Mrityunjaya

A very dear friend of mine who is more like an elder sister to me told me once that the one book she absolutely loves is Mityunjaya. She fell in love with that book and has read it several times. I like this woman a lot and I adore her too. I however, have no faith in her intelligence. I do however have faith in her aesthetic sense and her ability to be honest and like things with absoluteness. She is one of the few people who still, is innocent in a refreshing way and she has no cynicism what so ever. After she recommended it, I asked my mother about this book. My mother is a voracious reader. She is a bibliophile. She is a member of two libraries and ends up getting at least 2 novels and a magazine every week, sometimes the number goes to 4 novels and 2 magazines. She majorly reads in marathi – original works and translations, sometimes hindi and always Sidney Sheldon and reader's digest in english. Since Mrityunjaya is a book originally written in marathi, asking my mom's opinion was obvious. She had read it twice when I asked her about it, and didn't remember where her copy of the novel was. I found out that the book had been translated in hindi and english but decided to read it in marathi. Mom got the book from the library for me and thus I began reading the 700 page story of Karna the greatest hero in Mahabharat, second only to Krishna perhaps.

I am a nobody to comment on the book. While reading the book all I did was recommend it to people with whom I shared similar sensibilities. I was proud of discovering this gem of a book and I was being extremely choosy about who I thought was competent enough to appreciate it the way I thought it deserved. It was snobbery of which I am still ashamed of.

Although my mother tongue is marathi and I can read and write it well I still am not as fluent in it as I am in english. I took a really long time completing the novel, which affected my mother's library routine. Even the librarian asked her if she was busy these days because usually she would return books every 2nd week and this time she was taking particularly long. When the librarian was told that it was not my mom but me who was taking so long to finish the book, all the pieces fell into place and the world made sense again to the librarian. Soon enough my mom started complaining about the amount of time I was taking and so I started carrying the book to work just so that I could speed up on my reading. 

So everyday I would reach office and start reading the book and keep it aside every time I was assigned a task. There were days when I would be busy a lot more than I liked and the book would be lying next to the computer. Most of my co-workers would wonder how I could even find the courage to pick up such a thick book. While all this was going on Abhay asked me if I'd mind if he read the book, when I wasn't reading it. Abhay is a an office boys who does all the running around for our office. He must be in his late 30's and has a 16 year old son. I guess he is not so much a boy as he is a man, but thats what the designation is. I said I didn't mind at all and thus we shared the book for a few days. One day I noticed that he had reached nearly the end of the book even though he started much after me. So I asked him about it. He told me that this was his 3rd reading of this novel and this time around he was just revisiting his favourite episodes in the story. He then went on to expound how he had read the book when he was 13 years old and fell in love with it. How he loves all the vivid and detailed descriptions of characters and places and everything else that I had loved about the book.

Its pretty obvious what happened after that. I may be cynical but am not an ostrich. To over simplify the moral of the story – I got rid of my book reading snobbery, I became aware of how the written word is still one of the most accessible and varied mediums of communications across countries, culture, class, caste, SEC etc. And a book taught me the interpretation of how not to judge a book by its cover.

u r lucky

walking back from school one day, hop skip and jump. Excuse moi can u please tell me this address. A slip of paper a bag in hand, formal clothes. Why not lets give it a shot.
Walk up to him, inside the building. On the staircase, curiousity? Belief in humanity?
Stand straight, put your water bottle down.
Weird but why rub your crotch against mine? Are u going to be sick? And is that a bile rising in my throat?

Why r u crying? Nothing. You can go.
Home, question... did he remove your clothes, no did he remove his clothes no... Thank god? Its ok dear happens to all women at some point in their lives.. But i am just a girl!
Don’t go to school for a few days.

Does it really happen to all the women in the world? N o sometimes its much worse.
"a guy thrust his thumb in my groin and he had a 2 inch long nail"
"my uncle had just gone thru a divorce, we were alone in the house, he kissed me"
"my tutor would touch me in private places"

but then.... u r lucky u didnt get raped. it happens to all the women at some point in life, some get even some don't.
But it happens. Just like menstruation or menopause.
Just like freak accidents
just like birth and death.
It happens and u r lucky u didn’t get raped...

memories r of 2 kinds, some are like the first rains that not only soak up the parched earth but give a new lease of life, and leave behind greenery freshness and hope
and then there are others like the plastic bag clinging to your leg when u walk through knee high water in Mumbai floods

born
lived
but how?

Smirk

4 months later he called. his voice was heavy the moment she heard the hello and knew he was crying the whole night.he lives approximately 15 mins away from her house but it took him 4 months to get over their last fight to call her up again.
she ignored the sniffle and asked wassup? he was wasting her time so she just asked what had happened. he denied that anything was wrong and apparently had realised his mistake. (wat a load of crap) he had fought with his girlfriend, "she is being non cooperative, we fight all the time i am miserable. she doesnot trust me. my friends laugh at me when they hear that we have been going around for 6 yrs and havent had sex" she consoles.
he wants to meet her, in times like these only she can 'support' him the way he wants, she doesnt want to but she knows she will. old habit/bad habit. she has an off the next day, she leaves the house at the usual hour, after leaving she asks," have they left? yes come fast". same route same elevator, he opens the door before she rings the bell. remove ur shoes go to his room

[she has forgotten how to laugh. she doesnt remember how she laughed or the last time she had laughed till she felt her lungs would burst].

he is good, he presses th right buttons, just a caress could turn her on, make her head spin, make her go weak in her knees, maybe practise makes a person perfect. "you are so much better......" ' pls compare me to all of them pls wat better way than to make me feel like a slut'.

'i had loved u once and i am paying the price i hate you now, u think only u can use me, i can do the same i will destroy u and my SELF and i will resurrect

i loved u, i did and i let u use me and i will and i won't seek revenge because i don't have the guts to do it. because i will only end up hurting myself.
but one day when u will grovel at my feet and ask for the same 'support' i will have a smirk because i can gt rid of my habit but what will u do of ur addiction????????'

satisfied, she moans.

OMKARA / OTHELLO

wow!! mind blowing or rather i'm blown over!! omkara is one of the finest hindi movie released this year and i think it will be for the whole year too what with its competition being kank (for ppl not well versed in bollywood its kabhi alvida na kehna and dhoom 2 and fanaa ). yuck!!

so wats so amazing abt the film.
1. acting- saif ali khan in one of his most verstile and powerful and unbelievably good perfomance takes Iago to new and greater heights. i forgot it was saif ali khan, sharmila tagore's son (i always thot cud never be as good as her). i mean how many of yash chopra's hero have been successful in carrying such a versatile role.

Ajay devagan seems the same like he is in apaharan minus the highlights. His performance is extremely controlled and carries a lot of power. But st the same time he is cold.

Kareena looks excellent sans make up and although the character isn’t convincing she has carried it really well. She looks so vulnerable and child like, she brings out protective feelings in the audince’s heart. Wats with her hair lways on one side?? it distracted me

Kesu firangi alias cassio alias Vivek Oberoi, doesn’t have much to do and quite a wimp.

Konkona sensharma, wat do I say about this lovely lady, beautiful performance, excellent dialogue delivery, looks quite scary when she kills her husband, which by the way is different from the original Othello.

Naseerudding shah his character is supposedly based ona real life don Mr. Bhardwaj met in central jail of XYZ. Small role, insignificant, excellent introduction.

Last but not the least, billo aka bipasha basu? Why d? what d ? how d? I guess u get it. Dialogues and accent perfect; body language zero. She is too sensuous and glamorous for her own good. Common a nautanki wali in UP has to have a bit of crudeness, she cannot have an immaculate crop of hair which she has ironed in a parlour not even at the dhobi…. (bad joke).. I mean she cannot dance her body language is too bold and glamorous and sophisticated.

I was surprised to see Aishwarya Rai bring out cruseness in the kajra re number, but bipasha was a dampner on the whole.

2. VD or Vinay somebody had said, that one can see how much homework a director has done before making the film by the end product. And seriously Vishal Bhardwaj has done tremendous homework. Agreed that the plot, characters, and story existed he just had to adapt, but when one sees omkara one relises adaptation is not an easy job. To put the story in a rural context, and finding the adaptable characters is tough.

The dialogues are bloody well written I don’t know which region the director belongs to but he must have spent quite some time there to get the dialogues right to the T.

Each dialogue has so much depth and mean9ing. Some of the memorable dialogues

Sarat ghodon pe lagayi jaati hai seron pe nahi

Hum agni se bhi gujar jaaye to bhi thage hi kehlayenge sage nahi

Hasi badi mehengi ho gayi is jahan mein

I fell in love with the beginning of the film, the way one after the other each character is introduced, beginning with saif and .. followed by vivek and then jay devgan. Also when u first see ajay u see a calm copmposed guy who gets saved from being shot in his head due to a call made by bhaisaaheb. Its only later when the background score picks up the title track and a fight sequence is picturised on it (what a brilliant intro/fight scene/music/ drums/shots) that we get the strength of the character Omkara.

That introduction was like the peak of my entertainment. It just grows on yo, I was at the edge of my seat wondering.. what next what next. One more thing f everybody feels that the first half of he movie is brilliant and better than the second half, that’s because the first half follows othello’s structure and scenes. Later on it has been tampered with a little bit. Check this link

http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/othello/full.html

almost forgot economy of shots. Thanks to vinay mentioning it and vishal using it.

In the beginning, you see ajay devgan sitting at the background, an old lady using a borewell to draw water, in one shot, he gets up from wide the shot becomes mid and ajay starts drawing water, he hands over the vessel to the old lady while saying his dialogue and the music reaches a crescendo and breaks into the title track and the fight begins. Brilliant!!

cinematography!! wat can i say? the action scene that happens int he train has been really well shot. come to think of it in such a crammed up space there r minimal lights (thankfully to make it look real and also there is no space) characters are running shooting people and the camera has to capture them all. and the brilliant shot that stays with me is the one outside the train at the engine; rain pouring, just one bright light rain and saif and ajay on the tracks!! maybe the light symbolises that omi has only a single chance to overcome his jealousy but then too he relies upon his tyagi who is perpetually in darkness/silhouttes. the framing of that shot where the train is slightly off center with tyagi in silhoutte and omi partially visible can be said is don to show his gradual downfall.

Did u know Orson Welles made Othello in 1952? He starred in it and played the main lead. Wish I could see it, hope to get a copy soon. It even won 1 awrd and another nomination.

I guess the master of cinema himself was fascinated by this Shakespearean play, Vishal Bhardwaj isn’t the only one? Say wot??

This relationship is very weird. I guess this has been my favourite adjective for the past many months; the reason being my lack of vocab, but frankly there are so many aspects to this relationship that I could go on and on about it.
Its one of the most multi-faceted relationships I have encountered. Well it also being one of the first relationships I had so I guess as growth and change go hand in hand so does the facets of this relationship change.
Its funny how one person can influence and shape your life so much that people say you are just like her. As a rebellious teenager u wish you never grow up to be like her. But then again u wish u did not turn out to be like most adults in your vicinity. Its only when you grow older and maybe wiser after surviving the agonising adolescence you realise that it would take years of experience to be like her and maybe a little better than her (just a wish).

This is not going to be about how special the relation between a mother and child is, its about how weird the relation between a mother and daughter is. She being your mother the obvious criteria are fulfilled like teaching things and caring and nursing etc. one can observe these in all animals, not that I am disregarding them or don’t consider them to be important but its just that there are far more complex feelings involved when u come to human mothers and their daughters.

They are your worst critiques, be it anything, from the choice of your clothes (which is plain annoying) to the people you hang out with (what does she know) to your behaviour with people or something as stupid as the way you walk- your posture. And every human being on this planet has universally accepted that mothers know what is best for their children. And they can just boss you around all your life. And seriously speaking I wouldn’t mind that as long as she is there for me for my lifetime.

She is your friend your confidante funnily even your competitor (I make better puran polis then you do; ya right, you can’t even grind the puran with your bony hands I do most of the work and you take all the credit). Hey c’mon I am being honest here okay, we all know how we feel for our mom’s but we don’t exactly worship the ground on which she walks, everyday! You can get away by saying and doing anything when it comes to your mothers. She does manage to forgive you somehow. Of course she can come up with the most appropriate punishments too. Like once I had found old rusted blades, and my friend and I went around slashing the seats of all the two wheelers in my colony. Why? Well I don’t know, all I can think of right now is vinashkari viparit buddhi. It’s a childhood thing one does things in spite of knowing its wrong. Of course when I was asked if I did it, I played dumb, but my friend had a lecture on value education that day in school and she suddenly remembered honesty is the best policy. So basically we were in deep shit. And I was in more shit because I lied. As if my mom had never lied!!! Anyways my friend didn’t face any punishment and as for me I was taken by my mom from house to house with my piggy bank (can u believe it) and made to apologise about them if they would like me to pay for it. I mean c’mon its not like I had even 20 bucks back then what with 10 paise coins still being in use!!

So I do love her and I need her approval, and I still would not like to lead my life like her but I still want to have some of her traits, and I wish she would get off my back at times and I want her arms to cry my heart out and I just wish she’d stop asking so many questions, and somewhere down the line I know she feels the same way about me.

Marriage - Mirage

When Harry met Sally they hated each other. Till they both were totally heart broken and needed a friend more than a lover. Of course they too had the same fate and they fell in love and got married. Now why did thy get married, not because they wanted to have sex, not because one of them was Hari Shah and needed a green card to stay in US and definitely not because they needed stability in their relationship.

I am not saying Harry and Sally are my ideal couple and I admire them, its just that they are widely known and also recycled in India as hum tum.

Anyways.

Over a couple of months marriage has been the talk of my household. Either about my marriage and I quote ‘my sister’s son is settled in us and wants to get married this year [as if he has an expiry date]. He is coming to India. Why don’t u send your daughter over to my place and we will fix up a meeting’; why u think I am ugly or unattractive or incapable of finding one guy on the face of this earth who would want to spend the rest of his life with me? Or am I so old that u can actually hear my biological clock ticking? Or are u the president of the parents who want to get rid of their daughters association??

And if these talks are not about me they are about others, so and so is getting married. Ok wow congratulations!!! But when u come to know that so and so is getting married and 15 days after their marriage the bride will sty in Mumbai and study and the groom will stay in Bangalore and work, it sounds ridiculous. I mean I have mixed feelings about it. Its good that they are giving their career the top priority but what’s the point of getting married? One can always get married later. Especially when u have the time to spend with each other.

Well some say marriage is a very personal thing and one should not care about other people’s opinion. Humbug!! Marriage is a state of mind and if two people feel the same way the should just get down to business, settle together and lead a normal life. However the ceremony and the tag of belonging is something that is made by society and frankly speaking if u feel married then a ceremony is just for the world to know that u have officially and legally committed to each other.

And if my friends who r going to get married feel even remotely this way they wont need the ceremony. And if they do want a ceremony then they should wait and find a date where in people can attend and give them their blessings. They claim that marriage is a milestone I completely agree and a milestone changes ones life it is supposed to be significant. And if one continues their life the same way with no progress in their relationship except for the tag of being married then it serves no purpose. In fact I’d say its not a milestone at all. In their case when they both will move in together would be a milestone and that would be the day they can consider themselves married.

Also if one cannot start living together after the ceremony then there’s no point of getting married. And it’s not just a question of a couple of months now a days many couples live apart in the initial months, but a couple of years? Then one might as well get married after a couple of years.

Or do we still believe that one should abstain till one gets married? Does it mean that one gets married to have sex and doesn’t it just make the institute of marriage look like a licensing authority for fornication?

Marriage is a celebration of two people who are deeply in love and committed to each other to declare their love in front of the society and to embark upon their journey to shape their future together. Some choose to make a hue and cry about it some prefer a small gathering of close friends. However it’s about coming together and staying together and it does not increase ones stability or security it just enriches the experience of living with a companion.

L-O-V-E


why the hell do ppl express their true feelings for each other? and frankly speaking if you are feeling aniosity its easier but love ugh!! its way to difficult.

i mean instead of declaring 'i love you' to anyone u shud just write on a stamp paper with ur initials that

'i so and so declare that henceforth the below mentioned person's mood swings, depressions, tensions are all going to affect me. the below mentioned person cn manipulate me emotionally and i will share equal responsibilty of the emotional baggage. the above mentioned person can always de-stress him/her self by being a pain in my neck and i am absolutely sure that i am game for putting my heart at risk if being mercilessly shattered several times; and that nobody shall be held responsible for emotional and mental damage if any.
i declare my true feelings for this person without any pressure and i am not under the influence of any intoxicating substance'.

declaring ur true feelings ; i'd say its better to lose all ur fortune gambling and become bankrupt and work at a farm house shaving goats pubic hair and making cow dong cakes for ur own birthday.......

how does getting a job make u a responsible person? it just makes sure u can handle responsibilities. but if u dont have a job u r responsible for so many thngs. u r responsible for not earning money. u r responsible for making ur parents worry. u r responsible for embarassing everyone coz u r a good for nothing loafer. but when u r working u r too busy to be responsible. i mean if tomorrow i start working apart from earning money i wont take aby house hold responsibilities then how come i am responsible. even at my work place i will be assigned work but it ill be a business deal. i mean its like i do this much work in this much time and i will get so and so amount of money.. to fir usme responsibiliy kahan se aayi.
i know i am making baseless arguments becoz pp will hire me if they think that i can handle responsibilities and so forth.
i am too bored to counter argue. so anyways i will sign off for now

well well well........ loser loser loser loser loser loser loser losr ........... with these words echoing in my ears, well they r just being repeated theres no echo but when a crowd of say about hundred and fifty thousand ppl say it , it gets an echo effect. and when this voice is in ur head one usually uses this particular figure of speech.
so back to my point, i m no schizo but hav this voice inside my head, reason being i m a lazy arse with no ambition no plans and no fucking desire to do anything in life. like my folks said yesterday i just push eveybody around me to their limits not mine, so that they finally give up on me and tell me u r a loser and u r incapable of anything. and thats when i acually make any effort to make my much awaited come back.
if i cud possibly have an out of body experience i wud hate myself and kick my arse. 'much awaited come back'? my foot!! i mean ek insaan khud ko kitna importance dega..
i mean, here i am sitting on my bum pretending to search for a job online!! when infact i have contacts of certain ppl who can give me a job but i m not even approaching them. i have too high expectations from myself and i know wat my dream job is gonna be but i m not even trying to go for it either. btw somebody else i know has got my dream job and i hate them..................... jealousy is my second name
i suffer from the most deadly diseases that mankind has not been able to find a remedy for 'complacency and procrastination.......................