Nanbenda!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

That’s the kinda friendship that I always sought after! Too few but too close. The kind I have always had. There was always accusations I am so unfriendly and hoarse to people. And the things were that way for the great majority of time in life. The twist in the story comes at this phase of life, where I am in college and face extreme loneliness. And at this point, when the attitude gets questioned, it’s almost like I just yield to all the accusations. Blame my attitude! I haven’t ever been too friendly, too nice or too cool. But nor too sour nor too bad. Something might have still been wrong with me or the rest of the world then. I’d rather choose its me! Easier to explain one person’s abnormality than with the entire world. Other than the random comments about my ‘not-like-the-name’ attitude, I have never had such a clear description about me!

There was this guy in train with me yesterday. A childhood friend. We used to go to the same after school creche, attend the same music class and so many other kids’events. I saw him first there. But he was with friends and I didn’t want to bother him, with an ages old companionship story. But in a while, he spotted me and wondered why I never took an initiative all the while. I openly said the reason. And then, we traveled together for the rest of the journey. Half way thru, he wonders why am I so much in a ‘pucham’ mode all the time! Surprised as I am to be, I wondered what could possibly trigger such a question. He clarified, that there’s never any faint expression of excitement or joy in my face. That all the 3 – 4 times that we ever met after childhood, I appeared all grim and dull to him. While actually, I was all excited about having a company for the journey!

Now arises the question! Am I more misunderstood by people around me or by myself? One of us is definitely wrong. Despite the fact that I look out for ‘nanbenda’ kinda friends, why do I look like such a moron and be the despicable one!! I am not worried about it. Just a sharing a line of thought about things that run in my mind. Hoping answer(s) to the question in comments below!

Innisai!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Music has always been this ‘thing’ to me, though I hardly sing or relate to anything musical about it. But I am still a music fanatic! I liked music all the way but the sudden passion rised in me ever since I drifted into Tamil music. Innisai! That TV programme in Kairali WE channel is what so much boosted my liking and passion for Tamil, and music in general. Back then, it was during my high school, that I got so engrossed into this awesome stream of music, and the programme was anchored by a bearded guy who talked a lot about Tamil music, authoritatively. I loved him for he said all the good things about music, and appreciated the same lines of the song as I did, and related to the same notion about each song and singer. It was a time where I had no other access to songs other than TV. Away from cousins and Malayali/Tamilian friends, with no internet, my only source was at 4pm every Fridays. And the compromises I had to comply with my little sister, to get that time slot with TV!

Over time, things have changed. A lot about music. A lot about the sources to new songs. I no longer watch Sun Music for latest Tamil songs. There was a time I used to wait for them to stop their lecture and play the song. But now, when everything’s just a click away, I am missing more than what I did long back. I have no clue about latest releases, let alone songs/singers/lyricists/composers! And things hit me real hard yesterday in the theatre when I realised what I’ve been missing all the way. Such a famous movie, such famous composers. And yet I hadn’t bothered to click on a download link. What all awesome music might have I already missed in this pointless rush of the moribund routine! If not for the movie, I would have just never heard this song that I so fell in love with. Already heard it a hundred times, in less than a day’s time!

Soon back with a bunch of songs that touched, changed and ruled my life, from the past!

Viswaroopam!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

I go for movies with expectations. Some reviews. Some comments. Some story line. With some idea and knowing what to expect in there. But this time, I had none. I didn’t even want to go for a movie. But surprisingly, dad showed interest and no one wants to back off! So we went for Viswaroopam, the latest Kamal Haasan’s controversial Tamil endeavour. Even waiting for the ticket at the theatre, I hadn’t any thoughts about movies running in mind. May be that’s all the reason I was so mesmerised by what was in store for me, as in the movie.

The story line is pretty famous, now that the movie’s contributing to a lot of controversies. The Al-Qaeda Jihadis. The American vengence. Tit for tat. Terrorism. Osama and Bush. And all stories that get entailed with these references. The movie was unique, even when the theme is so overly filmed, exploiting patriotic sentiments. The movie stands out in the very detailing of the plot, filming things that most of might have only read in books, or not even books! The judging of the movie, its morale, and the idea it conveyed, are all serious topics to be discussed seriously. Not entering into the details, the movie offers a fantastic movie experience, exclusively by the quality in the making and rendering of it. The Sankar-Ehasan-Loy music score made two and half hours all the more pleasing. Every frame was shot so perfect, and each dialogue timed so effortless. It was totally worth being the first movie of 2013 to me!

Mom said I am abnormal for commenting that the movie was awesome. Little sister was nudging me all the while, until I finally promised to explain the plot once we get the out of the cinema. Dad couldn’t hear half the dialogues. Thanks to the theatre’s stupid sound system. I don’t think much of the viewers understood the movie as a whole. The language,and the style of filming are all contributors to the lack of reach. For someone who doesn’t get a bit of Tamil, English and situtional interpretation of dialogues, the movie would pretty much be lot of violence and stunt and incomprehensible humor. But trust me, there’s much more to the movie and the whole experience of it. Howsoever may it be to the generalia, the opening Kathak piece gotta make you spellbound, gripped to your seat! Unnai kaanathu naaningu naanillaye… Viswaroopathin ‘viswaroopam’ is to be acknowledged with an enlightened sense of acceptance to goodness and marvels in things!

Daivamundu!

~ Soumya ~ 3 Comments

All of a sudden, I say daivamundu. (God is there!) Not that I was an atheist. Not that I was disciple of any form of worship either. Was it like I was almost slipping down the cliff of agnostic thoughts? Well anyway, life has just taken me over and lifted me from the fall, with an amazing ease and splendor. Now, this moment, I am a believer. That someone is definitely watching over all the drama. I don’t pray yet. I don’t attend religious gatherings. I don’t make offerings. But I am a believer. I don’t believe in the give-and-take policy with God. God is supposed to be infinitely more supreme. When even I have the heart to help a total stranger held in trouble, wouldn’t God have the heart for it? When I don’t curse somebody for their ingratitude, why would God’s wrath may even be considered plausible? Nobody’s gonna make you ill if you forgot the 1008 thenga (coconuts) for Ganapathy! Come on, Ganapathy is not our villain. He’s the vignavinashaka (problem solver) of our lives! Why are Gods and Goddesses and all other form of deities picturised as scary, wrathful, scornful beings?

Faith is an over exploited commodity when it comes to religions and spiritual manifestations of it. You do the Navagrahahomam and the Ganapathihomam. If its breaking your financial stability, why do you still insist on the Bhagavathiseva too? Afraid that Devi would burn your life into ashes? What kinda faith is it, blindly performing the rituals, out of fear of condemn! I am not against religious rituals and activities. In fact, ever since childhood, that has always been the occasion of family gathering, lot of delicacies, lot of fun and frolic. Growing up, understanding the concept of the rituals, I am all the more approving of the nobility of the religious expressions. But things feel terribly awkward and ridiculous, when people tend to forget the fundamental idea that lead them to the initiation of such rituals.

Ah! All that seemed overboard for my scope of knowledge and experiences in such matters. Something triggered and I just couldn’t stop. Adding to the urge, the liberation of not having my parents around reading this, and prosecuting me for my spiritual ignorance, really boosted up the writing. Not to forget what I started off with, Daivamundu. But, Faith in fellow beings might speed up you revelation of it though! 🙂

The 30 day challenge!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

People are wondering what happened to the lazy blogger, now that I am aggressively blogging everyday! Well, I never mentioned the inside story. The other day, an ‘elder’ cousin of mine messages me and wonders if I’d like to take up a challenge. And before I know, I am in with the 30-day blogging challenge. I am to blog continuously for the next 30 days! How would I decline when the Editor herself comes down with a challenge!! 😛

And all these days, I stood with the challenge. But today, I am too busy. Like I always here me say these days, 24 hours seem so insufficient to me. Too much to do and too less time. Surprised, when I did I ever start ‘doing’ anything than just stare blankly at my to-do list! Looks like I finally am doing something for real. For time has come down in its vastness and infinite nature. I am cramped in tight schedules. And there’s so much to write on each one of them! Then again, where’s the time to do all these! So officially, I am to lose the challenge today, coz I don’t have time for blog tonight. Compiler design assignment waits for my graceful hands to let it out of the yearning to be done!

P.S. I won today too, making the post all the more ironic. 🙂

Sudden death!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Again I clarify, this post and me have nothing to do with football or sports. My blog titles are vaguely related to the actual content of the post and are easily misunderstood in the context. I seem to like it very much personally, like one would name their kids after celebrities so as to make them popular or on the hope that atleast the kids would reach great heights, for the ‘namesake’ atleast. So I name my posts, for that extra response to it.

Now here, the sudden death is actually about the real death, that may happen any time, almost very suddenly! And that’s mostly gonna be an accident that’s brought upon all by myself. Something needs to be done before I fill the orbituary column, with a sudden death. Somebody do something about cancelling my driver’s license. I am not yet done living. Nor learning diving.

English Vinglish!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Why do I do this? I so much dislike this practice of mine, where I use movie names as my blog titles! Why do I do this then? To increase the blog hit over search engine redirections? I don’t think I even knew of such a thing, until recently. May be it’s my simple liking for the movie? What about this particular one then? I’ve not seen ‘English Vinglish’! So may be, my affinity to movie titles may simply be as they somehow can be viewed associated to the actual things that happen around.

I am a Tamilian by birth. Brought up as a Malayali, often. Educated in English medium. Obviously, suggesting that I am pretty fluent in the three languages. Of course, there’s Hindi. And Sanskrit. And Kannada. Languages that I was exposed to, at various points of life, but could never gain enough fluency in. Language is just a medium to communicate. Conveying your thoughts to someone else, who might be interested, is the whole point. And the choice on the medium of communication,i.e. language, is often made based on the comfort levels of the involved parties, unless there’s a situational specification to it. But in the current scenario ‘here’, what we see is a totally stupid and twisted English drama! Like English is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to humanity! English is a good language. Awesome I must say, considering the ease of conveying intense emotions in simple words. Most of us would find it too much better and relieving to yell and shout at somebody in English, than in our own mothertongue. Coz it feels less intense and rude.You’d want to propose to someone in English, coz that takes away a good portion of the embarrassment. You’d want to dial up a Home Delivery service or go to a Customer Care Centre and talk in English, coz that’d keep the conversation shorter and crispier. And trust me, things get done easier and sooner, when you accentuate your tone!

But beyond all this, at some point all you wanna hear and cherish is your own language, in which you uttered your first words to the world. And definitely, from some people, you can’t even think of hearing any other tongue! That mishap was today! When someone screamed at the top of their voice, But is it lighting??”. For the record, that was a concern about the tube light. I didn’t want to laugh. It was not as funny as it was pitiful. Why do people put so much effort in mastering a language like it’s the end of the world! English Vinglish bina kya life! Indeed.

Maktub!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

There’s this thing I always wanted so much to convey to people. Have you seen these ‘spiritual’ serials, which is shot so absurd and ridiculous? Or at least the film My Friend Ganesh 3? In the movie, there’s a scene where in a forest, a tiger is about to attack a group of rabbits or deer. And you see that Lord Ganesh himself glides over them, and saves the innocent creatures from the ferocious tiger. It got terrified and stopped abruptly, and gently escaped the scene, without even turning behind at the Lord. How fair does that seem now!! The Lord himself created both the species of creatures, and both were synced to the agreement of coexistence. The tiger was simply trying to gobble its lunch! How could they probably call it wrong of it!

When all people in the world have their own list of right and wrong and circles of existence, how can there exist a god who meddles in between on his own screen play? What’s right here and who’s defining the righteousness? I often go there, and be there at that point where you find it stupid! To worry and lament about things that already happened or that are scheduled to happen! What’s the point worrying about all this, when its all written? Maktub – it’s all written! There’s nothing so fair anyway.

Kalyanamelam!

~ Soumya ~ 3 Comments

So marriage season again in the family!!! In less than a year’s gap after the last marriage, the next kalyanamelam is up in the family! Oh my god!!! I am so excited about this next big thing in the family. But as much as it, I am tensed and worried. Who’s gonna be next in line? Nah, not immediately ME. I have still people to lead me in the line. From the infinite seeming line of cousins yet-to-be-hitched, we have now reduced to 3 or 4! And that’s scary coz everything seems so quick and out of anyone’s control. It’s not particularly about getting married or not getting married. Its about how life changes after every such twists in story. We were all cousins, friends who played along, confidants to eachother, casual and light headed. But as I have seen it always, and what marriage does to a person, it is like losing someone too close to someone else, who you hardly know! Shouldn’t it be rather like a new person is getting in the train with us and that we all might make the journey more wonderful? So it should be. Its not like marriage breaks a family. Its just that things never stay the same. At times, we improve with life and get better with relations. But at tmes, it’s not an improved life that we all seek. Or so with me, I often cherish life as it was, before we all grew up to ‘marry-able’ age, and when we were just there for eachother, by a sense of oneness that seeped in, in each of us, ever since birh, all into the childhood. And at the onset of adulthood, I wonder if ‘manni’ (sister in law) could be as loving as ‘akka’ (sister) or if ‘athimber’ (brother in law) could be as caring as ‘anna'(brother)!

This is not a post script. Just a note I add, to clarify my seemingly twisted writing. I have a manni who has been more loving than any akka. And an athimber whom I’d feel so safe with as my anna. I wasn’t comparing. Nor complaining. Just getting settled with the idea of one more marriage, and losing one more from the ‘children’ group of the family into the responsible and serious adult club!

Janaganamana!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

The national anthem of our country India is Janaganamana…, contributed to the nation by Rabindranath Tagore. Its sung at almost all occasions of public gathering, as the dispersal siren. And on all National days, like today the Republic day, and so many other similar days. It is composed to be sung taking 52 seconds, not running too fast with the tempo, nor too dragging. It’s an element of reverence that we pay to the country, at all social instances, by standing upright, at attention, without moving about for that 52 seconds, singing along with pride and respect. Disrespect to it is considered a serious offence against the country’s integrity.

See! I know a lot of stuff about our national anthem. I could go on to write a more detailed essay on that, like we all would have in high school. But to my greatest private embarrassment and shock, this morning, I realised I’ve forgotten the National Anthem! Half way thru the recital of it, after the flag hoisting at mom’s office, I was privately feeling dumb. How could I just forget the lines and be so blank! I used to sing it twice everyday for a great majority of time in my life. For some long 12 years of schooling, my days started/ended with this very same tune! So now when I think, when was the last time I ever sang the anthem? Can’t connect too many loose ends and relate to any specific occasion. Wasit back then at school, during one of those final morning assemblies?

Its disturbing. I can’t identify the things I lost/forgot. This should be what they euphemistically address as metamorphosis. May be this is just a phase. And this too shall pass. But nonetheless, it continues to disturb. What all am I actually missing in this process of growth and living this up! The anthem. I compensated by playing it over and over in my brain; rewind and replay! Will all things be this easy to redeem? Obviously. 🙂