The Pianist

Once there lived a butterfly, a little one, a beautiful one, its wings were filled with colours and shades that were rare to find as if nature hand picked its hues and contours, It was an innocent little butterfly which swapped its tiny wings to fly around the greenerys of the woods, it stood on top of ancient tress, it flew amidst the morning mist,it kissed the dew filled grass, it drank from the yellow flowers covering the floors of the river bed, it befriended nature and where ever it flew it carried with it a beautiful melody which was heard in the air, its wings wrote a fable on the unending pages of the sky, when it flew on top its little eyes always fell in awe with the beauty of its mother nature,one day a wild strom changed its path,caught in the wind it flew in unknown directions, it travelled across landscapes to reach a war field; the little butterfly had no clue, like a drop of blood woozing from the eye it flew in the forbidden land, it sat on top of glittering swords,it flew amisdt the raging bullets, it saw men fighting with rage and anger, it saw people killing each other, it sat on top of corspes, it sat on top of bleeding wounds, the innocent little butterfly which knew nothing but the beauty of the world was confused, it was distressed,it observed people killing each other, it obeserved the soil turning red, it tried to flee from the place but a sharp knife scissored its wing: the wing which was once filled with a million colours now fell on the ground and was filled with red blood, the wing kissed the ground and slept with the corpes, our little butterfly which was hurt and bleeding, flew away from the warfield fighting the air with a single wing, its little eyes dropped a tear which evoporated before it reached the earth.Now replace the butterfly with a pianist and the warfiled with thestruggling city of Warsaw of the 1940, what u get is a movie in return.The Pianist(2002) a polish/english movie by Roman Polanski is the real life story of an innocent pianist a jew who underwent the worst days of his life living in Warsaw during the German invasion of Poland, a movie which portrays the sufferings that innocent men undergo during a war, a movie which teaches u the ill effects of war like a slap on the face, or in simplewords The pianist is the story of a butterfly caught in the battle.

Władysław Szpilman is a famous Pianist in all of Poland and all of Europe, a man who is made up by music, a polish jew by birth he lives a contented life with his family of 6, untill terror strikes, the German forces invade Poland and the city of warsaw is under siege the family which lived a peaceful life till then is made to undero struggles they could never imagine, along with other jews they are made to vacate their homes and are made slaves in their own land, they are tortured by the nazis and finally are taken to an extermination camp, Szpilman escapes as his entire family enters the horrific mouth of death, then the movie travels with Szpilman in his plight for survival in the holocaust, A man who knew nothing but music is made to undergo pain and torture which almost breaks him into pieces, a pianist by soul Szpilman is made to work as a slave, he is made to walk on corpes, eat rotten food, drink dirty water, he is beaten to death, he hides behind closed doors, suffers from illness with no one by his side to take care, he grows beard and roams around like a lunatic in the demolished streets of warsaw with the memory of his lost family haunting him for an eternity.Finally when the war is over, he survives and all his struggles end up as a brilliant tune which he plays for his land, his people and for his survival.

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Adrien Brody as Władysław Szpilman won an academy award for his performance in The Pianist, I was mesmerized watching him perform as a naive young man, in a particular scene where he is caught in a room with a piano but he cant play it because any sound may bring troops up there, so he plays the piano on the air without touching the keys, the minute emotions he shows as a Pianist who is denied his play shows that he is legend in the making. Described as Polanski's best film till date the movie takes us to the streets of Warsaw, where life is living on the edge.The movie is no-sugar coat when it comes to depicting the pain the torture that the world underwent in the hands of the Nazis is visually translated on the screen.The movie doesn't compel any idea on you it has a very detached view.What we see at the end is a movie which is so honest, bleak, and powerful that it disturbs you more than a live wound.The cinematography is a high point depicting the past in hues of green, brown and grey and the final scenes which dwells on hope takes a slight variation in the colour tone,a master work.The movie considered one of the best films made on Holocaust and struggle of Jews won high credits at the Oscars and at Cannes.

In the defining moment of the film, when a German official asks Szpilman to play a tune in the piano when he is caught inside skeletons of demolished buildings,sitting in front of the piano in a place which is void of life, Szpilman's hands tremble to touch the piano, then he plays a tune, a tune from the inner depths of his heart, a tune which conveys his pain, solace and all his anger, the sound keeps violently filling in the space like a prodigy of the suffering he faced. His hands travel across the black and white blocks of the piano, and that single tune conveys the soul of film, after all what can an innocent and musical pianist do, except to play his tune? I am not a very compassionate person by heart, but moments in the film did make me shed a tear, my mind was thinking about all those butterflies caught in the Battle, in Lanka, in Israel, in Bosnia, in Iraq, in Palestine and in every other place where children, woman, elderly suffer for no reason of theirs, how many more musicians, poets, authors would be suffering right at this moment? please leave them alone their beautiful hearts was not made for war, let them enjoy the beauty, let them walk in breeze, there are still millions of butterflies those who loose their wings in unknown battles, they too were meant to live like the rest of us, please spare them from your ugly wars, after all the beaks of the butterfly was meant to drench in honey not in blood.

To visit my World Cinema series click here..

Fountainhead

There are hundreds of books filling in my little library, books that I grew up with, books that made me grow up, books which fulfilled my secret desires of adolescence, books those made me think beyond my adolescence, books with beautiful women on the covers, old and brown books with strands missing in the middle, books which remain as just a complex jumble of words, books through which I learnt life, books through which I learnt nothing, books bought for mere pride and books bought with the excess of money, books cutting through the interwoven lines of languages, genres, tastes and changing preferences over the ages. There are hundreds of books filling in my little library, and then there is The Fountainhead. It is not just a book , it is a soul resting in my bookshelf, a book with a mystic eye which keeps looking at me, a book which guides me, a book which threatens me, a book which parodies all my foolishness and my hypocrisies, a book which came to me in the time when I was searching for a foothold, an collective expression of my philosophies, a vision through which I am going to look at the world beyond, an inspiration, a platform on which im going to build my future upon, a hidden vault of energy which is going to help me live my life as it should be Lived. “Ayn rand” a name I never heard months back is now a name which im never gonna forget all my life.

Fountainhead is the story of this orange haired man Howard Roark, the Man,self-made, self-sufficient, self-confident architect who lives by his own rules, who is hated for being himself, who can never be hurt, who can never be influenced, who will remain himself at any cost, who has learnt the virtues of being selfish, the bench-mark of a man, an end of all ends. The story is the story of Roark’s triumph amidst the repression, the story of a man against everyone. And his love for his woman, Dominique Francon, according to me she is the perfect woman whom I have ever seen/read about, a woman matching the integrity of Roark, a woman who lives her life for herself and for no one else, a woman as a woman should be, who loves Roark so much that she sets out to destroy him. The story is about the people who connect with Roark and Dominique who from rigid frameworks of all the different kind of people who make up the rest of the world, i.e the rest of us, Peter Keating a successful architect, an example of the kind of man that the world wants, the man who could never be a real man, everything that is opposite to Roark, fake and fragile, Ellsworth Toohey,an example to the men/worms who dictate our age old rules and morals, a so called intellect, an evil who hides behind collectivist and altruist masks, a poisoned soul, a second hander and finally comes Gail Wynand a newspaper mogul, an example of the rest who are caught between the fight of the man whom you are and whom you want to become, who is aware of what he is but still who prefers to be what he is, a manipulator of the masses, A man who could have been one. Through them and the other people with whom we live in the torch lit streets of New york of the early 1900’s for nearly 700+ pages, Ayn rand in a subtle way and prepares us to question everything, every single rule that prevents humanity, she teaches us to defy and inspires us to live a life, a selfish life, a life in which I don’t I don't think of you but about myself, a life which can only be true if I live for myself.

The fountainhead, a book written as it should be, a book from which you can either find all the meanings or find nothing, a book that helps you understand you first, a inward travel through which we reach the very essence of human beliefs and standing on the peak of all our believes, you question everything, YES everything that has been said and done and when the questions fetch no answers we invent them, the real answers which are hidden deep down inside. Ayn Rand teaches you her philosophy through Roark, the philosophy of Objectivism which states “proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest by being selfish”. Living in a world that asks/pleads/threatens us to live its rules/beliefs/wishes/morals, the book opens the all the hidden fountains in the brain and there flows a rivers of thoughts, “Why should I fall prey to others peoples dreams?”, “Why should I forego my dreams myself in the name of sacrifice when im gonna regret it all my life?”, ”Why cant everybody agree that every human is selfish by nature?”,”Why should I live by every rule that were set even before my birth? Why shouldn’t I invent them?” more and more thoughts keep flowing that washes away all the beliefs that your inner mind had always awaited to break. A few days back when I was down, when I was sinking and acting crazy I saw The fountainhead staring at me from the shelves, I felt ashamed, the mere sight of the book brought me back with myself. Can a book influence so much that you fear it?, The fountain head does. The time when I spent reading the book, I was at my best, the clarity that it induced in my thoughts when I read it was like an enlightenment, I judged myself better and found where I stood and where I wanted to move from here. whenever I feel losing out with myself, I keep the closed book in front of the eye and I stare at it, some chemistry unveils and peace sets in. That is the magic that this little book has done in my life, I believe the book was written for me to read it someday. A good book has no real ending, the book never ended in me, it began in me, as a never ending search. Im still haunted with the book, ill be for a lifetime till then ill visit Roark in his little office at the Dana, ill stand by his side looking at him draw his sketches, when he is busy drawing the angular lines on paper ill be staring at the majestic shadows of New York, ill wait till the wind gets colder, ill wait till he gives an indifferent glare at me, ill cherish the moment and ill get back to my reality just to make it better and to make it mine.

Thanks Asha, for introducing me to the epic called Ayn Rand.

On the edge of night...

Like little drops of ink filling a clear glass of water, the night is filling in the sky. The front yard of the village house is empty and the glitter of the moon is reflected on the land, on the tiled roofs, on the wide green leaves of the banana tree, on the fillings of water, and on the corners of my pale eye. A gentle breeze blows from below the earth, the chill on the feet travels across and ends as a smile on the lips.I stand here in silence,I stand here in the darkness, I see no vision but i could feel the universe. I look up till the head becomes perpendicular to my frame, i look up till all the earthly visions disappear, and then there is only the distant moon and the thousand stars, and then there is only the sky in sight, i feel as if there is nothing in-between us, between me and the sky, between me and the craters of the moon, between me and million stars, I float in the sky, my fingers reach for the sky. They try to play with the clouds, they try to steal the moon, they try to write a lovely name connecting the stars, my legs are not grounded on sand, I don't feel my body, this is something else that i feel, as if becoming a part of the truth, the truth of existence, the truth of the universe, a single truth that connects a star thousand light miles away with a man standing somewhere in the streets of a sleeping village.I keep looking at the sky above my head, if everything above the land is the sky then I stand in sky and I stare at the universe, and in these moments i feel that time is standing still, it is waiting for my word to start ticking again, time is relative; it is the human desire that keeps pushing the hands of time,let time wait for some more time, till then it will be the sky above and a soul below.

I wake up looking forward the night, I believe my day begins to take me to my night.The best moments of my life happened to me in the midnights, I became a bibliophile with the moon leaning across my back reading with me all my favourite books, I became a graphic designer creating images with colours when the world around me went grey, I invented my philosophies of life carelessly lying in the lap of the night, I searched for a million truths in the dark walls of the midnight making my soul as the candle of flame, night gave me lessons, night gave me peace, night gave me emotions, night gave me a shoulder to cry, night gave me a reason to laugh, night gave me solace, night gave me a chance to hear angles speak like women, night is where i belong and the day is where i un-belong.You can boast all through the day, but you have to be humble in the night, because night is a mirror placed in the dark, in the darkness we see ourselves, we laugh for ourselves, we cry for ourselves, night lets you be - yourself.The real emotions come out when we are rest assured that no body is there to watch, night gives a chance to be you and to invent you. Night is where we remove the masks, the masks spotted for the sake of the society, for the sake of people around, below every bed you could find these invisible masks scattered across, night is where all the hypocrisies fade out, night is where the conscience gets awake while the body gets to sleep.The real person can be determined with the last thought that he has before going to sleep.The hidden vault of the mind gets open when we lie idle before sleep and inside it lies our deepest desires, our most beautiful memories and our intolerable sufferings.

They say the brightness of the stars depend on the darkness of the sky.The sky is dark, pitch black with some grey scattered near the clouds surrounding the moon.The clouds keep colliding above my head, like hiding the most beautiful princess they try to hide the moon from sight.The moon, the tajmahal of the night sky.Moon has been with me for years now, I remember the day when i was a little kid.I had to travel between two cities in the midnight and when the journey started i saw the moon above the grilled window of the train, as the train went to sleep i kept staring at the sky and the moon kept following me, I alighted from the train to find that the moon is still following me.I started crying fearing that the moon is here for me, to abduct me to space.The fear of the childhood became the friend of the adulthood.The sun belongs to all of humanity- the sun is a collective entity, but it is the moon that belongs to each human- the moon is an individual entity.You can be intimate only with the moon, the moon is a friend for some, philosopher for some and the hidden source of love for some.The moon is a silent observer, you can laugh at it, you can make love to it, or you can keep staring at it for no reasons.The moon doesn't complain, it stays there where it is and sends out a sense of belonging.For me the moon is the source of selfless love, and then there are the stars, my best friends for life.I count the stars till i run out of numbers, I gaze at them one at a time.These stars above my village sky remain my companions when I'm alone, i share all my pain, i share all my dreams, I share all my secrets with them.They send out a silence which can't me matched my any spoken word.

Im in the middle of the night, I decide to climb over the wall to reach the roof of the house,I climb into the night reaching the tiled roofs of the age old village house.I walk without making a fuss,I reach the middle and I look around.The village is asleep, a few dogs bark at a distance, a few lamps remain lit in the temple below the tree, I remain the only man there, i feel like im the only man alive in the whole wide world.I see the village getting drenched with the silver light of the moon, this is how the world really looks without the borrowed light of the sun, I share the sight of the first man when he was awake on the very first night, this is the real world, the darkness is the glow of the world.The mind dwells in calmness, the mind dwells in peace.I imagine travelling into the sea when the sky is dark, the sea looks like flowing landmass in the night.I imagine travelling in a little boat across the dark sea on a dark night, mind flows with thoughts like the fishes swimming near the waves, I throw a huge net across the sea and i catch the thoughts which swim deep inside and the scattered thoughts- i present them to you as words.Standing on the edge of the night the mind travels inside and the calmness you feel needs a new language to express.This moment, with the stars looking at me and the moon adding to the serenity, this moment, where i stand on the top of the village house starring at the sky,may be a moment of no specific importance, but i feel it is these little moments that make up my living.It is these moments that keep me alive and keep me going.I stand here on the cliff of the night, on top of the dark rocks, below me flows the yellow river of the day, i shall soon jump from this cliff gliding and colliding into the yellow, swimming across the day to reach the bottom of another cliff and to climb the dark rocks towards the edge of another night.I may leave in sometime.
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But the night will still be alive outside my window.

Chennai to Colombo via Mumbai

Departure 29 Jan 19:27hrs

Chennai, I still remember the rainy morning when i came to you. Back then I didn't know that I am gonna love you so much, Now standing here in the deserted platforms of tidel station staring at the majestic tidel park which glows in yellow and blue, I never knew that I am gonna miss you so much.I came to you with a million dreams, you gave me my first money, you gave me my first identity, you gave me all the treasures that you safeguarded inside you for years.I am grateful to you Chennai.You were a friend, a kind of friend who makes you feel complete, a kind of friend who teaches you to live.When i was in you i discovered myself, i discovered people, i discovered things i had been searching for ages.Now standing here just minutes ahead of leaving you, I look back at you.I think of all those houses which hosted me and my friends, I think about the everlasting fun that we had in you, I think about all the streets in which i drove my rusty old bike, I think about the people whom you made me meet, i think about my first day at office, I think about all the tea shops which came to life in the midnights,I think about your night sky, I think about the energy that you embedded into every soul, I think about the hot summers that you had to offer, I think about the million people who are gifted to live in you tomorrow and the day after. They say that a city is just a bunch of streets and buildings, but i knew that you had a soul, a soul which is reflected in every face that lives in you. You are a collective reflection of the people who live in you, dark, white, grey and pale in skin and soul. I had always been fond of you, when my friends made fun of me that i had never been to chennai till 21 years of living.I decided that someday I am gonna conquer you, but you conquered me.Im in awe with you.I may go places from here, I may round around the globe but I am gonna miss you Chennai, I am gonna miss everything that is you.I am gonna miss bessy, I am gonna miss OMR, I am gonna miss those long drives in east coast, I am gonna miss getting drenched in the middle of deserted mount road, i am gonna miss the clouds those collided above my head when i spent my most beautiful nights in your presence, i am gonna miss the Andhra messes, I am gonna miss the pubs,I am gonna miss the electric trains, I am gonna miss your magnificence as a whole, I am gonna miss the wheatish girls from the north, I am gonna miss the little wooden BENCHES in my office.:)But someday ill be back to you and stay with you for a lifetime ahead cos you are my capitol, cos I love you. Ill be back to you Chennai, till then take care of all the loved ones.Take care of yourself and stay the same :)

Refuelling 22 Feb 10:27hrs

Slumdog millionaire, i am glad that i watched it months back when it was just another Independent movie that craved for attention. I watched it with no real interest, but still liked it. Days passed and SDM became the talk of villages, towns, and cosmopolites. I watched it again and this time i liked it even more. No it is not the BEST film that one can make out of Mumbai, it is not the best film that suits the Oscar profile, it is not the best by any means and that is why i feel it deserves the recognition(wait a second...even i don't understand what i just typed but just let it be:)).the film never takes itself seriously, it is not too good and it is not the kind of film that wins the Oscars and this makes it the favourite at the academy's this year(wait another second...I promise you I don't understand what i just said;)).These ppl in the west are real crazy they are bored with the kind of films they make and see, and films reaching the final stages at the oscars are just the same, similar crew, similar making, similar acting so when they saw SDM it was like seeing a pig defecate in the busy streets of Manhattan, they have never seen a pig to shit in there, they have never seen something like the SDM so they are celebrating and I am sure SDM is gonna sweep. Rahman may end up holding the golden man in both his hands(but still he will be greeted by shitty indian directors who will ask him to score "Sir, hero nadanthu varan sir appo pakkathula oru ditchu, utthu patha athukulla namba namitha face theriyuthu sir, appo neenga "jajak,jajak,....jakak" nu oru bitta potta pasanga meranduruvanunga sir)Apart from all this I like the movie, it has an Indian soul, and for all those who complain about the bad light in which Mumbai was projected, plzzz the movie was not taken in Mars, those slums are real the poverty is real the cruelty is real, when we are getting used to accept the realities we will accept movies like these. Let's wait till 22nd, kudos SDM, kudos Danny(but Mr.Anil kapoor U SUCK... i hate the way you behaved at the globes, you are a a**h***)

Emergency Landing 04 Feb 16:18hrs

I don't understand what is happening in the Island nation,No i don't have a clue.I have heard stories, I don't believe in Rajapaksha(ppl just look at him, he looks so cruel, like the Nambiars and Asokans, it is tattooed on his face that "I am a villan..ha ha ha"), I don't believe in LTTE, I don't believe in the Indian government, I don't believe the jokers in Tamilnadu who keep shouting for no good reasons, I don't believe the media, don't believe in a thing all I believe is that my Innocent brothers out there are suffering and i could feel the pain here. Days back i read about a girl from kilinochi, her grandma and her mother were raped in front of her little eyes no one came to save her and the woman in her house. Damn it!! they are suffering out there and what are we doing? Leave out the Tamil factor, aren't they human as the rest of us? I feel responsible to do something but what can i do? what can we do?.And days back one of my colleagues from north asked me a question "Why are you Tamils so regional fanatic? After all those people belong to another nation". My answer for him and all other Indians who don't understand the pain we as Tamils share all i would like to say is "Fine, you say that I am Indian, yes I am an Indian and i love my country, You expect me to be a brother to all those ppl who live in this country, to the ones from Nagaland and Assam(even though they are Chinese to me), to the ones living somewhere in the distant villages of Bihar and Jammu(god damn they look alien to me..anyway), I agree with you, I agree that we are one country and i agree that we are united in diversity, but these people for whom i speak are my kith and kin, they look like me, they speak like me, they call their mothers just like the way i call mine, they belong to me. We are united not by diversity but by identity, I am an Indian, but more than that I am Tamil by birth and life and I am always proud to say that. So let us care for our brothers, they may have killed your(hmmm…ok OUR) once PM but don't forget that you guys raped their mothers in the name of peace and harmony. Pain is something distant from language and region, its paining for them, I am not pleading you to care for them, but when we do it please don't find faults. Let peace prevail, here and there. Let my brothers and sisters spell P-E-A-C-E not in Tamil, not in Singhalese, not in any other language that humans speak. Let them spell peace in their smiles, lets pray for them after all that is the only thing we can do.

Girrr...Burrr...Dirrr...

(To my roomies reading this, i know i went over-board, as always pardon me ;) )

What if you are super-sensitive to sound? i.e even the sound of a dropping pin on the mosaic floor, barking sound of a dog in a latency of 3 kms would wake up from sleep? and you live in a room with 6 other gentlemen in which 5 snore and 1 farts all night? now that's me.That is my life for nearly two years now.No i am not complaining, im just laughing at god who created me, laughing out loud, laughing out helpless, laughing out insane.There are days when you try hard to sleep and when you feel sleep is nearing you, you start hearing this sound like the sound of a grinding machine, you loose hope on life, your nerves get tighter, your blood flows hot in your veins, you run down to the PC and google for where you can buy unlicensed guns in Chennai, you find that you get it in a corner shop in north madras, you decide to buy it the next day and just blow of all the snoring heads, but the next day comes you wake up hearing the same old noise, you wake up to cry, you wake up to curse and you then google to find out what are the 10 most easy ways of committing a suicide.Now please don laugh, im serious.It is a room where bachelors stay in the morning, and at some magical point in the midnight the place i live in turns into a zoo.I open my eyes to the darkness and I start hearing these sounds, noise of a stranded whale, squealing of a pregnant pig, cawing of a fat dark crow, grump of an injured camel, gobble of a mature male turkey and the howling of a green eyed wolf.I always live with the fear that any time i may become a prey and only my skeleton would remain in the next morning.I am even planning for a night safari in the pathways of my room with an entry rate of 30/per head.Guys lemme know if u r interested, i guarantee for an once in a lifetime experience. I know my limits, ill stop here. :)In a way im getting used to it, how long can you keep worrying for things that is out of your control?.Im planning to do my thesis in snoring, "The sound engineering behind sleeping Indian men" is the title. Wow what a learning it has been for years now, how many varieties we have in a simple snore? from the loud noisy snore which travels across 3 rooms to the vibrator snore which reaches your ears like a drilling machine.The graph patterns that i depicted observing the sounds has led to graphs with sin waves, cos waves and even ocean waves.It is all fine but when you loose sleep over it, hell is not so distant.And the other aversion i have is the aversion to light, i wake up to the sudden glow of a zero watts bulb, I wake up to the glow of the TV screen on my closed eyes.In some nights where i need a lot of time with myself for solace, someone will switch on the creepy television at 4am and hear songs in the tunes of "satti suttathada, kai vittathada".I go helpless guys. And all my otherwise lovely roomies reading this, Im not blaming you guys you people have all the rights to snore after all it is your tongue and your nose.Blame my parents for bringing me up like this, blame god who created me as a naturally sensitive ***hole.Blame me.I cant sleep with sound, i cant sleep when i find a small ray of light intruding the bottom of my door, i cant sleep when the TV keeps running, I cant sleep while people speak, I need a graveyard like silent atmosphere in order to completely sleep at peace.I know i have become a nightmare for most, nobody prefers to sleep near me just cos u guys know i mouth very bad words in your ears when i get irritated, I kick at times to bring you back to normal, at times i even wake up people and say "I have no problems in you snoring hard, but please can you stop snoring like an owl and start snoring like a cuckoo bird?".I know that i have become a pest to most, I know that everybody prays for me to get a wife who snores all night,but please stand in my shoes.Apart from this you guys are the best one can find in the world and I love you guys when you don't make those quirky annoying noises. (im not saying this fearing a mob attack making me run nude in the streets, im sayin this cos i really love you guys :P).And for all those others reading this, my thesis is nearing its conclusion and ill soon give the answers for the age old question.Where does the snore come from? Is it from the nose or the mouth?

keep guessing till then... :)

இந்த மழைக்காலம்.

என் முதல் கவிதை முயற்சி...குழந்தைகள் கூட மழையை முறைத்துக்கொண்டிருந்த-உயிர்ப்பில்லாத ஒரு மாலைப்பொழுதில் எழுதியது ..

இந்த மழைக்காலம்.

இந்த மழைகாலத்தின் கடைசி நாள்.
இருள் கவிந்திருந்த இந்த மாலையில் 
தூறலுடன் பெய்கிறது இறுதி மழை 

காமத்தில் வடிந்த எச்சில் போல் 
காயத்தில் கசிந்த உதிரம்போல் 
கிழவியின் அழுகை போல் 
துர்கனவின் சிறுநீர் போல்  

ரசிக்க ஆளின்றி என்  வீட்டு 
சாக்கடையில் விருப்பமில்லாமல் 
பெய்கிறது - யாவரும் பழகி சலித்த மழை 

வானம் பார்த்துவிட்டு 
வீட்டுக்குள் நான் வந்த நொடியில் 
ஏனோ இறந்தேபோய்விட்டது
இந்த மழைக்காலம்.

 

Still Life

A few nights back I was there in this crowded restaurant near my place, burning with hunger, I ordered my food and waited. Time passed and i got nothing. Restless,I looked around for my waiter. It was a chaotic sight all around, people moving in and out, noise of the speaking voices, waiters rushing with the servings.And finally i found him, the middle aged man who took my orders, he was standing by the other side, he stood there motionless like a saint, i looked him in his eyes , his eyelids made no movement; they were wide open, he was staring at something across the road. It was a little bird standing in the middle of the busy road. It was idle too.My waiter's eyes were fixed on the bird, he seemed to have forgotten himself, it was just the bird and him and nothing else. Not his job, not the chaos, not his family, not his life- nothing. Time stood still for him. I have no words to bring out the essence of the moment. I left him to enjoy the moment, and closed my eyes to interpret its meanings. When i opened my eyes, both the bird and the waiter had left the place. A special moment had ended for the three of us. And chaos was back on track. In a way it is these moments that remind us the real pace of life, however maddening we make it, life moves in its own pace. One tear at a time, one little grin at a time.Incidentally i watched this movie sometime back and all through it kept on reminding me about the real pace of life. "Sanxia Haoren" (2006 Eng- Still life) a Chinese film by the acclaimed director Jia ZhangKe is the story of two people who come in search of their spouses to a city which will soon be disappearing under water.

The movie opens with a ferry travelling across the breathtaking waterways in the city of Fengjie; The place which is soon to be submerged to construct China's largest dam. Inside the crowded ferry in a lonely corner sits Han Sanming a poor coal miner who has come to the place in search of his wife who ran away from him 16 years ago with his infant daughter.He enters the city just to find that his wife is dislocated elsewhere and he has to stay there and wait till her return.He joins the local groups of workmen- slowly demolishing the remaining buildings with hand tools. He roams around in the to-be-empty streets of Fengjie smoking cigarettes and giving himself to the calmness and depression of the town.The movie then cuts to the story of a pretty young nurse Shen Hong who has come to Fengjie in search of her husband who left her two years earlier and never returned. She searches for her husband in the abandoned factories and excavated lands. She finds a friend of her husband and together they try to reconnect with her missing husband. Finally after a long search Shen finds out that her husband has become a successful businessman and also he has found a new woman. Shen who came to reunite with him finally confronts and informs him that there is another man in her life and decides to divorce her wandering husband.Again the film travels with Han Sanming who finally finds his ex-wife to be a bonded laborer and he has to pay 30,000 Yuan to cover the debt and release her.The film ends with a determined Han Sanming leaving Fengjie and walking back to his hometown to work hard and earn enough to save and reunite with his ex-wife.

The movie travels with the two souls who come in search of their loved ones, along with it the movie conveys the story of Fengjie province which has relocated more than a million people to build the massive Three Gorges dam. All the supporting characters who accompany Han and Shen in their journey convey the pain of dislocation from home.And the film is suitably divided into four section namely "Cigarettes","Liquor","Tea", and "Toffee" which accordingly classify the mood of the lead characters.Also there is the presence of some surreal elements such as a UFO and a flying buildings that add to the addiction that the movie creates in us. “Still Life” is a film which wanders throughout, and is narrated by visuals and anecdotes rather than a traditional story line. Cinematography by Yu Lik-wai is the strongest point of the movie. Right from the very first shot the viewer is captivated to the screen, the majestic river covered by dense green mountains and gray clouds which give an artistic touch to every shot conveys the rest which the characters forget to convey in their silence. The film as such is poetically beautiful and presented in a dreamlike narration.It went on to get wide critical acclaim and top honors for best movie at Venice International film festival and many others.

The film as such conveys nothing, with visuals of strange blank spaces and stories of lonely hearts it requires a certain amount of patience to watch. Throughout the film the protagonists keep staring at the life around. They look at the flight of UFO's, demolition of skyscrapers, death of a loved ones, dilapidated town with calmness and with absolute indolence. They are not excited, they take life-one moment at a time, they stare at the stillness of every event happening around them. The stillness of commotion, the stillness of chaos, the stillness of despair, the stillness of life, the stillness of death.The ending sequence shows Han Sanming walking away from the town, just to stop by the sight of a tightrope walker who tries to to travel the distance between two buildings over a rope with just a long stick for balance and the grey clouds forming a mystic background. Han Sanming keeps staring at the view above him and the movie closes with a black screen and a magical score filling in the thoughts and ears.When it ended I was reminded of the sight of the waiter and the little bird. I closed my eyes to interpret the thousand meanings that are always left untold.

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On a few rainy days...

An old rusted compartment, deep blue window grills, brown rail tracks, green fields with white birds, grey clouds in the distance, the colorless rain water. It was a journey filled with colors. A plenty of them rioting with one other.I looked around to find that the seats were half full. With just one other person for my company I knew it was gonna be a warm journey home. It started raining the moment the train left Egmore till it reached the outskirts of Madurai, it rained all the way.And i was sharing the excitement with all the other faces that i met on the road.The train was traveling into the rain, i had never seen such a long rain all my life. My vision of rain was limited as everybody else. Rain meant a little pond of water in the front yard and a few hanging drops in my window grill. But to see it rain so wide for hundreds of kilometers did change my perceptions a little. Rain is magnificent, Rain is huge, Rain is not the drops which we see from earth but the drops that pour from the sky which we never see. Rain ends its long journey from the heavens at our feet. And we join it at the very last seconds of its living. Rain as such can never be seen with eyes, it can just be felt.

It has stopped raining sometime back, I stood under the little mango tree in the front yard and the last dew drops of the previous rain just drizzled on me. The leaves look fresh with water drops, I touched them and it shivered a little. The world looks like a different place to me, the suns light looks filtered by a silky cloth somewhere in the sky and the place is filled with a pure silver light.People look beautiful than they really are. The faces are filled with a warm smile , void of worries, i wonder rain how has always had that power to evade worries.The room is still asleep, and some kind of joy is hidden in every sleeping eye, I just feel like making the bed by the window, staring at the dark clouds filling the sky, hearing some music for the heart shrinking myself like a kid and dreaming about a better life.I just love the rain, it always inspires me, in its presence im feeling good, im feeling contended, im feeling lucky.

A rainy evening.There is no power at my place and i get to the little sit out of ours to feel the rain of the day. It's raining as it would rain in the hell. Raining like hell, raining like a curse. Its dark everywhere no streetlights no colors. It is raining like the very first rain on earth and i see it right in front of the eye. It's all black white and grey. Shades of them, dark and light, pale and full. The lighting interludes and you see a picture painted for the heavens. It is not joyful as always, at times rain too threatens. It is not kind anymore it tries to fill in the space with noise and fear. The yellow light from the little candle fights with the emptiness of the dark and fails.it paints a sad little story of the fighting candle. Some kind of pain is evoked and you could see it floating and joining the water flowing across the streets.I sit and stare at the candle. I sit. I stare. And it rains with noise and fear.

Sleepless night. I lie motionless on my bed. With closed eyes i keep staring. Staring at god. He stares back and we just avoid each other. I know he is hurt too.It will take time to heal. Why heal? let it not heal when it bleeds.... let it bleed. I open my eyes it is all dark and it is raining at my window. And i hear the rain, i hear it for the first time in my life. Like a thousand guitars playing a wild tune, it rains. I hear the frogs, a hundred of them screeching. I wonder if it is raining at your window or just mine? Why does rain change its mood often, no it doesn't change its mood, it just wears mine. It laughed when i laughed, it cries when i cry, it bursts when i burst, it becomes me. It rains just for me. I close my eyes again. I could hear the orchestra of the wild rain. I live in a closed room. But i could feel the rain breaking the walls and pouring on me. All those drops made in the sky pour on me and it joins the little drops made by my eyes.I get dissolved. I become the rain. I am the rain. And let it rain. And when it all ends ill wake up to see the sun shine at my window. ill wake up to heal, ill wake up to live, ill go out to see the little pond that the rain has made in my front yard, ill go out to feel the freshness the rain brought with it. Ill go out knowing that it rained just for me.

I'm thankful that it rained.