Aaj tere tiffin mein kya hai?

As I was reading a post- Healthy. Wealthy. And almost Wise. by a fellow blogger , who mentioned in that the joy of sharing food, I realised how I deeply enjoy this and hence thought that this definitely deserves a blog post, which of course is only an extension of her idea!

It happens everywhere- when colleagues open their lunch dabbas in offices, when small cute kiddos, who leave home with water bottles around their necks, open their double-decker boxes in short breaks. (The boys often show off the pokemon, superheroes and wrestling star designs on them)

It happens everywhere- when we see three auto-rickshaw wallas sitting so that two are behind and one is in the front facing them, late in the night or early in the evening, waiting for that guy to open the dabba who had his turn to cook that day.

It happens everywhere, and this being the best food sharing ever, when Gujjus meet Punjabis, when Sindhis meet Andhra-ites and when Keralites meet Maharashtrians on overnight journeys while sharing berths in trains. Because then, there is Bhatura-Shaak, Chhole-Dhokla, Koki with Pudina Chutney, Sai bhaji with Hyderabadi Biryani, Vada-Appam and Fish-curry with Pav.

The awesomeness that this is, I have heard, does not exist abroad. And Dev Kolhi, while writing lyrics, forgot to mention this one in his song "It happens only in India". There are chances that I settle abroad. Chances that a CA student has at thinking after a full day class at JK Shah Classes (that being the most popular one..yes this one's for you my friend!).But anyway, if I ever settle abroad, this might just be the thing which will pull me back to this beautiful country.

Superhero Comeback

Sitting in the corner of his room,
With his knees pressed to his chest,
Praying for a magic broom,
He is far, far from his crest.

He has more than one to care for,
More than one battle to fight,
Everything is moving fast in his head,
Searching for the light, now out of sight.

He could, with just a flick, die,
And all the world could suffer,
That would be because Mr.Superhero,
Was actually, a complete duffer.

Heavy duty, heavy fear,
And nothing is not unclear,
Weariness of the mind,
Leaves him far behind.

Another story on the news
Of Humanity's abuse,
He stands up and holds his head,
"This repression will not last", he yelled.

Makes a plunge to the ceiling,
And out into the sky,
a loud divine pealing,

(The audience would surely sigh)

Mountain strong, Cannonball-King Kong,
The world at his feet,
"Superhero, superhero", pointing to him,
A boy yelled out on the street.

After this all the action lies,
When he beats the bad guy's ass,
Saves the day, saves the city,
And in the end, he gets his lass.

Morning by the Sea

 The wind from the sea hits my right cheek,

As my feet get salty and wet.

Sleepless, my walk is meek,

The radio of my mind, at one station I can’t set.

Every step leaves a deep mark in the wet sand,

And when my feet get sticky with muck,

The frothy waves make every grain disband,

But some between my toes, themselves tuck.

The last deep mark I leave behind I can see,

When I turn around to look at its depth,

I see no other footprint of mine and look at the sea,

The sea of life that does magic with its stealth.

So then why do I see my steps,

Right or wrong,

With the eye of my mind and reminisce

Everything I did in the form of a song.

The sand, though, doesn’t end,

It goes on, till the end of land,

So much more energy left to spend,

I start to run, only to make the percussion grand.

Winning the Shield

I dedicate this post to my close friends and family who helped me reach to a state described at the end of this article. And if you are wondering whether you are a part of this group, stop wondering fool. You are.
 
In our life, some things are more important than the others. That is always how it works. Some might call this phenomenon 'Setting Priorities'. Same thing.

Sometimes, we lose a very important thing, that is, one of our priorities. What I mean to say here is, that we as human beings think that we can live without some people/objects and cannot live without some people/objects. Well, I am not going to talk about objects here. That is because if we lose an object, we can get it back. That is not true with people.

Some of us think we cannot live without our parents, whereas for some of us a partner is most important. And then someday, we lose that particular friend, partner or parent. What happens next?

Life stands still? Of course it does. It feels as if time has frozen. Numbness arises not in body, but in the mind. At the most, we are touched by our close ones, that too only to a certain extent. It is only that warmth that penetrates through the invisible shield we build around us.

It is intrinsic to human nature- the building of the invisible shield. Some shields take years to break, some shields break in a day and some shields never break. The shields that do not break in a lifetime are rare cases. They involve extreme intensity in the relationship. They are quite often seen in the cases when a mother loses her child. The next frequently observed case is the case of lovers parting, who have taken to a great level of attachment. Except in these cases, which become the talk of the town because they are so few, the shield generally does break.

Now let me tell you about the rules of the shield. These rules do not point to a new discovery, it is just the way I express the dictum of the old and the wise, as I experience and learn. The shield makes productive emotions dormant and puts them into a lull. Now, productive emotions could be any emotion that assists us in getting forward in life in any way. Whereas, the unproductive emotions get magnified. This is because the part of our unproductive emotions which are for people in our lives, get redirected towards us as a function of the shield.

All in all, it is a pathetic and messed up state. So how do we help this? How do we get ourselves out of this? All of us put effort and fail in these phases of life where upset only seems to be growing like a rolling avalanche. The more we try, the harder we fall. So what is the way out?

Well, I have come across a possible answer to this. There is no way out. It is life. Life will get us out of such phases. And in a way, which makes us believe in life, more than anything else.Some call it God, some call it their own hard work. I do not say that working hard to get out of the situation is not required. But I choose to call it life. I could also call it time and I truly believe in the concept of time healing all wounds. There could be scars, but the wounds get healed. But I call it life, because life is bigger as it not only removes the shield, but also leaves us with something beautiful at the end.


Last night, I got rid of such a shield.

Laugh

If you are thinking too much,

You’re right,its too much,

And you will know it as such,

That  it was all a mind’s lurch

Sir laugh, sir laugh,

It was all a stupid faff.

And the sad morning

Will set the sun winning,

The player should not stop

The music rocks on with jazz pop.

Sir laugh, sir laugh,

It was all a stupid faff.

 God too, has many a problem,

That day he told me some of them,

One was an identity crisis,

Some call him Allah,some Jesus.

So sir laugh, sir laugh,

It is all a stupid faff.

Well you know that words change it all,

Some meaningful and some small,

But have you ever thought my dear mister,

That they could also mean nothing at all.

So sir laugh, sir laugh

It’s all a stupid faff.

You are born to live,

But never die to live,

Is that something fair or dark,

Is a lark always as happy as a lark?

And sir laugh, sir laugh

It’s all a stupid faff.

Game?

Directed by Yann Samuell, this French movie, Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare) is an unconventional, colourful movie which steps in between two worlds- one world being the world that we live in, which acquiesces to social norms and conventions and the other being the one which is the home of fairies and elves. But on the whole, the plot attempts to depict love and companionship in a very different light. 

The two characters in the movie are best friends since childhood. They tread an unusual path in their life using their childhood game of daring each other to a certain task. This game is extended by the two from their classroom environment to the big bad world, from the innocent days to the days when one starts meaning serious business. And this is exactly how the roller coaster starts moving on dangerous curves.

This movie makes us think about the right and the wrong, the appropriate and the inappropriate and the penny in the pocket while we pursue more, but only in hope.

It leaves the audience with a vagueness, which will only further thought. Gripping to the core, this movie makes you enjoy the journey of the two characters in love and their ups through heaven and downs in hell. All in all it is a lot of fun and leaves you, at times aghast and at times in peals of laughter.  

I just have one word for this movie. Mad. 

One

So many times I feel I disappear,

When love fills up the atmosphere,

Feeling light, I feel so free,

I dont understand what's wrong with me!

The music is going down into me,

From the head right into the knee.

I forget worries, I forget all pain,

Only sounds flow into my pulmonary vein,

The heartbeat is perfect percussion,

Strings of nerves complete composition.

The music is going down into me,

From the head right into the knee.

I slowly, lose my identity

Becoming the music, the music becoming me,

Every tune reminds me of someone,

That is how, you and I will be one.

The music is going down into me,

From the head right into the knee.

Chhotu

This one is a song that I wrote on child labour.

Sadak pe woh so raha,

sabse pehle uth gaya,

Chai ko chulhe pe rakhkar,

Signal pe akhbar bech raha..

To usne kaha chhotu..ek cutting le aa…

To usne kaha chhotu..ek cutting toh pila…

Uska beta school gaya..

Chhotu wahin reh gaya..

Bacchpan se kaam kar ke,

Woh tees pe boodha ho gaya..

To usne kaha chhotu…ek cutting le aa..

To usne kaha chhotu..ek cutting pila..

Chhotu ki shaadi ho gayi,

Usko beta ho gaya,

Chai banane ka kaam ko,

Ek naya chhotu mil gaya…

To usne kaha chhotu…ek cutting le aa..

To uske bête ne kaha chhotu..ek cutting le aa..

Yeh kahani hai us gareeb ki,

Jo aapke ghar ka naukar hai,

Taleem na mili usko,

Kya paisa hi sab kucch hai?

To aap na kehna chhotu..ek cutting le aa..

Par yeh kehna chhotu…tu school kyon nahi gaya!!??

Mitr-My Friend

In a family of a couple and a daughter, what does it take of a woman to be an ideal mother, of a girl to be an ideal daughter and of a man to be an ideal husband?  And besides, the woman is also a wife and the man is also a father. These are one of the most difficult set of questions in the world.  The difficulty of this question can be aptly be expressed by a quote under the Western Express Flyover in Bandra. It says, "The child gives birth to a mother." Mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and daughters can never exist in solitude. 


There is always a person required to have a relationship with because of whom the title gets bestowed to one.  Talking about these titles, the roles played by these titles and the complexities which come of it, Revathy's directorial debut "Mitr-My Friend" could not have done more justice to this subject.


The National Award winning movie has a talented cast with Shobana (playing the role of the mother and the wife) pulling off an unbelievably realistic performance, the veteran actor Nasser Abdullah (the husband and the father)  making a thought provoking impact with his simplistic style of acting and Preeti Vissa (the daughter) delivering all the facets of a rebellious child born and brought up in America.


Lakshmi (played by Shobana) is a traditional woman from Chidambaram, a small town in South India who gets married to Prithvi (played by Naseer Abdullah) who is working abroad. The two have a daughter, Divya(played by Preeti Vissa) who goes to school in America. The plot revolves around their lives in the foreign land, where moral and family values are way different from those in the small town of Chidambaram, or they appear so.  


The movie successfully throws light on the three relationships. But what is most impressive is that  it emphasizes that three relationships are actually six perspectives. The dynamics of a relationship depend on both, person A and person B.  In the case of this movie, Revathy, in her directorial debut itself, shows the directorial skills of a master by showing the subtle influences of the third family member on a relationship between any two family members. 


The movie looks at the uselessness felt by the traditional Indian woman, who is essentially a home maker. The monotony felt by her with the household work day in-day out. The lack of love and romance in her life with a busy and uncaring husband. The hurt experienced by her with every tantrum of her teen daughter. Also, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. So it was fairly expressed why the husband and the daughter behaved so. It was because the home maker had turned into a nagging, clinging and hyperactive house cop. 


Last but not the least, what touched me most in the film is Shobana's performance as the mother. The emotional input that a mother has in a relationship with her child is far superior and greater than any other relationship in this world, that we all know. But what this movie brings to the front is that with a certain smile of a child, the mother abandons any disappointment or upset regarding any heated argument with the child. That is magical and unique to the relationship of a mother with her child. 

An important facet of the film expresses the importance of a friend. No matter how happy or sad a family is, a friend is always in need.  The role of friends as saviours in grave situations is exhibited more than once by Prithvi's friend Pam and Lakshmi's friend Steve. Most importantly, the movie shows how a family ultimately needs to be woven by the relationship of friendship more than anything else.

So the next time, you think about your mother and why she is so, stop. Just know that she needs a friend. Be her friend. And you will have given her more than she ever wanted. 


A family can never be unhappy with a mother who is fulfilled as an individual and loved and cared for. 


All in all, one of the most beautiful films that I have watched in a long time. 


All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That's his.  ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

The Old and The New

Hello my friends, a song I sing for you now,
About life, dreams unfulfilled, and realities wow.

Yeah, life's quite a rush,
And there is no time for mush,
Those teenage days are gone,
When sleep was what we did in the morn.

Some people are gone, some still hold on,
Some have come back and some show us a new dawn.
Failiure shows us its face when we don't want it to,
Victory, acts like a pricy girl I wanna woo.

And yet life goes on, phase to phase,
Filled with surprises is this lovely maze,
Too much thought will get us into a haze,
So come on guys, let's spring up the craze.

Meet me this Sunday, when the eve is bright,
We shall laugh together till its dark and no light,
Life will seem breezy once again,
I will be ready for Monday, from heart and from brain.