Begin it.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. 
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
~ Goethe

The providence moves too...

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: 

that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too.

~ W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951

Book Review - Life of Pi

You would have noticed that it is always the stories with themes such as 'rags to riches' or 'victory of the good over evil' that reach the top and stay there, with the central theme being the age-old Darwin-ism theory—survival and that too only of the fittest. Life of Pi is a survival story. Not to mention the fact that with about three-fourth of the movies that are made are based on the man-woman relationship, it is the packaging and presentation that is taking the center stage. And though we have heard a thousand survival stories, yet Yann Martel has packaged it so well that you forget yourself and immerse in the same clichéd theme of the book.

Even though the Life of Pi is a fiction, somewhere in the first quarter of the book, Yann Martel makes you believe that it is a biography of someone (Pi) who was born in Pondicherry, India, grew up till his teens, with a zoo in his backyard, and with the political scene in India becoming unstable (the 1977 Emergency Declaration), the family along with a few animals that remained behind, after most of the zoo inhabitants being sold off, boards a Japanese cargo ship to Canada.

After this act of making you believe, all the action takes place in the 227 days that runs between the day the vegetarian Pi gets into the sea as a castaway in a 27-feet life-boat with a hungry, carnivorous, 450-pound Bengal Tiger and till the day he lands in Mexico, weather-beaten and in one piece. In these 227 days, there are times of delirium, dread, delight, discovery, deprivation, dilapidation, desperation, desolation, darkness, divine interventions, dinginess, and damnation. Pi who has lost everything, his kith and kin, overcomes everything and survives.

Moments of faith and belief are splashed at the right dose and the right time and it is this belief that makes you cling to the novel and move forward catching hold of the link one after another, but at a slow pace. During the times when you think the links are falling apart (you losing interest), it is this belief that bonds you together with the story.

At certain places, you get the idea that a few facts about the South-Indian culture are a bit incoherent (just 2% of the entire story telling). But, overall, this book is a great read, no doubt about it!!

The book ‘Life of Pi‘ is about 10 years old now. However, this fact does not stop from being reviewed or being recognized as a good read. There is much more that I picked from this piece of fiction, I mean, a lot of takeaways for the life of 'anyone'!

The sandwich and the strange shopkeeper incident

Today morning, after the porridge at about 9:30 in the morning, I was starving so much and did not want to have an immediate lunch. I have started liking 2:30 lunch these days, not sure why. While in two minds on whether to binge on something or not, I decided I must to continue with the tradition of the 2:30 lunch. So, I go to the sandwich shop and place an order for the second least expensive and still a palatable item: chilly garlic veg. sandwich for Rs. 20/- This guy was not the usual two that are seen in the kiosk and after some loitering around the cafeteria, I knew why--the others were having their brunch.


While the sandwich was being prepared, I wanted to catch up on a juice. So, I ordered for a plain (no sugar no ice) papaya juice. After the papaya juice went inside, I took the sandwich, covered it with another paper plate, and left the cafeteria. So far so good! And then I decide to walk up the stairs, primarily because only recently my mind happened to process what my eyes had seen-Think of these as your aerobic steps. Climbing two flights of stairs makes you lose up to 2 kilos per year if you take the stairs daily. 


Before that, a note on the floor arrangement: ‘There are three floors as per the lift and the naming, but with a mezzanine floor. The staircase design is of the usual zigzag pattern: one ascending from south to north and the other ascending from north to south. The steps between the ground and first floor have eight steps on the ascensions, and nine on the other ascensions. So doing the math, it comes to about 68; now add the 16 steps from basement to ground floor and it totals to 84 steps. May be getting down the stairs takes about one-tenth of the effort and lets round it to 8 steps—but then, I usually do not get down.


And a Web page on the Internet says that climbing one step burns 0.11 cal (k cal). Let's say on an average I climb up the stairs twice daily—that is about 150 steps (not taking into account the basement to ground floor steps). So the total calories burned in a year would be about 6000 k cal (150 x 0.11 x 365). When you need to burn 3500 k cal to reduce your weight by a kilo, then it comes to about 2 kilos; but certainly the statement printed on the stairs is flawed because according to my calculation, it is 10 flights of stairs that would take away 2 kilos! And when you display this, you can be guaranteed that folks would never get around to taking the stairs even to the first floor.


Anyways, for a person of zero physical activity, blame my son for the lack of time, this is indeed a needed chore. It becomes so much of a chore that I often end up overdoing it—I forget which floor I am in and end up intending to go beyond third floor and the folks having their coffee-tea break at the stairs wonder what is wrong with me! After two such occurrences happened, I started checking the floor numbering and at times fall long or short.
So I climbed the stairs and was tired as usual especially with the hunger pangs. I drearily opened the access door and my hand fell a few inches short and did not scrape through the door. There went my sandwich—it fell on the floor and I was like, Oh no! So much for my decision of having a sandwich! After I managed to pacify my mind, the stomach started talking—so are you planning to eat anything at all or put me to starvation until the next meal?


After much deliberation, I decided to have a sandwich. Off I went to the kiosk and ordered for the same chilly-garlic sandwich. The first question that lanky guy asked me was, ‘I thought you already paid for the sandwich?’ Then I went, ‘Yeah. I paid for it but give me another one because the sandwich fell down’, with an embarrassed and sad smile.


What do you think would have been the sequence of events?

Ash says 'a n n a'!

It has been more than a few attempts and months since I had tried to evoke some meaningful syllables out of my about to be two-year old son. I am making the gender clear here because, I have had too many folks telling me that a son gets to speak late in his toddler lifespan and it must not be too much of a worry.

I really thought they were all being careless and have often wondered how one can ever start speaking all of a sudden without starting on monosyllables. I believe that anything as huge as talking, really is as intricate and time-sensitive as the orchestrated act of sowing and reaping. Like how the entire cycle of sowing to reaping takes time, and the patience to instill faith in the system, self-belief, hard work, and hope, everything in this world including a toddler's speech developments needs all those—time and the patience.

The problem with Ash is that, even though he has it in him, whenever he gets conscious of someone trying to make him repeat something, he goes on a strike with just the syllable that he uses for expressing disapproval—‘ahnn…’. And then, any attempts, however innovative they may be it stands annul!

In spite of that, I have paved success in my attempts to get him out of his world of four words: amma, appa, papa, and kaah (for car). The other day, we played this game of ‘On-Off’—this game of teaching him how to switch on and off the TV toggle button.

Just a few days ago, as part of his night bed-time ritual, I had taught him the names of his fingers—the little finger, thumb, et al, and he knew what his thumb meant.

This time, when I had asked to use his thumb to press the button, he was excited to recollect it and had also asked him to say 'o n' and say 'o f f' before I allowed him to touch the button—the conditional play.

Though this conditional play has been around for some time, in most of the cases, he is too reluctant to pursue his interests, how much ever alluring they are. For example, if he wants me to play a song on the mp3 player, I would insist him to say 'paattu' or at least say 'p a a'. One day, he finally settled down to saying paa, which was only asking him to go just halfway afar, now that he had anyway said 'papa'.

So getting back to the 'On-Off' story, we were just about to begin the on-off play, and I remembered to bother him again, harping on the conditional play and he attempted to say “onanon” for On and “aughvagh” for Off. Voila, he tried! And then, of course, he was so elated with the on-off play that he was grinning ear to ear!

And an hour later, I happened to go out to the market to run some errands and I took Ash along that meant to be a walk for him, though he did not budge to remove his cozily parked seat off my hips. It happens sometimes… this guy just does not bother to think about his feet!

And, while carrying him around, he is often too excited about something or the other on the busy main road and I acknowledge it by naming what he points at or if he gets too uncomfortably silent, I tend to start exclaiming things to get his interest back and by chance, I happened to see two boys standing in a bus stop, and happened to point Ash in their direction and show to him the ‘anna’ (elder brother) around there.

Now, wrt the word anna, he has been introduced to the word long ago with his cousin, Varun, having been around umpteen times. Whenever Ash sees Varun, Ash always chases him around the house and is all too fond of Varun ‘anna’ that Ash, though he is five to six years younger to himself, hits him with all his might and poor Varun stands all the pain, for the sweet fellow that he is.

Back to the bus stop scene—and as a hapless mother who wants to hear her son speak, I was only too greedy to ask him to say anna, and there he went... ‘a n n a’.

My God! So endearing it was; as if it was hearing a devotee beseech for something by saying his almighty's name. His anna is charming for one reason that when he says his ‘anna’, neither does he fold his tongue inwards, nor does he take the tip of his tongue to the root of his upper set of the teeth; he brings his teeth between his upper and lower set of the teeth.

By the way, all my other tries, subsequent to this major breakthrough, have been very depressing and in vain; a few such as trying to get ‘banana’ out of his mouth though he was successful in saying ‘bah’ for bus and ‘nana’ after the anna incident; and when he was trying to take his three-wheeled cycle outside the half-open door, I asked him to say oh-pen; and after bouts of disapproval, he said ‘oh’ and did not give in to saying pen! Another long-lasting try has been he being able to discretely say ‘papa’ and ‘yayaya’ and not ‘pa-paah-ya’.

But, I must say that this week has been a week of success, because, all these days, he had been pointing to the right picture when held and asked questions about which of the two is amma or appa. This week, I showed him the pictures and managed to make him say which of it ‘amma’ and ‘appa’. He seemed to enjoy the act as well.

Well, I wanted to tell myself this: Just because, I had borne a son, it does not mean that this blog must turn into an all-exclusive blog on my son’s growing up acts (now you get the point on how desperately, I have been trying to hold back the umpteen offline thoughts from being online); however, this post is an exception (at least, I hope it is). I want to think that this post is for people who would understand the pains of a growing mother who wants to desperately make her son say something meaningful and to who say that it is the problem of working mothers, that working mothers end up making their kids speechless. Of course, no matter what, there is always the ‘trying-hard’ part with anyone who has a kid!

Distant Memories

I see the star and the crescent
and the increasing distance 
today and the day before.
And I think of you and me
and of the distance we share.


The sweet distance 
that lets us go over 
the memories that it froze,
the memories that we both own
one each with each other.


Between you and me,
distance and memories 
instill faith and hope,
and string together--us,
the past, and the future.

Translation of Kannazhaga from 3

Music, Man and Woman, and Magic


Woman: 
I wonder what is beautiful...
Is it your eyes or toes?
You are my golden beauty,
and the man for the lady.


Is it your tiptoeing fingers 
that tread over?
Or your demeanour 
that weaves 
a myriad of magic together?


Man:
Oh my life, 
there isn't anything as you
that is dearer to me,
among the living.


Oh my beauty,
there isn't anything as you,
that is beautiful 
among the beautiful.


Woman:
You look somewhere 
and say the unsaid.
And your enrapturing magic 
makes me all set, 
to cross our limit.


Man:
All I do is 
to look into you, 
and say the truth.
Of course, I look for means 
to entwine my life with yours.


Woman:
Let's let our lips 
meet each other.
I am sure, 
this isn't a new curse... 


Man:
Close your eyes
and draw near me,
there isn't 
any better pleasure 
than this.


Woman:
Come look into me, 
let me hear the truth,
and
I would teach you 
to entwine our lives.


Man:
You are my doe-eyed, 
quintessence and epitome 
of beauty.
You are my life 
and
there isn't anything as you
that is dearer to me,
among the living.




Music aka Magic depicts the rest...

A Beautiful Moment

There are some moments in your life that you never want to miss and want to hold them in mind forever and replay when you are happy. One such was what it was like today evening...

The clear and dark starlit sky,

the beautiful heart-mellowing crescent,

the glow that it manages to surround itself with,

the star beside—not the troika that you usually admire but this one seems a different one,

a patch of clouds for the moon's company,

the mellifluous song playing in your ears that you want to keep listening to all your life,

the beautiful verses it has,

the music that let you imagine the setting and the mood of the song,

the gratifying etched memories that recurs in your mind,

the bountiful energy that you derive out of nowhere that makes you think you just want to leave everything and go for an exerting work-out or a run,

or rather keep writing till you drop,

and amidst this,

the curse of your mind on itself for not being able to hold on to the thoughts that occur to you.

And all you can do to salvage the current stream of thoughts would be to leave the scene at where it is and rush to reach to the device that can save your thoughts.

Indeed, who could have better said it than who said,

'A thing of beauty is joy forever.'

For, after I wrote these lines,

and when I came over,

the scene was longer present,

with the winds crowding the sky with clouds aplenty,

and the moon almost dying in the horizon.

You leave the place with 'what happens is for your best.'

-Dated: 6:45 PM, 27 Jan, 2012

Music Panacea

How much ever I temper my mind, 
it does not seem to get tamed 
And falls prey to the tormenting questions 
that have no answers


And so, 


I seek music


To clear my mind clouded with contemplation
As company to the monologues in my mind
To temper my mind further and 
To shield it from miseries.


Dated: June 23, 2011

If by Rudyard Kipling

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘Or walk with Kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

You, me, and metaphysics

Your thoughts spread on my brain
like
Ink on a blotting paper.


Your confessions liberate me 
like
Balloon filled with helium.


Your presence make me feel
like
I am a log on water.


Your words sting me
like
Arrow from a taut bow.


Your letting-go act makes me 
like
A ball thrown in the air.


You go away and yet I am
like
A ball sunk in the water.


All I do is
to follow the law of physics;
and when you are with me,
Who am I to defy gravity?

Some Retro Records to Welcome 2012

Mishaps are like knives that either serve us or cut us,
As we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
~ James Russell Lovell


I complained I had no shoes
till...
I saw a man that had no feet.
~ Author Unknown


Experience is a hard teacher
because she gives the test first,
the lesson afterword.
~ Vernon Law


When one door closes another door opens;
but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door,
that we do not see the ones which open for us.
~ Helen Keller


Tell me and I'll forget;
show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand.
~Chinese Proverb


Leadership is doing what is right,
even when no one is watching.
~ Marquis de Vauvernargues


What lies behind us and what lies before us
are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


Worrying is like a rocking chair,
It gives you something to do,
But it does not get you anywhere.
~ Unknown


Our greatest battles are that with our own minds.
~ Jameson Frank


For every minute you are angry,
you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dated: Sometime in 2003 - 2004
The above quotes are a few of the yields of my recent dusting.

You and me

You at the cafeteria...
My eyes have done this a thousand times now:
Wander for a while and trace back to you.
Like a ball set in motion at the rim of a funnel.

Translation of Kadhal Vaithu from Deepavali

Love Sunk

I awaited embracing all the love and desire,

trying to sieve your voice in the air…

In your mirth I realized music.

In your drift I realized direction.

I fell into the sea of love,

but remained afloat even after I was ashore.

Your moves made me move.

Alas! I vanished beautifully and seen nowhere.

Every time I heard the fairy tales,

I dismissed them to be farce.

But when my eyes met yours,

they fathomed it cannot be false.

My dainty mornings arise

with the sweet hope of seeing you.

My dusky evenings set

with the intoxication of having seen you.

The day I saw you

Mesmerizes me like the day of my dawn.

The words I spoke to you

echoes deep down inside my heart.

You made me

speak to the sea,

and

sham the concept of time.

You made me

bathe with the rain

and

celebrate the sun.

Childlike Joy

I twisted and curled in my bed.

Forget it. You are crazy, I said. 

I thought I would be able to tame, 

But my heart was not game. 

Yet again I was moonstruck. 

Could not say if it was good or bad luck. 

And when clock struck three,  

I thought I must let it free  

and stop the insane spree.  

I was so fixated that I would not rest. 

And went on as long as the joy would last, 

Till I got all the words right. 

And then when I was finally done, 

All I could say was... a-w-e-s-o-m-e! 

About this masterpiece from the maestro's son.

The above was what exactly happened just before, during, and after my attempt to translate the song Kadhal Vaithu... from Deepavali.
Coming soon... 

P.S.: After a few rounds of editing, I removed a few lines from the above piece to give it some twist... :-)

.
.
.
 Could not say if it was good or bad luck. 

Translation thoughts were firmly stuck.

And when clock struck three,  
I thought I must let it free  
and stop the insane spree. 

So I left the bed,

With the song looping in my head.

I was so fixated that I would not rest. 
.

.

.

Translation of Un Perai Sonnale from Dum Dum Dum

What is in Name?

All I say is your name, and sweetness takes over me.
Please do not depart me.
All I do is walk with you, and new blooms brim my path.
Would you not go with me?

Countless thoughts of you lurk in my mind,
ready and waiting to devour my life.

I shatter down, fleck by fleck, on the floor.
Oh dear, where are you?

I forget the consonants and the alphabets too.
And sooner, I turn dumb.

Like the child that is aware but yet teases the fire,
I hark back to think of you...
And the pain creeps through.

I tremble like the base and throb like a drum.

How can life and flesh be apart?

Is this fate or a way out?
Why throw thunder on a plant?
Don’t go away. Don’t go away…

My love!
Do you say this is not the reality, or that you do not remember?
Would you say who you are—my friend forever, or just a passer?
Utter the answer, my sweeter part.

Oh sanguine sun!
Why do you torment the moon?
Won't you tell me all your pain?
Why did you stir a storm, inside this red screw pine?
Won’t you tell me, oh divine?

Disclaimer: I hope that except for ‘I tremble like the base and throb like a drum,’ I have done justice to the rest of the words. If not, do let me know!

___

I am yet again on translations... This time it is my long-lost love—‘Un Perai Sonnale’ from ‘Dumm Dumm Dumm’. I wonder why and how I had missed this beautiful song? And even more of a wonder is why and how Karthik Raja has been missing his trains so much after such beauties in the movie. A real sparkle, this one and the song ‘Ragasiyamai’ is! And of course, both Sadhana Sargam and Unnikrishnan's parts and versions (in the same song) are on par and brimming with the right emotions. My only complaint is that, in the movie, the song is not visually complete. If it were, then I am sure we would at least get to see the song more often on air.

More wonderings…

Like asking ‘How can life and flesh be apart,’ I think I must also ask ‘How can music and words be apart?’

My love and thirst for the song was quenched when I was able to translate the words; but what do I do to the music. Alas, I cannot translate or render it!

Snack break

Just a few minutes ago, I had this urge or a kind of an obsessive compulsion to drink coffee from the new CCD vending machine. Of course, my mind and heart did not sing the same notes. My mind was mindful of the calories in the cup of coffee but my heart was with the pleasure in the sip. Just when I was leaving my seat, a conversation picked up and a while went by and I was again in two minds.

I thought aloud about my coffee thoughts and immediately, my friend offered me a box and asked me to snack it.

I looked the box-and-spoon setup eagerly. The spoon was lying supine on the chill steel box. It was resting stylishly, with its lower-head and mid-torso touching the box. The face of the spoon had some white particles and it deceived me into believing that it was a popular South-Indian snack called Puttu—not the piped version, but the powdered version. As opposed to the folks who know the Puttu that is cylindrical, I have always known it only by its powdered form. At least that is how my parents prepared it. For the unknown, whatever the shape of the Puttu is, it is primarily a steamed dish, with its main ingredients being coarsely powdered rice, grated coconut, and my version had sugar as well. If it is a rich man's version, then it had cashews sautéed in ghee.

So, I separated the couples—the spoon and the box, and went into the separation act a further beyond. I removed the lid of the box and in front of my eyes was something that looked very much like Puttu, but it was not snow-white. It was mid-way between white and cream, glistening, and it also had speckles of black sparsely placed.

As is the nature of anyone, I was first devouring the snack with my eyes, wondering how it would taste. Then, immediately, I spaded out a portion with the spoon and passed it on to my mouth. It was hard, like the cold truth as against the soft Puttu, which was like the sweet lie.

For sure it was not Puttu. But then, the glistening part was sugar and the black speckles were that of the coconut skin. So, with most of the constituents figured out, I now delved into understanding what the main part was. It was an enigma in a true sense!

As I was ruminating, the suspense was spread across, as the box travelled to the nearby bays—word-of-mouth marketing! More eyes and taste buds were now examining the make of the snack. The most common guesses of the eyes were that it was Puttu. Some of the buds said it was stale bread powered and garnished with coconut and sugar—that was certainly for the comic reliefs! More guesses came in and none came close to the actual. Finally the hands and mind that made it revealed that it was powdered Murukku (a snack made for Diwali with primary ingredients being urad and rice flour) mixed with all other constituents that most of them rightly guessed.

Later on, I checked to see how many Murukkus were powdered to make a box-full of snack. They were 25. In fact, it would make a good puzzle—how would you fit 25 Murukkus in a medium-sized box?

Altogether, the snack break was a success; kindling all the elements—break from monotony, food for mind and stomach, mild satisfaction for the taste-buds, humor, and all in the right mix.

Analogy

Love and Accidents

Are all around
Seen anywhere and anytime
Has no logic
Bound by fate
Follows no rules
Respects no rationale
Blindfolded
Mysterious
Dangerous
Soul-wrenching

--Inspired from the movie Engeyum Eppodhum

Imagery

Body = Wall
Food = Plaster Mixture
Exercise = Plasterer's Float


Thanks to... 
Dr. C. Saravanan MBBS, MS, MRCS, M.Ch (paed)

The Lane Story

The two-second sound and light play
Scene:
Lane 2 - In my fast-car, on the highway.
Lane 2 - A lady on a bike, just ahead.


Dialog:
Me: Honk Honk


She: Indicated the right way, 
with her blinkers
and moved to lane 1.