Mary and Max

I saw Mary and Max by Adam Elliot yesterday. And I HAVE to talk about it. Because I can’t get it out of my head. It was one of the most sublime, deep, endearing black comedy movies I’ve ever seen. It’s a true story about how a lonely little eight year girl from Australia, Mary Daisy Dinkle becomes pen pals with a 44 year old obese, Asperger’s syndrome ridden man in New York, Max Jerry Horowitz. (Don’t you just LOVE the names? They’re so much fun to say)

The special thing about the movie is that it shows two highly unlikely people becoming best friends, extending their love and affection over two different continents; and how they’re so utterly lonely in their respective real lives. Mary asks him the most innocent of questions, ("Do sheeps shrink when it rains?" "Do goose get goose bumps?) which he patiently answers and shares his own fascinating life experiences with her. They find solace and consolation in writing letters to each other and exchanging exotic chocolates.Because of his disorder, he'd never been comfortable at understanding people and "love was as alien to him as scuba diving." Ergo, when the friendless Mary asks him questions about love and relationships, they send him into severe anxiety attacks and lands him into a mental institution. However, their unusual friendship grows stronger over a span of twenty years and even though towards the end things become a little turbulent, they do manage to salvage their friendship.

Although it’s a clay animated movie, (where the makers of this movie actually created clay puppets for all the characters), it basically focuses on the darkest of aspects about life in a humorous way. It shows how relationships are formed, how they break, how morbid and despondent lives can get and the kind of problems people face while they’re struggling to survive in this mad world. It talks about death and depression and sex and mental disorders, but all in the most innocent manner possible. And all this they’ve done through animation, art, photography, crafts and design. It is sheer brilliance to listen to the letters exchanged between them.

The movie starts with the words spoken by the narrator, “Mary Dinkle's eyes were the colour of muddy puddles; her birthmark, the colour of poo.” If I could, I would have quoted the entire dialogues between them over here, but I’ll restrict myself to my most favourite quotes from the movie: 

Max: “Do you have a favourite-sounding word? My top-five are "ointment," "bumblebee," "Vladivostok," "banana," and "testicle."

(Psst, my favourite-sounding words are’ whimsical’, ‘postulate’,’ impeccable’, ‘protagonist’, ‘ginger’, ‘vegetables’, 'befuddled', ‘pickles’.. and actually many many many more!)

Max: “When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don't need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads.”

Max: “It would be good if there was a Fat Fairy. She would be a bit like the Tooth Fairy but would suck out your fat.”

Mary: “Where do babies come from in America? Do they come from cola cans? In Australia they are found in beer glasses.”

Mary: "Here's a photo of my other neighbour, Damian. I wish he was my boyfriend and we can be in love and do sexing"

Max: “Dr. Bernard Hazelhof said if I was on a desert island, then I would have to get used to my own company - just me and the coconuts. He said I would have to accept myself, my warts and all, and that we don't get to choose our warts. They are part of us and we have to live with them. We can, however, choose our friends, and I am glad I have chosen you.“

They’re so deep yet naive yet thoughtful, right?  How can you not like such stuff? The last scene of the movie was so painful and touching and beautiful. It culminated with the most perfect words “He smelt like liquorice and old books, she thought to herself, as tears rolled from her eyes the colour of muddy puddles.”

Such movies really impact you and compel you to think. About a hundred things. And I can’t mention all of them here. This movie is going to stay with me for a long time.

P.S. Once again, thanks to my spurtal buddy for sharing this with me. You deserve a colon phi :)

The Weekend

My spurtal buddy came to town to give me a visit for the weekend. It was beyond amazing. Beyond perfect. Right from the moment I saw him walking towards me, smiling from ear to ear when I went to pick him up at the station; to the time he peeped out the train to wave me goodbye two days later.

We visited my school and I squealed telling him stories behind every nook and corner; we hung around in my room and read the crazy stories I used to write as a kid and laughed till I got tears in my eyes and his sides burst; we went out for lunch and had fruity French pudding; he met my college friends and I met two of his, who came all the way from Delhi to meet us; we had pizza in the car, listening to music while the rain drops fell against the glass of the window; we went out on my Activa late at night to get medicine ‘cause both of us were sneezing and wheezing like pigs; he visited khet with me and picked out moong ki phallis; we had a warm lunch where my parents and grandparents shared hilarious childhood stories; we held hands and clicked the cutest of pictures together; and we went to the station to drop him off, listening to Dil Se as it continued to rain outside.

He brought me shampoo for my hair fall problem and he brought me Catch 22 which I really wanted to read. He also got me movies. I did nothing except spurting and PDAing in the craziest manner. And telling him how much I love him. He’s perfect for me. Tailor made and customized to suit me. I’m still trying to recover from the crazy-fairytale-adventurous-amazing weekend and settling back into the college routine. I’m having a lot of trouble doing that.

I’m missing him beyond measure. He always cheers me up (even if all he says is “Tee tee!”) I’m missing his amazing straight hair and his beaver teeth. I’m missing his small but clean arthiritic hands and the way he sticks his tongue out when he’s up to mischief. I’m missing the way he wrestles with the steering wheel of my dad’s old car and says he enjoys it. He is funny. And tall. And he makes me feel pathetic when he scores 98 percentile in CAT. He writes so well. He sends me the funniest and interesting-est of articles and he sends me the cutest text messages you can imagine. He listens to me every day and tries to help me through my whiny complaints and jibber jabber. He laughs when I tell him I have defective body parts and says he loves my nose even though it’s big. He gingerly sings soft kitty with me and laughs when I’m being funny. He calls me Asthie. And Chee pee. And Pop. And other variations of it. He tells me just how much he loves me.

I hope it wasn’t all a dream. It wasn’t, right? Was it? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. This is all too good to be true man. How do these things happen? How can a person like him even exist? But no, it was not a dream. Miraculous awesome stuff happens. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I'd like to say that I just feel like the luckiest girl ever :D What's happening is beyond belief! It's the legendary incomprehensible super amazing stuff that happens in movies.

And man, do I love it. Please, let it not be a dream God? Like, please? :)

Amen.

Flute Music

My hands smell of school. The classrooms, the textbooks, the corridors, the desks and chairs. I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning out all my stuff. I now have only one-third of what I had in my room before it got painted! Can you believe that?! There was so much of junk.. old copies, books, clothes, pencil boxes, stuffed toys, comic books, notes, stationery, SUPW stuff, and many, many little things with so many memories attached. I read all my old notebooks where I’ve had entire conversations with my friends in classrooms during lectures. I read old slam books, saw all the school photos and read through the notes. I even saved some of my exam answer sheets. It was such a different time and place. Can’t believe it was the same city.

I’ve started setting my room up and I’m so psyched. I’ve given away many of my toys and books and so it made a lot of room to keep other prettier stuff. My books look so good against the purple wall. And I’ve put posters of my favourite bands (S&G, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Radiohead) They are those small ones, with a matte finish. I’ve put a huge Café Coffee Day mug on one of the shelves, and a scented candle on the other. Oh, and I’ve put pot pourri in a glass bowl and I’ve kept it next to a picture of my sis and me. It smells glorious! It smells of springtime, and monsoon, and little babies, and puppies, and love, and laughter and sunshine and cotton candy clouds, and kites flying in the blue sky, and mom, and chocolates, and friends and the good ol’ memories, and well, flowers :P I’m just waiting to put the curtains and set my wardrobe and I’ll be good to go! Psst, on a completely unrelated note, I love popping bubble wrap. It's so satisfying. Throwing it away before poppin' all o' 'em bubbles in a crime! 

So, while going through my old notebooks, I came across my explanation of a poem by Rabindranath Tagore that we had in out twelfth standard ISC poetry book. And I remembered how much I used to love it. It is called ‘Flute Music’. It goes like this:

"Kinu, the milkman's alley
A ground floored room in a two storeyed valley
Slap on the road, window barred.
Decaying walls, windows crumbling to dust in places
Or strained with damp.
Stuck on the floor,
A picture of Ganesha, Bringer of Success,
From the end of a bale of cloth.
Another creature apart from me lives in my room
For the same rent;
A lizard.
There's one difference between him and me:
He doesn't go hungry.

I get twenty five rupees a month
As junior clerk in a trading office.
I'm fed at the Dattas' house
For coaching their boy.
At dusk I go to Sealdah station.
Spend the evening there
To save the cost of light.
Engines chuffing,
Whistles shrieking,
Passengers scurrying,
Coolies shouting.
I stay till half past ten,
Then back to my dark, silent, lonely room.

A village on the Dhalesvari river, that's where my aunt's people live.
Her brother-in-law's daughter -
She was due to marry my unfortunate self, everything was fixed.
The moment was indeed auspicious for her, no doubt of that -
For I ran away.
The girl was saved from me,
And I from her.
She did not come to this room, but she's in and out of my mind all the time:
Dacca sari, vermilion on her forehead.

Pouring rain.
My tram costs go up,
But often as not my pay gets cut for lateness.
Along the alley,
Mango skins and stones, jack fruit pulp,
Fish-gills, dead kittens
And God knows what other rubbish
Pile up and rot.
My umbrella is like my depleted pay -
Full of holes.
My sopping office clothes ooze
Like a pious Vaisnava.
Monsoon darkness
sticks in my damp room
Like an animal caught in a dead trap,
Lifeless and numb.
day and night I feel strapped bodily
On to a half-dead world.

At the corner of the alley lives Kantababu -
Long hair, carefully parted,
Large eyes.
Cultivated tastes.
He fancies himself on the cornet:
The sound of it comes in gusts
On the foul breeze of the alley -
Sometimes in the middle of the night,
Sometimes in the early morning twilight,
Sometimes in the afternoon
When sun and shadows glitter.
Suddenly this evening
He starts to play runs in Sindhu-Baroya raag,
And the whole sky rings
With eternal pangs of separation.
At once the alley is a lie,
False and vile as the ravings of a drunkard,
And I feel that nothing distinguishes Haripada the clerk
From the Emperor Akbar.
Torn umbrella and royal parasol merge,
Rise on the sad music of a flute
Towards one heaven.

The music is true,
Where, in the everlasting twilight-hour of my wedding,
The Dhalesvari river flows,
Its banks deeply shaded by tamal-trees,
And she who waits in the courtyard
Is dressed in a dacca sari, vermillion on her forehead."

Do you see? The beauty? The depth? The sadness? The loneliness? I love how many of Tagore’s poems have this lonely, melancholic, dreamy, theme about them. His poems talk of longing, and love and separation and music. I especially like the line “And the whole sky rings with eternal pangs of separation.” It’s so beautifully heart breaking. You can’t help but feel for the poor fellow. His lifestyle, his broken relationship, how he still thinks about her, how he tries to hide himself from the world, how he has an almost non-existent existence. How listening to the flute music is his only respite from his dreary life. It shows how hard surviving is for some people. How terribly dull, meaningless, insignificant living is for them. And how they are born poor and how they die poor. Sigh, it makes me so sad. It makes me lonely and dreamy as well. But this kind of loneliness, I like. That is why I like the night time so much. It is so utterly quiet. There’s no one to disturb you. No door bells ringing, no phone calls, no one to remind you of some important work that you’re supposed to do. It is just so peaceful.

I’m looking at the collage I just placed on the wall opposite me. It makes me smile every time I look at it. And every time I look at it, it makes me excited at the prospect of living an entire lifetime of blissful, crazy, days filled-with-random-acts-of-stupidty; singing soft kitty; writing every sentence ending with a colon and an asterick; long laughter sessions; completely inappropriate and astonishingly profane jokes and innuendos; and extreme, shameless PDAs and mushiness and chocolate covered cuddling. It will be similar to the pot pourri in the glass bowl. No, it will be exactly like the pot pourri in the glass bowl! :D

Acceptance

There are five stages that people go through when they come to know they're going to die. They’re called the five stages of grief. The first one is Denial (this cannot be happening to me!) The second one is Anger (why is this happening to me?) The third is Bargaining (I promise to be a better person if) Next comes Depression (I don’t care anymore) And finally, Acceptance (I’m ready for whatever comes)

Interestingly, thanks to Dr. House, I came to know that even the people who lose their loved ones go through these stages. And since I came to know Shirley is going to go, I’ve experienced myself going through all these emotions. When I wrote my previous post, I was probably in the Anger stage.

But it’s not that bad. I’ve finally realized that she’ll be happy in her new home, maybe happier. Although her absence is eating me, I can take solace from the fact that I will get to meet her every once in a while. I keep looking at her chewed up toys, her favourite spot, her rug, her eating bowls. I keep wondering what she must be doing, whether she’d be thinking of me as well. I sometimes forget she’s gone and expect her to come trotting out from some corner of the house, tongue out and ears bouncing. The feeling that follows is terribly painful.

But I guess I’m finally in the Acceptance stage. My mom and dad talked to me for a couple of hours and I was so relieved to know they’re grieved as well. I just wish she’d adjust to her new home and new life and grow up to be a chubby, happy dog :)

On the brighter side of life, my room is now mauve and a bit of purple. It looks.. well, girly. Which is good actually; and I needed a change. I’m going to spend the entire day tomorrow setting it up, getting rid of all the unused clutter. Apart from the literal cleaning up of my wardrobe and bookshelf, I really need to clean out the skeletons from my closet. It is high time I take them all out, instead of pushing them far and far in deeper.

The day started off in the worst way possible, but I’d like to end it on a positive note. I’m looking forward to a few specific events that are going to take place in the foreseeable future. I watched Death at a Funeral yesterday, and I’m still giggling thinking about some of the scenes.

Listening to Simon and Garfunkel now is already making me feel so much better. It kind of like, soothes your nerves you know. I’m terribly missing a certain someone and I really hope that person calls me back soon. I'm exhausted and I guess I will hit the sack early tonight, after a long time. Tomorrow is going to be a better day :)

THAT'S the stuff! :P

I am such a consumer!! We ALL are! Each one of us! I went out to get a pair of earrings but instead of that I bought a pair of gray sporty floaters and a pair of classy chic girly sandals! Plus I’ve got this weird purple fetish, and I bought other stuff.. all of it purple. Man there is so much of stuff everywhere! Shops, malls, showrooms, supermarkets.. they’re all stuffed with so MUCH of stuff!

We also happened to go to Big Bazaar because mom wanted a couple of.. (note: ‘a couple of’) household stuff.. you know, grocery items. Turns out, it was one of the ‘Maha Bachat’ days. They’re like these 6 days where they offer a lot of offers and everything is cheaper. Like we need any more offers :\ Anyway, it was a crazy crazy MADhouse! It seemed like EVERY body was out. Shopping shopping shopping, stuffing their carts with anything and everything. Shampoos, wafers, toilet cleaners, shoes, fruits, toys, plastic boxes, utensils, diapers, clothes.. anything you can imagine! Didn’t matter if they needed it or not. It was on a buy-one-get-one-free-offer man; how could they not buy?! There was no place to walk, let alone move your trolley along the passages. And those loud screaming, overweight women clad in eye-damaging sarees are no fun to watch either. Women just have to see something free with something and they will just lunge at it like it is gold. And they can't resist limited offers. They'll see something with the tag 'Hurry!' on something, and snatch! cling! there it goes into their overflowing cart!

In the end, as it always happens with my mom, our ‘couple of things’ turned out to be a cart-full of stuff. Sigh. In her defense, she is a woman. As I stood there watching our stuff getting packed, I saw all the people waiting in the line, grumbling, looking at their watches, screaming at the others who were breaking the queues, bumping and jostling against each other, I thought.. people go through all this just to come to this maddeningly loud and claustrophobic place to buy.. stuff?! Stuff to put into their already stuffed houses?! How do they have the patience?! What do they do with so much of stuff?

It reminded me of a George Carlin show I had seen once where he talked about stuff. For those who don’t know, George Carlin is one of the greatest stand-up comedians ever! He is cynical, sarcastic, extremely witty, shameless, a little bit of crazy and speaks the truth out bare. This is what he had said,

“That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff! 

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the goddamn place!”

True, ain’t it? And so we continue, buying more and more stuff, and we continue doing that until we die. There’s never a time when we feel we have finally bought all the stuff we wanted. We’re always gonna desire for more! And boy, do we like the feeling or what?!

It was Raksha Bandhan today and there we were.. brothers and sisters tying rakhis to each other and well, whaddya know?! Exchanging stuff! And I got money, from which I’ll get even more stuff!

Ahh, materialistic pleasures! :P Maybe now I’ll get those earrings after all. Tomorrow! :D

Bow Wow, it's been a year!

There was no karmic connection when I first saw her. I saw her through my front door. She stood there, barely four months old, wagging her tail, sniffing around frantically, moving her body in jerks, trying to make sense of her new surroundings. When I approached her, she looked at me with her big black beetle eyes. I had expected her to be smaller and chubbier and I’d imagined I would just pick her up in my arms. But she was too hyperactive and active and would run away as soon as I’d try to even get close to her. There was much thrill and excitement. There was a new member in our family and we would always keep running after her, trying to make her do tricks, cuddling her, feeding her biscuits and taking her out for walks (truth be told, she is the one who takes us out for walks)

I felt like I didn’t get time to connect with her somehow. Until one cold winter night, when she was sprawled on the floor, I went and rubbed her belly. I wasn’t particularly in very high spirits. She came close to me, licked my knee, hopped on my lap and fell asleep. And then I knew. She would be there for me. The moment was so perfect, with her warm furry body against my thighs; I sat like that for a long time, stroking her behind her ears. Since then, we really bonded.

I would come home after college and she would jump, and lick and go crazy. After five minutes, when I would reappear again, she would jump and lick and go crazy all over again with the same amount of enthusiasm. My friends joke that she has short term memory loss. I say she just loves me too much! :P Umm, actually, she gives such a warm welcome to anybody and everybody, so meesa is no special one. Hmpf. The best thing about her? I’ve never heard her whine or cry. What a strong, happy little dog! She barks rarely too; especially since I destroyed her voice box by giving her ice cubes and she, after playing ice hockey with them, ate them all! Since that incident, her bark has become extremely high pitched and sharp. Um, okay what? I think it’s cute okay!

I am in love with her ears. They are the cutest things a dog could have. I play with them, fold them up, tie them together, make them jiggle, I even made her chew one of them. And when she comes running towards me, they bounce up and down in the cutest way possible, with her tongue sticking out and hanging out from one side of her mouth. Eeeeeee!! God, I hug her till she yelps! She probably feels I’m crazier than she is. She looks at me incredulously, when I dance and sing in front of her, or when I hold her front paws, and make her dance with me! She then wags her tail and tries to lick my face, all the time thinking her master-sister is crazy.

She loves water; she loves to drink it, to jump in it and to splash it all around. She even likes to stand under the rain with her mouth open to catch the rain drops and drink them up! Oh and my god, does she love food! She eats, well, everything. Apart from the food we give her, she eats wood, plastic, paper, leather, cloth, cow dung, her own dung, insects, carpet, shoes, socks, wires… In other words, pretty much anything she gets her paws on. Which brings me to tell you about the fateful day when she destroyed my mom’s 6000 rupees worth liquid clothes detergent. The bottle of detergent was just sitting on the table, minding its own business, when Miss Shirley stole it, chewed the entire bottle up and drank all the contents. Mom was furious and she beat the hell out of the stupid dog. And then began her puke sessions. She puked like ten times in two days until she was too weak to move. I guess she's learnt her lesson. Now, well, she won’t go anywhere near any kind of soap.

After episodes of her furniture eating, breaking her leash and running away with at least four people chasing after her, experimenting with weird species of organisms and throwing up, torpedo-ing up and down like crazy for no apparent reason, chewing up all her plastic bones and balls to bits and welcoming everyone with the same amount of excitement... it’s hard to believe it has been one whole year. She turns one today!

Happy Birthday my unbelievably perky, perpetually high and super awesome, super excited golden retriever!

I went up to her in the morning and molested her for a full five minutes. Even fed her a bread cutlet and a teeny piece of chocolate. Shhhh! I hope you stay with us and make us experience a new adventure everyday. Love you Shirleeeew, you stupid dog! :*

 (Collage courtesy: Mom)

Jabberwocky

It’s 4 AM and it’s raining! I don’t know why people say it’s ‘bad weather’ when it rains; I absolutely adore it. The morning air is chilly and refreshing. How am I awake at this hour? Do you even need to ask? I couldn’t sleep. To be fair, I did fall asleep for like an hour, which did not feel like sleep at all because I had crazy dreams about my sis getting a liposuction and me falling into a drain. I watched an episode of Scrubs and listened to Coldplay and Evanescence and sang along quietly in the darkened room. Yep, that’s me.

I particularly like this part of the song 'Imaginary' by Evanescence.

"I linger in the doorway, of alarm clocks screaming, monsters screaming my name.
Let me stay, where the wind will whisper to me,
Where the raindrops as they're falling, tell a story."


I love Amy Lee's sweet, angelic voice against all that heavy rock music.

There is frightening but awesomely cool thunder and lighting. It is so lovely! I can see the street light outside and the plump drops falling against it. There are fireflies hovering over it. Although how they are flying in all that rain, I fail to understand. I guess it’s one of those little mysteries in life which you don’t understand. Like how when you reach your class on time, the teacher arrives late. Or how you never have balance when you have to make a very important phone call. Or how when you desperately want something, you won't find it. Or why Shirley is deathly afraid of my sister's guitar. (She even peed a little when I was strumming it :P) Or why you never realize how idiotic you actually look until you watch yourself in a video. (I recently realized that when I clap I look like a sea lion flapping its fins. Only, the sea lion doesn't look mental. I'm still trying to get over the shock and trauma)

I just said bye to my sister. She’s off to Bangalore. New job. New life. A fresh new start. Which makes me want to do something about my own life. I need change, and I’ve to bring that change myself. I feel very gloomy about it all for some reason; instead of being enthusiastic. I wonder why. My best friend shared an article with me which said that many times you never know why exactly you feel what you feel, and so you pin point it to something. Like if you’re grumpy, you’ll feel maybe it’s because of lack of sleep, or because you had a spat with a friend, or maybe because of your medicine. But the actual reason can be far from that. There was an entire theory about it. It was ridiculously interesting! Sometimes I wish I was better off with English and Psychology as my majors. But I’ve decided not to have any kind of regrets from life. It’s okay. Even if I made mistakes, I learnt from them.

Oh hell, I’m just rambling, aren’t I? I guess this is just one of the I-just-feel-like-writing-because-the-weather-is-good-so-sue-me posts!

And now fireflies have begun to enter my room through some creak probably. And they won’t let my already sleep deprived, half dead brain sleep because I’ll imagine them mutilating my body when I’m dead to the world and into my bizarre dreamland again. Damn, I guess that is one teensy reason why it’s called bad weather.

Anyway, one last thing. I had a revelation last night. It is possible to fall in love with a person again. Over and over and over again. Even when you feel there is absolutely no way you can love someone more, lo and behold, you fall in deeper. Another mystery, eh? :) 

Well, such mysteries I like! Weeeeee! :D

The Man who made his own Clothes

As children each one of us is taught who Mohandas K. Gandhi is. The Father of our Nation. Lovingly called Bapu. Non-violent leader. Born in Porbandar. Swadeshi. Satyagraha. Dandi March. We’ve drawn our National flag in our copies and written essays about our freedom fighters and had plays on Gandhiji on October 2nd. We’ve learnt it all, haven’t we? We know all about him. Or do we?

Back when I was in school, I read paragraph after paragraph about India’s freedom struggle and Gandhiji’s role in it, the main motive in my head would to be remember all the darned dates and the movements and the incidents and spilling them all out correctly on the answer sheets to win those straight As. Everyone would be so happy. Mom, dad, my teachers. Dad might get me that thing I’ve been wanting so bad.

That was all he was. An assassinated freedom fighter. A pair or round specs and a stick. A person who still smiles on our currency notes. I used to form my opinion about him based on what I would hear other people say. Never really bothered to form my own. I guess I never really cared. Until I saw Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.

It fills me with astonishment to see a non-Indian, Ben Kingsley, playing the role of Gandhiji. Even though he was born a Gujarati, he never really lived in India. He is so frighteningly believable and brilliantly convincing, it's as if the real Gandhi resurrected to act in the movie. To get into the character, to walk and talk and behave and act and feel and portray who and what Gandhi was, in a span of three hours is an unbelievably astounding feat. This movie covers everything you would have ever studied with regard to India’s fight for freedom. Now I realize the power of Cinema; of motion picture. It never really touches your heart if it’s written in bland generic statements in your school textbooks, is it? You need to see it, live it, feel the emotions, witness the events that made him the man that he was.

The scenes that showed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the Dandi March gave me long lasting goosebumps. I had a lump in my throat as I sat back and witnessed the truest depiction of Gandhi’s life, listening to his inspiring words, looking at his infectious smile, all the time wondering how people make such movies. How they dig deep down into our history and pull out the facts and events and statements to produce something for us that would make our eyes water and hearts proud. Never have I been so touched to see a single, ever smiling man making such a global impact on the way people think and act.

Have you seen any other national leader so happy and jolly? He really makes me want to go back in time and just sit down and talk to him. Discuss my stupid problems with him and listen to him patiently telling me exactly what to do. Bless the movie makers for creating such a masterpiece. This movie couldn’t have been better. Although it still is merely a glimpse into the life of our Bapu, I couldn’t feel closer to him. Now I understand why Gandhiji is Gandhiji. Why Albert Einstein said “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” Why he is the Father of our Nation. And why he is, by all means, and in all respects, and forever in our hearts, a smiling, immensely powerful, infallible legend.

“Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.”

-M.K. Gandhi

One Moment of Courage

Today I am going to tell you a story. This story is about someone who is a fun, almost neurotic person; quite like me actually. Also, she’s one helluva person; very pretty, and a very close friend of mine. Let’s call her ‘the girl’. Months and months ago, once when we were sitting in her room, trying to study for an exam the next day, discussing about her, uhm, ‘future’, I told her, “If this works out girl, I swear to god I’m’na write about this! I might even write a book!” Well, a book seemed a bit farfetched, so here I am!

It all started when I joined college and I befriended this crazy chick on the first day itself. Although we always hung out together, it took us a couple of months of open up to each other. And one day, while walking through our college campus, (bunking most probably), she told me. She told me about the guy who wore a red cap, each day, without fail. She had a crush on him. It had been a couple of years and she had done nothing about it. I’m going to refer to him as ‘the dude’. Being a Lebowski fan, he is going to feel flattered. (Yes, dude, you can thank me later)

Now I was surprised, because with her white skin and green eyes and all that jazz that makes guys get attracted to her like she’s a magnet, I expected her to fall for one of those chocolaty, extremely handsome, well-built type of guys.  While the dude, although very cute (dimples and stuff) didn’t exactly fit in the picture of what I’d imagined her better half to be like. But then she told me, it was his intelligence. Yep, believe it or not, more than the looks, a good, respectable girl looks for the brains and the personality in her boy. And he is one of those genius types of people. They belong to a different species, really. And I was proud of her. Now what unsettled me was that she literally chewed my brain for an entire semester, talking about him endlessly. And now I wonder, what did she talk to me about him man? She didn’t even KNOW him!

Many times, she would notice a red spot floating somewhere far across in the campus, and she would clutch my arm and go all “ohmygod Astha! That’s him! oh my god what do I do? Should we go? No that’ll be weird. We should stay here! Act natural. Ok pretend to talk to me!” And then till the time he’d pass by us, she’d fidget, and blabber nonsense, all the time holding her breath. It used to freak me out sometimes. He’s just a GUY for god’s sake! And if she wouldn't be able to catch his glimpse for a few days at a stretch, she would become depressed. It was crazy. I'd never seen anybody like that. 

I told her a gazillion times, “Talk to him girl! Just TALK to him!” And she would look at me as if I’d said something entirely impossible and unrealistic. There were times, when we would study together, and she would space out. And then suddenly, she’d become mopey and go all like “Yaaaar, maybe I should just stop thinking about him and move on. He’s elder to me and nothing’s ever going to happen. He’s not going to like me.” I would look at her in disbelief, “OFCOURSE he would like you, you crazy woman! Have you looked at yourself?!” And she would go on and on, every single day, and every time it’d be the two of us, telling me how much she likes him and how it’s all futile and how it will never work out. And I would roll my eyes in exasperation. Then I decided. Something had to be done.

Now, a friend of mine turned out to be the dude’s cousin. Let’s call him, uhhh, Billy. Now Billy knew about girl’s situation; so he offered to help. (Billy also happens to be girl’s cousin. Yes, it’s complex. But girl and the dude are not related). We had a maths exam coming up, and Billy asked the dude for help, and mentioned that there will be two other people with him. Now the fateful evening arrived. We were all at Billy’s place and girl’s heart was in her mouth. Anyway, we were deeply impressed from the way he taught us. Girl was half-unconscious and mesmerized. She jumped up and down, squealing like a dolphin after he left that day. However, she still did not add him on Facebook and did absolutely nothing except continuing to daydream about him. Things came to a dead end again. So I sent him a friend request myself. He accepted it and pretty much nothing happened for a few days. Except one day, on an impulse she sent him a friend request as well. Yes! Progress!

One day when girl was at my place, we saw that he was online. And even though she tried her best to stop me, I pinged him from her account and chatted with him and pretended to be her. She got up from the seat and rolled on the bed, screaming “Why did you do that?! What will he think?” While I just shook my head and continued to chat. Well, bless me, since then they began to chat every time both of them were online and I begun to feel that even he liked chatting with her. They talked quite a bit and girl had even printed her chats with him and hidden them in her drawer at home. I really hoped he would ask her out or something, but he probably had no inkling whatsoever that she liked him.

Days passed and girl became even more obsessive and crazy. My ears had turned sore listening to her talk about him and I was just hoping for things to move ahead. He was soon going to leave town and I was scared she won’t tell him about her feelings and it’d get too late. And one day, she heard rumours about him being in a relationship with another girl. She was crushed and said she was going to give up. I told her she had no proof that it was true and she would dig deeper and find out the truth. She told her bro and he told her that dude was single and had said something like “I’m looking for a long-term thing”. When she got to know this, she jumped and ran all the way over her best friend’s place and jumped on her car with happiness. But still, things didn’t move forward and soon it was time for him to go. Finally one day she told me that she had given up and it was over. I was disappointed, but I thought maybe it’s for the best and maybe now that he’ll be out of sight, he’ll be out of her mind.

So that was that. End of story. Time to move on. Except one day, I got a call from her out of the blue, where she was screaming herself hoarse trying to tell me something which I could barely understand. “What?! Stop screaming and tell me what happened!” I yelled. And then she told me. I opened my mouth wide and screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” It took one moment of courage. One moment of divine intervention. One miraculous moment. She had finally confessed her feelings and sent him a message on Facebook. He finally knew!

(to be continued..)

Pigeons and epiphanies

Ahh, it’s the monsoons again! :) In their truest form. It has been raining since three days. Not continuously, but a lot of it every day. Right now, as I sit by the window, it’s raining cats, and dogs and elephants and mammoths! Full on with the lightning and thunder and all that jazz. The rising smell of wet mud and the sound of water drops falling on the roof does make me happy. Although the rain is taking its toll on the electricity. It’s gone since morning. Sigh, that’s nothing new.

I’m having tea with khakhras that I got from Baroda. My mind keeps drifting back to that place again and again. The first few days there, I would forget where I was when I would wake up in the morning. I would get up, stretch and then look around, bewildered, expecting to be in my own room. I think about the frogs that would greet us at the staircase to didi’s apartment, I think about the patch of road filled with the fragrance of jasmine, of the moody, unpredictable stray dogs, of the little patch of grass in front of Cinemax. I think about the evenings spent looking at squealing laughing children on the roundabouts and being envious of their innocence and their hakuna matata existence. I think about the free, lonesome days I spent alone, thinking, speculating, working, lying listlessly. Carefree and at peace. I think about the evenings, the conversations, the long walks, the careless laughter, the jokes, the elation.

I often think about the terrace. Way too often. I think about the endless discussions under the stars, pizza with music playing on the cellphone, the hugs accompanied by the breeze and the last minute sniffles.


I think of how I had spent my last morning there, lying under the sky, watching the birds flying above and thinking about things like how pigeons are such unimportant birds. I observed them sitting on a wire, six of them, shaking their wet-after-the-rain feathers, scratching themselves with their beaks, pecking each other and walking on the ledges with their necks craning back and forth. They were the cutest things I’d seen recently. They were neglected because they were everywhere. If those birds were kingfishers, would I have not taken my phone out and clicked pictures. Would I not have told everybody about it? Rarity makes everything so precious. If it’s there, you take it for granted, if it’s not, then it’s valuable, then everybody wants it. Maybe that is why some people who are loved and smothered too much do not realize how lucky they are. They don’t appreciate the importance of the people who care about them. Like, ‘Yeah my mom loves me, so what? She’s always been there’. While people who are deprived of it, are overwhelmed and overjoyed by a small, simple act of kindness. Okay, just an opinion. You can beg to differ, obviously. This is just one way to look at it.

(the terrace)

I have a mountainful of things on my mind these days. I feel like writing a lot of but I’m occupied with a lot of other things. I’ll be back after this weekend. Lots to share. It’s refreshing to write a post! All the people who read my blog: thank you, really! I guess I must admit that although I do not like to be judged a lot, I do feel good when I share my feelings with everyone. It’s one of the little joys of life. And now, as I’ve reached the last sip of my tea, I’m going to close my eyes and make a little wish. Please pray for it to come true bloggie-readers! Catch you very soon!


Oh, and the power's back :)