregation of boys and girls of his age and younger than he was. They were all made to sit in rows on pews and a priest along with many sisters and deacons was trying to initiate them into the world of Jesus Christ. He called one and all lambs and informed them that the holy shepherd Jesus Christ was due an appearance before them inviting them to be part of the flock Him. Every one of the boys and girls sat on pews in great devotion and expecting the arrival of Jesus Christ. Hughes had a lot of expectation in looking forward to seeing Jesus in person, as he was told and brought up by his uncle and aunt, with stories from the Bible and the miracles that Jesus was credited with and the Kind Shepherd's love for the human-lambs.

The priest, the deacons and the sisters all sang choir songs in unison and prayed with avid. Slowly one after the other the boys and girls were responding to the call of the priest in joining him as each had been granted with the vision of Jesus. Only two boys, Langston and Westley were sitting there hoping for the vision of God. The relatives of the two boys began to worry much and the aunt of Langston came near him, knelt and started praying for the boy. Westley whispered to Langston that he felt bored sitting for hours and he could not sit any more and stood up and went over to join the other boys and girls who had already been seated opposite with adoration and reverence by the church-people. Now, only Langston remained. The aunt began crying, worrying about the boy. Langston was yet to feel the presence of Jesus. He had not appeared before him so far. He did not know what to do. He was afraid of joining them as Jesus might punish him for duplicating the act. At the same time, he found Westley, the rounder's (a security guard) son, sitting with the expiated, with a fine glow in his face. The gathering began joining everyone in praying for Langston. The priest calling out to Langston that Jesus had been asking him to join Him, but he only prevaricated. Langston decided not to bring much shame on the family. He stood up amidst great cheers and joined the group of the other side with the feeling of salvation. That night he wept in his bed. The aunt hearing him weep commented that he had been opened up to Jesus and seeing Jesus made him weep. But Langston wept for cheating his aunt and uncle and believing in Jesus and the fright in him that Jesus as of now never existed for him.

The second story began in 1872. Booker T Washington was sixteen and a miner. While working in the mine, he heard fellow miners discussing a centre for learning for the coloured, some where in Hampton, Virginia. The institution was the centre for higher learning for the coloured. He had himself seen some institutes, he had been part of a small school that he had been to when he was a little boy, but the thought of being a student of a higher education institute made him rapturous. He belonged to the South Western Virginia, that was far away from Richmond, the capital and Hampton. Still he decided to seek admission in the institute. He went home and informed his ailing mother about his dream. It was very hard on the mother who was frail due to illness and required great care. She yielded to the dream of her son. With very little money with him, Booker decided to trot the five hundred miles distance on foot or if he was lucky, hitching rides on some vehicles of transport.

He managed to reach Richmond several days after and found himself confounded by the mazy structure of the city. Moreover, he did not have any money on him. He went in search of some lodgings and found them available for only the moneyed. He decided to sleep the night somewhere. He was hungry too. In the end, he found a pavement near the road that could hide him from the sight of the passers by. He slept the night amidst the noise of footwear moving and tracking. He woke up the next morning to find himself near a ship yard. He approached a ship, from which cargo was being disembarked. He approached a white man, who was in charge of the unloading, and told him that he was hungry and wanted to do some work to fill his stomach with food. Impressed by the boy's openness the white man allowed him to work. Washington continued his work there for several days and spent the nights nearby the pavement and saved some money for his education and journey to Hampton that was some fifty miles away from the capital.

He reached Hampton and met the head mistress of the school. He was dirty and smelt sweat. His appearance did not guarantee a seat for him. She was admitting other boys but she did neither say no nor yes. After some time, she took him to the nearby recitation room that was dirty and in clutters. He was asked to clean the room. Washington became happy. He took that a chance to prove his mettle. He cleaned the room four times looking for places that never divulged dirt. The head mistress came back and used a white cloth to find dirt on the floor. She also reached places that housed dirt in secret. She had to satisfy herself with disappointment. She decided to take him in. That was how Booker T. Washington became a learned man.

Titbit

I happened to watch a programme on a Tamil television channel a couple of days ago. The programme was on culinary interests. I have not learned cooking yet. I love to cook though. Perhaps, the time has not come yet for me to plunge myself into the art of cooking. I love eating and consider cooking a form of art and must be paid a lot devotion to in nurturing it. The programme was a kind of fight between two sexes on the contention of resolving which of the sexes is better in terms of cooking. The organisers had invited celebrities of either sex to represent the vast sex populace. One of the women contenders was invited to prepare a kind of tasty dish to challenge the male community. The woman, i do not know her name, a popular singer though she is, had not braided her long tresses and started cooking with the cascading lock of hers. One of the anchors of the programme, a young and upcoming actress, was wearing a lot of baubles covering the entire arms of hers, was helping out to this celebrity in mixing things up for the preparation of the broth.

The thing that struck me was, those celebrities, can they not know the basic principles of cooking, like, one should not allow the hair unbraided, loose and cascading as there is a possiblity of allowing strands of hair fall into the food. Or has of late cooking become a fashion like the display of clothes, to be performed with all fine make-up and great touch of rouge. I am male. However, i do not support the male team and i am not an anti-feminist kind of a person. I convey the feeling of mine as an ordinary person, a simple eater that is all. I may sound old fashioned to some of you. However I look forward to reading a lot insightful comments from the readers of this blog.

Dree

The land of the first sun, the land of the clouds and the land of the Zos are all parts of the eight sisters that demarcate the North-Eastern States of India. Not many Indians are aware of the custom, tradition and the people that inhabit these eight states. One of the languages of India is Tenyidie, that is spoken in Nagaland, is fiction to many eyes and ears. The eight states house myriad of things to be explored and enjoyed.

The folktales from the North-eastern states convey a lot about life and the understanding of people of life. Folk tales from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland and Meghalaya reveal so much about the people's understanding of their place of living, nature that shapes their lives and a holistic understanding of life. For the people of the North-eastern states the Sun is female and the Moon is male. The Sun is the first daughter to have been born to the mother earth and her husband the God of creation. The Moon happens to be the only son to the couple, so a pampered and prodigal progeny. The Sun and the Moon give light to the earth and so often the Moon acts truant and is not being reprimanded for his dereliction as he is the only male offspring. In an another tale, two brothers who dwell in heaven create everything on the earth. They have summoned all the winds to bring soil from various places and which has resulted in soils of different hues and texture.

In an another story, the people of the earth want to fight the two lights that have been created by Gods to give illumination on the earth. They approach a frog Ettung Tiklung and who with great valor reaches the sky and kills the husband light, thus leaving the wife, the Sun, in great sorrow and solitude. She confines herself into the citadel of hers in mourning, depriving the earth of light. The people of the earth then approach the cock to bring her out of her cocoon. It crows many a time until its crown turns red-chilly-red to no avail and returns in dismay and generates the cause of the tremendous gap between cock's crow and sun's rising. They then approach the Ullu monkey, that in its greatest vanity yells into the ear of the wife-sun and disturbs the rhythm of hers. Startling greatly, she trembles bringing in earthquake and destroying the path for the Ullu monkeys to return. As a result the Ullu monkeys have been confined to a particular territory of Arunachal Pradesh. After much effort peace has been restored by a crow and as a result the sun has removed her veil to give light. The killer of her husband Ettung Tiklung hider itself in bamboos all morning and comes out only at night. It is still believed that the spotting of frogs in the morning will knell the other light as he is a great warrior.

Dree is a popular festival in the North-eastern states, especially in Arunachal Pradesh of the Apa Tani tribes. There is a folk tale that tells the origin of the festival. Dree is celebrated to welcome the grains that have been reaped and so an agricultural fest. Once upon a time there lived an ancestral man called Abatoni. He was a great hunter and often went on expeditions into the jungle with his dog. On one such trip, the mutt left him and veered off the course to reach a huge tree, that had never before been noticed by Abatoni. It was a tall tree and had golden colour fruits on its branches. The hunter wanted to pluck the fruit and as it was quite high above him and the trunk was tender, he was unable to pluck them. The intelligent Abatoni wanted to wait since the ripened fruit not bearing the weight would bend itself and then he would pluck the fruit and examine its grains. As he waited there for a week, the branch with the paddy bent and as he was about pluck, there blew a strong breeze and carried it afar and made it fall in water. He plunged in the river and searched everywhere. It turned out to be a fruitless endeavour. Depressed, he made his homeward journey and found two fishermen discussing their catch. As he neared them, he found the fruit in their net. He took the fruit with him and examined it thoroughly and started cultivating paddy. He gave up hunting and started feeding on the vegetation. According to the Apa Tanis that is how the earth got paddy and rice.

What is Love?

What is Love?

Love is submitting.

Love is the cause of love.

Love is understanding.

Love is a kind of music

Love and the Gentle Heart are identical.

Love is the poetry of sorrow.

Love is the tender soul looking in the mirror.

Love is evanescent.

Love is never having to say you are sorry.

Love is a process of crystalisation.

Love is giving.

Love is sharing a stick of gum.

You can never tell about love. Love is an empty word.

Love is being reunited with god.

Love is bitter.

Love is encountering the angel.

Love is a vale of tears.

Love is waiting for the phone to ring.

Love is the whole world.

Love is holding hands in the movie theatre.

Love is intoxicating.

Love is a monster.

Love is blind.

Love is listening to your heart.

Love is a sacred silence.

Love is the subject of songs.

Love is good for the skin.

Love is the urgency to hold fast to another and to be together in the same place.


- Orhan Pamuk - Turkish Writer and Nobel Laureate

Mystical Books

India is a land of mystic things. The image of India being a land of god-men and mysticism is a constant representation made in all writings and references throughout the Europe and the Americas. There are so many westerners who would love to immerse themselves in knowing about these psychic healers and sannyasis. Paul Brunton, a Briton travelled a lot in both Egypt and India wrote extensively about his personal experiences of meeting several of dervishes and tantriks in his books. He had made Mysore as his home and had several staying stints in his house there. R K Narayan, a popular writer from India in English, discusses in his autobiography, 'My Days', of meeting Paul Brunton and spending many an evening with him discussing metaphysics and psychic beliefs. Narayan also shares some of his experiences, in the same book, of visiting a friend's house in Madras and trying to establish a contact with the spirit of his departed wife.

'An Autobiography of a Yogi' of Paramahamsa Yogananda, a saint who lived many years in the US, is a special book as it was written by a Yogi about his own life. The book is full of several unbelievable incidents beginning with the early life of Mukunda Lal Ghosh, the name given by parents to Yogananda. His guru or teacher is Lahiri Mahasai, who is a disciple of Mahavatar Baba. Once Mukunda's father, a railway chief employee, refused to permit one of his workers to go on leave even after the employee describing the purpose of his visit, that was to go and worship Lahiri Mahasai. On that day, as Mukunda's father was returning home from work, Maharaj Lahiri Mahasai made an appearance before him as spirit and told him to allow his disciple to visit him. The father not only did allow the employee to go but also went there in person with his wife to become the Maharaja's disciple.

In another incident from the same story, the boy Mukunda was narrated an incident by a police officer who went into the forest in search of a convict. He jostled a young man but the young man refused to oblige his command and went ahead on his course without heeding. Being angered by the act, the police officer attacked the man with an axe and severed the arm of the man. The man stood nonchalant as blood was dripping heavily. He told the police officer that he was not a convict and on another occasion the police officer saw him with the severed arm being attached to his torso.

In his recent book, Robin Sharma discusses the life of a popular American lawyer who swoons in the chamber of a court of law as he is arguing an important case. "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" narrates the story of Julian through his assistant. Julian, the busy lawyer has to abandon his practice as he has to heed to the advice of cardiologists as his system does require a lot of slackness and rest. He looks so old beyond his age. After a short period of hospitalisation, he is discharged and his whereabouts are not known. All of a sudden a young man makes his appearence in the office of the narrator who has now become a popular barrister. The narrator is irritated with the unannounced arrival of the man that greatly disturbs his regular schedule. The visitor insists on being let in and wins in his insistence. The narrator is shocked to know that the person is Julian, the emaciated, dreary lawyer whose whereabouts are not known for sometime. Julian is youngish and energetic with great vigour and relates everything to his stay with sannyasis in the Himalayas in India.

What is given here is only a small potpourri of the unexplored territories of knowledge in India. A tuned up mind may explore more and surprise everyone with startling discovery.

To Ricky with Love

Dear Ricky,

I came across your jotting of your life experiences as a teacher only a couple of days ago, though i heard about your book sometime ago. Though i do not remember where and in what context, the title stuck in my memory and some friend of mine spoke high of the book with that title; "To Sir with Love". The moment i browsed the book i had a tremendous urge to buy it. I do not know for sure that the urge is because of the fact that i am also a teacher. As a college teacher, as part of the ritual, i have to attend an orientation programme. Industries consider 'orientation' an essential anathema to put their employees through. Of late, education has also become an industry to bring in the programme of orientation to attune new teachers to the ecstasy of teaching.

The fact that startled me is that one can become a committed teacher after having taken up the job of teaching accidentally. Your description of your journey to the Greenslade school at the outset of the novel is very gripping. The attitude of the charwomen who travel on the same bus in which you are the only other male apart from the conductor and a Negro too, is as if you did not even exist. Their casual talk about things that are taboo to be discussed openly, in the presence of a male, conveys their ideology of the presence of an alien figure. However, one of the charwomen does not mind sharing a seat with you. As you are about to get down at Aldgate, a white woman does not want to sit with you and the conductor is about to chivvy her for keep standing when it is not allowed. In there, you really come to the rescue of the white woman even if she imputes you to the practice of equality. What seems to be a big slight on the bus happens to be an ordinary incident in your life as you narrate your struggle to find a job for your living after being demobilised from the RAF. I have never personally experienced the kind of grief that you have experienced on the day when you have been turned down the job of a technical engineer even if you possess all the required features. Your stint in the Aruba oil company and the expertise you have gained in the US and South America must get you a fine job. The ease that you have exuded on the day of the interview when you are put through the grill of questions must have promised you the great expectation of getting through the process of selection. As the interviewer rises to congratulate you and gives out the reason for not selecting you, oh! God, i do not know how you have taken it. You yourself states that you have come to see the complexion that has been with you ever since you were born only then.

Teaching becomes last of your options for survival as you are not a qualified teacher. The scene with a white man, a stranger, in a park, is, if you are a theist, surely God given. The old white gentleman not only gives courage but also attunes the aberration that your mind has gone into after continuous defeats. The image of the boy who welcomes you with the stub of a cigarette between his thumb and fore finger into school would have given a preamble to the kind of pupils that you are going to teach. The wake of the second world war is seen in the behavioral patterns of children. The squalid and dingy places of living have made them unclean and losing their morality. The hostility of children of the class that you take over is not because they intentionally want to be brutal but to alleviate the stress that they have been put through both at home and outside. The efforts taken by you to tame them and your interests in finding out from where they hail are necessary parts of a teacher. Your stint in psychology books provides with no clue of children of your school as they are a 'class apart'.

Your efforts to instill mannerism in them through making them realise that they too are grown-ups and they will be treated as ones if they behave in a way to get accolades from the outside society is a genuine effort to be honed in every teacher. your interests in finding out the functioning of the Juvenile court and law in general when one of your boys has been arrested for stabbing another boy unintentionally shows your earnestness in doing something to uplift your students. The best gift that you have received in your life is definitely not from Gillian, your love, but is from your students when they have presented a bouquet, a collection which is assorted in a sense that the flowers have been plucked from the places of their living and the premises of the school. The gift to be ingrained in yourself is the final gift of all the signatures of the children of your class neatly covered in a parcel with an inscription "To sir, with love". You have been successful in weeding off the 'skin-deep' race and caste feelings when they have obliged you in placing the wreath that they have bought from their kitty on the body of the mother of their classmate of mixed origin.

You are indeed a real teacher with the demure of a teacher. I salute you.

Bye. With Love. A teacher trying to be in your shoes.


PS: visit the following link to view the trailer of "To Sir with Love". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucnq_hPhdDI