fan post!

my two weekends alone have become a private film fest..

and it just so happens that i have become a fan of mani rathnam.. all i knew before that he was a good director whose movies where tasteful.. but having seen some of his movies several times (i saw in the last 10 days, 7 of his movies) and focusing on specific scenes, i have come to appreciate his thinking.. and what it takes to make those poignant scenes come alive to haunt the audience again and again.. you can never get tired of his movies..

there are several patterns.. i am sure i will add on to this post in the future.. the one that struck me were his female protagonists.. almost all of them, look their best and prettiest in his movies.. simran in kannathil muthamitaal and srividya in thalapathy is motherhood incarnate.. revathi in mouna raagam is the woman with spunk.. manisha koirala in dil se will forever be the suicide bomber in my mind.. but the way they have been portrayed and cast.. it's as if the director has seen through these actors to understand their essence and has helped them bring this out in his movies.. it doesn't feel like acting at all.. how can 1 man have so much imagination.. he has introduced some of the best music directors, cinematographers, actors (madhavan, arvind swamy) and actresses (aishwarya rai, preity zinta included)..

having never been a very creative person, i am baffled at what enables people like mani rathnam to do this!

m

flights of passion..

i was flipping through some poetry today.. by chance.. after a very hectic day when all i feel is i have had enough.. i just wanted to forget life and die a glorious death.. and i realized that i was not keen on poetry anymore.. i read through all the major ones.. byron.. shelley.. keats.. browning.. it was all too complicated... given my mood, i started wondering how i ever thought i was into poetry... till i reached neruda.. neruda.. the greatest poet ever.. he didn't even write in english i think.. if he did, how exotic would it have been? or maybe it's because he did not write in english that his poetry doesn't feel forced.. it's so natural.. a beautiful expression of a priceless thought... some samples below: 


"I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?"


"I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close."

i was introduced to neruda through a friend.. and i am so thankful for it.. it shows that there are at least a few other people out there, who fancy themselves, at least in private of having intense emotions.. and while i consider myself a light, giggly type person whose vices are indolence and indifference, i also have flights of depth.. and intensity which scare me.. and that's when i love neruda.. for he shows me that there are others like me.. who can feel as intensely...  

m

vairamuthu

the man has written some splendid songs.. but the song which takes the prize is this one. I was going to bold the most pretty lines... but i realized that I was bolding out the whole thing.. so left it as it is.. incidentally if you want to know the effect of the lyrics you should watch the hindi version.. it is insipid and vapid... vazhga tamil!

To elaborate a little on what makes this song beautiful.. it is a song that comes just after the hero acknowledges to the heroine that in his opinion, love is just a precursor to sex (check my previous post..).. given the indian context where all talk of reality is taboo, writing about lust and hormones is not easy.. but vairamuthu has done such a phenomenol job of it.. and it is so poetic and so matter of factly at the same time.. about lust! it's very novel and kudos to him..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb61eXFN2Us

Starting: 
oar uNmai sonnaal
naesippaaya
nenjamellaam kaadhal
dhaegam ellam kaamam
uNmai sonnaal ennai
naesippaya
haaan
kaadhal konjam kammi
kaamam konjam thookkal
manjathin mael ennai mannippaaya

uNmai sonnaal naesippaaya
manjathin mael mannippaaya


Para 1: peNgal maelae maiyal uNdu
naan piththam koNdadhu unnil mattum
nee muththa paarvai paarkum boadhu
en mudhugu thandil minnal vettum
nee dhaane mazhai maegham enakku
en hormone nadhiyil veLLa perukku
paasangu ini namakkedhukku
yaar kaetka namakku naame vaazhvadharkku


Para 2: kaadhal ennai varudum poadhum
un kaamam ennai thirudum poadhum
en manasellam maargazhi dhaan
en kanavellam kaarthigai dhaan
en vaanam en vasathil uNdu
en bhoomi en vasathil illai
un kuRaigal naan aRiyavillai
naan aRindhaal sooriyanil suththam illai

reciprocation..

it is my belief that nothing kills love faster than knowing for sure that the other person doesn't reciprocate it.. if love is all that it is made out to be, how can it be so conditional.. yet time and time again.. in all the movies and books.. and probably in many of your lives, you have experienced this..

i just noticed that movies like Dil to pagal hain, Dil se, Alaipayuthey.. the heros keep begging the heroines to say it.. to say the word.. in dil se, it is extreme... she just says yes, and he is willing to die.. from all the frustration that ended with her acceptance... it's funny to me that an emotion that has been sanctified so many many times dies such a quick death in the absence of reciprocation.. even dev das is sad because of his own cock-sureness - that she still loves him... and in parineeta, the guy just quickly changes his mind when he realizes that she might like someone else more than him..

so what I take away from this analysis is that love is just a prerequisite to sex... since sex requires two people to be together, love becomes a conditional emotion that exists only when both of them feel it.. or it short, it takes to create love.. if this post seems inane to you.. then i should tell you that this feels like a revelation to me.. i always held that love surpasses everything.. that it could be one way.. even when you know that the other person has forgotten you.. and has moved on... and probably only remembers you when someone mentions your name.. but now I am not sure anymore.. i think it's selfish feeling sullied by the need to copulate!!

a further disullioned
m

this is why i like rachel maddow!

http://bossip.com/275147/rachel-maddow-clowns-faux-news-and-bill-orielly69691/

home alone..

" who knows what we are capable of until we've done it.." plagiarized from a book i flipped through in the library yday.. but the line caught my eye.. it sort of articulates what I feel about almost everything that i witness on this earth.. suicide bombers, nazis, adulterers, murderers.. who knows what we are capable of until we've done it.. i guess it is a wisdom that comes from shocking yourself repeatedly... i remember starting out as a young innocent and going through the various steps of disillusionment till i have reached a point where i can readily believe a lot about myself.. both sacred and otherwise!

that said.. let me take this post to a movie review.. i saw 2 movies today.. udaan and dil se.. both tremendously beautiful.. Udaan is the story of a 17 year old from a dysfunctional family and what he goes through.. the narration itself is very poetic and since the 17 yr old aspires to be a writer, there are some really good verses in the movie.. and my heart kept going out to the 6 year old trapped in this family..

dil se.. aah.. what can i say.. saw it for SRK (and i am a big fan) and it didn't disappoint.. i saw this movie a long time ago and remember feeling disappointed about the tragic ending.. it didn't jibe with me at all.. not so now.. i loved the movie.. the irrationality of the human cognitive system... and the obscure title dil se makes sense all of a sudden.. it is an irrational movie made real because of the all too familiar vagaries of the heart..  the cinematography of the movie is so beautiful.. and again the whole movie is a poem... it's a thrill to be watching the beautiful landscapes of the movie and shah rukh's liquid eyes are heady! (a scene in this movie that i liked too much was the one where he mentions three things about her that he dislikes and proceeds to say how the same three things draws him to her like a moth to a flame..it's a beautiful piece of cinema by mani rathnam..)

feeling pretty satiated (and the feeling of disappointment at the end of an indulgance that i had written about).. i keep telling myself that i want to write.. but it is hard.. i want to try a short story.. but my brain draws a blank.. how should i choose a theme? how do i impersonalize a story? i have seen so many of my talented friends make a go at it and it's beautiful.. but i am yet to gain that courage...

this weekend's been a home alone experience for me.. the first time i am spending a weekend by  myself in this country... it was enjoyable actually.. to be totally free... thought i will be lonely.. but i am not.. the rain is giving me company.. and lush green dull days and cicadas filled nights are beautiful to enjoy alone... and of course chai and coffee can dispel all feelings of loneliness any time of day!!

love you all.. for adding meaning to my existance!
meenakshi

capitalism with a heart..

i am an admirer of gandhi.. a gandhian if you will.. the only cause that i have so far taken any actual interest in and spent money on is spiritual education..

when i see videos about children starving, sold for prostitution, maimed so they can beg, recruited for Taliban, worked to death, born with HIV - i feel so pained.. and i also feel so angry.. for it is the mistake of the parents.. of the man - who could not control his urges and cared not that his careless act to satisfy his needs might spawn a life that will suffer and suffer! how can this be?? how can we who are capable of such acts of greatness are also culpable of such crimes??

this is an eternal question... and i truly think that spiritual education will go a long way in addressing this.. if we all helped our fellow beings, there will be no need..  god has given us ample.. it's in the distribution of it that suffering comes.. but we saw that communism doesn't work.. what works is spiritual advancement and spiritual education.. to take no more.. to give as much as you can... it can't be a top down socially forced equality.. it has to be within and spread out.. it's capitalism with a heart.. 

m

ode to austen..

Chapter 6
over the last year, i have started reading historical books.. several of them set anywhere from the 14th century to the 19th century..  set in istanbul, italy, scotland, england and india.. i love them all.. there is always this sense that the world has not changed much at all - it's still all about war, women and wealth!

but i just picked up the book "pride and prejudice".. i have never read jane austen.. no patience to read classics as a rule.. but my god! i have barely read 10 pages, but i had to praise her.. there are many many versions of poor girl meets rich boy, they hate each other on sight and then through the course of their acquaintance fall in love.. but it's not so simple.. anyone abridging her book, or  making it into a movie can only do her enormous injustice.. because there is poetry and thoughtfulness and wit in each line.. so much so that you have to take time and read it slowly and ruminate about it.. like you would a holy book! the elegance of her writing has impressed me so much that now I am thinking about setting a higher bar for my own writing..

anyways - reading it now and loving every second of it.. makes me feel lucky just to be alive and to be able to enjoy her wit in leisure.. can't think of anything that I rather do!

Chapter 37
Okay, I am still reading Jane austen.. and as I was reading I tried to pin-point what it was about her writing that made it so special? two things stood up..
- she was acutely aware of how selfish people really are.. i have read "the death of ivan illych", where leo tolstoy attempts the same at the death of a person, but that is almost an extreme event. And jane austen explores the same thing in the everyday occurances.. and this awareness is not something that everybody is aware of .. and even if they are, they might not be able to articulate it the way she does.. so to that extent, her writing is i daresay even superior to tolstoy..
- sentence structuring... she frames the idea in 30 words what a lesser writer would in 300.. this beautiful command over the language and the perseverance to be super efficient in her writing makes it so powerful.

still reading..

Book done!
Okay, so now I am done with the book and am feeling that vague sadness/disappointment that comes at the end of indulging my senses! but i am also very contemplative.. the biggest disappointment of the book was the ending - it was like the author didn't know what to do with happy endings.. having been single herself in her life! but that said, there were so many tiny pearls of truth in her book.. it is so beautiful.. that as loathsome as it is going to be to you my friends, i am going to probably do quick re-read of this book and note all the best sentences in this post.. so watch out.. i daresay that it is something that you will enjoy reading when you chance to experience a dull moment in your life!

• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (first line - the line which kindles the interest in me to read this book, even though i knew the story pretty well)
• A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment (Darcy - true true - the way the society works, you hand over your life to the man.. so the imagination showcases a different life with each man by making you a part of his world set-up - so pathetic.. but so true!)
• "There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil— a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
  "And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
  "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them." (Darcy and Elizabeth - one of the cutest exchanges between them - the smile showing his vulnerability to her playfulness!)
• That the Miss Lucases and Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary (gossip is like air to human beings.. still is)
• The business of her life was to get her daughters married, its solace was visiting and news (Of Mrs. Bennett - so much like the indian mammas of today)
• They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper (Miss Bingley when Jane is ill - speaks to the true lack of care from people)
• I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man!
• - of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability and the other to its derision of disappointed hopes and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind. (Lizzy scolding Darcy when he proposes, about separating Jane and Bingley)
• But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine (So cute - lizzy's words to Lady catherine)
• Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extra-ordinary application is as frivolous as the application is ill-judged.
• The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.(sometimes not describing things is better than attempting to.. that's why books are better than movies and music better than videos.. leaves some to the individual imagination)
• You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased! (so so cute!!)
• To be sure - you know no actual good of me - but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love (lizzy to darcy - towards the end.. so true.. how things of goodness of character.. wisdom by necessity is hindsight it seems!)

more to come - as i read and re-read..
m
(the only tragedy of this book is the repeated reference to lizzy's expressive eyes which renewed my sadness over my own tiny ones all over again!)

on writing...

one of the good things here in the US is you can listen to the radio on the TV.. and as i believe in exciting as few of my senses as possible (to increase the focus on the one sense that is active), I love it.. and the minimalism too.. anyway, I am digressing.. i was listening the second interview in the last 2 months of this famous novelist called Jonathan Franzen..

an interesting character.. but some of the things he spoke about becoming a writer was very interesting and i hope to remember one day.. firstly, he says, you've got to practice writing for 10,000 hours before you can become a great writer.. that is writing full time for 5 years!! a quick count of how much I might have written told me that a 100 posts into 30 minutes, 50 hours of writing!!

50 hours, compared to the required 10,000 hours!! and then the next interesting thing he spoke about evaluating how to know if this is.. he says he tries re-read it the next day/month/year.. and if it is not interesting - it's not worthy of being published! i have a friend whose blog i visit very often.. and his writing is so fascinating that i never tire of it.. and that helped me understand what he meant about re-reading again and again and still being excited about it..

he also spoke about people who are socially isolated reading a lot.. which seemed to make sense to me.. i do feel isolated in some ways and that's probably why i read so much too.. on wiki page, he speaks about treating your reader as a friend.. not enemy, not a spectator.. which was interesting, because i already do that.. he also says to write in the third person which I could somehow never do.. so i going to try that.. when i listened to him, i realized how much i wanted to be a writer myself.. if only to let other confused people like me out there know that it's okay.. there are loads who think like you etc... let's see where this ambition goes..

m

gross bollywood movies..

there is like a series of gross movies made by people like karan johar and other idiots in bollywood.. but the prize goes to i hate luv stories.. it rightly makes fun of shitty bollywood movies and then happily goes on to become one more of the same!! i just kept cringing at the non-sense and wrote my first review in netflix..

GROSS!!!

m

freedom in moderation..

okay.. i have long been telling myself that i am not a feminist.. in spite of all evidence to the contrary.. but as i am watching this movie called the duchess (its fantastic - you got to see it!) - my own feministic feelings are evident..

so the society has long denied a lot of freedom to women.. in the best interests of society itself.. firstly, women will be subject to men's wishes.. at all costs.. why even today.. in tamil nadu, it is common to hear "pull analum purushan, kal analum kanavan" - which means "even if he is grass, he is your husband, even if he is a stone, he is your husband".. then in the western civilization women were allowed to mingle in society like men.. this led to affairs (like in the duchess).. but women still couldn't own property, inherit and didn't have the right to their children who were considered the father's property.. with the threat of children, they were subjugated..

and then women's suffrage movement and feminist movements began and women were allowed to wear pants, ask for work like men and get the right to vote.. and with new laws they had the right to divorce.. yes, it is a problem in the west - high divorce rates.. but better that than to have women being beaten, and made to suffer - all in the interest of "society" and "children" - our society needs to find a solution and i daresay it will.. eventually..

as i write, i am so thankful.. i have been educated in the best institutions in the world.. i am married to a man who values my opinion, my freedom and respects me.. but we are not there yet.. i am not there yet.. i still own the kitchen (although that's changing rapidly too) and the general maintenance of my house.. i probably will continue to have the greater share of responsibility over my kids if and when i have them.. and at work, every day it's a struggle with a culture of men and their way managing clashing with proving that my way works too.. if not better than theirs.. these are definitely smaller than what the women endured 100 years ago in a completely male dominated society, but by no means insignificant..

i am for one, determined to do my best to change the way of things.. i will continue to talk about it, write about it, and in my own way make a change.. and as we progress towards this new society where men and women are indeed treated equally (sweden's there almost!) i will feel the impact of time on mankind! after all, there is no such thing as freedom in moderation!

yours dearly feminist,
m

Self-Doubt

to be too sure of oneself is arrogance.. it's not humble.. but to not be sure of oneself?? to have doubts? the bane of my life.. self-doubt.. a lifetime of second-guessing myself.. did i do the right thing? should I not have said that? should I not have thought that? 

anyhow.. i always find myself caught in this vice and don't know how to extricate myself.. how do you remove doubt and find peace?? how do you stop berating yourself in the shower (that seems to be the time that my mind throws up all the wrong things that i did the previous day)?? how does your inner self accept the confidence that your outer self is projecting? 

i don't know.. i am very confused.. and very pained with myself.. and sometimes i hate the things i do, but i do them as if i am propelled to do so.. to give myself comfort at the expense of others.. as a result of insensitivity.. to my friends, colleagues, family.. i am such a bad person to know :(

i was hoping that becoming anonymous and having a different blog will make me positive! but apparently it doesn't.. but it still feels unimaginably great to let off steam here.. as if by confessing my sins on this web-page, I have absolved myself and accepted my mistakes.. 

but that said, it also reinforces my desire to be better.. all is not lost as long as there is scope to improve.. and there is scope to improve as long as one breathes.. give me the strength god.. let me be strong enough to not hurt others even when I want to.. and not be selfish..

m

(notice my first few lines here! from my recent study of the 100 best opening lines.. my tribute to jane austen..)

Welcome...

hi - I am so excited about my new blog!! I have spent an hour designing it.. as if it were my very own home.. and in many ways it is far more important to me than my home, because it houses my thoughts and opinions! and now I shall tell you a little bit more about myself..

I have been writing since 2004.. under my original name.. but in the interest of anonymity.. i have closed my original blog and started this new one.. under an assumed name, meenakshi.. it happens to be my religious name, and also the first half of the name of my grandfather! - so my request to you is to address me as such in your comments.. 

as to the name of the blog.. firstly, it is so hard to get a meaningful name in blogspot.. unfortunately.. secondly, i am reading georgette heyer right now and liked her her powder and patches title for the rhythm in it.. and thirdly, i realized that while powder denotes all that is external and influenced by society, poetry connotes all that is internal and influenced by the soul.. and i thought that given these are the forces that mostly influence my writing, I will name my blog powder and poetry!! hope you will continue to follow me in my journey and appreciate the reasons for my making it open and anonymous!

I am already loving my pen name and I hope that under the auspicious omen of this name, my writing will flourish!

urs,

m