Peepli (Live)

     Clearing my head of all the much-hyped associations with its producer, I decided to watch Peepli (Live) in a city multiplex one sunny afternoon with The Boy only to find out whether Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) will die in the end or not. Right from the opening credits to the closing one, Peepli (Live) came across as one of the most courageous movies of our times. And the dripping irony only added much to the beauty. The saccharine rich sarcasm aimed at the media frenzy that followed Natha’s decision to kill himself so as to claim the Rs.1 lakh compensation from the government to reclaim the family farm from moneylenders formed the movie’s spine. Also painfully touching is the portrayal of the relationships within Natha’s simple household.

   Natha, born to an improvised village life and with the prospect of his farming land being seized looming large, decides to end his life unceremoniously only to find a barrage of media vans and a stream of politicians and bureaucrats at his doorstep in a jiffy. Reason? Natha’s village Peepli is the Mukhya Pradesh (note the semblance) CM’s constituency and
the elections are round the corner. 

   Peepli (Live) has some stellar performance by unknown faces. The media-driven hullabaloo reaches its nadir when the entire entourage chases Nathu to the field while he relieves himself in the fields and celebrated journo Deepak (Vishal Sharma) gets down to inspecting the remnants of the deed to delve into human psychology! And when it finally ends with a dark ironic twist, Peepli is left staring at a floor of discarded Bisleri bottles.

   With black comedy at its best, Peepli (Live) questions the ridiculousness that the Indian media has come to be. Hori Mehto’s (the digger) deadpan expressions asks us those questions quietly. The earthy soundtrack with the gem of a song by Indian Ocean was uplifting, to say the least. Only, an otherwise firehouse Naseeruddin Shah seemed underutilised. I was much surprised when the movie made the cut for the Oscars because given past I&B selections, My Name Is Khan seemed to be the more likely candidate.

   Finally Natha did die... He ceased to be in the village’s consciousness only to reappear at a nondescript construction site in one of the ever burgeoning metros.

Swim me!

swim,

in a bottle

of sea.

wonders arrive

unabashedly.

moody mirages 

appear and disappear.

i swim along

in the fluids of motion

where cries are not meant to be;

where 'me'

is not ought to be.

i lie

consuming my minute of relaxation,

till moods gather menacingly

to grab hold of me.

linger...

for a year, or perhaps,

ninety-three.

as i'm ushered in once more

i try to glee

to flee!

to find deep comforts

in bouts of eternity...

To Hamren...

    Just as I sit down and think of those lovely hills standing steady, memories flood me...

    

    The peace I nurture within stems up from times long forgotten; of days when life was unworrisome, placent and endearing. We matured as a family - me as an individual - unknowingly! i can feel it so suddenly warming me right now. It was surely those hills - the simplicity of the time; of our lives; of everything else around. Adversities so neatly tackled and tucked in place.
    

    True, I cannot go back to those times nor would I want to. Life simply edged its way slowly from those few beautiful years. I was so unaware of worries then.
   

    I can even smell those nights right now, the four of us travelling from one place to another, all of us tucked in neatly in our small car - our simple uncomplicated lives winding their ways through winding ways through winding roads with those huge, still and protective trees on one side and the silent hills on the other. i would sit in awe of the beauty of the moment notwithstanding the fact that I understood little or maybe nothing of its importance. Yet I know so well today it was those silent moments as I would stare silently into the dark through the tiny glasses of the car that it shaped me into who I am. No wonder i find it so hard to grasp the damning duplicity of a city slicker's life. Nature has always been a reliever - a relief from worldly worries.
   

    I remember once reading a quote by rudyard Kipling in a Ruskin Bond book that once the smell of the life in the hills gets into the skin of a man, he will, leaving everything else, return to the hills to die. I know for sure I am one of them! My nirvana lies in those very hills - those that gave me a direction to life itself.

(With my dad being in the Assam administration, postings in various parts of the state was the norm. This gave us a chance to see many places, explore many cultures and thereby, have a treasure-throve of memories wrapped inside me for eternity. The times I speak of here are those spent in this tiny town called Hamren in Karbi Anglong district in Assam. I must have been 5 - 6 years then. I remember the house, the place, the people quite vividly and at most time with a fair amount of retrospection. Though today, Hamren is inaccessible due to insurgents and no matter how hard I try, going back to Hamren, even for a small visit, seems impossible. My dad, the ever-enthusiast, who never left an opportunity to explore any place he was posted in, loved being here while my mom, the quintessential green-thumb, loved being surrounded by nature. As for my sister (Anwesha) and me, life seemed unfathomable as we kept wondering why we were all so different from the Karbis. It was a little later that Atreyee came along, making our lives more meaningful.)

Let It Bei

Here comes The Beatles

Like a lot of people around today, The Beatles was just another hippy-era relic that needed to be shoved and  left unkempt behind closed cupboards. Not until The Boy introduced me to their music(which is the case most of the times), I wasn't really ready to experiment. Yes I knew the usual classics (yellow sub, let it be, hey jude). But to discover and let the beatles beauty unfold is another thing. I've been hooked  ever since. I get unusually emotive, pleased and satiated after every song. The other day I picked up a copy of the recent Open magazine which has a brilliant piece on them. The Beatles was and is a release - from damning binds, from obscurity and from the rigid ism's that hound our lives. They were a manifestation of a nomadic freedom, a social and cultural revolution that left everyone gasping for more. I'm totally in love. Given the thrash that we need to gulp down as music these days, I (as do zillions of others) think they ought to be here now.

FLY UP THERE

In the long,dark, lonely corridor of an old bunglow
I found reflections
Reflections that spoke words
That I couldnt hear
The majestichills that standfacing it,
Have continued this silentrendezvous
For a hundred and fifty years.
Ans, i couldnt wait,
For that long.
Someday I'll fly up there -
Touch the masquerading clouds;
And sit on the tallest tree
Weaving mundane dreams
Of, probably, walking on the soil again!
I'll fly down to the stream there,
And also to that abandoned hut on the hill-top
Nobody will stop me
When I'll free myself from my body
I'll have a race with the birds then,
And even scare
The little kids that play there.
I'llnever be me
And i'll continue with uninterrupted glee.
I'll be free one day.
I'll belong to the hills someday.

Midnight Blues

Sanity flows out of our veins
As the moment
Sucks at our madness

Laughter rings in the air

As a baby sheds his clothes
To grow into a man

A thought lingers in the air

Old ghosts die a silent death
Newness engulfs us hard

We travel through time
And stand on the pedestral
Of the altar of our love

We fall and get up - laughing!
Slowly letting the world slip by

Cryptic lyrics
Never find a way.
As my music bathes me
I rise up once again
I traverse
Through the nights of light,
I try to fade away.
In my glory
Instead, I rise
Again...
Nibbling at my desires
Saturated moments
Freeze me within tight wraps.
With no desires of a struggle
I give in,
And sip deeply.
Waves rise and fall.

The wet grass
Soothes my tired body.
Kneaded desires
Plead for more
I try to give in
In vain...

I loose myself
In oblivion
As flashes scorch my mind
I sit and cry...
Till an eternity comes calling
I see your face
Next to mine.

swallow me

swallow me -
into the pit of darkness
i lie
unabated breadth
beating hard
a humdrum buzzing alone
inside my head

through the green fields
i run in search
i run forever
somehow never stumbling
upon myself

through the windows
i bask in the warm sunlight
in search
somehow never warming
the coldness within

streched emotions
lying seperately
in two different corners

stark lovelessness
reflects my nude self
bruises from the past
remain as sweet remembrance

i'm losing me
as i stand in transit
bitter blows rain upon me...