Sunday, August 31, 2008

Of Friends and Some Questions

What do you make of friends? Are they the family you choose for yourself? Are they the ones you turn to when family or at least the semblance of family that society thrusts upon you to embrace fails you? Are they the only ones who will ever know you and still love you for who you are, unmasking the many faces that you put on yourself for the rest of the world? What when these friends themselves fail you? What remains? So is the only person you can truly trust and count on is yourself? I have before me today those two round pieces of the spectacles of cynicism. Perhaps the stories that I see around me everyday has made me cynical. Or maybe it’s the relationships that I don’t see surrounding me. Or maybe this is just the passing of a teenage idealism that the world is actually a nice place to live in.

I do not any answers. Questions are in plenty but that eternal search of every human who stops to think awhile has really been to understand why life is such, isn’t it? To find the elusive meaning of life, to understand where exactly we are heading. Can the “I” really be defined without the rest of “them” or the “Us”? Can my story be just mine without any other lives in it? When I talk about myself, can it be only about “me”? These are not questions that arise out of the last dregs of an amber-coloured drink on a cold rainy evening, not answers I seek to fill in the gaps between the things I do during my days. I don’t drink. Or have the luxury of time to think. These have just, off late, become questions that have begun to take centre stage in my relationships. How much can I give? How much can I meet up to? Why exactly? How? The entire gamut of the 5 Ws and the 1 H that we learn in journalism school.

The more I go on, the more questions crop up. Answers are what I would prefer, but then again, I am not one of those fortunate ones who can really think of the situation they are in and conclude in very straight lines how they got there and why exactly they are there in the first place. But I suppose it would be rather preposterous of me to think that anything in life is easy in the first place.


In other updates:
* I watched Rock On today. The verdict: EXCELLENT (though I wish I had watched it some other day when I was in some other mood.) Farhan Akthar should do us all a favour and act more. Luke Kenny is ok but looks hot. Purab Kohli: Cute! And Arjun Ramphal: Oh My God!! Greek God! Hot! I can only write with exclamations! Long hair on men, please may it come back into fashion. Ramphal walks on stage, hair flying, a guitar in hand, the drool factor cannot have shot up higher.

* Just finished reading Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s ‘You Are Here’, a total time-pass read. Though I must say, some parts of the book was really insightful into modern lives.

* That said, I notice that movies are getting more real by the day, moving away from the total make belief and overdose of fantasy. Life in a Metro, I remember was really good. And now Rock On rocks.
* Down with a cold. Got expensive hair treatment, looks great though. :-)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Life in a Neat Little Frame

If life could be clicked, sometimes with a Carl Zeiss 3.2 lens, framed, with a circled C that says picture by....the ones that make the beads of a string of simple, happy memories!

This was on my Gmail chat status message today. I must say, the shutterbug seems to have bit me big time. The last two days, I seem to be seeing everything in frames, composing my own pictures in my mind, not always storing the images I see, tweaking it a bit here and moving angles to get everything I want into the frame, just the way I would want it.

I don't claim expertise over the art of photography but I know I am better than a lot of people I know, better than even some pros; I say this with all immodesty; you cannot deny a fact right? :-) No seriously, if you ask me (and I would tell you even if you didn't ask), creativity, of any kind, is not too hard. I believe everyone has creativity, those who claim they don't just haven't found it in them.

To me, in a way, creativity is what earns me my salary, my words, the thoughts that stream out of my fingers. Some days I don't write, it is like a feeling that wells up somewhere in me, becoming bigger, restricting my journalism even, until I just have to write it out. I need to write, just like how I need to breathe, thankfully not so often though. It is a cliche but life sometimes is so similar among individuals that you cannot help but take refuge in words that all of us are bored of reading and writing.

Now why did I start this? Ah photography! Right. I have been taking pictures all along our travels. I think I began because I hated being photographed in the first place. I do not photograph well, unless the best friend takes it. That led me behind the camera. I did a paper on photography at uni, but I still do not understand focal length and apperture and all that.

Two days ago, I began to suddenly see things in frames. Happened to tell Manju, the best friend and the best pro I know, about it. And he is lending me his Nikon D100!!! Yeah! I have used it briefly and know that it is complicated enough for me to require further lessons. Technology of that kind does not go to my head very easily but he is a very patient teacher. I hope to eventually write with expertise about appertures and focal lengths and learn about the different stops in the camera and the lens types and all that. Shall probably put up more pictures here as well. That would be also to make up for the infrequency of words on these pages. :-)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Very Random

Life and my mind....at something past 11 o'clock this Sunday night, random, bullet-ed, in no particular order:


* Life is not too bad, after all, though it is sometimes awfully over-rated.

* Brida, Paulo Coelho's latest, pop-spiritualism apart, has helped me think, an act I seemed to have forgotten.

* My mind is clear, after several days.

* "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life", a Casablanca line. So reminded me of the things I would have regretted, of some things I shall always cherish.

* Mungaru Male is a really good film.

* At this moment, I would have loved to think of something really profound to write here. But its Sunday, I have told myself not to think of anything except of the people I love. It is not a time for words....

* The lyrics of a song from a film resound in my head. A rainy night, the song, coffee....

* Nee bandu nintaaga, nintu nee nakkaga, sothe naanaga...No other song could be more perfect.

* Several pictures that are close to my heart, my most dearest memories in frames. The most precious ones, notes to myself in my mind.

* Faith in God is the most fluctuating factor right now. I wonder why? Remnants of a pseudo-communist thought process perhaps?

Just My Own

Red, ivy-clad
A few yellow lily
Wind in my face
Chill to my bones
Mist, the cloud of peace
Over my heaven
Stones I love, those
And the leaves,
The moss,
The asphalt road,
Every lane, twin
Mountains
All mine.
My Madikeri
Is just my own.
My memories
The stories I lived,
The ones I tell
They are mine.
My paradise
Where I smile
Where my smiles
Are real and my laughter
Happy
My heaven is
A little place on Earth
Called Madikeri,
Just my own.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The BOSS! :-*

The plush interiors of PVR. A rather quiet crowd, ugh! The cool air conditioned air. Good popcorn and a tall Pepsi. Not the ideal setting at all. But when the BOSS comes on screen, there are a few stray whistles. I let out a small scream, it is not enough. The boss just demands that his entry on the screen comes with much adulation! For those who think I am talking about Bruce Springsteen, my drool factor here is restricted to Rajnikanth. I watched his latest film Kuselan today. It is not strictly a Rajni movie, his role is like an extended cameo and someone I did not see the punch in the film. But still, it was the Boss, anything he does would be in style.

I have always had this fascination to go watch a Rajni movie on the first day of its release. The best friend, Manju, goes every time for a first day show and I end up being incredibly jealous. I have always wanted to go to a rather down market theatre and watch it with the crowd there, not at PVR and sit with a boring crowd that discusses the heroine's make up and the film location! Ugh! The film should be all about the Boss!!!

If you have not figured it out yet, I am a die-hard fan of Rajni. I loved Shivaji, his previous film. We had gone to watch it at a multiplex again. My then colleague and I got so excited and made such a noise that the usher almost threw us out! That was fun. She learnt to whistle after that, I am yet to practise...Dad had promised to teach me, should remind him....

You know, I don't get some people. They would happily watch Superman and Spiderman and all those X-men and others but when Rajni does the same, he is dumb? Phuleeezz! I am all for him. His is a larger than life image. Why not see him just as an Indian superhero? The style, the charisma...ooh...(drool! drool!)
To me, the BOSS, the superman!
(Yenna? Chumma, aderedille?) :-)