MIFFED..NO..DISAPPOINTED?..NOT SURE

MIFFED?.. NO..DISAPPOINTED?..NOT SURE.


These columns have often read my ramblings about TIME.Yours' truly has often whisperd about the ambivalent feelings of entrapment in a time warp.That playful mistress has other moves up her sleeve as well. Like the one in Orwell's 1984(ah..loved it!),where it was always the same time/month/year by the government clock,that being the only clock in the land. It might or might not be 1984,but it was difficult for the protagonist Winston to disagree with the notion of date,of history,of TIME,because censoring at best reaches the cardiac muscle,but the HEART beats with/in time.What a plight living in untime( r/f 1984..it must have been added to newspeak by now) is! How hard Winston might have wished to acknowledge, be let to acknowledge the passage of time; in a way wishing time to pass.

But then there are instances when one does not detect the passage of time for a few split moments and does not regret it either. On each glimpse of ISHA I have not missed time. On every rare moment of speaking to her,of watching her in solace , I have been oblivious of time. How hard my subconcience might have wished then not to let time pass;how hard my ego might have tried then to let time pass( I'm an egoist big time,and am aware of myself even in meditation,but not in those fortunate moments).

Today I again prayed desperately for time to pass. The advantage with bad dreams is that they are easily forgotten,the difficulty with bad reality is that it is hard not to remember. Some memories stay etched;this one too shall. Things did'nt look propitious right from the beginning. Everything that I hate,sluts blocking view,small obstinate groups that stink of negative vibes,that obnoxious trio,the unholy nexus,my insecurities,.. and my friends. Some names used to sound like my lub-dub till this evening,now every view is through a broken prism. I don't know what the CRYSTAL says, I know I should'nt crib and brood,but I hate tainted shirts and cracked glass. I prayed desperately for time to flow then;
flow , flow,flow at your deadliest,
flow through my cells,
flow through my numbed eyes and sore mind
(i'm not intoxicated and i know this language),
flow any which way you like,but please flow. i don't to be encaged in this time warp,no i don't.

JAANE BHI DO YAARON

I have often wondered about an overwhelming, ubiquitous entity called TIME. It has a mind of its own, for its always been him that has decided 'my time’, in spite of my best efforts to dictate. It flows straight undaunted, seemingly innocuous but often it creates voids and warps, in reality or perhaps in memory where it never advances. Its a bitter experience to know that i know something when I'm sure that I've never known.Riddle?,deja vu?,i wish it were so simple.I encountered that eerie feeling again while watching a film today;Kundan Shah's JAANE BHI DO YAARON.The film was released in 1983,and though i had a certain curiosity, I thought even the cd stinked while serving popcorn on a gloomy holiday,ah the perfect day for a cine-buff but will the movie be a spoiler?

Did the sky clear up? Did it rain? Did my maid turn up? Did Isha call?..for 132 hypnotised minutes that began from 2:00 pm I forgot even these questions that clutter my mind all the time (I wish i could say this before the exams,but they haunt me even during the exams..lucky are people who are not poets/not in love/have regular maids).

The film/experience opens up with 2 young photographers, who've set up their studio and have invited people for the inauguration,scouting for their guests while stealing glances at the sumptous spread that they've set up.In a flash one understands that this was the pre-auto-rickshaw,pre-egg-roll generation when the enterprising youth set up studios at the still available nukes and nukkads. Simple check shirts,trousers,things didn't stink of brands then,did it?..Yours truly doesn't suffer from the "golden era" hangover(there has never been a golden era as a matter of fact),but what was on display was real,tangible and something that still exists.I could draw parallels with every single visual of the film with the age i live in..as if it is still 1983,as if its a time warp.Substitute the studio with an auto-rickshaw,view the roads with a flyover above;only the roadside nukkad cannot be found,don't even think of substitution,its extinct,its treasure.

The film is itself a treasure trove of images of my father's generation( gen "w" perhaps..soft drinks say this is Gen Y,i should be Gen X),images of our generation,images of generations yet to come,images of INDIA.I am not a pessimist,i do not conform to the film's cynical view of the "system"(as potboilers would say) but its only hope that i have to refute my cynicism,for i find a Vinod and Sudhir in today's MANJUNATH(salutes martyr),today's Jessica.

I might be terribly wrong,but I've often observed a tendency among people to label a performance according to the role.There are examples galore where kudos go to the person enacting a role that is amply supported with props,sentiments or other emotions that is easy to manipulate among watchers by a giant screen and blaring sound.Herein lies the greatness of Naseeruddin Shah.His Vinod,an aam admi in the truest sense of the term,never inspires one to break free,one never sheds a tear for him and chances are u might never appreciate his performance because he has played the person whom u see everyday in the mirror combing,by the roadside spitting,in the desk working/not working.(Don't be mistaken,Naseer's Vinod is an upright hardworking youth).Only one man comes to mind TOM HANKS,the Nasiruddin Shah of Hollywood!

But its not only Naseer,its the film as a whole that is an elevating experience.Agreed it is slapstick at parts,but even those moments of idiocy evoke genuine laughter,for the film is not only rooted but seeped in reality.A reality where there is no rigor mortise,where the dead stands upright,where time bombs burst late and are innocuous,but which is realistic enough to make one smell the smell of the city,the stink of the sweating polyester,the rot of lust.

Built on a shoestring budget of Rs 7 lakh(unbelievable eh?!..that was the pre inflation era),this NFDC film never looks needy, for the superlative performances by the likes of OM PURI,PANKAJ KAPOOR,SATISH KAUSHIK,SATISH SHAH and the rest more than make up for the lack of gloss. Incidentally much of the supporting cast were stalwarts of the golden era of Doordaarshan,in the immediately following future.Naseer and Om of course made it big not only on the national screen but on the international scene as well.The assistants like SUDHIR MISRA and Vidhu Vinod Chopra also are renowned filmmakers of our day.Incidentally it was the director KUNDAN SHAH ,who could not create anything half as substantial as this.Once again,strange are the ways of time..

At the end, the meek submission of the helpless protagonists(and therefore justice) before corrupt lawmakers is both touching and captivating.Incidentally I watched this movie on 15 AUGUST,our INDEPENDENCE DAY.Oi je bollam,strange are the ways of time..


If anyone out there is a crazy bollywood buff like me i strongly recommend this film because this film has many firsts;because this film breaks away from the bollywood song-and-dance routine;because this film portrays women who are not exactly sita/ganga maiya,neither surpanakha but somewhere in between;because this is the first niche Hindi film that came even before INOX was thought of;because it ensheaths u in a time warp that is no RIP VAN WINKLE trick,but a sad eternal reality;because it is simply a great film that is trademark bollywood.


I wish TIME catches up with u to fill my wish as i pray may the world revere it again.

MY MISS SUNSHINE

This poem was composed in the middle of an internal assessment exam,not because the questions were difficult(they weren't),but because the poem had to be composed then.

MY MISS SUNSHINE

I'd love to wake to a morning
Through your eyes Miss Sunshine
I'd never ever be mourning
For my losses before eyes thine.

Radiant,they never speak,
For they glow and spread
One glory of a smile that passes the nick
Of time,and halos GOD,never to be dead.Smile is passe,she'd chortle
Mortals speak,she'd hymn(s)
Hum-move over ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE,
(I've)Dipped in,she is Mnemosyne !She's grasped my mind and more
As if some Ecstasy I bore
Injected enchantment-bliss,marks no more
Even in hallucination her images galore.

WHY DEBRUP IS NOT "NUMBERED"

Hello,
You know me as Debrup.But that is about as much you know of me,which is pretty minuscule to form an idea but also dangerously tempting to form an idea.Agreed,an idea of mine won't push you into frenzied yells of "EUREKA",but I must ensure that that idea is not unduly distorted lest it may add to an already overflowing pitcher of BAD KARMA(mine,of course!).A few of our ancient elders,in some other time,some other neighbourhood,were hesitant to take pictures for they believed a part of their VITAL FORCE gets trapped into the picture;though i'm not quite a
PAGAN myself,i do believe one carries vibes with oneself,vibes that are formed by the curious superposition of one's own nobility and his impact/reflected vibes from others.So I suppose my eagerness to clarify is in right earnest.

Let me begin with a story..for once take a ride with me to those precious pimpled days(my pimples,of course),those days of innocence,of a very inquisitive innocence,of ash colored trousers and skirts.Upstart magazines call those days TEEN AGE(UNISH KURI) , yours truly calls that AGE [no not biological,that was an era,akin to the NEOLITHIC/CHALCOLITHIC AGE] the ISHA AGE.

So picture a pimpled 15 yr old,intoxicated with the just discovered pleasure of JIBANANDA(he used to read only BANGLA those days,and ppl said he read a lot),the pleasure of an infant moustache,the pleasure of the first puja hang-out with friends,the pleasure of FTV. He felt redeemed every sec for every feeling that rubbed his mind was new,fresh,pure unadulterated experience of stepping into the threshold of adultery.

Presently our man is walking back home from school,weary for he skipped lunch today,the tiresome walk writ large on face. He has saved 15 mins (worldly equivalent of 27 rupees!) he thinks as he turns right,while the sad road turns left to home.He stealthily enters a suffocating cabin whose sweating wall reads " pulse-90 secs" (inflation was still to hit INDIA,things were cheaper then,weren't they?).

HE had read in insipid books that the heart goes lub-dub.But he knew for these frozen moments every week heart went krring-krring.He knew the telephone receiver was receiver no more;it has become a stethoscope enabled with a loudspeaker.He heard his heart race krring-krring at a deafening decibel,every week ,week after week while his mind settled into a numb,nerves frayed into a clutter of questions:
WHAT IF HER FATHER PICKS IT UP?
WHAT If KAKIMA ASKS WHY?
WHAT IF SHE HERSELF ASKS WHY?
But believe me everytime ISHA would pick it up,everytime the conversation was same,he always had the same sweat which would progressively vaporize with each word of hers,words seemed like notes then,everytime he would fly back home,everytime...
Looking back,those moments can never be replicated,neither can he feel deja vu for those moments were,are, frozen in time.

The story ends here for what follows is bitter reality[what u read is sweet reality,and i want the story to stay all sugary.]
As we grew up we both got cell phones.I didn't have to skip lunches any more,neither did she have sit b4 the land line on Fridays like an expecting mother, for we were all too accessible to each other now.Access to her was what i pined for but that came at the cost of the mystery about her.No i went wrong there,there is no mystery about her,she is mystery.

U know dear reader,LOVE for me is all about exploration,exploration of each little emotion that i felt for her,exploration of her mind body and soul.She is a quest for me that would keep me on the hunt for the next 7 births...but if the mystery dies the quest ends.I don't wanna grow ,i wanna be imprisoned in the time warp en sheathed by those frozen moments .So keeping the cell away is an attempt,however meek,in that endeavour.I know its not a very practical thing to do but then i care more for my idiosyncrsies,my reflections and my heart than i care for the cares of rationality.

If u have reached this far,then congratulations at having endured such an ordeal..and i'm sorry but then even in this age of MATRIX EDUCARE,there are no made-easys for the matters of the mind.