Friday, October 16, 2009

The Care Taker.



With hot black tea,And a news paper in hand,
Sat in his veranda, the dark brown man.

Though silver his hairs,
On the head and over the bare chest were,
He tried pompously to read,

Without his glasses put on.

He turned the page.
His wrinkled eyes met with
The news of a nun raped and murdered.

He turned the page.
His saliva dried, reading the news-
Of rising commodity prices!

He turned the page.
He was not shocked from the news of

Hindu bigotry, or Islamic terror,

Only a matter of neighbourhood.

He looked at his home and smiled.

He turned the page.

The news of Kerala’s largest river drying up,
Reminded him of his half filled well.

He turned the page.
At once his eyes stuck on a scene!
A police constable stabbed to death,
By the supporters of some political party!

He prayed for his son’s safety;
Who was a police constable;
And ran to the phone,
Dialed his son’s mobile number.
Someone said, from the other side:
“The number you are calling has been switched off.
Please try later.”

The page turned...


Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Witch of Portobello: A Film Journey

Every experiment takes place as a human attempt to bring the angels of change to the barren ground of routine, the ordinary, the familiar. This is the story of an experiment. Mr. Paulo Coelho, the Latin American author,(The author of THE ALCHEMIST), through his film contest named 'THE EXPERIMENTAL WITCH Film Competition', has attempted an experiment with film making, where he himself selected the winners of the contest, identifying the film, which can stand close to his own conception of his novel, THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO.

Image Courtesy:http://www.biography.com
 It was held on August 24, 2008. In the competition, a different crew filmed each of the chapters of the novel, THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO. Out of 6,000 submissions, there were 14 winners, one for each chapter of the novel.

In the novel, the character of Athena, the protagonist, evolves through the narratives of different people; either once associated with her or knew her. Now, these fourteen films have been edited into a two-hour feature film and are premiering for the first time at the International Rome Film Festival—an experimental film first of its kind in history.

One of the readers of THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR, and my friend, writer, actor, producer, Miss. Carolena Sabah is also a part of this project. Her film had won the award for the best film, in 'THE EXPERIMENTAL WITCH Film Competition'. Her film is directed by Tadesh Daschi. The film is on the “Nabil Alaihi” chapter.

Image Courtesy: Carolena Sabah
Carolena Sabah was born, with Armenian heritage, on Aug. 15, 1974 as the second child to her mother Juliet Gevorkoff, and her father Robert Golian, in Iran, where her father was an aerospace engineer and her mother, who was a scholar of international communications, was a prominent travel guide.

Soon after Carolena and her sister Pauline's birth, her family moved out of Iran, her home country, due to the rise of fundamentalist forces in the country. The family immigrated to Greece and then to the United States. They settled in Los Angeles, California. Carolena excelled in her school activities and won many honours and awards.

In college, she was Speaker of the House, an esteemed award, graced the Dean's Honor List, was invited to be a member of the Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society, and graduated at the top of her class. She is a licensed Dental Hygienist, by profession.
 
Image Courtesy: Paulo Coelho
In 2001, she enrolled at the Stella Adler Conservatory in Hollywood as a student of the craft of Acting. Congratulations Carolena, and all the very best for the success of your new film. The premiere of the film in the International Rome Film festival will be on October 20, 2009, Tuesday at 9 pm. THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR wishes Mr. Paulo Coelho, and all the crew of this film, the very peak of success. For further details on the film, visit:
http://www.carolenasabah.com/

[For further reading on THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO go to :http://anu-lal.blogspot.com/2009/04/child-of-mother.html

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Rewarded Again.

My dear Anu,

Congrats for such a nice blog!

I have to say that I'm a bit proud of you!

Your success story should act as a motivation for other bloggers in the offing!

I am a sure you will be able to make it the mouthpiece of the emerging youth of India.

I've gone through some of the old posts and found the merit of your work. For instance, id mubarak, malabari girl, etc. reveal your gift for writing and imagining.

That radical thinking also I like.

I WILL BE A REGULAR VISITOR IN FUTURE.

WISH YOU ALL THE BEST

Prof. Josh Sreedharan

Head, Dept. of Studies in English, Kannur University, India.


Gratitude:

Thank you so much Sir,
I have no more words. I am also proud that I am a student of such a great person like you. I am overwhelmed.
Thank you so much sir.

Your student,

Anu

October 7, 2009 3:53 AM

Delete

Undoing Writer's Block.

Where was my God? I was alone and there was no God near. I couldn't write. There was only a vast void, which seemed impossible to cross. I always believed that when I reach in a state of communion with God, I write. And that was what I lacked; the meeting, the communion, the nearness; the divine sharing. God was the cause of all my writings and is; though I believe it too that God never causes anything, but allows things to happen. I know. As Richard Bach says in "Illusions", his novel, we are the ones to decide what our life should be. In the process of my writing, God becomes the fulfilling experience of my efforts of communion with that Higher Power, thus the cause. I am talking about the impetus, something that I know as true, but can't explain.

Was that a writer's block that I had these recent days, blocking me from writing anything? I don't know. Though I had done thorough studies on methods of identifi cation and solution for the writer's block, I found everything, every learned knowledge, useless. I was finally resting myself on the same steps of impetus, what I always identified as the communion with God.

There is always a second chance--a voice in my mind—I don't know, when and where this voice came into my mind. Also, I had doubts on its credibility, though it seems to be true. This sentence always haunted me and this voice always peeped through thousands of other voices, and clamours in my head; I mean in my mind. There is always a second chance!

How do I come to writing this time? Is this my second chance? It is not the word 'second'--that numerical exactness-- that matters, but it is the opportunity in a time of despair that the voice conveys. This second chance, I realised that, was from God. In India, you don't have any limit to the number of Gods, or that limit is too high somewhere. The God that stretched a link to me this time, the communion that I have experienced, is perhaps Saraswathi, from the muse, the Goddess of letters and art, through a nonsensical futility; love. The love that is nonsensical and futile, as I believed it was, can be called infatuation. The infatuation I felt towards a girl, an elegant, tall, good looking girl, who I had seen, just before a few days for the first time, in my college, is what my hint is about.

She helped me once, and that was the only thing I knew about her, except her face and stature. I was holding a glass for filling water in front of the drinking water tap, in the canteen. It was crowded. She was the one before me. After taking water for herself, she opened the tap again, for me. And that was that; she helped. There are reasons to identify that, what I felt was a simple infatuation. She was not my classmate, not my neighbour, and not someone who is known to me. But all of a sudden I have started liking her and started trying vainly to picture her face in my mind. It is a truth that for someone to be your partner, the first thing you need is to know that person well. But here in this case there is no such thing happened and so it can be concluded that it is only a streak of lightning, which in other words can be identified as 'infatuation'. She was one of those many beautiful faces which attracted me. I knew that. She was just a passing mist.

Every infatuation consists within itself endless possibilities for a transformation of feelings into a true, and divine love, I believe so. But within me all those possibilities are deactivated by some of the surrounding factors. The first factor is that in Kerala, the word "love" is something to be used carefully. Most of the people take it as an obscene word in its common use.

The second factor is the unfamiliarity existing between the girl and me. The third factor is the awareness of lacks that I have. The lack of a job, lack of money, lack of a social status, lack of a luxury bike, and so on. After all, I am still a student.

Every time, if something is repressed, it will suppress the possibility of its erasure . That is, when some feeling is suppressed, it finds an expression through some other way, sometimes through art, or sometimes through different social behaviours, etc. And thus the possibility of the death of the suppressed feeling will descend. It will take a birth in another form, and in another medium. I can't forget to express my courtesy to Sigmund Freud here.

Thus the meaning is simply this: this time, the impetus or the wind, which stirred the ripples in my mind, a god that is, is nothing but my infatuation or the suppressed love; a deluge that broke the occult wall of my 'writer's block'.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Appreciations for THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR!



Dear Anulal,
HEARTY CONGRATS ON THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! I went through your anniversary post. It's a very good read. I didn't know that you were given an award for your blogging efforts. Belated CONGRATULATIONS!

I am looking forward to your first attempt at fiction. I urge you to keep writing whatever you feel like. As we discussed in our Freud session, creativity feeds on the pleasure principle! So just ENJOY life doing what you love most!

WISH YOU ALL THE VERY BEST!
KM.




Mr.K.K. Kunhammad,

Lecturer,
Department of Studies in English Language and Literature,

Thalassery Campus,
Kannur University.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Gratitude:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------

Sir,

Thank you so much for your kind words. Your words, and advice are always a path light for me. And as I always say, I have no words to express my gratitude in its fullest extent, except to say 'thank you'. My limitation... my helplessness. I hope you would read my fiction in the coming posts and with your kind and valuable suggestions enrich my efforts.

Thank you once again.

Yours truly,

Anulal.



Monday, October 5, 2009

The October celebration.

The choice was made one year back. The choice was between being occult and becoming known. And this is a moment, a day and a month of celebrations.

Writing was always in my veins. I can recollect my first written draft. That was a short story. But I couldn't finish it. I was ten years old at that time. I feel that the same kid is rejoicing and living his dreams now, when I am writing my blog. My blog was the choice I had made. Today is the first anniversary of my blog"THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR". It was on an October, one year back, I started this journey. October 5, 2008.

My first attempt to create a blog was a success. But it failed in its contents and readership. I attempted a second time, which was out of my inner call to propagate a spiritual concept to the world. But my inability to continue and the lack of self- confidence that I felt, resulted in another demise.

After these two failures, I am still surprised, why did I hope for a victory in blogging, and how did I believe in my ability to write! I just hoped, I just believed. And thus THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR was born.

It was meant for being an observer, a commentator on things happening around; a voice of humanity, love and justice. I was (and always will be) conscious about bringing differences in each of the posts. THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR is meant not only for the serious readers, but also for people who want entertainment through reading. So everyone going through my blog, people with different tastes, all are having their tastes on the dish.

Every beginning consists of victories for those who don't quit from their path. The only thing required is the selection of the right path. This selection can be self- motivated. In my case, though the selection of path is mine own, the courage and confidence that I got to move on the chosen path was something external. Though the choices were mine, about the paths to be taken, the topics to be selected, the style to be adopted, and the genres of presentation, the self-confidence, which is the base of every choice, was the gift of many. Among them, my teachers come to the prominent place. With their valuable advice and appreciations they kept me going on my way, in my journey of self expression.

Friends. A friend means the one who knows what you are. They need no special introductions or thanks-giving. The one name I am going to mention here, is a person who not only knows what I am, but also knows what I would be. Her name is Terri, my Tia. It is from her blog BLOOMING IDEAS,http://terrisbloomingideas.blogspot.com/, I received the "KEATIVE BLOGGER" award, an award, which helped me to know what I am, to which I am always indebted to her. The blog she keeps is an excellent example for art and designing.

Ajay--his blogs AJUS009 [http://ajus009.blogspot.com/] and SHOWREEL [http://ajus009-showreel.blogspot.com/]—is the very first follower of THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR and I can't forget that friend whose SHOWREEL is an interesting place of media criticism.

There are names, so many, which for the time being I am keeping close to my heart, but not mentioning here. I would like to use this occasion for expressing my gratitude for all of them, my friends, my readers, the precious people who are following THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR and those who, with their valuable comments, always guided and encouraged me.

Let me acknowledge this fact that without all you people, my readers, I wouldn't be here writing this anniversary-post. After all, without readers what importance does an author has. It would be like singing in void.

Being a student by myself, it is a part of my life to open my eyes wide to the naked realities of this world. For me, it serves for learning as well as an expression of my 'self'. THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR is an Observer. An observer with a human eye, with all the weaknesses and strengths of being a human.

Readers, there is something special for you to come in the future posts. A novel, which I have planned to publish as fortnightly, along with all the other information and fun.

Thank you once again for being here, and being part of THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR community. Thank you for all the support and appreciations. I hope you all will continue your kind supports and appreciations in future as well.

THANK YOU.

THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR.