Thursday, November 26, 2009

Seeing Through-2

[Story continues...]

I recollected it somewhere from my memory: "the life is not worth living, when your thoughts are slaves".

'True. They can never see what the masters of their thoughts had done to their land. They all have participation in politics in the form of student's unions, in their colleges; every student in Kerala with the "fortune" of pursuing his/her career in a government college or school has this fate. How can they see the indolence with which these politicians are running the country since they are all under the spell of these master minds'.

I sat straight, for my back had started aching, in the undulating bus. My thoughts, Which were disturbing and embarrassing, faded. Pain is a good medicine for everyone, I thought. It was then I noticed something approaching. A vehicle, a truck, from across. It crossed the bus and a huge cloud of dust, it had brought with it covered over my bus. The bus, the passengers, and the girls, everything around was swallowed by the huge and vast cloud of dust.

I felt the grains in my eyes, I blinked them and they watered. That was an easy way to get rid of the dust from your eyes in your daily journeys. A very natural solution!

The bus resumed its journey again. I thought of covering my nose by using a hand kerchief, but it was stinking from use during the day. So I didn't take up that plan. I felt the dust particles thrashing against my face. The bus couldn't attain its speed in the gutters.

Through my nostrils, I had inhaled the dirt and dust. I could tell the path of the dust through my nostrils down. I had felt the tiny grains of dust in my mouth. I had already closed my eyes after the blinking and tearing practice. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't.

I reached home exhausted. It was dark and my mother was getting upset for I was late. She is so loving that she couldn't bear a moment's absence of mine from the every day time of my arrival. She didn't say anything for some moments, but suddenly blurted out: "It's the daily thing that you do. How many times have I told you to come early?"

"It's the daily thing. The usual." I repeated without much of the consciousness. That was the fact. This was the same every day.

THE END.

[The story was first published in Authspot ]

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Seeing Through-1

What I write mostly is what I had seen or what I wanted to see in place or along with what I had seen. This is a pattern I identified with my writings. I think almost all the writers in the world are addicted to this pattern. Well, who can blind their eyes in a world like India, where everywhere, in every turn of your path, you are sure to confront one or other kind of wonder in front of your eyes, in human beings, or in culture, or in tradition, or in any of the characteristics of the civilization. And which writer can stop herself being taken into writing.

India is a wonder. It is a truth, but at the same time it is a sarcasm, as well. The story I am going to tell you proves it. It is about one of my daily journeys home from the university. I can, each day in these journeys, see stories everywhere. Some sad, some embarrassing, and some heart breaking. In some of those stories, I become a part of , and live in them, but in some others I merely take the role of an observer. The story that I am going to tell you is one among them, which I saw in one of those journeys, and living through all these days as a part of it.

You'd better have a journey through the Himalayas, or the Alps and that would be much better than journeying through the roads of Kerala. That is the condition of the roads here. The private bus I took home, swayed and hurdled through the potholes on the road. The thick dense bushes growing on both sides were painted brown with the dust from the road. Opening of the eyes was difficult. I could barely open my eyes. It was so dusty that if I opened my eyes fully, I might risk my eyesight forever. I thought I would better keep my eyes closed.

I crushed my teeth out of anger. I forgot the name of the minister of roads. I don't know why he can't see what the common folks are enduring each day? I am sure it wouldn't be a distant reality when my fellow beings and me would suffer from chronic pulmonary sicknesses. A majority of Kerala population would, I am sure.

Dust was not the only thing that made me lose my temper. I once, standing in the bus stop, had seen the minister of roads, passing through the same road, in an air conditioned car. I had thought he would be doing something. It was six or seven months now, from that day. See, the road, the dust, everything has worsened.

I had read once in my childhood that the blue colouration of the sky is due to the dust in the sky. The sunlight is scattered from the dust and the colours live in the sunlight disperses and only the blue remains. Perhaps this might be true. If this is true, then, I am sure the largest amount of dust that spreads in the sky would be coming from Kerala, from the roads of this unfortunate place.

The Communists or the United Democratic front, whoever would rule the state, the common people were the sufferers. The communists who speak of class equality and social justice, provide the common class with the worst of all situations in every day life. The other group, the United Democratic Front, who get themselves press on by liberalism and Gandhism, curse the people of the place with confinement to the perverse conditions of human life.

No one talked anything or opened their eyes. Dust. The bus stopped in front of a technical institution, from where I was sure that many girls would get in. I opened my eyes. Surveyed the bus stop, like a common Keralite would always be pleased with. As I had expected, there were many pretty faces there, chattering and chattering among each other, as if the the dust can be settled with words and letters. They seemed not very concerned about the particular problem I was suffering from.

I thought, 'in their verve of youth they might have forgotten what the wise people say about life'.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

Searching story


[Formerly published in: WRITINGHOOD.]

Some
say that stories are not reality. They believe that stories simply divert us from the, ruthless and poignant reality. They are right. Then, why are stories made? Do they have any other uses?

Stories, made, will only digress us or lead us away from what we think of where we should be. But a story teller becomes great when that one 'finds out' the stories from his environment, rather than 'makes them up'. The listeners should feel the stories inextricably linked with their five senses and in a later effort should be able to read them from around, clear, living, and pulsating. Never, a cooked up story has life, or even if it has, it will be of poisonous nature.Stories exist. One need the technique to find them and can read. No loss of reality happens in reading them-- for they are found out from the reality in which the reader lives-- but only a transportation. We are transported from one reality to another. Thus, there are realities, and not a single only 'underlined reality' on which life rests like the boats and canoes on the vast waters, vaulting and drowning, stuck on the water, as if 'escape' seems to be the last word to be called sane.

Meeting people and talking to them: is this the apt way to find stories? In front of an inspired writer, or a story teller stories themselves will appear, but when the magnetic moments of inspiration fades, stories run on the contrary, away from the story teller. It is then, the search begins.

For a fruitful search any path is allowed, except the one, which takes one, directly to the point of victory because then, the search becomes meaningless and the lessons, which otherwise one would have experienced, in the wanderings and digressions are never learned. A search is learning. It primarily provides us tools, which we can use in the attainment of victory. A story teller's search also 'only' teaches the one, how to find the story and read.

I too was in such a search, all these weeks from the start of November. But I couldn't reach anywhere in the lessons taught by my search. There are much to learn and I was eager too.

It is difficult to know exactly when your search would end. When it ends, one will simply find oneself in another reality, another world,because once your search equips you, the whole perception changes and thus you emerge in an altogether different world, a different reality. Take putting on a red glass as an example or a magnifying glass. The result is a new reality, a different perception. The search ends and no one knows when, but simply being equipped for gaining victory over the inhibitions, over the prejudices, over the limitations of sight, the one gets transported into another reality; a story teller to his or her success, the long expected, the sacrosanct, the realm of the story.

And I am hopeful about my search too that it will equip me and prepare me for having some new perceptions and new stories in the path I am moving on, and in the world I am living.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Differ Alike

[This article has formerly been published in :Authspot.com]

Are they the similarities in us that make us think of an ideal world of unity? If yes, then what are those similarities? It is an unquestioned truth that every individual is different from the other. Even cultures, which do not acknowledge the individualism in their social set up, hardly reject this concept.

The similarities do matter and need consideration. Though wars are waged, even the war sponsors would admit the importance of peace and comfort in their own lives. In fact, it is for these basic human needs or the successful satisfaction of these needs, they wage war upon some other less privileged. (both economically and intellectually under privileged).

The division of the world by walls, political, cultural, linguistic, social, etc, is also like wars, waged. In other words, wars are a complimenting mechanism for the establishment and existence of these walls.

But isn't there something that doesn't love a wall, like Robert Frost had once remarked in his poem "Mending Wall"! And that 'something' seems to be universal for me.

History is evident that similar theories or intellectual activities or thoughts have swept many parts of the globe during the same period of time. This shows the existence of something universal in every human being, unknown to any one's reason. Sometimes it might be our differences that make us similar.

Archetypal criticism and patterns of symbols identified as archetypal symbols, in studies made by theorists like Northrop Frye, get shore on no other point. It is the universality of emotions that enable us to enjoy art, literature or movies made from any part of the world.

Now, what's the problem with your neighbour? It is only a matter with the moment, in which you see only differences between you.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Night and After Night.



The dark dome was stolen,
'but it will be replaced', sighed someone.
The pillars, painted with green,
stood unprovoked,
though a stir, a movement, a turmoil,
was seen on the ground.

It was altogether a new sight:
a scene without the dark dome.
It was unimagined,
exquisite and brand new.
It was a gift.
Every gift is special, bright;
it can only be marked with a light,
with the truest smile, silent.

The dark dome was a protection,
under the unknown designs-
of storms and thunders.
It had designs on its highest part;
shining buttons. And a hole,
which appears and disappears,
at times with fourteen days in between,
which passes the light in;
needed a repair, but none did anything to it.
The dome had been stolen.
The night by the sun,
to make something visible.

Monday, November 2, 2009

In Company.





Loneliness
is a kindness,
by someone,
more kind than you or me;
A palace made of golden time,
always risking stealth.
From where no one comes out,
and once came out never returns.
For, in there we'd be
in company with our-self,
our tears, our smiles, and our tastes.
For in there we'd be done with,
The nearness of people,
with whom our sorrows and joys are weaved;
who kill their sense at times,
when we need them the most;
who would ask us questions,
and questions alone;
Why, what, where and when.
But we cried, we smiled, and we tasted our- self.
Someone has shown us an unspeakable kindness,
someone more kind than you or me.
And thus we are in company;
in the company of loneliness.

The Lost and Found.


The Truth cannot be covered forever, it is true with History as well. There is a magic associated with everything, say with time or with history or even with you and me. Every time, when a truth is suppressed, the magic associated with it become activated and plots for its 'rebirth'.

It was reported recently that scientists working at the site of the Mayan city of El Mirador discovered a lost pyramid, in the Guatemalan jungle. The city was active from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 100.

The report in the CNN News says:

"The pyramid is a structure the world should know because it represents an investment of labor unprecedented in the world's history. Every single stone in that building, from the bottom to the top, was carried by human labor," said archaeologist Richard Hansen, director of the Mirador Basin Project.

The size of the pyramid is so huge that it is believed that it is compared with the Great pyramid in Giza, Egypt, which is currently the world's largest. It consists of 2.3 million stone blocks that weigh 2.5 tons to 15 tons apiece.

The archaeologists also found ancient stone carvings on the Mayan creation story. A truth, a history, a past that was buried in the flow of time, is now in the wake of resurrection into another world. A new world that doesn't understand the 'value' of truth or time.

It is said among the rural folks in Malabar, that every occurrence in the nature, has a significance, and it will always have something special to teach us.

The Fallen World.


There are fallen stars,
there are fallen angels.
Everywhere the eyes can see,
the fallen world, a burning sea.
Ramshackle cultures and kingdoms.
Being a part of this world's fallen fate,
someone gave me a name.
"A Cruel Devil".
I was alone,
but I can hear the voices.
There are invisible nearness,
which I felt everywhere.
I was alone,
but I can hear the voices,
lovely though, tearing my senses,
making me dumb, stiff, and cold.
I am no fallen star, I'm no fallen angel,
though in such a place I dwell.
There was fire outside, burning,
but now, what's burning mine inside,
my mind, my heart, my brain, my world, fallen.
A fallen world: Where I'm alone...