Do you have a secret?

Do you want to share it? Maybe with someone you don’t know, and who can never know you. Bold enough even for that? Will that help you? Will it make you cry? Will it make you feel better? Maybe this is what you are looking for: Secrets.

Frank Warren runs the site. He invites people to send him their secrets on a post card. I am touched by the site. Excruciatingly beautiful. I went through the site with voyeur-like hunger, wanting to know people’s erotic, guilty, or plain dirty secrets. It made me think if I had a secret of my own to share. I don’t think there is, or I have forgotten (!). Remembered the times when I knelt down to pray, to talk to someone who was not from this world, and how the tears came one by one at first, and then in gushes. Sometimes there were reasons for feeling low. Sometimes, it was just existence.

But when I talked about it, somehow I overcame it. Talking about what pained me seemed to make me bigger than the problem and helped me look beyond it. Not everyone wants to talk, though, nor can every secret/pain be shared. And anyways, no one seems to be interested. Secrets can be a blessing then. This site is for those who cant fathom this world, who feel constrained to kill themselves for want of a loving person who will listen, too.

Thanks Spliff, for linking to this rare site.

Me tagged

Swaroop has tagged me. So here goes:

Total number of books I own: Have lost count. But surely more than 100 spread over three cities.

The last book bought: 'The Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby' by Tom Wolfe.

The last book I read: Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian

Books I am currently reading: Pather Dabi by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay; Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts.

Books that mean a lot to me: Disgrace by J M Coetzee, Mookajjiya Kanasugalu by Shivram Karanth, No Logo by Naomi Klein, Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

And I am tagging Uber, Finny, Mishi, Shyam, and Sudu. Dya hear me?

Borrowed thoughts

A friend's thoughts:

How do women conditioned to a "ruthlessly male chauvinist" society accept and go by male chauvinist values? Women in such societies adhere to, and judge the worth of men by, male chauvinist and vainglorious ideas of 'machismo'--- even though they rightly dismiss such ideas as silly.

I wonder if masochism, supposedly inherent in women, encouraged male chauvinism and sadism. Did (masochistic) mothers knowingly or unknowingly sow the seed of male chauvinism into their male babies, so that they would grow up and create an environment in which women's masochistic urges would find fulfilment?

Before the coming of the Aryans, Greek islands were inhabited by non-Aryan matriarchal/matrilineal tribes. That matriarchy was deeply ingrained among them is evidenced by the clashes portrayed in Greek drama between the Erinys and Apollo; in Greek mythology, between Zeus and Hera, his non-Aryan consort, etc.

Could such an established matriarchal set-up give way before the patriarchal Aryan invaders without some catalyst such as the innate masochism among its women helping the process?Matriarchy has been wiped out from the civilized world (even though matriliny ligers in pockets).

I wonder if this wasn't because a matriarchal set-up never did satisfy the woman's innate masochism. And so, may be the woman helped to create an anti-woman ethos---so that she might derive a masochistic satisfaction from railing at the lack of consideration, the cruelty, and the injustice of the patriarchal society she quietly helped to create!

This is a new view to me. But I had always pondered how the present societal order came to be. I am still thinking about of this.

What do you say?

Powerless against PowerPoint

More than anything else in this world, right now I miss my computer the most. And yes, I cant believe that it’s me who said this just now. The thoughts just wont come out on paper as they do on a comp. There’s something magical that happens when you see your words on screen. Oh yes, you can see it on paper, too. But, (aaaaaaaaaargh), didn’t work for me.

Lately, I have been subjected to a downpour of PowerPoint presentations, any my brain has declared total hartal. It simply refuses to acknowledge any information that is presented through PowerPoint. It automatically switches off when the presentation begins. Why, why in the name of God was PowerPoint invented, when a simple whiteboard and marker would do? Why, oh why?!!

Please, all those who have anything to say about PowerPoint, please say it. It might just soothe your soul. Who knows, we might just form a PowerPoint-battered club. Of course, management geeks can and will defend it. Lazy bums, and unimaginative brains!!

For the last month, I have been living in Bombay, and it has been pretty decent. Moolah doesn’t really matter. You can have fun anyways. Because, if nothing else, you can look at the sea, see the sun off into the bay, stretch your comp-strained eyes over the horizon, and suddenly you are not thinking any more. Sunsets do that to me. They have an amazing way of dissolving your thoughts.

I can watch the sea day after day and never be tired. Without the sea, Bombay is any other city. And the local trains, of course!

'Public pissing', 'women pissing', 'Debonair', 'why women cheat', are the hot search terms that are bringing people to my blog. ROTFL

Things going on in my head

1. What is computerized abortion?
2. How many trees’ names do you know?
3. And have you seen that there are so many greens, and so many leaf shapes?
4. Whose duty is it to carry the condoms at all times, the man or the woman’s?
5. Bring 20 human beings randomly together, and you have the most entertaining movie script ready. And, as a friend said, either it can be an out-and-out comedy, or a murder mystery.
6. Yes, it’s good to be back on blogger. I am now fully married and all. No tips to those who run away from the knot. Any earlier advice regretted and taken back ;)
7. What do I want in life? To do something that I have studied for, and dreamed of? Or pursue an idiotic ‘career’ for the sake of the moolah? Prioritise sex, money, love and you’ll probably give Buddha a run for his gyan.

Taa-dee-dee-dum
My thoughts are random.

From the Soul Mountain

Gao Xingjian is one of the most melodious authors I have read. And sensual, let me add. It's a different kind of stream of conscious narrative. It's not a back and forth in time or space. But it’s a switch between three-four projections of the self. I found this excerpt on the net, but this is not one of my favourites:


The rich, the famous, and the nothing in particular all hurry back because they are getting old. After all, who doesn't love the home of their ancestors? They don't intend to stay, so they walk around looking relaxed, talking and laughing loudly, and effusing fondness and affection for the place. When friends meet they don't just give a nod or a handshake in the meaningless ritual of city people, but rather they shout the person's name or thump him on the back. Hugging is also common, but not for women. By the cement trough where the buses are washed, two young women hold hands as they chat. The women here have lovely voices and you can't help taking a second look.

Maybe. Just maybe

It’s been a long time. So many strands run through the head. Survival of the fittest, and then you see them here.

Have you ever thought that it can be so easy to lose yourself in the daily routine? I mean, you weren’t born for this mad rush between home and office, were you? Larger question: what were you born for? Still larger question: were you at all born for anything? Now I can think of a hundred corny lines, but let's just leave them alone for now.

Unless you stop for a moment and take stock, you wont even know that with each contraceptive pill you have taken for years, and will continue to take for some time, coz you just don’t have the space for your baby, with each ‘I will do it someday,’ kind of sighs, with each deadline reached in office, with each little happy thing postponed for later, you have lost the joy forever.

The dreams that you set out with as a teenager seem like some other person’s to you now. But in the corner of your heart you still own them. Gives nice stuff to think about and smile when you have the time to. Everything’s just beginning. Maybe you will still see your baby someday.

About a girl

She loves mythology. Like all teens, she feels misunderstood and wronged. Her eyesight has begun to suffer from having nothing distant to stare at and the constant semi-lit rooms.

She writes with amazing clarity and little reserve, seems to have been gifted with the tricks of the trade. She wants to be a journalist one day, and then a writer. She can no longer step out of the house, and she realises that she is being wronged; that a life in hiding, however better than death, is still a life full of merciless compromises.

Yet, she manages to find her little happinesses, and stops complaining, at least once in a while:

"What could be nicer than sitting before an open window, enjoying nature, listening to the birds sing, feeling the sun on your cheeks and holding a darling boy in your arms? I feel so peaceful and safe with his arms around me, knowing he's near and yet not having to speak; how can this be bad when it does me so much good?"

She dares to dream, and what dreams!

"I still have visions of gorgeous dresses and fascinating people ... I want to see the world and do all kinds of exciting things, and a little money wont hurt!"

By age 15, she is aware that the world and its cruelties make no sense, has the insight of a 60-year-old, and yet is intensely sensitive to the beauties of life - however fleeting a glance she has of them:

"I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness, and misery than any war hero ever does. And what's her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she's disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, her beauty is gone. Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together!"

She died in misery and hopelessness in a concentration camp in Germany, without ever blooming to her full. A soul ever in quest of love, understanding, freedom; a kid ever wanting to get back to school, ever wanting to enjoy the beauties of nature: full of hope, aspirations, fear, courage, and wonder. Her life stands as testimony to man's destructive instinct; to man's hatred based on vague notions of difference, of 'we' versus 'they'; to what depths man can fall, and to what heights woman can reach.

She is Anne Frank.

Me via you

My quest for the alter ego has ended. What appears to be the near-perfect almost similar is just that: almost similar. Or similar. It is never the same. If you believed, it was the same, blame it on maya (what else, you have been had).

The moment you realise how complete the self is, you stop looking. But there was a need to look. Else, how would you realise that there is a self in here that is different from what you see outside. The other actually shapes your quest for the self. And you thought all along that you had this totally mapped quantity called the self.

I cant explain the above sentences. Neither can I explain the moment of peace that I am feeling now. But it's just the beginning. Didnt create this post to sound mysterious or all-knowing: it's just me, the here and now ... and realizations of rebirth. (That should be crystal clear, yeah.)

What's up with Bollywood, da?!

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black is a pleasant surprise. The promos had made me a little wary though. What if it was Mumbai masala in arty-farty guise? Also, it is a Bhansali product, and the memories of Devdaas still made me wince. Anyways, I went to the movie with a brave heart.

Through the first half, I was still wary. It was decent and quite predictable till then. The plot was straight, the narrative not bad, and Rani's performance was promising. But I didn't really expect anything much in the second half.

Later, I left the movie thinking, 'What's up with Bollywood? First Swades, then this ... have I missed out on some undercurrents? How, in the name of God, did the creator of Devdaas make such a surprisingly bold and hatke movie?' (But I have to give it to him that he made Khaamoshi, too.) Black and Swades are precisely the 'type' of movies, which our masters of masala have been saying the audiences will reject. (I know, Swades had some masala ingredients and there were some flaws in the movie, but when was the last time you saw a starving Indian farmer family on the big screen? Today, it takes courage to even raise some issues publicly.)

Some of the scenes had left me shaking my head. At one point, I thought Bhansali had lost his audience, and I am sure Bhansali was aware of the risk he was taking with that scene. (Won't spoil the fun for you. See it for yourself.) They initially booed, but the same scene turned out to have won the audience for Bhansali. Everyone was still in the hall with tension, not knowing how to react, waiting for what was to come next.

A few weeks ago, I underwent the torture of watching Kisna in the same hall. After the first 40 minutes or so, the audience knew they had been had, and booed and jeered, and hooted to let their steam off. We had to sit through the movie, stuck as our car was in the parking lot. But know what? Even a movie like Kisna has its uses: go tell your boss or any other jackass to go watch Kisna in PVR gold class ;)

So, my point is that in Black, some facts very indigestible to the average Indian movie-going audience (pardon the sweeping terms here) were thrust in its face. And they didn't boo. The parking lot was still full when the movie ended.

All you film makers out there: if you want to make a bad movie, please go ahead and make it. But do not dare to justify the shit by saying that this is what the audience likes. And this is for the arty farty ones: there are only two kinds of movies - good and bad. You can't be spared just because you are a non-commercial filmmaker.

So many times, the audience has hardly a choice. Of course, they can be merciless in their rejections sometimes. But they don't deserve to be made scapegoats. It is the entertainer's job to entertain, and take up the challenge to win the audience. We are waiting...