The Rich, The Ascetic & The Common Man..

"I don’t regret the past, and I don’t care about the future. I live and love my present."

The Facets:

Richness…!!! How much rich??? No idea about that. No idea of how rich I need to be to stop regretting the past; then, to stop being anxious about the future and finally to live and love my present. Will that be an inflated bubble? I have no idea about that too. I want that tag line to be perpetual. Something as perpetual as the sun, never-fading. But an ultra-luxurious life would be something in which I wouldn’t fit in. Too much luxury itches. 

So then comes the second, Detachment!! Relinquished! Departed! The life of an Ascetic. The life of a Wanderer.

Detachment has always been a much coveted dream of my life. More than an aim it’s a dream. Aim is the level between the dream and its transition to reality. It’s not all that easy for a Dream to move down to an Aim.  Effort, focus and above all, you should deserve to be able enough to wave a green flag to bring it to an attainable form of an Aim and then to the tangible form of Reality.

Drifting back to Detachment. No strings attached, no inhibitions, like an ever-flowing river...a relinquished life that is simply original...Simply simple. There the regret and the anxiousness in the tag-line bear more metal to be perpetual. It can be a journey with different colors like a pilgrim, student, traveler, explorer, photographer, or a writer. Name it!! The aim will be to free the mind to where it wishes to fly or to flow. If it’s a life of that kind I can say that “I don’t regret the past, and I don’t care about the future. I live and love my present.” But there are strong strings attached. Really strong strings.

Yet, Present is cool. Life is entertaining with the cameo appearances of the two facets discussed earlier along with a mixture of millions of other elements. Still in this living life I can say that I live and love my present with all the hurdles that come on the way.

Satisfaction is the fourth and the ultimate. Aims are inevitable, but what remains in the filter after draining the aim is that which is to be decimated...the greed.

For living the life the number of strings isn’t relevant at all. Take life as it comes. Enjoy it like watching a suspense thriller with a beautiful BGM played with the strings attached. Utilize and ride it to the finishing point and say “That was a cool ride…”

Heil Hitler..!!!!

Not being a professional historian, I take on this write-up with utmost admiration and a heart that shouts "Heil Hitler". That's because, although defeated, although dead, this man is incomprehensible for me. There isn’t any other leader who has fascinated me so much from my school days. And when I started to write a blog many of my friends thought that Aphorisms would be exclusively for preaching Nazism. It’s really a wonder why Hitler wasn’t mentioned in Aphorisms for this long. Something unknown for me too. But now, here it is. A space for the mightiest totalitarian ever. Adolf Hitler.

His oratory skills and the kind of leadership quality he possessed were always something I was in awe of. What was the secret of his power over his listeners? They spoke of his intuitive powers and his "luck" as he escaped several attempts on his life.

Adolf Hitler or the incarnation of absolute evil; this is how future generations will remember the all-powerful Fuhrer of the criminal Third Reich. Compared with him, his peers Mussolini and Franco were novices. Under his hypnotic gaze, humanity crossed a threshold from which one could see the abyss.

At the same time he knew how to please, impress and charm the very interlocutors from whom he wanted support. Diplomats and journalists insist as much on his charm as they do on his temper tantrums. The savior admired by his own as he dragged them into his madness, the Satan and exterminating angel feared and hated by all others, Hitler led his people to a shameful defeat without precedent. That his political and strategic ambitions have created a dividing line in the history of this turbulent and tormented century is undeniable: there is a before and an after.

How did this Austrian without title or position manage to get himself elected head of a German nation renowned for its civilizing mission?

Was there no resistance to his disastrous projects? There was. But it was too feeble, too weak and too late to succeed. German society had rallied behind him: the judicial, the educational, the industrial and the economic establishments gave him their support.

Few politicians of this century have aroused, in their lifetime, such love and so much hate; few have inspired so much historical and psychological research after their death. Even today, works on his enigmatic personality and his cursed career are best sellers everywhere. Some are good, others are less good, but all seem to respond to an authentic curiosity on the part of a public haunted by memory and the desire to understand.

We think we know everything about the nefarious forces that shaped his destiny: his unhappy childhood, his frustrated adolescence; his artistic disappointments; his wound received on the front during World War I; his taste for spectacle, his relationship with Eva Braun, who adored him; the cult of the very death he feared; his endless hatred of Jews, whose survival enraged him--each and every phase of his official and private life has found its chroniclers, its biographers.

The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people--not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy. Did they not see the hateful mask that covered his face? Did they not divine the catastrophe he bore within himself?

It was enough to read Mein Kampf, written in prison: to become, once again, a global superpower, capable of reconquering lost territory and others as well.

And the free world let it happen.

His kingdom collapsed after 12 years in a war that remains the most atrocious, the most brutal and the deadliest in history. But which, by the same token, allowed several large figures to emerge. Their names have become legendary: Eisenhower, De Gaulle, Montgomery, Zhukov, Patton...

But when later we evoke the 20th century, among the first names that will surge to mind will be that of a fanatic with a mustache who thought to reign by selling the soul of his people to the thousand demons of hate and of death.

സുഭാഷിതം

ശക്തന്റെ തേര് ഉരുണ്ട വീഥികളിലൂടെ ആളൊഴിഞ്ഞ വെളുപ്പാങ്കലങ്ങളില്‍ "ഡൊ-ഡൊ-ഡൊ" ശബ്ദം മുഴക്കി ഞാന്‍ എന്റെ ബുള്ളെറ്റ് സ്റ്റാര്‍ട്ട്‌ ആക്കി പോകുമ്പോളൊക്കെ മനസ്സില്‍ തോന്നുന്ന ഒരു കാര്യം ഉണ്ട്.

മാളുകളും മള്‍ടിപ്ലെക്സുകളും  തിക്കും തിരക്കും, പിന്നെ പണ്ട് നമ്മുടെ മോഹന്‍ തോമസ്‌ പറഞ്ഞത് പോലെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറും ബ്ലുചിപ്പും കൊണ്ട് കളിക്കുന്ന കൊച്ചി തൊട്ടുള്ള നഗരങ്ങളെക്കാള്‍ എനിക്കിഷ്ടം പൂരത്തിന്ടെ ആവേശമുള്ള ആനപ്രേമികള്‍ തിങ്ങിപാര്‍ക്കുന്ന പാണ്ടിയും പഞ്ചാരിയും മുഴക്കുന്ന വടക്കുംനാഥന്റെ ആചാരവെടി കേട്ട് ഉണരുന്ന ഞാന്‍ സ്നേഹിക്കുന്നതിനേക്കാള്‍ എന്നെ സ്നേഹിക്കുന്ന ഞാന്‍ അറിയുന്നതിനേക്കാള്‍ എന്നെ അറിയുന്ന ശക്തന്‍ ഭരിച്ച വടക്കുംനാഥന്റെ ഈ മണ്ണാണ്....എന്റെ തൃശ്ശൂർ...

കഷ്ടിച്ച് രണ്ടര മാസങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് മുന്നെ ജോലി കഴിഞ്ഞു എറണാകുളത്തുനിന്നും വീട്ടിലേക്ക് വരും വഴി പറ്റിയ ഒരു അപകടത്തെ തുടര്‍ന്ന് പണിക്കു കയറ്റിയ എൻ്റെ ബുള്ളറ്റ് ഇന്നാണ് ഞാന്‍ പിന്നെ കാണുന്നത്. അവന്റെ രൂപത്തില്‍ ചില്ലറ മാറ്റങ്ങളൊക്കെ വന്നിട്ടുണ്ട്. രണ്ടര മാസങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ശേഷം എന്നെ എന്നും ആവേശം കൊള്ളിച്ച  അവൻ്റെ ശബ്ദവും ഞാന്‍ ഇന്ന് കേട്ടു. 

ജീവന്‍ എന്ന് പറയുന്നത് മരണ  സമയത്ത് ശരീരത്തില്‍ നിന്നും പോകുന്ന ആ എന്തോ ഒന്ന് മാത്രമല്ല. ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കുമ്പോള്‍ നമ്മളെ നമ്മളായി മനസിലാക്കി ഒപ്പം നില്‍ക്കുന്ന ചുരുക്കം ചില ബന്ധങ്ങളിലെക്കും വ്യാപിച്ചു നില്‍ക്കുന്ന ഒന്നാണ്. അതു ചിലപ്പോള്‍ പേശികളാല്‍ നിര്‍മിക്കപെട്ട ഹൃദയമുള്ള മനുഷ്യരാകാം. മറ്റുചിലപ്പോള്‍ വാര്‍പ്പിരുമ്പില്‍ പണിഞ്ഞെടുത്ത  ഹൃദയമുള്ള  എന്റെ ബുള്ളെറ്റ് ആകാം.

ആ വീഥികള്‍ കാതിരുക്കും പോല്ലേ എനിക്ക് ചിലപ്പോള്‍ തോന്നാറുണ്ട്. എന്നെ തണുപ്പ് അണിയിക്കാന്‍ പറ്റാതെ നിരാശനായി മടങ്ങി പോകേണ്ടി വരുന്ന ആ വെളുപ്പന്കാലവും കാത്തിരിക്കുന്നതായി എനിക്ക് തോന്നാറുണ്ട്. പരുക്കില്‍ നിന്നും എഴുനേല്‍ക്കാന്‍ എനിക്ക് പ്രജോതനമേകുന്ന കാരണങ്ങള്‍ അനവധിയാണ്...

Mourning the death of hand writing..

I can't remember how to write a capital Z in cursive. The rest of my letters are shaky and stiff, my words slanted in all directions. It's not for lack of trying. I am a member of Gen Y, the generation that shunned cursive. And now there is a group coming after me, a boom of tech-savvy children who don't remember life before the Internet and who text-message nearly as much as they talk. They have even less need for good penmanship. We are witnessing the death of handwriting.

I think, it’s the people born after 1980 tend to have a distinctive style of handwriting: a little bit sloppy, a little bit childish and almost never in cursive. The knee-jerk explanation is that computers are responsible for our increasingly illegible scrawl. Today schoolchildren typically learn print in kindergarten, cursive in third grade. But they don't master either one. Over the decades, daily handwriting lessons are decreasing.

Handwriting has never been a static art. I remember we all were excited about the cursive form of writing when we started learning it. But the story ended once we left the classroom. we all go back to sloppy letters and squished words. Handwriting is becoming a lost art.

Why? Technology is only part of the reason. The cause of the decline in handwriting may lie not so much in computers.In schools today, they're teaching to the tests. If something isn't on a test, it's viewed as a luxury. It's getting harder and harder to balance what's on the test with the rest of what children need to know. Reading is on there, but handwriting isn't, so it's not as important. In other words, schools don't care how a child holds her pencil as long as she can read.

Is that such a bad thing? Except for physicians — whose illegible handwriting on charts and prescription pads causes thousands of deaths a year — penmanship has almost no bearing on job performance. And aside from the occasional grocery list or Post-it note, most adults write very little by hand. But with the declining emphasis in schools, neatness is becoming a rarity.I worry that cursive will go the way of Latin and that eventually we won't be able to read it.

I am not bothered by the fact that I will never have beautiful handwriting. We are living in the age of social networks and frenzied conversation, composing more e-mails, texting more messages and keeping in touch with more people than ever before. Maybe this is the trade-off. We've given up beauty for speed, artistry for efficiency. And yes, maybe we are a little bit lazy.

Revenge

“Last night I had a revelation

Somehow I have to make you pay

It's all about manipulation

And what it takes to get my way

I don't believe in soft solutions

No one makes a fool of me

Without receiving retribution

No one hurts me and goes free

I'll play on your fears, I'll leave you in tears

You'll never be the same, my friend

You're walking a line, it's a matter of time

You'll never rest easy again

I've got the power to bring you down

I've heard it said, to err is human

It's forgiveness that's divine

I thought about forgiving you, but

I want revenge, I want what's mine

I think it's time to settle scores now

It's time to set the record straight

You'll know it's coming, you won't know how

Or when, you'll have to watch and wait

I'll play on your fears, I'll leave you in tears

You'll never be the same, my friend

You're walking a line, it's a matter of time

You'll never rest easy again

I've got the power to bring you down

You know, it feels intoxicating

To be intimidating

It's invigorating

To see you shaking

I've got the power to bring you down

You know something, you see it coming,

You know I will stop at nothing.”

**********

At times… more frequent these days, my view of friendship is taking a different angle. Friends are good. They are like angels. But angels give fire less hot than that your enemies give. Enemies are not always the “eye-for-an-eye” type. Friends are angels in a good life. But enemies motivate to attain that good life.

Living a good life and having a smile one the face is the best and the most diplomatic of all forms of revenge I believe in for those who meet the standard to be your opponent. And IGNORE those who fail to rise up to you for a duel. Never waste time on them. Because time is what life is made up of.

Heaven is on earth when you melt the rendering of your revenge to a beautiful way of living. No bullshit!! No bloodshed!! Simple and easy living.

Choorakkattukara Sree Durga Temple

Choorakkattukara Durga Temple is one of the most relevant among the 108 Durga Temples.  It is also one among the ancient temples under the Cochin Devaswom Board.

Choorakkattukara- a beautiful village lying on the foot of Vilangan hill; aside the Thrissur-Kunnamkulam highway; towards the north-west direction of Thrissur town and 7 kilometers away from Sree Vadakkumnadhan Temple. Choorakkattukara Durga Temple is contained in this candid village.

The soil here was beatified by the rituals and offerings that various sages tens of centuries ago. As time rolled on this land also had to pass through a period of discomfiture. This land was covered, rather formed into a thick rattan forest. Thus was derived the name Choorakkattukara; meaning – Land of rattan forest. Time rolled again, this time to bring back the glory which Choorakkattukara once lost when the then head of Appat family recognized an animus in a stone in the rattan forest. Several scholars where called upon who in their meditation filtered the truth that the stone was a “Swayambhu Shila”. For all the world an animus of AadiParashakthi. Here Devi has the facet of Mahishasuramardhini. Devi is a VANA DURGA, who directly feels the seasons of the nature. Hence a roofless sanctum sanctorum was constructed for Devi. That structure was marked to be the home, home base and base for Devi, to which timely alterations and modifications were made and the result being the present day temple.

Devi emits a motherly warmth and affection to all her devotees, her children. She brings forth hope and strength to her children having a tough ride in life like a mother who prevents her child from falling down. Centuries becomes mere days when history and this land start speaking their experiences, strength they got from this Mother Goddess.

I was not lucky enough to have those stories lying with my head resting on my dearest Grandma’s lap with her fingers moving through my hair and the other hand patting me forcing gently to drift me to sleep helping see those visuals in color in a dream that came from nowhere to continue the narration that led me to sleep. Still I must say I was lucky to have a Mother in whom I see that Mother Goddess herself who was destined to pull us towards Choorakkottukavilamma through her.

Above all, I bow before this Mother Goddess for granting me a life to take birth in the legendary Appat family which marks a legacy older than four centuries with the history of this temple. 

Humans hope after believing each other. To step an act to overcome a hope they need to circumambulate an energy.  Yes!! An energy that is neither created nor destroyed as we were all thought in school. Let us call it God. Let it be in any form. Like for us it is our Choorakkottukaavilamma. 

Pontianak

Night wasn’t all that young when I switched myself to the sleeping mode that night. It was that shaky silence which made me mark the age of the night. Young nights are always noisy and a synonym for celebration. Suddenly, like a pin poked into an inflated balloon, the yowl of two or more cats just outside, beneath my bedroom window broke down that fragile castle of silence.

First thing what the cats reminded me was Shah Rukh Khan  when he said “mujhe jungli billiyan bahut pasand hai”, meaning; I love wild cats in the movie Don. And what came second in queue was the story or a myth of this Equator city, Pontianak. Pontianak has got a history that is related with how it got its name.

THE STORY

The Pontianak is the female vampire- even more fearsome then your ordinary western vampire- of Asian origin. She's believed to be the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. She relishes all types of blood, but the blood of a newborn is supposed to be the most preferred blood. She kills pregnant women and eats the fetus. There is no known way of killing this vile creature, but to stop it, one must drive a nail into its neck-the creature will change back to the woman it once was - or one must disrobe. But to do such a thing, the person must posses an ugly body. It's said that the Pontianak is fearful of sharp objects. It's also said that if one were to tie a red thread from a banana tree (the Pontianak's home) to the foot of the person's bed, the Pontianak would have to do the person's bidding, trapped.

Even I was told by my friends here that, on Thursday nights the cats be comes violent and start yowling and that’s when the cats see the vampire and all that stuffs. What I felt interesting was that at least some people believed these stories seriously. They may have their own reasons to believe that.

It is ironic if my colleagues find me calling this city a ‘cute little city’. That’s because I feel it only when I sit at home and think of it. This city, to an extent, stifles me...mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Can’t exactly nick name it with the dear name of homesickness. But neither can’t I ignore the fact that that name has its silhouette cast slightly over those mixed feelings. It has its own beliefs, tradition, heritage and culture. Most important of all they still remain unadulterated and intact with no ingredients added to taste or look better. This can be found in style of festivals they conduct. Especially the Chinese festivals. Pontianak has a Chinese sharing a major portion of its total population.

It’s a fact!! I feel alive only when I’m in my darling Thrissur. I feel myself breathing joyously when I inhale the air of Thrissur. I feel the warmth of staying alive when I get that hug from my mother. I feel my heartbeat to be normal when my heart synchs its beats with the THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP of my Bullet. Childish!!! I know. But I have promised not to lie in my Aphorisms. Whatever is here is true.

But all these never pulled me back from lengthening my friends list. I think that’s easier than making enemies. That’s something what I suggest for a healthy mind. And Pontianak did give me some good friendship.

The Script

Reading is always a killer effort for me. The only thing which I would enjoy reading was the sports column of The Hindu newspaper that contains the India’s victory in Cricket. I love stories like anyone else. But more that reading it to know it I would prefer watching it. I would enjoy it better when that story is rendered on a screen or on a stage.

More than the story, what I felt that makes it more presentable depends too much on the way it is told. And that is what I can call a gift. Lucky are those guys whose mind is set out free to gallop on the ocean of grass stretching from horizon to horizon, farther that they can reach and above them the beautiful sky, larger than they imagine. Where there are no borders or boundaries for imagination. The angle they choose to view and the words they utter to describe something which we might haven’t even seen.

Excavating the art in what they see not as a source of living rather being swallowed by that flame of creation for the pure but eternal joy. A story telling is not just that art of imagination. It is definitely a collection of similar minds. A good pool of people who are granted with “multiple layers of thoughts”…that’s how I would like to describe a group of that kind.

So when these people join hands there art is rendered. A cinema comes to life or sometime a drama comes down from the heaven of imagination onto a stage. But still, something that wonders me is that why are movie scripts not considered as a form of literature. That’s something unfair. Spielberg’s, Padmarajan’s, Bharathan’s, Ranjith’s, Ram Gopal Varma’s scripts and screenplay, are not at all connected to literature?

But I strongly believe movie scripts are also to be a vital part of the literature world. There was one habit that recently developed in me since I watched the movie Inception. I had this movie in my personal collection long before I was in a mood to watch it. But an ambience was something that was happened instantaneously when I got to read the entire script of movie first. Well, a new habit. Reading the entire script first and then watch the movie if and only if that script succeeds to convince you. Strange!!! Isn’t it?? Because now a days even the actors might not be reading the script. But it’s still applied with conditions. You can’t get all the scripts of the movies you intend to watch. So if the script is available then that comes in the first place.

It surely is enjoyable. I think one should try it out that way to get the clear plot of how all a story have travelled from an idea and then adding characters, conversations, lights, location, music and all…its sheer brilliance!!! Nothing else.

A script was always been a dream for me. Not to film it, but simply for a private satisfaction. But no idea if that wish will blossom some day or not. Nevertheless, I got a new habit... Reading… I’m happy with that.

Cap Go Meh

Cap Go Meh

Mervin

What a day!!! Mervin, my colleague, the local boy who was born and bought up in this small Equator city in the West of Kalimantan an island province of Indonesia, is the man of the day. He is the one who took me deeper into the relics of this city particularly about the Chinese tradition to which i was newly introduced.
It was yesterday night, while i was on voice chat with Amma my phone squeaked by Mervin's text which said that tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the Cap Go Meh. 

Cap Go Meh (pronounced as 'Chap Goh Meh') represents the 15th day and last day of the festive Chinese New Year for migrant ethnic communities of Chinese living outside China .Very colorful, very loud, lot of energy. at times i felt even the sun gained a hell lot of energy watching this and giving out some extra heat in return. Above all it was a vibrant feast for my canon too.

There were around 8 - 10 dragons and around 15-20 people to dance the dragon to on its way to chase the dragon ball. Like all festivals their presence of color, especially red, was spread all over.

Touched you!!!

Even after hours after the event the bang of the drums and the cheers of the crowd and the sound of strong footsteps of the dragon-dancers are still not able to escape from my ears. Even though not as much as my own Thrissur Pooram, Cap Go Meh also gave me a great time.

With a Dragon dancer

I do not agree to the statement someone made that festivals are petty superstition of the tribal era which is blindly conducted perhaps repeated in the present day. But I find the role of festivals from a different angle. Festivals are one among the various essentials in a society to sustain and its culture and tradition as generations moves on. Apart from all these something which I have experienced is the pride that I come from a village or city or state or province or country which is famous for a particular festival. I have boasted many times about my Thrissur Pooram with all the details known to me. I’m just proud of it…

Anyways it was a memorable day…Once again...Thanks to Mervin.

A diary entry of a ‘Shattered Me’….

1st July, 2011

2200hrs

Blinking eyes has become a fear for me for the past few days. Every time my eyes finds darkness there starts the slideshow of all that I’m trying to get rid of. May be the diabolic force in me is taking control over things these days. I may run out of the positive energy stuffed in me.

I’m afraid…am I becoming an Al Pacino in the movie Insomnia. A character who starts losing his focus and mental stability due to lack of a sound sleep…am I becoming someone like that? I doubt…I seriously do..

Being alone is not a fear for me. But being trapped and unable to get into and mend my own problems is a torture. I know I need to live it through. And in the end I’ll be the one standing tall, victorious… But in that course I will have loses, which is meant for this life alone. Sacrificing them all means I’m betraying myself…which then makes that look like a victory to the world alone. For me, I will the biggest loser I have ever come across.

Uncertainties…dilemma…all are part of the game. It’s not a fact that’s present in my personality. I have moved breaking the uncertainties. But this time…I don’t know what I’m thinking; doing or speaking is right or wrong. Moreover, being misunderstood is a mightier ache at heart.

May be its just because, like what I mentioned before, as I’m running out of my positive energy. Could be… But, I’m shattered…thoroughly… That’s all what I’m clear of at this point of time.

Let Time take control over the game…I’ll step aside until it’s time for the presentation ceremony…

Think!!!

Two points that I got stuck upon whilst a general reading on the facts about the human brain:

     - The slowest speed information travels in the brain is 260 mph, faster than the fastest-recorded supercar’s top speed of 253 mph

         - An estimated 70,000 thoughts are produced by the brain on an average day.

YES!! We have a terrifically designed organ that can perform unbelievable pace and accuracy when trained and determined. As far as my knowledge on knowledge, there are no such barriers or differentiation as like the brilliant and the dumb-head as most or some of us were identified back in school days.

I was always attracted to the spiritual discourses of the Sanyasin’s of the Chinmaya and the Ramakrishna Missions during my school days and even now. Those were the days when an idea of writing such an article began to hatch within me. All may not accept, but this is just an act of expression of what I felt about the real us.

In several discourses on the Indian culture and tradition I have heard that the various Upanishads and Vedas scripted by the Sages after a long meditation that may last for a week or a month or even more. This is the proof that I would put forward that we all are “equally” pre-programmed robots. I “believe” that all the humans born on this planet with a normally working brain can perform, create or think of anything that the guy next to you can perform.

“Genius” is not a class. It is all of us. Knowledge is the result of a chain reaction of a deep thought. Let me explain.

You may notice a tiny ant moving across your laptop or your desktop screen. You can have normally two kinds of reactions seeing this. As mostly you may blow it away or press it to the screen with one of your fingers and rub it to the edge of the monitor and continue your job. But for a moment if you watch that tiny little insect you may come to realize that the fraction of life or soul can be the same that tiny thing moving across you screen and yourself and even in a mighty elephant. This route of thought is also capable enough to reach you to the destination were you can transform your so far knowledge of death from a different angle. Imagine where that ant moving on your screen took you to.

It may not happen everywhere. It begins at that gifted moment where you stop to think and use your brain. Use your brain!!! I’ve heard that a countless number of times during the school days. I yet don’t understand the logic behind mugging up what the poet thought in a particular situation. These are situations that kill the creativity within a pupil. Who cares if what the poet thought or what kind of a turn in life that made him to jot that poem. All are busy chasing the poet’s thought. There are seldom teachers who cared to explain their students how beautifully the words like pearl are laced to the thoughts of that poet and there by inspire at least one in that classroom to create something even better than what he/she taught them. All the teacher needs to perform is just to ignite that thought which can happen in a fraction of a second.

A spark of a thought wouldn’t take ages to burn up and show light to the world. That spark is there within us and the cause is there around us. As I said we are all pre-programmed robots. A weird route of my thought makes me believe that a taste of a person in some subject, it can be art or science or anything, which is left unexpressed throughout his life shall be inherited to the life they give birth to.  That could be why some of them claim proudly that “it’s there in my blood...!”

There are brilliant untrained singers around us who can perform even better than the professionals. Music and the notes could be there in their blood. But from birth we travel on a road paved by the ideas of someone who lived and died centuries before our great grandfathers. No one stops to think. Now the most common thought process happening is what status I should put on my facebook wall to attract more like and comments. That too is readily available now on sites dedicated for the status and wall posts alone.

There are several places on earth where the God chose his children to take birth. But we come from a country where God himself chose to take birth...that too not just once. There are records that prove that even Jesus Christ had spent almost a decade in our country after which he preached his important teachings. We come from a land where the knowledge enlightened itself through simple process of thoughts. Think!!!

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.