THE UNPOETICAL RAIN

LET ALL THE BOOKS OF THE WORLD, BE MY COMPANIONS

2011-12-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

If only there were words that could portray the very humiliating moment in a language of its own…….

Those bona fide seeds in him could blossom any moment with just a soft touch of wind from any direction, yet he shriveled in his timid shell.

Unfamiliar times!! He never realized the beauty of the blooming flower that filled the world around with its fragrance.

The troubled situation had turned him into an old handkerchief: The inability of wearing pressed clothes like his friends, a contemporary style statement with a pair of sneakers, a brand new pen to adorn his shirt pocket and the nonexistent luxury of spending money to buy the things he wanted. Charred he was, in the blazing fire of poverty and an empty pocket symbolized this condition. “Poverty: An eternal ghost that paves the way for insults”.

Like a revolution that takes its birth beyond all boundaries, there would be a time when it saves the burgeoning youth from withering away, from this disease which affects people of all race in all spheres.

Then all of a sudden you find yourself cornered. Now it’s a choice: You break that wall or you accept defeat thinking it’s the end of the world.

These desires were small. He could hold them in his hands: Owning a cycle, playing cricket, chatting with his friends while watching movies, joining the NCC or sketching movie posters like the Beau Monde boys who attended drawing classes. But these were impaired by an age old disease embedded in the society’s brain: Mocking.

Imagining the disappointment caused by the denial of a ride on a brand new cycle owned by the rich boy, his stomach twists in agony. His pleadings are unheard by the deaf ears which surround him. “Can I play cricket” is answered by “You idiot, Have you seen your dirty clothes. Are these the same hands that can hold a new bat? Go learn how to wear a pair of shoes like all of us. Then you can think of playing”. These statements by the smart friends who wore tidy clothes bring tears and blur their very faces in his sight.

“You Shorty, Do you think you are fit enough to join the NCC. Eat well and grow an inch or two. Better luck next time”. Hearing these words uttered by the Physical education teacher it seemed as though the earth shook due to the sound of the boots of the parade men and his body trembles in humiliation. “Do you think your dad is a reddy or a Marwari to get you color pencils, clips, paper and painting brushes?” Even before the drawing teacher ends his conversation, the words make him run out of the school compound. To avoid his rich friends who might invite him for an ice cream in the interval he runs to the water tank and cools his hot head under the tap.

“Hey do you want to join us for a movie on Sunday” ask his friends and he shuns them by bunking classes on Saturday.

The only way out of this self centered world is to break the very wall that binds him. The bits of paper which stick to the feet like the dirt in the rain, take this lonely boy to a whole new world, a world where he begins to read immensely.

His distress is relieved, when the words that lay in his hands inspires him to look for more. His interest towards reading deepens. His timid and introvert behaviors begin to disappear, allowing him to talk endlessly to the characters created by the words in the play. He develops the art of playing those characters, getting into their skin.

He finds a voracious reader in himself when he is drawn towards the unique odor of those dusty racks in the old building of the town’s library. The books give him his solace and oblivious happiness. They take him to a new planet and become his companions. He wonders why he longed for materialistic pleasures when the world of books gave him his best slice of life.

The characters of the books come alive. They talk, emote and comfort each other. They take him to un-touched beauteous lands, unknown destinations; bring him the fragrance of new flowers, the softness of the morning dew, the color of mountains, clouds, birds and their unheard sound, the gentle breeze , the sight of the falling leaves……….

He finds new possibilities of life and discovers its true meaning when everything is granted to him like the wishes from Aladdin’s magic Lamp. They build in him immense patience, maturity and the ability to judge and accept things. Gradually his urge for knowledge knows no bounds. In the trance of this world there emerges a radiant face.

This brightness now reflects in his decisions, behavior shaping him into a strong charismatic personality. None of these were gained out of vengeance rather they were as natural as his blood, sleep or dreams.

The unnoticed guy now begins to grow beyond the sky. He surprises the boys who struggle to find answers to the exam questions while he eases through them. The guy, who stammered, now turns out to be a great orator winning accolades in debates and seminars at school in spite of his wrinkled attire.

The same people who made fun of him now change and decide to befriend him. It’s no use hating him anymore they think!!

His round shaped pearl like letters adds more value when his friends borrow his class notes, the young Romeos of the college beg him to write love poems and the illiterates get social letters from him. Now they offer him cookies, beverages and movie tickets as a mark of respect!

His poems begin to shine like the stars in the night sky when they get published in the school magazine and small time local newspapers. He takes pride when his friends ask “Is that your name in the newspaper”. He endures sleepless nights when his friends thank him for the cup of tea he bought for them out of his first remuneration. He doubts if the reddy girls’ voices are those of the heroines when they say “Hey, do you know. He writes the most romantic love poems”.

He is amazed at the happiness he finds in this world, he discovered accidentally. How ironical! He feels ecstatic when the world appreciates what he reads or writes for joy. When the rich boys with egoistic attitudes in the yester years meet after a long time, they look frail and say: “Your life is better”. Look at us: We work very hard yet we still remain like the rocks on the hillocks of the city. You on the other hand never even knew how to play cricket or football, but your talent as a writer has brought you name and fame and some quick bucks.

The coy boy turned poet tells his friend: Dear friend, I have not made a very big name. I face the same troubles as you, how can I make you understand? The pleasure of reading books and writing poems whenever I want to is not eternal. The excitement dies down after a while. Do you remember: We were listening to the same lesson even though we were in different class rooms? Weren’t the true colors displayed in the playground even though we thought we are all one? Were we not divided by greed, contempt, colors and riches? There exists the same dangerous world of discrimination here like the one in our schools. You feel great after reading a good book, but when it comes to writing, it’s a different story. There are the same conniving artists who display their brilliant performance in all walks of literature in newspapers, book release functions and literary promotional events. There are rich writers who buy all the people they meet. The majorities of the people don’t believe in giving chance to young and talented writers but have the uncivilized vision of using them as stepping stones for their success. The only difference I see between our childhood and now is that: The same acts were unintentional then, but now they know what they are doing and never ever feel guilty about it.

But I am neither disgusted nor sad. Let me tell you my friend that I will never run away from this world of books like I did from my school. I would like to keep all the good books of the world for myself. They have taught me how to bloom like a flower from a barren rock. They have helped me sketch paintings as beautiful as the moonlight, from the powder of the hammer pounded rock laden paths, tolerating the humiliations caused by the people in the society who thought discrimination was the key to all success. They have whispered to me how to find nectar even in Neem! They have showed me how to be like soft petals in an unkind wind.

Seeing the tears filled in the poet’s eyes who laid out, the feelings in his mind, his friend conceives them to be the tears of joy and congratulates him on his new found success.

(It’s about how a timid, unattractive and an ordinary boy emerged to be a true writer)

Deeper than the Deepest Ocean

2011-12-14T09:09:00.000-08:00

What attracts you most to a woman?

For a guy who is hypnotized by even the minutest details of a woman, like her tiny strand of hair or her nail this would seem like a difficult question. But for a popular, 70 year young journalist Khushwant Singh, this would be a cake walk.

A group of young friends relaxing in a Goan lounge put this question on Khushwant Singh’s platter. Perhaps it was quite natural for them to arrive at a conclusion that this question deserved to be answered, only by the Sardarji. Its “Her Eyes” replied an unperplexed Khushwant Singh.

He had remembered a woman’s conversation with her lover in an English poem:” I would like to drown you in my eyes”.

Adding to what was penned down in an old column of his; he recalled Servantes quoting “The silent tongues of love” and wailed at the fact that the Indian writers never compared a woman’s eyes to an ocean, sea or a vast lake.

This might look true to a certain extent. Sanskrit literature has mostly compared a woman’s eyes to a lotus and a pair of “Harini’s Eyes”. ” Her eyes as timid as a fearful deer”, Kamala, Kamalakshi, Vanajakshi, Neerajakshi, Jalajakshi have been the usual adjectives.

Khushwant Singh’s statement that the Indian writers have never compared a woman’s eyes to an ocean immediately reminded me of “The beauty of her eyes is deeper than the deepest ocean” written by KSN. Like a deluge of memories it also reminded me of a few lines from GSS’s Poem “In your Eyes”.

“What’s hidden in this beautiful ocean eyes? I wondered!

Blind was I, staring at it!!

I sank to an endless bottom,

Was washed ashore!!!

I sighed,

What lied at the bottom of those deep ocean eyes? I do not know

When “Searching the pearls hidden deep in the ocean eyes of a woman” has been the most sought after theme in the poems, citing such beautiful examples is not a very difficult job.

They have found a spark, the serenity of an ocean in a woman’s eyes. There have been people like Milton who have also found heaven.

Poet Adiga’s writing

“Your eyes, your eyes

How beautiful!

It’s……………………..”

Is not an exaggeration after all.

Rare it has been for our poets to have escaped those haunting eyes. If not lankesh would not have written

“Don’t haunt me Saroja,

Wherever I go,

Don’t haunt me,

With those eyes of yours”

Who wouldn’t like those bright eyes, the eyes that capture you wholly and drown you sweetly?

No wonder our lyricists have penned such beautiful lines like

“In the mirror of your eyes, I found myself”

“You sent a poem written through your eyes”

This is the power of the eyes. The essence of all our poems is this: “Eyes Speak”. This is what Servantes has termed as” The silent tongues of love”. If you have seen the “Sorrow filled eyes of Adelaquesta, and the extreme soul stirring sadness” in the movie “Passage” you would believe me more.

How a pair of eyes can reflect the joy and sorrow of the whole world!!!

Until recently I had believed that the feet of a dancer were her biggest possession. But a recent dance performance changed my perception: For a true dancer, a pair of eyes is her soul.

But to my dismay, even after years of marriage, insensitive and unromantic men of India fail to recognize the beauty of their partners’ eyes. However I feel that our Muslim brothers are better in that way. Perhaps, their curiosity is due to the inevitability of only seeing those eyes of a woman, covered with a burkha.

When I was studying in channapatna I remember making fun of my male friends who applied Kajal to their eyes. Coming from a group which believed that” the beauty of a man is only defined by his nose”, my attitude towards them was predictable.

A scene from the movie “Passage” where Dr Aziz carefully applies Kajal standing in front of the mirror brought me happiness, when it had been long, since I saw men wearing kajal in bangalore.

But I have always doubted the poets who describe the eyes as the nature’s most beautiful element. “Black eyes, blue eyes, Lotus eyes” so many types of eyes. A pair of eyes with more than the usual amount of Kajal always looked black; an eyebrow shaped to perfection brought out Meenakshi. These have been my complaints when thinking of the eyes that haunt me!! I would also add “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” to this dictionary of mine.

My worry seems illogical when I realize that the element which perceives them is also a pair of eyes. Perhaps that’s why I am not cynical about them even though I see the whole world pessimistically.

Do you know why?

When you think of the lovely eyes , that can increase your heart beat, can induce a new found enthusiasm in you, can bring out the deepest of emotions, can make you forget your existence for a moment, I realize that even the slightest pain in them can give you nightmares. These powerful eyes can leave you speechless and dumbfounded.

Why would I get angry with them, how could I be cynical about them. That is when I remember

Kambara’s poem

“These two eyes are incapable of capturing your moonlit smile”.

“Seeing your sparkling eyes, I remember the morning dew”

Before I end this passionate never ending saga I want you, the readers to understand the importance of your eyes. What would always keep your soul mates young and alive even in your old age?

My favourite poet -dramatist Shakespeare says

Come, fair friend,

you never can

be old

for as you were

when first your

eyes eyed

Such is your beauty still

Confessions of an Egotist- How America enabled the Indian-ness in me.

2011-09-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

The emotions running through were extreme. A high sense of pride and ego was the current flavor. The facts that I was evading responsibilities, leaving my comfort zone; breaking away from my close knit network never deterred me. All I dreamt of was pursuing a higher degree in America. I never deny the fact that I did need a change, a change from the monotonous life and an excellent system of family values and traditions. I wanted a new sky to explore and a new society to look forward to. I was young and there I stood wanting to experiment how well this identity of mine performed in a completely new environment.

America bowled me over with all the materialistic pleasures one could imagine of. Every inch of land gave me utmost freedom and a sense of well being. The first few months were a visual treat with vibrant colors and limitless independency. I was on a high; I had the liberty to walk to every shore of life and watch beautiful sunsets. It was a romantic and sensual affair with my own soul. Then it happened.

Life in America questioned my ego, the ego with a diplomatic attitude, a positive outlook, a simple view of society and a transparent heart. Life was not the same anymore. These characteristics of mine hurt me in more ways than anyone can think of. It was bound to happen. I was amongst the people who had left behind everything to make a mark for themselves in this new land. But what I dint know was that the society around me was a society which had left behind its values, culture and roots. The over independent lifestyle had developed a mean, cheap and dangerous attitude of being self centered. I did change. The ego of wanting to be successful in terms of society had helped me change beyond what I had imagined of. I was not the essential me when I stopped being emotional, stopped being diplomatic and started seeing the people around with contempt and hatred. Every person who talked to me was one with an intention to reap a benefit was my idealistic attitude.

It did help me succeed. Life seemed much better than what it was. But it was dangerous termite. It started eating the woods of a dense emotional forest I had built. There I was looking for love amongst the cold hearted and self centered. I could not find my soul. Being a highly ambitious person I had to master my own intellect, fight my own fears and live in the society where being self centered was right. Now I have changed beyond repair. Being away from India I lost my huge network of friends, an idealistic society and essentially my soul. It’s been chaotic. The emotional trauma I have been facing is for real.

I have also been extremely pessimistic about life and its value. I am in a state where relationships, success and values don’t mean anything to me. Then there is this sadistic attitude. Sometimes it does surprise me when I try to please the people around me through my success. It does hurt me when I made the wrong choice of stepping away from India. It does irritate me when I try to find answers to unknown questions. The confession that my ego has been detrimental is true and it continues to prove its worth. But the reality is I have not tried to change. I find a joy in being able to recognize self centered people and stay away from them. I have found success to be a remedy to all the harsh realities of life. I have always been excited about satisfying the society’s appetite in judging my life. I have never found a reason to be good to people unless they have been to me. I see intelligence in being able to judge a person beyond his own nature. I see jealousy as a stepping stone to be successful. But what I don’t see is a young, soulful side of me.

The American society has given me a lost identity- the identity of someone like me. The decision to come back to my roots was evident. I had realized where i needed to find my soul. Like a bird which travels throughout the day to find its own sky and returns back home to its nest I wanted to travel back to

India

I want to relive those days of being simple and enjoy the simple aspects of life like sipping a cup of coffee or reading the newspaper. I do want to see all the drama of life in daily soaps and experience larger than life films, society and politics. I do want chaos, rich marriages and festivals. I want the entire Indian ness associated with

India

That’s when I would be what I was earlier. I have realized that my character exists with the environment am in and the society built around it. This is where I get to exist and not just live my life. This is where I would find my identity. This is where I would realize the importance of being culturally oriented and strong rooted.

I want to showcase my life in a new stage and before a new audience. When I look at the mirror I want to see the soul within me. I want to be calm, focused, emotional, humble and simple. I no longer want to be a foreigner among foreigners. I want to lead a good life, find love again and find an ego worthy of having.

“Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends. “ - Giorgos Seferis

AVERAGE- THE NEW BRAND

2010-05-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

AVERAGE- THE NEW BRAND

A long hiatus, it has been. It has been a while since I experienced life and quite a while since I have output that outlook of life. Writing has been an exhausting process and getting exhausted once in a while is good for my creative health. I have always needed to “PUSH” that button of creativity and switch off “Laziness” to drain down my thoughts. As Derek Walcott quoted “If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average”. So this essay (of the blog and the poem of life) would try not to be average. There was this school teacher of mine; a sweet lady called Tina/Tina Miss/Mrs. Who had already envisioned the most ideal remark anybody could write down on my Progress Report Card. Trust me, it defines Akarsha in a challengingly limited number of words. This was what she quoted. “Akarsha is just average. He always needs a push in whatever he does”. To this day it still holds the record of being the only positive remark on my progress report card. Completely feeling obliged and realizing the duty of satisfying the Newton’s Law of Motion which says “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.”, I was pushed down all the way until I reached the seventh grade.

But this time there was a twist to the story. I had pushed the boundaries of my mom’s anger (which made her take up the seventh grade exam this time seriously) and the impact was a percentage of 92.50. Hold on, I had faced the exam and by default the credits were automatically inherited by me. Then there was this magical moment. Suddenly, life seemed much more interesting. The society had seen (or it thought it saw) a phoenix rise from its ashes. The over glorified success provoked the society to come up with a new definition of Akarsha in their dictionaries. Akarsha- Definition: ~~Average~~ Suddenly Exceptional. Synonym: Overnight Craziness. It was a dangerous liaison and that’s when I decided to add my own Antonym to this sudden success. Antonym: Stop dreaming and be yourself. I had failed in the very first exam of Physics in my 8^th grade. Vague images of Newton crying, my dad (lawyer) concluding that this was a case of “Below Averageness” (if there is a word like that) the output of which cannot be judged even in the Supreme Court , the society worrying about the cost of reprinting this dictionary of mine every time, were the images of immediate trauma. Sticking to a true, soulful, absolutely emotional side of me I decided not to alter the version 1.0 of the dictionary throughout my high school days.

Unlike other schools my school was supposed to be a brand by itself, famous for producing the most number of distinctions in the state which implied that it could not tolerate below average souls like me. Parallel to this was my mom, who was tired of telling everyone that I was not up to the standard. I also forgot to mention that I was the captain of a TEAM B cricket team. TEAM B was not equal to TEAM A because of its average performance. Now coming back to the average performance I still remained calm and in seemingly indifferent to success and was still proud of my achievements until there was this moment of life which rewrote destiny. This was one such incident which instigates the brighter side of me even today.

I was now among the chosen few to compulsorily attend special coaching classes handled by some of the exceptional teachers. The readers might question the ordinary nature and the commonness of these classes in every school. But my school essentially branded it “Low achievers Class” and the name says it all. Coming out of the class on a hot afternoon, I went into a psychological turmoil introspecting me and my existence in the society. I had experienced the extremes of anger, hatred and self denial. A killer instinct had unknowingly rooted itself in me. Fueled by my mom’s constant encouragement and utmost patience I was able to stay focused and had sensed the need of proving, proving something big to my school. Every day was constant study and continual replenish of memory.

Proving the old saying that perseverance and focused efforts would always lead to success I fared pretty well and was among the top scorers in the school with a percentile of 95. The “still hard to digest tone” of my headmistress who told that “ This is just a phase of Life, there is a lot to achieve” and her speech introducing me as one among the top scorers of the school still evokes a curiosity in understanding “Social Psychology”.

With the academic success came a couple of honors and constant praise. Also it paved the way for developing me a questionable ego and sadistic pride. But the positivity of the situation was after all, I had given the society what It needed an above average “Brand Name”. However this trance did not last long. A supposedly below average performance in a competitive exam had brought in mixed reactions. There were people who showed above average concern for a below average performance and there were below average remarks from the supposedly above average class of the society which inscribed an eternal question. “Is the respect you get directly proportional to the success you make”. The answer was yes with “Above average, mostly successful Brand Names” being the criteria.

Life still continued to travel to an unluckily below average destination. I had joined a relatively new engineering college with no absolute brand value. But as the saying goes fortune favors the bold this was where I learnt the most important lessons of life and realized that there was something beyond brand and success. I instantly felt connected to a lot of pre-defined below average guys like me. I also realized that life was just not about branded clothes, gadgets and money. I get emotional thinking of this college as it had brought in the true meaning of friendship through my buddies like Pavan,Shivaji, Keshav, Arjun, Shivraj and Kaustubha.

Again I stood there consistently performing below average in the vastness of society-defined below average people. My life has always taken a turn whenever there has been a trigger point. Another such trigger point was when I realized that only few not so famous companies looked forward to on campus recruitments which were open to only above average performers while good brand colleges had the best companies. I was engulfed by a opaque cloud of sadness and dejection and everything seemed pessimistic and unclear. I had decided to create a brand and was fortunate enough to get employed by one of the top three brands in the software consultancy domain.

An above average dream of pursuing my masters had begun to take shape and yet again with my average scores I landed in an average graduate school. It did not take time for the society to kick back in. I am also confident that I have not wasted time in giving back Internships with brands like ABB and EDISON so far.

So essentially does it mean that not associating yourself with a good brand value makes you average? For me, average is essentially a state of mind. I don’t care if I have not associated myself with IIT’s and STANFORD’s. I have always dreamed big, impossible things and made sure that I have done my part to reach them. I sincerely oppose the society of judging a man’s value by his success. The day I stop doing my duty of improving myself, that’s the day I call myself average. I want to grow based on my strengths like humility, honesty and emotional intelligence. I believe that nobody is born a warrior or a coward. It is our ability to grow up into being either one of them. It’s not the power of the car but how it is driven that matters. I want to mature to a state where I constantly give the society the success it needs, the brand value it needs but ultimately consider the harmony between me and my life as the ideal brand. Of course I love the brands like Guess, Audi and Burberry and I am sure to enjoy the pleasure of being branded. But I would love to reach a state where I have them but deny their brand value. I am proud of being average because I believe it gives me an opportunity to strive to reach perfection and in the process conquer all my dreams. So I believe that there is a new generation of average guys like me waiting for their potentials to be tapped. Without the society’s scorn and discontent we wouldn’t even stand a chance to grow. This blog is definitely nothing more than average. I am average, but I continue to deny that state until I live!! Average is the new brand. It will explode!!!

A LION FELL IN LOVE WITH A LAMB ( in a love mural called TWILIGHT)

2008-12-07T02:59:00.000-08:00

My fascination for movies has always given me the opportunity of watching diverse movies all the time. Being an isolated movie buff (art movies keep my friends away) has brought in a sense of distinct flavor in me. I have always been egoistic of liking things which are overly popular or peoplistically close as i should say. But "Twilight" was one popular movie i had to watch and this blog suggestively indicates that it had the power to make me write a review for this movie.

As the name suggests "twilight" can be looked at as a shaded, obscure after the sunset before the night vampire love story. Let me tell you that this movie breaks the barriers of an unusually old subject about a vampire's love story. Although there are hardly few scenes of neck biting and blood gushing i must say that it is successful, in bringing out the fantasy of a vampire into a more close, real, subtle side of life. The movie strikes you right at the point where in biting neck and sucking blood even though being the symbolic acts of vampirism necessarily signifies the cinematically wild side of a human being, making you want to be one.

This movie belongs to Edward Collins and Bella the lead characters in the movie. The first frame of the movie immediately tells you the shade, warmth and vampiristic essence of the movie. The movie starts with bella quoting " Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.". Bella, the arizona girl is in forks a small town to meet her dad, chief of police.

Bella , the Arizona( here the state reflects her dry nature) presents her isolated, boring kinda attached to herself look from the beginning which would definitely not make you like her. Instead you will notice that this character of hers would make you love her at the end of the movie because you will appreciate her, when her solitude and her charming innocent character with a subtle smile decieves you the audience, when she falls in love with a totally ironic wild guy called the Vampire. I feel that this character makes the understatement that love is totally blind in the way that you would love a person who is totally not "you".

Her initial tryst with the collins family happens in the college dining room. The collins family as she would have learnt were like her, isolated and to themselves. " I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful."Love at first sight is when she humanely stares the yet to be known vampire Edward Collins. She instanly connects to him as she says " As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind.For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind.".

Edward collins distinctively has this whitish make up and red lips which suggestively indicates that he is a vampire to the audience. You will appreciate his dark yet pleasant character in the movie. There is something which makes you watch this scene again and again. It ideally defines the objective of Love at first sight in a different way, because its the ironical love between a human and a vampire.

Bella's dad is this usual protective cop who always insists on her carrying a pepper spray just in case. The relationship betwen Bella and her dad is portrayed with the fact that regaining long lost love makes anyone being overprotective which makes the loved ones " revelling in the aloneness instead of being lonely" Her feelings are justified in the book from which the story of the movie is adapted from. " When I came here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.".

There are these thrilling scenes of the valor of Edward Collins where in they have actually tried to define Edward as the ideal hero of a teenage girl breaking the shell of a typically define d vampire who just keeps biting people. His characteristics of being a vampire like speed, strength , immortality , changing eye colour , not aging, pale white skin are shot distinctly.

I especially love the scene where in he stops a speeding car with his bare hands from hitting Bella. "Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting." describes the reaction of bella to this.

As bella gets attracted to edward the movie continues to define two kinds of vampires the good and the bad ones. The good ones which collins belongs to is the non human eating group and the bad ones are the human eating group. The good vampires group is according to me an unbelievable ethical symbol where the vampires of the collins family have dared to be different, controlled their uncivilised behaviours and lead a life, simple and humble irrespective of the powers they possess.

There are unexplicably beautiful scenes where bella comes to know that he is a vampire and yet trusts edward even after he explains that there is this dominant part of him which makes him hard to control his desire for bella's blood. I can never forget the scene where in he lifts her off her feet literally using his powers to take here on the tallest treetop shot beautifly among the evergreen forest of Portland. This was beautiful to me because he was realising the fantasies of any romantic girl's mind, i mean who would not want to go there be the one amongst nature and imagine soaring high eventhough you could see the reality called ground.

There is this scene where in collins tries to kiss bella and suddenly realises his dominant part and stops himself just not to lose her.

The collins family also reflects just any other happy family but with a difference because it accepts Bella the human, an outsider.

The rest of the story is predictable. The bad vampires group wants to kill bella when the collins family defend her and defeat the bad group. Edward risks by activating the dominant part of him by sucking out the injected venom in Bella. Bella is saved and they live together happily ever after.

How can i not mention the background score which is titallating to your senses all through out and the amazing camera work which shows you the beautiful evergreen forest of Portland.

The final scene is captivating and moving where in even though Bella decides to be a vampire just to live with collins ever after Collins says no which signifies respecting the individuality of a person in a relationship yet sacrificing enough to make them happy.

Some interesting quotes from the book
That’s the beautiful thing about being human. Things change.
Edward Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 24, p.478

It’s possible to take bravery to the point where it becomes insanity.
Edward Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 24, p.475

I’ll be the first to admit that I have no experience with relationships. But it just seems logical… a man and woman have to be somewhat equal… as in, one of them can’t always be swooping in and saving the other one. They have to save each other equally.
Bella Swan, Twilight, Chapter 24, p.473

Some things are more certain than others… like the weather. People are harder. I only see the course they’re on while they’re on it. Once they change their minds — make a new decision, no matter how small — the whole future shifts.
Alice Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 22, p.435

I sketched inattentively along the margins of my homework. After a few minutes, I suddenly realized I’d drawn five pairs of dark eyes staring out of the page at me. I scrubbed them out with the eraser.
Bella Swan, Twilight, Chapter 7, p.142

The more familiar someone’s… ‘voice’ is, the farther away I can hear them.
Edward Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 9, p.180

ps: Go watch the movie,
I actually like an another vampire girl in the movie called Alice. She is cute....

It is worse to want to die and not be able to. Death is difficult!!

2008-10-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

If the title of this blog reflects absolute pessimism in me don’t blame me, blame the circumstantial evidence!! This fateful morning my close friend received a call about her previous employer’s health. She had been diagnosed with brain hemorrhage and her condition was getting worse in the hospital she was admitted to. Even though I don’t know this person personally enough to sympathize, a sudden indifference of life called death questioned the very object of my own existence. She had been a boon to all the Indian students as she had been the first employer on campus to provide an opportunity for the students to earn their own piece of bread at the Child Development Center where she had been instrumental in bringing up young kids. What can be more blessing than a job where you bring up kids , observe their burgeoning skilled abilities of mastering the mundane acts of life like walking, talking or crawling and what can be more ironical than death of a person who has led her life seeing the very essence of life in kids!!!

Death had never been a fear factor for me. Now it is when I am seeing the routine world with matured intellect and aging mind. I know, to most of the people death is intimidating and there are a few lively souls out there whose jobs demand staring death in its eyes every minute. I know I can’t fit into the second category but mom I wish I could learn not to fear death. Chuck Palahnuik an American novelist once quoted “If death meant leaving the stage long enough to change costume and comeback as a new character, would you slow down? Or Speed Up? “. I don’t know how my soul would react to this. Let me tell you guys that I am neither trying to instill the fear of death in you nor marketing pessimism. Its been a long time since the process of introspection has happened. I have sincerely realized that as long as I exist, death is not here. And when it does I no longer exist!! I want that transition from life to death to be amazing and glorified. I know death is ordinary because it happens all the time. Let me stop my repeated pessimism and take you to the hospital where I went to see the immortal soul. To be frank, I have always avoided the places of death ( I don’t know how to term them!!) because I am too incapable to face people on deathbeds. But today I wanted to know how it is for people who die in this country. As I reached the critical care unit I could see a large gathering of people. I don’t care if you consider me a momentary sadist , I measure a person’s popularity or success by the number of people who turn up for the death ceremony. The situation looked gloomy enough but trust me there were no tear wet faces or loud cries. Its not that I hate these symbolic acts of celebrating death, they are too pessimistic and sad. Upholding the eternal truth that Americans have clarity in everything her brother took us to a dark corner of the room( or it seemed so) and explained every minute detail of her last moments of life. I was dumbstruck at the two facts he gave out. Known for her extreme sense of independency she opened the back door of her house to let the doctors in( she had called them) even when she was experiencing the biggest headache of her life after which she fell face down on the floor. Trust me you can never understand the definition of independency in her terms. All the while he talked to us he never uttered the word death. There is this statement he made which will make me yearn for something more out of life always!!

“Come join us in celebrating her life (With a smile)!!!” Don’t you think we all need to develop this sense of maturity of facing the death of a person with the lives of the people around him. This day has been quite emotional for me. I realized that death is nothing, to live defeated and inglorious is to die, to die daily. I don’t want to face a situation where in three days after a person’s death his hair and finger nails continue to grow but phone calls taper off!! I want to live deeply having no fear of death. I want every moment to be satisfactory, fun filled and glorious. I want to be as humble as always, as simple as needed, as successful as one can be, as self sufficient as life demands and as indifferent as death lives. I have decided to conquer all my fears starting with fear of heights. So I want to skydive (Don’t worry mom I will call you before I do that). Ok mom I promise you and myself to live life indifferent to death.

THE CREATIVE EGO

2008-07-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

There was this instinct, the deepest sense of desire to portray indifference. The norms always seemed to fade away from my very vision. This young boy called “me” was brought up in an unusual way where my day started and ended with books “Out of syllabus”. This boy was part of a lingual and cultural extravaganza at a very early age. You essentially have to blame his mom for his weird behavior. She was a tough lecturer by job and a beautiful poetess by heart. As a young girl, she came out of her nut shell to realize the broader aspects of life. “Music” and “Literature” proved to be the shallow waters for her to swim through a journey called “The Creative Aspect of Intellect”. My mom has been wholly and solely responsible for the sensitive, creative and emotional part of me. I am proud of it and keep writing about it. This blog tries to get an insight into what made me decide, to be different and how different I am!! Whether at her work or her passion for writing, my mom has always tried to explore the nuances of the “Creative Ego”. If you consider excellent book reviews in newspapers, frequent appearances in television, happy critics at intellectual discussions, various awards for her contribution in literature, heading organizing committees at work, tons of students who never fail to greet her wherever they are, as being successful she is one successful woman. If you don’t , she is more successful than ever!! “Creativity” is a drug I cannot live without. I essentially realized this when I was schooling and I think it was my high school days. I had this weakness of making myself known through what I call the lingual indifference. I was keen on getting the highest score in languages like kannada, English and Sanskrit while my intellectual counterparts concentrated on subjects like science and mathematics. I always ensured to put in the most meaningful essay with lots of quotes and references only to secure scores like 4.5 out of 5. My aim was to hit the target with full score. I used to participate in competitions which involved language as a lethal weapon to kill the intellectual minds. I had instantly recognized that if you exhibited something different people would stop and look at you before they proceeded. I ended up writing poems, playing Oscar winning roles (Hmm I wish!!) in school dramas, writing essays etc. I used to hate the outdoor physical training sessions when my friends loved to sweat by playing cricket and volleyball. Thereby I consider myself creatively fit not physically. (It’s quite obvious though!!). I still remember an English lecture in my school where we were supposed to frame sentences for the words the lecturer dictated. She would in fact choose a random person for a random word who would read out the sentence loudly to the entire class. This was my sentence for the word “Aboard”. (Please note that the movie “Titanic” had stirred up the box office then). “When I went aboard the “Titanic” I saw Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio sipping a cup of coffee”. My teacher loved (laughed at) it and however stupid it was I had accomplished my mission of being different and creative. There was a time when I went blank on my kannada test when I dint know the opposite of VEERA( BRAVE). I remembered ANNAVRA( whistles and Annamana Dance. Nanna necchina nata(my favorite actor)) dialogue in one of the movies where he addresses his Enemies who cheat him by actually attacking him when he is unarmed as “ Lo Hedigala”(Hey cowards). And I put in the word “Hedi” which turned out to be right luckily. For my final project presentation in my engineering course (Our project was something to deal with improving the sound quality of guitar through digital signal processing). I insisted on ending the presentation with an image of a lighter in the shape of a guitar which actually implied that our project would ignite various opportunities in this domain. I am not sure if I could convey it to my professor but I was being creative. I am this kind of person who belongs to the category who wishes to sing and would always find a song. I believe I have been overshadowed by creativity. Believe me creativity is a lonely art. It is a place where no one else has ever been. What you will discover will be wonderful. What you will discover is yourself. But creativity creates a sense of ego, a sense of indifference towards the society. It isolates you. You will begin experiencing shades of cynicism. You will tend to hate popular things. You will begin enjoying extremely vague ideas of life. You will paint emotional murals. An ego which de- recognizes the essential, simple and basic aspects of life will be your guiding light. Trust me, you will love it. Indifference would give you a feeling of accomplished well being in your own world. Ok, what would happen when possibly equal, sensitive, emotional, creative minds create the same art on two different canvasses? Nothing! You see being my mom’s son has exposed me to this beautiful world of creativity. Being the kind of ambitious dreamer I am it is natural for me to define my own identity. I want to be a tree with my mom’s roots. See I am not demanding a separate house for myself. I am just willing to move into a new room with my own colors painted on the wall and my own signature at the end of each page in my own book. I know mom you want me to evolve into something more than you. I don’t know if I can grow more than you but I promise to grow. To grow, the key thing for me right now is to learn, imbibe and embed you!! When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps someday we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light. Hmm, shall we!!!

BEING PUTTU

2008-06-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

BEING PUTTU

Brian Tracy, a popular American host once said” “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” I have been feeling awkward and uncomfortable since 8 months now. In fact I have exploded into a new world playing the role of an independent, pragmatic character. The play is called the NEW WORLD and is written, directed and produced by a REAL WORLD GUY. Don’t you think it was very insecure for me to come out of your secure, affectionate, inspiring, lingual and cultural strong hold zone mom? But you know insecurity is the basic tool of the actor’s trade. And I know that you were a part of this act much before I did. My trade is to step out to be much better than what I am today and you taught this!! To exaggerate little things, to worry about them, plan every step carefully, encourage people who dare to think differently and to water the dry harsh realities of life with humor have been hereditary to me. Plato the greatest philosopher has always inspired me. I remember reading this ““Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”. I don’t know why you made me so emotional about people. The emotional quotient in me helps connect to people in the simplest way. I need not tell you that its hard being emotional and it does allow a pain wave into your calm life most of the time. But I love surfing it. That’s what makes me tall and different from the rest of the people on the beach of life. Talking about waves however great you think you are its ironical that when you look at the mighty ocean out there roaring beautifully with its magnificent waves you feel little/engineerish( I personally want somebody to add this word to the dictionary because an engineering degree nowadays is so small and common). You know how I hate doing mundane things. That’s quite contrary to a person who is in the electrical engineering field right! I am portraying a young bird which has to adapt, mature and spread its wings to finally fly to where it wants. There are two important realizations of life. The things which you do for the society and the things you do for yourself. It’s very important for me to do something for the society, as in society itself and in terms of establishing my identity in the society, and also be able to do something for myself in order to be the real me. Just like an average Indian soul oozes the desire, I wanted to be here in this fantasized world called AMERICA. No wonder that this land ended up negating my ideal job in TCS in terms of the society. I have always packaged success measure boxes. As you can see, o oh! I am sorry this box is supposed to be imaginary. So, as you can imagine there are 2 sides to this success box of mine. If I am creative enough I would paint this box from the palette of society using two bold yet pleasant colors. The society side of it would be dipped in red because it has to be bright, ostentatious and different. The other side would be blue which depicts the calm, creative, never ending taste for success side of me. (And these are my favorite colors too). So the big journey into this technological maze was red! You know what I mean right. I call this part of my life “THE OBVIOUS CHANGE”. This is my journey so far. I just don’t want to give out the usual stops of this journey like the food here is not good, earning your own piece of bread makes you do all sorts of things like being a hotel server, a salesman, washing dishes at a dining place or doing a night shift at a gas station. For any student who comes here there are two lines in his notebook. The first line has to be filled with money and the second one with grades. Each day he fills out a new page with two lines in it. I am sure any student who comes in cannot afford a notebook with more than two lines in each page. I definitely need you to subconsciously realize that you have not injected the vitamin m(money) factor beyond a certain limit in me which made me fill up the first line partially in my first semester. I have never been money oriented and that’s probably why I have never ended up doing mundane jobs. If you have the drive to do things you will keep yourself occupied for the rest of your life. Unfortunately i am not driven by money. Please don’t come to the conclusion that I never worked in my first semester. I wasn’t lucky enough to get an on campus job which in itself has an identity to it and I would describe that in the later part of this journey. I couldn’t put in more number of hours of work like my money oriented friends did but let me tell you that they were being greedy enough to earn more to spend more. I am not justifying what I am doing nor am I saying that being money oriented was bad. Unless you are money oriented you cannot realize the materialistic essence of life which in turn governs your happiness quotient.( At least to most of the people). I was pretty sure of earning my living expenses and not a penny more. Don’t you remember mom I have cried over the phone while talking to you that I don’t have a good on campus job. Did I tell you that if you want to get hired in this country you need to ask someone to refer you? See it’s not a bad concept at all. People here want to hire somebody whom they can trust and that can happen if somebody who has put in a lot of years to that company to bring someone of his own. And for the kind of son I am I would never stoop down to low levels and pester people to get me referred. I have seen my friend hating my senior for a period of time and praise him and beg him the next moment to get him a job. I am not being an angry rebel out there. He was just being “Shrewdly Intelligent” and that’s what is needed in this fair/unfair society. I finally found an on campus job which demanded washing vessels and I am glad I chose this path. For me an on campus job was more dignifying and safer than serving out shrewd Indians, pakistanis and Bangladeshi’s out in the off campus business. You know may be an off campus job is not my cup of tea. Its more of selling your identity than selling commodity. Talking about identities there is an interesting aspect of losing your identity here. You know how the relationship between india, Bangladesh and Pakistan is. When you decide to lose your identity and start living like a beggar here. Wait a moment I am not being offensive but unfortunately every one of us works very hard to earn a penny doing all sorts of jobs which you consider Low society in India. That’s why I term this living the BEGGAR part of it. So in this process people never do have the actual time to discuss about nationalities and fight for their nation. Here we are realizing cultural harmony when every other person wants to identify himself being an Indian rather than a Pakistani or Bangladeshi for the obvious reason. Then there is this dictionary called the AMERICAN DICTIONARY which involves a lot of dash words. Ya that’s what I term them. Its obvious that anybody living here especially my lot considers it ethical and decent to utter those infatuating words and be stupid enough to identify themselves as the citizens of this country. You definitely want to come here and experience the thrilling aspects of an AMERICANISED LIFE. But traffic management and brand management are the two great aspects of this country and I would definitely write a new letter to you about these as they are really worth talking. You know I have never helped you at home except for the times when you made me do things. But I am rather surprised at the fact that I have become more responsible and organized than I have allowed myself to be. There are a few of my friends who think shopping, partying and earning money is essentially the meaning of a FAIRY TALE like LIFE. Unfortunately its not that I don’t like these but its essential to understand that I have matured into being something different and rather more intellectual and sensitive than this. You know right. I used to read books like “ THE GOAL”, “ POEMS OF AMRITA PRITAM”, “ SHORT STORIES OF ANTON CHEKHOV” when people of my age would read “ THE DA VINCI CODE”, “ FIVE POINT SOMEONE”, “ ONE NIGHT AT THE CALL CENTER” . In fact I consider something being overly popular as stupid. Ya that’s my intellectual ego. You have always told me that we can become what we dream only if we start living it. I started living the TCS dream much before I got into it. I have spent, in fact we have spent all our lives dreaming big mom. That’s probably why what we are even if its little enough. To dream big is to live big. I want to live big intellectual thoughts, great emotional moments, love passionately, think differently, measure success by what you give back to the society and die famous. Don’t blame me for that. You were the one who exposed to intellectual discussions on TV while my friends were watching a HRITHIK ROSHAN performance, you were the one who made me read books which nobody of my age read, you exposed me to classical music, bharatnatyam, tabla when people played cricket. Coming back to the land of America the instinct for success made me to madly apply for technical jobs all throughout the USA , market my resume well and finally land an internship in a company which supplies and manages electricity to the whole of southern California. Ya I know you are happy. I am glad my dad is happy because I have never seen him being proud of me till today. Its essentially because he is a part of the society and would dare not conceptualize something beyond that. This job would essentially realize my materialistic aspects and the commitment of repaying my bank loan. But let me tell you that I will get a PHD degree for myself and become a professor because the job is essentially not mundane. I know this has its own financial constraints. But there is more to this interesting story of mine. I would want to get an MBA degree and probably manage a company of my own later. Now neglecting the society side of it I probably want to make it big in literature and die famous. A ha I know you are so proud of yourself that you have cloned the essential you. But let me tell you AMMA being PUTTU is really difficult. But I would always strive to do that!!!!