3 hrs @ Dubai

I was landing on my birth place, Dubai, after 15 long years.

Seeing the reflection of the morning sun on the skyscrapers anyone could think that even Sun had to come down to Dubai to use a mirror. The metro train that came out from somewhere like a roller coaster gave the Dubai in me an image of an ever changing amusement park. Next entrance into my sight was made by the King of all skyscrapers – The Burj Kalifa, which stood firm on the soil of the Peal of the Gulf, brutally stabbing the clean blue sky.

With a slight smile and a deep sigh, I heard my own voice “Dubai has changed”.

Though I was just a transit passenger waiting 3 hours for my connection flight, the breeze that blew within my body made a flickering slideshow of memories in several repetitions. The fragrance of the Arab attar all over the place also added some life and color to the ambience to the slideshow of memories.

Was I happy at that time? I can’t answer that. There was a mixture of molten feelings that was bubbling. Dubai...she contains my childhood memories. There were moments that moisturized my eyes and also brought a wide smile. 

Dubai…This is where one half of my heart belongs. I can remain to be truly me, as I feel myself in my Thrissur. This is what I reckoned from those 3 hours.

And as my flight to Jakarta took off I thanked my company’s travel desk person who booked this weird route to fly to Jakarta from Cochin.And watching the fading Dubai beneath me, again that slight smile came to accompany the deep sigh when I heard my voice again “Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost…"

Mausams

This is a story that began with something like an admiration or astonishment towards a girl with a ponytail, who was 2 years senior to me. The only girl…no, the only student who used to run through the verandah during the morning assembly at school for collecting prizes. For whom I always thought that God could have given few more pairs of hands to hold more trophies and certificates.

One day it was announced in the assembly that this girl got some scholarship or something. All I understood was that she was going to Singapore.

Years later I happened to meet this thin and energetic girl on Facebook. Few months back, I came to know that she’s working on a feature film and named it Mausams. This was quite enthralling news for me. To see someone creating something that you have always been longing is so special. That was what Mausams for me.

Today was again special for me. Meeting Shilpa and Shivanu was the highlight and of course Mausams. A very cute movie handled with enough maturity. The department of Photography also was amazing with brilliant frames. Mausams - Awesomeness!!! Nothing else can I speak about this. Loved it!!

And as the credits rolled up, it was that morning assembly that blinked in my mind. There was a name that came frequently; Shilpa Krishnan Shukla.

KUDOS!!! To Shilpa, Shivanu and the entire crew.

The Climb

This is a kind of revelation that found a gradual rise right from the day I joined my job which is being revealed here. It’s about the steady income group; the so called “Professionals” of the society.

This ambience graphs a prancing horse like youth painting celebration all over your life. But there is a peak for every hill. One may have to climb it down once he experiences the peak. Ironically, peak is an easy-boring space. What thrills the real you is the ‘climb’. And unfortunately there isn’t a never ending climb. And then, on the way back after conquering the various positions, the social identity and all; then it’s the time to start counting the loses, relations, home etc that that ‘climb’ took away from you. 

In other words it’s often felt that the ‘climb’ of creates a believable fake reality where the real human being is transformed which he realizes only when he’s done with the ‘climb’.

But in a world like today one can’t always follow his heart because your heart seldom feeds you. Like what Bill Gates told “Money is not everything in life. But one should be rich enough before uttering such nonsense.”

And the dilemma prevails. To continue the ‘Climb’ or to walk. Like a cult. I too have to do the righteous ritual to survive in this planet. But one thing that I’m sure of is that I won’t let me count loses on the way down. 

Writer’s block

Writer’s block. I don’t very well think this is that what I’m going through. That is since I don’t want myself to be labeled as affected by the “writer’s-block” for I am aware that I’m not as genuine as a writer. ‘Aphorisms’ is never considered to be by work of literature or something similar. This is my expressions that one reads in this space. And Aphorisms made me expressive because writing was always something very close to my soul.

But now there are thoughts; there are words and there is a language...and all three of them like pearls in a plastic case are making that tickling noise in me. And I, very badly want a thread that can pass through these pearls to make it a wonderful ornament in Aphorisms. This is a brilliant contradictory situation out here for me. Happiness is piling up around me and so is the uncertainty flooding all over.

As I said this time too, I want to express it all. But where to start from is something totally confusing. Mentations, they are drifting. This is no writer’s block then. It’s a situation where I’m overwhelmed by the happenings in the environment containing me. I’m having bits and parts of many things to share.

On one side there is an escalating joy of a would-be uncle, and on the other a numbness of mind for being alone in this South East Asian piece of land and so on it goes.  

Is this avalanching of thoughts…is this grace?? Or is it going to leave that acme just blank. A blank peak is again having an unnoticed side. Meditation. Because when the thought-less empty acme is your mind, then is a state of complete meditation. I would really love the either sides of that state. 

Breathing Cricket....

Tension that drains blood away, heart beats as loud as it can be heard to the person next to me, blood cells racing as if the nitrous oxide system is turned on. This is not what I feel alone. This is a brief description of the mind-state undergoing by the entire population of 2 nations lying together on the world map….INDIA &  PAKISTAN.

Tomorrow, at Mohali cricket stadium, as the coin is flipped into the air, there begins a war. A war without spilling a drop of blood. The fans need assurances and reassurances that their team won’t disappoint them, tomorrow will be the most nerve wrecking day for the fans in both countries, defeat is not an option for either side, as nothing hurts more than losing to your traditional foe and nothing will be more joyous than knocking out your traditional foe out of the competition, perhaps the joy would be even more than lifting the trophy.

Its celebration all our in my country. Offices announcing either a holiday or arranging facilities for their employees to watch the match. The companies are forced to do at least this much in a country that considers cricket to be a religion and believes that GOD himself have come down to open batting for their team. Like always, this time again both the countries are going to have a couple of “stand-still” hours right from the moment the coin is tossed. There is unbelievable frenzy.

There was no other possible matchup in this tournament which could have elevated the excitement level of this tournament than a semi final clash between India and Pakistan.

And I hope that the live streaming goes uninterrupted tomorrow. Let the whole world reverberate with India, India!

I

I...I am the obstinate. I am the modest. I am the diabolic and I am the saint... I..I..I..!!!

“I” the most clichéd subject in the whole universe. It’s a something more than a word which is used to justify, confess, fight, debate and without any respect to the fellow beings everywhere and every time.

“I” that’s what one can find the most and hence the so called clichéd in this blog too. Every time its moves on like “I thought”, “I did”…and so on and on and on.

As per the conclusions that my thoughts guide me to, there sprouts a feel that this kind of a steep increase in the “I” factor have a straight relation to the increase or the influence of professionalism in the thought cells of the Homo sapiens. This is it, when told in the nuances of the B-language. People start thinking of the results before lending a hand to help or a shoulder to support, before they get in contact with a person etc…everything and everywhere because of this I.

Every relation now carries a higher percentage of the Business factor within. Some are forced to have it or else they will be betrayed by anyone around them…nothing other than a cornered cat’s spot. Anyone can play the role of Mr. Iscariot. Is it better to change your mind than to be a fool..?? I don’t actually know.

But, at the end of the day, if the “I” needs to be completely complete in the soul, there is something other than the professionalism and the business factor…something stronger…the Principles. I truly believe in those words that I recently read somewhere. “In matters of style, swim with the current;

in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

That is the revelation… let me call this I, the blue placid sky with the clouds of all bad & good, negatives & positives, downs & ups, hatred & love, revenge & forgives, atheist & pious…along with other million clouds & let me call that sky “The Human”, with the purities & impurities of all affections & emotions..I like us to be ourselves in this very way...just normal…just humane…

Influence

“Influence” is a sort of motivational waves emitted from a person, speech, word, thought, incident, act or any other action or reaction, question or answer that penetrates to a person which then drives him for a task or an action depending on the intensity of the wave that his brain cells absorbed. This is exactly what I felt of this very word of the English language. Influence is never an imitation. It is only our version of rendering whatever we felt good when someone else executed it clinically.

To where my thoughts lead me to, Influence is the most pertinent representative for Spontaneity. It can hit you several times in a lifetime. Or even one can be his own influence. I have material facts that statement too.

Like for every kid, my father was the first one to influence me. The way he dressed, his LP shirts, his Ray-ban aviator, his driving actions, the way he pops open the green Heineken can and the slight smile that sprouts on his face as pours the beer to a glass, the way he say “right” at the end of a phone conversation were some of the various actions and conduct that was arrested deep in my mind as a kid. Even after 16 long years of his demise, when sometimes Amma comments some of my walking, standing, sitting or talking as similar to that of my father’s, I would arrogantly boast like the protagonist rendering a Renji Panicker script “That’s genesis…and that’s pedigree” adding wit to the conversation with a wink.

As I drove on the highway of life there was even more fuel stations that fueled me with some extra efficient fuel. Until my entry to the 11^th grade in school, frankly speaking, I’m not able to recollect anything or anyone that ruled my heart or fueled my mind other than Adolf Hitler. My friends called me crazy for that. That was the time when ‘hitleraliasvarun@gmail.com’ came into being. For, when they all were screaming about Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachan, me and Hitler were moreover a funny combination. I never complained. Then in the 11^th and the 12^th grade it was Jacob Sir who played a prominent role of the motivational wave’s emitter as I said in the beginning.

From then until now, there were several other people, words and factors that influenced me, making me strong enough to ride faster. One among that were the words of the former Indian President Mr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam; “As a son of God, you are greater than anything that can happen to you” which is still my Gtalk status message. Facebook wasn’t this popular those days. It was an Orkut era those days. It was Divyachechy’s and Titiksha’s(are they my best friends..?? I don’t know that. But they are my sisters…from different mothers) testimony for me in my Orkut profile that set out a spark of self revelation within me and my soul. I was literally “self-influenced” there. They pointed out to me my qualities, which I haven’t noticed at all. It was a fact that I was recognizing me better as I read that.

I don’t argue that only humans can be an influencing force. Even Souls, spirits and believes can.

But in the twists and turns happening in this ocean, there used to be some tides that misguide me. There arises my iron lady, my spirit, my Amma. She is the only one who can blow the spark in me to a forest fire which strengthens me to swim against any tide, to drive through any tough off road tracks of life.

Apart from all these, it used to give me immense pleasure when I realized that I too have influenced some of them around me. This was understood when I hear them all adding some common words when they express their gratitude…they say “It was ‘only’ because of you….thank you dear”. Thank God!! Because it’s a matter of immense satisfaction to know that I’m considered as a good person at least for some people. Not everyone may understand that. But still I feel myself alive when I find at least when one in one thousand realizes that.

During our school days and after that for the various courses joined, there used to be lots of talks on self-confidence, on how to win and so on. Is self-confidence something which can be developed by just a speech? I never believed in that kind of ‘Instant Motivation’. I don’t believe that those powerful words could protract its existence in the audience for much long. Those are just a short-lived influence, motivation or thoughts that which fail to survive in the psyche of the audience as they move out of that hall. It’s ridiculous that people can also live a 5-star life marketing Motivation and Influence.

True Influence never fades. It is a spark that brightens with every breath u takes in.

This is what Influence is FOR ME..!!!!!

Thank you Facebook.

It happened again. Perhaps this is the second time I’m starting a post with the same words. And apparently, both the posts were made to say something that happened in friendship. By a sheer nuance of coincidence the other post was also written in March, last year. That time it was about a separation, and this time it’s about a reunion.

Dashing straight to the matter – in the past 3 weeks I got back several friends after a long span of 15 years. Facebook was the platform destined for this reunion. Of course, it wasn’t that easy for any of us to recognize each other on the first look itself. Obviously, the weights of around 40-50 Kgs that have piled up in each one of our bodies have the right to make us look big and different. J

It was refreshing to have those childish memories resurrected one after the other from among the various buried memories. Those days when we started to use pen for writing, the fountain pen and the pelican pen being the show off factors among us. Days, during which we all had a strong thought that cartoons, superheroes and WWF is the only caused for which TV was invented. Days, during which the “Today”, was nowhere there, even in our thoughts and dreams. Days, where the word ‘decision’ was just a word in the English language.  All these and many others, like the pages in a flicker book, displayed a quick show in me on the way back home from office.

Beautiful days. Really beautiful days. But, I’m happy…really happy that Good God is now returning us that entire he ‘can’.

It always makes us feel good when you get back something which u felt was lost forever.  

Thank you God...!!!

Thank you FB…!!!

A Movie Review & The Thrissur Slang.

Languages…what to write about the hundreds or may be thousands of known and unknown, discovered and undiscovered, observed and unobserved languages on earth that all the beings – including humans, the seasons, the mountains, the oceans have.

Yesterday, for the 5^th time I saw that movie again. “Pranchiyettan and the Saint” – A complete Thrissur movie… Its yet another point added to the “Keep-Away-From-Mind” list when I’m away from Thrissur, preventing me from feeling nostalgic...or rather homesick.

Unlike in Thoovanathumbikal, there isn’t much of the outdoors shot in this flick that pulls me back. But, the typical Thrissur slang to which I’m literally addicted is used throughout the film. People of Thrissur are popular for their wits. Rather they are popular for the pinch of wit and a mass simplicity they add even while they are in an important conversation. Wits don’t mean that they crack out jokes every now and then. But it is the essence of this dialect that proclaims the people of Thrissur to be witty in whichever group they mix up.

Here’s some light to the slang… J

As far as I have learned, the “Thrissur Slang” is a dialect that keeps developing every passing day. There are words and phrases added to this dialect almost every day. Combining two or three words swallowing some joining-aid alphabets mixed with the use of metaphors for each and every incidence and all coming out in the trademark tune of the Thrissur Slang. That is the signature that every subjects of His Highness King Shakthan’s land bears on his/her mother tongue.

The NEWS.

North-East-West-South…The NEWS – As in Wikipedia, News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

Earlier it was like bringing the information of what all was happening around the globe to your living room on just the press of your TV remote. Now it’s even simpler and easily accessible. Unlike the real purposes meant to serve, the so called “NEWS” is now being the leading entertainment subject overwhelming the Cinema, Music, Sports and all other matters meant for entertainment.

Personally and frankly speaking, NEWS is one such thing that I hate the most. My colleague, who is also my roommate often speak to me in exclamation that he have never seen such a person (me) who takes less than two minutes to read the newspaper.

Though I explain my theory, he was never ever convinced. I used to argue that is it not with mind state of gathering some information they read the newspaper rather it’s like kind of reading a suspense thriller novel. Yes, it is. One will realize it when he spends a minute to just stop and think. The hot news’ are just more similar and also of less quality in subject, language and culture when compared to the stories that run through the pages of a book or a reel in the theatre.

People started accepting that they are being cheated, the way they are being cheated and also reading and enjoying that vey same way they are being cheated. The newspapers and the channels rip open all the stories, the police findings and also the various impact that follows. It’s all good, fine and healthy. But as time rolls, there emerges some strange elements like TRP, market etc...etc.

It could be this pressure, which the ‘business man’ who owns the channel or the newspaper implies on the reporters that make way for this kind of an output. For instance, one can get to understand it from a very simple example.

Cricket is a game which is almost a religion in our India. And if match is going to be played 2-3 days before the game itself, the analysis of the various experts, pitch report, players’ interview, press conference and all such stuff starts piling up in the newspapers and the channels. And if any of the players are not included, the reason behind needs to be explained; and after the match is played, then comes the match fixing scandals, misbehavior of the players, umpire’s biased decisions and all such things gains space in the breaking news scroll. One who misses to watch the match finds it really hard to plot the scorecard to know what and how the match was played from the sports area in the newspapers.

I mean, no one is even bothered about the match. Right from the beginning itself the reporters, reports, readers and viewers get into the forecast and the analysis. Let me purposefully skip a major plot, the politics and the politicians, which and who gives birth to news reports at least in every 10 seconds. We live in a sadist civilization. Here, people read the news of a gang raped girl with the ease of reading a comic book. No one cares.

I don’t have any idea of how many people can agree with me when I write this. At one or the other point of time I’m sure that all of us might have had a wave of this thought. Don’t take the news to your brains and capture your senses. It will be just justice if the news’ are given the importance they deserve.

One major benefit that I have felt that the modern day journalism has gifted the public with is a strong rock-solid heart making the public capable enough to flick a smile on his face after reading or hearing the news of any great tragedy that happened around him… unless and until it is about him…. ….

Entangled.

2011 is now a little more than a month old. Though it’s only one twelfth of its size, 2011 was capable enough to move me to Pontianak, the Equator City of Indonesia being a part of a team of two. Another two months to spare. Another two months without the wind that comes caressing the banyan leaves, without the DHUP DHUP of my bullet, without the “we are the robots” the curtain raiser song of Georgettan's Ragam movie hall, without all other happiness’s of all sizes that that 2 kilometer circled town called Thrissur releases when she opens her arms wide to welcome me.

The people here in this part of the world, were celebrating the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) holidays. Those three days holiday were some sort of an imprisonment. More than an irony it’s funny referring those days as imprisonment. For here, we have all the stylish kind of lifestyle; except the net…the web…the World Wide Web. It’s being delayed because of the holiday here.

It’s a complete isolation in this 21th century earth to live a day without the Internet. I was just wondering how the sapiens survived without the internet and the mobile phones even less than a score ago. And especially in this country, I think people might even survive even without food, water, air, clothes or shelter. But the case would have been entirely difficult for this most loving and caring civilization to live a day without Blackberry phones and Facebook. I have often felt that the younger generation of this country would be considering the discovery of the Blackberry mobiles as the third vital discovery ever happened in the history of mankind next after the discovery of fire and wheel.

Generations are now born into the web, entangling them right from the time of birth. Hmm, but these few days without the web have unleashed a good and perhaps a great revelation in me. But it can stand only as a revelation. It can’t rule me…for me too, like all others around me is entangled in this Web. Staying away is not a way to get rid of it.

But I too don’t feel like blaming me for this addiction. I also love this web, the place where everything that you think of is just a click away. That Enter key on your keyboard and the left button on your mouse represents everything known to man; everything beneath, within, above and around the sun…everything….simply everything…