Saturday, December 22, 2007

Flubber, The Absent Minded Professor & Mayurkanthi Jelly


Flubber, The Absent Minded Professor & Mayurkanthi Jelly

This is very interesting.

Well, subtly so, because I am still searching for the right answers over the ‘net’. This occurred to me while reading ‘Mayurkanthi Jelly’ (Peacock-neck Blue Colored Jelly), 1965, written by Satyajit Ray. Mark the year here.

Spielberg has been credited with ‘E.T’ (1997) when the storyline and idea was already there in Ray’s ‘Bankubabur Bandhu’ (1962) whose script was titled ‘The Alien’.

Here comes the catch! Spielberg’s ‘Flubber’ was inspired by the movie ‘The Absent Minded Professor’ by Samuel W. Taylor, which was made into a movie in 1961! However, the wonder does not stop here. It seems one of Ray’s short stories for children titled ‘Mayurkanthi Jelly’ (Peacock-neck Blue Colored Jelly) was released in 1965 and bears striking resemblances to both the stories!

There you go!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Demon Posts



Demon Posts



Everyday like another day unveils,

A rotten hulled ship, stuck at the keel.

Dangerous converts thus bewared & kneel –

Till thunderous Heavens did peal.


Hello – hi there – excuse me Rudiments.

Come beg salvation with your armaments.

You shall have a bloodied ground of tents,

Every rule that dearest Death might vent.


Did you see that small motel en-way?

Where the little girl with her headless toy, did play?

When hours rolled in the couch Nemesis did sway?

How the earth creaked – ripped hearts astray?


First steps to your damnation are fine.

Half of the scorched ocean – your; half is mine.

And when on a supernova the eyes did shine,

Then stand apart – fall back in a line.


The mailbox has been emptied.

As empty as my bottle of wine.


__________________

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Oh! Woman.


Through the City of Women’s Gates


What are you – woman?
A vision
A dream
A passion
A sin.

A flower
A tower
A color that –
Changes every hour.

A beacon
A temptation
A baton –
Of redemption

A hog
A dog
A fog
A log

A mention
A tension
Apprehension?
Revelation?

A tide
A ride
A pride –
Astride.

An epitome
A filthy gnome
A place called home.
A picture worn

A storm
A norm
A scorn
Adorn

A relic
Psychedelic
Acrylic
Oriental vase.

Oh! Woman – who are you?
An idea
An emotion
A spirit called –
Devotion.

_____

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Heavens Long, Short


Heavens Long, Short


There are times you run on mad, perspiring, glistening unruly hair, thinning horizon, emerging roads and more beyond, pushing, pumping blood full of fresh air, rushing forward – your mind utterly blank. And then you stop. You look around – over the rugged extend of sandstones looming large over you like your cenotaph. You look back in the direction you thought you came from and you cannot make out. You turn back again to try understanding where your intent lies and you know your present has passed into eternity in that blink – your intent has simply vanished into thin, hot air on which the dissolving mirage on the horizon seethes.


You look around, tired for a rock to sit upon. Few yard away a boulder. Slowly the legs drag onwards to the rock which bears an uncanny appearance of an out-of-proportion throne with armrests. You stop awhile and smile upon the satire of time and even then proceed onwards to be a part of it. A relenting sigh and you drop on the throne in the middle of nothing, which no one gave to you, which was never meant for you or anyone, which needed not succession, no reign, no eras, no countries nor empires. Whatever was is the throne. Whatever you are now is the ‘master of what you survey’ – barren fields of eroded sandstone.


When you sit what do you see? A vast desert stretched out or a vast ocean, have you traveled through water or sea or your emotions. What are you - an ocean of thought or a desert of ideas? Winds blow around whirling thoughts and churning the ocean and forming dunes. The rock doesn’t move and do you? Do you take refuge in the rock from your ideas or do you let your tired self trudge again towards that unknown? Is it your victory or is it your defeat?
You part the parched, dry lips of yours in thirst of life – or answers?


_____*****_____

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Emancipation


Emancipation
Something happened today. Today? Rather, yesterday late morning – just like anything else that might happen and as memorable as none other. I don't know why but my experiences has never left me blankly staring into a de ja vue alley. Never. And so, I happily write on.

A cat littered in the kitchen - in the cozy damp corner just below the kitchen sink of our rented apartment, I guess on the night before yesterday. It was more of a shock than find. Pangs of hunger had at last broken my vow of laziness at noon. Food had just been delivered at my doorstep and it needed only one plate and one spoon to be served – rice, pulses and potatoes – simple and sumptuous. But not a single plate or spoon had been left clean, heaped in the sink for over two days I guess. Abhorrence of the stench or arrogance of being - both combined, had connived and so I proceeded to the sink.

Suddenly, a brush of fur – alive! The cat stealthily brushed past me and dived over the window still. Almost instinctively, the first thing I did was to stoop to check beneath the sink and straighten my back with a snigger of disgust crossing my face. Three – one spotted gray and two black bundles of sparse fur and throbbing, rolling over each other, kittens. Instinct again produced the 'F' word – deeply, smoothly through my clamped lips.

For a few moments, I was somewhere there, between the zone of ignorance and annoyance. Great! So much, for lunch! I looked outside the window and as expected 'momma' cat was right there, beneath the window still, looking up straight into my eyes, as perplexed and upset as I was. I hope I got her right. I looked left, I looked right and I located a small cardboard box and proceeded to do the most obvious thing - take that 'bloody' litter off my block, no place for aliens here.

I extended my right hand and touched the first throbbing, ugly fur ball - at first gently and then efficiently, to quickly transfer it into the box. In ten seconds flat the three were in the box and I lifted it over the window still. 'Momma' was still there. Now that I am saying this I might as well admit - it was pretty stupid of me to think 'momma' cat would understand. I just picked one up and showed it to her. I had thought she would understand that I wanted her to know I was beholding her creations and wanted to get rid of them urgently, as the responsibilities were absolutely out of question for me to handle. Stupid me. The snarl that emanated from her snapping jaws, with razor sharp, inch long canines on two sides showing, startled me. It looked vicious and so it felt.

There was no other way out. I locked the backdoor to the kitchen, the only way into my living room and proceeded, with the box, to the door. I latched it and went down stairs, stooping out of the quite low lying hallway and emerging just underneath the window still where scary 'momma' was perched, still looking up through my kitchen window, waiting for this to end as much as I did.

I whistled and there was an immediate turn of the feline form. First, it looked into my face. I didn't utter a sound and yet instinctively 'momma' looked into the box below her. I slowly walked up to the nearest garbage bin - a few steps away, and laid down the box and she followed each and every movement of mine - unpredictable and anxious movements, eyes transfixed on the box.

But as soon as I stepped away after laying them down and waiting at a distance to let her take her bundle of joy away, in a totally unexpected show of indifference, she turned on her back, tail slowly undulating and walked away in the opposite direction. That was the second and the last time the 'F' word hissed through my pursed lips.

I quickly picked up the box and proceeded to follow to 'momma' who was now perfectly sitting under the shade of a parked motorbike. At first it glanced away indifferently, but I was desperate to get rid of the three lives in my box. I gently upturned the box right in front of her and the litter rolled down on the ground, right in front of her alarmed and again transfixed eyes. stood aside.

I think gray is a good color - compared to black around. Otherwise why would she grab her 'gray' kitten over the other two and proceed to find a more private place, now that the old one stood busted by its original, yet, presently totally flummoxed tenant? I stood there waiting for it to come back for the other two. It was a long wait.

Some inquisitive kids from the block had gathered around. They had questions and an unwilling, famished me was the only one there. Perhaps it was horribly stupid of me but then I was not exactly thinking of my state. This is very typical of an empty stomach when the 'Gabrielisque' spirit takes over. Mind you, I was completely starved by then. I guess all of this lead to that point of great impatience when it just boiled over and the milk was spilt...

It was somewhere between all these kids and two litters that I forgot recollection of my position. Of the numerous cats in our block there was this certain black furred cat. It had been quite intriguing to me before and now it was approaching the very place we were standing over the two squeaking, blinking kittens. I recollected my general knowledge. They say these feline animals cannot bear the sight of offspring of others – not even one amongst its own species. I stared at the approaching, un-suspecting ‘stranger’.

It got the vibes – little, nearly inaudible squeaks of its own nature. It turned and headed straight for the kittens. I stood there transfixed. Whether it was my inquisitiveness or whether it was my foolhardiness, I don’t know, but I allowed it happen. I allowed the ‘stranger’ to approach the two defenseless cubs. Perhaps it was plain enchantment of witnessing a killing – the full rawness of nature that prompted to freeze my body as I concentrated on each and every excited quiver on the fur of the black furred cat.

It licked only once and in a flash it had got one of the litters by its neck. The kids took a step back and yet stared in amazement like me. They felt so weak like me – unable to comprehend and hence totally unresponsive to this display of violence. The jaws sank deeper into the neck and for sure now, I knew, this was getting murderously devious of me. At that very split second it happened.

Greed got the ‘stranger’ to drop the first and dash for the second and simultaneously, I don’t know what possessed me, I picked up the box that had been lying aside for sometime now and confronted the murderous ‘intruder’. Maybe it is the fear of regret. Maybe it was the sense of penance. I never knew then. I know not now either. I threw the damned box on the gaining black furred cat and it let go of the last living litter and bounced away.

I picked up the harrowed body of the visibly shaking figure of the fur ball and brought it over to the original place, place where its mother had left it to come back. I somehow believed it would come back and it did. I don’t know why, but like a man possessed I stood guard over the last live one that lay beside the badly mauled body of its sibling. The last few moments were the same for the broken neck. Quivering of body, stretching legs, jaws hanging and tongue lolling out with clenched phalanges and choking breadth squeezing shut the eyes such that it might pound the socket inside. For a moment the eyelids relaxed. Then there was peace.

I stood there waiting. After about twenty minutes, between which all these had happened, I saw the ‘momma’ approaching the place where she had left her possessions. This time she looked up to me with a look I have still not been able to decipher. A look quite similar to the first time my ex-beloved asked for a particular soft-toy for her and still inexplicable.

I pushed the live one in her sight. She grabbed it softly by its neck and with the gentle little body mass safely hanging between the protective jaws of ‘momma’ cat I snapped. With a last passing, inaudible sigh I strained my neck over my shoulders to catch a glimpse of the lifeless little body. Turning around I walked upstairs, back into the cool comforting confines of my apartment. Content, exhausted – blank. I kept the box aside and readied myself for my late lunch.
_ _ _ _ _

Friday, April 13, 2007

Riddle Riddle


Paheli Ki Paheli

Sometimes it has to be this way. Sometimes you have to think. There are so many times one gets lost in disbelief of himself. I mean, we all are meant to reason out things, the way they are. After all that is what reasoning is all about. But, there are times things flash in - into, your mind and you begin looking at them in an altogether different light.

Paheli - an Amol Palekar movie starring Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherji, Anupam Kher, Sunil Shetty and a guest appearance of the formidable 'numero-uno-man-show' - Amitabh Bacchan himself, was to most of us, quiet a forgettable movie, at first look. It did miserably at the box-office, did not find admirers in the media and many could not accept the fact that it was the Indian entry to that year's Oscars ceremony, under the foreign film category. All of this, however, was something that came back to me a year later albeit during a 'chilled' stupor last night.

'At first look' because I watched the last half an hour of the movie (the first time since I had watched it in the Ahmedabad theatre during my college days). There was nothing unusual about the theatrics. Sharukh trying to earnestly control the inimitable, trademark stutter in dialogue delivery - trying to camouflage in a husky, deeper voice to incorporate the ethnic settings of the character. Rani Mukherji as the quintessential Indian village belle - wife of a traditional household and romancing a ghost, with a deep sense and portrayal of the stretched character (off the records - 'how I love this woman!'). Anupam Kher will be the conservative, comic relief. And Mr. Amitabh Bacchan - dress him a pauper and put him in the background and it would make the most compelling background that would pale any foreground to shame. Yes, it is the very same movie and yet not what I saw in it when I looked the second time around.

First look - rural, second look - urban; First look - Utopian, second look - sarcastic; First look - folk tale, second look - camouflage. Let me explain.

I think it was a movie of distinct urban symbolism. Starting from the ending sequence - 'the puppet song', as I take the liberty of calling it, is a stark portrayal of urban lifestyle. Very far fetched? I don't think so. We feed on media. We are controlled by higher authority. Our 'happy life' is a controlled system of effectiveness and productivity. I mean, we have got these strict rules to follow. Romance - by serenading or dancing but only in the evening. Dance - with your partner but it should be surreal in your mind. Partner - has to be beautiful, even if not media promoted 36-24-36 but close to it.

Now let me write the storyline in a sentence. A married woman falls in love and mothers a child off a ghost after her husband, bound by his business commitment, leaves her back at home - alone. Forget the words 'a ghost' and add two words 'another man', replace 'business' by 'professional' and 'leaves her back at home - alone' by 'cannot afford to spend much time with her'. You get this, 'A married woman falls in love and mothers a child off another man after her husband, bound by his professional commitment, cannot afford to spend much time with her'. How many times have you heard of this? Is this urban or is this rural? Is this folklore or is this bare truth? Is it the ghost or is it the yearned and lost romance of a housewife under such circumstances? Is it desperately emotional or is it justified - considering even women have been given equal rights to file divorces and exercise choice on their life-partners, but not remotely prominent in rural areas. What else would you call the clever interplay of the 'good' shepherd? Is it not the Law constrained by opposing forces of development and conservative moral policing, which finally takes recourse to clever manipulations?

However, the part which really takes the icing on the cake (according to me, mind you - you may differ all together to this entire article. I have no qualms - I will not watch the movie thrice!) the reunion of the 'ghost' with his lady love. Think now. Thought up? It is not 'happy Bollywood endings for audience pleasure'. It is still not 'folklore'. It is not the triumph of 'love'. Think agin. It is a strong statement of 'metro-sexuality' where rather than a rigid viewpoint of a angry cuckold exuding typical Indian machismo, it is the husband himself who transforms and begins to understand his wife's needs, changes his lifestyle and resets his priorities right. To me the character of the woman was betrayed twice. First, the 'ghost' who would never have the guts to stand out against a huge India social structure. Second, she lost the macho husband to a milder version comprising both machismo and softness. All she settles for in the end is a compromise and that is so real. We men refuse vehemently to be something lese than what we are before we settle down. The women, if I am not mistaken, refuse to accept that there is never the best till they relent. And then both let go of everything almost desperately and what remains are but compromises, laws of averages and mediocricy.

On a lighter vein, the film might be suggesting the spurned urban husbands a solution to their errant housewives!

So that's a Paheli (meaning 'riddle') solved according to me. However, remember what I said. If you disagree I have never said I will disagree with you. For, here, I just chose to reason things not the way they are. I saw 'Paheli' as such a film which should not be reasoned the way it is. In the end a gentle thought if you thought this has been worth a read. What are those two ethnic Rajasthani wood 'puppets' doing there in the film with 'voice-overs'?

Cheer on...




*****

Etcetra's: Well, now that I am into movies I know which movie I am to write about next. (Hint: I am a proud Bengali at heart!)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Under the Pillow


Under the Pillow

Everything is just like getting through.
Pens turn into buttons –
Just let go of me writings, I am too tired now.
Too tired to think, to act, to observe –
To react; for I am not of the generous kind.
I am struggling now – my breadth heavy,
My throat sore and my senses even more numb.
And yet like the last straw
I; wrenched to my skin – dry, raw, inert thing.
Specimens of choice around me
We all got choices to make – what if I don’t?

I will mount the steps of Djongrila
Where all of them have gone praying for me
To ask them to let me be –
For all that matters to me are these;
Stars falling in flakes on the snowed fields
Of solitude and peace.
Where moments stare at me like my nemesis.
Pray not for me o the knowledgeable ones –
For I have wronged none
But for one within. So pray no one comes along
This path I have walked too far.

Pray for them o generous ones
Whom I unknowingly led in my way
For the souls who know not where they come.
Neither in a cauldron nor the bed of petals,
But an unforgiven spirit which lingers
Along the banks of the dry river bed
Lamenting such, the river may come rushing back.
To be sure if somebody had knocked
On her abode’s shackled door.
*****

Friday, February 23, 2007

On a Full Moon


Bitter Moon

Pretty dreams, swift drizzles, generous whispers
Garnished in a tumble tin –
Spiced with green and red,
Served hot, or chilled in no time.

Ripples golden and black,
Useless – doubtful, how did it come to know?

Waves don’t come,
For, waves have dried on sunspots.

Speak over lines for clearer answers,
Sensible senselessness –
The buzzword, of importance
Garnering it is gnawing, though pitiful.
The point is gainful earnest.

Ideas are not always ideally dealt with –
So take a chance.

Blahs include ‘et al’s.

Working is a religion –
Practiced in great earnest.
Ability is a language –
Often twice misread to be understood.

And somewhere down
You begin enjoying the show...

Be entertained.
After all, what have you got to believe,
But, in the very same ‘it’?

*****

Monday, February 19, 2007

Dementia


Dementia (This is Last Grass)

As the margins blur
On a silent camaraderie
Of bohemian grace
Static electricity flows
In Pharaoh’s ante-chamber

Mystic lady beheld
The gilded, golden goblet
To the thirsty eyes
And let it flow down
Below the melting skies

Elephantine shoals
Swarmed over cities awash
Of silent memories
Stories long dead speak
On a past pleasant dream

Drink to the lees
Sirens whisper lullabies
To Ulysses here
As he slept content
Sinking into golden sand

Devils old and new
Now gather in earnest
They dance merrily
Around soul’s bonfire
Mist descends to warmth

On these hillsides
Of rocks and old moss
Disturbed on them
A spirit lingers singing
Till daisies lull and sleep

Ethereal foam rides
On waves of unseen beasts
From the depths
Of silent unimaginable
As the oceans lie in peace

Heavens crumble
To ashes of loneliness
Lemon grasses
Waft in the restless winds
Gently hang down sleepless

The barmaid flatters
To deceive intimate millions
Craved on flesh
Carved on scarred faces
Demented souls of the gods

The lone sentry stands
Holds the glister tipped spear
The century old stand
Of earth smeared red of blood
With souls rung tearless

Cauldron of destiny
Seethe on the horizon of dawn
Albatross of hope flies
Destiny woes the wings aged
Over the waves he sinks to rise

Like a bird endless
An idea boundless of time
Unspeakable silence
Of universe collapsing inside
The rhythm began churning round...and round...and round...and...

__________________________

I Justify


Mercurial Mentations
Something never changes – like realization. It is always an on going process that observes, deciphers, hypothesizes, reasons, deduces, believes, rechecks, recalculates and then again begins the whole cycle all over again. It is a mysticism borne in restless spirits which refuses to die out on a single whiff of time. It is a struggle – a struggle to relieve the passion of deconstructions and rebuilding towers of faith on basis of proof.
Whoever uttered the line, “a bird in hand is worth more than two in a bush”, then stands corrected. For, of what use is the bird in hand, if the other two are birds he will never get to know? What is the use of living then? You might as well live a whole life in diapers. However, this is not an inspiring argument. It is rather a truthful documentation of obvious reality. So, the writing stands justified on its, own stead.
Now that I have my point, there remains apparently nothing to be discussed. Discussed? How can I say I am discussing? In this darkened room, my friend lying in peaceful midnight slumber, two eyes of mine trying hard to argue my senses to sleep, effect of late night nicotine, incessant, unyielding rain pit pattering on the glass panes, Colonial Cousins softly crooning ‘Krishna’ through the precariously hung headphones and a glaring screen, what devil does beseech me to seek whatever I know not?
Maybe it is my prime need. Need? Need for what – a constructive deduction to a certain culmination of this writing? Or do I seek acclaim? Ah! Dear me, you should have known by now. Since, the very first cry you strained through your throat, smeared in remains of origins, naked, lay bare before the whole wide world – you clenched your fists, to prove your existence. There you are then. It is the pure need of being accepted as an existent being that you do the entire thing you do. I guess my very existence depends on these black scratches on the whites of time.
These days, in fact these sleepless nights, which I spend regurgitating on the facts and fiction of my existence I find a peculiar resemblance of me to a rhododendron for whatever existed has passed eons by and whatever remains, are decomposed fossils of a self I have left behind in time. In a sense we all are serpents – crawling on our chests, sniffing traces of life to consume on the vast desolate parched extent of a desert. Here, the oasis' have their waters muddied. Yet, no regret at all, for the willingness is ours.
The need basically is of freedom which unfailingly eludes the Ulysses within. It is only for the ones who have already known that from the blithe moment of our conception we have been put into this framework of existentialism, which as frameworks should be, are limited in themselves. We refuse even then. But facts require justification and so I justify. So, you think senses are the routes to emancipation – to freedom? Well you are already there my dear friend – in a web of deceit, which your senses have so cleverly knit around you. You think it is ground you are walking upon? I see you crawling my dear and that too comparable to that of a slug.
All the world’s libraries are not enough for you and you travel places – ‘places’, and yet you know not how far. Knowing knowledge can be dangerous propositions my dear. It is not knowledge you are after, you are after the rat race of knowledge – it is the race that matters, unfortunately always far, far ahead of you as your sixth sense perennially picks up the scent of probability. You think you create? Hardly there son, you are putting things, already there, into place for your comfort. And then you say you create matter, anti-matter, super-matter and what not. Feel not ashamed for that is what, the framework of your existence, has been put to use; and yet, by whom or what?
Questions fly here, questions fly there, not a single answer to be found. Why answers? Why not only questions? Questioning questions is a way of life for us after all. All that matters is a way of life and not life itself. If you haven’t had a way about your life you are never the ‘good’ man, no matter how well you have lived your life. We all are butterflies here. All wearing different colors – or is it camouflage? Either way it smacks of sweet deceit. So, enjoy.
Whosoever discovered or accidentally thought of a whisky on rocks is the omnipresent god in my eyes. Here the working thought is somewhat convoluted, somewhat like this – “All fluids look good when splashed on rocks.” The interpretation can be varied in distinctness and emotional quotient accordingly as the phase of psychological limitation the reader is into at the time of reading the sentence.
Metaphors are no accidental discoveries but natural consequences of a typical human’s inherent preference for privacy. This exists not only in concrete forms of lifestyle but also in intangibles of emoting. Secondary self is one’s tryst with existent entities beyond the outer boundaries of his primary limited self. For, if not that, why must I and you be here? The inner boundary draws the area of reprise for ‘everybody is his own, best consolation, confidante’ and et al’. Questions arise from the bases of answers to them. We lesser mortals, travel far and wide, tracing a round about route, back to the point where our quest originated from. Everything we do we judge more than we believe and there lies the satire of fate.
Enmity is frivolous and as well fictional for whatever happens has got a lot to do with backward aggregating expectations. Expectations in themselves are flawed and hence incorrigible. Misdirected thought stimulation leads to the final leap of faith which finally often ends dumped and caught obsolete in the fleet of time. Doing away with expectations, however, does not help the cause – mind you. What it does is to imbibe cynicism.
I do not allow, for I have known since my conscience has spoken to me, that we all are picking random hearts in our way of life. It does not matter if it is a pitiable bunch of a-day-old violets in a roadside bin or a – “What was that, a fairy in red?” It always that split second which determines the deliciousness of the next experience we relish. Whatever we eat is experience. Prove me salt tastes salty and I will say you are asking only from a human who is taught the language which is a code for communicating amongst them. Metaphorically speaking, there are in fact many – in fact everybody, who knows salt can taste sweet and sweet, bitter. Did you hear me chuckle?
Nomads were ramblers. Rambling is nomadic. We all were nomads. We are all rambling nomadic. No wonder I have much to write and yet, more than a universe to express. Maybe universe is a throbbing heart of some larger form. How would that living be like? Well I guess much like us. With good and bad ‘cells’ sharing the body in a precarious equilibrium, it can only be only as much human as we are. Thoughts are horses and wild ones too. Nomads ride wild horses. Nomadic thoughts saddle my dream horse. I will ride the horse.