Love-3

It was almost ten summers they have met, they still remember the first summer they spent together. Both of them felt that summers have gone bitter since then. It is probably the only thing they will agree now. Both have tried their best to get over that summer in their own furtive ways. A decade of bitterness and distance seemed to fall short to wash off their first touches. It pained now to the level it soothed then but they have moved on in their lives, better to say in their careers, trying to forget the little life has offered to them. Love is hard to pursue, even harder than to forget. This must have given both of them some respite, they were in the easiest of the two most difficult worlds. Everything changes once you touch the fire, pure and white fire.

She was not very sure why she decided to meet him, she even called him but cannot utter a word as she sensed the same bitterness in his voice. She didn't want to open up old wounds, also deep in her little heart she dread that some may heal too fast, the last bit of him may disappear. She doesn't want to look back at that summer too, for she is almost bored by doing so. The same situation, the same analysis, the same conclusion, the same insult, the same guilt.

When he called her, it was not for sake of curtsey or something to level things up, its because he still loved her, although he in this lifetime will not agree to it because his heart doesn't say that anymore with enough force. With time the loudness of love decreases but frequency increases. It just cuts you mildly but vitally.

The day after the meeting, they both decided never to do that stupidity again and not to hinder their sole goal of moving on and out of it. But that night they realized that nobody is perfect and love is not about finding and expecting perfection. Probably imperfections keeping it going. Perfection and any attempt to be so spoils everything. They both talked little, rather very little, just searched their little corners in each others hearts, trying to see if even their frequency of pain resonate or not. There were very conscious efforts to avoid any eye contact, leave alone the contacts. It was painful for both of them. Seemed those two hours just refused to past. It is more painful sitting near a dying dog than a dead one. You wish he could die soon, stop clinging to life. There is nothing horrible than the sights of dying lives.

With so much of memories in her big bold eyes, he expected that she will at least weep alone in her home, just to wash everything away. This may be the only thing that their love deserve now. She did weep the whole night and expected he will call her to say the last bye, the last words. He never called her since. They never met since then. They both moved to pursue their goals, also trying to find some easier relationship, although not that deeply felt. Something mild should do.

So Sweet !

Be quiet when I am talking to you, her eyes said that
see me when I am listening to you, her eyes saw mine

Hold my hands when I am walking with you, we walked
close your eyes when you kiss me, its all fine

Don't see that, don't speak this, she spoke lightly
don't touch this, don't hear that, said all in a line

Be with me as no one was, see me as no one has,
I was no one in a moment, was it just another sign

Love must be tender, touches sweet, she silkily rustled
Whispers of warmth or shrills of distance, must I resign.

Cabiria

Dancing with bent knees, she realized she could have done better
Keeping her pain to herself, she felt she could have gone wetter

Days and nights may loose limits, weeks may pass like this
Time goes by, all she dreamt is to be burnt by a kiss

A flash of light, a peck on the cheek is what you may give
But how long it will last and how long you will live

Full submission is loss and no one will love to lose
Who dare show commitment and let him open to abuse

She wants the things that people usually trade for money
She dreams she could find someone, but its not too sunny

She deserves nothing as her demands are insanely high
She needs to learn to live in a world of hi and bye !

In Vain

The senselessness of being numb, numb to highly incisive personal pains and laughing to the pleasures that don't belong to you, keeping eyes, as they are seeing the world that has tormented you for long, not touching the torment a bit, always trying to get into the darkness of shivering bodies, never able to get into the shiver, catching up with the race of being and losing the sense of being, always flirting with life, never making love to it passionately, always searching for an illusive silver lining, never the enormous cloud, searching something to be happy about, to smile at, to open your heart with, to smell the flowers of past, to dream about the ones that will never bloom !

Yasujiro Ozu

I entered the world of Ozu this week. His world is like my world and your world, ordinary people, daily-life, same suffering and same everyday sadness. Like Fassbinder, Ozu is blamed many a times for repeating the themes and even the same stories. He actually made a remake of his own film since he liked the idea too much. Ozu is also blamed to be a minimalist, which is again very disturbing as Ozu's art is very detailed and very complicated if anyone has the right senses. In a very prolific career, Ozu made some 54 films (only 36 of them exist today), out of them lots were in silent era and he was torchbearer of silent cinema till late 40s and all this love for images and the composition of rich frames shows in his talkies too.


Although the pet theme of Ozu's Cinema is about family life, he himself never got married. Also Ozu is not much interested in plot details, most of plot details are not shown directly but through some references, most of the screen time is reserved for 'greater good'. The most celebrated masterpiece of Ozu's career is a movie called Tokyo Story which invariably figures in top 10 lists of critics across the globe. Tokyo story is the only Ozu Movie I have seen, and which had a great impact on me and all the recognition received by this movie is deserved to the last decimal place. I will write about this movie in detail later but for now I will continue about Ozu and some of the observations that I gained by watching the masterpiece.

The popularity of Ozu's work in Japan is well known; it came to the wider world audience as late as 70s. Other notion about Ozu's work was that they are too Japanese, that is as baseless as saying Bergman's work is only for philosophers as it is too philosophical. Any work of art ought to have the smell of region where it comes from, isn't Ray's work talk about Bengali sensibilities. It is more beautiful and soulful that way. One more thing that make Ozu's work very dear and approachable are the themes they deal with, if you are living you are sure to have experienced them, and Ozu handles these seemingly simple situations and plots with soft yet incisive acumen, never going melodramatic but always baring the right emotion and hitting the most fragile nerve with remarkable insight to it. And then there is camera-work, which is done with very small tripods to give a low angle and full view of the scene as characters move in haze-maze of Japanese houses, the compositions are like frame into frame into frame, very theatrical. The images of contrasts show the ever widening generation gaps, the visual of ordinary countryside juxtaposed with fuming chimneys of Tokyo. But all this cannot work if there is nothing that touch the heart in a true sense, not that we are looking for any emotional extravaganza or any commandments on morality, or for the matter, any commentary on society. Ozu's cinema is a cinema of change and the people and how people cope with it and can they ever cope up with this race.

Here Ozu seems like a soft pessimist, not complaining, not rationalizing, not moralizing and not even creating any bias or fake-sympathy. Ozu just looks at people sufferings in this world and shows it with no pretensions, with aloofness, with a sense of certainty those things and people change and how nothing is as pretty as it seems. With all the loneliness, goodness and evil in society, we are sure to fall on every side of it, its inevitable, we will simply succumb to it. Although Ozu's work revolves around families and social rules and the common man trapped in them, they make a big statement against them, all this commonsense pragmatism and worldly-wise wisdom is ridiculed in the simplest of ways. The art of Ozu is smooth, deeply pensive, devastatingly incisive and over all universally true. Ozu is must-dope for any cinephile. Go enter the world of Ozu and meet yourself.

Alma Speaks...

Its the closing monologue by 'Alma' in Bergman's Hour of the Wolf. Its simple and sensitive. I really liked it. Here she directly talks to the audience and asks some questions.

Well, there is one thing I've wondered. Are you in a hurry...? I'd like to ask you something. Its like this. Isn't it true that when a woman has lived a long time with a man, isn't it true she finally becomes like that man ? Since she loves him and tries to think like him and see like him. They say that it can change a person. Was that's why I began to see those ghosts? or were they there anyway? I mean, if I'd loved him less and not bothered about everything there around him... could I have protected him better then ? or was it that I didn't love him enough that made me so jealous ? Was that why those 'cannibal' as he called them... was that why we came to such a grief ? I thought I was so close to him. Sometimes he said he was also close to me. One time he said it with certainty. If only I could have followed him, all the time. There is so much to keep pondering.. so many questions, sometimes I don't know which way is which, and I get completely....

A Day Dream

Last weekend I went to Bombay. There were usual beer and bakar sessions. It was sometime back that I did something, which I wanted to repeat with almost similar, if not enhanced effect. For this to duplicate, it required, above all, some friends that make my definition of drinking. Without them its not worth to get drunk or even to pose like one. For this we went to Bombay, seems stupid, but it is not so in the mildest sense. The effort is worth the hardship we faced to reach Bombay, we are inflicted with Bollywood cheapos in the bus, that too back to back, we cannot even listen to the music we carried in our iPods and Walkies. After getting to Bombay, first thing was not to waste another minute as sun started glowing and to stuff our stomachs with something heavy enough to gratify our mind that we are not hungry anymore and light enough to leave room for forthcoming rushes of chills. Once we prepared ourselves, all breathed deeply and saw the world around us, as it will not be the same.

Drinking is a pleasure as we cannot afford to do it daily. Over it, when ever we arrange these drinking session, they are all at night and we tend to amalgamate them with loud music, insensitive talks and some pelvic movements. So this effect of highness and aloneness is created out of a mixed effect, the core isn't neat, to mix it with all this, deeply undervalues the mystic powers of alcohol, and that hurts. Therefore the smart ones invented the refined art of drinking under sun and making hay. But drinking at day is an act of perseverance and for that you need a reliable and like-minded company and the sole goal of getting drunk. With no other distraction, day-light-drinking robs you of your senses slowly so that any honest drinker will not even find it out to resist . All this starts with very normal talks like what I did in my University and who is a bigger asshole, Salman or Shahrukh or where to invest in share market, and moves to more interesting topics like why we still don't have a girlfriend and I don't like my job and there is same shit everywhere and the more matured like when are you planning to get married. The rise is so deceptive that you will miss the very point that you are getting drunk.

To be drunk at afternoon is a amazing feeling, there is no worry as you can get fit for a second dip at night too. Those who haven't tried it, hurry up, take one afternoon off, get drunk, office seems like perforated enclosure and you can flatter out as a wordless humming bird. There are more benefits of drinking during day. One that comes fast to my mind is that there are no hangovers of such orgies. Other pleasure include watching sun through almost-closed eyes. Not only sun, but anything high, looks higher, when you are high. This is the best time to be with friends as nobody bothers a drunkard. Actually the best part is nothing knows exactly that others are drunk, although they all have dim perceptions but not too strong to confirm this in public. On the other hand its the worst part to be the only one in fake-senses, when every one is enjoying the lightness of heart and mind, then you tend to take the role of an over-caring mother or a over-whining girl-friend/wife, both needs to checked at any cost. Drinking at night does give us the arms of sleep in loud music but day light doesn't offer any such respite to abase or cut the highs and lows of an influenced man. A man should be allowed to take pleasure of his deeds, good or bad, that's inconsequential.

The effect of alcohol is slightly reduced by the cacophony of day and brightness of air but you hopefully wait for a good dusk of good booze. Once you get the twilight of day and night, it just reflects your state, seems to resonate with nature. This is the moment we fantasized while boarding the bus to Bombay, a perfect blend of nature with us. Such moments are rare, should be preserved in memory like a youthful rose or like lush green leaves of monsoon trees, very fresh, very lively, should be handled with care, with respect, with deep sense of pleasure of living.

Dream of being, trickling life !

Beautiful Dialogue from Bergman's Persona:

I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being--not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one.