Insight from a strange incident

Of late, I have been visiting my home-town once every fortnight. As it has been two weeks since my last visit to home, I got my things packed and started off on Saturday morning. I took an auto-rickshaw from my place to the bus stand where I planned to take an interstate bus to reach home. As we were waiting at a traffic light, I observed an old man, dressed in dirty, shabby clothes, holding couple of packs of cotton buds (swabs), going from car to car trying to sell the buds to the people in the car. The buds were of cheap make – probably made at home and didn’t look good. As I observed him go from car to car without succeeding in selling any buds, I felt sad at his plight.

I personally don’t like beggars coming at me asking for alms. I believe that a person should work to earn money and however bad things are, should never ask for free money. Now, this old man at the traffic light is trying just that. Instead of begging for money, he is trying to make money by selling the cotton buds. However, his mistake is in believing that people sitting in air-conditioned cars would buy his cheap buds. He is selling his wares to the wrong demography. I wonder if he even realizes that. Or possibly, he did try to sell the swabs to the lesser privileged and was not successful so he is targeting people of privilege now. It was, however, clear that no one is interested in his merchandise.

When the old man approached the auto-rickshaw in which I was sitting, I, like others, tried to ignore him. When he saw that his latest target too is moving his face away, he couldn’t resist but hit his stomach conveying hunger and then spreading his hands asking for alms. Seeing this, I felt really sad. I asked him the price of the buds and he said it is five rupees. I took a five rupees coin and gave it to him saying that I don’t want the buds but he can keep the money anyway. He thanked me and then moved on to the vehicle behind me.

This incident made me reconsider my general hostility towards beggars. Some probably do try to make money through whatever petty jobs they can lay their hands on but end up failing. So, accepting their failure, they turn to begging for alms. Though it still is wrong, the incident made me at least not to condemn everyone begging on the streets and show some pity by giving alms.

The history of BGM

Have any of us ever thought about the early days of cinema? The days when there were no sound or dialogues, but only a picture. The days when they used placards to make people understand the context. I am dating back to such days to make you understand one of the integral portions of modern Cinema.

Ok, can you think of why there is background score in movies? You would probably say that the movie is adeptly supported with the help of BGM, rendering the viewers to feel that the movie characters' emotions and situations are better explained. We can't imagine how a movie would be without BGM scores. There were some experimental movies without BGM; but when I happened to see one of them, I felt the movie would have been much better with a proper BGM. Such is the extent we are convinced that a motion picture and BGM are always inseparable.

But the real reason why BGM is included in a movie is quite interesting. In India, this happened in pre-indepence era, to be precise sometime during the late 1930's. The projectors of that time were not technically great. They produce lot of noise while operating and they couldn't be operated from a long distance. So the projector has to be at a short distance from the screen and it was producing lot of noise. So to overcome this noise, they decided to bring in music bands who were playing for stage plays, made them sit near the screen at a lower level than the ground level and they played the music all along the movie to cover up the noise produced by the projectors. This was how the BGM had come into existence.

There are many other interesting things to share about the olden days' cinema. During the initial days of Indian cinema, some patriotic movie makers interluded freedom and independence related messages, dialogues, songs in their movies. So the British came up with the idea of Censoring it before releasing it for public view. Those days, the police commissioner was the authority who decided on what was to be there in a movie. This was how even the censor board came into picture. Due to these difficult times, the movie producers didn't want to land up in trouble, making real-time movies or current trend topic and they resorted to Indian mythology. There were many successful stage plays which were mythology based during that time. The producers just hired the entire troup, made them travel to Bombay or Calcutta and recorded the movie in a single place. There was nothing much of a difference between a stage play and a movie. The actors entered into the frame from sideways as they did in the stage, spoke loudly in the same manner as they used to in a stage play, stood only in one particular angle, i.e., facing the camera straight and there were no other angles. The camera was not moving. It was kept stationary at front angle alone.

The concept of re-recording was not there during those times. So, while shooting, the dialogues had to be recorded live on the sets, even the music band also arranged themselves nearby the mike so that they can score the BGM. The difficulty here was that the camera has to be positioned in such a way that only the actors were visible in the frame but not the music band that was playing the BGM. So the movie makers had very limited options with the possibilties of camera. Also, until re-recording was available, the actors had to possess singing skills as well as there were so many songs involved in Indian movies right since the beginning.

I got to know about all these information from a Tamil book named "Yem Thamizhar seidha padam" by "Theodre Baskaran" who has done many researches and published articles on Cinema and forestry. Thanks to him, it was a very good read and I like all the articles in it.

Are we all bloody perverts?

This is another blogpost that I wrote couple of years back. It is one of the reflections on life that I would like to share in this blog.

Some days back, we had a special team gathering at the office. It is an annual meeting wherein apart from long and boring speeches of the senior management (big shots!), a cultural event is also conducted where the employees get a chance to showcase their talents in hordes of creative and competitive events. These events include singing a song, solo dancing and group dancing. These  events are what is termed on-stage events and there were some off-stage events too, like solving crosswords and sudoku in the shortest time period, etc. I participated in some of these off-stage events but didn’t try my hand at the on-stage ones. This is partly because I don’t think I have any talent for either singing or dancing and partly because I had some pending office work.

As usual the on-stage events attracted a huge audience. I was there too with a couple of my friends. Now, my group happened to be an all-male group. There, we were, at one corner of the big open-space where the event was being hosted. Generally, participation in on-stage events by girls would be higher than the men, at least that is what I have observed at my office. Anytime, the ratio will be at least 5:1 with girls in the lead. I am not sure if that is the case elsewhere but over here, that’s how it is!

Now, when girls hit the floor, they see to it that they have lots of fun without caring much about the people around them. Men being men, take this opportunity to do a detailed analysis of the girl. When a girl gets up for a performance, her beauty is first analyzed and commented upon. Ratings on a scale of 10 is given and passed around. Others revise the rating and a consensus is reached. As her performance gets underway, her anatomy is crudely sized up and rated.

That made me sick in my stomach. Standing there, with the blaring sound of the music and an excited dance performance of a girl at the stage, I asked myself: are we all bloody perverts? Some of the comments passed around and laughed at by the men standing near me were so bad that I cannot write them over here. When I made my disgust clear, I was shooed off and called a sissy. Then they got into reasoning mode and said it’s the girls who wear revealing clothes (!) that make men notice things that we would otherwise won't be bothered about. And that girls enjoy being commented upon!

The above exchange brings to mind another incident. A friend of mine who works in Pune had come to meet us. It was around the time when a BPO employee in that city was raped by a cab driver. During our chat, this incident came up. Though the friend started off pitying the poor girl, soon, he started telling us about the ‘gossips,’ he had heard from his friends. He said the girl was a ‘modern-type’ who used to wear revealing clothes and hence what happened was coming for her! I was enraged. What the hell is this 'modern-type'? And who decides what is modern and what is conservative? Even if the girl was wearing skimpy clothes, how does that justify this heinous crime? And how can a victim be held responsible for the crime?

I am ashamed to have stood among my colleagues that day and let them use such foul language to describe a woman. I am ashamed to be a part of the gender that knows no limits and perceive women as weak who can be violated to satiate their desires. And, then place the blame on them for attracting the attention in the first place!

It’s sad that I am part of this gender. But I know I would have been sadder if I had been part of the other one.

What worth is a girl's choice?

This is a blogpost that I wrote couple of years back. It is one of the reflections on life that I would like to share in this blog.

I have a friend at my work place. Well, she is more than just a friend. She is more like a sister to me. This is one person who stood with me through the thick and the thin. I like her immensely and would often spend most of my free time at work, chatting with her. She is getting married next year and when I met her the other day, I was asking about her fiancé. She was telling me about the guy, the place where he works and other stuff like that. When I asked her whether they were going out together, she replied in the negative. Just to be funny, I remarked that they were the worst couple I have ever come across. She took it lightly but then said that she too likes the way things currently are. When I asked her the reason, she said that she is not very interested in these things (like going out to parks, coffee shops, movies, etc.). When I still pressed (only as a friend and not trying to dig into her personal life), she confessed that she is not very interested in the guy.

I was shocked to say the least. I immediately asked her why then she accepted the proposal and had an engagement. She simply smiled and said that this is India (!) and here, girls don’t have a choice. This statement looked totally ridiculous. She continued saying that she had previously rejected various proposals and her parents didn’t like it. At 25 (her age), her parents thought she is far too old already and had to get married as soon as possible. So, this time they themselves selected a guy and simply told her that they think the guy to be perfect for her. For namesake or whatever, they had that boy-meets-girl-and-gets-to-know-each-other meeting; after which, the parents simply fixed the dates for engagement and the marriage.

Now, I don’t know how to react. It felt strange. I have heard and read about ill-treatment of unmarried girls by their parents in conservative families. I don’t know if it is one of them. I don’t even know whether what her parents did amounts to ill-treatment. I just felt that what her parents did was wrong. I became silent as an avalanche of thoughts erupted in my mind. After sometime I realized that this girl has done a bigger mistake by keeping quite and accepting her parents’ choice. I told her this and asked her why she didn’t protest. She replied saying that the constant bickering of her parents drove her mad. She said, she was pushed to the limits and now just wants to do what her parents want and get away from them. I again felt silent hearing this. I didn’t know how to respond. One thing is clear: this girl is being forced to marry someone whom she does not like because she is too old!

If I had heard such a story involving a girl somewhere in a remote village in Rajasthan (for example), I would have just felt bad about it and would have blamed it on the conservative attitude of Indian societies. But this girl is not some uneducated village girl. She has a professional degree – a working woman employed at one of the top IT companies. How can both these women be comparable? Heck, she also happens to be my friend – friend of a self-proclaimed feminist! This is indeed shocking. I somehow wasn’t able to accept it. I asked her to talk to her parents again and make them understand. But she somehow was smiling and said it is easy for you to talk because you are a boy. Now, what do I say to that? With a smile, I remarked, ‘Thank God, I am a boy!’ She replied, ‘Yes, you should thank God for that!’

Returning back to my cubicle (work-place), I wondered what is wrong here? Clearly, I felt the parents are wrong to do what they are doing. But isn’t this girl also have done a mistake by not standing up to them? I was thinking that the solution to backwardness in women is education but this educated woman is not ready to fight against the conservativeness of her parents. Why is it so? Yes, I get it now. She cannot move out of her house even though she could easily support herself because once she takes such a step, she would become an outcast in our great Indian society! She fears for that. I doubt whether she has even given a thought about taking such a step. This has happened because in spite of being educated, she has also been bred within a conservative culture that shaped her. So, the solution to backwardness is not just education to women but also a change in the society as a whole where are girls have equal freedom as boys.

When I met my friend next, I asked, ‘When will the Indian society (culture or tradition) that is heavily biased against women change?’ She replied, ‘Not in a hundred years.’ I hope she is wrong here at least.

We need an Egalitarian society

Now that the state assembly elections are over in TN & Kerala, peacefully almost everywhere, we should be congratulating the EC for the way it conducted the elections this time, the tremendous advancements it made over the past few years, the way it strictly enforced rules, the way it made small steps to curb the "cash for vote" activities and would you be not giving the EC a pat in the back when the ruling CM made a hue cry that it was like an undeclared emergency. It's all good. When a few journalists asked questions to Praveen Kumar, the cheif election commissioner of TN, as to what actions would be taken against those charged of violating rules, he promptly and diplomatically said that the election commission's duty is only to report the cases before the judiciary and now the judicial system has to take against those who are being charged. Now whether our judicial system will give a timely verdict or not, only time will have the answer. On the same day when elections happened, the supreme court pronounced judgement on a case where it quashed a MLA's position who had won during the last state elections of TN. What's the point in giving a verdict like this? People will loose faith in this judicial system if we continue to hear verdicts like this. What an example to utter this quote "Justice delayed is justice denied." Imagine how the candidate who had came second would be feeling like.

While on one side, we feel happy about the way the elections were conducted, on the other side there were a few incidents which would seem ridiculous from a developing nation's perspective. I am talking about the celebrities' behaviour. In Kerala, actress Kavya Madhavan came to the electoral booth and tried to enter into it without following a queue. People objected to it, but she tried to justify her stand which I couldn't understand. What made her to think that she can jump the queue? Isn't it an insult to the people who were standing in the queue? Acting is just another profession and that doesn't entitle you to jump queues in a public system. Somebody should remind her about this. Couldn't stand with the people under the sun, she did not cast her vote and left the booth. I heard that the same thing happened for actress Trisha as well in Chennai, but when people objected to her skipping the queue, she did stand in the queue and cast her vote it seems.

The problem lies partly with the people as well for the celebrities to behave like this. I always believed in this ever since I remember that we should not run after the celebrities like mad dogs. But to my dismay, many times I saw people going crazy over celebrities when they come out public, even a non-prime-time daily serial actress enjoys this status, which is the level of celebrity worshiping that our people do. People, for your own pride's sake, please stop doing this. Let them be who they are. Don't build them temples and keep them in sanctum sanctorum.

Now the other embarassing thing was the media frenzy when Rajnikanth came to exercise his democratic right. While he was voting, he was surrounded by a number of camera persons and journalists and he voted amidst a total cacophony. He did not even bother to tell the camera persons to step aside while he was voting. They were covering it from every angle possible. The blame lies on both parties. This frenzy was diplomatically avoided by Kamal Haasan and the ex-deputy CM Stalin as well. Kamal Haasan shouted at the reporters to move farther and Stalin asked his wife Durga to stand away from him so that he could cast his vote in a confidential manner. I wish Rajni too did the same.

Now coming back to celebrities jumping queues, I related this incident with another thing that happens in Tirumala Tirupathi. Until two years ago, I was happily going to Tirumala once in every 2 years, feeling so religious about getting to watch Lord Venkatesha's idol and getting his blessings. Many times we as a family went to special darshans by paying extra money at the counter, and sometimes I heard my friends saying that with the influence of people working in Devastanam boards, they had the Darshan by skipping the entire queue. After a while, when I realized the meaning of an Egalitarian society, I hated this practice and stopped going to Tirumala. I said "No" for the Tirumala visit more than a few times in the past year when my friends or my relatives called me to join with them. It's just based on this thought. A God by virtue should be accessible to all people under equal norms and just because some people have more money doesn't mean that they can access God by shortcuts. This is what happening in Tirupathi and many other Hindu temples that I visited, and I don't wish to go to those places anytime in the future as well with this kind of partialities being practiced at the so called holy places. As a fact of the matter, it is these temples that creates partiality among people. Many section of people are not even entitled to enter into temples even today just because they were born in some caste type.

When is this all gonna end?

I know, He is going to die

It's been my long running thoughts...

It was my 3rd semester exams time. Standing frustrated in Avadi railway station after writing the toughest exam during my college - OOPS paper. I hardly got two digits in my OOPS class test. So, expecting some miracle to happen in my semester exam. Kicking myself hard, wondering what to respond to my dad when he inquire about OOPS exam.

Boiling thoughts, aching legs, sore eyes, distant train horn blowing sound, deafening silence and looking for train arrival.

A Tiruthani train came to halt in the opposite platform. Few commuters started to unboard the train and walk towards the footpath. I could feel the vibration of the distant train. An express train in the unused EMU track was nearing the platform.

I could see a man walking in the middle of the track. He was about 100 meter from the platform. He was having a big consignement on his shoulder. I was expecting the person to move out the track on hearing the train horn, but still he continued with his lackluster walk. There was a complete buzz among the commuters on seeing the person. The train driver started to blow the horn hard. Still, the guy kept on walking in the middle of the track. By default, I started to yell loud. I knew that pitch was not enough to alarm a distant person. All the commuters started to shout loud.

High Volume train horn, huge commuters resonance; he still continued walking in middle of the track. He seems to be deaf. I tightened my screws, forgot to breathe and stopped screaming.

"I know, He is going to die"

The speeding train, just a hitting distance; What can I do?

My frozen thoughts made my body unmoved. why didn't I had a super power?

Then whole scene played in 4X slow. I kept my eyes wide opened hoping that person withdraws himself from the track at the last minute. The person was quite a distant from the platform. Huge roar from the commuters.

The train hit him from the back. I could hear a deafening cracking sound of his vertebrate. He was pulled under the train.

My eyes was forced to shut.

Tears started to trickle down. There was a total stillness. I could see all the commuters frozen cold. I turned towards the platform temple. Tears splashing the platforms.

Heavy puff of dust started to swirl in that place. The oscillating platform temple bells, few womens in tears praying & many shell shocked commuters.

I couldn't believe what I visualized.

My next thought was to know what happened to the person. The scene started to play in normal speed. My incisive eyes couldn't find the body of the person.

The driver started to apply break slowly. The train was approcahing the station for a halt. I could hear a rattling noise in the wheels of the train. Three piece of the body was thrown out of the train bogie.

It was a systematic surgery by the train wheels, dissecting an innocent person.

Few commuters, train driver and guard walked towards the human remains to see the state of the remains.

"I knew, he is dead."

Few passengers started to scream loud on witnessing the body.

Train towards Chennai central came to halt in my platform. I slowly board the train. I moved toward the adjacent door to see the remains of the person. My train started to move and was nearing the remains.

I could see the cut apart head, bleeding chin, red cram neck lying on the ground.

His wide opened eyes, seems to be starring at me.

what is he saying to me?

Is he asking "Why didn't you saved me?"

Slowly moving train, gazing with his eyes hard, shedding a drop of tears; I conveyed "Sorry.."

I slowly moved inside to take a seat. MY dead cells resisted to rejuvenate.

Few mins of closing eyes, blocked thoughts, helped me to breathe easily and create new cells.

What is the first thing I have to do?

"Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."

Still, I have few Questions?

"Does a human remain have thoughts, feelings, belief, life..?"

"How could I give a life for a human remain..?"

An Exotic week in 19B

It was a fresh morning; standing in Madhyakailash stop for the 19B ac bus. The bus came with full crowd, I took the front door to enter. There was only little place inside, where I have to stand in attention with immovable hand and leg. The driver closed the door, So I was totally squeezed in between the door and people inside. With full crowd the bus crossed Tidel, Nift and came near SRP tool stop. Saw an awesome girl in distant approaching the bus and showing signal to the driver to stop the bus. It was a monday morning, she really had a lazy walk. The driver stopped the bus. 'Huh.. who the hell in the world will not stop a vehicle on seeing such an awesome girl?' I said to myself. 'If I was a pilot, I would have stopped the flight in mid air to pick her up.' my thoughts running high. She stood in front of the closed door; the driver pressed the automatic door button to open the door. The cool air inside the bus blew over her face. She flicked her eyes twice, her hair started to tangle in air. I look upon her face, I slowly closed my eyes. My eyes make pictures, when they are shut.
After a quick completion of film development inside my eyes, I opened it slowly. She stood before me in the bus. The driver again with his automatic button closed the door. Now, it was her time to get squeezed between the door and huh.. its 'ME'. There was very little place inside. I gave her some space, by standing with one leg . She wore a red chudidhar with embossed design in black. I could'nt resist myself looking at her face again. She was fair, good skin texture, plain with zero marks and deep eyebrow which was really impressive. I looked upon her eyes; monday blues was all written in her eyes. It was lazy, but started to glitters as seconds pass by. I really want to quote something about her eyes on my own, but I am not that much talenetd to make things on the spot. I could only remember a famous quote by William Cullen Bryant: 'Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.' I looked upon her lips; she had a lip gloss on it. It looked moist and red. If I had been Richard Gere, I would have made her to bend like Shilpa. I looked upon her nose; it was perfect with essence of classy touch. I looked upon her hair, it was short, dark and little bit frizzy at the end.
Some people got down in next two stops. Now I could breathe easy, importantly stand in 2 legs with ease. I just moved towards the front seat and the girl remained standing near the driver. Luckily a girl in that front seat got down in the subsequent stop and I got a seat. Still that girl was standing near the driver. 'What would be her name?? whatever it is, I would keep one' I said to myself. Finally I thought of calling her as Juno. The conductor asked Juno to move back and stand near the first seat as she had a quite long distance to travel on. She came and stood near me. I had my 'Two states' book opened and reading that. I became so interested in Chetan Bhagat writings after reading his 'Five Point Someone' book. The design in cover of the 'Two states' book matched Juno dress.
There was little bit of un-intentional touch happening between Juno and me in the travel. A heat wave travelled on from my touching part - hand to my heart and to my brain. I could feel much warmer than before. If it was an open space, the heat wave would certainly been due to the ozone layer depletion. But in closed air conditioned place, its was certainly due to the depletion of space between Juno and me. It was really tough for me to concentrate on the book. Still, I tried reading through. Kirsh the character in two states book had fallen in love with ananya during his college days and after two years he was working things on convincing both their parents. At this point, krish was saying to himself 'How stupid I am? fallin' in love with her over again and again'. After reading through this line, I just looked upon my Juno. I said to myself. 'How stupid I am, its been only 20 minutes; fallin' in love with her over again and again'. Every seconds I am fallin' in love with her. I fall head over heals in love with her.
The seat in which I was sitting was mounted little bit higher. Had a horizontal eye contact with her. Her frizzy hair laid over my book. I just moved the hair little bit while turning the pages. It was really soft and had a bit of hair current in it. Thoughts and un-intenional touches repeated till her stop came. 'The Greatest difficulty in life is: one who seduce you a lot, really close to you and you have to keep quite' Juno got herself ready to get down in the stop. she moved to the door, waiting to open.
I did'nt have any work other than staring her walk thru. The bus came to a halt in the stop and she got down slowly. She turned back and saw me through the glass window, purely its a chance. Her eye brow was like a bow. I could see lot of intense in her eyes when the eye brow is drawn. She flicked her eyes little bit and that rapid motion released thousands of arrow which pierced through the glass door and then thru my heart. I closed my eyes in pain, huh not exactly.. it was a mixed feeling. My sense did'nt work. It was like lying motionless in an arrow bed. The bus started to move and she started walking towards the office entrance. I kept starring at her till the last frame of her image. 'No eyes that have seen beauty ever lose their sight.' I said to myself and smiled a bit.
I reached office really late at 10. Its been one week passed by joining this new company. No system, no work; all I have to do is passing time sitting in stone bench. There are more average looking girls in our office, So entertainment is always on. After a tired work around in stone bench, I started at 7 from office. This time I got only a normal 19B bus to board. huh, I did'nt have a seat to sit; little bit of crowd inside. Its really frustrating to travel as a standees in bus while we are really tired. The bus passed half the distance to my destination. Suddenly I noticed Juno sitting in the front row of the bus, near to the entrance. My eyes lit up. All my pain disappeared quickly. Her eyes was glittering like a diamond. Her lips was like a dew on a leaf, it shinned in the dim light. She was hearing songs in her IPOD. She looks gorgeous even in the dim lighting provided in the bus. The driver applied a sudden break, I stumbled a little bit but I was so curious that Juno is safe. She looked at me on the go. Her looks suggests that she remembered me. She gave me a smile, such an energising look.. huh.. 'The moment she smiled it was a complete daylight'.
She got down in the SRP bus stop and I kept starring at her till her image fades away in the distant dark.