Bina's tattoo

When Bina came with her mother, a sickly looking undernourished girl, I thought she must be seven or eight. Gradually, her mother began disappearing from the act, leaving burden of work for the girl. She was again heavy with a child.
Often, in between her work, Bina would stare at computer screen. Questions began to pour. One fine day she said, she wanted to read and write. Her literacy lessons began at my place.
The other day I observed a tattoo on her arm. I asked, whose names are these? “ They are my brothers’, “ she said. ” But, why isn’t your name tattooed?” I was puzzled. “ If I am lost in a fair, or, some other place, I could be sent home. My brothers’ name would be known.”
This has many connotations. Her right arm is left untattooed, one day her husband’s name will be inscribed there. If she is lost, she could be found by her bother’s, or, husband’s name.
Bina’s favourite TV show- Raja ki aayegi baarat
Bina’s dream- To have a big colour TV, she likes to chop vegetables while looking at TV screen.
Why does she want to read and write? So that she can buy a big TV.
Bina has embellished her brothers’ name- Vinod, Rinku ans Sonu on Rakhi with henna.
Her brothers go to school.
Bina is in fact 13, or, around so. She looks nine.
Bina doesn’t want her name tattooed.
She doesn't feel the need to have her name engraved, anywhere.

Aural Attrition

Flamboyant, flippant, flashy film stars may have amplified their own hollowness by taking a dig at Bharat Kumar. After producing Shor, a film on growing noise pollution, Manoj Kumar proved to be much ahead of his times. He made this film in 70s, when the world was not yet assaulted by cell phone ring tones, reverse gear tones, loud, uncivilized, offensive honks, and an unprecedented surge of national love for Bhangra and Indi pop.

If by enhanced decibel, quality of sound could improve, then, bombs would turn out to be best sound devices. Unfortunately bombs produce only a sharp reaction of nerves. Even among animals. With a bombardment of sound from all quarters, we are generating only reactionary response to sound. Which, sadly, is a major sense stimuli that enhances development of intellect, if only used in right dose.

While watching Sarkar Raj, the entire duration of the film, I kept wondering who the hell created ear deafening blast in the name of background music. Why can’t film directors use right nomenclature? This untailored, uncontrolled noise couldn’t be categorized as music by any standards, background or frontal, or whatever. To my utter shock, there were over a dozen babies in the hall, making feeble protests to be rescued of their aural rape. Obviously, their protests fell on deaf ears. There was only one sound to be heard !!! Plastic sound that cannot have an organic effect!

Sound used to be sacred, a source of purity, of music, melody. When we violate and pollute sound all around us, we pollute a major part of growth, of mind, of sensibility. Even Himesh Reshamiya would agree. Sarkar Raj is no exception to the rule. Almost all films use ear deafening cacophony to get audience attention right at the start. Wonder, by film music composers, you get heard only when you scream! Singh is King did not shock, I was prepared for an aural blast. But, what happens to still in making delicate ears, babies keep whining, well…

In smaller multiplex auditoria, listening to or rather tolerating decibel blast of so called music ( background, item number or trash ), gives a nerve wracking experience. Ditto goes for restaurants, coffee shops. It’s almost impossible to get a quiet place these days. You meet friends over lunch, and shout over a mix of noises to get heard, a decent conversation is an impossibility in a room bombarded with noise blast pushed under your auditory passage by LCD screen TVs, from music players, cell phone ring tones and God forbid, if you sit close to a table occupied by a loud mouth!

Why is silence such a rarity? Like each room with TV revolution, the day is not far when we will need each house with a sound proof room revolution. How long can we abuse aural senses? What happened to quality of ears that our maker is fitting these days?

photo credit-Virtual Zovie's Photostream

Song of a bird

Which category do we humans belong to? Birds of a flock, or, the lion of a den? Singular or plural? Part of a herd or lonely hermit? What about party animals? Does it depend on the degree of one’s evolution? Or, ability to make choices! Ability to tolerate!
Crowd or solitude!
Normal is being in crowd, in company. What is normal? Opposite of abnormal. And abnormal is opposite of normal. A catch twenty two. Horns of a dilemma. What do people want? In loneliness- company, in company- loneliness!
Creative minds prefer solitude that allows them to get into their
own groove. From deep solitude erupt fountains of inspired strokes, colours, forms, notes and words that help others cope with loneliness of a crowd. For crowds, some create bill- boards, graffiti, slogans and rock shows. Their creation too requires an amazing quality of concentration. A long stretch of loneliness.
One thrives on inspired living. Inspiration could come from a distance, from solitude, from within. We may hate to be alone, in aloneness alone the best that we have inside, comes forth. In aloneness the most exciting discoveries take place. The most amazing accomplishments ( Abhinav Bindra is a recent example)!
Somehow crowds fail to drop connotations of Gujrati women running away with loot during riots, Gujjars breaking rail tracks and now chest beating women of Jammu and vituperative long nosed Kashmiris from my mind. Why do crowds bring out the animal in nice people?
And why, despite its amazing beauty and power, we detest loneliness?

When a single bird sings, it makes the sky reverberate.

picture: flickr/ autumn loneliness/ manu le manu

Heritage Potpourri

Heritage Potpourri- East and West

At Ajanta and Ellora caves, you marvel at ingenuity of frescos, their richness of colour, their perfection of technique that survived over a millennium. And then you wonder, how, within just sixty years of independence we could destroy such priceless heritage to an unrecognizable eye sore. There is more decay visible there, than art.

We may flaunt our secular flagship with pride and condemn all religious institutions, the fact remains, great Indian art and architectural wonders were preserved in their original form only in some old temples. In the name of God, at least, we care to preserve few remnants of our human glory. The glory that did not descend as a divine boon but was created by hard working anonymous, ordinary human beings. The perfection of sculptures in some of the temples did not make me feel proud of our past, it made me realize how low we have fallen from the standards of perfection we adhered to till a few hundred years back.

Forget about those loose electric wires hanging outside posh shopping addresses, shoddy leather covers in luxury trains, poor alignments and fixings, in the only certification of hope India could get in the recent past, the IT sector, present chairman NASSCOM, G Natarajan has commented, that, of the 20 lakh IT engineers, only 20 per cent are employable. And we know, we haven’t yet hit the rock bottom of not only of our inefficiency, but, our intolerance for competence.

And then I encountered a heritage of a different kind. On visiting William Randolf Hearst castle on the West Coast ( San Simeon, California) - I was surprised to observe, not a single artifact preserved in the castle was produced by the local artists or craftsman. At best, the castle was like an assembled potpourri. Hearst, the media baron had collected everything that went into making this so called castle on his visits to Europe, Asia , Middle East and Africa. Sculptures from France, doors and ceilings from Italy, tiles from Egypt, some lacquer work from Mexico and so on. Yet, the way they have preserved and present the castle to bus loads of tourists everyday is an eye opener ( you pay $27 for a visit).
I was bored and amused at seeing this vulgar nouveau riche assemblage. Bored, because the castle lacked grandeur and finesse we have seen in our forts of Rajasthan, amused- by their immaculate organizational skills. They do know how to showcase even a fake castle to perfection.
We, apparently do not have a very promising future, we are incapable of showcasing a grand past.

marriageable miseries

Marriageable miseries

Seeing a couple in their drawing room, a painting reveled its meaning. The painting showed two featureless faces, looking in opposite directions, with two empty cups of tea placed before them. There was an impression of a curtain in the background. I had seen the painting a few years back.
As I entered their house, the musty smell assaulted me. It came from everything, from all corners. On an impulse I wanted to open the windows. “ It’s pleasant outside, but, inside its stifling,” she commented sadly, as she perched on the sofa. I more than agreed. I looked at asymmetrical paintings hung all around. Then he came, dragging slippers. He added to the aching sadness of the room. They fitted perfectly into the frame. They complemented each other in sadness. It was infectious, my upbeat mood was deflated. I joined their conjugal sadness. It stuck to me like the musty smell.
Now, he began to mumble something. I looked at them and my heart sank. It sank further in an abyss of sadness. They must have been married for over two decades. What does marriage do to some people?

Kaur is Singh

Kaur is Singh

What’s there in a name ? Well, I know it sounds cliché. Repeated ad nauseam, anything uttered by Shakespeare has become cliché. The fact of the matter is, when we need to drive home a point, big names help. Like clichés.
One of my ex colleagues used to get invites addressed to her under a gender she was not born with. Poor girl was named Harneet, and her last name was Singh. So, she became Mr Harneet Singh for all practical purposes, for those who knew her only by her byline.
Recently, a friend was showing pictures of his exceptionally pretty daughter. I asked, what is she named. Tejwinder, he said. What? Tejwinder for a girl? Yes, she is Tejwinder. Doesn’t it sound a bit masculine, I said, and then kept quiet seeing the sensitivity of issue involved. As more and more girls like to drop ‘kaur’ suffixed to their names, sure, Tejwinder will be kwon as Tejwinder Singh and her gender will be misconstrued despite her very feminine demeanor.
Imagine Sophia Loren being called Yul Brianer! How it will interfere with her feminine grace!
Names too reflect cultures. Perhaps martial races wanted their women to bear some masculine traits. So, the common names. I wonder, if many men would like to take women’s name. Mr Kusum Singh, or, Mr Komal Singh are hard to come about. Why is it so easy to deprive women of what defines them- their femininity.
Most of us were made to recite Jhansi Ki Rani poem as kids, khub ladi mardani… the Rani was immortalized for her masculine qualities. How many queens do we glorify for their femininity. God forbid, if kings had feminine qualities, they would be sneered at! Generations would deride such an effeminate king.
An intellectual friend of mine hates all Meera Bai bhajans, god knows why? Wonder, her total surrender is defeatist in his macho world. Like good men should not ‘cry like girls’, and when they show cowardice, they are to be reminded, chudiyan pehan rakhi hain kya? Implying, femininity is about weakness. As though, courage is only about bashing up a goon, or, fighting wars on the border. I have known some moustache twirling, spineless generals and some real courageous women who do not don moustache.

The wise old oriental cultures talk of striking a balance between Yin and Yang, the two forces that bring harmony to the world. Our own pantheon has created the amazing concept of ardhnarishwara. I had the opportunity of seeing ardhnarishwara Ganesha in one of the temples of Tamilnadu- the god of auspiciousness with animal head and a body that gives equal place to feminine and masculine features.