Books are like balloons

"Books are like balloons.... They take me from one world to another"

Aparna Akka, gave me this bookmark, long ago when i was a kid still considering Enid Blytons and hardy boys as "big" novels that take a lot of time to read....... then, the bookmark was interesting... with this nice snoopy picture.... colourful... and I cherished it coz it came from aparna akka...

Today, it brings in a whole new meaning.... true...... books indeed take us away into a new world... a world created by its author... so wonderfully etched... where your senses actually sense what the author intends to....you go on to "experience" new situations you have never been.... like in the Riot by Shashi Tharoor,you can feel the claustrophobia, the mob feeling....as also the undulating love towards a partner, and the guilt of adultry, all or most of which you probably will never be in throughout a normal life time.

Another such book, that takes us into a whole new world, that I had the good fortune of reading, is Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

It describes the ordeal of a teenager boy who survives a trans-pacific crossing in a lifeboat, that he has to share with a fully grown bengal tiger. Now, though I have been raised in coastal cities, for most part of my life, I dont know what it feels like to be in deep sea, till I read this book that is...... its fantastic narration of the dangers and the sights of the great ocean.... man, I almost got sea-sick.... interestingly, what I imagined to be, might nowhere be close to what it really feels like... but then, like the book said, isnt reality a transformation of what we imagine to be?

What separates a book from a movie, is that you are taken through a story at a pace that is set by the director of the movie... while the book, i can end up reading a single line for an hour, savoring every single word of the sentence, building my own perspective with what the words describe, and still go along with the pace intended.....

books, sigh..... its very difficult not to fall in love with them, once you start taking to them.....

Encounters with the third kind

All of us would have had some sort of encounter with eunuchs... and for most, the experience wouldnt have been pleasant.... So, when Mahesh Dattani, wrote this article in The week, I felt the fellow was not making much sense.

Here is my mail to him :

Hey,

I just read your article in The Week and I found it interesting. For someone whos travelled four years between chennai and mumbai in a train, and for someone whos lived in mumbai subsequently for 2 more years, I can more than recognise the familiar tap. I am afraid of eunuchs. And I am ready to accept that. But this arguement of completeness, I am not ready to buy. Apparently, most of the articles/books/documentaries I read/saw about them, talk about how good they are as human beings and all that. Maybe true. In fact, lets accept that it is true. That eunuchs are a beautiful set of people and wonderful human beings. But for the common man walking on the road, all he needs is his amount of "free" space to carry on doing what he intends to do without a hindrance. Now, I dont know if it comes because they are ostracized, or because we fear them, but lets face it, the eunuchs do take advantage of this.

To me, as a man on the road, isnt it disgusting to see someone touching me supposedly provocatively, sexually, putting up a nauseating performance in full view of the rest of the public, just because I deny turning in my hard earned money when asked for? Dont you think its them trying to cash this disgust, more than my feeling of disgust in the first place thats pushed them towards begging?

Think about this. A handicapped person with non-working limbs, on a wheelchair has the respect/sympathy of the people in any public transport or building. If the same person resorts to begging? He still gets the money based on sympathy. Now, does that mean that the sympathy of the public has pushed him towards an easier resort to make money?No. Its just a choice and set of circumstances that drove him/her to doing it.... but the society does accept either form of it. It takes time, but I think the society would eventually start accepting these non-conventional people into the mainstream. A few hundred years back, being handicapped meant being cut off from an active earning life forever. But now, there is some ray of hope. Handicapped people do find jobs, do try and live self sufficiently.Cant the same be true with eunuchs too? Why do they have to resign themselves to their fate, and continue capitalizing the fear/disgust of more normal people?

Its this apect about them that I think most people hate. Its for this nauseating behaviour that eunuchs as a class of people put up at the drop of the hat, thats feared. I dont think its my subconsciousness acknowledgment of the fact that they are far more complete than me. If they are more complete, so be it. So what? Does that make any difference to way I lead my life or the way they lead theirs? At the end of the day, no matter how social an animal a man is, isnt he driven by whether his needs are taken care of or not? In more civilised societies of today, I am sure they would be accepted too. All it takes for them would be to adhere to the simple norms of the society. Is that difficult?

Kaushik Lakkaraju


And he responded:

dear Kaushik

thank you for your well thought out rationale on why people hate eunuchs. I am in no way condoning the hostility or attention grabbing tactics of the eunuchs. Consider this, if you had no access to public transport, government hospitals, cemeteries etc. If people looked at you with disgust simply because of your appearance, how civilised or polite would you be? I know a lot of people including the government who would give jobs to handicapped people but do you know of anyone who would give a job to a eunuch?

I appreciate the eunuchs because they do not want our sympathy. How easy it would be for them to play the victim and live off the few rupees that buy us our 'feel good' moments. I too have had unpleasant experiences with eunuchs (jsut as I have had unpleasant experiences with some men, women, Hindus, christians etc) but when I am polite and look them in the eye and request them to leave me alone, they have been very obliging.

Anyway, I really appreciate your response. I like the closure. Yes, in more civilised societies they would be accepted. I would like to change the last line a bit and say 'All it takes for US is to adhere to simple norms of society. Is that difficult?"

warm regards, and may you have many hassle free train journeys!

Mahesh

A Brief Encounter with History

On the 15th April 2007, Stephen Hawking came to our school to give a talk. What we saw at the Rudder Hall was phenomenal.... Very rarely do people in science get this of celebrity like recognition. In fact, the disparate nature of the crowd gathered to listen to him speak, made me forget that I was there to listen to a science talk. It was more like as if it was a rock show, and all of us were eagerly awaiting for the celebrity to perform.

So stephen hawking cant twitch. Most part of the visible anatomy is paralyzed. Strict instructions for no flash photography later made sense when we understood that the computer that speaks for him, run on the only moving parts of his body- the eye balls moving up/down, left/right.

About the talk. Such kind of celebrated professors talk are usually kept on a generic level. To address such a big audience with differing science knowledge is a challenge by itself. And must say, stephen hawking carried it off with ease. Some say, its a pre-recorded lecture. And that stephen hawking was just there posing. I like to believe that he really talked. Interspersed with humour, his talk about earth, gravitation, newton did make sense. Must confess, that I did feel sleepy in between, maybe due to the monotony of listening to a bonzi-buddy'sh voice.

Interestingly, the talk ended before people realized that it did. So the man was saying something, which I dont know how many along with me didnt follow. He says something.. plays a slide.. and says thank you... and suddenly a man appears on stage and drives the wheelchair away :)

Certainly a brief encounter with a brief ending :)

Except expect

A friend had been trying to 'tag' me off late... a strange phenomenon that has caught up with the blogger's world... where people are supposed to come up with confessions/things others dont know about them......whats strange is..... arent most blogs already that? people blogging things they are not comfortable 'talking' about for various reasons....? then why this "tagging" business all of a sudden? Anyway, before you start thinking if this is my tag... relax... this is something more sillier :)

So, I was talkin to another close friend about relationships... what makes/breaks them... and it made sense to think that most of the times its just the failure of the other person to keep with the expectations that throws things out of gear....while sometimes we fail to understand what we are to expect from the other person... most of the times its probably our inability to express it thats the cause of all problems... second time... if u think this is getting serious... relax... am coming to the point shortly..... and if u are wondering why am i over-talking :)..... comes from a blog of a friend i read recently... the fellow never shuts up... n so does his blog :)

Apparently, one relation that certainly can never be affected by this is the one between parents and their kids... there really cant be any parents who got the kids everything they asked for....and their really cant be kids who are blissfully happy about everything the parents get.

So this is it.... can you come up with something that you always wanted.... but you never got it from your parents....? Who knows, we might get extremely, improbably lucky and our folks might get to read this and decide to finally give it to us ? :) Or better, some altruistic friend trying to figure what to give for the next birthday, reads this.... :)

Mine is this remote controlled car. The whizzing sound making 4 wheels of plastic that consumes enormous amount of battery and goes around the whole house much to the disgust of more saner adults? I could never get my parents to get me that gizmo. And man.... am I in awe with it. Somehow, when I really did start making money and I could buy a really classy version of it, I could never get myself to buy it. I still want mommy and daddy to buy it for me :) So mom ( err..... am not sure if she would read this :) but then.... what the hell.... this is a wishlist and we are optimists) you know what to get me for the next birthday..... ( under another highly improbable event that you dont know me and are still reading this, am a fully grown adult male of 25 years and mentally healthy :) )

So go ahead.... leave those comments with all those wish lists and lets see whos the wackiest.....
( ok... so this idea of getting you to write here is not original and I borrowed it from dilbert blog.... so what? do you want your remote controlled car or no :P)

Cinema theestaru anta cinema

Spring break this time was not a break....in fact.....when i got back to books.....felt that was break.....:)

There is this roomie of mine whos as cranky as i m if not more...... both of us have this childish line of thought.......both of us had this cranky idea of making a movie........:)

so when there was a call from the Houston Telugu Association to participate in their Ugadi celebrations this year, Satish (another guy whos probably not as cranky as we are...) and Soma had this idea to make a movie and play it there...... So what happens when 3 mad men get together? passions match and each give in 150% of their complete attention to it....

man.....must agree it was exhilarating......the whole experience....planning the shoots, deciding the screenplay.....writing dialogues....acting.... making others act..... planning on lighting.....deciding camera angles...:) and for soma n satish...apart from all this, writing lyrics, singing, climbing trees, falling into swimming pools, editing, compiling......

of all things.. it was sleepless nights that was the best........soma's style of functioning is like rahman's.....he starts all his creative work in the mostly unearthly times.....and it was fun.....probably for the whole of spring break and a week before and after that..... soma and satish would have spent about a maximum of 10 hours sleeping....

and finally, when the movie was being played in the houston hall, this was our state.....no sleep for more than 30 hours before the point this photo was taken.....soma no longer cares whats happening, satish trying desperately to stay as hero as he can get ..... n me? continue to be the fool that i am....only with time from the last wink increasing....its difficult to control what nonsense u speak and do :)



so here are the links to the "movie" we made.... all of 12 minutes... but took tonnes n tonnes of effort ( man hours are probably about 300-500 !! )......

Shiva- Born again : part 1, part 2
the good? we started understanding what it takes to make a full length movie...
the bad? we now watch every movie with such a critical view.... start seeing how, where the cameras are....the lighting for the scene....the way the actor performed and emoted for that scene...how relevant the scene is to the movie...how the dialogues sound dry or too senti.... in the process....we stop seeing the big picture......
when u watch a nice movie, its supposed to consume you....take you with it.... u must start feeling it.... u must become a part of it...... but for us, thats lot more difficult now......in this attempt to understand movie making better, we started losing the entertainment quotient from it......atleast no longer the conventional way..... u know, we are no longer able to laugh when we are supposed to :)..... when me and soma watch a movie now, we laugh at something stupid that was done in the movie :) thats comedy for us now :)

movie making rocked :)

cell "phony"

Finally.... I have a cell phone too.....easier to stay unconnected this way........:)

Whats ur weird story for today?

Honk... Honk....


"Excuuuuse meeee......!!!" "Excuuuuse meeee......!!!" "Excuuuuse meeee......!!!" giggle...giggle....giggle.....

(me?)..... turning back to see a car full of hot white american chicks......

the car drives by closer to the footpath i have already frozen on..... ears getting hotter.... fiddling with the keys in the pocket into which the hands automatically sunk into....panic..... tension....excitement...

"Err.... this might sound really weird..... but we have a question..."

GULP...... so this is it... they r gonna ask some directions.....? gonna mess this up..... stutter... stammer.... fake accents.....hope the question has a single word answer.....

"So which religion do you belong to?"

!!!!! now, I have racist.... communal... white american chicks to answer to .....???

".............hindu......"

"Scuse me.... what?"

"......hrrr.... koff.... Hindu"

"AAh... cool..... thanks.....we just turned in a class report on that" " You have a great day...."

Car drives away.........

!!!!....... weird? so i thought too......