Friday, January 29, 2010

The Legend Turns Seventy!!


I heard him sing first before I was born. Yesudas, the legendary voice that has been occupying a permanent place in the hearts of the music lovers around the world, is celebrating his 70th birthday. One of the true Keralite, he was born in a middle class Christian family. After realising his own talents in music, he dedicated his entire life for music.

He has registered his presence as a singer beyond comparison, in world musical history. Besides he has directed music for a couple of Malayalam movies, a job, which he averted and ignored completely, later. My father is his hard core fan and preferred to listen to his songs whenever he has time, a habit, which he ruefully abandoned, though not fully, due to the lack of free hours. But still he is a fan of that magical voice. My first memories about Yesuads’ songs are, as I said, prenatal.

Some scientists say that the child in mother’s womb listens to the sound waves around. And if a particular sound has been encountered with the child in the womb constantly, the child would become sensitive to that sound after its birth and throughout one’s life. A similar concept can be found in Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel, The Brave New World. In the novel, human beings are shown as products of the factories. During the process, the children in the embryonic state are exposed to constant confrontation with audio signals, asserting the norms and rules of the concurrent world.

There are similar instances in the great Indian Epic Mhabharath about the prenatal memories, where Abhimanyu, a warrior, when he was in his mother’s womb, listens to a description of how to undo “Chakravyuh”, a legendary battle trick, and learns it.

It might be this prenatal memory that made me sensitive and comfortable in Yesudas’ voice, for as I said, my father was his fan and he used to play the ever green Yesudas songs in his radio or in his tape recorder. This might not be my own life story, but of every person who belongs to this part of India.

Kerala has produced some great talents in art. Yesudas, among them, is different, in the sense that his voice has become a cultural identity of Kerala– a symbol of artistic verve and richness of this south Indian state.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

How to Write the Truth?


I haven't been forced to do this nor obliged, but it is out of love.

I write and read and learn literature because I love it. I write, for I do not exist in any other form other than words, sentences, punctuations, and blank spaces. I write truth, and that is all about what I write. And I love truth.

No one believes a truth that is imperfect and lame. But I do. For the truth I know is not a perfect neat structure, which has been constructed by the most talented engineer. Truth, for me, is-and I think this is the reality-an imperfect, weak living identity. I am in love with it. When we love someone, we never see one's flaws. So I too do not see the flaws in the truth.

They who do not take truth as it is, along with all the flaws and imperfections, do not love it, but are simply forced to live with it, and are afraid of breaking the laws, which someone else has put in the path of the search for truth.

I write not just because I love to tell the truth, but also for my own existence. I exist as a writer. In order to continue my existence as a writer, I have to continue the pen-paper-words magic, I mean writing. I had been in a block for the last few days, a severe one. The place where I am now, divides my world into two- a barren, unproductive, dead world; and a dream like, hopeful, living, creative one; a world I own, my own world of writing and creativity. Now I think, or rather I feel that I am in the fertile soil after crossing the barrenness.

I have succeeded in crossing those limiting barriers, and in reaching my Promised Land. Writing is the most simple process and the most complicated one too. It's not simply about creating lengthy or short sentences and leading or misleading the reader. This is least is called writing. Writing is dissolving oneself in the world one has created for oneself, as every writer knows how to, and rediscover him out again through one's own words and sentences and the blank spaces, punctuations and symbols. Thus, an original writer can be found nowhere else, but in his works, his writings.

Also you may find interest in: Making of a Writer.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Cute Girl





This beautiful picture, I am gifted by my Tia, Terri, a very talented art designer and owner of the blog BloomingideasMI. I would like to use this Post as a space to register my heart-felt thanks to her. She had sent me another priceless gift, one copy of The Holy Scriptures and a self designed card. Sometimes words do feel lacking in their depth, such as in these moments, when I feel a lack in my words to convey my emotions of thankfulness completely and to the truest extent.


On the very first look itself, this picture had conquered my heart. I felt a series of emotions popping out in my mind, and in my soul. Even though essence or soul is an abstract and non tangible presence or concept, I felt my soul presenting itself through an identifiable form, which rather resembled the face in the picture; and so I wrote in my letter to her- 'I have fallen in love with this picture.' Truly, the cute girl in the picture is more than what it seems. This picture is something of its sort that speaks.


People usually appreciate me for my selection of pictures and the presentation of them in my blog. I am happy and thankful for all those appreciations as well as criticisms on the pictures I choose. Of course, the pictures and their alignments, throughout my blog is one of my artistic methods to convey my message, which are suitable and can assert and re-affirm the themes that have been chosen for writing, in which surly, the space for readers' free will and inclinations is provided.


But in this process of selecting pictures, as in all other artistic endeavours a search is required. Here, the search I perform, is through Google Images, or through AOL Images, where I locate the apt image that fits to the theme, which I have chosen for writing. Though it is a very interesting process, to search for the artistic perfection, to find a picture that speaks something to convey an emotion, a message, a theme, which can suit my articles or poems, or to help the construction of any other linguistic context, I always felt, is difficult. As I said above The Cute Girl is a picture that serves this purpose.

Friday, January 15, 2010

The Notice Board.


[A story, formerly published under Socyberty. ]
Image Courtesy: Google
I didn't find the error, but it found me. It was demoniac! It was a Black Hole!

As part of the new year celebrations, the students of the MBA department had written a poster and displayed it on the notice board. It was a Hindi message, though written in English script on the new year celebration. It seemed the brain child of an undeveloped poet.

Hindi is a language that follows gender specification for words. One of the words used in that write-up was masculine in gender, but was preceded by a feminine preposition, whereas it must be a masculine preposition.

It attracted me as I reached near the poster. It had started pulling me in whenever I passed near it from that day. The error revealed itself as a Black Hole. It was horrendous. I wanted to get rid of this trouble. I waited for someone to notice it and change it.

Three days passed. But the error remained the same. Making mistake is part of life, but retaining that mistake is no less than sin, death, curse. Every language has a soul and these students are corrupting it. I thought. I had no other choice but to wait. The fourth day I waited outside their class, attracted by the Black Hole, the error. I knew that someone will come out and I may be able to set myself free from the pull, but I didn't know how.
A girl came out, an elegant, tall, good looking girl, with plaited hairs. I invited her attention. She came near me. I was unaware of how to solve the 'problem', for the problem was as concerned about the 'soul' of the language as with the factual error the students had committed, and I felt little sure about making them understand the way the 'fact' and the 'soul' are linked.
I blurted out- "You have made an error"- pointing my forefinger on the words.
She smiled and nodded as if she already knew about it, as if making an error was all natural, as if she was not very much concerned about it.
"You are correct. I too noticed it." -She said.
"You are corrupting the soul of the language. I think you should correct your mistake, as soon as possible."- That was my turn to advise her. And I did it thinking the least about the intelligibility of the matter I have spoken, without thinking whether the girl would understand anything about the soul of the language or not.
She smiled again and said- "You are right. There is a soul in every language, and there is an identity. Even the errors made in the usage of a language conveys a meaning. It shows how alien the person who had used the language is, from the original language. For this reason, even that error has an identity and an existence. It communicates something."
When I looked at her, her eyes were fixed on the poster. "I think it should remain so."- It was she who said this. There was a new light that shone suddenly for me. The light was that of wisdom.
"Every man has a freedom not to listen to a woman, but every woman listens to man for, she knows, the wisdom the man has, constitutes one third of the wisdom of a life time, and she is always happy to have the full, for she is having the two third of it."- I thought.
I appreciated her with a smile and returned.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Love Break

[This story was also published in: Authspot ]
My character reached a Monastery. He met the head priest and expressed his desire to be a Sanyasi, a saint; to enter into sainthood and lead a life of self effacement and giving.

The head priest asked the question.
"why do you want sainthood?"
My character spoke:"The person whom I was in love with, left me. I do not want to go back to that life again, I want to lead the life of a celibate, a saint."
"But that is not a reason for accepting you into sainthood, son. Go back"- The priest said.

"Please, let me speak"-My character insisted and started speaking without waiting for the priest's consent.
"I know that sainthood is a search for peace, for knowledge, for the light. But I realised that love is a battle in which each one asserts oneself over the other!" He continued- " There is no peace in battle and-"
"You are wrong"- The head priest intervened. "You have learned your knowledge, well. If you want peace, there is peace in knowledge. Remember, peace is not the absence of conflicts, but the resonance among them. You have knowledge and your knowledge will help you to attain the resonance. Now you can go."
My character was forced to walk back, for the head priest had already closed the doors.